DX LISTENING DIGEST 8-012, January 28, 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 1392 **flexible times 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 ** AFGHANISTAN [non]. R. Solh, via Rampisham UK, 15265, as always exactly the same music, but best reception in some time, and wish I had been recording, Jan 28 from 1415 to 1459* (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 9875.0, 1600, G, Radio Solh/Radio Peace-Rampisham, Mx+Nx, (QRM DRM +5 kHz [KUWAIT; see also GERMANY]), 27/01, Pashto, 43443. Cordialmente (Tomás Méndez, Spain, noticiasdx yg via DXLD) Glenn: Who is responsible for the programming for Radio Solh? Is it Military Psyops or Radio Liberty? I've never seen a QSL from this station, and I wondered if you had. Thanks (Dan Henderson, Laurel, Maryland 20723-1136 USA, ibid.) Dan, PsyOp, I believe. Yes, people keep asking for a QSL address, but none known. Can you uncover anything? 73, (Glenn to Dan, via DXLD) ** ALBANIA. R. Tirana, 13640, Jan 28 at 1526 open carrier was already on, 1527:45 IS, 1530 opening English to NAm with full English transmission schedule, into news and features. Better reception than usual, but a higher modulation level would have helped (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ALBANIA. CHINA RADIO INTERNATIONAL in Serbian (WRTH+EMWG) via Fllake, just pushing off anything on 1215 kHz with his strong het from 1214.46 kHz. Woman and man talking along with music. Poor to good signal (UT 08/27/2008 [sic, surely Jan 27], 2223-2244). (Sylvain Naud, Portneuf, QC, Canada, mwdx yg via DXLD) Checked Fllake yesterday and today: 1457.60 at 1540 UT 1214.41 at 1812, 1214.61 at 0800 UT. 73 (Wolfgang Büschel, Stuttgart, Germany, Jan 28, ibid.) It may be possible. I used my R75 plain without software assistant. I went with the sound (Sylvain Naud, ibid.) ** ALGERIA [non]. RTAlgiers tests in Arabic/Holy Qur`an service from Jan. 28 till Jan. 30 via DTK and MER: 0600-0800 on 17660 DHA 250 kW / 270 deg 0800-0900 on 15605 WER 500 kW / 210 deg 0800-1000 on 15750 SIN 250 kW / 170 deg 1800-1900 on 7210 SKN 300 kW / 195 deg 1800-1900 on 7260 WER 500 kW / 210 deg 2300-2400 on 5915 RMP 500 kW / 190 deg (Ivo Ivanov, Bulgaria, Jan 28, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Or rather via TDF, VTC: Already until 2300 on 5915 in regular relay schedule. BTW, HFCC classifies these Algerian Qur`an emissions under USA; why? (Glenn Hauser, DXLD) Saludos cordiales, hoy 28 de enero a las 1803 se observa emisión en árabe en 7210 en paralelo por 7260, presumiblemente el nuevo servicio de Radio Argel, locutora entrevistando a un hombre, el servicio en 7260 ligeramente interferido por el servicio en ruso de China Radio International. Chequeando a Radio Argel se observa hoy 28 de enero a las 2100 UTC servicio en árabe de Radio Argel vía Rampinsham como en días anteriores 73 JM (José Miguel Romero, Spain, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ANGOLA. Hi all, Angola is coming in fivers now (0223 UT Jan 29) on 4950, if you're interested? [Later:] R. Nacional, Luanda, 0221-0240, in here with hip hop type music but in Portuguese. This is followed with MOR music also in Portuguese. No break on the half hour but at 0238 live comments with ID as "Rádio Nacional, Angola ...". Signal was fair (Chuck Bolland, Clewiston, Florida, NRD545 DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** BANGLADESH. Here's one to listen for at Shadow Lake in April [upcoming Ontario DXpedition]: 7250, Bangladesh Betar at 1228 with hum on carrier then a woman with talk in Bengali with definite ID of "Bangladesh Betar" at 1230 then brief flute music and brief talk then open carrier until 1231 when a man read news in English then brief local music at 1237 and a woman with commentary about a member of Parliament. Noted with a good signal with fading January 28. Heard on a Grundig Satellit 800 and mini- slinky windom antenna (Mark Coady, Editor, Your Reports/Listening In Magazine, Co-Moderator, ODXA Yahoogroup, Ontario DX Association, Bridgenorth, ON K0L 1H0, ODXA yg via DXLD) ** BELGIUM [non]. Two new stations via TDP: Hmong Lao Radio in Hmong: 0100-0200 on 15260 TAI 100 kW / 250 deg to Asia Thu/Sun Hmong World Christian Radio in Hmong: 0100-0200 on 15260 TAI 100 kW / 250 deg to Asia Sat (DX Mix News, Bulgaria, Jan 28 via DXLD) HLR not new to TAIWAN (gh) ** BOLIVIA. 4732. Radio Universitaria, Cobija, Pando, 2350 29 Jan. Excellent signal with locutor en español y música boliviana. This under ryryryryryryry of tty and CODAR. Still Universitaria is dominating on this good CP night (Robert Wilkner, Pompano Beach, South Florida, Icom 746Pro, experimental antenna, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** BRAZIL. 4905, Brasil R. Anhanguera, Araguaína TO, 01/26, PP, 2341- 2357 ads, female announces local time "oito e quarenta e tres (0843 PM)", ID by male "o amor está no ar, Radio Anhanguera" alternating religious devotion pop selections all sung in PP, some vocally very well elaborated "onde quer que eu vá / Voce lá está" [Wherever I may go, there you are]. 43343 (Lucio Otavio Bobrowiec, Embu SP, Brasil, (23 33 S, 46 51 W), Sony ICF SW40, dipole 18m, 32m, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) This reminds us that not all of Brasil is on DST of UT -2; timecheck there was UT -3. WRTH 2008, page 98, neglects to specify the timezone in Tocantins! And Araguaína as well as all states such as Tocantins are missing from the South American map on page 54, while it does show a place called Humaitá --- what SW station is there? Araguaína is at 48 degrees west which means LST should indeed be UT -3, and at 5+ degrees south, it`d be absolutely ludicrous to mess with DST (Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** BRAZIL. DX Clube do PR - NEW VERSION OF BRASILIAN RADIO STATIONS LIST 2008127.02 --- This version is much better than the other one. Now we have included Brazil's regions, radio stations, frequency ranges and a list of collaborators that, until now, have sent their information to make the list updated, thanks for everybody. You can be our collaborator too. To help us, send us your information to make the list updated to: marcelo @ bedene.com.br Recently updated version 20080127.02 - spreadsheets - http://www.dxclube.com.br/arquivos_lista_br.html Included Radio Guarujá FM - 3235 (relay of Radio Guarujá FM - 104.5) Included Radio Guarujá FM - 9715 (still inactive, but soon it will be another relay of Radio Guarujá FM - 104.5) Included Radio Anhanguera 4905, Araguaína-TO (thanks to Lucio Otávio Bobrowiec, Embú-SP) [as above] Another Weblinks included - there are already 822, it is the biggest acquis of MW Brazilian radio stations . . . 73 (MARCELO VILELA BEDENE, DX CLUBE DO PARANÁ, CURITIBA - BRASIL http://www.dxclube.com.br Jan 28, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CANADA. Re CBA 1070: Barry's site http://topazdesigns.com/ambc/ says they are moving to FM in March? 73 KAZ (Neil Kazaross, IL, IRCA via DXLD) Right - that should be the end of the simulcast period, when they pull they plug on the AM forever. But sometimes there are exceptions, such as my local, CJRC-1150. Their FM has been on for nearly a year now, but the AM remains on too, apparently because of issues with the coverage of the FM transmitter. I won't be surprised if the same thing happens with CBA-1070, as the CBC has a huge footprint to fill there. BTW, I noticed today that CHLN-550 is still on, still running the audio loop about their move to FM. If anybody needs them, you'd better act fast, as they could disappear at any time (Barry McLarnon, VE3JF, Ottawa, ON, ibid.) ** CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC [and non]. I suppose people have been frustrated by the lack of Radio ICDI, and additional Ethiopian interference, but a reminder that tonight`s a night --- UT Monday --- when it may be barely possible, *0500 (or earlier?) on 6030 in the expected truce of Radio Martí and the DentroCuban Jamming Command (Glenn Hauser, Jan 28, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Glenn: I tuned the frequency at 0450 UT to see if I could catch a sign of them and I heard a low noise hum mixing in with other noise and then after 0500 UT a signal was barely audible so I plugged in the outdoor coax for better reception and heard French announcer, and heard someone talking "rapid fire" delivery style language like rast Spanish through the noise. It sounds like it may be them judging from the Disco drumbeats and bass guitars and stuff. I'll try to stay tuned to see if signal improves before bedtime or not, but if not, then who knows? It is a rare catch sometimes on 6030. Did they use 4 MHz at one time? [later:] I also hear a station on 6030 at 0500 UT presumably the station you mentioned last night. Yes, I heard music and talk at fade in around 0525 UT when a French announcer came on followed presumably by more music. Weak and barely audible from my QTH in Tennessee 73's (Noble West, Clinton TN, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Glenn, It's 0545 at the moment and all I'm hearing is CKMX Calgary with C&W music, fading in and out with nothing else there as far as I can tell (Dave Bennett, Aldergrove, BC, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CHILE. The past weekend I enjoyed a DX Camp in the "Valle del Sol", 70 km west of Mendoza City (1200 km from Buenos Aires). I was with the DXers Miguel Castellino & Hector Goyena. Equipment: Sony ICF2010 (2 receivers), Degen DE 1103, Antenna: longwire 6010, Radio Parinacota, Putre, 1000-1015, January 21, Spanish/Quechua! Sign-on, identification as: "Se levanta una voz desde Chile para mostrar al mundo su..." Some announcement in Quechua. Other ID as: "Radio Parinacota transmite desde la Comuna de Putre, Provincia de Parinacota... el Gerente Legal es el Sr... quien es Alcalde de la Comuna de Putre...", 32432 with QRM from Radio Inconfidência, Belo Horizonte, Brazil (Arnaldo Slaen, Argentina, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) This is in extreme N Chile, right next to Bolivia and Perú, so Quechua not so strange. In this case, it is on the WRTH SAm map, but not in my NY Times Atlas of the World! (gh, DXLD) ** CHINA. Firedrake from the DentroChinese Jamming Command, in // on 9930 and 9450, Jan 28 at 1544. In these cases I could hear weaker Chinese underneath on both, which is seldom the case. 9930 is Sound of Hope via KWHR, and 9450 is Sound of Hope via Taiwan. Not sure if SOH is // from the two sites but doubt it. Also could detect a SAH with SOH on 9930 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CUBA. B-07 schedule of Radio Havana Cuba effective Jan. 20: Arabic 2030-2100 on 11800 11750 Creole 0100-0130 on 9550 2130-2200 on 9505 5965 2230-2300 on 9505 5965 2330-2400 on 5965 English 0100-0500 on 6180 6000 0500-0700 on 11760 9550 6180 6060 6000 2030-2130 on 11760 9505 2300-2400 on 9550 9505 Esperanto Sun 0700-0730 on 6000 1500-1530 on 11760 1930-2000 on 11760 2330-2400 on 9600 6140 Guarani 2230-2300 on 17705 2330-2400 on 17705 French 0000-0100 on 9550 0130-0200 on 9550 2000-2030 on 11760 9505 2130-2200 on 11760 9505 2200-2230 on 9505 5965 2300-2330 on 5965 Portuguese 2000-2030 on 11800 11750 2200-2230 on 17705 2300-2330 on 17705 13760 2330-2400 on 13760 Spanish 0000-0100 on 13760 11875 11760 9600 6140 6060 6000 5965 0100-0200 on 13760 11875 11760 9600 6140 6060 5965 0200-0500 on 13760 11875 11760 9600 9550 6140 6060 5965 1100-1300 on 13760 12000 11805 11760 9600 9550 6180 6000 1300-1400 on 15370 13760 13680 12000 11805 11760 9550 6000 1400-1500 on 15370 13760 13680 12000 11805 11760 9550 2100-2300 on 13760 11800 11750 9550 Quechua 0000-0030 on 17705 Aló Presidente Sun 1400-1830 on 17750 13750 13680 11875 11670 [length varies widely] Mesa Redonda Mon-Fri 2300-0100 on 9820 6000 (DX Mix News, Bulgaria, Jan 28 via DXLD) ** ECUADOR. Special DRM test of HCJB in Portuguese to Brazil from Jan. 26: 2300-2400 on 11795 QUI 004 kW / 110 deg (DX Mix News, Bulgaria, Jan 28 via DXLD) test until when? ** ECUADOR. 