(VOVworld) - We’ve received a lovely postcard and letter from Marlene Sherburne of the US. She wrote: “I haven’t written to you in some time and wanted to send you this card. One reason is to let you know I’m thinking of you and listening to your broadcast on the internet. I bought a computer because so many short-wave stations are leaving radio and going on the computer. I don’t like it at all but there is nothing I can do. At least I can still listen to my friends overseas.”
B: We’re sad too to see the closure of many big shortwave radio stations. For VOV things are still going well and we continue to receive many letters from shortwave enthusiasts worldwide. Since we brought our broadcast to the internet, we have welcomed many new listeners.
A: Marlene wrote that she has never received a reply from us. She wrote: “I’m happy to know you receive my letters and cards as I heard you mention my name on the Letter Box program, which I very much enjoy. It was exciting to hear you say my name. I don’t know what the problem is, but I’m hoping to fix it on my end. I will try emailing you, but I love receiving letters as I think it’s more personal. I guess I’m old-fashioned!”
B: I think I’m as old-fashioned as you, because I, too, prefer letters to emails. And I like books more than e-books. I’ve checked our Letter Box archive and found out that the last time we mentioned your name was on January 7, 2015. You sent us a beautiful card with your New Year’s wishes for VOV. Today we’ll send you our latest frequency list and program guide by post mail. We hope it will reach you soon and we’ll try to keep in closer touch.
A: We received our first letter from Andrew Pitt of Germany. He wrote: “I enjoy very much listening to your broadcasts in English and hope that you will continue for many more years on shortwave as I think it’s a valuable and important way to share news and cultural information around the world. I’m an English man living in the center of Berlin.”
B: Besides listening to the news of Vietnam and the world, he was most interested in a story about the Kitchen genie. Andrew wrote: “I think the cultural part of the show is the most interesting. I also enjoy the news and music. Thank you for sharing Vietnamese music across the world. This is my 1st QSL report to you but I will continue listening and will contact you again.”
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| The Kinh majority prepare offering for the Kitchen Gods in the kitchen on the 23rd day of the 12 lunar month |
A: Thank you very much, Andrew, for tuning in to VOV’s program in your leisure time. We’ll definitely verify your report with our QSL card. We have many features about Vietnam’s culture including Colorful Vietnam-Vietnam’s 54 ethnic groups on Monday, New Rural Landscape on Thursday, Culture on Friday, and the Sunday Show. The Letter Box every Wednesday acknowledges listeners’ letters we got during the week. We’re looking forward to receiving more feedback from you soon.
B: Grant Skinner of the UK reported listening to our broadcast on April 10 on 7280 khz. He had detailed remarks of the broadcast: “The broadcast quality was degraded by electrical noise which sounded like crackles. Later the noise sounded like waves. Also, the broadcast sounded far away. The 9730 frequency would have been Ok but there was another radio station with a foreign woman broadcasting on this frequency. She was more prominent than VOV. VOV was in the background. The broadcast as so faint I had to go back to 7280 khz, which was better but not much. SINPO was 25222”
A: We’re sorry for poor reception interfering with your listening for whatever reason. We’ll forward your remarks to our technicians. Andrew Pitt listened to VOV in Germany on April 11 on 7280 khz from 19-19:30 UTC. He noted SINPO at 43344. If other listeners are experiencing the same problem, please let us know.
B: The frequency of 12020 beamed to Japan and China is good. We’ve received feedback from Toshiya Nishimura and Stewart Lessel of Japan and John Rutledge of China. Nishimura said reception was stable and he was able to hear our program clearly. SINPO was all 4s. He complimented VOV’s new QSL cards - a token of thanks to our listeners.
A: John Rutledge of China sent us reports for programs on April 4, 6, and 7 on the frequency of 12020 khz. The overall quality was 3 or 4. John wrote “I continue to enjoy your programs whenever I can hear them. I still like your programming. It’s very informative and educational. Your programs have advanced my knowledge and understanding of your country. As for programming suggestions, I’d like to hear more programs relating to business or economics and pre-19th century Vietnamese history.”
B: Thank you John, your reports are full of information as usual. We’ll surely send you a verification card. It’s good to hear that you received our reply to your last letter faster than you expected. We have hired additional staff to process listeners’ letters as quickly as possible, but we also depend on the post-offices in Vietnam and in your country. The postmarks on your letters show that they took a month to reach Vietnam. We expect it will take the same amount of time for our letter to reach your place. We thank you for your thoughtfulness in sending us an International Response Coupon to help pay for a response letter.
A: You said you’d like to hear more about Vietnam’s business and economics. At present we have the Business report on Tuesday, Vietnam in Development on Wednesday, and Vietnam’s Economy on Thursday. We have no new features planned in the short-term, but we’ll try to cover business and economic matters in Vietnam as thoroughly as we can using our current program schedule.
B: If you have specific questions about Vietnam’s economy, feel free to ask and we’ll try to cover them in our program. From Malaysia Timm Breyel emailed us a report for the may 16 program on 9840 khz. He rated SINPO at 54555 and noted excellent signal strength, clear audio, no fading, good propagation, and only slight transmitter noise or adjacent frequency splatter.
A: Timm wrote: “I especially enjoyed the Personality of the week and the cultural profile of the Ha Nhi ethnic group. Very nice. Thank you for sharing these insights into Vietnam.” This week we acknowledge reception reports from Richard Lemke of Canada, Neelakadan Visvanathan of India, Richard Nowak of the US, and Mizan Rahman of Bangladesh. We’ll verify your reports and send QSL cards to you soon.
B: That’s all for today’s Letter Box. We welcome your feedback at: English section, Overseas Service, Radio Voice of Vietnam, 45 Ba Trieu Street, Hanoi, Vietnam. You can email us at: englishsection@vov.org.vn. You’re invited to visit us online at www.vovworld.vn, where you can hear both live and recorded programs. Good bye until next time.