Rádio Nacional da Amazônia: Brazil's voice for the Amazon on 11780 kHz

What you hear

This is domestic Brazilian radio that happens to be audible half a world away. The programme is in Portuguese and built for people in the Amazon basin: news from Brasília and the northern states, call-ins, public-service announcements, football, and a great deal of music, from sertanejo and forró to MPB and the occasional old samba. Late in the evening there are long music blocks with little talk, which is when the station is at its most pleasant for a foreign listener who does not follow the language. Identifications name "Rádio Nacional da Amazônia" and often "Nacional" alone; the station is part of the EBC public broadcasting group and carries its network news at fixed times.

Audio is wide and usually clean, with a strong carrier. On a good night in Europe the signal is louder than many European broadcasters on the same band.

Who transmits and why

The station belongs to Empresa Brasil de Comunicação, Brazil's public broadcaster, and its shortwave transmitters stand at the Rodeador transmitting park outside Brasília. It exists because the Amazon is enormous and thinly settled: river communities, farms, mining camps and indigenous villages that FM never reached rely on shortwave for news, for messages, and for a sense of being part of the country. The transmitters are high-power by South American standards precisely so that the signal covers the whole basin from the capital, and that reach is why Europe hears it too. Two frequencies share the job: 11780 kHz in the 25 metre band, and 6180 kHz in the 49 metre band, which the station leans on at night.

When and where to listen

For a European listener, 11780 kHz is the frequency of the late afternoon and evening: the 25 metre band opens across the South Atlantic as Europe approaches dusk, and the signal tends to peak between about 19:00 and 23:00 UTC before the band fades. After that, 6180 kHz takes over and can be heard until the European dawn, best in winter when the nights are long. From North America both frequencies are easy in the evening. Receivers in Portugal, Spain and the Canary Islands get the loudest signal from Brasília; receivers in central Europe are fine on most nights.

The catalogue mode is AM. Both frequencies have neighbours, and on 6180 kHz in particular you may want lower or upper sideband to pick the clean side of the carrier when the band is crowded.

In ShackDeck

The entry is under Station catalogue → Shortwave broadcast → Radio Nacional da Amazônia. ShackDeck chooses a public receiver that covers 11780 kHz, tunes it and sets AM from the catalogue; you need no receiver, antenna or account of your own. If you are listening after the 25 metre band has closed, type 6180 into the receiver's frequency field or pick a receiver on the other side of the Atlantic, and the same programme is there.