DX LISTENING DIGEST 8-008, January 20, 2008 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 2007 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 NEXT SHORTWAVE AIRINGS OF WORLD OF RADIO 1391 **flexible times Mon 0515 WBCQ 7415 [time varies] Mon 0930 WRMI 9955** Tue 1130 WRMI 9955** Tue 1630 WRMI 7385 Wed 0830 WRMI 9955** 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 For updates see our Anomaly Alert page: http://www.worldofradio.com/anomaly.html WRN ON DEMAND: http://new.wrn.org/listeners/stations/station.php?StationID=24 WORLD OF RADIO PODCASTS VIA WRN NOW AVAILABLE: http://www.wrn.org/listeners/stations/podcast.php OUR ONDEMAND AUDIO: http://www.worldofradio.com/audiomid.html or http://wor.worldofradio.org NOTE: The originally distributed version of the Jan 19 issue, DXLD 8- 007, was mislabeled by mistake on the top line of the file as 8-006, unchanged from Jan 17 issue. The subject line was correct. ** ARMENIA. Re 8-006: Public Radio of Armenia Foreign Service on 4810 kHz: 0430-0500 Persian, 1315-1545 Azeri, Turkish and other MEast languages, 1900-1930 Arabic. No more Home Service on short waves (Rumen Pankov, Sofia, Bulgaria / "open_dx" via Rus-DX Jan 20 via DXLD) ** BOLIVIA. 4699.41, Radio San Miguel, Riberalta 0950 to 1000 all week long with drifting frequency. Good signal with local announcements. 4716.594, Radio Yura, Yura *1017 sudden on with instrumental music, not typical of Bolivia till 1036 with no announcements. 19 Jan. 4732, Radio Universitaria, Cobija, Pando 1050 to 1105 tremendous signal, slow male ballads no ID 18 Jan., 2330 noted on same day, under rtty" ....RYRYRYRYRYRYRYRY...". 1055 Excellent signal, flauta andina lenta but no ID on hour, faded by 1107 on 16 Jan. Nothing noted 1055 on 19 Jan (Robert Wilkner, Pómpano Beach-Southeastern Florida, NRD 535D, R8, 746 Pro, R8, R7, Elliptic Low Pass Audio Filters [Dallas Lankford], DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** BOLIVIA. 4732, R. Universitaria (presumed), 1026 16 Jan, LA Pop. No announcements noted and dropped way down after 1040, not to recover. No RTTY this morning. 4732, R. Universitaria (presumed), 0038 18 Jan, LA ballad at tune-in mixing with and slightly overtop the RTTY. 0040 M brief voice-over. Ad block 0050, then long talk by live M, sounded like a mentiono of Pando. Still going after 0200. Seems to play more ballads than Pops. Best signal so far from this one and CODAR not that much of a problem. 4732, R. Universitaria, 1107 18 Jan. Tuned in in the middle of a full canned ID by M in echo "informativo, en ?? 97.9 en Frecuencia Modulada. Universitaria.. los Pando". Dead air, then soft romantic ballad. 1110 live W, then what sounded like a LA Rap song with just drum machine and group of men 'singing', so to speak. 1115 into LA dance song, then another ballad at 1118. Another very brief announcement at 1126 but it was too far gone by then. Noticed that the RTTY isn't on in the mornings, so that's the best time to log this. Glad to finally get this one!! (Dave Valko, Dunlo PA, HCDX via DXLD) 4732 R. Universitaria seems to be often covered by rtty 0000 too 0300; have never heard rtty during the 1030 to 1120 period (Bob Pompano Beach, Republica de Florida Wilkner :-), Cumbre DX via DXLD) ** CANADA. We’ve moved - new blog spot on the CBC site! January 19th, 2008 --- Well, our new season has kicked off, and our second episode airs today. And we now have a new blog on the CBC site - which should help a lot of listeners find us, as so many emails and comments end up going to the CBC and are unanswered. Here’s the new address: http://www.cbc.ca/ageofpersuasion/ Mike and I love hearing from listeners. Keep the comments coming (Terry O`Reilly, old Age of Persuasion blog via DXLD) ** CANADA. CBC Radio One Moncton NB signed on to 106.1 FM per the Information Morning Moncton web site [exact date not given]: http://www.cbc.ca/informationmorningmoncton/ Look for AM 1070 to go dark with in 6 months (Andy Reid, Ont., dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Isn`t it usually only 3 months? (gh, DXLD) I think CBC will live to regret their decision to convert all their AM outlets to FM. What about the folks who live in remote northern Quebec, northern Ontario, etc., beyond the reach of FM? Aren't they going to feel disenfranchised? Or do they represent such a small population segment that nobody cares? On the other hand, it'll open up more MW channels for DXing, so I guess the glass is half-full or half- empty, depending on how you look at it. CBC-originated programming is ok, but I particularly like CBC Overnight, the relay of various shortwave broadcasts via World Radio Network. On most nights I can get a choice of programming depending on whether I tune in to Saskatchewan on 540, Alberta on 1010, or my local NPR FM, KXOT 91.7. Helps me get my shortwave fix, since either the northwest US is a shortwave "dead zone," or I'm just not skilled enough at tuning 'em in on SW (Keith Beesley, ABDX via DXLD) ** CANADA [and non]. CBU 690 Van, BC to move to FM --- I'm willing to bet 690 won't be open very long, as was the case in Toronto with CBL- 740 becoming CHWO and Montreal with CBM-940 and CBF-690 becoming CINW and CINF. Some low power/poor pattern Vancouver area stations are probably already coveting CBU's soon to be former frequency (Mike Brooker, Ont., IRCA via DXLD) If that's the case, we may be end up with Hindi or Chinese programming on 690. All of the Vancouver stations have lots of power, but I'm not sure which ones have pattern challenges. I would think one of the Vancouver's ethnic stations (1200 1320 1470) would be potential suitors for 690, but I'll defer to one of my friends to the north. There are a couple of AM stations on the US side of the border that broadcast South Asian programming to Vancouver. Perhaps one of them might try to maneuver its way across the 49th parallel? I can think of at least one possible precedent from the late 60s or early 70s (?) where a TV station licensed to Pembina ND relicensed to Winnipeg, in order to be closer to its target audience (Bruce in Seattle Portzer, ibid.) KNRR, Channel 12 is still licensed to Pembina, North Dakota (Paul B Walker, SC, ibid.) But for all intents & purposes, Canadian (gh) Indeed it is. What really happened with KCND/CKND's "move" across the border was this: Izzy Asper won a new license for channel 9 in Winnipeg from the CRTC in 1974. He bought the assets (programming and physical plant) of independent KCND channel 12 in Pembina ND from Gordon McLendon after convincing McLendon that the startup of a new indie in Winnipeg itself would suck away KCND's cross-border audience. And then Asper garnered a ton of publicity by "moving" KCND across the border, signing off the Pembina license and turning on his new CKND 9 in Winnipeg at the same time. The old Pembina transmitter was moved to Minnedosa, MB to be a satellite signal for CKND. CKND even took over KCND's old channel 12 spot on Winnipeg cable. But channel 12 remained alloted to Pembina, and returned to the air in the mid-80s as KNRR with Fox. What does this have to do with CBU? It means the 690 allocation stays on the Canadian side of the border - and while it's possible someone will apply for it again in Vancouver (à la 740 in Toronto and 940/690 in Mtl), it's not always a given that stations "move up" to bigger signals as they become available. The 600 and 850 facilities in Montreal were among the better signals in town, but they've stayed empty even as much lousier AM facilities (1450, 1650, 1690) have gone on the air there. s (Scott Fybush, NY, IRCA via DXLD) That 690 frequency is invaluable for those of us that travel around the Island and the Interior of the Province. Silencing 690 would put thousands in radio darkness! (Colin Newell, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, ibid.) Well said, Colin, I agree with you. Some people in Vancouver might not care for the less stellar quality, audio and coverage wise of AM and opt for FM, but as others have said, those in farther reaching more remote areas where high speed internet or FM reception isn`t possible, they would gladly take staticy AM over nothing. You can`t just put up FM repeaters/translators anywhere and everywhere (Paul B. Walker, Jr., SC, ibid.) So obvious, but not to the ignorant PTB (gh, DXLD) I agree with Colin. There are big swaths of the Province that has no CBC (or any radio for that matter) coverage, and 690 is well heard during the dark hours, at least. On top of that, I was very pleased to hear 690 all along the Oregon and WA coasts during a recent holiday. That would all be history if they left. Another option, of course, is 6160 which is also especially well heard in the north, and all day long too. There is talk of this also going off the air if the AM transmitter is shut down. Let's hope not! (Walt Salmaniw, Victoria, ibid.) ** CONGO DR. 5066,329, 7.1 1600, Radio Candip, Bunia med franska och cd 1630. Något instabil bärvåg. 2 [ = O of SIO] (Stig Adolfsson, Sweden, SW Bulletin Jan 20 via DXLD) 5066.329, 7.1 1600, Radio Candip, Bunia in French and cd at 1630. Somewhat unstable carrier. 2 SA (Stig Adolfsson, Sweden, translated by editor Thomas Nilsson for DX LISTENING DIGEST) 6210, 18.1 1725 Radio Kahuzi, Bukavu var kvällens roligaste loggning, efter många många försök. Hade religiöst på engelska först, men övergick sedan till lokalt språk och franska. Stora problem med stationer som inte borde vara där, t ex VOR med finska senare. Det verkar som om den fuktiga luften gör att vissa jättestarka sändare även hörs på en mängd andra frekvenser än de nominella – eller är det bara sändarna som läcker? Kl 1800 var det adjö för Kahuzi, som möjligen stängde och lämnade plats för farsi! S 1-3. BEFF 6210, 18.1 1725, Radio Kahuzi, Bukavu. After a lot of attempts the funniest logging of the night. At first religious in English but changed into local language and French. Lots of problems with stations who ought not to be there as for instance VOR in Finnish later. It seems as the moist air make some very strong stations to be heard on lots of other frequencies than the nominal ones - or is it leakage from the transmitters? At 1800 it was goodbye for Kahuzi, possibly cd leaving room for Farsi! S 1-3. BEFF (Björn Fransson, Sweden, translated by editor Thomas Nilsson for DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CUBA. Checking Jan 20 for the début of RHC`s Euro service: at 2020 UT check, 11750 quite weak in Portuguese, so guess it is really aimed off some 90 degrees from OK. Also same in Spanish at 2110. By then much stronger secret English broadcast was still running on 11760 // as usual much weaker 9505 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Earlier, monitored the 49m channels around 0700 Jan 20. At 0700, 6000 briefly announced ``El programa Zarzuela y Opereta``, presumably from the R. Musical Nacional network feed, time check for 2 am, but modulation then cut off, to open carrier. At 0701, 6000 resumed same music it had been playing before that announcement, and finally at 0702 RHC IS and opening the Esperanto service, as scheduled UT Sundays only. They really need to work on smoothly switching network feeds. At 0702, 6180 was still on with carrier, while 6060 was off (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CUBA. 530, Radio Enciclopedia; 1640-1730 20 January, 2008. Amused to hear a smooth jazz instrumental version of "O' Holy Night" aired at 1642. Did someone covertly slip this one into the playlist? Will Arnie see to it that said person pays for it with a trip to an Isle of Youth holding cell? 1210, Radio Sancti Spíritus, Trinidad; 0145-0158 19 January, 2008. Blowing in at local level with a non-baseball sports event -- possibly basketball -- Matanzas vs. Cienfuegos teams (one team name was Mambí) and seemingly indoors. Parallel poor 1190 kHz (Terry L Krueger, Clearwater, Florida, USA, 27.55.83 N, 82.46.08 W, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Well, if letting a province keep ``Holy Spirit`` for its name is OK, I guess O Holy Night could be too. Offset by ``Matanzas`` (gh, DXLD) ** CUBA [non]. Glenn: -- Re 8-007: "...If the OCB were really serious about the radio war with Cuba, they`d put in a 500 kW to 2 MW unit" My own piddling around via DX Tuners has shown Saudi/1521 (the 2000 kW unit) to be an armchair nighttime regular, literally from South Africa to Ireland & Scandinavia. I would guess their directional pattern to be shaped like a peach-half, with the "flat" side pointing toward Syria. This thing's been heard as far West as Texas; I've tried a few times here in SoCal, but only once had a tentative het on the high side of 1520, not enough to claim by any means. God forbid, that whomever the Republicans draft for claim to the '08 throne read your suggestion, although interference claims made to the State Dept., by the likes of 1180 in Rio, and Radio Diego Portales in Chile, could make for entertaining bathroom reading. :)> (GREG HARDISON, Valley of the Dinosaurs, Los Angeles, DX LISTENING DIGEST) There are even 2500 kW MW transmitters, not by combining but as single units. It's the Leningrad-made Tayfun model, installed at Bolshakovo (2 pieces) and Taldom, at the latter one site still run at full power (on longwave; actually these transmitters cover both LW and MW). And since IBB already got criticized for their Un-American practice to purchase equipment from foreign manufacturers (no irony, I think this had been covered in DXLD a couple of years ago): 2000 kW for mediumwave are available from Harris as well. http://www.broadcast.harris.com/product_portfolio/product_details.asp?sku=WWWDX200AM I guess it would trigger really interesting discussions if IBB would upgrade 1180 to high power, i.e. 500 kW or more, even with the tight beam they run from this four-mast system: http://gallery.bostonradio.org/2001-12/key-west/100-00456-med.html (Kai Ludwig, Germany, Jan 21, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ECUADOR. 3810, HD2IOA; 0136-0141 19 January, 2008. Time sounders, Spanish male minutes announcements. Very good. Haven't heard them in quite awhile here (Terry L Krueger, Clearwater, Florida, USA, 27.55.83 N, 82.46.08 W, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** EQUATORIAL GUINEA ECUATORIAL. 19 Jan 2008 during UT evening noted afro-pops under R Cairo on 6250. Checked today, 20 January, at 1625 and noted that R Cairo was silent and there was RNGE in Spanish. Some QRM from Korea approx. 6250.3. At 1704 Malabo switched to local language, preceded by Radio Nacional de Guinea Equatorial ID (Jari Savolainen, Kuusankoski, Finland, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) 6250, Radio Nacional de Guinea Ecuatorial, 1735-1740, escuchada el 20 de enero en español a locutor nombrando personas de una lista, segmento musical, SINPO 32332 (José Miguel Romero, Spain, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Sporadically active (gh) ** ETHIOPIA. 5950, Voice of Tigrey Rev, Mekele, *0355-0420, Jan 20, Sign on with IS. Talk at 0400. Horn of Africa music. No //s heard. Fair level but mixing with Radio Taiwan Int via Okeechobee, Florida. 7110, Radio Ethiopia, 2035-2101*, Jan 19, Horn of Africa music. Amharic talk. Sign off with National Anthem at 2100. Fair. // 5990- very weak. 9704v-not heard lately (Brian Alexander, PA, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 7110, Radio Ethiopia; 2039-2101* 19 January, 2008. My current favorite listen when I'm home at this time, and while winter allows it to come in and so well here. Excellent Horn of Africa female vocal, male and female announcers in presumed Amharic between other local vocals, techno-ish instrumental filler, canned closing ID at 2059 and into the group vocal anthem till 2101:08. Carrier still on but, off at 2108 recheck. Excellent level (Terry L Krueger, Clearwater, Florida, USA, 27.55.83 N, 82.46.08 W, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** GERMANY. Re 8-007: "Via T-Systems": Not anymore since last Tuesday. "DTK", if kept as HFCC abbr., is meaningless now. http://www.t-systems-mediabroadcast.de/tsi/en/307146/Home/AboutMediaBroadcast/PressCenter/PressArchive/DetailPagePressRelease/2008-01-15-PM-Sale (Kai Ludwig, Germany, Jan 21, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Viz.: Sale of Media&Broadcast --- Deutsche Telekom completes sale of Media&Broadcast --- Bonn, January 15, 2008 After the European Commission granted approval for Deutsche Telekom AG to sell T-Systems Media&Broadcast GmbH to Télédiffusion de France, the trans-action was completed by both companies on Tuesday. The enterprise value, i.e., the total price upon which the transaction is based, is EUR 0.85 billion. The sale of Media&Broadcast is part of the “Focus, fix and grow” strategy presented to the public by the Deutsche Telekom Board of Management on March 1, 2007. T-Systems Media&Broadcast GmbH was a wholly-owned subsidiary of T- Systems Business Services GmbH. Media&Broadcast plans, creates, markets and operates specific services for customers in the broadcasting and media industries. Its portfolio comprises terrestrial broadcasting equipment and connection networks, as well as satellite transmission services (as above via DXLD) Französich Telekom? (gh) ** GERMANY EAST. Re 8-007, IRELAND: >> And what`s a state broadcaster doing, broadcasting church services? Oh yeah, it`s Europe without separation of church & state. << Now guess what Radio DDR 1 was doing at certain times, I think at around 7 AM on Sunday mornings: Outside broadcasts of church services. And really famous is the Sunday morning programming of Radio Brandenburg, an ORB station which existed from 1992 til 1997, first broadcasting from former Radio DDR studios in the E-T complex at Nalepastraße in Berlin, later from a shabby shack at Potsdam- Babelsberg. Until 10 AM they had a popular music request show, called Ad libitum, then they set the "go away" impulse by a formalized announcement: "Radio Brandenburg. For a broadcast of [service of the confession which was in line this week] we now hand over to [West German, i.e. never MDR, ARD institution from where they relayed the broadcast, I think they never ever sent an own OOB van to a church]." (Kai Ludwig, Germany, Jan 21, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** HONDURAS. 3340, Radio Misiones Internacionales, Comayagüela seems irregular although Latin harmonic is omnipresent (Robert Wilkner- Pompano Beach-Southeastern Florida, NRD 535D, R8, 746 Pro, R8, R7, Elliptic Low Pass Audio Filters [Dallas Lankford], DX LISTENING DIGEST) If omnipresent, surely it can be IDed (gh, DXLD) ** HONG KONG. RADIO VERDICT MAY SPARK NEW FIGHT Polly Hui and Jimmy Cheung Jan 21, 2008 The verdict over the extension of a restraining order against unlicensed broadcaster Citizens' Radio today could pave the way for legal challenges from the radio activists against the government. . . http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/SCMP/menuitem.2af62ecb329d3d7733492d9253a0a0a0/?vgnextoid=6940c24f88797110VgnVCM100000360a0a0aRCRD&ss=Hong+Kong&s=News RADIO REBELS TAKE A BREAK IN BROADCAST 'WAR' -- Polly Hui Jan 21, 2008 The rebel broadcasters behind Citizens' Radio announced yesterday the station would stay off the air for three months, but vowed to "declare war" against the government if it did not provide a timetable for amending the Telecommunications Ordinance by April 20. . . http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/SCMP/menuitem.2af62ecb329d3d7733492d9253a0a0a0/?vgnextoid=724afade22897110VgnVCM100000360a0a0aRCRD&ss=Hong+Kong&s=News (via Dan Say, DXLD) {oops, these linx may require subscription --- gh} ** INDIA. AIR SPECIAL BROADCASTS - REPUBLIC DAY 2008 "All India Radio" will broadcast following special programmes in connection with the Republic Day Celebrations. 25 Jan 2008 (Fri) - 1900 IST (1330 UT) onwards : President's Address to the Nation. 9835, 9575, 5015, 6030, 6085 26 Jan 2008 (Sat) - 0920 IST (0350 UT) onwards : Running commentary on the Republic Day Parade and Cultural Pageant from Rajpath Hindi Commentary : 9595, 11620, 15020 English Commentary : 6085, 9950, 11585, 15050 29 Jan 2008 (Tues) - 2200-2230 IST (1630-1700 UT) Radio Report on 'Beating Retreat' ceremony. 7140, 9835, 9575, 6085 Note: 9950 via Aligarh, 15050 via B'lore, all other freq's via Delhi. Consequent to the above special broadcasts there will be changes / cancellation in the schedule of National bulletins in Regional languages, Hindi/English News & Current Affairs programmes. All stations of AIR will relay at least one of these programs. Reception reports to: spectrum-manager @ air.org.in Or can be submitted online at: http://www.allindiaradio.gov.in/recepfdk.html (Alokesh Gupta, New Delhi, Jan 20, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** INDONESIA. 2959,965 13.1 1405 RPDT2 Manggari, Ruteng på ön Flores med stilla ballader. Har hörts ett par gånger fram till cd 15. 1-2 SA 2959.965, 13.1 1405, RPDT2 Manggari, Ruteng on the island of Flores with quiet ballads. Heard a few times until cd at 15. 1-2 SA (Stig Adolfsson, Sweden, translated by editor Thomas Nilsson for DX LISTENING DIGEST) 4869,931 ofta 1345 RRI Wamena har hörts nästan varje dag oberoende av A-index. Stänger med Rayuan Pulau Kelapa runt 14. 2 SA(Stig Adolfsson, Sweden, SW Bulletin Jan 20 via DXLD) 4869.931, often, 1345, RRI Wamena heard almost every day independent of the A-index. Closes with Rayuan Pulau Kelapa around 14. 2 SA (Stig Adolfsson, Sweden, translated by editor Thomas Nilsson for DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** INTERNATIONAL VACUUM [and non]. 