RNW, like many international broadcasters, is under threat due to budget cuts.
Show your support for RNW by signing this petition online. Also consider commenting on the Radio Netherlands 4U website.
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(Source: The Epoch Times)
“While BBC is canceling its Mandarin broadcasts in April 2011 and Voice of America (VOA) its Mandarin and Cantonese broadcasts in October 2011, Sound of Hope Radio (SOH) Network announced that they will be expanding short-wave broadcasting to China to meet the demands of its Chinese audience”
Thank you to Radio World for publishing this:
A teacher with an ETOW radio in Bor County, Southern Sudan. Courtesy Project Education Sudan
For as long as I can remember I’ve been passionate about radio.
From my earliest childhood memories in the 1980s during those final fading days of the Cold War — of my dad tuning in WWV in Fort Collins, Colo., on his dad’s vintage RCA 6K3; of falling asleep listening to my then-old-fashioned AM transistor radio; and of drinking in all those mysterious DX stations I heard over shortwave and medium-wave … I was the sort of kid (a throwback to a former generation, one might say) who couldn’t get enough of radio.
In those days when cable TV and video games and the first PCs upstaged and supplanted radio in nearly every American household, even in the blue collar town in which I grew up, it was nonetheless radio that captured my imagination, and taught me early on that everyone has a story. Radio taught me, too, that each voice is different in his or her consideration of what’s meaningful or newsworthy. I learned to understand or at least appreciate the diverse perspectives I heard in my vicarious radio journeys, and from these sprang my own opinions, hopes, beliefs. Radio became my teacher—a teacher who gave me, in my formative years, a global perspective.
I would have to say that radio has shaped my life. I suppose that’s why radio recently has become a mission for me…
…Today, I am the founder and director of Ears to Our World, a grassroots charitable organization with a simple objective: distributing self-powered world-band radios to schools and communities in the third world, so that kids, not to mention those who teach them, can learn about their world, too.
I want others –– children and young people, especially –– who lack reliable access to information, to have the world of radio within their reach.
Click here to read the full article.
More links:
Myke Weiskopf, lifelong shortwave radio listener and archivist, shares his passion for shortwave radio on APM’s “The Story”:
Myke Weiskopf wrote to us to say: “I’m an old-school radio man, sound-gatherer, and old-world obsessive. I’ve been lucky enough to take my shortwave all over the world … I’ve posted recordings from broadcasts in Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan…” (His list goes on … and these are just the A’s!) This past summer, Myke went to Bulgaria and had a chance to meet the woman who started it all: the very first Bulgarian woman he heard singing on the radio whose voice has haunted him ever since.
Myke’s interview closes out this episode of “The Story”–you can listen to it online by clicking here.
More information:
(Source: TVB – Television Broadcast)
AMSTERDAM: Transmission of video over the shortwave radio topology is being demonstrated at IBC by Fraunhofer. The company rolled out “Diveemo,” a system delivers video via Digital Radio Mondiale, the MPEG-4-based broadcasting technology used in the AM radio band. It was demonstrated today at the convention with BBC content displayed on a NewStar DRM receiver, Fraunhofer said.
Operating at just 8 frames per second, Diveemo transmissions are not designed to compete with even standard analog television; instead, Diveemo is being positioned for large-area distribution of education and news programs where the video supplements an existing audio program.
Fraunhofer notes that shortwave transmission can reach from “100 to well over 5 million square kilometers depending on conditions and broadcast parameters. The service opens the door to a large range of unprecedented information and education services and is an ideal platform to reach audiences worldwide with a single DRM transmitter or an even more cost-efficient DRM single frequency network. Diveemo offers free-of-charge reception and is independent of gatekeeper and third-party providers like satellite and cable networks.”
The system is being demonstrated by Fraunhofer and Thomson Broadcast on their respective stands at IBC2010. Fraunhofer and Thomson, along with Chengdu NewStar Electronics, developed Diveemo. The service is being presented for standardization by ETSI, and can be implemented by any broadcaster using DRM30 or DRM+.
Video files are added to the Fraunhofer DRM ContentServer where they are converted to MPEG-4 and prepared for transmission. DRM+ is capable of devoting a larger amount of data to the video than DRM30, allowing for better video quality with DRM+. Diveemo complements existing data services within DRM30 and DRM+, including MOT Slideshow for still images and Journaline for text-based data services.– With Radio World
Read original article on TVB – Television Broadcast.
(Source: New Zealand Herald)
In a move inspired by pirate radio stations of the 1960s, political activists in the South Pacific are planning to position a Dutch-registered merchant vessel in international waters off the coast of Fiji to defy censors in the military dictatorship.
