Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Observations from Shanghai, China

Our regular contributor Ron Howard, checks with the following observations from Shanghai, Chna. Thanks, Ron.

Greetings from Shanghai,

Monday, May 19 was the start of three days of national mourning for the victims of the Wenchuan quake. At 2:30 PM local time, everything came to a complete standstill here in Shanghai, with 3 minutes of the sounds of sirens and car horns, in honor of the victims of the quake. All the news media have continuous stories about the quake. Most of the television stations have identical coverage (one exception is CCTV-9, the English
language channel).

Radio reception consists mostly of numerous CNR-1 relays in the SW, AM and FM bands. Have observed CNR-2/China Business Radio with 24 hour relaying of CNR-1, as heard on the normal CNR-2/CBR frequencies: 91.4 FM, 6065, 6155, 7130, etc., on May 17, 18 and 19 during various times. First noticed this when I checked for the regular "English Evening" program from 13-14
UT and found the CNR-1 relay instead. The Sichuan PBS services, broadcasting from the area of the quake, continues to be on 6060, 7225 and the new 9740, heard with a relay of CNR-1 from about 1200-1232 UT. At other times they are mostly all parallel, but on May 19 noted 9740 was not parallel to anything, so assume they actually had Sichuan PBS-1 programming at 1105. 6200 continues to relay CNR-1 for 24 hours a day. Of course I hear some stations with their own programming: on 4830, CHBC at *1200 on May 19 and 4900 // 4040 with VOS at 1241 on May 19.

Would seem logical that is massive relaying of CNR-1 will continue through at least the 21th, the last day of national mourning and will probably continue on even past that date.

Ron
Shanghai, China
Eton E5