DX LISTENING DIGEST 12-19, May 8, 2012 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 2012 contents archive see http://www.worldofradio.com/dxldmid.html For restrixions and searchable 2011 contents archive see http://www.worldofradio.com/dxldmid1.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 WORLD OF RADIO 1616 HEADLINES: *DX and station news about: Australia, Belgium non, Canada, China, Cuba and non, Eritrea non, Europe, Germany and non, Indonesia, Iran, Kuwait, Laos, Lithuania, Mali, Martinique, Mexico, Netherlands non, Papua New Guinea, Romania, Rwanda, Sarawak non, South Sudan non, Tunisia, UK, USA, Western Sahara non SHORTWAVE AIRINGS OF WORLD OF RADIO 1616, May 9-16, 2012 Thu 0330 WRMI 9955 Thu 2100 WTWW 9479 Fri 0329v WWRB 5050 Sat 0130v WBCQ 5110v-CUSB Area 51 Sat 0800 WRMI 9955 Sat 1500 WRMI 9955 Sat 1730 WRMI 9955 Sun 0400 WTWW 5755 Sun 0800 WRMI 9955 Sun 1530 WRMI 9955 Sun 1730 WRMI 9955 Mon 0500 WRMI 9955 Mon 1130 WRMI 9955 Tue 0930 HLR 5980 Hamburger Lokal Radio Thu 0330 WRMI 9955 [or maybe 1617 if ready in time] 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://www.wrn.org/listeners/#world-of-radio WORLD OF RADIO PODCASTS VIA WRN: http://www.wrn.org/listeners/customize-panel/addToPlaylist/98/09:00:00UTC/English OUR ONDEMAND AUDIO: http://www.worldofradio.com/audiomid.html or http://wor.worldofradio.org DAY-BY-DAY ARCHIVE OF GLENN HAUSER`S LOG REPORTS: Unedited, uncondensed, unchanged from original version, many of them too complex, minutely researched, multi-frequency, opinionated, inconsequential, off-topic, or lengthy for some log editors to manage; and also ahead of their availability in these weekly issues: http://www.hard-core-dx.com/index.php?topic=Hauser DXLD YAHOOGROUP: Why wait for DXLD? A lot more info, not all of it appearing in DXLD later, is posted at our yg without delay. When applying, please identify yourself with your real name and location, and say something about why you want to join. Those who do not, unless I recognize them, will be prompted once to do so and no action will be taken otherwise. Here`s where to sign up: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dxld/ ** AFGHANISTAN [non]. United States, (non) 15380.208, Radio Ashna, 1540 May 8. Note a number of males in comments using Dari possibly. Noted also a female giving news at 1545. In between noted possible slogans. Signal faded often from a good to poor (Chuck Bolland, Clewiston FL, 26N 081W, Excalibur, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 1430-1530 Pashto & 1520-1630 Dari, 250 kW, 105 degrees from Wertachtal, GERMANY (HFCC via DXLD) ** ALASKA. ALASKAN VIEWERS NOW HAVE ACCESS TO "SOBER-VOICED, DOWN-TO- EARTH" FRANCE 24 Posted: 06 May 2012 Anchorage Press, 26 Apr 2012, Scott Christiansen: "KYES, Anchorage’s dominant digital TV broadcaster (judging by the amount of free TV they put over the air) was cut loose earlier this month by one of its corporate dance partners and had to scramble to hook-up with a new program provider. ... Antenna TV joins KYES at digital channel 5.3. The station’s other streams include My Network TV at channel 5.1, University of Washington’s noncommercial programming (including content from Seattle International Film Festival) at 5.2 and global news service France 24 at 5.4. Viewers of cable news in the United States might get a jolt by the English-language France 24, which presents news from a global perspective in sober-voiced, down-to-earth fashion. 'I think it has a similar audience to PBS. I think it would attract smarter, more world aware people—there is no similar equivalent in Alaska,' [KYES founder Jeremy] Lansman said. KYES cannot sell advertisements on either France 24 or the UW channel, but the station is able to put them on the air at little expense because digital broadcasting allows for multiple channels on one transmitter. (Hence, little boost to the electric bill.)" (kimandrewelliott.com via DXLD) ** ALASKA. QSL - NOJ, Kodiak, USCG Wefax, 8459 kHz, sent QSL card with cartoon drawing of "cable-eating bears" in 12 days for postal report with SASE (which was used) (Bruce Portzer, Seattle, WA, May 6, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) TRAGEDY AT US COAST GUARD’S LARGEST INSTALLATION US Coast Guard bases do not often make the news. This one, at Kodiak Alaska, recently made the news for all the wrong reasons. You will find all the details in the Reuter’s report below. This is a huge site with enormous areas of responsibility set in a beautifully rugged part of the globe. The size of the installation, its mission, areas of responsibility and history can be seen at the Websites listed below. Air Station Kodiak http://www.uscg.mil/d17/airstakodiak/ Communications Coverage http://www.uscg.mil/d17/airstakodiak/missions.asp FBI seeks clues to slayings at Alaska Coast Guard base By Erath Rosen Fri Apr 13, 2012 7:07pm EDT ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - Investigators hunted for clues on Friday to determine who shot two U.S. Coast Guard employees to death at a communications station on Alaska's Kodiak Island, federal officials said. Agents are treating Thursday's killings, the first fatal shootings at a Coast Guard facility in Alaska in over a decade, as a double homicide, said Eric González, an Anchorage-based special agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. "No arrests have been made in connection with the shootings," González said. "We are obviously trying to determine the person responsible for the murders." The victims were identified as Petty Officer First Class James Hopkins, an electronics technician, and retired Chief Petty Officer Richard Belisle, 51, a civilian employee. Hopkins' age was not immediately made available. The two were found shot to death inside a building at a communications station that is part of the Coast Guard's sprawling base on Kodiak island, about 250 miles southwest of Anchorage. Neither Coast Guard nor FBI officials would discuss what investigators knew about the circumstances of the shooting or what the two men were doing when slain. Discovery of their bodies on Thursday triggered a series of security measures at the base and in nearby Kodiak schools, including imposition of lockdowns keeping personnel and students indoors. As of Friday, the lockdown of the Coast Guard installation had been lifted. The Coast Guard asked its personnel, family members and Kodiak residents to report any suspicious behavior. Coast Guard Base Kodiak is home to 1,000 active-duty personnel and hundreds of civilian employees and is the largest installation in the Coast Guard system, according to the Kodiak Island Convention and Visitors Bureau. The base is the operations hub for enforcement patrols and search-and- rescue missions in much of the North Pacific and in the Bering Sea, and conducts missions as far north as the Arctic Ocean. (Editing by Steve Gorman, Cynthia Johnston and Philip Barbara) (via Worldwide Ute Column, May CIDX Messenger via DXLD) ** ALBANIA. R. TIRANA Programme Schedule Monday: News, Press Review, Albania in a Week, Cultural Activities of the Week, Easy Listening music Tuesday: News, Press Review, In Focus, Mailbag Wednesday: News, Press Review, Albania under the European Integration Process, Easy Listening music Thursday: News, Press Review, Albania Economy and Facts, Around Albania, Easy Listening music Friday: News, Press Review, Albanian Outstanding Personalities Profile Saturday: News, Mosaic of the Week, Folk Traditional Music All of the above heard in the 2000-2030 UT Monday to Saturday transmissions to Europe on 7465 by EDWIN SOUTHWELL, and programme is repeated following UT day in the 0230-0300 UT Tuesday to Sunday transmission to N. America on 7425 kHz. Edwin adds: On Wednesday 4th April R. Tirana heard at 2000 on 7465 but with a terrible tx noise. On Thursday 5th April at 2000 on 7465 open carrier and stayed tuned until 2005 and moved elsewhere retuned about five minutes later and tx was switched off. More problems with tx, or studio problems at R Tirana. Back on the air on the 6th April (Listening Post, May World DX Club Contact via DXLD) Dear Drita, I have not forgotten you and I have not forgotten Radio Tirana. I now have internet broadband. I can listen to many radio stations on the internet, including Radio Tirana. I still check shortwave. I know that shortwave is what you work with. I must say that I have very poor shortwave reception of all stations here in my apartment in Huntsville, Alabama. I find that 7425, in English, at 0130 UT is fairly good. I am sure it is better in places like New York State, where Carrie Hooper lives, and where my family lives. The Albanian program on 7425 at 2300 is not so good. I have been listening to radio Tirana on the internet in English, and, sometimes in German and Italian. I have also been recording many Albanian programs from "Radio Tirana Per bashk Atdhetar." I do this for Carrie. In case you wonder how I listen to Radio Tirana, I use the web site http://www.mikesradioworld.com I click on Europe, then on Albania then on Radio Tirana 3, the link at 56 KBPS. I tell you this because I know there are other web sites, which maybe have Radio Tirana 1. I am concerned about the English program at 2000 UT. For a long time, this program was also on the internet. Now I find that, at 2000 there is the interval signal, and, at 2015 the Serbian program. I think it would be better to stream the English program, not the Serbian, as many, many of your listeners understand English. I am giving you this information because I thought you might not know. If there is anything I can do for you, or any specific frequencies you want me to check, please let me know. I will do it. I am sorry that I do not have better reception of all shortwave stations here. Greetings from warm, sunny Alabama, where one wears one's summer clothes (Tim Hendel, Huntsville, May 6, to and via Drita Çiço, R. Tirana, DXLD) 7425, May 8 at 0128, R. Tirana IS, fair with lots of summer storm static, 0130 opening with correct schedule of the remaining two English broadcasts (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ANTARCTICA. Haven`t posted a non-log of LRA36 for several weeks, so here`s one on a Thursday, which was supposedly the most likely broadcast day as of last year: 15476, May 3 at 1351, no signal on 15476, altho other broadcasters are still respecting its absence, nothing on 15475, never even Firedrake. Stations which *are* active should be so lucky (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ARGENTINA. Sobre la nueva X Band argentina en 1640 kHz --- Estimados: La nueva emisora en la Xband argentina que se identifica como Radio Guarani y transmite para la colectividad paraguaya del Gran Buenos Aires podría ser la emisora que con el mismo nombre emitía desde el partido de La Matanza, en la frecuencia de 730 kHz. 73 (Arnaldo Leonel Slaen, May 6, GBA, condiglist yg via DXLD) ¿Estas emisoras suelen cambiarse de frecuencia así como así o están sometidas a alguna clase de control? 73 de CX2ABP (Rodolfo Tizzi, Uruguay, condiglist yg via DXLD) Veo que también te levantas temprano, Rodolfo! No, mi viejo. Se instalan o cambian de frecuencia como vos o yo de medias. Cuando una, "manu militari", se pone donde la otra transmitía, ésta se ve obligada a hacer otro tanto y se va a otra frecuencia. Por eso te encontrás con el caos en el dial en la Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires y en el GBA que tanto criticamos quienes vivimos aquí. Si esto fuera mucho más controlado, las bandas estarían ordenadas y no se produciría el caos que se genera hoy día en el dial local con una superposición de emisoras que no permiten escuchar ninguna. 73 (Arnaldo Slaen, Argentina, ibid.) Me daba esa impresión pero no quería aventurar ninguna opinión antes de leer los comentarios de quienes están mas al tanto de la situación. ¿No existe ningún organismo regulador entonces para estas emisoras? ¿Sería algo así como las FM "comunitarias" de este lado, que si bien están registradas en algún lado salen evidentemente con potencias mayores a las que declaran? ¿Tan fácil es armarse un transmisor de onda media y las antenas por allá y salir de un día para el otro? Cuando veo fenómenos como estos, solo me queda la esperanza que sea una moda, pasajera como todas las modas, y que un día se cansen de todo eso y se dediquen a cualquier otro negocio al que se dediquen los demás, como usualmente pasa. 73 de CX2ABP (Tizzi, ibid.) Cumplo en tratar de evacuar tu consulta. Trataré de ser medianamente objetivo para no entrar en opiniones personales pero, como advertirás, debo impregnar mi respuesta de alguna. El AFSCA y la CNC, desde distintas áreas, son las encargadas de regular distintos aspectos de las emisoras. Desde lo legal, cumplimiento de los aspectos técnicos, juridicos y programáticos, la primera y lo concerniente al espectro del dial la segunda. En la práctica se advierten omisiones (porque sí o por voluntad de hacerlo); desconocimientos de cómo llevar adelante las tareas, ineficiencia, etc, etc. Es fácil y económico poner un transmisor de onda media cuando no se paga la energía eléctrica que se consume, se obtiene publicidad estatal a rolete y no se cuida ni mínimamente los contenidos de lo que vas a sacar al aire. Yo diferencio las experiencias que nada aportan (las más) y que buscan un redito económico o político (independientemente de los gobiernos de turno) de aquella gente de radio que pone una emisora tratando de cumplimentar la normativa (aunque sea parcialmente) y cubrir, con los contenidos, a un sector o área o grupo social, que precisa sacar esa voz al aire. El tema da mucha tela para cortar. 73 (Arnaldo Slaen, ibid.) De acuerdo, Arnaldo, considero respondidas las preguntas que hacía. Nuestra común afición es algo bastante discreto y callado se si quiere, por llamarlo de algún modo. A veces, incluso, por eso, menospreciado por otros que "no le ven la gracia", como sabemos. Pero eso ya seria otro tema que daría para hablarlo otro día. A lo que voy es que de alguna manera o de otra y muchas veces, nuestras inocentes escuchas siempre terminan transportándonos a cuestiones políticas del momento que siempre están por detrás de cada emisión que llega a nuestros equipos. Y esto no hay forma de evadirlo, es así. He notado en listas de correo (esta mismo no ha escapado a eso en algunos momentos), foros y similares desde hace muchos años la tendencia que tienen unos cuantos a iniciar threads o hilos que terminan en agrias discusiones políticas. No me parece que eso esté del todo bien, aunque tampoco que esté del todo mal: a veces es muy difícil reprimirse el meter un par de bocadillos al respecto de ciertas cosas. Yo mismo soy una persona que expreso muchas de mis opiniones en forma muy directa y con mucha ironía que a veces molesta a otros (efecto deseado o no deseado, depende de como me sienta y cual sea el tema), pero lo hago en otros lugares que no son este por una decisión deliberada. Después de todo, los diexistas somos personas con inquietudes (he notado que muchos de nosotros las tenemos a lo largo de los años) y mal o bien, terminamos siendo personas informadas por lo que nos gusta hacer. Eso quizás, y fuera de lo que cada uno piense, nos acerca de alguna manera o de otra a entender muchas cuestiones políticas, culturales y sociales que empiezan a aparecer detrás de cada escucha. Creo que eso seria lo deseable, el poder entender en la medida de lo posible un mundo a veces incomprensible, y siempre contradictorio y cambiante. No es un demérito, me parece, ser un espectador lúcido de los acontecimientos cuando uno no puede participar directamente en ellos. Disculpas por el off-topic. Sentía la necesidad de decir estas cosas. 73 de CX2ABP (Rodolfo Tizzi, Uruguay, ibid.) ** ARGENTINA. 11710.77, RAE, General Pacheco, Buenos Aires, 0952-0955, Apr 18, interval signal, 24222. Now in Japan it is very difficult to receive RAE on 6060 due to radio interference of North Korea(?). (Tomoaki Wagai, Japan, DSWCI DX Window via DXLD) 15345.28, 2320 2/5, RAE, Spanish program, songs, culture, history, good, frequency slowly drifting (Giampiero Bernardini, Milano, Italia, RX: Drake R-4C, Excalibur Pro, Elad FDM-S1 / Ant: T2FD / My SW blog: http://radiodxsw.blogspot.it/ dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ARMENIA. 4810, Voice of Armenia, Yerevan in Arabic, 1923-1930:16, local chants with instrumental music; M talk mentioning Yerevan; brief final Interval Signal & S/off at 1930:16; heard in SSB with mild QSB (S.9+20+ of peak) & lite QRN; good; 4/26 (Giovanni Serra, Roma, Italy, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** AUSTRALIA. Further monitoring of R. Australia, still lacking any definitive schedule on the RA website or HFCC, since all the changes last week: 15515 went off about 0557* May 3; Aoki now shows it until 0600, while EiBi still has the old 0500*. Aoki does have some of the new schedules, but not all. Altho labeled A-12, apparently based only on incomplete monitoring, like ours is. Still shows 9580 ending at 1400, while it really continues. Shows 9590 as xed out, off the air. Has new 9890 at 13-15, tho now gone. Has 21740 at 22-01; 19000 at 23-01 to Asia, 01-03 to Pacific, so signal should improve here at 01 with beamswitch from 353 to 70 degrees. 15415, May 3 at 0558, poor signal ending `Pacific Beat`, continuing after 0600 with news, when 15240 is also on and very good. 11945, May 3 is already on at 0610 // 15240 with quiz about the name of that hyper-valuable Munch painting. EiBi shows 11945 as 07-13, old sked? Aoki shows 06-13, but of course we have been and continue to hear it past 13, in fact past 14 today, weaker than 9580 which now is the SSOB except for US stations, and nothing audible this late on 6 MHz (nor 7, as 7240 is apparently totally deleted? No, Aoki shows 18- 21, but gone from *1400). 9660, May 3 at 0617 is still on, weaker and an echo apart from 15240. So I guess 9660 is still Brandon, not Shepparton. 6020, May 3 at 1206, RA is in English with the PM talking about Singapore, stronger than 6080, and 5990-5995-6000 bears DRM noise. 