Sender Waldheim is back on air with Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM) shortwave broadcasting on 6195 kHz. The transmissions are authorised for ITU Zones 27 and 28. The intended coverage area is Europe around Germany. The authorisation is not programme-specific, allowing Sender Waldheim to relay a variety of programmes and special broadcasts from different partners.
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| SM Dessau QSL |
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| SM Dessau QSL |
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| graphics by Gayle Van Horn |
Of course, Polish
Radio, and later Polish Radio and Television (PRT), was placed under the
control of the Polish Communist Party.
Domestically from 1946-1956, Polish Radio became a propaganda tool for
the Polish People’s Republic (PPR).
During that period of reconstruction from the war damage, which was
considerable, the Communist Party sought to Stalinize Poland on the model of
the USSR, and the brutality of the totalitarian regime at that time was
reinforced through propaganda on the domestic broadcasts of Polish Radio.
External broadcasts
on shortwave also resumed in 1945, and were then designated as Warszawa III. Programming in Esperanto was introduced in
1959, and by 1975 there were daily half hour or one hour programs in English,
Polish, Esperanto, Spanish, French, German, Danish, Swedish, Finnish, Italian
and Arabic, with transmissions for Europe, North America, Africa and the Middle
East.
But, Polish Radio’s
outreach to listeners in the United States was especially difficult due to the long
distance, weak shortwave signals, and most of all, the lack of a receptive
audience. External radio programs from
communist-ruled Poland to North America had almost no listeners among Americans
of Polish descent. Refugee Poles living
in the United States and second and third generation Polish-Americans
were overwhelmingly hostile toward Poland’s communist government.
In 1980, Poland hit
the headlines worldwide because of the Solidarity independent trade union
movement founded at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk and led by Lech Wałęsa. In 1983, Lech Wałęsa
was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, and the union is widely recognized as having
played a central role in ending communist rule in Poland. Poland was the first country in Europe to see
the fall of communism, when on June 4, 1989, the first pluralistic elections
since 1947 led to the dissolution of the communist government.
Soon after the fall of communism
in 1989, an agreement was negotiated to establish cooperation between the Voice
of America and Polish Radio. In January
1990, radio listeners in Poland for the first time ever could hear Voice of
America bilingual (English-Polish) live newscasts on Polish Radio’s nationwide
network, free from any censorship. This
arrangement also marked the first time an Eastern European broadcaster had
agreed to use VOA live newscasts.
On January 1, 1993, Polskie
Radio was officially admitted to full membership of the European
Broadcasting Union.
But due to budget
constraints, shortwave transmissions were steadily reduced between 2007 and
2012, when English language shortwave broadcasts ended. The following year, broadcasts were heard
just twice a day with programming in Polish, Belarusian and Russian, and then
on October 27, 2013, all shortwave broadcasting ceased, and Polskie Radio’s
External Service became an Internet-only entity.
Now, at the end of
2025, external service programming is still being produced in six languages –
Belarusian, English, German, Polish, Russian and Ukrainian – and these are
broadcast daily via the 75 kW medium wave transmitter of Radio Baltic Waves in neighboring
Lithuania on 1386 kHz, as well as on the Internet and via both the Eutelsat and
Hotbird satellites at 13°E. The English
programming is also relayed via the World Radio Network, which in turn is
sometimes carried by WRMI shortwave in Florida – I’ll let Jeff give you the
details of that.
Domestically, Polskie
Radio, PR, still operates on longwave, now with 1,000 kW on 225 kHz. There are also four national PR FM networks,
17 regional PR stations, and another six PR channels on DAB+ and Internet only. And separate from Polskie Radio, there are hundreds
of national, regional and local private commercial stations, again on FM and
DAB+.
Back to you, Jeff.
Jeff: Thanks, Ray. Yes, here at WRMI we do air some transmissions of the Polish Radio external service as part of our relay of the World Radio Network at various times and frequencies that you can find on our website, www.wrmi.net. While the schedule is subject to change, Polish Radio is currently heard via WRMI daily at 0400 UTC on 7570 and 7780 kHz; at 0800 UTC on 7730 and 15770 kHz; and at 1900 UTC on 9395 kHz.
