FTIOM & UBMP, November 10-16

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From the Isle of Music, November 10-16:
This week, our special guest is Kiki Valera, whose new album Vivencias en clave cubana is already becoming a critical and popular
sensation.
The broadcasts take place:
1. For Eastern Europe but audible well beyond the target area in most of the Eastern Hemisphere (including parts of East Asia and Oceania) with 100Kw, Sunday 1500-1600 UTC on SpaceLine, 9400 KHz, from Sofia, Bulgaria (1800-1900 MSK)
If you don’t have a shortwave radio or are out of range, you can listen live to an uplink from a listening radio in the Netherlands during the broadcast at
http://websdr.ewi.utwente.nl:8901/?tune=9400am
2. For the Americas and parts of Europe, Tuesday 0100-0200 UTC (New UTC) on WBCQ, 7490 KHz from Monticello, ME, USA (Monday 8-9PM EST in the US).
If you don’t have a shortwave or are out of range, you can listen to a live stream from the WBCQ website here (choose 7490) http://www.wbcq.com/?page_id=7
3 & 4. For Europe and sometimes beyond, Tuesday 1900-2000 UTC and Saturday 1200-1300 UTC on Channel 292, 6070 KHz from Rohrbach, Germany.
If you don’t have a shortwave radio or are out of range, you can listen live to an uplink from a listening radio in Europe.
Visit our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/fromtheisleofmusic

Uncle Bill’s Melting Pot, November 10 and 12:
The theme of Episode 138 is time.
The transmissions take place:
1.Sundays 2300-2330 UTC (6:00PM -6:30PM Eastern US) on WBCQ The Planet 7490 KHz from the US to the Americas and parts of Europe
If you don’t have a shortwave or are out of range, you can listen to a live stream from the WBCQ website here (choose 7490) http://www.wbcq.com/?page_id=7
2. Tuesdays 2000-2030 UTC on Channel 292, 6070 KHz from Rohrbach, Germany for Europe.
If you don’t have a shortwave radio or are out of range, you can listen live to an uplink from different web SDRs in Europe.
Visit our Facebook Page at https://www.facebook.com/UncleBillsMeltingPot

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The Netherlands celebrates 100 years of radio

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Gérard Koopal, who writes:

Dear Thomas, on November 6 it is exactly 100 years ago that Hans Idzerda transmitted the first radio broadcast in the Hague, the Netherlands.

To commemorate this event, the VRZA has a special broadcast using the original Zeedijk studio from radio Veronica and historical NOS/NRU studios. The broadcast is from 10.00 till 21.00 hours CET and there is an internet stream available.

Also rebroadcasting through some lpam stations. For more information see this website (in Dutch):

www.hollandspalet.nl

Greetings, Gérard Koopal

Thank you for sharing this, Gérard!

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Canada: National Research Council official time signal turns 80

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(Photo credit: @chuttersnap)

(Source: CBC via William Lee)

In the 1930s, it helped sailors properly set their instruments for navigation.

It allowed railway companies to be punctual, and helped Canadians set their watches with precision every day.

Today, if you’re a CBC Radio aficionado, you may recognize its repeated beeps over the airwaves every day just before 1 p.m. ET.

To many, the National Research Council official time signal is a fixture of Canadian society. And on Nov. 5, the longest running segment on CBC Radio turns 80 years old.

Day 6 host Brent Bambury spoke with Laurence Wall, one of the current voices of the National Research Council time signal, about its origins, its importance, and where it stands in the digital age.[…]

Click here to read the full article and listen to the interview and audio clips.

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Australia: “Whispering to the Asia-Pacific”

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(Source: Australian Strategic Policy Institute via William Lee)

Australia gropes and stutters towards a renewed embrace of international broadcasting—the vital need to ‘speak for ourselves’ in the Asia–Pacific.

The latest lurch towards fresh understanding is the silent release of the review of Australia’s media reach in the Asia–Pacific. Note the irony that a report on broadcasting is soundless on arrival.

