Author: Vlad Palcu

Hello, everyone!

We’re slowly getting back to our business-as-usual way of
doing things around the office. Last week we saw the last reruns of our
7-minute features over the summer period, as we’ve accustomed you in recent
years. We’re also getting ready to launch the 2023-2024 programme schedule, but
we’ll let you know about that both on air and online. Meanwhile, we are
grateful we are able to post this new roundup of your contributions, which as
usual have arrived in great numbers at our office. So without further ado,
let’s look at some of the more interesting messages we got from you.

***

Mohamad Haidir Hasim (Malaysia) listened to our station on
the National Day of his country – (Happy Independence Day, btw). Our listener
enjoyed our Romanian-language broadcast, managed to understand some of the
words spoken and benefitted from good reception conditions, as you can see for
yourself. Thanks, Mohamad, we’re happy you are always try to listen to our
other language broadcasts as well.

***

From India, Bidhan Chandra Sanyal reminded us September 1
marked International Letter Day. And what better way to celebrate this occasion
than to send an electronic letter (admittedly) to our station. Here is his
message.

Today is International Letter Day. Letters were once one
of the means of communication. With the evolution of time, the medium of letter
writing has also changed.

What the English orator Somerset Mum said long ago is true
in today’s reality. Letter writing is truly a lost art. I’m good, I’m
good, write a letter to the address of the sky, poet Rudra Muhammad
Shahidullah while writing the lyrics of this song, did he ever think that
people will write letters only to the address of the sky, that is, on the
internet (e-mail)!

Although there is disagreement about how letters were
exchanged before Shershah’s horse mail was in vogue, it is well known that
nowadays no one goes to the post office without a letter of paperwork or an
application letter. But once upon a time, letters were a means of communication
with people who were far away. Not only far away, the words that could not be
said to someone very close to the heart were also carefully arranged in the
letter. How many stories, how much history would be in one letter! And there
was a lot of emotion.

Letter! There are many memories and emotions associated
with this matter. Letters were once one of the means of communication. Before
the age of mobile phones and e-mails, letters were valued everywhere. The
emotion of letter writing is not found in today’s messenger text or mail. Earlier,
each letter used to become a life-blood in each person’s life. Nowadays letters
are hardly used except for official work. Very few people now write letters
about their loved ones. Letters were not only love, but all forms of
communication. An unemployed job news, a letter to the mother of a son abroad
or a letter written by a mother for her son abroad. A death letter would once
again bring chaos to the family. Not only did people write letters to distant
or unseen people, with whom they met often or lovers who met every day also
wrote letters to each other. Because, the feelings of the heart can be
expressed in beautiful words in a letter, but it cannot be said in the mouth Greetings,
inquiries, sending money, job offers all used to come through letters at one
time. As before, letter boxes are no longer seen at the gates of houses. Many
people may have heard that a lover used to write letters to his beloved with
perfume. These are not fake stories, they are true.

As a result of the advancement of science, mobile phones
are now one of the main sources of communication. Due to the use of various
social media, the letter has lost its tradition. In social media where the mind
is being communicated instantly, who would use letters anymore?

Bankimchandra wrote, ‘The day of the stick is gone.’ Yes,
the day of the stick is long gone. Also, with the advancement of social media,
the days of many other things may have passed. The letter has now become a
‘text’. So by borrowing the words of Bankimchandra, it can be said that the
letter has passed away!

However, you can write letters today on International
Letter Day. Today, you can write a letter in a colorful envelope with red and
blue pages in bold colors. whose beginning is loving and whose end will be
yours. Not just lovers or lovers to each other; You may have never been able to
tell your father that you love him, but you can tell him in a letter. You can
also write a letter to your mother today. You can also write a letter to an old
friend from your childhood who you may not be in touch with much now. After
many days of married life, those who are no longer romantic can write letters
full of compassion to each other today.

Thanks again, Bidhan, for this message. Your insights are
always valuable to our community!

***

Christer Brunström (Sweden) sent us his usual monthly
report, adding: In Sweden the months of July and August were extremely wet
resulting in huge damage to infrastructure and to the farmers’ crops. The month
of September has started with sunnier and mostly dry weather. I suppose we are
now witnessing the impact of climate change. Is this being seriously discussed
in Romania?

There have been a number of measures designed to improve
crop harvest and planning in recent years, which unfortunately turned
ineffective due to rainfall getting increasingly limited, even in traditionally
humid months (such as May and June). And then of course there are EU-wide
measures that are implemented in Romania too, meant to curb the effects of
climate change. Unfortunately, the results are late to appear, much like
everywhere else.

