#foreign-radio — Public Fediverse posts

Channel Africa: “60 years of telling stories”

The station keeps it short, with a look back at the Radio RSA history (that’s the name under which the undertaking started in 1966), and a more recent staff member’s testimony.

The website has been refurbished recently, but Channel Africa’s shortwave transmissions ended in 2019.

NASB Conference 2026 / “America@250: Due Diligence” on WRMI

The NASB, the U.S. National Association of Broadcasters, holds its annual meeting in Birmingham, Alabama, on May 28 and 29, 2026. Eike Bierwirth and Steve Herman will be among the speakers there. Bierwirth is scheduled to present his publicly available online databases of shortwave transmissions. Herman, Voice of America national reporter, is currently on an "excused absence" and/or among the VoA staff on "administrative leave" while the Trump administration continues its campaign to gain control over the country’s external broadcasters, including VoA.

Herman currently works as is now the Executive Director of the Jordan Center for Journalism Advocacy and Innovation at the University of Mississippi, and will "announce details of his organization’s new weekly podcast and radio program (including on shortwave)".

The program, "America@250: Due Diligence", is set to air June through December on more than 50 radio stations as part of the country’s semiquincentennial". Among thesebroadcasters is WRMI, where it can be heard on Saturdays at 16:00 UTC on 9395 kHz and on Sunday mornings at 00:00 UTC on 5050 kHz shortwave.

The Voice of Vietnam’s Way to Celebrate

Both listeners among the German and Japanese-speaking audience seem to feel that the Voice of Vietnam hasn’t paid much attention to the foreign-language services’ respective anniversaries (the German programs first aired on March 1, 2006, and the Japanese programs first went on air on April 29, 1963).

Apparently, the [German-language department’s] anniversary wasn’t greatly solemnized and a public-relations opportunity was therefore wasted internally and externally,

Germany’s "Radio-Kurier" noted in its April edition this year. The paper added that the anniversary did get a mention in the decentralized German letterbox program.

The International Shortwave Report (国際短波放送情報), a Japanese blog, seems to see it the same way, if Google Translate is correct:

Yesterday marked the 63rd anniversary of the station’s Japanese-language broadcast, but no news or special programs related to this were aired; it was a regular programming schedule.

The perspectives from in- and outside the "Voice" probably differ.

The station, then only North Vietnam’s foreign radio station, was founded on September 7, 1945, and seems to have seen itself as a multi-language unit since, rather than as a combination of standalone-language departments. In its own words, in September 2016,

[t]he Voice of Vietnam’s world service (VOV5) broadcasts in twelve languages: English, French, Japanese, Russian, Chinese, German, Thai, Lao, Cambodian, Indonesian, Spanish, and Vietnamese. Since the first broadcast on September 7, 1945, VOV5 has made giant leaps forward, meeting the information needs of foreigners and overseas Vietnamese.

The same VoV article quotes an overseas Vietnamese, a Chinese, and a French listener – each of them is quoted to celebrate the complete organization’s anniversary.

So last year marked the Voice of Vietnam’s 80th anniversary in the first place. No department was or is supposed to tower over the rest of the organization. Besides, while the moderation styles sometimes differ widely between the departments, the message is defined by the Communist Party’s propaganda office. It has been the same for every language service anyway, and reportedly, the authorities’ control over news outlets will only tighten further.

Chinese listeners won’t complain: VoV’s Chinese service opened along with the complete radio station, even if only in Cantonese at first. Standard Chinese programs followed "shortly afterwards" (VoV didn’t even care to name an exact date, and apparently, noone took offense).

My Favorite Stations on Shortwave

This is who – and why (5 = excellent; 1 = poor; 0 = no data):

(If you wonder about the eleven "categories", there’s actually one station among those I frequently listen to that broadcasts live, occasionally. That’s Vatican Radio.) I only looked at stations that I logged at least nine times since January 1 this year.

Vatican Radio Shortwave Transmissions during Easter

Several Vatican events that will be covered on shortwave frequencies. It may be worthwile to tune in to the frequencies some time before the stated transmission times – they sometimes go on air earlier than scheduled.

The World of Radio before and after March 28th

Sweden

B25 is ending, and A26 will be here in a few hours UTC. Frequency changes are upon us, and as usual, it may take a few days or even weeks befor the removal dust has settled.

One of the knowns is the Swedish DX Federation’s shortwave transmission on Channel 292’s 9670 kHz on April 3 (Good Friday) from 08:00 to 09:00 UTC and from 15:00 to 16:00 UTC. Contact data there.

Programs in Chinese & other regional languages

As for Chinese broadcasters, A26 shortwave frequencies used on the national and provincial level, as well as international broadcasters’ A26 frequencies targeting Chinese-speaking audiences can be found on Xiaomage’s blog. All India Radio’s, aka Akashvani’s, Chinese-language programs are usually jammed or co-channeled, but can be heard rather well when you listen through an remote SDR receiver inside India.

