My second station logged on the 7th November 2021 was All India Radio. I tuned in at 0812 UTC on 15030 kHz to their Persian language program.

All India Radio (AIR) is the national public radio broadcaster of India. It was established in 1936. AIR has been officially known since 1957 as Akashvani, meaning “Voice from the Sky”). AIR’s headquarters is located in the Akashvani Bhavan building in New Delhi.

All India Radio is the largest radio network in the world and one of the largest broadcasting organisations in the world in terms of the number of languages broadcast and the spectrum of socio-economic and cultural diversity it serves.

AIR’s home service comprises 420 stations located across the country, reaching nearly 92% of the country’s area and 99.19% of the total population. AIR originates programming in 23 languages and 179 dialects.

Broadcasting in India commenced in June 1923 during the British Raj. Programs were aired by the Bombay Presidency Radio Club and other radio clubs. In July 1927 the private Indian Broadcasting Company Ltd (IBC) was authorized to operate two radio stations. These included the Bombay station which commenced on the 23rd day of July 1927, and the Calcutta station which commenced on the 26th day of August 1927.

When IBC went into liquidation in 1930, the Indian Government took over the broadcasting facilities and in April 1930 commenced the Indian State Broadcasting Service (ISBS). This went on to become All India Radio on the 8th day of June 1936.

In August 1947, All India Radio hired its first female newsreader, Saeeda Bano, who read the news in the Urdu language.

The External Service of All India Radio commenced with a broadcast in the Pushtu language on the 1st day of October 1939. This was intended to counter radio propaganda from Germany directed at Afghanistan, Persia and other Arab nations.

In 1947 when India gained its independence, the AIR network had only six stations; Delhi, Mumbai. Kolkata, Chennai, Lucknow and Tiruchirappalli). The total number of radio sets in India at that time was about 275,000.

Today, the External Services Division of All India Radio broadcasts daily with 57 transmissions with almost 72 hours or programming covering over 108 countries in 27 languages, of which 15 are foreign and 12 Indian. 

I was receiving All India Radio very well. The signal was strong and there was no interference on the frequency or from adjacent stations.

S	I	N	P	O
4	5	4	4	4

Below is a short video of my reception of All India Radio.

References.

1. Wikipedia, 2021, <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_India_Radio>, viewed 10th November 2021