Vatican Radio on 7250 kHz: masses, news and the Pope's voice for Europe

What you hear

7250 kHz is where Vatican Radio puts its European output: in the morning and again in the evening, blocks of programmes in Italian, English, French, German, Spanish and other European languages, one after another, each a few minutes to half an hour long. A typical block contains the daily Mass, sung or spoken, usually in Latin and Italian; the Rosary; news about the Pope and the Vatican and about the Church around the world; and short commentaries. When the Pope speaks in public, at the Sunday Angelus or the Wednesday audience, Vatican Radio carries it live, and the European frequencies are the natural place to look for it, though not every event goes out on 7250 kHz. The station identifies in each language and has a short chime melody as its interval signal that regular listeners recognise at once.

Who transmits and why

Vatican Radio is the broadcaster of the Holy See, founded in 1931 with Marconi's help, and for most of its life the Pope's voice to Catholics in every country, especially those where the Church could not speak freely. The station has moved much of its work online under the Vatican News name and cut its shortwave hours, but Europe keeps its frequencies: 7250 kHz has been a Vatican Radio channel for a very long time, and generations of listeners found the station there.

The transmitters are at Santa Maria di Galeria, some twenty kilometres north-west of Rome, on land that belongs to the Holy See although it lies inside Italy; the catalogue's coordinates are the site. 7250 kHz carries the European blocks in the morning, around the hours of Mass, and in the evening. Our data does not give the exact minutes, and they change with the season, so listen and let the station tell you.

When and where to listen

7250 kHz is in the 41 metre band, a band for evenings, nights and mornings over distances of a few hundred to two thousand kilometres, which is exactly Europe seen from Rome. In the morning block the band is open across the continent before and just after sunrise; in the evening it opens again as the sun goes down. Receivers in Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, France and the Balkans hear the station strongly; Britain, Scandinavia, Poland and Ukraine hear it well in the evening and reasonably in the morning. In daylight in summer the signal fades over the longer paths.

The 40 metre amateur band ends at 7200 kHz, only 50 kHz below, and 7250 kHz sits among strong broadcasters, so a narrow filter helps when the neighbours are loud. If the AM audio sounds hollow because of selective fading, switch to a sideband mode; the voice comes out cleaner.

In ShackDeck

Station catalogue → Shortwave broadcast → Vatican Radio 7250. The program picks a public receiver that covers 7250 kHz, tunes it and sets AM; no receiver, antenna or account of your own is required. The Russian and Ukrainian programmes of the same station on 9710 kHz have their own entry.