Customer Reviews

World Radio TV Handbook 2001

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  Please note the following errors and omissions I've found in WRTH-2001:

MISSPELLINGS. Plenty of them - this is the major sickness of the book. The good intention of its authors to produce original spelling of international names was terribly unsuccessful: in many many cases, non-English characters are either spelled incorrectly or simply omitted, which gives funny and meaningless names of companies, government institutions, provinces and people. Here are some (out of a huge number of) examples:

1. Page 201, Estonia, line 8: "RINGH~~LINGU" should be "RINGHÄÄLINGU".

2. Page 202, Faroe Islands, line 3: "T VARP F ROYA" should be "UTVARP FOROYA".

3. Page 205, France, line 8: "T L DIFFUSION DE FRANCE" should be "TELEDIFFUSION DE FRANCE". Page 206, col. 1, line 2: "RADI T L VISION FRAN`AISE D OUTRE-MER" should be "RADIOTELEVISION FRANCAISE D'OUTRE-MER".

4. Page 209, Germany, line 3: "F R POST" should read "FÜR POST". Page 209, Germany, line 8: "DER FFENTLICH-" should read "DER ÖFFENTLICH-".

5. Page 212, col. 2, line 14: "S DWESTFUNK" should be "SÜDWESTFUNK". Page 212, col. 2, line 22: "Baden-W rttemberg" should be "Baden-Württemberg".

6. Page 226, Hungary, line 3: "MAGYAR R`DI" should be "MAGYAR RADIO". On the next page, so many letters are missing in the broadcasters' names that I can't even figure out the correct ones.

7. Page 79: Transmitting site "Arma" shown on the Russia map should be spelled "Arman".

OMISSIONS.

1. A whole country is missing! The book totally ignores Burundi, as if there were no radio stations in that African nation. The country is present in the TV section, however. If you want to have information about radio in this country, look for it in the "Passport to World Band Radio" handbook.

2. Pages 73 and 75: Kashmir is not shown on any map. Asia map says "see Middle East map", while the Middle East map says "see Asia map".

3. Pages 545 to 552: no shortwave transmitter information is given for US stations, as opposed to Canadians on page 491 and almost all other countries. And they all were there in the last year's edition!

If you buy only one book on shortwave listening, this is it. Several significant improvements make this issue more useful than ever. First the small stuff: the thinner pages make for a noticably smaller book, although it's still substantial with 40 more pages than last year (up to 656 pages.) At first reading, I couldn't find any obvious editorial errors like I did last year (although, for the record, the North America map still has McCaysville GA shown in NC!) Just returning from a week in the Caribbean, I found that all the local stations I logged that were not in the 2000 issue had made it into the new one. But now the big improvements: I've complained for several years that the 'master' frequency listing in the back didn't include National (local) stations. That shortcoming has been addressed; the 'master' listing now appears to be exactly that. You can't imagine how frustrating it was in the Caribbean last month picking up hundreds of local stations with no way to find them except by going through every country's listings, all the while knowing the information was in the book someplace!! My other long-term criticism was listing National (local) and International broadcasts seperately. In retrospect, it wasn't so much the splitting I had a problem with - it was the affect of the split - not knowing whether to look in the National or International lists to find what you're looking for. While they're still seperate, the problem has been solved in an entirely acceptable way. Each National frequency in the master listing now carried an "N" footnote, letting you know where to find the information! Way to go WTRH! A really great product. Can't wait to put it to use.

I have been buying this book off and on since the 1970s. Particularly useful are maps with transmitter locations (though as some have noted above, appearently there are some errors here). I also appreciated the product reviews. I don't DX much anymore but would recommend this text to those who love to pick out weak broadcasts through the static and needs a way to indentify their origins.

I have been buying this book off and on since the 1970s. Particularly useful are maps with transmitter locations (though as some have noted above, appearently there are some errors here). I also appreciated the product reviews. I don't DX much anymore but would recommend this text to those who love to pick out weak broadcasts through the static and needs a way to indentify their origins.

Please note that the language 'Classical Lat.' indicated in the RFE-RL schedule on page 499 simply refers to Latvian, and not Classical Latin as one may interprete it. Hence, the times and frequencies shown under 'Classical Lat.' should be put under 'Latvian'.

Also, 'Kosovian' (on the same page) is a program in Albanian targeted at listeners in Kosova.

As to Lithuania, please disregard everything that is included in TV section about this country (page 625). The information there is several years old and totally out-of-date.