3279.9, LV del Napo, Tena, 0915-0920 27 Jan. Local announcements, "en radio, La Voz del Napo", Andean flute bridge and more local stuff. Always a good carrier, this AM the audio was good as well (Dan Sheedy, CA, R75/EF102040, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** GERMANY [non]. On Feb 1, DW will shift its English frequency via UAE to Africa at 2000-2100 from 9880 to 9885. Hmm, could that be because of QRDRM from Kuwait 9875-9880-9885? That won`t help much (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** GERMANY. Perhaps it is of interest that a fill transmitter at the Schäferberg site in the Wannsee district of Berlin was in preparation for NPR, perhaps because all attempts to raise the power on 104.1 beyond 200 watts failed so far. But finally NPR decided to not use a second Berlin transmitter, thus MABB now put the already coordinated 90.7 frequency on tender although it is close to nonsense to run it alone: http://www.mabb.de/start.cfm?content=Presse&template=pressemeldungsanzeige&id=1374 Good night, (Kai Ludwig, Germany, Jan 28, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** GREECE. Dear Glenn: "The Greek in Style" program, heard on The Voice of Greece from 0005 to 0105 UTC Monday, had Adrianna this time, introducing in English, songs from the '60s and from Greek films of that era. Of the two Avlis stations that are audible in this area, the frequency of 7475 started out with SINPO 45444 dropping down to 35333 at the end. The 31-meter band frequency of 9420 started at SINPO 25332 and was barely audible here by the end of the broadcast (John Babbis, Silver Spring MD, UT Jan 28, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** GUAM. KTWR`s English on 15170 at 263 degrees has been modified to: Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri 0805-0900; Wed 0820-0900 (FCC via DXLD) ** GUATEMALA. 4780, R. Coatán, 26 Jan, 1216 times given by M at tune- in, continuous music and more announcements. 1221 ID, TC, a few more brief announcements, and into soft Spanish music. Live TC and canned ID "Esta es R. Coatán" at 1230. Lively LA music at 1330. Long voice- over talk 1337-1340, then ranchera music. Could just barely make out audio at 1400. Last time I was able to detect the carrier tone (tuned in SSB) was at 1438, 2:08 hours after our local sunrise!! (Dave Valko, Dunlo PA, HCDX via DXLD) ** INDIA [non]. TWR INDIA B07 REVISED SW SCHEDULE EFFECTIVE 6 JAN 2008 START END LANG FREQ DAYS SITE -------------------------------------------------- 0015 0030 BENGALI 7350,9455* MON-FRI NOVOSIBIRSK 0030 0100 BHOJPURI 7350,9455* MON-FRI NOVOSIBIRSK 0045 0100 DZONKA 7350,9455* SAT NOVOSIBIRSK 0045 0130 HINDI 7350,9455* SUN NOVOSIBIRSK 0100 0115 NEPALI 7350,9455* SAT NOVOSIBIRSK 0100 0130 NEPALI 7350,9455* MON-FRI NOVOSIBIRSK 0115 0130 HINDI 7350,9455* SAT NOVOSIBIRSK 1230 1245 GUJARATI 7320 MON IRKUTSK 1230 1245 DHODIYA 7320 TUES/WED IRKUTSK 1230 1245 MAITHILI 7320 THU/FRI IRKUTSK 1230 1245 SANTHALI 7320 SAT IRKUTSK 1230 1300 KOKBOROK 12065 FRI GUAM 1245 1300 KUI 7320 SAT IRKUTSK 1245 1300 KOKBOROK 12065 SAT GUAM 1245 1315 URDU 7320 MON-FRI IRKUTSK 1300 1315 GARHWALI 5950 DAILY NOVOSIBIRSK 1300 1315 HO 7320 SAT IRKUTSK 1300 1345 SANTHALI 11800 SUN GUAM 1315 1330 DOGRI 5950 MON-FRI NOVOSIBIRSK 1315 1330 MARWARI 7320 SUN IRKUTSK 1315 1330 MEWARI 7320 THU/FRI IRKUTSK 1315 1330 BENGALI 7320 SAT IRKUTSK 1315 1345 M.BENGALI 7320 MON/TUES IRKUTSK 1315 1345 PUNJABI 7320 WED IRKUTSK 1315 1430 HINDI 5950 SAT/SUN NOVOSIBIRSK 1330 1345 HINDI 5950 MON NOVOSIBIRSK 1330 1345 BONDO 7320 SUN IRKUTSK 1330 1345 DZONKA 7320 THU-SAT IRKUTSK 1330 1400 HINDI 5950 TUES/WED NOVOSIBIRSK 1330 1400 ASSAMESE 11800 MON-FRI GUAM 1330 1415 HINDI 5950 THU/FRI NOVOSIBIRSK 1345 1400 TIBETAN 5950 MON NOVOSIBIRSK 1345 1400 BUNDELI 7320 SAT IRKUTSK 1345 1400 SANTHALI 12065 DAILY GUAM 1345 1415 BUNDELI 7320 SUN IRKUTSK 1345 1415 MAITHILI 7320 MON-FRI IRKUTSK 1400 1415 BRAJ BHASA 5950 MON/TUES NOVOSIBIRSK 1400 1415 KASHMIRI 5950 WED NOVOSIBIRSK 1400 1415 ORIYA 7320 SAT IRKUTSK 1400 1415 BORO 12065 WED-SUN GUAM 1400 1415 M.BENGALI 12065 MON/TUES GUAM 1415 1430 BHOJPURI 5950 MON-FRI NOVOSIBIRSK 1415 1430 KUMAONI 7320 SUN IRKUTSK 1415 1430 MAGAHI 7320 MON IRKUTSK 1415 1430 MUNDARI 7320 TUES/WED IRKUTSK 1415 1430 KURUKH 7320 THU-SAT IRKUTSK 1415 1430 MANIPURI 12065 SAT/SUN GUAM 1430 1445 HINDI 5950 MON-FRI NOVOSIBIRSK 1430 1445 SADRI 7320 SAT/SUN IRKUTSK 1430 1500 PUNJABI 5950 SAT/SUN NOVOSIBIRSK 1430 1500 SINDHI 7320 MON-FRI IRKUTSK 1445 1500 CHODRI 7320 SAT/SUN IRKUTSK 1445 1515 PUNJABI 5950 MON-FRI NOVOSIBIRSK 1500 1515 MARWARI 5950 SAT/SUN NOVOSIBIRSK 1500 1515 BHILI 7320 SAT/SUN IRKUTSK 1500 1530 KUTCHI 7320 MON-FRI IRKUTSK 1515 1530 MOUCHA 7320 SAT/SUN IRKUTSK 1515 1545 HINDI 5950 MON-FRI NOVOSIBIRSK 1530 1545 AWADHI 7320 SAT/SUN IRKUTSK 1530 1545 GAMIT 7320 MON-WED IRKUTSK 1530 1545 VASAVI 7320 THU/FRI IRKUTSK 1545 1600 HARYANVI 7320 SUN IRKUTSK 1545 1600 URDU 7320 MON-FRI IRKUTSK 1545 1600 HINDI 7320 SAT IRKUTSK 1600 1615 PASHTO 7315 SAT/SUN SAMARA 1600 1630 PASHTO 7315 MON-FRI SAMARA 1630 1645 DARI 7315 MON SAMARA * 7350: TILL 2ND FEB, 2008 9455: WEF 3RD FEB, 2008 Reports to: Trans World Radio, L-15, Green Park, New Delhi 110016, India (via Alokesh Gupta, New Delhi, Jan 27, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** INDONESIA. Re 8-011: Saludos Raúl, hoy he intentando sin éxito captar a La Voz de Indonesia en 9525; para mí es una frecuencia muy dificil de conseguir captar. Es cierto que esta emisora es muy irregular, cierto que no conozco otra así, pero bueno, ¿que le vamos hacer? 73 (José Miguel Romero, Spain, Jan 27, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) 11784.87v, Voice of Indonesia, 1006-1018, Jan 27, program in Thai, fair signal, noted that 9526.0v is off the air again, so going back to my question: "Do not recall them being regularly heard in parallel, isn't it normally one or the other?": we can probably safely say it is uncommon for both frequencies to be parallel (Ron Howard, Monterey, CA, Etón E1, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) 9526 also missing here around 1425 check Jan 27. VOI, gone again from 9526, Jan 28 at 1456 check. A pity, since that is by far best heard here, rarely on 11785 which is blocked much of the time by WHRI (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** INDONESIA. 9680, RRI-Jakarta, 0950-1020+ 27 Jan. Big signal and had hopes of KGRE program at 1000, but periodic checks only found usual pleasant RRI programming. VOI-11784.9 also in quite well with Sunday "Listener's Mailbag" to 0900 and then Bahasa Malaysia program (Dan Sheedy, CA, R75/EF102040, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Hi Dan and Glenn, I was listening at the same time and wondered if KGRE was preempted by program scheduling, due to the possibility of their having special programs regarding the former president Suharto? He was president from 1967 to 1998 and died January 27 (Ron Howard, ibid.) ** INTERNATIONAL VACUUM. [re 8-011] CRI is still listed on WRN English Website schedule. Also today, without explanation, WRN ran "World Vision" radio at 1500 UT today instead of RFI from France. No way of knowing if this was a one-time substitution or a permanent schedule change (Mike Cooper, Jan 27, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** INTERNATIONAL WATERS [non]. CLANDESTINE, 6275.5, R. Arctica, Sat 26 Jan, 2112 good signal peaking at S-9. First program. End of editorial at tune-in with Web URL and e-mail address. Organ music. 2114 wind blowing SFX and W with Russian ID, more instrumental music, then indigenous choral singing. 2119-2121 M in English about the water/grass and walking in the Arctic mixed with melancholy music. 2121-2123 W in Russian with wind blowing SFX and mention of the Arctic and Arctica. 2123 more indigenous singing by W. 2124-2126 wind blowing, M in English giving station mission and then editorial, and ending with Web site and e-mail again. 2126-2127 W in Russian followed by organ music. 2128 signal appeared to go off the air but was fading badly at this time. Not a sign of it on the Web receiver [where, Sweden?], so must be in North America. Wonder who was relaying it (Dave Valko, Dunlo PA, HCDX via DXLD) First program, implying there are enumerated programs, how many now? (gh) ** IRAN [non]. via Lithuania, 6265, VOIRI, via Sitkunai, 2055-2128* Jan 27, Spanish talk. Local music. Lite instrumental music at 2124- 2128*. // 7130, 7350 - all [direct] with fair to good signals. 6265 into "The Mighty KBC" English programming at 2130 (Brian Alexander, PA, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** IRELAND [and non]. WAVE OF PROTEST ENGULFS RTE --- Media Guardian 28/01/08 Even today, for many in Northern Ireland the "national" broadcaster isn't the BBC, but RTE. Now, RTE's decision to unplug its medium- wave service on the island has provoked a political row that even encompasses the Good Friday agreement. The station stands accused of depriving nationalist listeners in the north of a vital daily part of their culture. Apart from those living in areas close to the frontier, they can listen to RTE radio only via medium wave. They are so incensed that they have taken their grievance all the way up to the Irish foreign minister. The Republic's foreign ministry is so concerned about the fears of northern nationalists that it has now consulted the department of communications about what can be done. It is understood that one option being considered is for RTE to invest in technology that will allow its FM services to be received all over Northern Ireland. An RTE spokesperson said: "RTE is acutely aware that listeners in Northern Ireland and the Irish community in Britain need access to Irish news, current affairs and culture. This is why RTE has decided to maintain its LW 252 service, which provides approximately 80% coverage in Britain. RTE, unlike other broadcasting corporations, does not have the population or resources to support three frequencies, which are expensive to operate." RTE Radio 1 on FM, unless and until it is extended to all of Northern Ireland, is unlikely to calm northern nationalists sense of betrayal. "FM is fine, but it only reaches out to a small percentage of RTE listeners," says one northern protestor. "If they had a full service reaching out via FM to all parts of the island, from Fair Head to Mizen Head, I could accept their decision to abandon the medium wave service. Full story at http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/jan/28/radio (via Mark Savage, BDXC-UK via DXLD) 5 Responses to “Wave of protest engulfs RTÉ” Paul (the other one) Says: January 28th, 2008 at 12:34 pm Actually this is somewhat misleading given RTE 1 is available via a Sky Digibox/FTA box plus, as people have commented in the past, reception of RTE in some parts of Northern Ireland on FM, is better than in parts of the Republic ! Andy Says: January 28th, 2008 at 12:36 pm Indeed, but British newspaper