NHK World Radio Japan in Russian on 6165 kHz: twenty minutes from Tokyo via Nauen

What you hear

A short, tidy programme. At 04:30 UTC the Russian service of Radio Japan opens with its identification and goes straight into the news: what happened in Japan and in Asia over the past day, read in clear Russian by the Tokyo studio. The second half of the twenty minutes is a feature, something about Japanese society, culture, technology or everyday life, and the programme closes on the dot at 04:50. There are no commercials and no music beyond the signature tunes, and the whole thing is over before most of Europe has finished breakfast.

Who transmits and why

NHK is Japan's public broadcaster, and NHK World is its arm for audiences abroad: television, the web and Radio Japan, which has broadcast on shortwave since the 1930s in a long list of languages. Russian has been among them for decades, for listeners in Russia and the other Russian-speaking countries.

The programme is produced in Tokyo, but the transmitter for this broadcast is in Germany. NHK's own shortwave site at Yamata, north of Tokyo, which is what the catalogue's coordinates point to, serves Asia; for Europe and the western part of Russia it is cheaper and more effective to lease a transmitter closer to the audience. Nauen, west of Berlin, is one of the oldest radio sites in the world, in use since 1906, and today its transmitters work for broadcasters from many countries. This slot runs at 125 kW. The same programme is repeated on medium wave, 1386 kHz, at 15:00–15:20 and 17:00–17:50 UTC, for listeners who prefer an ordinary AM radio in the evening.

When and where to listen

6165 kHz is in the 49 metre band, and 04:30 UTC is a good hour for it in every season: the band is still open after the night in Europe and has not yet been eaten by daytime absorption. From Nauen the signal covers all of Europe, the Baltics and western Russia, which is where it is meant to go. A receiver in Poland, Finland, the Baltic states or western Russia hears it at its intended strength; receivers in Germany itself are close enough to get it by a high-angle path and do fine too. Further east, towards the Urals, it becomes a matter of the season and of where the sunrise line is at that moment.

Twenty minutes is not long, so be tuned a minute or two before 04:30 UTC. Outside those twenty minutes the frequency may carry other stations or nothing at all.

In ShackDeck

Station catalogue → Shortwave broadcast → NHK Radio Japan in Russian 6165. The program picks a public receiver that covers 6165 kHz, tunes it and sets AM; no receiver, antenna or account is needed on your side. Because the broadcast is short, open the entry a few minutes early and let the program settle on a receiver before the programme starts. The Saturday Russian programme of the Voice of the Andes on 11700 kHz comes from the same Nauen site and has its own article.