B: In two years, our website has received a substantial number of visitors. Aiming to get a bigger overseas audience, including our longtime shortwave listeners, to log on to our website, we are conducting a worldwide audience survey.

A: Your comments and recommendations will help us adjust our web content and layout. Now let’s check out some reception reports on our shortwave broadcasts. Here’s a report from Gianluca Carpani of northern Italy, who uses a SEGEN DE 1103 receiver with telescopic antenna. He wrote: “On Monday, September 16, between 17:00 and 17:28 UTC on 9625 khz, your signal was pretty good with a SINPO rating of 54544. There was slight interference from China 5 khz below your carrier.”

B: He continued to listen to VOV’s English program the following day. He wrote that between 19:00 and 19:30 UTC on 7280 khz, the signal was good with moderate noise and fading but it was still hearable with SINPO at 35333. Gianluca said: “I found your program very interesting. I really appreciate the opportunity to listen to a different voice from the occidental media.”

A: Thank you very much for spending on VOV. We have reported your technical remarks to our technicians.

B: This week we got letters from Anders Brissman, Christer Carnegren, Burje Sattcew, and Rolf Johansson who are members of the Tibro DX Club of the Swedish DX Federation. Christer said Tibor is a small place in Västra Götaland County in western Sweden. All of them listened to VOV’s English program on September 13^th on 9625 khz. They are of different ages and professions, but share the same hobby of Dx’ing. Anders is a 56-year-old furniture carpenter. Burje is 66 years old. He is a freelance journalist. Besides DX’ing, he likes music, nature, and foreign countries.

A: It’s fantastic to hear about the Tibro DX Club. We hope you will introduce our station to more of your members. From the United Arab Emirate, Muneer Kaitha Parambath emailed us a reception report for our program on September 26^th on 9730 khz. He also attached an audio clip of the program to make it easier for us to verify his reception and check the signal quality. Muneer wrote: “I have listened to VOV several times a week. Here in the Middle East country of UAE, I have good reception of VOV broadcasts. Your news and features provide me a better knowledge of Vietnam and the region. Thanks for a nice broadcast. But I hardly ever fail to catch a morning broadcast at 12005 khz. Anyway, I enjoy your transmission whenever I catch it.”

B: Thank you, Muneer, for spending time on our channel and for the short audio clip of our program. It’s our pleasure to send you a QSL card and we hope you’ll receive it soon. As usual, Mr. Fumito Hokamura of Japan sent us several reports for programs in September. They tallied with our station log so we’ll confirm them with QSL cards. Fumito was interested in news about the Vietnam-Japan relationship, Vietnam’s folk and pop songs, and rice cultivation in Vietnam.

Terraced rice field in Ha Giang province

A: Vietnam has a primarily rice-based agricultural economy. Most of the rice in Vietnam is grown in two rich deltas – the Red River delta in the north and the Mekong River delta in the south. Another smaller rice region is the northern highlands which are famous for upland rice varieties grown in terraced fields. This region accounts for about 8 percent of the total rice grown in Vietnam. Vietnam is one of the world's richest agricultural regions and is the world’s second-largest rice exporter, after Thailand, and the world's seventh-largest consumer of rice.

B: The Mekong Delta is the rice hub, where water, boats, houses, and markets coexist to produce a bountiful rice harvest. The Mekong River and its tributaries are crucial to rice production in Vietnam. 12 provinces in the Mekong Delta, popularly known as the "Rice Bowl" of Vietnam, contain some 17 million people and 80% of them are engaged in rice cultivation. The delta produces about half of Vietnam’s total rice production.

Bountiful rice harvest in Can Tho province

A: Within the delta system dominated by rice, farming also includes aquaculture, animal husbandry, and fruit trees. Fresh and salt water shrimp are raised in the paddy rice fields. Mangrove forests are also cultivated in the delta.

B: Rice is a staple of daily meals in Vietnam and is seen as a "gift from God". In Vietnam, to say “eating rice” means “having a meal”. If rice is not eaten then what is eaten is not a meal but merely a snack. There are many foods made from rice including several kinds of noodles and rice cakes made with green bean, pork, and egg stuffing.

A: That’s some information about rice cultivation and rice consumption in Vietnam. Here’s a letter from Ashik Eqbal Tokon of Bangladesh, who said that after listening to some of our programs, he came to know about traditional Vietnamese musical instruments including the two-string fiddle and four-string guitar. Ashik wrote: “We, Bangladeshi, also have the same types of instrument. The two-string instrument is called a Dwo Tara and an Ek Tara is a one-string instrument.” He asked us to talk more about Vietnam’s traditional instruments.

Three most popular traditional Vietnamese musical instruments

B: Vietnam has a rich and diverse treasury of hundreds of varieties of instruments. Many of them are unique to local ethnic groups, and others were imported from other countries and localized to match Vietnam’s musical tastes. There are about 20 very popular ones such as the 4-string guitar, 16-string zither, 36-string zither, 3-string lute, the T’rung, the rice drum, and the Gong.

A: Last but not least on VOV’s Letter Box, we want to acknowledge letters from Norizumi Taguchi of Japan, Allen Fenix and Clark Neider of the US, Faisal Ahmed and Sahadot Hossain of Bangladesh, Eddy Setiawan of Indonesia, Richard Lemke of Canada, Martin Boek of Czech Republic, and David Ansell of England.

A: Thank you all for spending time with VOV and for writing to us. We’ll verify your reports soon. Before we go, we would like to inform you that due to technical upgrading, we will temporarily suspend our broadcasts on the frequencies of 12020 khz and 9840 khz between 7am and 6pm from October 2nd to October 12th, 2013. During this period, our programs will be redirected to the frequency of 7220khz at 3:30 to 4:30, 18:30 to 19:00, 20:30 to 21:00, and 23:00 to 23:30. We are sorry for this inconvenience. Everything will get back to normal on October 13th, 2013.

We welcome your feedback at: English section, Overseas Service, Radio Voice of Vietnam, 45 Ba Trieu Street, Hanoi, Vietnam. Or you can email us at: englishsection@vov.org.vn. You’re invited to visit us online at www.vovworld.vn, where you can hear both live and recorded programs. Good bye from Hanoi.