journalists never let the facts get in the way of a good story John Handelaar Says: January 28th, 2008 at 5:33 pm Good luck with getting that Sky receiver to work in the car. Or finding a reasonably-priced radio in any part of Ireland which has Long Wave on it. Or finding any car radio with a long wave tuner. Paul (the other one) Says: January 28th, 2008 at 6:43 pm John, the AM signal from RTE1 isn’t great in Northern Ireland and to be honest any decent car radio should pull it in on FM, there are enough TX’s overspilling. I’ll admit the Antrim coast is one area where FM really does fail to get through, but to be fair, in some parts of that coastline, neither do the Northern Ireland services. If you were going to spend the money on a decent AM radio, it should have LW on it. A cheap AM’er simply won’t get an “average punter” a listenable RTE1 signal on MW anyway, there’s far too much “background noise” about these days. Colin Says: January 28th, 2008 at 7:21 pm John - as has been pointed out on other forums a LW radio can be purchased for about £10. Car radios are, admittedly, more of a problem. You have more chance of having a LW radio if you have a French car (due to the widespread use of LW in that country) than if you have a German car. For the money it is saving in transmission costs, RTE could probably justify subsidising a few cheap LW radios for those listeners in Northern Ireland that can’t pick up the FM signal (Media Network blog via DXLD) ** ISRAEL. The frequency of Reshet Bet has further lowered down to 6970.9 on 27th January (Zacharias Liangas, Greece, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Time? I suppose you mean Galei Zahal, an entirely different station than IBA`s Hebrew network Reshet Beth, which is not among the services carried on 6985, and which doe not vary significantly (Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ITALY. BERLUSCONI ATTACKS PHONE-LEAK 'HYENAS' By Guy Dinmore in Rome, FT.com site Published: Nov 22, 2007 Silvio Berlusconi, media magnate and Italian opposition leader, on Thursday accused "hyenas and vultures" of being out to get him by leaking phone taps that point to direct collusion between Rai, the state broadcaster, and his Mediaset company in spinning the news when he was premier. The alleged conversations between senior Rai editors and their counterparts in Mediaset, in 2004 and 2005, were published by the pro-government daily La Repubblica on Wednesday, leading to a furore among politicians and journalists just two days after Mr Berlusconi announced he was forming a new opposition party. . . http://www.ft.com/cms/s/92d94ba6-24e4-11d8-81c6-08209b00dd01,id=071122000484,print=yes.html (via Mike Cooper, DXLD) ** KOREA NORTH. Noted two spur splatter from Korea 6285 kHz in past days: 6251 and 6319 kHz around 15-16 UT. 73 wolfy (Wolfgang Büschel, Germany, Jan 28, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** KOREA NORTH. 3960, KCBS Pyongyang, Kanggye, 01/28, Korean, 0843- 0852, classic nationalistic elation music. 22322. 73's (Lucio Otavio Bobrowiec, Embu SP Brasil (23 33 S, 46 51 W), Sony ICF SW40, dipole 18m, 32m, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** KURDISTAN. Re 8-011: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurd 15 Millions Kurds live in Turkey alone [formerly identified as mountain Turks]. One fourth of Turkey belongs to Kurdish settlement. After the collapse of the Osmanic [Ottoman] Empire, stretched from Mecca to Albania these days in 1921y, they promised to establish a Kurdish state in Sevres/Lausanne treaties. Look at Kurdistan + Lausanne in Google... http://www.iraqupdates.com/p_articles.php/article/18984 http://hevallo.blogspot.com/2006/12/hasan-hayri-and-formation-of-modern.html etc. But British and French govt. divided the former Osmanic empire area, and protected their interests on Iraq, Kuwait, Persia, Jordan, Palestine, Egypt/Sudan, Syria/Lebanon there. Look to the much smaller Kosovo Muslim question today. And the remaining other European nationality questions like Basque state in [sic] Catalunya, Corsica island, Northern Ireland, Belgium, Ossetia, Abkhazia, Caucasian Stepanakert questions a.s.o. There is really one people [at least 30 millions Kurds worldwide] in the world, which STILL waits for state establishment and form their own nation since 77 years now: Kurdistan. 73 wolfy Hopefully I'll check the 6335 kHz channel this afternoon. It could be, the Turkish army intelligence service jams the Kurdish radio outlet, why not? (Wolfgang Büschel, Germany, Jan 27, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** KURDISTAN. Recheck recording of yesterday (26 Jan) on 6335 kHz at *1600-1859*: 1600-1659 English 1659-1800 Kurdish (sounds like) 1800-1859 Arabic (sounds like) Severe QRM from spurious of North Korean jam on 6348 kHz and KCBS on 6285 (S. Hasegawa, Japan, NDXC-HQ, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Dear OM, I think yesterday after 1800 the language was Kurdish, but of course there may be daily variation in the schedule. 73, (Mauno Ritola, Finland, Jan 28, via Wolfgang Büschel, DXLD) Today VoK on the frequency at 1600+ in English :((( (Zacharias Liangas, Greece, Jan 26, playdx yg via DXLD) 6334.97: Reception of Kurdish station is depending of heavy - or absent - ute on 6334 and 6337 kHz at my place (Wolfgang Büschel, Jan 28, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Confirmação recebida: 6335 kHz, IRAQUE: Radio Voice of Kurdistan, Salah al Din, 1 hora (!). Recebido e-QSL, enviado para party@... [truncated by yg]. V/S: Alex Atroushi, Kurdistan Democratic Party- Iraq. Nota: Este é o 127 radio-país confirmado (Iraque). A emissora foi ouvida às 0444 UT com 35333. 73, (Rudolf Grimm, São Bernardo, SP, BRASIL, dxclubepr yg via DXLD) ** KUWAIT. QRDRM DE 9875-9880-9885: see AFGHANISTAN; GERMANY ** LAOS [non]. Hmong stations: see BELGIUM [non] ** MADAGASCAR. UnID: 5010, 1840-1845, quite strong, unID local language, sounded last fast and excited sports commentary, off quite suddenly after I switched over just for a minute. 73 (Thorsten Hallmann, Münster, Germany, http://www.africalist.de.ms [updated again], DX LISTENING DIGEST) Thorsten, Surely 5010 was Madagascar. Some other reports in DXLD 8-011 of their having sports coverage (gh, ibid.) Viz.: 5010, 26/1 1700, R. Madagascar - Antananarivo, Malagasy talk OM, probabile Coppa d' Africa (AIR era sotto) buono (Roberto Pavanello, Vercelli - Italia, shortwave yg via DXLD) Yes, 5009.9 is Madagascar. But sounds different than in the previous weeks. Stronger carrier and better audio. 73 (Thorsten Hallmann, Jan 28, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 5009.95, RTV Malagasy, 2115-0030+, Jan 27-28, Malagasy talk, local pop music, jingles, promos. Some contemporary Christian music. French talk. Radio-drama. Fair signal. On late on Sundays (Brian Alexander, PA, DX LISTENING DIGEST) into UT Mondays: real late (gh) 5010 R.M. on late. ID jingle at 2320. nice S-9 signal. Radio Madagasikara still going strong beyond 0100 with fanfare and highlife music. any reason why on so late (other than Sunday)? (Steve Price, Johnstown, PA, 01-27-08, ODXA yg via DXLD) Malagasy 5010 on this evening (1/28) to past 0115 – suspect they never went off the air before their nominal 0300 s/on. Nice S4 signal (S- meter peaking at S9+5 db) with some local noise and QSB. No sign of any long path AIR regionals on 60 m today (Bruce Churchill, Fallbrook CA, Cumbre DX via DXLD) 5010, R.TV Malagasy (presumed), Antananarivo, 01/28, Malagasy, 2142- 2237, selections of African hilife, hip hop beat and others styles, all sang in Malagasy or vernacular, short announcement and IDs (presumed) at 2145, 2223, 2237. Strong, 44444 73's (Lucio Otavio Bobrowiec, Embu SP Brasil (23 33 S, 46 51 W), Sony ICF SW40, dipole 18m, 32m, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Wonder if they stayed on all night again? (gh, DXLD) ** MEXICO. Hoy 25 enero 2008, a partir de las 1457 UT sintonizando mi Sangean ATS818, recibí una señal fuerte y clara, descubrí que era XERTA transmitiendo por los 4800 kHz!!! Está al aire en estos momentos; yo ya no la había captado desde fines de agosto 2007; el programa al aire es "Esperanza para la Familia" de una organización religiosa que da una dirección de Monterrey, Nuevo León, México. SINPO: 45444, INCREÍBLE (MAGDIEL CRUZ RODRIGUEZ, SANGEAN ATS 818, ANTENA V INVERTIDA, JIUTEPEC, MORELOS, MÉXICO, Jan 25, asociacionderadioescuchas yg via DXLD) ** MEXICO. Monday Jan 28 is another of those rare days when XEPPM, 6185 leaves its transmitter on in the daytime after nominal 1200* Tune-in at 1551 to ID in passing as R. Educación accompanying a report from Oaxaca, and more talk programming past 1600 when there was an ID for XEEP 1060 only. S9 +18 with the only comparable signal at this late hour on 49m being WBOH 5920, which was only S9 +13 but sounds louder due to overmodulation. XEPPM has a nice clean easily readable signal, and I wonder how long it will stay on; still going at 1610 tune-out. I also wonder how far into El Norte it can penetrate during the daytime. Hans Johnson was hearing it at 1657 via a DX Tuner in Pennsylvania; when I rechecked at 1727, nothing heard. If they can do this with 10 kW, how nice it would be if they had 50 kW and deliberately broadcast in the daytime when there is zero co- or adjacent-channel interference! BTW, this has happened previously on Mondays, but not sure if that is their doing, or just when I have happened to notice it. BTW2, XEXQ 6045 has been missing again for the last few weeks, and so has XEYU 9599.3v in the last few days. BTW3, note that XERTA`s new frequency 4800 could produce a second harmonic interfering with XEYU at local DF range; fortunately, XERTA is rather weak (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Thanks a lot for this tip. The band seems a bit noisy but I can hear classical music and Spanish talk at 1657 on a DX Tuner in PA (Hans Johnson, FL, Jan 28, Cumbre DX via DXLD) ** MEXICO. Mexican Network Shakeup? Be on the lookout for changes in Mexican network radio. December edition of MPM, in hand this past week, removes information for all Grupo Radio Capital outlets, including XEITE-830, indicating new information is pending, and for all Radio ABC outlets (except XEABC-760). Websites for both Capital and ABC, though, continue to show affiliates and make no mention of possible changes. Also, Radiorama station list: http://www.radiorama.com.mx/secciones.php?sec_id=32 additionally shows stations represented by Radio Cima. This URL provides links to streaming audio for a majority of Radiorama/Radiocima stations. I am in the process now of sweeping all sources of Mexican information to update the Mexican station list I have been providing ... Anything anyone knows that's incorrect in the current list, please let me know (John Callarman, Krum TX, Jan 27, NRC-AM via DXLD) ** MICRONESIA. Re 8-011: I airchecked the sign off of V6AI 1494 kHz/88.1 MHz from Colonia, Yap, Federated States of Micronesia. They only seem to ID as 88.1 FM but I've specifically heard them mention 1494 other times as well. Listen to the sign off here: http://www.walkerbroadcasting.com/v6ai_signoff_sunday_january26th_2008.mp3 Listen before the last song at about 4 mins 24 seconds where you hear "Our KUTE Studio Time Is Now 11:59.."