Vesti FM on 1413 kHz: Russian news radio from Grigoriopol at night

What you hear

Vesti FM is a news and talk channel: headlines every few minutes, long discussion programmes with presenters and guests, phone-ins and commentary, in Russian, with a busy, insistent sound that is unmistakable once you have heard it. The name is a leftover from its FM origins in Moscow; on 1413 kHz it is plain medium-wave AM. According to the catalogue the transmitter runs from 18:00 to 05:00 UTC, so it starts in the early evening and keeps going through the night until after dawn in the east.

Who transmits and why

Vesti FM belongs to VGTRK, the Russian state broadcasting company, which also owns Radio Rossii and Radio Mayak. The transmitter is at the Maiac centre near Grigoriopol in Transnistria, the same Soviet-era site that carries Radio Rossii on 999 kHz by day, described in its own article. The catalogue gives 500 kW for 1413 kHz. That is half the power of the 999 kHz transmitter, but at night on medium wave it is more than enough to cover the intended audience: Moldova, Ukraine, the Caucasus and the Balkans, in Russian, from a site that Russia does not control directly but has used for decades.

The evening and night schedule is the mirror image of the daytime Radio Rossii slot on 999 kHz, and the two together give the site a Russian voice on the band for most of the twenty-four hours.

When and where to listen

Medium wave carries far only after dark, and this programme is timed to use that. At 18:00 UTC the sun has already set over Transnistria from autumn to early spring, and by 19:00 or 20:00 UTC the dark path extends across all of Europe. From then until dawn the 500 kW signal is heard in Poland, Germany, Italy, Scandinavia and, on good nights, Britain and Spain. By day only the ground wave is left, covering Moldova, the Odesa region and the surrounding parts of Ukraine and Romania, which is why the early start matters more in winter, when darkness arrives before the sign-on, than in June, when the first few hours go out in daylight.

1413 kHz is a shared channel. The catalogue notes that in Ukraine the BBC World Service relay from Oman on the same frequency, which has a separate entry, is disturbed by Vesti FM; from further east the reverse can be true, and in the overlap hours (19:00 to 21:00 UTC and 01:00 to 05:00 UTC) a receiver between the two transmitters may hear both, English and Russian over each other. A receiver in western or northern Europe usually gets Grigoriopol alone. The program tunes AM; if the two stations fight, try a single sideband with a narrow filter and pick the side with less splatter.

In ShackDeck

Station catalogue → Medium and long wave → Vesti FM 1413 kHz (Grigoriopol). ShackDeck selects a public receiver that hears 1413 kHz, tunes it and sets AM, so you need no receiver, antenna or account of your own. For the best result pick a receiver in Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary or Poland after sunset; from a receiver in the Gulf region the same frequency will give you the BBC instead.