Happy New Year

A happy new year of the Rat, and only the healthy ones for your Cat

 

Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR) Christmas Program on Shortwave

As every year, Northern German Radio (NDR) has scheduled a four-hours Christmas program on shortwave – “Gruß an Bord” (greeting all ships) – for December 24, from 19:00 to 23:00 UTC. The program usually begins with a news broadcast of about five minutes at 19 UTC, and the actual Christmas program would start right after that.

[Please mind the updates underneath – Dec 18, 2019]

Leer Reformed Church weather vane, archive / edited

All messages will be pre-recorded, in Leer, a town in northwestern Germany, on December 8, in Hamburg on December 15, and at NDR broadcasting house (where letters and emails will be  accepted until December 15), and be read out on December 24, from 22:15 UTC, according to the NDR schedule. Sometime during the first three hours of the program, a one-hour religious service is usually transmitted.

Radio Berlin-Brandenburg’s (RBB) media magazine has published the broadcasting schedule as follows¹⁾:

19:00 – 21:00 hours UTC

transmitter site	kW	direct	kHz
Nauen, Germany	125	west	6080
Nauen, Germany	125	south- east	9720
Moosbrunn, Austria	100	east	9570
Issoudun, France	250	south- east	9800
Update, Dec 18	125		9740
Issoudun, France	250	south	11650
Noratus, Armenia	100	Europe	6030

21:00 – 23:00 hours UTC

transmitter site	kW	direct	kHz
Nauen, Germany	125	west	6145
Nauen, Germany	125	south- east	9720
Moosbrunn, Austria	100	east	9675
Issoudun, France	250	south- east	9590
Update, Dec 18	125		9740
Issoudun, France	250		9830
Noratus, Armenia	100	Europe	6155

The Nauen site is said to be the oldest continuously operating radio transmitting installation in the world. There was an interruption of about a decade, however, from May 1945 to 1955. By the end of the 1950s, it was also one of Radio Berlin International‘s (RBI) two transmission sites, thus carrying East Germany’s official programs for an international audience.

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Notes

¹⁾ as at November 1 (which seems to suggest that changes aren’t ruled out)

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Updates (Dec 18, 2019)

See Deutsche Welle reference to the NDR program for latest frequencies

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Related

Program history, Dec 25, 2017

Merry Christmas

Weser River, Verden District (West)

Merry Christmas, run, run, Rudolph, and let it snow.

Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR) Christmas Program on Shortwave

Following an established annual routine, Northern German Radio (NDR) broadcasts a four-hours Christmas program on shortwave – “Gruß an Bord” (greeting all ships) – on December 24, from 19:00 to 23:00 UTC.

Update: NDR Christmas Program 2019

_______________________________________
Time	Freq.	Transmit-	Target
(UTC)	(kHz)	ter site	area
___________________________________
19:00 –	6,080	Nauen,	Atlantic N
21:00		Germany
___________________________________
19:00 –	11,650	Issoudun,	Atlantic S
21:00
___________________________________
19:00 –	9,800	Issoudun,	Atlantic,
21:00		France	Indian O.,
			Sth Africa
___________________________________
19:00 –	9,740	Nauen,	Indian
21:00		Germany	Ocean W
___________________________________
19:00 –	9,570	Moos-	Indian
21:00		brunn,	Ocean E
		Austria
___________________________________
19:00 –	6,030	Armenia	Europe
21:00
___________________________________
21:00 –	6,145	Nauen	Atlantic N
21:00
___________________________________
21:00 –	9,830	Issoudun	Atlantic S
21:00
___________________________________
21:00 –	9,590	Issoudun	Atlantic,
23:00			Indian O.,
			Sth Africa
___________________________________
21:00 –	9,720	Nauen	Indian
23:00			Ocean W
___________________________________
21:00 –	9,650	Moos-	Indian
23:00		brunn	Ocean E
___________________________________
21:00 –	6,155	Armenia	Europe
23:00
___________________________________

Sources

Gruss an Bord, NDR, Nov 28, 2018
Background, RBB, Nov 17, 2018
History, Dec 25, 2017

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Happy New Year!