The international Chinese-language schedule also includes programs like NHK Radio Japan and Radio Exterior de Espana’s once-a-week shortwave transmission. Times given there are Chinese standard time, i. e. UTC+8. Malaysia’s Mandarin program on shortwave, according to Xiaomage, runs 01:00 to 02:00 UTC and from 02:10 to 04:00 UTC on 11885 kHz. The program in between, from 02:00 to 02:10 UTC, is in Hakka. John Jurasek’s Voice of Report of the Week’s Asia edition from 09:00 to 10:00 UTC on 9705 kHz on Thursdays, is also mentioned.

Japan

More schedules by Radio Japan can be found on the NHK radio schedule. English, already only a shadow of itself during the past years, has now been reduced to 29 minutes a day from Monday to Friday, and eleven minutes on Saturdays and Sundays. The transmission comes directly from Yamata, so it seems that the Issoudun relay has been cut. French for Africa can still be heard twice a day, but also only directly from Yamata.

On the plus side, Radio Japan has expanded its transmissions to the Middle East, reportedly with a 24-hours program per day. A NHK press release of March 9 gives details about times (Japan STandard time, deduct 9 hours for UTC) and frequencies.

Romania

Radio Romania International (RRI) has published schedules for its English and (maybe, no year given) German transmissions, but not yet for their French and Spanish transmissions. RRI online’s Mandarin schedule may or may not be up to date; according to Xiaomage, we should expect the DRM transmission on 17760 kHz from 12:30 to 13:00 UTC, and a rebroadcast of the previous day’s DRM transmission, but then in analogue mode, on 21550 kHz.

Radio Taiwan International’s Shortwave Transmissions in English

Something is weird at Radio Taiwan International (RTI). Their English-language transmission for South Asia on 9405 kHz, at 16:00 UTC, usually comes in rather well in Europe, too. However, the opening bulletins are always old news. It was the Friday bulletin when I listened on Monday (yesterday), and the Monday bulletin when I listened again on Tuesday (today). On both days, the audio files they had chosen for transmission were actually correct – Monday’s program was according to schedule with "Beyond the Reefs" and "Doomscroll News Report" on Monday, and "Hear in Taiwan" on Tuesday. But why the old news on an otherwise current reel?

I found the same pattern on July 11 last year, when that Friday program ran the Thursday news bulletin.

This means that a news bulletin that the European audience gets to hear in French and German at 19:00 UTC on one day, will be beamed to South Asian listeners only a day – 21 hours – later.

The English transmissions are still worth to be listened to, but RTI gives away a classical ace that radio could and should have: speediness, if not realtime newsbreaking.

Suggestion: let’s send the occasional reception report to RTI’s English service, and express our surprise that the only English-language transmission available on shortwave (as far as I know, it is their only one) broadcasts old news. To show that we care might help keeping the program on air.

HFCC A26 Transmission and Programme schedules / BBC World Service’s Internet Focus “backfires”

The HFCC have published their global B25 A26 shortwave plan, taking effect mostly on March 29 (with some likely exceptions in North America). The organization says it seeks to eliminate "inaccuracies and ‘reserve’ frequency requirements from the global schedule database".

The HFCC global shortwave plans are among the most meaningful reference points to find or identify broadcasts on shortwave, arguably along with Eibi Space, and the BDXC’s frequently updated DX Guides.

While shortwave usage is indeed shrinking, international broadcasters may sometimes jump to premature conclusions. Recent reports suggest that the BBC World Service’s shift to online media has "backfired". Shortwave isn’t mentioned in particular here, but the BBC had been warned:

As transmitters can’t go on strike or lobby politicians, they can be cut with the promise of the internet. There are many pros for internet services and streaming in general, such as ease of implementation, low running costs and less need for specialized technical staff,

RedTech’s Ruxandra Obreja wrote in February 2023, adding that

However, the most important attribute of shortwave, beyond its free availability, is the anonymity it offers listeners. This may not be so important in, say, Britain or the United States, but it is significant in authoritarian states like China or Myanmar. The truth is that millions of people still rely on free-to-air radio in the car or at home for news, information, entertainment, education and the increasingly essential emergency warnings.

There may be a bit of a silver lining now, for the BBC:

[t]he BBC World Service will see funding increased by an additional £33 million over the next three years, Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper

was expected to confirm last week, according to the "Independent".

After decades of BBC-bashing by Labour and Tories alike, March 2026 seems to become BBC appreciation month.

White House nominates new Head for USAGM

The White House has noninated Sarah B. Rogers, currently the U.S. Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, to be Chief Executive Officer of the United States Agency for Global Media. Her nomination was sent to the Senate on Thursday.

A slightly gleeful Yahoo article notes that

[t]wo-time failed gubernatorial candidate Lake was removed from the role after U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, a Reagan administration nominee, ruled on Saturday that she had been running the agency in violation of the law, labeling her a “de facto” CEO.

