Deutsche Welle (Kigali, Rwanda Relay): Circa 1971

Many thanks to SRAA contributor Dan Greenall, who shares the following recording and notes:

Broadcaster: Deutsche Welle, Kigali, Rwanda relay 1971

Frequency: 11.965 MHz

Reception location: Ancaster, Ontario, Canada

Receiver and antenna: Hallicrafters S-52 using a longwire antenna

Notes: When this recording was made in 1971, the easiest way to add Rwanda to your "countries heard" totals was to log the Deutsche Welle (Voice of Germany) relay in Kigali. The station could be heard quite well here in southern Ontario, Canada even though broadcasts were not directed to eastern North America. My QSL card has them using 11965 kHz, however I am not fluent in German and this recording could possibly have been made on a different frequency. This relay station was closed down in 2015 after 50 years of operation.

Deutsche Welle, final Kigali relay broadcast: March 28, 2015

Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Richard Langley, for sharing this beautiful QSL card from the early days of the DW Kigali relay station.

Yesterday, Deutsche Welle transmitted its final broadcast from the Kigali, Rwanda relay station. Since I’ve only had moderate luck hearing the Kigali site the past few days–especially on 31 meters–I fired up the TitanSDR Pro (which is still currently under review) and set it to record all three final afternoon broadcasts from Kigali on 12,005, 15,275 and 17,800 kHz

Kigali produced a very strong signal on 17,800 kHz. The TitanSDR recorded the full broadcast, starting with one minute of the transmitter tuning, then one hour of DW’s French language service, followed by one hour of DW’s Hausa language service…then the transmitter went silent.

The recording begins around 1659 UTC on March 28, 2015 on 17,800 kHz: