The Story of a Lonely Radio Studio in an Isolated Area of Africa
Let
us take an interesting story from a recent issue of an American club magazine
about a lonely radio studio in an isolated area of Africa and we adapt it for
broadcast on radio. This story, about a
radio production studio operated by Adventist World Radio, was provided by
Ralph Perry in Wheaton Illinois and it is found in the NASWA Journal for
February earlier this year.
The small city of Maroua is located
in the far north of the country of Cameroon in Africa and it is the regional
capital with a population of less than a quarter million. There is a small regional airport nearby and
mail delivery in the area is described as spotty.
For many years now, Adventist World
Radio has operated a small radio production studio in the building that serves
as the headquarters for the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the northern area
of the Cameroons. Programming in this
studio is produced in the widely spoken Fulfulde language and over the years it
has been broadcast over various stations that give radio coverage into the
Fulfulde language areas, including the usage of Meyerton in South Africa.
Radio coverage for the Fulfulde
programming during this past shortwave Transmission Period B14 has been
provided by the Deutsche Welle shortwave station located a little north of
Kigali in Rwanda. However, as was
announced quite recently, this powerful Deutsche Welle relay station is closing
over this weekend, at the time of transition from the B14 to the A15
Transmission Period.
The director of the Cameroon AWR
studio in Maroua, Pastor H. T. Richard, states his appreciation in receiving a
letter from a shortwave listener in the United States who heard his programming
via DW Kigali. He also states that the
studio is quite small and quite simple, though plans are underway for location
in another building with updated studio equipment.
It is intended also that live
programming will then be added for broadcast locally to the Maroua city
area. However, until the new studio
becomes available, only programming for broadcast in the international
scheduling from Adventist World Radio will be produced.
We might add that somewhere around
75 production studios around the world are affiliated with Adventist World
Radio. Some of these studios are quite
large and turning out programming in many languages whereas others are quite
small and working in only one language.
If fellow DXers are making contact
directly with AWR production studios, we would suggest that care should be
taken in the these matters, remembering that the staff may not understand the
circumstances associated with international radio monitoring and the nature of
QSLs. Even though English is the
international working language of the Adventist denomination, yet not all radio
staff may be able to communicate in English.
Then too, it is possible that
finances may be quite tight in some locations, and the cost of posting mail,
perhaps even registered mail in order to secure assurance of delivery, may be
very high in the local currency.
Remember too, that some of the production studios are located in sensitive
areas of the world where the staff has to be very careful about international
contacts
(AWR-wavescan/NWS 318)
