BC-DX 841 04 Jan 2008 Private Verwendung der Meldun

months off). Now he has taken a well-earned retirement.
At the leaving party that was held last weekend in Madagascar, several
senior members of the government were present, and to his great surprise
he was awaded the honour of an officer in l'ordre national Malgache
(pictured). Leo's successor as Station Manager in Madagascar is Joseph
Rakotovao, previously Operational Manager. A reception to mark Leo's
retirement is being planned in Hilversum next year.
(RNW MN Newsletter Dec 20 via dxld)
MALI 11960 1430-1600 UT is the best propagation time from Bamako into
Europe?
Mit einem fairen S=5-6 Signal kommt zur Zeit (1530 UT) RTM Bamako auf
11960 kHz herein. Programm Phone-in programm als Quiz?, in franzoesischer
Sprache mit lokalen Wortsprengseln.
(wb, wwdxc BC-DX Dec 30)
MOLDOVA I realise that Pridnestrovye counts as a seperate NASWA Country,
however I need some clarification as to the transmitter site actually
used. Aoki shows 'Grigoriopo', which I'd assume is actually Grigoriopol.
Isn't this the same site which counts as the NASWA Country of Moldova?
(Steve Lare-MI-USA, dxld Nov 30)
Well, Grigoriopol is Pridnestrovye and you have no chance to ever log
Moldova on shortwave because no SWBC transmitters exist there. The
confusion may arise from the circumstance that nobody except Russia
recognizes the PMR, but de facto Pridnestrovye is a separate entity.
The Grigoriopol transmitter plant is located about 13 km northeast of the
town, a part of the fence around the station runs along the border with
the Ukraine; I'm not aware of any high power site being located as close
to a border as this one. The site is also being referred to as Maiac,
after a very small village nearby, and in HFCC it traditionally appears as
KCH Kichinyov (the Russian name for Chisinau). Google has pretty good
ortho images:
There are three transmitter hall complexes, each surrounded by cooling
ponds and light halls with barrel-shape roofs. The fourth building
probably houses transmitters as well, but no outcoming feedlines can be
spotted. In the western part of the station are two building complexes,
apparently the northern one housing three and the southern one two
shortwave transmitters. To the north standard curtain antenna designs,
south of them fixed dipole walls and in the southwestern corner of the
station a rotatable antenna. The fixed dipole walls and the rotatable
antenna should be identical to the installations at the Bulgarian Padarsko
(near Plovdiv) site.
The eastern side of the station houses the MW antennas. The row of a dozen
towers is the Zarya directional antenna for 1548. North of it a simple
mast and a much better visible ARRT antenna, the latter presumably for
999. West of the transmitter building a directional antenna, similar to
the SV 4+4 design seen at Bolshakovo and the never completed site in
Bulgaria, but here consisting of only four instead of eight masts. And
next to the border another single mast plus the site of the former 234
longwave antenna which crashed during the nineties.
During the civil war in 1992 Chisinau lost its control over the
Grigoriopol transmitters, Radio Moldova had been taken off 999 and 1467
and replaced by Radio Pridnestrovye which I understand existed already
before, but only as wired radio service for Tiraspol. The result was a
jamming war on 999, audible even at my location although 999 was until
yearend 1995 occupied by a transmitter at Hoyerswerda. At the same time