Month: September 2023

Unid

mw

Re. a recent discussion in WOR iog
522 kHz
Already in the last days of June 2023, German short wave listener and programme producer Nouri Streichert (Musikallee and Steel Guitar on Channel 292) noted a station on 522 kHz which rebroadcast various international programmes in German. These included stations such as Radio Romania International, Schweizer Rundfunk and Hitradio Namibia. The station was heard in his Hildesheim area (Lower Saxony) and on a WebSDR in Magdeburg (neighbouring Saxony-Anhalt) but not much farther.

520 kHz
By the way, 520 kHz used to be a German frequency because the Copenhague Plan (1948) did not allocate many/enough frequencies to Germany. The Germans, who were only represented by the Allied powers, called it „Wellendemontage“. In response Germany moved to FM very early which gave them an advantage in the development of receivers. Stations in West Germany retained medium wave stations and to a smaller extent short wave stations to reach out to Germans east of the Iron Curtain. On both sides longwave was used to reach out to the lost brethren although neither West- nor East Germany had been allocated a channel.
In the course of 1999, local transmitters in Hof and Würzburg (200 watts each) switched from 520 to 729 kHz. These two stations of Bayerischer Rundfunk were the remnants of what were once numerous filler stations on this unusual frequency, the use of which dates back to the immediate post-war period. At the end of the 20th century, the frequency 520 kHz was below the actual medium wave range and could no longer be received by many radios.

Hansjoerg Biener to WOR iog (2023-09-14)

Russia

mw

Kyzyl кызыл
51.68646000000001, 94.60183626981767
Some of the smaller mast are gone since April 2022, some between July 2021 and April 2022.

Marco (2023-09-14)

Space Weather

mw

ANNULAR SOLAR ECLIPSE: Mark your calendar. On Oct. 14th–just one month from today–the Moon will pass in front of the sun, producing an annular solar eclipse visible from North and South America. Maps and observing tips @ Spaceweather.com.

Ydun Ritz (2023-09-14)

United States

mw

Billy Buck’ Blevins’ Signal Hill Media Partners continues to expand across western North Carolina as the company acquires Country 1250 WBRM/103.9 W280FP Marion and Oldies/Talk 590 WCAB/100.9 W265DW Rutherfordton NC from Todd Fowler’s Skyline Media in separate deals for $275,000 and $477,500 respectively.

Both deals include Time Brokerage Agreements ahead of closing. The one for WBRM/W280FP took effect last week leading to the station moving from “Natural Country 103.9” to Classic Country “Bigfoot
Country 103.9“. Dan Deaton will continue to host mornings.

Signal Hill will begin operating WCAB/W265DW on October 1 at which point it will flip to Classic Country as “Pure Country“.

Signal Hill Media Partners also operates Classic Country 550 WAME/92.9 W225BD Statesville NC and “96.1 The Bear” 1350 WZRM Black Mountain/96.1 W241DD Asheville and provides programming to Oldies “Z102.5” WEZG-LP Statesville.

Skyline Media had acquired WBRM/W280FP in 2020 for $125,000 and added WCAB/W265DW last December for $450,000.
https://radioinsight.com/headlines/258739/pair-of-western-nc-sales-to-bring-classic-country/

Lance Venta, RadioInsight (2023-09-13)

Lithuania

mw

Translated from German:
https://www.radioeins.de/programm/sendungen/medienmagazin/radio_news/beitraege/2022/lenta_1557.html
The two medium waves on which programs intended for foreign countries are already broadcast from Lithuania should not be enough: the aim is also to reoccupy the 666 kHz frequency.

A frequency tender is currently underway with a deadline of November 6th. There are likely to be concrete plans behind this that have not yet been disclosed.

The medium wave 666 kHz is the former main frequency of the first radio program from Vilnius. Its shutdown in 2009 marked the end of AM broadcasts from broadcasters in the Baltics as a whole. In Estonia and Latvia, this step was already taken in 1998/1999.

The tender specifically mentions Sitkunai near Kaunas as the transmitter location. This continues the unexpected revival of this station.

It was only in 2017 that the broadcasting network operator LRTC kicked out the last users and completely cleared out the technology building. If this address can no longer be de-cluttered with a photo collection, we recommend taking a look at what conditions existed when the business was still running.

The continuation of the 1386 kHz frequency, supported by US authorities, including the German-language broadcasts from Polskie Radio, was only possible from a different location. Accordingly, observers were astonished when broadcasts from Sitkunai began again.

The transmission of Russian-language programs was observed for the first time on August 5, 2022 on 1557 kHz. Since then it has been running in the evenings.

It is a Dutch project that will officially be called “Radio Pravda”. However, this name is not used anywhere. On air and online it is just called “Nascha Lenta” or “Radio Lenta”.

Lenta is actually the name of a Russian online newspaper founded in 1999, from which the Riga-based Medusa project split off in 2014. As far as we can tell, the broadcasts on 1557 kHz have nothing to do with this.

It doesn’t look like it has a Ukrainian background, such as Lenta.ua, which is now operating in Kiev, but rather a simple hijacking of the well-known brand.

While nothing is known about the journalistic background of these broadcasts, a relevant report offered all the details about the technology. The transmitter from a Canadian manufacturer that was active in the Netherlands on 1008 kHz until the beginning of 2019 is connected to one of the antennas still present in Sitkunai.

The chronicle included information that no one wanted to give at the time, namely the transmission power used in the last operating phase of the Zeewolde medium wave station: it was 50 kW.

Kai Ludwig, Radio Eins (2023-09-10) via Herbert Meixner in A-DX iog (2023-09-12)