AIR Mahalaya Special Broadcast 2021- My Observations

Every year on Mahalaya, All India Radio - Akashvani broadcasts a “special dawn programme' entitled ‘Mahisasura Mardini’. Originally composed in 1931, the 90-minute musical presentation was performed live on radio. Later, it was shifted to the pre-recorded format. The recitation narrates the creation of Goddess Durga to save the Gods from Mahishasura, the buffalo demon. Celebrated composer of the yore, Pankaj Kumar Mallick had composed the tune and top artists of that time had lent their voice to the devotional songs, which are accompanied by a Chandipath, narrated by the legendary Birendra Krishna Bhadra. For the last 90 years, welcoming Goddess Durga at the break of dawn on this day by tuning into Akashvani’s Mahisasura Mardini has been one of the most vital rituals for all devotees of Devi Durga across the globe, specially the Bengali. Like past this year also All India Radio aired this most significant musical dawn program on October 6, 2021 from 3:50 am IST.

As a radio enthusiast it has become a habit of mine for past several years to wake up at the dawn on Mahalaya and tune into my radio looking for the distance stations of All India Radio, which I normally find hard to tune in my location during normal transmission hours and every year my best toys are successfully catching loads of difficult signals from all over the country. This year I had the opportunity to listen following medium wave stations of AIR using my Degen DE-1103 receiver equipped with a telescopic antenna.

Observation Time: between 0400 IST to 0530 IST.

549 KHz – AIR Ranchi*
621 kHz – AIR Patna A*
648 KHz – AIR Indore
657 KHz – AIR Kolkata A*
675 kHz – AIR Chattarpur
684 kHz – AIR Port Blair
711 kHz – AIR Siliguri
729 kHz – AIR Guwahati (Special Mahalaya Program in Assamese)*
747 kHz – AIR Lucknow A
756 kHz – AIR Jagdalpur
801 kHz – AIR Jabalpur
828 kHz – AIR Silchar*
846 kHz – AIR Ahmedabad A
891 kHz – AIR Rampur
954 kHz – AIR Nazibabad
981 kHz – AIR Raipur
1026 kHz – AIR Allahabad A
1179 kHz – AIR Rewa
1242 kHz – AIR Varanasi*
1269 kHz – AIR Agartala*
1296 kHz – AIR Darbhanga
1386 kHz – AIR Gwalior
1404 kHz – AIR Gangtok
1593 kHz – AIR Bhopal A

(*) indicates stations with strong reception.

Meanwhile, at present the most amazing online platform for listening various AIR regional stations is ‘NewsOnAIR’, the official mobile app of All India Radio, where one can tune into numerous AIR stations from all the states of India. On Mahalaya dawn checked into this platform too and found the following stations with Mahisasura Mardini.

National & International:  AIR Neighborhood Service -2, AIR World Service -1, Port Blair PC
Andhra_Pradesh: AIR Vijayawada, FM Rainbow Vijayawada
Assam: AIR Assamese, AIR Silchar
Bihar: AIR Bhagalpur, AIR Darbhanga, AIR Patna, AIR Purnima
Chhattisgarh: AIR Ambikapur, AIR Jagdalpur, AIR Raipur, AIR Saraipali
Delhi: FM Gold, FM Rainbow, AIR Indraprastha, AIR Rajdhani
Gujarat:  AIR Gujarat, AIR Bhuj
Jharkhand: AIR Chaibasa, AIR Daltonganj, AIR Hazaribag, AIR Ranchi, AIR Ranchi VBS, FM Rainbow Ranchi
Kerala: AIR Kochi FM Rainbow
Madhya Pradesh: AIR Bhopal, AIR Chattarpur, AIR Gwalior, AIR Indore, AIR Indore, AIR Jabalpur, AIR Rewa
Maharashtra: FM Gold Mumbai, FM Rainbow Mumbai, Samvadita Mumbai
Odisha: AIR Cuttack FM Rainbow
Puducherry: AIR Pudu Rainbow
Rajasthan: AIR Jaipur
Sikkim: AIR Gangtok
Tamilnadu: Chennai FM Gold, Chennai FM Rainbow, AIR Tamil, AIR Coimbatore Rainbow, AIR Kodaikanal, AIR Madurai, AIR Tiruchirapalli.
Telengana: Hyderabad FM Rainbow
Tripura: FM Ujjayanta,  Agartala PC, AIR Belonia
Uttarakhand: AIR Almora, AIR Dehradun
Uttar Pradesh: AIR Agra, AIR Prayagraj, AIR Gorakhpur, AIR Lucknow, AIR Najibabad, AIR Varanasi, AIR Rainbow Lucknow
West Bengal: AIR Siliguri, AIR Murshidabad, AIR Kolkata FM Gold, Kolkata FM Rainbow.