6792,5 19.1 0500 Moonbounce. Hördes ganska skapligt hela tiden dom sände, dvs till 0600. Mot slutet hördes dock bara sändningen riktad till månen, inte tillbakastudsen. Moonrise 09:41 on preceding day (Friday). *Moonset 05:42 Saturday*. Moonrise 10:14. Moon transit 20:32. Moonset 06:53 Sunday. Detta förklarar ju varför jag inte hörde något "från månen" den sista kvarten. Månen gick ju ner över horisonten hos mig ca 05:42. AHK 6792.5, 19.1 0500, Moonbounce. Heard quite well all the time, that is until 0600. At the end only the transmission towards the moon was heard, but not the echo. Info: Moonrise 09:41 on preceding day (Friday). *Moonset 05:42 Saturday*. Moonrise 10:14. Moon transit 20:32. Moonset 06:53 Sunday. This explains why I could not hear anything "from the moon" the last quarter. The moon went down below the horizon here at circa 05:42. AHK HAARP Moonbounce experiment: http://www.arrl.org/?artid=7958 (Anders Hultqvist, Sweden, translated by editor Thomas Nilsson for DX LISTENING DIGEST) There were a number of other reports from Europe, some hearing Gakona, but not the echoes, since the Moon was below horizon, not reproduced here. Of course, if the echoes had enough oomph, they could have been ionospherically propagated further around the Earth`s limb (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Fellas, I've uploaded a screen capture from the SDR-IQ and an audio sample of the HAARP moon bounce experiment in the download section of Colin's http://www.dxer.ca Have a look and a listen (plus there are a few more Alaskan stations uploaded recently too) (Walt in Victoria BC Salmaniw, 0129 UT Jan 20, IRCA via DXLD) So concerning the UT Jan 19 event (gh) HAARP VIDEOCLIP --- Here the reception on 7407.5 kHz was not good with a lot of QRN & QSB but for someone interested the short videoclip of reception is available at: http://swli05639fr.blogspot.com/ 73's (Francesco Ceccone, Italy, noticiasdx yg via DXLD) Solar-terrestrial indices for 19 January follow. Solar flux 71 and mid-latitude A-index 9. The mid-latitude K-index at 0600 UTC on 20 January was 3 (25 nT). No space weather storms were observed for the past 24 hours. No space weather storms are expected for the next 24 hours (SWPC via DXLD) The second night of HAARP Moonbounce tests was much less successful, probably due to diminished Earthly ionospheric conditions. 6792.5, Jan 20 at *0629 started hearing carriers on and off, but generally weaker than Jan 19, and could not hear echoes for sure. More QRM from spoilers on nearby frequency such as at 0636, CQ DE WB --- but didn`t copy the rest of the call. 0650 also noted occasional CW and SSB QRM before quitting (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Begin of test at 0630Z UT Jan 20 on 6792.5 heard but somewhat weaker than yesterday, lots more rapid fade on both signals (main and echo). Somewhat better at 0650, still not as good as yesterday but, for a couple of minutes, it seemed the echo was as good as the main, and simulated just a steady tone with a gap of a few hundred ms every couple of seconds at the best point. I can't aurally hear any doppler shift. Everything is done in CW mode of course. Not paying the closest attention as i was looking for insurance contact with FO/OH1RX on 3508 which I got a bit ago, then shut everything off (it's after 2 am). I heard some signals at 0635z QRMing, about 100 Hz off frequency for a little bit, and atmospheric frying sound noise is worse, in addition a cold front came through Fla tonight with lightning - quite rare in Fla in January - to equal most August t-storms. So the band is full of noise. Rx a Kenwood TS-430S and a 20 meter end fed wire /MFJ989C tuner (Bob Foxworth, Tampa, sent 0729Z Jan 20, IRCA via DXLD) At S9 and the echo was heard off and on at about 50% on the test signal. I found the SW EWE did the best as it is not bad for SW. 73, (Patrick Martin, OR, ibid.) Which frequency, what time? (gh, DXLD) Well, no point in sticking around. Compared to last night, conditions are dismal. Tonight, 6792.5 is heard at 20 dB at best above the noise floor, with the moon bounce still audible weakly most times. Sounds a lot like the 2nd hour did on 7 megs last night. I don't think I'll bother to stick around for the next hour. I did notice some SSB interference a few minutes after the start of the broadcast. Otherwise, just mostly a lot of noise and poor propagation tonight (Walt in Victoria BC Salmaniw, 0639 UT Jan 20, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Well, it's mostly coming in fine out here in Alberta. HAARP itself is weaker because I'm beamed at 210 deg rather than 280 like last night but the echoes are often quite strong and once in a while hard to tell from the original HAARP signal. There are quick deep fades as well, more so than last night, where the echo drops out for one pulse but returns by the next one or two. No real interference, an odd pulse and a couple of sweepers going by but very infrequent (Don Moman, IRCA, via DXLD) Tuned in to 6792.5 at 0630Z 1/20/08 for the HAARP test and about fell out of my chair when I heard the lunar echo on the first pulse! The pulses from Alaska were about S-6.5, and the best echoes were up to S- 3. I was getting an echo once out of 10 pulses, then 1 of 20, then 1 of 50, and finally no further echoes for the last 20 minutes. At 0730Z I switched to 7407.5, and this was even better, with an echo for every pulse except for an occasional drop-out. WAY COOL!! Now this is what I call the looooong path - half a million miles, more or less. I don't send many reports these days, but I will report this one. Many thanks to those giving us a heads-up on this. By the way, I don't consider this to be off-topic at all, even if it is SW -- DX is DX (Art Peterson Richmond, CA, CM87tw Winradio G313i, longwire, IRCA via DXLD) It worked for me here in Morro Bay, CA - using a DX440 and 6' whip on my vehicle at 0640 on 6792.5 kHz, I could hear the reflected carrier between the terrestrial transmissions. The signal strength varied in intensity even more than the skywave signal (Darwin Long, ABDX via DXLD) HAARP test noted on 6792.5 at 0630 Jan 20. Transmitted signal sitting nicely above the noise level with one rather weak bounce heard a couple of minutes into transmission. Transmitted signal remained steady throughout broadcast with just the occasional bounce heard at a rather poor level (John Durham, Tauranga, New Zealand, HCDX via DXLD) Didn't send this right away, now 0711 and the echoes have been mostly non existent audibly, and only a faint trace on spectran for the last 10m or so, mainly after the pause at 0700. Wonder if they changed anything as it was fine before then. 4-30 MHz log periodic 35m high, near Edmonton Alberta CANADA; moon is about 60 deg elevation, 220 deg azimuth now (Don VE6JY Moman, AB, 0715 UT Jan 20, UDXF yg via DXLD) HAARP 2nd hour much improved echoes --- Whatever they did (if anything other than change frequency) at 0730 on 7407.5 certainly made a huge improvement over the 0700-0730 time. The echo is often as loud or louder than the incident pulse, at times up to S9. Often I can only tell them apart by the lack of Doppler shift. No interference or noise at all. At 0745 echo has been S9 steady for last 5 minutes, incident about S5 typically (Don VE6JY Moman, AB, Jan 20, UDXF yg via DXLD) MOON, 7407.5 CW, HAARP (HF Active Auroral Research Program), 0730+ 20 Jan. Could (weakly) hear the CW tone at :01-:02 (direct transmission), followed by less than a second of silence and then a (stronger) echo (return bounce) from :03 to :04. The silence between the signal return signal and the start of the next direct transmission seemed just a little longer than the split second between the direct transmission and the return. Both were not very strong and fading was a bit of a problem (Dave Valko, Dunlo PA, HCDX via DXLD) We were out last night and I didn't get home until 11:30 PM PST/0730 UTC so I gave 7407.5 kHz a try and they were there. Weak signal with a string of moon bounces sometimes at the same signal level as the main signal and then a string of missing bounces. Counting this as a utility station. Alaska HAARP 7407.5 kHz CW, two second tone followed by three second break, moon bounces heard maybe 40% of the time and sometimes at equal level, lots of noise and poor signal level (Martin Foltz, Mission Viejo CA, Jan 20, ABDX via DXLD) I got weak copy on the skywave during the first hour, decent skywave copy in the second hour. Sadly, not a hint of moon bounce at any time (Jay Heyl, Orlando FL, ibid.) 6792.5 kHz: Good readability of transmission signal in Kingman, AZ. About ¼ of an S-unit. Unable to detect moonbounce, even after filtering and noise-limiting with Speclab. 7407.5 kHz: Good readability of transmission signal in Kingman, AZ. About ¼ of an S-unit. CAN detect moonbounce, which is about 20-25 db below transmitted signal, yet quite audible. Receiver: Ten-Tex RX-320 Antenna: 700’ north-south longwire. That was fun! (Dave Taylor, Jan 20, UDXF yg via DXLD) Hallo - regarding HAARP, I succeeded only in receiving the signal on both days, and on both frequencies by refraction of the ionosphere, rather than by reflection of the moon. I wrote a seven-paged reception report with some screenshots to HAARP. You can download this PDF of 2 MB at: http://www.4shared.com/dir/5128695/9f289e7a/sharing.html Password: a-dx Directory: Nils, DK8OK [PERSEUS SDR] File: "HAARP DK8OK" Comments are welcome! 73 (Nils, DK8OK, HCDX via DXLD) That HAARP - LWA moon bounce thing I thought this may be interesting to the DXLD group. I didn't get a chance to listen for the HAARP signals myself but found interesting reading from those who did. The second message hints that this weekend's tests are just the beginning of more research to come. 73, de (Nate Bargmann, KS, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Viz.: ----- Forwarded message from Don Jackson AE5K ----- Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2008 01:21:17 -0600 From: Don Jackson AE5K To: 4sqrp discussion list <4sqrp@ae5k.us> Subject: [4SQRP] [Fwd: [qrp-l.org] That HAARP - LWA moon bounce thing] -------- 4 State QRP List :: The Friendly One -------- Since the interest is high on our 4SQRP list and since not everyone subscribes to qrp-l.org list, here's a forward of an interesting message from Paul NA5N: -------- Original Message -------- Subject: [qrp-l.org] That HAARP - LWA moon bounce thing Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2008 22:04:31 -0700 From: Paul Harden, NA5N To: qrp-l@qrp-l.org Gang, For those of you participating in the HAARP moon bounce experiment, or plan to tonight ... thanks. You are participating in "History in the making." There has been no significant scientific investigations into our ionosphere since the 1960s --- not since most commercial communications moved to the higher frequencies. Sure, we know the effects the sun has on our ionosphere and propagation, but it does not explain all of the phenomenon. For example, last week many of you reported great DX in spite of no sunspots. Why? We simply don't know, because so little in known about our ionosphere. Radio astronomy was an accidental discovery in the 1930s by Carl Jansky, a telephone engineer trying to determine the source of noise on HF circuits. This was done at 22 MHz. Since then, radio telescopes operate at L-band (1-2 GHz for the hydrogen spectral line) to 40 GHz, and the millimeter radio telescopes above that. There has been very little investigations at frequencies below 1 GHz. The Long Wavelength Array (LWA) is being designed and built by the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque and the Naval Research Lab (NRL) for frequencies from about 5 to 88 MHz. The prototype array has been built at the Very Large Array (VLA) radio telescope in New Mexico (where I work), giving them some assistance. The LWA will be built primarily for low frequency radio astronomy, such as plasma physics of our sun and galactic center. However, the 2nd major science goal of LWA is to model our ionosphere, something that simply has not been done from a physics point of view. One of the projects of LWA will be to (hopefully) make 3D real time maps of our ionosphere, where the D, E and F layers are, their heights, and as a hopeful predictor of HF propagation. This will be done by HAARP regularly bouncing signals off the moon, which will illuminate the ionosphere. This weekend`s test, plus some unadvertised tests in the past few months, is the first stages in testing the early stages of the LWA prototype array at the VLA, and the science in general. So far, results have been very encouraging. The point is --- this is the first time in our lifetimes that a major scientific instrument is being built to study our ionosphere. When the LWA is completed and science begins, there will no doubt be significant changes to our understanding of the ionosphere. There will probably even be a website somewhere where we, as hams, can see real time images of where the D, E, and F layers are, critical frequencies, etc. Though a few years away, this could well change how hams can predict HF propagation and use the bands. Our involvement (the ham radio community) into this is very important!!! There are only a few instruments able to "listen" to the HAARP signals bouncing back from the moon. This weekend's experiment is also to see what kind of response they get from the ham community. If sufficient with some good quality reports, we as hams may become very involved in this new science in the years to come. I can tell you first hand, the people involved in this project are very aware of the large pool of hams out there, which could be put to use at this program develops. So if you monitor the HAARP/LWA tests yesterday or tonight, please report them. Even if unsuccessful. What is important here, in addition to the reports, is for HAARP/LWA to hear from us hams. We need to let them know we are out here and eager to help. After all, we will likely be the largest body of users in a few years of their product. Who else is using HF on an hourly and daily basis besides hams, the military, and a few others. [LIKE SHORTWAVE LISTENERS, MAYBE, MAYBE??? -- gh] I will try to get permission to get the plots of this test as recorded by the LWA at the VLA and post them on my work website. They really are neat, as some of you have heard yourself. For more information, see: http://www.haarp.alaska.edu/haarp/mbann.html More on this later. 72 [sic], Paul NA5N PS - The timing on your reports is important. HAARP is manipulating their beam, bouncing off different areas of the moon, such that different parts of the sky above our heads are being illuminated. So if you don't hear the signals, keep listening, and they will eventually be illuminating the space above your head. _______________________________________________ http://mail.qrp-l.org/mailman/listinfo/qrp-l_qrp-l.org ______________________________________________________________ 4SQRP Discussion List List Info: http://lists.ae5k.us/listinfo.cgi/4sqrp-ae5k.us Post Message: mailto: 4sqrp@ae5k.us Archives: http://lists.ae5k.us/pipermail/4sqrp-ae5k.us/ 4SQRP Website: http://4sqrp.com (via Nate Bargmann, dxldyg via DXLD) ** IRAN [and non]. 11750, Voice of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Kamalabad; 1343-1400 12 January, 2008. Male announcer in presumed Kazakh (listed), ex-11745, with mentions of Iran and Ahmadinejad, URL (the letters read in English, even the www. portion) at 1357 by female, piano music fill and presumed closing, but clobbered by a big open carrier from 1358, which turned out to be Radio Farda, hogging the channel at first opportunity. :: 11750 GERMANY (CLANDESTINE) Radio Farda, Lampertheim; *1358-1435 12 January, 2008. Carrier on atop VoIRI's presumed closing moments of the Kazakh transmission, audio up at 1400 with ID and news summary in Farsi, into decadent Farsi pop and techo/dance songs, ID between songs. Excellent (Terry L Krueger, Clearwater, Florida, USA, 27.55.83 N, 82.46.08 W, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** IRELAND. Re 8-007, >> 500 kW on 567, but a 10 kW Cork relay on 729, going off too? << Apparently yes. And it also appears that the Cork mediumwave site will be eventually demolished, like the Athlone site which went dark in April 2004: http://www.radiowavesforum.com/rw/showthread.php?t=14273 Spirit Radio, which had been awarded the ex-Athlone frequency 612, has to build an entirely new site: http://lists.radiolists.net/pipermail/broadcast/2007-November/063584.html Nice pictures of Athlone equipment: http://homepage.eircom.net/~totalbroadcast/athlone2.html And a photo of the Tullamore antenna: http://www.panoramio.com/photo/109818 (Kai Ludwig, Germany, Jan 21, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** IRELAND [and non]. Colin Dixon R.I.P. --- I was greatly saddened to learn this morning that Colin Dixon died yesterday, 19th January. An announcement of his death is being carried this morning (Sun) by Roger Davis on Britain Radio International on 6245 kHz. There is also an announcement on the Laser website http://www.laserhot hits.co.uk (below). I first heard Colin back in the 1970s on Radio Gemini - in fact Gemini was the very first shortwave free radio station I wrote to as a boy. More recently Colin was the driving force behind Laser Hot Hits on shortwave and their marathon 24 hour transmissions from Ireland. His death is a great loss to the UK free radio scene and our sincere condolences go out to his family & friends (Alan Pennington, England, Jan 20, BDXC-UK yg via DXLD) from Laser Hot Hits: 20 January 2008 - It is with great sadness that we have to announce that Colin Dixon passed away early yesterday morning. Colin was a major part of Laser Hot Hits and kept the station going through thick and thin. He was always a friendly and helpful person who was greatly respected by all those involved with Laser. We all admired his "can do" attitude, never letting any excuse get in the way from carrying out the more difficult or unpleasant jobs to keep the station on the air. He also had an impressive engineering knowledge that he put to good use building high power valve transmitters for Laser. Many listeners probably know that Colin had a long history in free radio, being involved from the start with the long running SW station Radio Gemini which began back in 1972. Laser Hot Hits then evolved from the last broadcasts of Radio Gemini in the early 1990's. Colin's sudden death has come as a big shock to all of us and he will be irreplaceable. However we shall try to continue for the time being as a tribute to the memory of a great man. On the Sounds page we have added the last show recorded by Colin less than a week ago. This includes an introduction by Martin Scott. RIP Colin (via Pennington, ibid.) OBIT ** ISRAEL. 6972.42, Galei Zahal; 0158-0210 19 January, 2008. ID 0200, male news summary and into Jewrock from 0202. Good (Terry L Krueger, Clearwater, Florida, USA, 27.55.83 N, 82.46.08 W, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** LIBERIA [non]. Star Radio/Cotton Tree News, 9525, 0700 UT. With all the occasional local noise I had this early wee hours, readable signal SINPO 25352. Cut abruptly at 0800, when this teacher/minister seemed to be talking to dumb people with his continuous "ya undastan?" resembling that British influenced style we also have in Limón (Raúl Saavedra, Costa Rica, Jan 20, ICF7600GR + INV "V", dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** MALI. Heard RTM Bamako for the first time on 9635. Music vs commentaries, but doesn't seemed like French or Arabic, but vernacular language. Readable with noise and fading towards 0830 (Raúl Saavedra, Costa Rica, Jan 20, ICF7600GR + INV "V", dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** MICRONESIA. I just received an email from Roland Weibel at The Cross Radio in Micronesia regarding my inquiry about their antenna problem. Roland states: "Thanks for your inquiry. Sorry, we are still off the air with the SW. We don't have the new antenna up yet." Please check our website for info: http://www.pmapacific.org/ministries/radio/shortwave.php Website says: ``Our short-wave station 4755 kHz has been off the air since Oct. 20, 2007. We are changing our antenna and we will be back in January or February 2008. Please check back for updates.`` (Steve Lare, Holland, MI, UT Jan 21, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** MONGOLIA. Voice of Mongolia on MW --- The Russian program from 1100 to 1130 UT is not broadcasted in MW when we monitor in Japan on Jan.19 and 20. Now sked: 0830-0900 Mongolian 0900-0930 Chinese 1000-1030 Mongolian 1030-1100 Chinese (S. Hasegawa, NDXC, Jan 20, DX LISTENING DIGEST) WTFK? Dear Glenn, We can receive at *0830-0930* and *1000-1100* on 990 kHz // 12085 kHz. QRM'ed NHK-JORK Kochi, MBC-HLAP Masan, Shanghai PBS and other Chinese station on same freq. Now sked: 0800-0830 UT Japanese 12085 0830-0900 Mongolian 990, 12085 0900-0930 Chinese 990, 12085 0930-1000 English 12085 1000-1030 Mongolian 990, 12085 1030-1100 Chinese 990, 12085 1500-1530 Japanese 12085 1530-1600 English 12085 (S. Hasegawa, NDXC, ibid.) ** NIGERIA. VON 9690, 0800 Sun.20, with Hausa. First time heard on this frequency, VG signal and in the clear. 7275 in English weak and noisy (Raúl Saavedra, Costa Rica, Jan 20, ICF7600GR + INV "V", dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** OKLAHOMA. OETA TO RESUME OTA HD PROGRAMMING Posted by: Kevin Sherrard on January 3rd, 2008 Yancy writes: Just received an e-mail response from Mark Norman, Deputy Director for OETA. I had written info@oeta.tv to ask about some bit error-induced artifacts that I was experiencing, and the fact that I could not find the OETA-HD channel despite its being listed on their digital television schedule page (after visiting hdtvok.com, I found that OETA-HD only currently exists for Cox Cable customers). Imagine my surprise at receiving an answer from the Deputy Director! Here are some excerpts from that e-mail: “Thanks for your email to OETA. For the last year OETA has been multi- casting or broadcasting four Standard Definition programs since the number of HD programs available to all stations was limited. As of January 6th OETA is excited to report we will be broadcasting one full time HDTV Channel and one SDTV channel. If we receive programs in HD from PBS we will broadcast them on our full-time HDTV Channel. In the spring OETA will be producing many of our local shows such as the nightly news report in HD… “In the future you will see only 13.1 and 13.2 with the 13.1 being an HDTV Channel… He goes on to say that the one remaining SD subchannel will be OETA OKLA. R.I.P. OETA Kids and OETA You! Comments: http://www.hdtvok.com/2008/01/03/oeta-to-resume-ota-hd-programming/#comments (HDTV in Oklahoma blog via DXLD) ** PAPUA NEW GUINEA. 3290, R. Central, 1106 16 Jan, news in Pidgin by M. 1109 studio M but audio too low to copy, and into "Take Me Home, Country Road" by John Denver. One or two other Top 40-like songs, but all the rest were Island Pops. 1157 M with final announcement including what sounded like a mention of NBC, but couldn't really copy. Voice announcements were too weak. 1158 instrumental NA and off. Signal faded slightly after 1130. Was hoping to get a nice recording of s/off (Dave Valko, Dunlo PA, HCDX via DXLD) 3315, R. Manus, 1240-1344 20 Jan. Pop ballad at tune-in, then "You're My Inspiration" by Chicago. 