VENEZUELA: Noticias del Canal Internacional de Radio Nacional.

VENEZUELA [non]. 11705, July 26 at 1257, RNV via CUBA again missing; might have just signed off but normally runs late rather than early. How about the next broadcast at 1500 on 11680? NO, not there either July 26 at 1504 --- just some North Korean operatic singing.

Now we need to confirm whether any of the other RNV transmissions are still on the air. During its entire existence, RNV has NEVER been willing or able to publish or announce its own schedule accurately! Instead it was assembled by monitoring by yours truly, and subsequently published by WRTH and other references, including the WRTH A-11 update v.2; the nominal schedule has really not changed at all in many years:

``Summer Schedule 2011
Spanish/English Days Area kHz
1000-1100 daily Am 6180hab
1100-1200 daily Am 6060hab
1200-1300 daily Am 11705hab
1500-1600 daily Am 11680hab [this one was always missing on Sundays]
1900-2000 daily Am 15290hab
2000-2100 daily Am 17705hab
2200-2300 daily Am 11670hab
2300-2400 daily Am 13680hab, 15250hab``

Also, two audio clips of interviews by RNV officials on the 880 station in Caracas, via
http://diexismovenezolano.blogspot.com/2011/07/venezuela-detalles-sobre-la.html
via Horacio A. Nigro, dxldyg, update us on progress in constructing RNV`s own SW site in the middle of Venezuela; I never heard the place ``Calabozo`` mentioned in connexion with this. The audio is very low on both clips via embedded players, so I had to put on headset and turn the volume all the way up. My summary translations:

First one is 10 minutes from 13 July 2011, interview with Daniel Peralta, chief of RNV Canal Internacional:

The new station is in response to ``systematic attacks on our country``. Model is RHC, which went 24 hours after the Honduran coup, as the ``only source`` for the Honduran people on what was really happening.

Everything should be ready to go by the end of October or beginning of November 2011. Programming will be fed live via satellite from Caracas. There will be a 2-hour program in Spanish repeated several times, including one hour of news, 20 minutes daily of speeches by Chávez, and 30 minutes of music: 2 days a week from Caribbean, 2 days from Venezuela, and 2 days from the rest of Latin America.

Also half an hour daily in English, repeated several times. Later Portuguese and French, and later still Quechua and Guarani like RHC.
[so at last English will no longer be mixed in with Spanish!]

Three antenna beams each toward the north and the south. Will cover all of N, C and S America, and reach DXers everywhere else.

Earlier 18-minute interview of 28 June last year, 2010, with Jhon [sic] Paez, in charge of the construxion:

Mostly explaining what SW is. There will be four 100 kW transmitters covering 6-21 MHz. There is room for six. Antennas will cover 6-11 or 11-21 MHz. Plans to add tropical band too for closer coverage. Mentions 3 x 50 kW for that. China supplied all the equipment; Cubans are helping install it. There are 30 construxion workers and seven maintenance personnel on site. Big building of 2,600 square somethings. The site covers 100 hectares, needs lots of room for antennas, whose towers are 100m tall and 100m apart. There will be 15 fixed antennas, aimed at such places as Los Ángeles, San Francisco, New York, Brasília, Santiago, Buenos Aires. Frequencies will vary, not selected yet. Project began in 2005 or 2006; all should be ready by the beginning of 2012y (Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ###