Vintage Vatican Radio QSL

(Source: Vatican Radio via Mike Hansgen)

Shortwave Frequency Changes for the English Africa Service starting on 28 October 2018 to March/April 2019

Daylight saving time in Rome
We wish to inform listeners that with the end of Daylight Saving Time in Rome on Sunday 28th October, there will be changes in the time and broadcast frequencies of the English Africa Service.

The programme will be going on air one hour earlier at 16.30 UTC (GMT) on the following shortwave frequencies: 11625 kHz (25mb) and 13830 kHz (21mb)

It will be repeated at 20.00 hours UTC on 6010 kHz (49mb) and the 7365 kHz (40 mb).

Listeners in Rome
For listeners in Rome and the Vatican who have a digital radio receiver, the ‘English Africa Programme’ can be heard on Vatican News’ World Channel on digital radio DAB+ at 17.30 Rome time and the repeat broadcast at 21.00 hours Rome time.

Listen to and download our daily Podcast from anywhere in the world
To listen to the Podcast of our programme throughout the day, just log on to our websitewww.vaticannews.va, click on English and then from right hand side of the page; click on “listen to our podcasts” and choose ‘English for Africa’.

Catholic Radio Stations in Africa retransmit our daily programme
On the continent, the main outlet for our daily English Africa programmes will continue to be through the re-transmission of our daily broadcasts by several Catholic radio stations.

Most of these radio stations are owned by various African Catholic dioceses, parishes, religious congregations and some by the Radio Maria network.

We thank you all for this important collaboration.

For further information kindly contact the English Africa Service through email: [email protected] or by phone: (+39) 06 69883892.

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Peter Tannenwald asks, “Are we really ‘revitalizing’ AM?”

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(Source: RadioWorld via Bill Patalon)

On AM revitalization, Peter Tannenwald asks, Are we really “revitalizing” AM, or are we walking around in circles?

Late on Friday, October 5, the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) released a Second Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in a five-year ongoing effort to “revitalize” the AM radio broadcast service. The new proposals continue a trend toward allowing higher power operation by smaller stations, by reducing nighttime signal protection for some 60 Class A AM stations located in the continental United States and 16 stations in Alaska. The end result would be less wide area coverage and more local radio service to the public.

To understand why the FCC is considering this action, it helps to understand a bit of the science behind AM signal propagation. AM radio signals travel through both the ground and through the air. At night, the airborne signal component (“skywave”) is reflected back to the earth from the ionosphere — a layer of the atmosphere extending from about 50 to 600 miles above the earth’s surface. The reflected signals may come back down to earth hundreds, if not thousands, of miles away from a station’s transmitter. Class A AM stations — formerly known as “clear channel” stations (no relation to Clear Channel/now iHeartMedia) — are powerhouses, transmitting with 50 kilowatts of power 24 hours a day – 200 or more times the power of the smallest AM stations.

[…]Signal reflection doesn’t work so well during the day, so the FCC has allowed other stations to occupy the Class A frequencies in other markets. But those stations have to curtail power during “critical hours” (two hours before sunrise and after sunset) and often have to reduce power to nearly nothing or shut down altogether at night. In today’s 24-hour-a-day, nonstop world, not being able to reach an audience at night is a losing proposition; so the FCC has yielded to constant pressure over the years to allow more power and longer hours of operation by those “other” stations, at the expense of long distance reception of Class A signals.

Now the FCC is proposing to go further, rolling back some previous restrictions on non-Class A AM stations and perhaps eliminating whatever remains (and it’s not much) of the protection of far-away reception. Under the proposals, which are sufficiently complicated that you should talk to your engineer if you really want to understand the details, Class A AM stations would be protected only within a higher strength signal contour (and so within a smaller area) than they are now; at least some, if not all, skywave protection would be eliminated.[…]

Click here to read the full article at RadioWorld.

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Radio Exterior de España expands shortwave broadcasts

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Ed (K4CWM), who notes that Radio Exterior de España have announced they’re expanding their shortwave broadcast schedule. Ed has kindly translated the press release into English (click here to read the original in Spanish):

Radio Exterior de España to increase its short wave broadcast schedule

Radio Exterior de España, the international channel of RNE will broadcast eight hours a day from Monday to Sunday on short wave starting on October 28th . It is an increase of four hours in the transmission that was previously made from Monday to Friday.

With this increase, Radio Exterior of Spain sets a new stage that reinforces its programming with new features of its own production. This will augment public service and promote and disseminate Spanish culture and language. In short, it strives to place Spain on the global horizon of the time in which we live.

“En clave turismo“, “A golpe de bit“, “Without a doubt“, “Said with music” and “Tiempo flamenco” are incorporated into a consolidated program along with features such as “Españoles en la mar“, “Marca España” , “Punto de enlace“, “Mundo solidario“, “Artesfera“, “Open Europe“, “America today“, “Africa today” and “Asia today“. Programs to which is added the emblematic “A language without borders”, in-keeping with its mission to take Spanish culture to all corners of the world.

From a technical point of view, Radio Exterior de España will broadcast its programming from Monday to Friday, for West Africa and the South Atlantic, the Middle East, the Indian Ocean and Gran Sol, from 16:00 to 24:00 UTC.

The emission frequencies:

West Africa and South Atlantic, 11,685 KHz, 25 meter band.

Middle East, Indian Ocean and Gran Sol, 12,030 KHz, 25 meter band .

For North and South America, Radio Exterior de España will broadcast short-wave, from Monday to Friday, from 19:00 to 03:00 UTC.

The emission frequencies:

South America, 11,940 KHz, 25 meter band.

North America and Greenland, 9,690 KHz, 31 meter band .

On Saturdays and Sundays, the RNE International Channel will transmit its signal from 15:00 to 23:00 UTC. The emission frequencies and the coverage areas are the following:

West Africa and South Atlantic, 11,685 KHz, 25 meter band .

South America, 11,940 KHz, 25 meter band .

North America and Greenland, 9,690 KHz, 31-meter band.

Middle East, Indian Ocean and Gran Sol, 12,030 KHz, 25 meter band.

In addition to eight hours per day of shortwave transmission, Radio Exterior de España broadcasts its 24 hour uninterrupted programming through the Internet, DTT, mobile applications and satellite:

Ses Astras 1M: frequency 11.626.5 MHz. Vertical polarization.

Hispasat 1E: frequency 12,052 MHz. Vertical polarization.

Asiasat 5: frequency 3,700 MHz. Vertical polarization.

Eutelsat 5 West A: frequency 3,727 MHz. Right circular polarization.

Intelsat Galaxy-23: frequency 4,191.35 MHz. Vertical polarization.

The changes in programming and frequencies are effective from October 28, 2018 to March 31, 2019.

Many thanks for the tip, Ed!

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A great resource for finding over-the-air stations in the US

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Yesterday, a friend asked about tips for finding local radio stations throughout the US. His goal was to identify stations that he could then load into his WiFi radio and stream from abroad.

Of course there are always online radio station aggregators like TuneIn, but often you either need to know the station ID or name in advance to perform a search. Not all stations can be recalled with a geographic search either–especially if it’s a small local station that doesn’t market their online stream.

SWLing Post contributor, Gary Donnelly, recently shared the following searchable FCC database that lists all licensed stations on the air.

Search for:

Gary found this comprehensive database a great way to sniff out smaller LPFM and community stations to DX on FM and AM.

Post readers: Are there other resources you use to find over-the-air stations throughout the world? Please comment to share your links and tips.

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FTIOM & UBMP, Oct 28-Nov 3

Scott Tilley (VE7TIL): The Amateur Astronomer Who Found a Lost NASA Satellite

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Cap Tux, who shared a link to the following video on YouTube. This short video is brilliant and will be the reference I use when people ask about the intersection of radio and amateur astronomy:

Click here to view on YouTube.

Amateur astronomer Scott Tilley made international headlines when he rediscovered NASA’s IMAGE satellite 13 years after it mysteriously disappeared. In this interview with Freethink, Scott discusses his role in the satellite’s recovery, why he enjoys amateur astronomy, and how citizen scientists like him have contributed to our knowledge of space from the space race to the present day.

And I personally think our Post friend, Troy Riedel–who is an avid amateur astronomer–should start tracking satellites! (We’ll see if he’s reading this post!)

I’m curious: are there any Post readers who are into the satellite tracking side of amateur astronomy?

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