1244 M in Pidgin, mention of Papua New Guinea. More pop music with M host. 1258 TC, mention of NBC and Papua New Guinea. Usual bird call, then native music signature, and into NBC English news by M to 1303, then immediately back to music with oldie- sounding song. Surprised that this continued. Different M at 1316, so maybe a continuation of the NBC relay. Definitely still there at 1344, and what sounded like strains of audio still at 1358 and 1400 which would be pretty decent considering it was almost an hour and a half after sunrise on 90 meters. Once again the MUF was only 5 MHz this morning. S.F. was 71, A Index was 9, and K Index was 3. Very poor conditions (20 Jan.) 73 (Dave Valko, Dunlo PA, HCDX via DXLD) ** PAPUA NEW GUINEA. 7324,956, ibl, 1120, Radio Wantok Light [sic] hörs ibland med engelska religiösa program. 2 SA 7324.956, sometimes, 1120, R. Wantok Light heard once in a while with religious English programs. 2 (Stig Adolfsson, Sweden, SW Bulletin Jan 20, translated by editor Thomas Nilsson for DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** PERU. 3172.36, Radio Municipal, Panao seems off the air 1000 to 1130 and 2300 to 0200 monitoring times. 5486.646, Radio Reyna de la Selva, Chachapoyas, 1125 noted with lively music and excellent signal 15 Jan (Robert Wilkner, Pompano Beach, Southeastern Florida, Jan 20, NRD 535D, R8, 746 Pro, R8, R7, Elliptic Low Pass Audio Filters [Dallas Lankford], DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** RUSSIA. 5960, R. Tikhiy Okean/R. Pacific Ocean, Vladivostok. Not heard during their normal broadcast time (*0935-1000*), nor on 7330, for both Jan 19 and 20. Checked on this as a result of Chuck Bolland reporting to me that he had not heard them since last week. On Jan 5, he had reported a major change in their usual program format. Have they changed frequencies or more likely, are they off the air? Their website http://www.ptr-vlad.ru/tv&radio/listen/ which in the past was fairly current, now has audio files that are out-of-date, October 21 being the most recent date listed (and working), but the live audio streaming for AM 810 is not available. Sent an e-mail to their technical department engineer (Alexey Giryuk), asking what is the situation there. Thanks Chuck for the tip! (Ron Howard, Monterey, CA, Etón E5, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Dear Ron, I monitored 810 kHz on Jan 19 and 20. But, R. Tikhiy Okean was not broadcasted. Carry on Vladivostok local program at 0900-1000 UT (S. Hasegawa, NDXC, ibid.) Maybe the fishing fleet takes a winter break? (gh, DXLD) ** SYRIA. Radio Damascus on internet soon? The Syrian Radio & Television website - http://www.rtv.gov.sy - is now carrying an experimental internet stream of the Saout al-Shabbab (Voice of Youth) program. I was listening today for it for more than an hour and the sound didn't skip or drop once. It looks very promising. I hope the experimental phase will end soon so they can bring Radio Damascus, the international service, online. I am looking forward to listen to Radio Damascus on the internet besides the satellite signal on Hotbird (good audio quality) and the shortwave (which is unfortunately very weak and under-modulated). (Kris, Jan 20, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Beware; I clicked on English, which leads only to a page UC, and then could not get back to the Arabic home page, since apparently a cookie had been dropped for English only. Reopening in another browser, I found the audio link in the upper left corner: mms://63.243.163.195/radio1 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U K. Glenn: Observations on BBCWS's use of Lillibullero, and a link to a raved up version of the BBC television news theme. (That YouTube video links to other YouTube videos of the same Bill Bailey parody.) http://rollo75.blogspot.com/2008/01/horse-845-big-brother-corporation-we.html 73 (Kim Andrew Elliott, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. Some FCC Experimental actions, a few concerning HF, barely: Released: January 4, 2008 Report No. 408 EXPERIMENTAL ACTIONS The Commission, by its Office of Engineering and Technology, Experimental Licensing Branch, granted the following experimental applications during the period from 10/1/07 to 11/1/07: WE2XIV COLLEGE OF MARINE STUDIES, UNIVERSITY OF DELAWARE 0279-EX-PL-2006 New experimental to operate on various frequencies between 25 MHz and 26 MHz for study of ocean surface currents. Mobile: Within a 5 km radius of Cape Henlopen, DE WE2XGW DUPAGE PUBLIC SAFETY COMMUNICATIONS 0653-EX-PL-2006 New experimental to operate on select frequencies from 27.29-806 MHz for testing public safety radio equipment. Mobile Glendale Heights (Du Page), IL (FCC via Glenn Hauser, DXLD) ** U S A. In the 20 years I've been doing this, I'd have to agree. I've been through a couple of inspections with real FCC inspectors, and at both times I was chief operator. I remember Rebecca Wilman from the Denver office really well; she was a stickler and I remember she did give me her office number in Denver and there was a thing or two that she advised me about and told me to call her when they were taken care of. If I recall they were minor things with our transmitter logs and public file and I kinda played the dumb card. Of course negligence is no excuse but she told me to take care of them and call her and I did. I also called her after that to ask about something else and she was helpful. I had wanted clarification on one of the rules or something. I remember the other guy too. He came in, introduced himself. I offered him some coffee, he declined. Then he asked me to run an EBS test (it was still EBS at the time) and I did and then he asked to see the public file and I showed it to him and that was that. He didn't even peek around back and look at the tower or the fence or anything. Here in Wyoming about 10 years ago, the Wyoming Association of Broadcasters (WAB) started a mock inspection program. Ken Benner - who is a retired FCC inspector, visits each station once a year for a "mock inspection" (and believe me he is MUCH MORE of a stickler than a real inspector) and then if all is well and everything is good, he issues an official certificate that we put in a frame on the wall. This last time when he was here, late last summer, we didn't pass. We are missing our NRSC inspections plus with all the LMA crap with the FM we are leasing right now, there was lots missing from the FM's public file. Once we get it all taken care of, he'll issue us our certificates. Main point is, since WAB introduced the mock inspection program, we rarely get bothered anymore. Honestly we've HEARD when FCC was in the area a few times over the last 10 years but they've never popped in. Evanston, Wyoming is quite a haul; heck, this END of our state is quite a haul for the inspectors and there really has to be reports of something wrong for them to come all the way out here. Evanston is right on the borderline between districts. We are in the Denver district and in the meantime, 3 miles west across the state line into Utah, anything past that point is in the San Francisco district. Some interesting food for thought. Maybe other state broadcasters associations should have mock inspection programs. Then again, big conglomerates (whose names I will not mention for fear of starting wars) in big markets would probably throw money at the mock inspectors to get them to pass their stations. Meanwhile there are mom-and-pop operations like us that bust our a$$es to make sure we're compliant. Especially in this day and age of all the rimshots and stations licensed to towns that are barely more than a house along a highway. I just can't see how they pass. Especially the part about quarterly issues and concerns; they usually address the city of license. And when the city of license is a house, a gas station, and a few cows --- grrrrr --- sorry, I will stop. There is a great question for Rebecca Wilman. I ought to call her and ask her about that and how all these stations get away with proving concern for their COL when the COL is a podunk town of 150 people and you know damn good and well they don't give a rat's patout about them. I think these big conglomerates have some sort of advantage. How come it's usually small-town small operation stations that get fined? Why do they pick on student-run stations and yet only occasionally you'll see a story about a CCU or Citadel or Bonneville station getting fined?? Oh, I said I was going to stop. Sorry again :) All that being said, it's repeated violations that will get ya a fine. Especially if you've been warned and still not done anything about it or they have proof of deliberate violations (Michael n Wyo Richard, KEVA, ABDX via DXLD) Pretty much every state broadcasters association I know of does have an ABIP (alternative broadcast inspection program). The inspector for New York is a good friend of mine, and he takes what he does VERY seriously. You either pass, or you don't. Keep in mind that the ABIP program operates under official FCC sanction - if you pass an ABIP inspection, the FCC won't subject you to a random inspection of its own for the next three years. (They'll still come visit if they believe there's cause, though.) The FCC doesn't have the resources to keep the kind of tabs on 30,000+ broadcast facilities (TV, LPTV, AM, FM, LPFM, translators of all stripes) that it should. So it goes after what's easiest to inspect - you can check for missing issues lists or the lack of an ASRN number much more easily than you can check for a DA that's out of whack or a ground system that's corroded into oblivion. It's true that most of what's in the public file is completely irrelevant - but it's also true that the big guys, for the most part, understand how the game is played. If the FCC's checking for issues lists, they make sure they have issues lists. They tend not to get fined because they're good at being compliant in the areas where the FCC likes to issue fines. A lot of the student-run stations literally have NOBODY around who understands what the rules require, and as a result they get burned. (Or they have a problem with lack of institutional memory - one student GM does a good job maintaining the public file during her year in office, and then the next GM gets careless and tosses the whole thing in the trash while cleaning the studio a year later.) Yes, it sucks. I quite agree. On the other hand, there's really no shortage of resources to help anyone (especially student stations) who want to get it right. The college broadcasters associations (IBS and CBI) provide lots of assistance to their members, as do the state broadcasters associations. And a lot of the commercial engineers I know have "adopted" student stations, helping them to stay compliant. Absolutely true - and the flip side is, if you've maintained a clean record during your current license term, the FCC will almost always at least reduce a fine. The field inspectors pretty much know who's running a clean shop and who isn't, and they know who has the resources to do it right and who doesn't. It's very, very, very rare to see the field inspectors bothering the student-run stations, and when they do it's as much educational as anything else. The problem with the "check-box fines" is that they're handled above the field-inspector level, and