I see that Vasily Strelnikov is back on the Voice of Russia, reminiscing with colleagues about the days of Radio Moscow World Service. They have a facebook page (search for "from Moscow with Love"). Richard Measham of BBC Monitoring explains how time changes in Russia have affected the complex external broadcast schedule (curiously time changes are back in the news as Russia has decided to adopt permanent summer time in 2011).
In this programme Vasily explains about Radio Ala, a station which played Bard folkmusic which popped up on shortwave having hired transmission facilities formerly used by Soviet jammers. It was fascinating while it lasted. There's also an interval signal contest as compensation for Jim Cutler's Impossible Contest which we put out in April 1992. We played three interval signals at once, one of them backwards. But it didn't fool the dedicated listeners. I made the photo on a wet but fascinating day in Moscow. Incredible to see where those programmes were made.
