As the first item in our DX Report from America, we quote this commentary from the latest edition of the New Zealand DX Times. It was written by David Ricquish and it is presented under the title, “Winds of Change”.
The winds of change continue to buffet our world of radio. Last month, Martin Hadlow noted an article in “The Economist” magazine that reported an upturn in shortwave listening in Africa and India, together with a report that the BBC plans to upgrade their shortwave transmitter facility on Ascension Island which will soon be powered by a wind farm.
North American shortwave broadcasters have decided to conduct research into current shortwave listening patterns in North America, digital HD radio receivers are being removed from radio shop inventories in the United States, and some American AM mediumwave stations with IBOC capability are choosing to switch off due to interference problems and the lack of listeners with IBOC receivers.
At the same time, Mexico has approved digital HD facilities for many of its border mediumwave stations, and Australian and New Zealand mediumwave and FM networks appear to be slow in adopting digital radio systems, due mainly to tight economic conditions and no apparent benefit from the new digital channels. Austria still plans to close down its shortwave broadcasts by the end of the year, and Radio Singapore International has just gone silent on shortwave.
In China, greater prosperity and the availability of low cost radio receivers is leading to an explosive growth of a new hobby for them, DXing. Chinese DXers are now actively reporting local radio stations on shortwave, mediumwave and FM, and the stations are responding with detailed confirmations and QSL cards. As most of this new activity occurs within the bounds of China and the Chinese language, it is hard to gauge how big the new phenomenon really is, but it does have a potential for introducing millions of new listeners and DXers to the world of international radio broadcasting. Already, western shortwave stations are noting a greater flow of reception reports from inside China, despite the current jamming of a wide range of foreign broadcasts.
It is also easy to underestimate the fascination that shortwave radio continues to hold for listeners in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Although advancing technology jumping enables many to hear the new commercial and community FM signals on mobile phones, yet mediumwave and shortwave still continue to provide the major radio infrastructure for national radio coverage, and this procedure will continue to do so for the coming decades. International broadcasters still support local listener clubs in Southern Asia and thousands of new local FM community stations are planned across India. And again, shortwave listening and DXing in several counties of Asia is far more popular than we sometimes realize.
* USA: A series of recent radio developments in the Americas includes the following: The installation of a 100 kW transmitter at WHRI Cypress Creek, transferred from Noblesville Indianapolis, is complete and it is now in regular service. Shortwave station KAIJ in Texas is now off the air.
The new shortwave KTMI in Oregon is expected on air some time quite soon. Test broadcasts have been noted from the revived shortwave WRNO in New Orleans. There are no signs that the shortwave stations WJCR-WJIE in Kentucky and WWBS in Georgia will be re-activated. Station KTBN in Utah has been dismantled and the equipment is under installation on the island of Anguilla to augment the Caribbean Beacon. Both WTJC 5920 kHz and WTJC are on the air, though WTJC is noted on 9365 kHz instead of 9370 kHz. Station WMLK seems to be still off the air.
* CANADA: The latest bulletin from Sheldon Harvey and his “Radio High Frequency Internet Newsletter” features several items of interest regarding the lonely Pacific island, Pitcairn, some of which we will present in an upcoming edition of our DX program, “Wavescan”. This newsletter also presents items of information on two large communication stations, the aviation Gander Radio in Newfoundland, and the Haiku Naval Station in Hawaii. You can access Sheldon Harvey’s bulletin at www.radiohf.ca .
* ZIMBABWE: According to the latest edition of the American radio magazine, “Popular Communications”, the African country of Zimbabwe has banned the usage of the popular wind-up radios. Because batteries for portable radio receivers are almost unobtainable in Zimbabwe, the wind-up radios are used widely. Those who own a wind-up radio are required to hand them over to government authorities.
* KIRIBATI: According to a report from BBC Monitoring, quoting a news item from Radio Australia, the only mediumwave transmitter in their country is currently off the air, due to a transmitter fault and lack of funding. This mediumwave unit is listed with 10 kW on the capital city atoll, Tarawa. However, Radio Australia states that their FM service with 100 watts on 99.0 MHz is still on the air.
* STATISTICS & OTHER INTERESTING INFORMATION:
The D-Day invasion of Europe at Normandy in France required the usage of 90,000 radio transmitters. (The Signal Corps: The Outcome)
Periodically, earth scientists require the addition of a leap second to match measured time with the rotation of the Earth. Since June 30, 1972 a total of twenty three leap seconds have been added to Earth clock, which means that the Earth has been slowing down in its rotations almost half a minute in the past thirty six years. Add to this, that the opposite side of the Earth bounced about six feet during the massive Indonesian earthquake a few years ago, and the fact that Mt Everest is growing higher at the rate of ½ inch per year, we really are in for an interesting future!
Radio Heritage in New Zealand, at radiohertiatge.net, now reports more than two million hits.New Zealand has more than 700 AM & FM stations, for a population of less than five million.There are 253 radio stations on the island of Madagascar.
The world wide audience to American radio and television programming, including VOA, RFE/RL and all of the other government services, is now estimated at 175 million, an increase of 20 million. There are 20,808 AM & FM stations in the United States.
*BANGLADESH: The Spring edition of “Radio News Letter” from Thompson Multimedia in Europe informs us that the superpower mediumwave transmitter under installation at Dhamrai is expected to be inaugurated later this year. This 1 MW unit replaces a 36 year old unit at the same location. It is planned that this single transmitter will give direct coverage to all of Bangladesh, and that it will provide a program feed to a network of new local stations, as well as a new 100 kW shortwave transmitter.
* USA: The very popular artist, Thomas Kinkade, is well known throughout the United States for his colorful paintings that depict nostalgic, old world, country scenes. Interestingly, in the year 1998, Thomas Kinkade painted a lighthouse that also depicted a radio station. The lighthouse is known as The South East Lighthouse on Block Island, just off the continental east coast of New Jersey. Two red & white radio towers are shown in this artistic painting in the Kinkade picture book, together with the radio shack, quite close to the main lighthouse building. The style of the radio station would suggest that it was in use for communication purposes.
(Source: Adrian Peterson/Wavescan)