they're handled in a way that doesn't allow much leeway - either your public file is complete (or at least you say it is), or you've got a $7000 fine to pay. s (Scott Fybush, ibid.) ** U S A. ON RADIO: FCC TAKES AIM AT LOCAL RADIO --- PROPOSAL MAY CHANGE HOW AREA BROADCASTERS OPERATE --- By BILL VIRGIN, P-I REPORTER Lost in the uproar over the Federal Communications Commission's changes to media ownership rules last month was another proposal, voted on the same day, that could actually have bigger implications for radio station operators and listeners. Unfortunately, few people outside the FCC's five members know exactly what it was the commission approved Dec. 18 regarding local content and operation of radio and television stations. The FCC hasn't yet posted the findings of its report on localism or details of its proposed rule-making notice on its Web site; the only clues are in the FCC's own vague news release and the official statements from the commissioners themselves. The FCC release mentions only a proposal that radio stations set up permanent community advisory boards and that the commission adopt "renewal application processing guidelines that will ensure that all broadcasters provide some locally oriented programming." "We tentatively conclude that all broadcasters must air a certain amount of local programming," FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said in his statement. But how would that obligation be fulfilled? . . . http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/tv/347616_radiobeat17.html (via Dennis Vroomski, WA, IRCA via DXLD) ** U S A. FCC closes pirate Humboldt Free Radio Alliance http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/01/19/18473509.php FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Thursday, January 16th 2008 H.F.R.A. Press Contact James Bones, (707) 616-7204 F.C.C. PULLS PLUG ON H.F.R.A. RADIO FREE-RADIO PIRATES REMAIN DETERMINED On Sunday, December 16, the Federal Communication Commission paid a surprise visit to the Humboldt Free Radio Alliance studio wielding a cease operations order. Two agents, reportedly from San Francisco’s FCC office, delivered the order in response to an unspecified complaint. The agents did not confiscate any studio equipment and left without verifying the exact location of the studio. The in-studio D.J shut down the transmitter and contacted other HFRA members. Because of the visit, the station is off the air until further notice. This is not the first time the FCC has tried to curtail the 45-watt transmission from this small radio station. At least two other visits have been made over the last several years never resulting in a significant shutdown of HFRA. “We are usually able to get back on the air a couple days after the FCC visits, but this hiatus will be prolonged because we have to find a new studio.” says Downbeat, a long time HFRA member. In addition to the cease operations order, the FCC contacted the owner of the property and the property management company of the studio’s location. “ That is the first time the FCC has gone after the property owners when trying to shut us down.” laments a DJ who broadcasts under the name Ann Archy. The Humboldt Free Radio Alliance has broadcast without a license in the Humboldt Bay area since 1999. It is part of a long tradition of free-radio activists broadcasting in Humboldt County going back to the early nineties. In recent years, HFRA moved to 99.9 FM where it broadcasts Thursdays through Sundays. “We believe that local communities should dictate the content of their airwaves. Out of touch bureaucracies like the FCC base their actions and laws around the profit gains of big media, not free speech.” asserts DJ Thrash, who broadcasts several hours a week on HFRA. The FCC crackdown on HFRA came two days before FCC chairman Kevin Martin pushed through a ruling that loosened media ownership regulations allowing media companies to further consolidate control in local markets. Thrash indignantly adds, “Can you believe the nerve? Harassing our small community station with one hand while stroking the pockets of media giants with the other. This is exactly why HFRA and other low power stations are more important than ever.” Despite the setback, HFRA is determined to continue broadcasting in Humboldt County, however they remain off the air until a new home for their studio is found. Downbeat claims with confidence “ We not only plan to remain on the air in defiance of the FCC order, but we intend to expand our radio transmission so we can reach more Humboldt Bay communities.” He adds, “ We are an all-volunteer collective that needs financial and community support from individuals and businesses alike.” For more information about Humboldt Free Radio Alliance call (707) 407-9211 or e-mail HFRA999 [at] yahoo.com (via Kevin Redding, ABDX via DXLD) Geez, how provincial. There are over 3 kilocounties in the USA, and they assume everyone knows where Humboldt County is? Around Eureka, California on the NW coast (gh, DXLD) ** U S A. MAGAZINE CANCELS AWARD FOR SHOCK-TALK PIONEER --- By Paul Farhi Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, January 19, 2008; C01 Never at a loss to find things to fume about, some of the nation's radio talk-show hosts are now fuming about the treatment of one of their own -- a controversial talk personality whose lifetime achievement award was suddenly revoked this week by an industry trade magazine. Several hosts, most prominently Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh, have been howling in recent days about Radio & Records magazine's second thoughts about bestowing the award on Bob Grant, a legendary New York broadcaster who helped pioneer the outrageous, combative style that has dominated talk radio for decades. Grant, 78, was set to receive the accolade in March at a conference sponsored by the magazine in Washington. That is, he was until Radio & Records heard from a longtime Grant nemesis named Scott Pellegrino. Upon learning of the magazine's plans earlier this week, Pellegrino sent e-mails to about 70 of its employees and various executives of its parent company, the Nielsen Co. The e-mails highlighted some of Grant's more unsavory comments over the years, including a series of racially insensitive statements that culminated in his firing by a New York station more than a decade ago. The e-mails appear to have sparked a backlash against Grant within the company -- a reaction that parallels the revolt within NBC and CBS Radio last year that led to Don Imus's firing for comments about the Rutgers women's basketball team (Imus was recently hired by WABC, the same station that fired Grant in 1996 and rehired him in August of last year.) . . . http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/18/AR2008011803345_pf.html (via Mike Cooper, DXLD) ** U S A. WAKR 1590 verification signer --- Guys, If any of you need a verification from WAKR 1590 (Akron, Ohio), I am the v/s. I process the reception reports for the station and am a long-time employee. Feel free to e-mail correct reception reports (with names of PSAs or commercials and times/dates) *or* recorded "aircheck" off the radio to me, and I'll be happy to send you a verification letter, station coverage map, and other station stuff. We do not keep music-title lists of songs played, so song titles really doesn't reveal much, unfortunately. E-mail: kd8gz @ hotmail.com WAKR's format is "News, Sports, Oldies". We're all news/information Monday-Saturdays 5-9 am, and carry pro baseball, basketball, football, Ohio State Football, and high school sports (mostly evenings), but am oldies the rest of the time (9am-5am [sic]). The format is heavily 1960's and 1970's oldies and is 100% locally- programmed with local hosts/DJ's, a rarity these days, especially on AM. Check out the station's website: http://www.wakr.net Have been an AM & shortwave DXer since the early 1960's, and a ham since 1982. Recently bought a little Sony SRF-59 and find it a really amazing little radio, especially for a tiny thing that's well under $20.00 US! 73's, (Tim Davisson, KD8GZ, Norton, Ohio, USA (Akron suburb), Jan 19, ODXA yg via DXLD) ** U S A. Re WBIX 1060 MA, upcoming DX test --- WBIX may not be unique in using TWO diplexed AM transmitter sites, but it is certainly unusual! Actually, the day site is triplexed --- albeit not for much longer. It was originally the site of WKOX Framingham (originally 1190 but for the last 23 years, 1200). WKOX is nearing completion of a new five-tower triplexed site in Newton from which it will run 50 kW-U DA- 2 from three towers, WUNR 1600 (the current occupant of the Newton site) will run 20 kW DA-1 from five towers, and WRCA 1330 will run 25 kW-D/17 kW-N from five towers days and four towers nights. The other station at the current two-tower WKOX/WBIX (D) site in Framingham is WSRO 650 Ashland 250W-D/9W-N ND-U. WSRO is co-owned with WBIX. WBIX may also be unique in using two multiplexed sites with greater- than-half-wave towers at each one. The night site, which is diplexed with WAMG 890 Dedham, contains a five-tower in-line array with 540' towers 205.5 degrees high at 1060. The two day towers in Framingham are 440' high and are top-loaded to an electrical height of 189 degrees at 1060. The height of the towers was very important in the design of the station. The primary protection is to co-channel Class A KYW Philadelphia, which is less than 300 miles from WBIX and itself has a deep minimum to the northeast to protect first-adjacent WEPN 1050 New York City. WBIX was "dropped into" that minimum. Because of the short distance between WBIX and KYW, high-angle skywave is critical. The highly efficient tall towers significantly reduce high-angle radiation, thus relaxing the required depth of the groundwave minimum toward KYW. Nevertheless, the design and tuning of WBIX's five-tower night array was an incredible engineering challenge that actually came-a-cropper for about 15 years and resulted in what is now WBIX going dark for several years in the '90s after what had been its tenant, the 890 station, evicted it from the site that the 1060 station had built for its own full-time use in the early '80s. WBIX returned to that site for nighttime operation a few years ago after the redesigned phasing system was finally made to operate within spec at night. In part, this success became possible by detuning a high-voltage ac transmission line that runs north and south about a mile east of the site. WBIX is also unusual in having two day patterns. To protect KYW from daytime skywave, the 22-kW CH pattern has a deeper minimum to the southwest than the mid-day pattern. When WBIX relocated its day facilities to Framingham, it had to use the towers that already existed at the WKOX site. WKOX had already tried unsuccessfully to get a building permit to modify the tower configuration to enable its own power increase and had been rebuffed by the Town of Framingham. Had WKOX's southeast tower been 9 degrees (approximately 30') clockwise of its actual location, WBIX would be able to run 40 kW all day, although I suspect that it still would have to have separate D and CH patterns to fill in the minimum to the southwest to the maximum extent permissible at midday. Anyhow, I hope that folks who were unaware of WBIX's state-of-the-art engineering will now take even more pleasure from DXing this unusual station next month. ----- (Dan Strassberg, NRC-AM via DXLD) ** U S A. IN LIFE, MUSIC HAS A SPECIAL PLACE. IT SHOULD IN RADIO By David Duff How does one make the case for music on public radio? As we’ve just passed the 40th anniversary of the bill that established public radio, I find it disconcerting that our stations are drop-ping music as a format more often than they add it. For much of its existence, public radio was the place to go for diverse kinds of music. In too many cities, that isn’t the case today. Most communities count themselves lucky if they have one public station that airs classical music or jazz for even part of the day, much less 24 hours a day. Many markets, including some major ones, do without any kind of music on public radio. . . http://www.current.org/music/music0723classical-duff.pdf (Current Dec 17 via DXLD) ** U S A. SHEPARD REVIVES WEEKLY NPR OMBUDSMAN'S COLUMN "My job is not to advocate for NPR," writes new NPR Ombudsman Alicia Shepard in her first web column. "My job is to explain NPR to the public and the public's concerns to NPR." . . . http://www.npr.org/ombudsman/2008/01/welcome_to_my_world_1.html (Current Jan 14 via DXLD) ** U S A. The first TV station in Grand Junxion, KREX-5, burned down Jan 20. Here`s a video & audio report by their competitor KJCT-8: http://tinyurl.com/37gxeb (Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** VENEZUELA. 