Voice of Russia leaving shortwave.

dxhound2005

It's unclear to me if this is only the English service or all language services. It may not even be true but as well as this source their Wikipedia entry has been updated with the same information.

http://mt-shortwave.blogspot.ie/2013/08/voice-of-russia-to-close-down-shortwave.html

Various broadcaster have left shortwave in the last few years but this would be the biggest. Anyone with an interest in shortwave couldn't have escaped hearing Radio Moscow and latterly the Voice of Russia.

martinedwards

Used to love radio Moscow.....

especially listening to the news on RM then spinning the VFO to hear the same stories from a SLIGHTLY different slant on Voice of America.

the difference in reporting on the (Russian) Invasion of Afgahnistan was hilarious!

martinsvi

well if you're interested in news with SLIGHTLY different look on the events you can watch Russia Today online. They're not as insolent thou.. For the real craic you have to know Russian and tune in to RTR

Xantia

Wow - back in the day Radio Moscow was an alternative even on Medium Wave at night time.
My first contact on HF was with a Russian on CW, you could only get/give RST Name and QTH.
Eventually I knew their keying and late at night every country in the 'Warsaw Pact' had at least one HF op on duty

watty

Soon there will only be China (broadcasting from Luxembourg and UK!) and Romania.

Satellite & Internet isn't portable. Also much of the the world has neither.

I think Broadcasters are increasingly controlled by people on fibre with Twitter & Facebook accounts and Accountants rather than people that actually want to reach the real audiences.

You'd think every one in UK listen on DAB and watch via Internet to hear Beeb. Yet most "DAB" radios are used for FM and are in the minority and 90%+ of TV viewing is LIVE Broadcast, not Internet.

martinedwards

watty wrote: »

most "DAB" radios are used for FM

really?

we have 2 DABs and I've never even tried to tune them to FM!

watty

It's a fact in the UK.
You are obviously one of the not "mostly". I didn't say all.

Some people with cars switched back to FM from DAB citing long channel switch delay and poor coverage.

Given that MW & LW is used by BBC because even FM is not universal coverage only 99% (DAB coverage is under 94% maybe less on portable), it's a shame how few DAB portables have LW & MW. There was I think one with LW, MW, SW and VHF-FM as well as DAB.

I'm not making it up, it was a real official survey. Interestingly they usually bundle On-line Internet, Satellite and DTT listening with DAB when quoting DAB (Digital) penetration. Satellite & DTT is low for Radio compared to DAB, but Online is significant. The majority of Radio listeners listen on Analogue in the UK, even if they have DAB sets.

The DAB system needs nearly x6 more transmitters as "fill-in" relays to give FM's 99% coverage. Also it needs twice as many Multiplexes to get bit rate up. AAC DAB+ won't increase quality, it's used to fit two 64k stations into 128K that one station used on MP2 DAB. DAB needs 256K per stereo station to be better than FM. At 128K bps AAC (in DAB+) is a bit better than 128kbps MP2 (DAB) but still not good enough. At 256kbps there isn't very much difference between MP2, MP3 and AAC.

Why should a Digital system be used at poorer coverage and quality than VHF-FM when it's possible to have better than FM on existing radios that people have?

There are two other problems with Digital Radio.
One is inherent to DRM, DRM+ and DAB+ as well as DVB-h, DAB and DVB-T used for Radio. That is the buffering needed for decoder and decoder latency. This makes channel changes slow on a Mux and even slower between Muxes. The other problem is a decent Portable or Table model. Issues are speaker size, audio quality, battery life and lack of wavebands features. Most don't even implement RDS on FM.

Radio isn't just for the Car (or the Living Room via the TV set or Set Box DTT) despite what the Controller of R4 said on Feedback on R4 regarding Archers on R4Extra. It was pathetic listening to it. Not that I ever listen to the Archers.

I have a 1929 portable battery valve radio cheaper to run than any DAB set on batteries! The late 1960s Hackers and Roberts (LW/MW/VHF) are far better than any current DAB table/transportable and about 1/10th the battery cost to run! The current Roberts are using much inferior & smaller speakers and also very overpriced.

pixbyjohn

An excellent post Watty

Fuzzy Clam

pixbyjohn wrote: »

An excellent post Watty

No it's not :rolleyes:

As usual it's almost entirely off topic as are most of Watty's posts.
The thread is about Moscow SW. Not DAB, not DRM or any other bee in Watty's bonnet.