11945, 9580, 9475, 6080 and 6020 are all in music during English at 1236 May 3. 9890 and 9590 are still missing at 1308. 6020 is still in English today at 1314, while 9475 is in Chinese, and at 1325 check past 1400, 11945 in English. 21740, May 3 at 2101, R. Australia has just opened on this reactivated frequency, good signal with news. 19000 is not yet on, but it is at 2318 check with poor signal. Much better May 4 at 0059, 19000 cuts off during music, and takes a sesquiminute to come back, presumably after antenna switch tho I couldn`t tell much difference in strength. And it took another minute to apply news modulation in progress to the carrier about 0101:30, altho when it first came back on, there were a few syllables of speech. And at 0103 I find that 21740 has now gone off (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Glenn, Radio Australia with a good signal into Houston on 21740 from 0000 to past 0040 UT Friday May 4. Also only signal on 13 meters for me at the time. Better than other recent RA frequencies audible early evening here (Steve Luce, Houston, Texas, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) 19000.00 kc. // 17795.0, 17750.0. R. Australia via Shepparton, Vic., SIO 555. 0132 UT ID in English. Discussion on Vanuatu rugby team, growing of tea in Hawaii. Noticeable echo on signal via SP<->LP propagation. This is my first logging of R. Australia on the 15 meter band. SIO of 555 via 127 foot inverted L. SIO only 354 on 66 foot inverted V dipole. 73 & GUD DX, (Thomas F. Giella, NZ4O, Lakeland, FL, USA, ibid.) [and non]. 15515 // 15240 // 13630, May 4 at 0526 check, RA English with roughly equal signals USward, whilst 15415 to Asia was JBA. 11945 is second only to 9580 before 1400 May 4, but after 1400, 11945 is quite a bit weaker: wonder if there has been a beam change. It really should not be on past 1345, as per HFCC and Aoki, it collides with: BBC Burmese via Singapore at 1345-1430; and RRI Arabic at 1400- 1500. I was hearing something underneath RA at 1404; suspected it was CRI English, but could not // it for sure to 13740 via Cuba which would not have been synchronized. RA has been having some internal problems with frequency management, but it`s gradually being sorted out, we hope (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Checked Radio Australia on 19000 just around 0020 UT Saturday May 5. Poor signal into Houston, while 21740 is quite good. Didn't think to check the 15 meter band yesterday; easy to forget about it when the only broadcaster I've heard using it in recent years is WYFR. I recall Norway had some strong signals on 15 meters years ago. I guess it's the other easily overlooked band along with 43 meters (Steve Luce, Houston, Texas, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) 6020, May 5 at 1300, barely audible in high storm noise level, I can barely // RA to 9580, so it`s still in English instead of temporary excursion to Chinese last week (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Hi Glenn: As per the most recent DXLD, I caught RA-Shepparton on 19000 in English as early as 2350 with an ID at 2359; this at poor level; when I rechecked at 0132 the signal level was good; the dates here are May 4 and May 5. Interesting choice of a little-used band and as you point out, perhaps soon to be DRM (Jim Ronda, Tulsa OK, May 6, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 21740, RA-Shepparton very good in English (as you suggest) at 2124. 73 (Jim Ronda, Tulsa OK, May 6, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** AUSTRIA. 15155, May 3 at 2030, R. Mondiale Adventiste, = AWR ID in French, very choppy signal for this semihour, 300 kW, 210 degrees via Moosbrunn (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** AZERBAIJAN. 9677.6, Voice of Justice, Stepanakert, Karabakh, *0600- 0630*, Sa Apr 28, IS, news and reports. Fair signal, but very, very bad audio quality (Patrick Robic, Leibnitz, Austria, DSWCI DX Window via DXLD) ** BAHRAIN. 6010, R Bahrain, Abu Hayan, 1800-1900, English Service with British accented announcers, non-stop music in between the news on the hour, good reception as heard on http://soundcloud.com/user6004348/radio-bahrain-6010-khz-4-18 (Victor Goonetilleke, Sri Lanka, in DXplorer via DSWCI DX Window via DXLD) 6010.00, 2350-2400, 05.05, R Bahrain, Abu Hayan, English ann, pop songs, best in USB, 34333, QRM from 6015, but at *0000 QRM from strong CRI in English on 6020 (Anker Petersen, heard in Skovlunde, Denmark, on an AOR AR7030PLUS with a 28 metres outdoor longwire, via Dario Monferini, playdx yg via DXLD) ** BANGLADESH. 4750, Bangladesh Betar, 1230-1242, April 30 (Monday); mixing badly with CNR1; poor; usual Monday format: Maghrib (sunset) call-to-prayer, subcontinent music, YL with the Monday only SAARC news bulletin in English; still no hint of RRI Makassar (Ron Howard, Asilomar State Beach, CA, Etón E1, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** BELARUS. Summer A-12 shortwave transmissions from Belarus: Radio 1 Home Service Belarussian 0400-0700 11930 MNS 250 kW / 072 deg, but registered 0500-0800 on same 1500-1700 7255^MNS 250 kW / 072 deg, but registered 1600-1800 on same 1500-2100 6080*MNS 150 kW / 127 deg, but registered 1600-2200 on same ^ totally blocked by CRI Chinese from 1600 * totally blocked by Radio Kuwait in Arabic from 1600 + VOA in English Radio Belarus, Minsk Belarussian 1100-1400 on 11730 MNS 150 kW / 246 deg Russian 1400-1600 on 11730 MNS 150 kW / 246 deg Polish 1600-1800 on 11730 MNS 150 kW / 246 deg 1702-1800 on 7255 MNS 250 kW / 252 deg German 1800-2000 on 7255 MNS 250 kW / 252 deg# 1800-2000 on 11730 MNS 150 kW / 246 deg# English 2000-2200 on 7255 MNS 250 kW / 252 deg* 2000-2200 on 11730 MNS 150 kW / 246 deg* Russian 2200-2300 on 7255 MNS 250 kW / 252 deg 2200-2300 on 11730 MNS 150 kW / 246 deg # 1940-2000 Sat/Sun French Belarus from A to Z [? title of program?] * 2000-2020 Sun Spanish px-Belarus from A to Z [? title of program?] (DX Re Mix News, Bulgaria, 8 May via DXLD) ** BELGIUM [non]. DX-ANTWERP special Anniversary SW broadcasts May 12: 0430-0530 on 17880 ISS 250 kW / 079 deg to SoAs 0800-0900 on 9680 ISS 250 kW / 060 deg to WeEu 1200-1300 on 6015 ISS 035 kW / 060 deg to WeEu in DRM 1400-1500 on 17880 GUF 250 kW / 311 deg to NEAm 1530-1630 on 15775 ISS 100 kW / 079 deg to SoAs in DRM 1700-1800 on 21680 GUF 250 kW / 320 deg to NWAm 2000-2100 on 17875 GUF 100 kW / 311 deg to NoAm in DRM (DX Re Mix News, Bulgaria, 8 May via WORLD OF RADIO 1616, DXLD) ** BELGIUM [non]. DX-ANTWERP SPECIAL EVENT AND ANNIVERSARY SHORT-WAVE BROADCAST AND OPEN DAYS On May 19 and 20th, DX-Antwerp vzw (the only DX and shortwave listeners Club in Belgium) will be having their annual open days. This year, however, we also celebrate the 30th anniversary of this association. To mark this event, we are also putting other activities on the calendar. At first, during the week before the open days, on May 12th we are airing, a special anniversary short-wave broadcast as follows: TARGET UTC kHz STATION ITU MOD India 0430-0530 17880 Issoudun F AM Western-Europe 0800-0900 9680 Issoudun F AM Western-Europe 1200-1300 6015 Issoudun F DRM North America East 1400-1500 17880 Montsinery GUF AM India 1530-1630 15775 Issoudun F DRM North America West 1700-1800 21680 Montsinery GUF AM North America 2000-2100 17875 Montsinery GUF DRM via http://www.broadcast.be A special QSL card was designed for this occasion. Send a report by ordinary mail to DXA QSL c/o TDP Radio, PO Box 1, B-2310 Rijkevorsel or e-mail to dxaqsl @ gmail.com During the open days on the 19th and 20th of May we will of course have our traditional demo-setups, where our fellow DX-friends will be happy to answer your questions. In addition to all previously known equipment, there will be even more demos to see and hear, among these, new specials are the FiFi SDR FunCube, Bonito Radiojet 1102S, etc. .. Even the technicians of the Belgian Institute for Post and Telecommunications will be there again. For the 30th Anniversary of DX-Antwerp there will be a series of presentations and demonstrations as well. Saturday, May 19: 10.30: Radio wave propagation and prediction (revised) by Frans Verheyden (ON5GO) 13.30: Lecture and demonstration about everything concerning SDR applications by Willi Passmann (DJ6JZ) (in English). 15.00: Talk about thunder, lightning, and side effects on antennas. Frans Verheyden (ON5GO) Sunday, May 20: 10.30: Presentation of Ostend Radio film of Wilfried Derynck (ON6EO), employed at Ostend radio. 13.30: Presentation and demo about the FunCube and all its applications by Jan Poppeliers (ON7UX) (AMSAT) Place to be is: "De Schorren" Graspolderlaan 32, B-2660 Antwerpen- Hoboken. Look here: http://g.co/maps/gmtz8 We hope to receive your reports, comments and/or suggestions. Furthermore DX-Antwerp is happy to welcome you during the 30th anniversary open days. Updates: via http://www.dx-antwerp.com (Guido Schotmans, DX LISTENING DIGEST 12-14 via WORLD OF RADIO 1616, DXLD 12-19) ** BHUTAN [and non]. 6035.05, BBS, Sangaygang, Thimphu. Bhutan is running 24 hours on 6035 it looks (Victor Goonetilleke, Sri Lanka, in DXplorer via DSWCI DX Window via DXLD) Also heard in Thailand at 1105, Apr 16, this frequency blocked by Yunnan PBS strong in Chinese; 1445 Yunnan should be off (Aoki), word programme audible, but just threshold level, too weak to determine language, also QRM 6040 CRI Chinese; 1505 CRI also off, heard female ann in English, although no details. On Apr 17 at 1510, clear channel, female talk in very probable English. On Apr 18 at 1535 same situation, English word programme, single words discernible, but not coherently understandable. Comparing very poor level with e.g. Bangladesh 4750, I have my doubts whether BBS actually runs at 100 kW. Always S=1-2. On Apr 19 at 0000 no program audible, only carrier in SSB present, might also be Yunnan PBS, also heavy QRM from 6030 Myanmar. 5030 BBS all three evenings empty channel, no program, no carrier (Gerhard Werdin, Remagen, Germany, visiting Thailand, DSWCI DX Window via DXLD) ** BIAFRA [non]. 11870, May 3 at 2029, another try for R. Biafra London, on its Thu & Sat 20-21 UT schedule via Woofferton UK: JBA carrier; at 2040 peaks to poor signal with bits of English, but got no better, Carrier off at 2100:10* (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Via GERMANY. 11870, Radio Biafra, London, *2000-2100*, sign on with local music and talk. Mix of vernacular and English discussion at 2004. Barely audible at sign on but signal abruptly came up to a fair to good level at 2004. They seem to have a habit of signing on at 2000 with a very weak signal and abruptly improving in signal strength after several minutes. Apparently they must be running late in either antenna switching or a power increase. Thur, Sat only. May 5 (Brian Alexander, PA, DX Listening Digest) ** BOLIVIA. 5580.27, 2340-2350, 05.05, R San José, San José de Chiquitos, Spanish religious talk, 15231. 5952.46, 2345-2355, 05.05, R Pio XII, Siglo XX, Spanish dialogue about Guatemala, 35233 6134.83, 0000-0010, 06.05, R Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Spanish talk about a video, music interlude, 35343 (Anker Petersen, heard in Skovlunde, Denmark, on an AOR AR7030PLUS with a 28 metres outdoor longwire, via Dario Monferini, playdx yg via DXLD) Hi Glenn! I don't know if you mind, but I was curious at receiving Radio Santa Cruz over here (Pilar, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina) for the first time. Hear on Tuesday around 0120 UT (actually that would be Wednesday, but you get me) with Argentinian songs like 'Llora me llama' by Angela and 'Y ahora te vas' by La Nueva Luna, followed by a Bolivian song and brief "Radio Santa Cruz" ID. It started weak, but it improved somewhat with time. Sign off at 0209 after the full version of their signature song (Eduardo Peralta, May 4, DX LISTENING DIGEST) If insomnia gets the better of you, like it did me this morning, tune to 6134.8 kHz. Heard this morning (7/5) at 0105 UT, Radio Santa Cruz, Bolivia. Nice Bolivian music with full ID and frequency information at 0107. More flute music, then carrier off at 0110. They were weak (SIO 242) but readable with another even weaker station underneath. 73s (Nick Rank, Buxton, UK, (ICF2001D, ALA1530 loop), BDXC-UK yg via DXLD) 6134.8, May 8 at 0132, peppy music, best heard on USB to avoid the TADIL-A bonker infesting the low side; despite weaker signal, has better modulation and readability than XEPPM 6185. R. Santa Cruz IDs at 0133 and 0134 sandwiching some kind of promotional announcement. So this date it probably stayed on until after 0200; other days it goes off shortly after 0100. Nothing on 6135.0 to het it. Also checked 5580 in case the another Bolivian was active and audible, but nothing heard (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 6134.900, Radio Santa Cruz, 0010-0030 May 8. Noted both a male and female comments followed by brief music. At 0015 promos heard over music. Signal was good with adjacent QRM on the low side of the signal 6134.909, Radio Santa Cruz, 0208-0210 May 8. Rechecked Santa Cruz just now and heard music until 0210 when the music stops and the signal drops off the air. Signal was at a good level (Chuck Bolland, Clewiston FL, 26N 081W, Excalibur, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** BOLIVIA. Radio Fides. Woman hostess the news on 9625 at 1200 May 3. Broadcast in Spanish (Alex Klauber, Oneida, New York, 38 Miles (61 km) East of Syracuse, NY, Coordinates - Latitude = 43.0922 Longitude = 75.6568, Equipment: Sangean ATS 909, 200" random longwire antenna with a "Slinky" toy in the middle, MFJ 1045C preselector. Corrections, assistance and suggestions are always welcomed. Thanks, ~ Alex KPS3ASK dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Alex, AFAIK, R. Fides has been inactive on 9625 for many years. It`s not in the WRTH 2012, tho still appears along with many other outdated listings in Aoki. LA SW DX http://www.mcdxt.it/LASWLOGS.html however last updated Feb 29 has it as one of the items needing to be confirmed. Was there any ID? Are you sure this was in Spanish? 9625 also bears CBC NQ (which could be in Inuktituk at this hour), and South Africa in Nyanja. Could you have been on 9635 where there is CVC La Voz, Chile? Further chex needed! (Glenn Hauser, ibid.) Transmisiones deportivas desde Bolivia a las 0130, de Radio Illimani, 6024.8 kHz (con QRMartí 6030) y Radio Fides 6155. Con el clásico paceño entre los equipos The Strongest vs Bolívar (Rafael Rodríguez R., Bogotá D.C. - COLOMBIA, Winradio G303i, Dipolo 10 m, condiglist yg via DXLD) Date missing but other logs in post were May 5 and this was sent May 6 (gh, DXLD) ** BRAZIL. Relatório de escutas - Ondas Tropicais -- Caros amigos, Seguem os dados das últimas escutas processadas: 4885, 11/02 0320, R. Maria, Anápolis/GO, om tlk abt novelas 45444 4975, 11/02 0303, R. Iguatemi, São Paulo/SP, px "Madrugada total Iguatemi" 55544 Equipamento utilizado: Receptor Quicksilver QS1R, Antena Longwire 100m Local das escutas: Boituva/SP. 73 (Ivan Dias Jr. - Sorocaba/SP http://ivandias.wordpress.com http://twitter.com/ivandiasjr May 7, radioescutas yg via DXLD) His logs are delayed almost 3 months as he goes thru SDR files from a DX-pedition. There are not two, but three Brazilians listed on 4885, of which R. Maria is the least and rarely reported. Is it still active? And about 4975 Iguatemi:: (Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Ivan, captei esta rádio abaixo aqui no RN. ``4975 11/02 0303 B R. Iguatemi, São Paulo/SP, px "Madrugada total Iguatemi" 55544`` Não postei anteriormente, pois tive dúvida se era esta rádio ou a Rádio Mundial de SP na mesma frequência às 09h UT. Equipamento, Yaesu 857d, Antena longe wire 21m (Elder vale Medeiros, 7 May, radioescutas yg via DXLD) BRASIL, 4974.98, R. Iguatemi (ex-R. A Nossa Voz), Osasco SP, 2143- 2154, 03/5, notícias de futebol, ID simplesmente como "Iguatemi!", canções; 35332. Suponho que esta mudança de nome terá ocorrido após o princípio de Abril p.p. (Carlos Gonçalves, PORTUGAL, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) There were other reports of it in February; and WRTH 2012 already had R. Iguatemi as name of 4975 station, and linx to this website http://radioterra.am.br/radio.php for a 1330 station: ``A Rádio Terra AM iniciou suas transmissões em janeiro de 2002 com uma programação de grande qualidade, intimamente ligada à música sertaneja de raiz, resgatando o que há de melhor neste gênero, tão importante na história da música brasileira. Com uma cobertura que abrange toda a grande São Paulo, Interior e Sul de Minas, hoje a Rádio Terra AM, já desponta entre as principais rádios sertanejas de todo o País. Sua programação variada atende a todas as vertentes do sertanejo, desde tradicionais modas de viola até os sucessos mais atuais do country e sertanejo romântico, sendo considerada a melhor rádio sertaneja do Brasil. A emissora faz parte da Rede Mundial de Comunicações que engloba rádios como a Tupi FM, Tupi AM, Kiss FM, Rádio Mundial, Scalla FM, Rádio Iguatemi AM, Apollo FM e Terra AM. Conta ainda com uma rede de TV com 18 retransmissoras.`` Aoki now shows: 4975 R. Iguatemi FM 0000-2400 1234567 Portuguese 1 ND Sao Paulo SP B 04639W 2333S Iguat EiBi has: 4975 0000-2400 B R. Mundial-Nossa Voz, SP P B os It seems it`s just a matter of choosing which of their group of stations to put on this SW transmitter, and it may vary (Glenn Hauser, dxldyg via DXLD) Glenn: Certo, o WRTH 2012 menciona essa emissora... mas também é como diz, trata-se de uma questão de escolher a fonte, já que, no fim, nenhuma está 100% correcta, o que, compreensìvelmente, será algo inatingível. O mesmo WRTH '12, por ex., nem menciona a mão cheia de estações que deveriam ser marcadas com o asterisco (=inactivas), e é pena que não indique as que emitem irregularmente. Pessoalmente, prefiro socorrer-me da DBS do DSWCI! Suponho que reflecte melhor a realidade que encontramos no éter. Mais, suponho que nem mesmo os locais, isto no que ao Brasil diz respeito, conseguem ter a percepção correcta das estações activas e, consequentemente, compilar listas actualizadas, o que também se compreende. 