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| Moosbrunn, Austria transmitters/Wikipedia |
Long-time shortwave fans will remember the Beautiful Blue Danube Waltz interval signal and the station IDs in four languages. Just as 'Sweden Calling DXers' / MediaScan on Tuesdays and the 'DX Juke Box' / 'Radio Netherlands Media Network' on Thursdays for the English-speaking DX community, the media programs with Wolf Harranth were an incentive for German-speaking shortwave fans to tune in to the Austrian foreign service.
On December 31, 2024, the historic pause signal will sound once again and for the last time. People at Moosbrunn knew of expected cuts at AWR and had negotiated less airtime. The obviously very short-term end of the rental of 11 hours daily by Adventist World Radio came as a surprise and hit the ORS Moosbrunn shortwave station hard. Without this major customer, the station (2 x 100-kW-transmitters) can no longer be operated economically.The complete shutdown of AWR shortwave except KSDA Guam must have come as a surprise even to the different AWR studios.
Radio DARC Germany
Sun, December 29, 2024, 10:00-12:00 hrs UT: 6070 kHz
Radio Joystick
Sun, December 15th, 2024, 11:00-12:00 hrs UT: 7330 kHz.
DJ Charlie Prince has already found a new station for his Radio Joystick <https://radiojoystick.de>
From 2025, his one-hour Music and Malta program will be broadcast from ENC Woofferton, England. He is also saying goodbye to ORS Moosbrunn with a special broadcast. "For a decade, the ORS Moosbrunn transmitter near Vienna helped listeners to Funky Sounds 4 Central Europe! Topics of the Charlie Prince Show on shortwave: Malta, media, music - and more! At the end of 2024, the operator ORS announced the end of the modern broadcasting station! JOY is thus losing its long-time traditional frequency 7330 kHz and is complaining about this with a special broadcast on December 15th at 12 noon Central European Time on 7330 kHz!"
SM Radio Dessau
Thur, December 26, 2024, 09:00-15:00 hrs UT:
6070 kHz 100-kW-Marathon: Radio DARC, 10:00 SM Radio Dessau, 11:00 Radio Klein Paris, 11:30 FM Kompakt, 12:00 Jake FM, 13:00 Decade AM and 14:00 Radio Power Rumpel.
Tue, December 31, 2024, 12:00-14:00UTTC on 6070 kHz Farewell program SM Radio Dessau (https://www.smradio-dessau.de) has announced two special broadcasts for the end of December 2024, one traditional and one occasion-related: Since 2018, SM Radio Dessau has organized a 100-kW marathon broadcast for the second day of Christmas with programs that otherwise broadcast on Channel 292. According to the advertising card, the broadcast on December 26th will be "probably the last marathon".
This time, Michael Fischer of Jake FM, P.O.Box 500138, 47870 Willich, GER 100kw
qsl@jake-fm.de will manage the QSLs.
In June 2018, SM Radio Dessau had its first 100 kW broadcast over ORS Moosbrunn. The special relationship was first documented in a farewell broadcast in 2022. SM Radio Dessau in the announcement of the current farewell broadcast for the ORS Moosbrunn transmitter: "After we retired the 300-kW-transmitter in 2022, we are now unfortunately retiring the entire Moosbrunn station." Reports are welcome under this address:
Max Berger, Saalestrasse 44, 06846 Dessau, Germany
Moosbrunn staff
Tue, December 31, 2024, 09:00-12:00: 6055 kHz
The Moosbrunn shortwave station will also be bid farewell in style by its operators. They would have love to use the iconic 6155 kHz frequency but decided that would ruin any reception of the low power frequency neighbours on 6150 and 6160 kHz.
The three-hour program block features a recently rediscovered program of Herbert Richard Leutgeb and Charlotte Trnka [sic] about 50 years of broadcasting in Austria, the anniversary program with Wolf Harranth about 100 years of regular broadcasting in Austria, which had already attracted 300 reception reports on October 6, 2024, and four episodes of the recent OE1 series "Hello World, this is Radio Austria International".
I had asked for foreign language announcements/features but the three/two-and-a-half staff at ORS Moosbrunn are not program producers. Please be reminded, that ORS is only a technical provider and not the ORF. So, it is still a success that they were able to secure three hours of broadcasting time from their superiors.
((Dr. Hansjoerg Biener, English version of an original article forRadio-Kurier printed magazine December 2024; via WWDXC Michael Bethge)