***

Alan Holder (England) sent us the following message:

I trust that everyone at your radio is in good health. By
now I expect you will all have taken your summer vacations and I hope that you
have enjoyed your break from work and perhaps have done some travelling as
well.

Being
British I guess I have to speak about the weather. Lately it has been very hot
here (for us anyway) with temperatures around the 30 degree mark. What makes it
so unbearable is the humidity. As I write this letter, the situation is
changing, with cooler weather on the way, thank goodness. In a previous Mailbag
show, I have heard you speak about how hot the summers can get in Romania.

I
continue to derive great pleasure from listening to your programming. RRI has
such a great variety of interesting and entertaining programmes on offer. In my
opinion, few international broadcasters can match your standards.

Traveler’s Guide is one of my long time favorite
programmes. I have learned so much about the many spectacular scenic places and
historical towns and cities that can be found in your country.

The History Show recently focused on the German Deutsche
Welle’s Romanian service, which was set up during the cold war days. I do
remember coming across it on my short wave radio many times in the past. With
the changed political situation in Europe and budget cuts, sadly now there is
only an Internet web page offering in your language.

On August 23rd, Inside Romania presented an excellent
report about the Oradea Tram Drivers’ Championship. It must have been a great
experience for those taking part, coming from many different European
countries. I sure wish I was there as a spectator. However, fortunately I was
able to watch a YouTube video of the event. I am a particularly keen railways
and trams enthusiast.

Society Today recently presented an item about Jeno
Major, and his work to preserve a photographic history of archaic Romanian
villages. Without such archive material, evidence of these places and
traditions will surely disappear as time passes so he is to be commended for
his actions.

In the Spotlight on August 30th had a report about the
future of education in Romania and the plans to follow the Finnish model. I’d
like to ask you to present an account of Home Schooling in Romania. Is it
becoming a more popular option for parents and how does your government view
it? In the U.K. more children are being home schooled, with numbers increasing
after the Covid lockdown. Personally, I am not in favour of it as I think it is
detrimental to a child’s social skills. In addition, many parents can hardly do
the job of a qualified teacher. In the U.K. parents do not have to follow the
National Curriculum, so it is up to them what subjects they can teach and how
often. There is no assessment of the child’s work by any education official
either.

Regarding suggestions for future broadcasts, please can we
have a return to the pre-Covid lockdown situation, where RRI broadcast both the
Listener’s Letterbox AND DX Mailbag every week?

Dear Alan, we’ll try to provide answers to each of your
comments / inquiries.

We did have an unseasonably hot summer, with the start of
September peaking in the mid 30s during the day and in the lower 20s at night,
which is at any rate far better than August.

Sadly, due to the budget cuts, there is little room for
additional content available both on air as well as online. We hope the overall
economic context will improve, also allowing our station to revert to its
normal broadcasting habits.

We are aware of the education in the UK allowing parents to
opt out of standard curricula, something which unfortunately is not the case in
Romania – at the end of each cycle, to be able to pass a degree all students /
pupils must take exams testing a very specific set of curricula, and the
assessment is pretty much standard, without discriminating between the type of
schooling children benefited from. Home schooling is indeed not as commonplace
in Romania as it is elsewhere, and it could make for an interesting topic for
our future programmes.

As regards your suggestion, it is very hard for us to run
the LLX and DX mailbags on a weekly basis, partly because we don’t have the
sanctioned slots in our schedule (we need to make a formal request in this
regard), and also because we often don’t have enough comments and suggestions
to present in our Listeners Letterbox programme on a weekly basis. Most of our
messages are reception reports and technical feedback, which is why we decided
to increase our online visibility with the Listeners Corner section, where we
try to cover as many of the contributions you send us as possible, inviting you
also to contribute as often as you can.

At any rate, thanks a lot for this message, Alan, we very
much appreciate it.

***

From the USA, we go a nice message from our listener and
friend Gary Paulson, who has been picking up our signal loud and clear in his
area. Here is what our listener writes:

Good evening my friends at Radio Romania!

In spite of cutbacks in Shortwave Signals available since
August 1st, picking you up on 9850 khz in Seattle Washington USA is coming in
so good that I had to Re-EQ to tone down the Overload! But trust me, that’s a
good thing! Lol

Thank you for your honorable mention of my last reception
report! A first from you all! I was camping last night in the mountains while
tuning in and I was telling my wife, Catherine that I had sent a message to you
last week and I was actually wondering at that time if you Would mention it!
And behold! You did! I was beyond excitement! I called Catherine over real
quick and we both listened very closely, with great excitement! We were already
experiencing a wonderful place that we don’t get to spend enough time at so
it’s precious when we’re there! And your Hello from Romania made the evening
even more Special!!

So thank you very much!

Tonight at 3:00 UTC the signal is dancing at the very top
of my SDR display! Reception is Very Sharp! No less than perfect! And Crystal
Clear! I’m home now in the city and surprisingly, against all of the RF and
Atmospheric challenges that we’re usually faced with, your signal couldn’t be
coming in better if it were FM Stereo!????

I hope that this report finds all of you whom make this
wonderful hour of Shortwave Radio possible, in the Greatest of Spirits!

Thank you for from your friends Gary Catherine, Gidget and
Rudy (our dogs)

From Seattle Washington USA!

Cheers!

Well, that’s surely one big happy listening to our station.
Thanks for all your latest contributions, Gary, we are very grateful.

***

Alan Gale (UK) wrote to us sending his Listeners Club
report for August 2023. Here is what he adds:

After two very cool and wet (and welcome) months in July
and August, September has seen a mini-heatwave here in the UK – what an unusual
summer we have had. With the Equinox just a couple of weeks away we should soon
see a change, not only to the terrestrial weather, but also to the solar
weather too, and it will be interesting to see how this affects the reception
of RRI here.

I have been mainly listening to the DRM service on 13750
kHz, which is very good on the majority of days, but still occasionally suffers
with splatter from the very wide signal of China Radio International, which can
cause some drop- outs, but when time permits I listen to the 1100 UTC broadcast
on 17630 kHz, which can be a bit variable depending on solar activity, but is
usually readable here.

Well, we’re happy you’re still able to listen to RRI, all
things considered. We hope reception quality will remain decent, despite
weather changes.

Dear Alan, hope the weather won’t affect reception quality
that much and you will still be able to following on DRM broadcasts.

***

Sakae Onozawa (Japan) sent us his usual monthly report,
adding the following:

In this program, I was very interested in Andrei
Schwartz’s latest documentary film, Europa Passage.

In Japan, there are very few opportunities to watch
Romanian documentary films, either in movie theaters or on TV. Japan
Broadcasting Corporation (NHK) occasionally airs special programs on foreign
documentaries, so this is one of the few opportunities I have to watch them. I
am looking forward to the day when Europa Passage will be aired in
Japan.

Dear Sakae, we’re happy you enjoyed our broadcast and hope
the film reaches your country as well.

***

It’s the end of this post, but as usual, at the end, we’d
like to thank everyone who send us reception reports, comments and feedback. We
appreciate all your contributions and we hope to hear more from you in the
coming period. Our thanks thus go to Jaouad Saber (Morocco), Abdul Mannan
(Bangladesh), Anand Mohan Bain (India), Tomasz Kotas (Poland), Kraig Krist
(USA), Vincent Everett (USA), Toshiki Tsuboi (Japan), Ray Erlandson (USA),
Norihiko Ide (Japan), Alex Choroba (Germany), Timofeyev Uhra (Kazakhstan), Art
Wormald (Canada), Francis Lawlor (Ireland), Hiromichi Kinoshita (Japan), Hans
Verner Lollike (Denmark), Igor Belevich (Belarus), Shin Makino (Japan), Alex
Mitalikov (Ukraine), Siddhartha Bhattacharjee (India), Muhammad Shamim (India),
Misayo Tanaka (Japan), Jaydee Llave (USA), Jay Ayer (USA), Chris Malboeuf (Canada),
Richard Lemke (Canada), Malik Allah Bachaya (Pakistan), Ratan Kumar Paul (India),
Eddy Witano (Indonesia), John Jurasek (USA), Cyril MacDonald (Canada),

Dear friends,

Our series continues with a special episode today.

In order to give equal chances to all listeners, today were introducing you to a special member of our family, Igor Belevich from Belarus, who despite his difficult status and predicaments, continues to pursue his passion – SW listening. Igor is fond of SW listening and often tunes to RRI programmes, sending reports for several language broadcasts, including Romanian.

We have adapted and reproduced an excerpt from his message to share with the rest of you.

“I do not know how to fill your form, because i do not know how to use my mobile phone.

I will try to answer your questions in my email now:

My name is Igor Belevich Iivanovich. I was born April 15,1984 in Belarus in USSR. I am a Belarusian citizen. I use such a MW, SW digital radio receiver “Ritmix RPR 1385 ” with a digital display.

I do not take part in any radio clubs, nor in radio associations at all.

I have no friends in Belarus. I do not work. I have no job since 2009.

I stand on a sick list at a local Belarusian psychiatrist. I get a social pension.

I cannot write frequencies of RRI, as there are many.

I have no DRM radio, I am against DRM radio. I love analog short wave.

I listen to RRI in all languages on analog short wave.