China’s shrinking Radio Landscape

There are facts about China’s international broadcasting, and there are various options to interpret the changes it is undergoing. The China Media Project (CMP), once based in Hong Kong, now in Taiwan, sees a trend in China to "streamline" domestic media, namely radio and television channels, on classic terrestial or satellite frequencies.

While covering the trend, CMP also link to an earlier report funded by the Swedish Psychological Defence Agency.

The latter report focuses on the transformation of Chinese "external propaganda" from the past century into that of this early century, something that may be called "telling China’s story well" or (the same thing under a different name) an international "public opinion struggle". Either way, it comes as regionally decentralized, but politically as centrally controlled as ever.

Some trends in international and domestic mediawork are universal: a shift from linear broadcasting, classically on terrestrial frequencies, to media work that integrates broadcasting (frequently online), podcasting, use of video platforms, plus social media such as X, Bluesky, Tiktok, or Wechat.

Even though this kind of media integration is a familiar trend in Western countries, too,

[m]uch of the West’s understanding of China’s external propaganda apparatus remains anchored to an outdated model from the era of what scholars and ers of PRC communication and disinformation have termed “mega external propaganda” (大外宣), or da waixuan — essentially the structure of central staterun media such as Xinhua News Agency, China Daily, and CGTN that was bolstered from the late 2000s under Hu Jintao, and which has been amplified with mixed success through global social media platforms.

In fact, it would seem that Chinese external propaganda has been turned into sort of a rabbithole, both locally "decentralized" and in terms of platform variety, where Peking’s "struggle" may remain unnoticed by media watchers (except for the actual target groups). Can BBC Monitoring keep pace?

My first impression after the end of China Radio International (as we know it) was that Chinese external propaganda had abandoned the West as a bunch of lost souls. That was probably a too radiocentric view. The CMP reports draw up a different picture – after all, the decline of traditional radio broadcasting isn’t limited to China’s external propaganda, but includes domestic media, too.

Radio workers in Europe, possibly the Americas and parts of Oceania, and obviously in China, see the same trend at work. Wide ranges of the audience everyhwere, especially the younger, adopt new "media consumption" habits from the start.

All the same, China’s efforts – this is my impression, and not a statistic! – do seem to shift, to some extent, from Western audiences to South East Asian, East Asian, Central Asian and African ones.

Western countries remain target areas for China’s opinion struggle, but developing countries may provide audiences with better returns, i. e. appreciation rates. From China’s perspective, mediaworking on Africa’s public opinion looks more rewarding than mediaworking on car-making countries like Germany.

After all, the common trend in China and the West is no coincidence. It reflects converging technological levels and levels of consumption. These economies aren’t as complementary as they used to be, and sharper economic competition may have led to less openness for China’s propaganda in places like Europe.

Shortwave Airtime extended for Lantern Festival Gala Transmission on March 3

Based on HFCC data, KBYS Radio blog expects extended airtime on China Radio International frequencies:

7205 and 17670 kHz are regular frequencies, but extended by one hour on March 3, while 17690 kHz has been added for this specific occasion.

Voice of Nigeria, “Milestones Recorded”

PR Nigeria reports a visit paid by Voice of Nigeria (VoN) Director General Mallam Jibrin Baba Ndace to Governor Abdullahi Sule, "a blessing to Nasarawa State" according to this promotional video.

Ndace was appointed by President Tinubu (himself quite a believer in radio works) in October 2023, and has "recorded milestones" since.

He "expressed appreciation for the Governor’s consistent support and reaffirmed the organisation’s commitment to projecting Nasarawa State’s policies, programmes, and investment opportunities to global audiences", and noted that the 250 kW shortwave transmitting station in Lugbe was "set to restore one of the most powerful broadcasting facilities on the African continent with modern, digitally compatible technology".

The article’s wording suggests that Governor Abdullahi was more interested in VoN plans to introduce a Mandarin service, "given the presence of Chinese-owned mining companies operating in the state".
If he will be a blessing for Ndace’s shortwave project remains to be seen.

Rebuilding the transmitter which has been "dormant for over a decade" doesn’t look like a piece of cake.

Listening

What do I enjoy doing most in my leisure time?
I enjoy listening to shortwave, and sometimes mediumwave radio. A term for this kind of hobby is "DXing". Obviously, the internet is important, too. But a message transmitted on the radiowaves suggests a degree of seriousness – about that message – that a post on a website or on "social media" doesn’t.

The same is true for my end of the information supply chain, when I’m listening to the radio. Listening to an online stream is easier. It only takes a click or a few. But when I want to listen to a radio transmission, it really means listening.

In an editorial for its current club magazine edition, in the context of portable and programmable world band receivers, the Indian DX Club International writes that

Portable DXing is not without its challenges. Urban noise continues to increase. Portable radios are often used in environments less controlled than in a dedicated shack. Dynamic range limitations remain real. Software dependence introduces variability.