Taipei 101 light and fireworks show, published by the Liberty Times online.

Shortwave Logs, December 2017: Germany’s annual Public-Radio High-Frequency Broadcast

“Gruß an Bord” is one of the oldest programs¹⁾ carried on German public radio, and the only one among these that is still broadcast on shortwave. Once a year, that is. The program starts at 19:00 UTC and runs through 23:00 UTC, i. e. Midnight central European time (see table there).

Christmas Eve on Sunday was that one night a year when a public German-language radio broadcaster returns to shortwave: “Gruss an Bord” is a program where sailors’ relatives and friends send greetings to their loved ones on board, wherever on the seven seas they may be²⁾.

From Norddeich Radio to Deutsche Welle

“Gruß an Bord” first went on air in 1953. Back then, according to Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR, northern German radio), coastal radio station Norddeich Radio beamed the wistful messages across the seas.

It hasn’t been aired every year since, according to an NDR press release of 2009, which provides no notes about at which times there had been interruptions.

Some time after its inception, Germany’s public foreign broadcaster Deutsche Welle must have taken the task of broadcasting “Gruss an Bord” internationally, while NDR has always been in charge of the content.

Haus der Schiffahrt (House of Shipping Companies), Leer (archive)

Norddeich Radio has been defunct since the 1990s, and Deutsche Welle terminated their German-language broadcasts on shortwave in 2011. “Deutschland schafft sich ab” (Germany does itself in), an angry seafarer reportedly wrote in a protest letter.

From Deutsche Welle to Media Broadcast

It appears that the program was limited to VHF/FM and medium wave in December 2011, but in 2012, NDR bought airtime from Media Broadcast, a company that operates the Nauen transmitter station ( a site formerly used by Deutsche Welle). They also coordinate with other broadcasting sites in Europe.

NDR is a public broadcaster operating in the federal states of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg, and Lower Saxony. (As Bremen was part of the American occupation zone in post-war Germany, the city state runs a broadcasting station of its own, Radio Bremen.)

The first hour – and some of the second – of this year’s broadcast were recordings made earlier in December, at Hamburg’s Duckdalben international seamen’s club (or Seemannsmission), a place operated by Germany’s evangelical church. Some time during the second hour of this year’s program, recordings from Leer, a town in Eastern Friesland, Germany’s far northwest, were broadcast. Leer is only a small town, with some 30 to 35 thousand population, but it is a place with a lot of history, and a navigation school. Probably not least thanks to the latter, Leer is considered the place with the second-largest number of shipping companies in Germany, after Hamburg.

In Leer’s “Kulturspeicher”, the NDR’s Lower Saxony broadcasting house also made some recordings, on December 10, to televise a few minutes of them within the state on December 23, in a 3’19” report. (The video should remain online for a few weeks.)

The show felt a bit as if it was from a different era, trade magazine website Radioszene noted four years ago. That’s hard to deny, when you look at the cozy arrangements captured by the NDR cameras.

But then, even in 1979, Werner Bader, head of Deutsche Welle’s German programs at the time, observed that

A minority keeps criticizing, sometimes wittingly, that the two programs [“Gruß an Bord” and “Grüße aus dem Heimathafen”, another sailors’ program] were unctuous. But a majority advocates to carry them forward.
(Eine Minderheit kritisiert immer wieder, in beiden Sendungen gebe es Rührseligkeiten, und sie tut es manchmal auch geistreich witzig. Aber die Mehrheit plädiert für das Wunschkonzert und die “Grüße aus dem Heimathafen”.)

