DX LISTENING DIGEST 10-15, April 15, 2010 Incorporating REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTING edited by Glenn Hauser, http://www.worldofradio.com Items from DXLD may be reproduced and re-reproduced only if full credit be maintained at all stages and we be provided exchange copies. DXLD may not be reposted in its entirety without permission. Materials taken from Arctic or originating from Olle Alm and not having a commercial copyright are exempt from all restrictions of noncommercial, noncopyrighted reusage except for full credits For restrixions and searchable 2010 contents archive see http://www.worldofradio.com/dxldmid.html NOTE: If you are a regular reader of DXLD, and a source of DX news but have not been sending it directly to us, please consider yourself obligated to do so. Thanks, Glenn SHORTWAVE AIRINGS OF WORLD OF RADIO 1508, April 15-21, 2010 Thu 1900 WBCQ 7415 9330-CUSB? [for 2 minutes anyway] Thu 2100 WRMI 9955 Fri 0030 WRMI 9955 Fri 0330 WWRB 3185 Fri 1430 WRMI 9955 Fri 2030 WWCR1 15825 Sat 0800 WRMI 9955 Sat 0800 IPAR/IRRS/NEXUS/IBA 9515 [second, fourth, fifth Saturdays, maybe] Sat 1330 WRMI 9955 Sat 1630 WWCR2 12160 Sat 1800 IPAR/IRRS/NEXUS/IBA 7290 Sat 1900 WRMI 9955 Sun 0230 WWCR3 4840 Sun 0630 WWCR1 3215 Sun 0800 WRMI 9955 Sun 1515 WRMI 9955 Sun 1900 WRMI 9955 Sun 2330 WWCR4 9980 Mon 0330 WWCR4 5890 Tue 1530 WRMI 9955 Tue 1900 WBCQ 7415 9330-CUSB? Tue 2230 WRMI 9955 Wed 0030 WRMI 9955 Wed 1530 WRMI 9955 Wed 1900 WBCQ 7415 9330-CUSB? Latest edition of this schedule version, including AM, FM, satellite and webcasts with hotlinks to station sites and audio, is at: http://www.worldofradio.com/radioskd.html or http://schedule.worldofradio.org or http://sked.worldofradio.org For updates see our Anomaly Alert page: http://www.worldofradio.com/anomaly.html WRN ON DEMAND: http://193.42.152.193/listeners/stations/station.php?StationID=24 WORLD OF RADIO PODCASTS VIA WRN: http://www.wrn.org/wrn-listeners/world-of-radio/ http://www.wrn.org/listeners/world-of-radio/rss/08:00:00UTC/English/541 OUR ONDEMAND AUDIO: http://www.worldofradio.com/audiomid.html or http://wor.worldofradio.org ** ANGUILLA. Caribbean Beacon, the ID never heard on the air, missing from 6090, April 13 at 0615, instead NIGERIA, q.v.; and also missing from day frequency 11775 at 1319 and 1409 chex (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ANTARCTICA. ANTÁRTIDA, 15476, LRA 36 Radio Nacional Arcángel San Gabriel, Base Esperanza, 1200-1235, 09-04, lunes 5 y miércoles 7 se notaba la portadora de este emisora a partir de las 1200 en 15476.0, hoy se logra separar, en LSB, algún comentario por locutora y canciones. Señal extremadamente débil. 15321. Martes 6 y Jueves 8 no se escuchaba la portadora a las 1200, por lo que hay que deducir que los días de transmisión, anunciados por la emisora: lunes, miércoles y viernes, entre 1200 y 1500 son correctos (Manuel Méndez, Lugo, España, Escuchas realizadas en casco urbano de Lugo, Grundig Satellit 500 y Sony ICF SW7600G, Antena de cable, 8 metros, WORLD OF RADIO 1508, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 15476.000, LRA-36, 1202, tentative. Only a weak carrier here, detectable in LSB (to escape China on 15480), but sadly, no audio getting through. Hopefully this is a sign of better conditions to come; didn't even have a carrier on prior attempts. 7 April (David Sharp, NSW Australia. FT-950, NRD-535D, R8, ICF-2010, ICF-SW7600GR, dxldyg via WORLD OF RADIO 1508, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ANTARCTICA [and non]. I'm just back from a (fantastic) trip to Antarctica. Unfortunately, there was absolutely and completely no radio reception on board the ship. The ship, ice-strengthened and built as a Russian science vessel, blocked out all signals. We were anchored for a while in the harbour at Port Stanley in the Falklands, and even there I could not pick up anything. When I held the radio up to the window, a signal could then just about be made out. All cruise itineraries in Antarctic are subject to constant change owing to weather conditions. Although not announced before-hand, we discovered on-board that we were scheduled to visit Hope Bay and hopefully land at the Argentinian research base - Esperanza! I decided that at the very least when we got there that I would go on deck (in my thermals, two fleeces, wet weather coat, hat and two pairs of gloves) and attempt to listen to LRA36. It wasn't too be! We encountered pack ice on the way, and the Captain was unable to find a way through, so we ended up taking a completely different route and I didn't make it to Esperanza. As a result, I only have a few radio recordings from Buenos Aires and from Ushuaia, and I'll put these on the Audio Circle very soon. I did however have an absolutely fantastic trip, and enjoyed getting up close to penguins and whales and icebergs and just seeing some amazing scenery, as well as visiting Shackleton's grave at Grytviken on South Georgia (Alan Roe, UK, April BDXC-UK Communication via DXLD) ** ARGENTINA. 15345.28v, 5/4 2057, Radio Argentina al Exterior, announcements in several languages, weak (Giampiero Bernardini, Milano, Italia, RX: Perseus, AOR 7030, Eton G3, ANT: Wellbrook LFL 1010, T2FD, QTH: Bocca di Magra (La Spezia) & Milano, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) 15345.35, 1855'55-1905, RAE, Buenos Aires, 09/04, interval signals with IDs in various languages as "RAE Argentina", time signals, opening music theme with IDs in S, F, E, G, P, I, A, J, then in Italian with OM ID and YL news headlines - fair-good (Mikhail Timofeyev, DXpedition near St. Petersburg, Russia, Icom R75, some directional antennas, HCDX via DXLD) No Morocco? ** AUSTRALIA. Re 10-14, RA/CVC, >> RA may also be getting a 300 kW transmitter, DRM-capable, and some new antennas to serve Africa << --- Really? For more than 15 years their only target area is Asia. Do they indeed have plans to (re)start services for Africa, or has the source just speculated about a possible use of this equipment? And the Shepparton transmitter site is owned and operated by Broadcast Australia, I understand that the ABC just leases it, or will some interesting deals be struck? And what will become of the other modern Thomson transmitters? (Kai Ludwig, Germany, April 9, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Of course it perfectly makes sense to simply save the transmitters from the Cox peninsula site first, put them on storage and this way keep them available for possible later projects. Likewise the Gloria (IBB site in Portugal) transmitters have first been put on storage in Spain and Greece, the Flevoland (Netherlands) transmitters have been taken away by Media Broadcast for possible later use in Germany etc. So indeed Broadcast Australia appears to be the driving force behind this story, as would be expected. In theory they could also have possible other customers in mind, like the Japanese broadcasts to North Korea that went out via the Cox site, so all this can well be explained within the broadcasting environment (Kai Ludwig, Germany, April 11, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** AUSTRIA. ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST --- BY ANDREW TETT The Detonation of the Wien-Bisamberg MW Transmitter in Austria (This article was inspired by a thread featured in the German DX Magazine Reflexion) Among those "Cold War" buzz-words and phrases that entered our consciousness during the 1980s, Russian words like "glasnost" (openness and freedom) "perestroika" (economic restructuring) and the French word "detente" (relaxation of tensions), the one that seems strangely to have been quietly forgotten is "The Peace Dividend." This was the basic premise that all the money that used to be spent defending us from our enemies could be spent on more fruitful, peaceful activity. I doubt if any of us DXers who heard these three words bandied about at that time realised the effects that "the benefits of peace" would have on our hobby. For a start, the changed relations between nation states meant that some external service operations were no longer seen as important as they once were. Countries that kept their people informed by way of state-run monopoly broadcasters also suddenly started embracing “free market reforms” and their citizens could get relatively reliable sources of information from their local radio stations at last. Maintaining a network of power-hungry transmitters for the broadcast of crossborder information or propaganda (depending on which side of the Iron Curtain you were) became seen as unnecessary. Just one of those trusted cross-border sources of information in Europe during the period of the Cold War was the ÖRF – Österreicher Rundfunk. Its German language transmissions could be understood by millions of people across Eastern Europe. The main domestic transmitter in Austria was sited just outside Vienna at a place called Bisamberg. For Austria, with its well-developed FM network, the broadcasting of a 600 kW AM signal from this site was an obvious potential contribution to their own Peace Dividend. Bisamberg started its life as Austria's largest transmitter in May 1933. With 100 kW radiated from two masts, its first twelve years of service continued through the war until retreating Nazi SS Troops decided to destroy their "Reichssender" Linz (at that time on 1267 kHz) and felled the masts - for the first time. American troops seeing its importance to the region rebuilt the station however, and in 1950 transmissions resumed once again from the site. By 1959, with two new masts the transmitter was able to radiate an output power of 120 kW. There are tales during this period of people living near the transmitter powering small house lights with the signal that they received from the transmitter. This situation soon caused a change in the law to make such power theft [sic] illegal. In 1975 the transmission power level had risen to a heady 600 kW. Two services were broadcast from the site - the Domestic Service Programme 1 on 584 kHz (585 kHz after November 1978) from the larger Northern Mast and Österreich Regional on 1475 (1476 kHz) from the Southern one. Bisamberg’s time as one of the biggest transmitters in Europe however came to an end in 1995 when Austrian Radio decided to silence it. In a brief burst of enthusiasm and providing a ray of hope for the site, ÖRF thought again and brought the transmitter into service in 1997 for its swansong. “ÖRFRadio 1476” was born with an evening service consisting of its Domestic Service 1, the External Service of Radio Austria and the odd transmission for other broadcasters. During NATO’s war with Serbia the transmitter played its part in the war effort with broadcasts of a service called “Nachbar in Not” (“Neighbour in Need”), even broadcasting Belgrade's infamous independent radio station "B92" at one point. It did all this with the relatively low power of 60 kW. Once this war was over the transmitter reverted back to serving a mainly domestic audience once again and at the end of 2008 was silenced for good. It was kept serviced and ready for action for a while, but the costs of keeping the masts up to scratch and ready for action were seen as too much and the decision was taken to fell the masts - for the second time – on 28 February 2010. The masts were detonated separately, first the taller one and then its smaller brother fell to the ground as explosions broke up the masts where they stood and caused them to bow down to the ground. The site still has a media life. The building, which has preservation order on it serves as a Data Centre for Internet company Google. With good electrical power availability, plenty of water for cooling equipment and good flood protection, Bisamberg was seen as a good place to base a secure server centre (April BDXC-UK Communication via editor Chrissy Brand, DXLD) ** AZERBAIJAN. 9677.5, 0502-0510, R. Nagorny Karabakh, Stepanakert, 10/04, Azeri YL talk with some mentions of Karabakh - extremely strong with usual poorly modulated signal and slight transmitter hum (Mikhail Timofeyev, DXpedition near St. Petersburg, Russia, Icom R75, some directional antennas, HCDX via WORLD OF RADIO 1508, DXLD) ** AZERBAIJAN [non?]. Armenia / Azerbaijan, Golos Spravedlivosti (Voice of Validity), Stepanarket, Nagorny Karabakh: 1300-1330 Tue, Fri 1500-0530 Wed, Sat [means 0500-0530? half hour like the other? gh] ~ 9678 kHz (Rumen Pankov, Bulgaria / "open_dx" via RusDX April 11 via WORLD OF RADIO 1508, DXLD) ** BHUTAN. 6035, BBS (presumed), 1245-1300, April 14. Two stations mixing together; one clearly was PBS Yunnan/Voice of Shangri-La in Vietnamese; so I presume the other was BBS; in vernacular with indigenous singing/chanting. Being able to positively ID Yunnan as one of the stations here makes me even more confident that I am indeed hearing BBS. Audio attachment (Ron Howard, Asilomar Beach, CA, Etón E1, dxldyg via WORLD OF RADIO 1508, DX LISTENING DIGEST) see CHINA ** BOLIVIA. 3310, 0110-0120 13.04, R Mosoj Chaski, Cotapachi, Quechoa ann and Andean songs. Best heard in USB. The usual strong utility QRM was off this night, 24222 (Anker Petersen, from Skovlunde, Denmark received on my AOR AR7030PLUS with 28 metres of longwire, via Dario Monferini, playdx yg via DXLD) ** BOLIVIA. 4699.95, Radio San Miguel, 0950-1005 April 11, With a very weak signal, noted steady instrumental music. At 0957 a female comments in Spanish. Very difficult to glean any details since the signal is threshold. At 0959 signal suddenly improves and a canned ID is heard as "Radio San Miguel ..." from a female and male. News followed presented by a male (Chuck Bolland, Clewiston FL, WinRadio G305e/pd, 26.37N 081.05w, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** BOLIVIA. 4716.249, Radio Yura, 1016, Spanish, weak with local music, best in LSB with utility high side. Only Bolivian noted on 60- meters tonight. 4 April (David Sharp, NSW Australia. FT-950, NRD-535D, R8, ICF-2010, ICF-SW7600GR, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** BOLIVIA. Pio XII is audible right now in Germany on 5952.46 kHz (11 April, 0150 UT), weak but not bad for a Bolivian station (listening in USB to avoid 5950). 73, (Eike Bierwirth, Leipzig, Germany, JRC NRD-525 with PA0RDT Mini-Whip, HCDX via DXLD) ** BOLIVIA. 6134.83, 0018-0023, R. Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, 10/04, Spanish, OM talk and YL with mention of "...Santa Cruz, la Radio...", Andean music and folk song - fair-good with weak station in the background (Brasil?) (Mikhail Timofeyev, DXpedition near St. Petersburg, Russia, Icom R75, some directional antennas, HCDX via DXLD) 6134.82, Radio Santa Cruz, 1000-1010, April 10, Bolivian music. Spanish ID announcement at 1005. Promos. Announcements. Good signal (Brian Alexander, PA, DX Listening Digest) 6134.81, 12/4 2312, Radio Santa Cruz, songs, nice signal in Milan after long time, in LSB to avoid Radio Aparecida (Giampiero Bernardini, Milano, Italia, RX: Drake R8 - ANT: T2FD, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** BOLIVIA. 6155.36 12/4 2324 Radio Fides (tent), Bolivia, talks, fading, low modulation, poor (Giampiero Bernardini, Milano, Italia, RX: Drake R8 - ANT: T2FD, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) 6155.33, Radio Fides, 1010-1020 April 13, Noted a very faint signal here of a male in Spanish Language comments. Sometimes a female comments too. Tried for a better result with both the WR G305e and WJ HF1000 and both failed to produce much more than a faint signal, although the display from the WR was very much better showing Fides' signal well, even though there wasn't much audio. By the way, there was a stronger signal on 6155 producing a het with Fides (Chuck Bolland, Clewiston FL, WinRadio G305e/pd, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** BRAZIL. Confirmação Rádio Alvorada --- Amigos Dxistas, Recebi hoje um e-mail confirmando uma escuta da Rádio Alvorada, de Londrina/PR. Foi uma resposta a uma carta enviada em 5/abril, contendo um informe de recepção que relatava uma escuta de 1/abril/2010 na frequência de 4865 kHz. O QTH usado foi: Rádio Alvorada - Rua Dom Bosco, 145 --- Jardim Dom Bosco, Londrina/PR - 86060-340. O teor do e-mail é o seguinte: "Bom Dia Fabrício!! ! Suas Informações na carta estão corretas é da Rádio Alvorada de Londrina. Obrigada, Att. Miriam Tureta -- Radio Alvorada AM 3347-0606 Londrina Pr. radio.alvorada.am970 @gmail.com " Respondi o e-mail agradecendo e solicitando que a confirmação me seja enviada por correio, fazendo uso do SASE que eu enviei para a emissora. 73 (Fabricio Andrade Silva, Tubarão - SC, radioescutas yg via DXLD) ** BRAZIL. 4975, 08/04 0256, BRASIL, R Iguatemi, PP. Mx romântica. Às 0258 UT YL anúncia ID, e logo após mx romântica em francês. As 0302 UT vinheta de identificação “mais alegria no ar. Rádio Iguatemi”. 24332 (Jorge Freitas-B) [WORLD OF RADIO 1508] [Iguatemi shown as inactive* in WRTH 2010 --- gh] 4935, 08/04 0304, BRASIL, R Cabixaba, PP. “Clamor dramático” do pastor David Miranda. 34333 10000, 08/04 0343, BRASIL, Observatório Nacional, time signal. De volta, com boa modulação. 33433 (Jorge Freitas, Feira de Santana Bahia, Brasil, April 8, condiglist yg via DXLD) ** BRAZIL. Amigos, Há alguns dias venho escutando uma transmissão em 5015.20, emissora Brasileira. Em alguns momentos até se distingue alguma coisa apesar do fraco sinal e constante desvanecimento. O sinal está presente práticamente durante toda a noite. Suspeitei de uma possível reativação da Rádio Pioneira de Teresina-PI, acreditando em algo oficial de fato nesta frequencia; no entanto a própria emissora me informou que não retornou ao ar. Alguém ouviu ou sabe de alguma coisa? 73 (Samuel Cássio Martins, São Carlos SP, April 6, radioescutas yg via WORLD OF RADIO 1508, DXLD) Samuel, A QRG de 5015 kHz é também da Rádio Brasil Tropical de Cuiabá MT. Não seria essa emissora? Vou pesquisar essa frequência com mais atenção, pois já escutei algo por ali. 73 (Luiz Chaine Neto, Limeira sp, 7-4-2010, ibid.) Samuel e demais amigos, Sim é Cuiabá, R. Brasil Tropical, retransmitindo R. Cultura 710 OM. Neste exato momento musica de boa qualidade. Forte 73, (Itamar Nunes - PY9001SWL, PU9TRT, 78005-970 Cuiabá - MT, Qua, 7 de Abr de 2010 10:33 pm, ibid.) Obrigado Itamar, Luiz e demais amigos, Então a emissora reativou esta frequencia, há muito tempo não era ouvida, o sinal é bastante fraco por aqui. Grande abraço (Samuel Cássio, São Carlos SP, ibid.) ** BRAZIL. 5044.98, Radio Cultura do Para, Belém, 0805-0820, April 9, lively Brazilian music. Portuguese ID announcements at 0817. Good (Brian Alexander, PA, DX Listening Digest) Were RHC on 5040 and WWRB on 5050 at that hour? (gh, DXLD) ** BRAZIL. 49 metros da Bandeirantes-6090 kHz- está interferindo As ondas curtas da Rádio Bandeirantes, 6090 kHz, 49 metros, está interferindo nas frequências de 5990 kHz (Rádio Senado) e 6185 kHz (Rádio Nacional de Brasília ou da Amazônia) além de harmônicos [sic] espalhados pela faixa. Isso já faz algum tempo. Enviei e-mail para a Band notificando o que ocorre. 73 (Luiz Chaine Neto, Limeira sp, April 8, radioescutas yg via DXLD) So apparently putting out spurs plus and minus 95-100 kHz, probably somewhere in between or blobby. Those are NOT harmonix (gh, DXLD) ** BRAZIL. 6135.08, 12/4 2320, Rádio Aparecida, religious talks, in USB to avoid Santa Cruz, weak (Giampiero Bernardini, Milano, Italia, RX: Drake R8 - ANT: T2FD, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** BRAZIL. 9665.11, Radio Voz Missionária, Florianópolis, 0120-0140, April 10, Portuguese preacher. Contemporary Portuguese religious music. Weak in noisy conditions. // 11749.89 - very weak. // 5939.97 - fair level but noisy conditions (Brian Alexander, PA, DX Listening Digest) ** BRAZIL. BRASIL, 9818.9, Radio 9 de Julho, Sao Paulo, 0703-0718, 09- 04, portugués, programa religioso, comentarios, canciones, clara identificación a las 0704: "4 horas 6 minutos, Radio 9 de Julho". 24322 (Manuel Méndez, Lugo, España, Escuchas realizadas en casco urbano de Lugo, Grundig Satellit 500 y Sony ICF SW7600G, Antena de cable, 8 metros, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 9818.74, 2215-2220, 0402-, R. 9 de Julho, São Paulo, 09-10/04, Portuguese, OM/YL talk with short musical pause, also at 0402 with OM religious talk - poor with CNR on 9820.0, but fair at 0402 (Mikhail Timofeyev, DXpedition near St. Petersburg, Russia, Icom R75, some directional antennas, HCDX via DXLD) ** BRAZIL. 10000, 8/4 2205, Observatório Nacional, Brazil, usual pips and IDs, again after some days of bad propagation. Fair (Giampiero Bernardini, Milano, Italia, RX: Perseus, AOR 7030, Eton G3, ANT: Wellbrook LFL 1010, T2FD, QTH: Bocca di Magra (La Spezia) & Milano, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) 11735: see UNIDENTIFIED ** BRAZIL. 11765, Super Radio Deus é Amor, Curitiba PR, 0100-0115, April 10, Portuguese religious talk. ID at 0102. Announcements. Promos. Contemporary Portuguese religious music. Emotional preacher at 0108. Poor to fair with adjacent channel splatter. // 6060 - weak under Cuba (Brian Alexander, PA, DX Listening Digest) ** BULGARIA. On March 24, 2010 the Director General of Bulgarian National Radio, Valery Todorov briefed members of the parliamentary committee on culture media and civil society with a piece of anti- crisis measures taken media. The main emphasis was freezing part of broadcasting in the range of average waves in areas where there is acceptance that the quality of the FM band. Thanks to the leadership of measures announced BNR expects to save about seven million of the budget of the media. Valery Todorov said he hoped that after the changes people will not experience discomfort. The amended announced measures to optimize the power transmission network and the expansion of broadcasting in the VHF range, on 6 April BNR stopped most of its medium wave transmitters. Only three of the stations will be fully closed (Suvorovo Haskovo and Dobrich), otherwise it was announced that shall be suspended and will be preserved. Possible subsequent use of these stations for digital broadcasting. List of excluded transmitters: Program "Horizon" Suvorovo - 1485 kHz (closed completely) Dobrich - 1584 kHz (closed completely) Pirin 1 to 963 kHz Varna 2 to 1143 kHz Sofia 4 to 963 kHz Pleven 1 to 594 kHz Stara Zagora 1 to 1161 kHz Program "Hristo Botev" Haskovo - 1485 kHz (closed completely) Pleven 2 to 1296 kHz Pirin 2 to 702 kHz Sofia 2 to 828 kHz Shumen 1 to 828 kHz Vidin 2 to 576 kHz Regional radio stations Radio Plovdiv - 648 kHz Radio Stara Zagora - 873 kHz Radio Varna - 774 kHz Radio Varna - 9300 kHz (rather 6000 kHz the "Hi Sea!" Of the Bulgarian sailors) Radio Shumen - 963 kHz Will continue to operate transmitters in Dulovo, Kardjali, Malko Tarnovo, Samuel, Targovishte, Shumen and Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria Radio stations abroad - 747 kHz and 1224 kHz Petrich Vidin. Saving the only transmitter in Bulgaria in the range of long waves - Vakarel 261 kHz. (Bulgarian Predavatel website (Google translation) Apr 6) 261 kHz, Sofia Vakarel 60 kW longwave site, started by Telefunken in Nov 1937. Photo of tall 196 meters mast, Blaw-Knox design like Koenigsberg Heilsberg/after WWII at Latvia, Lakihegy Hungary, Melnik CSSR, Donau Alpenland Danube Reichspost/after WWII Brno at Dobrochov CSSR etc. 42 34 27.65 N 23 42 01.08 E Three antenna masts around, also MW masts of MW 1161 kHz 40 kW and 774 kHz, 40 kW at 42 34 35.14 N 23 41 55.52 E and 42 34 30.29 N 23 42 15.90 E see and more via Predavatel website Transmitter antenna of this type Blaw-Knox, is a real technical marvel for its time. It has a diamond shape, is 215 meters high and weighs 130 tons, and is reinforced with four iron buckle. Of this type in Bulgaria has one antenna - Stara Zagora - also built in 1936, but the Hungarian company Standard. In Europe they are only two such antennas - one in England and Hungary. Malko Tarnovo Chereskama MW site 963 kHz 112m mast, 1st px 42 00 11.53 N 27 32 19.55 E Varna Suvorovo 747 kHz 5 kW 112 m height mast - 1485 kHz closed. Horizon program from 1990 to 2010. 43 19 05.74 N 27 38 41.06 E Dulovo formerly 594, 1161, and 1584 kHz 10 kW 110m mast, closed now, tentat at 43 47 58.83 N 27 07 19.63 E Progr "Hristo Botev" Haskovo - MW 1485 kHz (closed completely) 41 52 31.07 N 25 33 02.41 E The transmitter is located six kilometers south of the city, near the village Voyvodovo and released in 1995, altitude (terrain elevation): 200 m, antenna height: 110 m. On April 6, 2010, in order to optimize costs, BNR stops most of the transmitters on medium wave, including CBA and Haskovo click to translate English (Wolfgang Büschel, wwdxc BC-DX TopNews April 8 via DXLD) ** BULGARIA. Final info: Bulgarian National Radio reduced the transmission of Medium wave. From 6 April BNR stopped most of its medium wave transmitters as follows: 1st px "Horizont" HS-1: Pleven 1 594 PLV 250 kW 0300-2100 HS-1 Pirin 1^ 963 PIR 040 kW 0000-2400 HS-1 Varna 2 1143 VRN 040 kW 0000-2400 HS-1 St.Zagora 1 1161 STZ 300 kW 0300-2100 HS-1 Suvorovo 1485 SUV 005 kW 0000-2400 HS-1 Dobrich 1584 DOB 010 kW 0000-2400 HS-1 ^ near Kresna 2nd px "Hristo Botev" HS-2: Vidin 2 576 VDN 300 kW 0300-2100 HS-2 Pirin 2$ 702 PIR 040 kW 0000-2400 HS-2 Sofia 2@ 828 SOF 050 kW 0200-2400 HS-2 Shumen 1 828 SHM 300 kW 0300-2100 HS-2 Pleven 2 1296 PLV 030 kW 0200-2400 HS-2 Haskovo 1485 HAS 003 kW 0000-2400 HS-2 $ near Kresna @ near Stolnik Regional stations REG: Plovdiv 1# 648 PLD 030 kW 0000-2400 REG Radio Plovdiv+HS-2 Varna 1 774 VRN 075 kW 0300-0100 REG Radio Varna St.Zagora 2 873 STZ 060 kW 0200-2400 REG Radio St.Zagora+HS-2 Shumen 2 963 SHM 075 kW 0200-2400 REG Radio Shumen+HS-1 Varna 3 6000 VRN 100 kW 2100-0300 REG Radio Varna "Hello,Sea" Sun-Mon # near Stomboliyski Will continue to operate the following transmitters in: Sofia 5 LW& 261 SOF 075 kW 0000-2400 HS-1+Parliamentary Channel on Friday Petrich 747 PET 300 kW 0300-2200 HS-1+Radio Bulgaria External Service Salmanovo 747 SLM 010 kW 0000-2400 HS-1+Radio Bulgaria Turkish Minority Blagoevgrad 864 BLD 150 kW 0300-2100 REG Radio Blagoevgrad Local service Samuil 864 SML 010 kW 0000-2400 HS-1+Radio Bulgaria Turkish Minority Sofia 4* 963 SOF 040 kW 0000-2400 HS-1, reactivated from Apr. 9, 1300 UT Kardjali 2 963 KRL 050 kW 0200-2400 HS-1+Radio Bulgaria Turkish Minority M.Tarnovo 963 MTN 005 kW 0000-2400 HS-1 Doulovo 1161 DLV 010 kW 0000-2400 HS-1+Radio Bulgaria Turkish Minority Targovishte 1161 TRG 010 kW 0000-2400 HS-1+Radio Bulgaria Turkish Minority Vidin 1 1224 VDN 300 kW 0300-2200 HS-1+Radio Bulgaria External Service Kardjali 1 1296 KRL 150 kW 0300-2100 HS-2 & near Vakarel, long waves * near Dragoman (Ivo Ivanov, Bulgaria, April 12, with a little correxion April 13, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CANADA. Re 10-14, April 8: 9650, KBS World Radio due a further refund from RCI, April 10 at 1454-1459* once again playing RCI IS, French and English ID loop instead of lost Korean service as scheduled 14-15. I believe I had heard Korean normally sometime earlier in the hour as I tuned past. 650, KBSWR relay hour in Korean via Sackville, once again replaced by RCI IS and ID loop in French and English, April 14 at 1434. I suspect another instance of lack of communication among Seoul, Montreal and Sackville, no one paying attention or taking responsibility for punching the right buttons, so who cares? (Glenn Hauser, OK, WORLD OF RADIO 1508, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CANADA [and non]. 7325, RCI Spanish service giving postal address, mixing about equally with CRI in Japanese, also aimed USward, April 13 at 1243. This is an old story, same thing happening all last summer, as RCI doggedly keeps using this frequency, which is increasingly useless the further west from its official target of the NE quadrant of the conterminous USA, 277 degrees from Sackville. After this A-10 reminder, I promise not to keep reporting it, as RCI obviously does not consider it a problem and the audience would be minuscule even if it were QRM-free. The collision applies to the entire trihour from 1105 to 1405 in Arabic, Spanish, Chinese, as CRI Japanese service runs 1000-1357, 500 kW, 59 degrees from Jinhua-Youbu #831 transmitter site, per Aoki. AIR Mumbai has apparently thought better of adding to the clash after 1230 (Glenn Hauser, OK, WORLD OF RADIO 1508, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CANADA. RCI A-10 English includes: 2000-2100 Daily Af 15235 17735 Sackville --- Interesting to see an additional transmission to Africa which may propagate to Europe. Note also an additional broadcast to Europe in English on Saturdays only at 1800 via Sweden on 5850. This will contain the Maple Leaf Mailbag which is usually aired on Sundays to other target areas. On other days this broadcast to Europe will be in French (Dave Kenny, DX News, April BDXC-UK Communication via DXLD) ** CHAD. 6165, RNT, 2210-2230*, April 9, French talk. EZ listening vocals. Sign off with National Anthem at 2229. Fair. 6165, RNT, 2210-2231:30*, April 11, French talk, African hi-life music. Sign off with National Anthem. Fair (Brian Alexander, PA, DX Listening Digest) 6165, RNT, N'Djamena, 2219-2238, April 10, French. News & reports at tune/in; pop ballads at 2224; announcer at 2229 with passing mention of N'Djamena; lite pops with announcer between selections; fair-good (Scott R. Barbour Jr. Intervale, N.H. USA, NRD-545, MLB1, 200' Beverages, 60m dipole, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CHINA. The latest ITU GE75 edition contains a large amount of Chinese [MW] assignments. http://www.itu.int/ITU-R/publications/brific-ter/files/ge75/2010/GE75_124.pdf My first impression is that it is more like an April 1st contribution, but maybe Alan can provide a more professional judgement (Olle Alm, Sweden, April 11, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Hi Olle, Many thanks for pointing that out. My first impression is that the Chinese must be updating registrations for transmitters near borders with other ITU administrations (including Hong Kong), and that many of the frequencies and powers listed actually look fairly credible and agree both with observations and with data in various Chinese sources. The Shuangyashan 200 kW registration on 1323 kHz is official confirmation that one of the CRI outlets on that channel is ex-1476 kHz. I'll try to take another look later. Best regards, (Alan Davies, Asia, ibid.) ** CHINA. 4800 definitely in Chinese, April 13 at 1234, interfering with CODAR, which is CNR1, 100 kW non-direxional from Geermu per Aoki, nothing from AIR Hyderabad audible (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CHINA. 4940, Voice of Strait, 1500, April 11. “Focus on China” program; news items about China (on Thursday the Intermediate People's Court of Nanping City sentenced to death the murderer of 8 school children, etc.). 5050, China Huayi BC, 1215-1230, April 14. Program in Chinese; 1230 into non-stop pop Chinese songs; heard well above the QRM from Guangxi Beibu Bay Radio. 5050, Guangxi Beibu Bay Radio, 1311-1346, April 14. Mostly in Vietnamese with pop songs; BoH multi-language IDs (“This is Guangxi Beibu Bay Radio”); list of countries and frequencies for FM. Audio attachment. 6035, PBS Yunnan/Voice of Shangri-La, 1245-1300, April 14. Non-stop talking in Vietnamese; pips; English ID (“This is the Voice of Shangri-La”); mixing with presumed BBS/Bhutan. Nice to find they still have the English ID! Audio attachment. 6155, CNR-2/China Business Radio, 1437, April 11. The “English Evening” show (scheduled 1430-1500) in English was covered by a strong BBC in Vietnamese (Aoki: 1430-1445 1234567 Vietnamese 100 13 Kranji). For many years “English Evening” was always in the clear here! (Ron Howard, Asilomar Beach, CA, Etón E1, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CHINA [and non]. EAST JAMMERSTAN: Crash & Bang CC Music Jammer; I've made several checks over the past week on all the recently reported freqs, and have not heard a single one. Either they've moved, cut power, reduced sked, or I'm just missing them (Harold Frodge, MI, April 7, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Hi-latitude paths blocked or degraded by geomag storm (gh) Firedrake heard here on 11500 prior to and after 1200 while looking for Voice of Russia via Tajikistan which was unheard. 9 April (Steve Lare, Holland, MI, USA, dxldyg via DX LISTENINIING DIGEST) Firedrake April 9: 8400 very poor at 1256. No others heard in 7-12 MHz range. Firedrake April 10: at 1315, good on 8400, fair on 10420 and poor on 10440, the latter two being unusual landing spots. None others found from 11 up to 18 MHz. But at 1321, FD best of all on 9365 against nothing co-audible, and so strong it bothered WTJC on 9370. HFCC has nothing currently at this time on 9365, but Aoki shows Sound of Hope = Xi Wang Zhi Sheng could be there 24 hours with 1 kW from Taiwan, thus provoking the ChiCom jamming, probably 500 kW from a suitable internal skip distance to prevent hundreds of megaChinese from being corrupted by harmless Falun Gong. Firedrake April 11: at 1258 JBA on 13970; at 1317 poor on 8400. Not heard anywhere else such as 9365, 10420, 10440 as the day before. Firedrake April 13: at 1250, nothing on 8400, but at 1252 good on 10420, and suspicious weak open carrier on 11500. At 1417 fair on 10420, still nothing on 8400. Nor anything in the 9.3`s at either time or in between. Firedrake April 14: not heard on 8-9-10 MHz bands, but on 11500 at 1227 during drumming, lo het and atop some other music. Aoki shows this as one of many 24h Sound of Hope 1 kW non-direxional transmitters on Taiwan to tie up the jammers. But the more likely collateral victim was Voice of Russia via TAJIKISTAN to South Asia, as in EiBi, 1200 English, 1300 Hindi, 1400- 1500 English. 11500 was typoed in VOR`s own schedule as ``15000`` (Glenn Hauser, OK, WORLD OF RADIO 1508, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CHINA [and non]. Firedrake April 15: at 1318 fair on 11500, co- channel QRM with rippling het, i.e. VOR via TAJIKISTAN. At 1320 FD better in the clear on 10300, unfound elsewhere on 8-11 MHz (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CHINA. Echo + Firedrake jammer notings in A-10 season. CHINA Mainland jamming in A-10, Echo / Firedrake modes. This list is not complete. Due of lousy SW propagation condition this reflects only observations heard in southern Germany. Even Chinese jamming powerhouses heard - on very low - just above threshold level on some m bands. 7355 IBB TWN 2000-2200 7420 BBC NAK 1300-1530 9350 IBB TJK 0100-0200 ? 9365 IBB KWT 0100-0200 ? 9370 IBB TJK 1500-1700 9370 IBB IRA 1700-1800 9450 ??? TWN 1500-1600 9455 IBB SAI 1500-2200 9490 IBB SAI 1200-1300 9545 IBB Tinang 0000-0300 9605 BBC SNG 1300-1530 9660 ??? TWN 0000-0100 9680 ??? TWN 1300-1600 9905 IBB PAL 1500-1800 9985 IBB SAI 1300-1400 11510 IBB UDO 1400-1500 11540 IBB TIN 1500-1800 11540 IBB SAI 1800-1900 11585 IBB TIN 1500-1600 11590 IBB KWT 1300-1400 11595 IBB KWT 1500-1600 11605 IBB TIN 1200-1400 11615 IBB SAI 1400-1500 ... - 1500-1530 extended 11665 ??? TWN 1300-1600 11665 IBB IRA 1600-1700 11740 ??? SNG 1300-1330 ? 11780 IBB WER 1500-1530 11785 IBB UDO 1100-1300 11785 IBB Tinang 1300-1400 11795 IBB UAE 1500-1600 11795 IBB TIN 1600-1800 11805 IBB Tinang 1300-1430 11805 IBB TIN 1430-1500 11840 AIR DEL 1130-1315 11925 IBB Tinang 0000-0300 11990 IBB NVS 1300-1500 12005 IBB TIN 1500-1600 12025 IBB SAI 1500-1700 12040 IBB Tinang 1100-1500 13610 IBB TIN 0700-1100 13675 IBB TIN 1500-1700 13740 IBB UDO 0700-1000 13755 IBB KWT 1500-1530 ? - but maybe Kashi-CHN 13830 IBB TJK 1100-1400 13970 SOH ??? 1600-1700 Firedrake music ! 15140 SOH ??? 0900-1000 + 1400-1500 Firedrake music 15250 IBB Tinang 1100-1300 15265 IBB UDO 0300-0600 15285 BBC SNG 1300-1530 15495 IBB TIN 1500-1600 15665 IBB SAI 0900-1100 15670 IBB UAE 1100-1400 17615 IBB TIN 0300-0700 17750 IBB KWT 1000-1200 17775 IBB TIN 0700-1000 17855 IBB Tinang 0700-1100 21550 IBB TIN 0300-0700 noted also jammer test around 0930-0941 with Firedrake music (Wolfgang Büschel, April 13, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Hi Wolfy, Impressive list of Chinese jamming activity! Firedrake (FD) scan on April 14, from 0107 to 0151. 15140 both FD and CNR-1 echo jamming together. Solo FD: // 13300 (new?), 13970, 15970, 16100 (new?) and 17300. Noted solo FD on 12590 at about 0110, but by 0128 had moved up to 12600 (both new?). (Ron Howard, Asilomar Beach, CA, USA, dxldyg via WORLD OF RADIO 1508, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CHINA. See RUSSIA for 9890 clash, 9900; CUBA [and non] for jamming on 9810; MALI ** CHINA. RADIO PEKING MEMORIES The Open Society Archives website has uploaded a copy of an RFE/RL internal report dated Munich, 11 February 1969 (Communist Area Analysis Department: China) on Radio Peking: The latest issue of the Communist Chinese propaganda weekly Peking Review carries a full-page advertisement describing the English- language programming of Radio Peking. The programmes, broadcast almost without interruption, include special features such as "selected readings from Mao Tse-tung's works" and such musical connoisseur's items as "songs based on poems written by Chairman Mao." The advertisement runs as follows: Radio Peking has 18 one-hour daily transmissions in English beamed to the five continents, in which you can hear: "Selected Readings from Mao Tse Tung's Work" (on the air every Sunday and rebroadcast every Wednesday) and "Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse Tung" (every Saturday). Radio Peking also brings you: News on China's great proletarian cultural revolution which is advancing from victory to victory under the personal leadership of our great leader Chairman MaoTse-tung; reports on the remarkable achievements in our socialist construction; and reports and commentaries on major developments in China's political, economic, cultural and other fields; and Reports on the surging revolutionary struggles by the people all over the world against imperialism headed by the United States, modern revisionism with the Soviet revisionist renegade clique as its centre, and all reaction; reports on the armed struggles of the people in Asian, African and Latin American countries In particular; and commentaries on major international events. Radio Peking has the following special series: "Long Live the Victory of People's War" (every Monday) tells you how the peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America, integrating Marxism- Leninism, Mao Tse-tung's thought, with the practical conditions in their own countries, are victoriously carrying out armed struggle. "The Soviet Union Under Revisionist Rule" (every Tuesday) exposes the crimes of the Soviet revisionist renegade clique in restoring capitalism in the Soviet Union. "Music Programme" (every Thursday) presents China's model revolutionary theatrical works, songs based on poems written by Chairman Mao and quotations from him, and other revolutionary songs and melodies. For programme schedules, please write to English Section, Radio Peking, Peking, China At that time Radio Peking used many out of band frequencies for its broadcasts to Europe. The 1972 World Radio Handbook shows the English broadcast at 2030-2130 on 5295, 6550, 6610, 6933, 7590, 9030 and 11650. Copies of the Peking Review, a weekly English language news magazine first published March 1 1958, were regularly sent to listeners who sent the station reception reports as well as copies of Mao's Little Red Book. I was in the sixth form when I received Mao's book but decided that it would not be wise to use it to publicly denounce my teachers and demand that they apologise for their counter-revolutionary attitudes, as was being done by the Red Guards in Mao's China. The website, http://www.massline.org has over 300 articles from Peking Review online as well as hundreds more in many complete issues it has uploaded (Mike Barraclough?, April World DX Club Contact via DXLD) ** CHINA. CRI revamps program schedule. Up until a few months back, CRI`s SW schedule consisted of 30 minutes of News & Reports on weekdays, followed by a feature program that varied by day. This has recently changed, as CRI continues to evolve into a more contemporary- sounding broadcaster that is increasingly indistinguishable from a domestic broadcaster when it comes to a slickly produced, professional sound. Now CRI`s schedule mirrors that of its domestic 846 kHz outlet in Beijing, with the following schedule for hours when there is SW targeting Eastern North America: (0000, 0200, 0400, 0600, 1200) 0000-0005 Hourly News 0005-0030 People in the Know 0005-0030 Heartbeat (weekends) 0030-0055 features 0055-0100 Chinese Studio (0100, 0300, 0500, 1100) 0100-0155 Beijing Hour (weekdays) 0100-0130 News & Reports (weekends) 0130-0155 features (weekends) 0155-0200 Chinese Studio (1400 repeated at 1500) 1400-1405 Hourly News 1405-1455 China Drive 1455-1500 Chinese Studio Beijing Hour has become somewhat of a daily flagship program for CRI. It`s an hour-long news and current affairs program produced in two daily editions; one is hosted by Canadian Paul James, who had hosted People in the Know, and Susan Osman, new to CRI from BBC domestic television. You`d swear you were listening to a domestic radio program out of Canada or the UK; both Paul and Susan are very professional in their approach. Susan hosts the version of BH at 7 am local time in Beijing, or live at 2300 UT; Paul hosts the 7 pm or 1100 UT live. The SW broadcasts that air at that time or afterwards that specify Beijing Hour feature these respective editions (Rich Cuff, PA, Easy Listening, April NASWA Journal via DXLD) I find this all rather off-putting, especially when I hear the native Chinese hosts yakking about ``their`` opinions on this and that, surely representing the Party Line. So what and when are the remaining daily features? (Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CHINA. Re 10-14, PBS Nei Menggu in the past on 7105 kHz Ron: ``Greetings from California! Have had several wonderful trips to Hong Kong and love your city!