Article: 29484 of rec.radio.shortwave Path: news.cs.tut.fi!news.funet.fi!sunic!trane.uninett.no!nac.no!eunet.no!EU.net!howland.reston.ans.net!cs.utexas.edu!not-for-mail From: MOORE@tmu1.mcrest.edu ("Don Moore" ) Newsgroups: rec.radio.shortwave Subject: Last chance - AWR Alajuela Date: 7 Apr 1994 10:43:47 -0500 Organization: Teikyo Marycrest University Lines: 87 Sender: daemon@cs.utexas.edu Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.utexas.edu The AWR station in Costa Rica, Radio Lira, is finishing up with moving its transmitter site. Originally the antennas & transmitters were located at the Adventist university, just outside Alajuela, Costa Rica - not too far from San Jose. However back about 1990, or maybe it was early 1991, bought the SW transmitters of Radio Impacto and Impacto's Cahuita transmitter site on the Caribbean coast a little ways south of Puerto Limon. Impacto had been an anti- Sandinista propaganda station, supposedly a commerical broadcast but more likely a CIA front. See the article on the station which I'm posting after this for more detail on Impacto. Anyway, Impacto had used AM & SW from a site near San Jose to broadcast to Nicaragua. Later when Manuel Noriega became a problem for the US, Impacto added a 50 kW MW (AM) transmitter at Cahuita to broadcast anti-Noriega programming to Panama (really strange behavior for a commerical broadcaster, hi!). But after Noriega had been removed and the Sandinistas lost the election in Nicaragua in 1989- 1990, Impacto suddenly closed down and was put on the market. The AM transmitter & transmitter site in San Jose, the only part of the station that had any commerical potential in Costa Rica, were purchased by a popular local radio announcer who wanted his own station. AWR bought the Cahuita site & MW transmitter, plus the shortwave transmitters at the San Jose site. Since then, AWR has been in the process of moving the ex-Impacto SW transmitters to Cahuita, converting the Cahuita MW transmitter to SW, and moving its own Alajuela transmitters to Cahuita. Currently, AWR is still on from the Alajuela transmitter site on 11870 kHz with 5 kW. I've heard it strong in the mornings, but suspect it can be heard in the evenings as well. However, according to correspondence just received from Dr. Adrian Peterson of AWR, the final broadcast from this site will be on Friday, April 15th, after which the transmitter will be moved to Guatemala (see below). If you have not already QSLed or logged AWR via Alajuela, you may want to do so. Alajuela is about 100 miles as the crow flies from Cahuita, so by the transmitter site rule, AWR via Alajuela is a different station than AWR via Cahuita. If you logged/QSLed AWR in Costa Rica before 1992 you already have the Alajuela site. If you logged/QSLed them afterwards, you may have either site, depending on the frequency heard. I'm afraid I don't have an actual schedule of broadcast times in front of me, but this is an extensive service and is on most of the day. Reception reports for the final week of broadcast can be sent to AWR - Special Projects 903 Tanninger Drive Indianapolis , IN 46239 USA The reports will be verified with a specially endorsed "Final Week" QSL card. Return postage MUST be included. Alternately, you could write direct to the station in Costa Rica, but they will not be issuing the special QSL endorsement. The current frequency table for AWR - Costa Rica is as follows. 5030 20 kW Cahuita 6150 20 kW Cahuita 9725 50 kW Cahuita 11870 5 kW Alajuela 13750 20 kW Cahuita After next week, 11870 will be 40 kW via Cahuita. These other frequencies can also be heard. 9725 is especially strong. In fact, you could check 9725 for the parallel to be sure you have 11870 as AWR. Reception reports for the Cahuita site can also be sent to Dr. Peterson at the Indianapolis address. He will also verify reports for the other two Adventist stations in the Caribbean region - Union Radio, 5980, 3 kW, in Guatemala City and Radio Amanecer, 6025, 1 kW, in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. These are not so easy to hear, but try in the mornings around 1100 and after, in North America. As mentioned above, the last 5 kW transmitter from Alajuela is scheduled to be moved to Guatemala once it is taken off the air. BTW, these QSLs via Indianapolis are only available for reports made in April and May for a special study of how they are being received. After that, all reports should go direct to the appropriate station. Reports to Indianapolis should include SINPO code or other clear comments as to how well the broadcast is received. Don Moore MOORE@TMU1.MCREST.EDU Teikyo Marycrest University Davenport, IA USA