There is also the risk of over-simplification – of reducing DXing to scanning rather than listening. This risk is cultural, not technical, and must be addressed through education and mentorship.

Listening is the whole point. It helps that there is no keyboard around for you to "voice" your opinion about everything. Next to the radio, you are all ears, and reflection.

BBC and Radio Farda resume Broadcasts to Iran on Shortwave and MW

BBC Persian

The BBC apparently reacts to the current internet blackout in Iran. The frequency list was posted on bbc.com on January 13.
Update, Jan 18:
See today’s edition of Shortwave Bulletin (SWB 2097), page 6, for transmission sites. The times given there are Tehran Time (UTC + 3.5 h).

Radio Farda

Radio Farda (or Radio Liberty) published a press release on January 10, explicitly citing Iran’s internet blackout as the reason for the decision to get back to the shortwave bands. According to the British DX Club’s (BDXC) "Middle East on Shortwave" update of January 14, Radio Farda resumed broadcasting on January 10, two days ahead of schedule (times and frequencies there, page 4).

#BBC #foreignRadio #internet #Iran #mediumWave #RadioFreeEurope #shortwave

Vatican Radio with “Closing of Holy Door” on Shortwave, January 6

Program & frequency announcement

Vatican Radio will transmit the Closing of Holy Door and Holy Mass on Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord on Tuesday, January 6,
in Chinese from 08:20 to 10:20 UTC on 21760 kHz,
in English from 08:20 to 10:20 UTC on 17540 kHz, and
in French from 08:20 to 10:20 UTC on 17520 kHz.

Shortwave Bulletin No. 2096

Thomas Nilsson has posted the the Shortwave Bulletin’s (SWB) latest edition yesterday (Sunday), with 16 pages of observations of the annual Christmas Shortwave Marathons (this time on two consecutive days), shortwave listening advice from Ron Howard, links, info and recent logs from various parts of the world, some station news, Kai Ludwig’s retirement acknowledgments (English translation of his last column), musings on the future of portable DXing, and RFK’s nostalgia pages with some historic QSL cards and their stories.

Happy New Year!

#Africa #AsiaPacific #China #foreignRadio #newYear #shortwave #Vatican

KBS Audience Satisfaction Survey 2025

KBS World Radio’s German service gave details of the 2025 Audience survey in its mailbag show on Friday night. 2,315 listeners from 83 countries took part, 112 of them were from German-speaking regions (this usually refers to Austria, Germany and Switzerland). The German-speaking participants also gave the service in their language the best marks, with 93 of 100 points.

Most listeners (61.1 per cent) showed a particular interest in news and information from South Korea, which makes the news (1), and "Kreuz und Quer durch Korea" (2) a program that corresponds with the French-service "Séoul au Jour le Jour" and the Mandarin service’s "jīnrì shǒu’ěr". The mailbag program came in third among the German-speaking listeners who gave feedback.

K-pop music fared less well among them, while globally, programs focused on K-pop ranks second, only behind news and information.

The share of shortwave users among the global audience dropped for the third consecutive year. It had been at 36 per cent among the 2023 respondents, at 31.4 per cent in 2024, and is now at 23.8 per cent.
On the other hand, the total number of survey participants rose for the third consecutive year, from 1,730 in 2023 to 2,315 this year.

Despite the drop in shortwave listeners, continued use of shortwave has been recommended, because in some regions (including the German-speaking ones), it continues to be the main listener’s choice.

Among the global participating audience, 46.2 per cent listened to the KBS homepage streaming, and the share of app users was 23.2 per cent.

#austria #entertainment #foreignRadio #germany #kbsWorldRadio #languages #shortwave #southKorea

Radio Romania International’s B25 Winter Frequencies

Radio Romania International’s (RRI) English service will return to winter frequencies on Sunday, October 26, as announced on their website. Their Mandarin Chinese service is aired every early afternoon from 13:30 to 14:00 UTC in DRM on 9580 kHz, with a rebroadcast on the following day from 05:00 to 05:30 UTC with an analog signal on 17710 kHz.
There is no frequency information from the German service yet (I’ll try to post an update when available).
Radio Romania International currently invites listeners’ opinions on cyber security issues. This activity is also run by other RRI language services.

#broadcasting #Europe #foreignRadio #languages #RadioRomaniaInternational #Romania #shortwave

Radio Taiwan International on Air in Japanese on October 10 National Holiday

Radio Taiwan International will air coverage of Taiwan’s national-holiday celebrations in Japanese on October 10, from 02:00 to 03:00 UTC, on 15625 kHz. Excerpts of the live coverage are scheduled to be rebroadcast at 11:00 UTC. EiBi’s Space lists the 11:00 UTC transmission as a regular one in Japanese, on 9740 kHz from Paochung.

No idea yet what the frequencies for the Mandarin transmission will be – but I’m taking it for granted that the shortwave tradition remains in place.
 

#foreignRadio #Japan #languages #RadioTaiwanInternational #shortwave #Taiwan

Voice of Indonesia back on 9690 kHz

Voice of Indonesia is reportedly back on 9690 kHz, even if with a few “buts”, like low radiation power. VoI airs in Chinese at 11:00 and 15:00 UTC for an hour respectively, possibly with some interference from Radio Taiwan International’s Vietnamese service (although that may not be an issue outside East Asia).

So, with luck, 3325, 4755 and 9690 kHz may all provide reception opportunities, depending on where you are, what the situation is like, etc..

VoI broadcasts in a number of foreign language, including Chinese, English, French, and German.

#AsiaPacific #DXing #foreignRadio #Indonesia #shortwave #国际广播

AI-Voiced News Bulletins to exorcize the Senkaku Curse

Radio Japan’s Mandarin news bulletins are now broadcast with "artificial-intelligence" voices, and may have been for some time. The AI note was given both at the beginning of the station’s news program today.

AI-voice was still only a plan in January this year, although according to Kyodo News at the time, quoted here by Singapore’s "United Morning News", the decision in favor of AI had been taken by then.

NHK, the company that operates Radio Japan as the country’s foreign radio service, decided to either pre-record or AI-generate (or both) further news readouts in Mandarin, and probably in other languages, too. NHK’s move had been motivated by an outsourced Mandarin newsreader who had gone rogue during the only daily live broadcast at 04:00 UTC and replaced his script with comments on the Senkaku Islands sovereignty status, and reminders of Japanese war crimes during World War 2.

Shortly after NHK’s final decision in January, the Senkaku curse reportedly struck again, this time apparently on NHK World TV or on a video platform, when the subtitles to a news report translated the Senkaku Islands as "Diaoyutai", the name under which China claims sovereignty over the islets. It was said that Google was to blame, as the translation had been based on the online group’s translation function.

All that may not have been a big deal in Europe (with a few local exceptions), but it is always big news in Japan and China – both of which have their share of nutty nationalists who only wait for reasons to hit the roof. NHK was in serious trouble during the days afterwards, because as a democracy, the country has its share of nutty nationalists in parliament, too, and those had to prove their "patriotism" to their constituents.

NHK and Radio Japan may now be in safer waters, but the 04:00 UTC transmissions aren’t as realtime as they used to be. Then again, listeners can probably cope with the loss, as both French and Mandarin broadcast have only seen one premiere a day anyway: all transmissions later in the day were only rebroadcasts of the initial one.

#artificialIntelligence #broadcasting #China #foreignRadio #Japan #NHK

A Story of Radio RSA (7): “A Process of Integration”

Adapting the Message

By the late 1970s, while still an apartheid state, South Africa wasn’t the same as it had been in the 1960s – and it had taken ways neither Hendrik Verwoerd nor Albert Hertzog would have approved of. In 1977, Stellenbosch University opened its doors for a few black students, provided that there were no stages for further education available for them at non-white universities, according to German news magazine “Der Spiegel” at the time. At the same time, some relaxation in racial segregation probably made the rules even more elaborate, like joint inter-racial sports teams were OK, black-and-white staying at the same “international hotels” and having meals there at the same tables was legal, but dancing together or swimming in the same pool was as forbidden as ever. Racial segregation had been formalized and made universal in South Africa in 1953. In 1971, one hotel become multi-racial on an experimental basis, a number of "international hotels" followed, and the end for "whites-only" hotels came in 1986.

A quote from then foreign minister Roelof Botha probably helps to summarize the late-70s status: "I’m prepared to go to war over our right to exist, but I’m not prepared to die for signs in a lift."

Strikes, although illegal according to the apartheid script, had been a way for the black working South African majority to make its power felt to the white rulers, and quotes from ruling Boers, passed down from the 1960s, showed that this power was really feared. The boom years had ended in the 1970s, and at the same time, skilled or half-skilled labor came into high demand. 1973 saw an accelerated emergence of new unions and growing union membership, and although the government did its best to neutralize their attractiveness to the black workforce, it also recognized labor unions, for the first time under apartheid, in 1979. Probably to the chagrin of the government however, the black unions were much more politically aware than expected. And obviously, they were very aware that South Africa was a welfare state for white, but not for black workers.

The ANC thought of itself as a people’s movement and army. That may have been so, but it was probably more radical in its demands, including its call for international economic sanctions, than the general South African population – blacks included. Not only the white minority was divided during its rule, but so was the "black majority", plus Coloreds, Indians, yes, Chinese, too (though not so many after 1910.

I’m not familiar with the programs of the ANC’s Radio Freedom that broadcast from Tanzania, and later from Zambia, but a radio drama on one of the recordings of the ANC’s Radio Freedom that is available on Youtube takes divisions between black South Africans into account – divisions even within families. And while much of the programs may have been rather "foreign" to Radio RSA’s European listeners (and hard to relate to, especially the obligatory machine-gun fire at the opening of each program), there is an element of progressiveness in the radio drama that follows here: the preparedness of a man’s daughters and wife to address Daddy’s erroneous views on the 1984 elections to a tricameral parliament, – right into his face. That was probably in line with the same values that would be expressed in any progressive household in Europe or North America, or in Wembley (on certain days).

The Boer propaganda was elaborate, but it was out of tune with "the trend that normally will triumph because it agrees with the great myths of the time, common to all men".1

So Radio RSA took on some new stories. Rather than praising purported "harmony and peace" between South Africa’s "ethnic groups and races", they now emphasized that "a process of integration" was underway and that the need for skilled labor had "already led to integration at the workplace." The program added that "sanctions would interfere with exactly this process of healthy evolution"2.

Besides content, the station’s technology park had also seen changes. From 1966 to 1979, Chris Greenway counted the installation of seventeen transmitters at Meyerton, seven of which were dedicated exclusively Radio-RSA – the four 250-kW transmitters as had been known since the beginnings in 1966/67, plus three 500-kW transmitters, added "in the late 1970s"3.

The Usual Suspects

Radio RSA continued to discount the ANC as a mere "terrorist organization", alleging that the ANC wouldn’t even be illegal if it wasn’t "responsible for bomb attacks, sabotage, or murder"4.
Which was rich, when you look at the time table of apartheid legislation through the 1950s and 1960s. It didn’t take much to be illegal in South Africa.

My hometown wasn’t full of shortwave listeners and DXers. Nobody in my school class shared my radio hobby. In that light alone, Radio RSA couldn’t have been a game changer, even if its message had been whole-heartedly bought by every listener.
But although shortwave wasn’t a universal medium, "Sender und Frequenzen", a German version of the WRTH (but no relation), reportedly had 40,000 users5.

Neither TV nor radio made me aware of what was missing in Radio RSA’s presentation of South Africa. As far as I was concerned, the realities presented on South African shortwaves and on German and Dutch VHFs contradicted each other, but they co-existed without demanding judgment.

Two books carried the weight to broaden my horizon.

Can Themba wasn’t well-known even among bibliophiles in my hometown, but an anthology of political essays and prose excerpts had just been published in Hamburg6, almost at the same time I happened on Radio RSA. The collection of articles and short stories included "Crepuscule", published in 1972. It told a few days in the life of a black Sophiatown resident in the 1950s, legally in love with Brandy, and illegally with a white girl ("chocolate on cream").

The story didn’t exactly get me at the time, but it did point out realities to me that weren’t there in Radio RSA’s German programs. There, it was Afrikaans language, Afrikaans poetry, and Afrikaans what-have-you when it wasn’t Our Wildlife Heritage. It helped that the edition of Themba’s story7 that I read was a German translation. That’s how that non-white parallel universe of Radio RSA’s, South Africa’s "crepuscule" world, became visible for me.

Another reality, never mentioned by Radio RSA either, was torture in South Africa. James Michener’s "The Covenant", also in a German translation, informed me. And "Der Spiegel", again from Hamburg, noted that 21 non-white prisoners in South Africa had died, frequently in mysterious ways", within about just twenty months8. Radio RSA did bring up necklacing however – the other guys’ kind of torture and murder.

Themba’s stories also shed light on divisions within racial groups – divisions that were big enough for the Sophiatown first-person narrator to crack jokes about "African nationalists who profess horror at the thought that any self-respecting black man could desire any white woman," and bridges wide enough for a cop to let the narrator emerge from his Johannesburg subway arrival station without passport control because it’s "the one who drank with me Sis Julia’s shebeen on an afternoon off." In short, there was disagreement within the privileged white class and within the oppressed majority respectively, enough to enable a lot of illegal action or nonfeasance.

As far as international radio was concerned, just as there was Radio RSA, always on message with up to 500 kW, there was the ANC’s Radio Freedom, always on message with maybe 50 kW. That was one reason why you wouldn’t usually catch Radio Freedom’s shortwave signals in Europe. Another was that South Africa’s authorities reportedly jammed Radio Freedom’s transmissions. And, of course, the ANC’s target area was always south of Zambia and other "frontline states" that helped Radio Freedom out with airtime on their shortwave stations – the opposite direction of Europe or North America. Radio RSA’s signals always went north, and were carefully targeted at African and Western countries and regions.

Even 50 kWs of ANC radio were too much for Pretoria though. Any listener in South Africa who listened to it could face up to eight years imprisonment, if caught.

How did Radio RSA handle the parallel universe, in that "crepuscule"? At times by demonization, and mostly by omission. There was a series about the Zulus in the late 1980s, but it was about Zulu history, with King Shaka at the center, not about modern, let alone urban, life.

Listener’s Questions

Listeners’ questions didn’t always get answers either: Ake Magnusson, author of an academic booklet about Radio RSA in 1976, wrote that

The foremost programme for listenersis called ‘P.O. Box 4559’. In this so called Mailbag programme it was announced on February 5, 1974: ‘Mr. Ake Magnusson of the Institute of Political Science at Göteborg’s University. We have written to you, giving the details you wanted on Radio RSA.’ Along with a rather stencilled description of a technical nature of the Voice of South Africa, this was the station’s answer to a letter from me concerning four vital questions about the South African shortwave station. Another letter from me has not led to any reactions at all. This example, though it may be a unique case, shows how the letters from listeners are sometimes used in dubious ways.9

To be fair, I’m pretty sure that no shortwave broadcasters at the time answered every question they were asked – nor would they nowadays. But of course, Magnusson’s experience wasn’t unique. When Radio RSA had a news bulletin about a group of French parliamentarians who had concluded their visit to South Africa with a lot of – reportedly – complaisant findings, the newsreader made no mention of the delegation’s party affiliations. In the most unfavorable case, that could have meant a complete National-Rally traveling group, and as there was no internet to answer my question, I turned to P.O. Box 4559’s German edition. Rather than answering my question, the mailbag program simply repeated the original message from its earlier news bulletin:

The deputies declared on a concluding press conference that after their visit, they are of the view that Apartheid had been abolished, and that they also heard in talks with the numerous political groups and population groups that South Africans, with an overwhelming majority, opposed sanctions. Indeed, the parliamentarians noted that there is a problem of rural flight in South Africa,that there are mixed-races residential areas, that the vexed passport legislation that had led to a discriminating cuts into free movement of persons, have been abolished, that the blacks’ standard of living has risen this much, in contrast to rises in the white population’s real incomes, for example, that the question of residence must, logically, beyond the [group areas act] develop into a further process of integration.10

So I sent another letter and repeated my question.

Answer:

We endeavor to give a balanced view of South Africa, and in the cases we remember, when we rendered statements from foreign politicians, their party affiliations were also mentioned as a matter of principle. If that didn’t happen, it was an unintended oversight we would like to apologize for. However, there are German or rather German-speaking politicians who only come here to confirm preconceived views to shine with on TV at home later on. As these views existed before these Gentlemen came to South Africa We don’t consider such statements productive when it is about our mission to raise understanding for the situation of this country.11

I’ll never know who those visiting guys from France were, back in 1986.

Radio Freedom seems to have had some success among younger listeners in South Africa, despite the threat of jailtime, and despite reported South African jamming. One important reason was probably the music they played – music that was frequently banned in South Africa. One of the best-known names among the bands and musicians could be “Dollar Brand”, aka Abdullah Ibrahim, a jazz musician.

Whatever the South African radio landscape looked like, it wasn’t everyone’s stuff, not even among whites. "Lourenco Marques Radio" (LM Radio) from Mozambique wasn’t an opposition broadcaster, but a private station with a lot of the kind of music younger South Africans wanted to listen to, and that wasn’t greatly available on SABC programs. Although medium- and shortwave-based, LM Radio seems to have been a real alternative – until it "lost much of its sparkle", when taken over by the SABC in 1972.

I’m not sure how much Radio RSA really stood out within the South African radio landscape. Above all, its target area, in terms of content and target areas, wasn’t South African. But while the SABC, the domestic service, wasn’t necessarily popular among all segments of their audience, Radio RSA seems to have ruled among international shortwave listeners of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. They regularly were among the top-three stations in the German SWL club’s ADDX (Assoziation Deutschsprachiger DXer) popularity polls, often along with the BBC’s and Radio Canada International’s German services, and they were probably liked both for their ways of presentation that came across as rather spontaneous, and for showing appreciation for their listeners. Appreciation manifested itself in effusive praise for listeners’ fidelity, and in unusually refined letter paper, for example, and, according to Peter Orlik during the first years of Radio RSA’s life cycle, the station’s mailbag program P.O. Box 4559 reacted to listener feedback in a respectable manner:

The letters come from all over the world including some of the nations of Black Africa and deal with facts about South Africa as a whole as well as its music and personalities. Little attempt is made to hide the fact that some of these letters are critical of the Republic and its policies. Many of these are rebutted over the air and it is RSA’s hope that "the facts we have given in reply have led to a better understanding of our position: to know is to understand. We believe that most of the misconceptions about South Africa are the result of misunderstanding and misinformation. The task of RSA is clear." (RSA CAlling, No. 1 /1968, p. 1)
It is to the credit of the program that these replies are entertainingly presented with never the slightest hint of ill-feeling.12

