B: We like your idea, Alan. If your initiative is realized, it could really make a difference to the survival of shortwave broadcasting. Alan says: “The coalition will provide financial support to individual or groups of shortwave services and transmitter sites. These are the life blood of our ability to hear about global cultures and traditions, past and present, and agonizing strife that does not get mentioned by other media venues”.

A: We know this vision is still in its infancy, but we hope it will receive support from the wide community of solo Dx’ers, clubs, and broadcasters. We wish you success in this endeavor. Here’s an email from our regular listener Gerry Neumann of England. He commented that the interval tune between the News and Current Affairs is sometimes too long. We admit that we repeat the tune sometimes due to an unexpected technical problem that delays the beginning of the next segment. We sympathize with the annoyance you felt when you heard the tune for more than 2 minutes on November 29. Thank you very much for your frank feedback. We promise you it only happens accidentally. You may have noticed that on the next day’s program, November 30, the music link following the news was only about 3 seconds.

B: Gerry continued by saying: “Current Affairs was about Palestine, which was applying to the UN for observer state status. The next feature was about Vietnam’s export of tuna, which I found very interesting, because I didn’t know about those exports. Usually in the UK we buy tuna from Thailand in tins. Discovery Vietnam was about tours for Tet to different places in Vietnam, like Da Nang, Sapa, and Nha TRang. The program ended with a song about the market in SaPa.”

A: We’re glad to know that you got some useful information about Vietnam from our program. At present, the U.S. is the principle important of Vietnam tuna nearly 20 million USD this year, about 40 percent of Vietnam’s total tuna exports. The US is followed by the EU, Japan, Israel, and Canada. I hope that on your next shopping trip, you’ll take notice of foods imported from Vietnam, such as canned tuna, tra fish, shrimp, and fruits.

B: As usual, Fumito Hokamura of Japan sent us four reception reports for our programs in November. The reports are sufficient for us to send him QSL cards. We especially loved his wishes for the VOV staff when the weather changed from cool autumn to cold winter, his wishes for a Merry Christmas, his desire to learn Vietnamese, and has passion for Vietnamese folk songs.

A: Northern and central Vietnam is in the grip of winter now, with temperatures dropping to 15 DC. Drizzles and overcast skies have made it colder. It’s just the beginning of the winter. In the coming months, the temperature may plunge below 0 degrees Celsius in the northern mountains, below 10 DC in Hanoi. Meanwhile, the southern provinces still enjoy warm weather as they’re nearer the equator.

B: We can feel the Christmas atmosphere here and there on the streets. Some shops have decorated their fronts with fake snowballs, pine trees, red poinsettias, twinkling stars, and crystal balls. Although, Vietnam is a predominantly Buddhist nation, Christmas has joined the Lunar New Year, the Mid-autumn festival, and Buddha’s birthday as a major celebration for both religious and non-religious people.

A: Here in the VOV offices, we feel the warmth of the Christmas season in our listeners’ season’s greetings. Thank you very much, dear listeners. Regarding Mr. Hokamura’s wish to learn Vietnamese, VOV offers a Let’s learn Vietnamese program.

B: VOV has a language program for Vietnamese people living abroad on Thursday and Sunday from 5 to 6 pm on the frequencies of 9730 and 9780 khz. You can also listen to the program online at our website vovworld.vn. Choose Vietnamese on the status bar. The program is called Day Tieng Viet which means Teaching Vietnamese. We hope you’ll find it helpful.  

A: This week, listeners noted that the signal quality on the frequencies of 9550 khz and 12020 khz was rather good, but only fair on 9730 khz, and poor on 9840 khz. From Malaysia, Peter Ng reported listening to our broadcast on November 9 on the frequency of 12020 khz at 10 UTC. He used a SONY ICF SW 7600 GR with a telescopic aerial. He rated signal SIO at 454.

B:  Yoshihito Kusanagi of Japan tuned in the program on November 10 on the frequency of 12020 khz. He rated SINPO at 35334. Kusanagi said by listening to VOV, he learned about Vietnam’s ethnic diversity and its diplomatic relations with Russia, Denmark, and Iran. He discovered that Vietnam puts emphasis not only on trade but also on environmental protection.  

B: Last but not least on this week’s Letter Box, we acknowledge reception reports from Alessandro Errichetti and Valter Moretti of Italy for programs in October and November. We thank Karobi Hazarika of Bangladesh for monitoring our program on November 28 on 7220 khz with a SINPO rating of all 4s and Sumanto Kumar of Bangladesh for his reception report for December 1 on 7280 khz. We confirm that reports by Andy Martynyuk of Russia for programs in September, October, and November on 9730 khz and 5955 khz corresponded with our station log.

A: That’s all the time we have on this week’s Letter Box, so we have to say goodbye. We promise we’ll confirm all the reception reports we got this week. We welcome your feedback at:

English section, Overseas Service, Radio Voice of Vietnam, 45 Ba Trieu Street, Hanoi, Vietnam

B: Or you can email us at: englishsection@vov.org.vn. And if you miss any of our programs, you can always catch up by visiting our website at www.vovworld.vn, where you can hear both live and recorded programs.