Radio

Thinking and Praying Radio

2012-02-07T06:13:00.000-08:00

My mind keeps busy often because of my work. Sometimes painfully I fail to be outside the radio mindset. Is it that I have become addicted? I like my work but I also need breathing space. I need to facilitate resource development and mobilisation. I need encouragement and advice. I am thankful to God for taking us this far. I know He will take us through February.

Did you hear TWR Malawi Developments?

2010-02-01T11:46:00.000-08:00

It is rather a new phase for me in many respects. Beginning today, I have been asked to be the Acting National Director for Trans World Radio Malawi. I have taken this responsibility after an 8-year stretch by my boss Rev Patrick Semphere.

Thank you to many of you that have sent me your congratulations and best wishes. It is humbling and scaring. I am generally a producer at heart and now I understand that I have to adjust my workload and turn more towards leading the people in the organization. Thankfully being who I am, I will still be able to somehow handle the microphone.

While I have been part of the senior management of the station since 2003, this position is completely new to me and really scaring. Some people have already shifted from calling me Victor to Mr Kaonga! Surprising! I am the same Victor.

I have been advised to change my wardrobe. My sisters have made strong recommendations on this arguing that now I am carrying more the organization’s image. Many others have echoed this. I have assured them that I will try to dress as expected on duty and as the situations demand. Otherwise they should not expect too much. I need to be allowed to be myself.

There are only three main areas that I want to focus on and with God’s help see more progress. These have to with staff morale, increasing listener’s reliability on TWR and raise more financial resources. You may wish to know that TWR Malawi has equally been affected by the global financial meltdown and while things are picking up elsewhere, we are still suffering the trickle down effects in Lilongwe.

While I know that this blog is personal (and indeed whatever I say here does not reflect the views of Trans World Radio Malawi), allow me to tell you that Trans World Radio broadcast for 24 hours in English, Chichewa, Chitumbuka and Chiyao covering almost the entire geographical Malawi on nine separate FM frequencies. This is not an easy network and team to lead and manage. This station is one of the about 16 FM private radio stations in the country.

Hey, thanks for reading this post and getting a little bit of the framework of my new role. I will appreciate your encouragement and advice. TWR Malawi is not online yet but with more bandwidth developing now, I trust at that some later, this should be possible.

God bless you.

Another Internet Radio

2008-04-25T14:39:00.001-07:00

It is not only becoming trendy but also exciting to see Malawians turning to using the Internet as an additional platofrom for broadcasting. Yesterday I listened to a new Internet station called Radio Chambo (www.radiochambo.com). It says it is "Malawi's Internet Radio Station for Political Heavy Hitters."

This puts the number of online radio stations with Malawi input to six after Radio Yako, Radio Maria, Power 101, Capital Radio and Kwacha FM.

The interesting thing though is that this latest one is a third by Malawians in the Diaspora after Radio Yako introduced in 2006 and Kwacha FM in early 2007. This is a great development quite welcometo broadcasting landscape in Malawi and beyond.

The other three (Radio Maria, Capital Radio and Power 101) are all in Malawi and of course broadcasting online with different amounts of time and quality. In fact in real sense it is only Radio Maria that is streaming audio in real time for considerable lengths.

Having been to Radio Chambo's homepage and listening for over an hour, it is easy for a broadcaster like to me to make some preliminary conclusions on the content direction and identity of the station.

I wonder why the home page leaves out Muluzi in its introduction by only refering to Malawi's first president Dr Kamuzu Banda and then the incumbent Dr Mutharika. It says:

LEARN ABOUT MALAWI'S CURRENT LEADER
He took office on May 24, 2004, after
winning a disputed presidential election. Mutharika was the son of a primary
school headmaster. He was educated at the University of Delhi, India, where he
gained a master's degree in economics.

LEARN ABOUT KAMUZU - Kamuzu Banda
was born near Kasungu in Malawi (then British Central Africa) to Mphonongo Banda
and his wife Akupingamnyama Phiri. His date of birth is unknown, and as it took
place at a time when there was no birth registration, it is impossible to state
a precise year.

