Nĭ hăo, Xinjiang Broadcasting Station!
Okay, the birthday flowers are already letting hang their heads – but better late than never: Happy birthday, Radio Xinjiang, XJBS!
It was founded in the same year as the People’s Republic of China itself. Only the 1957 edition of the authorative World Radio Handbook took a first notice of their shortwave transmitters at Ürümqi. One of these frequencies, namely 4500 kHz, is still active today.
Among DXers, Radio Xinjiang is a welcomed signal from their transmitters at Ürümqi-Hutubi and at Ürümqi-Changii, some ten kilometeres northwest of Xinjiang’s capital Ürümqi, all in the north-west corner of China.
XJBS’ shortwave transmits in Uighur, Kazakh, Mongolian and Mandarin (“Chinese”) to serve the majority of listeners in each their mother tongue. Please find below their station’s announcement in each of those language. I especially like the “Nĭ hăo, Xinjiang” of the Mandarin recording at second 20. The announcer must have seen Good Morning, Vietnam, undoubtedly echoing Adrian Cronauer [the late Robin Williams].
Just for conaisseurs: in the YouTube clip, Adrian mentioned “Hanoi Hannah”, or Trịnh Thị Ngọ, a popular radio announcer at Radio Hanoi from 1965 airing three shows per day in English, directed towards US GIs. She left microphone only in 1973, after the USA fled from her country.
The following audio clips from my 25MHz/24h recording of December 16, 2019, received with Winradio’s Über-SDR Excalibur Sigma, connected to MD300DX antenna, an active dipole, hung vertical, with 2 x 5m legs.
I will come back to this interesting station with an analysis of their alltogether 24 HF frequencies between 3950kHz and 13670kHz here in Northern Germany in December 2019, as well as in early April 2020.
P.S. Below a QSL of this station, from 1984 on 4735kHz.