`` Should you ever get back, we also have rural areas where potable water has still to reach & places cows wander the roads like in India. Sadly, you can leave your sunblock & sunglasses behind, though best not forget to bring a gas mask. When I emigrated here CA seemed like a really dirty place (I'm native of OR, last resident in WA), but now I think even southern CA sees less of what it breathes than we do here. What's the saying? Nice place to visit but I'm not so sure I'd want to live here? ;^( > The 7105 frequency had only been noted by me in the past during > my local morning, about 1400 UT or so, but have not heard them > there for many months. I was lucky to be able to tell it was PBS > Nei Menggu, as it was parallel with 9520 and was not for jamming > purposes. In addition to which it had several very noticeable spurs > on 7085, 7095, 7115 and 7125. Very distinctive! > > Afraid I have no knowledge of the time period you are hearing 7105. Yes, can see CNR scheduled in HFCC B09 & A10 with something on 9520, 2150-1700 GMT. 19:10 worth of presumably CMN ZHO (in mainland, "Chinese" implies Mandarin dialect) from Hu Hé Hào Tè, 50 kW towards 036. Perhaps half of Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region lies in that direction. Starts around beginning of local daylight hours, continues to 0100 local next day. Of course, not match anything I find in CNR's own scheduling, nor from the provincial level. So comes back around to why is thought to be PBS Nèi Meng Gu? The only way that could positively be said would be from hearing it saying so. Or maybe is an assumption as is apparently being transmitted from IMAR, so must be that service? CNR something on 7105 at least 2200-2300 has an apparent reason - even on the Dutch uni's web SDR I can hear a bit of what they're stepping on & that in all likelihood is SoH (I now regret not bringing a radio with me on recent road trip holiday in Taiwan, could have swung through suggested Tanshui source - if that were true, should have had lots of complaints from Taiwan hams by now as Tanshui is suburb of Taipei, would be hard to miss!). Why CNR still there at other times & not draw attention to itself nor have they scheduled it with HFCC suggests outside 2200-2300 could be also for the purpose of covering something else up. But what? As I said in reply to Glenn, for amateurs this is the sort of thing we go to our telecom authorities & complain about. B'cast simply not supposed to be in 7100-7200 anymore. However, having now listened to what the signal from the mainland on 7105 at 22-23z says it is, is not what everybody has been saying was there all along & you might imagine where we might get here if we say this is the culprit but when our authorities go to check themselves, they find something completely different. As I try to find something to disprove my theory that MS just parrots what others have said about a lot of the broadcast heard, I find very little of anything concrete enough that could be said about anything out of mainland China other than what has been heard by anybody. And very little, if any, reports of things coming out of mainland China where what has been said seems to had been said based on listening to & understanding what was heard. Conclusion: MS shouldn't parrot what the SWL community is saying what it's hearing - which seems reasonable as a little due diligence is finding what the SWL community is saying may not be based on the sort of thing we can go & run with. Sharing of information where there's a common interest is always good and I trust unlike the MS community, SWLers are a little more receptive to query of what has been said (in MS, to do this is like questioning the Emperor's new clothes). I think I need to find some way to listen to 7105 from here, at 1400 GMT I should be able to hear much of the mainland directly using the window frame or something... rather keen to know what the signal IDs itself as at other times. 73, (Brett/p Graham, Hong Kong, via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CUBA. 5040, RHC, 0457 26 March, Spanish // 6140, then from 0500 English. No // heard but was continuation of English stream on 6000 until 0500 which was running 36 minutes (or even 1 hour, 35 minutes) late. So unscheduled here? SIO 353 (Alan Pennington, Tropical Bands Logbook, April BDXC-UK Communication via DXLD) Morning check in 49 mb on April 9th at 0400-0500 UT determined R La Habana's English service on fair 5970 and 6000 kHz signals, but Spanish on much stronger 6060 and 6110 kHz. Off on 6140 and 6150 this morning - at least nothing heard here in Germany (Wolfgang Büschel, wwdxc BC-DX TopNews April 9, dxldyg via DXLD) 5970, new RHC frequency, already on air at 2145 April 9 in Spanish, fairly good signal. Is this on the brand-new schedule at http://www.radiohc.cu/espanol/c_frecuencia/frecuencias.htm --- of course not! Shows 5970 only at 01-05 in English, 07-11 in Spanish. Two new frequencies of RHC confirmed, 9525 // synchronized 12020 in Spanish allegedly to South America but fine in the North, at 2305 April 10 and an echo apart from 12030 to Central America (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) [and non] 12020, 09/04 2350, PORTUGAL, RDP Internacional, in Portuguese. Local pop music. Collision with the RHC in Spanish for South America. Take predominance of RDP. At 2356 UT end of the music program of the RDP. Strong signal that alternate (Jorge Freitas, Feira de Santana, Bahia, Brasil, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Way to go, Arnie. Perhaps you picked 12020 on a Sunday, while RDPI is registered for M-F at 23-02 Tue-Sat on 12020, also to S America, 226 degrees (Glenn Hauser, OK, WORLD OF RADIO 1508, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 6000, 11/4 0001, Radio Habana, Cuba, in French, news, good (Giampiero Bernardini, Milano, Italia, RX: Drake R8 - ANT: T2FD, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Another item contrary to new posted schedule, French supposed to be only on 5040, with 6000 in Spanish (gh, DXLD) Another secret unscheduled time for En Contacto, RHC`s Spanish DX program, in progress UT Monday April 12 at 0551 with Manolo acknowledging mail from Lima, Puebla, on 6150, 6120, 5040. 12025 with lite jamming pulses, April 12 at 1314 against nothing, but bothering RHC on 12030! May be spur from 11845, DCJC lower on the band, or possibly mixing out of the 12030 transmitter itself. Before 1400 there was no R. Martí on 11930 and no jamming either; at 1423 heavy jamming with pulse spurs out to 11910-11955. [and non]. As previously reported, RHC`s new 12020 to S America collides with RDPI Portugal on 12020 also to S America after 2300, but the latter is M-F only. No problem of course Sunday April 11, so checked again Monday April 12 at 2330: propagation poor, but RHC heard only on other new 12030 (with clicking jamspur now on the hi side), not on 12020 where a weak not // signal was audible, presumably Portugal again in the clear. At 0015 April 13, could make 12020 // much stronger RDPI on 9715. So where has RHC gone from 12020? As yet unknown. As previously noted, RHC has been colliding with Portugal on 12020 after 2300, both targeting South America. Portugal is M-F only into UT Sat, but at 0015 April 13, RDPI was alone on 12020 so we guessed RHC had moved somewhere else. However, at 0034 April 15, RHC was back on 12020 with its crackly transmitter, and RDPI music could be detected underneath // 9715. But nothing on RHC`s // 12030! No, Arnie, it`s 12020 you need to evacuate, not 12030. 9735, April 13 at 1255 pulse jamming at the rate of 136 per minute against nothing but an open carrier, i.e. Taiwan about to resume with its second hour in Japanese, hardly worth jamming. But this could be a tipoff to something more pertinent to the Cuban Commies on 9735 at some completely different hour; or it could be a rogue jamspur. OTOH, 9805, extra extended frequency of R. Martí, April 13 at 1419 was jamfree, but colliding with R. Free Asia, in Vietnamese via SAIPAN. 13880, the RHC leapfrog of 13680 over 13780, two very strong signals, doing well April 13 at 1317, at peaks as strong as the Russian on 13870, VOR, 145 degrees from St. Pete, but Cuba with more fading. 15380, new RHC frequency colliding at about equal level with Qur`an from SAUDI ARABIA, April 14 at 1326, making fast SAH of maybe 20 Hz, 1333 Saudi ID as it was gaining on Cuba. Riyadh is scheduled 12-14 at 310 degrees only for Turkey, but their 500 kW USward carries on a bit further. Cuba starts 15380 already at 1100. Another great pick by Arnie (Glenn Hauser, OK, WORLD OF RADIO 1508, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CUBA [non]. Radio Martí is running four SW frequencies at a time now instead of three, to which it was cut back last year. This may be temporary because MW 1180 Marathon FL is off the air for upgrading(?). April 8 at 2042 I noticed that 6030 was already on instead of previous *2200, but at this early hour it was just barely audible, // 11930. The only other also very weak 49m signals vs the noise level were RHC 6110 and CFRX 6070. Could not hear any jamming on 6030 but maybe too weak to tell. April 9 at 1311, I hear RM on 9805 in conversation about marmalade, // 11845, and no jamming audible on 9805. At 1359 monitoring both frequencies, the list to start ``en algunos instantes`` was ``9565, 11845, 11930, 13820``. Yesterday we had already noted 9565 on the air after 1400, but today it took more than a few instants to bring it up after 9805 cut off at 1400, not until *1403.6, and no jamming audible there initially. Original A-10 schedule for 9805 was 10-13 only. I figured it would be pointless to consult the RM website for its frequency grid, which they had let languish for months without updating, but this one is axually dated 6 April, as ``temporary`` showing 4 frequencies at once between 10 and 04: http://www.martinoticias.com/frecuencia.aspx Here it is, converted to UT and to text: so this fit, XX = 1130 04-07 6030 7405 07-10 5980 6030 10-XX 5980 6030 6105 9805 XX-12 5980 6030 9805 11845 12-13 6030 7405 9805 11845 13-14 7405 9805 11845 13820 14-18 9565 11845 11930 13820 18-23 6030 9565 11930 13820 23-24 6030 9565 11775 11930 00-01 6030 7365 11775 01-03 6030 7365 9460 11775 03-04 6030 7365 7405 9460 Note there are two totally new frequencies, which I had not yet run across, 6105 and 9460. Tough luck, XEQM! The color coding uses a slightly different shade of green for these blox, indicated as temporary. Apparently during most of the day there was an extra transmitter available at Greenville; not sure if this also indicates a cutback in Creole or other services. We do know that the one used for DRM in the daytime on 9445-9455 has been liberated: 6105 1000-1130 11845 1130-1300 9805 1300-1400 9565 1400-1700 11845 1700-1800 6030 1800-2200 13820 2200-2300 11775 2300-2400 9460 0100-0400 The gap at 00-01 is during ``A Fondo`` Tue-Sat, the joint show with VOA, when one of the transmitters is ``VOA`` instead, but axually totaling five frequencies with same program during that hour --- 5890, 6030, 7365, 11775, 11970, as monitored April 9 at 0045, and they were all jammed. The DCJC has not been so quick to extend its jamming to the entire expanded temporary schedule of RM. As for what happen UT Sun & Mon, RM grid does not go into such details --- and it still shows 1180 as on the air 24 hours. ALL, except for the UT Monday 03-09 truce. Here`s the program schedule grid which automatically shows the current week`s dates, and with GMT confusingly in AM and PM: http://www.martinoticias.com/RDprogramacion.aspx (Glenn Hauser, OK, WORLD OF RADIO 1508, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Radio Martí noted here on 6030 at 1850. 9 April (Steve Lare, Holland, MI, USA, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) As I was finding RHC on unscheduled 5970 at 2145 April 9, also audible weaker on 6030 was Radio Martí, and no jamming audible. This is now starting at 1800, and we wonder how good a signal it can get into Cuba at midday, jamming or not. Also confirmed RM`s new 9460 with good signal at 0256 check April 10, no jamming audible. It`s on the sked now as ``temporary`` at 01-04. Saturday April 10 at 1339, R. Martí with ``Arte Latino`` show about ``Olbga de Cuba`` and her singing career in exile, 9805 with heavy jamming, 11845 VG over jamming. Closing produxion credits already at 1352 and on to next show, ``Enfoque a América Latina`` (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CUBA [non]. Saludos cordiales queridos colegas diexistas y radioaficionados del mundo. Espero que se encuentren muy bien. Amigos, les invito a visitar mi blog donde ya he comenzado la actualización de mi lista que contiene las emisoras que emiten en español en la onda corta y donde les recuerdo que solo aparecen las emisoras que puedo captar con mis receptores y sus antenas telescópicas así como con mi antena dipolo de 15 metros por lado. Hasta ahora he copiado a 38 emisoras y todavía faltan algunas mas y me falta por monitorear ya muy pocas horas. Vea la lista en la siguiente dirección: http://sintoniadx.spaces.live.com/ Un fuerte abrazo para todos (José Elías Díaz Gómez, Venezuela, April 9, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Specifically, dated April 5: http://sintoniadx.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!956BF69EACAB477D!3372.entry A couple of entries caught my eye: Radio República, Cuban clandestine in the 02-03 and 03-04 hours (not necessarily meaning for two hours straight, just heard sometime during both hours), on previously unknown and unlisted frequency, 9780, unlike 9490 which he does not list, tho continuing in A-10, via RMI via Sackville, M-F 23-02 Tue- Sat. I checked for 9780 April 10 at 0256 and heard nothing; but Vatican in English to NAm via Sackville was, on 9610, so if RR is really on 9780 at that hour, unseems Sackville (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Saludos José Elías, Anoto en su lista Radio República por 9780 a las 02-03 y 03-04. Es una novedad para mí, frecuencia no conocida ni alistada, y además no escuchada cuando sintonicé pocos minutos antes de las 03. Puede ampliar esta info, horas exactas, fechas captadas, y todavia? 73, (Glenn to JE, via DXLD) Saludos cordiales amigo Glenn. Espero te encuentres muy bien. Mi querido amigo Glenn, cuando hago las captaciones para mi lista lo hago de lunes a viernes monitoreando cada día dos o tres horas pero no anoto fecha, lo cierto es que fue la semana pasada. Yo anoto las emisoras que voy copiando en cada horario. A Radio República la escuché muy bien identificándose como: "La Voz de los cubanos Libres", eso fue entre 0200 a 0300 UT y la misma señal la copié entre las 0300 y 0400. De todas maneras estaré pendiente de copiar nuevamente la radio y grabar el audio. Por cierto mi lista está basada en la escuchas que hago de lunes a viernes. Un abrazo amigo Glenn y muchas gracias por estar siempre pendiente de todo (José Elías, ibid.) José Elías Díaz Gómez, Venezuela, on his blog bandscanning for easily- heard Spanish-language broadcasts, http://sintoniadx.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!956BF69EACAB477D!3372.entry includes Radio República on 9780 sometime in the 02-03 and 03-04 hours. That`s a new unlisted frequency and unknown to me, so I check for it April 10 at 0256 --- nothing there, tho propagation is poor on 31m. However, Vatican English via Sackville is audible on 9610. About the only signal making it weakly from Europe is China via Spain on 9690. JEDG says he heard "La Voz de los Cubanos Libres`` on 9780, dates not noted, but he scans only on local Mondays-Fridays, and will check for it again. I don`t recall RR using that specific slogan, so unless he heard an axual RR ID, possibly this was some other hitherto unknown exile clandestine. Per HFCC, only Yemen and CNR China are registered on 9780 during parts of this bihour. Others please be on the lookout for this! 9810 still with heavy noise from the DentroCuban Jamming Command, April 10 at 2304 when Radio República used to appear. During this hour, CRI`s Mongolian service may be too far away to suffer, but at 00-02 the innocent victim will be VOR in Spanish via Guiana French. See RUSSIA [non]. Meanwhile, Radio República is really on 9490 via RMI via Sackville, VG signal at 2306 talking about the hunger-strikes by political prisoners inside Cuba; it`s way over jamming which is at the pulse-level rather than wall-of-noise level. RR at 23-02 was originally M-F, but now Saturdays, and shall we make it daily including Sundays too? Again, no sign of anything on 9780, at 0225 check April 11, when Radio República had been heard elsewhere (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Saludos cordiales amigo Glenn, 9780 activada con Radio República, la puedes copiar? Está entrando muy bien por Venezuela. Radio República, La voz de los cubanos libres. Un abrazo (JEDG 0238 UT Tuesday April 13, DX LISTENING DIGEST) [Later:] Saludos cordiales amigo Glenn. Acabo de confirmar la nueva frecuencia de Radio República, 9780 khz, banda de 31 metros anunciada a las 0315 UT. Esta frecuencia no fue anunciada junta a las otras, fue anunciada a los 15 minutos de la emisión. Primero anunciaron 9955 y luego promos de sus programas y luego anunciaron 9490 y promos de sus programas. 9780 fue anunciada a los 15 minutos de emisión. Lo que he notado es que por 9955 Khz la programación es distinta a la de los 9780. Te anexo audio para confirmar la escucha en los 9780 kHz. Un fuerte abrazo, querido amigo Glenn (José Elías, 0341 UT April 13, DX LISTENING DIGEST) I am still not hearing it, but propagation is again degraded, not in the 0200 hour and not at 0357. But his recording says it`s also on 9780 M-F at 10-midnight, i.e. 0200-0400 UT Tue-Sat. Wonder what the site is this time; surely not Sackville as for 9490 at 23-02 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Saludos amigo Glenn. Se me olvidó comentarte en el correo anterior que durante las casi dos horas que estuve escuchando la programación se identificaban como: Radio República, Voz del Directorio Democrático Cubano. En esta oportunidad no dijeron en ningún momento: La voz de los cubanos libres. El receptor fue un Degen 1103 con su antena telescópica y antena dipolo de 15 metros por lado. Un abrazo, amigo Glenn (José Elías, April 13, ibid.) Escuchando ayer en la noche la emisión de Radio República en los 9780 kHz, pude oir que invitaban a los cubanos a participar en un concurso donde los premios eran tres radios receptores de onda corta. Emisión escuchada en su frecuencia de los 9780 entre las 0200 y las 0400 UT (José Elías, Venezuela, April 13, ibid.) 9780, new frequency for R. República at 0200-0400 first reported by José Elías Díaz Gómez in Venezuela, I had trouble hearing at first but audible April 14 at 0203; poor signal but no jamming, compared to 9490 via Sackville until 0200. The 9780 broadcast is UT Tue-Sat only. Site unknown, possibly UK, or Central America. It seems to put a better signal into Venezuela than it does into OK. JEDG sent a clip of them announcing 9780 for those two hours. WRMI knows nothing about it (Glenn Hauser, OK, WORLD OF RADIO 1508, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CYPRUS / GREECE. Two different Orthodox sermons directly from the churches heard from 1630 on MW 1044 kHz, one from Cyprus another from Greece (Thessaloniki \\ 9935 kHz). From Cyprus were \\ 603 & 963 (Nicosia) \\ 558 (Pahpos) \\ 1044 (Limassol) but 693 & 918 kHz were not heard. Checking MW 1098 kHz Iskele from Northern Cyprus I found a program in Arabic and oftenly ID "Huna Idaatu Iraq" (maybe This is Voice of Iraq?) at 1640 UT and at 1645 UT switching in Turkish, at 1647 UT ID "Radio Bayrak", next pop songs and ballades in western style in Turkish and at 1700 UT a lady said the pop mx will be till "irme dyor saat" (= 24.00 hrs). On Apr 1 at 0445-0515 UT on 1098 kHz nx, comments wrp in Turkish (Rumen Pankov-BUL for WWDXC BC-DX, April 1 via DXLD) ** CYPRUS. 9187-9212, over-the-horizon radar pulses, presumed from here April 10 at 2309 with typical 25-kHz bandwidth; yes, propagation from that worldpart is good again, Voice of Greece also in on 9420 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CZECHIA [and non]. Radio Prague, English Programme Schedule: Mon: One on One (in-depth interview) Tue: Talking Point (issues at the forefront of public interest) Wed: Czechs in History, Czechs Today or Spotlight (travelogue) Thu: From the Archives; Panorama Fri: Business News; The Arts Sat: Magazine; Sound Czech (language course); One on One Sun: Mailbox and Letter from Prague, followed either by Science Journal, Czech Books, or Czech Life at 1300 UT; or Magic Carpet (Czech music) at 1700 UT once a month (Sked in the postal mail, via Arthur Ward, UK, 18 March, April World DX Club Contact via DXLD) ** CZECHIA. Radio Prague has announced its 10th annual listeners’ competition. Details at: http://www.radio.cz/en/static/competition-2010/ (Alokesh Gupta, New Delhi, dxldyg via DXLD) Thanks, Alokesh! The Czech writer I like the most is Jaroslav Hašek for his most hilarious novel The Good Soldier Švejk. It was my favorite book during my early teen years. Even these days I occasionally re-read parts of it to get a healthy doze of good laugh. But I'm afraid that due to political reasons Radio Prague isn't going to give their main prize to anyone who likes Hašek... (Sergei S., Germany, ibid.) ** DJIBOUTI. 4780, RTV Djibouti (Djibouti), 0308-0320, 4/9/2010, Arabic. Koran recitation by man. Talk by man at 0311. Poor signal with CODAR interference and minimal fading (Jim Evans, Germantown, TN, IC- R75, RX-340, Random Wire (90'), ALA100M Loop (20'), DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** EAST TURKESTAN/EAST TURKISTAN [depending on your spell check]. During G3-storm-disturbed propagation conditions, April 12 at 1341, nothing much audible on the SW bands beyond single-hop, southerly or trans-equatorial signals, but one trans-polar was making it on 13670, Chinese singing/opera, fair with flutter, and splash from Cuba 13680; 1355 to Chinese talk, 1357 off. Aoki shows CRI in Chinese via Urümqi, 500 kW due west (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ECUADOR [non]. 11920, 10/4 2350, HCJB, via Chile, in Portuguese, songs, talks about cooking, good (Giampiero Bernardini, Milano, Italia, RX: Drake R8 - ANT: T2FD, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) I wish you guys elsewhere would check for the big spurs on 11900 and 11940 when you hear this on 11920 (gh, DXLD) ** EGYPT. QSL Information: 819 kHz, ERTU Batra - Full-data card in 5 months. My IRC was returned, stating that ERTU covers the cost. I wrote to the address in the shortwave section of the WRTH 2010. Shortwave schedules were enclosed, along with a short letter from the engineer. This is verified MW Country #54 (71 heard) from here, my 66th MW or LW transatlantic QSL. Address: Eng. Amgad Baligh, Head of Spectrum & Monitoring Dep., Propagation Department, Egyptian Radio & TV Union (ERTU), PO Box 1186, Cairo 11511, Egypt. Fax: 202 25746840 (Jim Renfrew, NY, NRC IDXD April 9 via DXLD) ** EQUATORIAL GUINEA. 15190, R. Africa at unusual hour of 0526 April 12, closing one gospel huxter with a 6-digit PO box in ZIP 74170, which is Tulsa, brief pause, no ID, and YL opening another show. Fair with slow fading. Also in: NIGERIA, q.v. (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ETHIOPIA. 6890, Radio Fana (Addis Ababa) (presumed), 0347-0403, 4/9/2010, Amharic. Horn of Africa music. Talk by man at 0350 followed by music at 0354. Announcements by man and presumed news at 0401. Very poor signal. No parallels heard (Jim Evans, Germantown, TN, IC-R75, RX-340, Random Wire (90'), ALA100M Loop (20'), WORLD OF RADIO 1508, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 6890, Radio Fana, *0258:40-0310, April 10, sign on with IS. Amharic talk at 0301. Horn of Africa music at 0306. Weak but readable. // 6110 - weak under Cuba (Brian Alexander, PA, WORLD OF RADIO 1508, DX Listening Digest) ** ETHIOPIA. 9704.2, R. Ethiopia, Addis Ababa, 2041-2054*, April 10, vernacular. HoA-like music; brief W announcer at 2050; back to music until pulled the plug at 2054; fair over 9705-Niger (Scott R. Barbour Jr. Intervale, N.H. USA, NRD-545, MLB1, 200' Beverages, 60m dipole, dxldyg via WORLD OF RADIO 1508, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ETHIOPIA [non]. ERITREA / ETHIOPIA --- Tony Rogers forwards a letter from the Ethiopian People`s Patriotic Front (EPPF) which announced the start of broadcasts by Arbegnoch Voice Radio on 9 April 2009 and giving a schedule which appears to convert to Tuesday and Saturdays at 0600-0630 and 1600-1630 UT on 5050 and 1089 kHz. The latter matches the time that Chris Greenway recently noted Ethiopian jamming signing off at 1630 on 5060 – East Africa Report, Communication, March 2010. Both frequencies are from Eritrea. Web site http://www.eppfonline.org contains audio of EPPF radio broadcasts from May to September 2009 (Tony Rogers, DX News, April BDXC-UK Communication via WORLD OF RADIO 1508, DXLD) ** GERMANY [non]. 5980, April 13 at 1248 fair carrier with continuous tone, leading up to something at hourtop. 1300 undermodulated Chinese talk starts, soon revealed at 1301 as Deutsche Welle with ID, sounder. Listed via Vladivostok at 240 degrees oppositely from US (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** GREENLAND. 3815-USB, KNR, Tasiilaq, 21 March 2105 talk, ballads, 2130 news in Greenlandic; 2142 light and jazz music; 2200 news in Danish; 2208 song, national anthem? And sign-off, SIO 322 (Reginald C. Hayes, Bournemouth, Dorset, England, UK, JRC NRD 545, random wire, ALA loop, Tropical Bands Logbook, April BDXC-UK Communication via DXLD) ** GUAHAN. As I was noting R. Martí extended schedule past 1300 on 9805 with no jamming, April 9 at 1311, I could hear something underneath, sounds like a hymn. Per Aoki, that`s KSDA due northwest in Japanese service at 1300-1330, now hit by QRMartí at least in OK (Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** GUYANA. 560 kHz, 1930-2015 UT, ID as “Voice of Guyana”. Hellfire preacher from Georgetown AME Church 1930-2000. Local news followed to 2008. Station was received on the Queen Mary 2 in route from Rio de Janeiro to Bridgetown, Barbados using the C Crane Witness radio/MP3 recorder. Ship’s position was NE of Georgetown Guyana. No sign of WRTH listed 760 kHz or 102.5 MHz parallel FM outlet. The 2010 WRTH lists 560 kHz as reported inactive but it is clearly back on (Joe Buch, April 8, 2010, 09 degrees 47’ North, 55 degrees 04’ West and 334 nautical miles from Bridgetown, Barbados, WORLD OF RADIO 1508, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** GUYANA. Hi Glenn, just wanted to give you a "heads up" re: Guyana. On April 18th, I'm going to Georgetown to put the transmitter on the air, and to modify it to cover 5950 kHz as well as 3290. The day frequency of 5290 was an error. I have to modify the Series Resonant Tank to handle the 700 kHz change. I should have them going on 3290 nights, by April 22nd or so, and on 5950 days, by the 25th. If no "GREMLINS". Glenn, thanks again for the help and will give you an E- mail when I have Guyana up on 3290 (Jamie Labadia, April 8, WORLD OF RADIO 1508, DX LISTENING DIGEST) They are solid state transmitters, running Class-E, with P.D.M. modulators. They are actually prototypes and were my very first design using this method. I have two other stations that are coming on soon, using an upgraded version of this design. On April 18th I'm going to Guyana to put on a 10 kilowatt version. The frequencies are 3290 and 5950 kHz. I actually built it about a year ago, but I think they didn't have the A.C. power sorted out, and I know also that the original 5 MHz frequency was a mistake. I should have it on the air by April 22 or so (JAMIE LABADIA, April 9, via Don Rhodes, Yarra Glen, Victoria, Australia, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** HAITI [non]. Re 10-14, 4VEH heard on 590: I contacted Kate Michel of Radio 4VEH via Facebook, and she indicated no knowledge of a relay on 590 kHz but said she would investigate (Bruce Conti, mwdx yg via DXLD) Thanks, Bruce, for investigating. I should post here in the next days how it sounded. That is very strange, indeed. I made a couple of Google search and I found nothing related except your request at 4VEH via Facebook :-) Thanks again! (Sylvain Naud, QC, ibid.) In relation with the previous emails, here's a piece of the 590 KHz recording from last April 4th at 0325 UT: http://www.quebecdx.com/mp3/haiti_590_4veh.mp3 I would correct the exact time of the ID; It was 0326 UT (second 38 in the clip "...Radio 4-V-E-H). I couldn't manage to hear that station again in the following days while Cubans were literally invading the lower portion of the band (which was actually the most active here for LA). (Sylvain Naud, Portneuf, QC, CANADA, April 9, mwdx yg via DXLD) I believe I've solved this mystery. 590 WEZE Boston carries "Echo Evangelique" in French on Saturday nights ET. I noted WEZE in French tonight, April 11, 0300 UT. The Echo Evangelique website lists Haitian stations Radio Lumière and Radio 4VEH, and the emphasis appears to be toward Haitian immigrants in the U.S. and Canada. The French programming wasn't heard on subsequent nights because it's only on WEZE Saturday nights. The rest of the time WEZE is all English. (Bruce Conti, http://www.bamlog.com April 10, WORLD OF RADIO 1508, ibid.) ...and I believe you're right, Bruce. Radio Lumière and Radio 4VEH are indeed mentioned under their "Useful links" section. I've just tuned 590 kHz around 0420 UT and heard biblical talk this time in English. All added to the reply from 4VEH via Facebook showing clearly that they weren't aware of a transmission on 590 kHz. It became obvious that it couldn't have come from Haïti. Thanks again! (Sylvain Naud, Portneuf, QC, Canada, ibid.) The Echo Évangélique website quotes Reverend Bade Simeon, Directeur de production la Radio 4VEH. So a reference to 4VEH on the WEZE Saturday night Echo Évangélique program is even more apparently the answer to this mystery. Go to http://www.echoevangelique.org/ select 'plus...' at the end of the "La Vérité Negligée." (Bruce Conti, April 11, ibid.) I went to review the wav file and indeed, I heard a mention of Radio Echo Evangélique. What started as a promising file has now been converted to an ordinary one :-( That's the way dxing goes sometimes (Sylvain Naud, ibid.) ** HONDURAS. 3250, Radio Luz y Vida, San Luis, 0545-0603, 10-04, español, locutor, locutora, comentarios, canciones religiosas. Muy débil, audible en LSB. 15321 (Manuel Méndez, Lugo, España, Grundig Satellit 500 y Sony ICF SW 7600G, Antena de cable, 8 metros, Escuchas realizadas en casco urbano de Lugo, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** INDIA. 4775, AIR Imphal , 1224, April 11. In vernacular; talk about the Prime Minister being in Washington; ID “All India Radio Imphal”; 1226-1250: long program of Christian songs; subcontinent music till tune out at 1258; fair to poor with CODAR QRM. It has been a long time since I have heard this well enough to make out their local ID (Ron Howard, Asilomar Beach, CA, Etón E1, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) 4775.00, *0000-0005 fade out 13.04, AIR Imphal. Vernacular ann, "Vande Mataram" 25211 AP-DNK 4800.00, 0030-0045 13.04, AIR Hyderabad News from Delhi in Hindi and 0035 English, 0040 Telegu (presumed) ann, traditional Indian songs 44434 Interfering CNR1 had nearly faded out, because "The East is Red" (= local sunrise) AP-DNK 4940.00, 0005-0012* 13.04, AIR Guwahati. Vernacular local songs, abrupt transmitter fall out. It was still off at 0035, 35333 AP-DNK 5010.00, 0045-0110 13.04, AIR Thiruvananthapuram. Malayalam ann, nice local songs with sitar music, ads, mention of "Akashvani" and "Malayalam", sports news: Pakistan-India, talk, news, 0105 feature with songs, 45434 (Anker Petersen, from Skovlunde, Denmark received on my AOR AR7030PLUS with 28 metres of longwire, via Dario Monferini, playdx yg via DXLD) ** INDIA. 4920, April 10 at 1234, weak signal with talk, from intonation sounds like English, ergo AIR news on the hour via Chennai, and also similar but unseemed // on 5010 via T`m. Several other weak signals on 60m from AIR frequencies (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) AIR with news in English, April 13 at 1231 on weak 4920 mixing with music presumably from TIBET; news // but an echo apart on weaker 5010, Chennai and T`m respectively; At 1235 on 4820 music with SAH, one of which would be Kolkata, the other Lhasa, plus SSB QRM. Local sunrise April 13 in Enid was 1201 UT. 6165, April 10 at 1255, poor signal in S Asian singing. I will confidently list-log this as AIR Sindhi service via Delhi-Khampur site, 250 kW at 65 degrees in B-09, rather than VOV-4 Hmong service, 50 kW, ND from Hanoi-Xuan Mai site in A-10, both per Aoki. While Aoki has only B-09 India info so far, these instances also check with latest A-10 info as in http://www.qsl.net/vu2jos/sw/freq.htm which however lax azimuths (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** INDIA. AIR heard in English to UK and Western Europe at 1938 till after 2200, April 12, on 6200 instead of scheduled 6280. But noted April 13 at 1745 back on 6280. Good signal on both evenings. Mondays at 2120 has letters programme 'Faithfully Yours' (Roger Tidy, UK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) All India Radio --- Captada en inglés en este momento 2110 UT en los 6280 kHz (José Elías, Venezuela, April 13, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** INDIA [and non]. 9690, AIR GOS tuning up early April 11 at 1319- 1320* open carrier with signature big hum always upon this transmitter. The sesquihour does not officially start until 1330. It QRMs something, per Aoki, IBB`s Deewa Radio via Sri Lanka to Afghanistan at 1300-1400. How can Bengaluru and nearby Irana Wila possibly have been scheduled on the same frequency at the same time? Must be quite a clash in Asia. AIR has been on 9690 for ages. 15050, April 10 at 1448 fluttery signal peaking at S9+10 but absolutely no modulation; went off somewhere around 1500. This can only be the AIR Sinhala service as scheduled 1300-1500, 250 kW from Delhi-Khampur site at 174 degrees, so longpath? Preceded by Tamil at 1115-1215. Is it unmodulated too? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** INDIA. DIGITAL MAKEOVER FOR DD, AIR SOON Nandini R Iyer, Hindustan Times New Delhi, April 07, 2010 First Published: 23:47 IST(7/4/2010) http://www.hindustantimes.com/rssfeed/newdelhi/Digital-makeover-for-DD-AIR-soon/Article1-528462.aspx In three years from now, when the spectrum wars hot up, and television and radio channels will be fighting left, right, and centre for space, our own home-brewed Doordarshan and All India Radio will be sailing through with twice their present capacity. A proposal to upgrade Doordarshan and All India Radio to digital mode through a complete “switchover from analog to digital” is likely to come up before the cabinet on Thursday. Highly placed government sources told Hindustan Times, the proposed switch, which is expected to cost Rs 1463.5 crore, would be carried out over the next three years. The primary benefits from digitalisation, would be the manner in which available, spectrum — already a scarce resource — would be optimised. A digital terrestrial transmitter can telecast six or even eight television channels compared to the single channel that an existing analogue terrestrial transmitter in a given channel bandwidth can. In the case of Radio, a digital transmitter in Medium Wave mode can broadcast two FM quality channels and four Compact Disc quality channels in FM mode as opposed to the existing single channel capacity of the analogue MW/FM transmitter. In the case of radio, switching to digital has become a necessity because broadcast equipment manufacturers across the world have switched to digital sets. [sic] All India Radio officials admit — albeit off the record — that eventually spare parts for analogy [sic] equipment will not be available. In the case of Doordarshan, the switch will facilitate the extremely important digital archiving facilities that are currently absent. In both cases there were will be considerable saving of power and spectrum. A senior official pointed out that both DD and AIR have had problems finding, hiring, or retaining, qualified technical staff. Digitalisation will also minimise the need for technical staff (via Alokesh Gupta, New Delhi, dx_india yg via DXLD) PUBCASTERS' DD & AIR DIGITIZATION PLAN GETS CABINET APPROVAL April 08, 2010 Source: MM Network By: Media Mughals http://www.mediamughals.com/News/1/1/Article/5086/Pubcasters'_DD_&_AIR_digitization_plan_gets_Cabinet_approval The public broadcasters, Doordarshan (DD) and All India Radio (AIR) have sought the approval of the Cabinet for its digitization plans. The Cabinet Committee on Infrastructure has given its approval to the proposal of the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting regarding 11th Plan Scheme of Doordarshan – ‘Digitalization of Transmitters & Studios in Doordarshan Network, today. With this consent an allocation of Rs 620 crore has been sanctioned in the 11th Plan for implementation of the programme in case of DD and Rs 920 crore in case of AIR. Informing the reporters about the cabinet decision, Minister of Information & Broadcasting Ambika Soni remarked, ''Digitalisation would enable the people in the remotest corner of the country to receive a higher quality of AIR and DD signals.'' Digitization of broadcasting has been one of the crucial challenges and opportunities for the broadcasters in the current scenario. At the same time digital broadcasting would enable the pubcasters’ to deliver better quality of content in the coming times and cope with the competition from the private broadcasters. The Scheme involves installation of 40 numbers of Digital Terrestrial Transmitters (DTTs), networking of DTT through satellite, augmentation of DMCs by providing equipment & facilities for maintaining the digital infrastructure, providing 5 sets of digital measurement equipment at zonal offices, providing 60 numbers of UPS at HPTs for uninterrupted power supply, R&D and Training, Digitalization of 31 partially digitalized and 8 analogue studio centers, digitalization of Archiving facilities, digitalization of News automation system and e- governance and IT Scheme. While, AIR is already moving towards digitization with the adoption of the DRM standard, DD is all set to roll out HD broadcast for the upcoming Commonwealth Games 2010 (via Alokesh Gupta, New Delhi, April 8, dx_india yg via DXLD) ** INDONESIA. WEST IRIAN [NASWA radio country], RRI 3905.9 via Merauke, the station confirmed my reception report on my seventh attempt. Part of the letter was in English (Marlin Field, MI, QSL Report, April NASWA Journal via DXLD) Originally heard how many years ago? The station long inactive, tho still in A-10 Aoki! Not even mentioned as ``off the air`` in Ishida. If you hear some broadcaster on 3905 now, it would be R. New Ireland, PNG, q.v. (gh, DXLD) ** INDONESIA. 4750, RRI Makassar in heavy mix with China (or Bangladesh?), April 13 at 1233 but Indonesian talk atop. 4870, weak music at 1234 April 10, presumably RRI Wamena; while 4750 Makassar was much stronger atop CCI. It pays for me to awaken a bit earlier than usual for better Asian reception. 