Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor and noted political cartoonist, Carlos Latuff, who shares his radio log art, this time following coverage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine through Vatican Radio.
Carlos notes:
Vatican Radio, 9705 kHz, special broadcasting, message from Pope Francis in Ukrainian and Russian to Kiev and Moscow due the war in Ukraine.
Broadcasting from Santa Maria di Galeria, Italy, listened in Porto Alegre, Brazil.
March 28, 2022, 04h49 and 05h14 (UTC).
(Source: Radio Taiwan International)
Note: English Google translation below, click here for the original Russian version at RTI.
Dear listeners of the programs of the Russian MRI Service!
Starting March 27, we will be switching to a new broadcast frequency: 6005 kHz from 20:00 to 20:30 UTC .
Broadcasting region – the European part of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus.
We ask our official monitors (and all listeners) to inform us about the audibility on the new frequency by e-mail [email protected].
Broadcasting at a frequency of 5900 kHz from 17:00 to 17:30 UTC and at a frequency of 9490 kHz from 11:00 to 12:00 is preserved!
Because I keep my ear to the waves, as well as receive many tips from others who do the same, I find myself privy to radio-related stories that might interest SWLing Post readers. To that end: Welcome to the SWLing Post’s Radio Waves, a collection of links to interesting stories making waves in the world of radio. Enjoy!
The BBC World Service will receive more than £4m in extra funding from the UK government to help counter disinformation about the Ukraine war.
The BBC made the request for the money, which will also be used by the Ukrainian and Russian language services to cover urgent and unexpected costs.
It welcomed the announcement and said the money would help relocate staff and operations to safe locations.
The two language services have had record audiences since the invasion.
The announcement on Wednesday followed a BBC request to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and the Foreign Office.
“The BBC has seen a big demand for clear, fact-based, impartial journalism to counter disinformation and our teams are working around the clock to bring people the very best independent journalism,” BBC director general Tim Davie said.
“This funding will also help us with the immediate need to support staff who have been displaced, many of whom are continuing to work and provide vital expertise to the whole of the BBC,” he added. [Continue reading…]
£4.1 million in additional funding for BBC World Service to support Ukrainian and Russian language services in the region
The government is giving the BBC World Service emergency funding to help it continue bringing independent, impartial and accurate news to people in Ukraine and Russia in the face of increased propaganda from the Russian state.
BBC World Service will receive an additional £4.1 million in emergency funding to support its Ukrainian and Russian language services in the region, and to help it increase trusted and independent content to counter disinformation about the war in Ukraine.
BBC World Service channels – including TV, radio and digital – play an increasingly valuable role in challenging the Kremlin’s disinformation, but it is facing additional costs from operating within a military conflict and due to a crackdown on independent reporting in Russia.
Following a BBC request, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office will provide the extra funding to cover urgent and unexpected costs that have arisen as a result of the conflict.
This will help the BBC to relocate staff and operations to safe locations to ensure the resilience of their services and that they continue to reach people in Russia and Ukraine.
The BBC will also use the funding to continue expanding new and more widely accessible content, delivered through a range of channels, to tackle disinformation and to help local audiences circumvent the Kremlin’s media restrictions and continue to access the BBC’s journalism.
Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries said:
The Government is providing the BBC with an additional £4.1 million in emergency funding to help the World Service broadcast directly into Ukraine and Russia.
In scenes reminiscent of 80 years ago, the BBC will ensure that audiences in the region can continue to access independent news reporting in the face of systemic propaganda from a dictator waging war on European soil. It’s vital we lift the veil on and expose the barbaric actions of Putin’s forces.
Minister for Europe and North America, James Cleverly said:
Britain is calling out Putin’s lies and exposing his propaganda and fake news.
This new funding will help strengthen the BBC’s impartial voice in Russia and Ukraine, which is critical to counter Russian disinformation and will help ensure we win the battle for the airwaves.
ENDS
Notes to Editors
The World Service receives funding from the BBC’s licence fee income, in addition to grant funding directly from the FCDO. The World Service’s Spending Review settlement for the period 2022 to 2025 from the FCDO will be confirmed shortly.
The Culture Secretary made it clear to the BBC in her letter confirming the final licence fee settlement that the BBC should continue to make a substantive investment from the licence fee into the World Service to ensure that it continues to effectively reflect the United Kingdom, its culture and values to the world – in English and through its language services.
Radio Miami International (WRMI)? is working with Shortwaves for Freedom to transmit news to Russia and Ukraine during the war.
OKEECHOBEE, FL — When the commercial shortwave radio station Radio Miami International — which operates under the call letters WRMI — got its start in 1989, its primary focus was helping Cuban exile groups in Miami legally transmit programming to their homeland.
Since then, the station has broadcast news during all sorts of trying times — the Gulf War, hurricanes, earthquakes, other natural disasters.
Now, 30 years later, at a time when Instagram, TikTok and other social media platforms rule when it comes to communication, WRMI finds itself in a unique position during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Working with several organizations and government groups, the station is broadcasting news programming to both Russians and Ukrainians who have access to shortwave radios.
“We’ve been through all sorts of crises. This is one of the biggest,” said Jeff White, the station’s general manager.
When the station launched three decades ago, Radio Miami International worked with Cuban exiles and Latin American groups to find existing shortwave stations where they could buy airtime to broadcast shows. [Continue reading…]
The Lvivska Khvylya local radio station in west Ukraine changed its broadcast output dramatically the day Russia invaded the country.
The first thing staff did was to ease off on the entertainment programming and ramp up coverage of the war for their tens of thousands of listeners. Continue reading
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, David Goren, who shares this impressive report from the Times’s Visual Investigations team:
The Times’s Visual Investigations team analyzed dozens of battlefield radio transmissions between Russian forces during an initial invasion of the town of Makariv, outside Kyiv. They reveal an army struggling with logistical problems and communication failures.
[Please note: this report includes graphic images and language.]
Because I keep my ear to the waves, as well as receive many tips from others who do the same, I find myself privy to radio-related stories that might interest SWLing Post readers. To that end: Welcome to the SWLing Post’s Radio Waves, a collection of links to interesting stories making waves in the world of radio. Enjoy!
Many thanks to the SWLing Post contributors who share the following tips:
High up in the Carpathian Mountains, two Kyiv broadcasters keep the signal alive.
Recently, at a closed ski resort in Ukraine’s Carpathian Mountains, Roman Davydov leaned into a microphone and announced the latest news from the war. Kryvyi Rih, in southern Ukraine, was being attacked; a U.S. journalist had been shot; and the British Foreign Secretary had announced new sanctions on Russian oligarchs in London. Davydov, who is forty-three, with dark hair and an oft-furrowed brow, is the voice of Kraina FM, an independent radio station that, after Russian bombing began in Kyiv, relocated to an undisclosed location. (The staff of Kraina FM asked me not to identify the village, for security reasons.) Outside Davydov’s improvised booth, a corner office lent to Kraina FM by a local accountant, an odd sense of normalcy reigned. Beyond the ski-rental shop, where a cluster of sandbags had been piled, a man in a blue jacket and ski goggles operated a small lift for a children’s slope in the bright sunshine.
The area, which is several hours south of Lviv, has become a shelter for displaced people, Bogdan Bolkhovetsky, Davydov’s colleague, told me. Bolkhovetsky, Kraina FM’s station general manager, said that he and Davydov had arrived in the village “by pure chance.” The west of the country is full of refugees, and there are few places for families to stay as they make their way toward the borders of Europe. “We found this place because it was the only place vacant,” Bolkhovetsky said. They arrived in the evening on February 27th; just days later they were setting up the station in a sloped-ceilinged, wood-panelled space that barely fit their two desks. They acquired laptops and a mixer from the supply of aid making its way from the rest of Europe to Ukraine. “We called our friends in Austria and they were so quick,” Bolkhovetsky said. “Guys we’ve never met just sent us the equipment, and a friend of ours brought this equipment in. I mean, they brought us these German laptops and the mixing console and we’ve never seen these people before.” [Continue reading…]
On March 17 the European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications (CEPT) announced the indefinite suspension of Russia and Belarus following the invasion of Ukraine
The CEPT announcement said:
Outcome of the written procedure with the CEPT Assembly regarding suspension of the Russian Federation and Belarus from CEPT Membership.
Based on a request from a number of CEPT members, the CEPT Presidency carried out a written procedure, in accordance with the CEPT Arrangement, on the proposal to suspend indefinitely and with immediate effect the memberships of the Russian Federation and Belarus in the CEPT.
Thirty-four responses were received to the CEPT Assembly letter in support of the proposal and one abstention.
Based on the above, the CEPT Assembly has therefore decided: Continue reading
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, David Iurescia LW4DAF, who shares a link to the following announcement from Vatican Radio:
From next Monday the Pope’s radio station will expand its Ukrainian and Russian programmes. The increase of shortwave frequencies aims to empower the Radio’s outreach in its mission to communicate the Gospel message and to “read” current events through this perspective.
By Vatican News
From Monday, 21 March, Vatican Radio will increase its shortwave broadcasts to Ukraine and Russia. In addition to the two daily broadcasts (afternoon and evening) in the two languages, the morning programmes to Moscow and Kyiv will last twenty minutes longer.
“The decision,” Massimiliano Menichetti, head of Vatican Radio Vatican News explains, “was taken with the agreement of the entire management team of the Dicastery for Communication, at this time when war is raging, in order to better respond to our mission: to bring hope, the Pope’s words and the reading of facts through the light of the Gospel to the whole world.”
In these past weeks, he added, thanks to a network of direct contacts that support the work of our reporters, we are trying to give comfort to those who are suffering and to ensure timely information.
The frequencies of Vatican Radio, the pages and posts of Vatican News in 51 languages (including English and Italian in sign language) aim to not leave anyone alone, even in the awareness of the power of prayer”.
Vatican Radio’s new shortwave broadcasts
Until 26 March
From Sunday, 27 March
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Mangosman, for sharing the following press release from Radio Exterior de España. Please note that the original press release was in Spanish and can be viewed at RTVE Comunicación. What follows is a machine translation:
Radio Exterior de España transmits its programming on Short Wave from its broadcasting center in Noblejas (Toledo). Source: RTVE
Radio Exterior de España, the international channel of Radio Nacional de España, offers an open window to truthful information in times of war through Short Wave. The Russian attack on the Kiev communications tower has silenced several television channels. The Internet and social networks are easily controllable, and the telecommunications infrastructure that provides Internet service is highly vulnerable to attack.
True to its commitment to public service, the Short Wave broadcasts of Radio Exterior de España, in Spanish and Russian, are the only Spanish ones that can publicize the reality of the invasion, its repercussions, the testimonies and the demonstrations of solidarity to the Ukrainian population directly. They can be easily received with affordable receivers and you cannot control who is listening to them, unlike online radio broadcasts.
Radio Exterior de España transmits its programming on Short Wave from its broadcasting center in Noblejas (Toledo) to Ukraine and Russia, thus preventing any type of control or censorship by the Russian army. Any citizen from the war zone can access a proven, serious, truthful and honest source of information.
With broadcasts in English, French, Arabic, Portuguese, Sephardic and Russian, Radio Exterior de España offers its listeners the transmission of all the national and international events that arouse the interest of world public opinion regarding the Russian invasion of Ukraine and its global consequences. A work that is enriched by the live testimony of the correspondents and special envoys of Radio Nacional de España to the conflict zone and its area of ??influence.
Radio Exterior de España’s short wave broadcasts for Ukraine and Russia are broadcast in Spanish from 5:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m. Spanish time (4:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m. UTC) and in Russian from 7:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., Spanish time (6:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. UTC time).