Is this the end of Radio Free Asia?
Following the announcement of the Trump administration to cut funding of the USAGM department VoA, Radio Marti, RFE/RL, RFA and possibly other USAGM sponsored stations will discontinue broadcasting.
Last week I received this email from RFA:
Dear friends,
Last weekend Radio Free Asia lost its grant and funding.
Unfortunately, we are unable to confirm any more reception reports.
If this situation changes, we will let you know.
As our relay sites stop transmitting our broadcasts, currently, we’re still airing evergreen programming on limited frequencies but it’s unclear how long this will continue.
Thank you for listening and also for your years of support and friendship.
RFA’s QSL Team
Personally I have mixed views on all of this. I saw an interview with Cubans on the closure of Radio Marti. An eldery man was truly disappointed. But a younger man said “I’ve heard of it, my granddad listens to it, but I never do”. I don’t know how many people still use short wave radio for their news. The younger generation typically relies on the internet. So with that in mind maintaining a shortwave radiostation is expensive and outdated.
That said: internet can be filtered or even blocked. Which is much more difficult for radio waves. Nevertheless the demolition of LW, MW and SW transmitters and antenna facilities continues in Europe. At the same time the Israel army resumed MW broadcasts of Galei Zahal, their army radio,ahead of their operations is Gaza and Lebanon. It might be that we will regret that we didn’t use some of the 800 billion to “rearm Europe” to maintain some of the legacy radio facilities. Time will tell.
Hello! May I ask you to send me the email address of Radio Myanmar for QSL contact? My thanks!
Hi Ivan,
Should be in your email by now. If not, let me know.
Thanks for visiting my blog.
Peter
What are the frequencies of these “evergreen programming”? I can not find them on their website.
Hi I don’t know Moses. Guess these are just the frequencies they used in the past, on the times they were programmed for in the past. Don’t expect that they are going to update their website.
73s, Peter
I got that email, too, but felt that it was a bit behind the actual events. After all, RFA, RFE/RL and VoA have all seen some success in the courts in recent days. But obviously, QSLs are out of the question and that may remain so, even if there should be sound funding again in the future.
As for shortwave,Cubans have no or only slow internet. It isn’t only censorship, but a pretty rotten infrastructure, too. Under those circumstances, a radio receiver can be very useful.
My feelings about RFA and Radio Martí are mixed. RFA’s Chinese service is sometimes very generous with facts – to complain about “disinformation” sounds phony to me when it comes from them.
VoA clearly has its tendencies, too, but they provide reliable news (as far as I can tell), and the only objection I have is that too many of their programs – Jazz, Country music, info about everyday life in the US – are long gone.
Hi Franz, thanks for your views.
When I traveled through Cuba with my family in 2017 you could buy internet access in every village. You had to queue up, and it took some time, but we bought WiFi time at the post office successfully. There was always a crowd on the street around the WiFi access points, but internet was quite reliable and not slow. At the time we didn’t check which websites were blocked obviously, but Dutch newspapers were accessible.
My guess is that there are plenty of alternatives available to receive news from outside Cuba. Florida is nearby, and in the evening it is easy to listen to stations from Miami. Quite a few medium wave stations in South Florida seem to target Cuba.
That’s good news from Cuba.