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Tuning controls on one of the 500 kW Continental Electronics transmitters at the Edward R. Murrow Transmitting Site. Click to enlarge.
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor Dan Greenall, who shares the following recordings and writes:
Hi Thomas
As a result of recent actions by the Trump administration, a number of shortwave stations have recently gone silent. Whether or not this will change is anybody’s guess, but the situation is currently looking grim.
I am providing links to some recordings that I have recently uploaded to the Internet Archive of a few of the affected stations. These recordings were made through the use of remote SDR’s in order to provide optimal quality. I used to particularly enjoy the programs of Radyo Pilipinas and Radio Thailand world service. Have a listen here to potential radio history.
Edward R. Murrow Transmitting Station in North Carolina
A Note to Our Readers: On the USAGM Shutdowns and Keeping the Conversation Respectful
At the SWLing Post, we’ve always strived to keep this space a safe haven — free from the divisive politics that so often cloud the media landscape. Our focus remains on sharing the joy of radio, supporting international broadcasting, and fostering a welcoming community for all.
That said, some stories, like the abrupt shutdown of U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) broadcasters, inevitably carry political weight. While we may wish otherwise, it’s impossible to separate the politics from the reality of this significant event. As one of the few remaining government-supported shortwave broadcasters, the sudden silencing of Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, Radio Martí, and others deserves our attention.
I’ve personally confirmed with multiple trusted sources that the transmitters at the Edward R. Murrow Transmitting Station were shut down on Sunday, March 16, 2025, marking a stark and sudden end to these broadcasts from US soil.
We recognize this news may stir strong opinions — and that’s okay. However, we kindly ask that all comments remain respectful and constructive. Share your thoughts, but please avoid name-calling, trolling, or inflammatory language. Our moderators will step in without hesitation to ensure the discussion remains civil.
In the past, we’ve occasionally disabled comments on similarly charged topics. This time, though, given the importance of the event, we’ll keep the conversation open — provided it stays respectful.
Below, you’ll find a collection of reports shared by our readerships from various sources that offer different perspectives on this unprecedented moment in international broadcasting.
Thank you for being part of this community and for helping us keep the SWLing Post a place for thoughtful dialogue and mutual respect.
For many in the world of radio, the move by the Trump administration this weekend to shut down U.S. international broadcasting was shocking. Jeff White used the term “rather brash.”
White is general manager of WRMI Radio Miami International as well as secretary-treasurer of the National Association of Shortwave Broadcasters (NASB) and a 40 years-plus veteran of shortwave radio.
He has a lot of experience in this area, so Radio World reached out to him on Monday for his thoughts about the effective silencing of the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), Radio Martí, Radio Free Asia and other broadcasting entities operated by the U.S. Agency for Global Media. That all is based on an executive order to reduce “elements of the federal bureaucracy that the president has determined are unnecessary.”
Radio World: When you heard the news of VOA and its sister services shutting down transmissions worldwide, what was your reaction to it?
Jeff White: Holy cow!
In a way some of this had been expected, but when it happened all of a sudden like that on Saturday morning it was pretty shocking.
I started getting emails early Saturday morning from people at the VOA who said, “Hey, everybody’s been laid off and everything’s shut down.” And they said that they had talked to some of the people at the overseas relay stations, and the managers had gotten word about the shutdown, but the employees had not.
Now those employees are hired by the local embassies, and so they kept these relay stations operating, and if they didn’t get programming coming from Washington, they filled with music. [Continue reading interview…]
by Ted Lipien, Opinion Contributor – 03/17/25 10:00 AM ET
President Trump’s decision to shut down the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe-Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, Radio y Televisión Martí in Cuba and other U.S. government-funded media entities overseen by the U.S. Agency for Global Media, was sudden, harmful and deeply unfair. It places journalists in foreign language services who have devoted years of their lives to their jobs and have done nothing wrong in an impossible position.
To be sure, these agencies have suffered from terrible management decisions in recent years. But to break things by stopping all programming does not make these agencies better. Rather, it weakens their usefulness to U.S. national security.
Members of Congress from both parties must pressure the White House to allow these broadcasters to resume their work as soon as possible, even while supporting the administration’s efforts to restructure, downsize and reform the agency’s bloated and dysfunctional bureaucracy. [Continue reading…]
For the better part of a century, Voice of America has broadcast into countries whose governments censored free information. The Trump administration has dismantled VOA’s parent organization, put all of its employees on leave and ended funding for independent media agencies. Nick Schifrin discussed the move with Mike Abramovitz, the president of Voice of America since last year.
Global Times hails US president’s order to strip back government funding to news organisations he deems ‘radical’
Chinese state media has reacted gleefully to the Trump administration’s decision to slash government funding to media organisations such as Radio Free Asia (RFA) and Voice of America (VOA).