3325, RRI Palangkaraya, best heard in a long time, S9+18, April 14 at 1158 with song, 1200 one pip, RRI ID, WIB timecheck, warta berita, the first minute of which with plenty of music produxion, presumably headlines, then W&M alternating. Really no sign of Buka, PNG on same frequency. This is right at local sunrise in Enid. 3345, RRI Ternate at 1202 April 14, also news in Indonesian but not // 3325, or maybe it was just a bit out of synch; quite weaker than 3325. 3345 back to music already at 1205. 4870, RRI Wamena, April 14 at 1209 with warta berita, // much stronger 4750 Makassar, and a couple words out of synch (Glenn Hauser, OK, WORLD OF RADIO 1508, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** INDONESIA. 4925, RRI-Jambi is off the air again from April 2. Also, 3976, RRI-Pontianak is off the air from April 2. (Atsunori Ishida, Indonesian Radio Stations April 5, 2010 via DXLD) ** INDONESIA. 9525.80, V of Indonesia and RRI Jakarta in English with news from V of Indonesia read by a woman and news from RRI Jakarta read by a man, made interesting because sounded like coming from two different transmitter location and for start RRI often double up, had strong echo behind it at least until they were synchronized, reception from Jakarta fair to good, RRI poor with strong fades. 1018 ID end of the news from Voice of Indonesia and RRI Jakarta, 8th April (John Kecskes, Australia, Kenwood R-5000 & A/D sloper antenna, HCDX via DXLD) 9526-, April 10 at 1332, VOI English with daily Miscellany segment, but despite good modulation this time, her accent was so heavy that I could barely understand a word. One of her last may have been ``oxycontin`` before cut to open carrier with hum at 1334, and still the case at 1338 when I upgave. A day of rest for VOI, no signal on 9526v, Sunday April 11 at 1309 and later chex during the hour when there was still Chinese all over the band. Altho VOI`s English was missing from 9525.9 April 11 during the 13 UT hour when propagation was good, its off-frequency carrier was just barely detectable at 1339 April 12, when propagation was very disturbed. At this time hi-latitude signals from Asia below 12 MHz were absent or greatly attenuated, as were signals from Europe above 12 MHz; K-index at 12 UT was 2 and a strong G3 geomag storm was in progress, per WWV on 5000 at 1318. 9526-, VOI was missing April 11, back on but propped-out carrier only April 12; April 13 at 1302 fairly good signal strength, but with flutter, undermodulated under heavy hum, and adding the accent and pitch of Mr. Banjarmasin, copy was too poor to stay with for yet another Exotic Indonesia excursion on Tuesdays. YL in Jak did news headlines at 1304-1306 which were much more readable but yawn, about the president signing letters about this and that; 1306 back to Banjarmasin and I give up (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** INDONESIA. A late monitoring start for me April 15, but at 1303 check, RRI Makassar was still audible on 4750 more than an hour after local sunrise. 9526-, VOI, April 15 at 1323, modulation OK except for hum, news in brief allowed good comprehension since YL altho heavily accented was speaking slowly and clearly. 1326 to Indonesian Wonders about Mataram, less readable, explaining best ways to travel there, and long pauses - -- I wonder if these were supposed to be musical breaks, either missing from produxion or too low to overcome hum. 1332 Miscellany including final topic tatoos for women; 1339 Music Corner (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** IRAN. 15555+, slightly hi in frequency, poor signal April 14 at 1335 with Qur`an, then YL in Japanese, which always seems a strange pairing, but not to the Voice of the Islamic Republic of Iran, 1330- 1430 at 60 degrees from Kamalabad (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** IRAN [and non]. Re TUNISIA: Glenn - from past experience the sign- on/off times will vary by minutes each day, so the times quoted will be an approximation of what is intended rather than what actually happens. As we know, the same applies to Jordan, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia when we are sometimes 'allowed' to hear part of a unscheduled broadcast on a particular frequency. This is different to Iran which can be heard at times broadcasting in a language that is not scheduled at that time, only to find that it will drop off air part way through. This usually happens when a transmitter is not switched off after the service it has been carrying terminates. I think I heard one of these two days ago on 11940 which has Dari til about 0627. But the language I heard wasn't Dari after 0630, and it suddenly disappeared around 0640 and hasn't been heard since (Noel R. Green (NW England), April 9, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** IRAN [non]. In A-seasons with 15410 absent, it`s harder to find a decent signal for Radio Farda`s great music mix, but audible April 13 at 1403 with song in Farsi, 1407 ID in passing, this hour only via Wertachtal, GERMANY on 13580; abandoned by R. Prague (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ISRAEL [and non]. IRAN/ISRAEL, 13850v, Kol Israel at 1500-1530 UT in Persian on 13850 even accompanied by two carriers of Iranian bubble jammers on 13849.88 and 13850.05 kHz, additional 120 Hertz buzz. No \\ 15640 traced, totally covered due of DRM Sines Portugal service on co- channel, latter S=9+30db (Wolfgang Büschel, wwdxc BC-DX TopNews April 12 via DXLD) ** ITALY. Ciao a tutti, ho caricato un video su youtube dove si vedono le antenne HF del Centro Nazionale Controllo Emissioni Radioelettriche del Ministero delle Comunicazioni di Roma http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXuHr-wJZfQ http://www.mediasuk.org/iw0hk/articolo_cncre.htm 73 de (Andrea Borgnino IW0HK - HB9EMK, bclnews.it yg via DXLD) So it`s a monitoring station? (gh) ** JAPAN [non]. NHK Begins SW Service to Brazil --- WRN has recently launched a new shortwave service to Brazil for NHK as part of its ongoing commitment to increasing NHK’s global broadcast presence. NHK World Radio is the Japanese International State Broadcaster which broadcasts news, information and entertainment programmes focusing on Japan and Asia. NHK comprises a general service which broadcasts worldwide in Japanese and English and a regional service which broadcasts to specific geographical zones in 17 different languages. Over the years, WRN has been instrumental in extending NHK’s worldwide coverage; first in South Asia and the Middle East and now, after the addition of this latest service, Latin America. WRN has provided shortwave services for NHK’s radio programming in Portuguese to Brazil, which commenced broadcasting on 28th March. WRN has the means and capabilities to provide cost effective and resilient shortwave services to virtually anywhere in the world. For more information regarding WRN’s shortwave services, please contact the WRN Sales Team at sales@wrn.org (re:wired >News from WRN> April 2010 via DXLD) Hmmm, NHK has had Portuguese to Brasil for many years, as I am sure most Brazilian SW listeners and observers elsewhere are aware. This service is new to WRN, but hardly new to NHK. B-09 schedule showed one frequency for each semihour at 0930 and 0230, via Bonaire 9660, while A-10 schedule shows that plus 9485 via Santiago. Apparently the latter addition was brokered by WRN altho it is not so credited in HFCC (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** JORDAN. 11960, Radio Jordan Amman in Arabic, scheduled 0500-0715 UT, but noted also much earlier at 0400-0500 UT like \\ 11810 kHz. S=poor 6-7 signal on Apr 13 (Wolfgang Büschel, wwdxc BC-DX TopNews April 13 via DXLD) ** KOREA NORTH [non]. 6135 (ex: 5910), Shiokaze/Sea Breeze via Yamata, 1421-1429*, April 12. In Japanese with a tearful story; usual piano background music. Had first tuned in to 5910 to hear a massive jamming noise there, but no Shiokaze, so I scanned the 49m band and found them up here. Believe it is the first time they have used this frequency; fair to good reception; in the clear and too soon for the N. Korea jamming to have found them. 6135, Shiokaze/Sea Breeze via Yamata, 1415, April 14 (Wednesday). A quick check found them in English; fair reception with no jamming. Pleased to find no jamming on their former 5910 (Ron Howard, Asilomar Beach, CA, Etón E1, dxldyg via WORLD OF RADIO 1508, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** KOREA NORTH [and non]. 5890, VOA Korean via TINIAN, April 13 at 1247 with noise jamming plus wavering het I had not noticed before. Looked for Shiokaze on new 6135 as Ron Howard discovered, but too far into daytime absorption here at 1410. Would block longpath from Madagascar if it were still audible either (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** KOREA NORTH [non]. Local Korean FM UNID is propaganda --- I`ve been spending more time at my DX site lately with the warmer weather closing in on 70 degrees and working endlessly on my few remaining FM UNIDs locally. It's one of those things none of you can help with, due to the language barrier (and most of my DX here is irrelevant to most of you due to being on the wrong side of the world!) These UNIDs were the few stations on the FM Scan website (which assisted me in starting my local bandscan project here, with audio clips) that did NOT list a network, and those that didn't match the info given. One was local 97.7, heard often in my DX exploits as it interferes with 97.8 from North Korea, which I concentrate on heavily for its mysterious qualities and broadcasting oddities in this land where there are 5 open frequencies and there's never anything on them. 97.7 seemed to be an independent in a country of network radio. Finally heard an ID last night and got some translations today. Turns out my 97.7 is "Free North Korea Radio," (a 6-month UNID and it's almost always on-air locally too, which has made the UNID and lack of understandable IDs frustrating) while my recorded clip gives advice to immigrants from the north, says how life will be better down here, and just general news and talk. Propaganda, essentially. The website shows no FM frequencies, but it's on 2155 kHz [sic! No, I found 12155 on the website --- gh] for some hours, 7490 for a few hours, and 7530 for five hours. Don't know squat about shortwave, but apparently they're on FM here too. I find it no coincidence they're 0.1 KHz away from the most powerful North Korean station along the border. Sounds like 97.7 is broadcasting from a nearby border town as well. http://www.fnkradio.com/ for those who are interested - Google Translate works well to translate the website in its entirety. I'm returning home to Michigan in one month and there are so few days that the weather cooperates to hike out of this valley for some listening and recording before I leave (Chris Kadlec, Icheon, Korea http://www.beaglebass.com/dx/dx_bandscan_icheon.htm April 13, WTFDA via DXLD) BUT: I should say that my earlier message about Free North Korea radio was *incorrect*. After hours upon hours of searching, I found *one* 10 year old page that lists many frequencies that were UNIDs for me - mostly Korean military radio (just like any other station but military owned). This page lists the other military stations that I had questions about as well and their transmitter locations, so I'll assume that this listing is rather accurate since all these stations are still on the air in my location and because mountains are the primary transmitter locations, things tend to not move around a lot like back home. Therefore, it's not FNK - they're *only* shortwave. It's 97.7 owned by the ROK military. They are not playing the normal military programming most likely due to the fact that the transmitter, according to the mountain listed, is only a few miles from the DMZ near Cheorwan, in a prime rural border area (the territory is north of the 38th parallel and was formerly North Korean). So this is just a plain ole military owned station. All info is assumed, as is almost always the case here, since frequencies and power are reported all over the Internet almost exclusively in blogs and forums by random people, with the lack of online presence by any FCC-like government body. Makes it all one giant research project on my part (Chris Kadlec, Icheon, Korea, later, ibid.) ** KOREA SOUTH. 6015, KBS Hanminjok Bangsong 1 (presumed) via Hwasong. Have noted a number of times recently that the heavy jamming has been absent here. 1217-1224, April 10: heard well above a light jamming noise till 1224 heavy jamming covered them. 1442-1451, April 11: heard with only light jamming till the heavy jamming intermittently started at 1451; programming in Korean (Ron Howard, Asilomar Beach, CA, Etón E1, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** KOREA SOUTH [non]. RCI screws up KBS relay again and again: see CANADA [and non]. Is anyone but me paying attention? (gh) ** KOREA SOUTH. SOUTH KOREA ANNOUNCES DTV TRANSITION DATE http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/biz/2010/04/123_63826.html Yet another country will be leaving analog television. S Korea will transition on December 31st 2012 (Curtis Sadowski, IL, WTFDA via DXLD) ** KURDISTAN [non]. 11530, V. of Mesopotamia, via UKRAINE, April 14 at 1405 nothing but talk, but kept tuned waiting for Kurdish music which finally followed at 1418; fair but fluttery signal from the PKK terrorists (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** KUWAIT. 7190, R Kuwait, 1804 - 1825, April 12, Arabic clear ID, brief items on international football mentioning lots of players &coaches. Superb signal, first time noted here, is this a regularly scheduled NF in amateur band?! 73, (Martien Groot, Schoorl, Netherlands, dxldyg via WORLD OF RADIO 1508, DX LISTENING DIGEST) I`m afraid so, 16-22 500 kW non-direxional to the ME (Glenn Hauser, ibid.) My DX-friend in Akita confirmed s/off at 2100 UT on Apr. 12 on 7190 kHz (S. Hasegawa, Japan, NDXC, ibid.) Subject: [INTRUDER ALERT] Radio Kuwait from 1600 to 2200 UT on 7190 Dear coordinators and friends of the IARU MONITORING SYSTEM, the new transmitting period has brought a new intruder into the exclusive 40- m-Amateur Radio Band: It is Radio Kuwait (KWT), transmitting (re. HFCC) *** 1600 - 2200 UTC *** on 7190 kHz. Today, at 2039 UT, I have heard myself this station with S9+30dB. To remove this station from our exclusive 40-m-band I ask very urgently:- - Faisal, 9K2RR, from KARS - Sayed, SU1SA, from ARA - Rizkalla, OD5RI, from RAL to contact their club HQ in order to file a report to your national telecoms. authorities. Ask the officials to send an International Complaint to the telecoms. authorities of Kuwait. I ask the other members of IARU-MonSys Region 1 to do the same. The more complaints, the better. Thank you for your good work! Regards, Uli, DJ9KR Vice-Coordinator of IARU MONITORING SYSTEM Intruder Watch, INTRUDERALERT mailing list (April 12 via Wolfgang Büschel, DXLD) The sheikhs haven`t realized the new ITU Geneve bandplan yet. 73 wolfy (Wolfgang Büschel, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Kuwait on 7150 kHz at 1630 UT today (S. Hasegawa, Japan, NDXC, 1644 UT April 13, WORLD OF RADIO 1508, ibid.) Hi Glenn, 7150 at 1720 R Kuwait Arabic, strong. No listing for this time? Also very strong last night on 7190 at 1950 (Mark Davies, Anglesey, UK, April 13, ibid.) Strong signal also here on 7150 at 1730 Apr 13. Maybe the same unit that was testing Jan 27 with Qur`an programming on 7130, 7160, 7190 etc. (Jari Savolainen, Kuusankoski, Finland, Iibid.) ** KYRGYZSTAN. 4010.00, 1730-1740 11.04, Kyrgyz R 1, Krasnaya Rechka. Kyrgyz talk 35331 // 4795 - still on the air after the revolt, but bad modulation (Anker Petersen, from Skovlunde, Denmark received on my AOR AR7030PLUS with 28 metres of longwire, via Dario Monferini, playdx yg via WORLD OF RADIO 1508, DXLD) ** KYRGYZSTAN. RFE/RL BACK ON THE AIR IN KYRGYZSTAN "After nearly two years off the national airwaves, RFE/RL's popular radio and television programs in Kyrgyzstan are once again widely available to listeners and viewers across the country. The move reverses a 2008 decision by UTRK, the national broadcaster, to remove RFE/RL programming due to what it described as 'negative and critical' coverage of the government. ... In the wake of last week's uprising that led to the ouster of Kyrgyz president Kurmanbek Bakiev, Radio Azattyk is back on UTRK. It is broadcasting three hours of daily radio programming and two weekly primetime television news shows - 'Inconvenient Questions' and the youth-oriented 'Azattyk Plus.'" RFE/RL press release, 12 April 2010 (via kimandrewelliott.com via DXLD) Not yet available at the RFE/RL website, but sent to a select few recipients, one of whom sent it to me. Also reported by VOA correspondent Steve Herman, still tweeting from Bishkek (Kim Andrew Elliott, ibid.) "Reticence marked the immediate US diplomatic response to the April 6- 7 upheaval in Kyrgyzstan. Underscoring this cautious approach, Washington has yet to formally recognize the new provisional government, which assumed authority in Bishkek after Bakiyev fled to his native region in southern Kyrgyzstan. Russia, in sharp contrast, quickly acknowledged the provisional government and reached out to its head, Roza Otunbayeva. ... The US government may soon be facing some tough questions from Kyrgyzstan’s new leaders, who say they are intent on reviewing the Defense Department’s contracts concerning Manas due to suspicion about corrupt practices on the part of the Bakiyev administration. In Kyrgyzstan, public opinion is widespread that US diplomacy is preoccupied with the Manas facility’s future, and is not paying sufficient attention to the country’s economic and democratization challenges." Eurasianet.org, 11 April 2010. Posted: 13 Apr 2010 (See http://kimelli.nfshost.com/index.php?id=8743 for linx, via WORLD OF RADIO 1508, DXLD) ** LAOS. 4412.64v, Lao National Radio via Sam Neua, 1208, April 11. Again noted with poor to fair reception; // 6130. Propagation is certainly favoring this reception recently! 7145, Lao National R., Vientiane, 1342-1359*, April 11. Domestic news in English; above average reception; able to understand many of the news items; ID and into FM programming in Laotian. Audio attachment with nice ID and FM programming (Ron Howard, Asilomar Beach, CA, Etón E1, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) 7145, Lao National R., Vientiane, 1343-1400*, April 15. Tuned in expecting to hear their domestic news in English, but instead had nice selection of non-stop Laotian songs; suddenly off with never any ID. Did not sound like their normal FM programming they usually run after the news; not // 6130. A one day event? (Ron Howard, Asilomar Beach, CA, Etón E1, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** LAOS. Tuned in to Radio Australia-9580 at 1140, April 7, greeting "new" listeners to FM 96 in Vientiane, implying it, too was new. Power not given. Gave e-mail address today @ radioaustralia.net.au (Earl Higgins, MO, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** LIBERIA. They are solid state transmitters, running Class-E, with P.D.M. modulators. They are actually prototypes and were my very first design using this method. I have two other stations that are coming on soon, using an upgraded version of this design. Liberia has also received the 2,500 watt transmitter we shipped last month, so we should be hearing them soon also. That is STAR RADIO, and I built the transmitter for 4025 kHz, but depending on conditions, that may change. I've been seeing a lot of real high frequency activity, so they may have to move up to 5 or 6 megs to fight off the D layer (JAMIE LABADIA, April 9, via Don Rhodes, Yarra Glen, Victoria, Australia, DX LISTENING DIGEST) See also GUYANA; VANUATU ** LIBYA. 15215.008, Voice of Africa, 1722, French, talk by a woman with brief African music bridges, peaking at about S9+30. Listed parallel of 11995 not heard. 2 April (David Sharp, NSW Australia. FT- 950, NRD-535D, R8, ICF-2010, ICF-SW7600GR, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** MADAGASCAR. 5010 (USB + carrier mode), RTVM, 1439, April 14. Sounded like French; poor to almost fair; // 6134.9v, very poor; nothing heard on 7105 (Ron Howard, Asilomar Beach, CA, Etón E1, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** MADAGASCAR. 13570, VOA Special English at 1654 with woman telling a story. Poor Apr 10. 11500, MADAGASCAR, Radio Dabanga tentative) at 1712, in African language assume Sudanese) with male host and other speakers correspondents?) on telephone with reports. Fair Apr 10. 11605, MADAGASCAR, VOA with English to Zimbabwe sked 1720-1740), 1738 pop African music, man with closing comments. Poor signal, but at 1740:30 obviously in an African language, Ndebele listed) with mentions of Zimbabwe. Apr 10 (Harold Sellers, Vernon, British Columbia, Eton E-1 and Sony AN-1 active antenna, listening portable from my car, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** MADAGASCAR. 13840, good signal April 12 at 0533 two YLs with news in French frequently mentioning Japon, which is fitting since this is NHK, at 0530-0600. 13710, April 12 at 0534 news in French, voice sounds very much like R. Japan on 13840, but not //, and soon ID with jingle for La Voix de l`Amerique, i.e. VOA via Madagascar at 0530-0600 M-F; BTW, the second half of this French hour at 0600-0630 on 13710 switches to Botswana; why? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** MALAYSIA. 5964.93, 1817-1827, Klasik Nasional, Kajang, 09/04, Malay, pop songs, OM at 1823'05 with mentions of "Malay" and "Nasional" - fair with splashes from 5970(CRI) (Mikhail Timofeyev, DXpedition near St. Petersburg, Russia, Icom R75, some directional antennas, HCDX via DXLD) ** MALAYSIA [and non]. UNIDENTIFIED. 6175v, April 9 at 1250 I notice a het of about 200 Hz on this frequency between two weak stations in the skirts of Cuba 6180. At first I thought I might be tuned to the off- frequency Filipina on 6170, but soon pinned to 6175 instead. Per Aoki it looks like the only two propagable transmitters on 6175 from Amerasia at this hour are Malaysia and China, so is Voice of Malaysia off-frequency like some of the other RTM transmitters? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 6174.40, Voice of Malaysia via RTM, 1325-1400, April 10. Thanks Glenn for the alert! Assume in Indonesian with pop songs; several VOM IDs; 1400 1+1 pips and start of the Radio Suara Islam (Voice of Islam) program in vernacular; after 1400 was // 6049.60v (which before 1400 had the usual Asyik FM programming); best in LSB due to CNR-1 QRM on 6175.0. This is off set enough now that we should be able to have decent reception. This is a change from the past, in which I occasionally heard R. Suara Islam on 6175.0, under CNR-1 (Ron Howard, Asilomar Beach, CA, Etón E1, dxldyg via WORLD OF RADIO 1508, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 6175 in Chinese April 10 at 1252 with constant audible het on low side. Aoki has CNR1 from Beijing 572 site, 100 kW, 37 degrees USward, while VOM Kajang in Indonesian, 100 kW non-direxional. Ron Howard confirms this date that VOM is in fact on 6174.40, so must be a 600 Hz het, assuming CNR1 be spot on (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 6174.36v, R. Suara Islam via RTM, 1517, April 11. In vernacular; // 6049.60v; lower frequency today (Ron Howard, Asilomar Beach, CA, Etón E1, dxldyg via WORLD OF RADIO 1508, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 6174.41, RTM Kajang, 1915, April 11, Malay "Salam FM" jingle & pop songs. In the clear between co-channel CRI English off 1857 and Wertachtal carrier starting up 1927 for "God is just a prayer away" broadcast. Seems running late, weak, // excellent 9750. Continues to be off frequency (Martien Groot, Schoorl, Netherlands, dxldyg via WORLD OF RADIO 1508, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 6174.4v, R. Suara Islam via RTM, 1527, April 15. Heard // 6049.6v and 9750; all were almost fair; in vernacular with pop songs; ID “Suara Islam Kuala Lumpur”. Thanks to Dan Sheedy for the reminder about the // 9750 (Ron Howard, Asilomar Beach, CA, Etón E1, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** MALAYSIA/SARAWAK. 7270, RTV Malaysia (Wai FM) (Kuching) (presumed), 1205-1236, 4/9/2010, Iban (per schedule). Initially two stations on frequency, one in a Malaysian dialect (strength increasing), and the other presumed to be PBS Nei Menggu (strength decreasing). Talk by man at woman at 1205 with a few bars of pop music here and there. Pop music at 1219, then chanting style music at 1229. Back to pop music at 1236. Weak signal, but dominating the frequency after 1215 (Jim Evans, Germantown, TN, IC-R75, RX-340, Random Wire (90'), ALA100M Loop (20'), DX LISTENING DIGEST) 7270, Wai FM via RTM, 1514-1530, April 9. In vernacular; series of live on-air phone calls which started with “Hello, Wai FM”; played EZL/pop song; almost fair with light QRM. 7270, Wai FM via RTM, 1218, April 12. In vernacular; EZL/pop songs; 1229-1257: usual program of non-stop indigenous music and chanting; ToH: 1+1 pips and news; many Wai FM IDs; fair to poor with light QRM. 1346-1400: Wai FM programming; ToH: 1+1 pips; 1400-1405: I am confused by this news segment that starts and ends with a brief canned musical fanfare with announcer over the music saying about three-four words, one of which seems to be “Limbang” and followed by clear references to “Wai FM”. In the past I had thought this was a “Limbang FM” segment, but now I am not sure what to make of both “Limbang” and “Wai FM” being given together at the start and end of the news. In the past Wai FM had a website that did show they relayed some of Limbang FM, but that site is gone. Limbang's website http://www.rtmlimbang.net/piagamr.html is of no use pertaining to any relays by Wai FM. Perhaps someone knows more about this and can explain the “Limbang” references? (Ron Howard, Asilomar Beach, CA, Etón E1, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) 7270, Wai FM via RTM, 1400-1407, April 14. 1+1 pips; today seemed to have a different jingle for “Berita R-T-M Limbang” at start and end of news (which ran a few minutes longer than usual), but am still not positive of the wording. Anyone else hearing this? (Ron Howard, Asilomar Beach, CA, Etón E1, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** MALAYSIA. 7295, Traxx FM via RTM, 1441-1513, April 9. In English; DJ (“The Shaz”) with Traxx Chart Toppers (“TCT”) playing the top 10 songs; news (ASEAN summit wrapped up today); DJ Otto with his “Late Nights” requests show; promo for the “Morning Show”; mostly fair (Ron Howard, Asilomar Beach, CA, Etón E1, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** MALAYSIA. 9750, 1255-1302, Voice of Malaysia, Kajang, 09/04, Indonesian, nice Malay songs by YL singer, then YL news with some mentions of "Malaysia" - strong signal, but fair only due to NHK on the same channel (Mikhail Timofeyev, DXpedition near St. Petersburg, Russia, Icom R75, some directional antennas, HCDX via DXLD) 15295, Surprisingly fair level signal from RTM K-L Kajang, English news read by Cambridge like high-British accent English newsreader. Still in progress at 0904 UT Apr 14. As beam headed of 133 degrees towards Pacific, I guess RTM signal signal came longpath across Pacific, Easter Island, Colombia, Bonaire and Azores to my post (Wolfgang Büschel, Germany, wwdxc BC-DX TopNews April 14, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** MALI. 7295, at 2311 April 10 CRI in Chinese via Bamako, either undermodulated or under a zero-beat amateur carrier to spoil it; or both. This area is a favorite of hams for AM instead of SSB (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** MEXICO. 4800.000, Radio Transcontinental, XERTA, 1053, Spanish, local ballads with brief talk by a male announcer. Under co-channel China. 30 March (David Sharp, NSW Australia. FT-950, NRD-535D, R8, ICF-2010, ICF-SW7600GR, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** MEXICO. 6104.76, XEQM, Candela FM, Merida, 0737-0805, April 9, Spanish pop music. Spanish announcements. Talk. Weak. Poor in noisy conditions. Deep fades (Brian Alexander, PA, DX Listening Digest) ** MEXICO. 6185, Radio Educación at 0804 UT with several IDs after a very nice program of soft local music. Back into a music program. Good April 8/10. Noted with full and I mean full ID at 0500 UT in Spanish and English. Fair April 9/10 (Mick Delmage, Sherwood Park, Alberta, Kenwood R5000, K9AY and 7-30 MHz Log Periodic, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Radio Educación, 6185, does it again tnx to eclectic late-night music format when you never know what to expect: April 10 at 0555 traditional bluegrass lovesongs with wonderful harmony (in English!); 0603 full ID for MW and SW; 0605 on to a couple of contrasting Linda Ronstadt songs, ``You`re No Good`` and ``When Will I Be Loved``. No CCI, and strong enough to overcome ACI from CRI/Sackville 6190 before that QRTed at 0559. 6185, XEPPM, April 13 at 0622 still in the clear with a string of Carole King songs, album cuts, after intro in Spanish (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** MEXICO. MEXICO’S OLDEST NATIVE RADIO STATION WINS UNESCO AWARD A mural on the radio station’s wall. La Voz de los Campesinos, or The Peasants’ Voice, was recently recognized by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. By Rick Kearns, Today correspondent Story Published: Apr 13, 2010 VERACRUZ, Mexico – For more than 40 years, Mexico’s oldest indigenous radio station has helped its listeners through many hardships, including repression and years of official neglect, and recently, the station’s work has been recognized by UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. La Voz de los Campesinos won an international communications award for its interactive programming, featuring community messages and shows on local arts, customs, education and human rights that are translated into three indigenous languages. La Voz de los Campesinos, XHFCE 105.5 FM or The Peasants’ Voice radio station from the eastern state of Veracruz, Mexico was one of two recipients in the world that won UNESCO’s Prize for Rural Communication. The other winner was Egyptian journalist Amr Mamdouh Ellissy. The two laureates will share the $20,000 prize, which recognizes meritorious and innovative effort to improve communication for rural communities in developing countries. It is awarded every two years following a recommendation by the bureau of UNESCO’s International Programme for the Development of Communication, which acts as jury. The manager of the station, Alfredo Zepeda, and two staff members of Culture and Education Promotions, the non-governmental organization that helped develop the station, attended the awards ceremony in Paris March 24. CEP Project Coordinator Ilse Fajardo spoke on behalf of the station and CEP. “This recognition is really for the indigenous and peasants of this region of our country. For the Nahuatl, Otomi and Tepehua people that have been building this radio service with their own voice.” In her speech, Fajardo said the station began as a tiny shortwave radio project and that 45 years later The Peasants’ Voice was a fully licensed radio station that reached across the mountains of the Sierra Madre East and into the states of San Luis Potosi, Hidalgo, Puebla and Veracruz. She also said the current station reaches 400 communities or approximately 100,000 people. This radio promotes the indigenous communities’ sense of dignity, the value of the peasants’ contribution to society, the unique importance of community life, the strengthening of languages, equality between men and women, the wealth of musical heritage and the development of decent subsistence. The radio accompanies the resistance of the people who see themselves not as a problem but as a solution to the current human crisis.” For Fajardo the awards ceremony was “an enriching experience full of learning and great joy for this achievement that is so important for the indigenous communities of Sierra Norte de Veracruz.” When asked about the communities and the challenges facing the station, Fajardo sent a copy of the application narrative that CEP had provided to UNESCO. According to CEP’s candidature document, the communities served by La Voz are among the poorest in Mexico. CEP said the station’s listeners live in communities “that have close to no communication with the outside since the area where they are located is extremely remote. … many communities don’t have any telephone service. Because of this, any radio communication is highly valued.” For people living without telephone service, the station’s “Notices and Messages Show” is important; this service provides free air time for the announcing of messages and notices requested by individuals, communities, as well as by local, state and federal authorities. CEP said that due to the large numbers of people from the area who now work in the north, the station receives “an average of 70 calls a week from New York, from indigenous migrants wanting to relay messages to their families.” The Peasants’ Voice also includes many other programs such as: “News of the Countryside;” “Tasks,” which is a news analysis show; “The Woman of the Countryside,” which features information on health, education and women’s perspective; “Kite,” which is for children; “Radio Soap Operas;” “Recordings” that feature local musicians performing their work and interviews; and “My People’s Rights,” a program about human rights. According to CEP, the human rights of their listeners and the people themselves have been under attack for many years. “The communities served by the station have had to live with the violence of the landowners, the impunity of the local bosses, and the total neglect of the state and federal authorities. There is a profound shortage of resources, technical assistance and training for sustainable, ecologically conscientious farming. Many years of the government’s policy of uncontrolled deforestation is having an increasingly detrimental effect on the natural environment of the area. … The relationship between the indigenous population and the rest of society is based on inequality, discrimination and social pressure to destroy their cultural identity.” Staff and supporters of The Peasants’ Voice are dedicated to protecting those cultures, according to Fajardo. In the conclusion to her speech at the awards ceremony, she referred to an indigenous symbol that represents culture and an aspect of the indigenous role in the world community. “In the thinking of the Nahuatl, Otomi and Tepehua communities involved in Huayacocotla’s radio, The Peasant’s Voice, culture is symbolized by the zenzontle. … the bird of four voices, and is distributed through jungles and ravines. Only with all the voices there is a complete world. With this recognition from UNESCO, our radio gets a new breath in their commitment to spread the cultural contribution that the indigenous communities of the Sierra Madre give as a gift to human kind.” Source: http://bit.ly/defIS0 (Via Yimber Gaviría, Colombia, DXLD) Apparently this is the successor to Radio Huayacocotla, 2390 (gh) ** MYANMAR. 5915, Myanma Radio - Minorities and Distance Learning Services, 1331-1345, April 9. All in English with lecture analyzing poems for meaning; even with CRI QRM was able to understand some of the lecture, as per the audio attachment. 5985.78v, Myanma R., 1351-1352, April 9. In vernacular; usual theme music at start and end of this often heard standard slogan; in English it would be something like: Only with stability and peace will the nation develop. Only with stability and peace will democratization process be successful. Anarchy begets anarchy, not democracy. Riots begets riots, not democracy. Democracy can be introduced only through constitution. We favor peace and stability. We favor development. We oppose unrest and violence. Wipe out those inciting unrest and violence. VOA, BBC sowing hatred among the people. RFA, DVB generating public outrage. Do not allow ourselves to be swayed by broadcasts designed to cause trouble. Clear mention of “VOA, BBC” and “RFA, DVB”; have often heard this slogan in English during their English segment after 1530; poor-fair. 7185.73v, Myanma Radio, 1241-1330*, April 9. In vernacular with EZL/pop songs; almost fair; noted with usual two audio feeds mixing together. Lower in frequency today. We can say that for the time being they are indeed broadcasting here during their evenings. April 8 noted same 1330 sign-off. 7185.75v, Myanma Radio, 1322-1330*, April 11. In vernacular with EZL/pop songs; almost fair; noted with usual two audio feeds mixing together; off with the usual indigenous music. Nice to have them back again for this time period! 5915, Myanma Radio - Minorities and Distance Learning Services, 1418- 1430, April 14. All in English; continuing the lecture about the themes found in poetry. Found that 5985.78v was off the air at this time (Ron Howard, Asilomar Beach, CA, Etón E1, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** NETHERLANDS [non]. 9860, Arabic music and then talk about Hollandia, good signal April 12 at 2120. It`s the new A-10 frequency for RN via RWANDA during this hour at 325 degrees, tho missing from Aoki (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** NIGER. 9704.99, LV du Sahel, Niamey, 2115-2145+, April 9, reactivated? Tentative log with vernacular talk. Local tribal chants. Local music. Poor to fair in noisy conditions (Brian Alexander, PA, WORLD OF RADIO 1508, DX Listening Digest) In French, taking music requests? Phone-ins "La Voix de Sahel, allo?" 2206 --- well done, Brian! (Tony (VE3NO) Ward, ComputerViz, NYAA StarFest On-Line, http://www.nyaa.ca April 9, ibid.) I checked 9705 now at 2225 UT (April 09) and found Niger with a phone- in program in French playing a French pop song, ID: "Radio Niger" and several mentions of Niger and Niamey, SINPO in Denmark: 45434. Thanks a lot to Brian Alexander for alerting us! Best 73, (Anker Petersen, Denmark, Cumbre DX via DXLD) 9705, 2008-2019, 2204-, La Voix du Sahel, Niamey, 09/04, vernacular, OM talks by two announcers at least, also at 2204 in French and OM talk with some mentions of "Amour" - strong, but fair only due to ETHIOPIA on 9704.2, very good at 2204 (Mikhail Timofeyev, DXpedition near St. Petersburg, Russia, April 11, Icom R75, some directional antennas, HCDX via WORLD OF RADIO 1508, DXLD) 9704.99, LV du Sahel, Niamey, 2115-2301*, April 9, Reactivated. Tune- in to vernacular talk. Local tribal chants. Local music with flutes and vocals. French talk after 2200 with phone talk and Euro-pop music. Qur`an at 2253:30-2259. Short flute IS and choral National Anthem at 2259. Quick test tone at 2301 and off. Poor to fair in noisy conditions at tune-in but improved to a fair to good signal by 2200. Strong co-channel QRM at 2257 made reception very difficult at that point (Brian Alexander, PA, WORLD OF RADIO 1508, DX Listening Digest) ORTN-La Voix de Sahel heard at +1900-2301* UT on Apr.9 in vernacular and French. Talking drum and local Flute IS at 2148, as ID in French at 2151 and National anthem at 2259. First noted at 2045 on Apr. 8 (S. Hasegawa, Japan, NDXC, dxldyg via WORLD OF RADIO 1508, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Hi Glenn, some recent observations (yes I'm still alive, but too much work and not much time to listen...): Niamey 9705 reactivated As first reported by Sei-Ichi Hasegawa in Japan on April 8th, 2145 UT, ORTN La Voix du Sahel is active again on 9705. On Saturday 10 and Sunday 11, I heard it in the morning till 0800+, also Friday and Saturday 1900+. Last heard in August 09. 73 (Thorsten Hallmann, Münster, Germany, http://www.africalist.de.ms April 11, WORLD OF RADIO 1508, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 9705, La Voix du Sahel (Niamey), 2132-2240, 4/10/2010, French/Vern. Talk by man in vernacular, possibly a speech. Low audio talk by man at 2143 followed by tribal music at 2146. Flutes, then talk by woman in French at 2150. Flutes into upbeat local pop music at 2153. Announcement by man in French at 2200 followed by talk. Back to local pop music at 2203 with male DJ. Initially very weak, but increasing to moderate strength after 2150. Thanks to Brian Alexander for the initial tip regarding reactivation (Jim Evans, Germantown, TN, IC-R75, RX-340, Random Wire (90'), ALA100M Loop (20'), WORLD OF RADIO 1508, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 9705, Voix du Sahel, Niamey, 2054-2124, April 10, vernacular. Sounded like a radio drama with occasional music bits; continuous thru tune- out; fair & in the clear after Ethiopia s/off (Scott R. Barbour Jr. Intervale, N.H. USA, NRD-545, MLB1, 200' Beverages, 60m dipole, dxldyg via WORLD OF RADIO 1508, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 9705, Radio Niger at 2250 UT with Celine Dion tune, Qur'an at 2253. Sign off announcement in French, at 2256 and short IS and National Anthem at 2257, Test tone at 2228 UT, then off. Fair April 10/10 (Mick Delmage, Sherwood Park, Alberta, Kenwood R5000, K9AY and 7-30 MHz Log Periodic, WORLD OF RADIO 1508, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 9705.00, 2220-2300* 09.04, La Voix du Sahel, Niamey. French phone-in programme, ID: "Radio Niger", often mentioned Niamey and Niger, French and African songs, 2258 closing ann, native signal and national hymn. Reactivated after 3½ month of silence! 