Voice of Maldives, or Dhivehi Raajjeyge Adu (), is a

radio station Radio broadcasting is the broadcasting of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based rad ...

in the

Republic of Maldives The Maldives, officially the Republic of Maldives, and historically known as the Maldive Islands, is an archipelagic country in South Asia located in the Indian Ocean. The Maldives is southwest of Sri Lanka and India, about from the Asian c ...

. ''Raajjé Radio'', owned by the state, began broadcasting in 1962, under the name 'Male Radio'. It runs two radio channels, Voice of Maldives on 1458 kHz AM with a live internet stream (news and information) and Raajje FM (entertainment). Voice of Maldives is the archipelago's official radio service, operating under the Ministry of Information Arts, and Culture. With the rise of private radio clubs in India in 1962, Voice of Maldives emerged as a

government organization State ownership, also called public ownership or government ownership, is the ownership of an industry, asset, property, or enterprise by the national government of a country or state, or a public body representing a community, as opposed to ...

on 11 September 1966. Voice of Maldives today has one broadcasting centre and two re-broadcasting centres. It covers 90% of the Maldives via Medium Wave transmission at 1449 kHz, with the remaining 10% being covered by small FM transmitters which are linked by

satellite A satellite or an artificial satellite is an object, typically a spacecraft, placed into orbit around a celestial body. They have a variety of uses, including communication relay, weather forecasting, navigation ( GPS), broadcasting, scient ...

. It has one

FM broadcasting FM broadcasting is a method of radio broadcasting that uses frequency modulation (FM) of the radio broadcast carrier wave. Invented in 1933 by American engineer Edwin Armstrong, wide-band FM is used worldwide to transmit high fidelity, high-f ...

service, with most transmissions being entertainment and music on 89

MHz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), often described as being equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose formal expression in terms of SI base u ...

, converting 30 kilometers from

Malé Malé is the capital and most populous city of the Maldives. With a population of 211,908 in 2022 within its administrative area and coterminous geographical area of , Malé is one of the most densely populated cities in the world. The city i ...

. Voice of Maldives broadcasts 24/7, primarily

Dhivehi language Dhivehi, also spelled Divehi, is the main language, used in the Maldive Islands. This may refer to: * Dhivehi people, an ethnic group native to the historic region of the Maldive Islands * Dhivehi language, an Indo-Aryan language predominantly sp ...

, for forty-two years.

History

Broadcasting in Maldives began on 29 December 1962 with a DIY spirit by hobbyists. "Malé Radio," equipped with locally crafted broadcasting equipments and without any knowledge of broadcasting, aired programmes for about five to ten minutes, with two minutes of news and current affairs. One year later, it was taken over by CINEMA Company, who renamed the service to "SENECO RADIO" with a new SW transmitter. Finally, in 1966, broadcasting became a government operated service, with the name, "Maldives Island Broadcasting Service," on 19 February 1967. As the broadcasting gained more popularity, the government decided to move the broadcasting to a dedicated building on 26 June 1968. New technologies and its growing importance of the service led to a restructure and renaming as "Radio Maldives" on 16 February 1969. Since Maldives is a hundred percent

Muslim nation The Islamic State (IS), also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and Daesh, is a transnational Salafi jihadism, Salafi jihadist organization and unrecognized quasi-state. IS ...

, Radio Maldives began daily Dhivehi translations of

Quran The Quran, also Romanization, romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a Waḥy, revelation directly from God in Islam, God (''Allah, Allāh''). It is organized in 114 chapters (, ) which ...

in 1970, a tradition that continues today. One of the more popular programmes during those days was Radio Haveeru, dedicated to

self improvement Self-help or self-improvement is "a focus on self-guided, in contrast to professionally guided, efforts to cope with life problems" —economically, physically, intellectually, or emotionally—often with a substantial psychological basis. When ...

and public awareness. The late seventies was an important role in the history, it became more popular among the general public, and had to increase the time to allow 09 hours and 15 minutes daily for programmes which concentrated on music. 21/2 hours daily dedicated to international news and music. Radio Maldives was renamed Voice of Maldives by President Gayyoom on 19 January 1980. On 29 December 1981, the government secured a grant aid from the

Australian Government The Australian Government, also known as the Commonwealth Government or simply as the federal government, is the national executive government of Australia, a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy. The executive consists of the pr ...

which provided a 5-kilowatt medium-wave

transmitter In electronics and telecommunications, a radio transmitter or just transmitter (often abbreviated as XMTR or TX in technical documents) is an electronic device which produces radio waves with an antenna (radio), antenna with the purpose of sig ...

. With the increasing demand for radio, there was a need for a building expansion to cater for

recording A record, recording or records may refer to: An item or collection of data Computing * Record (computer science), a data structure ** Record, or row (database), a set of fields in a database related to one entity ** Boot sector or boot record, re ...

and production studios which gave way to a foundation for new building. This is the present Voice of Maldives building at

Maafannu Maafannu () is a district of Malé, Maldives. Location within Malé City Maafannu is on the western portion of Malé Island: Notable Places * Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital * Maldives National University Faculty of Health Sciences * Ras ...

. , the Voice of Maldives used a 10KW digital medium wave transmitter from Harris operating at 1449 kHz for its AM transmission.

References

{{Reflist Radio in the Maldives Television Maldives 1962 establishments in the Maldives