I don’t know if that remained so until the end. As far as Radio RSA’s German service was concerned, some of their staff sometimes reacted rather accusingly to criticism from the audience. But that probably didn’t hurt in terms of acceptance in the German-speaking target areas. While shortwave doesn’t provide media with market segmentation tools as powerful as the internet, at least the smaller languages – like Dutch, German, and (for a few years) Danish – provided some opportunities to do so after all. In English or French, only the way Radio RSA directed and slewed its antennas would be of some help.
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Notes

Die Abgeordneten erklärten auf einer abschließenden Pressekonferenz, dass sie nach ihrem Besuch die Auffassung vertreten, dass die Apartheid abgeschafft worden sei, und sie außerdem im Zuge der Gespräche mit Vertetern der zahlreichen politischen Gruppierungen und Bevölkerungsgruppen vernommen haben, dass man sich in S.A. in der überwältigenden Mehrheit gegen Sanktionen ausgesprochen habe. In der Tat haben die Parlamentarier festgestellt, daß esin S.A. ein Problem der Landflucht gibt, daß es in S.A. gemischtrassige Wohngebiete gibt, daß die leidlichen Paßgesetze, die zu einer diskriminierenden Einschneidung der Freizügigkeit in der Bewegung geführt hatten, abgeschafft worden sind, daß der Lebensstandard der Schwarzen derart gestiegen ist, im Gegensatz zur Steigerung z. B. des Realeinkommens der weissen Bevölkerung, daß sich die Frage des Wohnsitzes über das Gruppenwohnraumvorbehaltsgesetz hinaus in der Zukunft als logische Konsequenz zu einem weiteren Integrationsprozess entwickeln muß. Der Bedarf an Fachkräften durch die südafrikansiche Wirtschaft hat ja letztendlich schon einmal zur Integration am Arbeitsplatz geführt, zu einer gezielten Kampagne um die Schuausbildung der schwarzen Bevölkerung auf den gleichen Stand mit der weissen Bevölkerung zu bringen …

You get the picture.)

Wir bemühen uns zwar, ein ausgewogenes Bild Südafrikas zu zeichnen und in den uns erinnerlichen Fällen, bei denen wir in unseren Nachrichtebsendungen Aeusserungen ausländischer Politiker wiedergaben, wurde aus Prinzip auch die Parteizugehörigkeit solcher Politiker genannt. Wenn dies nicht geschah, so ist das ein Versehen, das bestimmt nicht beabsichtigt war, und für das wir uns gern entschuldigen wollen. Es gibt jedoch deutsche oder sagen wir besser deutsch-sprechende Politiker, die hier her kommnen, nur um eine vorgefasste Meinung zu bestätigen, mitder sie dann späterim Fernsehen in ihrer Heimat brillieren. Solche Aeusserungen halten wir für wenig produktiv, wenn es um unseren Auftrag geht, Verständnis für die Lage dieses Landes zu wecken. Da die dort geäußerten Meinungen und Ansichten längst bestanden, bevor diese Herren nach Südafrika kamen, sehen wir sie auch kaum als berichtenswerte Neuigkeit. […]

#Africa #foreignRadio #Germany #music #propaganda #RadioRSA #SouthAfrica

Radio Havana Cuba: a Missing Voice around the World

The good news is that Radio Havana Cuba’s (RHC) signal strength is usually fair or good, and that TRT Ankara has left 6000 kHz with its morning programs. There is therefore no interference with (or complete blanking out of) RHC when RHC is actually on air. But that is a big “when”. You can’t expect a signal for the complete second half of the night anymore – you are lucky when you get to listen to some signal at all.

When that happens, signal strength is usually not an issue, but modulation varies on a generally poor level. When I gave 6000 kHz a try at 04:45 UTC on March 22, you could actually listen to a mailbag show, and get the name of every country they mentioned there. That was followed by the beginning of the second hour of programming, and exactly on the hour. But that was a rare exception.

Punctuality isn’t one of the station’s great strengths, either. There are two hours of programming (and one, two or three blocks of them), but all of it is apparently pre-recorded, be it because of the time of the day when RHC goes on air for North America (and Europe, as it happens), be it for the need to get programs past a censor before airing. The most striking case in point was when Nelson Mandela died on December 5, 2013.
Listeners to RHC English didn’t get any news about it during the second half of the night, i. e. in the morning of December 6, but they did get the full monty during the morning of December 7 UTC.

The Shortwave Bulletin, in its April 13 edition, quotes BC-DX Top News as saying that on April 6, China Radio International had been heard on its Cuban AM relay “for the very first time since a lot of days”. To operate the transmitters successfully, or to find the one that works best, seems to be a challenge, and it would probably take some substantial Chinese investment to make the lame walk again.

RHC’s English website currently offers a stream in Spanish which seems to be rather up-to-date. I haven’t heard their Spanish program on 5040 kHz in a long time.
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#Africa #ChinaRadioInternational #Cuba #foreignRadio #RadioHavanaCuba #shortwave #USA