5000/AM, YVTO Caracas Venezuela; 1100, 13-Jan; Spanish time station announcement starts at Minute + :43 [seconds] with "Caracas Venezuela" before WWVH starts announcement (Harold Frodge, MI DXPedition, MARE Tipsheet via DXLD) ** VENEZUELA. In the Elcor reference list at http://www.elcor.org/refam.html this really caught my eye: Radio Nacional Venezuela 1 x 1000 kW (AM) Ever put on air, frequency, etc., etc.??? A web search with "1000 kW" did not bring up anything (Kai Ludwig, Germany, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) I believe it was to be on 1240 kHz (yes, a graveyard in NAm terms), and there was quite a story of mismanagement, etc., keeping it from being realized (Glenn, ibid.) ** WESTERN SAHARA [non]. 6300, ALGERIA, (CLANDESTINE) Radio Nacional de la República Arabe Saharaui Democrática; 2344-0002* 20 January, 2008. Nice local Saharan vocals, brief talk by oddly-accented Spanish dude punctuated with fragments of a Muzak version of "Unchained Melody" until closing ID in Spanish at 0000, brief anthem and off. Excellent (Terry L Krueger, Clearwater, Florida, USA, 27.55.83 N, 82.46.08 W, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) UNIDENTIFIED. Re 8-007, ETHIOPIA, 1044 kHz: Dear Björn, I didn't hear anything yesterday 19th January except presumed Morocco with Koran at 2357, very weak. The station I had last spring was very strong here and did not have any talk at all, not even at TOH. I suspect that the station you heard now could be Morocco after all. Maybe you have an audio clip of the speech part so we could try to find someone to recognise the language? The Mekele project may have been delayed still further. 73, (Mauno Ritola, Finland, HCDX via DXLD) Morocco and Ethiopia are at widely divergent angles from Sweden. Surely a bit of direxion-finding can rule out one or the other. Hmmm, seems like I pointed this out before... 73, (Glenn, ibid.) Hi all, Thanks for trying to help me with this UNID broadcaster. Yes, Glenn, I believe that you have said it before. I am quite sure that it is the same station that I heard last February = one year ago. To Mauno: I haven't got any electronic equipment like Mp3, but an oldfashioned cassette recorder, where parts of the broadcast has been recorded by me. I haven't been able to check any details yet, because the connection to the suitable earphone are broken. I hope to be able to listen to the cassette at the end of the coming week. If there is anything useful I'll send it to you, ordinary posted. OK? Maybe Max's recording is better and I look forward to get an audio-file, which I am able to listen to via my computer. So, maybe together we can solve this mystery, which seems as mysterious as it was one year ago. The theories are many - I hope there will be only one solution, the correct one! 73 from (Björn Fransson, Sweden, ibid.) UNIDENTIFIED. Hi. Thanks for this great resource. I heard some very interesting and powerful signals going from about 2400 to 14000, every 100 kHz or so. They were blasting right over many normally scheduled programs. Did anybody else hear these? (Andrew Robertson in Portland, OR, Jan 19, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Andrew, Could you give us the times this was happening, and describe the signals? I would suspect this was of local origin. Have you kept hearing them? (Glenn to Andrew, ibid.) This was at about 2:30 am Pacific time [1030 UT]. It did essentially blanket the whole spectrum. The signal was s9, and it was spaced at 100 kHz increments. The signal was broadcast on all these signals simultaneously e.g. 2435, 2535 kHz, and every 10th or 12th signal raised by 105 kHz instead of 100 kHz. The signals were about 15 kHz wide, leaving some space available for other programming. It did completely destroy my ability to hear anything on the same frequencies, even with the attenuator on full. However other programs that were more than 10 kHz or so away from the signals were fine. This was with an Icom ic-r3. Halted about 3:30 am [1130 UT]. I am hoping I hear it again soon, as I have a directional antenna (Andrew Robertson, ibid.) UNIDENTIFIED. 4900, Continuous time pips, 1120 to 1135 18 Jan (Robert Wilkner, Pompano Beach, Southeastern Florida, NRD 535D, R8, 746 Pro, R8, R7, Elliptic Low Pass Audio Filters [Dallas Lankford], DX LISTENING DIGEST) IIRC, YVTO has put out spurs here and on 5100, // that? (gh, DXLD) UNIDENTIFIED. 6335, 19/1 1645, Voice of Turkey - EE/Turco ID e MX (guarda caso sulla stessa frequenza della Voice of Iraqi Kurdistan ) buono (Roberto Pavanello, Italy, shortwave yg via DXLD) V. of Kurdistan has a new English broadcast at 1600-1700 on 6335. Surely that is what you really heard, not V. of Turkey, which does not have English at that time, nor use that frequency (Glenn Hauser, ibid.) Roberto confirms he listened a clear ID "Voice of Turkey" (Roberto Scaglione, ibid.) V. of Turkey has a time-filler recording of all their language IDs one after another, including English, lasting about 2 minutes, which they play in virtually every English broadcast, and I assume probably also in the other language broadcasts. This could explain English heard at an odd time, IF it was nothing but an ID, with IDs in other languages before and after. I have looked up the frequencies in use from Emirler site at 1645 and find they are: in Turkish: 5980, 6165, 7190. In Arabic: 6175, 11945. Çakirlar is also on in Turkish, 6120. Trying to compute a leapfrog mixing product, however, I don`t find any of these working out to 6335. The lower one would have to end in -5 and the middle one in -0, anyway to land on a frequency ending in -5. Or all of them end in 5, and we have only 6165 and 6175 to work with there. Another explanation could be that Turkey has decided to jam a frequency of the Kurds, with whom they are not on the best of terms, but you`d think they would not give their own ID in doing so. And then too a Euro-pirate could be playing around. Was V. of Kurdistan not heard at all on this occasion? Voice of Turk--- could sound a lot like Voice of Kurd--- Hope you can monitor this again and perhaps record it. 73, (Glenn Hauser, ibid.) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ UNSOLICITED TESTIMONIALS ++++++++++++++++++++++++ Thanks for your efforts to inform the world listeners, good wishes to continue in ``eternum`` ! I enclose a little money offer for your great service. Thanks again for your activity --- if WRTH is the Dxer Byble, you are surely Mr. Mosè of the DXing! I am waiting the `DABUU` govern will go to the hell, and a new govern will change the foreign worldwide aggressive politic of US. I hope not to be too optimistic, maybe with ``Walker Texas Ranger`` as new foreign minister --- hi! Best regards and good monitoring (Dario Monferini, Italy) Glenn: You do your typically great job on almost all issues of DX Listening Digest, but this one [8-007] is special to me. You did a great job covering the HAARP transmission, and several other things. I wanted, however, to raise one point with you— [about DRM --- see DIGITAL BROADCASTING] Keep up the good work, Glenn, the hobby needs people like you to keep getting the message out. 73 (Dan Henderson, Laurel, Maryland, Jan 20, DX LISTENING DIGEST) PUBLICATIONS ++++++++++++ SHORTWAVEOLOGY In this listening log, I’ll muse over the state of shortwave, and other forms of long distance broadcasting as they bump up against the digital age. As often as possible, I’ll incorporate “catch ‘o the day,” for some snap cracklin’ audio fresh off the shortwave bands, or served on ice from our archive. http://www.shortwaveology.com/ (David Goren, Jan Radio HF Internet Newsletter via DXLD) CONVENTIONS & CONFERENCES +++++++++++++++++++++++++ Northern Ireland Codes & Ciphers Please find below the full programmes of events regarding the first ever Codes and Ciphers week to be held in Northern Ireland. Robert A WEEK OF LECTURES AND WORKSHOPS ON CODES, CIPHERS AND SPYING (All events are free of charge to the general public and held at the Somme Heritage Centre unless specified otherwise. No booking is required but admittance is on a first come first served basis.) Monday 11th February 3:00 p.m. 'The art of spying' - a general talk including stories about some famous/infamous spies by John Alexander. 7:30 p.m. 'Enigma and Friends' - a specialised talk given by John Alexander that is suitable for radio 'hams' and the technically- minded. Tuesday 12th February 2:30 p.m. 'Communications and Spying through the Ages' - a general talk on the history of spying by Ian Foulkes. 7:30 p.m. 'World War 2: Communications, Codes and Deception' - a general talk on how coded messages were sent to agents behind enemy lines and the deception of Operation Fortitude by Ian Foulkes and John Alexander. This talk will be held at Coleraine Town Hall. 7:30 p.m. Code breaking workshop - an interactive session on breaking codes from around the world - suitable for all ages with Vicky Worpole. Wednesday 13th February 3:00 p.m. 'World War 2: Communications, Codes and Deception' - a general talk on how coded messages were sent to agents behind enemy lines and the deception of Operation Fortitude by Ian Foulkes and John Alexander. 7:30 p.m. 'Communications in World War 1, the Royal Signals Regiment and the work of Room 40' - a general talk by Ian Foulkes and John Alexander. Thursday 14th February 7:30 p.m. 'World War 2: Communications, Codes and Deception' - a general talk on how coded messages were sent to agents behind enemy lines and the deception of Operation Fortitude by Ian Foulkes and John Alexander. This talk will be held at Ballyearl Leisure Centre, Newtownabbey. 