Radio Austria International (RÖI) returned to its usual 70- to 80-minutes shortwave broadcasts late last week, with transmissions from 05:00 to 06:20 UTC from Monday through Friday, and from 05:00 to 06:10 UTC on Saturdays and Sundays. This followed several weeks of reduced RÖI airtime, from 05:30 to 06:10/06:20 UTC only, caused by problems with one of the three (or four) shortwave transmitters at the Moosbrunn shortwave transmitting site.
On April 14, Radio Berlin-Brandenburg‘s (RBB) media magazine, apparently based on information from the company operating Moosbrunn station or from Radio Austria, reported that a vacuum variable capacitor had to be replaced, and that Moosbrunn would be back to normal after spare part delivery and fixture.
RBB noted that only two transmitters were functional at the time, and that the operators had to switch the first thirty minutes of RÖI’s morning transmission to Radio Japan, which also goes on air from Moosbrunn at 05:00 UTC. After the end of radio programs produced for listeners outside Austria, the Moosbrunn operators have relied on selling airtime to a number of foreign radio stations, including Radio Japan, Adventist World Radio, DARC (Germany’s ham radio association airs a one-hour broadcast on every Sunday morning from there), the BBC, and a number of other broadcasters (see table there).
Radio Japan invariably broadcasts via Moosbrunn from 05:00 to 05:30 UTC during the winter and the summer season. RÖI’s program varies with daylight saving time. It is aired from 07:00 to 07:20/07:10 central European time and during European Summer Time alike, which spells 06:00 – 07:20/07:10 UTC from late October to late March, and 05:00 – 06:20/06:10 from late March to late October.
Listeners were in for a surprise on May 16 however, when RÖI went on air at 05:00 UTC, to give only two news headlines and then go back off air. It came back around 05:30 UTC, as had been the case during the previous weeks, but I’m told that on Thursday morning (this morning, May 17), the program was safely on air all through the scheduled first half hour (and probably beyond).
According to RBB, the operators of Moosbrunn transmitting station air RÖI’s domestic program (there is no program targeted at listeners abroad by RÖI anyway) out of legal necessity, to justify the operations, as pro forma, the site still serves to convey information concerning Austria to an audience abroad.
(That said, the RÖI program broadcast on shortwave is part of the domestic broadcasting routine, and therefore, obviously, all in German.)
RÖI programs are broadcast on 6155 kHz, while Radio Japan’s programs are using 5975 kHz. Radio Japan’s broadcast is in English, and there haven’t been German programs produced by Japan’s foreign radio for decades. In 1987, the German service had celebrated its 50th anniversary.
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