Voice of Russia Radio Stops Shortwave Service

[ChrisSmolinski]

MOSCOW, August 21 (RIA Novosti) – The Russian government’s international radio broadcasting service Golos Rossii (Voice of Russia) will stop its shortwave broadcasts from January 1 next year, the Digit.ru online journal reported Wednesday.

The shortwave service is closing “due to funding cuts,” Voice of Russia deputy director Natalya Zhmai said in a letter dated August 15 to Andrei Romanchenko, head of the Russian Television and Radio Broadcasting Network (RTRBN), the journal said.

Voice of Russia, established in 1929, currently uses RTRBN transmitters to broadcast to foreign countries using short and medium waves. After the shortwave service goes off the air, only three low-power medium wave transmitters will be used to broadcast to other countries, an industry source told Digit.ru.

The radio will mostly use FM band transmitters based abroad, the source said.

At the beginning of the year, Voice of Russia cut the total volume of shortwave broadcasts to 26 hours a day from more than 50 hours in 2012.

http://en.ria.ru/russia/20130821/182889844/Voice-of-Russia-Radio-Stops-Shortwave-Service.html

[skeezix]

Used to listen to them up until the last cuts, now have hard time picking them up.  I better try harder for the next few months...

Funny... was just tuning around on 31m and stopped on 9465 as there's a weak station. Then came here to do stuff, found this thread, responded, then looked up where VoR is on now: 9465 in English! Audio is very weak and unintelligible.

0009Z: Found them in English on 9665, however some sort of QRM causing some problems.

[Pigmeat]

They're usually solid on 9665 most evenings here. I was listening to them last week and thinking it was nice that at least one shortwave giant was still out there. Oh well.

Even with Putin in power, other than the news, the programming has been interesting since the fall of the Soviet state.

[BoomboxDX]

I haven't picked them up in English with decent signals since the early 2000's.  I still can pick up their Magadan and Kamchatka broadcasts in Russian from time to time, though.

[glimmer twin]

The article seems to be saying that RTRS facilities within Russia will shut down but Foreign partnerships will continue. 9665 &  the previous B12 freqs are foreign partners aren't they? We'll see what happens

http://digit.ru/state/20130821/404590031.html


Unfortunately the foreign partner that is relaying VOR is also shutting down shortwave.In fact the shutdown date was July 1'st. I think they are already shut down. Bummer

[refmo]

On 9665 tonight with usual decent signal.  Unlike the old Radio Moscow, I will miss VoR if they leave shortwave.