... KUTE is 90.9 in Ignacio, Colorado. When FSM was a US Protectorate, were stations issued K call letters like Guam, American Samoa, and etc.? Sincerely, (Paul B. Walker, Jr., ABDX via DXLD) ** NEW ZEALAND. Updated B-07 of Radio New Zealand International eff. Jan. 1 from RAN site: 1059-1258 13840 050 kW / 325 deg AM NW Pac, Bougainville, PNG, Timor 1059-1258 9870 050 kW / 325 deg DRM NW Pac, Bougainville, PNG, Timor 1259-1650 5950 050 kW / 000 deg AM All Pacific (no DRM transmission) 1651-1935 9890 050 kW / 035 deg DRM NE Pac, Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, Cook 1651-1950 9615 050 kW / 035 deg AM NE Pac, Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, Cook 1936-1950 11675 050 kW / 035 deg DRM NE Pac, Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, Cook 1951-2235 17675 050 kW / 325 deg AM NW Pac, Vanuatu, Solomon Isl 1951-2235 15720 050 kW / 325 deg DRM NW Pac, Vanuatu, Solomon Isl 2236-0658 15720 050 kW / 000 deg AM All Pacific 2236-0458 17675 050 kW / 000 deg DRM All Pacific 0459-1058 9870 050 kW / 000 deg DRM All Pacific 0659-1058 9765 050 kW / 000 deg AM All Pacific (DX Mix News, Bulgaria, Jan 28 via DXLD) What? It`s four weeks later and still not changed again? (gh) ** OKLAHOMA. RONNIE KAYE HONORED FOR 50 YEARS IN BROADCASTING Longtime Oklahoma City radio disc jockey Ronnie Kaye, 70, right, was honored Wednesday at KOMA offices by one of his devoted fans, Joe "Sarge” Nelson. Kaye was presented a proclamation signed by Gov. Brad Henry making today "Ronnie Kaye Day” in Oklahoma. BY JIM BECKEL, THE OKLAHOMAN [caption] By Mel Bracht, Staff Writer Ronnie Kaye's melodic voice has been heard across much of the country on powerful radio stations WKY and KOMA. Turns out, it's even been heard around the world. Longtime KOMA fan Joe "Sarge” Nelson reminisced about hearing Kaye's voice while on combat duty as a Navy SEAL in Vietnam in 1969. On a slow day, Nelson said, a fellow soldier offered to turn on his shortwave radio, strictly prohibited in war zones, and wanted to know which station to play. "I spoke right up and said, ‘930 WKY,'” Nelson said. After fine-tuning to the station, the soldiers were greeted to the sounds of the Four Seasons singing "Walk Like a Man” and "Sherry,” along with Kaye's voice. "They were dancing all over the place,” Nelson said. "It gave me chills.” Gov. Brad Henry has declared today Ronnie Kaye Day in Oklahoma, commemorating his 50 years in broadcasting. Nelson, an Oklahoma City native, presented Kaye a plaque Wednesday afternoon at KOMA studios, honoring him as "Mr. Rock & Roll.” Kaye has spent the past 15 years at KOMA-FM 92.5, which he has helped turn into the highest-rated oldies station in the nation, working with a veteran on-air staff of Danny Williams, Dave Martin and program director Kent Jones. On air from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. weekdays, Kaye said he enjoys playing fun, upbeat songs and interacting with listeners. "They give you freedom here to have fun, to try to be personable and to talk to the people,” he said. Kaye, who turned 70 on Sept. 4, said he doesn't plan to match Williams, the popular morning drive personality still working at 80. "I'm going to duck out on him a little early,” Kaye said. "You just go for a while, and you realize there's a time to pull the plug.” Last January, Kaye came to grips with his mortality when he underwent quadruple bypass surgery. "It's an operation that you don't want,” he said. "It's survivable, and hopefully you can be an inspiration to other people who have to go through it.” The date selected to honor Kaye was the birthdate of his late mother, a high school piano teacher and Baptist church piano player in Cooter, a small town in southeastern Missouri. "She encouraged me to be a concert pianist,” he said. Kaye said he studied classical music for eight years. But after enrolling at Memphis State University and being introduced to top 40 radio stations, he decided he wanted to be a disc jockey. "It sounded like a lot more fun than being a piano player,” he said. Kaye said he made his radio debut in 1956 at a 5,000-watt radio station in Blytheville, Ark. In 1961, he moved to Oklahoma, working briefly at Lawton's KSWO before being hired by Williams to do WKY's all-night show. Kaye ventured into television in the late 1960s, hosting his own teen dance show on WKY-TV, Channel 4. "The Scene,” which aired eight years, featured many top artists, including Ray Charles, Jerry Lee Lewis and Tina Turner. He also had a 10-year stint as news and public service director at KOKH-25. In the 1970s, when disco heated up, Kaye started a mobile disc jockey business, even playing at Shawnee High School when Henry was a student. He said he stills play a variety of events on weekends. "It's always been a good promotional tool,” Kaye said. "It's a lot of fun.” •Go online to NewsOK.com to read Kaye's biography (via Kim Andrew Elliott, DXLD) This was the story referred to in 8-011, WKY on ``shortwave`` (gh) ** PAKISTAN. Some changes of Radio Pakistan eff. Jan. 5: ARABIC 1815-1900 on 6280 ISL 100 kW / 282 deg >>> cancelled CHINESE 1200-1300 on 9380 ISL 250 kW / 070 deg, ex 1200-1230 1200-1300 on 11570 ISL 250 kW / 070 deg, ex 1200-1230 DARI 1430-1530 on 5050 ISL 100 kW / 270 deg, ex 1515-1545 ENGLISH 0045-0115 on 7445 ISL 100 kW / 318 deg >>> cancelled 0730-0830 on 15100 ISL 250 kW / 313 deg >>> cancelled 0730-0830 on 17835 ISL 250 kW / 313 deg >>> cancelled HINDI 1030-1130 on 7445 ISL 100 kW / non-dir, ex 1100-1145 NEPALI 1245-1315 on 7445 ISL 100 kW / 118 deg >>> cancelled PASHTO 1300-1400 on 5050 ISL 100 kW / 270 deg, ex 0500-0545 on 6235 PERSIAN 1700-1800 on 5050 ISL 100 kW / 260 deg, ex 1715-1800 RUSSIAN 1415-1445 on 9395 ISL 100 kW / 313 deg >>> cancelled SINHALA 1015-1045 on 15620 ISL 100 kW / 147 deg >>> cancelled TAMIL 0315-0345 on 15620 ISL 100 kW / 147 deg >>> cancelled 0945-1015 on 15620 ISL 100 kW / 147 deg >>> cancelled TURKI 1330-1400 on 5050 ISL 100 kW / 270 deg >>> cancelled TURKISH 1630-1700 on 6240 ISL 100 kW / 282 deg >>> cancelled (DX Mix News, Bulgaria, Jan 28 via DXLD) ** PAPUA NEW GUINEA. 3235, R West New Britain, Kimbe 1/27 heard from 0923 to 1008 (recorded) with nice signal but some local noise, no QRM. Man at 0859-59.5 then into what sounded like a church service with choral hymns, man announcer, etc. SINPO 35333. Don’t often hear this PNG outlet (Bruce Churchill, Fallbrook CA, Cumbre DX via DXLD) ** PAPUA NEW GUINEA. 3315, R. Manus, 1134-1218, Jan.27, Tok Pisin and English, program of C&W traditional ballads, plus Everly Brothers singing "Take A Message To Mary", Cindy Lauper with "Time After Time", 1200 choral Anthem followed by exotic bird calls, seemed to be relay of NBC, brief news in English with weather forecast ("showers"), DJ playing pop songs. IDs heard: "here on Radio Manus" and "NBC National Radio", mostly fair, best in USB (Ron Howard, Monterey, CA, Etón E1, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** PAPUA NEW GUINEA. 3905, R. New Ireland, 0930-0959 27 Jan. Quite good in Pidgin/English, ID after mento/reggae tune and drum bridge at 0930, into Pidgin with mention of "Radio New Ireland, kilohertz, 75- meter band, local radio station", TC, "This program from Radio New Ireland" into church service. 3260, R. Madang (presumed), 0920/1027+ 27 Jan. Nice mix of reggae and old RnR (Little Richard: "Good Golly, Miss Molly"), most announcements in Pidgin with occasional English ("our listeners, in our studios, these transmissions"). 3365, R. Milne Bay (presumed), 1041 27 Jan. Along with other PNGs on 3205, 3235, 3315, 3325, 3315, 3345 running oldies and reggae, most changed to church services after 1000. Milne Bay had an especially energetic Pentacostal gentleman at the mic. 7325, Wantok R. Light (tentative), 1017-1103+ 27 Jan. Thanks to Ron's info in 8-011, heard weakly mixing with (presumed) RFI (via Tainan, TWN) in Chinese before RFI close at 1030 and after with English sermon and occasional hymns, 1047 hymn bridge, request for funds with address, into drums/gongs and hymns with occasional English voice- overs, 1059 brief flute/drums to 1103 tune-out. Poor to not-there on one of the best PNG mornings I've ever heard. Check of 4960 for the Catholic PNG station didn't even yield a carrier, tho (Dan Sheedy, CA, R75/EF102040, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ROMANIA. See UNIDENTIFIED [non] 4790 ** RUSSIA. Dear Glenn, regarding 7200, 8-011: it had an out-of-repair exciter that was changed by a new one on Jan 7. Thanks to all reports in various DX bulletins --- and my two phone talks with their local transmitting center too. 73! (Mikhail Timofeyev, St Petersburg, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Yakutsk 7200 kHz: It should be noted that this is in fact a quite new 250 kW transmitter, a Vyuga (same model than installed at Rimavská Sobota) from 1991. Co-located transmitters include a Shtorm-D (longwave 150 kW) from 1966, two Tesla mediumwave transmitters (50 and 25 kW, respectively) from 1971/1972, a Sneg shortwave transmitter from 1969 (in 1978 upgraded to 100 kW), a Grom 100 kW shortwave transmitter from 1974 (same model than in use at Riga-Ulbroka if I recall correct) and a number of utility transmitters, first Molniya and Tsiklon models, after a modernization in 1980/81 PKM-20 and PKM-5. After 1990 Molniya 2-M utility transmitters were modified for broadcasting in full DSB mode (they should be in use for all outlets rated 5 kW). The site is located about 25 km north of Yakutsk. http://www.tctr.ru/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=16&Itemid=29 (Kai Ludwig, Germany, Jan 28, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** RUSSIA. Why doesn't VOR WS transmit round the clock like they did in the old "Radio Moscow" days? Do they still play the "Kremlin Chimes"? 73's from Tennessee! (Noble West, Clinton TN, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Good question, Noble. Why VRWS doesn't transmit round the clock nowadays? I'm afraid you are asking too much. We'll have get back to the Cold War years beginning with their original name of Radio Moscow, consequently you'd need VOA as a counterpart doing the same thing, and my feeling with all due respect is that VOA have downgraded to a cartoon, if we compare it with the personality of some thirty years ago. China Radio International is alone, running a different kind of war on its own. A war in which the U.S.A. or Russia are not interested to be involved. A strategic Chinese presence on short wave anytime of day or night, that the other two have abandoned. An exception here could be BBCWS. Maybe you are getting sentimental on that issue. Many good things have faded into history (Raul Saavedra, Costa Rica, ibid.) ** RUSSIA. 4995.22, RWM, Moscow, 0139-0145 Jan 29. Noted CW ID for a minute as "RWM" repeated over and over until 0140. At that time ticks every second with a double ticks after 10 seconds. On the minute a long tone. Signal was fair (Chuck Bolland, FL, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Nom. 4996! (gh) ** RWANDA. 6055, Radio Rwanda, Kigali, 2030-2100*, Jan 27, Afro-pop music. Vernacular talk. Sign off with short electronic instrumental piece. Fair to good (Brian Alexander, PA, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** SURINAME. 