Many of us embraced shortwave as a means of peering into foreign lands and learning firsthand about their cultures, politics and people.  At one time other than travel or reading, shortwave was the only means of doing so.  But history and technology have changed all that.

Currently, English language programs and broadcasts from Radio Prague International (Czechia), Copenhagen Calling (formerly Radio Denmark), Deutsche Welle (Germany), RTE (Ireland), Radio Polonia (Poland), Radio Romania International (Romania), Radio Slovakia International (Slovakia), Radio Exterior de Espana (Spain), BBC World Service (UK) and Vatican Radio (Vatican City) can still be heard on shortwave either directly or by relay.  Frequencies and schedules were provided in the May issue of The Journal and are posted and updated on the NASWA website www.naswa.net .

But what of the other European international broadcasting stations that used to be on shortwave but are no longer?

ALBANIA

Radio Tirana International

Streams a 30-minute program:

Mon.-Sat. – 1600, 2000, 2200

Tues.-Sun. – 0130, 0600, 0830, 1130

publicradiofan.com   79.106.48.2 (sole active audio link currently)

https://rtsh.al/rti/en/ (text)

[Note: audio links from station site appear to be inoperative.]

ANDORRA

Radio Andorra is no longer in service.  Radio and Television of Andorra, the national broadcaster, has no English language programming.

AUSTRIA

Radio Austria International and O1 “Report from Austria” have been discontinued.

ORF FM4, streamed from <fm4.orf.at>, is public broadcaster ORF’s youth and music bilingual (German and English) station and includes regular newscasts, programs and segments in English, and on-demand multimedia items, including podcasts.

BELARUS

Radio Belarus https://radiobelarus.by/en/internet no longer broadcasts on shortwave but today offers an English language radio service six hours a day carried on satellite and streamed on the Internet.

BELGIUM

Radio Vlaanderen International is no longer in service and VRT, the Dutch public broadcaster and its former parent, provides no programming in English. 

RTBF, the French public broadcaster, has never offered any English language programming.

BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA

Radio Yugoslavia ceased operation upon the dissolution of the country.  There is no broadcaster providing local English language programming.

BULGARIA

Radio Bulgaria

15-30 min. daily (weekday) podcast

“Bulgaria Today”

https://bnr.bg/en/broadcasts/143/podcast-in-english?page=1

https://bnrnews.bg/en (text/audio on demand including podcasts)

CROATIA

Radio Yugoslavia ceased operation upon the dissolution of the country.

Glas Hrvatske (Voice of Croatia)

“Croatia Today” – two daily 10-minute news, culture, sports, weather podcasts on demand. 

Also, other multimedia content from https://glashrvatske.hrt.hr/en/multimedia.

https://glashrvatske.hrt.hr/en (text/audio/video)

“Croatia Today” streams from https://hrti.hrt.hr/live/radio at 1615 and 2000 GMT.

ESTONIA

Raadio Tallinn

https://news.eer.ee  (text/audio/video on demand)

FINLAND

YLE (Radio Finland)

https://yle.fi/news (text/audio/video on demand)

(YLE Radio 1 discontinued a daily 1255 GMT 5-minute audio English newscast on June 1.)

FRANCE

RFI (Radio France Internationale) http://www.rfi.fr/en/no longer broadcasts or livestreams an English language service.  However, the website offers multimedia content and three podcasts that are regularly updated: “International Report”, “Spotlight on Africa” and “Spotlight on France”.  There are several others that haven’t been updated in some time and remain archived.

GREECE

Voice of Greece (ERT)

https://vog.ert.gr/?lang=en is a 24/7 English language radio streaming service that includes podcasts and text/audio/video content.

HUNGARY

Radio Budapest

No longer operating.  There is no broadcaster providing local English language programming.

ICELAND

RUV UTVARP

RUV English Radio https://www.ruv.is/english is a daily (weekday) podcast on demand. 

https://www.ruv.is/frettir/efn/news-from-iceland offers a daily newscast on demand.

https://ord.ruv.is offers Icelandic language lessons for English speakers on demand.

ITALY

RAI (Radiotelevisione Italiana)

No longer offers an English language service.

LATVIA

Radio Riga ceased broadcasting upon the dissolution of the USSR.

LSM (Latvian Public Service Media)

A unified news portal of Latvia’s public television, radio and online services since 2014, LSM   https://eng.lsm.lv streams extensive text/audio/video on demand for English speakers.