73 (Carlos Gonçalves, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) I am sorry I gave R. Iguatemi, São Paulo on 4975 kHz wrong number of reference – the correct is: SP223). (Tore B Vik, Editor of the Brazilian file in WRTH 2012, radioescutas yg via DXLD) In which case the website should be http://radioiguatemi.com.br --- but anyhow, from the above extract of the 1330 website, the stations are related. Claims 100 kW on 1370, no mention of SW (gh,, DXLD) ** BRAZIL. 6085.035, 0140 3/5, Rádio Marumby, Curitiba, religious talks by female with some slow music, weak but clear // web streaming on http://radioevangelismo.com/ (Giampiero Bernardini, Milano, Italia, RX: Drake R-4C, Excalibur Pro, Elad FDM-S1 / Ant: T2FD / My SW blog: http://radiodxsw.blogspot.it/ dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** BRAZIL. 6149.98, 0030-0042* 3/5, Rádio Record (presumed), São Paulo, romantic pop songs, talks in Portuguese mentioning Sao Paulo, weak, s/off at 0042 (Giampiero Bernardini, Milano, Italia, RX: Drake R-4C, Excalibur Pro, Elad FDM-S1 / Ant: T2FD / My SW blog: http://radiodxsw.blogspot.it/ dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** BRAZIL. 6180, May 6 at 0537, RNA is absent, transmitter broke down again? Still going on 11780, which on UT Sundays only runs all-night. 6180, May 8 at 0126, RNA is loud & clear; rechecked, since this frequency had been missing later on UT Sunday when it should have been on // 11780. Quite a problem for weaker XEPPM on 6185. Retune at 0135 to find 6180 off, but soon cut back on, so intermittent (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** BRAZIL [and non]. 9819.54, 0200 3/5, Rádio 9 de Julho, São Paulo, relay Aparecida, religious talks, fair, after VOA Greenville s/off at 0200 (Giampiero Bernardini, Milano, Italia, RX: Drake R-4C, Excalibur Pro, Elad FDM-S1 / Ant: T2FD / My SW blog: http://radiodxsw.blogspot.it/ dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) I.e. GB, 9820, Special English, Tue-Sat 0130-0200 (gh) ** BRAZIL. BRASIL: 15191.5, Radio Inconfidência; 2100-2108+, 1-May; Real mess here. Tuned in to Ave Maria to 2105 M&W in Portuguese plus ID with frequencies. Hetting with 15190 (no other detectable audio there) plus extremely distorted signal on about 15185 (which might be some manifestation of the Inconfidência mess); also with pulse bursts & buzz QRM. Actually copyable though. Something's about to blow! Still on 15191.5 at 2225; still hetting, but much cleaner signal. 2346, 3-May, still on 15191.5 but clean signal (Harold Frodge, Midland MI, USA, Drake R8B + 85 ft. RW & 180 ft. center-fed RW, All logged by my ears, on my receiver, in real time! DX LISTENING DIGEST) 15191.5, R. Inconfidência, Belo Horizonte MG, 2122-2149, 04/5, prgrama "A Hora do Fazendeiro", com canções, informação de preços de bens agro-pecuários, e até receitas para experimentar; 45444. 15191.5 idem, 1636-1720, 05/5, programa musical "O Canto da Viola", anúncio das freqs seguido de um programa da R. Nac. de Brasília, "Então, foi assim?"; 25433 (Carlos Gonçalves, PORTUGAL, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** BRITISH INDIAN OCEAN TERRITORY. 12759-USB, AFRTS, Diego Garcia, Chagos, 0943-0950. Pop music. Talk in English by man at 0948. Very weak signal, too weak to understand spoken content, by definitely AFN programming. 5/8/2012 (Jim Evans, Germantown, TN, RX-340, IC-R75, Eavesdropper Dipole, Random Wire (90'), Cumbre DX via DXLD) ** BULGARIA. QSL - Radio Bulgaria 9700 sent FD QSL card and small book in 65 days for an email report. This was for reception on their last radio day (31 January), but the QSL made no mention of it being their final English shortwave broadcast (Bruce Portzer, Seattle, WA, May 6, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** BURMA [non]. A-12 schedule of Democratic Voice of Burma in Burmese: 1430-1530 on 11560 ERV 300 kW / 100 deg to SEAs 2330-0030 on 11595 ERV 300 kW / 100 deg to SEAs (DX Re Mix News, Bulgaria, 8 May via DXLD) ERV = Gavar, ARMENIA ** CANADA. Ottawa, Ont., 1630 application for new station dismissed: this was to be an ethnic station, but nearly 99% of the schedule would have been in Arabic. Generally, Canadian ethnic stations are required to serve a variety of ethnic groups. Also, it was felt the station would have a serious negative impact on CJLL-FM, which makes a significant amount of its revenue on Arabic-language programmes (americanbandscan.blogspot.co.uk, 20 April, via Medium Wave Report, May BDXC-UK Communication via DXLD) ** CANADA. On the day that most of us at Radio Canada International were getting letters that said we were being fired. We took time to show our support with other colleagues at Canada’s national radio and television broadcaster CBC/Radio-Canada who also were getting their letters. For more on our struggle to stop an 80% cut to RCI’s budget please check out this blog and what you can do: http://rciaction.org/blog/what-you-can-do/ Many of the people you see in this photo are losing their jobs – many with decades of experience in international broadcasting. http://rciaction.org/blog/2012/04/25/supporting-colleagues-at-natl-public-broadcaster/ (via CIDX Messenger via DXLD) Nice group photo of RCI personnel, unfortunately not identified (gh) Toronto Star: RCI Cuts --- Hi, DXers, You might like to check out an Op Ed piece I wrote for the Toronto Star about the recent devastating cuts to Radio Canada International: http://thenetwork.thestar.com/expert-opinion/the-terrible-cost-of-cutting-international-radio/20120501/ Please consider sharing -- and commenting -- on this article. The issue needs prompt attention. Best, (Thomas Witherspoon, May 4, HCDX via DXLD) And see also the comments; viz.: THE TERRIBLE COST OF CUTTING INTERNATIONAL RADIO === TUE MAY 1, 2012 by Thomas Witherspoon, Founder, Ears to Our World | 10 Comments An American explains why Radio Canada International should have been spared in the recent round of CBC budget cuts. Even from the relative distance of the United States, it’s painful to witness the brutal gagging of the broadest-reaching voice of Canadian international diplomacy. The recently announced cuts to the CBC have garnered considerable press. However, what has not received sufficient press is the story of the cuts which threaten the very existence of Radio Canada International. This oversight is likely because, sadly, many Canadians must not be aware of RCI, or of its valiant but unsung role in international relations. Radio Canada International is an arm of the CBC that stretches across the world with international news and programming, offering a uniquely Canadian perspective on world events to millions of listeners, who await these broadcasts every day. If I could speak on behalf of the millions who listen to RCI in the dark of night, I’d say a mouthful. Here on the overly-lit, information-saturated North American continent, it’s easy to forget that an estimated 1.6 billion human beings - a full one quarter of us - still lack access to reliable power and to the Internet. In remote, impoverished, often war-torn regions, radio has become a familiar voice in the darkness. Without radio broadcasters such as RCI – and the light of information they can relay – the night can become very dark, indeed. Meanwhile, the Internet, while unquestionably a useful medium, can only travel as far as its (still-limited) availability; in other words, the Internet relies upon a costly infrastructure, not just at its source, but where it is received. Of course, while most of the people for whom I speak do not have Internet access, computers, or even electricity, those who do are often trapped under repressive government regimes whose censors track or control their citizens’ Internet usage, and sometimes use what they learn to control these individuals, to threaten them or worse. Shortwave radio, on the other hand? Radio, which requires most of its infrastructure at its source, has little regard for distance, and no regard for political borders, nor for who and how many join you to listen. This apparent information dinosaur travels at the speed of light, streams information wirelessly on affordable handheld devices (transistor radio, anyone?), is virtually immune to censorship, and leaves no tracks. Censorial attempts to jam it are largely unsuccessful and can usually be bypassed. Radio is, moreover, faster than the Internet. Radio is straightforward, effective – and in the developing world, still absolutely vital. It often functions as a form of life-support for rural and impoverished communities – for example, offering life-saving information when disaster strikes, like earthquakes or tsunamis. But the pertinent, painful fact remains: The Canadian voice in the ether is being silenced. RCI’s presence on shortwave radio is being eliminated and Canada’s only international broadcasting site – in Sackville, NB – is slated to be shut down. I don’t pretend to have an answer to the economic problems that led to RCI’s crippling cuts. No doubt, it’s costly to run a reputable international broadcaster whose potential reach, up to this point, has encompassed the entire planet. But soon, Canada – like so many other cash-strapped countries that are slashing their (radio) budgets, and tossing all their eggs into one (Internet) basket – will have no infrastructure to share its voice with the rest of the world. So, if I could give but one word of advice: take precaution, Canada, and diversify your communications programs. In the pie chart that represents your international media delivery systems, the shortwave radio slice will soon be gone. And there will be no more where that came from, should the infrastructure go, too. Plus, shortwave radio represents the best option for basic emergency communications, far preferable to the vulnerable Internet. This is true both in the developed and developing world. For your own sake as well as the world’s, downsize if you must, but don’t dismantle your radio infrastructure; the cost to reclaim it, should emergency or political crisis render this necessary, will be far greater to your country and our interdependent world than just keeping that voice alive in the first place. Yes, radio costs something. But consider the cost per listener. Millions upon millions of listeners – we can’t even begin to track them all – are listening for mere pennies - or fractions of pennies – each. A modest cost, indeed, for offering the world a daily dose of reliable news and information; for saving lives (including, potentially, your own); for sharing the ever-broadening cultural understanding and enlightened perspectives for which Canada stands. Please, Canada, find a way to avoid severing your own tongue. The world is listening to you. Thomas Witherspoon (a US citizen) is founder and director of US-based non-profit Ears to Our World which distributes shortwave radios to schools and communities in the developing world. He also actively blogs about radio and international broadcasting in easy-to-read English on the SWLing Post (via Greg Hardison, WORLD OF RADIO 1616, DXLD) [non] Re RCI Cuts, PCJ plans: interesting story including comment: Keith Perron Radio/Television at Independent announcer/producer "Excellent Thomas. :) The thing I would like to add is RCI like many of the other Western International broadcasters have also been slow to look at new ways to get programs out there. How is it PCJ with a budget no where near RCI has been able to get itself on local stations in East and South East Asia and in the Pacific even set up transmitters and now in the process of building a small 20kw station to target East/South East Asia and the Pacific. But RCI with it's budget has not been able to do anything like that. Something is wrong somewhere. LOL" So, Keith will operate his own 20 kW SW station. Site in Taiwan or where? 73 (Harald Kuhl, Germany, HCDX via DXLD) ** CANADA. 6190, May 7 at 0524, CRI English is back here, after Sackville having put it by mistake on 6080, almost 24 hours earlier, the frequency which is supposed to quit at 0500. 9555, May 7 at 0527, tune-in to open carrier; then 0527:45 BaBcoCk fill music loop plays a couple times, 0529 RCI IS, French and English ID loop a couple times, and off, i.e. traditional tail of Vietnam relay (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CANADA. QSLs - Vatican Radio via Sackville, 7305, sent QSL card, stickers, and brochures in 14 days for email report sent to gestfreq(at)vatiradio(dot)va KBS World Radio via Sackville 9650 sent QSL card and stickers in 16 days for report sent via their website (Bruce Portzer, Seattle, WA, May 6, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CHINA [non]. Talking of interference, International Radio of Serbia at 2100 UT on 6100 kHz mixed with China Radio Int in Arabic (Edwin Southwell, Making Contact, May World DX Club Contact via DXLD) ** CHINA [non]. 6080, May 6 at 0538, surprised to find CRI English here with bigsig equal to and synchronized with // 6020 via Sackville, CANADA. But absent from 6190 via SAC where it is supposed to be during this hour! Mistake or change? Probably failed to change frequency since CRI English via Sackville is really on 6080 at 04-05. 6080 would also have been in a huge collision with Japan in Spanish via Bonaire at 0500-0530! But still audible on leapfrog 6250. Top end of 49m seems weirdly vacant, with no 6175 Vietnam via Canada (moved to 9555), no 6185 Mexico, no 6180 Brazil [q.v.] either (Glenn Hauser, OK, WORLD OF RADIO 1616, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CHINA [and non]. New unregistered frequency of China Radio International in Chinese 0600-0657 9655 UNID tx // 17740XIA 17650KAS 17615KUN 15785XIA 15120BEI 0700-0757 9655 UNID tx // 17830KAS 17740XIA 17650KAS 17615KUN 11785CER (DX Re Mix News, Bulgaria, 8 May via DXLD) ** CHINA. 9820, Beibu Bay Radio, Nanning, 1017-1024. Pleasant Chinese ballad style pop music. Announcement by man at 1024 followed by more music. Weak signal, above noise level 75% of the time. 5/8/2012 (Jim Evans, Germantown, TN, RX-340, IC-R75, Eavesdropper Dipole, Random Wire (90'), Cumbre DX via DXLD) ** CHINA [and non]. QSL - Radio Canada International sent form letter for reception via Urumqi 15125 and Kunming 11675 in 7 days for report sent to info(at)rcinet(dot)ca. Also included stickers and program schedule valid March 25 to October 28, 2012 (sic). v/s Bill Westenhaver (Bruce Portzer, Seattle, WA, May 6, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CHINA. 17100, Firedrake Crash and Bang in with S=3, nf? 1444 27/Apr 17250, Firedrake Crash and Bang in weaker S=2 1445 27/Apr 15600, Firedrake Crash and Bang, weak, 1420-1430* 29/Apr (Kenneth Vito Zichi, Port Hope MI, MARE Tipsheet May 4 via DXLD) Firedrake May 3, after 1320: 16100, JBA at 1321, none higher. Propagation degraded today 15500, very poor at 1322, het on lo side 14800, good at 1323; none in the 13s, 12s Before 1400: 14800, very good at 1356; none in the 17s, 13s, 12s 15490, fair at 1352, het on lo side 15610, poor at 1352 15760, very poor at 1352 15900, very poor at 1352 16100, good at 1355 16980, poor at 1354 Firedrake May 4, before 1300: 11500, good at 1235, over CCI: VOR Tajikistan 13850, good at 1226, none in the 12s 13920, good at 1226, none in the 14s 15445, good at 1219, het on lo side; off at 1235, but Turkey 15450 very weak 15800, very good at 1237 16100, very good at 1222 17250, poor at 1224 with flutter After 1300: 11500, good at 1323 13850, very good at 1322 13970, very good at 1323; none in the 12s 14950, very good at 1322 15500, very good at 1316, just came on 15565, very good at 1316 15940, very good at 1318 16700, fair at 1318 17450, very good at 1319; none in the 18s Before 1400, no time for full bandscan again, but at least: 15490, very good at 1359 15610, very good at 1358 15900, fair at 1358 15940, very good at 1358 16100, very good at 1359 16700, fair at 1359-1400* (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) See also TIBET [non], UZBEKISTAN [non] Sabato 5 maggio 2012: Segnale (Signal) IN = Insufficiente (Poor) / SF = Sufficiente (Fair) BN = Buono (Good) / MB = Molto Buono (Very Good) 1029 - 21695, CNR 1 JAMMER. BN-IN 1032 - 17170, // 17250 FIREDRAKE. BN-IN 1206 - 15795, CNR 1 JAMMER+ALL INDIA R. Mandarin. SF-IN 1212 - 15437, V of TIBET - Yangi Yul (Tajikistan), Tibetano o Cinese, parlato OM. Segnale sufficiente-insufficiente. Firedrake su 15435 ma *insieme* (Glenn, *together*!! !) hanno spento su queste frequenze alle 1213 e riacceso alle 1216 su 15443 (VOT) e 15445 (FD). They both have perfect radio-controlled clocks!!! (Luca Botto Fiora, G.C. 09E13 - 44N21, Rapallo (Genova) - Italia, playdx yg via DXLD) Steven Handler's Firedrake Logs 5-5-12: 1140-1150 Nothing above or below those listed 11500 1142 Good w/poor audio 12600 1143 Excellent 13130 1144 Good 13920 1144 Good 14700 1145 Good 15800 1145 Fair 1225-1229 Nothing above or below 12600 1229 Excellent 13130 1229 Excellent 13920 1229 Good-Excellent 14700 1229 Excellent 14800 1228 Good 14950 1228 Excellent 14950 1228 Excellent 15445 1227 Excellent 16100 1227 Fair 16700 1226 Poor 1240-1250 Nothing higher or lower 12600 1240 Excellent 13130 1243 Excellent 13920 1244 Excellent 14700 1244 Excellent 14800 1244 Fair-Good 14950 1245 Excellent 15550 1245 Excellent 16100 1246 Good 16700 1247 Poor 16980 1257 Good-Excellent 17450 1248 JBA Notes: It has been my opinion that multiple transmitter sites are being used by Firedrake. However, I do not have access to precise direction finding equipment so I have not been able to pinpoint specific transmitter sites from which Firedrake is broadcast within China. My belief that multiple transmitter sites are being used is based on the disparity between signal strength on adjacent frequencies being used at the same time. In looking at the signal strength for various frequencies today I have noticed an interesting disparity. In the 1225-1229 time slot 14700 and 14950 with both received with excellent signals. Yet 14800 which is in between those frequencies had a signal that was noticeably weaker (Good vs excellent). The same set of frequencies when checked in the 1240-1250 time slot yield almost the same results, with both 14700 and 14950 being excellent while 14800 which is in between those frequencies has a much lower signal strength and was only fair to good. In my opinion, the explanations this possible difference in signal strength is limited. Possible reasons that would explain this difference include (1) lower transmitter power being used on 14800, (2) A single transmitter site being used with different antenna beam being used on 14800. However since all three of the observed frequencies apparently were targeting Sound of Hope broadcasts from Taiwan, if they were all broadcast from the same transmitter site using different antenna beams would not seem very likely, or (3) a different transmitter site yielding different propagation characteristics is being used on 14800. Today's observation is not unique. For example on 5/1/12 in the 1150- 1159 time slot, 14800 had a good-excellent signal and 16100 had an excellent signal, yet 15900 located between those two frequencies had only a fair signal. All three of these broadcasts were apparently targeting the Sound of Hope in Taiwan. Later that day in the 1220-1229 time slot, 15900 and 16100 both had an excellent signal yet 15940 was only fair to good and 15970 was only fair. All four of the frequencies observed were apparently targeting the Sound of Hope broadcasts from Taiwan. My observation of frequencies close in frequency having a lower signal strength such as described above, in my opinion support a limited possible explanations including, (1) lower transmitter power being used on the middle frequency (2) A different antenna beam being used on the middle frequency, however since all of the observed frequencies apparently were targeting Sound of Hope broadcasts from Taiwan, if they were all broadcast from the same transmitter site using different antenna beams would not seem very likely, or (3) a different transmitter site yielding different propagation characteristics being used on the middle frequency. I am interested in other possible theories and thoughts (Steve Handler, IL, DX LISTENING DIGEST) I agree that these are the pretty obvious alternative explanations for our observations, but we are not going to know for sure without tight DF information or the real story from sources inside China (gh, DXLD) Firedrake May 5, before 1300: 11500, poor at 1256 12600, good at 1256 13130, very good at 1255 14700, very good at 1254 14800, good at 1254 14950, very good at 1254 15550, good at 1248, het on hi side 16100, very good at 1250 16700, very poor at 1249 16980, good at 1249 17450, very poor at 1251 Before 1400: 12600, good at 1338 13850, very good at 1338 15495, fair at 1338 with additional buzzsaw jamming 15610, good at 1338 15900, poor at 1344 16100, very good at 1344 16700, poor at 1344 16980, very good at 1344 17450, poor at 1344 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Fuertes señales de la interferencia china Fuego de Dragon "Firedrake" notadas hacia las 0830 UT del 6 de mayo en las siguientes frecuencias: 15800, 15900, 15970, 16100, 16700, 16920, 16980, 17180 y 17250 kHz (Rafael Rodríguez R., Bogotá D.C. - COLOMBIA, Winradio G303i, Dipolo 10 m, condiglist yg via DXLD) Firedrake May 6, before 1300: 11500, poor at 1256 with flutter 12600, very poor at 1256 14600, good signal at 1258, suspicious open carrier with flutter well past 1300 but gone by 1330 14700, very good at 1258 14800, very poor at 1258 14950, poor at 1258 15550, poor at 1259 15900, fair at 1259 16100, poor at 1259; didn`t get to check any higher before 1300 Before 1400: 15490, fair-good at 1342 with het on lo side; still at 1349 15610, fair at 1349, vs stronger WEWN 15615 15900, very poor at 1342 16100, very good at 1348 16700, good at 1348 16980, good at 1348 17100, good at 1346 17170, very poor at 1346 17250, very poor at 1346 17450, very good at 1346; unusual with 4 above 17 at once; none in 18s (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Firedrake monitoring 5/6/12 by Steven Handler: Nothing above or below the frequencies listed for each time slot 1250-1259 Time Slot May 6, 2012 12600 1257 JBA signal 14700 1258 Good signal 15550 1256 Good signal 15900 1259 Excellent signal 16100 1259 Excellet signal 1320-1329 Time slot 14960 1327 Fair signal 15500 1327 Fair signal 15570 1327 Good signal 15900 1326 Poor signal 16100 1321 Fair signal 16700 1325 Fair signal 16980 1325 Good signal 17100 1325 Fair signal 17450 1324 Poor-fair signal 1337-1345 Time slot 15495 1339 Propellor jammer off at 1340 15900 1341 Poor signal 16100 1341 Good-excellent signal 16700 1341 Good signal 16980 1342 god signal 17100 1342 good signa; 17450 1342 fair signal 1437-1445 Time slot 12600 1437 fair signal 13130 Good signal (Steve Handler, IL, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Radio China ou Pirata? Faz algumas semanas que tenho escutado "informalmente" uma radio que toca musica clássica chinesa (folclórica) em 13970. Geralmente escuto ela pela manhã antes de sair de casa; hoje descobri que ela termina as transmissões às 1300 UT impreterivelmente. Acredito que não tenha locução, só musica e na internet as informações que encontrei são contraditórias. Uns dizem que é pirata, outros dizem que não, e alguns dizem ser o famoso Firedrake jammer, interferência característica da China (por volta desta frequência também recebo sinais de hffax; acredito serem da Antártica ou Argentina pelo tipo de informação). Alguém já escutou? Tem alguma informação sobre ela? Obrigado! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjFc_VhL78o http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvD1k0Rc76o Chinese Firedrake Frequency List As Of March 2012: 9930 11500 12230 13920 14950 15500 16980 17250 12980 13970 15595 17450 15605 17570 15775 (leco789, 7 May, radioescutas yg via DXLD) Sim amigo, é a Chinese Firedrake. Ela provoca interferências em transmissões em mandarim da Voz da América, Radio Free Asia, etc. (Rubens Ferraz Pedroso, Bandeirantes - PR, ibid.) Firedrake May 7, circa 1330: 17510, fair until 1330*. I was tuning by feel and had not looked at the dial before this went off, but somewhere in this range, and fits for listed BBC Uzbek via Cyprus at 1300-1330 17170, good at 1330; none in the 18s 16100, good at 1330 15900, poor-fair at 1331 15570, good at 1332 14950, very good at 1334 14700, very good at 1334; none in the 13s 12600, very good at 1335; none in the 11s, 10s After 1400: 15605, good at 1406; none in the 17s, 16s, 14s, 13s 12600, fair at 1414 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) More Fire From The Belly Of China --- CHINA, 1225 UT,C, 15445, Firedrake jamming music crowding out Voice of Turkey on nearby frequency 15450 directed towards W. Europe & Africa and can also be heard here mornings in eastern North America if it's clear of co- channel interference or jamming (J K Johnson, Atlanta, Georgia, May 8, Cumbre DX via DXLD) Firedrake May 8, before 1300: 11300, nothing ever here nor Sound of Hope as some have been reporting 11500, fair at 1234 with VOR Tajikistan CCI 12230, JBA at 1230 12600, fair at 1230 13970, very good at 1252 14700, very good at 1252 15550, good at 1254, and continued past 1301 unlike the others 15900, good at 1254 15970, very good at 1254 16100, very good at 1255 16980, fair at 1255 17250, poor at 1255 17450, very poor at 1256 Before 1400, also a dozen: 11500, poor at 1343 with SAH, CCI from VOR 12600, fair at 1333 13850, poor at 1333 13970, very good at 1333 14950, very poor at 1335 15495, good at 1335 15900, very good at 1335 15970, very good at 1335 16100, very good at 1335 16980, very good at 1335 17170, very good at 1338 17250, poor at 1338 (Glenn Hauser, OK, WORLD OF RADIO 1616, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CHINA [non?]. 21580, May 8 at 0451, very poor signal with M&W in Chinese; soon found one slightly stronger on 21480, seemed // but not positive, too weak to match on two receivers. RFA in Chinese via TINIAN is scheduled on both, but may have been hearing ChiCom CNR1 jamming instead (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CONGO. 6115, R. Congo, Brazzaville has been audible again during April between approx. 1800-1830 UT, noted 6 April with speech in French until abrupt close at 1840 (Dave Kenny, England, DX News, May BDXC-UK Communication via DXLD) And on 11 April until off at 1826 (Mark Davies, Wales, ibid.) If only we could get them to add a morning transmission; otherwise, no way to be heard in NAm (gh, DXLD) ** CONGO DR. Congo [sic]: RADIO OKAPI: LA VOZ DE LOS QUE NO TIENEN VOZ La radio muchas veces se ha usado como arma de guerra en el continente africano. Estamos con Caddy Adzuba, periodista de Radio Okapi en la República Démocrática del Congo. Contra viento y marea, ella pone su voz al servicio de la paz. Cuando la conocemos, está recorriendo las calles de su pueblo: “Estoy buscando niños de la calle. Sus padres murieron durante la guerra y no tienen a nadie. Hay niños nacidos de episodios de violencia sexual. se encuentran abandonados porque las madres, que se han quedado embarazadas como consecuencia de una violación, no pueden hacerse cargo de ellos”. Caddy Adzuba, de 31 años, es una de las voces más populares de Radio Okapi, creada por la ONU y la fundación suiza Hirondelle, hace una década. Día y noche, ella recorre la provincia de Kivu del Sur, en el este del país, para retratar la realidad de una sociedad marcada por la guerra. “Para mí los medios de comunicación son un instrumento”, nos explica, “Una voz que utilizo. Una voz para los que no tienen voz, para que se les escuche, que hablen alto, para denunciar abusos y sensibilizar”. Esta vocación le viene desde la adolescencia. unos meses antes de que comenzase la guerra en 1994, ella se marchó de su ciudad, Bukavu, con su familia y miles de personas. Así lo recuerda: “Atravesé el bosque… durante una semana… a pie… yo sola. Ya no sabía dónde estaban mis padres, si estaban vivos o muertos, ni mis hermanos… ¿habían muerto? No tenía ni idea. Pero vi a gente morir. Alguien a mi lado cae. Cae gente delante de mí. Y de nuevo a mi lado. ¡Yo miro y sólo veo sangre! En medio de esta desbandada, cada uno buscaba su camino”. Afirma que es algo que jamás olvidará. Aunque la guerra ha terminado oficialmente en la República Democrática del Congo, la de Caddy aún no ha acabado, mientras los grupos armados sigan campando a sus anchas por el este del país: “La guerra no ha terminado. Cada día hay un ataque. ¡Cada día! Hay saqueos en las aldeas… y los grupos armados echan a los vecinos de sus casas, ellos buscan refugio en las ciudades. Mirad las casas donde vive la gente… En una cabaña pequeña como ésta vive una familia de 15, 18 o 20 personas”. La miseria la indigna. Sobre todo la de las mujeres. Hoy entrevista a una de las supervivientes recogidas por una asociación con sede en Bukavu, que les ayuda a reconstruir sus vidas y sus almas, a través de terapia y formación profesional. Esta mujer, antes esclava sexual de los milicianos ruandeses y después violada por soldados congoleños, ha recuperado la esperanza: “Vas a pasar 6 meses aquí, ¿después qué vas a hacer?”, le pregunta. “Empezaré dedicándome a la sensibilización, que hace falta… Tenemos que encontrar coraje y decirles a las demás que esto que nos ha pasado no es el final de nuestra vida”, responde ella con determinación. En la radio, y con varias asociaciones, Caddy no se cansa de denunciar la lacha que sigue afectando a miles de mujeres congoleñas. Y sobre todo, de denunciar sus causas: “Violar a las mujeres era un arma de guerra. No es deseo sexual lo que lleva a los rebeldes, a los grupos armados, a cometer violaciones. No. Simplemente quieren desestabilizar una región. Haces la guerra, expulsas a la población, robas sus recursos… Y todo pasa desapercibido”. La tragedia del pueblo congoleño son sus recursos naturales. Hay multinacionales, y poderosos mandatarios detrás de todo eso, por todo el mundo. El tráfico ilícito de minerales a costa de las poblaciones locales es algo que a menudo denuncian las organizaciones pro-derechos humanos. En 2002, la ONU publicó un informe en el que denunciaba el saqueo del país por parte de sus países vecinos, con la complicidad de 85 multinacionales. La batalla cotidiana que libra Caddy no les gusta a todos. Ha recibido amenazas de muerte y su domicilio ha sido atacado varias veces. Pasó algún tiempo exiliada con dos compañeras. Dos periodistas de Radio Okapi en Bukavu han muerto asesinadas. Caddy regresó para seguir dando testimonio. La amenazas no han desaparecido. Pero tampoco su determinación. “Cuando piensas en todos tus compañeros, padres, tías, amigos, que han muerto, te preguntas qué has hecho tú para seguir viva hoy. Encuentro fuerza cuando me pregunto por qué no morí entonces. Por qué me salvé. Y entonces, cómo puedo contribuir yo, aunque sea un poquito, a la paz en mi país. Aunque sea un poquito”. Ése es su objetivo. Copyright © 2012 euronews FUENTE: Sitio Web: http://radiookapi.net/ FM: Kinshasa 103.5 | Bunia 104.9 | Bukavu 95.3 | Goma 105.2 | Kindu 103.0 | Kisangani 94.8 | Lubumbashi 95.8 | Matadi 102.0 | Mbandaka 103.0 | Mbuji-mayi 93.8. Ondes courtes: 11690 Khz 4h-5h GMT (Via @yimbergaviria, DXLD) ** COSTA RICA [and non]. 5954.24, 0120 3/5, Radio República (presumed), signal fair but audio buried inside jamming noise really strong. Jammer stations seems on 5955 kHz. Noise touches also Radio Pio XII on 5952.43 (Giampiero Bernardini, Milano, Italia, RX: Drake R- 4C, Excalibur Pro, Elad FDM-S1 / Ant: T2FD / My SW blog: http://radiodxsw.blogspot.it/ dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CUBA [and non]. [Re 12-18] Still more 530 corrections ``You could be hearing Radio Visión Cristiana in the Turks and Caicos. They used to dominate 530 here in NC until R. Enciclopedia came on frequency and they can still be heard underneath. Interestingly enough, R. Enciclopledia didn't exist on 530 until Fidel "turned" his duties over to Raúl. I have also logged an ID on 530 as Radio Musical Nacional (Rick W4DST, mwdx yg via DXLD)`` This is incorrect. I wish people would simply research what's long been published and logged both in this source and elsewhere so widely. Even my own historical archives Cuba list, available online, details all of this. 530 has been active since August, 2004, feeding various sources (Radio Cadena Habana mostly) and eventually settling on Enciclopedia audio since with only one or two brief switches back. And for the record, Fidel did not delegate his authorities to Raúl until July 31, 2006, that's two years before 530 activated, which was in response to the then airborne Radio Martí. And technically, The Cuban National Assembly did not make Raúl the successor until February 24, 2008. RVC is no longer active on 530. But then, I've said this many times before (Terry Krueger, FL, May 7, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CUBA. Glenn, I was listening the other night to my CCRadio. It`s a radio that is not tuned RF stages so its susceptible to images. It could be the radio but maybe not. I had at about 0000 CT Adelante Cubanos and then RHC on 1610. I know Cuba is on 1620 but have you or anyone else heard Cuba also on 1610? (Kevin Redding, Crump, TN, May 8, ABDX via DXLD) Kevin, No, I haven`t heard of RHC on 1610. Since it`s only a SW station, very likely an image, but I can`t figure how it would land on 1610. The usual thing is: 6000 RHC in English (before 0500 UT), subtract 2 x IF 900 = 5100, divide by three, hear it on 1700. There are several higher than 6000 kHz frequencies too which would put that kind of image above 1700 [on odd split frequencies] (Glenn Hauser, ibid.) ** CUBA [and non]. 17580, RHC was on before 1400 May 4, but absent at 1410 check. Meanwhile I monitored the `current` frequency announcement once again at 1402 on 11760 et al., still starting with the false claim that both 17730 and 17580 last until 1500. 11840, May 7 at 0508, RHC Spanish is still running late after scheduled 0500*. 9810 however is off clearing Vatican in Scandinavian. 9790, May 7 at 0510, open carrier, Cuban relay transmitter of CRI has also not been turned off after 0500, and now it`s atop R. Nederland in Dutch via Wertachtal. 7405 and 6030, May 7 at 0513 and 0522, wall-of-noise jamming in still running full-bore against nothing in weekly Monday silent period of R. Martí. WORLD OF RADIO 1616, 6050, May 7 at 0518, RHC, Arnie is quoting Thomas Giella on the solar cycle, including ``I don`t know what I`m talking about``. 5040, May 7 at 0523, RHC open carrier still on here, but 11840 is off (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CUBA [non]. Radio Martí en 23860 kHz? 23860 AM, R. Martí, 2153 UT 4-May-2012: no tengo muy claro por qué está en esta frecuencia; para evitar confusión, la logré sintonizar con 2 radios distintos empleando 2 antenas distintas y distantes entre si; acaso la propagación haciendo travesuras? 73 y Buenos DX (José Luis de Vicente T., HK3ORT, Colombia, condiglist yg via WORLD OF RADIO 1616, DXLD) Enahorabuena por captar el segundo harmónico de 11930 transmitido desde Greenville (Glenn Hauser, WORLD OF RADIO 1616, ibid.) ** CUBA [and non]. U.S. GOVERNMENT'S RADIO AND TV MARTÍ CALL CUBAN CARDINAL JAIME ORTEGA A LACKEY --- By William Booth MEXICO CITY -- Criticism of the leader of the Catholic Church in Cuba, who has been negotiating with the communist government to expand religious and political freedom, intensified last week when the head of Radio and TV Martí called the archbishop of Havana a lackey who is colluding with an oppressive regime. The stinging editorial against Cardinal Jaime Ortega -- signed by Radio and TV Martí's director, Carlos García-Pérez -- is significant because Martí is a U.S. government agency, with its board of directors appointed by the White House and its policies coordinated with the State Department to direct messages to Cubans. Some analysts said the editorial could undermine Ortega's position in Cuba and they wondered whether it signaled a lack of support for the Church's delicate position on the communist-run island. Martí broadcasts, according to spokeswoman Lynne Weil, "are editorially independent, although supported by U.S. taxpayer dollars. Their editorials, unless otherwise stated, represent the views of the broadcasters only and not necessarily those of the U.S. government." Weil said she did not know when the State Department saw the editorial or whether there was any discussion of its content. "I would suggest that this is equivalent to a U.S. government statement and that people may conclude, rightly or wrongly, that this is a U.S. government position," said Phil Peters, a Cuba analyst at the Lexington Institute. The cardinal has been hailed by some for his role in the freeing of political prisoners and for creating a small but relatively safe space for citizens to complain about the Cuban government, including its tight immigration and economic policies. Cuba's Catholic magazines contain some of the most lively, as well as pointed, criticism of the government. But Ortega has been hammered in the Cuban exile community and by members of the South Florida congressional delegation, who say he is an appeaser who enables the Castro brothers and prolongs their rule. Many activists voiced disappointment that Ortega did not publicly push for human rights or defend dissidents during the recent visit to Cuba by Pope Benedict XVI. Ortega also came under fire for statements he made at an April 24 Harvard University panel, where he described the 13 dissidents who sought to occupy a Havana church a few days before the pope arrived as "criminals" and "people of low culture." The dissidents, who included a mentally ill person, had said they hoped to push the church to engage the pope on human rights issues. Ortega had state security officers remove them. Guillermo I. Martínez, a columnist with the Sun Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale, recently called Ortega a bootlicker. The popular Cuban American blog Babalu called Ortega "a truly despicable man." Ortega has said that he gets attacked from all sides. "Perhaps this takes time and is a sort of martyrdom all Christians, including myself as pastor, must undergo," the cardinal said at Harvard. "That is what it means to give your life for the sheep." In his editorial, aired on Radio and TV Martí and published on the broadcaster's Web site, García-Pérez, a Cuban-American lawyer from Puerto Rico, accused Ortega of speaking with "scorn and arrogance" of the 13 dissidents. "This attitude of Ortega just goes to show his political collusion with the government and his willingness to follow the official line," he wrote. "This lackey attitude demonstrates a profound lack of understanding and compassion toward the human reality of these children of God." El Nuevo Herald in Miami contacted several of the 13 dissidents, who denied they had criminal records. "I can only say that the 13 are a perfect reflection of Cuban society, in which there is everything," Havana human rights activist Elizardo Sánchez told the newspaper. Jorge Domínguez, the Harvard professor who invited the archbishop to speak, said: "Cardinal Ortega is a good man. Calling him a lackey is beyond belief." Domínguez added, "It is amazing that this comes from a U.S. government broadcaster." The professor noted that as a young priest, Ortega was sent to a reeducation camp and forced to do manual labor, as the church struggled in a state that had declared itself officially atheist. "Who freed the political prisoners in Cuba? Not the European Union. Not the U.S. government. And not Radio and TV Martí. It was Ortega who convinced Raúl Castro to let them out," Domínguez said. He added, however, that Ortega's condemnation of the dissidents was unfair. "A lot of people have criminal records in Cuba, but you have no way of knowing if they have records simply because the state has targeted them for their political activities," he said. (c) The Washington Post Company (via Mike Cooper, DXLD) ** CYPRUS. 9760, Cyprus Broadcasting Corp, *2217-2244:30*, sign on with Greek music and Greek opening announcements. Greek talk. Abrupt s/off. Very Good signal. Weaker on // 5925, 7220. Fri, Sat, Sun only, but very irregular. May 5 (Brian Alexander, PA, DX Listening Digest) ** DENMARK. 243 kHz extended airtime tonight! DR LW Kalundborg 243 kHz will make a special transmission on 4 May 2012 between 20:03-21:00 [1803-1900 UT], simulcast with DR DAB P5, to commemorate the liberty message from the BBC's Danish Service on that date in 1945, marking the end of Denmark's occupation by Nazi Germany during World War 2. Listener reports may be sent to the BSD info mailbox info at bsd.dk Thanks to Alf Persson, Sveriges DX Förbund. 73s (Ydun Ritz, May 4, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Axually was on an hour earlier (gh) ** EAST TURKISTAN. 4850.00, 2315-0005, CHN, 03+06.05, Xinjiang PBS, Urumqi. Kazakh dialogue with musical interludes, 2400 timepips and talk, also heard on 05.05 at 1655. Still on this new frequency and not yet on the summerfrequency 7340! 33343 (Anker Petersen, heard in Skovlunde, Denmark, on an AOR AR7030PLUS with a 28 metres outdoor longwire, via Dario Monferini, playdx yg via DXLD) ** ECUADOR. 4781.5, Radio Oriental. Tena. 2339-0002* 5 mayo. Con programación regular en el siguiente horario: mañana 1100-1200, tarde 2330-000 [sic] "... Oriental desde Tena en la región amazónica, 18 horas 56 mins, 6, 56 minutos, Oriental en sus tres emisoras 89.7 frecuencia modulada, 1100 amplitud modulada y 4780 kHz banda internacional de los 60 metros..." (Rafael Rodríguez R., Bogotá D.C. - COLOMBIA, Winradio G303i, Dipolo 10 m, condiglist yg via DXLD) ** ECUADOR. 6049.93, 0126 3/5, HCJB, Quito, Equador, slow songs, talks in Spanish, QRM from Radio Habana in English, poor (Giampiero Bernardini, Milano, Italia, RX: Drake R-4C, Excalibur Pro, Elad FDM-S1 / Ant: T2FD / My SW blog: http://radiodxsw.blogspot.it/ dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** EQUATORIAL GUINEA. 5005, R. Nacional Bata in local language, 1912- 1932 non stop afropop songs with instrumental music; at 1927 brief M announcement mentioning Radio Bata; continuing afropop with time pips over afropop song (1930); heard better in Lsb to avoid utes; moderate / strong static crashes; some mild utes nulled with inter audio filter; almost fair; 4/25. 5005, R. Nacional Bata in local language 1836-1853. M talk; brief chant break & continuing talking till 1841; afropop till 1848:12; M brief announcements, mentioning Radio Bata over afropop; continuing afropop; better heard in LSB with inter filter to null strong RTTY; noisy static crashes; poor/almost fair; 5/04 (Giovanni Serra, Roma, Italy, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** EQUATORIAL GUINEA. 15190, Radio Africa (presumed); 1451-1455:05*, 2-May; Tuned in to non-B.S. English huxter; 1452:55 abruptly into B.S. huxtering about pentecost and abruptly off. SIO=2+53 (Harold Frodge, Midland MI, USA, Drake R8B + 85 ft. RW & 180 ft. center-fed RW, All logged by my ears, on my receiver, in real time! DX LISTENING DIGEST) 15190, Radio Africa (presumed) in English with screeching woman 'singing' and into munchkin-voiced almost oriental sounding woman "preacherette" pontificating in what could be barely understood as English, and into "the Old Rugged Cross" which was so overmodulated that it caused the transmitter to clip and cut out. Programme [sic] ID mentioning what I think was 3ABN; makes sense based on the MANY websites mentioned including http://amazingdiscoveries.org But talk about hard to understand announcing! No station ID or anything else resembling such, but abruptly into Salvation Army programme with an announcer you COULD understand. QRM de WYFR [15195 Ascension] starting at ToH. Weak, but pretty clear until ToH. 1950- 2005 28/Apr (Kenneth Vito Zichi, Port Hope MI, MARE Tipsheet May 4 via DXLD) ** ERITREA. ERITREIA, 7175, Voz das Massas, Selai Dairo, 1746-1802*, 06/5, árabe, canções do Corno de África, fecho com o hino nacional; 35433 (Carlos Gonçalves, PORTUGAL, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) 7200, Voice of the Broad Masses of Eritrea - program 1, *0256-0320, sign on with IS. Vernacular talk at 0301. Horn of Africa music. Poor. Mixing with co-channel Sudan along with ham QRM. Eritrea sure does insist on trying to use frequencies that are dominated by strong transmitters such as Sudan on 7200 and Ethiopia on 9705. May 6 (Brian Alexander, PA, DX Listening Digest) Re DXLD 12-18: ``9705.03, Voice of the Broad Masses of Eritrea, [...] This frequency not a good choice for Eritrea with Ethiopia always dominating this frequency. April 27 (Brian Alexander, PA, DX Listening Digest)`` No, I would put it differently. Depending on its aims, it might be a very good frequency choice: Certainly not aimed at listeners next door, it might be probably heard in ETH, in the "dead zone" of the RE transmitter. And ETH may even place a noisejammer on the freq jamming their own service. An old game; known from 7235 and 7165 before, and more effective on higher freqs, as greater "dead zones" close to transmitters may occur. Also, ERI usually places several transmitters on or close to ETH transmitters at a time (such as 5945 again - it's not a new freq. as Rumen writes!), or uses something like 9720 additional to 9705. So ETH has quite some effort spotting them and moving around jamming transmitters (or even switching them from regular service to jamming) if they really want to make the ERI transmission inaudible in ETH (Thorsten Hallmann, Münster, Germany, http://africalist.de.ms May 8, DX LISTENING DIGEST) See also ETHIOPIA 9705.03, Voice of the Broad Masses of Eritrea - program 2, *0256-0313, sign on with IS. Vernacular talk at 0300. Horn of Africa music. Weak modulation but in the clear until 0313 when Radio Ethiopia abruptly came on the air and completely covered Eritrea. A late sign on for Ethiopia. Eritrea heard on // 7175 - poor in noise. // 7120.02 - very weak modulation. May 6 (Brian Alexander, PA, DX Listening Digest) ** ERITREA [non]. Hi Everyone, 9635, up to 18 UT this eve., V. of Salamna?? Cannot find any details of this. YL with ID and web address. http://www.salamna.?? Any ideas about this? Or have I got it wrong? https://www.box.com/s/6d73b1351e22f8a14c0e (Mark Davies, Anglesey, Wales, May 8, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) From 1800{-19} UT YFR starts regularly from Wertachtal on 9635 kHz. VoSalamna (Voice of Peace?) http://www.voiceofSalamna.org ? sounds like East African Muslim program, meant to Rwanda, Somalia etc. Maybe Wertachtal started much early and fetched another East African Evangelic program ON AIR from satellite feed? Or is that a totally different broadcast from other location? vy73 wb (Wolfgang Büschel, ibid.) Hi Mark, From the web: [note spelling] http://www.selamna.org/ which has audio files of their programs under “Radio-Daily”. ``Tigrinya broadcasts of Radio Selamna/Voice of Selamna gives an opportunity to Eritreans inside and outside their nation to listen to the gospel.`` (Ron Howard, Monterey, Calif., USA, ibid.) Thanks, Ron, Never heard of it before (Mark Davies, ibid.) And they have audio files back to Dec 2007, but seems never on SW until now, maybe via M&B? (gh, DXLD) Bible by the Radio 08.05.2012 --- Thanks Ron, 100% same ID in excellent audio quality heard at end of this Bible by the Radio 08.05.2012 recording. Eritrean Ministry, from which TX provider site? Media & Broadcast 9635 kHz too ???? 73 wb (Büschel, ibid.) IBRA http://www.ibra.se/viewNavMenu.do?menuID=50&oid=266 Google translation: Radio Selamna --- The project is conducted in: Eritrea 30 minutes daily radio broadcast Selamna Christian radio in over Eritrea in the Tigrinya language. Transmissions are short-wave, and can be heard also in Ethiopia, Sudan, Kenya, Uganda and South Africa and several countries in the Middle East region. Listening Feedback will also regularly from tigrinsk-speaking people in these countries. We know there are many, many listens, it becomes stronger and come to believe through these programs. Radio Selamna have a clear set of goals with their transmissions. They want to encourage and strengthen: - People sitting in prisons and in other ways are in dire straits - Young people who do their military service, often under difficult conditions around the country - The persecuted Church - Eritrean refugees who are scattered around the region - To open the eyes of unbelievers so that they can know Jesus - That through its programs to raise awareness and influence society and culture around the problem of HIV / AIDS. It produces: - Family Program, which includes addresses and responds to issues of family, finances, sex, marriage, choosing the right life partner, etc. - "The Bible on the radio", which is a teaching series based on various biblical books. - Youth Program, which addresses issues in a special way related to youth, spirituality, education, morality, culture, etc.. We want to help young people grow and mature in all areas of their lives. -- Evangelism Program, which in a certain way is addressed to believers and unbelievers. Includes instruction on what it means to be saved, why you need Jesus, the testimony of people who received Jesus and what it meant for their lives and so on. - "Dream Music", a program that sends Christian music preferred by listeners. Music can be a powerful way to touch people's lives, and even non-believers appreciate the music and get in touch. It's a way to encourage and motivate people for example are at the front, in refugee camps and detention centers. - Social programs, which in a special way addresses the problem of HIV / AIDS, which is a major social problem. You do it based on Christian values, and trying in every way to increase understanding of the disease, how it is transmitted, how to take care of the sick, etc.. Radio Selamna has also recorded the entire New Testament in Tigrinya, and efforts to record the Old Testament is in progress.`` (via Ron Howard, CA, dxldyg via WORLD OF RADIO 1616, DXLD) WRTH 2012 page 477, B-11 schedule under SWEDEN for IBRA Radio has several broadcasts on 9635 via Skelton between 1800 and 1945 in obscure African languages, except for Arabic daily 1900-1930 (Glenn Hauser, ibid.) and A-11 too: 9615 1730-1800 IBR Meyerton 100 15 Somali EaAF HR 4/4/0.5 11875 1900-2030 IBR Rampisham 250 169 Non-Spec W AF HR 4/4/0.5 11785 1730-1800 IBR Skelton 300 140 Swahili C AF HR 4/4/0.5 12070 1800-1930 IBR Woofferton 250 140 Arabic C AF HR 4/4/0.5 12070 1930-1945 IBR Woofferton 250 140 Arabic C AF HR 4/4/0.5 In Babcock file B-11 see these IBRA entries 9635 1800-1930 IBR Skelton UK 300 140 Arabic NoEaAF 9635 1930-1945 IBR Skelton UK 300 140 Arabic NoAF wb (Wolfgang Büschel, WORLD OF RADIO 1616, ibid.) IBRA transmission schedule is still labeled *Oct 2011 = B11! http://www.ibra.se/viewNavMenu.do?menuID=77 including: Ethiopia/Eritrea FEBA, Rwanda 1234567 1730 – 1800 Tigrinya SW 9630 kHz Close, but no sites shown. However HFCC B-11 as of Nov 11 and still March 16, had instead YFR Kurdish via Wertachtal: ``9630 1700 1800 30S,39N,40 WER 500 105 -15 201 1234567 301011 240312 D 10700 Kur D YFR MBR 2324 A13kur`` And nothing at this hour on 9635 (Glenn Hauser, ibid.) Yet another intriguing idea, listed just 5 kHz below: 9630 1700-1730 FEBA Radio OO EAf /RRW 9630 1730-1800 FEBA Radio TIG EAf /RRW 73, (Eike Bierwirth, ibid.) ** ETHIOPIA. Since the changeover as of Sunday 25th March to BST and changeover to new times and frequencies, Ethiopian Radio on 9705 kHz around 2000+ can no longer be heard due to severe adjacent channel interference (Edwin Southwell, Making Contact, May World DX Club Contact via DXLD) Radio Ethiopia's transmitter on 9705 sometimes seems to be in // to 7235v for the clandestine transmissions. Afterwards (1835/1840) the normal programme may resume while 7235 switches off. I have not spotted 9560 as // for a while. But also noted 9705 without any signal around that time recently. Yesterday, May 7, there was RE + something else, probably Niger. 73 (Thorsten Hallmann, Münster, Germany, http://africalist.de.ms May 8, DX LISTENING DIGEST) See also ERITREA ** ETHIOPIA [non]. 15170, 06/May 1605, FRANCE (Relay), V of Oromo Liberation Front in Afar Oromo (listed). OM talk. At 1607 went off the air abruptly. Did not return until 1610. Weak signal (Jorge Freitas, Feira de Santana, Bahia, 12 14´S 38 58´W - Brasil, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) He may mean, ``did not return *by* 1610`` (gh) ** EUROPE. I can receive Spaceshuttle Radio of the Euro pirate on 15880 USB kHz now at 1150 UT. Fair to poor (S. Hasegawa, May 5, dxldyg via WORLD OF RADIO 1616, DX LISTENING DIGEST) PIRATE. 15880 USB, Spaceshuttle Radio, 1455-1505+, rock music. IDs. Weak, but fair to good on peaks. Thanks to Sei-ichi Hasegawa tip. May 5 (Brian Alexander, Mechanicsburg, PA, USA, Icom IC-7600, two 100 foot longwires, dxldyg via WORLD OF RADIO 1616, DX LISTENING DIGEST) I'm hearing it in Seattle as well, with a couple of IDs and pop music on 15880 at 1513. It's still weak but getting stronger (Bruce Portzer, May 5, WORLD OF RADIO 1616, ibid.) I'm hearing it as well at just above threshold level at 1513 UT (sounds like an ID just now). I heard them a bit stronger when they were last on (15843-USB) a few Saturdays ago. All of a sudden much better with Viva Paloma Blanca at 1519 UT (Walt Salmaniw, Victoria, BC Canada, May 5, WORLD OF RADIO 1616, ibid.) Radio Spaceshuttle is currently putting in a very good signal here on 15880 kHz in upper side band. Heard from tune in after 1500, still strong past 1550 UT. Jingles IDing it as "Radio Spaceshuttle Scandinavia". 73s (Dave Kenny, Caversham, Berks, AOR 7030+ / 25m long wire, May 5, BDXC-UK yg via WORLD OF RADIO 1616, DXLD) Also heard here at 1450 thanks to S. Hasegawa tip, signal improving over time with many ID's and "99 Luftballoons" after 1610, then signal falling off rapidly (Steve Lare, Holland, MI, dxldyg via WORLD OF RADIO 1616, DX LISTENING DIGEST) PIRATE. 