45434. Best 73, (Anker Petersen, from Skovlunde, Denmark received on my AOR AR7030PLUS with 28 metres of longwire, via Dario Monferini, playdx yg via WORLD OF RADIO 1508, DXLD) ** NIGERIA. 6089.85, 2254-2301*, R. Nigeria, Kaduna, 09/04, vernacular, local singing, 2257'15 OM religious talk with mention of "Nigeria", then final OM announcement and choral national anthem - fair-good with Anguilla in the background and heterodyne (Mikhail Timofeyev, DXpedition near St. Petersburg, Russia, Icom R75, some directional antennas, HCDX via DXLD) 6090, in absence of Anguilla, April 13 at 0615 African language distorted with hum, long pause leaving the hum unimpeded, resumed talk at 0616, no doubt R. Nigeria, Kaduna, presumably in Hausa, which when AIA is on can be heard as an undercurrent, and slightly off-frequency (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** NIGERIA. Voice of Nigeria introduced a new schedule from April 4, as announced during the French service. It's not on the homepage, but a few things have definitely changed, further monitoring needed: 9690 1700-1730 Kisuaheli 15120 1730-1800 Arabic 15120 1800-1900 English, (announced as until 2000, likely changing to 7255) 7255 2000-2100 French (announced during the morning service) 15120 0500-0700 English, 0700-0800 French and 9690 0800-0900 Hausa unchanged. 73 (Thorsten Hallmann, Münster, Germany, http://www.africalist.de.ms April 11, WORLD OF RADIO 1508, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Schedule changes for Voice of Nigeria The following announcement was heard during the "This Week on VON" programme from Voice of Nigeria, 1805-1815 UT on Sunday 11 April 2010 (I was listening online at www.voiceofnigeria. org, but 15120 kHz was offering good reception when checked): "... this is to inform you that there is now a slight change in the number of hours we broadcast on 15120 kHz in the 19 metre-band to North Africa and Europe, and on 9690 kHz in the 31 metre-band to West Africa. On 15120 kHz you can listen to programmes in English between 04.45 and 07 hours, and between 15 and 19 hours GMT daily. While on 9690 kHz broadcasts of programmes in English begin at 09 hours and 15 hours GMT, and between 19 and 20 hours GMT daily". Perhaps for 9690 kHz they meant "between 09 and 15 hours GMT"? Perhaps these changes are related to the new shortwave transmitter site at Abuja coming on air. However, the schedule will need to be monitored as they seemed to be getting mixed up with time announcements (i.e. they said it was "15 hours GMT" when it was 1800 but acknowledged the mistake at 1805), and prior to that Arabic was heard at 1745 UTC tune- in online and I'm sure it was also on 15120 kHz, although reception was very poor (reception improved significantly for English at 1800 which must have been due to an antenna change). (Tony Rogers, Birmingham, UK, AOR 7030+ / LA380 loop, April 11, BDXC-UK yg via DXLD) English from Voice of Nigeria: left 15120 kHz at 1900 UT and seem to be on 9690 kHz from 1900 (although that is dominated here by Radio Romania International but I think VON are there underneath) (Tony Rogers, Birmingham, UK, AOR 7030+ / LA380 loop, BDXC UK yg via DXLD) Further to Tony's e-mail: I came across V of Nigeria with their programme in English Sunday 11 April at 1515 on 15120 (with the Musical Heritage programme). Just before 1600, they announced that programmes would continue in Kiswahili. 15120 in English went off at 1600. At 1601 found VoN in Swahili on 11770 until 1630. No trace of programmes at 1630 (although still streaming online in unknown language). At 1735 observed back on 15120 in Arabic, and then English from 1800 until 1900. Still streaming online in English at 1900 - 9690 is completely blocked at present by R. Romania International (Alan Roe, Teddington, UK dxldyg via WORLD OF RADIO 1508, DX LISTENING DIGEST) To complete with yesterday's and current observation: 1500-1600 15120 E to Eu, very strong both Sun+Mon 1600-1630 11770 Kisuaheli to ??? (very strong on Sun) 1630-1730 9690 Yoruba and Igbo ??? Not Kisuaheli. Not heard Sunday at 2100/2200, not heard Monday from 0900 to 1500 on 9690, as scheduled, or anywhere else, starting again 1501 on 15120. English to Europe is definitely not 1500-1900 as Tony Rogers heard, but only 1500-1600 + 1800-1900, probably changing to 7255 (likely not 9690) for the rest of the evening, but it's a very crowded channel. If English really starts at 0900 as announced, Fulfulde is likely to be in the evening now. 73 (Thorsten Hallmann, Germany, April 12, DX LISTENING DIGEST) I was able to confirm Voice of Nigeria in English on 9690 kHz from 0900 to 1500 UT today (Monday) as per the announcement monitored by Tony Rogers yesterday. The signal here was very weak and at times barely audible, but I have no doubt that Nigeria was there in English throughout this period. At 1500-1600, English was then heard on 15120. At 1600 Swahili was heard on 11770. Checking again from 1900 and English is back on 15120 kHz this evening (Dave Kenny, Caversham UK, AOR7030+ 25m long wire, April 12, dxldyg via WORLD OF RADIO 1508, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Expanded usage of 9690 presents a few problems, notably AIR GOS at 1330-1500 in English, where it has been for ages, and was noted still today with its characteristic hum; and VOA Deewa Radio in Pashto via Sri Lanka at 12-14. Does VON overcome both of these in Europe? Aoki thinx the azimuth on 9690 is/was 248 degrees from Ikorodu (Glenn Hauser, April 12, DX LISTENING DIGEST) No, sometimes VON is clearly identifiable. But usually none of these signals is really strong, and yesterday I did not find any hint of Nigeria during several checks 1300-1500, though it was on, as Dave Kenny reports below (Thorsten Hallmann, Germany, April 13, ibid.) Glenn, VON has used 9690 during the 0900-1500 timespan for years, the only thing that's changed is that there are currently approx two extra hours of English replacing vernaculars (see former schedule in WRTH 2010). Reception has always been very marginal in UK from both VON and AIR on 9690. The signal here is usually very weak but it varies a lot from day to day depending on conditions. Today VON, AIR and Deewa were equally weak and just on the threshold of audibility - a real DX challenge! 73s (Dave Kenny, ibid.) > Perhaps these changes are related to the new shortwave > transmitter site at Abuja coming on air ... Yes, it makes sense. Maybe is the OVERTURE for organizing a reshuffled foreign service from new Abuja downtown broadcasting house during the present year 2010 ... but there are some delays in Civilworks. The 3 new Thomson TXs at Abuja Lugbe site are ready since mid Dec 2009. Last week Thomson Abuja site antenna engineer Bodo Fritsche_DL3OCH / 5NØOCH came back from Maldives trip and was surprised to see the Abuja TX site like excellent visible in Google Earth. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sztmmg7FJLs QSL addresses as of 2006: Radio Abuja 7275 kHz. QTH: Broadcasting House, P.O.Box 377, Gwagwalada / P.M.B.71, Gark1, Abuja, Nigeria. v/s Ben Obeta. FRCN Abuja National Station, Broadcasting House, P. O. Box 377, Gwagwalada/P.M.B. 71, GARK1 ["GARK one"], Abuja, Nigeria. tel. 09-8821065 & 8821341, FAX 09-8821040. Mail of 19 Dec 2009: > So we will wait impatiently for the start of the new English, Arabic, French, Kiswahili, Hausa, Fulfulde, Igbo, Yoruba and new Portuguese, German, Mandarin Chinese and Hindi[Urdu?] services on 7255 9690 11770 15120, and possibly ?17800 kHz too. 17800 kHz is not an official client frequency yet, but is in discussion. Also 2 x 100 kW SW txs of 7275 kHz at FRCN Abuja in Gwagwalada, 32 kilometers westerly should be overhauled in spring 2010. 73 wb (Wolfgang Büschel, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) After hearing Equatorial Guinea 15190 on nightpath, I checked 15120, and there was VON at 0529 April 12, modulation somewhat distorted, ending Today in History, plugging listening via http://www.voiceofnigeria.com? Not sure of the .com. No, going there, that site`s footer admits it is not the radio station, instead refers to http://www.voiceofnigeria.org Some drumming, fair with fades, signal quite similar to 15190, stronger than Australia 15160 which often is the SSOB or OSOB at this hour. BTW, VON`s language and frequency schedule is in flux; Thorsten Hallmann, Alan Roe and Tony Rogers are trying to sort it out, as reported in the dxldyg and upcoming DXLD 10-15 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** NORTH AMERICA. [Pirates]. 6940 USB, WEAK Radio, 2050-2105, April 9, rock music. ID. Fair to good. 6950 USB, WLDJ, 0140-0146*, April 10, lite pop music. Woman announcer. ID as “WLDJ, Voice of the Last DJ.” Sign off with SSTV. Fair. 6850.74 AM, MAC Shortwave, 2231-2240, April 11, IDs. 60s pop music. Talk by young boy. Good signal. 6950 USB, Voice of Next Thursday, 2136-2145, April 11, rebroadcast by WBNY with IDs. Novelty music. Good. Strong (Brian Alexander, PA, DX Listening Digest) ** NORTHERN MARIANA ISLANDS. Re 10-14: >> The contract will include a base period (September 1, 2010 through August 31, 2011) with four one- year option periods that are subject to the availability of funding << --- So IBB reserves the right to shut down these facilities at quite short notice, with the first exit option as soon as in 1.5 years (Kai Ludwig, Germany, April 9, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** OKLAHOMA. 1580, KOKB Blackwell, April 10 at 1434 UT in open carrier; still/again the case three and four hours later. Clearly this station has close to zero listeners, not including anyone in its own management or engineering (ha, ha), let alone anyone around Blackwell who would care enough to tell them that they are forgetting to modulate. Meanwhile sibling station KOKP 1020 Perry is nominal with sportstalk. 1580, KOKB Blackwell had resumed modulating, at 2027 UT check April 12 on caradio, sports talk with the studio announcer somewhat overmodulated/distorted (Glenn Hauser, Enid, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** OKLAHOMA [and non]. [re 10-14]. KFXY 1640 Enid may have changed format to ``The New Faith 1640`` with southern gospel music --- but that doesn`t mean an even more important religion, baseball can`t bump off the praise whenever there is a game. Monday afternoon April 12 at 1840 UT, I am hearing Royals baseball vs Tigers at Detroit! And frequent commercial breaks including local ones for the KC area, such as Edward Jones in Prairie Village. What good does that do us in Enid, with half a dozen of those right around here?? Next check at 2026, still Royals game. It was about over so after the post-game wrapup, and I could not care less who won, at 2046 slogan as ``The sports authority for Edmond, 1640 The Score`` and already mixing with gospel music as it immediately converted to ``The New Faith 1640``. Edmond is a northern suburb of OKC well within coverage. There are bound to be night games too, so DXers may still hear either format and either slogan, depending, on 1640. But apparently still not sports talk any more, just live games and associated chatter. While I was at it, scanned the MW band to find what other stations were audible on the Royals network, no IDs heard but easily presumed: 1550, KKLE Winfield KS (tho CCI KYAL Sapulpa OK is also sports) 1510, KNNS Larned KS, barely audible in KOKC splash, but // 1640 (was surprised to get this, as not usually audible daytimes) 1150, KSAL Salina KS 1130, KLEY Wellington KS, sibling station to 1550 KKLE Winfield 860, KKOW Pittsburg KS 690, KGGF Coffeyville KS 580, WIBW Topeka KS and some 8 seconds delayed, 610, KCSP Kansas City, which I assume is the flagship station. Is that so it will be less obvious that the same game is on 580 WIBW? It`s also incredible that 690 and 860 in essentially the same market with huge coverage overlap are both carrying Royals. Axually, 580 alone would suffice to cover this entire area in KS, MO and OK, not to mention NE and IA. I also ran across more silly ball games on the dial; they all sound alike to me, so in the parked car I employed the handy portable I always keep in the vehicle, and checked for parallels. Cardinals were also playing, on: 1390, KCRC Enid OK [we are so lucky to have access to both!] 1230, WBBZ Ponca City OK Rangers on: 710, KGNC Amarillo TX (Glenn Hauser, Enid, WORLD OF RADIO 1508, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** PAKISTAN. 15540, Radio Pakistan, transmitter sign-on at 1225 UT, starts with IS playing at 1226 UT. In Sinhala and Tamil service till 1330 UT. Signal outlet has at least four signal peaks like on 15539.32, 15540.28, 15540.38, and 15540.50 kHz. Perseus rx user should determine that far more correct (Wolfgang Büschel, wwdxc BC-DX TopNews April 6, via WORLD OF RADIO 1508, DXLD)) [and non]. Something colliding on 15540, April 13 at 1310, the stronger signal slightly off to the hi side, producing a wavering whine, one talk, one music. At 1328, S. Asian music on the hi side is atop the talk on the lo side, and the lower one goes off at 1329, while the hi side makes an announcement, and then a brief riff which sounds hymnic. Still trying to figure out what the remaining signal is at 1350, a bit of music sounds HOA, later Chinesish, 1355 SEAsish, now with heavy flutter. 1400 a brief tone and off. Eibi shows 15540 with R. Pakistan in Tamil at 1300-1330. Aoki has nothing at all in this hour. The other one must be something new (Glenn Hauser, OK, WORLD OF RADIO 1508, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** PAPUA NEW GUINEA. 3325, Radio Buka, 0927-0940, 02-April-2010, in Pidgin/English. 0927, male with local announcement followed by modern pop music; 0933 time check and station ID by male announcer in English. Signal: Poor to fair at times, occasional Codar QRM (Ed Wlodarski, N2ED, New Jersey, NASWA Flashsheet April 5 via DXLD) CODAR on 90m? Never heard any of that here (gh, DXLD) 3260, Radio Madang at 1323 with popular-style PNG vocals. Very poor Apr 13. 3290, Radio Central at 1252 with Country-style music, 1303 man in Tok Pisin with news, followed by music. Poor, improving to fair Apr 13 3325, Radio Buka at 1249 with male host in Tok Pisin speaking to several others on the telephone; 1320 re-check, light music. Poor improving to fair Apr 13 3345, Radio Northern at 1304 with easy-listening PNG vocals. Poor Apr 13 3365, Radio Milne Bay at 1319 with popular-style PNG vocals. Poor Apr 13 (Harold Sellers, Vernon, British Columbia, Eton E-1 and Sony AN-1 active antenna, listening from my car, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** PAPUA NEW GUINEA. 3905, Radio New Ireland (Kavieng), 1145-1200, 4/9/2010, Pidgin. Man talking. A short selection of pop music at 1158, then more talk at 1200. Weak signal, very readable when in the clear, but bothered most of the time by ARO interference. Other PNG frequencies had no audio this morning (Jim Evans, Germantown, TN, IC- R75, RX-340, Random Wire (90'), ALA100M Loop (20'), DX LISTENING DIGEST) 3905, with a bit of music April 13 at 1237, but more than a semihour after LSR, and soon losing out to SSB QRhaM. Has to be R. New Ireland, as RRI Merauke is inactive (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** PARAGUAY. Re 10-14: harmonic, 2100 (3 x 700) R Carlos Antonio López, Pilar, 2336 en Mar 29. Locutor con menciones de "Banco Nacional de Fomento, Pilar". Audio [4- minutes]: http://www.goear.com/listen/a822256/paraguay-(h).-2100-(3x700)-r-carlos-antonio-lopez,-pilar,-2336-on-mar-29-horacio-a.-nigro http://www.goear.com/listen/a822256/paraguay-%28h%29.-2100-%283x700%29-r-carlos-antonio-lopez,-pilar,-2336-on-mar-29-horacio-a.-nigro (Horacio Nigro, Uruguay, noticiasdx yg via DXLD) ** PERU. 4955.000, Radio Cultural [Amauta], 1042, Spanish, brief (possibly recorded) comments by a woman, into mensajes by a man, followed by huaynos at 1048. Good, despite distant thunderstorm QRN. 4 April. 4974.835, Radio Pacífico, 0920, Spanish, very weak with huaynos, so presumed. Radio Visión (4789.932) on at the same time but much stronger. 4 April (David Sharp, NSW Australia. FT-950, NRD-535D, R8, ICF-2010, ICF-SW7600GR, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** PERU. 6019.28, 2318-, 0404-, R. Victoria, Lima, 09-10/04, Spanish, OM/YL talks, fragment of some song - poor, but quite good at 0404. 9720.04, 0407-0412, R. Victoria, Lima, 10/04, Spanish, OM/YL talks - fair, //6019.28 good (Mikhail Timofeyev, DXpedition near St. Petersburg, Russia, Icom R75, some directional antennas, HCDX via DXLD) 9720.03, Radio Victoria, Lima, 0715-0725, April 9, usual emotional Spanish preacher. Very Weak. Fair signal on // 6019.28 (Brian Alexander, PA, DX Listening Digest) 6019.30, Radio Victoria, 0939-1000 April 10, At tune in, noted the usual preacher in religious discourse with the sobs and pleading that is his forte. Signal was good even though it was mixing with another on 6020 (Chuck Bolland, WinRadio G305e, 26.37.34.65N 081.05.34.19W, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 18057.9, after a dry spell this week, the third harmonic of Radio Victoria, Lima is audible again, April 10 at 2222 with bits of Spanish peaking/peeking thru the not too bad noise level (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** PHILIPPINES. 15190, Radio Pilipinas at 1730 sign-on with music, then vocals, 1732:30 man with ID and announcements in Filipino. Poor at first but fair-good at 1747 check. Filipino music and announcer. At 1758 good signal and man speaking in Filipino, with some English words and sentences, speaking about American naval bases and World War II. Apr 10 11720, Radio Pilipinas at 1819, happened across them here, // 15190, with woman talking in Filipino about vitamins. Again many English words and phrases. Good and 15190 fair, at 1845 re-check neither was heard, altho listed 1730-1930. Apr 10 (Harold Sellers, Vernon, British Columbia, Eton E-1 and Sony AN-1 active antenna, listening portable from my car, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** PHILIPPINES. EARLY SW STATIONS IN THE PHILIPPINES - THE RCA STORY Thus far here in Wavescan, we have presented two programs on the radio story in the Philippines; their early Morse Code wireless stations and their early mediumwave stations. In our program today, we continue in the Philippine story with this information about their earliest shortwave station. We go back to the very beginning, in the year 1924. It was back at this stage that RCA, the Radio Corporation of America, established a regional office in the Philippine capital, Manila. Two years later, work commenced on the construction of the first shortwave radio station in the Philippines at a location nine miles out from Manila. According to a contemporary article in Time magazine, this large new radio station was established by RCP, the Radio Corporation of the Philippines, which was a subsidiary of RCA, the Radio Corporation of America. According to the article in Time magazine, this new radio station in the Philippines was one of the largest stations in the Far East, and it was constructed specifically for communication with San Francisco in California. At that stage, the RCA communication station at San Francisco was in reality their large station located near Bolinas, a little north of San Francisco. During the following year, 1927, the usage of four radio transmitters began, two on mediumwave and two on shortwave. The twin mediumwave transmitters, rated at 1 kW each, were inaugurated under the callsign KZRM with a programming service from the city studios on February 12, 1927. The first two letters in the callsign KZ, indicated the Philippines; and the two final letters RM, indicated Radio Manila. Quite simultaneously, the RCA communication circuit to Bolinas California was also inaugurated. Three years later, it was during the month of May actually, in the year 1930, test broadcasts from RCA Manila were noted on shortwave in the United States and Australia under the experimental callsign K1XR. Programming was a relay from the mediumwave station KZRM and these test broadcasts continued spasmodically for a period of some six months. Then it was that this new shortwave service was officially inaugurated on November 26 under the callsigns KBK & KAZ. The official opening ceremony for the new international radio telephone service was broadcast on mediumwave KZRM, and also on shortwave as an off-air pick-up in Bolinas California for relay nationwide throughout the United States on mediumwave. Exactly one month later, a Christmas broadcast was relayed from KZRM back to the United States on two shortwave channels, KAZ on 9900 kHz & KBK on 18750 kHz. Over the following months, many other notable program broadcasts from KZRM Manila were relayed by RCA shortwave and they were heard in the United States and in the South Pacific. Nevertheless, in spite of the success and the popularity of these shortwave relay broadcasts from Manila, they came to an end in the middle of the following year, 1931. By this stage, the experimental callsign K1XR had been modified according to the new international designation, as KA1XR. However, this shortwave broadcast service was re-introduced three years later in the same style, with programming from the mediumwave studios of KZRM and the shortwave relay via one or two of the RCA communication transmitters. Beginning in the year 1937, shortwave station KZRM was heard with a regular relay service from the mediumwave station KZRM, and the evidence would suggest that their 1 kW shortwave transmitter was installed at this stage specifically as a dedicated shortwave relay unit. This transmitter was noted over a period of time on four different shortwave channels, and sometimes carrying the programming from other stations in Manila, including KZEG & KZRF. During the 1930s and into the early 1940s, RCA Manila was heard on many occasions with a relay of programming from various sources, for example:- 1932 Speech from President Theodore [sic] Roosevelt 1936 Sep KBI 21140 kHz Special radio program 1936 Oct KAZ 9990 Music program 1939 Aug KAY 14980 Program relay to Berlin in Germany 1939 Nov KAY 14980 Program relay XGOY China to San Francisco 1941 Many relays of Manila stations KZRM & KZRF During the twelve year era stretching from 1930 into 1941, RCA Manila was noted on the air under at least thirty different callsigns. All of these callsigns began with the letters KA KB KT KU or KZ. It is possible that each twin letter indicated the actual transmitter, and the third letter in each callsign indicated the actual frequency in use. If this is the case, then we could presume that RCA Manila was on the air with the usage of five different shortwave transmitters. It is known that the RCA communication station near Manila was operating several shortwave transmitters during this era rated at 10 kW, 20 kW & 40 kW. The usage of RCA Manila during this pre-war era was threefold, as was the custom back in those days:- 1. Communication traffic with many Pacific Rim countries 2. The relay of special program broadcasts to and from Pacific Rim countries 3. The broadcast of specific programming for direct reception by shortwave listeners Even though Radio Manila, RCA, played an important role in the Pacific, Asian & American radio scene back in those days, yet there are no known QSLs verifying the reception of their shortwave programming (Adrian Peterson, IN, AWR Wavescan script April 4 via DXLD) ** POLAND [non]. Polish Radio on President Kaczynski's Plane Crash Just listened to the first Russian broadcast of Polish radio for today. Two hosts discussing this unprecedented tragedy. No script. Both are clearly shaken. Sounded like a live transmission. Classical music from 1118 UT. German from 1130. Broadcast started with station ID and went right into classical music for one minute. Two hosts too. Again sounds like a live broadcast. http://www.polskieradio.pl/sluchaj/default.aspx?p=5 (Sergei S., Germany, April 10, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Almost live, they said they recorded it around 1100 UT - 4 hours after the tragic event. Interview about what is known at this time; more news announced for the next broadcast (1530). Classical music (opera), repeating the interview at 1145, then a solemn piano concerto, unsolemnly cut off by the c/d at 1159 (Eike Bierwirth, Germany, ibid.) The English service [11675 via AUSTRIA?] seems to be much better prepared. It's on right now. Many interviews, more background information is given (Sergei S., 1216 UT April 10, ibid.) And the front page of the English service's website http://www.thenews.pl/ is in black and white (Jon Pukila, Thunder Bay, ON, Canada, ibid.) I listen to Jedynka --- the first program of Polskie Radio, http://www.polskieradio.pl --- on weekends when Radio Polonia isn't on CHIN-FM in Toronto. Earlier today--about 1700--sounded like a church service, with funereal choral music and throat-clearing between pieces. Their website is now monochrome, rather than the usual cheery red and white. Very moving. 73 de (Anne Fanelli in Elma NY, ibid.) Polish President, First Lady and many senior officials killed in Air Crash: http://www.thenews pl/ John Beauchamps of the English Section of Polish Radio External Service is being interviewed on CTV Newsnet as I type this. He mentioned that there is usually one person on duty in the English Section on the weekend but the whole staff has come in to work. The Polish delegation was flying to Russia for ceremonies marking the 70th anniversary of the Katyn Massacre (Fred Waterer, Ont., 1808 UT April 10, ODXA yg via DXLD) Looking for PRES English coverage the day after the president`s plane crash, but nothing audible on 11675, April 11 at 1246, just a weak carrier/het where the 300 kW relay via AUSTRIA used to be reliable, making me wonder if it was even on air today? // 11980 via Woofferton UK had some JBA talk. Others report PRES was on the ball with that devastating news 24 hours earlier (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) I mourn alongside Poland, today --- To all of our Polish SWLers and Amateur Radio Operators: I mourn alongside you, today. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1264964/BREAKING-NEWS-Plane-carrying-Polish-president-crashes-Russia.html -- 73 de (NW7US, Tomas David Hood, swl at qth.net via DXLD) 11675, PRES via AUSTRIA, fairly good signal still, when propagation normalizes, April 14 at 1230 about remembering Pres. & Mrs. Kaczynski, improving relations with Israel, fourth day of mourning (website is still monochrome), controversy over where to bury them, plans for memorials and musea, new elexion must be held in June; 1238 dirge music and ``Opera Connexions`` presenting art songs for rest of hour (Glenn Hauser, OK, WORLD OF RADIO 1508, DX LISTENING DIGEST) U.K., 11615, Polskie Radio Warsaw via Woofferton in Ukrainian 1500- 1530 UT, noted at 1505 UT April 12, suffered and covered by China mainland echo jamming. Scheduled IBB Saipan 1400-1500 UT, I guess VOA Cantonese service. But Chinese jamming last longer into 15-16 UT slot. (Wolfgang Büschel, wwdxc BC-DX TopNews April 12 via DXLD) ** PORTUGAL. 12020, RDP Lisbon at 0940 UT April 13 noted 26 kHz broadband signal on 12007 to 12033 kHz coverage range (Wolfgang Büschel, Germany, wwdxc BC-DX TopNews April 13 via DXLD) See also CUBA [and non] 12030 ** PORTUGAL. Desde que a RDP-Radiodifusão Portuguesa passou a formar - juntamente c/ a RTP-Radiotelevisão Portuguesa - a RTP-Rádio e Televisão de Portugal, a designação por extenso usada na sua mensagem deixou de existir. Ou seja, a sigla "RDP", aplicável às RDP África e RDPi (de Internacional) subsiste meramente como marca (da RTP), não como abreviatura como sucedeu no passado. Foi o que receei, mas obtive tal confirmação da própria RTP. Parece um pouco estranho e até algo caricato, mas é assim. Mais valia que tivessem mudado os nomes para, por ex., Antena África, Antena Internacional (ou Ultramarina), já que temos as Antena 1, Antena 2 e Antena 3, como sabe. 73 (Carlos Gonçalves, Portugal, April 13, radioescutas yg via DXLD) ** ROMANIA. Radio Romania on both 7335 & 7385 at 0000 UT --- 7385 is a weird frequency for them but I noticed that their frequency of 9580 which is also supposed to be on is missing. Is this just a temporary thing due to all the solar storm problems or this is more of a permanent move? (gpsblake, UT April 10, ODXA yg via WORLD OF RADIO 1508, DXLD) Checking back on 4/11/10 at 0020 UT and Romania is on 7335 and 7385 and MIA on 9580 again. Checking their online schedule at http://www.rri.ro/art.shtml?lang=1&sec=20&art=30820 does not mention the 7385 kHz frequency either. Both signals are strong but I would say 7335 is slightly stronger then the 7385 transmission (gpsblake, ibid.) ** RUSSIA [and non]. Still trying to hear VOR English to NAm on new 9890 at 22-02: A lost cause, April 9 at 0045, just barely audible in skirts of DentroCuban Jamming Command and VOA from 9885; PMR 9665 signal was also JBA if really there on UT Friday. More futile attempts to hear Voice of Russia`s only listed frequency in English to North America before 0200, 9890: UT April 10 at 0100 the DentroCuban Jamming Command and VOA Spanish have just evacuated 9885, but that`s no help, as on 9890 there is still only a trace of a carrier. If really 500 kW, it`s dissipating long before here, perhaps keeping the ionosphere warm at the first reflexion point. CUBA is still negligently jamming 9810, which was abandoned three months ago by Radio República, despite the fact that in A-10 Voz de Rusia is trying to broadcast Spanish to Latin America on that very same frequency, via GUIANA FRENCH. April 10 at 0101 I can hear VOR`s news in Spanish under the noise, and it`s // and synchronized with much stronger 9735, which is unjammed. Yes, during the 01-02 hour only, VOR is using both 9810 and 9735 via GUF, at 195 and 320 degrees respectively. Meanwhile, they can`t spare a minute of airtime on this or neighboring transmitter and 320 degree antenna USward for English, which would really inboom vs our struggles to hear 9890 direct. VOR English to North America finally semi-audible on the only frequency they deign to provide, 9890 direct from ``Armavir`` = Krasnodar, April 10 at 2228, apparently an interview between W&M, but very low key and his low-pitched voice is no match for the assertive higher-pitched ChiCom co-channel! This is a semihour before we have CubaRM and VOA to contend with adjacently from 9885, but now we have a direct clash from China. Aoki says 9890 bears CNR1 at 1955-2300 from Lingshi 725 site, 100 kW at 286 degrees. No problem way over here in CNAm? Wrong! It`s slightly weaker than VOR at first, but gaining, making both of them unusable. It`s also // clear 9900, Beijing 572 site, says Aoki. The program grid at http://english.ruvr.ru/radio_broadcast/schedule/ shows Saturdays at 2230+ VOR airs Timelines, but the sked is still dated to expire March 27 before the timeshift! Is it really the current sked, just forgot to change the dates? Apparently, as Rich Cuff forwards one he received by e-mail showing current A-10 dates and same program at this hour. Also from Lou Johnson, tnx. Anne Fanelli in NY says it was the unmistakable Estelle Winters at 2255, good reception, where apparently China was not a problem. But how was it five minutes later? I checked again just before 2300. By 2257 the Greenville carrier was on with its own problems: see USA. At 2259 I could still make out the VOR IS mixing with Chinese announcement but wideband splash from VOA`s rap music after 2300 blew away VOR, even tho the ChiCom CCI was supposed to be over (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Viz.: I'm listening to an interview by the unmistakable Estelle Winters at 2255 April 10th; reception at the moment is very good, as the bands have been all day now that the geomagnetic storms have subsided for now. Maybe there's some hope for VOR in English to NAm for the A10 season after all! Very 73 de (Anne Fanelli in Elma NY, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** RUSSIA. VOICE OF RUSSIA WORLD SERVICE MARCH 28 – OCTOBER 30, 2010 AFRICA Time (UTC) Frequencies (kHz) 1500-1700 11985 1700-1800 13855, 11985 ASIA 0300-0500 15585, 15735* 0700-0900 17495, 1251 0900-1000 17495, 15170 1000-1100 15170 1100-1200 12065 1200-1300 11500, 11755 1300-1400 12065 1400-1500 11500, 9455, 4975, 6000, 1251 1500-1600 9660, 9455, 4975, 6000 1600-1700 4975, 1251 1700-1800 4975, 1269, 1251 1800-1900 4975 AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND 0600-0700 15405 0700-0900 17495, 15405 0900-1000 17495 MIDDLE EAST 1400-1500 4975, 1251 1500-1600 11985, 9735, 4975 1600-1800 11985, 4975, 1251 1800-1900 4975 EUROPE 0500-0800 1323 0800-0900 12060*, 1323 0900-1000 12060* 1400-1500 9750* 1500-1900 12040 1900-2100 12040, 1215 2100-2300 1215 NORTH AMERICA 2200-0200 9890 0200-0400 15425 0400-0600 13775 LATIN AMERICA 0200-0400 31 9665 * – DRM broadcast This schedule is subject to change without prior notice Web site: http://www.ruvr.ru E-mail: world @ ruvr.ru (via Kraig Krist, VA, April 8, DXLD) I.e., just after they updated it to show 9890 instead of 9665, et al.? (gh) 13775, VOR finally propagating with good signal on the only frequency retained for English to NAm at 04-06, 50 degrees from Vladivostok; good modulation too, YL in story narrative with music and war SFX at 0526 April 12. Scheduled is ``Timelines``. But at next check 0558 right before sign-off, was fading out and becoming JBA! Apparently the G3 magstorm had hit the path in the meantime. This could be avoided by using a relay to the south! At 0545 I caught the propagation report on WWVH 10000. K index was 7! at 0300, and G3 storms were raging (not a word used by the SWPC). At first I thought that K7 must be mistaken, since hi-latitude path from DVR was obviously funxioning well; after 0300 until 0545 SW reception seemed generally enhanced rather than outwiped, e.g. Equatorial Guinea and Nigeria too, qq.vv. on 15 MHz. But later found mid-latitude K-index at 0300 indeed shown as 7 on 3- hourly e-mail Geophysical Alert from WWV, subsiding to only 4 at 0600. 12065, April 15 at 1315, poor with flutter, English discussion of WWII, mentioning Stalin, Karelia. Must be VOR: yes, scheduled as 500 kW, 205 degrees from Chita-Atamanovka site, per Aoki. Chita starts with a T- only if you take a detour and run it thru French, as ITU and HFCC insist on doing (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** RUSSIA [and non]. 9965 at 2256 April 10, open carrier but it`s motorboating, obviously unstable with BFO on, which seems to be all too common a problem in the CIS, like 5920 Pet/Kam. 2259 some ``Russian tones`` and 2300 with hum as loud as the fitful modulation which sounds rather like Portuguese. Yes, per EiBi it`s VOR to Brasil at 23-24, followed by Spanish, via ARMENIA, probably not a good idea to pick as a relay site. 15510+, slightly hi in frequency, April 14 at 1337 songs, split-second audio dropouts, hum, 1340 novelty/comedy song in Persian(?), 1346 a more serious song, 1356 ``Love Story`` theme. What`s this? Finally answered by VOR IS at 1359. It`s the Pashto/Dari service via Armavir/Krasnodar, overlapping briefly with DW opening in Russian via Rampisham UK at 1400. I also heard a few syllables of Chinese in the transition as one must have erred in switching (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) See also CHINA [and non] ** RUSSIA. 7140, 2104-2110, R. Rossii, Magadan, 09/04, Russian, news and weather report, 2109 medical advertising - fair with SSB QRM, // 7200 and 7230 both with strong signals (Mikhail Timofeyev, DXpedition near St. Petersburg, Russia, Icom R75, some directional antennas, HCDX via DXLD) When is Magadan going to evacuate from the hamband? (gh) 5940 with coloratura soprano, April 10 at 1245, poor signal but in the clear and well-modulated, unlike // 5920 Pet/Kam motorboating itself; 1248 Russian interview. 5940 is registered with HFCC A-10 as R. Rossii from Okhotsk site, 17- 13 UT; but more realistically, Aoki says it`s Magadan at 02-13 and 1700-1910. At 1254 found Russian talk on 7200 // 5940 but an echo apart, shortly back to coloratura. Could not hear any QRM on 7200; tho Korea North is also here, Aoki says that finishes around 1250; nor Myanmar which may use 7200 only in its mornings. All of them plus Sudan have no business on this borderline channel between ham and broadcast bands. R. Rossii on 7200 is Yakutsk at 1900-1500, Aoki and HFCC agree, but not on other details: HFCC says 250 kW at 45 degrees, while Aoki says 100 kW non-direxional. WRTH says 250 kW but thinx azimuths are too technical, never worth publishing, just like ex-PWBR. At 1256 April 10, 7220 in Russian not // 7200; that turns out to be VIETNAM, q.v. R. Rossii with jazz on 7320, April 13 1244, squeezed between 7325 RCI/CRI, see CANADA [and non], and 7315 WHRI with country gospel music; but // 7200, which had a co-channel SAH, and QRhaM with a QSO between a 4 and a 9. 7200 is Yakutsk, 7320 is Magadan per Aoki, nowhere near Irkutsk per HFCC (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** RUSSIA. Moscow --- Since April, 6 all radio frequencies of International Russian Radio RGRK "Voice of Russia" on average [ha, ha, also known as medium --- gh] and short waves with 1300 up to 2300 UT are transferred (handed) to Russian service "Voice of Russia". The Announcement of the International Russian Radio in above specified interval of time is conducted only on the satellite and local FM- stations in the countries of the CIS. Except for it, in the afternoon on MW transmitters in Germany instead of Russian service the International Russian Radio now is broadcast, all evening hours are given to Russian service "Voice of Russia" (www.dxing.ru via RusDX April 11 via DXLD) Let`s try that again -- According to the DX Club of V of Russia and DX Editor Vadim Alexeyev. from April the 6th, all MWs and SWs used by Russian International Radio in times between 1300-2300 UT will be transmitting the program of V of Russia in Russian. On MW outlets in Germany at daytime will be RIR and at evening VOR (Rumen Pankov, Bulgaria, for WWDXC BC-DX, April 8 via DXLD) ** RUSSIA. Re 10-14: Actually the almost two week old notes on Radio Rossii are already obsolete now. If not seen yet: It appears that continued operation of the shortwave transmitters is now ensured until May 9. What will happen after this holiday still appears to be uncertain (Kai Ludwig, Germany, April 9, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** RUSSIA. Radio Rossii. Russian. [is that all?? gh] 0400-0800 12070 kHz 0825-1300 13655 kHz 1325-1700 9470 kHz 1725-2100 7220 kHz (DX KURJER, Editor : Vasily Gulyaev, Astrakhan, Russia via RusDX April 11 via DXLD) ** RUSSIA [non]. Radio TEOS on SW 1000-1400 11650 kHz 1400-1530 9465 kHz Russian: 1000-1300 Kazakh: 1300-1330 Kazakh & Kyrgyz: 1330-1400 Ukrainian: 1500-1515 Mon, 1500-1530 Tue, 1500-1515 Fri Tx : Saipan [KFBS] (DX KURJER, Editor: Vasily Gulyaev, Astrakhan, Russia, via RusDX April 11 via DXLD) ** RUSSIA. 15195, supposedly an additional Radio Tatarstan Kazan transmission in Russian noted at 0800-0900 UT, April 14. From Tatar Radio via Russian Samara tx center. Talk between female journalist and male musician from Kazan. Strength jumped up to S=9+20dB level. Time pips at exact 0900 UT, tx switch off at 0900:45 UT (Wolfgang Büschel, Germany, wwdxc BC-DX TopNews April 14, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** SAIPAN [and non]. 9585 in Vietnamese, fair signal April 14 at 1220 interrupting the flow between Radio Australia on 9580 and 9590. This is KFBS at 12-13, also producing 5 kHz hets between the Australians. And it`s followed by KTWR GUAHAN at 1300-1330 on same in Sgaw Karen, per Aoki (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGST) see also NMI ** SAUDI ARABIA. Holy Qur`an program in Arabic back on 11785 kHz with stronger "buzzy" now, heard 1000-1030 UT on April 1 (Rumen Pankov, Bulgaria, for WWDXC BC-DX, April 8 via DXLD) As you noted, for the first time there are some serious changes in their schedule. Today I checked some broadcasts and there were bad conditions for range 13-21 MHz here: 1300-1500 Main Program was on 17705 and 21505, no signal on traditional 21640; 1300-1400 Holy Qur`an on 15380, 17895 but no signals were on traditional 21460 & 21600, and Urdu was on 13755. But Bangla was not on 17820, 1400-1500 17660 French, maybe Holy Quran was on 17615 and under English speaking station on 13710, but no signal on 11935. 73s, (Rumen Pankov, Bulgaria, April 12, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 11820, BSKSA with Qur`an, April 12 at 2130, good for lullaby napping as I could barely understand a word of it, so no risk of inadvertent conversion; also found on // 11915 still going at 2157. These are 320 and 295 degrees respectively from R. Riyadh`s HQS, or at least they were in B-09 per Aoki; but not really intended for the Americas. 17705 at 1401 April 13, weak signal in Arabic with stingers, mentioning Saudi; R. Riyadh program 1 is new here at 12-15, 310 degrees to Europe; probably ex-21640 as also noted by Rumen Pankov, Bulgaria (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) "BSKSA Foreign service schedule" not traced on Saudi Radio website yet. "BSKSA shortwave sce schedule in Arabic" CID 1 = 1st progr [thanks help Eike and Mauno] 2 = 2nd program Jeddah ?, only two frequencies) 3 = Qur`an program 4 = only single line, seemingly e-mail addresses 5 = Music Channel and Foreign language programs English/French programs, see WRTH p334 6 = only single line "BSKSA shortwave service schedule in Arabic" 7240 1500 1800 RIY 500 40 FARSI 9455 0600 0900 RIY 500 295 ARABIC 1ST. P 9555 1800 2300 RIY 500 295 ARABIC 1ST. P 9580 0300 0600 JED 50 0 ARABIC 2ND. P 9580 1700 2200 JED 50 0 ARABIC 2ND. P 9580 1800 2300 RIY 500 270 ARABIC HOLY Q 9640 1500 1800 RIY 500 40 TURKISTANI 9675 0300 0900 RIY 500 0 ARABIC 1ST. P also 0600-1200 UT ? 2nd program, see website cid=2 9675 0900 1500 RIY 500 0 ARABIC 1ST. P 9675 1800 2100 RIY 500 340 TURKISH 9695 1400 1600 RIY 500 55 PASHTO 9705 1500 1800 RIY 500 40 TURKISTANI 9860 1200 1500 RIY 500 310 ARABIC 1ST. P 9870 1800 2300 RIY 500 310 ARABIC 1ST. P 9885 1500 1800 RIY 500 40 TURKISTANI 11730 0900 1200 RIY 500 310 ARABIC 1ST. P 11820 1800 2300 RIY 500 320 ARABIC HOLY Q 11855 0600 1700 JED 50 0 ARABIC 2ND. P 11880 0600 0900 RIY 250 310 ARABIC 1ST. P 11915 1800 2300 RIY 500 295 ARABIC HOLY Q 11930 1800 2300 RIY 500 270 ARABIC HOLY Q 11935 0900 1200 RIY 500 310 ARABIC HOLY Q 13710 1500 1800 RIY 500 295 ARABIC HOLY Q 13775 1200 1500 RIY 500 70 URDU 15120 1200 1600 RIY 500 70 BENGALI 15170 0300 0600 RIY 500 355 ARABIC HOLY Q 15205 1600 1800 RIY 500 320 ARABIC HOLY Q 15225 1500 1800 RIY 500 295 ARABIC 1ST. P 15250 0930 1230 RIY 500 250 ENGLISH 15285 0400 0700 RIY 500 190 SWAHILI 15320 0300 0500 RIY 500 175 SOMALI 15380 0600 0900 RIY 500 310 ARABIC HOLY Q 15380 1200 1400 RIY 500 310 ARABIC HOLY Q 15435 1500 1800 RIY 500 320 ARABIC 1ST. P 15470 1000 1300 RIY 500 250 ENGLISH 15490 0900 1200 RIY 500 310 ARABIC 1ST. P 15575 1400 1600 RIY 500 55 PASHTO 15610 0800 1000 RIY 500 55 CHINESE 15790 0900 1200 RIY 500 310 ARABIC 1ST. P 17500 1300 1600 RIY 500 190 ARABIC HOLY Q 17520 0900 1200 RIY 500 70 ARABIC HOLY Q 17535 1200 1400 RIY 500 100 ARABIC HOLY Q 17560 1600 1800 RIY 500 270 ARABIC HOLY Q 17570 0900 1200 RIY 500 70 ARABIC HOLY Q --- new? 17585 0900 1200 RIY 500 100 INDONESIAN 17615 0900 1200 RIY 500 100 ARABIC HOLY Q 17625 1200 1400 RIY 500 100 ARABIC HOLY Q 17650 1600 1800 RIY 500 250 BAMBARA 17660 1400 1800 RIY 500 270 FRENCH 17705 1200 1500 RIY 500 310 ARABIC 1ST. P 17730 0600 0900 RIY 500 295 ARABIC 1ST. P 17740 0600 0900 RIY 250 310 ARABIC 1ST. P 17745 1200 1500 RIY 500 70 BENGALI 17760 0300 0500 RIY 500 175 SOMALI 17785 0800 1000 RIY 500 270 FRENCH 17805 0900 1200 RIY 500 295 ARABIC 1ST. P 17820 1200 1500 RIY 500 70 BENGALI 17885 1200 1400 RIY 500 100 ARABIC HOLY Q 17895 0300 0800 RIY 500 40 ARABIC HOLY Q 17895 1200 1500 RIY 500 295 ARABIC HOLY Q 21460 1300 1600 RIY 500 190 ARABIC HOLY Q 21495 0900 1200 RIY 500 70 ARABIC HOLY Q 21505 1200 1500 RIY 500 295 ARABIC 1ST. P 21530 1200 1500 RIY 500 70 URDU 21555 0900 1200 RIY 500 310 ARABIC 1ST. P 21600 1200 1400 RIY 500 100 ARABIC HOLY Q 21640 1200 1500 RIY 500 310 ARABIC 1ST. P 21665 0300 0600 RIY 500 55 CHINESE 21670 0900 1200 RIY 500 100 INDONESIAN 21705 0900 1200 RIY 500 310 ARABIC 1ST. P (Wolfgang Büschel, wwdxc BC-DX TopNews April 12 via DXLD) Collision on 15380: see CUBA [and non] ** SCOTLAND [non]. FICTITIOUS RECEPTION REPORTS Glenn - Further to comments from the "Happy Station" in the latest DXLD, ever since Radio Six International suspended our various shortwave broadcasts via Latvia and IRRS, we have continued to receive regular Reception Reports via email from an assortment of listeners in African countries. They give lists of dates and times received and SINPO codes. Presumably they don't know we're not on these transmitters any more! But recently something even more odd. A plague of emails from various eastern European countries: Russia, Ukraine, Lithuania, Uzbekistan all different but all claiming to be from 'our greatest fan' and asking for souvenirs with our logo on them. Some claim to be requesting this material on behalf of children, grandchildren and - in one case - an entire orphanage. But although the language varies enormously they all demand branded souvenirs. We are apparently not alone; I am aware of other companies suffering from this modern phenomenon. By the way - we are back on the airwaves these days. Big L International (20 kW, Trintelhaven, Netherlands [1395 kHz]) rebroadcasts 6.5 hours of our programmes weekly as follows: Monday - Friday: 0000-0100 UT Saturday: 2130-2300 UT Best regards (TONY CURRIE, Director of Programmes, radio six international, http://www.radiosix.com April 14, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** SEYCHELLES. QSL: BBC relay. Freq: 9410. 2031-2100*. 23 Jan 2010. Received a very nice personal full data letter in 87 days, showing the transmitter site for an EG report, $2, and an applause card. V/S Herve Cherry, Senior Transmitter Engineer, VT Group, BBC Indian Ocean Relay Station, POB 448, Victoria, Seychelles. email: herve.cherry @ vtgroup.sc The envelope had two nice stamps on it. Country #89 for me. Slowly, slowly, slowly closing on 100! (Joe Wood, TN, Mare Tipsheet April 2 via DXLD) ** SEYCHELLES [non]. 11985, April 12 at 2159, Arabic-sounding song and talk mentioning ``Idha`at`` and ``Akbar`` in a .com website; had clix on low side, probably spur from Cuban 11930 jamming, and after 2200 bothered by RCI from 11990. Also heard a few words of French, 2203.5 into music. This is FEBA via ASCENSION; Eibi says the language is Pulaar daily at 2145-2215; Aoki says Hassinya at 2145-2200 Mon-Tue-Thu-Fri and nothing later or on other days. HFCC says Pulaar daily 2145-2215 at 27 degrees. Pulaar is spoken in Senegal/Gambia and vicinity, related to Fulani/Fulfulde, not to be confused with Pular; while Hassinya presumably refers to Western Sahara (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** SIERRA LEONE [non]. A10 schedule for Fondation Hirondelle`s Cotton Tree News (CTN) is 0730-0800 UT daily on 15220 via Rampisham UK in English and vernaculars (DX News, April BDXC-UK Communication via DXLD) ** SOMALIA. THE DAY THE MUSIC DIED: SOMALI ISLAMISTS BAN SONGS Somali radio stations have stopped broadcasting music following an order from Islamist insurgents who say songs are un-Islamic. . . http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/PrintStory.pl?document_id=2011587767&zsection_id=&slug=apafsomalia&date=20100413 (The Associated Press via Dan Say, BC, DXLD) SOMALI ISLAMISTS SEIZE RADIO TRANSMITTERS FOR BBC The Associated Press Friday, April 9, 2010; 10:34 AM http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/09/AR2010040902326.html (via Alokesh Gupta, New Delhi, dxldyg, also via Mike Cooper, DXLD) more: http://kimelli.nfshost.com/index.php?id=8711 (http://www.kimandrewelliott.com via DXLD) SOMALI GOVERNMENT PLANS CONTRACT TO AIR BBC AND VOA | Text of report by Somali pro-Puntland government Puntlandpost website on 11 April The Information Ministry of Somalia plans to make a new contract with BBC and VOA Somali service to air their programmes through government Radio Mogadishu. The Information Ministry of Transitional Federal Government of Somalia said to make new agreements with BBC and VOA stations on ways to air their programmes in southern Somalia. Al-Shabab Islamic Movement on Friday [9 April] issued a decree banning these two media outlets to operate in areas it controls and confiscated their equipment. . . http://blogs.rnw.nl/medianetwork/somali-govt-plans-contract-to-air-bbc-and-voa (BBCM via Media Network blog April 12 via DXLD) WAR IS BORING: IN SOMALIA, A THREE-WAY BATTLE OVER POPULAR RADIO David Axe | 14 Apr 2010 World Politics Review The assault on Somalia's radio stations came from three directions. On April 3, the Islamic armed group Hizbul Islam threatened to shut down FM radio stations in the areas it controls in the country's south. The group accused the stations of playing music it deemed "un- Islamic." "You have only 10 days to prepare for new programs to substitute for those evil voices to which you are accustomed," Hizbul Islam spokesman Moalim Hashi said. Then on April 9, al-Shabab, a rival Islamic group and the major power throughout much of southern Somalia, targeted the BBC's radio broadcasts. For a decade the government-subsidized British news organization has licensed news content in three languages -- Somali, Arabic and English -- to a number of Somali radio stations. . . http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/5411/war-is-boring-in-somalia-a-three-way-battle-over-popular-radio (via Artie Bigley, OH, DXLD) SOMALI RADIO STATIONS BOW TO ISLAMIST BAN ON MUSIC All but two stations in Mogadishu comply with order to cease broadcasts that militants say violate Islamic principles Horn Afrik Radio presenters read the news at a studio in Mogadishu. Photograph: Badri Media/EPA A majority of radio stations in southern and central Somalia today stopped playing music and jingles, to comply with a ban by Islamist militants. Hizbul Islam, one of the two main insurgent forces in Somalia, issued the order on 3 April, saying music broadcasts violated Islamic principles. It gave FM radio stations – the main form of news and entertainment in the country – 10 days to comply or be shut down. . . http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/13/somalia-radio-music-ban (via Artie Bigley, ibid.) ** SOMALIA [non]. There is a new comment on the post "New radio station launches broadcasts to Somalia". http://blogs.rnw.nl/medianetwork/new-radio-station-launches-broadcasts-to-somalia Author: Rashiid Warsame Comment [sic]: Hi Dear Mr David Smith Director of Radio Bar-Kulan i am named Rashiid and i am one of Somali Journalist specially i was working with Horn Afric Kismayu Branch at Juba regions i was also reporting to horn afric Mogadishu, so as you may know Horn Afric Kismayu was already closed early 2009 by the islamist militants of Al-shabab,so that most of the reporters went to Kenya but me i was remaing here at Jubba regions southern Somalia, So 1th march we have recieved to listen Radio Bar-Kulan at Short wives clearly here at Kismayu and most of the people were very glad to hear this new radio which is mainly focusing on social and traditional programes at the Radio, So let me tell you know the aim of my contact to radio Bar-kulan and the aim is all about to apply to be the repsentative or the reporter of radio Bar-kulan here at juba regions becouse its very important for the Radio to have reporter at jubba regions as these regions are very significant to get the daily news about the social and economic development so i am ready and confident that i can work with you with efficiency and affectivenes. so i will lookfarward to get your urgent feedback ASAP. Best wishes Rashiid Wartsame Free Lance journalist Kismayu,Southern Somalia. Tell. 002521-5855072- or 2521-5565959 See all comments on this post here: http://blogs.rnw.nl/medianetwork/new-radio-station-launches-broadcasts-to-somalia#comments (MN blog notification April 11 via DXLD) ** SOUTH AFRICA. 7285, R Sonder Grense, 0500, April 12, Afrikaans news after 5+1 pips &" Goeie morre". Frequency is clear but bothered by splatter RTT Tunis 7275. 73, (Martien Groot, Schoorl, Netherlands, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** SOUTH CAROLINA [non]. 3185, Brother Scare via WWRB, April 14 at 1155 saying another major SW station wants him 24/7, at a cost of $50,000 per month, but he doesn`t have the money for that, so please send him plenty. (That worx out to about $68 per hour.) He implied some other stations give him a better rate than that, and said he always pays in advance. That must be why several stations vie for his nonsensical biz; who cares about the public interest? I happened to tune across him again on WWRB 9385 at 1423, saying he is rearranging radio schedules and asking for radio chex from Europe on 13845 --- is that signal better now that WWCR has changed antennas? (He is not on 13845 at the moment; in fact not on the latest WWCR sked at all. I am sure they`d be glad to have him back, having lost Pastor Pete Peters.) Then at 1425 cut to exactly the same pitch heard 2.5 hours earlier, also saying that last month 7-8 (presumably AM) stations were dropped, but 4-5 added (Glenn Hauser, OK, WORLD OF RADIO 1508, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** SOUTH SHETLAND ISLANDS. 14101.000, 0930, R1ANF, thanks Raycroft tip in DXLD, noted with very weak signal. Rarely even moving the S-Meter but making it to S9 on peaks. Had to listen through several ID cycles to get this. Wonder if the propagation is via the Southern Ocean, Indian Ocean, or over Antarctica? (I'm guessing this is long path via the Indian Ocean.) 2 April (David Sharp, NSW Australia. FT-950, NRD- 535D, R8, ICF-2010, ICF-SW7600GR, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** SPAIN [and non]. Conditions are finally getting back to normal after the disturbances early in the week. Maybe even better than normal, as I have REE inbooming on 17595, April 10 at 2217 UT, some 3.5 hours after local sunset at Noblejas, // also strong 15110. Furthermore, weaker // on 17755 also audible. Per Aoki, 17755 at 161 degrees and 17595 at 248 degrees run as late as 2200 only on weekends. But they were still on; did not pay much attention to programming but it was a remote interview with some hum on the feed, same on all frequencies; not live sports which might explain the extension unless it was post-game. 17595 is 248 degrees, not even USward. Also very strong via Costa Rica on 17850, 340 degrees. It and 15110 direct at 302 degrees which are USward, are both scheduled until 2300 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 15170, REE via COSTA RICA, Sunday April 11 at 1249 with Antonio Buitrago talking about a contest at Radio Internacional de China, (but don`t call them RIC), thus confirming the new summer time of Amigos de la Onda Corta at 1230 Sundays on this and numerous other frequencies direct and relayed. Was already over by 1255 check, since its only other airing is 0605-0630 Saturdays on 5965, 11890, 12035. Propagation on 19m was poor the morning of April 15 with hardly anything making it from Europe, no Turkey on 15450, just Cuba and Canada --- even the REE Costa Rica relay on 15170 was weakish, altho sometimes it`s strong enough to overload. However, at 1347, Russian was atop 15170, which is BBC at 70 degrees from Woofferton, causing a SAH of 140/minute or two and a third Hz. These overlap between 1300 and 1500 on weekdays (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** SUDAN [non]. Tentative A10 schedule for US-funded Sudan Radio Service in Arabic, English, vernaculars: 0400-0500 11805-UAE 0500-0600 13720-UAE 1500-1600 17745-PORTUGAL 1600-1700 17745-PORTUGAL [sic; why not combined?] 1700-1800 9590-UAE Tentative A10 schedule for Sudan Radio Service Darfur Programme in Arabic and vernaculars: 1060-1700 Sat-Thu on 17700-ASCENSION, 11770- MEYERTON (DX News, April BDXC-UK Communication via DXLD) ** SUDAN [non]. 5915 kHz - 08042010 - 0334 UT - R Dabanga - Thanks for the correction, Glenn Hauser. 5915 08/04 0330 VATICAN, R Dabanga, em sudanês(?). OM Talks e logo após um curto reggae. As 0332 UT outro OM fala, parece noticias, faz menção a África. As 0337 UT YL Talks e logo após local pop mx. 35433 (Jorge Freitas, Brasil, with recording at http://www.ipernity.com/doc/75006/7788398/ via DXLD) He had thought it was ZAMBIA, but that is inactive, q.v. (gh, DXLD) ** SUDAN [non]. via Wertachtal, 13730, Radio Dabanga, 1545-1726*, April 11, IDs. Arabic talk. Short breaks of local music. ID jingles. Fair to good. Very weak/threshold signal on // 11500 - via Madagascar (Brian Alexander, PA, DX Listening Digest) ** SURINAME. 4990.064, Radio Apintie, 1044, no ID, but presumed with Dutch-sounding man, then brief ad or jingle at 1045 and further comments. Very weak and low modulation. Almost perfect grayline from my location to Suriname this hour. 30 March (David Sharp, NSW Australia. FT-950, NRD-535D, R8, ICF-2010, ICF-SW7600GR, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) 4990.0, 0321-0326, R. Apintie, Paramaribo, 10/04, nonstop pop songs - poor with periodical QRM from some Russian USB utility transmitter on the same channel and splashes from 4985 (Brasil) (Mikhail Timofeyev, DXpedition near St. Petersburg, Russia, Icom R75, some directional antennas, HCDX via DXLD) 4990, a weak carrier with some music at 0546 April 11, and axually a bit stronger than adjacent 4985 RBC, very unusual. Must be Radio Apintie, which rarely makes an appearance here, with its low power and southward aim, and I`ve yet to attain a good definite ID log on it. David Hodgson, TN, was getting it better hearing multiple IDs within the hour around 0625 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Viz.: Glenn: I noted unusually good signals on 60 meters this morning including: 4990, Radio Apintie, 0625, April 11, Various musical selections including Love and Marriage sung by Sinatra. Multiple IDs by the announcer around 0625 (David Hodgson, TN, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** SWEDEN. Re 10-14, George Wood on Happy Station Hi Keith, Thanks. I caught this edition of Happy Station a couple of days ago online. A great interview & very enjoyable nostalgia trip as far back to the Sweden Calling DXers days. I first recall listening to George back in January 1980 and he always held my attention as a broadcaster. I was a frequent listener to his programs Radio Sweden was one of my favourite broadcasters in the 80's era. Reception in Australia was best in our summer on the 13mb when they beamed their 30 minute English program to Australia. Later of course they provided great signals into Australia from the RN Madagascar relay. I'll miss RSI's presence on SW. Regards (Ian Baxter, April 7, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** SWEDEN. Re 10-14: >> There will be other stations and programs from the SW and 1179 kHz MW TX. << --- Is this real information or just anorak nostalgia? At present Sveriges Radio is the one and only customer for Sölvesborg and the Hörby shortwave transmitters. Thus Teracom, the state-owned company that operates these facilities, would have to find new customers. And transmissions of such new customers would have to be approved in terms of broadcasting regulation. I would not be sure at all that this will happen. Maybe on 1179 kHz, where a new Chinese branch could be set up (this is about the only customer I could imagine). But for shortwave? I think here the Zeewolde ("Flevo") scenario is more likely (Kai Ludwig, Germany, April 9, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** SYRIA. Re 10-14: A very small correction. Radio Damascus in Russian on MW in the Summer seasons is on the air 1730-1800 on 783 kHz but the prgr is with different content /or in other order of features/ than on SW 1700-1800 on 933. Checked today at 1700-1730-1800 UT. Many thanks for the precious notices and corrections on some my tips, 73s, (Rumen Pankov, Sofia, Bulgaria, April 10, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** SYRIA. Re 10-14: Estimados amigos: Les informamos que a inicios del mes de Mayo estaremos realizando algunas reparaciones en nuestros transmisores de onda corta, por lo que se verán afectadas nuestras emisiones hacia América del Sur por la frecuencia de 9330 kHz. Pedimos disculpas por las molestias ocasionadas. Esperamos nos sigan acompañando por Internet o satélite, y nos sigan enviando sus comentarios sobre nuestros programas a las direcciones que ustedes ya conocen. Gracias Más... Estimados amigos de América Latina y España: Desde el pasado Domingo 26 de Abril [2009] pueden ustedes escuchar las emisiones de Radio Damasco en todos los idiomas en los que emitimos, incluyendo por supuesto en español. Para escuchar o descargar los archivos, visite: http://www.rtv.gov.sy/index.php?m=541 (via Yimber Gaviria, Colombia, April 13, DXLD) At the beginning of May they are going to make some repairs on their 9330 transmitter. We`ll believe it when we can hear it (gh, DXLD) 9330, 2224. News in Spanish about Mid West and some specific about Syria. Female news bulletin from Radio Damascus. Good modulation and good reception as well!! (Leonardo Santiago, Mérida city, Venezuela, Grundig YB 80, Sony ICF SW 35. Longwire 6 meters, on 2010/03/31 via Dario Monferini, playdx yg via DXLD) 9330, 2145, Radio Damascus broadcasting in English with a news bulletin by male. Low modulation as usual (Leonardo Santiago, in Acarigua city, Portuguesa State, Venezuela on 2010/04/02, via Dario Monferini, playdx yg via DXLD) ** TAIWAN. Radio Taiwan International's English Service Has an Opening For a Program Host/Reporter Responsibilities include: translating, writing, broadcasting, interviewing, producing programs and maintaining web page. Applicants must -- have graduated from university, -- have a good speaking voice, -- be fluent in spoken and written English, -- be proficient in speaking and reading Chinese, -- have a strong interest in the broadcasting profession, -- have basic computer skills, -- Web experience is a plus. Those interested should download an application form from our web page http://www.rti.org.tw/big5/checked/resume/index.aspx and send it to 990424 @ rti.org.tw by April 19th, 2010. Written and mic. tests will be administered for this position from 9 a.m. until 12 p.m. on April 24th, 2010. Address: RTI Personnel Department, No. 55, Bei-An Road, Taipei, Taiwan Fax: (02)2885-0403 Tel: (02) 2885-6168 #516 (Applicants must provide a phone number and qualified applicants will be notified before the test date. Resumes will not be returned.) (via Yimber Gaviria, Colombia, April 13, DXLD) Also Spanish openings ** TAIWAN. QSL Recebido - Radio Taiwan International Olá pessoal! No dia 12/04 recebi um envelope médio da Radio Taiwan International contendo a "Publicación Trimestral en Espanol - Enero - Marzo 2010" e uma ficha de cadastro do ouvinte, mas não haviam incluído o QSL que havia solicitado, fui recebê-lo no dia seguinte. Achei bastante interessante o fato deles manterem um sistema de controle do ouvinte, pois indicam que o código do ouvinte deve ser mencionado em todos os contatos. Imagino a existência de um sistema contendo todo o histórico de participação do SW Listener, logo todas as emissoras deveriam seguir este exemplo de organização. Hoje (13/04) fiquei espantado ao receber separadamente um lindo cartão QSL desta emissora. Eles postaram ambos em 25/03, mas os Correios entregaram em datas diferentes. Fiquei um pouco inconformado, pois o cartão de boa gramatura (o mais grosso que recebi até agora) foi dobrado ao meio. Se ele tivesse sido enviado dentro do informativo, provavelmente isto não teria acontecido, já que o envelope chegou intacto. De toda forma, fiquei muito contente com o QSL que conta com uma foto do invento "Edison Cylinder Phonograph" construído em 1910. Este toca- música não poderia ser chamado ainda de toca discos, já que operava com um cilindro, que vinha a ser propriamente "o disco". Sua dimensão: 110x64x43cm. Cultura geral do mundo da música trazida para o ouvinte por meio da RTI! QSL recebido em 25 dias corridos. Informe verificado com carimbo no cartão. Data da escuta: 19-03-10 UTC: 0000 Service: Espanol Frequency: 11885 Receptor: Tecsun R9012 Longwire 10 metros --- Meu 73, (Rodrigo de Araujo, Belo Horizonte MG Brasil, radioescutas yg via DXLD) In B-09, RTI on 11885 had Spanish at 23-24 UT via WYFR, then from 00 WYFR itself in Portuguese. Doesn`t anyone realize this was not Taiwan direct, and the time doesn`t fit? (gh, DXLD) ** TAIWAN. OCEAN VOICE RADIO: ILLEGAL RADIO NETWORK IN TAIWAN The Voice of Ocean Taiwan radio station, 95.9 FM in Taichung, is located on an upper floor of a downtown office building. Ocean Voice radio has been forced to operate without a license for 15 years. The illegal broadcasts are beamed around northern Taiwan with six transmitters and have developed a large following of listeners. The actual number of listeners is unknown but based on community feedback and Internet response the station managers feel they are reaching a large audience. ¦Read the story from examiner.com (includes slideshow) http://www.examiner.com/x-34331-Taiwan-Policy-Examiner~y2010m4d12-Inside-Taiwans-Political-Purgatory-Ocean-Voice-radio-defies-ROC-censors--Part-9-0f-20 (April 12th, 2010 - 16:27 UTC by Andy Sennitt, Media Network blog via DXLD) 2 Comments on “Ocean Voice Radio: illegal radio network in Taiwan” #1 8888 on Apr 13th, 2010 at 02:42 why don’t they podcast instead, or as well? seems they could increase their audience a thousand-fold this way! #2 Keith Perron on Apr 13th, 2010 at 04:37 Well, it’s that time of year again. Across Taiwan there are an estimated 200 unlicensed radio stations. The vast majority are located in Kaoshang. Every 2 years or so the government cracks down on them. It should be noted that the crackdown most targets stations that people have filed complaints against. There are some that have been on-air for more than 15 years. But they only play music and do entertainment news. Ocean Voice Radio shutdown had to do complaints filed but some local politicians. At the moment we are in the middle of mid-term elections and my sources at the National Communications Com. (NCC) told me some of the lower Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and Kuomintang (KMT) candidates were angry because they were not given any time to speak and were always being blasted. This is just a case of sour grapes. I guarantee that in a few weeks they will be back on air. Podcasts never took off in Taiwan. This is a television society, even taxis have televisions as well as busses. Out of the population of 22 million people the last census found that less than 20% of people listen to radio, and as for online radio less than 4%. Unless there are visuals podcasts won’t work (MN blog comments via DXLD) PRO-DEMOCRACY OCEAN VOICE RADIO RAIDED BY REPUBLIC OF CHINA AND FORCED OFF THE AIR Voice of Ocean Taiwan radio, 95.9 FM, in Taichung was raided and forced off the air within 24 hours of an exclusive Examiner report on the remarkable 15-year history of the unlicensed pro-democracy station. ¦ Read the story from Taiwan Policy Examiner http://www.examiner.com/x-34331-Taiwan-Policy-Examiner~y2010m4d14-Prodemocracy-Ocean-Voice-radio-raided-by-Republic-of-China-and-forced-off-the-air (April 14th, 2010 - 16:32 UTC by Andy Sennitt, ibid.) ** TAJIKISTAN. Re my wrong WBCQ logging of 17494.94 kHz. Noted once again an English newsreader on 17494.94 at 0915 UT this morning, so seemingly rather Voice of Russia via Dushanbe, Tajikistan, scheduled 0700-1000 to SoEaAS/PAC, AUS/NZL, though tiny signal in Europe. This transmitter observed also at unscheduled time slot 14-15 UT (Wolfgang Büschel, Germany, wwdxc BC-DX TopNews April 14, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** THAILAND. Amigos dxistas, Recebi hoje um QSL emitido pelo International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB) de Udonthani, Tailândia, referente à uma escuta que fiz da Voz da América, em 23 de fevereiro de 2010. O relatório foi enviado via correio físico e levou cerca de 33 dias para que eu recebesse essa resposta. O QTH da IBB Tailândia é: IBB Thailand Transmitting Station P. O. Box 99 A. Muang Udonthani, 41000 Thailand O QSL mostra na parte da frente uma foto da fachada da Shortwave Relay Station de Udonthani, tendo no rodapé a logomarca das estações que fazem uso dessa relay: Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty, VOA, RFA, Sawa e Radio Farda. Na parte de trás a descrição (full data) e assinatura do verificador ilegível. Esta foi uma escuta bastante interessante que efetuei na época, pois, às 1711 UT, o sinal da VOA estava chagando "booming" nos 13710 kHz, aqui em Tubarão, praticamente aniquilando o sinal da Radio Riyadh, que transmitia no mesmo horário e frequência. Fica o registro. 73's a todos (Fabricio Andrade Silva, Tubarão-SC, April 8, radioescutas yg via DXLD) Fique atento ao meu blog http://pqslfabricio.blogspot.com/ pois em breve irei scanear e postar por lá. 73 (Fabricio, April 10, ibid.) http://pqslfabricio.blogspot.com/2010/04/desde-o-antigo-black-site-yankee.html What do you mean by ``black site``?? The Udorn relay station has never been secret or even confidential (Glenn Hauser, ibid.) Fabricio Andrade disse... You are absolutely right, Glenn. I have already changed the title (Fabricio, ibid.) So he changed the heading to ``Opinião Yankee no Oriente...``, but not the blogurl. Axually, the VOA has high journalistic standards of objectivity, tho forced to broadcast brief USG editorials, clearly labeled as such apart from the news (Glenn Hauser, DXLD) ** TIBET [and non]. Schedule of Holy Tibet via CNR-11 was changed from April 11. Holy Tibet in English via CNR-11 1400-1430 6010, 7350, 9480 0500-0530 9530, 11685, 15570 The schedule of Tibet PBS is not changed. Holy Tibet in English via Tibet PBS 2230-2300 4905, 4920, 5240, 6110, 6130, 6200, 7255, 7385 0600-0630 4905, 4920, 5240, 6110, 6130, 6200, 9490, 9580 1530-1600 4905, 4920, 5240, 6110, 6130, 6200, 7255, 7385 de Hiroshi (S. Hasegawa, Japan, NDXC, April 13, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Hi Sei-ichi, No sign of the new schedule noted on April 13. Heard from the usual 1430 to 1500 UT on 7350 (in the clear, but weak), // 6010 (poor with usual jamming QRM from 6003) and // 9480.0 (poor with WTWW QRM on 9478.98); with the “Holy Tibet” program in English and playing Tibetan songs. Clearly “Holy Tibet” was not on today from 1400 to 1430 (Ron Howard, Asilomar Beach, CA, USA, ibid.) 7350, CNR-11 (Tibetan Service) via Baoji-Sifangshan (China), 1443, April 14. A quick check here found the start of the “Tibet Tourism” segment of “Holy Tibet”, so still no sign of a new schedule; much better reception today (Ron Howard, Asilomar Beach, CA, Etón E1, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** TINIAN. 15635, April 12 at 0532, fair signal in Chinese, probably RFA scheduled at 03-07, rather than ChiCom jamming due to current propagation favoring Pacific over Asia. Nothing else to or from China audible on 19m band (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) see also NORTHERN MARIANA ISLANDS ** TUNISIA. Re 10-14: DX Mix News, Bulgaria, just published the A-10 schedule of RTT, including 7275 at 0500-0730 and 7335 at 0700-0830. Based on previous experience I found this questionable, and sure enough, April 9 at 0550 check, both 7275 and 7335 were on in //, Arabic music, 0600 both into Arabic talk, 0601 Akbar; the lower one stronger, but both rather poor unlike pre-magstorm and in the B-season when they were a great source of easily-listenable nightmiddle music. DX Mix info must be from imaginary HFCC registrations. We need to monitor the *axual* opening and closing times of these and all other RTT frequencies, the other morning ones being 12005 and 9725; evening 12005, 9725, 7345, 7225 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ``0500-0730 on 7275 SFA 500 kW / 340 deg to WeEu`` [noted earlier S=9+20dB, at 0430 UT Apr 9, wb.] (Wolfgang Büschel, BC-DX April 9 via DXLD) Glenn - from past experience the sign-on/off times will vary by minutes each day, so the times quoted will be an approximation of what is intended rather than what actually happens. Monitoring RTT this Sunday morning - the 11th - I heard 7275 stop broadcasting during a musical item and the transmitter off almost immediately at 0626 UT. Meanwhile, parallel 7335 didn't go off until 0*8*05 UT. So was the latter a mistake or for real? (Noel R. Green, UK, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) The 0626-0627 closing of 7275 is exactly the same time as in B-season, as I reconfirmed several times by monitoring; it did not vary more than one minute as if controlled by a timer, interrupting whatever programming was in progress, and I think 0805v also for 7335 as per your monitoring, right? So perhaps there has really been no change in the A-season (Glenn Hauser, April 11, ibid.) Yes, this is what it is looking like. On Sunday the 11th March I heard 9725 and 12005 open at 1556, 7225 came up at 1656 and 7345 at 1856 - all at four minutes to the hour. Carrier only for a short time before then. I could not hear 9725 and 12005 at re-check 2015 or 7225 at re- check 2115, but 7345 was still on, although badly QRMed - by CRI in Italian I think. All frequencies suffer some co-ch QRM despite being registered. Today the 12th, 7275 again went off suddenly at 0626 and 7345 at 0806. So all of these timings approximate the B-09 schedule. And it does seem that a timer is in use now instead of a man(ual) system (Noel R. Green, England, ibid.) ** TURKEY. 13635, April 11 at 1258 play-by-play in Turkish with crowd roaring, 1300 to studio announcement, a bit of music, and cut off the air at 1300:45*. This is 310 degrees from Emirler. It seems the only next frequency in Turkish is 9840, not an option here with WHRI, Voice of Vietnam (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** UGANDA. I went on a missions trip to Uganda with my church. We stayed at Kabale. On Monday 15 Feb I spent an hour on the Roberts R9914, between 1920 and 2020 UT. 576 kHz, listed in WRTH as UBC Blue Channel via Mityana, but it wasn`t // 93.7 FM. Talk in vernacular in deep voices, SINPO 45454 (on the way to Kabale from Entebbe, I caught a ``Star FM`` ID on this frequency. This is a commercial channel!) 999 kHz, UBC Radio, Kabala. Like 576 kHz I`m a bit confused about this one. It`s listed in WRTH as carrying the Red channel, but it was // 93.7 FM (supposedly the Blue channel)(and, on the way back to Entebbe on Sunday 21 Feb I heard it ID as `UBC Blue``. I checked 999 against the Red SW frequency 4976 whilst doing this log and it isn`t a parallel program with either 999 or FM. Maybe both are on Blue. The other confusing factor is that the WRTH doesn`t list any English programmes on the Blue network, but both 999 and FM were carrying an English relationships programme with Western music at around 2030 UT and past midnight! Make of this what you will. Not much time to log stuff on SW. On the evening of Sunday 14 Feb, at the Gately Hotel in Entebbe, the UBC Red channel (or at least, that`s what I thought itwas) was clearly audible on 4976 with distorted audio and deep fades. It was // 98.0 FM (The WRTH listed frequency for UBC Red), which was also rather grotty. FM: BBCWS clear as a bell in Kampala on 101.3 MHz on the morning of Monday 15/2 and in stereo! The jingle up to the top of the hour appeared to be tailored to this frequency, ``in Kampala on 101.3``. RFI Afrique also clear on Monday morning on 93.7 via Kampala, talk in French. Coming back form Kabale on Sunday 21/2 I picked up BBCWS on 107.3 from Mbarara. I had to flick the switch to mono as the stereo balance wasn`t correct. This was also the case on UBC`s 93.7 outlet in Kabale (Darren Rozier, Listening in Uganda, April BDXC-UK Communication via DXLD) ** UGANDA. 4976, UBC, 2110-2330 April 3, DJing in English and local languages, phone-ins, mentions of local FM outlets in Uganda and neighbour countries, a lot of YL shot-IDs UBC-Radio, 55455; it was blocked by PBS-Xinjiang on 4980 at 2330 while UBC was audible even under PBS (Artyom Prokhorov, Moscow, Russia, Icom R75 com longwire 20 metros, via Sarmento Campos, radioescutas yg via WORLD OF RADIO 1508, DXLD) Another report of this being on the air all-night (gh, DXLD) 4975.972, Radio Uganda, 2000, English, in the clear with Voice of Russia Tajikistan off today. Military band anthem or similar, then long-winded speech by a man, through until 2050. Didn't pay close attention, partly because of the muffled audio. Best-ever reception of RU here. 3 April (David Sharp, NSW Australia. FT-950, NRD-535D, R8, ICF-2010, ICF-SW7600GR, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) April 13th at 1650 noted UBC, Uganda on 7195 with news in local language. At 1703 "Newshour" in English (Jari Savolainen, Kuusankoski Finland, ibid.) 7194.98, R Uganda, 1704 - 1753, April 13, English national news mentioned International Red Cross, distribution of condoms, Islamic schools.1718 continued with international items on Radovan Karadzic, plane crash in Indonesia, Islamic militants in Somalia. 1720 had "special announcement" about somebody who had lost his laptop & charger and asking listeners for help. 1724 "This is the News Hour", report on women (not) taking up leadership positions and lots of other issues that I didn't really pay much attention to. Carrier suddenly off 1753. On exactly the same frequency as last Dec & Jan when I had been trying unsuccessfully to get this identified. Very decent audio, no hams in the way, peaks at S9 made for quite enjoyable listening. Hadn't yet read Jari Savolainen's report until about 1805 when I started typing this. 73, (Martien Groot, Schoorl, Netherlands, dxldyg via WORLD OF RADIO 1508, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 4975.96, R Uganda, 1740, April 14, English "News Hour" back here hetting VOR 4975. Apparently their extended stay on 7194.98 yesterday was just a one-day event. 73, (Martien Groot, Schoorl, Netherlands, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** UGANDA [non]. Re 10-14, Ugandan clandestine at 17 Sat April 3 on 15410, Radio Y'Abaganda --- A reply from them to my note of reception for a few minutes; Dear Mr. Jari Savolainen, Greetings. Sorry for the delay in the reply due to the Easter holidays. But yes, your report is all correct. In Uganda the target area and around East Africa the reception was as good as it was on the internet radio. We had some problems going on there. As to the question you asked, we are transmitting from Issoudun, France. Thanks for letting us know. It sure is interesting. Best Regards (via Jari Savolainen, Finland, April 9, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Via France, 15410, Radio Y’Abaganda, *1700-1800*, April 10, sign on with non-stop tape loop consisting of tones and tape loop saying “We’re sorry you've reached a station that is unavailable at this time. Please try again later" along with "Live 365" jingle. Into vernacular talk at 1733. Abrupt s/off at 1800. Poor to fair in noisy conditions (Brian Alexander, PA, DX Listening Digest) 15410 for the new radio station for Uganda, there was an error "we are sorry ... the .. is not available this time please try later" 365 Good signal (Zacharias Liangas, April 10, DX LISTENING DIGEST) They are relying on Live365 to get the feed to the transmitter! (gh) ** UKRAINE. RADIO UKRAINE INTERNATIONAL OFF SHORTWAVE Hi Glenn! From April 12, RUI's shortwave transmitters in Kharkiv and Lviv have been switched off. Also the same was done with all mediumwave transmitters of UR1 channel. Only transmitter on 657 kHz in Chernivtsi with RUI's Romanian service and UR3 operates in the night. Also the UR1 transmitter on 207 kHz in Brovary (Kiev) is active from 0230 to 2100. Best regards (Alexander Yegorov, Kiev, Ukraine, April 14, WORLD OF RADIO 1508, DX LISTENING DIGEST) This means RUI is off the SW air completely, including the 0000-0100 UT English to North America which was high power from Lviv on 7440. All the other frequencies Kharkiv. Is this permanent, or another temporary shortage of funding? (gh, WORLD OF RADIO 1508, DXLD) RUI missing from its formerly reliable big signal on 7440, English to NAm at 00-01, checked 0005 April 15. Alexander Yegorov reports that ALL SW transmissions of RUI from Lviv and and the lower-powered Kharkiv site were turned off April 12. Not clear whether this is temporary or permanent, but Ukrainian MW has also been drastically cut. Previously there have been interruptions in RUI service when funding ran out, but then resumed (Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Thanks for the info. Here in Houston I had checked 7440 at 0000 and heard nothing. Thought it might be lingering effects of the recent geomagnetic storm, but was hearing other Eastern Europeans on the band. I suspect with other broadcasters dropping shortwave we may have heard the last of RUI, regardless of any future funding situation. Glenn, you are right; sure is a far cry from the old USSR days when you could easily hear the various Soviet broadcasts on over a dozen frequencies each evening (Steve Luce, TX, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) It's not even necessary to go back that far in history. During the nineties Radio Ukraine International was all day long on around a dozen frequencies, basically using the complete capacity of the three shortwave sites in the Ukraine. The big cut to the small service as it remained until last week came only in 2002 (Kai Ludwig, Germany, ibid.) Hi Everyone, For what it's worth, the RUI website schedule says listed frequencies are in effect until 31 October, 2010. Haven't seen any notice on the website about suspension of broadcasts (but I only gave the website a quick once-over). 