The Audience: families, the wider public …

“Gruß an Bord” is aired by a public broadcaster, and at the same time, it is about family – two rather different target audiences. An NDR editor interviewed in the December 23 report from Leer, tries to match the two:

If this is about feelings, the broadcast is still needed. If someone says that most of the German ships have been equipped with internet for a year now, and that families can skype or text each other, or use Whatsapp – but then, people may sit alone in their bunk, on Christmas Eve, before and after their meals, that’s not the same as if you join everyone else in the mess deck, listening to this broadcast together.
Wenn es um Gefühle geht, dann braucht man die Sendung noch. Wenn jetzt jemand sagt, die deutschen Schiffe sind seit einem Jahr weitgehend mit Internet ausgerüstet, und dann können die Familien miteinander skypen und sich eine SMS schicken oder per Whatsapp kommunizieren, aber da sitzen vielleicht die Leute allein in ihrer Koje am Heiligen Abend, vorm Essen, nach dem Essen, bekommen ihre Whatsapps, das ist ja nicht so, als wenn  man gemeinsam in der Messe sitzt und dann vielleicht gemeinsam diese Sendung hört.

Or as put by an (apparent) senior sailor in a television report from the Hamburg event, the program is

special, because you get the impression that – even if you can be reached by email, smartphone etc. -, the public is aware of you.
Das Besondere an der Sendung ist, dass man eben tatsächlich den Eindruck hat, dass man – auch wenn man über Email, Handy erreichbar ist, trotzdem auch im Bewusstsein der Öffentlichkeit ist.

… and the friends of the high frequencies

I recorded all of the program, and listened to some of it. It remains a reverend institution, and worth listening to. But I think I liked the final twenty-five minutes best. There, letters and emails were read out from an ordinary broadcasting studio – well-structured and carefully thought out messages, rather than improvised talk into microphones.

I have no idea how many people listen to the programs, and where. But when listening to the mails and letters being read out, you realize that a substantial share (if not the majority) of those who listen to the shortwave transmissions must be shortwave aficionados, rather than seafarers:

Bernd Ottenau from Ottenau sends greetings to all members, honorary members and friends of the Radio Taiwan International listeners’ club Ottenau, as well as the international shortwave programs’ German-language editorial offices.
(Bernd Ottenau aus Ottenau grüßt herzlich alle Mitglieder, Ehrenmitglieder und Freunde des Radio Taiwan International Hörerclubs Ottenau, sowie die deutschsprachigen Redaktionen der internationalen Kurzwellenprogramme, und wünscht gesegnete Weihnachten sowie ein gutes neues Jahr 2018.)

A thing Germany has in common with countries like China, India, or Japan are its pasttime associations, and its shortwave listeners’ associations not least. They, too, may be an explanation as to why a radio institution like “Gruß an Bord”, allegedly from a different era, remains on air – at least once a year.

The 6155 kHz relay transmission from Armenia – offering the best signal among all the sites rebroadcasting “Gruß an Bord” – goes off air a few seconds after 23:00 UTC. CPBS Beijing emerges on the same frequency, informing me that it’s the eighth day of the lunar calendar’s  eleventh month today.

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Notes

¹⁾ The “Hafenkonzert” is even older – see Related underneath – “Soundscrapes of the Urban Past”
²⁾ Then again, maybe not exactly on all the seven seas. The Pacific Ocean isn’t among the target areas stated by NDR.

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Related

Soundscrapes of the Urban Past, 2013

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Norddeutscher Rundfunk Christmas Program on Shortwave

Just as in previous years, Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR) broadcasts a program for ship’s crews at sea and their relatives and friends at home on shortwave, from 19:00 to 23:00 UTC (20:00 to 24:00 central European time).

A rotatable directional antenna at Moosbrunn transmitter site, Austria. Wikimedia Commons, click picture for source description)

From 19:00 to 21:00 UTC

6125 kHz, target area northern Atlantic, transmitter in Nauen
9685 kHz, target area Indian Ocean (west), transmitter in Nauen
9925 kHz, target area Atlantic/South Africa/Indian Ocean, transmitter Issoudun
11650 kHz, target area Atlantic (south), transmitter Issoudun
11800 kHz, target area Indian Ocean (east), transmitter Moosbrunn

From 21:05 to 23:00 UTC

6040 kHz, target area northern Atlantic, transmitter in Nauen
9515 kHz, target area Indian Ocean (west), transmitter in Nauen
9765 kHz, target area Indian Ocean (east), transmitter Moosbrunn
9880 kHz, target area Atlantic (south), transmitter Moosbrunn
9925 kHz, target area Atlantic/South Africa/Indian Ocean, transmitter Issoudun

For listeners in Germany or not too far from there, medium wave may also be an option:
702 kHz (Flensburg), 792 kHz (Lingen), 828 kHz (Hanover), and 972 kHz (Hamburg).

Probably the last chance to listen to the program on medium wave, as according to plans, January 13, 2015, will mark the end of medium wave broadcasts by NDR.

Shortwave Log, Northern Germany, February 2014: Bremen loses its Voice

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1. Radio Bremen – some history

Radio Bremen‘s medium wave transmitter near Oberneuland, northeast of Bremen, has been torn down. The about six hectares of the former transmission site will be recultivated, but won’t be turned into building ground, Bremen’s daily Weser Kurier wrote on January 30. The site is surrounded by a natural preserve area. A citizens association reportedly expressed “great joy” about the removal of the 45-meters tall radio tower and the surrounding equipment as it had been a disfigurement of the landscape (“eine Verschandelung der Landschaft”).

Medium wave transmitter, Oberneuland, summer 2010

The Oberneuland site was built in 1998/1999. It replaced a previous transmitter site in Horn-Lehe, also located northeast of Bremen, but somewhat closer to the city than Oberneuland.

The Oberneuland transmitter was switched off in March 2010, which led to some listener protests just less than  200, according to Radio Bremen four years ago.

“The Caller”, Radio Bremen / studio Bremen, HInter der Mauer. Sculpture by Gerhard Marcks. Inscription: “The Caller empathises with the Stentor character who, with a magnanimous and brazen voice, shouted as loud as fifty men.” Created in 1967, commissioned by Radio Bremen.
At the time, Radio Bremen could be heard on VHF/FM, on medium wave, and on shortwave.

The Oberneuland site had been unable to provide supraregional reception of the medium-wave programs in a satisfactory quality, Radio Bremen wrote in a soothing press release of February 9, 2014. Also, the rather small number of less than 200 responses to the transmitter’s switch-off on March 10, 2010 had suggested that most people who tuned in to medium wave were actually rather radio hobbyists than real listeners. The Weser Kurier on January 30 quoted a Radio Bremen speaker as saying that hopes for medium wave as a carrier for digital radio had remined unfulfilled.

Certainly, Oberneuland’s medium wave was no match for its predecessor in Horn-Lehe. Almost fifteen years prior to this small one-tower site in Oberneuland, on January 31, 1999, the VHF/FM radio tower (211 meters high) and the medium-wave radio tower (110 meters high, probably plus a smaller reserve tower) in Horn-Lehe had been demolished. Hundreds of people had their savage amusement that day, looking on from a pedestrian bridge across the highway Autobahn A27.

Until seventeen years ago, Radio Bremen even ran a shortwave transmitter, also on the site in Horn-Lehe, in cooperation with Sender Freies Berlin (SFB, “Free Berlin”). The shortwave broadcasts from Horn-Lehe came from a horizontal rhombic antenna, carried by four radio towers of 25 meters height each. The shortwave broadcasts started in 1961, on 6195 kHz,  and ended on October 1, 1996, on 6190 kHz. The shortwave transmitter was then sold to south-western Germany, to Madascar from there, and may now still be in operation from east of Africa, German shortwave listeners magazine Radio-Kurier wrote in 2012.

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2. Radio Riyadh

BSKSA Saudi Arabia, also known as Radio Riyadh or, in French, as Radio Saoudienne Internationale, has dropped English as a broadcasting language on shortwave, along with a number of French transmissions, reports the British DX Club, in its February 2014 Shortwave Guide for the Middle East. One of the station’s French broadcasts on shortwave continues, however, daily from 14:00 to 15:55 hours UTC on 17660 kHz.