15880 USB, Spaceshuttle Radio, 1455-1538, rock music. Pop music. IDs. Shoutouts. Weak, but fair to good on peaks. Thanks to Sei- ichi Hasegawa tip. May 5 (Brian Alexander, PA, DX Listening Digest) ** EUROPE. Euro Pirate, 14990-LSB, Baltic Sea Radio? I can receive Baltic Sea Radio(?) now at 1535 UT on 14990 kHz LSB. A seagull called at 1519 and I can't yet confirm the ID. The signal is weak in Japan (S. Hasegawa, Japan, May 5, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** EUROPE. 6925 USB, 1845 UT 5th May - Radio Black Arrow --- only S5-6 here, but readable with some QRN, ID @ 1845 followed by music CCW SDR-4+ http://www.crosscountrywireless.net/sdr-4.htm Slinky dipole running N/S Twitter @swlistener swlistener.wordpress.com -- (Tony Molloy, nr Winter Hill, UK, SD639114, 53.6 N 2.55 W, IO83ro, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Typical frequency for North American pirate, but must be Europe (gh) ** EUROPE. PIRATE. Radio Spaceman, 6308, 0000-0017+, tentative with pop music. Tentative ID. Mentioned from The Netherlands. Poor in thunderstorm static. May 6. [first notice] Radio Spaceman, 6308, 0000-0023, pop music. ID. Mentioned from The Netherlands. Shoutouts. Sign off around 0030. Poor in thunderstorm static. May 6 (Brian Alexander, Mechanicsburg, PA, Icom IC-7600, two 100 foot longwires, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) [final report] ** FINLAND. Re: SWR on air from 2100 UT Friday 4 May --- Nothing heard on either 6170 or 11720 at 2115. Curiously All India Radio is audible on 11720; however 11715 is listed at this time (Russ Cummings, North Ferriby, UK, AOR 703+. 60ft long wire, May 4, BDXC_UK yg via DXLD) A message on the SWR Facebook page about 14 hours ago now says that the 25 mb antenna has been taken off the mast because of the new FM antenna installation - so presumably only on 49 mb frequencies now: "..... we will not have a broadcast on 25mb due to FM antenna installation work and broadcast system measurements. We would like to ensure that FM and 25m antennas in same mast not cause any spurious emissions to aviation/radio navigation frequencis." (Allan Pennington, 2150 UT, ibid.) I think I have them on 5980 kHz now (0720 UT), but weak. A channel in the 25 m band would help a lot. This morning the time signal station Espoo on 25000 kHz (100 Watt AM) came in quite well here in Germany. SWRadio should try a channel in the 11 m broadcast band. 73 (Harald Kuhl, Germany, ibid.) ** FRANCE. 21580, May 5 at 1252, poor signal in French about ``football``, // stronger 21690. RFI`s curtailed midday broadcast of only one hour at 12-13 on these two, 21580 at 155 degrees, and 21690 at 185 degrees from Issoudun, both rated 500 kW, but likely less. 155 is closer to off-the-back here, and expected to be stronger, but it`s not; antenna or power anomaly? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** GERMANY [and non]. WIEDERAU 783 KHZ KNOCKED OFF BY LIGHTNING Perhaps MDR Info on 783 kHz is at present missed not only by local listeners, and I already see the usual rumours and conspiracy theories popping up. The dry fact is that last night at 2042 UT the transmitter*) was struck by lightning, damaging more components than spare parts were in stock. Thus it was not possible to repair the transmitter today, and nobody dared to speculate if perhaps a way will be found to bring 783 back on air tomorrow. Enclosed a weather radar caption from yesterday 2045 UT, suitable as a reference for the location of Wiederau (near Pegau, south-/southwest of Leipzig) [attachment to the dxldyg]. This was two hours after I preferred to wait half a hour at the railway station over walking through the thunderstorm... Right now I have on 783 a jumble with SAH, apparently consisting of Barcelona, Syria and Saudi-Arabia. *) http://www.jans-radioseiten.de/wied_mw4.html (Kai Ludwig, Germany, May 3, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) The Wiederau transmitter on 783 kHz has been brought back on air at some point between 0830 and 1215 UT. Could have left a radio with volume turned down on 783 to witness it... The situation was such that the lightning damaged all 80*) modules of the transmitter. Nobody would have expected such a situation, and so nobody had 80 spare pieces in stock, neither Media Broadcast itself nor Thomson in Turgi. Thus Media Broadcast decided to not waste more time on futile searches, also not for a small transmitter that could be thrown in (there was the idea to take a small 5 kW unit from Berlin, from the closed Köpenick/Dammheide site it seems, but it was not straight at hand there), bought yesterday a bunch of transistors and engaged all available staff as soldering brigade which replaced the destroyed parts of the modules. Enclosed a photo for which in fact it is not known with certainty if it really shows the thunderstorm on Thursday. But it pretty likely does, since the location is right, with the Knautnaundorf foundry and its smoke stack in the foreground leaving no doubt. Last night I had on 783 Syria in almost usable quality, with a lady talking about Assad over and over. Really good modulation, quite different from their usual disaster on shortwave. *) Cf. http://www.thomson-broadcast.com/sites/default/files/Products/M2W%20Transmitter%20Family%20V2_0.pdf <*>Attachment(s) from Kai Ludwig: <*> 1 of 1 Photo(s) http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dxld/attachments/folder/961603191/item/list <*> 03_bf_05.jpg (Kai Ludwig, May 5, ibid.) ** GERMANY. 6150.00, 0634-0715, Sunday 29.04, R 6150, Rohrbach, ID's in English, German, Dutch, Russian and Italian: "Radio 6-1-5-0", English songs, e-mail address: "studio @ radio6150d", 35233 7265, 0855-0905, D, Su 06.05, Hamburger Lokalradio, Göhren. German ID: "Sie hören Hamburger Lokalradio aus 7265 kHz", women talk from LOLA Kulturcentrum, jazz music, 45333 (Anker Petersen, heard in Skovlunde, Denmark, on an AOR AR7030PLUS with a 28 metres outdoor longwire, via Dario Monferini, playdx yg via DXLD) ** GERMANY. Deutschlandfunk 6190 off? Was chatting to Edwin Southwell on the phone Tuesday night and he asked if Deutschlandfunk 6190 was off the air as he had not been hearing it. Not audible here and on remote receivers in the Netherlands and Germany both this morning and yesterday, checked yesterday around 0945 and today around 1045 (Mike Barraclough, England, May 3, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Listeners in Germany received an answer from DLF technical dept, receiver (class 1951?) is down since April 28th. Staff's working at repairing it with no exact deadline (bottom of the page): http://www.mysnip.de/forum-archiv/thema/8773/29016/Deutschlandfunk+bald+nicht+mehr+auf+Kurzwelle.html 73 (Andy Lawendel, Italy, WORLD OF RADIO 1616, ibid.) ** GERMANY. QSL - Athmik Yatra Radio via Wertachtal, 11645 sent nice e-mail QSL certificate in 4 days for followup sent to ayradio4567(at)gmail(dot)com for Jan 2012 reception. Two previous reports sent to info(at)Athmeeyayathra(dot)org had gone unanswered (Bruce Portzer, Seattle, WA, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** GERMANY [non]. 15275, May 3 at 0604, DW news in English, good signal. Per HFCC this is a new frequency at this hour as of April 17. Then found even stronger VG signal on // 17820, at 0605 as `Afrika Link` was starting, in fact, the inbooming OSOB. Other stations around RWANDA could also have a defacto North American service on 16m in the middle of the summery night! And also sufficient signal on // 13780 (Glenn Hauser, OK, WORLD OF RADIO 1616, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** GREECE. THREE ERT MEDIUM WAVE TRANSMITTERS TO RETURN The Board of ERT S.A., during a review meeting no 1040, acting on a recommendation from the Directorate-General decided to reinstate medium wave transmitters at the Megara, Malgara and Tripoli broadcasting centers. The Board, taking into account the demands of local communities, and the fact that their operation is possible with reduced costs, decided on reactivating these transmitters. Although the decision does not mention the stations involved, it is assumed that 981 kHz (Megara), one of the R. S. Macedonia frequencies at Malgara as well as medium wave transmitter at Tripoli are involved. The decision was probably made easier by the fact that the Megara and Malgara centers were not completely shut down during the initial cutbacks by ERT. The reversal by ERT came as a result of many complaints. The absence of a powerful transmitter carrying ERA Sport meant that listeners in southern part of the country and in the outlying islands were not receiving the programming via other means. Additionally the lack of medium wave signal resulted in a lack of Pan-Macedonian coverage of the R.S. Macedonia programming. The coverage throughout the Macedonia province with FM transmitters proved to be ineffective. Finally it appears that after ERA Tripoli medium wave transmitter closed down, the outlying area of Kynouria also lost coverage. It has become apparent that the decision to close down the majority of ERT's medium wave transmitters proved to be done hastily and without consultations with local societies. Translation of an article from http://www.radiofono.gr/node/3191 (Christos Rigas, Wood Dale, Illinois, USA, mwmasts yg via DXLD) Duh Further to Christos' post I can add that the Megara transmitter on 981 is already back in action. The other 2 which will be restarted will be Thessaloniki Malgara on 1179 and Tripoli 1314. The dates for these stations to come back is still to be stated. Given the fast moving events in Greece the diaspora will be keen for the stations to start as quickly as possible. Thank you to Christos for keeping us so well informed. 73's (Dan Goldfarb, May 8, ibid.) And at 1900 the news started with the usual opener "on 102.0 FM, ERT 3", eliminating any possible doubt about the programming on 9935/7450 (both the same transmitter of course) still originating from Thessaloniki where they had this behaviour to announce nothing but one of their FM frequencies already back in 1993, as if 1044 and shortwave and the rural areas away from the metropolis did not exist (Kai Ludwig, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Indeed the 102.0 service of ERT 3 is now also carried by the reactivated Málgara transmitter on 1179, as quoted in DXLD 12-18. When checking at 1940 the same program audio than on 7450 could be recognized on 1179, whispering with fast SAH behind the dominating Galbeni signal. Until being switched off 1179 carried 9.58, the second ERT 3 radio program that just barely escaped its complete closure. Apparently the closure of 1044 resulted in too much complaints, thus now 1179 from Málgara has been fired up instead because this site was not subject of equipment dismantlings, thanks to 792 staying on air there. I assume that likewise 981 could be reactivated only because at this site (Mégara) 666 was still active. Contrary 1044 is gone for good, at least at Peréa where the transmitters (a pair of Telefunken S 4002's it seems) have already been removed (Kai Ludwig, ibid.) It has been reported at Radiophono.gr that the MW transmitter from Malgara on 1179 has been re-activated. It is carrying the programming of 102FM from ERT3 in Thessaloniki. Prior to the closing in late March 2012, the 1179 transmitter used to carry the 958FM programming. The 102FM programming used to be carried on the now defunct 1044 kHz transmitter from Peraia. ERT recently re-activated the 981 kHz transmitter at Megara with the ERA Sport programming. There was also report that the Tripolis MW transmitter on 1314 khz would also be re-activated (Christos Rigas, Wood Dale, Illinois, USA May 8, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** GREECE. Updated summer A-12 SW broadcasting from Greece: ERT-3 Radiophonikos Stathmos Makedonias in Greek: 1400-1650 on 9935 AVL 100 kW 285 deg to WeEu [is 9935 really on the air? or 7450? gh] 1700-2250 on 7450 AVL 100 kW 323 deg to WeEu (DX Re Mix News, Bulgaria, 8 May via DXLD) I'd noted 9935 with strong signals April 25 at 1410. Just reconfirmed it 1640 May 8, Greek music programme, announcement 1649 and off. 7450 on with carrier 1653. Programme started at 1700. Both frequencies strong signals, co-channel interference on 7450 from presumed CRI in Russian (Mike Barraclough, Letchworth Garden City, UK, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) We had this already, confirmed with John Babbis: 1400-1500 #9935/285 15650/105 9420/323 1500-1600 #9935/285 15650/105 9420/323 1600-1700 *#9935/285 15650/105 9420/323 1700-1800 #7450/323 15650/105 9420/323 *xx.50 No problem here of Greece on 9935 / 7450 kHz. 9935 was on air around 1640-1648 UT approx, S=9+15dB here, like this signal on 9420 kHz listen too. Now I switched to 7450 kHz, same S=9+15 dB signal, but heavily hit by China radio I think Lhasa co-channel. [later:] QRM 7450 kHz was CRI Russian from BJI Baoji instead. 73 (Wolfgang Büschel, Germany, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) And at 1900 the news started with the usual opener "on 102.0 FM, ERT 3", eliminating any possible doubt about the programming on 9935/7450 (both the same transmitter of course) still originating from Thessaloniki where they had this behaviour to announce nothing but one of their FM frequencies already back in 1993, as if 1044 and shortwave and the rural areas away from the metropolis did not exist (Kai Ludwig, Germany, ibid.) ** GREECE. Updated summer A-12 SW broadcasting from Greece: ERA-5 Voice of Greece in Greek: 1400-1850 on 15650 AVL 100 kW 105 deg to SoAs/AUS 1400-0200 on 9420 AVL 170 kW 323 deg to WeEu/NoAm 1900-2350 on 15630 AVL 100 kW 285 deg to WeEu/NoAm 2300-0050 on 15650 AVL 100 kW 226 deg to SoAm 0000-0200 on 7475 AVL 100 kW 285 deg to NoAm 0100-0200 on 15650 AVL 100 kW 105 deg to SoAs/AUS (DX Re Mix News, Bulgaria, 8 May via DXLD) ** HAWAII [and non]. Stanag 4285 QRM - 10000 kHz --- For Glenn on Oklahoma and Gilles in Montreal, this is the QRM on 10000 kHz here in Montevideo: http://youtu.be/0uOgwYWtGM4 73 de CX2ABP (Rodolfo Tizzi, Uruguay, May 6, dxldyg via WORLD OF RADIO 1616, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Yes, that`s what we`ve been hearing. But who exactly is responsible for it? (gh, WORLD OF RADIO 1616, DXLD) Hace ya unas cuantas semanas que se escucha en las madrugadas UT sobre 10000 kHz un fuerte QRM de una estación en Stanag 4285. No la he decodificado todavía, pero sospecho de alguna estación militar no muy lejana a mi zona de recepción (quizás FUF, la Marina Francesa en Fort-de-France, en la Martinica?). 5000 y 15000 kHz permanecen sin QRM por el momento... http://youtu.be/0uOgwYWtGM4 73 de (CX2ABP, May 6, condiglist yg via WORLD OF RADIO 1616, DXLD) ** HAWAII. 10000, May 7 at 1245, after WWVH ID just before WWV, just before minutetop, NO propagation minute as scheduled at :45; missing again. I hope NIST isn`t as slipshod about other matters (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** INDIA. QSL - All India Radio GOS via Bangalore, 11670, sent a QSL card for Nov 2011 reception. Original email report sent to New Delhi has so far gone unanswered (along with a few others I sent to them). A followup report sent to gosesdair(at)yahoo(dot)co(dot)in in February netted an eQSL in 4 days plus the promise of a QSL card, which arrived two months later (Bruce Portzer, Seattle, WA, May 6, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** INDIA. 15140, 1715-1718 2/5, All India Radio, Khampur, DRM, label: RUSSIAN SERVICE, off at 1718, good but I could stay in touch only 3 minutes; then off air (Giampiero Bernardini, Milano, Italia, RX: Drake R-4C, Excalibur Pro, Elad FDM-S1 / Ant: T2FD / My SW blog: http://radiodxsw.blogspot.it/ dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** INDIA [non]. UZBEKISTAN. Frequency changes of TWR India in various Indian langs: 0030-0130 NF 12025 TAC 100 kW / 131 deg, ex 11965 Bengali/Hindi/Nepali 1315-1615 NF 11725 TAC 100 kW / 131 deg, ex 11930 Dorgi/Hindi/Punjabi (DX Re Mix News, Bulgaria, 8 May via DXLD) ** INDONESIA. RRI Palangkaraya, 3325 kHz, nice signal 7 May 1256 with man & woman ending phone talk, "Er Er Ee" jingle, a couple of promo announcements or ads, "Radio Republik Indonesia" ID, then pop tunes. At 1306, switched to what sounded like intro for next program - man talking, including Radio Republik Indonesia ID, with gamelan music in background, then talk by woman (Bruce Portzer, Seattle WA, May 7, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** INDONESIA. RRI Ternate http://rri.jpn.org/ May 6: 3345 kHz RRI-Ternate (Tentative logging): -1100-1500* on May 6 with weak. Love Ambon at 1459 to 1500* with YL closing announcement. Since December 23, 2011. Atsunori Ishida Hi Glenn, I was not sure it was Ternate. Had it as UNID. UNIDENTIFIED. 3344.91, 1212-1331, May 6. Asian language; unable to confirm in Bahasa Indonesia; talking till 1301, when singing jingle; into program of pop songs with YL DJ with what seemed like requests; poor; best about my local sunrise of 1305. Could not make out any ID, so still needs more work! Clearly was not // for the Jakarta News relay heard on 3325 RRI Palangkaraya, 3995 RRI Kendari, 4869.96 RRI Wamena and 9680 RRI Jakarta from 1212 tune in to 1224 when they played "Bagimu Negeri". RRI Fak Fak (4789.98) off the air today. MP3 audio at https://www.box.com/s/cf19899cf5de9d20788f with 0:17-0:33 being the jingle. With Atsunori Ishida (Japan) hearing Love Ambon at 1459, then it must indeed be RRI Ternate. I had a hard time with the language, which almost sounded Bahasa Malaysia to me, as it was weak, plus the fact the last time I heard Ternate they were on 3344.97 and also the fact they did not carry the Jakarta News relay made me hesitate to ID it. Now the question is, if RRI Ternate is still broadcasting their one hour "Bali International English Club" program in English and what day is it on? In the past was heard from 1300 to 1400 on Thursday, but seemed to change to Sunday. Clearly was not in English this Sunday. Website at http://www.rriternate.co.id/ May 7 not on the air from tune in at 1204 and still off at 1248 check. Just a one day only reactivation? (Ron Howard, Asilomar State Beach, CA, Etón E1, dxldyg via WORLD OF RADIO 1616, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** INDONESIA. 