I found it difficult not to associate it to one of the broadcasters in Malawi especially that the programmes played aired earlier on MBC also on top of being an MBC production. May
be a disclaimer would help us not to arrive at such conclusions which of course is not a problem at all.

Anyhow this is good news and I am sure it will be very exciting. As the 2009 presidential and parliamentary elections come closer, it will be interesting to see how broadcasters stay true to their identity.

Radio Chambo welcome to the arena and congrats at this great initiative! You can be assured you have a critical listener in me as long as my Internet connections allow.

First Time on Air

2008-03-11T10:08:00.000-07:00

The 11th and 12th March are eventful days for me as since 1990, I remember two special things in my life. Last year I wrote extensively about 12th March and this time, I can pull out a short portion from autiobiagraphy and blog about the day I first went on air.

It was on Sunday 11th March 1990. I explain below how it let to that.

I arrived at Rumphi Secondary School with fears of being teased, bullied and beaten. I went to my hostel (Viphya) with my newly bought bag, half empty but some corner filled with locally prepared pop corn, two trousers only and one short trouser.

There were two guys (names withheld) who teased me during the first week. At times I still find painful to remember what they did. The first asked me to lie down flat and then jump. He also asked me to carry some stuff in the hostel.

The other day, his friend came and shouted at me in the face. He told me to close my eyes, and then asked for what I had brought from home to school and went away.

During the first two weeks we had a quiz where I came top of the form one class.I was then chosen to represent my Form One class at the MBC Top of the Class Quiz competition scheduled for later that October.

The Quiz competition was sponsored by one of the chain stores called Peoples Trading Centre (PTC). They made secondary schools to compete in four rounds. MBC had a quiz master in the name of Brightson Kalirani and Jeffrey Kazembe. The quiz could be prerecorded and then aired for 50 minutes on the state radio MBC. So being a Top of the Class member meant you were perceived to be one of the best in the nation.

In our first encounter, we had a tripartite facing St Patrick’s Seminary Secondary and Phwezi Boys Private Secondary at Phwezi on 24 October 1989. It was to air on 11 March 1990.I represented Form One and I scored 5 out of 12 for my class but then we lost at the end of the six rounds. Phwezi beat St Patrick’s Seminary and us. I was happy to have been exposed though we lost in the preliminary round.

It was during this recording of the competition that I met late Brightson Kalirani, one of the MBC presenters that I had met and admired years earlier. I first met him when he visited Mphompha in 1981 to record local music by Mr. Gehena Kanyenda.

The next four years were to take me to a mixture of success and failure in the quiz competition as a member of Rumphi Secondary School Quiz team. We competed against Ekwendeni Girls Secondary in 1990, Mary Mount Girls Secondary School, Nkhata Bay Secondary School in 1991, Chilumba Secondary School in 1992 and Bandawe Secondary School in 1993.

The quiz team kept changing each year with the departure of form four representative. Overall, I had the following team members over the four years: Schaeffer Chirambo, Joseph Chavura and Alick Mtika while I was in form one. Brussels Mughogho, Jairos Kondowe and Thom Longwe joined the team as I moved to older classes.

In the picture, you see me representing form four when we took on Bandawe Secondary School in 1993 on our home ground.

A lot of sacrifice and hard work was needed for the quiz team. As members, we were respected on campus but also expected to do well in our individual subjects if our dreams of going to the only university (of Malawi) were to be realized.

Help With Some Contacts for Radio Programme

2008-02-15T06:36:00.001-08:00

Some of you might be aware of a radio programme on Trans World Radio in Malawi called AMalawi Kunja kwa Malawi which I am responsible for. I need your help with people you would recommend to take part in this weekly programme.

