Radio Bulgaria – 75 years on the air

In the history of Bulgarian radio, June 1, 1936, is a historic date associated with the first regular radio broadcast transmitted from Bulgaria to abroad. The first records of a radio news bulletin in French and German come from Rodno Radio Varna (Native Radio Varna) and date back to1935. Broadcast at medium waves and having a local purpose, they were targeted at foreign holidaymakers along the Bulgarian Black Sea coast. 

In 1935, a group of technicians and radio amateurs in Sofia decided to adapt two inactive telegraph stations so that they could be used for broadcasting speech and music on shortwave. The two telegraph stations were internationally registered as LZA, and were known as Elza.

In the late 1935, trial broadcasts began and on January 19, 1936, the first transmission on short wave was carried out from Bulgaria to the world on a frequency of 7460 kilohertz. The program was in the Bulgarian language and was broadcast only on Sundays. At the end of January the same year, a new law was adopted, stipulating that radio stations in this country could be state-owned only. The enthusiasts from LZA were soon summoned by the authorities due to violating this new law. They were not punished, but their radio station was nationalized. On June 1, 1936, on the frequency of 7460 kHz, after the usual introduction saying “This is Radio Sophia”, a news bulletin was read in Bulgarian, French, German, English and Italian. Such broadcasts started being transmitted on a regular basis with an interruption between April 1938 and January 1939 for technical reasons. Meanwhile, the authorities purchased another short-wave transmitter produced in Germany. After 1942, it was used for radio broadcasts of radio Obedinena Bulgaria (United Bulgaria) and of radio Predavatel Bulgarski Novini (Transmitter of Bulgarian News).

In 1945, Bulgaria sent troops to fight against Germany on the territories of Yugoslavia and Hungary. For them, a radio station called Military Front and Homeland started broadcasts. In the late 1960s, there were short-wave broadcasts of Radio Rodina for Bulgarians living abroad. Otherwise, until the late 1980s, the external service of the Bulgarian National Radio was known under the name Radio Sofia, which was later changed to Radio Bulgaria.

After the war, a transmitter was imported from the USSR with a capacity of 5 kilowatts, transmitting on a frequency 9350 kHz. News in 12 languages were broadcast as follows​​:

to the World in Bulgarian, English, French and Esperanto;

to Northern Europe in Russian, Polish and Czech;

to the Balkans in Serbo-Croatian, Albanian, Greek ,Turkish and Romanian .

On December 18, 1948, the restored LZA transmitter resumed broadcasting to the Balkans on a frequency of 7670 kHz. During the 1960s and afterwards, serious funding was allocated to the external service of the Bulgarian National Radio,  new powerful transmitters and modern studio equipment were imported. In the coming years, broadcasts in Arabic and Portuguese were added, and the Romanian language section was closed down. Later, the Italian and Portuguese sections were also closed down. Currently, Radio Bulgaria has reached its 75^th anniversary with short-wave broadcasts in 10 languages.

(Source : Radio Bulgaria's DX program compiled by Rumen Pankov)