EAST AFRICAN
REPORT
BY CHRIS
GREENWAY
ARTICLE FROM COMMUNICATION - EDITION 152 - JULY 1987
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Unfortunately, I am not very well located for mediumwave listening as I live just a mile or so from the Voice of Kenya’s (VOK’s) main MF transmitting station for the Nairobi area. This has three 100 kW units operating on 612, 747 and 1269 kHz so it is obviously impossible to hear any other signals on these frequencies. In fact the situation is somewhat worse as various combinations of these frequencies can be found across the band, and of course the field strength is so high that it can overload a receiver, giving background “hash” right across the band. Reading this, you may be surprised that I can hear anything at all! In fact, the list below shows that this is not the case. To compensate for these problems there are many advantages to MF DXing here. The level of locally-generated electrical interference is much less than suffered by DXers in urban areas in Europe as the ownership of many electrical appliances is much lower here; for example, none of our immediate neighbours owns a TV set.
So what can be heard on MF? During the day the band is largely empty. The VOK operates half-a-dozen or so relay stations around the country to carry the two nation-wide services (one in Swahili, the other in English) and most of these are audible, although with weak signals. This is largely because Kenya’s terrain is unsuitable for groundwave propagation; the south-west of the country, where most of the population lives, is highland country with mountains and valleys to block signals, while most of the remainder of the country is desert or semi-desert and the scattered population in these areas relies on the VOK’s shortwave service. Although the VOK’’ transmitter network is quite extensive compared to some neighbouring countries, residents of the more remote areas complain that they can hear programmes from neighbouring countries better than those from Nairobi. The VOK MF relays also suffer from the fact that they appear to receive their programme feeds over “telephone quality” circuits with consequent degradation of audio quality.
Apart from the VOK, the only station audible during the daytime is a relay of Radio Tanzania on 1215 kHz from Arusha in the north of that country.
The list below shows some of the stations audible during the evening. It is by no means a comprehensive list as my MF DXing has been rather limited and only positively identified stations have been included. The band is dominated by signals from the Middle East, which is unsurprising; very few countries in sub-Saharan Africa have transmitters of more than 100 kW (in fact most are below 50 kW) whilst many Arab states have a number of transmitters of several hundred kW or even MW.
The letter “J” after a frequency indicates that jamming is observed on the channel (not necessarily targeted against the station listed).
540 Radio Bophuthatswana; Voice of Kenya General Service
549 Zambia General Service // 630
558 Voice of Kenya Western Service
567 Syria // 666
576 Radio Metro, South Africa
585 Saudi Arabia // 1521; Zanzibar // 6015
594 Malawi // 675
612 Voice of Kenya National Service
621 Tanzania National Service // 4785
630 Zambia General Service
639 BBC Cyprus relay
648 Saudi Arabia // 1521
657 Tanzania Commercial Service (656)
666-J Syria // 567
657 Malawi // 594
693 Voice of the Masses, Baghdad (692)
702 Voice of Kenya National Service ; BBC Masirah relay
716-J Arabic “numbers station”- sometimes
720 Voice of Kenya National Service ; BBC Cyprus relay
729 Voice of the UAE, Abu Dhabi // 1315
747 Voice of Kenya General Service
756 Malawi // 594
765-J VIRI Arabic // 1386
792 Voice of Kenya National Service / South Yemen
819 Egypt
828-J
837-J
846 Voice of Kenya Western Service; RAI Second Programme
855 Harar, Ethiopia
864 Egypt, Koran Service // 9755; Saudi Arabic Koran Service // 1512
873 Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
900 Saudi Arabia // 1521
909 Voice of the Masses, Baghdad // 692
918 Voice of Kenya National Service
954 Voice of Kenya National Service
963 Somalia
981 Voice of Kenya National Service
1008 North Yemen // 9780
1017 Voice of Kenya National Service
1053 Romania Second Programme // 1152
1080 Voice of Kenya General Service
1098 Radio Bophuthatswana
1107 Voice of the Arabs, Cairo // 11665
1134 Kuwait // 9840; Yugoslavia
1143 Radio Moscow external service
1152 Romania Second Programme // 1053; Bamenda, Cameroon
1188 South Yemen // 792
1197-J
1206 Voice of Kenya General Service
1215 Tanzania National Service // 4785
1233 Radio Monte Carlo, Cyprus
1242 Oman // 6085
1251 UAE Radio, Dubai // 1481
1260 VOA Rhodes relay
1269 Voice of Kenya General Service
1296 Sudan
1314 Voice of the UAE, Abu Dhabi // 1539
1323 BBC Cyprus relay
1332-J
1368 Voice of Kenya General Service
1377 Swazi Radio // 4980
1386-J VIRI Arabic // 765; Radio Moscow external service
1395 Tirana
1413 BBC Masirah relay
1422-J
1431-J
1440 Saudi Arabia // 1521
1449 VIRI Russian (1630-1730 GMT)
1458 Mayotte (early evening); Tirana (swamping Mayotte)
1467 TWR Monaco; USSR “Mayak” service
1485 UAE Radio, Dubai (1481) // 1251
1494 Radio Moscow external service; Pemba, Mozambique
1503 VIRI home service // 15084; Benguela, Angola
1512 Saudi Arabia, Koran Service // 864
1521 Saudi Arabia // 1440
1530 Vatican
1539 Voice of the UAE // 1575; Deutschlandfunk
1548 Radio Moscow external service
1557 Deutsche Welle, Malta relay
1566-J Switzerland, German service; Tunisia // 12005
1575 Voice of the UAE // 1539; Voice of the GDR/Radio Berlin International
1593 Westdeutscher Rundfunk
(c) Copyright British DX Club
