ERA-1 on 729 kHz: the first programme of Greek radio from Athens

What you hear

ERA-1, the Proto Programma of the Greek public broadcaster ERT, is a speech channel: news on the hour, long morning and afternoon current-affairs programmes, interviews, parliamentary and economic coverage, cultural talk, and Greek music late at night. It is in Greek throughout, which makes it one of the few stations in the rubric that a listener from northern Europe can identify by the language alone. The catalogue lists it on 729 kHz 24 hours a day from Athens at 70 kW, so there is no schedule to keep; whatever the hour, ERT is there, and overnight the channel runs music and repeats of the day's programmes.

Who transmits and why

The transmitter serves Athens and Attica from a site near the capital; the catalogue does not give a more precise location, and this article does not guess one. 70 kW is not much by the standards of the band, but it does not need to be: the transmitter's job is the capital, the islands of the Saronic Gulf and the coast, places where FM from the mainland is patchy and ships and fishermen still carry medium-wave sets.

ERT has reduced its medium-wave network over the years, and this Athens outlet of the first programme is one of the survivors. The reasons are the usual ones for a public broadcaster: medium wave is cheap to receive, covers the sea, and keeps working when other things fail. How long it will stay is not something the catalogue can say.

When and where to listen

By day the ground wave covers Attica, the Peloponnese, Euboea and the near Aegean, and receivers in Greece hear it well at any hour. Medium wave carries far only after dark, and after sunset the signal reaches Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Albania, southern Italy and Turkey, and on good winter nights central Europe. With 70 kW it is never loud at a distance, and 729 kHz is used by stronger stations elsewhere in Europe, so from Germany or Britain you are more likely to hear one of them; from the Balkans and Italy, though, Athens is a fair evening catch.

Receivers in Greece, Bulgaria, southern Italy and Turkey are the ones to choose. The program tunes AM; because the signal is modest at a distance, a narrower filter or a single sideband helps pull the speech out of the noise. The Greek language, the ERT jingle and the time signal before the news are the identification.

In ShackDeck

Station catalogue → Medium and long wave → ERA-1 729 kHz (Athens). ShackDeck looks for a public receiver that hears 729 kHz, tunes it and sets AM. No receiver, antenna or account of your own is needed; a receiver in Greece gives the station at any time, one in the southern Balkans or Italy after sunset.