Radio Moldova on 873 kHz: the first channel of Teleradio-Moldova from Codru

What you hear

Radio Moldova is the first channel of Teleradio-Moldova, the country's public broadcaster: news, talk, folk and popular music, programmes about villages and farming, and a good deal of Romanian-language culture, in Romanian throughout the day. The catalogue notes news in Russian at 07:00, 11:00, 14:00 and 17:00 UTC, and two weekly programmes for the minorities: on Tuesdays at 17:10 UTC in Russian, on Thursdays at the same time in Ukrainian. The transmitter signs on at 03:55 UTC and off at 20:00 UTC, so it is a day-and-evening station rather than a night one.

Romanian on the radio has a sound of its own, Latin vowels with a Slavic cadence in Moldova, and the Russian bulletins at the top of the listed hours are the easiest way to confirm the station without a word of Romanian.

Who transmits and why

The transmitter is at Codru, a suburb on the southern edge of Chișinău, and the catalogue gives 50 kW, which is small by the standards of the rubric. Moldova is a small country, and 50 kW on 873 kHz covers it by ground wave in daylight, which is what a public broadcaster needs; the point of keeping medium wave at all is the countryside, where FM coverage is thin and radios are old. The Russian news and the weekly minority programmes reflect the mix of people the channel serves, and the Ukrainian slot has gained an audience of refugees since 2022.

873 kHz was also a Ukrainian Radio frequency until the start of 2023, when that transmitter closed; since then the Moldovan station has had the channel to itself in this part of Europe.

When and where to listen

By day the ground wave covers Moldova, Transnistria, the Odesa region and the eastern edge of Romania. Medium wave carries far only after dark, and for most of the year the station's last hours fall in darkness: from October to March the sun sets over Chișinău before 15:00 UTC, so the 17:00 UTC Russian news and the evening programmes up to the 20:00 UTC sign-off reach Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland and, on good nights, Germany and Scandinavia. In summer only the final hour or so goes out after sunset and the reach is much shorter.

With 50 kW it is never the loudest thing on the band. Receivers in Romania, Moldova and Ukraine hear it clearly; from central Europe it is a winter-evening catch that may be under a stronger co-channel station, and from western Europe it is a difficult one. The program tunes AM; because the signal is modest, a narrow filter or a single sideband is often the difference between hearing it and not. The 20:00 UTC sign-off is a good moment to identify it: the carrier drops, and whatever remains on 873 kHz is somebody else.

In ShackDeck

Station catalogue → Medium and long wave → Radio Moldova 873 kHz. ShackDeck picks a public receiver that hears 873 kHz, tunes it and sets AM. No receiver, antenna or account of your own is needed; choose a receiver in Romania or Ukraine for daytime listening and one in central Europe for a winter evening.