4990, R. Apintie, Paramaribo, 01/27, Dutch/Sarnami, 0540- 0556, music selections all in English like Puerto Rican Group Menudo with lachrymose pop ballad, 90's soundtrack ballad "it must be love" and others not identified; it seems they have some preference for English slow pop music, 0545 male announcements. Weak, CODAR QRM or something that sounds like it, 22322 (Lucio Otavio Bobrowiec, Embu SP, Brasil, (23 33 S, 46 51 W), Sony ICF SW40, dipole 18m, 32m, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Surely CODAR, constantly around this frequency (gh, DXLD) ** TURKEY. Frequency changes for Voice of Turkey effective Jan. 26: 1900-1927 NF 6050 CAK 250 kW / 313 deg, ex 6055* in Bosnian 1930-2027 NF 6050 EMR 500 kW / 310 deg, ex 6055* in English *to avoid CRI in French via CER till 1957 (DX Mix News, Bulgaria, Jan 28 via DXLD) As already in DXLD ** UKRAINE [and non]. Hello, radio listeners and DX-ers. I'm Olexandr Yegorov and here is your programme - "The Whole World on the Radio Dial". I remind you that all times in this programme are given in UTC. In this issue of WWORD: * Renewal of RUI transmissions to North America. * Reactivation of mediumwave transmitters of the Ukrainian Radio. * The new shortwave radio station in Ukrainian language “Svitle Radio Emmanuil”. Two and a half months in the end of last year the Lviv-Krasne 600 kW shortwave transmitter was calm. The reason was the absence of finances needed for its operation. Now, in the beginning of the New Year 2008, it became possible to renew transmissions. So, from the 1-st of January transmissions to North America at 0 to 5 hours has been resumed, but on the frequency of 7440 kHz used by RUI during the two previous summer seasons, and not on the previously planned frequency of 7530 kHz. Unfortunately, the propagation on 7 MHz frequency band in winter season is not stable for transmissions to the North of America due to the minimum of the solar activity, and on the other hand the Lviv’s transmitter is not able to operate on the lower, more reliable frequency band of 6 MHz. But, to a joy of all DXers, the solar activity has become growing since December. I register the indexes of the solar activity day by day in the tables, which I publish in the Information page of dxing.ru website. Thus, with a help of the tables I could note that after some months of quiet and almost free of sunspots sun in summer and autumn period the solar flux became growing essentially. A conformation of my supposition was the next information from the BC-DX 842 bulletin: “Solar physicists have been waiting for the appearance of a reversed-polarity sunspot to signal the start of the next solar cycle. The wait is over. According to the bulletin, a magnetically reversed, high-latitude sunspot emerged recently. This marks the beginning of Solar Cycle 24 and the first step toward a new solar maximum. Intense solar activity won't begin right now. Solar cycles usually take a few years to increase from solar minimum (where we are now) to solar maximum (expected in 2011 or 2012). It's a slow journey, but we're on our way!” I thought it is unnecessary to remind you that the higher solar activity makes on the whole the propagation on the short waves better. So, let us wait for the better times. One more good news now. From the 1-st of January some mediumwave transmitters of the home services of the Ukrainian Radio, which were switched off on the 16-th of March 2007, have been reactivated. Unfortunately, they can be active till the finances will be enough in NRCU budget 2008. I’ll say to the DXers the frequencies, channels, locations, and powers of the reactivated transmitters on mediumwave band. UR1 – the first channel of the National Radio Company of Ukraine is transmitted on: 675 kHz: Uzhhorod-Korytniany, 50 kW; 711 kHz: Donetsk-Dokuchaievsk, 40 kW; 810 kHz: Lutsk-Pidhaitsi, 5 kW; 936 kHz: Luhansk-Starobilsk, 2,7 kW; 972 kHz: Mykolaiv-Luch, 500 kW; 1134 kHz: Luhansk, 5 kW; 1557 kHz: Chernivtsi-Putyla, 1 kW; 1584 kHz: Ivano-Frankivsk-Verkhovyna, 1 kW. UR2 – the second channel of the NRCU „Radio Promin“ is transmitted on: 549 kHz: Kyiv-Brovary 150 kW; Mykolaiv-Luch 150 kW; Lviv-Krasne 75 kW; Vinnytsia-Zarvantsy 50 kW. It’s a pity but there are much interferences on this frequency: Radio Pridnestrovie with the Russian Radio Maiak programmes from Tiraspol via Grigoriopol’s power transmitter, and the natural Radio Maiak from Russian transmitter. UR3 – the third channel of the NRCU „Radio Cultura” (Radio Culture in English) is transmitted on: 657 kHz: Chernivtsi, 25 kW. At 18, 19.30 and 22 hours the half-hour Romanian service of RUI is broadcasting via this transmitter; 837 kHz: Kharkiv-Taranivka, 150 kW; 1242 kHz: Simferopol-Oktiabrske, 50 kW & Donetsk-Dokuchaievsk, 40 kW. The reactivation of these transmitters is pleasant news, but there are unpleasant as well. Recently, the National Council of Ukraine for TV and Radio Broadcasting has cancelled 75 frequencies of UR2 and UR3 channels in UKW/FM band and 30 frequencies in Mediumwave band. These frequencies belonged to the National Radio Company of Ukraine. Now they are withdrawn from the NRCU license, and that has been explained by the long pause (more than a year) in transmissions of the NRCU programmes on these frequencies. It is quite a complicated situation, when the National Radio Company of Ukraine was not able to use these frequencies because of cutting its budget by the higher state authorities, and then other state authority withdraws the frequencies from the NRCU license. As the result, the Ukrainian Radio is presented in UKW/FM band almost only with UR1 channel. The transfer of the Ukrainian Radio to the higher FM band from OIRT band is dragged on. Now UR channels cover in FM band only 20% of the Ukrainian territory. At the same time, the commercial stations are widely presented in FM band. For example, “Radio 5 – Retro FM” covers about 73% of the Ukraine and is presented almost in all its regions. A good event occurred in the first day of the New Year 2008 – the appearance of a new radio station with Ukrainian language on short waves. The station’s name is “Svitle Radio Emmanuil” (Radio Emmanual in English). “Svitle” stands for “luminous” in English. The frequency is 9885 kHz, broadcasting time is from 14 to 18 hours. It is interesting that Radio Emmanuel is the Kyiv FM station, which operates on the frequency of 67.28 MHz in the lower FM band. The interesting is the story of its origin, as it is written on the station’s website http://www.svitle.org/ Over 10 years ago the idea of creating a musical, spiritual and educational radio station in a Christian format was given through God's revelation to Victor Konstantinovich Radin, presently the director of Emmanuel's radio station. The project of launching the radio station was warmly received and supported by Steve Weber, the president of mission Emmanuel. But after the support was obtained, long years of prayer and labor followed, before the dream was finally realized. On April 25, 2001 the Emmanuel TV and Radio Company was registered with the managing director Leonid Bratanchuk. On July 30, 2004 the 7-year license permitting 24 hours broadcast was obtained at the National Council of Ukraine on Television and Radio Broadcasting. In April of 2005 God began to miraculously form the radio station team which would make it possible to have the radio station on air 24 hours a day! On December 24-th 2007 the National Council of Ukraine on Television and Radio Broadcasting has given to “Radio Emmanuel” license for satellite broadcasting via “Sirius 2” with the musical spiritually enlightening format. Only positive news, enlightened conversations and music are in the programmes of “Radio Emmanuel”. The God’s Word, psalms, fellowship. Every two hours – one can hear a news bulletin. For the youngest - special kids daily programs, morning gymnastics. For the youth - interactive evening programs and music of diverse modern styles. Here is a fragment of the beginning of Sunday morning prayer programme: (Audio fragment) Finally I have to say that the station is relayed on the short waves via 100 kW transmitter belonged to CVC International radio centre in Juelich [GERMANY]. Azimuth of maximum of radiation is 90 degrees. It must be added that the frequency of 9885 kHz is not a good choice. The signal here in Kyiv is good half of the time, but strong interference from the digital transmitter on 9880 kHz is annoying. As the Radio BULGARIA DX MIX News bulletin noted, there were also strong co-channel interference from 16.00 from WYFR (Family Radio) in English via Wertachtal 500 kW transmitter with azimuth 135 deg, and also from the Voice of Russia in Russian/Hindi/Bengali/English till 17.00 hours (Olex Yegorov, Whole World on the Radio Dial, RUI, Jan 19 via DXLD) ** UKRAINE. In next day response to an e-mail report, a friendly reply and this current schedule: LISTEN DAILY TO --- RADIO UKRAINE'S ENGLISH LANGUAGE BROADCASTS (28 October 2007 – 30 March 2008) TIME (UT) FREQUENCIES, BANDS (m) TO EUROPE 0600-0700 7440 41 1000-1100 9950 31 1200-1300 9950 31 2000-2100 5840 49 2200-2300 5830 49 TO NORTH AMERICA 0100-0200 7440 41 0400-0500 7440 41 Notice: 1. This schedule is subject to changes. 2. All these transmissions are available also in Real Audio on our Website HYPERLINK http://www.nrcu.gov.ua and on satellite “Sirius 2”: 5 degrees East, 11766 MHz, horizontal polarization, SR 27.500 Ms/s, FEC 3/4, channel RUI2. 3. Your letters, comments, suggestions are welcome! OUR ADDRESS: RADIO UKRAINE INTERNATIONAL, ENGLISH SECTION, 26, KHRESHCHATYK STR, 01001 KYIV, UKRAINE. TEL./FAX: (380-44) 278 7356 TEL.: (380-44) 278 2534 (380-44) 279 1883 E-MAIL: vsru @ nrcu.gov.ua (via Roger Chambers, Utica, New York, Jan 28, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U K [and non]. BBC Correspondents Map v1.2 (26/01/08) --- JavaScript must be enabled in order for you to use Google Maps. [different symbols for:] Full bureau operation Correspondent/Stringer Provided for information purposes only http://www.stuart-pinfold.co.uk/bits/corrmap/ (via Dan Say, BC, DXLD) Click on any symbol and see the names of the correspondents. Geographically challenged: e. g. the square for Washington DC is somewhere around Toronto (Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U K. LIVE FROM ELLOREE, BBC TAKES SMALL TOWN APPROACH TO REPORTING AMERICAN POLITICS With the desire to gain a small town perspective on the presidential election, reporters from the British Broadcasting Company's [sic] World Service Division in Washington, D.C. paid a visit to Elloree [SC] this weekend to cover Saturday's Democratic primary. Jamie Coomarasamy, BBC World Service reporter, and his technical advisor Mike Innis, said they chose to focus on the Democratic primary here in Elloree for a number of reasons. They noted that there is a growing awareness in the media that members in rural areas are looking at elections in a different way than those living in large cities, and that means reporters must branch out to get a good balance of perspectives. For more of this story, click on or type the URL below: http://www.thetandd.com/articles/2008/01/27/news/12933739.txt (via Rich Cuff, swprograms via DXLD) ** U S A. RUMSFELD CALLS FOR A NEW VERSION OF USIA "A 21st-century version of the USIA is needed to harness new communications techniques — from blogs to online social-networking sites to talk radio — to counter a constant torrent of propaganda from radical organizations, particularly in the Middle East, [former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld] said." Defense News, 23 January 2008. "I think this agency, a new agency has to be something that would take advantage of the wonderful opportunities that exist today. There are multiple channels for information . . . The Internet is there, blogs are there, talk radio is there, e-mails are there. There are all kinds of opportunities. We do not with any systematic organized way attempt to engage the battle of ideas and talk about the idea of beheading, and what it's about and what it means." Rumsfeld, quoted by Sharon Weinberger, Wired Danger Room blog, 23 January 2008. "What is called 'strategic communication' is hopelessly confused. On the one hand, there is the 'strategic' objective of countering ideological support for terrorism. On the other, there is the public relations effort on the part of the military to 'tell' its story, either in an effort to counter the bad news that they think fills the American news media or to win budget battles in Washington." William M. Arkin blog, Washington Post, 24 January 2008. "Keith M. Urbahn, an aide to Mr. Rumsfeld, e-mailed The Lede to make clear that the proposed agency would not be part of the Pentagon. Here’s his statement: 'The "21st-century agency for global communications" proposed by Mr. Rumsfeld would not be part of the Department of Defense, as is implied by some of the blog coverage of Wednesday’s remarks. It is Mr. Rumsfeld’s view that the Defense Department should not have the lead in such an agency, were it to be created. Ideally, the agency would be fully aligned with U.S. policies and principles, but independent of existing executive departments and agencies.'" Mike Nizza, The Lede blog, New York Times. 