Vatican Radio in Russian and Ukrainian on 9710 kHz: short programmes and a Sunday liturgy

What you hear

Two languages share this frequency in two blocks a day. The morning block begins at 04:50 UTC with ten minutes in Ukrainian, followed at 05:00 by twenty minutes in Russian. In the afternoon the order is reversed: Russian from 16:20 to 16:40 UTC, then Ukrainian from 16:50 to 17:00. The content is what Vatican Radio has always done: the day's news about the Pope and the Church, short reflections on the Gospel, reports from Catholic communities in the two countries, and on feast days the text of a papal address. On Sundays there is something larger: a Ukrainian liturgy from 06:05 to 07:00 UTC, sung, which is one of the more beautiful things to be heard on shortwave on a Sunday morning, whatever your beliefs.

Who transmits and why

Vatican Radio is the broadcaster of the Holy See, founded in 1931 with a transmitter built by Marconi himself, and for most of its life shortwave was how it reached Catholics in countries where the Church was restricted. The Russian and Ukrainian services exist for exactly that reason, and they survived into an age when most of Vatican Radio's output moved online under the Vatican News name. Shortwave remains for a handful of regions and languages, these two among them.

The transmitters are at Santa Maria di Galeria, a site north-west of Rome that belongs to the Holy See under an extraterritorial arrangement; the coordinates in the catalogue, 42.05° N, 12.32° E, are the site. Each block goes out on two frequencies, 9710 and 11815 kHz, one in the 31 metre band and one in the 25 metre band, so that the broadcast has a fair chance both in the dark morning hours and in the afternoon.

When and where to listen

The morning block around 05:00 UTC suits 9710 kHz: the 31 metre band is open across Europe and into Ukraine and Russia before dawn, and the lower frequency usually wins over 11815 kHz at that hour, especially in winter. The afternoon block at 16:20–17:00 UTC is often better on 11815 kHz in summer and on 9710 kHz in winter, when the higher band fades early. Receivers in Ukraine, Poland, the Baltics, Belarus and western Russia hear the broadcasts at their intended strength; receivers in Italy, Austria and Germany are close to the transmitter and get a strong signal too, now and then a little distorted from being so near. The programmes are short, ten and twenty minutes, so tune in a couple of minutes before the hour and do not expect the frequency to carry these languages at any other time.

In ShackDeck

Station catalogue → Shortwave broadcast → Vatican Radio in Russian and Ukrainian 9710. The program chooses a public receiver with 9710 kHz, tunes it and sets AM; you need no receiver, antenna or account of your own. The European service of the same station on 7250 kHz has its own entry.