China Radio International

[MW0SWA]

My gosh CRI are taking over the shortwave bands. They are everywhere.

[pickle]

Yes.!

Every band I tune in they are there.

[WoollyMammoth]

Is it a propaganda station?
I don't have a shortwave radio yet so can't listen to them.

[grahamwilman01]

You can say that Woolly it is owned by the Government of the Peoples Republic of China.

[Adriano9966]

I remember this happening with radio moscow during the 1980s
The north American service was easier to receive than the one intended for the UK My favorite programs were the dx diary and the warmongers weekly
the readers letter section was also quite amusing

This was all in my view quite obviously propaganda but it was entertaining stuff
I remember one of the comentators building an 'airfix' model of an american spyplane that was not supposed to officially exist even though you could go into any toy store and buy the kit

ah the joys of SWL

[Tinman]

Also noticed when scanning the bands on my sdr kit that as well as broadcasting on as many frequencies as possible they also use a pretty wide bandwidth to do it with as well blocking out a large chunk of band in the process.


Dave

[Farty]

They broadcast everywhere because they've got a proper licence, not some cornflake packet job that's had a callsign merry-go-round and bequeathed powers and frequencies they didn't earn because they did a Morse test a no armed simpleton could have passed.

[kr0ne]

Is it a propaganda station?

In the same way that the BBC World Service, or The VOA is...

You can listen online if you are interested, the English language service has a mix of local current affairs, world politics and a quick Chinese language lesson thrown in for good measure.

Their take on international affairs is always interesting as it usually has a completely different perspective to UK / US based news agencies but the thing that I found most surprising when I first started listening was the local stuff...

I wasn't expecting to hear discussion about local issues being openly critical of Chinese governmental policy, but you actually hear this a fair bit if you listen much. I'm sure the state censors some things but we are always led to believe that China is a strange and oppressive totalitarian regime where it is not permitted to question the authorities in any way. Clearly that's not the whole story.

[HFMITCH]

They have a few high power transmitters

[kr0ne]

They also relay through European ones...

[kr0ne]

They also relay through European ones...

[5thElement]

I can usually pick it up even on a rubber duck or a few inches of wire lol

[SecretShortwave]

They broadcast everywhere because they've got a proper licence, not some cornflake packet job that's had a callsign merry-go-round and bequeathed powers and frequencies they didn't earn because they did a Morse test a no armed simpleton could have passed.

get some anger management

[Farty]

You'd be angry too if life dealt you such a bad card that you had to live in Grotingham.

[scanhermit]

Their news and analysis is quite good, and The World According to Words can be very amusing.