PauloMN

Fuzzy Clam wrote: »

No it's not :rolleyes:

As usual it's almost entirely off topic as are most of Watty's posts.
The thread is about Moscow SW. Not DAB, not DRM or any other bee in Watty's bonnet.

Tone it down a bit please FC. Fine to make a point but please make it in a respectful manner. Thanks!

watty

The issue that that Broadcasters perceive Satellite, DAB, Internet as important and AM (esp. SW) and FM as costly dinosaurs when in fact for radio DAB is a failure and in reality more expensive than AM or FM in the larger picture and Satellite or Internet isn't portable or ubiquitous.

Some people may not like my views & analysis but they are not off topic.

Mike 1972

Remember the days when Radio Moscow could be heard on anything up to 80 frequencies :eek: (and that was just the English Language service) the electricity bills for this (along with dozens of skywave and thousands of groundwave jammers) must have made a not insubstantial contribution to bankrupting the USSR.

There were also separate English programmes for North America, Africa and the UK/Ireland. English programmes from some of the Soviet Republics and propaganda stations such as "peace and progress" (which made the main service sound positively balanced) on top of this there was services in over 70 other languages. SW relays of domestic Russian programmes and jamming transmitters (intended to frustrate Eastern bloc residents from listening to decadent imperialist Western broadcasts but often splattering over neutral or even pro-USSR stations)

The Shortwave bands were a packed noisy and chaotic place back in the 1980's

Xantia

Yes indeed they were packed.
And then the woodpecker would come along...

Mike 1972

Xantia wrote: »

And then the woodpecker would come along...

A network of over the horizon military radars ten megawatts each.

Between that and the brodcasting/jamming efforts the carbon emissions from Soviet power stations must have been huge !

Not to mention the pollution of the radio spectrum.

Capt'n Midnight

Mike 1972 wrote: »

A network of over the horizon military radars ten megawatts each.

Between that and the brodcasting/jamming efforts the carbon emissions from Soviet power stations must have been huge !

Not to mention the pollution of the radio spectrum.

Not really.

I can remember a bit on the news about the RAF Phantoms. Each flight used the same amount of fuel that would keep the central heating in a primary school going all winter. At one stage the separation of isotopes for nuclear weapons was using 7% of the US's electricity. The Mig 25's radar was 500-600 KW.

martinedwards

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Not really.

I can remember a bit on the news about the RAF Phantoms. Each flight used the same amount of fuel that would keep the central heating in a primary school going all winter.

eh?

that can't be right!

the fuel tanks can't hold that much or it'd never get off the ground!!!

unless by "flight" they meant squadron......

Capt'n Midnight

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_F-4_Phantom_II

Fuel capacity: 1,994 U.S. gal (7,549 L) internal, 3,335 U.S. gal (12,627 L) with three external tanks

The RAF ones used Rolls-Royce Spey and IIRC were even thirstier

Mike 1972

Will the transmitters now be up for renting out ?

dxhound2005

Here is another report in poorly translated English which seems to be saying that all domestic services on LW and MW in Russia will be closed down in 2014.

http://www.sdxf.se/WP/?p=2239

watty

Money is likely the issue as they don't have the VHF-FM coverage and Satellite or Internet are not a substitute for LW/MW/SW.

Mike 1972

LW and MW broadcasts are a vital link for millions of ethnic Russians living in neighbouring states. Ending them would be an extremely short sighted move for this reason alone.

