Month: April 2021

Denmark

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My favourite online radio station – my daily companion – World Music Radio – WMR – has also been transmitting on SW for a couple of years now.
Yesterday a new milestone was reached when it conquered the MW band on 927 kHz with 50 watts. The QTH is Hvidovre, 13 km southwest of Copenhagen city centre.
It was audible with a good signal after sunset at my location in southern Denmark.
Great work of Stig and his assistant.
Ydun Ritz (2021-04-15)

United Kingdom

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Talksport (1053, 1089 kHz and other distribution platforms) has acquired funds from the Audio Content Fund (https://www.audiocontentfund.org.uk/) for two interesting productions due for broadcast in June/July 2021:
Everything You Didn’t Know About…
Audio Always, for talkSPORT, 24x 2min, from June 2021
A series of two-minute comedy features, with each episode focused on a different country taking part in Euro 2020. talkSPORT’s coverage of Europe’s biggest football tournament will be enhanced by comedy content that will bring the UK’s international communities together like never before. Each short piece will be scripted by a group of comedy writers and delivered by a diverse and regionally varied collection of voices, as talkSPORT passes the mic to the many pockets of Europe across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Lost Ones
Unedited, for talkSPORT Network, 3x 1hr, from July 2021
A three-part documentary series narrated by Troy Townsend, culminating in a 2-hour live show, examining the mental and emotional impacts on the young men and women who are rejected by the industrialised football Academy system.  It’s perhaps one of sport’s most overlooked and biggest issues – rarely talked about, but widely accepted. Often starting out as young as 8 years old, both boys and girls are fed a professional dream from a young age – but, some experts estimate that only 5-10% of all Academy players will go on to sign professional contracts.
In October 2018 the Government announced its plans for a three year ‘contestable fund’ pilot scheme of up to £60million that will support the provision and plurality of public service content in genres and networks where it is currently (Covid 19) financially difficult to fund production.
Dr Hansjoerg Biener (2021-04-15))

United Kingdom

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Ten more local BBC radio stations are turning off their Medium Wave transmitters for good this year.
BBC Essex, BBC Radio Cambridgeshire, BBC Radio Devon, BBC Radio Leeds, BBC Radio Sheffield, BBC Hereford & Worcester, BBC Radio Stoke, BBC Radio Lancashire, BBC Radio Ulster and BBC Radio Foyle will be FM and digital only in May and June 2021.
In addition, BBC Radio Wales and BBC Radio Gloucestershire will reduce AM coverage.
RadioToday (2021-04-14)

Denmark

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World Music Radio (WMR) has now commenced test transmission on 927 kHz from Copenhagen starting Wednesday April 14th 2021 at 1130 UTC. It is on the air 24 hours a day 7 days a week and provides local coverage in the larger Copenhagen area. Reception should also be possible in the rest of Zealand, in Southwestern Sweden and along the Baltic sea coast in Poland and Germany.  

It has taken four years to get it on the air. It took a very, very long time to find a transmitter site, and then it also took quite some time to plan the site, erect a mast, design the aerial and do all the constructions and installations.  The site is Hvidovre, Copenhagen; it is the same site as Radio208 transmitting on 5970 kHz.  The power on 927 kHz is going to be 500 Watts, but for the first few days with reduced power.  The mast is only 18 m tall and the aerial is a coil aerial with approx. 400 m of radials.

Meanwhile WMR continuous broadcasting on 5930 kHz (200 Watts from Bramming) also round the clock; however, reception is difficult or impossible at times when 5930 is used by the ‘big boys’ (e.g. VoA from around 16 UTC to 18 UTC and RFI 21-23 UTC).  Also 15790 kHz (200 Watts from Randers) is still in use Saturdays and Sundays 0700-2000 UTC.  In late April or May, WMR plans to start broadcasting on 25770 kHz (150 Watts) from Maarslet in the Southern outskirts of Aarhus, the second largest city in Denmark.  

Reception reports to World Music Radio, PO Box 112, DK-8960 Randers, Denmark, are welcome. If possible please enclose return postage (two international reply coupons or five euro) for a printed QSL-card, a pennant and stickers. A new WMR-QSL for 2021 will be printed late April 2021. E-mails to wmr@wmr.dk are also welcome. Please note that reception reports which are based on the use of remote receivers are not QSLed (unless you are using your own remote receiver in your own part of the world).   
Stig Hartvig Nielsen (2021-04-14)

India

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Like every year, the special transmissions for Ramadan has started from AIR stations in Jammu & Kashmir as follows:
Timings (variable) : 2205 to 2305 UTC ( 3.35 to 4.35 am IST)
Frequencies
1116 kHz 300 kW  Srinagar
1350 kHz 20 kW Kupwara
4950 kHz 50 kW Srinagar (Announced but not heard at my location, maybe due to skip conditions)
103.5 MHz 10 kW Srinagar
This transmission is for about 1 hour and sign on and sign off timings vary. It will continue for one month – till Ramzan day ie around 14 May 2021.
Jose Jacob, VU2JOS to dxindia groups.io (2021-04-14)

New Zealand

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TAB NZ New Zealand return to AM.
Information received from the station:
The TAB (New Zealand sports radio)  has its own network that was once managed by MediaWorks on TAB NZ behalf however we recently sold our national set of licences to Sports Entertainment Network Australia (SEN). SEN are due to set up a NZ broadcasting arm.
The network will continue to broadcast on it’s former AM frequencies.
Jarmo Patala, Finland (2021-04-12)

Lithuania

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After the death of Rimantas Pleikis, there is no one to contact for information about the timetable for [Baltic Waves International, Viesintos] 1386 AM.
But on the sites of radio stations, you can find changes in the schedule.
Preliminary:
UTC
 3:30 NHK World Japan. Russian service (NHK Newsline is broadcast on weekends from NHK World Japan, an English-language TV channel)
 4:00 Polskie Radio. Belarusian service
 5:00-5:30 Polskie Radio. Ukrainian service
12:00-13:00 Polskie Radio. English service
15:30 Polskie Radio. Polish service
16:00 Polskie Radio. Russian service
16:30-17:00 Polskie Radio. German service
17:30 NHK World Japan. Russian service
18:00 Radio Svaboda. Belarusian service (now the radio hour consists of a mix of youtube programs, podcasts and archives. But this is in case the Internet is not shut down again)
19:00 Radio Liberty. Russian service
19:00-21:00 Radio Svaboda. Belarusian service
–
Promonitoril 1386 AM.
The sites were rushed to make changes.
From 18:00 to 21:00, as before, the Russian Freedom Service.
https://forum.ukrtvr.org/index.php?topic=678.1590
RUS-DX #1128 via WOR groups.io (2021-04-11)

New Zealand

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It will be 37 years to the day since the New Zealand radio station, now 1368AM [Village Radio], call sign Station 1XT, first commenced broadcasting from the village in 17th Avenue West. That occasion was to mark the city of Tauranga celebrating its 21st birthday.
On Tuesday April 13, the radio station will be “firing up” its original transmitter, says Station Manager George Stewart.
The 84 year old Collins one kilowatt transmitter was built at Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in the USA.
More about the story sunlive.co.nz
Mike Terry to WRTH fb group (2021-04-11)