Saudi Arabia shortwave radio, February 4 2014, in French. Click symbol for soundfile.
May be removed ten days after posting.

The target area for the only remaining shortwave broadcast in French are Senegal, Mali, and Cameroun, according to the station’s announcement. While this broadcast still included news during the summer months of last year, at 15:30 UTC, this program item, too, seems to have been dropped now. The focus is on religion, and sometimes on culture, in programs like “the Saudi woman” (La Femme Saoudienne).

According to the British DX Club’s Shortwave Guide for the Middle East, shortwave broadcasts in Arabic to North Africa, to Europe and the Mediterranean, the Middle East, to a number of Asian regions are continued. The transmissions also include Swahili, Indonesian, Urdu, Bengali, Persian, Turkmen, Uzbek, Tajik, and Turkish. For details and frequencies, please go there.

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============

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3. Recent Logs

If you want to try reception, try now.  Some or many of the frequencies may change on March 29/30, with the usual, twice-a-year, adaptation to winter/summer propagation conditions.

International Telecommunication Union letter codes used in the table underneath:

AFS – South Africa; ARG – Argentina; ARS – Saudi Arabia; BOT – Botswana; CAN – Canada; CHN – China; CUB – Cuba; D – Germany; DJI – Djibouti; EGY – Egypt; G – Great Britain; IND – India; IRL – Ireland; KRE – North Korea; PHL – Philippines;  RRW – Rwanda; SWZ – Swaziland; TIB – Tibet, TUR – Turkey; USA – USA.

Languages (“L.”):

? – unknown; A – Arabic; C – Chinese; E – English; F – French; G – German; J – Japanese; R – Russian; S – Spanish; T – Tagalog.

