This Week…in Your Letters

“Dear Radio Romania International, I received your English language program on Shortwave Radio on 15460kHz between 1200 UTC to 1300 UTC on the date of 03/03/2015. And I am very pleased to tell you that I received your radio program with a very good clear signal with very little fading, with a SINPO reading of 55555. I used a Kenwood R-1000 receiver with a 15 meter random wire indoor antenna which is attached to my window. My wife and myself enjoyed listening to your radio program very much. My QTH is in Consett, County Durham in the North East of England.” John Fairish, UK

România Internațional, 21.04.2015, 18:06

“Dear Radio Romania International, I received your English language program on Shortwave Radio on 15460kHz between 1200 UTC to 1300 UTC on the date of 03/03/2015. And I am very pleased to tell you that I received your radio program with a very good clear signal with very little fading, with a SINPO reading of 55555. I used a Kenwood R-1000 receiver with a 15 meter random wire indoor antenna which is attached to my window. My wife and myself enjoyed listening to your radio program very much. My QTH is in Consett, County Durham in the North East of England.” John Fairish, UK

“Great program but reception wasnt as good as it normally is. I may be away for a while as both my wife & I have been attending hospital as both our health is pretty poor, but I will do my best to send my reception reports when I can.” Richard Cooke, UK

“Hello friends at RRI, Please find enclosed my monthly reception report for March 2015, which this time covers the transmission in DRM on 5940.0 kHz at 1800 to 1900 UTC. Since my last report I am pleased to say that the weather has improved a little, and the days are now getting longer, and with the clocks going forward at the weekend, it shouldnt be too long before Spring finally arrives here at this northerly location. I always enjoy listening to your programmes, and usually listen every evening at 1800 UTC, so I can listen whilst I eat my evening meal. Last Wednesdays broadcast was a bit different though, since due to a major power failure which caused a 10 hour power blackout here, I ended up instead sitting in the dark listening to your programme on my small Sangean ATS-909 portable instead. It was lucky that I had a fully charged set of batteries in it! A few programme comments now. Whilst I enjoy hearing about Romania, and its history, day to day life, and culture, I often think just how different the impression of your country is to those of us who listen to RRI on Shortwave have, compared to the small minded and stereotypical views that many of our awful tabloid newspapers put out about Romanians. After listening to your Living Romania feature about the decrease in population, and emptying of some villages, which was covered in the March 25th broadcast, I think its very understandable that many of your young people would want to go to other EU countries to find work, but Im sure that in years to come, a number of them will want to come back home again and set up their own businesses in Romania, and this might help to bring many places back to life again. We have already seen this happen with many of the workers from Poland and the Czech Republic in recent years. I also enjoy hearing the Romanian music as well, and in todays programme, I was very glad that I was listening to a stereo broadcast in DRM, because the choral music by the Academic Radio Choir, in the feature about composer Paul Costantinescu, sounded quite wonderful. My apologies for a very long e-mail, which Im sure wont help your backlog of mail and e-mail at all, but I just wanted you to know that I do listen regularly and enjoy your shortwave broadcasts very much, with my favourite features (apart from Listeners Letterbox), being the Arts and Culture, and Living Romania features, as I have always had a great interest in culture and history. I do think its a shame that so many other countries no longer put out such a positive view of their countries on Shortwave, which is still the best place to hear them. On the internet you can always put off listening to another day if you are busy, but then its easy to forget about it, with radio though, you have to tune in at the right time if you dont want to miss your favourite programmes!” Alan Gale, UK

“Good evening Radio Romania, Your transmission this evening, March 28th, to western Europe on the frequency of 9.780 Khz I managed to receive with fair audio despite at times throughout the broadcast a little bit of interference. I caught up as always to start with listening to your very lengthy and informative radio newsreel and with the commentary which followed. Programs came after were Terra in the 21st century focusing and touching on tourism, the fishing industry and some wildlife on the Danube Delta, sports weekend and through the looking glass. I also heard living Romania on about how some living conditions including villages have been effected since joining the EU, and enjoyed the traditional Romanian love song music on truly Romanian. I hope everything is well there in Bucharest and wish you all as always in the English section my best wishes and look forward to writing again soon.” James Obrien, UK

“Dear RRRI, I am very happy to extend my special greetings to you with enormous delight for listening to your station every day. The English section is very interesting” Grant Skinner, UK

“Dear Sir, I was listening to RRI English service on the 9 April 2015 at 03.30-03.57 hrs GMT on 9730 kHz and I noted a SINPO code rating of 44444. I was using a JRC NRD525 and Wellbrook ALA1530 loop antenna. I enjoyed listening to the instrumental played at the end of the broadcast, played on a Romanian instrument I cant think of its name. Beautiful music. Please will you send one of your QSL cards? Its always a pleasure listening to RRI, many thanks for the many hours of interesting and entertaining programmes over the years. Keep up the good work. I look forward to hearing from you again soon. Thank you. Regards.” Patrick Travers, UK

“Hello! I wanted to send in a reception report for your 9730khz broadcast to the USA. I am in Redding, California. Its a city of 90,000 people in far northern California. Were about 3 hours northeast of San Francisco, CA and about 3 1/2 hours Northwest of Reno, Nevada. Ive been a radio broadcaster here in the USA for 11 years, mainly playing country or rock n roll music in smaller towns. At 8:45pm pacific on 3/28/2015, Im hearing some kind of classical, jazz or otherwise instrumental music with an announcer in what sounds like a British accent English on 9730Khz. At 8:59pm, I heard a sign off message with mention of other frequencies, and heard the web address “rri.ro” mentioned 2 or three times along with this email address being mentioned for reception reports and contact for the service. The announcer wished everyone a good evening then an instrumental/midi piece of music for about 2 minutes before audio was cut and a dead carrier lasted about 2-3 minutes before being turned off. The signal was pretty strong and this is my first time picking anything up on 9730khz. I would say the signal was about 5 to 6 out of 10 with some fading, but generally steady with good audio. Do you still issue QSL cards by regular mail? I would love to have one if you do! Thank you very much.” Paul Walker, US