©Prithwiraj Purkayastha, VU3TQD
QTH: Jorhat (Assam)

Monitoring Akashvani's Mahisasura Mardini on Mahalaya 2020

For many years now it has become a habit for me to wake-up before dawn on Mahalaya morning and tune into the radio to listen the historic radio program Mahisasura Mardini on Akashvani. As the local FM in Jorhat and nearby MW station All India Radio Dibrugarh do not play this epic Chandi Path Birendrakrishna Bhadra along with beautiful songs, for decades tuning Akashvani Kolkata or Siliguri station on radio has become a very essential part of Mahalaya celebration in our home. Our neighbors may have already switched to other modern ways to play Mahisasura Mardini but we are still sticked with radios. Ever since my association with DXing, which is a hobby to try tuning and identifying distance radio stations, this Mahalaya dawn become of immense importance to me to tune as much Akashvani stations as my radio can catch both on Shortwave and Mediumwave bands. This is because all the stations play this common content and they can be easily identified the by just knowing it's transmission frequency. Like many yesteryears, this year also the Mahalaya dawn is not an exception for me. Found a load of MW stations carrying that most popular musical content of Durga Puja festival. But unfortunately could not heard a single station  even on shortwave with Mahisasura Mardini! So, is this an indication for the end of one of the most heard shortwave network of world? Let's leave this question for policy makers and experts, but surely the following findings on mediumwave are still very encouraging for radio lovers to stick with most adventurous electronic hobby DXing! 

Here is a list of station I heard today carrying Mahalaya special program:

My tuning time from 4:00 am IST (2230 UTC)

549 kHz- Ranchi A

657 kHz- Kolkata A

684 kHz- Port Blair 

711 kHz- Siliguri

747 kHz- Lucknow 

756 kHz- Jagdalpur 

828 kHz- Silchar

954 kHz- Nazibabad 

My tuning time from 4:30 am IST (2300 UTC) 

981 kHz- Raipur 

1008 kHz- Kolkata B

1026 kHz- Allahabad 

1044 kHz- Mumbai A

1179 kHz- Rewa

1242 kHz- Varanasi

1296 kHz- Darbhanga 

1386 kHz- Gwalior 

1404 kHz- Gangtok 

My tuning time from 4:50 am IST (2320 UTC) 

621 kHz- Patna A

648 kHz- Indore 

666 kHz- New Delhi B

729 kHz- Guwahati (heard a different Mahalaya Program, not Mahisasura Mardini)

774 kHz- Shimla 

This year many radio lovers, including my seventy years old mother, tuned to Mahisasura Mardini on their mobile using NewsOnAir app with digital sound quality and audio without any disturbance, indicating the real fact that for most of the radio listeners ease in listening with best audio quality matters most not the receiving device. 

©Prithwiraj Purkayastha (VU3TQD) 

Monitoring President's Speech on AIR

President Ram Nath Kovind

President Shree Ram Nath Kovind addressed the nation on the eve of 74th Independence Day of India on Friday, 14th August 2020 between 7:00 pm to 7:45 pm IST (1330 to 1415 UTC) and it was broadcasted on the national network of All India Radio (AIR). The speech was in Hindi followed by English. Here is my observations on the AIR Stations carrying this annual special event. I have used my Degen DE-1103 digital radio and my antenna was an Inverted V one. Here are the stations I heard: 

Shortwave

4810 kHz- AIR Bhopal

4835 kHz- AIR Gangtok 

5010 kHz- AIR Trivandram

5040 kHz- AIR Jeypore

9865 kHz- AIR Bengalore

Mediumwave

540 kHz- AIR Ranchi 

567 kHz- AIR Dibrugarh 

576 kHz- Alappuzha

621 kHz- AIR Patna 

657 kHz- AIR Kolkata 

675 kHz- AIR Itanagar 

711 kHz- AIR Siliguri 

729 kHz- AIR Guwahati 

747 kHz- AIR Lucknow

828 kHz- AIR Silchar

837 kHz- AIR Vijaywada 

864 kHz- AIR Shillong 

882 kHz- AIR Imphal 

918 kHz- AIR Surathgarh 

927 kHz- AIR Visakhapatnam

945 kHz- AIR Sambalpur 

954 kHz- AIR Najibabad  

972 kHz- AIR Cuttack 

981 kHz- AIR Raipur 

1062 kHz- AIR Pasighat 

1233 kHz- AIR Tura 

1458 kHz- AIR Bhagalpur 

1467 kHz- AIR Jeypore 

1521 kHz- AIR Tawang 

73s, 

Prithwiraj Purkayastha (VU3TQD) 

QTH- Jorhat, Assam, India 

Reception Location:- Jorhat, Assam, India ( 26.7451° N, 94.2133° E)