The Global Times, a daily English-language tabloid and Chinese Communist party mouthpiece, celebrated the cuts to the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which oversees broadcasters such as VOA and RFA.
“When it comes to China-related reporting, VOA has an appalling track record,” the Global Times said in an editorial on Monday.
“From smearing human rights in China’s Xinjiang … to hyping up disputes in the South China Sea … from fabricating the so-called China virus narrative to promoting the claim of China’s ‘overcapacity’, almost every malicious falsehood about China has VOA’s fingerprints all over it,” the editorial said.
The Beijing Daily, a newspaper run by the Chinese Communist party (CCP), also published a column commending the cuts. [Continue reading…]
President Donald J. Trump’s executive order on Friday will ensure that taxpayers are no longer on the hook for radical propaganda.
Dan Robinson, a 34-year veteran of Voice of America and its former White House correspondent, wrote last year: “I have monitored the agency’s bureaucracy along with many of its reporters and concluded that it has essentially become a hubris-filled rogue operation often reflecting a leftist bias aligned with partisan national media. It has sought to avoid accountability for violations of journalistic standards and mismanagement.”
Voice of America’s management told staff not to call Hamas and its members terrorists, “except when quoting statements.”
Daily Caller: “Multiple Voice Of America Reporters Have Posted Anti-Trump Content On Social Media”
“Multiple Voice of America (VOA) reporters have repeatedly posted anti-Trump comments on their professional Twitter accounts, despite a social media policy requiring employee impartiality on social media platforms.”
Rep. Scott Perry wrote in a 2022 letter that Voice of America has “grown exceedingly partisan over the past several years.”
A 2016 report from Office of Personnel Management cited by Rep. Perry revealed that Voice of America Persian employees said that outlet tolerated “coercion for partisan political purposes.”
The Washington Free Beacon: “VOA Misallocates Funds and Suppresses Negative Stories About Iran. This Lawmaker Wants To Investigate.”
Voice of America: “What Is ‘White Privilege’ and Whom Does It Help?”
“Today, the phrase is used passionately and widely in the context of racial profiling — police treatment of people as criminal suspects based on their race.”
A 2022 lawsuit claimed Voice of America has “been infiltrated by anti-American, pro-Islamic state interests, and that the message of VOA had been compromised in a manner that was biased toward the Islamic state factions in Iran.”
In October 2020, Voice of America wrote that the “allegations that Russia played a role in perpetuating the scandal to benefit Trump could undermine the emails’ credibility” downplaying the validity of the Hunter Biden laptop story.
In July 2020, Voice of America faced criticism for “sharing a story and video appearing too favorable to presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden.”
In September 2019, the Daily Caller reported that Voice of America employed a Russian anti-U.S. propagandist.
In May 2019, Voice of America fired reporters for their roles in canceling a broadcast midstream after pressure from the Chinese government.
In March 2019, Voice of America ran a segment about transgender migrants seeking asylum in the United States.
The Czech Republic is pushing for EU support to keep Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) running after the Trump administration cut funding for the global broadcaster.
Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky said RFE/RL, based in Prague, “is one of the few credible sources in dictatorships like Iran, Belarus, and Afghanistan”.
In Eastern Europe, the US government-funded outlet reached millions of listeners during the Cold War, helping to spread democratic values while communist authorities tightly controlled local media. [Continue reading…]
The US government is halting financial support for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), whose headquarters is based in Prague. The organization has 21 bureaus and broadcasts in 27 languages to 23 countries, promoting independent journalism. Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský is discussing whether the EU can take over and continue broadcasting at the Council of Europe meeting in Brussels on Monday. [Continue reading…]
‘A silencing of VOA will be celebrated by communists, autocrats and ayatollahs whose lies we shed light on,’ VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb tweeted over the weekend
In what is being described as “Bloody Saturday,” over 1,300 employees at Voice of America were placed on indefinite suspension this weekend after President Donald Trump issued a Friday night edict ordering the U.S. Agency for Global Media, the network’s parent agency, to eliminate its workforce and activities not required by law.
With the state-funded broadcaster — which has been seen as a vital part of America’s soft diplomacy — going largely silent after more than 80 years on the air, VOA journalists and executives are sounding off over what they see as a “betrayal of the ideals” that drove the organization, adding that it will only be “celebrated” by America’s adversaries.
Two days after Trump bristled at a VOA reporter for asking the Irish prime minister about the president’s proposal to displace all Palestinians from Gaza, the White House released an executive order on Friday night that outright gutted the USAGM, which also oversees Radio Free Europe and Radio Free Asia, as well as other non-profit international media outlets. [Continue reading…]
Last week, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that effectively eliminates the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which oversees outlets such as Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia, Radio Liberty and the Office of Cuba Broadcasting.
