Vatican Radio English service to Africa: September 13, 2014

"Vatican-radio" by Joshua Sherurcij -  Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Andre Bagley, for this recording of Vatican Radio. Andre writes:

"This was recorded on 9-13-14. The broadcast was received in the Great Basin area of North America, which is quite a few thousand miles from the broadcast's intended audience in Africa. Reception conditions were extremely good that night, thus the audio is very clear and mostly free from interference and band noise. This was recorded from a Tecsun PL-600, with whip antenna and a random long wire attached to said antenna. I used my digital voice recorder via it's external microphone jack."

This recording was made on the 13th of September 2014, starting around 0457 UTC on 11.625 MHz. 

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Vatican Radio: July 13, 2014

Many thanks to Shortwave Radio Audio Archive contributor, Chris, who submits this recording of Vatican Radio.

Chris comments:

Africa Service of Vatican Radio broadcast at 2000Z on 13 July 2014 on frequency 15,570 kHz. Reception location: Maple Street Park, Lake Michigan, Winnetka, Illinois, USA. Recording equipment; Sony ICF-SW7600G, Sangean ANT-60 reel antenna, Sony ICD-SX712 recorder.

Click here to download this recording as an MP3, or simply listen via the embedded player below:

Vatican Radio: breaking news broken?

A few moments ago, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina was elected Pope, becoming the first pontiff from the Americas, and taking the name Pope Francis I. When breaking news like this is happens, I often turn to shortwave radio to hear it "from the source;" what better station for news about the Papal elections than Vatican Radio? Right?

Hm. When I turned to Vatican Radio on 13.765 MHZ at 20:00 UTC today, here is what I heard:

After a little music and announcement confusion--including what sounds like at least three audio feeds coming in at once--Vatican Radio settles on an announcement program which states, in several languages, "Vatican Radio's programming schedule is currently being modified to cover the election of the new Pope."

It wasn't until thirty minutes later (20:30 UTC), when the Vatican Radio service to Africa started in French on 11.625 MHz, that I heard any substantive news about the new Pope:

Of course, I can find information about the new Pope from any one of two million different online sources, but it did surprise me that Vatican Radio wasn't better prepared for this event.  I even wondered if there was a different broadcast running on a consecutive frequency, so I checked; all were identical, however.

Still, the radio archivist in me can't help but experience some appreciation of the confusion on the airwaves. After all, this is a genuine piece of radio history and a fascinating thirty minutes of audio in the wake of a big decision.

In my mind, I envision the Vatican Radio staff frantically stirring to assemble news--for which they had no advance notice--regarding the new Pope. No doubt, the CNNs, BBCs, and Al Jazeeras of the world had pre-prepared material on each of the papal candidates. When the white plume of smoke announcing the election was first spotted, these broadcasters were likely more than ready to pull out the appropriate material and publish.

Perhaps this is not how Vatican Radio usually operates. Indeed, I suspect their live feed of events experienced a technical difficulty which they have, no doubt, since resolved. And for what it's worth, their website was appropriately up-to-date.

History:  sometimes bumpy, but always fascinating.  Especially on the airwaves.