73 (David Sharp, NSW Australia, 0214 UT April 15, ibid.) Just send in your complaints to Kiev and to the Ukrainian Embassy in DC and RUI will be back on the air. Most likely it's just the issue of funding - not some ideological decision to give up on SW. The Ukrainian diaspora is well organized. I suspect they are going to flood the station with complaints (Sergei S., Germany, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) I would first ask if anyone of them still listened to these shortwave signals at all. Here in Central Europe they were really measly, hardly sufficient for program listening. One had to wonder about the shape of the antennas, assuming that the Sneg's churned out the 100 kW NRKU paid for, actually for a service not worth the money. In fact I'm surprised that the small shortwave service remained until now, considering that about two of three FM transmitters are already off air for lack of money. And I wonder if NRKU now starts to really starve (Kai Ludwig, Germany, ibid.) I don't think complaining will make any difference. The Ukrainian diaspora isn't paying the bills to keep RUI on the air. Many governments, and in turn, national broadcasters are experiencing severe budget shortfalls. Cuts have to be made, such as the recent reductions in Bulgaria. Once all these transmitters have been off the air for a while the former audience will find other ways to listen or get information. ..and there won't be any reason for the governments involved to reinstate the broadcasts. Sad for longtime SWL's, but it's the cold reality of strained finances and changing technology (Steve Luce, TX, ibid.) I've been an SWL for 34 years and when I started, the international broadcasters had nothing in their mandates about being cost-effective. The object of the game was to get their message out to as wide an audience as possible and the bottom line was secondary, if that. Not everything in life should be run like a business. 73 de (Anne Fanelli in Elma NY, ibid.) That's very easy to say when you`re not paying the bills (Keith Perron, Taiwan, ibid.) ** U K O G B A N I. Sunday April 4, I tuned (as the others in Acarigua city) the test transmission to North America "UK Rocks the World" on 15760, 1500 to 1552 UT, 45333. The transmission was heard since the beginning of the broadcast. They played rock 'n' roll music and short identifications only. By the way, there was one from The Rolling Stones! I sent my reception report to ukrockstheworld @ googlemail.com and then after few hours I received a total partial data e-QSL (d'oh!) from them. They tell me they will be broadcasting more music and more speech soon. According the QSL they sent me I think they broadcast via or from Belfast in the UK. So we are waiting from now their future transmissions! (Thanks to friend Tom Taylor from the UK for advice to me). Thanks for reading. Good reception, best regards! Leonardo Santiago. Please go to http://diexismovenezolano.blogspot.com The official Web blog from the CDXA International bringing you the latest news in Spanish about what's going on about DXing!! (via Dario Monferini, playdx yg via DXLD) So what was the site??? ** U K. SHR status update --- Apologies for yet more problems this past Sunday. We moved servers and we were unable to make it work properly. There was a configuration error. After some hours of effort on and off messing with settings, we got it going! It came on at 12.21 BST and managed to broadcast the entire World of Radio 1507 and a bit of Happy Station before crashing after just 46 minutes of broadcast. Our FM and SW then shut off within a few minutes which is normal as they could not receive a connection. This is just the way we set it up last week. Thanks for the e-mails of concern from our most loyal listeners including Erik in Copenhagen. The problem is now solved so I hope our regular sponsors will trust us to continue broadcasting their shows on our network. We do rely on your partnership to help us fill our schedule. We will be back properly this Sunday from 08.00 to 20.00 UK / 0700- 1900 UT on-line at http://www.southhertsradio.com/live.html on shortwave 6255 to Europe and on FM 90.9 to south and east Herts, 97.9 to west Herts and 102.5 to north Herts all low power only. Programmes will be as listed on our programmes page and times will be strict. There will be a test on Saturday evening sometime after 19.00 BST (Internet Only). There are plans to get a 24 hour web stream going soon with regular shortwave on Sundays on just one frequency with higher power, maybe rented airtime, we are not sure yet. Also FM will be Sundays only on modified micropower / low power devices. When the web stream is 24 hour, there will be much more local programming (Gary Drew, South Herts Radio, April 13, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) South Herts Radio Web Update Some changes again but full details are on our frequencies page and our programmes page. The website has been updated with the new 24 hour 7 day schedule coming soon... http://www.southhertsradio.com/frequencies.html http://www.southhertsradio.com/progs.html World of radio still Sundays 12.30 BST = 1130 UT and Wednesdays 20.30 BST = 1930 UT. If our shortwave or internet is down it will be on FM. All the info is on the frequencies page as above. A new 24 hour 7 day web stream may be coming very soon. SHR International - Community radio from south Hertfordshire. http://www.southhertsradio.com (Gary Drew, April 15, ibid.) ** U K [non]. BBCWS` only remaining SW broadcast in English to the entire Western Hemisphere, M-F 1215-1300 via WHRI 9410, still exists, April 13 at 1251 with Robin Lustig interviewing someone, but considerable co-channel QRM in Chinese and SAH caused by CNR and incidentally jamming Fu Hsing, Taiwan (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) The BBCWS website http://bbcsworldservice.com is not always the friendliest. I usually try to have some handy printed programme schedules for stations I like. The BBCWS has a one-page dix-month PDF schedule, which is impossible to find by following the linx (However tnx to the Radio Listener’s Guide - 2010 Edition, I`ve found that you have to tape ``printable six monthly schedules`` in the home page search engine, and there it is (Stefano Valianti, Southern European Report, April BDXC-UK Communication via DXLD) ** U K [non]. SOMALIA ISLAMISTS AL-SHABAB BAN BBC TRANSMISSIONS By Peter Greste, East Africa correspondent, BBC News Al-Shabab and its allies control most of southern and central Somalia The Somali Islamist movement al-Shabab has banned the BBC and closed down transmitters broadcasting the Somali language service inside the country. Al-Shabab accused the BBC of fighting against Islam and supporting the transitional federal government, which the rebels are fighting to overthrow. The group said the BBC had been broadcasting the agenda of crusaders and colonialists against Muslims. The BBC said it was strictly impartial and spoke to all sides in the conflict. The BBC has been broadcasting its services in Somali, Arabic and English across the country on a series of FM frequencies for at least a decade, and surveys suggest it is one of the most widely listened-to news services in Somalia. 'Strict standards' Al-Shabab ordered all of the BBC's transmitters to be shut down. A statement by al-Shabab demanded that any organisation transmitting the BBC, or the Washington-based Voice of America, should cancel their contracts. Al-Shabab and its allies control most of southern and central Somalia and all but a few districts of the capital, Mogadishu. They have been fighting to establish an Islamist administration of their own in place of the current government. The BBC's broadcasts have been taken off the FM bandwidth [sic], but are still available on shortwave and the internet. In response to the statement, the head of BBC Africa, Jerry Timmins, said the organisation spoke to all sides in the conflict, including al-Shabab, adhered to strict standards of impartiality and editorial independence and rejected any suggestion otherwise. 21:36 GMT, Friday, 9 April 2010 22:36 UK Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8612654.stm (Via Yimber Gaviria, Colombia, DXLD and Arnaldo Slaen, Argentina, dxldyg via DXLD) See also SOMALIA ** U K. Someone slipped up on this one! A WORCESTERSHIRE radio station has been forced to shut down due to legal issues surrounding its licence. Sunshine Radio’s 1530AM station has disappeared from the airwaves, leaving Worcestershire with just one commercial radio station, Wyvern FM. Listeners were stunned when the station went off air yesterday afternoon. Managing director Ginny Murfin said she was informed on Thursday by the broadcasting watchdog Ofcom that the licence for 1530AM still belonged to Classic Hits Radio Ltd – a company which was dissolved yesterday. Mrs Murfin said that due to the company going out of business and legal issues surrounding another frequency on the licence it was not possible to sort the problem out or change the name on the licence agreement. Mrs Murfin said how Ofcom are trying to phase out AM frequencies and were no longer making 1530 available for broadcasting. She said: “It is a very sad day because there has been a radio station operating on that frequency for 20 years. “But I understand the legal reasons behind it all. It was a problem we inherited from the previous owners and there wasn’t anything we could do about it. “I haven’t had much time to sit down with everybody and sort things out but I am hoping to disperse the staff and presenters from the Worcestershire station to the other Sunshine stations. “Unfortunately, listeners will no longer be able to get Sunshine Radio on 1530am; it won’t be coming back on air. All our other stations will remain exactly the same. “Listeners in Worcester-shire will be able to pick up the Herefordshire and Monmouthshire station at 106.2FM.” Sunshine Radio also has a station covering the Shropshire area on 855 AM (source? via Max White, April 7, DXLD) ** U K. UK DIGITAL RADIO BILL ENACTED Daily Telegraph, By Neil Midgley, 8 April 2010 For almost 90 years through wars, royal weddings and moon landings, British radio has relied on the traditional analogue signal to bring news, music and entertainment to millions of listeners. But now the hiss and crackle of the analogue radio set are finally set to become a thing of the past, with a new law passed yesterday paving the way for digital radio switchover in 2015. The controversial Digital Economy Act, passed as one of the current government's very last pieces of legislation in the "wash-up" process before Parliament is dissolved next week, enacts a legal framework to end FM, AM and Long Wave radio transmissions - despite huge practical objections and warnings that pressing ahead may result in a "public backlash". Recent statistics show that the vast majority - 94 per cent - of radio listeners are satisfied with the service they currently receive and that less than a third of radios sold in the UK are digital. . . http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/7564692/Say-goodbye-to-your-transistor-radio-digital-switchover-is-coming.html (via Mike Terry, dxldyg via DXLD) ** U K [non]. 5800, Premier League Radio (via Ukraine) 1240 April 3 [Sat], Discussion about Premier League, clear ID "Premier League Radio" at 1245, email radio @ premierleague.com at 1251, 55455 (Artyom Prokhorov, Moscow, Russia, Icom R75 com longwire 20 metros, via Sarmento Campos, radioescutas yg via DXLD) ** U S A [and non]. VOA news at 1304 April 10 on 7575, report from DXer Dan Robinson at the White House (who since March 1 has been promoted from Capitol Hill correspondent --- congrats!), good signal and 1305 into Jazz America, theme this week Billie Holliday, née Eleanora Fagin (sp?). VG signal and I think I`ll take her over Martha Garvin on 7490, see WWCR. 7575 is 21 degrees from Tinang, PHILIPPINES, on the air during this hour only on Sat & Sun. While monitoring VOR on 9890, see RUSSIA, I was dreading VOA upcoming on 9885. At 2257 its open carrier is on --- no, there is some weak modulation already, from Radio Martí as quickly confirmed by // 6030. 2259 VOA YDD sign-on in English, but mixing with R. Martí frequency announcement in Spanish. If RM is still in the mod mix after 2300 it`s buried under VOA`s ``De Capital a Capital``, right into rap music, with widebland splash blowing away Russia on 9890. Did not keep listening long enough to tell whether the DentroCuban Jamming Command also hit it, but why bother blocking this apolitical program? Indeed, that does not usually stop them. Checking the M-F ``A Fondo`` hour jointly produced by R. Martí and VOA, UT Tue-Sat 00-01: April 13 at 0010, all jammed, but audible on 11970, 9885, 7365, 6030. Forgot to check 11775, the fifth frequency heard four nights earlier. Suspect Lavwadlamerik has quietly cancelled the extra Creole broadcasts started ASAP after the Haitian earthquake in January, but when? VOA took forever to add the new schedule to the A-Z website, and now that it has, some of the frequencies shown are missing. As Of April 13, VOA A-Z language schedule still shows: Creole - NEW! 0000-0100 UTC 5835 7590 0100-0200 UTC 5835 7465 1130-1230 UTC 6135 9505 M-F 1630-1830 UTC 15390 17565 1830-2000 UTC 15390 2000-2200 UTC 11905 13725 2200-2300 UTC 7590 11905 2300-0000 UTC 5835 7590 But April 13 at 0015, nothing on 5835 and 7590. Need to check the earlier channels, as may revert to original afternoon timing of 2100- 2130 only, nothing later. April 13 at 1757 and 1835, nothing on 15390 or 17565, so the midday show has probably contracted to original 1630-1700. Or less? I am beginning to wonder if *any* VOA Creole SW broadcasts remain on the air; need to check all above times and frequencies. VOA has cancelled all its SW broadcasts in Haitian Creole. These were greatly expanded from three half-hours per day shortly following the January earthquake. The extent of the expansion was not immediately clear since accurate schedules were not posted for weeks, but we soon monitored the additional times and frequencies. Now that the A-Z language transmission schedule includes the extra hours, those are no longer heard, and furthermore the original half- hours, which in summer time would have been at 1130, 1630 and 2100 UT, are also missing from the HFCC schedule. Monitoring April 14, no sign of the 1130 transmission which was on 9505, and before than on 9670, nor via the Bonaire relay 6135, which is also gone from the RNW schedule. At 1630 nothing on previous 15390 or 17565. Not yet checked at 2100-2130 but surely also gone. If the Haitians were so much in need of additional VOA broadcasts on SW then, how is it that now they no longer need them, or any Kreyol SW broadcasts from VOA at all? Are we to assume that any listeners in Haïti can easily access Lavwadlamerik via internet, mobile devices? Or are there some reliable FM or AM relays now? When did the airborne Commando Solo relays cease? Likely quite some time ago, but we don`t get any press releases or any other announcements about that or VOA cuts, which might be construed as negative. On April 7, Radio Martí got another transmitter at Greenville, labeled ``temporary``, making four frequencies at once during most of the day rather than three, as I previously reported. This came out of the ex- Kreyol service. That may have been when Kreyol was canceled, if not earlier in the nascent A-10 season. We suspected the extra SW for Martí was to compensate for Marathon 1180 being off the air temporarily, as frequently announced on RM (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) There used to be a link on the VOA Creole website back to the A-Z SW frequency page, but can`t find it now which is just as well. But there is in fact a page showing a number of FM and AM relays: http://www.voanews.com/creole/Patne-Ki-Releye-Emisyon-Nou-Yo.cfm This page about the programs http://www.voanews.com/creole/Istwa-Sevis-Kreyol-la.cfm still mentions the three original times, claims they are on SW, as well as satellite, affiliates: ``Tout pwogram nou yo pase pa satelit ak sou ond kout, e afilye nou genyen atravè Ayiti e nan Antiy fransèz e kreyolofòn yo releye yo an dirèk.`` The French French could sure learn a lot from the Haitians about how to spell their language more fonetikaly (Glenn Hauser, OK, April 14, WORLD OF RADIO 1508, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Looks like the shutdown of Greenville is starting to gain speed. Perhaps a proactive attempt to stay ahead of any effort to keep it on the air? (Steve Luce, TX, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) At least BBG has been accused of such cloak-and-dagger actions already on earlier occasions, concerning VOA language services if I recall correct. I would also say that this appears to be a proactive step towards abandoning the Greenville transmitters. Now it only remains to secure some third party capacity for broadcasts in Spanish (both studio sites and both brands), and here I assume it will no longer be the same amount of frequency hours than in use today. Should be something that can be implemented for the B10 season (Kai Ludwig, Germany, April 15, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) There are still (I think) some broadcasts to Africa from Greenville, in English, French, Hausa, but of course easily replaceable; special English to Latin America (Glenn Hauser, ibid.) VOA at 1218 Wednesday April 14 going from Earth & Sky about big dams, to Wordmaster about English teaching, on 7575, also audible on 9505 and with ChiComQRM on 9760. 7550, at 1348 April 15 good open carrier, 1351 continuous tone test of two slightly different pitches and wavering; 1355 back to open carrier, 1358 VOA sign-on, 1400 into pop music show with English announcements. O yeah, it`s the Thu-Fri-Sat only Indonesian hour, 200 degrees from Tinang, PHILIPPINES. Recheck at 1417 the talk was axually in Indonesian (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) See also NORTHERN MARIANA ISLANDS; TINIAN ** U S A. A big hole on 9980, as WWCR-4 was off the air at 2039 check April 8; but later back on as usual with extremely strong signal. April 9 at 1317, despite few poor signals over most of the 19m band, e.g. no sign of Turkey on 15450, WWCR was inbooming on 15825, i.e. sporadic-E enhancement on HF, but MUF did not reach VHF. A Shower-to- Shower ad at the moment, accompanied by squeal on the signal. Reaches S9+22 and with typical Es fading. Lower 13845 ought to have had the same effect, but it was relatively weak, and suffering from the WEWN spur, which on 13835 was also Es- enhanced. Since WWCR by normal F-layer propagation on lower 7490 and 9980 were extremely strong S9+25 as usual, this leads me to suspect that 13845 is running considerably less than full 100 kW power, altho differences in antenna azimuth may also be a factor. By 1330, 13845 did manage to reach S9+20 on the meter, but still unsolid, weaker-sounding. By 1403, the Es had diminished so 15825 back to its normal weak and fadey signal in the F-layer skip zone only one megameter away. See also SOUTH CAROLINA [non] WWCR-3, 7490, Saturday April 10 at 1314 still with Martha Garvin`s Musical Memories, contrary to published schedule; she was doing hymns in alfabetical order by title, A-B-C. This signal is so strong that it desensitizes the receiver roughly plus/minus 35 kHz, between 7455 and 7525 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 15825 works well for us out here --- Hi GLENN - just to let u kno, I got one of my best receptions EVER of your program, yesterday, while driving from Phoenix to Sun CIty Arizona, (all in city traffic and with occasional power lines) using a Sangean ATS-803A and a roof mount Wilson "Little WIL" CB antenna. Between 1:30 and 2 P local time [Friday 2030-2100 UT], I heard the World Of Radio broadcast on 15825 [WWCR] and it was just pounding in! It could just as easily had been a local MW station with the reception I got. That "platform" works well to get your show out to the folks here! Regards (Rick Barton, AZ, April 10, WORLD OF RADIO 1508, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Tnx, I was hoping that would be the case, at a suitable skip distance more than a megameter further than Enid (gh, DXLD) WORLD OF RADIO chex April 10: at 1341, just barely audible on WRMI 9955, as I was mentioning WOR is sometimes jammed --- but it was not this time; glad to be proven wrong, temporarily. 1630 Sat airing on 12160 confirmed on WWCR-2 webcast until 1700, did not get stuck into looping. By 2300 April 10, WWCR-4 on 9980, which blasts in all day, is beginning to fade down as Unshackled #2682 is starting on Saturday. I hope this does not bode ill for reception of WORLD OF RADIO #1507, at its new time of 2330 Sunday. Hmm, that other show is 1175 episodes ahead of me. Must buckle down and get busy. 7465, April 10 at 2314, WWCR-1 ending The Victory Hour (would you believe quarter-hour?), with squeal quite audible on this transmitter, not to be confused with some sirens in Enid arriving via compression waves at the very same time. Next show opens with a Bible citation not even bothering to identify itself. Checking new WORLD OF RADIO time on WWCR-4, Sundays 2330 on 9980: April 11 at 2333, audible enough to confirm but very poor signal, down from normal blast earlier in daytimes. Strangely, WWCR-2 on 9350 was MUCH stronger. Published azimuths for these are 90 and 85 degrees respectively, both of which should be ideal for OK off-the-back westward. Furthermore, WTWW on 9479, just a few myriameters further, was stronger still. So at this moment was the MUF somewhere in the middle of the 31m band, advantaging the lower channels? And/or 9980 not running full 100 kW power? I hope at further more favorable skip distances, 9980 was still inbooming. BTW, Rick Barton in AZ says 15825 is excellent there, more than double the distance to Enid, for the Friday 2030 WOR airing. WWCR-4 off the air again from 9980 another afternoon, April 12 at 2118 and in the following hour, but seemed to be back at 2330 tho just barely audible as were WWCR-2 on 9350 and WTWW 9479 since propagation had dropped out. The M-F program schedule shows: 2000 WW Country Radio 2100 Truth House 2200 Challenge Ministries 2300 Unshackled 2330 Thru the Bible 0000 Golden Age of Radio to 0200* I would assume that Truth House and Challenge Ministries are paid programming so strange to be silent then, rather than during WWCR, Unshackled or GAOR (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Pastor Pete Peters exclusive to WTWW --- just happened across WWCR's updated program schedule, and racist Peters is no longer on any of the transmitters (Thomas Nyberg, Sumner, IA, April 13, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Ah yes, the April 1 edition has already been updated as of April 9: http://www.wwcr.com/program-guides/WWCR_Program_Guide.pdf (Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. 5109.8, 0247-0310, WBCQ, Monticello, 10/04, English, OM short talks and fragments of some old songs and films, ID as "This is ... radio station in America, WBCQ, Monticello, Maine, USA", etc. - almost good with slight hum (Mikhail Timofeyev, DXpedition near St. Petersburg, Russia, Icom R75, some directional antennas, HCDX via DXLD) Did not realize Area 51 was going to be on Friday night (gh, DXLD) 15420-CUSB, WBCQ, is on early Saturdays only for the Brother Scare Sabbath: April 10 at 1358 tuned in to ID loop I had not heard before, not Allan Weiner`s voice, ``You`re listening to WBCQ, Monticello, Maine, the United States of America, The Planet`` and then a riff of band music. I was trying to count the number of notes but only heard it twice, maybe 22 to 25, so is this the WBCQ interval signal now? Then to longtime produced ID with Allan`s voice, singing jingle ID, and 1400 join BS in progress, but immediately interrupted for a quick legal ID only as if that were necessary. 1403-1404 dumped off the air. Even then, no co-channel QRM audible, due to poor extracontinental propagation, but BBC Seychelles is now scheduled at 13-17, alternating English, Somali and Swahili on westward beams, depending on the hour and the day. BTW, one column in HFCC shows the mode, D for analog and N for DRM, but WBCQ is one of few entries as T, which must mean USB, even tho there is no T anywhere in the words ``upper sideband`` (there is no N in ``digital`` either, but it`s from French = numérique; I don`t remember how they get D for ``analog``). I have not searched the entire register, but T is also listed for WJHR 15550, and WBCQ 9330 -- - but not WBCQ on 5110; or 17495, which surely would be if really in use. 9330-CUSB, WBCQ is on with another weekend special from Area 51, = Area 93. At first I thought two stations were mixing, but that was the way the music was presented on the modulation, soon clearing up to one thing at a time, and of course, exact SSB tuning is critical with music. Nothing audible on 15420 or 5110, and not // 7415. At 2250 a ``legal ID`` on 9330 for WBCQ. Recheck at 2313, with Radio TimTron WorldWide giving his mission statement, now // 7415 and weaker // 5110-CUSB has also become audible. I had checked the Area 51 blog on Friday but nothing then about additional frequencies this weekend; short notice (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 5109.83, 11/4 0020, WBCQ, religious talks, better in USB to avoid close interferencing carrier (Giampiero Bernardini, Milano, Italia, RX: Drake R8 - ANT: T2FD, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Two new pirates --- Just got two pirates on 9.330 Mhz from 0003Z. The first was WBCQ somewhere in Maine and the second was R. Ramona from The Netherlands on an announced freq of 6.524 Mhz. Nothing heard on that freq (RAH, name and location unknown, UT April 12, amfmtvdx at qth.net via DXLD) WBCQ is a legitimate licensed station in Monticello, Maine (Karl Zuk, N2KZ, ibid.) And this was an Area 51 program about pirate stations, no doubt including that R. Ramona (gh, DXLD) ** U S A. 7505.68, 0344-0400'30*, WRNO, 10/04, English, OM with IDs such as "WRNO World Wide", pops songs - very good with good modulation / audio quality. Hope for a QSL (Mikhail Timofeyev, DXpedition near St. Petersburg, Russia, Icom R75, some directional antennas, HCDX via DXLD) ** U S A. 15550-USB, WJHR very weakly audible with you know what, April 9 at 1404, shortly faded out. Was benefiting from sporadic E opening, which did WWCR 15825 a lot more good (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. 18980, WYFR Spanish poor at 1445 April 10, // 15130. WYFR is now the sole worldwide occupant of this peculiar SWBC band, as IBB is no longer listed on 19010 from Kuwait. WYFR: 18930 at 1600-2200, 18980 at 1400-2145 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) [and non]. 9935, something in Spanish, April 10 at 2229, immediately mentioning 21 de mayo de 2011, so it`s only Fámily Radio predicting the end of the world. How will Harold weasel out of that one, if he survive that long? A good time to go camping. 9935 is too weak to be Okeechobee and not // 15130. How do the French Guianans feel about broadcasting such nonsense from their country? Ha, they have no say, and I bet not even one percent know what`s going out at 215 degrees from Montsinéry, now more world-famous than Devil`s Island, on a par with Kourou. 6985, April 10 at 2310, in French, must be WYFR as scheduled, 355 degrees, but only fair signal and much weaker than Spanish on 6915 at 160 degrees, both 100 kW. This does not compute (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. 9265, WINB at 1318 UT Saturday April 10 with that eruptive preacher who takes long pauses, as if steam is building up over and over until he blows, then screams at ever-increasing level; he mentioned pentecostal. Even tho dated March 14, as if it were actualized because of the start of DST, the WINB program schedule still shows a 5-hour difference between ET and UT, instead of the correct 4 hours, so which are we to believe? How can they be so ignorant? What I was hearing must have been either: 08:00A / Sat-1300...Apostolic Asssembly [sic!] or 09:00A / Sat-1400...Terry Blalock Second harmonic 18530 was not expected to propagate, and did not (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. Dear NASB Members and Associate Members, Solomon Meyer sent us the attached obituary regarding his father, Elder Jacob O. Meyer. Elder Meyer will be greatly missed by the NASB family. He’d been an active participant in the NASB for many years, including spending several terms as a Board Member. Best Regards, (Dan Elyea, NASB Secretary/Treasurer, April 12, with a pdf attachment which has been posted via gh to the dxldyg, via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Viz.: JACOB OWEN MEYER, RELIGIOUS LEADER, BROADCASTER, TELEVISION PERSONALITY, TEACHER, AND PASTOR, NOVEMBER 11, 1934 – APRIL 9, 2010 Jacob Owen Meyer of Bethel passed to his rest on Friday, April 9, 2010 at Milton S. Hershey Medical Center in Hershey Pennsylvania. Surrounded by his loving wife, children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, he peacefully left this life around 4:30 PM. Jacob O. Meyer, known by most as Elder Meyer, was President, Bishop, and Directing Elder of the Assemblies of Yahweh, a religious organization and Ministry he founded in 1966 with the Sacred Name Radio broadcast. Elder Jacob O. Meyer is widely regarded as the driving force behind the advancement in understanding and usage of the biblically correct Sacred Names of Yahweh for the Heavenly Father and Yahshua for His Son in worship and study over the past 40 years. At his demise, he was 75 years old. Born in Bethel Township Pennsylvania to the late Mary M. (Bross) and Jacob J. Meyer on November 11, 1934, Jacob was the oldest of three children. On December 24, 1952, he married Velma Ruth Foreman with whom he had 10 children. Prominently known for his work with the Assemblies of Yahweh, Elder Meyer continued as presenter on the Sacred Name Broadcast radio program for more than 44 years, and also produced the Sacred Name Telecast TV program since 1977. These programs are viewed and heard on more than 25 media outlets throughout the United States and overseas, as well as simulcast on the Assemblies of Yahweh international shortwave radio station WMLK, and streamed continuously through the Assemblies of Yahweh and WMLK websites. The Assemblies of Yahweh was featured in a 2006 Reading Eagle article found in the paper’s archives. Having taken extensive coursework at Evangelical School of Theology in Myerstown, PA, Elder Meyer continued his studies at Dropsie University in Philadelphia, Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and Israel Institute in Jerusalem, Israel. Recognized as an expert in biblical languages, Holy Land archaeology, Bible study methodology, and Bible History, Elder Meyer was also publisher of 9 books and editor of The Sacred Scriptures Bethel Edition, a Bible edition currently in its 8th printing with over 60,000 copies in circulation. Elder Meyer was also Editor-in-Chief and primary author of three monthly publications, the Sacred Name Broadcaster, and the Narrow Way newsletter and magazine. He also authored countless booklets, articles, pamphlets, editorials, and reviews on a wide scope of religious, ethical, and biblical topics. His monthly Prophetic Trends feature in the Sacred Name Broadcaster magazine was widely read and appreciated. Founder of Obadiah School of the Bible, a Bible training institution, in 1974, and Dalet School, a K-12 religious private school, in 1976, Elder Meyer continued as Chief Administrator and Instructor Emeritus at both institutions. In 2006, Elder Meyer received a commendation from the Obadiah School of the Bible graduates group for more than 10,000 hours of volunteer service at the school. As Pastor of the Bethel Assembly, the Headquarters Congregation of the Assemblies of Yahweh, Elder Meyer presented a weekly sermon that was heard both in Bethel and around the world via an Internet live stream. Elder Jacob O. Meyer was widely traveled. Beginning with a six-week journey around the United States in 1969, he visited all fifty states and more than thirty foreign countries on six continents in the work of his Ministry for the past 40 years. As Directing Elder, he was instrumental in the administration and operation of the Assemblies of Yahweh organization, including the establishment of regional assemblies and satellite offices throughout the United States and in more than 15 foreign nations. Elder Meyer was known for his annual trips to the Holy Land each spring, a trip he had made since 1983. On many of these trips he served as educational tour guide to student groups. Recently it was noted that in his ministry Elder Meyer had traveled around the world at least 4 times, had accumulated nearly 2 million travel miles and had delivered no fewer than 5000 full length sermons, lectures, Bible Studies and special services. He loved to teach, educate, and counsel to aid people in their quest for a spiritual life. He mentioned many times that as a teacher you must learn to love the unlovely. This he did, continually expressing love to the heavenly Father, Yahweh while expressing love and concern for his fellowman, especially to those that he taught and ministered. He also performed countless weddings, funerals, baptisms, and anointing services in his years of Ministry. Raised with an agricultural background, Elder Meyer was an avid gardener and kept his own horses and assorted small animals. He founded and continued as Managing Partner of Shalom Farm, an organic dairy farm and dairy processing enterprise of the Meyer family located in Jefferson Township, Pennsylvania. Cheese from the Meyer family plant is sold under several brands and labels in stores throughout the Northeastern United States. Elder Meyer served a recent term as the elected constable of Bethel Township, Berks County. He also served on the advisory board of the National Association of Shortwave Broadcasters, as well as other civic and organizational positions. He served as Choir Director of the Bethel Choir for more than 20 years. Known by many of his family and friends as Owen, Elder Meyer is survived by a sister, Mildred Deck, of Missouri, and a Brother, Carl Meyer of Ohio, his wife of 57 years Ruth, seven sons; Joseph G., Jacob C., Daniel K., Jonathan S., Micah D., Nathaniel A., and Solomon E., three daughters Mary E., Rachel A., and Sarah A., thirty- seven grandchildren, and nineteen great grandchildren and was loved by all. In addition to his parents, he was also preceded in death by a grandson Jeremy Seth, and an infant great granddaughter Ashley Owen. Funeral Services are planned for Wednesday April 14, 2010 at 1:00 PM and will be held at the Assemblies of Yahweh International Headquarters Convocation Center at 300 Airport Rd. in Bethel. Interment will be at the Assemblies of Yahweh cemetery on the headquarters property. Online condolences may be made through the Assemblies of Yahweh website at http://www.assembliesofyahweh.com or through the website of Lamm and Witman funeral homes at http://www.lammandwitman.com Memorial donations may be addressed to the Jacob O. Meyer Memorial Fund in care of the Assemblies of Yahweh, P.O. Box C. Bethel, PA 19507 (via NASB via WORLD OF RADIO 1508, DXLD) The obituary, with a nice portrait, mentions WMLK shortwave only in passing among his greater accomplishments. The website http://www.wmlkradio.net does not yet have the obit, with Elder still greeting us on the home page. We suspect this may further set back the reconstruxion of WMLK which has been off the air for years. But perhaps he will eventually become another active post-mortem shortwave broadcaster? The website has a lot of photos and info about the antenna damage, and also of the 2009 Winter SWL Fest among other things (Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. Latest WMLK transmitter site (antenna) update [9265] [illustrated] http://www.wmlkradio.net/antenna_update_progress.htm "The wind and storms still are having an effect on the antenna array. This past weekend (March 12-14, 2010) brought more high winds and destruction to our area. The element array already damaged by several previous storm suffered even more damage. The winter months do not allow us to reconstruct the element array until the weather warms up. The ground is very soft and the equipment we use to repair the antenna is very heavy and will sink into the soil causing an imbalance in the system. This sets off the safety system and shuts the high lift down. Very dangerous! Here are some more pictures taken today (March 16, 2010)." etc. (via Ian Baxter, April 7, shortwavesites yg via DXLD) WMLK was one of those strange US-based SW stations - along the lines of KJES and perhaps WJCR. It was Elder Jacob O. Meyer's personal project. WMLK didn't really have a the serious support base among the traditional Christian churches. Assemblies of Yahweh being a minor splinter group. I don't want to sound negative but I cannot imagine the station ever returning on the air without Meyer's involvement. I wonder what is going to happen to that "BBC 250 KW [transmitting] unit". The watered-down history of the station is found here: http://www.wmlkradio.net/history.html (Sergei S., Germany, dxldyg via WORLD OF RADIO 1508, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. While shortly after sign-on April 8 at 1510, KVOH 17775 spurs were audible as noise blobs, plus and minus 145 kHz, at next check 2031 they were much stronger and tho extremely distorted on 17920 and 17630, music modulation and the beat matched fundamental. 