DX LISTENING DIGEST 9-021, March 6, 2009 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 2008 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 1450 Sat 0900 IPAR/IRRS/NEXUS/IBA 9510 [except first Sat: March 7] Sat 0900 WRMI 9955 Sat 1730 WWCR3 12160 Sun 0330 WWCR3 5070 Sun 0730 WWCR1 3215 [or 0630 as DST starts; rest are DST-shifted:] ==================== Sun 0800 WRMI 9955 Sun 1515 WRMI 9955 Mon 0500 WRMI 9955 Mon 2200 WBCQ 7415 [confirmed March 2] Tue 1100 WRMI 9955 Tue 1530 WRMI 9955 Wed 0500 WRMI 9955 [or new 1451] Wed 1530 WRMI 9955 [or new 1451] WBCQ is also airing new or archive editions of WOR M-F 1900 on 7415 Latest edition of this schedule version, including AM, FM, satellite and webcasts with hotlinks to station sites and audio, is at: http://www.worldofradio.com/radioskd.html or http://schedule.worldofradio.org or http://sked.worldofradio.org For updates see our Anomaly Alert page: http://www.worldofradio.com/anomaly.html WRN ON DEMAND: http://new.wrn.org/listeners/stations/station.php?StationID=24 WORLD OF RADIO PODCASTS VIA WRN NOW AVAILABLE: http://podcast.worldofradio.org or http://www.wrn.org/listeners/stations/podcast.php OUR ONDEMAND AUDIO: http://www.worldofradio.com/audiomid.html or http://wor.worldofradio.org ** ALBANIA. Hi Glenn, Tuned Radio Tirana at 1945 UT this evening on 7465 kHz, very good, with SINPO 55444, English to Europe. Also at 2120 on 7510, very good, SINPO 45444. Dramatic increase in audio quality, studio vocals much more pronounced, and music clear. Think they must have ditched the tape, maybe now using digital audio. Best wishes (Chris Lewis, England, March 5, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ARMENIA. 4810 kHz, Voice of Armenia, Yerevan, noted in Armenian at 1855z March 6. At 1859z music bridge and ID, followed by IS and presumed National Anthem. At 1901 Arabic ID over music and news. SINPO 34343. Greetings from Portugal (José Pedro Turner, Gondomar, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** AUSTRALIA [and non]. Despite not hearing anything on 90 or 105 meters, since I was getting Indonesia on 60 and 75 meters, March 4 at 1333 I tried 120 --- and there it was, VL8K Katherine NT with YL news in Strine, peaking S9+8. Could also detect carriers on 2310, slightly stronger than 2325. This was 35 minutes after local sunrise. Just for kix, I tuned to the other end of the dial at 1335, and found 16m also propagating, with BBCWS English via Ascension on 17830, and DW Hausa via Rwanda on 17800. Not a bad spread, 15+ MHz. R. Australia on 31m, VG on 9580, G on 9590, and F on 9560, March 4 at 1357 as Rural Reporter had just ended, into Roger Broadbent`s QSY announcement. But 9560 cut off before he could mention a single frequency! 9580 had it all, plus a bit of Waltzing Matilda before that cut off a few sex after 1358. By then, 9590 which continues, but which he never mentions, had switched to a program promo (Glenn Hauser, Enid OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** AUSTRALIA. Took advantage of an unseasonably balmy morning to drag the portable beverage out to my local "DXpedition" site. Conditions overall seemed fairly poor this morning, with China and Myanmar being the only real surprises. Mark Schiefelbein, near Bois D'Arc, MO Eton E1 / ~1000' E-W beverage antenna 2485, VL8K Katherine, 1240, 03/06/09, English. A pair of announcers doing cricket play-by-play, sounded even less interesting than most baseball radio play-by-play. VL8K was the best of the 3, VL8A/VL8T weaker and covered by some sort of new local QRN not noted on previous visits. Good (Mark Schiefelbein, MO, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** AUSTRALIA. *ABC Radio delays digital launch* ABC RADIO has confirmed it will not be part of the official launch of digital radio when the new technology launches in May. The ABC's acting head of radio Kate Dundas said funding delays had prevented the acquisition of equipment and the roll-out of new infrastructure. The ABC, which is hoped to be a key provider of digital radio content, now expects to start digital radio transmissions in July. . . http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25137438-7582,00.html (via Zacharias Liangas, DXLD) ** BANGLADESH. Re recent questioning: BANGLADESH BETAR. 7250, March 4, 1230-1241, SINPO 23332. Opening by YL mentioning Bangladesh, followed by OM reading news bulletin, starting with "assalamu’alaikum". At 1237 when signal was steady in low level, I heard such a technical or audio problem. I heard traditional flute music at 1239, followed by OM talk mentioning "The first four nation’s ___" (Tony Ashar, West Java, Indonesia, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** BELARUS. 7135, Radio Belarus (presumed), 2238-2302, 2009-03-03, English. SINPO 13111. Slavic music, occasional commentary by male and female, 2300 IS? piano (Rich Mitchell, Raleigh, NC, RX-320D, PAR EL- SWL in attic, MFJ-784B filter, MFJ-1045C Preselector, FRG-100, NASWA yg via DXLD) ** BIAFRA [non]. According to FCC info, WHRI`s Friday-only broadcast of V. of Biafra International at 2000-2100 on 15665, 250 kW at 87 degrees, moves one UT hour LATER for the rest of B-08, to 2100-2200, starting March 8. That`s the date DST begins, causing most US broadcasts to shift one UT hour EARLIER, but should not apply to Biafra where there is no DST, and this transmission has not made such a shift in the past. Possibly the change is necessitated by other demands on transmitter usage, and/or VOBI really wants to be heard one hour later in the local evening. So this would not go into effect until March 13, and must be confirmed by real monitoring (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** BOLIVIA. Band scan, March 5, Tropical Stations on at 2300 to 2350 3309.98, R Mosoj Chaski, Cochabamba 4451.26v, Radio Santa Ana, Santa Ana de Yacuma 4699.42, Radio San Miguel, Riberalta, 4716.19, Radio Yura, Yura Logged with D L in Pensacola, Florida. Thanks tips to other Florida dxers. 73s de (Robert Wilkner, Pompano Beach, Florida, Drake R 8, NRD 535D, DX LISTENING DIGEST) See also PERU ** BRAZIL. 3375, 5 kW, R. Educadora Guajara Mirim – RONDONIA, INATIVA: Recebido E-Mail da emissora comercial@radioeducadoraam.com.br 09/02/2009 --- Olá amigo Adalberto, fico feliz em saber que você é um ouvinte da Educadora; em resposta à sua pergunta, infelizmente não estamos mais emitindo sinal em ondas tropicais, mas estamos na internet para o mundo inteiro através do site http://www.radioeducadoraam.com.br Abracos e continue nos visitando. Ivan Mendes 4955, 2.5 kW, R. Clube Rondonópolis - MT INATIVA 11-02-3009 – Recebido E-Mail (adryanO@hotmail.com): Sou de Rondonópolis-MT e posso afirmar que a freqüência 4955 R. Clube de Rondonópolis-MT, está desativada; não sei o motivo, porem vou verificar com a emissora, Adriano Rossoni. 5035, 5 kW, R. Educação Rural Coari AM 28/01/2009 – Recebido E-Mail da emissora (radiocoari@hotmail.com) Olá Adalberto, A nossa Rádio estava sim com um pequeno probleminha, mais já foi resolvido, graças a Deus e vc pode sim comunicar seus colegas, pois ela já está funcionando normal. E mais uma vez, muito obrigada, mais obrigada mesmo. Abraços Marinalva Verganho (a few entries from a tropical band listing, by Adalberto Marques de Azevedo, Navegando Ondas Tropicais, @titivade DX March 1 via DXLD) ** BRAZIL. 6010, R. Inconfidência, Belo Horizonte, Mar 6 0940, Beautiful Portuguese ballads. Interference from another Latin on frequency but could neither ID it nor null it out. 6019.66, R. Gaúcha, Porto Alegre, Mar 6 0840, Five-minute block of ads, canned station promos, and IDs. Theme from Goldfinger, then into soft Portuguese ballads. Should be 6020 (Bruce Barker, Broomall, PA. Equipment: NRD 535D and an Alpha Delta DX Sloper, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) See MEXICO and PERU, where we were hearing different stations on nearly same frequencies an hour or two earlier. Brazilian sign-on times are notoriously flexible, but FWIW, WRTH 2009 shows 6010 from 1200; 6020 from 0900. PWBR `2009` shows 6010 as 24 hours, which could be a cop-out, and 6020 from 0900 --- DST 0800 but that is now over (Glenn Hauser, DXLD) ** BRAZIL [and non]. 11855, slightly wavering audible het from station in Brazilian Portuguese soon conveniently mentioning Aparecida, just as I expected. Initially it was about level with the collider, WYFR in Spanish, but by 2307 Fámily Radio had increased to dominate. A pipeline from Brasil was open, with huge RNA 11780 signal; 11815 RBC much weaker but in the clear; Bandeirantes audible on 11925 but badly squeezed by HCJB on one side and DentroCuban jamming pulses against nothing on the other; and 11765 good signal with Deus é Amor service (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CANADA [and non]. CBC Radio One 540 in Watrous, Saskatchewan --- During high winter in Dec and Jan it is possible to get 540 during most of the day here in Victoria BC under good conditions with continuous cold air over the west. A night time catch is nothing unusual in any location except of course where adjacents don't permit 540 to drop in cleanly (Bill Kral in BC, March 4, IRCA via DXLD) What does cold air have to do with MW propagation, other than lack of T-storm noise? (gh, DXLD) This station says (if I remember correctly) part of the secret to their huge signal area is they use double the normal number of ground radials (in addition to being 50 kW at 540 in a high ground conductivity area). The reason they are many dozens of miles north of Regina is to avoid overlap with KFYR-550 in Bismarck, ND, which can be listened to in Regina. The FCC has granted a fulltime station to Sauk Rapids, MN (near St. Cloud) on 540. They will most likely have to null NW and if they beam SE they will cover Minneapolis-St. Paul and it will be the end of being able to listen to CBC on MW here, except for 990 in Winnipeg. Neither market (St. Cloud or Minneapolis-St. Paul) seems underserved, but it seems there's always someone willing to try to beat the odds. CBC 540 was readable at 600 miles on a Realistic TRF (years ago) when we vacationed in the Park Rapids, MN area. This was in the summer. 73, (George Sherman, MN, ibid.) I question whether siting it at Watrous had anything to do with KFYR- 550; which came first? Seems to me Watrous is a good central compromise location for Sask. coverage, midway between the two major cities, Regina and Saskatoon (gh, DXLD) George, At nearly 1000 miles, CBK is generally audible here on the North Coast 24/7. Weak in the Summer during the day, but still there. Strong all Winter. They do get out well. 73, (Patrick Martin, Seaside OR, ibid.) ** CANADA [non]. Re WTOR 770 open carrier: I went down the hall and hand delivered a copy of Mike Brooker's email to the WABC CE. He read it with significant interest and said he'll give them a call and "rattle some cages." (Bob Galerstein WB2VGD, Monroe, NY, NRC-AM via DXLD) I wouldn't bet that Birach will be all over fixing WTOR. In my backyard Birach owned WDMV AM-700 has been off-the-air after losing "Washington Business Radio" to WWRC. A further pounding involves family issues within the company, from DCRTV February 10, 2009 : WDMV'S BIRACH ACCUSES SON OF MISREPRESENTATION Inside Radio reports that talker WDMV (700 AM) owner "Sima Birach says his company's a victim of stolen identity - by his own son. More than a year of mistaken identities, misrepresentations, and potentially criminal behavior has the 20-year owner of Birach Broadcasting speaking out. Birach alleges his son, Sima Birach Jr., and attorney George LeRoy created a Virginia-based company called Birach Broadcasting Corporation without his knowledge. From there they allegedly raised capital, hired staff, and built a company with people believing they were dealing with the 23-station group." IR adds: "Making matters worse, he says a BIA Financial appraisal combined the two entities and was used by his son to misrepresent the company. Birach Sr. says his Detroit-based group has since been named in several lawsuits by companies with which he's never had contact. When his attorneys approached his son to stop using the name, he refused. Police reports have been filed in Michigan and Virginia, where Birach Sr. has asked regulators to void the registration." WDMV for years has been trying to move closer to Washington DC and pump the station to 50,000 watts. For years WDMV has lost to local NIMBY's and has settled on boosting their distant Walkersville site to 50,000 watts. Living just a few miles away I have yet to see anything happen and everything seems to be going against this station and company. Many question will it even survive this economy -- In short, WTOR is probably small potatoes but good luck trying to get them to fix an obvious problem (Travers DeVine, March 4, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Apparently the appropriate cages were rattled! This morning from about 0615 EST I was able to listen to the I-Man on WABC. In like a ton of bricks, with no open carrier from that little ethnic brokered-time daytimer. 73 (Mike Brooker, Toronto, ON, (thumbing my nose at the politically correct do-gooder busybodies who got Imus fired from WFAN- 660!), March 5, NRC-AM via DXLD) Mike, The CE [of WABC] told me minutes ago that he telephoned and emailed the station yesterday, both with a friendly tone. The 'ole "honey is sweeter than vinegar." The CE also said printing new QSL cards has been on the front burner. So, the two of us will be designing a new card shortly [for WABC]. He wants an old style card. I'm trying to get the CE's at WEPN and WQEW to follow suit and they're interested. It's just that they're swamped right now with work. I've been handling the QSL's on letterhead. Incidentally, I used to sub for Warner on both Imus and Curtis and Kuby, until I got increased responsibilities on the other side of the wall at WEPN in the mornings the last year (Bob Galerstein, WB2VGD, Monroe, NY, March 6, ibid.) ** CANADA. 1610, CHHA Toronto ON; 2322-2400+, 4-Mar; Call-in program with many mentions of Argentina & Colombia; ad/ID break at 2343, Radio Voces Latinas; ID at 2356, Radio Canada, CHHA Radio CHHA, Voces Latinas, La Voz de la Communidad; all in Spanish. Good peaks with fades to about zilch; best in USB till about 2353 when high-side IBOC hiss came up. Then had to go to LSB with 1600 splash QRM. Main QRM is second Spanish speaking station! CJWI Montreal? At 0457 on 3/5, CHHA gave English and Spanish IDs, then Canadian anthem, then English & Spanish IDs after the anthem, then another anthem (not Canadian). After the last anthem, they went into -- sounded like -- sub-continental music. 1610 UNID; 2322-2400+, 4-Mar; M in Spanish plus wide variety of music- - some sounds Afro, or Central American camp'o. Occasional short peak under CHHA. Presume this is not Caribbean Beacon. CJWI Montreal in Spanish? at 0430 on 3/5, predominant CHHA QRM is French with Creole music -- probably CJWI. No sign of Dead Dr. Gene via Anguilla. He was on 6090 at the time (Harold Frodge, Midland MI, Mare Tipsheet via DXLD) ** CANADA. Re 9-020: I hear from RCI that they are downlinking the same satellite channel as usual for the TRT relay at 0400 on 7325, so the Turx must have changed the uplink from English to Turkish by mistake or deliberately without notification yet of where to find English. Also, Sackville was indeed off the air UT March 3 due to freezing rain causing icing on power lines, antennas, leading to VSWR problems. Many other broadcasts were interrupted or intermittent (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Viz.: Hi Glenn, Regarding the TRT program, we are using the same satellite channel (Galaxy 25, horizontal, 11.966 GHz, channel 6) that we have always been using for the audio source. We (here at Sackville) have not been given any direction to change to another source. ``I could not hear any signal at all around 0430 UT Tuesday, on 7325 (or 6175 Vietnam relay) -- Propagation, or were you off the air?`` From 0437:37 to 0459:00 TRT was indeed off the air. Many other broadcasts that night were either intermittent or reduced power, or missing entirely. We had severe freezing rain conditions that night which rendered many transmission lines and antennas useless due to high VSWR. there were also numerous hydro brownouts and outages (which cascaded into other systems problems) as the power lines suffered damage throughout the region. Even tonight, there is still much ice on the antennae and transmission lines, because of the low temperature and lack of wind, so many broadcasts had to be made at reduced power. You may even have noticed a few early low-power unmodulated transmissions, which we often do in an attempt to melt off the ice prior to the scheduled broadcast. On the plus side, it was spectacular to see in the daylight (John Rose, Sackville Master Control, UT March 4, DX LISTENING DIGEST) see TURKEY ** CANADA. Glenn: Here is something TV related I have not seen mentioned anywhere yet The CTV television people have will not renew the license for a large number of TV transmitters this year - most of these carry the CTV network, some the A channel. Some have been on the air for over 50 years such as CKNX-TV. This from their recent CRTC application: CTVgm Conventional Television Group – 2009 Licence Renewal Appendix 1B --- List of Transmitters CTVgm is not Applying to Renew Call Sign Location Call Sign Location CKAM-TV Upsalquitch Lake, NB CKX-TV-3 McCreary, MB CKCD-TV Campbellton, NB CKYP-TV The Pas, MB CKCW-TV-2 St. Edward, PE CKYF-TV Flin Flon, MB CJCH-TV-4 Bridgetown, NS CKYS-TV Snow Lake, MB CJCB-TV-4 New Glasgow, NS CKYT-TV Thompson, MB CJOH-TV-6 Deseronto, ON CIPA-TV-2 Big River, SK CJOH-TV-8 Lancaster, ON CKCK-TV-7 Fort Qu’Appelle, SK CJOH-TV-47 Pembroke, ON CICC-TV-3 Hudson Bay, SK CFTO-TV-21 Severn Falls, ON CIWH-TV-1 Humboldt, SK CFTO-TV-54 Bobcaygeon, ON CFCN-TV-4 Burmis, AB CICI-TV-1 Elliot Lake, ON CFCN-TV-6 Drumheller, AB CITO-TV-1 Kapuskasing, ON CFCN-TV-7 Bassano, AB CITO-TV-2 Kearns, ON CFCN-TV-11 Sparwood, AB CITO-TV-3 Hearst/Hallebourg, ON CFCN-TV-12 Moyie, AB CITO-TV-4 Chapleau, ON CFCN-TV-13 Pigeon Mountain, AB CHBX-TV-1 Wawa, ON CFCN-TV-16 Oyen, AB CKNY-TV-11 Dwight, ON CFCN-TV-17 Waterton Park, AB CKCO-TV-2 Wiarton, ON CFCN-TV-18 Coleman, AB CKVR-1 LP Parry Sound, ON CFRN-TV-7 Lougheed, AB CKNX-TV Wingham, ON CFRN-TV-10 Rocky Mountain House, AB CHWI-TV-60 Windsor, ON CFRN-TV-12 Athabasca, AB CKX-TV-1 Foxwarren, MB CFCN-TV-15 Invermere, BC CKX-TV-2 Melita, MB 73, (Deane McIntyre VE6BPO, March 4, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CANADA. Broadcaster CTV lays off 120 at TV stations Tue Mar 3, 2009 10:52pm GMT http://uk.reuters.com/article/technology-media-telco-SP/idUKN0349056120090303?sp=true TORONTO, March 3 (Reuters) - Canadian broadcaster CTV is laying off about 120 employees at its conventional television stations as it copes with a big advertising downturn and a slumping economy. CTV, owned by privately held CTVglobemedia, said on Tuesday that aside from the staff cuts at its A brand TV stations, it has also canceled a number of their local morning, evening and weekend programs. The layoffs in Ontario and British Columbia account for about 28 percent of the total workforce of the A stations. They come just days after CTV said it would shut two smaller-market A stations in Ontario. "We are doing everything we can to hang on to conventional television, but as we continue to stress, the conventional model is now broken," Paul Sparkes, CTVglobemedia's executive vice-president of corporate affairs, said in a statement. "In the long term, the only real solution is fee-for-carriage." Broadcasters like CTV have argued they deserve a share of the subscriber fees charged by cable and satellite companies for carrying their signals. They say such a fee system would help offset the drop in advertising revenues they have suffered as a result of the rise of cable and satellite services. However, last October, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, the federal regulator, turned down their requests. In November, CTV cut 105 jobs and became yet another media company to reduce staff as the advertising market falters. CTV rival Canwest Global Communications Corp (CGS.TO) also cut broadcasting jobs last year and is now considering selling five conventional TV stations. CTVglobemedia is owned by BCE Inc (BCE.TO), Torstar Corp (TSb.TO), the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan and Woodbridge Co, which is the investment vehicle of Canada's billionaire Thomson family. (Reporting by Wojtek Dabrowski; editing by Rob Wilson) (via Kevin Redding, ABDX via DXLD) CTV shutting down xmtrs! CTV (and its 2nd network "A") plan to shutdown a whole boatload of OTA repeater transmitters by August 31st with no DT replacements planned... looks like only the originating stations will survive... http://www.ctv.ca/generic/WebSpecials/pdf/CTVCORP/AppendixB_ListofTransmitters.pdf The beginning of the end of OTA TV in much of rural Canada.... I can just envision the group of CTV/Bell executives around a table saying - - "Now how can boost the sales of our Bell ExpressVu satellite. - - Well sir, we have these pesky OTA transmitters providing free service. - - Well, shut 'em down." They're oblivious to the fact that there's a surge of antenna sales in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and border cities as people move to get free HD either from these cities and/or the US. By not having free broadcast HD on the satellite & cable, people are going to antennas. If they were to ever shut down their main OTA HD transmitters, people would just be watching Buffalo, Detroit, Burlington, Seattle, etc. like they did in the late 1940's and early 1950's. wrh (Bill Hepburn, Grimsby Ont., March 5, WTFDA via DXLD) Maybe this will free up channel space to other broadcasters - there will be room in all these places for a new entrant. There's been talk of employees at CHCH 11 Hamilton buying that station, so who knows how this will fall out. It will also be interesting to see how the CRTC responds. In my universe, the CRTC would take a dim view of any future commitments or promises or requests by CTV/Bell. Of course, in the real world, backs are patted, doors revolve, and palms are greased, and only occasionally are there hiccups (Saul Chernos, ibid.) http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/show/CTVShows/20031023/corp-default is the "note to staff" released on Feb. 27th. It contains at the end links to the three appendices including the one linked above. The