Mail Roundup – December 8, 2023

A roundup of message we got at our office in the last couple of weeks

Vlad Palcu, 08.12.2023, 08:33

Hello everyone!

Another two weeks have passed and before long the Winter Holidays will be
upon us! Preparations are underway across Romania, with local municipalities
lighting up the streets and buildings, shopping centers getting packed on
weekends and traffic being an overall headache J

We’re keeping busy here at the English Department as well – as some of you
have noticed, we have started sending out eQSLs for 2023. Unfortunately, we are
unable to fill in the QSLs with the information this year. Let’s hope our
budget will allow us to print them next year and send them to you the
traditional way.

Meanwhile don’t forget about our traditional end-of-year quiz about the
Personality of the Year 2023. We’ve already received some contributions, but we’re
looking forward to know everyone’s opinion.

https://www.rri.ro/en_gb/personality_of_the_year_2023_on_rri-2694178

Also, don’t forget to check the Listeners’ Corner section for regular
updates.

***

From India, Dr. Thamminana Krushna Rao, who has been closely monitoring the
our DRM frequencies since we operated a number of changes, wrote to us in late
November to say taht signal is strong on 15260
kHz. He annexed the following snapshots:

***

Time now to look at some of the messages, comments, photos and other
materials we received through regular post.

Rumen Pankov (Bulgaria)

Many thanks for your broadcasts
and programmes

Dafydd Jones (USA)

I have been a regular listener
to RRI on SW for some years. Reception is usually good to very good here, but
sometimes affected by atmospheric conditions, of course. The telescopic whip
antenna is usually quite enough. I do not have Internet access at the moment,
but I do like the convenience of just putting on a radio. Your broadcast in
English is nicely varied. It is astonishing how many things you cover in a
single broadcast. Obviously, a lot of thought put into in. Thank you for this.
I wish all at Radio Romania International the best of health.

Grant Skinner (UK)

I thought I would try a
different frequency which was beamed to Europe, which I thought would work but
to no avail. 15180 had no signal, 13750 did try hard but to no avail.

Dablu Anwar (Bangladesh)

I am an old radio friend, my
club is from 1980 and comprises 15 members. I like and enjoy your station. Your
country is very nice.

Jose Luis Bianco (Spain)

Duncan Rosslair (UK)

Excellent signal strength and
overall rating

Chris Malboeuf (Canada)

Dear RRI, hope you’re well. I
send in my report by regular mail as I have been sending in my reports via
email for years since I have been listening to your station. As always, I will
keep writing.

Yoshihiro Toyama (Japan)

Greetings from fall season in
Hamamatsu. Thank you for your return to my letter. I am so happy to get it. I
like your traditional music.

Peter Ng (Malaysia) – sent
reception reports for July, August and October.

David Ansell (UK) – sent
reception report for November.

Raimo Rantanen (Finland) -
sent reception report for October.

Tomasz Kotas (Poland) -
sent reception report for October.

Ricky Hein (USA) – sent
reception report for November.

***

Steven Adler
(USA) also dropped a reception report, adding: I was listening into your
broadcast signal at 23:10 UTC on Sunday 11/26/2023 which was sounding great
from a readability, strength and tone perspective. Thank you for providing this
service to your faithful listeners around the world.

***

From France, out
listener Joe Bauer sent us a report for November 28, adding the following
remark: I always enjoy the RRI broadcasts. Thank you for continuing to
broadcast on shortwave. Thank you for your support too, Joe!

***

One of our
regular listeners from Japan, Norihiko Ide, sent us a monthly report, adding in
the comments section: For this month, in more days, I could not listen to your
program because the signal had been too weak. But this morning, I am happy to
report that the reception condition was not bad and almost stable during the
whole program. I did not know the bilateral relationship between Norway and
Romania has been close until I learned from today’s In the spotlight.
Traveller’s Guide made me visit Maramureș because it sounded like a wonderful
place to appreciate the nature and historical churches in Romania. Take good
care!

We’re happy you
enjoyed our broadcast, Norihiko! Thanks for your constant support!