7:30 p.m. Code breaking workshop - an interactive session on breaking codes from around the world - suitable for all ages with Vicky Worpole. Friday 15th February 10:00 a.m. An Enigma machine and other coding and spy equipment will be on display at the museum until lunch time. John Alexander is a leading private collector of coding machines and lectures extensively on the mainland. Ian Foulkes is a Museum Warden and lecturer at the Royal Signals Museum, Blandford. Vicky Worpole is the Education Officer at Bletchley Park. The museum will be closed to the general public each morning, Monday to Thursday, so that a spying exercise designed for primary school pupils called 'Operation Whitespots' can take place. Two new exhibitions will also be on display at the museum The first is the story of the alleged German spy who lived in the Whitespots area, near Conlig, during World War 1 and the second is the remarkable untold work during World War 2 and beyond of the Gilnahirk Wireless Station. The enigma machine will be on view throughout the week. Sponsored by the Northern Ireland Museums Council and funded by the Big Lottery Fund (via Robert Connolly, GI7IVX, monitoringmonthly yg via DXLD) RADIO EQUIPMENT FORUM +++++++++++++++++++++ WE KNOW THAT WE DON'T KNOW: NATIONAL REPORT CALLS FOR MORE RESEARCH ON HEALTH EFFECTS OF WIRELESS TECHNOLOGIES http://www.vidyya.com/vol10/v10i20_5.htm (via Gerald T. Pollard, NC, DXLD) List of ELCOR transmitters delivered http://www.elcor.org/references.html Listing the AM/SW/FM transmitters delivered by Elcor, Costa Rica. Unfortunately only in country-order, no years specified. On shortwave page, one 50 kW marked Ideas, Kenya is most probably the one installed at New Site in southern Sudan, which made some low power tests couple of years ago (Voice of New Sudan). Transported to Sudan via Kenya (Jari Savolainen, Kuusankoski, Finland, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) see also VENEZUELA YouTube VIDEO COVERS WW2 RADAR TO COLD WAR SPY PLANES A 56 minute long Google Tech Talk presentation deals with the largely unrecognised work of Fred Terman whose favourite hobby as a boy was Amateur Radio. See YouTube - The Secret History of Silicon Valley http://www.southgatearc.org/news/january2008/silicon_valley.htm 73 (Trevor M5AKA, Jan 19, monitoringmonthly yg via DXLD) 69 WORKERS TO BE CUT IN GROVEPORT [OH] RADIO SHACK WAREHOUSE CLOSING Thursday, January 17, 2008 - 10:22 AM EST Electronics retailer RadioShack Corp. plans to close its Groveport distribution center April 25 in a measure that will eliminate 69 jobs. In a notice filed with the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, the company said it will begin cutting employees in late April from the facility at 4343 Williams Road, about six miles north of Rickenbacker International Airport. Senior Director Jeffrey Bland said in the notice that the company will keep some workers to transfer inventory and close the 260,000-square-foot facility, which has been open since the 1970s. All employees are expected to be gone by the end of May. . . http://charlotte.bizjournals.com/columbus/stories/2008/01/14/daily20.html (via Dave Zantow, Janesville WI, DXLD) RADIO SHACK: JULIAN DAY HARDLY MATTERS (RSH) --- January 04, 2008 When it comes to second tier electronics sellers, 2007 was not the greatest year and 2008 has these all hitting 52-week lows as well. Today shares of Radio Shack (NYSE: RSH) are getting crushed by more than 5% down to $15.15, and the 52-week trading had been $16.03 to $35.00. Yep $35.00. If you will go back to summer of 2006 you will see that in the 18- months prior period that this slid from the $30's down to $15.00 and briefly under. Then it hired turnaround expert Julian Day as Chairman & CEO and the shares barely saw a $15.00 handle on the stock after that. He came in and worked his magic and shares were back up to $20.00 before the end of 2006. Then shares came back down a bit but shares climbed rapidly during 2007 back up to $35.00 before selling off in the summer. . . http://www.247wallst.com/2008/01/radio-shack-jul.html (via Dave Zantow, Janesville WI, DXLD) I was wondering what a certain calendar had to do with this (gh) DIGITAL BROADCASTING ++++++++++++++++++++ HDTV: see OKLAHOMA FRANCE DRM WIPES OUT BELARUS ANALOG IN BELARUS I continue to be amazed at the perseverance of the DRM manufacturers. They are pushing this technology so much, it seems, as if the receivers that are out there particularly in the 3rd world are equipped to receive them — Have you ever done an honest-to-goodness survey as to just How many receiver manufacturers have DRM capable receivers on the market, and just how many people are being reached by these broadcasts? And at what price they are being reached? I dare say that based upon what I’ve seen, even most NEW receivers don’t have DRM capabilities, and besides the improved S/N ratios required to receive them without breakup due to the FM characteristics, what will be the impact on the market? We already know what the impact is on the reception of stations in the near-frequency region of DRM broadcasts --- a great example is a tiny (5 kW) transmitter in Belarus used for a local broadcast of Radio Brest on 6010 kHz every day. People tell me that the DRM broadcast that is provided by TDP radio from France on 6015 from 0800 to 1600 essentially prevents this station from even starting to broadcast to its local population until after it goes off at 1600 --- and guess when the Brest transmitter comes on --- from 1600 to 1800 daily, after the DRM broadcast goes off. And I wonder just how many receivers in Belarus even have a DRM capability? Probably only some geeks who like to play around with receivers. Anyway, the impact of these broadcasts are to force the local guys off SW to some other medium (typically FM these days), but in some countries this medium is not sufficient due simply to the laws of physics --- and even the DRM guys can’t get past that. Again, just a musing of an old guy who have watched technology from a broadcasting perspective change so much over the past 50 years or so, and in some cases, NOT to the benefit of the people impacted --- only to those who want to make money; sort of like the people who build housing developments and malls in the US: they control the money for the development, but they don’t live themselves anywhere NEAR that development so it does not impact them personally (Dan Henderson, Laurel, Maryland 20723-1136 USA, Jan 20, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Cam-D vs IBOC FRIENDS OF WRATH 12/31/2007 HAPPY NEW YEAR wrathofkahn.org: Where the Truth Comes First [I tire of removing all the [...] and replacing them by dashes or semicolons, or just one period, as appropriate; what a crutch, instead of using proper punxuation. [...] should be reserved to show something has been omitted, not the case in this piece, or to lead into a URL for continuation of an abbr`d item --- gh] But what a challenging year... 2007 started with only a handful of true friends, including the best group of KCI veterans and a few really, really loyal true Cam-DTM engineering believers and almost no one believed that a complex legal case that was already thrown out of the NY Federal District Court could ever get the Court of Appeals in NY to spend real time on it as it was so overloaded with 9/11/01 cases and Guantanamo Bay and all that corruption on Wall Street... But then just in November the FCC lawyers and engineering "buerats" ... I always have trouble spelling that word... Really, really stuck their foot in it... And accepted my challenge and forced iBOC AM stations to go on at night... And then the rational iBOC stations, led by ABC turned the darn thing off... Even NPR stations that are paid not only to install iBOC but are paid to promote, "propagandize" it, turned it off... This includes the mighty bunch of NYC stations... WABC, WCBS, WNYC, WADO (biggest Spanish and a former KCI PS station) and WFAN... BUT not the biggest butt in NYC, WOR thanks to its engineer, who always is so helpful.... now reminding people all over the East Coast just how bad iBOC +/- 30 kHz from 710 kHz is and how it decimates WOR's own reception, even in nearby Hartford. And then came the wonderful turn around in the Courts... Notice how quiet RW and even M Street is and how about that WSJ... That great defender of the First Amendment... Free press that somehow always protects the big lobbyists... NOT A WORD about the major Court action not a word about the engineering iBOC Disaster... So how come KCI enjoyed the slow but sure advance of Cam-D... Well just a handful of smart guys who knew over double their coverage would at least double the value of their stations. Sure enough Cam-D grew greatly in '07... Unfortunately, probably the smartest such broadcast operator, Mr. Otto Miller died, at just 59 years old. Otto kept buying stations with highly leveraged money all over the USA... each time in a larger market... The only thing wrong with Otto was he was most intense in his negotiations... made me sound like I was gentle... And two weeks after I warned him that he was getting worse and he promised he would calm down, Otto dropped dead during a very nasty conversation with a lady who loved him... Otto was a good looker... and didn't realize ladies didn't mean to hurt him. That last conversation I had was to finalize the Cam-D deal and No he could not get "at least some discount" for a new Cam-D Box... a doggy station that would now cover Mew York City, even at night... Anyway, we expect to finally get into the Big Apple in '08... So those ad agencies will hear how great Ancient Modulation can really sound like. Cam-D isn't always reliable. A Confession . . . http://www.wrathofkahn.org/ (Leonard Kahn, early Jan; if you are trying to look this up later you`ll have to go to his Previous Weeks link; via gh, DXLD) PROPAGATION +++++++++++ Solar-activity forecast for the period Jan 18 - 24, 2008 Activity level: predominantly very low Radio flux (10.7 cm): a fluctuation in the range 66-75 f.u. Flares: weak (0-3/day) Relative sunspot number: in the range 0-15 Astronomical Institute, Solar Dept., Ondrejov, Czech Republic e-mail: sunwatch(at)asu.cas.cz (RWC Prague) _________________________________________________________________ Geomagnetic activity forecast for the period Jan 18 to Jan 24, 2008 quiet: Jan 20 to 24 quiet to unsettled: Jan 18 and 19 unsettled: 0 active: 0 minor storm: 0 major storm: 0 severe storm: 0 Geomagnetic activity summary: geomagnetic field was quiet on Jan 10 and 11, quiet to unsettled on Jan 15, unsettled on Jan 12, 13 and 16, unsettled to active on Jan 14. RWC Prague, Geophysical Institute Prague, Geomagnetic Dept, Czech Republic e-mail: geom(at)ig.cas.cz _________________________________________________________________ Geomagnetic activity forecast for the period of one solar rotation unsettled to active: Jan 19, Feb 3, 6, 11 active to disturbed: Jan (18,) Feb (1-)2, 4, (8-9,) 10, (12) quiet: Jan (20,) 21-23, (24-25,) 26-31, Feb (5,) 7 Survey: quiet on: Jan 10 mostly quiet on: Jan 9, 11 quiet to unsettled on: Jan 15 quiet to active on: Jan 12-13 quiet to disturbed on: Jan 14 mostly unsettled on: Jan 16 Notice: Days in brackets refer to a lower probability of possible solar activity enhancements depending on previous developments on the sun. F. K. Janda, OK1HH, Czech Propagation Interested Group e-mail: franta.janda(at)quick.cz (via DXLD) ###