My own memories of listening to Polish Radio’s external service on shortwave date back to the early 1970’s when I was living in Indianapolis, where our editor Adrian Peterson lives now. Polish Radio was quite difficult to hear in Indianapolis back in those days. The signal was usually quite weak. But I did listen, and in fact they even answered a few questions from me on their mailbag program. They were also kind enough to send me a set of Polish language lesson booklets, I remember.
During that time, Polish Radio’s interval signal was the first few notes of Frederic Chopin’s Revolutionary Etude. The World Radio TV Handbook even printed the musical score.
Polish Radio Interval Signal at YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2FtQ3f2BZY
Little did I think listening to that interval signal back in the 1970’s that some 50 years later I would actually travel to Warsaw and hear the Revolutionary Etude in person. But as it happened, when my wife and I travelled to the HFCC B25 Conference in Prague this past August, we flew from Miami to Prague on the Polish LOT Airlines, with an overnight stopover in each direction in Warsaw. While we were there, we took the opportunity to attend a Chopin piano concert at the Museum of the Warsaw Archdiocese in the city’s Old Town, a quaint area with cobblestone streets. Chopin is the most famous of Polish composers, and the Warsaw airport is even called the Frederic Chopin Airport.
Chopin’s Revolutionary Etude played by Ewa Beata Ossowska in Warsaw. Our short visit to the Polish capital was only long enough to make a quick visit to Warsaw’s Old Town, take in the piano concert, and enjoy a delicious meal of Polish pierogies and other traditional food at a rustic restaurant across the street from the Archdiocese Museum. A further exploration of Warsaw will have to wait for another trip in the future. Life is quite interesting for shortwave listeners who often travel to the exotic places they’re listening to, either in person or via their radio receivers.
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| Sydney, Australia |
RSGB
RadCom Assistant Editor | December 24, 2025
We have had some solar ups and downs over the past week. A high-speed stream from a large coronal hole has kept the Kp index high at times, plus the solar flux index has been relatively low due to a lack of sunspots.
The coronal hole has been massive, covering from the Sun’s south pole right up to and past the solar equator.
Nevertheless, there has been DX about, including PZ3OZ in Surinam on 80m FT8 and 40m CW, ZS7ANF in Antarctica on 30m CW, and TG9ADM in Guatemala on 10m CW.
Also spotted have been some of the ‘12 Days of Christmas’ stations in the US, including W2R/5 in Arizona on 15m CW.
Let’s take a look at HF propagation over the next two weeks.
According to NOAA, we may be in for a bumpy ride. The Kp index is predicted to rise to six on 30 December and stay high until early January. Meanwhile, at the same time, the SFI is predicted to rise to 170.
The best time for HF may be after 3 January, when the Kp index is predicted to fall to a more reasonable two to three, while the SFI remains in the 150-160 range.
There should be plenty of activity on HF, with the G-QRP club’s Winter Sports running up until 1 January, and a whole range of contests, from the RSGB’s AFS CW Contest from 1300UTC to 1700UTC on 3 January, to the Marconi Club ARI Loano QSO Party from 0700UTC until 2100UTC, also on 3 January.
Keep an eye on www.contestcalendar.com for updates.
We hope you have a happy New Year and look forward to bringing you more HF propagation news in 2026.
VHF and up propagation news from G3YLA and G4BAO:
The Christmas week saw a brief cold easterly around Christmas Day, then milder air returned around the top of the large area of high pressure.
We go through the next week with the high pressure just to the north or west of Britain and this will bring a more northerly flow across the country and, although initially milder, will become much colder again for the second half of next week.
Since it is primarily a high-pressure week, there’s always a chance of Tropo, but not everywhere. It’s suggested you look for regions of cloud and fog for the best paths since it shows there is moisture under the inversion … a good thing for Tropo.
The solar conditions are likely to offer prospects for aurora and since this period is between two meteor showers with the second one, the Quadrantids, peaking on 4 January at the end of the week.
Finally, a note to follow up on last week’s heads-up for mid-winter Sporadic-E. It’s certainly worth checking for digital modes and quite possibly for SSB/CW on 10m and 6m if there are signs of activity.
For EME operators, Moon declination is rising again and path losses are decreasing as we head towards perigee on 2 January, the point where the Moon is closest to Earth. 144 MHz sky noise remains low until 14-18 January.
And that’s all from the propagation team this week.
https://rsgb.org/main/blog/news/gb2rs/propagation-news/2025/12/24/propagation-news-28-december-2025/
(Mike Terry, UK/BDXC)