***

Mohamad Haidir Hasim (Malaysia) wrote to congratulate us on
the National Day of Romania: Just find out that on 01 December is Romanian
National Day of Ziua Marii Uniri to commemorate unification of
Transylvania,Bessarabia and Bukovina into Romanian Kingdom on 1918. I want to
wishing you and all Romanian people Happy National and may the Romania will be
ever lasting until forever

Thank you,
Mohamad! That means a lot!

***

Another monthly
report arrived in early December (always like clockwork) from Halmstad, the hometown of our listener, Christer Brunström, who
writes:

I certainly
hope you had en enjoyable National Day.

After a rainy
and windy autumn here the weather has now changed completely. The past week has
been very cold and yesterday evening we had the first snowfall in our part of the
country. More to the North they have had a lot of snow which as always causes a
lot of problems. We plan to travel to Stockholm next week and hopefully the
weather will have changed for the better by then (I am not a fan of cold or
snowy weather).

With my best
wishes to all of you.

Thank you,
Christer. Winter has shown her teeth in Romania as well – we’ve had the first
significant snowfall in Bucharest this week too.

***

Our listener
from Germany, Karl-Heinz Bradtmoeller, who has closely monitored a number of
RRI frequencies since the start of the B23 season, has sent us a reception
report for late November – early December. All the details in the photo below.

PHOTO

***

A cordial
welcome to the family of RRI listeners to Prof.D.Md.Mostafizur Rahman from
Bangladesh, who sent us his first letter this week. We’re happy you joined our
community!

***

From the USA,
Larry Cohen sent us the following message, in memory of the December 7 1941 Pearl
Harbor attack:

Today is
December 7th, a Day that will Live in Infamy.

My own father,
Edward (1914-2009) was already in the U.S. Army before December 7th and was
scheduled to be discharged. However,
after we declared War on Japan along with the other Axis countries, all
discharges were cancelled and he remained in the Army until his honorable
discharge at the end of the War.

As it happens,
my mother, Ruth (1925-2017) was on her way to a Chanukah Party in 1941 along
with her father (1895-1954) a day which happened to fall on December 7th of
that year in 1941. When they arrived at
the party. my mother said everyone was in shock after hearing the news that
Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. Her father,
Benjamin, my grandfather, was a U.S. Army Veteran of Foreign Wars having served
in World War One (in the front) and my mother would say that he …was
never the same after that meaning
that he didn’t have much religious faith.
He saw too much she would add.

We must never
forget we are only free because of those that fought in our Wars against the
forces that would end our Democracy.
Given the chance, they, our enemies, would do it again. We must always be vigilant and prepared. We do not want war which is why we must be
prepared for War.

Finally, we must
also be vigilant and prepared for those that would threaten our Democracy from
within. Those forces come in many
shapes, designs, and disguises. However,
they can be even more dangerous, more insidious and more nefarious than the
enemy who comes wearing a uniform.

Thanks for
sharing this with us, Larry!

***

A big thank you to everyone else who took the time to write: James Clark
(USA), Malik Allah Bachaya, H.M. Tarek (Bangladesh), Anika Anne (Bangladesh),
Fariya Khanam Mumu (Bangladesh), Yaara Ahmed (Bangladesh), Jayanta Chakrabarty
(India), Debakamal Hazarika (India), Karobi Hazarika (India), Saleem Akhtar Chadhar
(Pakistan), Chris Malboeuf (Canada), Dave Strong (Canada), Kraig Krist (USA),
Teruhiko Kachi (Japan), Jahangir Alam (Bangladesh), Richard Lemke (Canada),
Alan Gale (UK), Igor Belevich (Belarus), Takashi Ogasawara (Japan), Bernard Grondin
(Reunion), Madhab Chandra Sagour (India), Hans Verner Lollike (Denmark), Rob
den Boer (Netherlands), Siddhartha Bhattacharjee (India), Ch Faheem Noor
(Pakistan), Mikio Kohara (Japan), Bidhan Chandra Sanyal (India), Muhammad Aqeel
Bashir (Pakistan), Andrey Pape (Russia), Liaqat Ali Awan (Pakistan), Ataur
Rahman (Bangladesh), Robin Miller (USA), Richard Woods (UK).

73!