Opponents of the coup leader and self-appointed Prime Minister, Commodore Frank Bainimarama, hope to have the station broadcasting news and interviews by the end of next month to circumvent draconian media laws imposed on press, radio and television.
Since taking power in a military coup in December 2006, Fiji’s strongman has slowly eaten away at the country’s democratic freedoms, installing newsroom censors and cracking down on foreign media ownership.
Newspapers and radio stations now have to be 90 per cent locally owned, a stipulation that will almost certainly see the closure of the 140-year-old Fiji Times.
The popular title, which has been owned by News Ltd since 1987, has been emasculated since the censors moved in to demand the removal of any anti-government stories.
With most of the population too poor to access the internet or satellite television, most Fijians rely on the press and transistor radios for their news. That is why Usaia Waqatairewa of the Fiji Democracy Movement has opted for pirate broadcasting.
Now exiled in Australia, he plans to stream live programming to the ship from a Sydney newsroom and rebroadcast the material from a transmitter on the AM waveband.
“The basic purpose is to inform the public of what’s really happening in Fiji so they can make an informed decision about whether to support Bainimarama or not,” he said.
Even the phones no longer guarantee confidentiality since the Government ordered mobile and landline users to register all their personal details. One local carrier, Vodafone, is also demanding that customers provide a left-hand thumb print and PIN, which the user would normally keep secret.
The head of the Justice Ministry, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, claims the compulsory registration of all phones is the result of a spate of bomb threats and bogus calls. Critics suggest it is more to do with the interim Government wanting to create a database of callers whose views do not correspond with the regime’s.
Telephone paranoia even extends to some tourists. A German businessman who used his satellite phone in a restaurant recently was reported to the police, who promptly raided his hotel room. He left the country in disgust shortly afterwards.
So far, such stories have not damaged tourism, which is one of the few Fijian industries still booming. A devalued currency and a strong Australian dollar have made Fiji a bargain destination for overseas holidaymakers.
But while the tourists are still heading to Fiji, businesses are pulling out. Australia’s Commonwealth Bank has sold its Fijian arm, and Qantas is trying to sell its 46 per cent stake in Fiji’s national airline, Air Pacific. Despite these economic warning signals, Commodore Bainimarama remains determined to do things his way. He has promised to go to the country in 2014 but as he has repeatedly postponed his general election plans, few believe he will keep his word.
And if an application for a loan of more than $700 million from the IMF fails, “the country’s economic outlook will be shocking”, says Anthony Bergin of the Australian Strategic Policy Unit.
CRACKDOWN LEADS TO POVERTY AND FEAR
Fiji has had four coups in the past two decades and is facing an economic crisis that threatens to bring more instability to the 800,000 people who inhabit this sprawling archipelago.
And there are concerns about human rights as Commodore Frank Bainimarama cracks down on those who oppose his dictatorship.
In a rare interview aired by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation last month, the military leader said “we’ll need to shut some people up” before the country can return to democracy. “I don’t trust the people,” declared the Prime Minister, adding that he was none too happy about politicians or the judiciary, either.
After silencing the powerful Methodist Church and the chiefs who are the traditional rulers of this fiercely patriotic nation, Commodore Bainimarama sacked many judges.
Suspended from the Commonwealth, Fiji risks becoming a pariah in the region.
The Prime Minister also recently expelled Australia’s acting high commissioner to Fiji.
The reforms he talks about strike at the heart of Fiji’s racially divided society. For many years, about half the population was of Indian origin, descendants of indentured labourers brought to Fiji in the 19th century to help in the sugar industry. Faced with eviction from their farms after their leases expired, thousands of Indians have sought refuge overseas while many of those unable to leave have ended up in squatter camps.
When Commodore Bainimarama seized power he promised a fairer society, with legislation designed to protect the interests of the Indian community. But unemployment, poverty and fear have created a society whose people are often too scared to talk.
– Independent
By Roger Maynard
NOTE: We’ve been following the story in Fiji for more than a year now as it is a prime example of how important shortwave radio is to people who live in a country that restricts local media. Check out our previous posts about the situation in Fiji.
This weekend, NPR’s Guy Raz interviewed Mark Stout, the official historian at the International Spy Museum. Their topic? Numbers stations. Click hear to go to NPR’s webpage, listen and/or read the full transcript. You can also download an MP3 audio file of the report by clicking here.
For even more numbers station audio, check out the piece that shortwave enthusiast, David Goren, produced by clicking here. Also, read all of our various articles that mention numbers stations.
