IRRS on 7290 kHz: the Italian Radio Relay Service in English via Bulgaria

What you hear

IRRS is not one programme but a channel that carries many. In the daily English hour from 18:00 to 19:00 UTC on 7290 kHz you may land on a religious broadcast produced by an evangelical ministry, a magazine about shortwave and DXing, a music show from a hobby producer, a talk programme on human rights or health, or a relay of United Nations material. The station identifies as "IRRS Shortwave" or "Italian Radio Relay Service", often with a Milan address, and the identifications are the glue between programmes that otherwise have nothing in common. On Saturday and Sunday mornings a longer block runs from 08:00 to 12:00 UTC on 9510 kHz, with the same kind of mix and more room for music.

What a given hour contains changes by day of the week, so two listeners describing the station can sound as though they heard different ones. That variety is the point.

Who transmits and why

The Italian Radio Relay Service belongs to NEXUS-IBA, a non-profit association in Milan that has been putting other people's programmes on shortwave since the late 1980s. It began with its own small transmitter in northern Italy and for years was one of the few private shortwave broadcasters in Europe; today it buys time on big commercial transmitters. The English hour on 7290 kHz comes from Kostinbrod near Sofia, Bulgaria, from a 150 kW transmitter, which is why the catalogue shows a Bulgarian flag for an Italian station. The weekend mornings on 9510 kHz use a transmitter at Săftica near Bucharest in Romania. The model is simple: producers who want a shortwave audience in Europe and beyond pay for airtime, IRRS books the transmitter and handles the identification and the paperwork, and the listener gets a channel that is never quite the same twice.

When and where to listen

7290 kHz is in the 41 metre band, and 18:00 UTC is early evening in Europe, when the band is opening for the night. From Bulgaria the transmission covers all of Europe: receivers in the Balkans, Italy, Austria and Hungary hear it at great strength, and western and northern Europe get a solid signal with some fading. In winter the band is well open by 18:00 UTC; in high summer the first part of the hour can be weaker in the far north-west. The weekend 9510 kHz block in the 31 metre band is a daytime signal and is easy from anywhere in Europe between 08:00 and 12:00 UTC.

The catalogue mode is AM. 7290 kHz sits inside the segment shared with amateur radio in parts of the world, so you may hear sideband voices nearby; upper or lower sideband with a narrow filter separates the broadcast from them if needed.

In ShackDeck

The entry sits under Station catalogue → Shortwave broadcast → IRRS 7290 (English). ShackDeck picks a public receiver whose range covers 7290 kHz, tunes it and sets AM from the catalogue, so you need no receiver, antenna or account of your own. At 18:00 UTC watch the carrier appear on the waterfall and wait for the identification before deciding which of the station's many faces you have found.