Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR) appears to cut “Gruss an Bord” down to Three Hours

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U p d a t e !

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Christmas is approaching, and so is a German shortwave classic – “Gruß an Bord” (“Greeting all Ships”), produced by Northern German Radio (Norddeutscher Rundfunk, NDR) and transmitted on shortwave (to Europe, the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean) as well as on VHF/FM in Hamburg and in its neighboring northern German states.

All ears

Unfortunately, there’s conflicting information about the duration of the program. According to info posted by NDR itself only yesterday (Friday), they cut the program from the usual four to only three hours (and only two hours on VHF/FM). As that is the more recent info, I’ll post it first.

1. NDR timetable

According to them (and they published their schedule only on Friday), the broadcast begins at 18 UTC and ends at 21 UTC – that would be a one-hour reduction, compared to previous years. (The VHF/FM broadcast has even been cut back to two hours only.)

This could be plausible, too, because there will be no recordings from the usual venues in Hamburg and Leer, and most greetings will be taken and read out by e-mail, to avoid gatherings during the fourth “corona wave”.
But to reduce the airtime would still be bad style, especially as they haven’t mentioned this explicitly, leaving it to their global audience to find out.

2. ADDX timetable

“ADDX-Kurier”, probably Germany’s biggest printed media magazine, published the following schedule (copy deadline around Nov 15 Dec 15).
The first half of the program is (or was, originally, who knows?)  scheduled to run from 19 to 21 hours UTC (aka Greenwich Mean Time), on the following frequencies:

target area	frequency	transmitter
Europe	6030 kHz	Gavar
Atlantic (N)	6080 kHz	Nauen
Indian Ocean (E)	9570 kHz	Moosbrunn
Indian Ocean	9740 kHz	Nauen
South Africa	9800 kHz	Issoudun
Atlantic (S)	11650 kHz	Issoudun

Frequencies would change around 21:00 UTC as follows:

target area	frequency	transmitter
Europe	6155 kHz	Gavar
Atlantic (N)	6145 kHz	Nauen
Indian Ocean (E)	9675 kHz	Moosbrunn
Indian Ocean	9740 kHz	Nauen
South Africa	9590 kHz	Issoudun
Atlantic (S)	9830 kHz	Issoudun

Gavar is a transmitter site in Armenia, Nauen is a transmitter site west of Berlin, Germany, Moosbrunn is an Austrian transmitter site (also known for daily broadcasts of Austria’s domestic “Ö1” ORF public radio), and Issoudun is a transmitter site in central France, known as a relay for Radio France Internationale (RFI) and Radio Japan (NHK).
Updates will follow here, if available.

Tags: America, Europe, Germany, Gruss an Bord, Hamburg, international, media, shortwave radio