Vatican Radio
| Vatican Radio Radio Vaticana |
|
 |
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| First air date | 1931 |
|---|---|
| Format | News, religious celebrations, in-depth programs, and music |
| Owner |  Vatican City |
| Website | www.radiovaticana.org |
Vatican Radio (in Italian language: Radio Vaticana) is the official broadcasting service of the Vatican.
Set up in 1931 by Guglielmo Marconi, today its programs are offered in 47 languages, and are sent out on short wave (also DRM), medium wave, FM, satellite and the Internet. The Jesuit Order has been charged with the management of Vatican Radio since its inception. During World War II and the rise of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, Vatican Radio served as a source for news for the Allies as well as broadcasting pro-Allied (or simply neutral) propaganda. [1] A week after Pope Pius XII ordered the programming, Vatican Radio broadcast to an unbelieving world that Poles and Jews were being rounded up and forced into ghettos.
Today, programming is produced by over two hundred journalists located in 61 different countries. Vatican Radio produces more than 42,000 hours of simultaneous broadcasting covering international news, religious celebrations, in-depth programs, and music. Current general director is Father Federico Lombardi, S.J.
Radio Vaticana was one of 23 founding broadcasting organisations of the European Broadcasting Union in 1950.
Television
During the 1930s the station made experimental television broadcasts. However, it wasn't until the 1990s that a regular (satellite) television service began.
Transmitters
The signals are transmitted from a large shortwave and medium-wave transmission facility for Radio Vatican. The Santa Maria di Galeria Transmitter was established in 1957 and it is an extraterritorial area in Italy belonging to the Vatican City.
The most interesting aerial is the one for the medium wave frequency 1530 kHz,#which consists of four 94 metre high grounded free standing towers arranged in a square, which carry wires for a medium wave aerial on horizontal crossbars. The direction of this aerial can be changed.
'Radiation' dispute/controversy
The Santa Maria di Galeria Transmitter site is the subject of a dispute between the station and some local residents who claim the non-ionising radiation from the site has affected their health [2] however these claims are based on controversial science and are not accepted by the station.
Vatican Radio covers a large area of the Rome municipality, as set by the 'extraterritorial right' in Italian law. To cover such a large area, the radio station has around 60 pylons higher than 10 meters (328 ft). Since this part of Rome is not under Italian jurisdiction, these transmitters are not subject to the Italian laws that limit the radiation that a radio station can emit. In the vicinity of these pylons, the radiation emitted can be more than the double the amount allowed by Italian law, as verified officially by the Italian Civil Defense and the Department for the Environment of the region of Lazio.
This situation causes much disturbance to the lives of the people living in this area: the most common complaints are that one can hear the transmissions breaking through on telephones, and many other electronic devices. (Due in many cases to the devices having poor electromagnetic immunity to the strong signals) The Region of Lazio has also found that the people in the area around the emitters are much more likely to have leukemia: the closer those in the examined sample lived to the radio station, the more likely they were to have leukemia, up to 6 times the Italian national average. (Agenzia di Sanità Pubblica - Regione Lazio - March 2001). Vatican radio was recently subject to a lawsuit from the Regional Health Department for "Throwing of dangerous things" on the Italian ground. Every time it was sued the radio showed the 'Lateran Treaty', bilateral agreements signed by the Holy See and Benito Mussolini during Fascism. (The area around the radio station at the time it was built was not heavily populated). A well known Italian TV program called 'Le iene' (transl. 'the hyenas') went to the radio station and replaced the radio's insignia with a new one stating 'Radio Erode' meaning 'Herod's Radio', referring to Herod the Great and the Massacre of the Innocents, since the studies show that the most affected people are children 0 to 14 years old.
See also
External links
- Radio Vatican Towers in the Structurae database
- http://www.skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?b46344
- http://www.skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?b46345
- http://www.skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?b46346
- http://www.skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?b46347
External links
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