Like most of international broadcasters, BBC has reduced the shortwave transmissions in the last decade. As the station explains in its site, although there is a loyal group of listeners in the contries that have been cut from the shortwave target areas, the audience in this places doesn’t justify the high costs of the broadcasts. So, the transmissions to North America ended in 2001, to South America in 2005 and to Central America, Caribe and Europe in February 2008.
But, at least till now, BBC keeps broadcasting in shortwave to Africa, Middle East and Asia, where an important part of the population doesn’t access the new forms of content distribution, such as satellite, internet, cable or partnerships with local stations.
As the BBCs broadcasts targeting Africa usually has good reception in South of Brazil, I listened part of the transmission of the last 11 of September, when, of course, the ten years of the terrorist attacks in the USA were the central issue in the news.
In this day, something in my house was disturbing the reception. Note that in the second recording, when I took the radio and the recorder to the garden, the rumble disappears because the reception is at “open air”. Because of this kind of problem shortwave radio is losing listeners. But I keep finding fun in listening to the transmissions.
Frequency of 15.400 khz, at 18h UTC, on September 11 of 2011
parte 1
parte 2