first appendix is a far more detailed narrative. There is some thought that this is a plan to extract some concessions from the CRTC in their upcoming review of over-the-air TV. Especially, they seem to want cable/satellite operators required to make per- subscriber payments to OTA stations, like they're making to cable-only channels. As in, after the CRTC review is complete, CTV will "find the money" to keep the OTA transmitters on the air. I should note that while CHWI-16 ("A-Channel Windsor") isn't in the list of transmitters, the text of the first appendix does say "For viewers in Wingham and Wheatley/Windsor to be able to access the programming these stations broadcast, they will need to subscribe to a BDU that carries CFPL-TV ("these stations" refers to CHWI-16 and CKNX- 8). I think CHWI's omission from the list is a mistake (Doug Smith W9WI, Pleasant View, TN EM66, ibid.) ** CANADA [and non]. CFRX, 6070, clear with hardly any QRM, March 4 at 0748 with the late-night talk show on both CJAD and CFRB, Holder Tonight, Peter Anthony Holder reporting on a john having been shot in Utah, since evidently there was no guest in this hour per http://www.peteranthonyholder.com/wf-09-03-02.htm At first I thought CVC Chile must have been off, but in fades I could still hear traces of something else on 6070. Normally it`s at least an even mix or CVC atop, useless collision (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 6069.97, CFRX Toronto, 0232-0250 + 0333-0344, March 5. CVC/Chile not heard March 4 nor 5. IDs "News Talk 1010 CFRB”; Ryan Dolye show; Ann Shatilla’s Hollywood Report; Bill Carroll Show; traffic report; poor- fair. 6159.97, CKZU Vancouver, 0251-0308, March 5. As It Happens Show with Carol Off and Barbara Budd; “CBC News from Vancouver”: local news & weather. QRM from assume CKZN (Newfoundland) which was faintly heard under them. Thanks to John Wilkins for also recently confirming these frequency measurements for both CKZU and CFRX (Ron Howard, Asilomar Beach, CA, Etón E1, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Excellent news: CVC Chile has finally dropped 6070 during most of the night as of March 3: Spanish on 6070 is now scheduled only at 0000- 0100 and 1100-1200; see CHILE. CFRX, 6070, at 0714 check March 6 during Holder Tonight, the UT Tue- Sat talk show from CJAD Montreal, and NO QRM, not even a SAH, from CVC Chile! The reason is that CVC has unexpectedly dropped their overnight broadcasting in Spanish, just as they did in Portuguese several months ago. Must have decided it is not cost-effective, and surely not in response to complaints of QRM against CFRX. An updated CVC schedule this week shows 6070 still in use only for two hours at 00-01 and 11-12 UT. More frequencies have been dropped, 11805 and 11970, and others reduced. Good news from the minions of J.C.! Now CFRX is relatively unimpeded thruout the darkness hours. However, in A-09, CVC Santiago plans to use 6070 at 2300-0200 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CHECHNYA [non]. Re RUSSIA, Chechnya program, or "Programma Kavkaz Radiokompanii Golos Rossii" as suggested by Mauno Ritola in Finland. A bit of a coincidence, I logged this Russian underneath Morocco: 171, Tbilisskaya, 1950-2009, 26 Feb, Russian, light songs, news or at least it appeared to be a newscast, at 8 PM; 22451; not R. Rossii, or at least not // a R. Rossii program I found on (5905 as I seem to remember, but failed not to write this down). I usually use my K9AY for LF too, but the only way I could unveil this one on 171, and more recently the 150 kW transmitters on 198 (Moscow & Skt. Peterburg) was via a new quiet 14 m Vertical: 198, Kurovskaya (Moscow) + Olgino (S. Petersburg), 1803-1850, 02 Mar, Russian, newscast at 1800, pops, chatter; 23441, QRM de BBC only. ALGERIA, typically very bad on this channel started to be noticed around 1900. 73 (Carlos Gonçalves, Portugal, March 4, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CHILE. CVC has made another major reduxion in its transmissions for reasons unknown, but finally ridding CFRX of most of its co-channel interference; see CANADA. Spanish on 6070 is now scheduled only at 0000-0100 and 1100-1200; 9780 at 1100-1200, ex 0800-1200; 17680 at 1200-0100, ex -2400. Also dropped is 11805 at 0000-0800, and 11970 at 0100-0400; and Portuguese 9655 at 0900-1100. A few months ago, overnight broadcasts in Portuguese were cancelled, and now Spanish too (Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CHINA. 3280. Voice of Pujiang, 1246, 03/06/09, Mandarin. What sounded like an upbeat roundtable dialogue or discussion between several people, to distinctive 5+1 time pips and presumed newscast at 1300. Weak. Poor (Mark Schiefelbein, MO, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CHINA. Firedrake fair on 9000 and 8400, March 4 at 1340 against Sound of Hope, but not heard on 9300. 9450, March 5 at 1451, clear Russian broadcast but mentioning Chinese names and bits of Chi music, ``Kitaya``, so no doubt CRI as scheduled, 37 degrees from Shijiazhuang, per Aoki, to E Russia and thence N America; it so happens this jams Sound of Hope, Taiwan, which may have been barely audible underneath, and probably sufficiently so not to pile on additional transmitters disrupting CRI reception too (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CHINA. Re: CNR-8 "Minzu zhi sheng" largely expand --- Additional monitoring to Mar. 5. [so disregard the previously compiled sked] 2200-2300 Korean 5955, 5975 NEW 2300-2400 Mongolian 5955, 7445 NEW 2300-2400 Tibetan 9480, 7360, 6010, 1143 0000-0100 Uighur 15670, 11810, 11630, 9890, 9655, 9455 NEW 0100-0200 Kazakh 15670, 15390, 11810, 11630, 9890, 9455 NEW 0200-0300 Korean 9610, 7120, 1143 0300-0400 Mongolian 11815, 9610, 1143 0400-0500 Korean 9610, 9440 NEW 0400-0500 Tibetan 15570, 11685, 9530, 1143, 1098 0500-0600 Kazakh 15415, 15390, 13700, 12055, 11780, 11630, 1422, 1143 0600-0700 Uighur 15415, 15390, 13700, 12055, 11780, 11630, 1422, 1143 0700-0800 Mongolian 11815, 9610, 1143 0800-0900 Kazakh 15415, 15390, 13700, 12055, 11780, 11630, 1422 NEW 0800-0900 Tibetan 11685, 9530, 9480, 1143, 1098 0900-1000 Kazakh 15415, 15390, 13700, 12055, 11780, 11630, 1422, 1143 1000-1100 Korean 9785, 7410, 1143, 1017 1100-1200 Uighur 12055, 11720, 11630, 9890, 9690, 9420, 1422, 1143 1200-1300 Mongolian 9610, 5955, 1143 1300-1400 Kazakh 9890, 9645, 9630, 9420, 7120, 6180, 1422 NEW 1300-1400 Tibetan 9480, 7350, 6010, 1143, 1098 1400-1500 Kazakh 9890, 9645, 9630, 9420, 7120, 6180, 1143 1500-1600 Uighur 9890, 9645, 9630, 9420, 7120, 6145, 1143 1600-1700 Mongilian 9890, 9645, 9630, 9420, 7120, 6145, 1143 de Hiroshi (S. Hasegawa, NDXC, Japan, March 5, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) See also TIBET [non]! ** COSTA RICA. REE Cariari, 5965, March 4 around 0730 was a big unmodulated carrier, but still too much for Vatican co-channel to be readable; still such at 0751 recheck, but at 0752 modulation cut on at normal level with only 8 minutes to go in the transmission (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CUBA [and non]. 17705, Radio Habana; 2231-2243+, 27-Feb; M&W in French with news commentaries; ID at 2243. SIO=453. EiBi lists it as Guarani 2230-2300, but it was definitely French (Harold Frodge, Midland MI, MARE Tipsheet via DXLD) 17705, RHC with yet another engineering problem during French broadcast at 2238 March 4: there was crackling on the audio, the modulation cutting in and out, but also the signal strength was jumping up and down, altho never cutting off completely. As if there were a loose connexion or a short somewhere in the antenna system. I recall a similar instance on RHC months ago. More than wiggling a patchcord will be required to fix this. You`re welcome, from RHC`s volunteer monitor and technical advisor in Oclajoma. 12060, second harmonic of DentroCuban Jamming Command with pulses at the rate of about 126 per minute or slightly over 2 times per second, against nothing, at 2301 March 4. Initially I thought it was OTH radar, but too narrowband, and then the pulse rate clocked in. Collateral damage from jammers against Radio Martí on 6030. These also appear on 3x = 18090 in a ham band when propagation is favorable. Fortunately there were no innocent bystanding broadcasters on 12060 at the moment. There is very little usage of 12060 anyway, and nothing to or from the Western Hemisphere. This may not be coincidental. What`s RHC doing on 49m Wednesday night? At 0456 UT March 5, 6000 and 6140 in English with music, 6060 and 6180 in Spanish with IS and closing. 6180 back to the weak signal in Spanish, while two nights ago it bore the strong signal in English instead of 6140. At 0650: English on 6000 > 6060 > 6140, nothing on 6180. This is the `usual` situation, with 6180 back to carrying Spanish, weak here, until sign-off around 0500. Need to recheck 6140 during the 0300 hour whether RHC English is still colliding with RRI Spanish. Like the day before, RHC 17705 again with serious technical problems, during Portuguese March 5 at 2225, both modulation and carrier levels jumping up and down, but not cutting off completely, such as a bad connexion, antenna wires shorting out, blowing in the wind, or the like. The 9.8+ MHz area is a hot bed of dentro- and fuera-Cubans. In most cases RHC and R. Martí manage to stay further apart, but at 0018 March 6, 9825 had RM over jamming, while RHC`s Mesa Redonda service was causing adjacent interference from 9820. Those in Latin America with modest receivers should have trouble separating them. Then on 9810 another batch of jamming, but no trace of R. República along with it, which started recently in the 23-04 UT period, surely via Sackville. I wonder if it is still there, since RCI English was a big signal on 9755, much stronger on the meter than the jamming on 9810. DentroCuban Jamming Command with big noise against R. Martí, 5980 which starts at 0700, noted March 6 at 0724 spreading plus/minus 10 kHz or more with modulated pulses on the sides which are unneeded to jam RM itself, but interfering with other stations, even bothering Spain/Costa Rica 5965. R. Victoria, Perú, 6020v, at 0713 was also QRMed by modulated pulses from the DentroCuban Jamming Command centered on 6030 against Radio Martí. The same spread extended to the high side on 6040; this has not always been the case, so we may thank the Commie Cubans for worsening the collateral damage caused by their accursèd jamming, and inability to confront contrary opinions with reason rather than brute force (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CUBA [non]. Yes, R. República is still on 9810, tho I could not hear it 23 hours earlier; at 2302 March 6, Spanish programming at roughly equal level to the DentroCuban Jamming Command, but losing out to it as time went on; presumed via Sackville. At 0028 UT March 7 recheck, nothing but jamming audible; let`s hope it`s holding up better in the target, which is close to 45 degrees offbeam from here (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) See also FRANCE [non] ** CUBA. Denunciamos el arresto del miembro de UNION POR CUBA LIBRE y Director del Centro de Infoprmación Hablamos Press Roberto de Jesús Guerra Pérez. Roberto de Jesús Guerra Pérez fue arrestado el domingo 1 de marzo a las 12 del día, en la sede, ubicada en Virtudes 509 entre Perseverancia y Lealtad en Centro Habana, bajo un fuerte Operativo de la Seguridad del Estado. Roberto de Jesús se encuentra incomunicado en la unidad policial de Acosta y 10 de Octubre, privado de todas sus pertenencias, incluyendo un abogado para su defensa y pasando frio pues solo cuenta con la ropa que lleva puesta, teniendo que dormir sobre el cemento en un pequeño calabazo sin agua corriente, donde hay que hacer las necesidades fisiologías en un hueco en suelo. El día 2 en horas de la tarde esta reportera, quien a su vez es la esposa del señor Guerra, pudo conversar con el Mayor que se hace llamar Águila y quien instructor de Villa Marista, el cual me aseguró que Roberto de Jesús estará encerrado por tiempo indefinido pues permanece bajo investigación, a causa de sus actividades en el periodismo independiente y los derechos humanos, así como por los letreros anticastrista aparecidos en Centro Habana al amanecer del mismo día del arresto del periodista independiente. Roberto de Jesús Guerra Pérez de 30 años es además el vicepresidente primero del Consejo de Relatores de Derechos Humanos de Cuba y ha sido encarcelado en dos ocasiones por defender los derechos Humanos y declarado prisionero de conciencia por Amnistía Internacional. Boletín No. UNION POR CUBA LIBRE Fecha Pagina 2009.0303.B101, P.O.B. 650007, Miami, FL33265, USA, info@uncli.org 2009-03-03 UNION POR CUBA LIBRE es una organización independiente, no sectaria y sin fines de lucro. Es uno de los más antiguos movimientos insurgentes contra el comunismo. Nació en el año 1960. UNION POR CUBA LIBRE lucha por la libertad de Cuba, sin importar fracciones, credos o religiones (press release via UNICEF, Germany, DXLD) ** ECUADOR. 3279.9, La Voz del Napo (presumed), 1125, 03/06/09, Spanish. Contemporary-sounding Spanish-language tunes and occasional bass-heavy announcements by a male DJ. Fair/poor (Mark Schiefelbein, MO, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ETHIOPIA. Radio Sidama - Sidama Educational Radio was set up with Irish overseas aid in late 1990's. It is located in the town of Yirgalem, near Awassa. Operating on mediumwave 954 kHz with Gates 2.5 kW transmitter. On weekdays mainly educational programs for schools, during weekends other educational programs. Languages used are Amharic, Sidamo and English. Approximate operating hours are: M-F 0500-1400, SS 0400-1500 UT. During daytime there might be some breaks in the schedule. The postal address is Radio Sidama c/o Furra College PO Box 69 Yirgalem - Sidama Ethiopia Furra College is also known as Furra Institute of Development Studies (FIDS). A challenge for a serious mw dxer :-) (Jari Savolainen, Kuusankoski, Finland, March 6, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ETHIOPIA. 7165, Voice of Peace & Democracy, via Radio Ethiopia transmitter, *0358-0430*, March 6, sign on with Horn of Africa music. ID at 0359 & talk in Tigrinya. Local drums. Some Horn of Africa music. Good signal at sign on but poor signal after 0402 due to co-channel QRM from a presumed VOBME at 0402 & noise jammer at 0403. // 9559.8v - but not on the air until 0420. Fair to good signal strength but varying between 9559.44-9559.82. Mon, Wed, Fri only (Brian Alexander, PA, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ETHIOPIA [non]. via Julich, Germany, 9680, Radio Oromiya Liberation, 1732-1759*, March 6, tentative with talk in listed Oromo language. Tentative ID. Some Afro-pop music. Weak but readable. Fri only (Brian Alexander, PA, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** FINLAND. Hello, Scandinavian Weekend Radio === starting 6 March 2009, broadcast 22 hours utc this evening [for 24 hours]. Frequencies: (Obs! Only one frequency on each band in use at time: Check http://www.swradio.net/schedule.htm 1602 kHz MW 5980 or 6170 kHz on 49 mb 11690 or 11720 kHz on 25 mb http://www.swradio.net/index2.htm (Alpo Heinonen, Scandinavian Weekend Radio, in advance, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** FRANCE. R France International programs, because of striking, are filled with music today (Dragan Lekic, Serbia, March 5, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) An English announcement at 12 UT states that _some_ staff members are at strike. I guess that explains why all three Russian broadcasts were fine today (1400, 1600 and 1900 UT). No English broadcasts today though - only music. Strike movement --- Article published on the 2009-03-05 Latest update 2009-03-05 16:26 TU --- Due to a strike movement, RFI's broadcasts and some site updates will be disturbed Thursday and Friday. Source: RFI.fr (Sergei S., Moscow, March 6, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** FRANCE [non]. 17630, RFI via Guiana French, March 5 at *2058:50 and into prélude music vamp, not the expected Marseillaise-like IS which I guess is long-abandoned --- no, WRTH 2009 says they still use it; 2100, 4-second-late timesignal, time check as 10 pm in París, and opening in Spanish with news headlines concerning Cuba, Raúl blowing off Fidel loyalists; make that purging, such as Pérez Roque who has confessed the error of his ways(?!); Venezuela; Wáshington. Still going with normal talk programming later in the semi-hour, altho Dragan Lekic, Serbia had observed earlier in the day that RFI was running music fill because of another strike. Sergei S. in Moscow reports that only some English staff were on strike, but not Russian either. 17630 had heavy interference from the dirty, distorted KVOH spur on 17631: much more about that under U S A (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** FRANCE. According to a report on RFI's Russian website, RFI quit using 738 kHz for greater Paris today, March 5. However, it's unclear if that applies to RFI as a whole or only RFI Russian (Sergei S., Moscow, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) http://www.rfi.fr/radiofr/articles/111/article_78961.asp all foreign languages are concerned, but the article isn't clear. What about French? (Jean-Michel Aubier, France, ibid.) See Boel List http://www.emwg.info/ MW list Euro-African Medium Wave Guide and click Online Version, click MW 531 - 1099 kHz Times in (winter) UTC, 738 kHz --- F - Radio France Internationale, Paris-Romainville (5) - 24h: 0100- 0130 Spanish, 0500-0530 Arabic (RMC), 0600-0630 Portuguese, 0700-0730 Serbo-Croatian (Mo-Fr), 0730-0800 German (Mo-Fr), 0930-1030 Mandarin, 1100-1130 Lao, 1130-1200 Arabic (RMC), 1200-1300 Khmer, 1400-1430 Spanish, 1430-1500 English, 1500-1600 Vietnamese, 1600-1630 Arabic (RMC), 1630-1700 Albanian (Mo-Fr)/Arabic (RMC)(Sa-Su), 1700-1800 Persian, 1800-1830 Arabic (RMC), 1900-2000 Russian, 2000-2100 Romanian (Mo-Fr), 2200-2300 Polish, 2300-2330 Spanish, 2330-2400 Portuguese. All other times in French. 73 wb (Wolfgang Büschel, ibid.) ** GEORGIA. [ABKHAZIA], 9494.76, Abkhaz State Radio, Sukhumi at 0300- 0915 UT, noted switch OFF at 0916:10 UT today March 4th. Tiny weak S=1-2 signal in western Europe though. 73 wb (Wolfgang Büschel, Germany, March 4, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** GERMANY [non]. Despite DW`s best efforts to dispense with its SW audience in North America, we still hear them in unexpected ways. UT March 6 at 0026 I came upon quite a good signal on 15595, with DW ID and jingle, quiz aimed at S Asian listeners, 0027 DW Asian news. Eveyone had a S Asian accent! Has DW banned American- and British- accented announcers from this service? It`s another one via the ubiquitous Petropavlovsk/Kamchatka site in FE Russia, 250 kW at 247 degrees toward CIRAF zones 44 and 45, which are eastern China and Japan, not S Asia at all! What a mess. If DW is customizing English per target zone, they should be using people with Chinese and Japanese accents (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** GERMANY. DWR'S FRIENDLY AND WARM CUSTOMER RELATIONS I have been a shortwave radio listener for three decades and have logged scores of radio stations around the world. Nevertheless, my current experience with the DW Radio as a monitor is unprecedented. The station has warm customer relations which have enabled me to receive valuable items including a Samsonite and some toiletries, face caps, towels and several issues of WRTVH. I have also received IRCs to help me mail my monitoring reports to the station. Though the Nigerian postal service would not accept the IRCs nor the prepaid envelops, I do apply the IRCs for other hobby needs. The station's customer relations officer Adeleid Luccas has recently proposed an offer of "a loan receiver, Grinding Yacht Boy 800" for me. This will replace my ailing Sony ICF-SW7600G which has been generating spurious signals and long blank periods before signals appear (Dzever Ishenge, Nigeria, March World DX Club Contact via DXLD) ** GERMANY [non]. Chinese on 11830, March 4 at 2308, with heavy echo. This is DW at 2300-2350, 250 kW, 263 degrees via Petropavlovsk- Kamchtsky, Far East Russia, the same site that also easily gets VOR and RR into North America when aiming usward. In this case, the long path goes across the Indian Ocean, near Bouvet in the South Atlantic, across South America entering at Porto Alegre, hitting North America around the LA/TX bayou border. Pet-Kam is not that far away from Enid, only some 4800 statute miles, about the same distance as Brasília in the other direxion. Therefore the long path measures 25000 minus 4800 = 20200 miles, and subtracting 4800 again, is 15400 miles longer than the short path. Therefore the echo delay is 15,400 divided by the speed of radio, 186,000 miles per second, .083 second or one twelfth of a second, in roundish figures. These are always much shorter than synchronous satellite delays, where the minimum up-and-down path is much longer (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Glenn - Rwanda - DW 13790, March 4, 2130, Arabic --- Not rare but the 310 d. azimuth orientation must be about optimum to Texas as I've never had an equatorial African 'boom' in here quite like this, in this mb. Shockingly loud and clear, rivaling local MW (Robert McEntee, Austin, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** GERMANY [non]. Several [all?] DW DRM transmissions via UK have been cancelled, on 3990-3995-4000 at 0600-0800 and 1600-2200; 5785-5790- 5795 at 1500-1700 --- and 9540-9545-9550, which at 1000-1500 had been QRMing Solomon Islands. Hmm; I had not been noticing DRM noise around 3995 lately, come to think of it (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** GERMANY. MEDIA BROADCAST (DTK) HF schedule has been updated on March 5th: http://www.media-broadcast.