Monitoring project on Viešintos 1386 kHz
As a result of the Ukraine war, the Lithuanian relay of international services, formerly known as Radio Baltic Waves International, has regained more attention from broadcasters and listeners.
Viešintos 1386 kHz (75 kW) has a new overnight relay of the Ukrainian domestic service and a new mix of programmes from NHK World Radio Japan. A listening project 1-6 April 2022 showed that you have to give preference to your own monitoring over reproducing the Internet information. For example Ukrainske Radio has more airtime than reported and is relayed until NHK World Radio abruptly takes over. This, in turn, is broadcast longer in the day than listed in the NHK World Radio broadcast schedule (https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/ja/information/brochure/pdf/radio_frequency_schedule.pdf).
Obviously, NHK World Radio had to turn around from closing its services because of the Ukraine crisis. This is not only evident in the somewhat strange sequence of its English and Russian segments, but also when listening to the programmes. Actually, you can only describe the first ten minutes in Russian as “up-to-date”. The 20-minute programmes, which can also be heard on shortwave, are completed by repetitions of a language course. In the 30-minute blocks compiled for Radio Baltic Waves International, the last 5 minutes in Russian are used on the broadcast schedule. In turn, the English segments in these blocks are relays from NHK World TV, with the same Newsline being broadcast up to five times in a row.
00.00-03.30 UTC: Ukrainske Radio in Ukrainian
03.30-03.50: Mon-Fri NHK World Radio in Russian (news and language course). 03.50 test tone
03.30-03.50: Sat Sun NHK World TV in English (2x Newsline) in English. 03.50 measurement tone
04.00-05.30: Polskie Radio in Belarusian and 05.00 in Ukrainian
12.00-13.00: Polskie Radio in English
15.00-15.30: Mon-Fri NHK World Radio in Russian (news). 15.10 NHK World TV in English (Newsline and Weather). 15.25 Russian (schedule)
15.00-15.30: Sat Sun NHK World TV in English (3x Newsline)
15.30-17.00: Polskie Radio in Polish. 16.00 Russian, 16.30 German
17.00-18.00: Mon-Fri NHK World Radio in Russian. 17.10 NHK World TV in English (Newsline and Weather). 17.25 Russian (schedule). 17.30 NHK World Radio in Russian (news and language course). 17.50 test tone
17.00-18.00: Sat Sun NHK World TV in English (5x Newsline). 17.50 NHK Interval signal
18.00-21.00: Radio Svoboda (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty) in Russian
21.00-03.30: Ukrainske Radio in Ukrainian
Dr Hansjoerg Biener (2022-04-06)