It’s a move seen by many as Trump’s effort to silence prodemocracy media around the world.
“Hundreds of millions of people are affected,” said Steve Herman, chief national correspondent at Voice of America, who agreed to speak with WTOP in a personal capacity, not as a representative of VOA.
He is currently on administrative leave, along with about 1,300 other VOA employees.
He said the firings could have a chilling effect on prodemocracy media, saying people who live in censored countries where the government controls the news will be at a disadvantage. [Continue reading…]
Curtain Antennas at the Edward R. Murrow Transmitting Station
Following an earlier report from NPR covering (and other sources) the U.S. Agency for Global Media’s restructuring, this is the full official announcement from USAGM. It outlines the agency’s efforts to comply with an executive order aimed at reducing non-statutory functions, cutting costs, and downsizing operations:
USAGM, Senior Advisor Kari Lake cancels obscenely expensive 15-year-lease that burdened the taxpayers and enforces Trump’s Executive Order to drastically downsize agency (USAGM)
Today, in compliance with President Trump’s Executive Order titled, Continuing the Reduction of the Federal Bureaucracy, dated March 14, 2025, the US Agency for Global Media initiated measures to eliminate the non-statutory components and functions to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law. USAGM and the outlets it oversees will be reduced to their statutory functions and associated personnel will be reduced to the minimum presence and function required by law.
This action will impact the agency’s workforce at USAGM, Voice of America, Office of Cuba Broadcasting, and all Grantees. Most USAGM staff affected by this action will be placed on paid-administrative leave beginning Saturday, March 15, 2025, and remain on leave until further notice.
“While at USAGM, I vow to fully implement President Trump’s executive orders in his mission to reduce the size and scope of the federal government. Today we continue the process of doing that by streamlining our operations to what is statutorily required by law,” said USAGM Senior Adviser, Kari Lake. “The US Agency for Global media will continue to deliver on all statutory programs that fall under the agency’s purview and shed everything that is not statutorily required. I fully support the President’s executive order. Waste, fraud, and abuse run rampant in this agency and American taxpayers shouldn’t have to fund it.”
A few of the most egregious findings:
Massive national security violations, including spies and terrorist sympathizers and/or supporters infiltrating the agency
Eye-popping self-dealing involving contracts, grants and high-value settlement agreements
Obscene over-spending including a nearly quarter-of-a-billion-dollar lease for a Pennsylvania Avenue high-rise that has no broadcasting facilities to meet the needs of the agency and included a $9 million commission to a private real estate agent with connections
$100s-of-millions being spent on fake news companies
a product that often parrots the talking-points of America’s adversaries
This agency is not salvageable.
From top-to-bottom this agency is a giant rot and burden to the American taxpayer—a national security risk for this nation—and irretrievably broken. While there are bright spots within the agency with personnel who are talented and dedicated public servants, this is the exception rather than the rule.
It is unfortunate that the work that was done by self-interested insiders in coordination with outside activist groups and radical Leftist advocacy organizations to “Trump-Proof” the agency made it impossible to reform. In fact, they weren’t just “Trump-Proofing” the agency from political leadership, they were accountability-proofing the agency from the American people. They did all this while spending taxpayer money to create false narratives. These were amplified by biased media counterparts with clear conflicts of interest at the Washington Post, NPR and more, to actively cover up their obscene waste, fraud, and abuse.
“This is a significant step toward restoring the greatness of the United States and promoting freedom and democracy. Going forward, I am going to ensure accountability will be the norm and not the exception. I appreciate the work of the dedicated public servants and their contributions to the Agency and its outlets. I look forward to moving forward with modernizing the core mission of telling America’s story throughout the world in a meaningful, impactful and effective way,” Lake added.
Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) are in the sights of Elon Musk, the billionaire entrepreneur appointed by President Donald Trump to oversee the House Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Musk commented on a social media post by Richard Grenell, the U.S. Special Envoy for Special Missions, who said the radio networks are “state-owned media” and “are a relic of the past.”
“Yes, shut them down,” Musk wrote in his reply to the post. “Europe is free now (not counting stifling bureaucracy). Nobody listens to them anymore. It’s just radical left crazy people talking to themselves while torching $1B/year of US taxpayer money.” [Continue reading…]
Update: SWLing Post contributor, Jock Elliott notes that he wrote the following message and sent it via the Whitehouse contact page:
Mr. President;
First, I am not, and never have been, employed by Voice of America or Radio Free Europe.
But you might want to think twice before you shut them down.
If the electronic networks such as internet and mobile phones are ever shut down, you might want a means of communicating with the populations overseas; you might want to factor that into your decision-making process.
