A: This week we got a letter from Richard King, who last wrote to us in July. It’s always great to receive correspondence from our old friend Richard. We hope this edition of the Letter Box finds him well. Richard wrote to thank us for sending him Christmas and New Year greetings.

One of the happiest things we do on the Letter Box is to mention new listeners. Did you know it meant so much to us?

To begin this week’s edition of the Letter Box, we welcome Roger Tidy who wrote to the Voice of Vietnam for the first time on March 28, although he has heard our station on a number of occasions. Roger, 65, is retired and lives in London with his partner Luminita from Romania. He used to work in the media.

Before reviewing letters and emails we received last week, we would like to remind you once again that as of April 1st, we are using new frequencies for summer broadcasts beamed to certain areas in Europe and America. VOV’s delayed broadcast from Moosbrunn, Woofferton, and Dhabayya to Western Europe at 17:00 UTC is on 9625 kHz.

On April 1st, we’ll have new frequencies for the summer broadcast beaming to some areas in Europe and America. VOV’s delayed broadcast from Moosbrunn, Woofferton, and Dhabayya to Western Europe at 17:00 UTC will be on 9625 khz. VOV’s broadcast from Woofferton, and Cypress Creek to Eastern North America at 01:00 UTC and 02:30 UTC will be on 12005 khz, and to Central America and the Caribbean at 03:30 UTC on 6175 khz.

Each week when we receive letters and emails from listeners around the world, we find that some of the listeners care about political issues in Vietnam while a majority are keenly interested in Vietnamese cultural, historical, and social issues.

To begin this week’s Letter Box, we’ll say Hello to two new listeners, Andreas Lubnow of Germany and Muhammad Idrees of Pakistan. Welcome to VOV’s community of international shortwave listeners.

This week, we’ll begin with a letter from Daniel Toth, a 24-year-old student of economics from Slovakia who is studying at the University of Edinburgh. Though he only began listening to VOV last December, when he got his first short-wave radio, he has known about Vietnam since he was little.

Each week when we receive letters and emails from listeners around the world, we find that some of the listeners care about political issues in Vietnam while a majority are keenly interested in Vietnamese cultural, historical, and social issues. Dewan Rafiqul Islam, also known as Rana, President of the Friends’ Radio Club in Naogaon, Bangladesh, is a regular listener.

Happy New Year, dear listeners. I’m very glad to be with you on the first edition of the Letter Box after a week off for Tet, the Lunar New Year Festival. Tet is the biggest holiday in Vietnam and a few other Asian countries.