Tag Archives: Russian Invasion of Ukraine

Polish Radio launches programme to help Ukrainian refugees

Polish Radio launches another programme for Ukrainians (Radio Poland)

Public broadcaster Polish Radio is on Thursday launching a new weekly programme for Ukrainians escaping the Russian invasion and their compatriots residing permanently in Poland.

The hour-long broadcast will be delivered in Ukrainian, airing every Thursday at 7 p.m. on Polish Radio’s mobile app, web player and DAB+ platform, the public broadcaster’s IAR news agency reported.

Listeners will hear advice on where to find help, how to apply for assistance available to refugees, and how to obtain information about their loved ones, according to IAR.

Also, the programme will feature news on how the Polish government, local authorities and charities are working to support refugees from Ukraine, and on Poland’s efforts to facilitate Ukraine’s entry into the European Union and the NATO alliance, IAR reported.

The weekly broadcast is prepared and hosted by journalists from Polish Radio’s External Service, also known as Radio Poland.

‘Countering Putin’s false narrative’

“The priority is to counter the Putin regime’s false narrative,” said Radio Poland’s Director Andrzej Ryba?t.

He added: “We’ll be reporting at length on Polish-Ukrainian relations, as well as the policies of the European Union and NATO. In addition, Ukrainians who had been forced to flee their country will hear about what is happening in the places they had had to abandon as a result of the Russian aggression.”

As the programme develops, it is also set to feature Polish-language courses for Ukrainians seeking shelter in Poland, and items on Ukrainian music and culture, IAR reported.

Ever since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began on February 24, Polish Radio has been airing news bulletins in Ukrainian on several of its channels, as well as launching a 24-hour live audio and video stream about the war on Youtube.

It is also broadcasting the signal of Ukrainian Radio on its web player and DAB+ platform so that the people escaping the Russian attack can listen to programming in their native tongue, executives said.

Poland on Thursday reported it had admitted nearly 2 million refugees fleeing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

(pm/gs)

Source: IAR

Click here to read the full article at Radio Poland.

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Radio Waves: Subversive Shortwave, Radio’s Hardware Problem, Working at RBI, and Russian Comms

Radio Waves: Stories Making Waves in the World of Radio

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!

Owning a shortwave radio is once again a subversive activity (Hackaday)

An abiding memory for a teen fascinated by electronics and radio in the 1970s and 1980s is the proliferation of propaganda stations that covered the shortwave spectrum. Some of them were slightly surreal such as Albania’s Radio Tirana which would proudly inform 1980s Western Europe that every village in the country now possessed a telephone, but most stations were the more mainstream ideological gladiating of Voice of America and Radio Moscow.

It’s a long-gone era as the Cold War is a distant memory and citizens East and West get their info from the Internet, but perhaps there’s an echo of those times following the invasion of the Ukraine. With most external news agencies thrown out of Russia and their websites blocked, international broadcasters are launching new shortwave services to get the news through. Owning a shortwave radio in Russia may once again be a subversive activity. Let’s build one! [Continue reading…]

Radio’s Hardware Problem Grows (Radio Ink)

(By Ed Ryan) When was the last time your station gave away a slick looking radio as a promotion (batteries included)? How many more echo dots will radio stations keep giving away before they realize they may be pushing listeners to find something else to listen to?

In a teaser for Edison Research’s upcoming Infinite Dial presentation at Podcast Movement’s Evolutions next week, the research firm reported that the number of Americans who say they do not have a single radio in their home continues to rise.

In the 2020 Infinite Dial, performed before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, just under one-in-three Americans age 12 and older reported not having a single radio in their home, according to Edison. In 2022, that number is now 39%.

Fourteen years ago, only 4% of respondents said they had no radios at home. Continue reading →

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Vatican Radio insreases shortwave news broadcasts to Ukraine & Russia

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, David Iurescia LW4DAF, who shares a link to the following announcement from Vatican Radio:

Vatican Radio increases shortwave broadcasts to Ukraine and Russia

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

Russian, CET 06:00-06:20, UTC 05:00-05:20, 7260 kHz, 9715 kHz
Ukrainian, CET 06:20-06:40, UTC 05:20-05:40, 7260 kHz, 9715 kHz

From Sunday, 27 March

Russian, CET 07:00-07:20, UTC 05:00-05:20, 7260 kHz, 9705 kHz
Ukrainian, CET 06:40-07:00,UTC 04:40-05:00, 7260 kHz, 9705 kHz

Click here to read this announcement at Vatican Radio.