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Downloads/B08_operational_050309.pdf http://www.media-broadcast.com/en/radio/shortwave.html (Dragan Lekic, Serbia, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Viz.: MEDIA BROADCAST GmbH (formerly T-SYSTEMS - DTK) B08 B08 period (26/10/2008 - 28/03/2009) 05.03.2009 - B08 operational DTK schedule frq startstop ciraf pow azi typ day from to loc broad 3955 1800-1900 27W,28 100 ND 976 1234567 161208 280309 JUL HCJ 3975 1800-1900 28 250 ND 926 1234567 291208 280309 WER YFR 3975 1900-2000 28 250 ND 926 1234567 190109 280309 WER YFR 3975 2030-2100 28NW 40 ND 926 1234567 151208 280309 WER PRW DRM 5850 1630-1930 40 250 105 216 1234567 261008 280309 WER IBB 5850 1930-1959 29S 100 75 146 1234567 261008 280309 WER PRW 5935 0030-0045 41 250 75 216 17 261008 290309 WER BVB 5935 1900-1929 29S,30 100 75 216 1234567 261008 280309 WER PRW 5935 1930-2030 29S 100 75 201 1234567 261008 280309 WER PRW 5945 0800-0830 27,28N 100 280 156 1 071208 280309 NAU BVB 5945 0800-0915 27,28N 100 280 156 7 261008 280309 NAU BVB 5945 0845-0900 27,28N 100 280 156 6 051208 280309 NAU BVB 5955 0658-0758 27S 250 220 216 1234567 261008 280309 NAU RNW 5955 0758-0859 18,27 250 ND 930 1234567 010109 280309 WER RNW 5955 1100-1458 18,27 250 ND 930 1 010109 280309 WER RNW 5955 1500-1557 18,27 40 ND 930 234567 261008 280309 WER RNW DRM 5955 2000-2100 44E 250 45 218 1 160209 280309 WER BVB 5955 2330-0030 41,49 125 75 218 1234567 261008 280309 WER DVB 5960 1900-1959 28E,29 100 85 206 7 070309 280309 JUL CHW 5960 2000-2159 37,38W 250 210 146 1234567 201108 280309 NAU YFR 5960 2200-2300 37,38W 250 210 216 1234567 111108 280309 WER YFR 5965 1230-1259 28NW 100 ND 926 1234567 261008 280309 WER PRW 5965 1400-1500 27,28 100 ND 976 1 261008 280309 JUL RTR 5965 1626-1659 29S,39N 100 90 216 23456 261008 280309 WER TWR 5965 1626-1659 28 100 105 201 7 271208 280309 WER TWR 5975 1230-1259 28NW 100 40 805 1234567 261008 280309 WER PRW 5980 0430-0500 27,28 250 60 208 1234567 261008 280309 WER NHK 6000 1530-1600 29S 100 97 156 1234567 231208 280309 NAU PRW 6000 1600-1630 29S 100 80 805 1234567 060109 280309 WER PRW 6010 1659-1757 27S,36 250 240 215 1234567 261008 280309 WER RNW 6015 1800-1859 27 40 300 206 1234567 151208 280309 WER PRW DRM 6015 1900-1930 28,29 125 45 146 36 261008 280309 WER BVB 6015 1900-1945 28,29 125 45 146 57 261008 280309 WER BVB 6015 1900-2000 28,29 125 45 146 1 261008 280309 WER BVB 6015 1915-1930 28,29 125 45 146 24 261008 280309 WER BVB 6020 1931-2016 37,38 250 150 201 1 261008 280309 WER PAB 6020 1931-2031 37,38 250 150 201 7 261008 280309 WER PAB 6020 2000-2030 37,38 250 150 201 6 261008 280309 WER PAB 6025 0500-0600 28E 100 120 201 1234567 261008 280309 WER AWR 6030 0030-0100 41 250 90 217 1234567 261008 290309 WER BVB 6035 0759-0857 18,27 100 300 215 1234567 261008 280309 WER RNW 6035 1430-1529 28NE,29 100 60 205 1234567 261008 280309 WER PRW 6040 2030-2100 47,48 250 190 156 23456 261008 280309 NAU IBB 6040 2030-2100 37,38 250 190 156 17 261008 280309 NAU IBB 6045 0000-0100 41 250 105 216 1234567 261008 290309 WER WRN 6045 1000-1100 27E,28 100 ND 926 1 261008 280309 WER HLR 6050 1800-1859 28E 100 100 206 1234567 261008 280309 JUL YFR 6050 2200-2300 28NE,29 250 55 201 1234567 261008 280309 WER PRW 6055 1000-1059 27,28 100 90 201 1 261008 280309 WER CHW 6055 1130-1200 27,28 125 ND 926 17 261008 280309 WER EMG 6055 1200-1215 27,28 250 ND 926 1 261008 280309 WER MWA 6060 1727-1800 30S,40 100 90 216 1234567 261008 280309 WER TWR 6105 0400-0459 28,29 250 60 217 1234567 261008 280309 WER IBB 6105 0742-0920 27 125 285 146 1 261008 280309 NAU TWR 6105 0757-0850 27 125 285 146 23456 261008 280309 NAU TWR 6105 0812-0850 27 125 285 146 7 261008 280309 NAU TWR 6105 1700-1759 40 500 105 216 1234567 261008 280309 NAU YFR 6110 1400-1559 27,28W 100 290 805 1234567 261008 280309 JUL TOM 6110 1559-1657 27S,37N 250 220 146 1234567 261008 280309 NAU RNW 6110 1800-1859 39,40 125 120 216 7 261008 280309 WER BVB 6110 1830-1859 39,40 125 120 216 1 261008 280309 WER BVB 6120 0400-0600 29 250 60 218 1234567 261008 280309 WER IBB 6120 0559-0657 27S,37N 250 220 216 1234567 261008 280309 NAU RNW 6120 0859-1100 27S 250 255 215 23456 261008 280309 WER RNW 6120 1802-1902 37N 250 230 216 1234567 261008 280309 NAU YFR 6135 2000-2030 29N 100 45 208 1234567 261008 280309 WER PRW 6140 1300-1400 27,28 100 ND 926 1 261008 280309 WER MVB 6140 1630-1759 28NE,29 100 55 201 1234567 261008 280309 WER PRW 6165 0030-0045 41 100 90 216 1 261008 290309 WER PAB 6175 1900-2000 27,28W 100 300 206 1234567 180209 280309 WER TOM 6195 1645-1800 39,40 100 120 215 24 261008 280309 WER BVB 6195 1715-1730 39,40 100 120 215 6 261008 280309 WER BVB 7105 1630-1700 28NW 100 ND 926 1234567 261008 280309 WER PRW 7150 1500-1530 30SE,31 250 75 216 1234567 161208 280309 WER IBB 7165 2000-2200 29 250 60 218 1234567 261008 280309 WER IBB 7170 1457-1600 28-30 100 60 216 1234567 261008 280309 WER TWR 7170 1600-1629 29S 100 75 201 1234567 231208 280309 WER PRW 7180 1430-1530 28NE,29 100 60 217 1234567 261008 280309 WER PRW 7180 1800-1859 29,30 250 60 208 1234567 251108 280309 WER YFR 7200 2330-0030 41NE,43 250 75 216 1234567 261008 280309 WER GFA 7205 0230-0330 40 250 105 216 1234567 261008 280309 WER IBB 7205 1800-1830 37NW 100 240 216 1 261008 280309 WER BVB 7210 1800-1815 39,40 100 100 216 7 261008 280309 JUL BVB 7210 1800-1830 39,40 100 100 216 246 261008 280309 JUL BVB 7210 1800-1859 39,40 100 100 216 35 261008 280309 JUL BVB 7210 1830-1859 39,40 100 100 216 1 261008 280309 JUL BVB 7215 0030-0130 40E,41N 250 90 217 1234567 261008 290309 WER GFA 7220 1600-1659 29 250 65 216 1234567 120109 280309 NAU IBB 7235 1900-1930 39N 250 105 216 1234567 261008 280309 WER FEB 7260 1830-2000 46,47 100 155 216 1 261008 280309 JUL BVB 7260 1930-2000 46,47 125 180 217 7 261008 280309 WER BVB 7260 1945-2015 46SW 125 210 217 23456 020209 280309 WER BVB 7280 0300-0330 48 250 135 216 1234567 261008 280309 WER AWR 7285 1130-1200 28NE,29 100 100 156 1234567 261008 280309 NAU PRW 7305 2100-2159 46E,47 500 180 216 1234567 261008 280309 WER YFR 7315 0300-0330 48 250 135 216 1234567 261008 280309 WER AWR 7315 0330-0359 48 250 135 216 1234567 261008 280309 WER AWR 7315 0430-0527 47W,48 500 150 216 1234567 151108 280309 WER RNW 7325 1300-1400 18 100 40 805 1234567 261108 280309 WER PRW 7335 0200-0400 6,7,8 500 300 216 1234567 111108 280309 WER VOR 7335 0400-0600 6,7,8 250 318 156 1234567 301008 280309 GUF VOR 7345 1800-1900 18 250 25 216 1234567 261008 280309 ISS PRW 7375 0000-0400 7,8,9 100 300 216 1234567 261008 290309 WER HRT 7375 0200-0600 2,3,6 125 325 216 1234567 261008 280309 WER HRT 7375 2300-0400 11,12 100 240 216 1234567 111108 280309 WER HRT 7425 0400-0430 39,40W 250 120 216 1234567 261008 280309 WER AWR 9405 1600-1700 41 500 90 217 1234567 261008 280309 WER YFR 9415 1600-1659 29 250 60 208 1234567 121208 280309 WER IBB 9430 0400-0500 40 250 105 217 1234567 261008 280309 WER IBB 9445 1130-1159 27 100 300 217 1234567 261008 280309 WER PRW 9445 1700-1729 39,40W 250 120 216 1234567 261008 280309 WER AWR 9450 1300-1359 27 100 300 216 1234567 261008 280309 WER PRW 9460 1630-1915 39,40 100 130 156 1 261008 280309 NAU BVB 9460 1645-1700 39,40 100 130 156 24 261008 280309 NAU BVB 9460 1645-1715 39,40 100 130 156 6 261008 280309 NAU BVB 9460 1645-1720 39,40 100 130 156 3 261008 280309 NAU BVB 9460 1645-1745 39,40 100 130 156 5 261008 280309 NAU BVB 9460 1645-1929 39,40 100 130 156 7 261008 280309 NAU BVB 9460 1800-1900 39,40 100 130 156 3 261008 280309 NAU BVB 9460 1830-1859 39,40 100 130 156 6 261008 280309 NAU BVB 9465 1600-1629 29S,39N 250 105 217 1234567 261008 280309 WER IBB 9465 1800-1859 46E,47W 500 183 216 1234567 261008 280309 NAU YFR 9470 1800-1859 47,48 250 150 216 1234567 060109 280309 WER IBR 9470 1901-1931 39,40 250 120 217 7 261008 280309 WER BVB 9470 1915-1945 39,40 250 120 217 1 040109 280309 WER BVB 9470 1930-1959 39,40 250 120 217 6 261008 280309 WER BVB 9480 1900-2200 46,47 500 185 216 1234567 201108 280309 NAU YFR 9485 1600-1659 29SE 250 103 216 1234567 090109 280309 NAU IBB 9485 1730-1759 48 250 135 216 23456 261008 280309 WER IBB 9485 1800-1900 48 250 140 216 1234567 261008 280309 NAU IBB 9485 1900-1930 48 250 140 156 23456 261008 280309 NAU IBB 9495 0230-0330 40 250 105 216 1234567 261008 280309 WER IBB 9500 1900-2000 37E,38 250 150 218 1234567 060109 280309 WER YFR 9520 1600-1658 29 250 45 218 1234567 031208 280309 WER IBB 9540 1700-1829 40 125 100 216 1234567 251108 280309 NAU IBB 9565 1400-1459 40E,41N 250 75 216 1234567 261008 280309 WER IBB 9585 1500-1559 41SE 500 90 216 1234567 141108 280309 WER YFR 9595 0700-0800 37,38W 100 210 217 1234567 261008 280309 WER AWR 9595 1400-1500 30S 250 75 217 1234567 261008 280309 WER IBB 9595 1800-1859 40 250 105 216 1234567 261008 280309 WER IBB 9595 2000-2059 46E,47 500 165 216 1234567 261008 280309 WER YFR 9605 1600-1630 29,30 250 60 218 7 211208 280309 WER EMG 9610 1000-1100 28W 100 180 216 1 261008 280309 NAU AWR 9615 0430-0500 48 125 135 218 1 070209 280309 WER BVB 9615 0430-0500 39,40 250 120 217 2345 081208 280309 WER BVB 9615 0430-0530 48 125 135 218 7 070209 280309 WER BVB 9615 0430-0545 39,40 250 120 217 6 261008 280309 WER BVB 9625 1830-1900 29SE 250 90 217 1234567 140109 280309 WER IBB 9640 2030-2100 28NW 250 35 216 1234567 261008 280309 GUF PRW 9650 1600-1659 40 500 105 217 1234567 261008 280309 WER YFR 9660 1730-1759 39S,47E 100 140 216 1234567 261008 280309 JUL IBR 9660 2200-2300 27S 250 40 216 1234567 261008 280309 GUF PRW 9665 1500-1530 41N 250 90 216 1234567 261008 280309 WER AWR 9665 1530-1559 41N 250 90 216 1234567 261008 280309 WER AWR 9670 0100-0300 42,43 250 75 217 1234567 261008 280309 WER IBB 9680 1700-1730 47E,48 100 130 216 7 261008 280309 JUL RMI 9680 1730-1759 47E,48 100 130 216 6 261008 280309 JUL RMI 9680 1830-1929 40 100 105 216 1234567 060109 280309 WER IBB 9695 1600-1630 47E,48 100 130 216 135 010309 280309 JUL RMI 9695 1900-1959 37,46 500 210 217 1234567 261008 280309 WER YFR 9730 1600-1759 38S,39S 100 140 216 245 100309 280309 JUL BVB 9730 1600-1859 38S,39S 100 140 216 16 261008 280309 JUL BVB 9730 1630-1759 38S,39S 100 140 216 3 100309 280309 JUL BVB 9730 1630-1830 38S,39S 100 140 216 7 030109 280309 JUL BVB 9750 1559-1657 27S,37N 250 225 216 1234567 120109 280309 NAU RNW 9760 1600-1659 39 250 120 216 1234567 261008 280309 WER YFR 9760 1830-1845 52,53 100 160 216 35 261008 280309 JUL RRP 9770 1700-1800 40 250 105 217 1234567 261008 280309 WER IBB 9790 1530-1600 29N 100 45 146 1234567 261008 280309 WER PRW 9800 1500-1600 41E 500 95 216 1234567 261008 280309 NAU YFR 9800 1830-1859 46S,47S 500 180 217 1234567 261008 280309 WER LWF 9800 1900-1929 38E,39 100 120 216 1234567 261008 280309 WER PRW 9805 2000-2030 37,38W 100 210 216 1234567 261008 280309 WER AWR 9815 1900-1930 47E,48W 250 150 216 1234567 261008 280309 WER IBB 9820 1630-1659 38E,39S 100 140 216 36 231208 280309 JUL RHU 9830 1730-1759 37,38W 100 210 217 1 261008 280309 WER AWR 9830 1730-1800 37,38W 100 210 217 234567 261008 280309 WER AWR 9845 1800-1859 37E,38 250 150 146 1234567 261008 280309 WER YFR 9845 1900-2030 46N,46S 100 210 217 1234567 261008 280309 WER IBR 9850 1600-1630 39,40 100 100 218 15 261008 280309 JUL PAB 9850 1700-1759 39 250 120 217 1234567 261008 280309 WER YFR 9885 1700-1759 29,30 250 60 208 1234567 251108 280309 WER YFR 9895 0559-0658 28S,38 250 140 216 1234567 261008 280309 NAU RNW 9895 0658-0757 28S 250 120 217 1234567 261008 280309 WER RNW 9895 1100-1557 27S,37N 250 225 217 1 261008 280309 WER RNW 9925 1530-1729 39,40 100 105 216 1234567 260109 280309 WER BVB 11605 1600-1659 29SE 250 90 218 1234567 261008 280309 WER IBB 11645 1530-1629 40E,41N 250 90 217 1234567 261008 280309 WER GFA 11645 1730-1759 47,48 100 145 217 1234567 261008 280309 JUL IBR 11675 1400-1429 30N,31W 250 60 218 1234567 281008 280309 WER PRW 11675 1500-1530 41N 250 75 217 1234567 261008 280309 WER AWR 11675 1530-1600 41N 250 75 217 1234567 261008 280309 WER AWR 11685 1700-1759 37,38 125 180 216 1234567 120109 280309 NAU YFR 11695 1400-1459 41 250 90 217 17 050109 280309 WER BVB 11720 1300-1329 42,43W 250 70 216 23456 261008 280309 NAU AWR 11720 1300-1329 42,43W 250 70 216 17 261008 280309 NAU AWR 11725 1330-1500 42,43W 250 70 216 1234567 261008 280309 NAU AWR 11760 1600-1630 47E,48 100 130 217 135 010309 280309 JUL RMI 11760 1900-1930 37,38W 100 210 216 1234567 261008 280309 WER AWR 11760 1930-1959 37,38W 100 210 216 1234567 261008 280309 WER AWR 11795 1730-1759 48 250 135 218 1234567 261008 280309 WER AWR 11810 1700-1758 38E,39S 100 130 216 14 120109 280309 JUL SBO 11830 1500-1559 41 500 90 217 1234567 261008 280309 WER YFR 11835 1700-1758 38E,39S 125 145 216 5 261008 280309 NAU ELF 11835 1700-1758 47E,48 500 145 216 7 030109 280309 NAU ADM 11835 1700-1758 38E,39S 250 145 216 14 080109 280309 NAU EFD 11840 1200-1230 19,20 250 35 216 7 261008 280309 NAU EMG 11840 1400-1429 29 100 60 217 1234567 261008 280309 WER PRW 11875 1630-1729 47,48 100 145 206 1234567 120109 280309 JUL BVB 11875 1729-1745 47,48 100 145 206 6 120109 280309 JUL BVB 11895 1500-1530 41 250 87 216 17 151108 280309 NAU BVB 11895 1500-1556 41 250 87 216 56 151108 280309 NAU BVB 11895 1515-1556 41 250 87 216 4 151108 280309 NAU BVB 11895 1530-1556 41 250 87 216 23 151108 280309 NAU BVB 11905 1630-1659 48 250 135 218 1234567 011208 280309 WER AWR 11905 1730-1759 48 250 150 217 23456 261008 280309 WER IBB 11905 1800-1859 48 250 150 218 1234567 261008 280309 WER IBB 11935 0759-0857 27S,36 250 240 217 1234567 261008 280309 WER RNW 11955 1600-1759 47,48 500 150 217 1234567 120109 280309 WER YFR 11955 1900-2000 37,38W 100 215 216 1234567 211108 280309 NAU AWR 11970 1625-1715 39,40 250 120 217 36 261008 280309 WER BVB 11970 1625-1715 39,40 250 120 217 25 010109 280309 WER BVB 11970 1625-1729 39,40 250 120 217 4 010109 280309 WER BVB 11975 0800-0830 37,38W 100 210 217 1234567 261008 280309 WER AWR 12005 1430-1529 41NE,43 250 75 218 1234567 261008 280309 WER GFA 12010 0800-0830 37,38W 100 210 217 1234567 261008 280309 WER AWR 12010 0830-0900 37,38W 100 210 217 1234567 261008 280309 WER AWR 12015 1400-1500 30S 250 75 216 1234567 261008 280309 WER IBB 12035 1500-1559 40,41 100 90 217 3 030309 280309 JUL BVB 12035 1515-1559 40,41 100 90 217 456 041108 280309 JUL BVB 12035 1530-1559 40,41 100 90 217 17 261008 280309 JUL BVB 12045 1759-1957 47E,48 500 150 217 1234567 261008 280309 WER RNW 13575 0000-0100 12,13 250 181 151 1234567 311008 290309 GUF VOR 13600 1400-1459 30S,40N 250 75 217 1234567 281008 280309 WER YFR 13630 0100-0300 12,14 250 195 151 1234567 261008 280309 GUF VOR 13645 1400-1415 39N,40 250 90 217 7 261008 280309 WER PAB 13645 1400-1430 41 100 90 217 1 040309 280309 WER PAB 13645 1415-1430 41 100 90 217 234567 040309 280309 WER PAB 13645 1430-1445 41 250 90 217 1 261008 280309 WER PAB 13680 1230-1559 40 250 105 217 1234567 141108 280309 WER IBB 13700 1400-1558 41 500 95 218 1234567 151108 280309 NAU YFR 13750 1330-1429 41NE,43 250 88 218 1234567 261008 280309 NAU GFA 13810 1400-1520 28,29W 100 120 156 1234567 111108 280309 NAU TOM 13810 1520-1556 28,29W 125 120 218 1234567 111108 280309 NAU TOM 13820 1300-1500 41E 500 85 216 1234567 060109 280309 NAU YFR 13840 1200-1229 29S 100 90 217 1234567 261008 280309 WER PRW 13840 1400-1459 41S 500 105 217 1234567 261008 280309 WER YFR 15185 1330-1459 41 250 90 217 1234567 311008 280309 WER GFA 15190 0830-0900 38-40 500 105 217 1234567 261008 280309 WER NHK 15215 1300-1345 41 500 90 217 1234567 261008 280309 WER NHK 15215 1345-1515 41 500 90 217 1234567 261008 280309 WER NHK 15225 0500-0600 39N,40W 250 105 218 1234567 261008 280309 NAU IBB 15495 1200-1230 41NE 250 90 217 1234567 261008 280309 WER AWR 15495 1230-1259 41NE 250 90 217 1234567 261008 280309 WER AWR 15520 1200-1229 29 100 60 217 1234567 261008 280309 WER PRW 15520 1230-1330 41NE,42 250 78 218 1234567 151108 280309 NAU GFA 15565 1200-1230 31S,42N 250 70 218 23456 261008 280309 NAU BVB 15620 1630-1700 48 250 135 217 1234567 261008 280309 WER IBB 17485 1500-1559 46E,47 100 160 216 1234567 261008 280309 JUL TOM 17545 0900-1000 38,39 125 135 217 6 261008 280309 WER BVB 17650 1530-1559 47,48 100 135 217 4 261008 280309 WER BVB 17675 0600-0700 40 250 105 217 1234567 261008 280309 WER IBB List of Broadcasters which are using MEDIA BROADCAST technical equipment ADM Abu Dhabi Media Company AWR Adventist World Radio BVB High Adventure Gospel - Bible Voice Broadcasting CHW Christliche Wissenschaft CVC Christian Vision DTK MEDIA BROADCAST (ex Deutsche Telekom) DVB Democratic Voice of Burma EFD Ethiopians For Democracy ELF Eritrean Liberation Front EMG Evangelische Missionsgemeinden in Deutschland FEB Feba Radio UK GFA Gospel for Asia HCJ Voice of the Andes HLR Hamburger Lokalradio HRT Hrvatska Radio Televizija IBB International Broadcast Bureau IBR IBRA Radio Schweden LWF Lutheran World Federation MVB Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Baltic Radio MWA Missionswerk Arche NHK Nippon Hoso Kyokai PAB Pan Am Broadcasting PRW Polskie Radio Warsaw RHU Radio Huriyo (Xoriyo) RMI Radio Miami International RNW Radio Netherlands World Service RRP Radio Reveil Paroles de Vie RTR Radio Traumland (Belgium) SBO Sagalee Bilisummaa Oromoo TOM The Overcomer Ministry TWR Trans World Radio VOR Voice of Russia WRN World Radio Network YFR WYFR Family Radio Michael Puetz MEDIA BROADCAST GmbH Order Management & Backoffice Josef-Lammerting-Allee 8-10 D-50933 Cologne Germany Please send your inquiries and reception reports to: E-Mail: Internet: (via Wolfgang Büschel, WWDXC, BC-DX, DXLD) ** GERMANY. Glenn: 11760, at 1900 UT, I noted AWR opening after their IS and ID, "This Is Adventist World Radio", then transmission beginning in Arabic. Good Signal at my QTH here (Noble West, TN, March 5, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Wertachtal, 210 degrees (gh) ** GERMANY [non]. DW A-09 English, Shortwave portion only: Gültig: 29.03.09 - 24.10.09 Sommerhalbjahr 2009 Seite: 4 SUEDOSTASIEN/ ENGLISCH 0000-0100 9885 31 CLN TRINCOMALEE 15595 19 RUS VLADIVOSKOK 17525 16 RUS KOMSOMOLSK SUEDASIEN ENGLISCH 0300-0400 11975 25 CLN TRINCOMALEE 15595 19 UAE DHABAYYA ZENTRAL- und ENGLISCH 0400-0500 7245 41 RRW KIGALI OSTAFRIKA 7430 41 POR SINES 12045 25 UAE DHABAYYA 15445 19 CLN TRINCOMALEE ZENTRAL- und ENGLISCH 0500-0530 7430 41 POR SINES SUEDAFRIKA 9700 31 RRW KIGALI 9440 31 G SKELTON 9825 31 AFS MEYERTON WESTAFRIKA ENGLISCH 0600-0630 7310 41 POR SINES 15275 19 RRW KIGALI OSTASIEN ENGLISCH 0900-1000 15340 19 SNG KRANJI 17705 16 CLN TRINCOMALEE SUEDASIEN ENGLISCH 1600-1700 6170 49 CLN TRINCOMALEE 9485 31 CLN TRINCOMALEE 9540 31 CLN TRINCOMALEE 15640 19 G RAMPISHAM OSTAFRIKA ENGLISCH 1900-1930 6150 49 RRW KIGALI 11795 25 G RAMPISHAM 15620 19 CLN TRINCOMALEE 17860 16 POR SINES ZENTRAL- und ENGLISCH 2000-2100 6150 49 RRW KIGALI SUEDAFRIKA 11795 25 G RAMPISHAM 11865 25 POR SINES 15205 19 CLN TRINCOMALEE WESTAFRIKA ENGLISCH 2100-2200 9735 31 POR SINES 11865 25 RRW KIGALI 15205 19 RRW KIGALI (from a complete A-09 schedule via Alokesh Gupta, India, DXLD) ** GREECE [and non]. Instead of the terrible collision on 9420 between VOG and CVC Zambia, March 4 at 2151 I found CVC all by itself, not a trace of QRM. Usual gospel-huxtering in English, for the younger crowd including some revival in Cape Town charging 20 rand admission. Kept listening until CVC finally turned off at 2203* revealing nothing else on frequency. Meanwhile, before 2200 I checked 7450 and 7475 and found only fair signals there, presumably Greece as usual. Rechecking 9420 at 2304, ERA was back on the air. I wonder if they were monitoring CVC for themselves, or trying out another frequency while it was on? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Glenn: On Wednesday, March 4, I monitored 9420 at 2200 and CVC was running over, until at least 2202 before you picked it up with ERA missing (see below) Perhaps ERA was off before that because I did not hear ERA at all from 2000 until after 2200+, only CVC. I don't know what happened at 9420 from 2203 until 2259 when 9420 was supposed to be on. 7475 and 7450 seemed to be doing all right in this area according to my reception here. Do you have any comments, Babis? Regards, (John Babbis, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Glenn: When CVC shut down at 2200+ today, Voice of Greece was not on the frequency of 9420. Earlier in the week I E-mailed Demetri Vafeas and submitted options on what to do about the interference on 9420, the last one of which was to shut down Avlis 3 on 9420 and save the electricity from 1700-2200. Maybe they took me up on it and extended it to 2259. VOG is still not on at 2215. [Later:] Voice of Greece just came back on 9420 at 2301 UT. It looks as though they can't move the frequency or the antenna; and they can't get CVC to move from 9420 (John Babbis, MD, March 5, ibid.) Once again March 5 like the day before, on 9420 could only hear CVC Zambia, at 2053 with gospel rap, and neither of them at 2220 recheck, tho Greece was OK on 7450, and weaker 7475. What has become of the VOG 9420 transmission, which had been colliding with CVC for months, and reported as such every single day to Athens by monitor John Babbis in Maryland? VOG traditionally registers a number of ``wooden`` frequencies they don`t really use. But John says VOG may have just solved the problem by cancelling its 17-22 transmission on 9420, which resumed at 2301; even tho they were there long before CVC decided to collide (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Dear John, I have very bad news that explain the silence of our transmissions. One of Avlis transmitters is severely damaged and because of this event, only 2 (instead of 3) simultaneous transmissions are possible. Babbis Charalambopoulos proceeded to a limited frequency rearrangement among the remaining 2 active transmitters. Respective announcements are prepared and running on the air. The new - temporary schedule of ERA 5- is: 2300-1000 UT instead of 12105, you get 9420 KHz 0300-0600 UT instead of 7450 you get 9420 0600-1000 UT instead of 12105 you get 9420 1400-1600 UT instead of 15650 you get 9420, and 1600-2000 UT instead of 15630 you get 9420. The scheduling of Radio Station of Macedonia is unaffected. I will keep you informed about any developments. Best regards, (Demetri Vafeas, ERA, March 6, to John Babbis, via DXLD) Dear Demetri: From 2000-2300, on Wednesday, Thursday, and today, March 6, I have been hearing Voice of Greece only on 7450 and 7475, nothing on 9420. After that I get only 7475 and 9420 in this area. Is the Avlis 2 transmitter the one that is out of commission? Regards, (John Babbis, to Vafeas, via DXLD) Defect Sender: 2300-0600 12105 226deg 0600-1000 12105 002deg 1100-1600 15650 105deg 1600-2000 15630 285deg 2000-2300 9420 (a chance to get CVC Zambia instead.) 