29/06-2009

BRAZIL
MW brasilian radio stations update - Version  20090628.02
ON-LINE DATABASE : http://www.dxclube.com.br 

New denomination:
670kHz - CBN Macapa, Macapa-AP (Ex Globo Macapa)
780kHz - Educadora Jovem Pan, Uberlandia-MG
1140kHz - Nova Regional AM, Registro-SP
1230kHz - Daqui, Goiania-GO ( Ex CBN Goiania) (Colaboracao: Jairo Gomes Barbosa, Anapolis-GO)
1440kHz - Bare, Manaus-AM ( Ex Globo Manaus)
1590kHz - Super Cultura AM, Andira-PR

New station:
1230kHz - Nova Mensagem, - ZYJ350 - Telemaco Borba-PR

Name Correction:
1250kHz - Metropolitana (Nossa Radio), Vespasiano-MG
 
Updated radio networks:
BAND - Rede Band Sat
GUA - Redde Guaiba Sat
IPDA - Igreja Pentecostal Deus e Amor
IURD - Igreja Universal do reino de Deus JP - Rede Jovem Pan Sat
APA - Rede Aparecida de Evangelizacao
CBN  - Central Brasileira de Noticias

Web link changed:
1020kHz - Cenecista, Picui-PB
1110kHz - Cruzeiro do Sul, Itaqui-RS 
1420kHz - Cultura, Umuarama-PR
 
News web links:
1100kHz - Difusora AM, Acarau-CE
1140kHz - Nova Regional AM, Registro-SP
1440kHz - Bare, Manaus-AM
1520kHz - Cachoeira AM, Solonopole-CE
1590kHz - Super Cultura, Andira-PR

Help us sending your informations to: marcelo@bedene.com.br  
73 Marcelo Vilela Bedene, Equipe do DX Clube do Parana, Curitiba PR, Brasil (28/6-2009)

28/06-2009

SWITZERLAND
SRG, Switzerland's public broadcaster, will close down also its last remaining mediumwave outlet on 765 kHz as of 2011.
Abandoning mediumwave is part of a program of cost-saving measures, approved by SRG's administrational council on 22 June. Under this program there will also be no increases of salaries for SRG staff members in 2010. Real estates not directly needed for programming
purposes will be sold, others will not see any further investments, besides necessary repairs. The budgets for promoting HDTV and DAB will be decreased.
This program results from an expected increase of SRG's debts from 200 millions CHF to 790 millions CHF in 2014. It does not solve SRG's financial problems but still leaves a deficit of 40 millions CHF per year. This could be eased by increasing the incomes, here SRG suggests
not only to raise the licence fees but also to remove certain limits for advertisements, especially the bans to put them on their online services and to disrupt TV shows for spots. Swissinfo (the remains of Swiss Radio International) will be "optimized", which could possibly mean that it will be eliminated as unit on its own and the website be produced by
SRG's existing Bern (German) or Geneve (Rumanian) studios.
As other way to solve the financial problems SRG already suggests other possible cost saving measures. This scenario includes closing down DRS Virus and World Radio Switzerland, cutting costs at the Italian radio stations, limiting the HDTV output and abandoning the Euronews project.
A next step, if this is not enough, would be closing down also one of the Italian radios, Option Musique and DRS Musikwelle, cancelling all HDTV activities and leaving the 3sat (together with Germany's ZDF and Austria's ORF) as well as TV5 (together with France, Belgium's RTBF and Canada's CBC) networks.
SRG press release on the cost saving program:
http://www.srg.ch/125.0.html?&no_cache=1&tx_ttnews
An earlier one about Swissinfo:
http://www.srg.ch/125.0.html?&no_cache=1&tx_ttnews
Neue Zürcher Zeitung report:
http://www.nzz.ch/nachrichten/medien/die_srg_malt_einen_tiefroten_
finanzhorizont_1.2806158.html
Kai Ludwig via dxld yg (27/6-2009)

24/06-2009

ITALY / GERMANY
Hi Ydun ! Today I received an e-mail verification from Challenger Radio 1566 kHz,
in which the v/s Maurizio Anselmo also informed me about the station´s plan to start DRM-Tests on 1566 kHz within the next 20 days.
73, Patrick Robic (24/6-2009)

CANADA
Don't believe.......
"980 KRUZ AM, Peterborough ON seems to have left AM........"
980 CKRU is still on air till the fall - if everything goes as planned.
Andy Reid, Canada (23/6-2009)

You are right Andy, station still on AM for 2 or 3 months, depending on, how well the new FM frequency 100.5 MHz will work.
Confirmed in a phone call to the station today 1250 UTC.
Ydun Ritz (24/6-2009)

23/06-2009

CANADA
980 KRUZ AM, Peterborough ON seems to have left AM and is now on FM 100.5 MHZ, at least since Saturday June 20th, when I first heard them announce "the new old Kruz FM" - online of course. So far no confirmation from station or from Corus Radio.
Ydun Ritz (23/6-2009)

ITALY / GERMANY
Challenger Radio [1566kHz] is transmitting most of the time I programmes from "Onda Cosmica". These a Italian language programmes from Radio Santec in Wuerzburg, Germany. Most of the time they announce a contact address in Milano, but I also heard the announce of the Wuerzburg-address. I´m quite sure that the German in the background, which I also heard on 1566 kHz, originates from an originally German programme with Italian voice over.
73, Patrick Robic, Austria (23/6-2009)

ITALY
I heard a new Italian station on 1566kHz on June 22, 2009 at 1628UTC. ID: "Challenger Radio" incl. Morse message: "CHRISTUS". Religious programming in Italian.
Weak-to-Fair signal was later covered by a Greek pirate station. I was observing another very weak signal in the backgroud with a speech sounding like German (too poor to be sure). Because of identical fade-ins and fade-outs it seemed to be in connection with the signal of Challenger Radio.
Karel Honzik, CZE via mwdx yg (23/6-2009)

BRAZIL
I found out from my recording that Radio Itapirema (Brazil, 1390kHz) changed its name to Radio Planalto.
It was confirmed by Rocco Cotroneo who called the station. Thanks also to Carlos Goncalves who found time to listen to my recording.
Heard on June 13, 2009 at 0300UTC. The exact frequency was 1390.22kHz on my AR7030 what raised my suspicion. This corresponds with 1390.215 for (ex) Itapirema in the list of offset frequencies.
Karel Honzik, CZE via mwdx yg (23/6-2009)

16/06-2009

U K
All the UK's national radio stations and many local services will stop broadcasting on analogue by the end of 2015, according to ambitious switch-off targets unveiled by the government today.
The Digital Britain report, published today, said announced a "Digital Radio Upgrade" that would see services on national and local digital audio broadcasting (DAB) multiplexes stop broadcasting on analogue.
Vacated FM spectrum will be filled by a new tier of ultra-local radio consisting of small local commercial and community stations. Radio stations currently broadcasting on medium wave will upgrade to DAB.
More on http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/jun/16/digital-britain- analogue-
radio-switchoff
The Guardian.co.uk (16/6-2009)

SCOTLAND
Radio stations share common voice.
Many familiar voices disappeared from Scotland's airwaves this week as a new practice of sharing programmes among radio stations took a step forward.
Quietly and with no fanfare, a revolution has taken place in Scottish commercial radio.
Listeners to Scotland's best-known medium wave (AM) stations - Clyde 2, Forth 2, Northsound 2, Tay AM and Westsound - may have been wondering where some of their favourite DJs have gone and why they are hearing, what, to them, may be unfamiliar voices.
The answer is that these stations have just undergone a massive shake-up, nprecedented in Scottish commercial radio.
The vast bulk of their programmes are being "pooled" - in other words shared with each other - and broadcast across Scotland.
This means that the medium wave (AM) local stations have almost become a Scottish national station in all but name.
Apart from the breakfast shows, news and traffic reports the bulk of programmes are now being heard across the country.
The practice - known as "networking" - has been common south of the border for some time.

Economic downturn.
Supporters argue it makes economic sense and that some listeners would rather hear a good programme broadcast across a group of stations than an average one broadcast locally.
While the owners of the stations, Bauer, have not said whether the move is about economics, the whole of the commercial media - radio, TV and newspapers - is suffering from the economic downturn. Advertising revenue has been falling.
Bauer said it "is constantly looking for new and creative ways to entertain listeners and the restructure of AM programming will allow the company to broadcast the best, most popular shows from across the network to a wider audience. "
The person in charge of the AM stations in Scotland is Ally Ballingall, boss of Radio Tay and well known to listeners in the area as Ally Bally. Ironically the changes mean he may now win fans in other parts of the country.
In a statement he said: "I am really delighted to be taking up this new challenge and am committed to bringing quality local programming to listeners across Scotland.
"Commercial radio in the UK today is more competitive today than ever, so my vision is to create stations which will be at the heart of the local community for many years to come. We are broadening listenership with new programmes which we are sure will delight audiences around the country."
Until five years ago, Scotland's long-established local radio stations were owned by Scottish Radio Holdings - a company which grew out of Radio Clyde, the first legal commercial station in the UK outside London to go on the air in 1973.
The company was bought over by publishing company Emap and then sold on to auer. Radio Clyde's first chief executive Jimmy (later Lord) Gordon always insisted the secret of successful local radio was its localness.
The idea that Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen or wherever the listeners lived was, as he once put it, at the centre of the universe.
It was about the accent of the DJ, the things they spoke about, even comments about the weather outside.
While the idea of networking programmes between local stations grew in popularity south of the border, it has only become commonplace in Scotland in recent months.
Bauer's FM stations - such as Clyde 1, Forth 1, Tay FM, Northsound 1, Radio Borders, West FM - share programmes from 7pm each evening.

Commercial sector.
Meanwhile rival stations such as Real and Smooth FM share some programmes, especially in the evenings, with their sister stations south of the border creating, critics argue, quasi-national networks.
The move appears to have caused little public concern so far, apart from a few newspaper stories about individual long-serving DJs being axed and with it the inevitable disappointment of their personal followers.
Indeed the challenges facing commercial radio - largely based on popular music and DJs - are unlikely to attract widespread political concern, unlike worries about the future of the newspaper industry or regional news on ITV.
Yet local radio in Scotland - other than local news - has been left to the commercial sector since the early 90s when the BBC closed services such as Radio Highland to concentrate its efforts on the main Radio Scotland service.
Some siren voices now wonder if truly local radio services in Scotland may increasingly be provided by tiny local stations, such as Lochbroom FM in the Highlands and Heartland FM in Perthshire.
Stations which serve small geographical areas and which are sometimes run as small businesses or community projects rather than money-making ventures. Only time will tell if the changes to Bauer's medium wave stations will be successful. But their transformation into a Scottish network in all but name marks the end of a chapter in the history of Scottish radio.
BBC News website (16/6-2009)