All India Radio can be heard in English on shortwave once again

All India Radio office in New Delhi. Photo by Sanjeev Verma

When I returned to the shortwave bands two weeks ago I was sad to learn that All India Radio had suspended its overseas shortwave transmissions at the end of March, owing to the COVID-19 lockdown imposed by the Indian government. It was also being reported that AIR National Channel – a more difficult catch in Europe compared to the External Services Division (ESD) broadcasts – was running on reduced power. However, it seems that we can now hear AIR's English language news bulletins once again, on the same frequency where a limited number of non-English language ESD broadcasts were announced to be broadcasting two weeks earlier. The transmission takes place daily at 1500 UTC on 11560 kHz and is only 30 minutes long. The mixture of English and Hindi suggests that it is a high-power relay of AIR National Channel programming. Below is a recording of this transmission made on May 21st, 2020 with a PocketCHIP handheld Linux computer, AirSpy HF+ Discovery and a YouLoop passive loop antenna. The antenna was positioned on the balcony of my current QTH in London.