24 January 2008. (kimandrewelliott.com Jan 28; see http://kimelli.nfshost.com/index.php?id=3219 for linx, via DXLD) The new USIA would advocate U.S. policies and must be in lockstep with those policies. Its overseas personnel would work at, or at least in concert with, U.S. embassies. All their movements and significant activities would require ambassadorial approval. So why the need for an "independent" agency? A big reason would be its boondoggle value. The new USIA would have a director, deputy director, and several associate directors, along with senior advisers and special assistants to the aforementioned. One thing that the old "independent" USIA did do was to keep its subsidiary VOA from being independent enough to achieve the credibility that would have allowed it to compete more successfully in international broadcasting. When the new USIA is created (the idea is so bad that you can bet on it happening), the Voice of America and perhaps other elements of U.S. international broadcasting would likely be brought under it. This would allow for "coordination," as in coordinating the content that will probably still be referred to as "news." (Kim Andrew Elliott, Posted: 28 Jan 2008, kimandrewelliott.com via DXLD) ** U S A [and non]. VOICE OF AMERICA 2.0? CHARTER IS VOID WHEN INCONVENIENT http://criticaldistance.blogspot.com/2008/01/voa-20.html Sometime in the mid 1980's, I remember being rung at 3 AM by Charles Z. Wick, then Director of the US Information Agency at the time when VOA has just started its VOA Europe service. As a journalist, I had put in a call to question the wisdom of this idea to "correct the image of the US amongst the minds of European youth". Charles was having problems understanding time zones. VOA Europe later had a much bigger problem with the programming - mixing Madonna (the Music) with short radio features on American life, about firestations in Pennsylvania ("the More"). Since the programming wasn't culturally sensitive, and the DJ's were trying to sound "local" from a studio 6 times zones away in Washington, the project of "government-people" communication failed miserably, ending up as filler on some of the emerging private stations in Eastern Europe. These station owners liked the music, but replaced the VOA News with their own bulletins. VOA Europe has long since gone. But Radio Farda and Radio Sawa are doing a similar kind of thing in Iran and the Middle East respectively. Actually, Radio Farda and Radio Sawa are much cleverer in their programming than VOA Europe ever was; their problem is that their success is linked to the credibility of the US in that region as a whole - and that has never been lower. Now it would seem Donald Rumsfeld (yes, it is he) believes a new form of propaganda agency is needed - presumably not to reach old Europe, but South Asia, Middle East and Latin America. Wired carried a piece on it last week, quoting Rumsfeld at the press conference. http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/01/rummy-wants-pro.html ``Private media does not get up in the morning and say what can we do to promote the values and ideas that the free Western nations believe in? It gets up in the morning and says they're going to try to make money by selling whatever they sell... The way they decided to do that is to be dramatic and if it bleeds it leads is the common statement in the media today. They've got their job, and they have to do that, and that's what they do. ``We need someone in the United States government, some entity, not like the old USIA . . . I think this agency, a new agency has to be something that would take advantage of the wonderful opportunities that exist today. There are multiple channels for information . . . The Internet is there, blogs are there, talk radio is there, e-mails are there. There are all kinds of opportunities. We do not with any systematic organized way attempt to engage the battle of ideas and talk about the idea of beheading, and what it's about and what it means. And talk about the fact that people are killing more Muslims than they are non-Muslims, these extremists. They're doing it with suicide bombs and the like. We need to engage and not simply be passive and allow that battle of competition of ideas.`` Remember it is not the first time the US government has played with clandestine radio and propaganda. They first ran Radio Swan just before the Cuban invasion, then a series of stations in the 1980's from Honduras, aimed at Nicaragua. Rumsfeld actually tried a version of this himself in Iraq, the results of which were a disaster. The Pentagon hired the Lincoln Group to pull off a propaganda campaign designed at discrediting the insurgency. This amounted to planting fake news stories in the Iraqi press written by soldiers that said things like the insurgents "crawled on their bellies like dogs in the mud." For this, the Pentagon spent more than US $25 million. When war breaks out, the US always brings in their psychological warfare teams and fly planes over the area to persuade locals they are the friend not the foe. They use radio and leaflets. In the first Gulf war in 1991 they were active as I reported on Radio Netherlands' Media Network show --- ``At first glance, the dull grey propeller-driven E-130 aircraft converted from cargo service, looks as slow and clunky. But Commando Solo II is in fact a special modified US$70 million plane, where the fuselage has been stuffed with computers, radio and TV production equipment, and quite powerful radio and TV transmitters. This gear allows the plane's 11-man crew to jam selected TV and radio broadcasts and substitute messages - true or false - on any frequency. ``Commando Solo has already been battle-tested by the 193rd Special Operations Group, an Air National Guard unit based in the US state of Pennsylvania. During the Persian Gulf War, the plane's crew broadcast radio reports on military frequencies targeted at Iraqi soldiers, including some of the next areas to be targeted by US bombers. As a result, it is claimed, many Iraqi soldiers deserted those positions. To prepare Haiti for the US intervention there, Commando Solo beamed in radio and TV messages from deposed President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Each broadcast began with the crow of a rooster, the symbol of Aristide's political party`` In the second Gulf war, the airplanes went home too early, leaving the airwaves wide open to their enemies. Iran moved up mobile transmitters to the border with Iraq and used TV to fill the gap left by the demise of the old Radio TV Baghdad. So, yes, the US seriously needs to review its overseas public diplomacy efforts. But the Rumsfeld approach is not the way of the 21st century and 2008 is not the year to be doing it. Posted by Jonathan Marks at 1/27/2008 11:22:00 (Critical Distance blog, illustrated, via DXLD) See also AFGHANISTAN [non] ** U S A [non]. A terrible mess noted in 16-17 UT slot on 15410 today. One of the stations settled 40 Hertz down on 15409.96, probably CVI Santiago in Portuguese, co-channel VoA Persian Farda program from Woofferton underneath. 73 wb (Wolfgang Büschel, Germany, Jan 27, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) It`s always that way here every morning, the two colliding. Full collision list, from HFCC: 15410 1000 2400 13,15NW SGO 100 60 Portuguese CHL CVC CVI 15410 1000 1100 52SE,53W KIG 250 180 SWAHILI RRW DWL DWL 15410 1200 1300 47S,48W,52E,53W KIG 250 0 FRENCH RRW DWL DWL 15410 1300 1357 46E,47SW KIG 250 310 HAUSA RRW DWL DWL 15410 1400 1700 40 WOF 300 105 G IBB IBB (Glenn Hauser, Enid, ibid.) Perpetual collision between R. Farda via Morocco, and CVC Miami via Chile on 15410. As pointed out by Wolfgang Büschel, CVC is now off- frequency. Jan 28 at 1500 could hear a low het making the co-channel QRM even more annoying, as Portuguese and Farsi took turns dominating. Used to be zero-beat, as I don`t recall even hearing a SAH between them (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A [non]. I can hear R. Sawa in Arabic on 9370 kHz, now at 1625 UT. Mistransmission? (S. Hasegawa, Japan, NDXC-HQ, Jan 28, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) 9370 had been Tinian at this hour, but Aoki already has this; Have not researched further, but maybe replacing Urdu service Aap ki Dunya which ended SW as of today? 9370 R. SAWA 1500-1600 1234567 Arabic 250 300 Udon Thani THA 10245E1725 IBB Jan. 28 9370 R. SAWA 1600-1700 1234567 Arabic 250 300 Udon Thani THA 10245E1725 IBB Jan. 28 That`s the only Sawa listing in Aoki so far. Sawa of course had been totally off SW for a few years (Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Tinian? Sawa? Ah-yes, the sixth Google hit, which is http://www.worldofradio.com/dxld6087.txt ``U S A [non]. Re 6-086, Sawa on SW via Tinian? These are all supposed to be RFA[sia]. I sure hope it's not still going on! Sawa is NOT on shortwave (Bill Whitacre, IBB, June 16, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Once you check into it, would be interesting to know how this happened and how long it did go on (gh to Bill, via DXLD)`` (via Kai Ludwig, Germany, Jan 28, 2008, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Glenn: No such luck with Sawa, and I tuned to 9370 to be bombarded by gospel music! FBN from North Carolina? I do hope they (Sawa) are heard on other channels than 9370 at 15-16 UT. Please let me know if there are any parallels. Thanks and 73's from Tennessee (Noble West, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Other frequencies of 5835 and 7495 with carry on VOA-Deewa Radio in Pashto. [Later:] I heard 1720 again, became Deewa Radio-Pashto. // 5835 and 7495 kHz (S. Hasegawa, Japan, NDXC HQ, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) 18-19 UT Deewa Pashto in sync on 5835UDO 7455IRA 9370IRA, but a little behind on 7495UDO. 73 wb (Wolfgang Büschel, ibid.) Re: [dxld] VOA Urdu (Aap Ki Duniya) Service drops all SW channels I heard R Aap Ki Dunyaa --- Date: January 27, 2008; Time: 1417–1435 UT; Frequency: 7495 kHz / 41 meter band; SINPO: 44444; Program: 1417 UT – interview mentioning Pakistan security forces, Mujibur Rahman, direction. 