17775 hit at least S9+25, tho at the high end of the scale it`s not accurately calibrated on the FRG-7 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A [and non]. We sometimes get a kick out of SW broadcasts from countries like North Korea, where it’s just as well to book your cot at the forced labour camp if you’re caught trying to “desolder” your radio so you can receive frequencies other than the “official” Voice of Korea. They don’t call it the hermit kingdom for nothing. But there are broadcasts out there that can be downright irritating at best and scary at worst: we’re not talking about the news from this dictatorship, or that totalitarian state, this country just clobbered by a natural disaster or that nation which has just declared war on the country next door. As I was DXing recently I picked up a few broadcasts which seem to be kind of wing-nutish, and if these guys are among our neighbours in the south, should we ignore them or start worrying? There’s Patriot Radio in the U.S., where you can pick up “Web, AM-FM, Shortwave broadcasts for New World Order news.” What’s this all about? Broadcasters like these often identify themselves as being part of the “Patriot Movement” or “Freedom Movement.” They tend to be very right-wing, from what I can tell. They’re of the “survivalist” or “off-the-grid” kind, just waiting for the nuclear bomb to fall so they can prove they were right all along and that the American government is in a vast conspiracy with everyone else. Closer to home are the fundamentalist evangelical-type stations in North America. Some of these are pretty scary, too. According to these radio show hosts I should be booking my one-way ticket to Hell, along with my feminazi homosexual friends and Muslim buddies, because if I don’t change my ways and get “saved,” there’s no hope for me. And so it goes. – at least there are still loads of wonderful programs I tune into regularly. Anything from the Voice of Russia, the BBC, the Eastern European countries, Deutsche Welle, the occasional hit from the countries in the Oceania region – and nary a fundamentalist rant to be heard. I’ll still listen to Iranian Radio, however, apparently, they’re still counting on me (Sue Hickey, NL, April CIDX Messenger via DXLD) ** U S A. 9955, WRMI, Sunday April 11 at 1306 in Spanish with report on ILLW = Fin de Semana Internacional de los Faros, coming in August, i.e. Frecuencia al Día as scheduled, and not jammed. After 1400, Radio Prague in English also fairly audible, the only current reliable 7- day-per-week time for RP via WRMI, contrary to some published schedules with outdated info (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) No major changes on WRMI since the beginning of La Voz del Consejo at 0100-0200 UTC Tues-Sat, except a new program called Reaching Up (music and talk, sort of inspirational program) Saturday 1300-1330 beginning tomorrow (Jeff White, WRMI Radio Miami International, April 9, DX LISTENING DIGEST) That replaces a Wavescan repeat (gh) 9955, WRMI, April 13 at 1321 with screaming preacher in English vs DentroCuban pulse jamming. The latest WRMI program grid we have, dated March 23, showed various English religious programs at 1300-1315 M-F including Gospel King on Tuesdays, but then at 1315 French for Haiti, Radio des Nations-Unies, which this was definitely not. Happy Station is STILL on WRMI, Thursday April 15 at 1500 on webcast, and consequently on 9955, altho nothing but a weak carrier audible. It`s the George Wood / Everything Swedish show which would have been the first one in April not on SW. Tho canceled by Keith Perron, Jeff White keeps playing HS in time available (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. DXing with Cumbre deconfirmed at another of its imaginary times per WHR online schedule: Sunday at 1330 on 11785. WHRI not even on the 11785 air April 11, just the hefty Chinese signals (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. Hi Glenn: We just posted our You tube video showing our Four Course Radio Range: The video can be found by going to the You tube web site and on the You tube search bar type in : Four Course Radio Range. You will see aircraft navigation in the 1940's. Please watch the 10 Minute video and let me know what you think ???? Also could you please let your listeners on WOR & your other outlets have a looksee, make comments. We have been having a blast using this range station!!! I can track it out to 300 Nautical miles at 41,000 feet; it is spot on on all four legs and rock solid! The 'Beams' have no bends in them. Let me know what you think (Dave Frantz, WWRB, April 10, WORLD OF RADIO 1508, DX LISTENING DIGEST) WTFK? 5050, WWRB presumed running all-night as normally heard both late and early with Biblical readings/dramatizations, but April 13 at 0627 it`s missing; 1226 it`s on vs SAH de CHINA, could be both of them at this hour (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) See SOUTH CAROLINA [non] ** U S A. Believe I have not heard KJES once since A-10 began, e.g. no sign of it on 11715 at 1345 check April 10, and nothing else on frequency either. Also zilch on 15385 at 1837. So is KJES totally off the air again? FCC schedule shows it is supposed to be, with azimuths: 11715, 13-14 70 toward OK; 14-15 350; 15-16 150 15385, 18-19 270, 19-20 100 7555, 01-02 335, 02-0230 20 --- So is anyone hearing them anywhere, anywhen? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Apr 15 still unheard ** U S A. KSSR 1340 NM -- Just noticed a local politician's post on Facebook that he's "on air now in Santa Rosa, 1340AM KSSR. I though KSSR has been silent for the past few years. If they came back on, I guess I missed that event (Mike Westfall, Los Alamos, NM, http://mesamike.org http://www.facebook.com/mesamike http://twitter.com/mesa_mike April 9, ABDX via DXLD) They went Silent on 10/26/2007 and came back on 1/1/2008, from what I can tell. 73, (Kevin Raper, KJ4HYD, CE WCKI WQIZ, ibid.) ** U S A. 4050, something odd at 0540 April 11: ticks exactly every second, rather like WWV during minutes when no tone is added, but no marker at TOM (top of minutes). Could it be a HIFER conveying some local weather info? No, at 0542 YL says ``We`re The Mouth, 1350 AM``, which is the slogan of KWMO here on its usual third harmonic; followed by dead air with no tix, as the automation fails for all to hear. Clearly the station is now going for the harmonic DX audience who would find this interesting, not ordinary Washingtonians who would quickly retune to some station that has not lost its ongoing program modulation. Night power on 1350 is legally only 84 watts. ``The Mouth`` goes with its NRC-listed talk format, tho most of the nighttime we hear KWMO playing C&W music. Must have quite a split personality, when funxional. 4050, at 1134 April 14, fairly good signal with John Gibson on Fox Newstalk network, i.e. 3 x 1350 from KWMO Washington MO. So they do both far-right jabber and C&W music, as recently heard late at night, or is the C&W now displaced by The Mouth? Cardinals folder from Will Martin shows KWMO also on that baseball network, as if nearby flagship KTRS-550 did not totally overlap KWMO coverage. Upcoming night games at 0015 UT April 15, 17; 0005 UT April 19, 0140 UT April 20, 21, 22 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. KSTP is now ESPN --- Hi all! AM 1500 is now ESPN. KFAN 1130 is now FOX Sports. I am not sure if KSTP will still carry Coast to Coast but my guess is no. I will find out later tonight. The only time KSTP is local is noon to maybe 8ish. The MN Twins will stay with them as well and the Twins are elated that they are on an ESPN station which thwarts any chance of WCCO getting them back anytime soon. Glen[n] Hauser made interesting point with overlapping signals with the Royals [see OKLAHOMA and non]. In the Twin Cities I counted 15 signals carrying the Twins network during the daytime! However at night I can hear signals clearly in Woodbury. 1500 of course, 920 KDHL, 570 WNAX, 104.9 Balsam Lake Wi. and 105.9 Red Wing. This may not make sense but the Twins owners want a strong signal in almost every county in MN figuring that not everyone has a good radio like us DX'ers! The Twins have a whopping 175 stations! 73 de (FTS, April 13, IRCA via DXLD) ** U S A. THE VOICE OF AMERICA RELAY STATION - AT&T LAWRENCEVILLE NEW JERSEY As our opening feature in Wavescan today, we present the story of a large communication station that was in use by the Voice of America as a relay station in the middle of last century. The station was located at Lawrenceville New Jersey and it was operated by AT&T, the American Telegraph & Telephone Company. There was a time when AT&T was the largest telephone company in the world, so we go right back to the very earliest beginnings. The noted inventor, Alexander Graham Bell, was born in Scotland in 1847 and at the age of 23 he migrated with his family to Canada. Two years later he moved to Boston, and at the age of 28, he succeeded in transmitting the human voice by wire for the first time. At the age of 30, he formed the Bell Telephone Company which grew, and developed, and merged, until it became a huge multi-faceted company involved in telephones, radio, television and electronic manufacturing. AT&T was at first a subsidiary of the Bell company, but on the very last day of the 1800s, the subsidiary AT&T acquired the parent Bell company, and thus the holder of all of the subsidiary companies. In the 1920s, AT&T established many operations and experimental facilities at a dozen different locations throughout the state of New Jersey, most of which were involved with experimental work in various forms of radio broadcasting. At the end of an extensive search, two properties were procured for the erection of a large shortwave station for communication with Europe & South America. The location for the transmitter station was an eight hundred acre site near Lawrenceville, some fifty miles inland from the Atlantic coast, and the receiver station was installed on another very large property near Netcong, fifty miles north of the Lawrenceville transmitter facility. Initially, a series of curtain antennas were strung from 26 towers at a height of 180 ft and they stretched for a distance of one mile. However, some ten years later, the curtains were removed and replaced by a series of rhombic antennas beamed on Europe and South America. This new communication shortwave station was taken into service in 1929 with the inauguration of a 15 kW transmitter. Shortly afterwards, a published station list shows four transmitters at AT&T Lawrenceville, each rated at 20 kW, under the callsigns WMI WND WNC & WLO. However, the usage of callsigns by AT&T was always very confusing. Not only was each shortwave channel allocated a separate callsign, but the same callsign was used at as many as three different AT&T locations. For example, back in the 1930s and at different time periods, the callsign WND was in use at Deal Beach, Lawrenceville & Ocean Gate; and the callsign WNC was in use at Deal Beach, Lawrenceville, and also in Florida. During the late 1930s, many of the callsigns listed for AT&T Lawrenceville were noted with the relay of programs for re-broadcast in other parts of the world, though mainly in Europe and South America. On February 24, 1942, the government took over all of the shortwave broadcasting stations in the United States for the relay of programming from the program service that became the Voice of America. Shortly afterwards, the FCC gave approval for VOA, under the auspices of OWI, the Office of War Information, to relay programs over seven different point-to-point shortwave stations. The large shortwave communication station operated by AT&T at Lawrenceville New Jersey was one of these communication stations that joined the VOA shortwave network. The first known loggings of a VOA relay from Lawrenceville were noted in Australia in August 1942 when a 20 kW transmitter on the frequency 10555 kHz and under the callsign WOK was heard with this new broadcasting service. This VOA program relay was beamed to Europe in English, followed by Spanish to South America. Even though this transmitter was rated at just 20 kW, yet the signal as heard in Australia was noted at a good level. Shortly after the inauguration of the new OWI-VOA relay from AT&T Lawrenceville, a new 100 kW shortwave transmitter was installed to ensure reliable communication between President Franklin D. Roosevelt in Washington and Mr Winston Churchill in London. This transmitter operated under the callsign WRX, usually in the 9 MHz shortwave band, and it was first noted with test broadcasts in November 1942. It was also used extensively as a VOA relay, and it was noted, for example, in January 1943, in a parallel relay with WGEA in Schenectady New York. Interestingly, on several occasions during the year 1944, various transmitters were noted on air with a test transmission that consisted of a technical reading on the definition of magnetism. This was apparently a convenient audio feed into the transmitter before beginning a VOA relay or a point-to-point transmission. The AT&T shortwave communication station at Lawrenceville New Jersey was on the air with OWI-VOA programming for somewhere around three years, extending from 1942 through 1944. The transmissions consisted of program broadcasts for direct reception in target areas, point-to- point broadcasts for live off-air relay in other countries, and the transfer of program inserts to be incorporated into subsequent broadcasts. The stations at Lawrenceville that are known to have carried the OWI- VOA relays are as follows:- WCN 20 kW 5077 kHz 1944 WMA 20 10110 1944 WOA 20 6775 & 10515 1943 & 1944 WOB Probably 20 5852 1944 WOK 20 10555 1942 & 1943 WON 20 9870 1944 WOT Probably 20 5052 1944 WOZ Probably 20 7555 1944 WRX 100 9 MHz 1942 - 1944 After the war, AT&T Lawrenceville continued in service for communication traffic with Europe & South America. In 1956, a new undersea cable was laid between the United States & Europe, and the need for shortwave transmissions was greatly diminished. When satellite communications were introduced, the transmitter station at Lawrenceville and the receiver station at Netcong became redundant. At the time when the Lawrenceville station was closed, on the last day of the year 1975, it contained several active shortwave transmitters, mostly rated at 10 kW, plus the already mentioned 100 kW unit. Twenty years later, the land was sold to the Mercer County for use as a recreational park. Unfortunately, there are no known QSLs anywhere that verify any of the shortwave transmissions from AT&T Lawrenceville. The station is gone, and pretty well forgotten. (Adrian Peterson, IN, AWR Wavescan script March 28 via DXLD) ** U S A. Frequency changes requested: Isleta, New Mexico: 1510 KHz: KABR requests frequency change from 1500 and move from Alamo Community. Power from 1,000 watts daytime only, to 5,000 watts daytime, 25 watts night, 4,200 watts critical hours* 34-58-46N/106-44-13W, Site is just south of Albuquerque. * "Critical Hours" are the two hours right after sunrise, and the two hours right before sunset (Doug Smith, Feb 25, American Bandscan blog via DXLD) IIRC, it was inaudible in Albuquerque, tho certainly an exotic res station I once attempted to visit; accessible only from the south off US 60 via Magdalena. Now there are no adjacent channel reasons to keep it out of the ABQ market, but will it really become a Pueblo station, ex-res Dineh? (Glenn Hauser, DXLD) ** U S A. WATO 1290 Oak Ridge press release --- I mentioned earlier that WATO had gone dark. Here is how it is in the Knoxville News Business page: http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2010/apr/08/wato-off-air-once-again/ (Jim Tonne, OR TN, April 8, ABDX via DXLD) ** U S A. STUDENT RADIO STATION KYDS FACES MUSIC AT FCC By Gina Kim Published: Friday, Apr. 9, 2010 - 12:00 am | Page 1A Last Modified: Friday, Apr. 9, 2010 - 7:37 am The number of days late the El Camino High students were in filing their school radio station's license renewal application: 64. The time it took the Federal Communications Commission to demand a $1,500 fine be paid as a result: 4 1/2 years. Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/2010/04/09/2666101/sacramento-student-radio-station.html#ixzz0kpjJwyPN (via Greg Hardison, CA, DXLD) ** U S A. Re 10-14, WANN with radio on LP DTV ``An over-the-air low power digital TV station in Atlanta, GA, WANN- LD, is now re-broadcasting several local AM and FM Stations as part of its digital multiplex of sub-channels. WANN-LD broadcasts on RF channel 29 mapped to virtual channel 32. The following audio-only, digital sub-channels on WANN-LD carry the following stations: 32-101: WGST (AM) - 640 kHz - news/talk radio 32-102: WUBL (FM) - 94.9 MHz "94.9 The Bull" - country music 32-103: WKLS (FM) - 96.1 MHz "Project 9-6-1" - active rock 32-104: WWLG (FM) - 96.7 MHz "96.7 The Legend" - classic country 32-105: Pride Radio - from WWVA-FM HD-2 channel on 105.7 MHz - dance/pop serving the LGBT community 32-106: WWVA-FM - 105.7 MHz "The Groove @ 105.7" - Rhythmic Hot AC All the audio-only, digital sub-channels are in stereo and seem to be fed directly from the HD-channels from the stations listed above except the WGST (AM) feed which is from WUBL 94.9 HD-3. WANN-LD also carries TEN (!) other TV sub-channels which carry various programming from MTV Tr3s, ThisTV, old movies, shopping channels, and informercials. The video quality of these sub-channels is pretty low. However, this low power TV station seems to have been able to pack as much as they could into the 19.39 Mbits/sec available in the terrestrial digital TV ATSC stream (Harry Smith (Atlanta, GA), April 2, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST)`` The digital audio requires next to no bandwidth, compared to the TV channels. 0.1-0.15 Mbits/sec. for a HD Radio channel, vs. - well, I'd think anything less than about 1.5 Mbps for a TV channel would be pretty tough to watch. The station I work for runs ~14 Mbps for our 4.1 HD channel and ~4 Mbps for 4.2 SD. It does seem a bit pointless, for WANN to carry the FM stations. The FM signals would have far better coverage than the LP DTV. It probably does make sense for WGST and Pride Radio, though. My understanding is that WGST's nighttime AM signal is pretty poor (as one might expect that close to Nashville's WSM on the adjacent channel). WWVA-HD2's coverage probably isn't much if any better than WANN-LD's, and I think one can reasonably assume there are far more digital TVs capable of receiving WANN-LD than there are HD Radios capable of receiving WWVA-HD2 (Doug Smith, TN, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. WHY PHILLY HAS ONLY ONE LOW POWER FM COMMUNITY RADIO STATION In partnership with Temple University’s Multimedia Urban Reporting Lab, the university’s capstone journalism class, students Chelsea Leposa and Jared Pass will cover neighborhood technology issues for Technically Philly and Philadelphia Neighborhoods through May. “Welcome to WPEB 88.1FM, the first station on your dial,” radio host Shirley Randelman says into her microphone. . . http://technicallyphilly.com/2010/04/13/why-philly-has-only-one-low-power-fm-community-radio-station (via Artie Bigley, DXLD) General discussion of LPFM ** U S A. MY ALLEY PAT DOCUMENTARY TO SCREEN IN KC, ATLANTA, SWANSEA Glenn, Hello From New Orleans, where I am deep into the edit of Harry Shearer's documentary about the Katrina Levee's failure. Thanks again for sending out my call for Katrina related airchecks, I received some very good audio thanks to you. Last year I finished that documentary about 50's & 60's R&B radio, ALLEY PAT: THE MUSIC IS RECORDED, and it has been picked up by a few film festivals. It is a about the last surviving DJ from the first black owned station in the US, WERD AM. Alley Pat, he's now 90, and he had an amazing and outrageous on air style -- plus he played fantastic music and sang over the records and insulted the sponsors and on and on. It is a style of radio that alas is long long gone and I wanted to do my part to hep it live on just a bit. I took trove of loopy airchecks and soon I had a touching yet hilarious film. It will play at The Kansas City Film Festival this Thursday April 15 4:15-6 p.m. at AMC Mainstreet 1, info here: http://kcfilmfest.org/2010/events/alley-pat-the-music-is-recorded/ It will play The Atlanta Film Festival this Saturday at 7 PM at the Landmark Midtown, info here: http://alleypattapes.blogspot.com/ Lastly, it will play at the Swansea Bay Film Festival in Wales, free, Saturday 8th May at the Dylan Thomas Centre, info here: http://www.swanseafilmfestival.com/ It is the kind of film radio people and jazz people would really dig if they know it was in town. It won`t be released or screened again anytime soon. I have created an Alley Pat Movie Channel at YouTube and uploaded a number of clips to http://www.youtube.com/user/AlleyPatMovie - your readers into old R&B radio worldwide will certainly enjoy. Cheers, (Tom Roche, New Orleans, April 10, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** URUGUAY. Re 10-14: (No oficial). 5873 Em. Chaná, Tacuarembó, a las 1145 en Apr 2, tanda de avisos leidos por jóven mujer. ID al pasar y teléfono. Los llamé previamente por sms confirmando: que "desde el 2 de Abril, trasmiten todo el dia (sic), con más potencia que antes". (La fq que nominalmente debiera ser 5750, parece estar más estable que las escuchas previas que sufrían de una gran deriva, así que parece que Omar, el dueño, consiguió el cristal). QRK 3/2. (Horacio Nigro, Uruguay) Audio [8+ minutes]: http://www.goear.com/listen/2d6c956/uruguay-(unofficial).-5873-em.-chanã¡,-tacuarembã³,-on-1145-on-apr-2-horacio-a.-nigro http://www.goear.com/listen/2d6c956/uruguay-%28unofficial%29.-5873-em.-chan%C3%A3%C2%A1,-tacuaremb%C3%A3%C2%B3,-on-1145-on-apr-2-horacio-a.-nigro (Nigro, noticiasdx yg via DXLD) Seems the audio plays even if the last part of the link be missing, fortunately (gh, DXLD) ** VANUATU. 5055, Radio Vanuatu, 0958-1020, 02-April-2010, in Tok Pisin. 1000, Station ID with female announcer followed by news 1005, male announcer with commentary. Signal: Fair to Good (Ed Wlodarski, N2ED, New Jersey, NASWA Flashsheet April 5 via DXLD) I have some news about Radio Vanuatu, both transmitters running about 1,500 watts temporarily [3945, 5055]. I have just built a new Tank Circuit Inductor, and will be sending some upgraded components over the next week or two. The project manager is a great engineer, and was instrumental in helping me through the "growing pains" associated with this new design. This has been a huge learning experience for me, and have applied all that I've learned to the designs for Guyana, and Liberia [q.v.]. (Jamie Labadia, April 8, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Hi all, this is in response to a report to Radio Vanuatu and the company who made their new transmitters. Also their plans for other areas and stations, all on short-wave [see GUYANA; LIBERIA]. Thanks Don, I just checked and found out that both transmitters are running only 1,500 watts currently. They have a protection system that folds them back after sensing a fault. I am going to be shipping some parts to them and a great engineer from New Zealand will be finishing up some of the loose ends in a few months. Both frequencies should be at 5,000 watts soon. They are solid state transmitters, running Class- E, with P.D.M. modulators. They are actually prototypes and were my very first design using this method. Don, how does the audio of Radio Vanuatu compare with the "Big Guns" from that area? I can't expect to compete with Radio Australia or the like, but is the audio full sounding? No distortion, good frequency response? Thank you for the report!!! (JAMIE LABADIA, April 9, via Don Rhodes, Yarra Glen, Victoria, Australia, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** VATICAN [non]. 9610, April 10 at 0256 in English, must be VR as scheduled from 0250 via Sackville, as I was scanning the band to find what few signals were still making it, unlike Radio República on 9780 --- see CUBA [non]. I see that VR in Spanish and French until 0250 are via BONAIRE, so it should be interesting to monitor how well they switch sites, without overlap? SAC is unsuitable for French at 0230 since it`s too close to Québec; Bonaire no doubt inbooms there aimed 350 degrees, while English to follow is 240 degrees from SAC across the USA. And VR Spanish via Bonaire 0100-0230 emanates at 170 degrees for CIRAF 12-15, i.e. all of S America, including the Southern Cone, except Patagonia = CIRAF 16, an area abandoned by R. Nederland itself (Glenn Hauser, OK, WORLD OF RADIO 1508, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Radio Vaticano/a has a new morning relay via CANADA, 227 degrees from Sackville for Mexico, 1130-1215 on 9830, first Spanish, and from 1200 English. April 14 at 1146 heard ID in Spanish, mixed with RTTY! Another station which is not paying attention to the non-broadcast QRM problem on this frequency. Doesn`t anyone send them reception reports with an I of 2 or 3? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** VENEZUELA [non]. El Hugazo misses another opportunity to extend his pontifications from mere Venezuela to the world courtesy of Cuba: no show for ``Aló, Presidente`` on any of the nominal frequencies at 1620 check Sunday April 11: 17750, 13750, 13680, 12010, 11690 as still shown in the latest RHC online sked starting at 1400. RHC itself, however, could be heard in // on 11690, 11730, 11760, on new 12030, and JBA on new 15380 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** VIETNAM. As I was hearing R. Rossii on 5920, 5940, 7200, see RUSSIA, also found non // W&W Russian talk at 1256 April 10 on 7220, but 1257 to open carrier. Per Aoki it`s VOV in Russian, 100 kW, 27 degrees from Hanoi-Sontay so also USward, at 1230-1300 and also 1130- 1200 (plus Chinese on same at 1200-1230, 1300-1330). Do not see also INDIA 6165 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** VIRGIN ISLANDS US. Charlotte Amalie, 1690 kHz: Permit granted for new station. 920 watts day & night, non-directional. 18-18-57N, 64-53- 02W (Doug Smith, March 25, American Bandscan blog via DXLD) ** WESTERN SAHARA [non]. SAHARA LA RADIO PIRATA VOCE DEI RIBELLI http://ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/2010/04/13/sahara-la-radio-pirata-voce-dei-ribelli.html (via Andrea Borgnino, Italy, bclnews.it yg, via gh, DXLD) Even mentions frequencies, not exactly 6297.1 (gh) ** YEMEN. 6005, 1800 21 March, Rep of Yemen Radio, news in Arabic, mentions of Somalia, English at 1830, SIO 222 (Reginald C. Hayes, Bournemouth, Dorset, England, UK, JRC NRD 545, random wire, ALA loop, Tropical Bands Logbook, April BDXC-UK Communication via DXLD) WRTH 2010 said 6005 was inactive at time of publication, supposed to be only in Arabic, while English would be on irregular 9780 at 1800- 1900 (gh, DXLD) ** ZAMBIA. KAPEYA BEMOANS COLLAPSE OF ZNBC RADIO ONE SIGNAL IN RURAL AREAS [i.e. SHORTWAVE OFF SINCE FEB 1, 2010] By Chibaula Silwamba Tue 13 Apr. 2010, 03:50 CAT http://www.postzambia.com/post-read_article.php?articleId=8106 PARLIAMENTARY Committee on Broadcasting and Information Services chairperson Mwansa Kapeya has expressed concern at the collapse of ZNBC's radio one signal to rural areas like Mpika. In an interview from Mpika, Kapeya, who is PF member of parliament for Mpika and a former broadcaster who worked for ZNBC for 38 years, blamed the government for the corporation's lack of radio spare parts. "Radio has proved to be the most significant media in disseminating informative and educative programmes to majority of Zambians. For the first time in the history of radio signal delivery in this country, large parts of the Zambian community especially the rural area has been completely cut off from knowing what is happening in and outside Zambia by ZNBC radio. In short, ZNBC radio has completely collapsed," Kapeya said. "When broadcasting was cared for by previous governments, spare parts for radio transmitters were procured expressly to ensure minimum service outage. The short wave services have been off air since February 1, 2010 and as I speak to you the situation is still the same." He said the government had neglected rural people who depended on ZNBC radio one. "What I have noticed is that the problem with our current government is that of indecision. It's very difficult for our government to make a decision on how to buy the required spare parts from the suppliers in the United States of America," he said. Kapeya asked the government to quickly address the radio signal problems. "As a veteran broadcaster myself, who served ZNBC for 38 years, I have always advised those concerned especially the government never to use methods that will tend to push away credible spare parts suppliers for radio and encouraging dubious dealers in substandard products," Kapeya said. "Public efficiency is being adversely affected in the name of checks and balances. For this kind of inertia by our government is a clear indicator that this MMD government has completely neglected rural areas from where they command a lot of support during general elections." He commended The Post for its role in information dissemination to urban and rural Zambia. "We in Mpika are so grateful to The Post newspaper for being the only media providing valuable information to the people of Mpika on a daily basis including other rural districts, which are completely cut off by ZNBC radio. The Post is the only media that we depend on here in Mpika," said Kapeya (via Yimber Gaviria, Colombia, April 12, WORLD OF RADIO 1508, DXLD) ** ZAMBIA. I noticed that CVC ZAMBIA, which was so potent (SINPO = 45444) on its published frequency of 9430 the other evening in EE, was nowhere at published OTA startup of 0400-0410, not even a faint whistle on sideband. I will look again at 0500. I am not sure what the solar storm wrought, but the bands are almost noise-free and propagation is very path-specific tonight. (Fast forward an hour...) Just checked 9430 again at 0503z, and lo! There it is... ZAMBIA: CVC International (UK-based), 9430 kHz, STRONG - SINPO = 45434. EE DJ playing Christian rock and pop mx. Here is what their schedule says... 9430 CVC INTERNATIONAL (1Africa) 04:00 - 06:00 1234567 English 100 kW 315 degrees Lusaka So, either their antenna is not aimed at that angle from 0400-0500 (unlikely, since not even a het was heard), or else they are not on the air until 0500, despite their sked. By 0540, as the sunrise in Zambia proceeded apace, this apparent semi- grayline transmission lost its oomph and the signal weakened. By 0555, just before OTA, it was down to SINPO = 25312 at best. Still, i you need an easy Zambia logging or QSL candidate in the Western Hemisphere, this would be a good bet starting at 0500 for the next few days (Bruce Jensen, where? April 8, ptswyg via DXLD) 9540, 14/Apr 1913 UNID, in English. Pop mx. As 1915 UT YL talks. Parece ser uma emissora religiosa, estilo muito parecido com a CVC. Forte QRM de emissoras próximas. As 1918 UT a programação segue entre falas de OM e YL e pop mx. Não encontrei referencia nas listas Aoki, EIBI, BCLNEWS. Sinal fraco e degradando (Jorge Freitas, Brasil, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) It is 1Africa, CVC, ZAMBIA, as I reported a few days ago. I wish people would search DXLD and/or my logs too. They are supposed to be on 5940 at 19-22 UT, but I thought they had punched up 9540 by mistake. If so, they did it again! (Glenn Hauser, ibid.) ** ZANZIBAR. See UNIDENTIFIED 11735 ** ZIMBABWE. 6045, ZBC Gweru, 0229 - 0306, April 14, DJ in vernacular playing pop songs, none of which I recognized except "Every breath you take" and "The eye of the tiger". Usual distinctive drums at 0301 then into presumed news fading out. Weak but frequency is clear throughout. 73, (Martien Groot, Schoorl, Netherlands, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) UNIDENTIFIED. 3630-CLSB, April 11 at 0548, a leisurely ragchew between at least two hams who never bothered to ID for 5-10 minutes, nor observe the `over` protocol, during numerous exchanges. Talking about playing guitar and misc. other topix. What caught my attention was that they had weak reduced carriers along with their SSB, but not enough to obviate the need for BFO. Upon closer listening with the BFO slightly off-tuned, I could tell the carriers only came on when they were talking/modulating, rather than constantly as with e.g. WBCQ. One of them mentioned ``peakage at 600, pulled it down``, perhaps referring to the carrier injexion level; but why? Or was it simply defective AM or defective SSB. This area also bears full-AM hams at times (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) UNIDENTIFIED. 4874.0, 1432-1436'55*, 09/04, OM/YL talks in unidentified Caucasus-like language, then sudden close down - strong and good signal including its audio quality (Mikhail Timofeyev, DXpedition near St. Petersburg, Russia, Icom R75, some directional antennas, HCDX via DXLD) SW/MW mixing product? UNIDENTIFIED. 6128.70, 1045-1050+ April 13. Have a faint carrier and display on this frequency but no audio heard. This could be Laos which is listed on 6130 at this period of time. Reported for reference and subsequent confirmation (Chuck Bolland, Clewiston FL, WinRadio G305e/pd, DX LISTENING DIGEST) UNIDENTIFIED. 7216.7, 2210-2214, (ANGOLA?), 09/04, talk in unidentified language - weak with strong splashes from both sides, also on 4949.75 with weak signal at the same time (Mikhail Timofeyev, DXpedition near St. Petersburg, Russia, Icom R75, some directional antennas, HCDX via DXLD) UNIDENTIFIED. 9350.00, Some engineer checked a transmitter on air in 31 mb at 0800-0815 UT, maybe some of the VT-group beast from England. S=8-9, no content, just carrier (Wolfgang Büschel, Germany, wwdxc BC- DX TopNews April 14, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) UNIDENTIFIED. Ute stations in broadcast bands at 0800-0900 UT probably from Americas: Unid RTTY 9652 S=4 at 0825, 9864 at 0830 UT, 11523.90, 11913.50, 12149, STANAG on 12061 kHz, at 0840 UT (Wolfgang Büschel, Germany, wwdxc BC-DX TopNews April 14, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) UNIDENTIFIED. Does anyone know who might be using 9715 between 0200 and 03 UT? Pick up an old style jammer, sounds like the DPRK but not sure (Keith Perron, Taiwan, April 13, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) UNIDENTIFIED. I have been noticing this for a week or two, but haven`t logged it. Since it`s pervasive, about time to outpoint another intruder in the 31m SWBC band: centered on 9871, some sort of loud utility noise at 2258 April 10, heavily QRMing a broadcaster on 9870 but the latter went off a minute later, presumably BSKSA to Europe as scheduled but also USward. 9871 is also there at many other times, likely to mar VBS (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) UNIDENTIFIED [non]. UnID African-sounding station on 11735 at 1956 tune-in 27 March; no ID heard (Mark Davies, DX News, April BDXC-UK Communication via DXLD) 11735: Hi Glenn, Just wondering if anyone else is listening to 11735 which goes off at 2000, still nightly here, sure it`s African. Have recorded will post but weak (Mark Davies, Anglesey, UK, April 14, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) The Russian relay network has reserved this frequency, but unclear if they have a client for this time period. Hoping it`s Zanzibar again, of course, which used to run until 2100* (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) April 14th at 1957 checked 11735 (actually about 11734.96) and noted Portuguese song, sounded religious and Brazilian. Just around 2000 the transmitter went off at the moment when the presumed ID was to begin. I guess this is Brazilian station (Jari Savolainen, Kusankoski, Finland, ibid.) Also a strange time for it to go off (gh, DXLD) Here you can hear very well, is Radio Transmundial (Seventh-day Adventists) in Portuguese, from Santa Maria, Camobi, Rio Grande do Sul, Brasil. Is already off the air at the moment (Jorge Freitas, Bahia, 2024 UT April 14, ibid.) It`s not Seventh-Day Adventist. As the name implies, RTM is part of Trans World Radio, not Adventist World Radio, i.e. the Trans denomination. So still no Zanzibar (Glenn Hauser, DXLD) Hi Glenn, Recorded 11735 last night much clearer and yes, R Transmundial. It has been a reasonable signal here for a while (not good enough for me to get the language though!!), no other Brazilians on this band at this time. A couple of months ago there were quite a few. I`ve attached a recording with ID (Mark Davies, Anglesey, UK, April 15, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) UNIDENTIFIED. 13380, April 12 at 0539, extremely strong S9+25 carrier, not local since also had slight fading, and shortly began sending digital data bursts. This is like we have also heard on 11435, probably from CUBA, e.g. DXLD 9-082 under UNIDENTIFIED (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) UNIDENTIFIED. 15190, 2101, no ID. Spanish program from Radio France International. I'm sure it does not correspond to RFI. There is something wrong here. No both Radio Africa, neither Family Radio which use to broadcast in this frequency (Leonardo Santiago, in Acarigua city, Portuguesa State, Venezuela on 2010/04/02, via Dario Monferini, playdx yg via DXLD) UNIDENTIFIED. 15540 at 1300-1400: see PAKISTAN [and non] UNIDENTIFIED. 17494.90v, WBCQ? Noted tiny S=1-2 signal around 1450 UT. Brother Stair station? (Wolfgang Büschel, Germany, April 12, wwdxc BC- DX TopNews, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Nope-not us. we use 15420. On air now (Allan Weiner, WBCQ, 2002 UT April 13, DX LISTENING DIGEST) See RUSSIA, then ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ UNSOLICITED TESTIMONIALS ++++++++++++++++++++++++ Just a little something in appreciation for your service to the shortwave community. I haven`t been doing much listening/DXing during A-09 and B-09; seem to be busy doing other things. But I always check DXLD to keep up to date. Again, many, many thanks. 73, (Bernie O`Shea, Ottawa, Ontario, April 6, with a Canadian bank money order in US funds on a US bank, by P-mail to P O Box 1684, Enid OK 73702 USA) Many thanks also to Will Martin for another check in the mail (Glenn Hauser, WORLD OF RADIO 1508) PUBLICATIONS ++++++++++++ GREY LINE MAP et al. For all who do not have software like DX Atlas, dx.qsl.net has excellent resources. For instance, a dynamically updating Grey Line map can be found at: http://dx.qsl.net/propagation/greyline.html (Richard ---, April 12, ABDX via DXLD) LATEST PACIFIC ASIAN LOG RADIO GUIDE NOW AVAILABLE The Radio Heritage Foundation has just released at its website http://www.radioheritage.net the latest version of the PAL Pacific Asian Log Radio Guide covering all AM [mediumwave] radio stations across the region. Used by radio listeners, broadcasters and the general public, the guide lists all known AM radio stations operating in the area with detailed information about operating times, languages, location, and much more --- in fact more than 50,000 separately updated data entries across thousands of individual stations. With riots in Thailand, earthquakes in Indonesia and Taiwan, tsunamis across the Pacific, civil unrest and censored local radio media, the information in the latest Pacific Asian Log Radio Guide is also very useful for travellers, travel agents and others who need to keep their clients informed. Search the latest edition now - simply click on 'PAL AM Radio' in the Radio Guides factbox on any page. You can also search for shortwave stations in the region [PAL SW Radio], Australian narrowcast AM radio [Australia 1611-1701 AM], New Zealand Low Power FM Radio Guide [NZLPFM Radio] and the Borderless Radio Rankings [What is Borderless Radio]. These services are provided free to the community by the Radio Heritage Foundation, a non-profit organization connecting popular culture, nostalgia and radio heritage across the Pacific. Donations are welcome to support this service and annual supporter packages begin at US$10 with full details at www.radioheritage.net (David Ricquish, NZ, April 12, DX LISTENING DIGEST) WHEN RADIO WAS On the right-hand site of the http://www.radiospirits.com website (the homepage of "When Radio Was") is a "Find a local station" search engine that allows you to find (by state) which stations carry the program and when. 73, (Rick Dau, Omaha, NE, ABDX via DXLD) CONVENTIONS & CONFERENCES +++++++++++++++++++++++++ DX and Shortwave meetings of 2010 Hi all, here follows an updated list of this year's SW meetings: Dates: May 14-16 Location: Dayton, Ohio, USA Organization: Dayton Hamvention Expected attendance: 20,000 More info: http://www.hamvention.org Dates: May 17-21 Location : Langesbold, Germany Description: DX-Camp Organzation: Kurzwellenfreunde Rhein/Ruhr More info: dx-camp @ kwfr.de Dates: May 20-21 Location: Hamilton, Ontario, Canada Description: Annual NASB Conference Oganisation: National Association of Shortwave Broadcasters+DRM Consortium, USA More info: galgom@galgom.org [sic] [and more below] Dates: June 4-6 Location: Vejers Beach, Jutland, Denmark Description: The annual general meeting of DSWCI and listening camp Organization: Danish Short Wave Club International Expected attendance: 30 More info: http://www.dswci.org Dates: 5 June, 24 July (1430-1700 BST) Location: Reading International Solidarity Centre (RISC), 35-39 London Street, Reading RG1 4PS, England Organization: Reading International Radio Group Expected attendance: 20 More info: http://www.bdxc.org.uk Note: these Reading DX meetings are held with 1-2 months interval. Dates: June 25-27 Location: Friedrichshafen, Germany Description: Ham Radio, biggest annual hamfest in Europe Expected attendance: 19500 Dates: July 10-25 Location: Schwangau, Bavaria, Germany Description: DX-Camp More info: Franz.Ladner @ gmx.net Dates: July [usually final weekend or into August --- gh] Location: Mexico Description: The Annual Mexican DX Meeting Expected attendance: 50 More info: [?] Dates: August 6-8 Location: Haapavesi, Central Finland Description: The Annual Summer Meeting Organization: The Finnish DX Association Expected attendance: 70 More info: http://www.sdxl.org Dates: August 21-23 Location: Tokyo, Japan Organization: Tokyo Ham Fair Expected attendance: 30000 Dates: August/September Location: Sweden Description: The annual DX-Parliament of Swedish DXers Organization: Swedish DX Federation Expected attendance: 30 More info: http://www.sdxf.org Dates: September 3-8 Location: Berlin, Germany Name: IFA Internationale Funkausstellung Description: Consumer Electronics Fair - Including Radios Dates: September 10-14 Location: Amsterdam, Holland Name: IBC Expo, Description: Media trade show Dates: September 15-19 Location: Solingen-Wald, Germany Description: DX-Camp More info: dx-camp @ kwfr.de Dates: September 22-26 Location: Sandkrug, Germany Description: DX-Camp More info: Karl-J.Conrads @ t-online.de Dates: September 24-26 Location: Seaside, Oregon, USA Description: 2010 IRCA Convention More info: mwdxer@webtv.net (Patrick Martin) Dates: September 30-October 3 Location: Ankara, Turkey Description: European DX Conference Organization: European DX Council/Voice of Turkey Expected attendance: 50 More info: http://www.edxc.org (Risto Vähäkainu, tietotekniikka-asiantuntija, Helsingin yliopisto Tietohallinto, p. 09-191 23133, mp. 050-529 2909, April 13, HCDX via DXLD) SHORTWAVE LISTENING EVENT, BALTIMORE, SATURDAY MAY 15 After years of nurturing it at the SWL WinterFest in Kulpsville, I'm taking a version of my shortwave listening event aka the Listening Lounge aka The Shortwave Shindig on the road to the Megapolis Festival in Baltimore, MD on Saturday evening May 15th from 10 pm until dawn. If anyone is in the area, I'd love to see some familiar faces. Festival admission is low, about $10.00 and runs from Friday to Sunday. http://www.megapolisfestival.org http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/The-Shortwave-Shindig/238065562301?ref=ts The festival is aimed towards radio documentarians and sound artists/composers, many of whom also attend the annual Third Coast Audio Festival in Chicago. Here's the official description: The Shortwave Shindig is an overnight immersion in the wavering, crackly sonics of the shortwave radio spectrum. Every day we stride through a stew of signals: our bodies vibrating imperceptibly to a riot of ouds, harmoniums, raving preachers, propaganda, secret messages, electronic squawks, and beeps. We lack only the transistors and diodes to be able to decode them. With a phalanx of receivers and gossamer strands of antennae, the Shortwave Shindig invites listeners to decipher the distant and elusive sounds of the shortwave bands. 