Myanmar Radio: October 25, 2017

Photo by Sébastien Goldberg on Unsplash

Many thanks to SRAA contributor Tom Laskowski who shares the following recording and notes:

Here is a nice recording of the sign-on and programming of Myanmar Radio, the National Radio Service of Myanmar, broadcasting from Yangon. I was using the Web-based SDR at the University of Twente for this recording. I have been trying for years to add this country to my shortwave logbook but it still eludes me to this day. The best I have been able to get from this station is a very weak carrier but no audio on 5.985 MHz at their sign-on time. This recording lasts about 1h 16m. This may be one of the most exotic countries still left on shortwave.

Radio Myanmar: Circa 1990s

Radio Myanmar QSL

Another country and station that was considered among the rarest catches for DX’ers in North America and elsewhere was Myanmar, the current name for Burma. 5,040 khz was the frequency many us finally heard Burma on, and this was as difficult as some of the other challenging countries in the southeast Asia region, even in the days when solar conditions were favorable. When the mail arrived one day and I saw that classic BBS QSL card I was thrilled, to say the least. In later years, the BBS became Radio Myanmar and there was an updated color QSL card sent to listeners. Even now, in 2020 with shortwave on its way out, it’s quite amazing that Myanmar remains audible on SW. In the 1990s, as part of my work for Voice of America, I began traveling to Myanmar/Burma regularly — at least until I was placed on a ban list by the then military government due to my reporting for VOA. On one of those trips, I made this recording of Radio Myanmar, on a SONY ICF-SW1 receiver during a reporting trip in the capital, Yangon (Rangoon).

Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Dan Robinson, who shares the following recording