Yours truly has always been amazed by historic Radio Afghanistan QSL cards you can see in many galleries, like the one pictured here. I don't exactely know when shortwaves went off in Kabul, as I probably was in hiatus as a BCL. The QIP pages show that in 2002 a DXer received a confirmation, but its content highlighted a hard situation in the Country, with the 4774 kHz tx destroyed in the war, and a 18940 kHz transmission "over one of the helper". If the growth of Democracy in a State can be measured also through the availability of media, we can't but salute the return to HF of Radio and Television Afghanistan. The new service kicked off on 30th July 2011. So far, it's made of one hour of transmissions (15.30 – 16.30 UTC, being 8 – 9pm in Kabul) on 6100 kHz (but the exact tx frequency has been measured as 6102), in Urdu and English languages. The plans, according to a statement by the Ministry of Infomation, who attended the inauguration of the new International Service, are to add in the future "Arabic and Russian programs and subsequently French and German programs". In the words of Mr. Abdul Ghani Mudaqaq, head of the publications department of Radio Afghanistan, the restored transmission should cover "Asia, Africa and Europe regions". The location of the transmitter is actually unknown, as well as its power, but yesterday, at the due time, I managed to hear something here in Northern Italy, on 6102 kHz. Even without being a superpower (for the records, I was using the "Pappradio" SDR, along with the 10 meters vertical antenna), it's a promising (re)start.
 

The first clip on the left (headphones capital, due to the signal struggling with noise, and thanks to Alessandro Groppazzi for the assist in checking the files content) starts at 16.16 UTC. After a male talk in Urdu, you've got a slow classic Afghan song. This music already amazed me when Radio Solh was on 6700 kHz (but that one was tough to get, here!), for its relaxing power, and I hope the new broadcasts will offer the chance to hear it more and more. After the track, a male talks again, and at 6.22 in the recording there is what sounds like an ID of "Radio Afghanistan". The second clip (on the right) kicks in at 16.24 UTC, when another song was on, followed by a short female talk in Urdu. Then the carrier went off the waterfall. A bit abrupt for a sign off, but it doesn't matter. Welcome back, Kabul. Radio brings hope, and you need (and deserve) it!

73,
Chris