10pm-Midnight: Mercy, So Much Noise. A crisp and creamy mix of real-time and archival shortwave audio. Midnight-3 am: Whammy Bar. The shortwave radio spectrum between 2 and 30 Megahertz provides accessible, constantly morphing aural textures that have a rich history of use by sound artists and musicians, both experimental and pop. After a review of some of this work, via recordings and live performances, we will collectively craft new soundscapes incorporating receiver improvisations and post-production techniques. Listeners are encouraged to bring laptop-based production gear to make their own pieces. 3 am-dawn: The Thin Gray Line. As dawn approaches, we'll track the movement of the sharp edge dividing darkness from light around the world, briefly enhancing the reception of low-powered domestic and regional stations from Africa, the Middle East, India, Asia, and Latin America. This segment will combine live on-site monitoring, (atmospheric conditions permitting), a global network of web-based receivers and archival audio. Schedule and segment length subject to change. Several shortwave radios will be available for tuning; participants are encouraged to bring a shortwave radio if they have one. David Goren is a radio producer and audio archivist who has been messing around with shortwave sound for almost 40 years (David Goren, April 11, HCDX via DXLD) NASB CONFERENCE MAY 20-21, 2010, HAMILTON, ONTARIO GALCOM INTERNATIONAL Cordially invites you to the Annual NASB Conference May 20-21, 2010! Your $55 (CDN) registration includes travel from the dorm to the tours, lunches and breaks. The wonderful trip to Niagara Falls is added feature which is optional but recommended! The top quality dorm rooms we have reserved are a very clean, cost effective, include continental breakfast, and use of the exercise room. Thurs. May 20/10 Fri. May 21/10 8:30am 100 Huntley Taping 9am NASB Meeting ~featuring SW Broadcasting 9:15am ONT DX Assoc. & SW stn CFRX 10:30am Crossroads Tour (30 min) 10am Profile of WEWN 11am Galcom Tour 10:30am Coffee Break-pack rooms 12pm LUNCH (BBQ @ Galcom) 11am NASB SW Listener Survey 1pm DRM USA @ Mohawk 11:15am NASB & High Freq Conference 2:30pm Coffee Break 12pm Lunch-Catered @ Mohawk 4pm Meeting Ends 1:00pm NASB Business Meeting 4:30pm Optional Bus tour to Niagara Falls & Dinner 5pm Meeting Finished Time is running out! Register today! Registration form is attached! We are in the final planning stage and need to have accurate numbers! Jennifer Smith - Executive Assistant, Galcom International (via Dan Elyea, NASB, April 12, DXLD) NOTE: THIS IS open to individual DXers/SWLs. Request reg form from galcom @ galcom.org who are the purveyors of anti-DX, fixed-tuned gospel-huxter radios (gh, DXLD) NRC/WTFDA Convention 2010 All of the information I have from Ernie Wesolowski is posted in the Convention Forum at http://www.wtfda.info The info was received today. A few years ago when I had a week of Canon school in Rochester, they had me staying at a hotel in Bushnell Basin. I found it on Google Earth and the Brookwood is the same place. It's a pretty place. It's a pretty area. There's a huge shopping mall not too far away, if I remember. -- (Mike Bugaj, Enfield, CT USA, WTFDA via DXLD) Viz.: You remember correctly! That would be Eastview Mall, and it's even bigger now than it was a few years ago. I'm looking forward to a fun convention weekend, and eager to hear from anyone thinking of making the trip to Rochester. s (Scott Fybush, ibid.) Viz.: NRC/WTFDA Convention 2010, August 27-29, Rochester NY The National Radio Club and the Worldwide TV/FM DX Association are coming to ROCHESTER, NEW YORK for their joint 2010 convention! The convention takes place Friday, August 27-Sunday, August 29 at the Brookwood Inn in Bushnell’s Basin, a quaint village along the Erie Canal just east of Rochester. For early arrivals Thursday night, we’ll have an informal dinner and perhaps a Rochester Red Wings baseball game. On Friday, it’s a day full of station tours around Rochester, followed by a cookout at the home of club member Jim Renfrew - and a chance to play with his elaborate DX setup! On Saturday, we’ll have more station tours, followed by dinner, a speaker and the world-famous club auction. (Note: please – no children during the business meeting or speaker’s presentation; hold all questions until after the speaker has finished.) And on Sunday, it’s the Quiz before we all go our separate ways. If you’re thinking of a family vacation this summer, Lisa Fybush is organizing family activities for non-radio-geek spouses and children. --LODGING-- Our host hotel is the Brookwood Inn, conveniently located just off I- 490 and adjacent to the historic Erie Canal. Rooms are just $65/night for up to four people, and breakfast is included. To make your reservation, please call (585) 249-6000 and mention you're with the National Radio Club/WTFDA. --REGISTRATION-- Convention registration information will be announced in May. For now, save the date, and please let your convention hosts know if you're thinking of attending so we can start to get a head count. Drop Scott a line at scott @ fybush.com or 92 Bonnie Brae Ave, Rochester NY 14618. We'll have much more information as the convention gets closer...stay tuned! Your 2010 Convention Committee: Scott and Lisa Fybush Jerry Bond Greg Coniglio Rick Lucas Jim Renfrew (WTFDA via DXLD) Oooo. I checked the thread and wish to thank everyone involved that finally there's a convention involving the NRC that isn't on Labor Day weekend. CU all in Rochester. 73 KAZ (Neil Kazaross, IL/WI, ibid.) TINY TRAP +++++++++ Hello Glenn, On a program either on NPR, or PRI via NPR, a male announcer, discussing the Turkish murder of Armenians in 1915, referred to the country of the latter peoples "tiny Armenia" (Eric Bryan, DXLD, 13 April, 2010) LANGUAGE LESSONS ++++++++++++++++ 'NUCULAR' INSTEAD OF 'NUCLEAR' ON VOA EDITORIAL MP3 file: http://www.voanews.com/MediaAssets2/policy/dalet/Editorial%20VO%202%2058%20015581%20032510%20Access%20To%20Civil%20Nuclear%20Energy.Mp3 Text: http://www1.voanews.com/policy/editorials/Access-To-Civil-Nuclear-Energy-89208037.html -- While listening to VOA editorial 'Access To Civil Nuclear Energy' I've noticed that the anchor all 17 times said 'NUCULAR' instead of 'NUCLEAR'. I don't know what is the correct pronunciation. Here are some references: - http://www.hfskeds.com/skeds/ Daniel Ferguson says: It's "nuclear", not "nucular" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nucular Wikipedia says nucular is an ad hoc spelling of a metathetic pronunciation of the word nuclear, representing the /?nju?kj?l?r/ pronunciation of that word instead of the more widely accepted /?nju?kli??r/. Regards, (Dragan Lekic, Serbia, dxldyg via DXLD) ``nucular`` is considered a trait of the absymally ignorant, exemplified by George W. Bush (gh, DXLD) And: What shall I say: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlHEJtflcmo (Homer Simpson has spoken...) ;-) 73, (Stephan Schaa, ibid.) RADIO EQUIPMENT FORUM +++++++++++++++++++++ DESIGN A RADIO FOR NEW ZEALAND --- SOUNDS LIKE US Enter now --- Fristly [sic], have your read the Rules of Entry? Deadline to enter your design is midnight 16th April 2010. Details: http://www.soundslikeus.co.nz/ (via Yimber Gaviría, Colombia, DX Clube Paraná yg via DXLD) CLOSED CAPTIONING VS DTV Re 10-14: ``It surprised me -- I didn't know that closed-captioning was always *required*; I see a lot of TV that doesn't have any CC, (I often turn on my CC in order to better follow audio that is sometimes unclear, and many times don't see any. And live closed captioning is often hilariously mangled or garbled -- you could add that category to the "Tiny Trap" and "Grafik Gaffes" amusing reports. :-) One thing that I'm wondering about, if CC is actually required by the FCC, how come some network programs don't have it? A specific example is the NBC Nightly News on Sundays only. During the week, the CC is there OK, but on Sundays it is always absent. And *really* strangely, sometimes during that program, if I switch my CC off and then on again, I'll get *one line* or *one sentence* of CC, and then it ceases. It's not my TV -- I can switch channels and see the CC fine on other stations. Another oddity -- watch the "Access Hollywood" entertainment-news program with the CC on. You don't get the real closed-captioned text of the audio; instead you get line after line of net URLs filling the screen. Again, just in that program; other CCs before and after on the same channel are fine. Weird, huh? 73, (Will Martin, April 5, DX LISTENING DIGEST)`` - Yes, the captioning requirement is for real. - Captioning is *not* required for commercials and other such very short programming. In my experience it appears roughly 60% of national commercials are voluntarily captioned. I can't recall ever seeing a captioned *local* commercial. - Live captions are usually written by court reporters (I should say, people trained as court reporters and using court reporting equipment) Most court reporters these days export their work to a PC as they write it. This makes it FAR easier to prepare the transcript. Court reporting is a phonetically-based system. Those machines do NOT have a QWERTY keyboard. Reporters strike a given set of keys to get a given phoneme, and it prints to the paper tape with a given set of symbols (that paper tape you see coming out of the back of the court reporting machine? It does NOT contain English text. If you handed it to the judge they wouldn't be able to read it...) The same symbols go to a PC which can translate them to English. Anyway, the same thing is done for TV captioning. Court reporters/captioners have a "dictionary", a file that converts a set of steno machine symbols to English words. This dictionary may vary from reporter to reporter. Someone who works in a Milwaukee County Criminal Court will need to have "Ziegler" in their dictionary -- since Annette Ziegler is Assistant DA there. Someone captioning TV news in Nashville won't need Ziegler, but will need "Bredesen". (Governor of Tennessee) If the Milwaukee court reporter is asked to caption a TV newscast in Nashville, the Governor's name is probably going to come out something like "Bread a sin" (closest standard English words to a phonetic match) So if you watch closely, I think you'll find there's actually a reason why many captioning mistakes come out the way they do! As for the messed up captioning on Nightly News and Access Hollywood... I wonder if Will has caption channel 2 selected? The captioning standard allows for four separate channels of captioning.* The vast majority of programming only has captions on channel CC1. Many TVs, if you have them set to display CC2 but there are no captions in CC2, they'll display CC1 instead. But if a program comes up that does have something in CC2, it will start displaying it. The station I work for captioned our newscasts in Spanish on CC2 for a few years. This led to a lot of phone calls..... * also four text channels. The only station I know of to use text channels is Wisconsin Public TV, which transmits NOAA weather data and agricultural market reports. Many TVs will put up a blank black box over the picture if you select a text channel. This is a common source of phone calls to TV station engineering departments! ``And one other thing -- what would really be useful would be that if you added a crawl to the image during the business day on weekdays that would show the current DOW, NASDAQ, and S&P. I'm sure you have access to this data from CBS, and it would be welcomed by people like me who don't have access to the cable-business-news channels. Regards, William Martin, South St. Louis City (to KMOV, via Martin, DXLD)`` ``Hi Will, Very interesting – but the NOAA weather radio audio is really generated from text by a computer voice (at least I never hear any real human beings around here), so that text could easily be used as the closed captioning, if it could somehow be accessed. You might suggest that to KMOV. Yes, CC of extra or even prime digital channels is a murky area, and I am not sure what the law really requires. I also notice CC missing here and there. 73, (Glenn Hauser, ibid.)`` I'm pretty sure they *don't* have access to the current market data via CBS. They do have access to some data via the Associated Press, but not continuous up-to-date market numbers. I don't have access to our AP wire at home but ISTR market data clears the wire roughly hourly. That's an educated guess. I'm not entirely sure the copyright license allows continuous broadcast of that data. The data would be welcomed by many viewers -- but there would be a vocal group that would fervently oppose the idea. We take plenty of angry calls when we air severe weather crawls, even from viewers in the areas targeted by the warnings... The same data NOAA uses to prepare the radio audio is available from the NOAA website but not in the same format or order as the radio audio. I suppose if you could get the NWS to send you the radio schedule you *might* be able to assemble it into a caption-useful script. A more likely technology might be voice recognition. Training a voice recognition system to understand unusual words and multiple speakers is a challenge. But in this application, there's only one voice to learn, and a very limited vocabulary. Even with unusual words and new speakers, recognition has come a LONG way. A couple of years ago at NAB, my boss brought me to the booth of a company offering this technology. He handed me a copy of the Las Vegas Sun & a microphone & had me start reading. The system had never heard my voice before -- but it got the text almost perfect. I was impressed! (sure wish I could remember the name of the company!) -- (Doug Smith W9WI, Pleasant View, TN EM66, DX LISTENING DIGEST) FCC BROADBAND PLAN: COMMISSION SETS 2015 SPECTRUM DEADLINE Plan lays out clear timetable for broadcasters to clear off 120 MHz of spectrum, or about half their current allocation By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, March 15, 2010 The FCC's broadband plan lays out a clear timetable for broadcasters to clear off 120 MHz of spectrum, or about a third of their over 290 MHz allocation, which has already been reduced by 108 MHz in the DTV transition, when channels 52-69 were reclaimed. The FCC wants to issue the band-reclamation order by next year, then hold an auction in the 2012-2013 time frame, and clear them off the band in 2015. While the plan is voluntary, the FCC also talks about freeing up 36 MHz by repacking the channels, which could come in the form of taking another six channels off the top, as it were, reducing the allocation to 45 channels and relocating the current occupants. Broadcasters would likely not have a choice about moving out of that 46-51 allocation if that were the plan. The voluntary proposal, in which broadcasters would be compensated for moving, is part of its five-year spectrum plan outlined in Connect America: The National Broadband Plan, a report to Congress being publicly unveiled at the FCC's monthly meeting Tuesday (March 16). Broadcasters will be encouraged to give up the most spectrum to reach that 300 MHz mark, with mobile satellite services giving up the second-most at 90 MHz. While the need for broadcast spectrum will be greatest in urban areas, the FCC is looking to make it available nationwide to make it easier on carriers' cost structures. It is unclear how that will sit with some of the legislators the plan was prepared for. Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.), for one, chair of the House Communications Subcommittee, one of the key committees the FCC will need to work with on the plan, said two weeks ago that the FCC should not make any decisions about who to reclaim spectrum from until after conducting a spectrum inventory that Boucher thinks could take up to four years after a bill to that effect he cosponsored has passed. But the FCC's advice to Congress is that there is a growing spectrum crisis that needs to be addressed sooner rather than later. "If the U.S. does not address this situation promptly," says the plan, "scarcity of mobile broadband could mean higher prices, poor service quality, an inability for the U.S. to compete internationally, depressed demand and, ultimately, a drag on innovation." (April WTFDA VHF-UHF Digest via DXLD) THE NATIONAL BROADBAND PLAN --- by Doug Smith Last year's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act charged the FCC with establishing an agenda to extend affordable broadband Internet access to the entire country. The Commission established a task force to research means of achieving that goal. That task force has presented its report, and the Commission has forwarded that report to Congress. The National Broadband Plan is a rather lengthy 14-chapter document, downloadable from http://www.broadband.gov I believe Chapter 5, “Spectrum”, is probably the most relevant to broadcasters and DXers. In particular, Recommendation 5.8.5: “The FCC should initiate a rulemaking proceeding to reallocate 120 megahertz from the broadcast television (TV ) bands,...” It proposes to achieve this through five steps: - Update rules on TV service areas and distance separations, allowing the revision of the Table of Allotments to more efficiently use TV spectrum. - Establish rules to allow two or more stations to share a channel. - Establish rules for auctioning broadcast spectrum reclaimed through these methods. - Consider additional alternatives, such as changes to technical standards or more extensive channel sharing, if necessary. - Take additional measures to increase spectrum efficiency. The plan does not envisage the elimination of over-the-air television. It does however suggest the UHF spectrum is far more valuable for other services. It notes that spectrum in the channels 52-69 zone, auctioned in 2008, sold for an average of $1.28/MHz/person reached. The market value of TV spectrum is around 13¢/MHz/person. The task force believes the FCC should: - Update the technical rules defining service areas and distance spacing. This may allow stations to operate closer together on the same or adjacent channels without creating interference (my opinion: in some cases stations are already too close together – ds) - “Repack” assignments more efficiently, allowing existing stations to fit into a smaller number of channels. - Establish a framework to permit two or more stations to share a single channel. The task force believes two stations could transmit HD in a single 6 MHz channel (my opinion: I'm very skeptical of this. I can see an HD station sharing a channel with a SD station, or multiple SDs sharing, but I don't think HD set owners are going to appreciate multiple HDs on a single channel. - ds) - Auction off spectrum freed by repacking and voluntary channel sharing. Stations agreeing to sacrifice some spectrum for auction would receive a cut of the revenue and would be entitled to reimbursement for expenses (for example, for replacing an antenna to move to a different channel). - Establish a deadline for digital transition of LPTV stations by the end of 2015. - Improve VHF reception, by increasing power limits or establishing minimum receiver and antenna standards. The idea is to discourage VHF DTV stations from seeking UHF allotments – those UHF allotments are more valuable for wireless broadband. If additional spectrum transfer proves necessary, the task force suggests: - Switching from the current “single large transmitter” model to a “cellular” model. Auctioning “secondary” rights to TV channels; winners could negotiate with broadcasters to clear their bands. - Mandatory channel sharing. The task force proposes a rather speedy deadline for this action. It believes the Commission should complete rulemaking no later than the end of next year; auction reallocated spectrum in 2012; and clear reallocated spectrum by 2015 (April WTFDA VHF-UHF Digest via DXLD) TRIO 9R-59 AND ITS UNWORTHY SUCCESSORS My first communications receiver was a Trio 9R-59. I bought it in 1963. It was the best purchase I have ever made. In the evening of the day I bought it, I fixed up an antenna and heard Canada! I am a Canadian citizen. The Trio 9R-59 had a rectifier tube and eight tubes for reception. Single conversion, one RF stage and two IF stages. Half a tube and two knobs belonged to a Q-multiplier, which is of use only with continuous wave. The Trio 9R-59 drifted a lot while warming up during the first half hour of operation. There was image frequency code, warbling, but never as bad as I have found on the El 100.There were no image frequency stations. I read about image frequency stations, 910 kHz below the real station, but there were none with the Trio 9R-59, and I used it for two years at least. I cannot explain this. George Jacobs refused to trust my reports, as I was using a single conversion receiver, but he was wrong. On my part I didn't realise what a fine receiver I had until these days, when I am reviewing cheap receivers. Something is wrong. With integrated circuits it should be possible to produce a single conversion low priced receiver which is just as good as the Trio 9R-59. The Trio 9R-59 was the last receiver before solid state transistorized receivers. These solid state receivers suffered from overloading. The Trio 9R-59 never overloaded. It covered 500 kHz to 30 MHz in four bands. Sensitivity and selectivity were okay. Made of light steel it worked only with an external antenna. Why can't the single conversion receivers of today be like the Trio 9R-59? I am thinking of about the Grundig S350. There is a Grundig Mini300PE, a small box with a smoke stack. It costs the same as the Grundig Mini400 and it is available. Passport says it has nice weak-signal sensitivity. I do not have a Grundig Mini300PE. The County Com GP-4L. the Grundig Mini400 and the Grundig Mini300PE - all of them do not receive 21 MHz. We now come to the Lextronix El100, basic price US$40. The Eton El100 is the same thing plus earbuds and two AA batteries with basic price US$50. This receiver lights up the LDC very often and guzzles batteries. No AC adapter is offered. The manual is written in precise English, with precise translations into four other languages. The German version mentions WRTH and Passport but does not mention Klingenfuss. The directions for setting the clock are wrong. The icons on the LCD are not described. I have no complaints about FM and MW. The volume knob does nothing in the first half of its turn. Shortwave is in ten bands and not continuous, so some images are not there. Still there is a bad image on 5 MHz. It helps to hold this radio in your hand but don't put a finger near the display. Tuning is not difficult. There is drift but less bad than on cheaper radios. The receiver has a backrest and it is small and light. There are image whistles and they can be quite bad. The El100 cannot receive World Harvest Radio on 5850 kHz, The El100 will not make the recipient want to be a SWL (shortwave listener) because of the bad image whistles. Using the El100, I tried to hear Radio Netherlands which was very good on a proper receiver, but image whistles destroyed Radio Netherlands. I know why there is noise with stations of modest strength. I tried a respectable receiver, a Sony ICF-7600D on such a station without an outdoor antenna and with the preamplifier. I get the same noise, only less of it, When you amplify a weak signal you amplify the noise too. I will now extrapolate to the Grundig S350DL. No noise with the outdoor antenna but the images is still there. Not satisfactory. I do not have a Grundig S350DL. For the same money as the S350DL, US$100 you can get a Grundig Yacht Boy 400 or G4000A. This can persuade your recipient to become a SWL, providing you can supply guidance (DAVID CRYSTAL, Israel - April Chat Column, M A K I N G C O N T A C T, World DX Club Contact via DXLD) SUPERMARKETS Now to comment on the item in Glenn Hauser's DXLD page 31 [in March World DX Club Contact] under CZECHIA (and non). Listening to several Mailbag programmes, I've heard listeners requesting stickers, maps, pennants, T-Shirts and many other items along with QSL cards and many never comment on programme content. On a recent Radio Prague Mailbag programme a listener from Nigeria complained about the prizes of the Monthly Quiz being reduced from four to one a month; another complained about not being mentioned when answers were read out even though he got the answer right. Well, if you have, say, one hundred correct answers, how can it be possible to read them all out in one short programme. For me, taking part in a quiz is all about taking time to find and work out the correct answer and its enjoyment. Not everyone can win a prize; it`s all down to luck. All change now and I remember when I first listened to shortwave around 1969, many stations asked for reports and would send a QSL card in reply for correct reports and a few stations like Radio Budapest had a listeners club in which you sent monthly reports and received a card and a magazine with DX News (Edwin Southwell, April World DX Club Contact via DXLD) //there is always a chance that JOHN MARKEY or one or other of the car-boot sale fans will drop on what is wanted - it's a case of waiting patiently but then the old-timer gets older. (aw) //down to luck, maybe so, Edwin but I firmly believe that in many cases winner's lists are engineered to spread the recipitants around the globe - one per continent, one per country catches the eye reads much nicer (Arthur Ward, ibid.) DIGITAL BROADCASTING --- DRM See AUSTRALIA; CUBA non; INDIA; ISRAEL; ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ RUSSIA; USA WBCQ; CONVENTIONS & CONFS 15 Comments on “Indian government approves country’s digitalisation plan using DRM” http://blogs.rnw.nl/medianetwork/indian-government-approves-country%e2%80%99s-digitalisation-plan-using-drm#comments (Media Network blog via DXLD) But mostly about Europe DIGITAL BROADCASTING --- DAB See UK ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ DIGITAL BROADCASTING --- IBOC See USA WANN +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ DIGITAL BROADCASTING --- DTV See RADIO EQUIPMENET FORUM: CC ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ MUSEA +++++ ESPAÑA: UN PROFESOR HALLA PATENTES EUROPEAS INÉDITAS DEL INVENTOR DE LA RADIO http://www.euskonews.com/0467zbk/gaia46701es.html elmundo.es | Pamplona Actualizado viernes 09/04/2010 14:38 horas Ángel Faus, profesor honorario de la Facultad de Comunicación de la Universidad de Navarra, ha descubierto los originales de dos patentes inéditas de Julio Cervera Baviera, inventor del primer sistema técnico de radio. El experto las ha encontrado en Inglaterra y Alemania, en el curso de la investigación que realiza sobre la vida y obra del científico y militar valenciano, y se suman a las obtenidas en España por el comandante de Ingenieros a partir de 1900. Ambas hacen referencia a sistemas de transmisión inalámbrica. "La alemana fue inscrita en el registro de Berlín en 1900, después de que Julio Cervera Baviera presentara en Madrid su primera solicitud de patente sobre telegrafía sin hilos. Más tarde pidió otra en Inglaterra", explica el profesor Faus. Para llegar a los resultados actuales, el doctor en Comunicación ha seguido los datos encontrados durante sus investigaciones y "el propio testimonio de Julio Cervera que declaró ante notario en marzo de 1902, en el acto de constitución de su compañía 'Telegrafía y Telefonía sin hilos', haber sacado patentes en Inglaterra, Bélgica y Alemania", indica. "Según todos los indicios -revela-, en Inglaterra hay entre dos y cuatro patentes más que resulta preciso localizar. Y también en Francia, Suecia, Noruega, EE. UU., Bélgica, Suiza, Portugal, Italia, Austria y Dinamarca al menos, dada la gran actividad del militar español". Como se recordará, el profesor Faus dio a conocer la dimensión científica de Julio Cervera en la obra 'La Radio en España, 1896- 1977', publicada en 2007. El libro es una investigación respaldada por más de 8.000 documentos seleccionados de entre un total de 37.000 obtenidos en los archivos históricos españoles. Para elaborarlo, el autor consultó más de 50 archivos y bibliotecas, además de una veintena de colecciones completas de publicaciones periódicas nacionales e internacionales. Fuente: http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2010/04/09/comunicacion/1270816019.html (Via Yimber Gaviria, Colombia, DXLD) QUITO ECUADOR WAR OF THE WORLDS STORY In 1992 Monitoring Times published an article of mine about a War of the Worlds broadcast gone-wrong from Radio Quito. The story can be found here: http://www.pateplumaradio.com/south/ecuador/martians.html My references were slim and the information was sketchy. A few years later Ken MacHarg did a feature on this on HCJB's DX Party Line. He interviewed me and he interviewed Javier Almeida, then director of Radio Quito. Sr. Almeida was very interested in the story and had tried to research it locally, but hadn't been able to learn much more so many years after the event. Many of the principal characters had moved out of the country in the years immediately following the event. Just yesterday I received an e-mail from the son of Leonardo Páez - the main man behind the Quito War of the Worlds broadcast. Iván (the son) corrected a few details of my story. Iván also pointed out that his father had written a book about the event: http://www.war-ofthe-worlds.co.uk/gall_r12.htm That article included a link to this article which gives a lot more detail about this interesting story. http://www.war-ofthe-worlds.co.uk/war_worlds_quito.htm It turns out there was an earlier Latin American version of this story in Chile in 1944: http://www.war-ofthe-worlds.co.uk/war_worlds_santiago.htm There is some good reading here for radio history fans. But, there is more to this. The son tells me that Leonardo Páez moved from Quito to Mérida, Venezuela in 1955 when he took a job as director of Radio Universidad in Mérida, which he held until about 1978. (He passed away in 1991.) L. Páez is listed as director of Radio Universidad in the WRTH during the 1970s. That station should be familiar to longtime shortwave DXers. Radio Universidad was an easy catch on 3395 kHz in the 1970s when I was first active. I have over a dozen loggings of it from that time period. I remember it as being the strongest of Venezuela's 90 meter outlets back then. I wonder if anyone has an old QSL from them signed by Leonardo Páez? The Radio Universidad connection is more noteworthy to me as I visited the city of Mérida for two weeks after Christmas 1994. While there I visited Radio Universidad and had a long talk with the then-manager, who was the daughter of the station founder (not Páez). So, I spent spent some time sitting in Páez's old manager's office. If I had only known of the connection then, I could have learned a lot more about this story. Regardless, it's fun to bring together some details from one of the more interesting stories in Latin American radio history. Thinking outside the box isn't always enough. Sometimes you have to turn around and moon it. [tagline] Radio & Latin American website: http://www.pateplumaradio.com/ (Don Moore --- donmooredxer @ yahoo.com April 14, DX LISTENING DIGEST) I met with Javier Almeida in February 1992. We spoke in Spanish. Not until later, when hearing him on HCJB, did I realize that he was fluent in English. Almeida was reluctant to talk about the tragedy but showed me a number of newspaper cuttings from 1949 which he allowed me to copy. I sent a write up of his story to the German DX-magazine Kurier in 1992, "Eine verfluchte Geschichte", Kurier #23-24/92, p. 21). The article has one picture showing the corner of Chile and Belalcázar streets, rebuilt after the fire. (I also have a picture showing Almeida in his office, just in case Patepluma or any one else is interested). Combining Almeida´s info with that of the newspapers and the detail contained in Alvaro San Félix´s book "Radiodifusión en la Mitad del Mundo" (Editora Nacional, Quito,1991), I condensed the Radio Quito story for the Latin American edition of the Radio World magazine in their May 25 edition, 1997, p. 28: "La tragedia de Radio Quito". I filed another version for the #68 issue of the Argentine DX-magazine Conexión, p. 18, "Un hito en la historia de la radiodifusión ecuatoriana: El radioteatro más caro del mundo". On p.156 in his book, Alvaro San Félix notes that script writer Leonard Páez died in Venezuela on March 14, 1991 (Henrik Klemetz, Sweden, DX LISTENING DIGEST) HAM RADIO MUSEUM INAUGURATION AT NIAR ON 18 APR 2010 Dear friend, I take the pleasure in inviting you for the inauguration Amateur (Ham) Radio Museum on 18th April 2010 (World Amateur Radio Day) at 11.00 AM. VENUE & TIME: National Institute of Amateur Radio, Raj Bhavan Road, Hyderabad, Sunday 18th April 2010 at 11.00 AM ALL ARE WELCOME : ENTRY FREE The Museum is devoted to collecting, preserving and exhibiting the history of the Amateur Wireless Technology from the roots of inventions / experiments and today’s scenario. The museum includes an impressive display of wide range of HF/VHF/UHF amateur radio wireless communication equipment and accessories from popular manufacturers like YAESU, ICOM, KENWOOD etc., of over the years and antenna systems of StepIR, Hi-gain, Create, Force-12 etc. The accessories included power supplies, antenna tuners, antenna rotators, towers. Several homebrew devices and accessories including HF transceivers, antennas, baluns, Direction finding devices which is used for hunting hidden transmitter in the game of ‘Fox Hunt’ etc are also on display. With Warm Regards S. YAMINI, VU2YAM Admin. Officer National Institute of Amateur Radio Raj Bhavan Road, Somajiguda Hyderabad 500082, INDIA Telefax: 91-40-2331 0287 Tel: 91-40-6516 7388 mail: niarindia @ hotmail.com, vu2nro @ gmail.com Web site: http://www.niar.org Club station: VU2NRO 14160 Khz (via Jose Jacob, dx_india yg via DXLD) POWERLINE COMMUNICATIONS ++++++++++++++++++++++++ CITY OF MANASSAS TO END BPL SERVICE --- ARRL April 8, 2010 Once touted as "the most successful BPL deployment in the nation," the City of Manassas, Virginia has decided to get out of the BPL business, once and for all. At a Special Meeting on Monday, April 5, the Manassas City Council -- acting on a recommendation from the Manassas Utilities Commission -- unanimously voted to discontinue Broadband over Powerline (BPL) Internet service as of July 1, 2010 to the approximately 520 residents and businesses who currently subscribe to the service; these customers were told that they have three months to find a new Internet service provider... Full story at http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2010/04/08/11427/?nc=1 (Via Mike Terry, April 8, dxldyg via DXLD) PROPAGATION +++++++++++ Geomagnetic field activity was at quiet to severe storm levels during the period. A shock was observed at ACE at 05/0756 UTC which led to a sudden impulse at Earth at 05/0826 UTC (38 nT was observed at the Boulder magnetometer). The most likely source for the activity was the halo CME observed on 03/0954 UTC. Geomagnetic field activity was at active levels after 05/0300 UTC, with major to severe storm conditions between 05/0900-1200 UTC. Numerous high-latitude stations reported severe storm levels during this interval, as well as several mid-latitude stations in the nighttime sectors. ACE observed wind speeds between 720-800 km/s behind the shock, with Bz reaching values around -15 nT. Activity continued on 06 April with predominantly active to minor storm levels, as well as an interval of minor to major storm levels observed between 06/0000-0600 UTC. Wind speeds at ACE decreased to about 550 km/s at 06/2100 UTC. As the effects of the full halo CME waned on 07 April, a coronal hole high-speed stream moved into geoeffective position with activity levels ranging from unsettled to minor storm levels, with major storm conditions at high latitudes and a rise in the solar wind speeds at ACE from 560- 625 km/s. Quiet to active levels, with isolated minor storm conditions at high latitudes were observed on 08 April. Predominantly quiet conditions were observed on 09-10 April. Geomagnetic activity on the 11 April ranged from quiet to unsettled with some isolated storm periods at high latitudes 11/1500-1800 UTC following a weak shock observed at the ACE spacecraft at 11/1215 UTC followed by a sudden impulse at Earth at 11/1305 UTC (5 nT observed at the Boulder magnetometer). Velocity at the ACE spacecraft jumped from 380 km/s to about 450 km/s and the total magnetic field increased from 4 nT to about 10 nT. The most likely source for this activity was the full halo CME observed on 08/0325 UTC. FORECAST OF SOLAR AND GEOMAGNETIC ACTIVITY 14 APRIL - 10 MAY 2010 Solar activity is expected to be at very low levels with possible isolated periods of low levels during the forecast period. No proton events are expected at geosynchronous orbit. The greater than 2 MeV electron flux at geosynchronous orbit is expected to be at normal levels through most of the period. However, moderate to high flux levels are possible during 05-08 May. The Geomagnetic field is expected to be at mostly quiet levels from 14 April - 02 May. Activity is expected to be at quiet to active levels during 03-05 May due to a recurrent coronal hole high-speed stream. Activity is expected to return to quiet levels during the remainder of the period 06-10 May. :Product: 27-day Space Weather Outlook Table 27DO.txt :Issued: 2010 Apr 13 2151 UTC # Prepared by the US Dept. of Commerce, NOAA, Space Weather Prediction Center # Product description and SWPC contact on the Web # http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/wwire.html # # 27-day Space Weather Outlook Table # Issued 2010 Apr 13 # # UTC Radio Flux Planetary Largest # Date 10.7 cm A Index Kp Index 2010 Apr 14 75 5 2 2010 Apr 15 75 5 2 2010 Apr 16 75 5 2 2010 Apr 17 75 5 2 2010 Apr 18 78 5 2 2010 Apr 19 80 5 2 2010 Apr 20 80 5 2 2010 Apr 21 80 5 2 2010 Apr 22 80 5 2 2010 Apr 23 80 5 2 2010 Apr 24 80 5 2 2010 Apr 25 78 5 2 2010 Apr 26 75 5 2 2010 Apr 27 75 5 2 2010 Apr 28 75 5 2 2010 Apr 29 75 5 2 2010 Apr 30 75 5 2 2010 May 01 75 5 2 2010 May 02 75 5 2 2010 May 03 75 6 2 2010 May 04 75 15 3 2010 May 05 75 9 3 2010 May 06 75 5 2 2010 May 07 75 5 2 2010 May 08 75 5 2 2010 May 09 75 5 2 2010 May 10 75 5 2 (SWPC via WORLD OF RADIO 1508, DXLD) ###