🇷🇺 60th Anniversary of Mayak Radio: A Beacon of Information and Music

On August 1, 1964, the state radio station Mayak first aired on the second program of the All-Union Radio. This 24-hour station was tasked with attracting the audience away from Western "voices."
The call signs were the first phrase of the song "Moscow Nights" by Solovyov-Sedoy repeated three times in notes, followed by "beep-beep" signals, the time announcement, five minutes of news, and then 24 minutes of music. The music blocks were organized by sections and genres, offering everything from arias from classical operettas to melodies from Soviet cinema and stars of the Hungarian stage.
The station's name is an allusion to the course beacons for Soviet pilots. The melody "Moscow Nights" was chosen as the call sign and is still used today. In the 1960s, the first two minor bars of this song were played on the hour (9:00, 13:00, 18:00, etc.), while the major bars were played at the half-hour intervals (9:30, 13:30, 18:30, etc.), allowing people to quickly and conveniently tell the time to the nearest half-hour. Unfortunately, the call signs were later unified.
Tune in to Mayak Radio on FM: 103.4 MHz (Moscow), 107.0 MHz (St. Petersburg), and on digital television on Radio 2.
Discover more about the fascinating history of Mayak Radio and how it has been a benchmark in Soviet and Russian radio broadcasting.
Thanks to RUS DX 1300 and Wikipedia. Good DX and 73.
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