Radio Free Afghanistan

On the inception the Radio and Television of Afghanistan has started it’s operation in the name of Radio Kabul on 1304, during the era of King Amannullah Khan, two radio transmitters with the capacity of 400 watt have been procured from the German company of Telephonkan, one of those has been installed on Koti Londoni near the bridge of Artel which subsequently started to its operation and the second one had been transferred to Kandahar which on that period the musical programs and news were only being broadcasted for few hours. It was constantly running till the internal rebellion started. Then the radio transmitters had been destroyed and on 1319 during the period of King Zahir Shah another radio transmitter has been purchased with the power of 25 KW from the same company and it has been installed on Yaka-Tot area and subsequently started to its operation.

At the meantime its studio equipments had also been facilitated and installed on Pole-Baghe Omomi area and it enabled to start the broadcasting of proportionally compete radio programs which consisted musical, news and the programs were being live broadcasted.

On 1335 the issue of broadcasting the programs on foreign languages had been discussed. Thus, two short wave radio transmitters with the power of10 KW and 50 Kw had been purchased from German Siemens company and they had been installed on adjacent of Medium Wave transmitters on new building with the number of Antennas toward different zones, Western Europe, Africa and South East and subsequently began to its operation. Then on 1340 a medium frequency Radio transmitter with the power of 100 KW and one short wave radio transmitter for the purpose of strengthening the foreign languages programs had been purchased from Siemens Company and following those had been installed on the area of Yaka-tot and Pole-Cherkhi and started to operation. Though that project had been completed on 1344 and become ready for rendering the services.

Therefore, the broadcasting of Radio Afghanistan have been amplified and the name of Radio Kabul changed to Radio Afghanistan and started its full fledge broadcasting with the period of 18 Hr daily.

Following for the objective to induce the Radio Afghanistan programs to the provinces, new plane for new radio broadcasting transmitters to the provinces have been conceived, and therefore, three radio transmitters 10 KW watt each have been installed to Mazare- Sharif,herat and Kandahar provinces and the radio transmitters had been purchased from Ritz Company of former Yugoslavia. This process have been continued till 1360, and then for aim of further strengthening and improving the programs, the planes for radio transmitters with the prime capacities have been discussed, which two 500KW transmitters with the total power of 1000 KW and two short wave radio transmitters with capacity of 100 KW each have started to their operations.

The plane of this project have been conceptualized between 1361 and 1362 and on 1367 the project had become complete and started to operation.

Also a number of radio transmitters with various frequencies have been installed on provinces with the capacities of 5 KW, 7 KW and 10 Kw and almost in 19 provinces those transmitters had been installed and this process was under progress.

Unfortunately during the prolonged conflicts the most of these transmitters due to the lack of maintenance and accessories and inflictions of war have been destroyed and become un- operational. Especially all the infrastructure of the radio transmitters in Kabul have been destroyed due to the bombardment of various factional forces, and at the time of when the peace keeping forces have entered there was no radio broadcasting facilities existed.

Then owing to the endeavor of technical and other staff, the Radio has started again from zero level, and with assistance of friend countries such as Islamic Republic of Iran, USA, Japan, Germany and France the Radio programs have been restarted and now on the capital Kabul one 50 KW MW transmitter made in Iran and one 400 KW MW transmitter manufactured by American Harris company on the area of Pole- Charkhi and one 10 KW Mw transmitter made in USA on the area of Yaka-Tot. One FM transmitter with a power of 1 KW from VOA, one transmitter with the power of 250 Watt from BBC has been installed in Kabul and has their operations.

Also on the provinces the FM transmitters with the power of 1 KW and 250 Watt have been installed and broadcasts local programs.

In the area of radio programs we should appointed that radio programs before the interior war and during of that sometimes have had improvements and sometimes reduced, but after the establishment of Afghanistan Islamic Transitional Government gradually we have had promotion and from 3 hours per day nowadays we have 31 hours per day radio broadcasting.