kHz	Station	Ctry	L.	Day	GMT	S	I	O
4905	PBS Tibet	TIB	E	Feb 2	16:06	3	4	3
9615	CRI Beijing	CHN	G	Feb 2	18:00	3	4	3
9525	Radio Pilipinas	PHL	T/ E	Feb 3	17:30	4	4	4
11890	Radio Pilipinas	PHL	T/ E	Feb 3	17:30	2	3	2
15190	Radio Pilipinas	PHL	T/ E	Feb 3	17:30	1	3	1
7850	CHU Ottawa	CAN	E/ F	Feb 4	04:42	3	4	3
17660	BSKSA Riyadh	ARS	F	Feb 4	14:01	4	4	4
4905	PBS Tibet	TIB	E	Feb 4	16:16	3	4	3
11710	RAE Buenos Aires	ARG	E	Feb 6	02:00	2	4	2
3995	HCJB Weener- moor	D	R	Feb 6	04:00	4	5	4
7550	AIR Delhi	IND	E	Feb 8	17:55	4	5	4
3995	HCJB Weener- moor	D	G	Feb 8	19:14	4	5	4
4905	PBS Tibet	TIB	E	Feb 9	16:00	4	4	4
4920	PBS Tibet	TIB	E	Feb 9	16:00	3	4	3
4905	PBS Tibet	TIB	E	Feb 10	16:00	4	4	3
15235	Channel Africa	AFS	E	Feb 10	17:02	4	5	4
7550	AIR1) Delhi	IND	E	Feb 10	18:15	5	5	5
11710	RAE Buenos Aires	ARG	E	Feb 13	02:01	2	4	2
11710	RAE Buenos Aires	ARG	E	Feb 13	02:15	3	4	3
9410	R. Cairo	EGY	G	Feb 15	19:00	4	5	12)
5060	PBS Xinjiang	CHN	C	Feb 16	02:49	2	3	2
4930	VoA Botswana	BOT	E	Feb 16	03:00	4	5	3
4780	Radio Djibouti	DJI	A	Feb 16	03:30	3	4	3
7425	Deutsche Welle Kigali	RRW	E	Feb 16	04:00	3	5	3
5040	Radio Habana Cuba	CUB	E	Feb 16	06:00	4	5	4
4905	PBS Tibet	TIB	E	Feb 16	16:00	3	2	23)
3985	R. Prague	D	G	Feb 16	16:30	4	5	4
3985	R. Poland	D	G	Feb 16	17:00	4	4	4
9720	R. Cairo	EGY	?	Feb 17	01:57	4	5	1
9720	R. Cairo	EGY	?	Feb 17	02:00	4	5	1
6155	Channel Africa	AFS	E	Feb 17	03:00	3	3	3
11710	RAE Buenos Aires	ARG	E	Feb 21	02:40	4	5	4
15235	Channel Africa	AFS	E	Feb 21	17:00	4	5	4
7550	AIR Delhi	IND	E	Feb 21	17:40	5	5	5
7550	AIR1) Delhi	IND	E	Feb 21	18:30	4	5	4
11710	RAE Buenos Aires	ARG	J	Feb 22	01:00	4	5	4
11710	RAE Buenos Aires	ARG	E	Feb 22	02:00	4	5	4
3215	WWCR	USA	E	Feb 22	03:30	3	4	3
3240	TWR Swazi- land	SWZ	?	Feb 22	03:34	3	4	3
3413 (USB)	Shannon Volmet	IRL	E	Feb 22	03:42	4	4	4
2872 (USB)	Shan- wick	G/ IRL	E	Feb 22	03:53	4	4	4
3995	HCJB Weener- moor	D	R	Feb 22	04:10	4	4	3
4765	Radio Progreso	CUB	S	Feb 22	04:16	3	4	3
4905	PBS Tibet	TIB	E	Feb 22	16:03	3	4	3
4500	PBS Xinjiang	CHN	?	Feb 23	17:30	4	4	4
17660	BSKSA Riyadh	ARS	F	Feb 24	14:00	4	5	4
15235	Channel Africa	AFS	E	Feb 24	17:00	5	5	4
17540	Radio Impala	?4)	E	Feb 24	17:30	5	5	4
3950	PBS Xinjiang	CHN	C	Feb 24	23:10	4	5	4
3950	PBS Xinjiang	CHN	C	Feb 25	00:00	4	5	4
15205	BSKSA Riyadh	ARS	A	Feb 25	16:42	5	5	5
6170	Stimme Koreas	KRE	G	Feb 25	19:00	4	5	4
15190	Radio Pilipinas	PHL	T/ E	Feb 26	19:04	4	4	3
15345	RAE Buenos Aires	ARG	G	Feb 26	21:00	3	2	2
11710 5)	RAE Buenos Aires	ARG	E	Feb 27	02:00	4	3	3
11710 5)	RAE Buenos Aires	ARG	E	Feb 27	02:40	4	4	4
4775	TWR Swazi- land	SWZ	?	Feb 28	03:42	3	4	3

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Footnotes

¹⁾ received with a Silver XF 900 and its built-in telescopic antenna (SIO 555). All India Radio had occasional blackouts early in February (usually for around or less than a minute), but the signal rarely leaves anything to be desired otherwise. All other broadcasts received with a Sony ICF 2001D shortwave receiver and a simple wire antenna (12 meters length) or a dipole (east-west) respectively.
²⁾ great signal, but modulation remains the usual disaster, hence O=1.
³⁾ strong interference from upper-side band.
¹⁾ either from Uganda (which seems to appear unlikely when you looking at their program which is critical of the Ugandan government, but but Uganda is their location according to their website), or from Madagascar.
⁵⁾ Possibly around 11710.7 kHz. However, it may also have been tries to escape interfering signals that made RAE appear to be more than 0.5 kHz above nominal frequency.

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Related

» Logs January 2014
» Logs December 2013
» Führungskrise, Frankfurter Rundschau, Dec 5, 2008
» Teilprivatisierung und Tarife, verdi, June 30, 2006

Main Tag: » shortwave radio

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