Radio Stations in Crete 

Monitored by the Wireless Waffler on holiday 2002 near Iraklion

The FM band in Crete is totally jam packed!   The levels of all of the stations is  very high and I encountered no problems with interference when recording to mini disc.   I did find out however that the Sony mini disc I took with me did not have a microphone socket, which I needed to record actuality of  Greek Dancing one evening.  If you want a mini disk recorder to record effects on check carefully that it has a microphone socket. The line in is not sensitive enough to amplify the signal even with a pre- amplifier.   I found that my Next travel radio occasionally had problems handling the strong signals. I could hear some stations underneath at times which needed tuning out.  Fortunately this radio which only costs £12.99 does have a DX and Local switch, this can help in cutting down powerful stations.

The AM band is not particularly well used. The path in Europe seems to be wide open for a powerful pan -European radio station.

Back to the FM band the processing on the signals is quite high and some of the stations had sibilance on voices and some songs. I suspect that some of the stations used a high degree of compression on their signals and this needed some adjustment. Super Radio was extremely hissy on some of the spoken ids. On a Sunday the religious services which were largely sung had distortion on some voices.    From the style of presentation, or lack of it, I rather gather that the stations are run by computer and there are no announcers present.  I also did not locate an English speaking programme at any time during my 2 week stay.  The adverts that were aired were very well produced and it was possible to understand what they were saying in parts.  Some of the radio stations even had jingles, which was delightful to hear. I did log a few stations though that identified the song played and had live personalities on air - thank goodness.  There are different style of music broadcast.  Greek pop, Cretan and Greek Folk, English and American dance, rock and pop.  I only heard one station on a Sunday broadcast Classical Music.  I like Greek music and indeed in the past have identified it on the short waves as Turkish or some other form at times.  We all know the Bouzouki and Zorba the Greek style.  The folk music can be very tuneless, but is a marvellous blend of voice and string or percussive instrument.  I purchased three inexpensive cds as a souvenir.  The only speech and phone in output was on the AM band.   How the Cretan's get to know the titles of some of the music broadcast I do not know.  There are often three or four tunes in a row and afterwards no mention of what was played.

Click here to see what I believe were the masts which were used to broadcast many of the local stations http://local.htm/

My favourite station was KLIK FM  which said it came from Iraklion and was on 107.8 FM.  It played mainly English speaking songs and tunes.  For about 6 hours a day it played some amazing Rock classics, sometimes they were repeated but generally they were from the 60s onwards, and some obscure tracks included that I could not identify.  I asked the girl who was serving on the tables at breakfast her favourite station.  She said she did not have one because she liked Rock Music which was generally not on the air.  Her exposure to this was through her boyfriend's record collection and the tracks he downloaded off the internet !  Generally the Rock on Klik  started at midday but occasionally it varied by an hour or two.  One evening it was playing that format.  They did repeat the sequence some times.  There were never any announcements about the tunes, just vocal ids at the top, quarter and bottom of each hour.  I brought back four hours of this station so I will add some details of the music at a later date.  For the mean time I will say that I heard Road to Hell by Chris Rea, Santana, Bob Dylan and Fleetwood Mac.

A full run down of the stations by wavelength that I heard follows.   As I manage to go back and carefully listen to nearly 24 hours of recordings, and that will take some time, I will add further information and comment..

87.6 Kriti Spor FM - sports station with adverts. The only channel that I monitored with speech on music sport and other news input.

88.0 (and locally to us strong signal on 107.8 KLIK FM - my favourite for UK music - see note above this section.

88.4  Star FM - Greek and modern English music

89.2 Metro FM - Greek and modern English music

98.5 Minos FM - Greek and modern English music

89.8 Top FM - Greek and modern English music

90.00 Notos FM

90.4  Superadio - this played English contemporary music and occasional oldies.  The restaurant and bar area had this station on all day long and played it through four speakers.  The spoken ids for the station and effects mixed in were in English, as indeed are a lot of Greek station ids, and very innovative and attention grabbing!

92.1  Ipherhos FM - Greek and modern English Music

92.5  Max FM - Greek and modern English Music

92.7  Unidentified station with almost 45 minutes of non stop unidentified tunes with commercials and mainly Greek Pop music.

92.9  Lampsi FM - Greek and English music.  Lovely sung jingle id at top of hour.

94.3  Radio Hersonissos - Greek and English music

94.7 Best Radio - Good jingles and Greek and English music

95.0 Techni FM - Greek and English Music

95.8 Antenna FM Kritis - Greek and English Music

96.10 Kiss FM - English Music 

96.4  Era 2 - Greek and English Music

96.7 UoC Radio - Greek and English Music

97.20 Love Radio  - Greek Music from Athens

97.5  Era Diktyo Kritis - Iraklion - Greek and English Music

97.9 Kritorama - Greek Folk music - live some of the times I tuned in, and some tunes ran for a long time!

98.4  Radio 98.4

98.7 Radioactive - Some good voice over style jingles in English - Greek and English Music

99.4 and 99.7 Iera Archiepskopi Kritis - Greek Music

100.0 Flash 100 Crete - Greek and English Music

100.3 Ipherious FM - Greek Music

100.6 Knossos FM - Greek Music

101.5 Radio Kriti - Greek Music but contemporary and no folk or ethnic at time of listening in afternoon.

101.9 Studio 19 FM Greek and English Music

102.3 Neo Radiofono - Greek Music

105.1 Mousika Kanali FM - Crete and music like Roberta Flack very laid back speech and positive identification of each tune played with commercials.

106.2 Alpha Radio Iraklio -  Greek and English Music

106.6 Melodia FM - Greek and English Music

106.90 Stathmos FM -  Greek and English Music

There were two stations on the am band but they were not particularly strong nor did I find their programme output very stimulating.  It is true to say also that after a while you do have enough of listening to the Greek music and speech which is probably why I found Klik FM very interesting.   I am not sure if I received Dream 90.6 but the logo is included with this article.

On the short waves I logged Radio Netherlands on 9800 KHz approx, Radio Tirana on 06350 approx, BBC World Service on 15555 approx, Radio France International on 1770 KHz approx and Radio Australia on 17800 approx.  These were all received in the morning in the time span 0800 - 1000 Greek Time.   At one stage I was able to listen to From Our Own Correspondents on the identified frequency and Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy on another, all from the BBC!

I sourced my original list of stations, which helped immensely with identifying stations from the following site  http://www.media.net.gr/iraklio.htm  please try to click the link but no guarantee it will always be on the net.

 

A pleasant surprise in the reception of our apartments was this lovely Philips Radio - they did not know whether it worked or not and it did not have a plug on it - so for safety curiosity did not kill the cat!

Copyright Wireless Waffle Site June 2002