External services of Betar in bad shape
By Sheikh Arif BulbonMon, 15 Jan 2007, 09:50:00
The external services of Bangladesh Betar, which are aired on short wave in Bengali and five other languages, are now in a miserable condition due to degradation of the quality of signals from its old short-wave transmitter.
The poor transmission from Savar, where the old short-wave transmitter is situated, is the only responsible for above condition of the external services. But the external services were the most popular among the listeners of the South Asia and countries of the Middle East, said an official of Bangladesh Betar.
The external services of Bangladesh Betar had become popular in India, Pakistan, Nepal and the Middle East during the War of Liberation of Bangladesh. Now it has lost most of its listeners due to its poor services, he added.“
The quality of transmission has remained poor for two years. The signal has become too weak to receive. But the authorities are not willing to address the problem,” said the official.The technicians, who are working at the transmission point, are not careful of maintenance of programme schedule and non-repetition or exchanging of the programmes, he added.It has also become difficult for Bangladesh Betar to run programmes of the external services, as it is difficult to find people who are expert in the communications in those languages, said another official.
Generally Nepalese and students of Arabic Department of Dhaka University are engaged in the programmes of the external services in Bangladesh Betar.“Due to unavailability of artistes in foreign languages, we are facing problems to run the programmes,” said the official.He also said that they were thinking to talk with the authorities to replace the present transmitter.News bulletins, commentaries, press comments, economic reviews, talk shows, weekly magazines, songs and advertisements on women and children issues are the main programmes of the external services of Bangladesh Betar.
All these programmes are aired on short-wave band 41.75 in 7185 KHz between Bangladesh time 19:15, 23:30 and between 00:15 and 02:00.
Source : The New Nation/Alokesh GuptaNew Delhi via Cumbre DX)