View Single Post
  #1   Report Post  
Old June 21st 06, 08:05 PM posted to rec.radio.shortwave
http://www.lookaboutusa.com/
 
Posts: n/a
Default AUSTRALIA. RA programming continues to be all screwed up

** AUSTRALIA. RA programming continues to be all screwed up. When I
was updating MONITORING REMINDERS CALENDAR, I found that the times
were one hour off as displayed in their too-smart system of local time
for places such as Washington DC. And would London be GMT or BST??
Schedules not available in simple, straightforward UT. Even Melbourne
time was questionable due to prolonged DST there.

Now on Monday, April 10 before and after 1430 UT I am hearing a music-
appreciation show about various forms of dance music thru the ages,
from waltzes to rags, tangos, best on 9590, // 9625, 7240, 5995. Is
there anything remotely similar on their posted schedule? Of course
not! Pretending I am in Hawaii, where there is no DST confusion
(unless RA thinks there is), at 4:30 am, Big Ideas is supposed to be
on RA. Could it be something else taken directly from the Radio
National schedule? No, Monday after midnight (really Tuesday) AET,
it`s supposed to be Life Matters.

Why is it so difficult for a major SW broadcaster just to present its
own program schedule accurately and unequivocally?

Then on Thursday April 13 I was listening to Rear Vision at 1330 UT on
9580 --- interviewing a number of American academics about the
Sunni/Shiite split, not in very great depth; page about this and
ondemand: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/rearvision/...06/1609773.htm

Ended at 1355, and into a commentary on the renewable energy market in
China and Australian involvement in it, on a show called
``Perspective`` which does not appear on RA`s online program schedule!
To add injury to insult, it was cut off after 3 minutes as 1358 was
the mandatory time for the 9580 transmitter to close and change
frequency to somewhere else.

Fortunately, I knew I could keep listening by immediately retuning to
the weaker 9590 which stayed on the air, and the commentary lasted
right up till 1400, but why put listeners thru this? Not all of them
will know what to do; and why insult your program providers by 1) not
even mentioning them on the schedule, and 2) cutting them off halfway
thru? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

Yes, the RA sched is quite bad; last year I emailed RA and they sent
me a pdf on the full week programming schedule in UTC, but they made
their site even better so now I really hate going anywhere near
http://www.abc.net.au/ra because as you say Glenn, their system is too
smart and as the saying goes, you feed rubbish in, you get rubbish
out. Perhaps us listners should petition the site? (Robb Wise, HRi
Radio, Tasmania, DX LISTENING DIGEST)