73 wolfy (Büschel, DX LISTENING DIGEST) On March 6, not only was VOG no longer to be heard mixing with Zambia on 9420 before 2200, and not audible either after that, but it did not come back on after 2300, as it had the past few days --- nothing there at 2305 and 2328 chex. Meanwhile, John Babbis heard from Demetri Vafeas at ERT that one of the Avlis transmitters has been ``severely damaged``, so only two frequencies can be on the air at once (the Makedonias station unaffected – does that mean VOG itself gets only ONE frequency at a time now, or two?). And so the schedule has had to be rearranged. However, he said that 9420 is replacing other frequencies, and on the air at all times except 2000-2300, so something else must account for it missing after 2300 too. Or it could be on but not propagating here as well, since 9420 is now supposed to be replacing 12105, which was not aimed at NAm unlike 9420 which was 323 degrees. O, there it is at 0028 recheck UT March 7, Greek music, but weaker than usual (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) See also SUDAN [non] ** GUATEMALA. Band scan, March 5, Tropical Stations on at 2300 to 2350 4799.7, Radio Buenas Nuevas, San Sebastián, Huehuetenango. Logged with D L in Pensacola, Florida. Thanks tips to other Florida dxers. 73s de (Robert Wilkner, Pompano Beach, Florida, Drake R 8, NRD 535D, DX LISTENING DIGEST) See also BOLIVIA, PERU ** HONDURAS. 3250, R Luz y Vida, 1135, 03/06/09, English/Spanish. An English-language sermon being delivered with breaks for it to be translated in Spanish, on later recheck around 1200 heard an apparent string of announcements, one with ringing phone effects, and a couple of "Radio Luz y Vida" IDs mixed in. Fair/good. 3340, HRMI, 1119, 03/06/09, English/Spanish. Just like Radio Luz y Vida, a preacher giving an English sermon with running translation into Spanish by a woman. Fair and improving (Mark Schiefelbein, MO, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** INDIA. Re AIR 4700 in 9-020: Once more about this. Seems I made another typo in my message. I meant to say I missed the possible local ID at 1529. Station close-down was at 1700, which has been the usual s-off time of both AIR stations on 4760. When checking on March 3, there was nothing on 4700 and I was unable to confirm if 4760 had two AIR stations due to noise on that frequency (Jari Savolainen, Kuusankoski, Finland, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** INDONESIA. 3976.06, RRI Pontianak, 1332-1406 Feb 26. Assorted vocal music; only one brief announcement by M at 1349; At ToH, 1-1/2 minutes of local IS (5 notes on piano), followed by apparent local news. Fair with ham QRM (John Wilkins, Wheat Ridge, Colorado, March 4, Drake R-8, 100-foot RW, Cumbredx mailing list via DXLD) ** INDONESIA [and non]. 6 March 2009: Was planning on going up to the remote site for a micro-DXpedition for PNGs and Asians, but conditions were horrible when I awoke at 1000. Wasn't going to go but then caught RRI Manokwari doing fairly well on 3987.06, so changed my mind. Conditions were still the same at the site and I almost bugged out around 1130. But then suddenly and dramatically, the PNGs improved around 1140. The Asians improved as well but not nearly like the PNGs. Really squirrelly (like Hans Johnson says) propagation conditions. 3345, definitely getting two stations here offset by about 40 Hz; 3344.96 and 3345.01. Definite audio on both at 1142. 3345.01 went off sometime between 1151-1157 leaving 3344.96 which sounded // 3976.05 and 3995 at 1216. 3995 music at 1218, but 3344.96 still had W talking. Was still talking right through BoH 1230, and going past 1232. Possibly music though at 1236, but too far gone to be sure. So apparently 3345.01 is Northern, and 3344.96 is Ternate. (6 March) 3987.06, RRI Manokwari, end of romantic pop ballad at 1058, W announcer, 3 note piano (with echo) played 3 times, time ticks with last longer, W with nice site ID and into news mentioning Manokwari, Indonesia, and RRI. Hams on 3987.5 causing massive QRM ruining reception. Hams were right on every frequency with broadcasters in 80 meters (3995, 3987.05, 3912, and 3905) this morning. And the hams on this frequency were on the entire time!! (6 March) 3976.05, RRI Pontianak Not a hint of it at 1105, but came up out of nowhere at 1144!!! Hams on top of it of course. (6 March) 3995.03, RRI Kendari, Definite W with Jakarta news in Indonesian at 1206 // 3976.05. (6 March) 9524.96, V. of Indonesia: Glad to see this one back on here with M in news in Indonesian after 1200. V. of Indonesia promo with web URL at 1226. Strong. (6 March) 73 (Dave Valko, near Dunlo PA, HCDX via DXLD) ** INDONESIA. Local sunrise today March 4 in Enid was 1258, but a semi-hour later at 1327 tune-in, island music audible on 3995, not too much QRhaM at the bandedge; 1330 Indonesian announcement, 1333 back to music and weakening. No doubt RRI Kendari, 5 kW non-direxional per Aoki. At 1344, RRI Fak2 was still in on 4790 with Indo talk vs. CODAR. V. of Indonesia back to normal on March 4 after five days of confusion, i.e. using 11785 instead of 9525, languages at wrong times, or being totally missing. At 1342 good signal on 9525.0 with songs, nothing on 11785; 1354 English ID, plugging streaming on website; 1402 closing English hour, IS, opening Malay; recheck 1502 Malay ID, 1503 re-opening English with program summary, but cut off around 1505* (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** INDONESIA. 9525.0, Voice of Indonesia, 1330-1404 + 1502-1506*, March 4. Returned here yet again! Started out very poor against a strong Firedrake & CNR-1 jamming on 9530, till they went off at 1400; full VOI IDs at 1402 and 1502; news in English till suddenly off (Ron Howard, Asilomar Beach, CA, Etón E1, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) VOICE OF INDONESIA. 9526 [sic], March 5, 1039-1054, SINPO 43433. English. OM American interviewed by YL on dangdut music. He said he wants to be a good dangdut singer; dangdut music is unique, and a little bit of everything. I heard he sings (might be pre-recorded) “Darah Muda” (Young Blood) with Indonesian lyrics. Station ID on 1046, followed by interview with another OM – also a dangdut lover – and another song by the American, “Puzzle of Love”. On 1000+ and 1054+ only Vietnam and China splashed from 9530. 1314-1355 very crowded, music jammer, echoed CNR ID, and no sign of VOI (Tony Ashar, West Java, Indonesia, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) 9525.0, Voice of Indonesia, 1321-1329 + 1435, March 5. Pre-1400 reception was poor due to strong Firedrake and CNR-1 jamming on 9530. Post-1400 reception was fair (Ron Howard, Asilomar Beach, CA, Etón E1, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) VOI again on 9525.0, March 5 at 1355 in English, after 1400 in Malay; good signal with sum hum. 4790, RRI Fak2, still audible with music vs CODAR at the late time of 1426 March 5, exactly one sesquihour after local sunrise. I wonder if the Fakfakians are aware of how well their local radio station outgets, really putting their place on the worldmap? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 9525, VOI, 1430 March 5th - Malay - Strong unfaded reception here this morning with numerous mentions of "Jakarta" between Gambang (marimba- like) instrumented songs with female vocalist. Signal abruptly disappeared at 1502 with no announced sign off heard. No // 11785 or 15150 (Robert McEntee, Austin TX, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 9524.98, Voice of Indonesia, 1335-1404, March 6, English talk about economic developments in Indonesia. Local music. Closing English announcements at 1402 & into Malay at 1403. Fair. Stronger than usual (Brian Alexander, PA, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Quick check of 9525 March 6 reconfirmed VOI operating nominally, which means about 2 minutes late going from English to Malay at 1402 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** INTERNATIONAL WATERS. 'The Boat That Rocked' --- There is now a US release date for 'The boat That Rocked' listed on IMDB. It is the 28th of August. The full list is: UK 3 April 2009 Australia 9 April 2009 Germany 16 April 2009 Netherlands 16 April 2009 Austria 17 April 2009 Denmark 17 April 2009 Finland 17 April 2009 Norway 17 April 2009 Sweden 17 April 2009 Belgium 22 April 2009 France 22 April 2009 Russia 30 April 2009 Estonia 1 May 2009 Argentina 28 May 2009 Brazil 29 May 2009 Spain 29 May 2009 Turkey 19 June 2009 USA 28 August 2009 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1131729/releaseinfo There is an article in the April issue of Mojo magazine. The Boat that Rocked article: http://img413.imageshack.us/img413/7649/radioon.jpg (Rich Crichton, RadioCarolineMailinglist@yahoogroups.com via Mike Terry, dxldyg via DXLD) So not suitable as summer blockbuster in US ** IRELAND. Euro DX test! This forwarded from Scotland's Ken Baird : RADIO NORTH DX TEST: I have been in communications with Radio North in Co Donegal, Eire. They have agreed to make a similar DX test the same night as the WHYL DX test . The details are as follows. DATE: Sunday morning (Late Saturday night) March 15th 2009 TIME: 0200-0600 UT inclusive. There will be voice IDs and CW slow speed IDs every 30m on the hour and on the half hour during their normal overnight music. There will be frequent jingle IDs thrown in between times as well. FREQ: 846 kHz MODE OF OPERATION: The station runs 1 kW, and music will hopefully consist of better known pop / oldies. QSL INFORMATION: Radio North will verify with full data QSL's for this broadcast. E mail address to be announced later this weekend hopefully. Thank you to Paul for his continued enthusiasm towards MW DXers. Is this the first time a European MW station has attempted a DX test?? (via Nick Hall-Patch, Victoria, BC, IRCA mailing list via DXLD) ** JAPAN [and non]. 11705 via Sackville already on with open carrier at 1348 March 4, probably pre-melting ice on the antenna; see CANADA. This was overriding NHK direct also on 11705 in Indonesian. Normally the NHK English relay cuts on very close to *1400 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** JAPAN. NHKWNRJ, 6145, excellent signal at 0715 UT Fri March 6 in Japanese, so you would think it is a NAm service or relayed from NAm, but this hour is really direct from Yamata, 300 kW at 35 degrees intended only for FE Russia; and // much weaker 6165 at 330 degrees for the next zones of Russia westward. Seemed poetry followed by nice piano music to 0720 when started new program with English title announced by two different speakers as ``Sound Passage`` -- except the second word was pronounced as in French! Started with sound of jet engine. I am really hankering for a full program schedule, translated to English, of R. Japan`s Japanese broadcasts, but repeated requests have gone unfulfilled. There are lots of gems like this involving music or sounds, which can be enjoyed without speaking Japanese (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** KOREA NORTH [and non]. The two 75-meter clandestines from South to North were audible March 4: at 1328, 3985 Echo of Hope with choral music, under noise jamming; and at 1331, on 3912, V. of the People, Korean talk, and no jamming audible (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** KOREA NORTH [non]. JSR still on 5985, March 4 at 1402 check with sad piano music, mentioning Shiokaze, in Korean instead of English this Wednesday. No QRM audible here (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) CLANDESTINE - 5985, Shiokaze *1400-1430* Mar 4. Today in Japanese. Back on this frequency after being on 5910 briefly. Fair signal (John Wilkins, Wheat Ridge, Colorado. Drake R-8, 100-foot RW, Cumbredx mailing list via DXLD) As above, I thought it was Korean; which was it, Ron? (gh) 5985.0, Shiokaze/Sea Breeze via Yamata, 1408, March 4. A non-English Wed. with moderate to heavy QRM from Myanmar. Fri. is still the best bet to catch their English broadcast here from *1400 to 1430* (Ron Howard, Asilomar Beach, CA, Etón E1, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) 5985, still with Shiokaze, March 5 at 1422, but poor. Trying to decide whether it was Korean or Japanese until 1424 definite `kochirawa` YL Japanese ID, with persistent piano music underneath (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** LAOS. 6130, LNR. A change from their normal schedule. March 3 & 4, from 1416 to 1433, without the usual foreign language programs (English lesson on Tue. and French on Wed.), but instead just playing SE Asian music and songs (Ron Howard, Asilomar Beach, CA, Etón E1, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Re recent questioning: LAO NATIONAL RADIO presumed. 6130, March 4, 1200-1209, SINPO 22432 splatter from 6125 CNR. Starting with music presumably national anthem, then I heard OM and YL talk in turn mentioning "Lao" and "Vietnam" (Tony Ashar, West Java, Indonesia, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** MALAYSIA. 6099.70, Voice of Malaysia (presumed), 1442-1455*, March 4. Sounded to be in scheduled Burmese (definitely a SE Asian language), along with EZL songs; poor (Ron Howard, Asilomar Beach, CA, Etón E1, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** MALAYSIA/SARAWAK. 7270.39v, Wai FM via RTM, 1410, March 4. They continue their daily slight drift up in frequency, which is a good thing, as they have better reception the more they are away from QRM on 7270.0. 7270.40v, Limbang FM and Wai FM via RTM, 1342-1412, March 5. Clear “Limbang FM” ID with just one frequency given in MHz; pop songs; 2 pips at ToH; shortened news ending at 1403, with a final “Limbang FM”; starts their Wai FM programming of pop songs and has many “Wai FM” IDs; almost fair. This has indeed become a regular one for me again (Ron Howard, Asilomar Beach, CA, Etón E1, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** MALI. 7285 kHz, R. Mali, presumed since no clear ID was heard. Noted at 1318-1325 UT March 5,with fast paced OM announcer. Seemed local news. SINPO 34232 (Greetings from Portugal, José Pedro Turner, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** MAURITANIA. 7245, R. Mauritania, noted in Arabic, at 1245-1315z March 5. At 1300 ID + string local instrument music bridge + new ID and news. SINPO 24332. 7245 kHz, R. Mauritania, Nouakchott, noted at 1410-1425z March 6, with phone interview. SINPO 23442, but improving with time. Greetings from Portugal (José Pedro Turner, Gondomar, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** MEXICO [and non]. Julián Santiago Díez de Bonilla will be glad to know that XEOI, 6010, R. Mil, was in the clear with Mexican music at 0723 March 6; Conciencia apparently off, and Marfil not heard either on 5910, tho the latter was badly trounced by overload from WWCR 5890 and 5935 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) But see BRAZIL 6019.66 Hi Glenn: I am aware "La Voz de Tu Conciencia" is off now and then, but it doesn´t make me happy. I will be glad if they finally accept to do whatever is needed to avoid interfering XEOI on the 6010 kHz. 73´s (Julián Santiago, DF, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** MOROCCO. 9575, Radio Medi Un, Mar 5, 2009, 0743 Up-tempo music followed by news headlines in French by YL. Lots of ads, station promos and then only long talk. Solid signal with no fading (Bruce Barker, Broomall, PA. Equipment: NRD 535D & Alpha Delta DX Sloper, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** MYANMAR. 5985, Myanmar Radio (presumed), 1323, 03/06/09. Pop-type music to an announcement and a bit of music at 1330 that sounded approximately similar to the IS recording online, followed by what seemed like a newscast by a female presenter. I see that Ron Howard has been recently noting Myanmar around 5985.77 but this seemed much closer to 5985.0. Weak, often near the noise floor. Poor (Mark Schiefelbein, MO, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** MYANMAR [and non]. 5985.0, Myanma Radio. Have posted two audio files to “Files > Station Sounds”, at dxldyg. One with Shiokaze interference with Myanma Radio, March 6, at about 1413. The other one with Myanma R. in the clear after Shiokaze signed-off, recorded about 1432 (Ron Howard, Asilomar Beach, CA, March 6, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** NAMIBIA. NAMIBIA GOVERNMENT COMES UNDER FIRE FOR SHUTTING DOWN RADIO PROGRAM --- By Peter Clottey President Hifikepunye Pohamba's government has come under increasing criticism after the state broadcasting company shut down a popular phone-in radio program, saying callers deluged it with hate speech and cultural insensitivity. Opponents condemned the Namibia government, saying the move is an infringement on freedom of speech. They accused the ruling party of silencing opponents ahead of this year's general elections. They also accused the government of flouting the constitution, saying freedom of speech is enshrined in the Namibia constitution. But the government maintains that hate speech, xenophobia, and tribalism will not be tolerated, adding that if not curbed they would undermine the country's peace and stability. Executive director Phil ya Nangoloh of the Namibia National Society for Human Rights tells reporter Peter Clottey that the radio program's cancelation is a way for the government to tighten its grip on media ahead of the elections. "It is part of a move by a small group of people within the ruling SWAPO (South West African People's Organization) party to silence criticism ahead of the presidential or the general elections taking place towards the end of this year. . . http://www.voanews.com/english/Africa/2009-03-05-voa3.cfm (via Zacharias Liangas, DXLD) ** NETHERLANDS [non]. RNW Indonesian service via Saipan, 15280 at 22- 23 is still suffering from severe but intermittent audio problems. March 4 at 2215 it seemed OK, but at 2218 started sticking and looping. This is not to be confused with reduplication of words as normal Indonesian pluralization! I taped 3 minutes of it at 2223-2226 and sent it to RN, also messing up some barrel organ music and ID. It was still breaking up after that. Lots of things could cause this, but I suspect it could be solar transit outage interfering with the digital satellite feed, as it`s the season, the same thing messing up CNN and other cable TV channels as received in OK around local noon. Is Saipan aiming its downlink dish into the sunrise? There may well be more than one satellite hop involved in this feed, not necessarily the most direct route, as we have learned before about IBB (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** NETHERLANDS [non]. Happy Station Show UPDATE March 6, 2009 Hi Everyone, Just wanted to send you the WRMI link for the show with the broadcast details. If you have any trouble to open it let me know. http://www.wrmi.net/program.php?id=106 (Keith Perron, Taiwan, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** NEWFOUNDLAND. Hi! VOCM-590/650/710 replied to me by email. VOCM Program Director Mr. Richard King writes: "Please note that we do not mail confirmation unless the sender includes a self-addressed envelope with a stamp of sufficient postage to mail same from Canada. CASH is not acceptable, and will not be returned, and no confirmation report will be sent. The preferred method of confirmation is via email. You may attach an MP3 audio file of your reception if you wish, but we will not accept a link to any other site that would contain said audio file, due to the danger of viruses." 73's (Hannu Romppainen, MWC via DXLD) ** NEW ZEALAND. RNZI, 17675, UT March 6 at 2206, a YL discoursing in considerable graphic detail for about ten minutes on exactly how males should pee for best results; some helpful tips there I will try to apply. This was the Saturday Morning with Kim Hill show from National Radio. However, this segment at 11:05 am local is missing from the rundown! And no audio available (yet?). There was the usual considerable inescapable adjacent QRM from the Chilean Christians on 17680, a frequency they have unfortunately not abandoned. In the wide-open spaces of 16m at solar min, there is NO excuse for operating 5 kHz away from another strong signal; or even, any signal. Yes, I know, neither station is targeting North America, so who cares about us? But 17670, for one example, is entirely vacant during the whole time RNZI is on 17675, 2145-0500. A minor 5 kHz shift by RNZI would do no harm to the Pacificans, and be of enormous benefit to listeners in the Americas (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** NIGERIA. 9690, Voice of Nigeria, Mar 5, 2009, 0825 News of Africa by OM in listed Hausa. At 0830 IS, ID and then long talk by OM (Bruce Barker, Broomall, PA. Equipment: NRD 535D & Alpha Delta DX Sloper, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 15120, Voice of Nigeria (Ikorodu), 1708-1715, 3/5/2009, English. "60 Minutes" program with "news, views, and comments". News read by woman followed by ID at 1710, then talk by man. Unusually strong appearing signal, possibly due to pumped up audio. Just a bit of over-modulation when studio personnel were talking, but breaking up badly on peaks when field people joined them. Checked the next day (3/6) and found improved audio and slightly weaker appearing signal (Jim Evans, Germantown, TN. TenTec RX-340, Eton E1, Random Wires (90' and 200'), Eavesdropper Dipole, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** NIGERIA [and non]. THE COLLAPSE OF GTV - LESSONS FOR BROADCAST INDUSTRY THE television broadcast industry in Africa has had a very interesting even if turbulent history. Whereas the broadcast industry has its origins in Nigeria, where the legendary Obafemi Awolowo inaugurated Africa's first television broadcast studio, the Western Nigeria Broadcasting Corporation in the late 1950s, today despite that head start, Nigeria appears to have lost out in continental broadcast leadership. In its place, South Africa which only got its first television stations in 1976 appears to have taken a quick surge ahead and for many years has led the continent in broadcasting. In Nigeria for instance, many would agree that watching local television is an ordeal. Even though what is today, known as NTA is an old institution that has been around for decades, what it dishes out in terms of content is largely dull and uninteresting. Picture quality is poor, but more importantly, not much effort appears to be going into the production of quality content. . . http://allafrica.com/stories/200903030312.html (via Zacharias Liangas, DXLD) ** OKLAHOMA [and non]. The ``Nightlight`` Q&A about DTV were supposed to run for at least 30 days after the analog closedown Feb 17 on certain stations forced to stay on the air in analog, but already March 5 at 1530 UT I notice that both KOKH-25 and KOCB-34 are off the air. Why both of them were running Nightlight anyway was never clear. Now perhaps these co-owned outlets have finally had enough of playing the same 9-minute `programming` in Spanish and English over and over thousands of times? Or maybe the DVD wore out. Meanwhile, a bit of area tropo enhancement confirms that KSNW-3 Wichita and KWET-12 Cheyenne are still running normal programming in analog, March 5 at 1455 UT. KSNW`s local ``newscast`` breakaway in Today Show consisted of ONE brief story about a pedophile going on trial, before commercials to be followed by weather (Glenn Hauser, Enid, DX LISTENING DIGEST) I was surprised to see that you have KUOK Woodward (Univisión) on channel 35, both analog and digital. Also in your new site under Oklahoma. With some local tropo I am getting them on analog 36 (and a too-weak DTV signal is in on 35). Heard the analog running announcement that they would not be going digital until summer, and then would have additional channels. It looks like they are running analog on 36 and DTV presumably on 35. They could not be running analog and no DTV at this point, could they? Ch 48 analog LP relay of KUOK in OKC is also in, weaker. As well as the previously discussed 17 OKC LP [TV Alabanza, below constant call- letter bug in upper right as KLHO-LP], Spanish. (My antenna is not rotatable, pointed toward OKC). I am also getting a stronger, almost snow-free HSN on channel 21. I guess that`s OKC which you have as HTVN. (Stillwater being KSBI translator). Normally I get zero on channel 21. Both KOCB-34 and KOKH-25 [Sinclair] were running nightlight since Feb 17, but both went off the air a few days ago. Weren`t they supposed to run that for 30 days? What a waste, running it more than one day on one channel. I also have a GCN on channel 19. Only one you have anywhere on that channel is Watertown NY; close [alfabetically] but not close enough [geografically], hi. I guess it`s Stillwater OK instead of AIN. 21 is beginning to show a little CCI, maybe Stillwater vs OKC HSN. The crummy Broksonic TV set I am using for OTA analog and can also feed DTV conversion RF into it, has an annoying trait. The AFC locks onto digital noise from one channel below. E.g. I start to see an analog pix on 8 (KTUL?) and then I get only the digital noise of KOCO- DT-7; likewise on 10 it prefers to pick up KWTV-DT-9 bleedover. Likewise on UHF. 73, (Glenn to Doug Smith, 0545-0630 UT March 6, via DX LISTENING DIGEST) KUOK is one of those new stations that didn't get a second channel for digital. 