Radio center No. 5 in Kaliningrad began testing Radio Russia broadcasts on a frequency of 549 kHz.

I would rate SINPO at 24233. The signal level for reception from a car in St. Petersburg is insufficient. Level fluctuations are observed. Perhaps the passage plays a role. At the same time, intelligibility also varies depending on fading (QSB) and local interference from trolleybus and tram lines.

Medium wave antenna of radio center No. 5 of the village. Bolshakovo is good - height 257 meters. The transmitter is a powerful RV-372 (for the duration of the test, the power is reduced to 100 kW).
Before Perestroika, 549 kHz broadcasting was carried out from the site of Radio Center No. 11 "Krasny Bor" in the Tosnensky district of the Leningrad region. Now the broadcasting has shifted to Kaliningrad, since, in my opinion, VHF frequency 99.0 MHz is sufficient in St. Petersburg.

Many note difficulty of receiving RR on 549 kHz: “Very difficult, I can’t make out the words.”

A 549 kHz recording, a video from a car, taken today at 09:45 Moscow time, is attached below.

The propagation of medium waves is round-the-clock when transmitted by an earth wave (pressed to the surface of the Earth), and smoothly attenuating with distance according to the law 1/ R². Over 400 km, reception is possible by a spatial wave, which is repeatedly reflected from the ionosphere, layer E, and the Earth. The presence of layer E strongly depends on the time of day (best reception in the evening and night hours). During the day, layer E is blocked by the absorbing ionospheric layer D. In my case, I think the mechanism is space wave propagation. As far as I understand, for medium waves the sky wave (upward, or at an angle to the E layer) is undesirable for radio broadcasting, so vertically polarized antennas are used with a radiation pattern pressed to the ground in the vertical plane. According to ITU schedule, with average quality soil with relative dielectric constant ε=10 and conductivity σ=10^-2 S/m (1 mS/m), the ground wave of frequency 800 kHz at a distance of 700 km is completely attenuated.

The ground wave propagates at a short distance from the transmitter.

The ITU sets the following limits for reliable reception of LW and MW signals:
(Source: Regional Administrative Conference on LF/MF Broadcasting for Regions 1 and 2, Geneva, 1975):

Minimum field strength for reliable reception (ITU recommendation)

• Northern temperate zone, day, village - 1413 µV/m (63 dB/1µVm)
• North temperate zone, night, village - 3548 µV/m (71 dB/1µVm)
• Northern temperate zone, night, city - 7079 µV/m (77 dB/1µVm).

Higher field strength requirements at night are due to interference from distant stations operating on the same frequency.

If we take the field strength to be 1413 µV/m (63 dB/1µVm, for a 1 kW transmitter according to the schedule.

The following ranges (service areas) are obtained for different transmitter powers
for daytime operation (63 dB/1µVm):

The actual values ​​of the propagation distance for ground waves over ordinary soil (ε=10, σ=0.01mS/m) are closer to the “land” distance. This allows us to draw the approximate coverage area of ​​the transmitter from Kaliningrad. One can expect daytime coverage of the entire Baltic Sea, and on land the range of the ground wave is significantly less than over the sea.

"Radio Russia" broadcasts in St. Petersburg in the FM band at a frequency of 99.0 MHz with excellent quality. The coverage radius on VHF is determined by the line of sight from the transmitter and for broadcast VHF is about 100 km. Reliable reception of 99 FM covers St. Petersburg and part of the Leningrad region.

Distance between St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad is 826 kilometers in a straight line.

Long-distance reception of the Kaliningrad transmitter 549 kHz

The following text represents a forecast based on a study of facts and materials (it is not a simulation).

For long-range propagation of medium waves, reflection from the ionized E layer of the ionosphere is used.

Layer E height:

• during the day 80 km (screened by the absorbing layer D at an altitude of 60-80 km)
• at night 100-110 km (layer E is not shielded).

Absorption of medium waves in the ionosphere

During the day - strong absorption from layer D. Absorption in the morning and evening hours depends on solar activity (the number of spots on the solar disk), on the electron concentration, the length of the beam in the absorbing layer, the zenith angle (height) of the Sun, the latitude of the point of the receiver and transmitter, the season (winter/summer) and the frequency of the transmitter.

Local conditions

Local conditions (receiver sensitivity, presence of interference, height of the receiving point, urban conditions, obstacles or lack thereof), soil conductivity also play a role. These various factors result in a final absorbance value.

Field Norm for DX Medium Wave Reception

The permissible field strength for long-distance reception of medium waves is 14 times (11db) lower than for the “ground” wave, and is 100 µV/m (0.1 mV/m). At this level, the signal is 2 dB above the noise (that is, a rather mediocre audibility level, making it difficult to understand the speaker’s words). MW DX is intended mainly for enthusiasts for whom the reception itself is important. Signal fading is not taken into account.

Jump length and maximum field strength

At night, propagation should be observed at medium waves using a spatial wave, which passes at an angle to the horizon and is reflected from the ionosphere, as at short waves. Since the height of the E layer is 100 km, the jump is shorter than that from the F2 layer. Maximum field strength at night at medium waves according to mwcircle.org observed at distances over 300 kilometers ("At distances over 300km from the transmitter listeners will receive strong night time signals from stations they’d not hear during the daytime.").

A radius of 400 km is plotted on the map:

The actual, rather than calculated, signal-to-noise ratio depends on:

• daily rhythm of passage (evening/night/morning)
• time of year (best reception from January to March, worst in summer)
• improvements to passage during sunrise and sunset hours
• unaccounted factors (receiver sensitivity, industrial interference)
  (Source - mwcircle.org)

My forecast for DX reception at 549 kHz

With a power of 100 kW, with reduced quality, it is possible to receive the frequency 549 kHz at night in the countries closest to the transmitter (can be checked using Web SDR 0-30 MHz) -Kiwi SDR:

• Russian Federation (from the west of the Pskov region - at a distance of 530 km: Pytalovo, Sebezh - to the east)
• Denmark
• Germany
• Poland
• Czech Republic
• Slovakia
• Ukraine
• Belarus
• Lithuania
• Latvia
• Sweden

What is the power of the Radio Russia transmitter at 549 kHz?

Addition: 15 minutes before the end of the hour, at 18:45 on the same day, the signal level increased and reception improved to the frequency level of 999 and 1143 kHz.
Apparently, at the end of the test, the engineers briefly turned on power above the long-term 100 kW.

According to unofficial information:

Update from 05/18/2026
Radio center No. 5 "Desantnoye" in Kaliningrad, which has modern radio transmitting equipment for medium wave transmissions at a frequency of 549 kHz,free transferred to the ownership of the municipality of the Slavsky municipal district.This was reported on the New Kaliningrad website on April 14, 2026:

A meeting took place: representatives of the RTRS branch “Kaliningrad ORTPTS” transferred... the property complex of the radio center in the village of Desantny for free use. The administration plans to use the territory as an investment site. In our time of digital technology, unfortunately, there is no longer a need for a radio center.

Source of news - vcfm.ru forum:

• vcfm.ru - topic about Far East and Northeast in Russia

Links:

• Internet search on the topic of the "Radio of Russia" test at 549 kHz from Kaliningrad
• On the influence of soil conductivity on the propagation of medium waves
• Handbook of Ground Wave Propagation

Free card:

• Flat World Map Vectors by Vecteezy.

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