BBC World Service on short wave to Europe

[davidbains]

I've noticed that when the BBC does the African news at 19.00 the reception is then much worse on the same frequency and I invariably switch off. But before then propagation/reception is usually good enough for the Adriatic. At the weekends transmissions arrive earlier in the afternoon but then it's "only" football!!
Propagation is particularly poor this year with no rise from the bottom of the solar cycle yet.
I have seen a World Space radio in use on a friend's balcony, but I heard that operation had changed hands recently and would be more expensive?

 

[whipper_snapper]

I looked at worldspace, but it seems a lot of money and hassle just to get the world service. There is absolutely nothing else of any interest to me - just the usual dozens of channels of garbage. If they broadcast radio 4 that would be a different matter!

 

[LadyJessie]

Agree. I did the same review and found that worldspace is just too expensive and too much hassle for what it offers. I think that podcasts from itunes via your normal mobile phone gives you a much better selection of programs (lots of R4 there... not to mention radio from all over the world) and it is much easier and cheaper (with some planning) to download. The main benefit for us is that we can listen when we want and the reception is perfect. Bliss for cruisers in secluded anchorage!

 

[Jock89]

Surely the BBC news is known the world over for honesty of reporting; the one true information source to be listened to in every dictator-ridden republic or oppressive regime, in order to know just what was really happening. I thought so too but became more and more of the realisation just how slanted and manipulated the service had become;

You're not wrong there.
I discovered this over 25 years ago while living in RSA, & listening to BBC regularly.
Unless you were actually living in the country they were talking about, you'd have no option but to take what they said as 'gospel', which of course is what most of the British public did.
What was said about South Africa back then was absolutely criminal, & I never heard 1 good word said about the country.
Meantime, the South African economy supported the entire sub-Saharan continent, which, of course, was never mentioned. Very few Whites were ever interviewed in documentaries, but plenty of Blacks got to put their point of view over to the interviewer.
Impartial my ar.e!
Jock

 

[LadyJessie]

[ QUOTE ]
What was said about South Africa back then was absolutely criminal, & I never heard 1 good word said about the country.

[/ QUOTE ]This is sooo very much off subject, but that comment can not be let standing.

I was also living in SA 25 years ago and I know it as one of the most repressive dictatorship in the world at that time, well up there with the likes of the Soviet Union and those likes.

I find your implied defence of this apartheid regime repulsive and unworthy of this blog.

 

[BrianH]

By "slanted and manipulated" I did not mean, as you seem to have interpreted, some sort of 'left-wing loony' type of news dissemination - one which another referred to as "the Guardian on air". Instead, I meant a middle-class, UK-centric and parochial service that reflects too much the establishment view that even allows itself to be gagged by the MoD (the Basra incident).

In no way would I wish my words to be thought to have any association with, or support of, apartheid, which I believe to have been a truly evil regime.

 

[Relax]

Possibly, but as always (and has been said above) there is another side to every story.

Just short of twenty years ago I was living in the 'left wing loony' - and front line state - United Republic of Tanzania. At more or less the same time as RSA was getting rid of aparteid Tanzania was supposedly becoming democratic. The BBC knew and chose not to report on the 70 unarmed people shot dead by the Tanzania police on the island of Pemba at an opposition rally. As I think the OP said when you live there you get a different slant on the news.

(Strangely the first job I did in Tanzania was for the ANC)

 

[Jock89]

Apologies offered for the drift, & of course LJ your absolutely right. An impulsive post I confess, but I do tend to get defensive about RSA as I had the best years of my life there, & did in fact get on well with all race groups.
Obviously things had to change, methinks not for the better though.
Jock

 

[whipper_snapper]

The thing is, they reported not about SA but about apartheid in SA because that was the newsworthy story. I don't think they can be blamed for that.