35 is their only channel -- they have no authority to operate (either analog or digital) on 36. However... KCHM-LP OKC is authorized to operate on channel 36. And is co-owned with KUOK. KCHM doesn't even have an application on file to do digital. I think I can say with reasonable certainty the KUOK you're seeing on analog 36 is actually KCHM-LP. All three Sinclair nightlights in Nashville went off on Tuesday night. I hear the same thing happened with most other Sinclair stations at the same time, though two in central Illinois waited until noon Wednesday. Most of these stations weren't bound by any FCC requirements for nightlight service. There was only a FCC mandate if *all* the major network affiliates in a market decided to close their analogs on 2/17. (in which case the mandate was 60 days, not 30. The 30-day period is available for voluntary nightlight service after 6/12. Yes, it's confusing!) – (Doug Smith W9WI, Pleasant View, TN EM66, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** PAPUA NEW GUINEA [and non; see INDONESIA]. A ute was covering R. East New Britain 3385, R. Milne Bay 3365 was off, and 60 meters was virtually dead at 1105 except for 5070, 5025, and 4800. (6 March) 3290, R. Central, Local news by M at 1110. (6 March) 3345, definitely getting 2 stations here offset by about 40 Hz; 3344.96 and 3345.01. Definite audio on both at 1142. 3345.01 went off sometime between 1151-1157 leaving 3344.96 which sounded // 3976.05 and 3995 at 1216. 3995 music at 1218, but 3344.96 still had W talking. Was still talking right through BoH 1230, and going past 1232. Possibly music though at 1236, but too far gone to be sure. So apparently 3345.01 is Northern, and 3344.96 is Ternate. (6 March) 3305, R. Western, 1151 Song announcement ("Oh Stella") by M. Song started and suddenly dropped down, then back up later. 1155 nice English announcements by M with greetings to listeners and into Celine Dion "You Made Me Love You" still going at 1159. Came back about 2 minutes later and was playing an instrumental guitar song, then dead air at 1204*. Missed s/off announcements if there were indeed any. Good. (6 March) 73 (Dave Valko, near Dunlo PA, HCDX via DXLD) 3235, R West New Britain, 03/06/09, 1315. Easy listening/oldies type tunes, one of the better signals on a predictably poor showing from PNG. Other PNG frequencies noted with signals in a quick bandscan around 1320: 3325, 3335, 3345, 3385 (marred by several utility QRM). 3325 and 3345 were too weak to determine for sure whether they were PNGs or Indonesians. All poor (Mark Schiefelbein, MO, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** PERU. Band scan March 5, 2009, Tropical Stations on at 2300 to 2350 3329.53, Ondas del Huallaga, Huánuco 4857.39, Radio La Hora, Cusco 5120.2, Ondas del Suroriente, Quillabamba 5460.20, Radio Bolívar, Cd. Bolívar - This one seems on infrequently! Logged with D L in Pensacola, Florida. Thanks tips to other Florida dxers. 73s de (Robert Wilkner, Pompano Beach, Florida, Drake R 8, NRD 535D, DX LISTENING DIGEST) See also BOLIVIA ** PERU. R. Victoria, March 6 at 0713, happened to tune across 6020 as they were doing a local ID, with chords from Beethoven`s Fifth. It was QRMed by modulated pulses from the DentroCuban Jamming Command centered on 6030 against Radio Martí [see CUBA]. Yes, R. Victoria is perpetually off-frequency to the low side, and when anyone else is on 6020.0, such as all evening during prime time from China/Albania, Turkey, etc., there is a big het. No het now. Did not attempt to measure it here, but Luca Botto Fiora recently put it on 6019.4 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) See BRAZIL 6019.66 ** PHILIPPINES. 9615, Radio Veritas Asia, 1130-1155*, March 6, talk in listed Mandarin. Some inspirational music. Sign off with English ID announcement at 1155. Fair to good (Brian Alexander, PA, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** PUERTO RICO. San Juan, WIPR-FM *91.3, WIPR 940 AM, plus Puerto Rico Public Broadcasting Corp. TVs in Mayagüez and San Juan fined $8000 for EEO rules violations (Jan/Feb FMedia via DXLD) In the PR context, does that mean they were discriminating against Anglos, or Taínos? (gh, DXLD) ** ROMANIA. RRI Romanian service to Europe and thence N America on 11940, March 6 at 1417 playing ``Mamma Mia`` song in English. What has this to do with Romanian culture? We thought it was a recent revival by some other group, but outro mentioned ABBA (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ROMANIA. Through its broadcasts in Romanian and in the Macedo- Romanian dialect, RRI is a bridge with Romanians and Macedo-Romanians all over the world. Our aim is to attract both listeners who suffered from a chronic lack of information about Romania during the communist period and listeners from the continuously increasing number of Romanians working and studying in Europe (mainly in Italy, Spain, Ireland, Germany) or in other corners of the world. At the same time, RRI's goal is to build an information bridge between Romania, our geographical space and our foreign audience from the target area. RRI has programmes in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Russian, Serbian, Spanish and Ukrainian. We provide accurate, impartial, prompt, relevant and comprehensive information and reports on the socio-political life, the diversity of opinions in Romanian society, the democratization and reform process, Romania's efforts to be a valuable member of the European Union, the economic potential and business opportunities, the cultural heritage, providing an image of Romania as part of the European culture and civilization, as well as of its attractions as a tourist destination. Our programmes also present successful achievements obtained by Romanians in science, arts and sport; Romanian history; leading Romanian personalities; as well as the developments in the neighboring geographic regions and a variety of Romanian expert views on the major international topics and developments. The RRI broadcasts are general in character, in the format "Adult Contemporary", following a fixed structure. They are easy to understand by listeners with different cultural experiences, the focus being on explaining the information presented, which is then put into context. We approach topics in a rapid, concise, comprehensive and warm manner. Our programme policy is based on the primacy of information. By means of a prompt, honest and attractive journalistic approach, RRI tries to disseminate Romanian values in a variety of fields, promoting mutual esteem, tolerance and understanding through its programmes. Winter 2008/2009 programmes MONDAY to FRIDAY Radio Newsreel (News + Commentaries / Media Headlines). News, current affairs and much more in only 13 minutes MONDAY Pro Memoria (The Romanians' history) Political Flash (politics and politicians under scrutiny) Romanian Hits (light, but not facile music) Sports Round Up (how did our athletes fare?) Earth News TUESDAY Business Club (business opportunities; economics easy to understand by everybody) European House (Romanians in the European Union) Cultural Event (the arts in the spotlight) The Skylark (folk songs and performers) The Athlete of the Week WEDNESDAY Society Today (The Romanians' mentalities, expectations, behaviour patterns, problems and difficulties) Visit Romania! (come and see for yourself Romanian Musicians (musicians and music) RRI Sports Club (sports history highlights) THURSDAY Radio Tour (don't miss a trip to Romania) Guests on RRI Europa Express (about the unified Europe for those who are not in the EU) The Latest in Music Football Flash (the king-sport [sic]) FRIDAY A Challenge for the Future (three weeks per month) (the future starts right now! Terra 21 (once a month) (nowhere to go if the Earth is destroyed!) Practical Guide (all sorts of tips for people travelling to Romania) The Folk Music Box Sports Weekend Philatelists' Corner SATURDAY Radio Newsreel News The Week (in only 6 minutes) World of Culture (cultural personalities, ideas, trends, events) RRI Encyclopedia Roots (traditions and customs) Cookery Show All That Jazz SUNDAY Radio Newsreel News Focus (let's look at the present together!) Inside Romania (RRI via Tony Ashar, Indonesia, March WDXC Contact via DXLD) But, but, some English broadcasts are a semi-hour and some a full- hour, so how does that affect these program schedules? (gh, DXLD) ** RUSSIA [and non]. 6075 is occupied by DW 24 hours a day from at least four sites, sometimes more than one at a time, but by 0750 March 4 its German was becoming overridden by Russian from R. Rossii, the latter transmitter developing some motor-boating, interfering with itself as well as DW. Retune at 1316, R. Rossii strong and dominant with song in English, but hum and warble on its own carrier, a shame. Its 30-degree beam from Pet-Kam carries on toward North America. 6075, R. Rossii, still suffering from recently acquired warble on carrier, March 5 until 1400* after 5-second-late timesignal, and no sign of 8GAL 6074 CW marker during next biminute. R. Rossii, Pet/Kam, 6075, March 6 at 1350 with some weird vocalizations. This station really has some neat music. Like R. Japan, I would like to see a program schedule translated to English. Trouble is, this transmitter has developed motorboating, which seems a bit worse every day. Currently registered at 1800-1400, 100 kW at 15 degrees which is favorable for NAm. During A-season this moves to 5920 or 5930 at 1700-1300, neither better for us due to NAm QRM, and of course, the Midnight Sun (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** RUSSIA. 9996, RWM, 1231, 03/06/09. The usual mix of different styles of time signal delivery plus CW IDs. For some reason this is a regular visitor to the Bois D'Arc site, though I never hear even a trace of it back home. Fair (Mark Schiefelbein, MO, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** SAIPAN. 12090, good signal but rolling fades at 2244 March 4 with Vietnamese songs, brief announcement and another song which had a more religious tinge to it, then talk in Vietnamese, but including this English phrase at 2248: ``the other woman in your marriage``. Hmm. {Would that the the Mother of God??} 2258 wrapping up with website, postal address in Manila, and a bit of echo, long path? Just before 2300* YL with English ID as ``The international service of FEBC, KFBS from Saipan, Mariana Islands, in the Pacific``. It`s the Vietnamese service at 2230-2300 aimed westward (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** SAUDI ARABIA. 17805, No buzz today on this channel. BSKSA Riyadh heard buzz-free on all Arabic prayer channels at 09-10 UT slot, 11935, 17615, 17805, 21495, and 21705 kHz. Also clean signals on 21670 Indonesian service, 17785 French. 73 wb (Wolfgang Büschel, Germany, March 4, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) 17805, BSKSA with buzz tone again March 5 (buzz off on March 4). Regards (Wolfy Büschel, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** SIERRA LEONE [non]. Cotton Tree News, 11875 at 0730-0800 via Rampisham UK has reduced power from 500 to 250 kW, in case you can`t hear it as well; not sure if this also applies to Star Radio at 0700- 0730 (Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** SOLOMON ISLANDS. 9541.50, SIBC, 1512-1542, March 4. Surprised how well this was heard just after my local sunrise. BBC news and “World Briefing”; never any local announcements; 1542 covered by very strong sign-on of a real BBC station, via Singapore on 9540.0, with recorded loop that I am unfamiliar with: “This is the BBC. There are no programs on this channel at present. Details of all our services are at BBCworldserice.com”; 1545 subcontinent musical fanfare and into scheduled Tamil (Ron Howard, Asilomar Beach, CA, Etón E1, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** SOUTH CAROLINA [non]. Hi Glenn, I was tuned in tonight at 0100 UT, 3/7/08 on 3215 [WWRB] and Brother Stair was asking what happened to his program via WBCQ on 7415, not audible. He said he had not received a response from Allan Weiner and was on air asking for calls if anyone had heard him on 7415. I could not raise a signal this evening at 0100 time slot on 7415 kHz. However 3215 was propagating quite well, despite QRN. He also mentioned that The Overcomer would soon be airing on two AM frequencies, 1430 and 1530 AM BCB. 930 AM was mentioned as well, but not likely to be used, due to unacceptable time slot made available to him. He said programming will begin soon (no date given) and listeners in the metro NY/NJ area asked to report on reception by calling 1-843- 538-4202 or 1-843-538-6689 and toll free at 1-888-332-6047. 73's, (Ed Insinger, NJ, UT March 7, DX LISTENING DIGEST) He would not be on 7415 anyway at 0100 UT Saturday, as that`s Allan Weiner Worldwide time. I suppose he is scheduled after 0200. I guess the 1430, 1530 and 930 all refer to NYC area stations? (gh, DXLD) ** SPAIN. Listened to Correo del Oyente on REE webcast, UT Saturday March 7 at 0630, and at 0651 Antonio Buitrago was still giving the wrong schedule, and consequently the wrong frequencies, for his own program, i.e. 0530 UT Saturdays. He sure is out of touch (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** SUDAN [non]. Radio Dabanga has been heard on 5 March 09 at 0506+ as follows: 13820 S8 35334 7315 S9 43544 9830 S3 25233 but later was S9 43534 Program consisted of news and reports. At 0510 with musical IS (Zacharias Liangas, Thessaloniki, Greece, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Clandestinas: ALEMANIA, 9830, Radio Dabanga, Wertachtal, 0525-0527, escuchada el 5 de marzo en idioma árabe con final de emisión, locutor con comentarios, identificación “Radio Dabanga”, cuña musical identificando a la emisora, SINPO 35443 (José Miguel Romero, Burjasot (Valencia), España, Sangean ATS 909, Antena Radio Master A-108, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) 9830 is new, 0430-0527 via Wertachtal, 500 kW, 150 degrees daily starting 3 March, under auspices of R. Netherlands (gh) QSLs --- Clandestine --- RADIO DABANGA, Wertachtal, 7315 kHz, E-QSL con allegati PDF in 10 giorni. E-report con ID MP3 spedito a: radiodabanga @ yahoo.com e willems @ pressnow.nl V/s: Hilde Groen groen @ pressnow.nl (50ma BC clandestina confermata) (SWL I1-0799GE, Luca Botto Fiora, Genova, Italy, bclnews.it via DXLD) ** SUDAN [non]. See GREECE, transmitter down. Another beneficiary of this unfortunate situation is that 9420 replaces 15650 at 1500, so Miraya FM via Slovakia should now be in the clear, IRRS having concluded that the collision did not matter anyway in their target Sudan. Since it originated from within Sudan, I wonder if Miraya has been affected or even expelled by the latest developments. Is it still there at 1500-1800 on 15650? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** SYRIA. Following several reports of R. Damascus reactivated on 12085, I was hearing something there March 9 at 2103, a fair signal but heavy flutter and, of course, very low modulation. Could make out a woman talking, I think, alternating with a bit of music at 2104. If modulation had been decent, should have been readable nonetheless. The other frequency, 9330 was completely inaudible at this time, when English is scheduled, not even a carrier despite the absence of WBCQ (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** TAIWAN [non]. Radio Taiwan International, English to South Asia - Change of frequency (From 1st March to 28th March '09), 1600-1700 UT on 11550 & 11995 kHz (via Issoudun) (replacing 9785 kHz) (Alokesh Gupta, New Delhi, March 4, DX LISTENING DIGEST) New frequency of RTI for listeners in Africa and South Asia. In March, the English programming can be heard in Africa on 15690 kHz from 1700 to 1800 UT, and on 11995 KHz in South Asia from 11995 KHz. [sic]. From http://english.rti.org.tw/ Regards & 73’s (Mukesh Kumar, The Cosmos Club, Muzaffarpur, INDIA, March 5, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Yes, that`s exactly what it says at: http://english.rti.org.tw/Content/WhatsNewSingle.aspx?ContentID=74649 RTI should proofread; apparently means ``11995 in S Asia from 1600 to 1700`` (Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST) There are more changes in English, French and Russian languages of RTI Taiwan. see attached table. 73 wolfgang df5sx http://topnews.wwdxc.de [gh excerpted only those March 1 changes as planned last October] English Area kHz Site kW 1600-1700 EU Issoudun 500 9785 (2008/10/26-2009/02/28) 11995 (2009/03/01-2009/03/28) 1700-1800 EU Issoudun 500 11850 (2008/10/26-2009/02/28) 15690 (2009/03/01-2009/03/28) French Area kHz Site kW 1900-2000 wEu Issoudun 500 9365 (2008/10/26-2009/02/28) 11875 (2009/03/01-2009/03/28) Russian Area kHz Site kW 1700-1800 wSiberia Issoudun 500 6120 (2008/10/26-2009/02/28) 9840 (2009/03/01-2009/03/28) (via ADDX, Andreas Volk-D, Oct 19) (via Wolfgang Büschel, March 5, DXLD ** THAILAND. R. Thailand, 12095, March 1, 2, & 5, UT 00:30 --- YM & YL discussing Thai Red Cross with regard to continued work on the Tsunami effects, other stories and news. English ID 0057, English until 0100 "The time is now 8:00 AM in Thailand", after vocal anthem, chimes, switching to Thai language programming. Not strong but readable on the March 1, 2, not audible here 3 & 4 , heard again, poorly on March 5th. Various atmospheric hash and overall fading made copy challenging especially on 3/5 (Robert McEntee, Austin TX, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** TIBET [and non]. The Tibetan service of CNR-8 (Voice of Minorities) was divided and became the CNR-11 Tibetan service from Mar. 1 on 1098 kHz and 105.7 MHz at 2155-1605 UT. SW sked: 6010 2155-2400, 1030-1605 7350 0900-1605 7360 2155-2400 9480 2155-0100, 0800-1605 9530 0000-1030 11685 0000-0900 15570 0100-0800 de Hiroshi CNR-11 English program: 0530-0600 9530, 11685, 15570 kHz 1430-1500 6010, 7350, 9480 kHz Audio File on 6010 kHz at 1430 on Mar. 5 http://ndxc.org/aoki/binews/ai/cnr11-20090305-1430_6010.mp3 de Hiroshi (S. Hasegawa, NDXC, Mar 5, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** TINIAN. 7575 VOA observations: see U S A [non] ** TURKEY [and non]. VOT via Sackville, 7325, UT March 5 at 0430 quick check was back in English during Letterbox, instead of Turkish as recently in error. However, there seemed to be some co-channel QRM, which is not normally the case, so I wonder if was mixing in the modulation. I had suggested to Sackville that if they still can`t get English correctly on satellite feed, they could put on the web feed as a backup. [see also CANADA] 12035, Thursday March 5 at 1402, Live from Turkey, airing caller (or callee) Chris Lewis from England, on the VOT programming he lixe. Rather poor reception so I will go back and get the one-day audio archive before it`s too late. Later: on the show, host told Chris that VOT is NOT deleting any language services from SW, but is looking into adding FM relays in many countries. I thought we had reports that they already deleted some SW languages? 7325 at 0432 check March 6 found Turkish again instead of English, Sackville relay of VOT; and with co-channel QRM. I see that BBCWS is now also scheduled on 7325 during that hour via Cyprus and/or Rampisham, in Arabic. That collision will be resolved in A-09, by when we hope VOT manages to feed the right language to Sackville, as BBC stays at 0400 and Turkey/Canada shifts to 0300 --- but why should we have to upput with it till then? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** UKRAINE. UCRANIA, 5970, Ukrainian Radio, Kyiv, 0546-0549, escuchada el 5 de marzo en ucraniano a locutora con comentarios con referencias a la “Literatura”, locutor y locutora en conversación telefónica con invitada, SINPO 24432 (José Miguel Romero, Burjasot (Valencia), España, Sangean ATS 909, Antena Radio Master A-108, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U K [and non]. The emergency SW revival of BBCWS in Kyrgyz at 1300- 1330 is making some changes: Previously on 12075 Cyprus, 13845 Rampisham colliding with WWCR, and 15180 Oman. NOW on 12095 Oman 20 degrees, 13845 Cyprus 50 degrees colliding with WWCR, and 15180 Cyprus 57 degrees (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U K [non]. For some reason, BBC on 6155, scheduled to terminate at 23 UT, has been running over for 14-15 minutes every evening this past week. It isn`t a 15-minute broadcast; it is jus World Briefing or some such program, and the plug is pulled at 2314-2315 mid-broadcast (Kent D. Murphy, New Martinsville WV, March 2, by P-mail, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Kent D. Murphy, WV, reminds us by P-mail that BBCWS in English runs 6155 past its scheduled closing at 2300*. Yes, indeed, as I was reading his March 2 letter on March 6, I found a fair signal continuing past 2300, until cut off abruptly in mid-World Today at 2314:30* This is via Meyerton, South Africa, where I assume they have simply set the automation to give BBC a bonus quarter-hour. {Could it be make-goods, compensating for lost airtime elsewhen, without having to make a financial refund?} Fortunately, Spain is no longer on 6155 for its French hour at 2300, but 5970 to Europe and on weekends only, per EiBi (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U K. BBC (Rampisham) 7235, March 5, 0320 Swahili to E. Af. YM & YL announcers. Clear but predictably faint here due to azimuth, copyable to 0330 sign off (Robert McEntee, Austin TX, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Axually it`s Skelton, 300 kW, 140 degrees (gh) See also UNIDENTIFIED 6150 ** U K. I have been watching BBC World News most weekdays now that it is conveniently accessible via OKLA, OETA`s 13.2 channel, at 2230-2300 UT. It seems quite pro, and none of those annoying commercials, tho too much produxion as if a lot of optional cutaways are inbuilt. But a big mixup on March 5, as a story on the Pakistan/Sri Lanka cricket massacre was played twice. The anchor realised at the last minute the second time around was a mistake, but it played for a while anyway, before dumping out of it. Hard to imagine that happening on one of the Big 3 US TV network newscasts (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. ESTADOS UNIDOS – A Voz da América é uma fonte poderosa de informações sobre o que acontece nos Estados Unidos, principalmente nesta época de mudanças com Barack Obama no poder. As emissões em português para o Brasil já não existem mais. Entretanto, a programação em espanhol é facilmente sintonizada aqui na América do Sul. De acordo com José Moacir Portera de Melo, de Pontes e Lacerda (MT), o esquema completo de transmissões é o seguinte: diariamente, entre 0000 e 0100, no Tempo Universal, em 5890, 5940 e 9885 kHz; de segundas a sextas, entre 1230 e 1300, no Tempo Universal, em 9885, 13715 e 15590 kHz; diariamente, entre 1300 e 1400, no Tempo Universal, em 9885, 13715 e 15590 kHz. Nesta última emissão citada, a 1ª meia hora é chamada de Enfoque Andino e a 2ª de Buenos Dias América. A emissora possui experientes profissionais, como Tony Cano, Alejandro Escalona, Leonardo Bonett, Alexis Zúniga Alemán e Luis Alberto Facal (Célio Romais, Panorama, @tividade DX March 1 via DXLD) ** U S A [non]. VOA, 7575 via Tinian, March 4 at 1350 in English bothered by a noise, sort of a cross between lite grind jamming and Saudi buzz, but not enough to impair readability, in report from the Navajo Nation about substandard living conditions there, having to haul water, hopes for stimulus money, finally establishing one casino even tho it`s remote from population centers, etc. VOA English unlikely to be a jamming target and my suspicion is that this was a transmitter defect, tsk. Should have monitored whether noise quit at exactly same time as 1400 closing. If VOA really continues on 7575 at 1400 via Thailand as scheduled, it had become inaudible. Exactly the same News Now Navajo report was heard one hour later at 1450 on 9760 via Tinang, Philippines; 1455 USG editorial. Since VOA English on 7575 had a strange noise on it the day before [see USA non], I checked again March 5 at 1357, fill music after editorial, this time with a constant whine of one pitch; unseems het de elsewhere, as no carrier audible on frequency immediately after its 1358*. Checking VOA via Tinian, 7575, March 6 at 1355 to find whether there were unwanted noises on the transmission this day; sounded OK, except now there was Spanish SSB on the hi side around 7576. And at 1356 instead of a USG Editorial, there was an ``International Public Service Announcement`` about a guy wanted in the Khobar Towers 1996 bombing in Saudi Arabia; a $5 million reward is offered for anonymous info leading to his capture. Could not catch his name, and do I find anything about this on the VOA website? Of course not! But four names are given at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khobar_Towers_bombing And the item mentioned wwwrewardsforjustice.net which of course will get you nowhere unless you put in the dot after the www! Why are so many ignorant speakers leaving this out? Have they never used the Internet themselves? They never leave out the other dot. Why is it such a burden to include one extra syllable when you have just said ``double-u, double-u, double-u``? This site has a rogues` gallery, no doubt including the individual mentioned. I suppose VOA defaults to the IPSAs when there is no new editorial to broadcast, as the info conveyed is hardly new (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. 2319, WBCQ on 7415 talking about antennas with a whopping signal, using a Solarcore outdoor all wave receiving antenna and 50 feet coax lead-in, on a Sangean ATS818ACS receiver. 73's from Tennessee (Noble West, March 5, DX LISTENING DIGEST) If on Thursday, that would be one of Ted Randall`s shows (gh) We got a new show. Mike in Fishkill, NY, sent me a check. It`s ``All Together Now``, starting this coming Thursday, bumping WORLD OF RADIO, because we are running that half a dozen times a week, Thursday at 7:30-8 pm Eastern on 7415, should be interesting, a lot of fun, mix of commentary, opinions, political stuff. Will have to notify Mr Hauser that we are grabbing one of his times, but still on M-F 3-3:30 pm on 7415, and Mondays at 6 pm on 7415 (Allan Weiner on Worldwide, Feb 27, paraphrased by gh for DX LISTENING DIGEST) I was glad to confirm at 2011 UT Thursday March 5 on 7415 that WBCQ was playing the newest WORLD OF RADIO, 1450; fair reception over all- daylight path. Hope they also played it 24 hours earlier as it was ready by then, as the only later broadcast on 7415 has been reduced to Mondays at 2200, the UT Friday 0030 having been canceled. And from next week the M-F strip of WORs will be in even brighter sunlight at 1900-1930. Should be good for areas close-in to Monticello who find 7415 fading out after sunset. 7415 signal had improved somewhat at 2052 during anti-Semitic show --- oops, only anti-Zionist, as Herald of Truth claims while railing against the Jews. The show replacing the UT Friday 0030 airing of WOR on 7415 is ``Altogether Now``. I listened to the first few minutes March 6. It`s a guy whose name I could not catch, but who identifies himself as a former human rights judge and lawyer who will be interviewing people, but this time was monologuing about how easy it still is to travel to Europe, frugally, starting with London. Evidently he conceives his audience on this international SW station to be Americans. Also noted WBCQ on 15420 with the anapestic preacher from Fence Lake NM, at 2055. Much better signal here on reduced carrier + USB, but LSB not completely suppressed, and carrier was a smidgin off frequency, so close that I couldn`t decide whether it was high or low (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Glenn, the new show is supposed to be a half- blues music, half- everything else (including some music) show made by Mark or Mike Shayler in Fishkill, NY. If it makes you feel better, Your Thursday night airing isn`t your best airing of the week, here. Often even the 7415 carrier is inaudible that time of night this time of year (which makes me worry that Mark won`t be too happy not to be able to hear his own show often). Traffic pollution (and power landscapers` dust) seems to have plenty to do with this as my reception on the Friday to Monday half of the week often comes in while Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday seem to be a complete shutout. I hope Al starts piling new shows (and one airing of yours, a perpetual new show) right before Area 51 throughout the week as signal strength off 5110`s 3- tier cousin to a Lazy H is both roaring loud and economical in my area of the country at this time. I`m also hoping that it occurs to Al that airing popular shows like "Grits" instead of "Buy gold bars and meals ready to eat, from Jesus" shows daytime when working people can lift up their heads from their supposedly boring work at the Delco plant then realize that their families are listening to the exact same thing at home, means they`ll throw available amounts of pocket money oftenly at WBCQ instead of the theory that the 7 or so people who listen to rock on WBCQ after midnight then all call the station at 3 AM when the show goes off and say, "Great show, tonight. I`ll donate after I get over my hangover in the morning." Please note the unremovable pause. Otherwise "Note The Notes". Sometimes the only donation is all the wood that`s sawed by the rotating wheel of the electric meter. It`s about time Al makes money for a change. Here`s a next note in programming (or vacuum of programming) from Maine. "AJ" had dropped me a note on e- mail after I answered one of his web- e- mail comments (He`s back to those)! He said he might return to WBCQ soon at his regular time (Tuesday not Saturday). It`s such a paradox that his show is so much better cleaner and more useful than any "network" television on Tuesday (or ANY day) and equally dirtier, mumblier, and draggier than our weekend shows. One listen and he`s letting us know that we can usefully spend some minutes evening- out the fertilization of our lawns with a pee can instead of mulling those minutes into contributing to our own juvenile (or non-juvenile) delinquencies, and the next, he`s covering news that isn`t, well, close to home. Although I dropped a note on the Forums on it, "AJ" hasn`t returned so I guess he won`t. He has a theory that web-listeners are the right audience. Better than rural but near, Radio? Really? Anyway, I won`t be downloading my mp3 of Cut The Krap With AJ nor my Ogg Vorbis of, Church of Kracker on my shortwaveized Atwater Kent 555 this afternoon. After I get off this computer which is after all, not on the air, I will drop Al a call of small side business on the landline then pull in some extra, early, listening hours into the unknown. Tell the Listeners who hear Mark`s show if they have e- mail- out, to e- mail Mark after they hear the show until a donations postal address is made. > Next subject is, It sure occurred to me overnight that in my war with my neighbor John, Yahoo would simply take the Hun`s side. Although I hadn`t had any cabin fever this Winter (like almost any) healing the last few days did it. I`ll have to settle for turning his weakest places into applesauce in a couple or few weeks from now after I heal (Frederic Jodry, KA2PYQ, March 6, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A [and non]. Another afternoon of KVOH providing us eight frequencies for the price of one! Possibly assisted by sporadic E, but which did not reach VHF, 17775 was inbooming at 2035 March 5, S9+20. Except I first ran across it on 17487 in an upward bandscan, as that`s normally where I start monitoring the 16m band, 17485 being the lowest intentional frequency. In the next few minutes I tuned around to many other multiples of 144 kHz away from the fundamental and found KVOH on most of them, not necessarily in the order reached, using the FRG-7 and E-W longwire: 17055 (-5 x 144): not audible 17199 (-4 x 144): S9 17343 (-3 x 144): S9+10 17487 (-2 x 144): S9+10 17631 (-1 x 144): S9+15 17919 (+1 x 144): S9+15 18063 (+2 x 144): S9+ 5 peaks 18207 (+3 x 144): barely audible 18351 (+4 x 144): not audible These are all approximately the centers of the big filthy distorted FMy blobs, worst when KVOH was playing peppy Mexican music with a heavy beat, which was most of the time, apparently with a live DJ, with a local L.A. timecheck at 2039, ID as La Voz de Restauración [no la], even giving phone number, apparently for requests. I was sorely tempted to phone and tell him about his seven extra frequencies, but figured I would be taken as a kook, or he would simply not understand what I was talking about. Nor would it do any good to try to reach their chief engineer, since they obviously do not have one, at least one who is competent, since these spurs have been heard repeatedly here for years and duly reported in DXLD. The transmitter is surely a piece of crap, which ought to be overhauled or dumped. Now which other gospel huxter did the original owner, High Adventure, get it from? Was it an HCJB discard? I knew the major victim of this would be R. France Internationale, which has a Spanish semihour at 2100 on 17630 --- see FRANCE [non]. So I was standing by when at *2058:50 the French Guiana carrier cut on. It`s a big signal too, 250 kW at 295 degrees, targeting CIRAF zones 7S,8S,10,11S,12N, i.e. the southern half of the eastern 2/3 of the conterminous USA, including Enid; Mexico, Central America, Caribbean, and NW S America, while KVOH`s official targets on their 100 degree beam with 50 kW are all of zones 10, 11 and 12, i.e. Mexico, Central America, Caribbean and more of NW S America. But RFI 17630 was not big enough to blot out the KVOH spur centered only 1 kHz away; it was still bothering when I side-tuned as far down as I could on the DX-398`s bandwidth and still hear RFI, 17627. Why hasn`t RFI raised hell about this with KVOH, FCC, ITU, HFCC? Why hasn`t FCC fined them on its own initiative? Why haven`t aeronautical interests on 17921 complained, where the spur could be a threat to safety? Ditto maritime interests impacted by 17199 and 17343? Possibly because no one gives a damn about this but yours truly. Why haven`t hams done so about 18063? Answer to the latter: because it`s 5 kHz away from the edge of the so-called 17-meter band starting at 18068! And who cares what happens below there? Anyone who knows how to reach relevant powers that be is free to forward my observations. Searching my DXLD archive on 17919, 17921, 17629, 17631, for the spur frequencies have varied slightly over time, I get hits on the following issues: 5-014, 5-078, 7-020, 7-024, 7-064, 8-063, 8-114, 8- 118, 8-123. At 2124 recheck on 17921, the DJ claimed to be broadcasting on only one frequency, ``17.775``. When I rerechecked an hour later at 2225, none of these were heard, as 17775 itself had apparently closed down in the meantime, altho authorized to run until 0100, silencing its phalanx of spurs. Until next time. Unlike the day before, KVOH much weaker on 17775 and no spurs audible March 6 at 2156 check; fundamental also somewhat distorted with hymn. 2200 English and Spanish legal IDs, and remained on air, 2202 starting show ``Mujeres de Restauración``, signal weakening noticeably. So maybe yesterday it outfaded completely by 2230 rather than offsigned, having been assisted by sporadic E which can go from super-strong to zilch in a short time (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. WWRB always full of surprises. Bandscanning 90m at 0734 UT March 4, I found Brother Scare on BOTH 3145 and 3185, slightly louder if not stronger on the latter. 3145 had been running only at 0200- 0500. At the moment he was prophesying that your TV would be watching you, in the near future if not in 1984y. Listened only for a moment, so not sure if he also got into the current ``your set-top-box is watching you`` silly scare. Next two nights around 0630, only on 3185. Maybe Dave forgot to turn off the 3145 transmitter the night before (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. 5919.74, WBOH. Just as a point of interest, I measured them here at 0320 on March 5 (Ron Howard, Asilomar Beach, CA, Etón E1, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. WRNO seems to be back at full strength with very good reception at 0327 with ID as WRNO Worldwide. Funny that I can't find any reference to SW on the WRNO.com website, though. Last time I checked on SW, they were way down in the mud. Measured on about 7505.383 on my Perseus SDR. Great audio with the BW open wide and SAM engaged (Walt Salmaniw (Victoria, BC), UT March 7, Cumbredx mailing list via DXLD) WRNO, 7505, full data postal card QSL in 2.5 weeks for email report to wrnoradio @ mailup.net Card lists postal address as P.O. Box 895, Fort Worth, TX 76101 (Chris Lobdell, Tewksbury, MA 01876, March 5, NASWA yg via DXLD) ** U S A. 15385 KJES Vado NM (presumed), I-10, Exit 155, go east to the Lord's Ranch; 1943, 3 March; Robo-kids reciting in English with guitar accompaniment. SIO=553, strong OC but subdued audio (Harold Frodge, Midland MI, MARE Tipsheet via DXLD) 11715, very big carrier, S9+20, March 5 at 1448 but barely modulated with catechisms repeated in English by robokids, including ``do not break faith``, de KJES, New Mexico. Have not heard this for weeks in daily bandscans, so the usual question rearises --- have they been missing, or was this just availablized by some sporadic E over the Texas Panhandle, drastically decreasing the funxional skip distance? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A [non]. CVC has made another major reduxion in transmissions via CHILE [q.v.] for reasons unknown, but finally ridding CFRX of most of its co-channel interference. A few months ago, overnight broadcasts in Portuguese were cancelled, and now Spanish too (Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. Re 9-020: The log periodic antenna at O'Hare is likely an FAA control center. These and most other major federal facilities are connected via a network called SHARES (I forget what the acronym stands for). It is an HF network designed to allow federal agencies and centers to communicate when normal circuits are out as in "doomsday". The technology makes extensive use of digital technology and automatic link establishment techniques (ALE). (Joe Buch, March 4, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. On a caradio MW bandscan from a hot spot in a store parking lot in west Enid, March 4 at 2020 UT, I found a gaping hole on 690, KGGF Coffeyville, Kansas, off the air! I could make out two extremely weak signals instead and a trace of a SAH. Assuming it was not a remnant of some local mix, nor skywave in axion this early, I guess the prime suspect by groundwave would be KTSM, ex-KHEY in El Paso, 10 kW, and with a lobe almost in this direxion. The somewhat closer stations in CO, TX, AR and MO are quite low-powered. I can normally hear a bit of Midland, TX, KCRS on 550, underneath dominant KFRM in KS. But Midland is closer, and path from El Paso would cross a good swath of lower ground conductivity in NM. But what became of KGGF? Anyhow, it was back at next check 2136. Next time would they please notify me when they are going to be off, so I can see what I can get on a defacto fence beverage (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. IL, Chicago, WLUP, 97.9, has its HD3 back in service; it is being used as an India program service. Richard Porter, Wood Dale IL, says the bit rate on HD radio is quite abysmal. HD1 has 48 kB, HD2 32 kilobits, and HD3 from 12 to 20 kilobits. ``This totals less than what a CD has.`` Only HD1 and HD2 are capable of stereo (Jan/Feb FMedia via DXLD) ** U S A. NY, Auburn, WDWN, *89.1 fined $2500 for commercial announcements on a noncommercial station. Advertisers during an Auburn Doubledays baseball game included Coca-Cola Bottling, Smith Barney, Bank of America, and Tesoros Department Store (Jan/Feb FMedia via DXLD) I wonder if they originated those ads, or were picking up a feed from elsewhere and failed to delete them? WDWN used to be listed as a WORLD OF RADIO affiliate, as it appeared to be carrying World Radio Network part-time, but nailing down its true schedule was difficult (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. IN, Lowell, WLPR, *89.1 (formerly WWLO), NPR, local news, sports and talk, IDs with Lowell only, serves northwest Indiana with studios at its parent station, WIIN, channel 66, Merrillville IN. ``Gets out really well`` (Roger Winsor, Portage IN, Jan/Feb FMedia via DXLD) But do they webcast? I tried the obvious URL, http://www.wlpr.org but that brought up White Light Paranormal Research! Here it is, and they do: http://www.thelakeshorefm.com/ --- schedule shows a few familiar public radio programs, but mostly it`s `Lakeshore Music``, evidently standards (Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Thanks, Glenn. I had seen the site previously and but the stream wasn't actually working yet. It's up. Will have to see whether or not all those shows called Lakeshore whatever are all just different dayparts of the same music format. What I'm hearing right now in the evening is an adult standards / soft AC format (Kevin A. Kelly, Bedford, Massachusetts, USA, publicradiofan.com, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. Re: WHYL 960 DX test March 15 --- I have the high end jacked way up, about 12 db from 5 to 8 kHz --- so listen on 965usb --- the more high end, the more positive modulation, and I'm right at +125%, and that tends to favor the upper sideband. Of course, YMMV. Good luck! (Bruce Collier, York, PA 722ft ASL, FM19px, NRC-AM via DXLD) Might work this far out also. Did get Morse ID's on WLLL-930 and a few other regional tests from back east so very worth the shot. 73 (Wayne Heinen, N0POH DM79op, CO, ibid.) Maybe --- it's a leaf-clover pattern at big west-smaller north--best is east. I just need sweep tones and morse which I'm sure the DX test guys will get to me (Bruce Collier, York, PA 722ft ASL, FM19px, ibid.) ** U S A. Re the 1500 "unid" NAm in Greek: According to Glenn Hauser's recent mail to me, this here does seem to be the obvious answer, not the low powered Florida station. "This [1500] is WFED in DC with regular Greek show. http://www.dcgreeks.com/event_display.asp?EventID=2009022101 Hope that helps (Steve Whitt, UK, Feb 25, MWC via DXLD) I.e. a program, Radio Olympus, not Olympics, Sat 10 am repeated Sun 6 pm = Sat 1500, Sun 2300 UT, soon one hour earlier; and that`s exactly the hour Carlos was hearing it on Sunday (Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST)" (Carlos Gonçalves, Portugal, March 4, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. Boston area 1710 kHz low-power stations (from Chris Lobdell via Bruce Conti): There are two listed at 1710 kHz on BAMLog. One is Radio Soleil International in Brockton with 24/7 streaming audio at http://www.radiosoleilinternational.com --- also broadcast part time on 1410 WMSX Brockton. The other is listed as Radio Top Inter, although I haven't heard it in quite some time. There is a third station presumed in the Boston metro area but presently unidentified, broadcasting in Spanish with a mix of tropical, cristiana, and English gospel music, interspersed with religious messages and prayers in Spanish. The two stations heard on 1710 here during the day are Radio Soleil International - Brockton, dominant on the east antenna, and the unID Spanish, heard with what sounded like a Radio Santeria slogan, dominant on the south antenna. I haven't been able to find any sort of Internet presence for the unID Spanish, unusual for a Boston area pirate since most the others are rather overt about their operations (MARE Tipsheet via DXLD) ** U S A. KUNM`s University Showcase heard March 6 at 1500-1530 UT: Traditions, Culture and History of Northern New Mexico, Part I. Our guest will be Associate Professor of Foreign Languages, Larry Torres, University of New Mexico-Taos. He is a native of Arroyo Seco, New Mexico. He has taught Spanish, Russian, French, English, Latin, Southwest Studies, Linguistics and Bilingual Education for the past 30 years. Larry Torres is internationally recognized as a speaker and presenter in the field of Global Education in foreign language teaching. He has been an actor impersonating Jean-Baptiste Lamy, first Archbishop of Santa Fe, throughout the Southwest with the New Mexico Endowment for the Humanities’ Chautauqua Program. He has also portrayed the persona of conquistador, Don Francisco Vásquez de Coronado, and of Civil Rights activist, Reyes López Tijerina. He has published extensively on wide ranging topics dealing with stories and history of Northern New Mexico. He has received numerous awards for his teaching and appears frequently on radio shows in Northern New Mexico. This will be part one of a 2-part series with Professor Torres. Hosted by Jane Blume. Produced by Dick Frederiksen (KUNM Zounds program guide via DXLD) He also mentioned that he appears on three different Taos stations live every Monday morning at 8-9 am MT [1400-1500 UT now], apparently with story-telling, etc., 20 minutes each: 1400 KXMT in Spanish, 1420 KKIT in English, at 1440 KKTC with something else. That`s not as hectic as it sounds, because all three are co-owned, and no doubt in the same building if not the very same studio switching to different transmitters, and it seems they webcast. For starters, see http://www.kxmt.com/front/index.aspx where you will not find any detailed program schedule since these are commercial stations with formats, not programs! Oops, you need a user name and password to hear the stream of KXMT! And the others are not really linked from its page, nor have their own under obvious domains. Never mind (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. PAUL HARVEY [and non]. Paul Harvey, dead at 90. The end of the story (Harold Frodge, MARE Tipsheet via DXLD) Radio Ink, Phoenix, March 2, 2009 As a tribute to legendary broadcaster Paul Harvey and his 75-year career in radio, Radio Ink has posted audio of his final broadcast, courtesy of ABC Radio Networks. MP3 format; click here to listen http://www.radioink.com/Article.asp?id=1193464&spid=24698 Updated: Tribute Set For Paul Harvey http://www.radioink.com/Article.asp?id=1190032&spid=24698 (via Mike Terry, dxldyg via DXLD) ABC RADIO NETWORKS sent an advisory to PAUL HARVEY affiliates late WEDNESDAY to inform them that GIL GROSS and DOUG LIMERICK will air in HARVEY's time slots beginning MONDAY (3/9). The schedule for feeds matches that for HARVEY's shows. GROSS, a frequent fill-in for the late broadcasting legend and a prominent, award-winning newsman and talk host in his own right, will be heard weekdays, fed at 8:30a ET (refeed at 9:30a ET) with four minutes of content and one minute of network inventory and in middays at 11:35a and 12:06p (refeed at 1:06p) with 11 minutes of content, three minutes of network inventory, and a local avail. GROSS will also be heard on weekends with a SATURDAY report fed at 11:10a (refeed at 12:10p and 1:10p, prefeed at 10:45a SATURDAY and 7:25p FRIDAY). LIMERICK, the network's morning news anchor and twice winner of EDWARD R. MURROW Awards, will be heard handling the afternoon slot, fed at 2:06p (prefeed) and 3:06p ET with four minutes of content and a :30 network spot, and on weekends at 8:30a ET SATURDAYS with refeeds at 9:30 and 10:30a (allaccess.com via Brock Whaley (HI), DXLD) Paul Harvey dies and --- Even for the most jaded industry professionals, it's stunning to believe shares of one of the nation's largest radio station owners might trade for a single penny. And yet that's exactly what has happened to ABC Radio owner Citadel Communications, a once-proud group operator destroyed by massive debt, http://www.nypost.com/seven/03052009/business/betting_on_bad_debts_158087.htm epic mismanagement http://radioequalizer.blogspot.com/2008/03/sulemans-destruction-of-talk-radio.html and a liberal political ideology often at odds with the company's still-successful and profitable conservative talk radio programming. http://radioequalizer.blogspot.com/2008/04/sean-hannity-to-leave-citadel-abc-radio.html Booted off of the New York Stock Exchange after it failed to make a convincing case for its future viability, http://www.savewrko.com/2009/03/02/radio-broadcasters-near-eleventh-hour/ Citadel will cease trading there tomorrow, moving to the illiquid and sometimes shady world of the "pink sheets". http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20090305006318&newsLang=en That's despite a recent move by the NYSE to relax listing requirements. Ahead of that undignified exit, Citadel (NYSE:CDL) shares closed today at one penny, http://www.google.com/finance?q=cdl down nine cents from Wednesday's trading. In 2004, it traded as high as $22 (via Brock Whaley, March 5, DXLD) WLS --- World`s Lowest Stock (Brock, ibid.) The once mighty ABC radio at one cent a share, Less then a week after Paul Harvey dies. Milton Cross is rolling in his grave. I got a twenty. Let's re-build the Blue network (Brock Whaley, HI, NRC-AM via DXLD) Paul Harvey Tribute Station, 3-2-09, 0317-0319*, 6925-USB, SIO 343, heard Paul Harvey talking about a bong, courtesy of a little creative editing (Scott McArdle, Edmond OK, Free Radio Weekly via DXLD) ** U S A. THE CURSE OF RANDI RHODES: NOVA M'S SUCCESSOR "ON SECOND THOUGHT" PADLOCKED IN PHOENIX (w/Update) [original with further linx] By Stephen Lemons in Feathered Bastard Monday, Mar. 2 2009 @ 7:49PM http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/bastard/2009/03/nova_ms_successor_on_second_th.php The padlocked doors of On Second Thought Radio Network, formerly the lefty talk radio enterprise Nova M. Photo taken this afternoon. I'd been tipped off that KNUV 1190 AM, formerly the flagship station of the liberal Nova M radio network, and briefly, the home of Nova M's successor network, On Second Thought, had been padlocked. So I had to see for myself, as On Second Thought's driving force, Mike Newcomb, was apparently doing his afternoon show today as usual. At least, that's the way it sounded to someone who's not a regular listener of Newcomb's show. But as you can see from the photo above, 1190 AM's offices are indeed chained up. The security guard for the building told me that the padlocking occurred today. When I asked why, he shrugged and said, "Something to do with the rent." Newcomb's unwisely named On Second Thought was formed February 18, after the news that Nova M's parental units, Anita and Sheldon Drobny, were abandoning the AM version of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald. This, following the departure of Nova M's one certifiable star Randi Rhodes, and Sheldon Drobny's reported mental collapse and apparent hospitalization. Nova M's death had been several months in the making, beginning with the firing of general manager and CEO John Manzo in September of 2008, when Nova M was still being heard on KPHX 1480 AM. In a lawsuit filed at the beginning of February, Manzo alleged that the Drobnys were behind on their rent at 1480 AM. And Manzo told me a couple of weeks ago this was the real reason the Drobnys moved down the dial to 1190 AM. However, I have yet to confirm this assertion. The network's defenders suggested that the move actually had to do with a debatably stronger signal and nicer digs at 1190 AM, formerly a Spanish-language station called La Buena Onda, or The Good Wave, owned by the company New Radio Ventures, Inc. According to court records, New Radio Ventures filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy September 16, 2008, converting to Chapter 11 proceedings in early December. On February 26, 2009, the court approved an apllication to employ brokers to "list and market certain radio stations of Debtor." In hindsight, Mike Newcomb's On Second Thought looks like a last ditch attempt to salvage what was left of the Drobnys shipwreck. The Radio Equalizer blog reported that "In an email message of February 17th from counsel for Nova M Radio, Inc. to Randi's entertainment attorney, Robert V. Gaulin, the company is said to have been advised to file for bankruptcy protection next week." Checking court records, I don't yet see Nova M's bankruptcy filing. Nor do I see one for Anita or Sheldon Drobny, yet. So why is 1190 AM still broadcasting as of 9 PM Monday? According Sean Ryan, a producer at the station and briefly a GM at the station until he parted ways with the Drobnys in February, 1190 AM is currently on auto-pilot, playing "best ofs" until it ultimately goes dark. Without Rhodes, the only star in Nova M's stable, this ignoble decline was likely inevitable. Newcomb was left with himself as talent, Nancy Skinner, and Mike Malloy. Not much of a team there. And on top of that, they had bills piling up. Ironically, I was on what may be one of the station's last local broadcasts, as a guest on Todd Landfried's Saturday afternoon Desert Politics show. That is, unless something unforseen occurs, and unlocks that frickin' padlock. UPDATE: As of 7:53 AM 3/3/09 1190 AM is still on the air, with Stephanie Miller's syndicated show being piped in. Apparently the station is being controlled via remote access. I'll try to get down to the station sometime today to see if they picked the lock or paid the rent 2ND UPDATE 4:21 PM 3/3/09: I haven't been able to get back to the station. But this note on the Web site of On Second Thought leads you to believe the lockout is still on:Programming Note: The Nancy Skinner and Mike Malloy Shows are being re-engineered as a result of the transfer of the base of operations. It was our hope that the technical stuff was all worked out by airtime today but as it turns out, re-configuring network shows required a bit more work. Today you'll have "Best of Shows" again. The good news is the shows will both be live tomorrow. Sorry for the inconvenience and tune in tomorrow. You know it'll be great radio! 3RD UPDATE 8:08 PM 3/4/09: Turn the dial to KNUV 1190 AM, and all you get is static. I would say that makes it official, or as official as it gets. I've tried e-mailing Mike Newcomb several times. No response. From others with some connection to this fiasco, I get conflicting statements. So I'll hold off on them untilI get more info. Till then... [+ many comments] (via Artie Bigley, DXLD) ** U S A. CAMPAIGN AIDE TAPPED TO HEAD FCC By Cecilia Kang Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, March 4, 2009; D03 President Obama said yesterday that he will nominate Julius Genachowski, a technology adviser during the presidential campaign and law school friend, to head the Federal Communications Commission. The announcement came after months of speculation that Genachowski would be tapped for the job and an inadvertent confirmation of his nomination several weeks ago by an administration official during a Sunday morning talk show. If confirmed, Genachowski will take over a higher-profile FCC charged with devising a strategy to bring new high-speed Internet networks into every home in the nation. But he also will inherit several challenges. The country is in the midst of a troubled transition from analog broadcast to all-digital television. Congress has struggled to create a communications network for emergency first-responders. And the economy is expected to cast a cloud over the high-tech industry, hampering innovation and competition among telecommunications companies, analysts say. "Anyone who persists in thinking there was going to be a lot of new entrants for competition have to concede that that will be very unlikely given new capital structures," said Rebecca Arbogast, an analyst at Stifel Nicolaus. Genachowski, 47, will be charged with designing a plan to bring broadband Internet to rural and low-income areas within one year. That will likely involve altering a $7 billion program already used to bring phone service to those areas. And he will have to work with other agencies that will distribute $8 billion in stimulus funds for the construction of new broadband networks in rural areas. Former chief legal counsel to FCC Chairman Reed Hundt and an executive at Barry Dillar's IAC/InterActive Corp, Genachowski is widely lauded as the first FCC nominee who is both a Washington telecom policy insider and business executive. But one of Genachowski's greatest assets may be his close ties to Obama. Friends through undergraduate studies at Columbia University and later at Harvard Law School, Obama brought Genachowski into his campaign at the beginning. He wrote Obama's technology and innovation plan for the campaign. And he was widely hailed as the "godfather" of the president's groundbreaking campaign tactics that utilized online social networks and YouTube to raise money and spread Obama's message. Genachowski is expected to draw from his big Rolodex of private- sector, academic and policy contacts to serve him at the FCC. Before he served Hundt during the Clinton administration, he clerked for Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter. He more recently was founder of local venture capital firm LaunchBox Digital, which funds start-ups primarily in mobile and Web 2.0 industries. "There's almost an embarrassment of riches at this point in terms of talent," said Blair Levin, a telecom policy analyst and the co-lead of Obama's technology advisory team during the transition. "He will bring together the right people who are experienced and who bring more energy and vision to the FCC and the right combination of points of views." Genachowski is expected to be confirmed without any major opposition (via Mike Cooper, DXLD) ** U S A. MPR SEEKS ROUTE CHANGE FOR LIGHT RAIL TRANSIT MPR statement on Central Corridor Light Rail Transit January 14, 2009 letter to Met. Council Chair Peter Bell from MPR President Bill Kling [linked] Minnesota Public Radio (MPR), Central Presbyterian Church and the Church of St. Louis, King of France support the Central Corridor Light Rail Transit (CCLRT) project. We do, however, have grave, well- researched and legitimate concerns that the proposed CCLRT Cedar Street alignment in downtown St. Paul will cause irreparable harm to our institutions. Impacts include air-borne and ground-borne noise, vibration, electromagnetic interference (EMI) and access issues created by the proximity of CCLRT to our facilities. As currently designed, the train will run 12 feet from the MPR broadcast center which was designed and located on Cedar Street nearly 30 years ago in 1979 and which was not designed in any way to mitigate the impact of a train in such close proximity. For more than five years, MPR has consistently expressed our concerns to the Central Corridor Project Office (CCPO) and the Ramsey Country Regional Rail Authority. The CCPO has been unable to provide a comparable example anywhere in the U.S. where mitigation has worked. There is still time to address our concerns in this final planning phase and MPR will work with the CCPO and others who want to keep the project on schedule. MPR continues to support the Central Corridor LRT project. We are, however, concerned that the route down Cedar runs adjacent to numerous noise- and vibration-sensitive facilities including MPR, Central Presbyterian Church and the Church of St. Louis, King of France. Moving the LRT alignment to Minnesota Street, one block to the east, behind MPR, could save the project significant mitigation and construction costs and eliminate severe negative impacts on our institutions and others on Cedar Street. . . [much more] http://minnesota.publicradio.org/about/mpr/central_corridor/ (as tipped in Jan/Feb FMedia, via DXLD) ** U S A. Re: Ice claims a tower in South Carolina It took out two towers, when one collapsed, it collapsed on their back up antenna. A lucky 2 for 1. Their analog signal should be up next week according to WSPA. http://www.wspa.com/spa/news/local/article/live_stream_news_channel_7_at_600pm/15132/ -- (Blake, Leesville, SC, March 4, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** VATICAN [and non]. 9600, March 4 at 2312 under powerful RHC in Spanish, could hear weak talk in English making SAH of about 3 Hz; 2314 much more readable Vatican Radio IS, and 2315 into Vietnamese. So VR is still broadcasting an otherwise secret and unscheduled 3-minute English service at 2312 when it turns on this transmitter early (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) See also MUSEA ** ZAMBIA. New channel gobals [sic; means gobbles?] K2b [2 gigakwacha = 361,788 US Dollars, per one online converter as of March 5 --- gh] http://www.znbc.co.zm/media/news/viewnews.cgi?category=13&id=1236165569 Government has spent K2 billion on the new television channel to be opened soon by the Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation-ZNBC. Information Minister Lieutenant General, Ronnie Shikapwasha told parliament on Tuesday that the new channel will be launched by June this year. General Shikapwasha said the new channel will start initial transmission in Lusaka and the copperbelt before expanding to other parts of the country. He also told the house that government last year bought two new short wave antennas which will enable the national broadcaster transmit better radio signal across the country. General Shikapwasha said this when he presented the 2009 estimates of revenue for the Ministry of information and Broadcasting Services. (via Kim Andrew Elliott, DXLD) ** ZAMBIA. 6065, R. Christian Voice/CVC, 1601-1616, March 4. Heard under CNR-2/CBR till their 1605 sign-off (a little late); then in the clear with news in English; several local Zambian items; Public Service Announcement: “Help prevent Malaria in Zambia”; religious songs; weak (Ron Howard, Asilomar Beach, CA, Etón E1, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) See also GREECE ** ZAMBIA. Nigeria - CVC Voice International (a.k.a. Radio Christian Voice) 9420, March 4th, 2138, English. Happy chatter with YL and two YM announcers, to phoner with man discussing how repressive Sharia law is to live under for Christians and women in particular in certain areas of Nigeria. Quite copyable signal (Robert McEntee, Austin, DX LISTENING DIGEST) It may seem like a Nigerian station, but that`s where it`s to; transmitted from Zambia (gh, DXLD) ** ZIMBABWE [non]. Community Radio via UAE, at 2000-2100 daily on 5935 is 250 kW at 210 degrees (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) UNIDENTIFIED. 1995 kHz, 0551-0606* 2/25 oldies music: Moody Blue, Age of Aquarius, War-what is it good for, Different Drum, Time of the Season. Heard thanks to tip from Harold Frodge. Good signal, but nasty local static. Unhooked coax shield from radio, and grounded the shield. That cut the static down by half (Larry Russell, MI, MARE Tipsheet via DXLD) UNIDENTIFIED. UK (?) BBC (site unknown), 6150, March 5, 0400 UT, English. Tuned in just in time to hear abrupt cut-off at the top of the hour and the beginning of show "The World Today" then "poof..." gone with no formal sign off. While I was trying to hear what was underneath, out of the blue silence at 0404 comes the BBC 'bumper" music often heard, and then: "This is the BBC, there are no programs on this channel at the moment details at BBC.com". I suppose we might see this frequency listed somewhere in the future, but as of right now I see nothing indicating transmitter site, which might be new, or a relay via another country (Robert McEntee, Austin, TX, DX LISTENING DIGEST) UNIDENTIFIED. 6780-6810, OTH radar pulses, presumed in this ever- changing range, March 4 at 1322; just barely audible vs noise level. Also at 1325 on 5775-5860, a much wider spread so maybe two adjacent units. Are these I hear in the morning on lower frequencies coming from China? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) UNIDENTIFIED. Two tiny 5-minute Mon-Fri transmissions have been added by VTC, attributed to MNO, i.e. probably opposition broadcasts. What are these? 0800-0805 on 5875 to zones 37 and 38, 250 kW, 150 degrees from Skelton 0810-0815 on 12095 to same zones, 250 kW, 165 degrees from Skelton 37 and 38 are North Africa. And what is this? 1730-1745 daily on 11985 to zone 48, 300 kW, 125 degrees from Skelton Zone 48 is East Africa (Glenn Hauser, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) I`m disappointed that no one reported on the 0800 and 0810 broadcasts, and now the next chance to check will not be until Monday. Of course there may have been nothing audible, but that in itself would be useful info. I try to give DXLD ygroupies priority in such projects, but guess I will have to start posting such requests on other lists too. I`ve got to sleep sometime. However, I am reposting this an hour ahead of the 1730 UT one as a reminder, in case someone can check that as I will also try to myself (Glenn Hauser, 1630 UT March 6, ibid.) Nothing audible here on 11985 at 1730+ March 6 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 11985 past 1730 showed no trace of anything... in fact this portion of band is completely clear from 11970 to 12000. 73 (Don VE6JY Moman, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) 11985 AM and 11984 SSB monitored from 1728 until 1742. 1728-1735 11984 SSB. Light static, not even a suggestion of a carrier. 1735-1742 11985 AM with wide and narrow filters. Light static, nothing else. 1742, tuned to 11665, BBC via Skelton. Fair to good. Skelton is about 50 miles West South West from me. Regards (Harry Brooks, North East England, UK, ibid.) Thanks to you both for checking. The registration might still appear, and/or maybe not really in use 7 days a week, so further monitoring would be helpful (gh, DXLD) UNIDENTIFIED. 15120: puzzle. German DXer noted unID Arabic station on 15120 kHz at 1228 to 1256 UT only, March 3rd, und 4th. {From 1300 UT US IBB R Liberty Biblis in Kazakh starts.} Is 15120 VOICE OF NIGERIA? which is scheduled also 1630-1700 UTC in Arabic. 73 wb (Wolfgang Büschel, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Hi dear Tarek, German DXer discovered an UNID Arabic station on 15120 UTC in 1228 to 1256 UT slot in past two days. {not Cuba Spanish and not Saipan IBB Laotian}. May you can check and trace that service in coming days at your place in Egypt? Maybe even a Palestine radio service via Iran facilities at noon time? Kind regards de (Wolfy df5sx http://topnews.wwdxc.de March 4 to Tarek Zeidan, Cairo, via DXLD) Sorry, re 15120, nothing noted on this matter today March 5th. Only fair RHC La Habana signal on this wave. \\ RHC 9600 11760 12000best, 15360 at 1230 UT. Regards (Wolfy, ibid.) UNIDENTIFIED. WBCQ is not the only SSB station on 15420. March 5 at 1432 was hearing 2-way conversation in slurry Spanish on 15419.5 or so --- at least somewhere between 15419 and 15420 judging from weak het de another 15420.0 broadcaster. As usual, hard for me to understand, but some words or phrases caught included ``kilogramos``, ``playa``, and ``este corrido para nosotros``, all of which point to narcotraficantes; over at 1437 when one said, ``estamos pendientes`` = QRX, standing by for further transmissions (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ UNSOLICITED TESTIMONIALS ++++++++++++++++++++++++ Glenn, I figured it was time again.... I joined the NASWA Yahoo! group, and it is good to see you there. I see the "not a valid URL" on iTunes got fixed (Rich Mitchell, NC, with a donation via PayPal) PUBLICATIONS ++++++++++++ OKLAHOMA OBSERVER We occasionally quote a broadcast-related item from this twice-monthly political journal (or rather, 22 issues per year). It is a desperately needed antidote to The Daily Disappointment and the Republican- controlled legislature, thanks to Frosty Troy and Arnold Hamilton. As we have told Frosty, it makes living in OK more bearable. The Observer survives on subscription revenue and very little advertising. Now it has finally started publication on the web, and we cannot recommend it highly enough for those interested in what is really going on in the reddest of states. Digital or print subscription is $40 a year, or both for $60. See http://www.okobserver.net (Glenn Hauser, Enid, DXLD) MUSEA +++++ VATICAN RADIO'S TECHNICAL MUSEUM The Technical Museum of Vatican Radio was inaugurated May 16th, 1995, to mark the centenary of the invention of the radio and in homage to Guglielmo Marconi, its inventor. The museum is situated in the heart of the Vatican Gardens, in the same building where Guglielmo Marconi, from 1929 to 1931, studied the project for the construction of Vatican Radio, and where in 1932 he conducted his experiments on the propagation characteristics of ultra Short Waves. The small museum houses a collection of historical equipment used by Vatican Radio from 1931 to the present day. Currently, about 180 pieces are on exhibition: audio and telegraphic apparatus, linkage components, tape recorders and players, transmission and reception equipment, measuring devices. Guided tours of the museum are given only by appointment --- tel: +39 06.698.83995, email: museo_rv@vaticanradio.org --- and include a description and demonstration of the equipment, an exhibition of historical photos, and the showing of a film that highlights moments in the life of Vatican Radio. A virtual tour of the nuseum can be made by visiting the website: http://www.radiovatican.org and clicking on "Museum". Adapted from a feature in the latest Vatican Radio schedule for the period November 2008 to March 2009 and written by Alida Brinzaglia. The latest schedule also includes a good selection of photos of museum pieces. Address: Vatican Radio, 00120 Vatican City (Edwin Southwell, March World DX Club Contact via DXLD) WORLD OF HOROLOGY +++++++++++++++++ My two favorite "holidays" of the year are Halloween and the return of daylight savings [sic sic, et seq.] time. It`s no wonder Halloween is a favorite but daylight savings time is just as spooky. I have a bad crackpot neighbor named John Chris Donnelly. While he has a comical theory that "If you don`t embrace the newest technology, they`ll sell your bones across the street at the gas station.", that`s where the home humor pretty much of ends. Last year on the morning daylight savings time begins, John woke up and went to work an hour late because he believed the time settings on two of his computers instead of what was on his cell telephone. He spent 10 minutes accusing me of breaking into his windows and resetting his computers (that`s BREAKING INTO HIS WINDOWS AND RESETTING HIS COMPUTERS, ha, ha,), so he missed his yet next bus and was a full hour late for work and lost his brand new job. "That`s too bad. Nothing of the sort, here", I got to say. Quality not conformity. John depended upon, "I bought the latest online updates from Microsoft XP" while I decided to go to bed an hour early for a previous couple of days to compensate, instead of leaving my brains (and decency) overnight forgotten in my dry umbrella, and no shower to remind me. After this weekend when the renters get their annual laugh, I`d suppose I`ll have another chapter of Popeye and Bluto only 45 minutes from Broadway to share with my friends. I can`t think of a better demonstration of how foolish daylight savings time is, for the time being, (Can you?), and John sure has Jay Smilkstein beaten (Frederic Jodry, March 4, DX LISTENING DIGEST) See also USA: WBCQ DIGITAL BROADCASTING DRM: see GERMANY; RADIO EQUIPMENT FORUM: 40m ++++++++++++++++++++ IBOC: see USA WLUP AIRCRAFT DISRUPTING DTV RECEPTION Re 9-020: Following Steve Cross`s observation that planes taking off and landing at his nearby Tinker AFB would disrupt local DTV reception, I just noticed the same at 1725 UT March 4 as I was watching OETA/OKLA, and could hear jet roar overhead from pervasive Vance fighter training flights --- the DTV went into pixillation for a few sex. But other passovers don`t cause it. All depends on the exact location, path. And our DTV signals from OKC are much weaker than his (Glenn Hauser, Enid, DX LISTENING DIGEST) The ATSC DTV format depends on phase coherence of signals spread across the channel bandwidth. When the receiver is moving or when a moving airplane reflects the signal, the Doppler frequency shift at the high frequency end of the channel will be slightly greater than the Doppler shift at the low end of the channel. This causes loss of phase coherency. The problem was observed during trial tests before the FCC adopted this standard for DTV. The FCC in its infinite wisdom elected to ignore the problem because people driving vehicles were not supposed to be watching TV I guess. Another example, like BPL, where the FCC ignored its own engineering test data and overruled the engineers (Joe Buch, March 4, DX LISTENING DIGEST) LOW BITRATE BACKUP DTV? Re: ``a lot of broadcasters are looking closely at a recent addition to the ATSC standards that incorporates just such a low-bitrate stream designed for mobile reception. I can't imagine any reason why conventional receivers couldn't be designed to decode that stream as well, and since that stream is explicitly meant to be much more robust than the main signal, it should do exactly what Bill suggests. Maybe Doug can chime in here if I'm missing something. s`` I don't know that I can add much to what Scott's already posted. If I recall properly they're planning to feed this stream at half- resolution, so it'd be kinda fuzzy on a full-sized TV. Still, it certainly should be a good thing to fall back on (Doug Smith W9WI, Pleasant View, TN EM66, March 4, WTFDA via DXLD) 1/2 rez would still be 540/480i ( although compressed likely ). Can't be much worse than some of the horribly heavily compressed digital 480i I see on cable. Or, do you mean 240I, Doug? wrh (Bill Hepburn, Ont., ibid.) Yes, I mean 240I (Doug Smith, TN, ibid.) Given the size of the screens they're aiming at, 240i would probably be plenty. And given the audience we're talking about in this thread - people who are probably staring through heavy snow at fuzzy pictures - clear, stable 240i would be a distinct improvement, I think. s (Scott Fybush, ibid.) FREE BUT FICKLE, DTV ELUDES SOME By Peter Svensson Associated Press, Mar 3 2009, 6:25 AM ET Harry Vanderpool, a beekeeper, lives on a hill nearly 1,000 feet above the Willamette River, outside Salem, Ore. It should be a good spot for TV reception, and it used to be. But now that analog signals are disappearing, leaving only digital ones, he may be losing all his channels. "When you listen to the advertisements, it's 'Oh, all you have to do is get this little digital converter box and hook it up,'" Vanderpool said. "Well, we get nothing. Zero signal strength." While generally better than analog, digital reception with antennas can be tricky. Although millions of people will receive more channels when switching to digital, many others are finding that stations they used to get in analog form won't come in on their converter boxes or digital TV sets. . . http://www.tvnewsday.com/articles/2009/03/03/daily.2/ (TVNEWSDAY - The business of Broadcasting via Brock Whaley (HI), DXLD) Ch. 6, WLNS, Lansing MI, 1938 28/Feb still there, strong & clear with CBS NCAA basketball (Notre Dame/UConn). They are still on both analog and digital transmitters until the June date despite earlier plans to shut down & have reduced power for the digital signal for a few weeks while 'adjustments' were made. Not ALL stations are into saving money, but apparently the one filing for bankruptcy doesn't care about spending money they don't have! Of course this may have something to do with the fact that WJRT Flint is maintaining their analog on 12 & DTV on 36 until June, and channel 6 digital is slated to move from RF channel 59 to channel 36 when they turn off analog. Ahhhh who knows, maybe they just want to be heard on FM a little longer? (Kenneth Vito Zichi, MI, MARE Tipsheet via DXLD) RADIO EQUIPMENT FORUM +++++++++++++++++++++ RFI AND YOUR COMPUTER One of the most frustrating problems about using computers with radios, whether it be for controlling purposes or for decoding, is the amount of RFI generated by these machines. Most of the time, the RFI generated is enough to render certain bands useless and on other bands, it may drown out any weak signals and distort or interfere with signals that you want. This is totally unacceptable for working with digital modes and even for CW. Thus one of the most frequently asked question is how this RFI may be reduced or eliminated. The bad news is that, there is no way that I know of to completely remove the computer generated RFI in most situations. You could Turn It Off!!! The good news is that there are definite steps that we can take to reduce the RFI to a very acceptable level and in some cases, it will almost disappear altogether. This document is a compilation of suggestions from various persons and some of the things I have tried with my own system when dealing with this problem. . . [much more] http://www.amateurradio.co.nz/rfi/rfi.htm (via Paul, NZ, HCDX via DXLD) DEAF AUDIENCES ENTHUSIASTIC ABOUT PROSPECT OF CAPTIONED RADIOS According to Radio World, NPR Labs demonstrated subtitled radio for deaf and hard-of-hearing people. People enjoyed what they saw at a demo held on election night in Towson MD. Some traveled from as far as New Jersey. The International Association of Audio Information Services developed standards for captioned radios to help manufacturers. However, FMedia! does not trust that group to come up with standards that will help the public, only standards that will exclude significant portions of the audience, even parts of the audience that the specialized programing would be directed to. That`s the group that fought to restrict spacing on the dial of low- power FM stations from other stations having a radio reading service, and which has fought bitterly against tunable SCS radios being in the hands of the public. The current fetish is called CA, ``controlled access,`` or addressable radios to reach certain audiences. Lisa Kornberg, director of Maryland`s office of the deaf and hard of hearing, used to listen to radio before she gradually lost her hearing. She`s `thrilled`` at the prospect of captioning and wondered if other radio companies besides NPR eventually would offer it. The audience also suggested that there be an emergency alerting aspect to such a radio, such as a system that would shake a bed (Jan/Feb FMedia! via DXLD) TECSUN PL600 Shortwave receiver Hi, Just wanted to know if anybody else has had any experience using the TECSUN PL600 receiver. I saw it on e bay, and it looked good. I bought it for roughly $90 airmail shipped, have not got it yet, but would like to know other people's views. Came from China. Sincerely (Chris Lewis, England, March 5, DX LISTENING DIGEST) FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF THE SATELLIT 750 I just received my Satellit 750 yesterday (from Amazon) and spent several hours with it. Ironically, the air band (much maligned in previous reviews and dismissed as "nigh deaf" in Passport) is fabulous in my unit. It blew out my scanners - and I have good ones! - as well as several other radios that I use for air monitoring. I live very near La Guardia, Kennedy, and Newark airports, and air band listening is extremely important to me. The otherwise good scanning doesn't work on the airband, even with the squelch button adjusted, and although you can auto-scan through memories, I was disappointed to learn that the auto-scan memory function doesn't work with air frequencies, even when stored. However, the frequencies can be manually scanned by button or tuning knob, so it is only a small inconvenience. I am, if anything, even more pleased with the performance of the air band after spending more time with it today - I can't imagine clearer, more "present" signals than what I'm hearing. The radio needs some getting used to - I had trouble getting the audio balanced, and the buttons seem small and cramped, even with my relatively small female fingers. The AGC is erratic on SW and MW - some signals seemed to "fall out" while others pumped up almost instantly. As a rule, it took a moment for the system to stabilize, but it didn't seem to be that much bother to fiddle with the antenna or volume to get a good, listenable signal. However, the sensitivity of all bands seems very good - on MW I heard Charlotte, NC; Cincinnati, OH; Rochester, NY (usually hard to get here...); and the usual Canadians without much effort. There seemed to be a lot of action on the graveyard frequencies that would have been fun to sort out with a loop - I'm looking forward to some good MW DX with this thing - the rotating antenna works as advertised. FM seemed very good, and SW was easy to tune ( the "instant tuning" I like with the Satellit 800 is here as well - punch in the frequency and there it is - no other "enter" or "frequency" buttons need to be pushed before or after ). Today I further explore the memory system - I will use the memories primarily for MW and air since I use my E1 for SW scanning through memories since I love the country pages and the ability to go through them and have the radio go directly to the frequencies. I was surprised at the cheap-looking little manual that came with the radio after the attractive black books that came with my other etons. Also, there are no accessories included, which was disappointing. For a radio initially priced at $300 I expected something equivalent to the reel antenna and earpiece that Degen / Kaito usually includes with even the cheapest radios. At least they sent the wall wart power supply, which made no noise and worked fine. The tuning knob did have a slight wobble, but not enough to worry me, but if I had paid $300, I would be less enthusiastic than I am after my outlay of just over $200 with free shipping, which seems about right for this radio. The SSB that many have found wanting was tested today. Yesterday, I couldn't get a clear copy on a ham conversation that I tried to listen to, but it wasn't a good signal, so I didn't want to judge the unit on that. I listen to SSB a lot, so I was especially interested in how the unit would handle SSB signals. Today I copied some ham conversations with no real difficulty, BUT could copy the same signals in half the time with the E1 and with much better fidelity. It wasn't enough of a disadvantage to keep me from taking the 750 camping this summer as my basic radio (instead of the 350DL or Redsun RP2100) since the air band and the mere presence of SSB make it more useful to me. In addition, there's a line-in for my Sirius stiletto and mp3 players, so I'm all ready for the summer camping season! (As I sit here looking out at the foot of snow that fell Sunday night...) 73, (Emily Keene, Middletown, NJ, March 3, ABDX via DXLD) GETTING READY FOR THE AN EXPANDED 40 METERS Ulrich Bihlmayer DJ9KR Leiter der Bandwacht des DARC - DARC Bandwatch sent me that exlanation of German FCC - BNA - Bundesnetzagentur about using 7200 kHz channel as from March 29: Aus Sicht der "Radio Regulations" (siehe Abschnitt 1, 4.5) ist nach diesem Zeitpunkt eine Nutzung der Frequenz 7200 kHz durch Rundfunksender in der Sendeart A3E sicher nicht zulaessig, da dann Anteile des Signals in den Bereich des Amateurfunks unterhalb 7200 kHz hineinreichen wuerden. Umgekehrt gilt dies auch fuer die Funkamateure, die zwar den Bereich bis 7200 kHz nutzen duerfen, aber die Wahl ihrer Frequenz so gestalten muessen, dass ebenfalls alle relevanten Anteile des Signals innerhalb des Amateurbandes bleiben. Insofern ergibt sich keinerlei Unterschied zur bisherigen Handhabe im Bereich der Frequenz 7100 kHz, die die alte "Grenze" zwischen beiden Diensten darstellte. Unabhaengig davon beginnt ab 29.03.2009 der Rundfunkbereich bei 7200 kHz, d.h., der Bereich 7200 - 7205 kHz steht z. B. fuer das untere Seitenband einer A3E-Aussendung mit der Traegerfrequenz 7205 kHz zur Verfuegung. I guess that resumen is correct: 7195 kHz ham radio operators may use 7195 kHz with upper side band mode in 7195 to 7199.999 portion, with strict elimination of 7200 kHz signal portion and beyond. 7200 kHz ham radio operators may use 7200 kHz with lower side band mode, with strict elimination of 7200 kHz signal portion and beyond. 7200 kHz Radio broadcasting, no A3E transmission mode allowed. 7205 kHz Radio broadcasting, lower side band portion of A3E transmission mode is allowed in range 7200.001 to 7205 kHz. 73 wb (Wolfgang Büschel, March 5, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Hello Wolfgang, Yes, that makes sense to me, and as I wrote to you, I think the same applies (until March 29) to 7100. As the mode of operation for hams on 7 MHz is LSB then this applies (as you write) -- - ham radio operators may use 7200 kHz with lower side band mode, with strict elimination of 7200 kHz signal portion and beyond. And broadcasters using A3E may (as you write) use 7205 --- 7205 kHz Radio broadcasting, lower side band portion of A3E transmission mode is allowed in range 7200.001 to 7205 kHz. I take it that a DRM broadcaster would NOT be allowed to use 7205. Best 73 from (Noel Green, England, ibid.) PROPAGATION +++++++++++ SOLAR CYCLE PROGRESSION The NOAA/Space Weather Prediction Center Solar Cycle Progression page provides a useful source of information on Solar Cycle 24. The latest announcement issued March 2, 2009 says: The Solar Cycle 24 Prediction Panel has not issued any updates to their prediction. However, the Space Weather Prediction Center, and the Chair of the Prediction Panel decided to implement what they believe to be an obvious change to the plotted data. The two predictions, of maximum being either a SSN of 90 or a SSN of 140 remain intact. Once the date of solar minimum is known, that is all the information needed to arrive at a prediction curve. The panel prediction of solar minimum in March, 2008 has been eclipsed. Minimum will now occur no earlier than August, 2008. For every month beyond March 2008 that minimum slips, it is necessary to shift the prediction curves by the same amount. SWPC commenced doing so in mid-February and will continue to do so, unless or until the prediction panel sets a new predicted date for the time of solar minimum. NOAA/Space Weather Prediction Center - Solar Cycle Progression http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/SolarCycle/index.html via Southgate http://www.southgatearc.org/news/march2009/solar_cycle_progression.htm (via Mike Terry, March 6, dxldyg via DXLD) TIPS FOR RATIONAL LIVING ++++++++++++++++++++++++ THE HARRY HELMS BLOG Thursday, February 26, 2009 --- Closing The Circle I spent February 15 to 20 back in the Carolinas visiting my relatives, and in a very real sense it was the summation, and completion, of my life's journey. Sometime in early childhood, maybe around three or four, we start to develop an awareness of an outside world of other people and different places. We start to explore it. It's as if our lives are a gigantic whiteboard and we take a marker and start tracing the path of our lives on that whiteboard. We go through childhood, then adolescence, then young adulthood, and into middle age and beyond. The line made by my marker on my life's whiteboard has often been a dizzying series of loops, swirls, starts and stops; sometimes I took two steps forward but then a step back. It would include stops in places like New York City, Dallas, San Diego, and Las Vegas along with various wives and significant others, assorted writing and editing jobs, flings of entrepreneurship, and periods of obsession with different interests and ideas. I don't know if I'm typical, but at this point in my life I need to make sense of that line I drew on the whiteboard. It's not that I'm looking for the great cosmic meaning of it all, but I do want to see if there is some common theme, some coherence and sense in all those squiggles. . . http://harryhelmsblog.blogspot.com/ (via DXLD) ###