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CBS Miami features WRMI and the “Shortwaves for Freedom” campaign

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Dennis Dura, who shares the following article from CBS Miami:

Shortwave Radio Signal From Florida Cow Pasture Reaches Russia Carrying Latest News (CBS Miami)

Click here to view on YouTube.

MIAMI (CBSMiami) – A massive shortwave radio antenna sits in a cow pasture north of Lake Okeechobee in Central Florida.

“We have 14, 100,000-watt transmitters and 23 antennas beaming to all parts of the world,” said Jeff White, the general manager of Miami-based WRMI.

The multi-signal station is said to be one of the largest shortwave radio operations in the world.

WRMI stands for Radio Miami International and worldwide coverage means it can easily send signals into Ukraine and Russia.

Shortwave is old school technology, think of World War II or the Cold War, as American-produced news beamed behind the iron curtain. Now, during the invasion of Ukraine, Russia has shut down journalism as we know it.

Kate Neiswender, one of the guiding lights behind funding news programming for Russian audiences, said, “they were going to pass a law making journalism essentially illegal, facing a 15-year criminal penalty.”

Neiswender and fellow former journalists formed a fundraiser to beam news into Russia, where state-controlled media, at best, does not tell the true story of the invasion and many Russian citizens have no clue about the severity of the invasion.

“This is a journalistic pursuit more than anything else,” said Neiswender. [Continue reading at CBS Miami…]

Click here to read our previous post about Shortwaves for Freedom and contribute to the campaign here.

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Radio Waves: Colorado Inmate Radio, Experimental Radio News 4, BBC World Service to Ukraine, DIY Radio, and When the World Tuned to Shortwave

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Radio Waves: Stories Making Waves in the World of Radio

Inmate-produced radio station streams beyond prison walls (NBC News)

Inside Wire, available 24/7 to incarcerated people in Colorado and to online listeners around the world, is said to offer a chance for prisoners and those they harmed to heal.

LIMON, Colo. — Herbert Alexander stares at the sound waves jumping on the computer screen in front of him, his shaved head partially covered by headphones. He’s editing a short audio feature on incarcerated fathers, a subject with which he is intimately familiar.

His two sons will soon hear his voice and his story because Alexander, 46, an inmate at Limon Correctional Facility, is preparing a segment for Inside Wire: Colorado Prison Radio, billed as the first radio station to be produced inside a prison and available to the world outside.

Other radio stations created in prisons generally air only within the walls of their lockups, but Inside Wire, which premiered March 1, reaches all 21 prisons in the state and beyond, online and by app, making the first of its kind in the country, organizers said.

“In spaces where isolation continues, this medium can cut through that,” said Ryan Conarro, general manager and program director of Inside Wire and creative producer for the University of Denver Prison Arts Initiative, which oversees the program in partnership with the Colorado Department of Corrections. [Continue reading at NBC…]

Experimental Radio News 4 (Experimental Radio News)

This issue of ERN includes novel aeronautical experiments, life-detecting radars and non-wearable health monitoring, the latest on those mysterious shortwave trading stations and more.

Click here to read a wide variety of topics in Experimental Radio News 4.

BBC World Service resurrects shortwave broadcasts in war-torn Ukraine (TPR)

The BBC has resurrected an old school way of broadcasting in order to reach people in the crisis area of Ukraine: Shortwave radio. What is shortwave, and why has the BBC decided to begin using it again? Continue reading →

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Today, Explained: Podcast episode focuses on the power of shortwave radio

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Many thanks to our friends at Radio Survivor who share this most recent episode of Today, Explained with Noel King:

The BBC is bringing back shortwave radio broadcasts to counter censorship and disinformation in Russia and Ukraine. Professor D.W. Stupples explains.

This episode was produced by Victoria Chamberlin, edited by Matt Collette, engineered by Efim Shapiro, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, and hosted by Noel King.

Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained

Click here to visit Today, Explained at Vox.

Click here to listen to this episode on Megaphone.

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Czech Radio sends broadcasting gear to Ukraine

Czech Radio helping Ukrainian public broadcaster’

At the request of the Ukrainian public broadcaster UA: PBC, Czech Radio is sending technical equipment essential for broadcasting to Ukraine. Thanks to this donation it will be possible to set up temporary Ukrainian radio stations in the event that the current broadcasting facilities are occupied or destroyed by Russian troops. Czech Radio has also launched an internet stream of the UA:PBC radio broadcast in Ukrainian. The stream will be available on the audio portal and in the mobile application mujRozhlas.cz. The aim of the project is to make information about the war in Ukraine available daily to refugees and Ukrainians in the Czech Republic.

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