Deutsche Welle cancels its last daily SW output

[Mark Roberts]

The Low Countries are Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. How do Spanish- and French-speakers make it clear that when they say "Paises Bajos" or "Pays-Bas," they're referring only to Holland?

Context. There isn’t a specific term for the grouping of the three countries in either language that I know of.

Considering the defeats that both Spain and France had in that region, maybe they don’t want a special term for it.

It’s hard enough as it is to get French-speaking Belgians and Dutch*-speaking Belgians to agree that they’re a part of the same country.

* - OK, Flemish, but it’s really Dutch.

 

[kevtronics]

Our LPFM (Standards/EZ listening) featured one of those 'interval' signals each day at noon, along with the voice TOH ID and one done in quick 2kHz Morse code. Most often it was the :30 second prelude to the Sergio Mendes song 'Promise of a Fisherman'.

And some stations used the intro of ELO's "Here Is the News" as their actual news intro, including Dutch TV/radio network VPRO.

 

[KC8UOK]

Today, I listen via WebSDRs (software defined radios) all over the country, and almost exclusively to hams. The noise floor on HF here renders my multiband portable useless.

Same pretty much. Firstly I'm in a HOA and second the noise floor issue. I do run SDR# for personal use but the sproggies all over most bands is terrible. I tend to use the KFS SDR and Northern Utah but KFS has the edge. And University of Twente. Mostly I hang out on the N4NJJ repeater here in Vegas which is linked to Buffalo NY.

 

[Patrick 29582]

Radio Canada International (earlier, just "Radio Canada") had transmissions to its southern neighbors in North America, too, every morning on 49 or 31 meters from its Sackville, NB, transmitters. I was one of the winners of a letter-writing competition put on by its weekly mailbag show, "Listeners' Corner," back in 1969 or 1970, when I was 14. The prize was a selection of LPs by Canadian orchestras and artists, none of which really interested me at the time, as they were classical and jazz rather than pop or rock or even country. But hey, I won!

15325 was always the freq I'd listen to RCI on. And 9625 was the CBC Northern Service, easily heard in the upper Midwest.

 

[Mediafrog+]

Technically speaking, Holland is a province of the Netherlands, not the entire country.

True, but I always found it interesting that RNW used both terms interchangeably in English, Spanish and French.

In English and Spanish, informal usage has “Holland” as a stand-in for the entire country. In Spanish, the correct term is “Países Bajos”; in French “Pays-Bas”, both of which mean “Low Countries”.

The beginning of the RNW French broadcasts (beamed to Africa) had a singing intro of “Radio Nederland, Hilversum, Hollande” though they also commonly used “Les Pays-Bas” throughout the programming.

French has the adjective néerlandais(e) but I don’t think there’s a Spanish equivalent for the adjective other than holandés/holandesa.

On the RNW Spanish broadcasts the Netherlands Antilles were alternately referred to as “Antillas Neerlandesas” or “Antillas Holandesa” so perhaps there actually are two adjectives; I suppose the second would be the equivalent of “Dutch Antilles”.

 

[davideduardo]

On the RNW Spanish broadcasts the Netherlands Antilles were alternately referred to as “Antillas Neerlandesas” or “Antillas Holandesa” so perhaps there actually are two adjectives; I suppose the second would be the equivalent of “Dutch Antilles”.

As a former "caribeño" myself and a frequent visitor to the Antillas Holandesas, I can say I never heard them referred to as "Antillas Neerlandesas" locally. And I made friends with a number of local broadcasters, including the Kelkboom family who started the first station there in 1954.

In a style replicated at several Latin American stations, they named it "Radio Kelkboom" after their own last name. The most famous of those is "Emisora Fuentes" in Colombia, owned by the founder of the Fuentes record label.

 

[blindowl1234]

Ah the glory days of shortwave long ago. As a kid listening to these stations for hours was something I did every night. Listening to Radio Moscow, Cuba, China etc...If something ever goes down big time and there's no internet for a week, well....

 

[KC8UOK]

If something ever goes down big time and there's no internet for a week, well....

That's the problem with modern radio nowadays. I don't know a single radio station I can turn to for live, local news in the event of an emergency. Mass shooting at a Vegas casino? Severe storms? Bad accident? Anything happens at night or in the evenings, it's all networked or recorded programming. And the problem isn't unique to the United States. I spent years in the UK and it's the same issue there.

 

[Mark Roberts]

My guess is that "neerlandés" is a relatively recent development. I never saw it 40-50 years ago, but it’s now in the Real Academía Española’s dictionary (fair use excerpt — screenshot from iPad app — as this is but one entry in a dictionary of thousands or millions):


A few observations:

The first line of the entry indicates that it’s a word borrowed from French.

The word “holandés” is repeatedly mentioned as a synonym.

Item 4 states that the language has two dialects, Dutch and Flemish. The reality is that pretty much every Dutch province has its own dialect though, aside from Frisian, there’s not a lot of difference. Standard Dutch and Flemish differ primarily in pronunciation.

Thus, as stated at the start of this post, I think this is a word that entered the language relatively recently — to provide the option to make a statement about someone’s nationality or language clearer than would otherwise be the case.

 

[SomeRadioGuy]

WRMI carries some WRN, does any DW get out there?

Haven’t heard that in a number of years on shortwave. The remaining broadcasts usually crash start with programming. The Issoudun transmitters are often 30-60 seconds late in powering up, so the beginning of the transmission is cut off.

WRN includes a few DW programs.

WRMI is using WRN as filler following the loss of programming from Brother Stair and Classic Redneck Radio. I doubt WRN is paying for the airtime, so this is a temporary situation.

Kol Israel's international service in engl;ish is on WRMI's 9395 at 04 and 08utc from WRN

 

[Steve Green NEPA]

Figured to add this to the part of the thread that addresses regions and names. Might be good for a chuckle or so,
Our DXing quartet in south Queens NYC near JFK Airport and Jamaica Bay had a great buddy on ours -- the most active of the 'blocks' back then. The oldest of four brothers with an Italian surname, he was 4,5,6 years older than we were. If you'll accept the casual ancestral 'pigeonholing' of the era peculiar to so many caucasian melting pot neighborhoods: at 6'2, 300 pounds, blonde Afro, blue-eyed with perennial sunglasses, suspenders, a beard and a pipe, he certainly did not fit his surname. While looking like a ponderous Hell's Angels attorney, he played classical piano.
The point here is that he asserted to have relatives and ancestors of a few generations who claimed German, Russian and Polish citizenship. Fair enough. The catch is, he said, the forbearers were from the same general CITY, which through the years found itself occupied by different countries.

(Art's official acceptance as an earnest DXer came shortly after he bought one of those wide Grundig multi-band radios -- the model with the piano-key push-buttons denoting various instruments (rather than the numeral equalizer fidelity increments). During a patient interval one night after local WVNJ 620 signed off, he said he heard 'this thing with a bunch of T's, J's and 'M's in it)
Not bad for a beginner. For decades, Wisconsin has been a tough state for many to log on AM.