Shortwave

[darsu]

I reckon not many people listen to shortwave radio anymore, what with all the web radios and such doodads available around the world. But still - does anybody here listen to MW broadcasts in Mandarin? Can you point me to any stations or frequencies that are audible in Europe? The only station I'm aware of is CRI, but my meager language skills aren't sufficient to navigate their Chinese pages at will and their English pages only seem to list schedules and frequencies of English-language broadcasts.

[gummylick]

I just got myself a Grundig Mini 100PE as an early Christmas present! Have any luck finding any Chinese stations? I read somewhere there are Chinese language lessons broadcasted often, too...

[gato]

The web version of China Radio International news:

http://gb.chinabroadcast.cn/chinese_radio/index.htm

The audio links should be pretty obvious.

Mandarin

http://gb.chinabroadcast.cn/chinese_radio/radiochannel/pth.htm

Cantonese

http://gb.chinabroadcast.cn/chinese_radio/radiochannel/gzh.htm

If Communist news is too dull, you can try the entertainment section instead (look for the headphone logo):

http://gb.chinabroadcast.cn/ent/netradio.htm

[pazu]

I always listened to is the Mandarin News from Radio France Internationale, I found their news informative and extensive, with lots of news from China and around the world (and an emphasis on Sina-France news too). If you can't tune to their channel, check out the link below:

http://www.tv-radio.com/ondemand/rfi/mere/mandarin/info/mandarin_0930-1030-20k.asx

And which SW radio are you using? I'm using a Tecsun one (only US$30), it's half-broken (I bought it 2 days after 911 cuz I was going to Namtso but still wanted to keep up with some latest news...), now I'm thinking of buying a new one in BKK, perhaps a Sony, or any recommendations? How about Grundig, I think a digital one is better for me, I'm too lazy to fine tune everything.

[pazu]

http://www.rfi.fr/

And here's the website of RFI.

[gato]

Or listen to BBC Radio in Chinese (Mandarin or Cantonese):

http://news.bbc.co.uk/chinese/simp/hi/programmes/default.stm

I love BBC's "World Service." Thanks, British taxpayers!

[pazu]

I think the BBC Cantonese program is available in Hong Kong as FM only, that's very strange, but I like their service too. I used to listen to RFA (Radio Free Asia), they have a one-hour Cantonese program everyday, but Yan Jiuding (a commentor) is too biased.

Another daily Cantonese is VOA (Voice of America), it's even more biased but somehow can be quite funny, it's more like a home-baked program than a program sponsored by the US Govt, I would rather think it's made by a group of amateur uni students.

One newscaster asked another about a riot, and he asked, "係咪有人想玩嘢呀?" Another day during the APEC, they had a telephone interview with a reporter (a few years ago), the newscaster in New York asked what happened, the reporter in Shanghai said, "我地架旅遊巴係咁衝黎衝去, 重突然剎掣, 有個女仔跌左係地, 咁我立即走上去扶起佢問佢有冇撞親個頭, 佢話冇撞親個頭, 但撞到個滕頭啊!" (Sorry, I really don't know how to translate them into English, it may sound boring.)

It's a nice program though, if you want some laugh.

Hey, have you guys seen this radio? I think it looks quite pretty, maybe I'll buy this one if I go back to China.

http://www.tecsun.com.cn/product/pl230/mainpl230.htm

[gummylick]

Darsu, I found the CRI schedule with frequencies, programs and all .

http://en.chinabroadcast.cn/about/frequencies.doc

and here's the BBC schedule (CST might be wrong, I calcuated it myself)

http://www.52zhongwen.com/bbcSchedule.xls