============
VoR terminates Shortwave for Europe and North America
Samara, probably little known outside Russia, but the country’s sixth-largest city, may be getting ready for the FIFA soccer world cup in 2018, but it will probably disappear from the maps of shortwave enthusiasts.
swldxbulgaria / BDXC:
-St Petersburg SW/MW site is closing (including MW 1494 kHz)
-Samara SW site is also reported to be closing.
-Mayak is closing on MW/LW throughout Russia
-Voice of Russia is reducing some of its SW/MW output across its language services following budget cuts.
I listened to the Voice of Russia‘s (VoR) German broadcasts via Samara a number of times this summer. First time I came across the broadcaster – then still Radio Moscow – was in the 1980s, when I was a teenager. The authentic thing about the station was that they all seemed to be truly proud of their country (or “Union”), but that was basically it – most of it came across as rather surreal. I never became a regular listener, as I didn’t find the way they tried to “teach” their audience correct (or useful) political attitudes terribly charming. But I obviously did write several reception reports, and got several QSL cards with (usually, it seems) photos of Moscow’s touristic spots on them: one of the Lenin Mausoleum (see picture underneath), one of a big, ugly hotel with lots of different national flags above the entrance, and one card featuring a big stadium (probably the site of the 1980 Moscow Olympics).
Radio Moscow QSL, Lenin Mausoleum, 1980s.
I can’t tell for sure, because the scenic explanations on the cards were in Russian.
There were several (more or less) internatonal broadcasters in the Soviet Union besides Radio Moscow: Radio Kiev, Radio Vilnius, or Radio Tashkent, to name a few. But they all seemed to rely on the same pool of transmisson sites, all over the Soviet Union. The Samara site was probably among them, too.
A number of AM broadcasting cuts are going to take effect on January 1, 2013, according to Radio Berlin-Brandenburg (RBB). Besides Samara, Popovka transmission site in Krasny Bor near St. Petersburg will also be shut down. No shortwave broadcasts for Europe and North America anymore, and long-lasting airtime exchange cooperation on shortwave with China Radio International (CRI) has recently been terminated, according to RBB.
In 2003, Deutschlandfunk (DLF, Germany’s national domestic radio) had a feature about the Voice of Russia’s German service. The foreign broadcaster’s German department, now no longer “Radio Moscow”, saw struggles among its staff for free coverage of issues listeners might be interested in, but the department manager, Anatóli Stjópkin, denied that there was censorship. Of course, he was in a position to correct mistakes made by colleagues. There was pressure from the government, the Deutschlandfunk report alledged – and “an insecure manager passed that pressure on to the staff”.
–
============
Recent Logs
International Telecommunication Union letter codes used in the table underneath:
AUS – Australia; BGD – Bangladesh; CHN – China; CLN – Sri Lanka; CUB – Cuba; INS – Indonesia; KOR – South Korea; KRE – North Korea; MDG – Madagasca; THA – Thailand; UGA – Uganda.
Languages (“L.”):
C – Chinese; E – English; F– French; G – German; K – Korean; P – Persian.
–
kHz |
Station |
Ctry |
L. |
Day |
Time
|
S | I | O |
| 12070 | Deutsche Welle Kigali |
UGA | E | Nov 1 | 19:00 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| 17750 | RHC Habana | CUB | F | Nov 2 | 19:30 | 2 | 4 | 2 |
| 5850 | Radio Farda | CLN | P | Nov 2 | 20:16 | 5 | 4 | 4 |
| 7570 | Vo Korea | KRE | E | Nov 3 | 15:00 | 3 | 4 | 3 |
| 9525 | Voice of Indonesia |
INS | G | Dec 13 | 18:06 | 3 | 4 | 3 |
| 11660 | Radio Australia |
AUS | E | Dec 13 | 20:03 | 4 | 3 | 3 |
| 9475 | Radio Australia |
AUS | E | Dec 14 | 14:26 | 4 | 4 | 3 |
| 7250 | Radio Bangladesh *) |
BGD | E | Dec 22 | 18:29 | 3 | 3 | 2 |
| 15160 | KBS Seoul | KOR | K | Dec 23 | 09:23 | 3 | 5 | 4 |
| 15105 | Radio Bangladesh *) |
BGD | E | Dec 28 | 12:29 | 4 | 4 | 3 |
| 9585 | Radio Thailand |
THA | E | Dec 28 | 19:03 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| 11535 | Vo Korea | KRE | C | Dec 28 | 21:00 | 4 | 3 | 3 |
| 11850 | Radio Japan | MDG | F | Dec 29 | 20:30 | 4 | 4 | 3 |
| 17650 | CRI Beijing | CHN | C | Dec 30 | 06:59 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
| 07:15 | 5 | 4 | 4 |
–
____________
Notes
*) The noise of the transmitter itself usually seems to create most of the disturbance. Recording here ».
____________
Related
» Previous log, Sep/Oct 2012, Nov 1, 2012
» Radio Moscow (1985), sporizon / youtube, 2011
» Struggle for supremacy, 1926VictorCredenza / youtube, 2012
» VoR in English
» VoR in German
____________
Justrecently's Weblog 
[…] temporary, too, just as they are at Argentine Radio and TV, and disputes over journalistic content don’t appear to…