venerdì 18 gennaio 2019

Radio Nigeria Kaduna sites

The old Ikorodu transmitter site near Lagos appears to be a complete write-off now. And the situation at the new Lugbe site near Abuja is described as such that of the three transmitters one gets already cannibalized for spare parts, the control system has collapsed, the rotatable antenna can no longer be turned.

So the rotatable antenna has been fixed for transmissions within West Africa on 7255 kHz, with the new idea being to use at times 9690 kHz instead (apparently without checking at all if this frequency is clear, like: it has to be because Nigeria has used it many years ago). The other transmitter is designated to serve Europe and North America on 15120 kHz, using a curtain antenna. To serve these first world countries in a state-of-the-art manner they put out a DRM signal here... or used to do so, last report of a reception at http://www.drmrx.org/forum/showthread.php?t=2390&page=94 was four months ago.

While in 2017 being in Nigeria to look after the Lugbe facilities engineers from Europe also went to the Radio Kaduna transmitter site and repaired one of the shortwave transmitters there, putting it back on air on 6090 kHz, but only with a fraction of the rated 100 kW. The transmitter is in poor shape, suffering from frequent arcing, and in early 2018 it broke down again. Thus now the relay via Issoudun, with certain authorities in Abuja being made pay for it with a rustic approach: By telling them a fairytale that they can this way "seize Radio Biafra frequencies". That this approach works at all (and also that it has been used) tells a lot, much beyond aspects of broadcasting work.

For domestic services new shortwave equipment has, beyond the new foreign service facility, been installed at the Gwagwalada site. After the mentioned 2017 visit the current shape of these two 100 kW transmitters has been described with one word: Scrap. (Kai Ludwig via WOR io group)