Behold a classic orphan inquiry, not wanted by either the government or the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, nor particularly desired by the public service. The orphan was created as part of the price to win a Senate vote, and is dumped on the public doorstep without a word of welcome.

The review was completed last December but only released (published on the Department of Communications website) on 17 October. No announcement. No government decisions.

The inquiry matters because it nods towards significant policy failure and the absent-minded trashing of Oz international broadcasting.[…]

Click here to continue reading the full article.

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Any real world experience shortwave listening in Antarctica?

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Many thanks to SWLing Post reader, Delmar Williams, who writes:

I am going to Antarctica for 9 days on an “expedition.”

I always travel with my radio as I like to to go to remote locations sometimes where there is little or no internet or constant power blackouts. I remember from years ago that someone said reception in Antarctica wasn’t very good, but I could be mistaken. I have looked on the web for this subject, but I don’t see much info. I sent a tweet to someone in Ant., but I don’t think he responded.

Do you know anything about this topic. I tried to go in your chatroom but it didn’t work for me.

Thank you for your question, Delmar. I know that DXing from the polar regions presents a unique set of challenges in terms of propagation, but it certainly wouldn’t stop me from taking a radio!

My hope is that an SWLing Post reader can shed a little light on Antarctic listening and possibly even offer advice based on real world experience SWLing in Antarctica. If so, please comment!

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Trans-Oceanic spotted in Humphrey Bogart movie

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Mark Hirst, who writes:

I’m something of a Film Noir fan, so I was pleased to have tracked down “Dead Reckoning” on Amazon recently.

Starring Humphrey Bogart and Lizabeth Scott, Bogart’s character is seen early on in this 1947 film listening to police chatter on his bed side radio.

The police conversation sounds a bit contrived, serving the purpose of advancing the story of course, though I’m wondering if this type of radio could be used this way – I’m sure there are experts who would know.

Please comment if you can answer Mark’s question!

Thanks for sharing, Mark. Like you, I love Film Noir and pretty much anything starring Bogie (or especially Lauren Bacall)!

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“When the world got its news from shortwave radio”

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Dennis Dura, who shares the following article from SwissInfo.ch. Make sure you visit SwissInfo.ch to listen to their embedded recordings:

What did SWI swissinfo.ch sound like for the first seven decades of its existence? The short answer: a radio station.

From the mid-1930s to 2004, Switzerland’s international service was Swiss Radio International (SRI). The first few decades of SRI’s existence were the heyday of shortwave – it was often the only way of getting news directly from other countries.

A brief history of SRI, the predecessor of swissinfo.ch, helps explain why you hear what you do in the video above.

What began as the Swiss Short Wave Service in 1935, would grow from broadcasting programmes in German, French, Italian and English to include other European languages and Arabic, and eventually change its name to Swiss Radio International.

The international service was considered a voice of neutrality during times of war, first during World War II, followed by the decades of the Cold War and up to and including the first war in the Gulf in the early 1990s.

This decade would mark the beginning of the end for Switzerland’s shortwave broadcasts. Shortwave transmitters gave way to relaying programmes via satellite, and this, in turn, would give way to the internet when the service went online in 1999 as SRI’s website.

In 2004, the plug was pulled for good on SRI as part of budget cuts, but not swissinfo.ch. Now producing exclusively online, the international service extended its linguistic reach by adding Russian, Japanese and Chinese, and publishing more video and audio reports.

Journalists working in swissinfo.ch’s current ten languages collaborate closely to set the editorial agenda, providing the necessary context in their stories so they are understood wherever they are read, seen, or heard in the world.

Project ‘The Sounds of…’

This article is part of the project “The Sounds of…” produced with our partner media organisations Polskie Radio, Radio Canada International, Radio Romania International and Radio Prague International. Further videos have been produced by journalists at these outlets, to give an insight into their work in these countries.