My DX Archive: Spring 2003

MARCH and May 2003 are the months from which these memories of radio broadcasts originate from. Memories of broadcasts from Winter 2002-03 can be found at the foot of the previous post, titled Magnificat.
The following broadcasts were heard on the Shortwave radio band.
Housekeeping notes: Times in UTC (GMT), frequencies in kiloHertz (kHz). Transmission power in watts or kiloWatts (kW). Logs transcribed from the original notes.

March 2003: Shortwave

• 7 March [2003]: 2058 UTC: 5900 kHz: Radio Prague // 5930 kHz. Strong to fair reception. English to Europe // Asia, Australasia. 21 UTC broadcast with Jan Bellinger. News: Czech Republic has a new President. Rob Cameron with in depth look at news: Human rights commissioner attacked. Student sets himself alight in Prague.
• 7 March: 2134 UTC: 5950 kHz: Voice of Russia English to Europe, America. 'The Jazz Show' Good to fair reception.

May 2003: Shortwave

• 18 May: 0656 UTC: 6075 kHz: Deutsche Welle Strong to good reception. German language. Visit of Queen Elizabeth II. 0700 UTC News.
• 18 May: 0747 UTC: 6140 kHz: Deutsche Welle 'Concert Hour' Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. Strong to good reception.
• 18 May: 0756 UTC: 6155 kHz: Radio Austria International Fair reception. German to Europe via Moosbrunn. Male and female hosts. ID. Signature tune. News at 0800 UTC: Casablanca, Washington. Snippet of speech by President Bush. To 0804 UTC.

• 18 May: 0948 UTC: 9605 kHz: Voice of the Mediterranean Female host mentions Malta, music. Good reception. 'News Review' in the Maltese language to 10 UTC, 10 UTC 'Valletta Calling' French broadcast. To 1008 UTC.
• 18 May: 1430 UTC: 9645 kHz: Vatican Radio Interval signature music 'Christus Vincit', Europe 1st Programme, Music programme, operatic male vocalists, Italian. Strong to good reception.
• 18 May: 1522 UTC: 11660 kHz: Radio Australia Female host, Margaret Thursby, speaks to a male guest regarding East Timor. Good to fair reception.
• 18 May: 1625 UTC: 11660 kHz: Radio Australia Male host with a male guest discussing university education. Good to fair reception. Interference from oriental / Chinese music, opening chimes of Radio Netherlands and birdcall of RAI - Italy.
• 18 May: 1655 UTC: 12080 kHz: VOA Special English Voice of America Special English to Africa via Botswana. Female and male hosts, 'Fuller's geodesic dome'. Fair reception. 'People in America' to 17 UTC. 17 UTC: Portuguese service.

Thank you so much for once again visiting Reporting From The Fox Tower.

I do hope you are enjoying these posts, looking back to the days when shortwave broadcasts were heard from all over the world - Some still are.

I hope these posts also provide a fitting tribute to some of the stations, presenters, transmission sites no longer on air - Voice of the Mediterranean [VoM], as featured in this post, was based in Malta, originally broadcasting via a Deutsche Welle facility on Malta, until that closed in the mid 1990's. The above broadcast from VoM was most likely to have been heard via transmitters in Rome.

Broadcasts from Malta fell silent early 2004, but I do hope the texts and images from the likes of VoM in these posts do give you a feel for those broadcasts.

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