Correspondence: The Conover Program

Rifftides Washington DC correspondent John Birchard writes:

Thanks for the heads-up on the program about Willis. I'll make sure to listen to it. I also alerted several of my VOA colleagues as to its existence.
And thanks, too, for your continued attention to the systematic dismantling of VOA's English programming on radio. Every voice helps.

Management has announced the closure of the big Delano, California, transmitting facility... and in March, one of our biggest, the short-wave site at Tangier, Morocco, built during the Reagan administration and featuring ten 500,000-watt transmitters, will be history as well. Last fall, it was the facility at Rhodes, Greece. In the past three years, we have lost 55% of our transmitting capacity, even as such "friends" as China, Russia and France have ramped up their English programming. The Board of Broadcasting Governors' (BBG) intent is clear: if Congress won't pass a budget that gives them the license to shut us down, they'll do it by chipping away at our ability to be heard. By the time, our representatives wake up to the situation, it will be too late to reverse these moves. Short-wave frequencies given away are lost forever, snapped up by those who understand their value.