LITHUANIA

LRT (Radio Vilnius)

http://www.lrt.lt/en/news-in-english streams text/audio/video on demand and offers a weekly Friday e-mail subscription to the LRT English Newsletter

LUXEMBOURG

Radio Luxembourg is no longer in operation.

RTL Today https://today.rtl.lu/radio has a 24/7 English language audio stream plus on demand text/audio/video.

ARA City Radio https://www.radioara.org/about/ has a 24/7 audio stream plus on demand text/audio/video.

MALTA

Voice of the Mediterranean, a joint Maltese-Libyan operation, ceased broadcasting at the end of 2003.  While there are several radio stations that broadcast and stream in English from Malta, all are primarily music stations with little news or information content outside of BBC World Service relays.

MOLDOVA

Radio Moldova International was discontinued in 2013.  There is no replacement.

NETHERLANDS

RNW (Radio Nederland Wereldomroep) ceased broadcasts on June 29, 2012. 

Radio Seagull https://radioseagull.com/player/player.htmlis an English language national rock music/talk station.

Regional English language stations carrying local news include BRAM Radio (Broadcast Amsterdam) <https://broadcastamsterdam.nl>, English Breakfast Radio in Amsterdam

https://www.mixcloud.com/broadcastamsterdam/> and Eindhoven’s Radio 4 Brainport <https://zeno.fm/radio/radio-4-brainport-747-am/>.

NORWAY

NRK

Its international service Radio Norway International is no longer in service.  All English language programming consists only of a relay of the BBC World Service on the Nyheter network.

PORTUGAL

RDP (Radio Portugal) ceased broadcasting in English in the 1980s.  There is no comparable service on offer via radio or streaming for domestic or international audiences today.

RUSSIA

Radio Moscow and Voice of Russia are no longer in operation.

Sputnik Radio <https://sputnikglobe.com/radio/> is a 24/7 multilingual international audio service provided via satellite and streamed over the Internet.

Capital FM in Moscow https://capitalfm.moscow succeeded Moscow FM 105.2 which was a 24/7 English-language station that featured international music, news, culture, and weather. It primarily targets expats and tourists.  One doubts Capital FM is as informative.

SERBIA

Radio Yugoslavia ceased operation upon the dissolution of the country.

International Radio of Serbia is no longer in operation. No station is providing regular English language programming in the country.

SLOVENIA

Radio Yugoslavia ceased operation upon the dissolution of the country.

Radio Si (Radio Slovenia International) <https://radiosi.rtvslo.si> streams a mix of international hits and Slovene music, with speech and news, weather forecasts and essential real-time national traffic updates in English, German, and Slovenian.  News in English also is available as a daily podcast.

SWEDEN

Radio Sweden https://www.sverigesradio.se/radio-sweden now streams two podcasts: “Radio Sweden Daily”, a 5-minute newscast and “Radio Sweden Weekly”, a half hour roundup of the main news of the week.  The latter is streamed Fridays at 1730 GMT on SR-P2 and SR-P6, repeated on Mondays at 1730 on SR-P6.

There’s also a regularly updated multimedia web site.

SWITZERLAND

SRI (Swiss Radio International) was discontinued in 2004.

SwissInfo,  https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/ created in 1999, has replaced it.  It is a comprehensive multimedia website provided by the Swiss public broadcaster SRG, is updated continuously and offers several podcasts and newsletters to which one may subscribe.

Switzerland in Sound  https://switzerlandinsound.com is a website maintained by the prominent former SRI broadcaster Bob Zanotti who, with the late Bob Thomann, hosted the popular program “Swiss Shortwave Merry-Go-Round” – later just known as “the Two Bobs” — for 24 years.  In addition to SRI-related archival material, the website “in the classic radio style, enhanced by text and pictures… include(s) a wide range of subject matter from candid one-on-one interviews with interesting people, to entertaining, in-depth features and reports about Swiss life and society, as well as exciting, colorful, animated visits to tourist destinations and attractions.  In addition, “Bob’s Blog” offers personal comments and insights into Switzerland and Swiss life.”

UKRAINE

Radio Kiev ceased operation upon the dissolution of the USSR.

Radio Ukraine International’s English language broadcasts and streams have been suspended since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Hromadske Radio https://hromadske.radio/en is an independent public media platform that streams its broadcasts in Ukrainian but offers English language news and other content, including some podcasts, on its web page.

---