All India Radio: Prasar Bharati seeks proposal to phase out shortwave broadcasting

All India Radio (AIR) Headquarters in Dehli, India. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.

by Sobhana K. Nair

Prasar Bharati has asked it to come up with a proposal to phase out SW transmitters

If Prasar Bharati [India’s largest public broadcasting agency] has its way, All India Radio will have to stop all global short wave transmissions — eighty years after it began international broadcasting in 1939. AIR is resisting the move arguing that it will curtail its global reach.

There are about 46 short wave transmitters that run both domestic and external services. Out of these, 28 are used for the external services alone. Barring three transmitters that were recently installed, all the others will have to be shut down over the next six-months. The external services are broadcast to 150 countries in 13 Indian languages and 15 foreign languages.

Prasar Bharati had written to the AIR in May third week asking it to come up with a proposal to phase out the short wave transmitters.

‘Whimsical’

A high-ranking AIR official called it a whimsical decision. “There will be a huge implication on external services. The short wave is the only effective way to reach to any part of the world. FM and other modes don’t work. Even live streaming on web can’t be complete substitute to this due to varied penetration of internet connectivity. Any country that wants to scuttle Indian radio can just shut down our web channel.”

Prasar Bharati CEO Shashi Shekhar Vempati denied that discontinuing short wave will impact global outreach. He said there would be fresh investments in expanding in DD India, AIR World Service and Prasar Bharati’s Gobal Digital Platform. “Going forward, AIR world service will be primarily a digital service which will leverage FM and Medium Wave capabilities where available and short wave in a limited way for strategic purposes. We will also explore hiring airtime in transmitters outside India on a need basis where feasible,” he told The Hindu.

China has recently started buying air time on Nepalese radio channels for its programmes. India too may soon follow suit.

Limited audience

A study on short wave transmitters conducted by the Prasar Bharati had revealed that shutting down these transmitters would save the AIR nearly ?60-70 crore. The majority of the transmitters were nearly 25 years old and obsolete. “Short Wave, as a mode of transmission, has very limited audience, which is further dwindling with time. The short wave network will be rationalised so we are able to invest more in content and in newer ways of broadcasting, like Internet streaming, digital radio and in future satellite radio. We will, however, preserve a limited set of short wave for strategic purposes and national interest,” Mr. Vempati added.[…]

Click here to read the full article at The Hindu.

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The Listeners: Members of the Women’s Royal Canadian Naval Corps who secretly monitored the airwaves

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Fred Waterer, who shares the following fascinating video from the CBC and notes:

“The Listeners” Members of the Women’s Royal Canadian Naval Corps monitored the airwaves for German U-Boat traffic. Their participation was secret for decades.”

Click here to view this video via the CBC.

This is such an amazing story, Fred, and the CBC did a fine job putting it together. Thanks so much for sharing.

Editor’s note regarding WWII history: Regular SWLing Post readers know that I’m an avid WWII history buff, in that I read, view, and especially listen to many accounts of the Second World War era, the glory days of radio. I’ve traveled and lived in several of the countries that were, at that time, among the Axis Powers, some of my close friends are from or reside in these countries now, and feel much as I do about this history: that this was a devastating war which we must not forget or romanticize, and from which we can learn about ourselves as human beings, hopefully with the view of preventing such chilling events from ever being repeated. As we have readers and contributors from all over the world in this radio community, I sincerely hope that WWII-related articles are regarded in this light of understanding. The takeaway? Times have changed. I firmly believe that a deep understanding of our shared history makes us all better people.

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D-Day: 75 years ago today, Operation Overlord initiated wall-to-wall news coverage

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Soldiers coming ashore in Normandy, France. (Photo: National Archives)

Today, as many know, is the 75th anniversary of the World War II battle in Normandy, France, known to history as D-Day. “Operation Overlord,” as D-Day was code named, without doubt, was one of the key turning points of World War II.

But many may not know that D-Day was also one of the first events that brought continuous news coverage via radio on the home front.

As mentioned in this excellent article from MyNorthwest:

“In addition to what it meant as a great turning point in world history, D-Day is also unique in how it was broadcast by American radio networks, as CBS, NBC, and what would become ABC pooled their reporters, engineers and other resources, and cooperated closely with military officials to present, for the first time, what would now be called “wall-to-wall” coverage of a developing major international news event for American audiences.

It’s something we take for granted now in the age of the internet and cable news, but this kind of media coverage can be traced back to D-Day.”

But the widely-covered event was originally top secret. So secret, in fact, that news agencies in the US first learned about Operation Overlord via not Allied news, but Axis news sources. Thus the information was delivered with caution, since the source wasn’t the War Department of Allied Forces.

A little after 3:30 AM (Eastern War Time), the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) in London produced Communiqué #1, a short statement read twice by Colonel R. Ernest Dupuy, confirming that Allied naval forces, with the support of the air forces, and under the command of General Eisenhower, began landing Allied armies that morning on the northern coast of France.

Here is the actual recording via the Miller Center at UVA:

Click here to listen via Soundcloud.

Fortunately, live recordings from NBC and CBS studios have been well-preserved, and are freely available for online listening.

Below, I’ll embed links to the full recording sets; you can listen to the news just as it rolled in.

NBC coverage

The first confirmed report begins at 9:07 in the following recording:

Click here to download the MP3.

Click here to listen to a full broadcast set starting at 0250 Eastern War Time. I’ve also embedded an Internet Archive player below that will play the full recording playlist in chronological order:

CBS coverage

CBS’ confirmed report of D-Day begins at 49:25 in the following recording:

Click here to download the MP3.

Click here to listen to a full CBS broadcast set. I’ve also embedded an Internet Archive player below that will play the full recording playlist in chronological order:

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For a blow-by-blow account of how news was presented on D-Day, I encourage you to check out this page at the Miller Center at UVA.

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Tecsun PL-990 and S-9900: A few facts about the new Tecsun radios

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Yesterday, we posted a photo of a Tecsun S-9900 “prototype” that was shared by @katsu3_uc on Twitter:

Screenshot of katsu’s tweet with translation by Google.

Shortly thereafter, another image was shared featuring the Tecsun PL-990:

To put this in perspective: there hasn’t been a new product announcement like this from Tecsun since the appearance of the S-8800 nearly four years ago–!

This buzz created a flurry of emails to me in only a few hours.

Readers wanted more information and details about the new radios and, frankly, I wanted to confirm what details we could infer from the photos. I only knew that there would be a “high-performance” receiver introduced this year, but knew very little other than that–I certainly didn’t expect two radios in the works.

So I reached out to a trusted source and now have some solid information I’ll share below:

The Tecsun PL-990

Yes, the Tecsun PL-990 is real. The image above is a correct representation of the working prototype.

There is no official launch date yet, but if all goes well with production and testing, the export version will become available in December 2019 at the earliest. It’s highly unlikely it will ship prior to December–it’s more likely it could ship sometime in early 2020.

The Tecsun “S-9900”

There is a new model in development, but the anticipated design and model number are not as shown in the picture above. When @katsu3_uc corrected his initial post and clarified that the radio in the photo was only a prototype, this was correct. I believe this was one from many years ago.

There are few details about this radio as it is in the early stages of design/development.

Production, availability, and other product details are simply not available yet. I get the impression the chance of it shipping this year are very low.

Stay tuned…

As I learn more about these two Tecsun receivers, I’ll post updates here on the SWLing Post. I’ll tag updates with model numbers (Tecsun PL-990 and Tecsun S-9900) so posts can be read in chronological order. Note that even though “S-9900” will not be the model number of the second receiver, I’ll use it until we have the new model number.

Of course, I’ll review both radios as soon as they’re ready for evaluation!

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FTIOM & UBMP, June 9-15

The Tecsun PL-990: The next full-featured portable?

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[Update: Please check out this post about the Tecsun PL-990.]

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Dan Robinson, who shares the following image originally posted in the Shortwave Radio Listener Appreciation Facebook group:

This looks like a solid iteration of the venerable Tecsun PL-880.

While the previous photo we posted via Twitter user @katsu3_uc of the Tecsun S-9900 looks like a departure from Tecsun ascetics, and more like the classic Grundig Sattelit 700 chassis, the PL-990 image is much more of what I would have expected. The S-9900 is much harder to believe.

I will try to gather more information about these designs and if one or both might come to fruition this year. I’ll post PL-990 updates with the tag: Tecsun PL-990.

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The Tecsun S-9900: A new high-performance shortwave portable?

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[Update: Please check out this post about the Tecsun S-9900.]

[Update: Also see this post that includes an image of a Tecsun PL-990. I will try to confirm if one or both of these radios may indeed be produced this year.]

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor and producer, Scott Gamble, who notes the following tweet from @katsu3_uc on Twitter:

Shortly after publishing this photo, Katsu added the following message (this translation via Google Translate):

“I apologize apparently I have put a photo of the prototype stage. However, it seems that there will be no doubt that a new model will be released from TECSUN at the 70th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China, so we will tweet from time to time if there is final information.”

This radio prototype looks a lot like the classic Grundig Satellit 700:

I’ve known for some time that Tecsun has been working on a “high-performance” shortwave receiver and that it would be released by end of year. If this is it, they’re ahead of schedule!

Rest assured, I’ll be checking out this receiver as soon as it’s available! Check out @katsu3_uc on Twitter and, of course, we’ll post updates here on the SWLing Post. Simply follow/bookmark the tag: Tecsun S-9900