In Chichewa, and fifteen minutes long, it is a platform to let Malawians in Diasporas share with listeners in Malawi something about their lives, their work, studies, stay and the countries they are living in. Malawians abroad are interviewed to share personal experiences as well official positions on issues that affect them where they are and at home. I believe that in a small way this programme provides an opportunity for information sharing. I am aware that some brethren on this forum have taken part before.

Having run for a year already, Malawians featured have included students, musicians, business persons, lawyers, nurses, development consultants, ICT Specialists, accountants, medical doctor, missionaries, professors, engineers, home executives, etc based in various countries on all the continents.

I am at this point interested in additional people who can be willing to appear in the programme. They key thing is they have to be Malawian in the diaspora and feel free to offer yourself too if you are in the diaspora. Since there is generally a good number of Malawians in UK, South Africa and US, I would place priority on featuring those outside these three countries.

Please do write me a personal email on victorkaonga@gmail.com with your contacts copied to radio@twrmw.org.

Thank you for reading and considering my request.

It has been ages since I last posted here

2007-09-22T11:03:00.000-07:00

thank God for radio.

Trying out something also

2007-09-09T04:46:00.000-07:00

Click here
Something about AMalawi in the diaspora

http://www.gcast.com/podcast/studio.html

Need for more Cars

2007-08-09T08:51:00.000-07:00

Some listeners cannot believe their sight of their popular presenters alighting off a pick-up like these in Malawi. But this is the reality for Trans World Radio Malawi.

Radio Presenter profile

2007-04-15T00:24:00.000-07:00

I thought of doing something new by putting up some presenter profile. MAY be I will be successfull. I will begin with myself though on a long break on air!

1. Full names
Victor Kaonga

2. Family
Wife: Thembi; Children: Nayumo, Sayiwe and Angana

...............................
3. What do you like most about Lilongwe?
Busy enough to keep me busy

.................................
4. What do you like least about Lilongwe?
Expensive travel routes

..................................
5. Best on air experience
The time during Joy in the Morning when I read out a verse that directly ministered to a lady in Ntcheu as she was listening to my response about her situation

..................................
6. Who did you interview and were the happiest you did?
Rev. Franklin Chunga, the man behind SCOM

Mama C Tamanda Kadzamira

......................................
7. Who do you want interview most?
Hon. Aleke Banda

........................................

8. Who do you want to interview least?
My mum

......................................

9. If you could have any artist, or group play at your birthday party for you and 200 hundred guests, who would it be?

Chimwemwe Mizaya of Lilongwe and Joybells Gospel Choir of Sweden

.....................................
10. Favourite musician(s)
Uh, so many

..................................
11. A quote or motto you live by
God Reigns on high

..................................
12. If you were a cartoon character, who would you be?
Jojo

....................................
13. Favourite Movie
Sound of Music

......................................
14. Favourite Food
Rice with beef (boiled) along with Chinese vegetables done in nsinjiro

.......................................
15. What five words best describe you?
Serious, sinful, critical, crazy and committed

........................................
16. Who is the most famous person you've met?
In Malawi
In Swaziland
In .....
I don't know

.......................................
17. Who are your mentors and role models that have impacted your life most?
Bryr Mlowoka, my boss, Charles Swindoll, Dr Dixie Maluwa Banda, my mum and dad, many more!

.........................................
18. If you could go back in time, where would you go?
Mphompha, Rumphi as it was in the early 1980's

...........................................
19. Favourite scripture
Psalm 145

...........................................
20. One thing about you, not many people know
I wish was in the army.

.............................................
21. Advice to listeners
Life is life only in Christ Jesus. Outside that, it is disaster and we know that well deep within our hearts.

................................................
Adapted from LinkFM.

Testing things

2007-04-10T22:42:00.000-07:00

I am seeing if I can upload an audio file to this site. I spoke to the Chirwa family last month. I am interested to see if it can play from here. Click on to listen. Some testing indeed.

MAWAYALESI

2007-03-26T07:13:00.000-07:00

In Memory of Fainess Kampheta

2007-03-11T05:02:00.000-07:00

Wednesday morning (7th March) was a bad day for me as I recieved news of the death of a colleague at Trans World Radio in Lilongwe. Fainess had fallen ill and in a short period, she left this world.

It was a shock to me as I had chatted with her the week before using yahoo messenger as I was sending files of the radio programme AMalawi Kunja kwa Malawi. Sad situation indeed. I last met her in person during the Christmas holiday not knowing that was to be the last time we would ever meet. Life is really short and I think what really counts most is how ready we are for the day.

Though she was responsble for the reception mostly, once in a while she could joke about being on air and pose for pictures. This one was taken on 31st August 2005. I pray that the God of all comfort will continue ministering to the TWR and her family as well as friends.

Internet Radio for Malawians

2007-02-26T05:29:00.000-08:00

It is now amazing to me how though slowly Malawians are utilizing the Internet for radio. It was only last year in August that the first internet radio ran by a Malawian started broadcasting. Radio Yako made news and still is considered the pioneer. Another internet radio Kwacha FM has just started doing a similar thing. I hope no one will raise questions at the names! I am just wondering a bit about the "fm" extension! I would say to both kongilachuleshoni!

I talked in passing about Radio Yako in one of my posts on media situation in Malawi last year. But I never really had thought through.There are some similarities as well as differences between the two internet radio stations. Both are in the US. Radio Yako is the brainchild of Chimwemwe Nchozana in Florida, a Malawian in Florida.

In my view view he deserves praise for taking the initiative to introduce an internet radio featuring programming that is very Malawian and nolstagic-something that most of us in the diaspora appreciate. Your team with the Yado, Mtuwa and Phiri, you do a commendable job.I understand that some Malawians in the US and UK are behind Kwachafm (KFM). I have listened to its introductory broadcasts and sounds great with sounds from near and far from Malawi. Its website has an abundance of items and links, promising lots. However I should confess that Kwachafm being new, there is not much I can say out of the monitoring I have done to form a fair opinion. I am yet to deduce who the target audience is or indeed know why the station is on now.

Radio Yako has been runing daily providing about two hours of a variety of menu which has so far included music (Malawian and international), some regards, news, Gospel, counselling, life stories and much more.I am happy that there is growing Malawi radio presence on the internet now. I am sure the two stations will go a long way to serve the Malawians particularly those in the diaspora. I am certain that with more developed bandwidth in Malawi, there will be more listeners too at home.

I think both stations might be more relevant to Malawians if they tend to feature more Malawian voices, sounds and effects. I am sure that is what will make a difference to the international electronic media that is associated with Malawi. I am hoping also that professionalism will be upheld in broadcasting. I am jealous about my profession and I would be one of the first people to feel offended on account of someone failing to do a proper job at the Internet radio station.

This is the first time Malawians are enjoying Internet radio with Malawian voices and programming. Knowing that Internet radio has its challenges and conventions, I hope that the stations will be for the benefit for the wider community. Being in radio myself, I know how exciting it is at the beginning but the reality of facing feedback and satisfying the audience can be too demanding to give one any more enthusiasm.

How did Trans World Radio begin in Malawi?

2007-02-24T00:38:00.000-08:00

It took me many years to know how a real transmitter looks like. A transmitter is the machine

behind what you listen to on your normal radio.

In this blog, I want to write more about radio. I will use most of this space for the radio work. Let us begin this way. Trans World Radio is the place where I work. So no worry let us learn more about it.

This is what they call a transmitter and not this tall thing below which many people think is a transmitter.

So next time, you see this, you know that this tall thing is a 'mast' or 'tower'

OK. Founder of Trans World Radio Dr Paul Freed wrote a book titled "Towers to Eternity" so many years ago. He wrote about how he began the radio ministry of Trans World Radio in 1952 through Voice of Tangiers in Morrocco in 1954.

OK. We talk more later about Malawi. Cheers. Write me to tell your story about Trans World Radio.