1419 – station ID. 1420 YL talked on Golden Globe Award with mention of Hollywood, news conference, romantic zone, Daniel Day Lewis, Julie Christie, show comedy. 1421 station website and IS. 1422 OM reading news: Condoleeza Rice, Rangoon, World Economic Forum, Bernard Kurchner, Aung San Suu-kyi, Ibrahim Gambari (report by presumably Akbar Halimi). 1429 YL reading news: Rawalpindi, Barrack Obama, report from Lahore, Supreme Court, Peshawar, Pakistani helicopter, American intelligence, Al Qaeda, Islamabad, the New York Times, Mike McCormick, Rawalpindi Secretary General of Police (report by presumably Hassan Sayed, Islamabad). 1435 Before tuned out I heard OM talked mentioning Senator Barrack Obama, Democratic Party (Tony Ashar, Depok, Indonesia, Jan 28, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Jonathan Marks Says: January 27th, 2008 at 9:40 am A significant step since VOA Urdu has quite an audience - but clearly not on analogue shortwave (Media Network blog via DXLD) ** U S A [and non]. VOA COVERAGE OF STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS Washington, D.C., January 28, 2008 --- The Voice of America (VOA) will provide extensive multi-media coverage in 45 languages of President Bush`s State of the Union address and the Democratic response. VOA`s in-depth coverage and analysis will include, (all UT are for January 29): Live television broadcast with simultaneous interpretation in Persian in a special broadcast from 0030 to 0230 UT (5:00 to 7:00 a.m. Tehran time). Setareh Derakhshesh and Vafa Mostaghim will co-anchor the program from VOA`s headquarters. VOA`s Persian News Network reporter Siamak Deghanpour will report live from Capitol Hill. Shayan Samii and Babak Yektafar, both PNN political contributors, will provide analysis. [but it`s not over at 0230, nor expected to be --- gh] A special radio/TV simulcast in English starting at 0200 UT. VOA News Now`s Ira Mellman will host the program and be joined by VOA National Correspondent Jim Malone, VOA White House Correspondent Paula Wolfson and VOA Capitol Hill Correspondent Dan Robinson. VOA Mandarin will provide live reports of President Bush`s address during its 0000 to 0300 radio broadcast and follow up with an in depth television report at 1400 UT (9:00 p.m. Beijing time). Seven VOA European services will broadcast television reports to stations in Albania, Bosnia, Croatia, Greece, Macedonia, Serbia, and Ukraine. Reports in Russian will be available via the Internet. VOA Dari will carry the address live on radio with simultaneous interpretation. http://www.VOANews.com VOA`s Internet site, will provide live audio and video streams of the President`s address and the Democratic response as well as on-demand audio and video streams, an MP3 download, news coverage, and full transcripts (VOA Press Release via Alokesh Gupta, New Delhi, dxldyg via DXLD) ** U S A. Another check of the weekly Monday morning net of the Texas DOT, Jan 28 at 1430 on 5195-SSB: Rollcall of same cities as always, NCS noting that Lufkin had antenna problems and would not check in, nor would Pharr per advance e-mail notice. Again the only YL-sounding voices came from Brownwood and Wichita Falls. Interrupted for a minute in the middle by ringtones at NCS, so they all QRXed, and as a result were not finished until 1436, a minute later than usual. NCS always has the strongest signal by far, which is, I guess, why or because he is the NCS in Austin (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. Area 51 Schedule --- WBCQ 5110, Monday-Saturday 5-7 pm Eastern time (2200-0000 UT) Webcast http://johnlightning.com:8024 http://www.wbcq.com/wbcq/area51sm.jpg Reception reports, requests, submissions, e-mail radio at zappahead.net or timtron at hotmail.com All programming is subject to change at a moment's notice! Friday 1/25/08 2200 Piratesweek 1/20/08 2230 Grits Radio Live 2300 International Radio Report 1/20/08 2330 World of Radio 1392 Saturday 1/26/08 2200 Liquid Radio live 2300 Lumpy Gravy Radio Show live Monday 1/28/08 2200 "Bob"'s Slacktime Funhouse - Susie the Floozy 493 - Big Gay Show complete 2320 The National Cynical Network - Midnight Voicejail Episode 02 - Drugs and Work Tuesday 1/29/08 2200 William Cooper - Mystery Babylon #2 2300 Jean Shepherd - 1976-02-02 - Pepito the Monkey Wednesday 1/30/08 2200 Complex Variables Studio - You Are What You Think 4.6.2003 2300 Radio Timtron Worldwide 3.1.2003 Thursday 1/31/08 2200 Juliet's Wild Kingdom 22 Star Trek Songs Shatner and Nimoy Sing 2230 Seldom Heard Radio 1.19.2001 2300 Lost Discs Radio Show 214 1.19.2008 Area 51 Show Piratesweek http://www.piratesweek.info Grits Radio http://pmlol.com/grits International Radio Report http://mediajct.homeip.net/radioreport/ World of Radio http://www.worldofradio.com Liquid Radio http://www.mnenergy.com/liquidradio/ Lumpy Gravy Radio Show http://www.rfma.net "Bob"'s Slacktime Funhouse http://www.wrek.org/?q=sundayshows#slacktimefunhouse National Cynical Network http://www.nationalcynical.com Bill Cooper Hour of the Time http://www.hourofthetime.com Jean Shepherd http://www.shep-archives.com/netjuke Complex Variables Studio http://www.worldmicroscope.com Lost Discs Radio Show http://lostdiscsradioshow.tripod.com _________________ http://rfma.net (WBCQ Broadcasters Forum via DXLD) Looks like Friday is the day to check for the following week`s sked (gh) ** U S A. The commish is not happy about the fact that they found an un-licensed 1620 kHz station operating from the Mt. San Jacinto Campus in San Jacinto, CA. They measured 65,000 uv @ 100 meters. The limit for an un-licensed operation is 14.8 uv at 30 meters. Copper thefts continue to be a problem in this area. If you are driving along a stretch of highway that has light poles, but no light, could very well be that thieves have snatched the wiring. With copper prices at all time highs, many owners of these systems clearly are not prepared…. After all, this has not been a problem. Some have begun painting all their copper wire a unique color and then advising law enforcement and scrap dealers what to look for. I again warn broadcasters to be very concerned about this issue… And so how is your alarm system? (Clay Freinwald, K7CR, CPBE, from Clay`s Corner Feb 08 via Northwest Broadcasters http://members.shaw.ca/nwbroadcasters/clay02-08.htm via DXLD) ** U S A. 1680 STATION TESTING IN CALIFORNIA Monitoring Times reader Steve Green is reporting an experimental station on 1680 kHz in El Centro, California. WD2XUM is testing with IDs, a countup, and a long tone. Nothing heard here in Tennessee, but California is a long ways off from here! (Doug Smith, American Bandscan Blog Jan 26 via DXLD) Is he hearing it at local range, or whence? (gh) ** U S A. WHY BROADCAST 24 HOURS; WHO LISTENS? Before Kevin accuses me of having a dog in this particular hunt, let me say off the bat that my part-time employer, WXXI(AM), maintains its "control point" downstairs in the master control of our sister station WXXI-TV, which is already staffed 24/7, so this rule would have no effect on our present NSP operation, as best we can make out. That said --- Overnights in the contemporary world of radio are a strange beast. I don't think there's a station out there, even the biggest, that makes any significant amount of money from its overnight programming. And I say that as an alumnus of one of the few stations (even when I worked there, more than a decade ago) that spends a significant amount of money actively and locally programming the overnight hours. That would be WBZ, of course, which has live, local talk all night long. It's a pretty good bet that whatever money BZ makes from selling ad time during its overnight hours (less than you'd think) is pretty well eaten back up again by the salaries of the hosts (a full-timer during the week, a part-timer on the weekend, and fill-ins as needed) and the producer. This is especially true because the midnight-6 AM time period is essentially unrated by Arbitron; one can pull out very sketchy ratings data out of Arbitron's Maximiser software, but nobody really bothers to do so. So why keep BZ or WINS or WFAN or KGO - or my local WBEE-FM, the only station here that's live overnight - humming along with live overnight programming? Much of it has to do with the morning show. As people begin commuting to work earlier and earlier, and as the number of people working overnight shifts inches up, anything that will give your station even a slight edge in the lucrative morning-drive hours is worth pursuing. So the theory is that if someone is up at 4 AM for whatever reason, they'll be more likely to have your station dialed in two hours later (when ratings and revenue kick in) if you give them a reason to tune in during the otherwise unprofitable overnight hours. For everyone else who's gone 24/7 in the last few decades, whether through satellite programming or automation, the rationale is actually quite similar: even if they're not doing anything live and local during the overnight hours, and even if they're not selling any local ad time during those hours, they'd still rather have you hear SOMETHING if you happen to flip the radio on at 3 AM (or set your alarm for 4:45, or what have you) than to have you encounter static and tune somewhere else. Which brings us to the question Kevin posed above - "how will it put stations out of business if they go SP from 0000 to 0500 local?" By itself, it won't. But aside from those of us in the DX community, for whom the benefit would be obvious, there are a lot of potential negatives here that add up to bad news for radio as a whole. Consider: for the big group-owned stations, this rule is truly No Big Deal. Any cluster of three or four or six stations in even a medium- sized market can absorb the cost of one overnight caretaker with relative ease - heck, just have one of the production guys work until 1 or 2 AM, and by then you've got a morning-show producer or news guy in house to watch the needles move until the morning show starts at 5 or 5:30. It's the smaller stations that will get hurt by this rule. There aren't many one-man stations left out there (hey, Paul Walker! howdy, Bob Bittner!), but there are plenty out there that make a go of it with staffs of fewer than five people. A surprising number of them are not only moderately profitable, but are providing local service to small towns that wouldn't have it otherwise. (I'm thinking here of stations like WHLM in Bloomsburg, PA, or Dennis Jackson's WRIP in Windham, NY, or Michael Richard's KEVA in Evanston, WY.) Even these stations probably *could* find some way to reassign staff to keep a warm body in the building overnight, but at much greater relative expense than the big guys. (I'm not even touching here on some of the other new re-regulatory proposals, for things like community advisory boards, that will add even more burdens to the workload of small broadcasters.) Instead, it's likely that they'd sign off, some of them perhaps as early as 9 or 10 at night --- which instantly makes them second-class stations by comparison with the big-city, big-group operators that can stay on all night with ease. Is that the message the FCC is trying to send? And (again, aside from DXers), how is the public really thus better served? If my grandmother can't sleep in the middle of the night and enjoys listening to the (voicetracked) standards on WLGZ 990 - as indeed she does - how is radio's service to her improved if WLGZ instead signs off at 11? (Especially when other competitors, whether it be satellite radio or webcasters or what have you, can keep going 24/7 without the additional regulatory load.) Getting back to WXXI for a moment, one reason I haven't been able to get a DX test scheduled on 1370, much as I'd like to, is that we have a small but intensely loyal band of insomniac listeners who value our overnight BBC World Service programming, and management doesn't want to shock them out of their near-slumber with sweep tones and code and military marches. As noted above, we're covered in the event of a 24/7 mandate anyway, but there's no way we'd be staffing overnights if we didn't already have someone in TV master control. There are plenty of standalone public radio stations I can think of that will assuredly be going dark overnight if these rules become reality. That doesn't seem like an improvement in public service to me. It's not even clear to me how or why the FCC thinks this requirement would improve the dissemination of emergency information. By definition, a station that's off the air can't disseminate any emergency information at all. The technology has improved dramatically, just in the last few years, to allow local emergency officials to work together with broadcasters to get urgent messages on the air with no human intervention at the radio station's end. Why make that harder to accomplish by reducing (perhaps dramatically) the number of signals on the air to broadcast those messages? You can't, in the end, change programming through legislation, and that seems to be to be the thrust of these proposed rules changes, especially some of the ideas about restoring the old main-studio rules. The more efforts are made to tweak the rules to get to the desired result, the greater the risk of unintended consequences. Let's say, for instance, that the FCC decides to make the overnight-staffing rules apply only to stations with 6 or more full-timers --- you'd better believe there will be a bunch of people suddenly losing jobs at stations with 7 or 8 employees! There was a great article about this in the NY Times Magazine last weekend: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/20/magazine/20wwln-freak-t.html Sorry to have rambled a bit here - this is a topic that's been on my mind (and on the minds of a lot of people in the business) over the last few days. At a time when radio, and especially small radio, needs all the competitive help it can get, this looks very much to me like the FCC moving backward. It will be interesting to see what kind of comments come in once the comment period begins! s (Scott Fybush, NY, Jan 25, IRCA via DXLD) ** VENEZUELA. Re 8-011: En días pasados informé acerca de RNV Canal Informativo y su frecuencia cada vez más desfasada de 630 kHz (631.28 kHz). Igualmente comenté acerca de Radio Popular 950 kHz y su ligero "fuera de frecuencia" en 950.02 kHz. Más tarde la medí con más precisión en el Yaesu FT-890 y en realidad es 950.03 kHz. Por lo general, amigo Glenn, las estaciones de onda media acá se cuidan mucho de no salirse del canal asignado. Evidentemente el caso de RNV es atípico y mucho más grave, sin embargo, considero que cualquier detalle relacionado con las frecuencias es de INTERÉS para todos los diexistas, no importa su escala. ¿O me equivoco? 73s y buen DX (Adán González, Catia La Mar, Estado Vargas, VENEZUELA, Jan 27, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Certainly; 20 or 30 Hz off might be of use to someone else measuring frequencies that precisely, or comparing SAHs with other 950 stations. All I was saying was that 1280 Hz off is 64 times worse (or as revised, only 42 and 2/3 times worse). Are you saying that most or all other Venezuelan MW stations are less than 20/30 Hz off frequency? Perhaps a band survey of offsets would be of interest. There is a DX group specializing in exactly this (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Thanks for the info, my friend. These next weeks I will be checking the whole MW band and then I will send a report on that. 73s (Adán González, ibid.) ** ZIMBABWE. 3396, R. Zimbabwe, 0133-0315, Jan 27, started out poor, quickly came up to fair and then went on to extremely good reception, 0133-0205 heard with alternate segments of African high-life music and OM talking in vernacular over the music, 0205 changed program to ballad/soul/rap songs, back to high-life, gospel and pop songs in vernacular and English (song "True Colors"), 0300 drums, IDs in English: "Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation, Radio Zimbabwe, shortwave", drums again, repeat of same ID, long list of cities with their FM frequencies (Harare FM 96 MHz, etc.), list of SW frequencies and details of broadcasting times, back to high-life music and in vernacular. The whole time 4828 was also well heard, not parallel, with non-stop music (high-life, gospel songs in English, etc.) but with no announcements. Super enjoyable listening! RE: DXLD 8-011: Too bad Bruce didn't catch 3396 as well. This is where the ID was (Ron Howard, Monterey, CA, Etón E5, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ZIMBABWE [non]. Madagascar. Radio “Voice of the People” was received in Sofia between 0435 and 05 hours on 9765 kHz with a program in English and Vernaculars (Rumen Pankov, Bulgaria, R. Bulgaria DX program Jan 25 via DXLD) ? used to be on that frequency in A-07 but B-07 RNW sked shows: 0400 0500 MDC 11610 265 250 RVP Mul 1234567 eAF D Really gone back to 9765? Could not hear either Jan 28 thru local noise level. Seems RB puts some old tips of Rumen on the air (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ZIMBABWE [and non]. Music jammer back on 4880, seems like SW Radio Africa is again jammed on weekend as earlier? Here's an audio file recorded on 27th Jan (Sun), 4880, 1845 UT: http://alokeshgupta.googlepages.com/swradioafrica_4880_1845utc_27jan2008.mp3 No music jammer noted today - 28th Jan, 2008 (Mon) (Alokesh Gupta, New Delhi, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Referred to as ``bagpipes``? (gh) UNIDENTIFIED. Re 8-011, 4450: Hi Glenn and friends, Ref: Radio Frontera, Bolivia. I have had this station listed in my file since September 06, 2002, broadcasting on 4449.33 kHz. I haven't heard it recently however. On 4450 there is a North Korean station that is up all of the time. I reported that station on the 26th of this month. It broadcasts the usual communist format of nationalistic music and speeches. Just something to consider (Chuck, Clewiston, Florida, Bolland, Jan 27, DX LISTENING DIGEST) UNIDENTIFIED [non]. 4790, 1850-1855*, weak, English, sounded like Radio Romania, but how on this frequency? (Thorsten Hallmann, Münster, Germany, Jan 27, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Thought 4790 might be 0.5 x 9580, but don`t see RRI scheduled there. Maybe something like that, a semi-harmonic (gh, ibid.) Hi Glenn, got it: Romania English 1800-1900 changed to 7215 // 9640 9640-7215 = 2425; 7215 - 2425 = 4790 (Thorsten Hallmann, Jan 28, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ROMANIA, 4790, RRI Intermodulation from Tiganeshti site, 1800-1900 UT. 7215 1800-1857 27N TIG 250kW 307deg ENGLISH ROU RRO 9640 1800-1857 27N TIG 250kW 307deg ENGLISH ROU RRO 12065 (9640+2425) is the symmetrical upper frequency [but not heard] 4790, schwach, Englisch, at 1855* UT mit kurzer Musik, hoerte sich nach Radio Romania Internat. an, aber die Frequenz!?! [later] Raetsel geloest: \\ 7215, 9640: 9640-7215=2425, 7215-2425=4790 (Thorsten Hallmann-D, A-DX Jan 26) Auch heute wieder gegen 1835 UT zu hoeren, sehr schwaches Signal, das dort wohl nicht hingehoert (Christoph Ratzer-AUT, A-DX Jan 27, all via Wolfgang Büschel, DXLD) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ PUBLICATIONS ++++++++++++ GLENN HAUSER LOGS, DXLD NOTIFICATIONS These are being picked up by a blog which may also be subscribed to via your favorite newsreader. We just happened across it: http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheWd9tWorld WD9T is ARZUAGAS, CARLOS, (Extra), Bunker Hill, IL, per FCC via ARRL (Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST) RSN DX GROUP - RSN TRUCKERS DX 11 M - WORKS TOGETHER ON 11 M We have updated RSN website welcome and visit Link: http://rsndxgroup.org Truckers ; ham operaters, CB operaters [RSN = Radio South North] can Join From RSN website or send in Direcly to me Janne E-mail redwolf116 @ hotmail.com Welcome to this New Start over the Air RSN dx group RSN Truckers Dx Good luck all 11 m operaters and Truckers operaters world wide 73's from (21 RSN 001 Janne President Sweden, noticias dx yg via DXLD) SHORTWAVE MUSIC +++++++++++++++ WHITE FLIGHT, NO SENSE, SUCKS "White Flight," by White Flight: "A mess of battered electronic beats, acid-folk yelps and disruptive samples from Bollywood movies and shortwave radio, it makes absolutely no sense. But it might suck you in. . ." Ben Rayner, Toronto Star, 27 January 2008. Posted: 27 Jan 2008 http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/article/297773 (kimandrewelliott.com via DXLD) CONVENTIONS & CONFERENCES +++++++++++++++++++++++++ READING INTERNATIONAL RADIO GROUP The next meeting will take place on Saturday February 2 at 2.30 p.m. [1430 UT] in Room 3, Reading International Solidarity Centre, 35-39 London Street, Reading, England. The programme will include a look back at shortwave radio in 1969, audience research as to where the audience for shortwave is now and a review of the Etón E5 radio. For further details email me mikewb @ dircon.co.uk or phone 01462 643899 (Mike Barraclough, worlddxclub yg via DXLD) RADIO EQUIPMENT FORUM +++++++++++++++++++++ RFID RISKS Most Frightening Presentation at DLD-08 [linx to 23-minute video] http://criticaldistance.blogspot.com/2008/01/most-frightening-presentation-at-dld.html If you have just received a letter from your credit card company, plus a new RFID enabled credit card, take a look at what Pablo Holman has to say during the first few minutes of this video taken from a session at DLD this year. Yes, the secret credit-card information is encrypted on the card. But Pablo shows that it is all decrypted by a simple RFID reader he got for US$8 on ebay. He recommends putting your credit cards into a stainless-steel holder so0 that it cannot be read by rogue readers. Next year, he quipped, he can put the same reader at the door of the theatre and grab all the credit card numbers and expiration dates of the people entering the lecture theatre. His group, which I term "Hackers for the good side of society" can clone RFID passports already. Starbucks claims the line moves 3 times as fast if people don't have to get a credit card out of their wallet. I'll stick to mine in the stainless steel carrier if you don't mind. I think there are other ways for Starbucks to solve its transaction problem - like an optical code read by a scanner. Some people already have the solution (Jonathan Marks, Critical Distance blog via DXLD) LANGUAGE LESSONS ++++++++++++++++ BIZNESMEN Hi Glenn, re biznesmen; here it is written in Cyrillic: http://caricatura.ru/parad/KoYan/8760/ 73, (Mauno Ritola, Finland, DX LISTENING DIGEST) The first E is forwards, the second E backwards. This raises another question. Do Russians follow irregular English singular and plural, i.e. biznesman for singular? (Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ###