BBC World Service: "Global Business" interviews Matthew Szulik, Chairman of Red Hat

In the current edition, host Peter Day interviews Matthew Szulik, Chairman of Red Hat, the most visible software vendor for Linux for business. I know many shortwave enthusiasts are also Linux
enthusiasts; Szulik sounds like an interesting guy.

Peter Day does a good job staying out of the way to let Szulik talk...something Mr. Day doesn't always do well...

See http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p003r602#synopsis

Richard

Worth a listen: BBC Radio 4: "MI6: A Century in the Shadows"

Radio 4 has begun a three-part documentary series commemorating the 100-year anniversary of MI6, the UK's analog to the USA Central Intelligence Agency. Considering the importance that radio has played in the communication of information between field agents and headquarters, folks here might find it worth a listen. Bletchley Park - the codebreaking center for British intelligence - is mentioned in the first episode of the series.

The first episode, "Gadgets and Green Ink", is available on-demand until roughly 0900 UTC on Monday, August 3rd; that's when the second episode, "Heroes and Villains", goes to air; that episode will then be available online for a week.

Website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00ls8ll

CC Wifi radio now can incorporate your Pandora account...free of charge for first 40 hours/month

If you can access Pandora's online streaming music discovery service where you live, and you own a CC Wifi radio, you can now add your Pandora account settings to your CC Wifi radio.

You'll need to upgrade the firmware on the WiFi radio, then log into the Reciva website and update the "My Radios" link, even if you aren't making a change to the radio. Apparently that step is needed for Reciva to recognize that you've upgraded the firmware.

Then you should see a link within "My Stuff" called "My Pandora"; you can then enter your Pandora ID and password, and all your Pandora channels will be available on your WiFi radio.

Bandwidth for Pandora is only 64k mpbs, but the audio quality seemed decent for me.

It's also worth noting that folks listening to Pandora for more than 40 hours/month will be asked to pay 99 cents to continue to listen that month once their listening hours exceed 40. This is a result of the recent SoundExchange copyright deal with web radio providers; see
http://mashable.com/2009/07/07/internet-radio-deal/ .

Also...I've started a new Internet e-mail reflector group specifically
to discuss Internet radio including Wifi devices.

Check out http://www2.hard-core-dx.com/mailman/listinfo/internetradio
for more details or to sign up.

BBC Radio 4's "This Sceptred Isle" being aired on BBC Radio 7

BBC Radio 7 is a service of BBC Radio devoted to spoken-word programming, primarily programming that has aired previously on other BBC Radio services -- primarily Radio 4.

"This Sceptred Isle" is an audio history of the UK that has aired since 1995 on Radio 4, and the series has been rerun on Radio 7 since 2008.

The program airs weekdays, with each 15-minute program devoted to a single year in the history of Great Britain. The 20th Century series of programs has just begun this past week.

The series airs twice daily on Radio 7 -- at 1400 BST, repeated 0400 the next morning; that converts to 1300 and 0300 UTC.

Programs are available for one week in the iPlayer archive.

"Americana": The USA through British eyes

In my regular trawl of the BBC Radio 4 website the other day, I came across a recently-launched program, "Americana", that you may enjoy. The program is a weekly magazine of stories about the USA; quoting the program website, "Americana hopes to answer these questions by telling you what America is talking, arguing, fretting, laughing and, yes, dreaming about. We hope to surprise, entertain and inform. And by letting America itself do most of the talking we promise never to be dull."

The program airs Sunday evenings 715 PM BST, or 1815 UTC; the program is available via podcast and on-demand via the BBC iPlayer.

So far, all episodes since the program's May 31st launch have remained available for on-demand streaming.

BBC switches to the Flash player as its basic audio platform…one step forward, two steps backward?

Back in the dark ages of streaming audio in the mid-1990's, the predominant media format was Real Audio; Windows Media was clearly in the minority, and MP3 had not yet become the de facto encoding standard for compact discs ripped for PC audio platforms.

Over the years, Windows Media and MP3 appear to have captured a significant chunk of the streaming audio market, based on my casual, unscientific observations. A recent arrival for streaming audio has been embedded Flash audio, developed by Macromedia and now owned by Adobe, the folks who developed the PDF format.

The BBC has kept with RealMedia for its default audio format, even as these other audio formats gained traction. However, since early June, the new default embedded audio player on the BBC website is Flash-based. This upgrade was implemented at the same time that the BBC increased the audio bandwidth for most of its programming; the result is high-quality audio across the BBC's universe of programming, and across the Mac OS, Windows, and Linux operating systems, all of which appear to handle Flash media with no issues. Thankfully, RealMedia and Windows Media streams are also available, at least for the World Service.

So far, so good, right? Yes, as long as you use your PC - whether desktop, laptop, or netbook - as your listening platform. Those of us who capture audio to our PCs and then transfer it to portable devices (MP3 players) have been inconvenienced by the switch - as most streaming audio capture software packages don't handle Flash streams well. Replay Media Catcher appears to capture the BBC's Flash audio fine. What it doesn't do, though, is transform the audio into the MP3 format that is common across portable audio players, whether you're talking the Apple iTunes or a budget MP3 player. The built-in audio converter in Replay Media Catcher can't handle the BBC flash audio; you need another Applian software product, Replay Converter, to convert the Flash (.flv) audio into MP3. Further, you need the current version of Replay Converter (v3.37), not the prior version (v2.80). I've updated both software packages to their current versions, and I can now capture Newshour - which is not directly podcast - and save to my MP3 player.

The use of the Flash streaming format is also problematic for Internet radios - none that I know of directly handle Flash-formatted content. Thankfully, the RealMedia and Windows Media formats appear to remain available, and the URLs for these haven't changed. No word as to whether these secondary formats will remain available for the foreseeable future. However, when I tried to listen to either the RealMedia or Windows Media versions of a recent on-demand edition of Newshour, I received error messages stating that the content wasn't available. I notified the World Service website team of the problem, but as of June 24th the problem had not been corrected.

Don't throw away your Internet radios due to the increased usage of Flash Audio / Video just yet; I know of very few web radio stations that don't offer alternatives to Flash streaming audio, and some that do have worked with the Internet radio database vendors (specifically Reciva) to provide URL information for non-Flash streams that Internet radios can handle.

Radio / TV Cameroon online

Quick: Who was the colonial power in this African country? France? Great Britain? Germany? How about all of the above? Why is this paragraph nothing but questions?

Anyway, the ODXA's Harold Sellers passed along a tip for online English-language audio from the state-run Radio TV Cameroon, available at http://www.crtv.cm/ . Click on the link labeled , then look for the entries. You'll be able to listen to three daily newscasts (6:30 AM, 3 PM, 7 PM local time) that are archived for at least three weeks back. Each newscast runs anywhere from 14 to 28 minutes in length; a recent 3 PM newscast ran 28 minutes. For local news from an African perspective, this is a very good online choice.

It appears Radio TV Cameroon uses a Flash-based media player, which might prove problematic for WiFi radio users; my favourite program for capturing Flash-based audio for later listening via MP3 is Replay Media Catcher, a $40 piece of software that does a very good job of capturing Flash media - an area where other software falls down on the job. Check out Replay Media Catcher at http://applian.com/download-videos/ ; a Google search will also bring you there straightaway.

John Tusa's 3-part audio documentary "Iran: A Revolutionary State" now available at BBC Radio 4

Currently available from the BBC's domestic spoken-word Radio 4:

"Iran: A Revolutionary State", a three-part documentary series that aired Monday through Wednesday of this week.

BBC Radio 4 programs are usually available for on-demand listening for one week following their original air dates, so you'll need to visit the Radio 4 website promptly to catch these programs.

John Tusa was the well-respected managing director of the BBC World Service from 1986 to 1993.

See http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00lp5jz for access to the documentary series.

Radio Netherlands resurrecting its documentaries

Radio Netherlands, the Dutch international broadcasting service, has an extensive audio documentary archive. For several years a weekly 30-minute audio documentary on a global issue was presented.

Radio Netherlands is resurrecting some of these documentaries for weekly airing during the current broadcasting season.

Check out "Classic Dox" here: http://www.rnw.nl/radio-program-list/8510 for the weekly edition,
available via shortwave radio, World Radio Network (on Sirius/XM and streaming) as well as via Radio Netherlands' own website.

The archive was not brought over directly to the new Radio Netherlands website, but can be found here: http://static.rnw.nl/migratie/www.radionetherlands.nl/documentaries/index.html-redirected

Thanks to the Audio Documentary enthusiasts' website http://www.audiodocumentary.org for this info.

CBC Radio's summer schedule begins June 29th

There are two documentary series airing as part of the CBC Radio One summer schedule -- Global Perspectives, the international co-operative that has aired programming on stations such as the BBC World Service, Radio Australia, and New Zealand National Radio; also, Crossing Boundaries, billed as a showcase of public radio documentaries.

Details here.

The BBC World Service comes to your cellphone

Back in the mid-1990s, when webcasts were in their infancy, shortwave radio enthusiasts quickly pointed out that webcasts weren't portable -- one was tethered to their Internet connection via a desktop or laptop PC. Fast forward a dozen years...the predominance of Wifi technologies has launched untethered laptops and spawned a generation of Internet radios. Shortwave enthusiasts could still claim that shortwave radios provided unmatched portability.

Enter cellular broadband technologies...you can now install a USB card into a laptop computer and obtain relatively high-speed Internet access anywhere you can get cellphone access. AT&T has featured the former newsman Bill Curtis in a series of commercials touting where he's "found the Internet" using his AT&T laptop card. Verizon has a technology that allows you to create a personal Wifi "hotspot" which, in theory, could provide Internet connectivity to a battery-powered Internet radio.

If you live in India and have Reliance Mobile phone service, you can now access the BBC World Service via your cellphone 24/7 using the "R-World" service. Who needs a stinkin' radio, anyway?

Details here.

CFRX is back on shortwave!

After being missing for several years due to transmitter problems, Canada's CFRX, the 6070 kHz shortwave relay of domestic MW station CFRB, is now back on the air, and some early hiccups appear to have settled out. On the air since 1937, CFRX provides an opportunity to "eavesdrop" on one of Canada's largest cities, and can be a decent diversion, especially during the day. Its programming is a mix of news and talk, like that of many MW stations south of the border nowadays.

Yes, CFRB webcasts too...see www.cfrb.com/

BBC World Service Talking America bus tour complete

The BBC World Service "bus tour" of the USA, involving journalists representing many of the BBC's domestic and foreign-language services, has recently wrapped up its west-to-east journey, and there are three 25-minute programs in which the presenters reflect on key highlights from each region they visited. From the main BBC World Service website, search for "talking America" - that's the quickest way to reach the three-part audio programs.

Brain of Britain in full swing (on BBC Radio 4)

As the BBC World Service increased its emphasis in news and current affairs programming, one of the casualties was its light entertainment and comedy programming; the best-known of this genre was Brain of Britain, the general knowledge quiz that originated on the domestic BBC Radio 4 service. While you can't hear Brain on the World Service, you can still listen live and on-demand via Radio 4's web stream.

Brain of Britain has been around in one form or another since 1953; it has aired since 1967 under this title. The host, Robert Robinson, has held that position for more than 30 years.

Brain airs live Mondays at 1330 UTC, with a repeat Saturdays 2300 UTC, if your primary means of listening to Radio 4 is via its live webcast; the most recent edition is available on-demand as well.

Brain of Britain will crown its champion on January 24th, 2009.

You can Google "brain of Britain" as a phrase to quickly reach the website, or go directly to www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/brainofbritain/ .

Australian Express is transformed into Australian Bite

Another way that programming from Radio National made its way to Radio Australia is through the weekly magazine program Australian Express. Segments regarding aspects of Australian culture and perspectives would be edited with Roger Broadbent providing "continuity" commentary and background.

This program still exists, but it's now called Australian Bite and is now hosted by Heather Jarvis, a familiar name to Radio Australia listeners. The program presents "…a tasty spread of stories and music coming to you from all around Australia. From cafe culture to crested cockatoos, from arts and books to the mysteries of Australian rules football, there's something for everyone here in the pantry." (ABC website)

Australian Bite airs at the following times: Tuesdays, 1330, 1705, 1730; Fridays, 1830; Saturdays, 0030, 0505, 0530. The Tuesday 1330 airing will likely propagate best to Eastern North America in the winter.

Australian Bite is not directly offered as an on-demand program or podcast.

Cuts at ABC’s Radio National affect Radio Australia

Most folks know that much of Radio Australia programming begins its life as features produced for the domestic spoken-word Radio National network; Radio National has been under threat of budget and programming cuts in recent years since the network has a comparatively small audience relative to the size of its budget.

That budget ax fell, and unfortunately several high-quality programs that were high on my target listening will be disappearing in 2009. These include The Ark, In Conversation, Media Report, Perspective, Radio Eye, Religion Report, Sports Factor and Street Stories. Of these, the one that I will mist the most is The Ark., but all of these were quality programs that were each a compelling listen. These programs are world-class, and can easily stand up to programming from much larger broadcasters (such as the BBC) with no apologies for content.

The Ark dealt with religious history, but in a way that seeks to explain the present by better understanding how events in a religion’s history were documented and in what context they happened. These events could focus on individuals, but could also focus on places or dates. Definitely a thoughtful listen and certainly more interesting (to me anyway) than the latest facts and figures on Eastern Bloc industrial production.

Standard Radio National policy has been to make four weeks’ worth of program archives available for online listening, and I hope this policy is liberalized for these programs. Many have value far beyond the times of their original airing and could sound as fresh years later as they do today.

It appears that the resources that were utilized to produce these programs will be shifted somewhat to the domestic NewsRadio service; this is a 24-hour “rolling news” domestic network that has as it roots a relay of proceedings from the Australian Parliament. NewsRadio is a decent service, but it certainly is more repetitious and less specialized than Radio National.

The original plan had apparently been to end these programs as of mid-December, when many Radio National programs go on summer / Christmas / New Year’s hiatus for a month, but the apparent leak of this story has led to the abrupt ending for some of them (including The Ark).

If you’d like to catch these programs on Radio Australia before they disappear, here are the currently-publish air times for them:

The Ark – Sundays 0405, 0705

In Conversation – Not currently on Radio Australia

Media Report – Thursdays 1031, 1530

Perspective – Not currently on Radio Australia

Radio Eye – Not currently on Radio Australia

Religion Report – Wednesdays 1031, 1530

Sports Factor – Fridays 1031, 1530

Street Stories – Not currently on Radio Australia

Links to all these programs are still active on the Radio National website, http://www.abc.net.au/rn .

Radio Kuwait – worth an afternoon tune-in if you’re around

One of the impressions that catalyzed my return to active shortwave listening in the 1980s was a visit to my brother in Florida. He was a work-at-home contractor, and one afternoon, while I was visiting, he walked over and switched his analog Radio Shack receiver to Radio Kuwait's English language service and kept it on for the afternoon.

My brother was an extremely casual listener - and still is - but found Radio Kuwait to be agreeable, unobtrusive, yet exotic accompaniment to his workday, with its mix of music, conversation, and features.

After a period of years off the air, Radio Kuwait is now pretty reliable on the air from 1800 to 2100 on 11990 kHz. Much of the time is popular music, which makes sense considering this is a relay of a domestic broadcast, but recent logs included by Glenn Hauser in DX Listening Digest updates indicate a feature program at 1800 beginning the broadcast, with news at 1830.

These recent logs indicate the feature is typically about Kuwait culture and religion, focusing on the teachings of Islam; the program clearly targets a non-Islamic audience.
The reports posted to DXLD suggest propagation is sporadic, and less likely to be successful the further inland you go. Not exactly Easy listening, but one is thankful for what is out there.

All the links I came across to any Radio Kuwait webcast were not working, so for now you're limited to shortwave.

New from the BBC World Service: The Strand

The BBC World Service has launched a new, weekday arts program called The Strand. Presented by Harriett Gilbert and Mark Coles, the half-hour program takes listeners on a worldwide journey through arts, culture and entertainment. According to the program producers, "Nothing creative is out of bounds" - and The Strand will bring the best, newest and most exciting creative enterprises to listeners around the world.
Novelist Harriett Gilbert has been presenting arts programs on the BBC World Service for over 10 years. She will present the Monday and Friday editions of The Strand, as well as a new hour-long version of another BBC World Service program, World Book Club, on the first weekend of every month.

Mark Coles, an award-winning broadcaster and acclaimed music journalist, will present the Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday editions of The Strand as well as a special hour-long Saturday compilation. Mark - who has played Jimi Hendrix's guitar and was once locked in a cage with Yoko Ono - has interviewed some of the world's top writers. He says: "We'll provide our audience with a thoroughly entertaining, truly global guide to the arts. We'll be featuring some of the world's most famous and creative people and be offering unique insights into arts events and consumption of culture around the world."

The program's scheduled guests for its first week (October 27th - 31st) included Roger Moore (the longtime James Bond actor) and Candace Bushnell, the New York cultural observer who initially created the long-running Sex and the City HBO TV series.

I was interested to see if The Strand is merely the replacement for Outlook, another long-running program with significant artistic / human interest content, but this is not the case - Outlook remains on the World Service schedule.

The Strand will air in the shortwave schedule targeting West Africa weekdays at 1430 UTC, which stands a chance of propagating to North America given the frequencies typically in use then (17830, possibly 15400). The Strand will air in the live Infotainment webcast weekdays at 1030, 1530, 1930, and 2330, and also Tuesday-Saturday 0230 UTC. The Strand will not air in the live News webcast. Listeners who get their BBC fix via Sirius satellite radio and US public radio stations should tune in weekdays at 0930 if you are an especially early riser.

And, yes, The Strand will be available for on-demand listening; a weekly podcast of the program's highlights is also available.

Details here.

It isn't radio but it is an interesting perspective on the USA...

Justin Webb, the BBC's North American editor, has a blog with interesting observations on the US -- one could actually look at this as a successor to "Letter From America", with all due respects to Alistair Cooke.

See http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/justinwebb/.