Not to mention the fact that covering the vast territory that is Russia itself using FM alone is hopelessly impossible.

watty

Even UK & Ireland can't do enough coverage with VHF. Just a few weeks ago the BBC admitted that the BBC 99% VHF-FM coverage isn't good enough (DAB is 6% worse) and this is allegedly why Cricket is simultaneously on DAB and R4 LW.

martinsvi

Mike 1972 wrote: »

LW and MW broadcasts are a vital link for millions of ethnic Russians living in neighbouring states.

not quite true. Almost all neighbouring countries (ex soviet) have tones of russian tv channels and local vhf fm radio stations that provide the same pro-russian propaganda as lw/mw russian stations. Putin regime would never pull a plug on a transmitter if there would be people still listening to it.

soerenswl

https://www.facebook.com/TheMightyKbc?hc_location=stream

here sth new to shortwave, tune in if you have time

Mike 1972

martinsvi wrote: »

Almost all neighbouring countries (ex soviet) have tones of russian tv channels and local vhf fm radio stations that provide the same pro-russian propaganda

Surely if they too blatent with their propaganda the local governments would pull the plug ?

martinsvi

Mike 1972 wrote: »

Surely if they too blatent with their propaganda the local governments would pull the plug ?

and then what? Pay double for the gas? let them ruin local economy by halting free trade? (like just now in Lithuania, http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/07/us-russia-lithuania-dairy-idUSBRE99604Y20131007 they didn't even do anything this time, big bully just sending a message)

It's not like they're broadcasting lies, they're just extremely picky on what to tell and how to tell it. One might giggle and say that's just what CNN does, but the difference here is that one who watches CNN has options to watch any other news broadcaster. Ethnic russians living in neighbouring states however often lack this choice - simply because of a language barrier

Mike 1972

Do Radio Liberty/VoA/BBC/etc not broadcast in Russian anymore ???

(Leaving aside the arguments wether they are just as biased as Putin's stations)

martinsvi

Mike 1972 wrote: »

Do Radio Liberty/VoA/BBC/etc not broadcast in Russian anymore ???

(Leaving aside the arguments wether they are just as biased as Putin's stations)

Radio Liberty (we call it Free Europe) still does broadcasts in russian, bbc does not, I can't remember voice of america ever being popular, maybe it was well jammed where I come from.. or maybe I'm too young to remember it.

anyway, only enthusiasts own SW radios these days... gear made in the ussr has probably deteriorated by now and the new, imported kits never had SW..

believe it or not, but russians actually do have their own independent radio station which is commonly refereed to as the last independent media in the country. it's called Ekho Moskvy (Echo of Moscow). Their offices are often subject to police raids, their internet stream was taken down this summer and who can forget the assassination of Anna Politkovskaya

dxhound2005

Just one small point of clarification. Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty RFE/RL are the same organisation but during the Cold War RFE broadcast to countries outside the USSR whereas RL broadcast to the USSR.

martinsvi

dxhound2005 wrote: »

Just one small point of clarification. Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty RFE/RL are the same organisation but during the Cold War RFE broadcast to countries outside the USSR whereas RL broadcast to the USSR.

well you made me check my facts, and as per RFE web site, RFE/RL began broadcasting in Baltics in 1975 (well under soviet occupation at that time). It doesn't say which name they used, but I clearly remember it was Free Europe.

Doesn't matter really, youth being youth were more interested in Swedish pop music stations coming across the sea when conditions were good and jammers were busy on different frequencies.. according to my older brother, that was the real thrill back then.. who knows what kind of trouble you could land yourself in if anyone would find out what you're up to

Mike 1972

The US (and most other Western countries) didnt fully recognise/accept the annexation of the three Baltic states by the USSR therefore broadcasts in Latvian/Lithuanian/Estonian used the callsign "Radio Free Europe" whereas broadcasts to the rest of the USSR ID'ed as "Radio Liberty" (Programmes for Poland/Hungary etc also used the "Radio Free Europe" name while East Germany/East Berlin had its own dedicated service called "RIAS").

RFE/RL tended to be jammed more often/heavily than VoA/BBC etc but (when it could be heard) tended to be more popular in most of these countries partly because it attempted to cover more domestic news for each of the countries it targeted rather than the more worldwide perspective of other broadcasters and partially because it was less subtle in its (propaganda against/criticism of) the regimes in these countries. The VoA/BBC etc were obliged by their respective charters to make more of a pretence of balance and impartiality.

Despite language barriers Western Music stations (Such as Radio Luxembourg, AFN and some domestic stations) also enjoyed a following and had the benefit of being rarely (if ever) jammed.

. who knows what kind of trouble you could land yourself in if anyone would find out what you're up to

Probably everyone (even party members) were secretly doing the same although in later years the authorities in most of these countries tended to take a more relaxed approach (probably had bigger problems........)