Radio Romania International in Ukrainian on 5910 kHz: three half hours from Săftica

What you hear

Ukrainian from Bucharest, three times in the late afternoon and evening: 15:00–15:30, 17:00–17:30 and 19:00–19:30 UTC. Each half hour follows the familiar pattern of Radio Romania International: news from Romania and the neighbourhood, a commentary or press review, and a feature on Romanian culture, on the border region or on the Ukrainian community in Romania. Stay on the frequency after the Ukrainian half hour ends and you will hear the transmitter switch to another of the station's smaller services: the other half hours on 5910 kHz are given to Aromanian, the Romance language of the Balkans, and to Serbian. For a listener who collects languages, one evening on 5910 kHz brings three.

Who transmits and why

Radio Romania International is the external service of Romania's public radio, and Ukrainian is one of its languages for the immediate neighbours: Ukraine and Romania share a long border, and there are Ukrainian speakers on both sides of it. The service has never been large, but it is regular and it stayed on shortwave when many others left.

This broadcast does not come from Țigănești, where the station's big transmitters are, but from Săftica, the second Radiocom site north of Bucharest, with 100 kW. The catalogue's coordinates give the general area north of the capital. Lower power on a lower frequency is the right combination for a neighbouring country: the signal is not meant to cross oceans, only to reach Kyiv, Odesa and Lviv after dusk.

When and where to listen

5910 kHz is in the 49 metre band, which comes alive towards evening. At 15:00 UTC in winter it already works over a few hundred kilometres; the 17:00 and 19:00 UTC half hours are the comfortable ones, with the band open across Ukraine, Moldova and most of central and eastern Europe. Receivers in Ukraine, Moldova, Poland and the Baltics hear it best; from Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic it is also a reliable evening signal. From western Europe it is a fair signal with fading, and from outside Europe a rare catch. In summer the first half hour at 15:00 UTC can be weak over longer paths, since the band is still in daylight.

49 metres is a busy band in the European evening, with strong stations every 5 kHz, so a narrow filter or a sideband mode may be needed when a neighbour is louder than the Romanian signal.

In ShackDeck

Station catalogue → Shortwave broadcast → Radio Romania International in Ukrainian 5910. The program picks a public receiver that covers 5910 kHz, tunes it and sets AM; nothing of your own is needed. The Russian half hours of the same broadcaster have their own entries in the catalogue, starting with the afternoon programme on 11810 kHz.