Radio Romania International in Russian on 11810 kHz: Bucharest's afternoon half hour

What you hear

At 15:00 UTC Radio Romania International opens its Russian half hour with the interval signal and the station's greeting, then runs through the day's news from Romania and the region, a press review or a commentary, and a feature: Romanian history, music, the countryside, life in Bucharest, or an answer to listeners' letters. The programme is produced in Bucharest by the Russian section and sounds like a traditional international broadcast, unhurried and carefully pronounced. It ends at 15:30 UTC, when another language takes over or the transmitter moves to another frequency.

Who transmits and why

Radio Romania International is the external service of Radio România, the public broadcaster. It broadcasts in a dozen languages, with Russian and Ukrainian among them for the audiences to the east and north-east of the country. Among listeners the service has a reputation for taking shortwave seriously at a time when most European broadcasters left it: regular schedules, listener contests, QSL cards and a mail programme that actually reads the letters.

The transmitters belong to Radiocom, the Romanian transmission company, at two sites north of Bucharest. This broadcast comes from Țigănești, the site with the 300 kW transmitters and large curtain antennas; the catalogue's coordinates, 44.75° N, 26.1° E, point there. Two frequencies run in parallel at 15:00 UTC, 11810 and 11850 kHz, so if one is covered by interference the other may be clear. The same programme has a morning edition at 04:30–05:00 UTC on 9510 and 9890 kHz, described in its own entry.

When and where to listen

11810 kHz is in the 25 metre band, a daytime band, and 15:00 UTC is mid-afternoon in Romania: the path to Moscow, the Volga and the Urals is in daylight and the band is wide open. A receiver in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus or the Baltics hears the broadcast at full strength. From western Europe the signal comes off the side and back of the antenna but is usually still easy, especially through receivers in Germany, Austria, Poland and Italy. In midwinter the band can close early in the north; then 11850 kHz, or the morning edition on the lower frequencies, may do better.

The 25 metre band is busy in the afternoon, and a strong neighbour 5 kHz away is common. Narrowing the filter or switching to the sideband away from the neighbour keeps the speech clean at the cost of a little bass.

In ShackDeck

Station catalogue → Shortwave broadcast → Radio Romania International in Russian 11810. The program picks a public receiver with 11810 kHz, tunes it and sets AM; you need no receiver, antenna or account of your own. If 11810 is noisy on the receiver it chose, the parallel 11850 kHz carries the same programme. The Ukrainian service of the same broadcaster on 5910 kHz has a separate article.