If you’re interested in how shortwave services are being affected by the budget, you can do a simple search for the word “shortwave.”
One change of note to the Greenville, NC, transmitting station (page 37):
In FY 2023, USAGM is proposing a realignment of the ERM transmitting station in Greenville, North Carolina under the USAGM’s Office of Technology, Services, and Innovation (TSI), which currently is responsible for other of USAGM’s transmitting stations. The realignment of shortwave resources will effectively
enhance the overall USAGM broadcast mission capabilities by aligning all content
distribution platforms as managed by TSI. This action will decrease OCB’s general
operating expenses by approximately $2.1 million annually
This is a 197 page document and traditional over-the-air services are mentioned frequently.
If you notice relevant points to shortwave services feel free to point them out in the comments and note the page number! Thank you!
Shortwave retains a role in serving particularly difficult-to-reach audiences
Russia’s horrific invasion of Ukraine and its simultaneous blocking of Western media outlets has renewed public interest in shortwave radio broadcasters like the federally funded Voice of America.
Now managed by the U.S. Agency for Global Media or USAGM, VOA’s roots go back to 1941, when the U.S. government leased a dozen commercial broadcaster owned/operated shortwave radio transmitters for the VOA’s predecessor, the U.S. Foreign Information Service. (These shortwave transmitters were previously used by U.S. broadcasters to share content between their AM radio stations.)
The VOA came into being in 1942. It played a major role in broadcasting U.S. news and views to the world during World War Two and the Cold War. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, shifting government priorities, the emergence of platforms competing with shortwave, and budget cuts led to VOA’s language services, broadcasts and programming being reduced.
Today, “USAGM operates transmitting stations around the world, including in the U.S., Africa, Europe and Asia,” Laurie Moy, USAGM’s director of public affairs said in an email earlier this year.
“All of these stations are equipped with multiple shortwave transmitters, and four of these stations have a medium-wave (AM) transmitter each. In total, USAGM’s network consists of about 75 shortwave (ranging from 100 to 250 kW) and medium-wave (ranging from 100 to 1000 kW) transmitters.”
The agency also has access to shortwave and medium-wave transmitters via leases and exchange agreements with other broadcasters.
At present, USAGM produces content in 63 languages, 35 of which are aired on shortwave and medium-wave. VOA itself produces content in 48 languages, 18 of which are aired on shortwave and medium-wave.
“In terms of the agency’s shortwave network, shortwave continues to reach particularly difficult-to-reach audiences, such as in North Korea, western China, Afghanistan and elsewhere,” Moy told Radio World. [Continue reading…]
If a tornado or flash flood is imminent, most Americans find out about it through a smartphone or a television.
But as the National Weather Service was reminded in the wake of the deadly Dec. 10, 2021 Kentucky tornado, one segment of the population uses neither of those things: the Amish, who shun technology.
As meteorologists studied damage in the days that followed that storm, which killed 80 people and damaged hundreds of homes, they encountered an Amish community in Ohio County, Kentucky, and asked: How do you get severe weather information?
“They basically said they listen for the weather sirens from town,” said Derrick Snyder, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. But as loud as storm sirens are, not everyone is close enough to hear.
A solution may be on the way, as the agency teams with a national radio maker as part of the Weather Awareness for a Rural Nation initiative. Snyder and other meteorologists are part of a project developing weather radios that will be both effective in relaying information immediately, but also acceptable for the Amish lifestyle.
It will be a stripped-down, hand-crank model with absolutely no modern amenities. Continue reading →
I received the following inquiry from Neal Lavon via the Shortwave Radio Audio Archive contact form. Check out Neal’s request below and if you have any information or leads that might help him, please comment.
Neal writes:
I am working on a project about a Voice of America broadcaster from 1952-54 named Billy Brown. He was a 16 year-old kid who launched a Pen Pals club by speaking on a Voice of America broadcast to the Near East, particularly Pakistan.
The announcements were so successful they generated hundreds of responses and led to him getting a 15-minute weekly radio program on VOA in English that was later translated into Urdu. The programs were broadcast on Friday nights at 1530 GMT on 17750, 16.90; 15130, 19.30. The relay were TAN 17780 16.87 15230 19.70, and Colombo 15120 19.84. At least, I think those are the frequencies; it comes as close as I can get it.
So far, I have not been able to find any surviving tapes of this broadcast at the National Archives or the Library of Congress. The family does not have any tapes. So I am wondering, hope against hope, if somehow, somewhere, someone in the region or someone else might have a copy of this. I would greatly appreciate it.
Neal Lavon, Takoma Park, Maryland, former VOA Staffer.
This would have been in the very early days of home recording so I imagine it might be difficult to find audio from Billy Brown’s broadcasts. If you have any leads, please comment.
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