Month: August 2020

United States

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FCC Report 8/16: China Owned Operator Seeks Permission To Continue Operating 690 XEWW
by Lance Venta August 16, 2020 FCC Actions
https://radioinsight.com/headlines/195977/fcc-report-8-16-china-owned-operator-seeks-permission-to-continue-operating-690-xeww/
After ordering H&H USA’s Chinese “URadio 690”
http://uradio.ifengus.com/
XEWW Rosarito MX to cease operations
https://radioinsight.com/headlines/189378/fcc-orders-xeww-to-cease-chinese-government-owned-programming-within-48-hours/
and dismissing their STA and applications in June because they failed to include the Chinese government owned Phoenix Radio US as a, {sic} H&H’s subsidiary GLR Southern California has reapplied for permission to operate XEWW adding Phoenix as an operator on the basis that they were “unaware of any formal complaints being submitted to the FCC in the time that this station has been programmed in Mandarin Chinese about the content of these broadcasts”. The station, which never stopped broadcasting despite the previous FCC order, also filed an STA to continue
those broadcasts while the application is pending.
Artie Bigley, OH via Glenn Hauser, WOR groups.io (2020-08-20)

Australia

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The ABC faults and outages web page is unfortunately currently more difficult to rapidly obtain information. Previously, all Australia wide transmitter outages were listed on a single page. This made for a quicker assessment of what key high power transmitters were temporarily off air (e.g. 612 and 792 KHz Brisbane).
Currently there is no other option than to manually type in single post codes (or location) one at a time. Today I typed in 2000 (Sydney), and the following planned outages were listed:
Thursday August 20, 2020. 12:06 AM to 1:00 AM, 2:06 AM to 3:30 AM:
576 KHz 2RN Sydney off air.
Thursday August 20, 2020. 1:06 AM to 3:00 AM: 702 KHz 2BL Sydney off air.
Thursday August 20, 2020. 2:06 AM to 3:30 AM, 3:30 AM to 4:50 AM:
630 KHz 2PB Sydney off air.
Thursday August 27, 2020. 1:06 AM to 2:00 AM: 576 KHz 2RN Sydney off air.
Thursday August 27, 2020. 3:06 AM to 4:00 AM: 630 KHz 2PB Sydney off air.
Thursday August 27, 2020. 2:06 AM to 3:00 AM: 702 KHz 2BL Sydney off air.
Hopefully this will be an opportunity for technical staff to fix the 630 KHz 2PB issue. It will also be an opportunity to check for distant signals that are not normally available on 576, 630, and 702 KHz.
http://reception.abc.net.au/faultoutages
Todd, ICDX-AM groups.io (2020-08-18)

United Kingdom

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„audio content fund.
Round 4 winning bids announced.
Eight indies to receive £197k of funding, for public service programming on 32 stations.
Unedited will document the history of England’s black footballers for talkSPORT.
Audio Frontier will search for Scotland’s Greatest Song on Greatest Hits Scotland.
Belle Media will bring kids’ character Captain Bobo to life in English and Gaelic.
The Audio Content Fund has announced the latest recipients of grant funding to make public service content for commercial and community radio.
[…]
Scotland’s Greatest Song – Audio Frontier, for Greatest Hits Radio Network Scotland.
Greatest Hits Radio want to celebrate St Andrews Day [30 November] by finally determining Scotland’s greatest song of all time! A series of 12 mini docs will profile selected songs, concluding in a special show which commemorates the finest music this country has offered the world.
[…]
Coming In From The Cold: The History of Black Footballers in the English Game.
– Unedited for talkSPORT and talkSPORT2
7-part documentary series about the history and rise of black footballers, broadcast in Black History Month 2020. The series will span two centuries of injustice, inequality, accomplishment, sporting moments and iconic symbols of our national game.
[…]
These latest awards follow the successful funding round to support audiences during Coronavirus, which distributed £400k to 28 projects during April and May of this year.
They take the Audio Content Fund’s running total of grant funding to £1.25m since it launched in April 2019″.
https://www.audiocontentfund.org.uk/2020/07/29/round-4-winning-bids-announced
via Dr Hansjoerg Biener (2020-08-15)

United Kingdom

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While listening to the football sports coverage of BBC Radio 5 live in the evening (e.g. 7 August 2020), I wondered why I could only listen to 693 kHz while 909 kHz was dominated by Romania.
According to
https://www.bbc.co.uk/reception/issues-with-analogue-radio/#/undefined work continues at the Brookmans Part station.
“Essential engineering affecting MW Radio 5 live service in London and the South East – 27th July – 4th September.
Brookmans Park Transmitter.
Essential engineering work is taking place on the Brookmans Park transmitter that will have periods of reduced power and shutdowns between 10.00 – 16.00 on week days and some Saturdays between the 27th July and 4th September.
Listeners’ access to Radio 5 live may be affected during this time period.
You can use our Transmitter Checker which will give you an exact view of the current status of the transmitter and any recent changes.We would recommend not re-tuning your Radio’s during this period of essential engineering.”
Dr Hansjoerg Biener (2020-08-14)
Two loggings can be seen in the the loggings-page.

Lithuania

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Belarusian service of Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty “Svoboda” resumes broadcasting on medium waves.
From August 12, 2020, the Belarusian service of Radio Liberty will temporarily resume radio broadcasting on medium waves. Programs in the Belarusian language, dedicated to current political events in the country, can be listened to every day at a frequency of 1386 kHz from 21:00 to 22:00 and from 23:00 to midnight Minsk time. From 22:00 to 23:00 on weekdays at a frequency of 1386 kHz, the program of the Russian Service of Radio Liberty “Face to the Event” will continue to air, on weekends – special programs.
In Belarus, after the August 9 presidential elections, there were interruptions in the work of Internet services. Problems have been reported by numerous netizens and journalists. First of all, we are talking about the unstable functioning of messengers, as well as some applications, media and social networking sites do not open or open with difficulty.
Translated from Belarusian from the official website:
https://www.svoboda.org/a/30778440.html
László Tringer HNG (2020-08-14)

United Kingdom

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Radio Caroline: Staff were sent recently to Orfordness to connect the 648
transmitter to one of the 350ft main aerial masts instead of the 160ft standby tower. This has now been done and Alan Beech has applied to Ofcom for an increase in power over the present 1KW.
Further work may be needed to make the other full height masts compliment the signal and not absorb or deflect it. The masts required inspection, for which we paid Maxxwave, who did the climbing. This cost was kindly sponsored by Leonard Weldon of Manchester.
http://www.radiocaroline.co.uk/#home.html (“Latest News”).
Radio Caroline website (2020-08-14)