Family Radio?

[mfn002]

Since Saturday, I've noticed an almost total absence of WYFR. Most of the normal frequencies I pick up in the morning (5950, 5985, 6085, etc.) have all but disappeared. The only one I pick up strong now is 11775. All of the other ones are gone. Anyone have any idea what happened?

 

[brandon]

rapture

 

[kayn1n32008]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (BlackBerry; U; BlackBerry 9780; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.8+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/6.0.0.534 Mobile Safari/534.8+)

The nut job had a stroke, so maybe its the end of FR... One can hope that nonsense is finished

 

[mfn002]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (BlackBerry; U; BlackBerry 9780; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.8+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/6.0.0.534 Mobile Safari/534.8+)

The nut job had a stroke, so maybe its the end of FR... One can hope that nonsense is finished

As I said, there are still a few frequencies up, but it appears that you might be right. They certainly seem to have reduced their shortwave presence in a big way. Now I can pick up stations that were drowned out by the WYFR broadcasts.

 

[Keith_W7KEW]

Since Saturday, I've noticed an almost total absence of WYFR. Most of the normal frequencies I pick up in the morning (5950, 5985, 6085, etc.) have all but disappeared. The only one I pick up strong now is 11775. All of the other ones are gone. Anyone have any idea what happened?

It could just be propagation conditions. It is not unusual for FR to have technical problems and be off the air for a few days. There is a plan for FR to go on after Camping leaves so this latest medical crisis is not the end of FR.

 

[k9rzz]

That's funny, I was just listening to them last night around 0300z on 49 meters (no exact freq) with my Eton FR350. They had a relay of Radio Taiwan Intn'l in English with their 'reader's mailbag' program called Global Exchange or something like that. It was quite interesting! I enjoyed it.

 

[KA1RBI]

Since Saturday, I've noticed an almost total absence of WYFR.

Same here - right now there's a somewhat weaker signal coming in on 15,255 (not English but definitely FR). However all the English language freqs have been dark for a few days here as well.

There is an interesting article at
Doomsday herald Harold Camping's show goes off the air at the end of the month - San Jose Mercury News

It may be instructive to see exactly when and/or if the English frequencies return...

Another interesting tidbit is that

Camping ... loaned himself $175.5 million in 2009. Family Radio's board of directors approved the loan ... Board members include Camping's daughter, Susan ...

according to the article.

73

Max

 

[mondomusique]

KA1RBI, I think you got your interesting tidbit wrong, the San Jose Mercury story says Camping loaned himself $175,516, which is a lot less than the amount you quote.

I know many assume Camping to be a money-driven huckster, but everything I've read leads me to believe he is what he appears -- an 89-year old eccentric Christian broadcaster (some would say 'a nut') and quite frugal personally.

 

[KA1RBI]

$175,516, which is a lot less than the amount you quote.

Oops, thanks for pointing this out

Max

 

[aa4wa]

I havn't heard anything on their typical freqs in the past days either. I guess they are gone now. I wonder who will aquire their transmitters and antennas? I miss the old days when they were just a regular religious broadcaster like HCJB and 4VEH.

 

[mfn002]

From PrimeTime Shortwave, it appears that they have DISCONTINUED broadcasting on the following frequencies (in English):

9830, 11785, 11690, 6100, 9450, 7540, 11665, 5850, 5950, 5985, 6085, 6875, 6985, 9505, 7520, 7730, 9385, 9550, 9625, 9505, 9680, 9715, 11530, 11580, 11740, 11830, 11835, 11865, 11910, 13615, 13690, 13695, 15255, 15770, 17555, 17725, 17750, 17795, 17845, 18930, 18980, 21525

Apparently, Shortwave Stuff hasn't deleated these frequencies yet.

Oddly, WYFR's website doesn't say anything about the reason these frequencies were dropped (In fact, they still show them on their schedule).

 

[Rector]

Family Radio

They took a huge hit after the end of their world didn't happen as predicted and given the poor health of their founder and their stretched finances I suspect that there is a big broadcast and scheduling re-shuffle going on. They are still there in force however, as a brief trawl of the 22m and 31m bands will reveal.

 

[mfn002]

I'm only able to pick up (clearly, at least) 9280, 11535, 11550, and 11775 in the mornings. The rest is submerged in static. It didn't help much that I've been plagued by high EMF the last couple days (think loud humming and diesel-truck-idling sound). It seems to drown out everything in the 9000-9600 kHz, 11000 kHz, and 13000 kHz ranges. It was so bad today that I simply gave up listening because it was drowning out almost everything.

 

[Rector]

I'm going to do a search of those f's soon - but something's afoot. The English language shortwave information on their website hasn't been updated since April 7th. I'm going to try an email and ask what's going on.

 

[Rector]

Email just sent. Let's see what they say!

 

[Rector]

Quick update: No replies sent to two emails.

 

[ridgescan]

Forgive me pointing out the obvious, but it's evident to me that since his end-of-times telethon is over, their SW broadcast tool is no longer needed by them-hence slowly being abandoned
but I have to say that the bands are so much more enjoyable IMO without them.

 

[majoco]

If the world has ended, why do you need to broadcast to nobody...........:wink:

 

[mfn002]

They should add 15130 to that list. It also hasn't been heard from in a while.

Oh, and it appears that Voice of Korea has taken over 11740, while 9550, 11690, and 11830 have been taken over by Radio Havana. 9715 is now used by Radio Netherlands for one of their Spanish broadcasts. 11910 appears to have been taken by Radio Exterior de Espania. 6085 is now being used by a station that I can't quite make out (pretty weak signal).

 

[Rector]

If the world has ended, why do you need to broadcast to nobody...........:wink:

It has?

What puzzles me is the lack of web chat about FR's seeming retreat.