4789.98, RRI Fak Fak. April 30: Off the air. May 1: 1214-1228: Jakarta news relay followed by national song “Bagimu Negeri” (For You Our Country); // 3325 - RRI Palangkaraya, 3995 – RRI Kendari, 4869.96 - RRI Wamena and 9680 - RRI Jakarta. At 1237 and 1242 again heard rooster crowing with pop song; QRM from CODAR. May 2: 1221-1228: Jakarta news relay followed by national song “Bagimu Negeri” (For You Our Country); // 4869.96 - RRI Wamena and 9680 - RRI Jakarta. RRI Palangkaraya (3325) not on the air during this time period; usual CODAR QRM. May 3: Off the air (Ron Howard, Asilomar State Beach, CA, Etón E1, dxldyg via WORLD OF RADIO 1616, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** INTERNATIONAL VACUUM. [Re 12-18:] 19.2E analogue signals, Astra: Just a few words about this story: The 3 AM CET deadline appeared in an earlier paper and referred to the complete closure of the transponders that was originally intended. But later the plans have changed and on all transponders not immediately reused for digital signals the former analogue uplinks will stay on air during May, carrying this slide: http://www.analog-freak.de/Fotogalerie/albums/Astra-Analogabschaltung/hr_2012_04_30_00_30_19.jpg Some broadcasters did the ingest by way of an ordinary screenshot, revealing that they still use Windows XP: http://s14.directupload.net/images/120430/ow69ckcg.jpg Hessischer Rundfunk replaced its program video already shortly after midnight by this slide, others did so at some point (often hours) after 3 AM. Usually TV program audio and radio services on subcarriers continued for hours until most or all audio subcarriers (also the ones used for the ADR system that carried 192 kbps digital signals) had been removed. Where the main audio subcarriers remained they went to either silence or 1 kHz tone. An exception was Eurosport which, as a non-German service, kept transmitting its programming throughout the whole of April 30, i.e. for another day. Thus Eurosport was not only one of the first analogue services on 19.2 deg. East but also the very last one, staying there for almost 24 years I think. An indeed no FTA digital signal carries its English commentary, which hereby is lost without a digital replacement. On the German side the freed-up capacity is now being used to carry most TV services from the public broadcasters in HD (720p). But in many cases these HD feeds just contain scaled SD video: http://oi49.tinypic.com/23wqx39.jpg (at least they provide the full 1:1.33 image in pillarbox mode, but a HD telecine would no doubt have made more of the 35 mm original) http://oi46.tinypic.com/687orc.jpg (the native HD logo makes the SD content look literally blurry) http://oi45.tinypic.com/34jadsj.jpg (the same, also demonstrating an approach to fill TV airtime cheaply: with radio shows. At least it features the classic radio mic) http://oi47.tinypic.com/2crqz9y.jpg (better but also just scaled 576i video, and also radio-related; the On3 radio programming was for some time also carried on mediumwave if that brand rings a bell) RBB (Berlin/Potsdam) and MDR (Leipzig) do without such HD fake service at all and still provide just their SD feeds for the time being, until having spend the money on replacing their studio equipment. On this occasion the HD encoding had been upgraded according to the latest changes made to the DVB-S2 standard, causing problems in many receivers. This sheds a glaring light at the quality of the boxes and their firmware thrown out on the market nowadays, but on the other hand also some broadcasting engineers have a critical opinion about this never-ceasing fumbling with broadcasting standards, noting that things have reached a point where they can hardly be handled anymore. Various related material should have appeared on Youtube. (Kai Ludwig, Germany, May 8, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** IRAN [non]. See LITHUANIA ** IRELAND. RTE Penalized --- RTE, the Irish public broadcaster, was heavily criticized and fined €200.000 by the media regulator, the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, as a consequence of false allegations of sex abuse against an Irish missionary priest who worked in East Africa. The offending broadcast was carried on the RTE PrimeTime Investigates program “Mission to Prey.” As I understand it, it is the biggest libel-related penalty in Irish broadcasting history. RTE has conceded that the allegations were false. Some key personnel have either taken early retirement or resigned. It has also intensified training and revised journalism codes within the organization. The BAI Report: http://t.co/emO3h7XN published today. The BAI investigation was headed by Anna Carragher, a former Controller of BBC Northern Ireland (Dr Derek Lynch, Ireland May 4, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ISRAEL. 6973, Galei Zahal, 0036-0100, Euro-pop and US pop music. Weak in noisy conditions. Much better on // 15850. May 6 (Brian Alexander, PA, DX Listening Digest) ** ISRAEL. Frequency change of Radio Galei Zahal in Hebrew: 0000-2400 NF 15850 AM good signal, ex 15785 AM/USB; // 6973 weak but readable (DX Re Mix News, Bulgaria, 8 May via DXLD) ** ITALY. [Re 12-18]: RIATTIVATA CHALLENGER RADIO 1368 kHz Ciao! Tornata Challenger Radio su 1368! V. Good qui a Bologna con autoradio Sony 6000 CD. Segnale 5/5 ore 0845 programma jazz mx ID, annunciano anche 1566. Ciao (Stefano Valianti, May 5 via Dario Monferini, playdx yg via DXLD) Challenger Radio di nuovo in onda oggi con potente segnale qui a Bologna su 1368 kHz. Annuncia anche 1566 kHz in DRM. 73, (Stefano Valianti, 1406 UT May 5, bclnews.it yg via DXLD) Challenger Radio on 1368 noted back to air today. Powerful signal in Bologna. Announces also 1566 kHz in DRM mode. 73, (Stefano Valianti, 1532 UT May 5, BDXC-UK yg via DXLD) Challenger Radio on 1368 kHz AM is quite strong here in Germany (S=8) at 1820 UTC with a live program in Italian presumed from XXX A.I.R. Meeting Torino. Also music. On 5000 kHz I have just a carrier. Nothing on 1566 kHz. 73 (Harald Kuhl, May 5, BDXC-UK yg via DXLD) Da Challenger mi dicono che la riaccensione di ieri era temporanea, legata ad un evento commemorativo. Potenza dichiarata 500W (con l'Harris d'emergenza). Contano di riaccendere quando verrà depositata la sentenza di dissequestro. Per le QSL richiedono molta pazienza in quanto devono smaltire la "coda". Ciao (Matteo Cremo, bclnews.it yg via DXLD) Solo una riattivazione temporanea, nulla di definitivo ancora (Roberto Scalgione, Sicilia, ibid.) ** ITALY. 5000 kHz - A special Italian station with a loop- announcement in Italian on a live transmission from the A.I.R. SWL association convention on Saturday, May 5. Heard on May 4, 2012 at 0350 UT (Karel Honzik, CZECHIA, HCDX via DXLD) So was it the same transmitter as used for the IBF tribute, and is that still on the air elsewhen? (gh, DXLD) This should be the same transmitter relaying the old IBF call loop. http://www.southgatearc.org/news/november2011/ibf_commemorative_station.htm 73 (Harald Kuhl, Germany, BDXC-UK yg via DXLD) Italian DX Meeting this Weekend in Turin and on mw/sw XXX A.I.R.Meeting Torino 5-6 maggio 2012 http://www.air-radio.it/torino2012/index.html According to Claudio Re, seemingly there will be some special transmissions on 1368 kHz AM and on 5000 kHz AM: [quote] "Note a margine Grazie a Roberto Borri I1YRB ed alla sua nutrita squadra del CSP e' stato effettuato il collegamento ad alta velocita' tra la sala della conferenza all' Hotel Diplomatic di Torino e la "nuvola" Internet . Chiunque voglia provare il collegamento , basta che acceda a questo indirizzo: http://www.csp.it/airmeeting/ Apparira' una pagina con uno schermo, dopo alcuni secondi si sentira' una musica di sottofondo e degli annunci. Entro breve il tutto sara' in onda anche a 5000 kHz da Torre Bert in AM. Radio e TV Challenger, grazie a Maurizio Anselmo IZ3GCI, ritrasmetteranno l'evento in audio Onda Media 1368 kHz ed in audio- video sul transponder satellitare di Hot Bird : Hot-Bird-13 Est TXP -133 Fo:-11.179,00 GHz Pol Horizontale Su SKY- Italia:- Ch.833 , 891 , 922 IDENT: Challenger, Challenger T-1, Challenger T-2. Radio Star, grazie al socio Emanuele Pelicioli, ritrasmettera' l'evento in DVB-T tramite: Radio Star, canali LCN sul digitale terrestre in Lombardia, Piemonte e parte dell'Emilia 678 e 790. In streaming attraverso il sito: http://www.videostartv.eu http://www.videostartv.it -- Claudio Re I1RFQ" [unquote] 73 (via Harald Kuhl, May 5, MWCircle yg via DXLD) Is Radio Challenger still on air? I know it's weird I for one should be asking, but it's extremely difficult for me to check from central Milan due to heavy noise. What I know is, several of the experimental local AM stations reported in the past months received official warnings from the MSE's (Ministry for the economical development) office policing the AM/FM broadcasting spectrum and promptly went off the air. Occupying the 5 MHz frequency for this, leaves me baffled. It's a channel conventionally reserved for TS stations. A shortwave listeners association should look for different ways if it want to rebroadcast its annual convention, other than leveraging on the official connections of one of its managers, who also happens to act as a chief engineer for a major FM religious network. Why not renting some air time from a SW broadcasting broker such as the IRSS, for instance? 73s (Andy Lawendel, Italy, May 5, ibid.) Andrea, would they announce a transmission on Radio Challenger if the station is no longer on the air? Concerning the operation on 5000 kHz I am not sure about the status. Except for the test transmissions of "IBF", the channel is no longer used in Europe for time pips. So, why not use it for such a one time special transmission, if they have the licence? For DXers it is certainly more interesting than just buying airtime somewhere. Recently Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD) had special cw operations on its RTTY longwave weather channel, commemorating the Titanic. On special occasions things like that are possible. Other examples oft the past are Radio Gambia and Radio St. Helena on (utility) shortwave frequencies in connection with a DX contest. Or "Radio EDXC" in Denmark many years ago ;-) 73 (Harald Kuhl, ibid.) Challenger Radio on 1368 noted back to air today. Powerful signal in Bologna. Announces also 1566 kHz in DRM mode. 73, (Stefano Valianti, 1403 UT May 5, ibid.) Oh, yes, they would certainly do, we're not talking about religion or anything seemingly engaging. But apparently - as Stefano reports - the transmitter was conveniently put back on the air, good for those who can tune into it. Re 5 MHz, AFAIK they have an official experimental license for a frequency normally not devoted to broadcast activities. In fact, they're not using any ham band frequencies. We are talking about shortwave listeners enthusiasts; I would take it as perfectly normal a transmission on "shortwave broadcast" frequencies. Like 1368 (Andy Lawendel, ibid.) Challenger Radio 1368 kHz AM live Challenger Radio on 1368 kHz AM is quite strong here in Germany (S=8) at 1820 UT with a live program in Italian presumed from XXX A.I.R. Meeting Torino. Also music. On 5000 kHz I have just a carrier. Nothing on 1566 kHz. 73 (Harald Kuhl, May 5, ibid.) ** ITALY [non]. 15190, IRRS via Romania, 1510-1515*, May 4 (Friday). In English; seemed to be the Friday only “Arab Woman Today” program with YL discussing what the Qur’an says about women; "is recorded and edited at the TWR studio in Jordan” per http://www.awtministries.com/english/history.php 1514: IRRS ID and gave address in Milan, Italy to write to for QSL card; heard with a het; no sign of Radio Africa at this time, but earlier about 1415 seemed to be Tony Alamo far underneath IRRS (Ron Howard, Asilomar State Beach, CA, Etón E1, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** JAPAN [and non]. 6080 Spanish via Bonaire, and 6110 English via Sackville, UT Monday May 7 at 0515, NHK World Radio Japan is again running parallel programming: same theme music and ``Easy Japanese`` lesson, both featuring main character ``Kwan`` (?) from Vietnam. Spanish also audible on 6250, leapfrog over Bonaire Dutch 6165. 24 hours earlier, 6080 must have been a mess with Sackville also on there by mistake; see CANADA, CHINA 11815, May 7 at 1247, nice M&W duet in German, sounds like a lament, then Japanese announcement from NHK. Could it be a tip o` the helmet to former ally Nazi Germany? As RA `Today in History` had just reminded us, this is V-E Day (or May 8, or May 9, depending). Meanwhile, a Basque undercurrent from Costa Rica (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** KOREA NORTH. 13760, May 3 at 2056, open carrier, fair signal, 2100 VOK opening in English. This one is 325 degrees to Europe, way offbeam here by close to 90 degrees (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** KOREA NORTH [non]. 5985, Shiokaze/Sea Breeze via Yamata, 1418- 1430*, May 4 (Friday). Normally would be in English on Friday, but not so today; was all in Japanese; 1425 the usual announcement (in Japanese) about “This is a message from the Japanese government” and mentioning 9000 kHz., which is a veiled reference to Nippon no Kaze and Furusato no Kaze; no jamming; fair in LSB; scheduled *1330 to 1430* (Ron Howard, Asilomar State Beach, CA, Etón E1, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** KOREA NORTH [non]. Sabato 5 maggio 2012: Segnale (Signal) IN = Insufficiente (Poor) / SF = Sufficiente (Fair) BN = Buono (Good) / MB = Molto Buono (Very Good) 1207 - 15720 R. FREE CHOSUN in Coreano. SF-IN 1209 - 15645 FREE N. KOREA R. in Coreano. SF-IN (Luca Botto Fiora, G.C. 09E13 - 44N21, Rapallo (Genova) - Italia, playdx yg via DXLD) ** KOREA NORTH [non]. 6348, KOREA (ROK). Echo of Hope, Hwaseong, 1137- 1141. Weak signal with talk in Korean by a woman heard occasionally breaching the jammer. Also heard on 6003, a bit weaker, but with more effective jamming. 5/8/2012 6550, KOREA (ROK), Korean MND Radio, Jong An (?), 1007-1011. Talk in Korean by a rather excited woman. Very weak signal with only a little fading. 5/8/2012 6600, KOREA (ROK), Voice of the People, Kyonggi-do, 0910-1001. Just a hint of audio beneath the jammer at 0910. Improving by 0958, when a man talking in Korean was heard. Music at 1000 with announcements by a man. Talk by a woman at 1001. Poor signal, losing to the jammer most of the time. Parallel heard on 6518 with just a few words making it through. 5/8/2012 (Jim Evans, Germantown, TN, RX-340, IC-R75, Eavesdropper Dipole, Random Wire (90'), Cumbre DX via DXLD) ** KOREA NORTH [and non]. New modes of DXing in Korea --- Here in Korea, we've had some issues with jamming. But instead of finding it a mere nuisance (a major one actually!), you can actually DX it!! North Korea has turned on some jamming equipment, as it has in the past few years, on its impressively massive communications tower on the south end of downtown Kaesong (which also broadcasts my local 92.5 station), a border city 25 miles from Seoul, a city of 10 million, and less than ten miles outside Seoul's northern suburbs. The equipment is jamming incoming commercial planes in Seoul as well as GPS in Seoul and the north suburbs. Probably 75% of all cars in this country have GPS devices, which are quite high-tech compared to those back home and are relied on for travel basically anywhere and everywhere. So the next time our GPS tells us to turn right in 100 meters and takes us over the concrete barrier of the elevated bridge and into the river, we can count it as a DX catch and even know the location of the tower that is confusing our GPS! Or else it'll just say "No signal." In addition, the tower, which has a purpose of jamming South Korean cellphone signals north of the border (they have their own cellphone company), is the source of cellphone signals going dead south of the border and many phones are reading the wrong times as well. A simple tropo opening locally can really mess with the phones of millions of people on this side of the border. But when you see a wrong time on your phone, you know where your signal is coming from. Hey, if one band is too crowded to DX, find something else to DX! (Chris Kadlec, Songtan, Korea, May 4, WTFDA via dXLD ** KOREA SOUTH [and non]. Asian top of hour IDs (including 5 example clips) When I leave Korea in less than two weeks, I'll have recorded a total of about 110-120 TOH IDs, one from each station I receive at my DXing location (that's about 150 trips up the hill across the street, given stations decided to either not ID, give partial IDs, or fade out just before IDs about 40 times total, as well as 20 TOH IDs which I had to hike 30+ minutes to the top of my local mountain, twiddling my thumbs for 59 minutes between IDs). If there are any sites that like to collect such IDs and would like some foreign IDs, lemme know. The IDs include all my South Korean and North Korean locals, plus a few of the usual Chinese stations. Either way, I'll be posting them all on my bandscan page for my Korean location in the coming month or so, so they'll be free for all to hear and enjoy. Many are dull and straightforward government-required info, but there are some with jingles and things like that. A little preview of top of hour IDs at my location, including different varities of them -- #1) Typical South Korean TOH ID on Korean-language stations: 102.9 TBN Gyotong Daejeon (57 miles): http://www.beaglebass.com/toh/102_9_HLDT_TOH.mp3 "FM 102.9 MHz. This is TBN Daejeon Traffic Broadcasting. HLDT". Following the TOH tones, "This is TBN 3pm News" #2) Typical South Korean TOH ID on English-language stations: 101.3 TBS eFM Seoul (34 miles): http://www.beaglebass.com/toh/101_3_HLSW_TOH.mp3 #3) Typical South Korean TOH sequence on US Armed Forces Network stations (no TOH IDs really -- the start of AP Radio News is the top of the hour -- Osan is running "Readiness Radio," a special temporary format during week-long Pacific Forces exercises; otherwise it's just plain "AFN Osan The Eagle"): 88.5 AFN Osan (2 miles): http://www.beaglebass.com/toh/88_5_AFN_Osan_TOH.mp3 #4) Typical North Korean sign-on sequence (partial, because it's 10 minutes long, but it's the only local Pyongyang station in which the audio can be clearly heard without overmodulation distortion, but while that is fixed... there is the background noise/hum instead! The station is in solid on seek during this recording, so yes, the quality really is that poor): 92.5 Pyongyang FM Kaesong (68 miles): http://www.beaglebass.com/toh/92_5_Kaesong_TOH.mp3 At 2:02: "This is Pyongyang FM Broadcasting" & "This is 92.5, 103.7, 105.2 MHz" #5) Typical Chinese TOH ID for Shandong province: 100.1 Shandong Economic Channel, Kunyu Mtn. (292 miles): http://www.beaglebass.com/toh/100_1_Kunyushan_TOH.mp3 ID jingle at 0:29: "Shandong guangbo jingji pindao" -- they've actually since changed this ID, sadly. This station has also had some pretty bad overmodulation issues at times, almost rivaling North Korea. That's all for TOH IDs from Asia for the moment. Because I'm leaving Asia soon, if anyone has personal requests of anything radio-related you'd like to hear before then, please do send them along! I noticed that tophour.com isn't accepting contributions any longer (Chris Kadlec, Songtan, Korea, 8 May, WTFDA via DXLD) That's not strictly true, even if the website says so. :) We're quietly accepting a limited number of outside contributions, depending on the availability of editors' time to volunteer to put them on the site. There's still quite a backlog to be cleared. I had hoped to have more time this year to devote to a more structured relaunch of that site, but life (Lisa's hospitalizations and me losing my day job with Radio Journal/100000watts) seems to keep getting in the way somehow... s (chief cook and bottlewasher, Tophour.com) (Scott Fybush, NY, ibid.) ** KURDISTAN [non]. via UKRAINE. 11530, Denge Mezopotamya, *0300-0330, sign on with Kurdistan National Anthem. Indigenous music at 0304. Kurdish talk. Poor to fair in noisy conditions. May 6 (Brian Alexander, PA, DX Listening Digest) ** KUWAIT. 15540, May 3 at 2032, R. Kuwait poor-fair with rock; 17550 Arabic about equal signal but more flutter (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 13650, R. Kuwait, fair-good at 1847 with modern Arabic songs; // 15540. 73 (Jim Ronda, Tulsa OK, May 6, WORLD OF RADIO 1616, DX LISTENING DIGEST) O o, they must have switched 15540 back from English to the Arabic service temporarily again (gh, DXLD) We`re glad that unlike all its Arab neighbors, R. Kuwait still broadcasts to us on SW in English, and Arabic, but --- R. Kuwait is mixed up worse than usual May 8, after occasionally recently putting the Arabic service on 15540 instead of English. Tuning in at 2000, I find 15540 is totally missing (I *think* it was there earlier today as I tuned around without logging). But 17550 is now on with good signal, and it`s the English service instead of Arabic! Never any announcements, but the usual segués of Western mostly classic rock as normally heard this hour on 15540. First song at 2001, however is more country. Further notes on the music: 2007, sounds like Nirvana, hardly appropriate druggy stuff for good Moslems; but then we`re often surprised by content of their Western music. Do they know what they are playing, what the lyrix really say? 2011, ``Sweet Dreams``, Annie Lenox & Eurythmix, but seems like a different version than usually heard, with rhythm-only cadenzas 2014, Rod-Stewart-ish? 2019, ``Touch Me When We`re Dancing``, Karen & the Carpenters. Oooh, hot stuff for the sexually pious 2028 I note that 15540 is still off; at 2029, I note that 13650 is still on, in Arabic. This normally switches to 17550 at 2000. 13650 is only fair and fluttery, W&M in Arabic. Back to 17550: 2029, ``Too Many Mornings``(?), C&W or country-rock 2035, is it Jerry Lee Lewis, or Little Richard? 2038, maybe Janet Jaxon 2041, something else. Most of these are ~3-minute trax 2048, ID as R. Kuwait with frequencies 963, 93.3, 11990 [sic], News in Brief coming up shortly, bit more music 2050-2053, News in Brief, back to music 2058, usual sign-off in English with frequencies again, and also imaginary broadcast at 0500-0800 on 15110; national anthem by military band 2100, accurate 5+1 timesignal, ID in Arabic, news fanfare and start news, but cut 17550 off at 2101; now, 13650 is also off an hour late (tho Aoki lists it until 2100) 2103, 17550 comes back on as they must have realized their mistakes; is it weaker now? Arabic continues, still audible at 2359, more fluttery, 0000 goes quiet, no timesignal, but then a bit more music until 0002* May 9 (Glenn Hauser, OK, WORLD OF RADIO 1616, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** LAOS. 6130, Lao National Radio, Vientiane. In DXLD 12-07 (Feb 15) I commented on the fact that LNR had “dropped their interesting 1415 to 1430 segments. In past years I could hear English/Laotian language lessons on Mon. Tue. and sometimes Fri. and Sat.; with French on Wed. and Thurs.”, which had been heard after their 15 minutes of news in Laotian starting at 1400. May 5 from 1411 to 1422 tentatively thought I was hearing English, but the adjacent QRM was just too strong to be positive. May 7 from 1416 to 1430, QRM not too bad and definitely heard the news in English; no English after 1430; similar news format as heard years ago via their external service on 7145, which has long been silent. I suspect they now are broadcasting the external service news from 1400 to 1430 here on 6130, but this needs to be confirmed. Broadcast daily? Reception depends entirely on how much adjacent QRM there is at any given moment! (Ron Howard, Asilomar State Beach, CA, Etón E1, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) May 8, English segment 1401 to 1430; heard a few bits and pieces of the intro ID; sounded very much like their canned external service ID: "This is the Lao National Radio, broadcasting from Vientiane, the [Lao?] Democratic Republic. Our English language is broadcast twice daily at 1300 hours and 2030 hours local time, which is 7 hours ahead of GMT. It is transmitted on a frequency of 97.25 MHz on FM”; MP3 recording of a 2009 ID posted to https://www.box.com/s/8bbc39230928f2c84327 Still need to confirm if the ID on 6130 is in fact identical to this or not; news items; fairly heavy adjacent QRM. Needs improved conditions to get better details! (Ron Howard, dxldyg via WORLD OF RADIO 1616, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** LIBYA. 11600, Radio Télévision Libye - Radio Libye, 1704-1805*, lite instrumental music. French ballads. French talk. IDs. Weak in noisy conditions. May 5 (Brian Alexander, PA, DX Listening Digest) ** LITHUANIA. 5940: Paul from Vienna noted missing of IRIB relay in Europe at Sitkunai. That happened few times in past, when Persians forgot to pay transmitter renting bill. Or western politician embargo? on money transport via Moscow bank houses interrupted? IRIB Tehran En 1930-2027 5940SIT 9540KAM 9800KAM 11750SIR 11885SIR Fr 1830-1927 5940SIT 9860KAM 11865SIR 17650KAM Ge 1730-1827 5940SIT 9570KAM 11980SIR It 0630-0727 9770SIT 15480KAM 17665KAM Ru 1430-1527 9555SIT 11955KAM 13595AHW 13800SIR Sp 2030-2127 6055SIT 7355KAM 9790SIR remaining Sitkunai outlets 6165 0430 0500 27,28 SIT 100 79 700 Rus LTU NHK 9400 0100 0200 43,44 SIT 100 79 216 Uyghur LTU IBB 9635 0300 0400 29,30 SIT 100 79 216 Tatar-Bash LTU IBB 9635 0500 0600 29,30 SIT 100 79 216 Tatar-Bash LTU IBB 9875 2300 0100 4,8,9 SIT 100 310 218 LTU, Eng LTU LRT 11690 0000 0400 4,8,9 SIT 100 310 218 LTU, Eng LTU LRT We suffered by severe lightning on very hot wet air in past two weeks here in Europe. So maybe one TX unit at Sitkunai has suffered technical failure? 73 wolfy (Wolfgang Büschel, dxldyg via WORLD OF RADIO 1616, DX LISTENING DIGEST) IRIB remark re Sitkunai --- Here's a mention of a remark in the German service that went like "it appears that we will have to do without 5940 kHz", indicating that the IRIB transmissions from Sitkunai could have been terminated. ``Diesmal duerfte die Lage ernst sein. Beim Abspann wurde kurz erwaehnt "Wir(die Hoerer) werden wohl auf 5940kHz verzichten muessen" oder so aehnlich. Ich hab da nur mehr mit einem ohr zugehoert.`` 73, (gager paul, May 6, A-DX via Kai Ludwig, dxldyg via WORLD OF RADIO 1616, DXLD) ** MADAGASCAR. Frequency change for AWR in Malagasy: 1430-1530 NF 6155 MDC 050 kW / 020 deg to MDC, ex 6125, re-ex 6155/3125 (DX Re Mix News, Bulgaria, 8 May via DXLD) ** MALAYSIA. MALÁSIA, 7295, Traxx FM via RTM, Kajang, 1633-1712, 05/5, inglês, muita música pop', conversa e noticiário, às 1700, seguido da "mesma receita"; 35332 (Carlos Gonçalves, PORTUGAL, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** MALI. 9635, RTVM, *0758-0815, sign on with vernacular talk. Flute IS and opening French ID announcements at 0800. Vernacular talk at 0802. Poor in noisy conditions and weak modulation. May 4. (Brian Alexander, PA, WORLD OF RADIO 1616, DX Listening Digest) 9635. R. Mali, Kati, 1015-1214, 04/5, dialecto local, canções por crianças, cânticos; 35433 (Carlos Gonçalves, PORTUGAL, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** MARSHALL ISLANDS. See VATICAN [non] ** MAURITANIA. 7245, May 4 at 0523, IGIM is on with Arabish talk, and modulation is rather distorted, unusually. By 0536 recheck is into soporific wake-up chanting. Seldom heard this early, and I am beginning to think it`s because of the Fribbath. 7245, May 6 at 0533, IGIM is on and chanting, fair signal. 7245, May 8 at 0506, IGIM on this early, in Arabic, but poor signal, less than 7250 Vatican (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** MEXICO. 540, May 5 at 1115 UT I awaken briefly and turn on a radio here, to find a quickly echoing signal in Spanish, some kind of dramatic narration with music; furthermore there is a steady SAH of 200/minute = 3.33 Hz. I conclude it could only be the hi-power 150 kW XEWA in San Luís Potosí SLP with reverb/echo from the other lo-power 1 kW XEWA in Monterrey NL. The echo and the SAH must be very annoying in the equal-signal area somewhere between the two sites, i.e. not far outside Monterrey, and even in direxions other than SLP`s (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** MEXICO. 6185, Radio Educación, 0037+ May 8, 2012. XE folk fiddles, then yelping vocals 0044, 0048 Spanish male ID with mention of onda corta, calls, 6185 kHz 10,000 vatios de potencia into female chatter, marimbas 0100. So apparently still independent of MW 1060 at this hour (too early to confirm with Cuba dominating 1060). (Terry L Krueger, FL, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 6185, May 8 at 0123, XEPPM has good carrier but very low modulation, which combined with heavy ACI from both sides, much stronger Brasil and Bonaire, makes it unreadable. I was checking this out, since Terry Krueger, FL, tipped me he was hearing ``your Mexican`` string at 0044. RNW went off 6190 at 0127, after which I could employ USB or side-tune in AM above 6185 to diminish the Brazilian splash from 6180. Now R. Educación is playing music, but very undermodulated. At 0136 I can make out a mention of ``la huasteca potosina``, but too poor to keep trying to listen. I asked Terry if he didn`t find XEPPM very undermodulated, and he replied: ``Mod was excellent here but somewhat squished by 6190 up just before 0100.`` Next check at 0457, to find a fast SAH on 6185, co-channel QRM between one station talking and the other music: could it still be Vatican this late? I make out a bit of Spanish: ``se acabó . . . vamos`` (it`s over, let`s go); could that be an informal sign-off? Blasted away by CRI Sackville 6190 which cut on about 10 sex before 0500; unfortunately not on wrong frequency 6080 today. And shortly after that, no carrier on 6185 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Your XE Dos --- 6185 fading up by 2230 today and now very strong and clear 2305 with marimba toonces (Terry Krueger, Clearwater FL, May 8, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** MEXICO. The sporadic-E analog TV DX opening of May 2 petered out around 1530 UT as in previous report, but revived a bit later: 1718 on channel 2, CCI video reappears 1757 on 4, 10 kHz CCI from ~SW, toons on one, novela on other 1808 on 4, toons, bug in UR is mostly off-screen, but looks more like net-7 or Galavisión than net-5, the prime purveyor of toons 1816 on 6, video MUF briefly spikes up to here 1830 on 4, comedy show with grown men dressed up like kids with silly hats. Grown woman has her own silly hat. 1843 on 4, CCI including a net-5 bug UR 1855 on 2, same kidshow as on 4 above Lots of looks at channel 2 for Es TVDX May 3, but only saw a bit of video around 2224 UT; meanwhile, there was much 6m activity on the Sherlock map, only over the SE quadrant of the USA, not reaching us. I rotated the antenna and what little I was getting seemed to be from the south, as usual. Sporadic-E analog TV DX observations, always in UT, May 5: 1915 on ch 2, a bit of Spanish from the south as MUF peaks up here 2234 on 2, analog video from algo; 2249 it`s net-7, probably Tampico 2300 on 2, large FOX 2 ID makes it thru the CCI while audio is Spanish. Fox 2 = XHRIO Matamoros, Tamaulipas 2301 on 4, algo here as MUF peaks 2308 on 2, net 7 movie or film drama, dubbed 2308 on 4, talk/game show with YL host; REGALO 500.00 at bottom (not sure of the decimal point placement); 2319 I think I see an Azteca 13 bug on this at UR, partly off-screen UT May 6: 0013 on 6, drama in Spanish, from west, having noted that`s the skip area on 6m map now across southwest quadrant of USA. Fits for Net-5 which is now on XETV Tijuana, per W9WI.com listing --- When last seen last year, it was still in English with CW network. Wikipedia says: ``XETV (analog channel 6 and digital channel 23, branded as San Diego 6) is a television station licensed to Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico, serving as the affiliate of the CW Television Network for the San Diego, California area across the international border in the United States and of the Spanish-language Canal 5 network for the Tijuana area. As of March 5, 2012, XETV broadcasts The CW and English- language programs on its primary digital channel (6.1) and Televisa's Canal 5 network on both its analog signal and digital subchannel 6.2`` {Did net-5 not have a fulltime channel in Tijuana before? Or ex-it?} 0019 on 3, almost zero-beat video CCI, typical situation for close- spaced XHTJB Tijuana, and XHBC Mexicali, the latter usually dominant. 0023 commercial on ch 6 is also audible on 87.75 FM 0024 on 90.3, the only FM Es I can find, commercial in English for Rent-a-Wheel, http://www.rentawheel.com with CCI from nearby OK on 90.3, and ACI from stronger new nearby 90.5. Website shows R-A-W does have a location in south OKC, but also lots in southern California including Chula Vista. They`d better not be running full commercials this side of the border on the non-commercial band! Presumably XHITZ Tijuana 90.3 0037 on 3, fútbol, zero CCI as above, one or the other 0045 on 5, Azteca-13 net news magazine, interviews, still from west, no doubt XHAQ Mexicali. 0055, MUF down to somethings on 4 and 2 0102 on 2, soccer, now peaking more to the SW than WSW or W 0105 on 4, rock music performance, bug in UR, maybe net-5 0119 on 4, something has a better video signal than ch 2 at the moment 0153 on 2, still something on 2 0225 on 2, Spanish from WSW, large word CASTING on screen A bit of sporadic-E analog TV DX reaching channel 2, May 6: 1902 UT, some video fades in from south; 1909 it`s fútbol; 1915 a movie, maybe net-5; brief re-appearances during rest of hour (Glenn Hauser, Enid OK, WORLD OF RADIO 1616, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** MEXICO. SURGE RADIO NUEVA ALIANZA [webcast only] MÉXICO, DF., 6 de mayo de 2012.- Igual que Martin Luther King, el 28 de agosto de 1963, frente al monumento a Abraham Lincoln en Washington, DC, y ante 200 mil personas, abrió su corazón y expresó con fuerza: “¡Hoy tengo un sueño! Sueño que algún día los valles serán cumbres, y las colinas y montañas serán llanos, los sitios más escarpados serán nivelados y los torcidos serán enderezados, y la gloria de Dios será revelada, y se unirá todo el género humano”, según un comunicado de prensa de Nueva Alianza. Esa unión que Luther King buscaba era de igualdad de raza y pensamiento, de mentes libres e ideologías propositivas, de hermandad pero también de lealtad. Igual que él, Nueva Alianza - en busca de un espacio neutral, puro, sincero, amistoso, participativo - abre una oportunidad a los mexicanos, jóvenes y mayores, que busquen dónde ser escuchados, el lugar donde todos tengamos algo que decir y nada se quede en la oscuridad de la duda. Surge la radio de Nueva Alianza como un ejemplo de libertad y confianza, con ideas frescas y pensamientos maduros. Como una aportación a la comunicación política, a los intereses de la ciudadanía, a la unión de todos. Será una emisión transmitida a través de la Internet, por medio de su portal http://www.nueva-alianza.org.mx y dará a los cibernautas un espacio opuesto al acotamiento político, sin discriminaciones de género o de ideologías. Inicia este domingo 6 de mayo a las 18:00 horas con información y análisis que te dejará impactado, un par de horas antes del debate en el que participará nuestro candidato Gabriel Quadri de la Torre, evento que te invitamos a escuchar por este medio para que seas testigo de la historia política de México, las palabras de cada uno de los participantes habrán de influir en la opinión que ahora tienes de ellos. Posterior al debate, habrá una mesa de análisis donde se conjugará juventud y experiencia. Donde podrás reconocer varias voces de tus compañeros y amigos, y donde podrás participar a través de preguntas o comentarios por medio del twiter: @radio_NA Este esfuerzo se verá reflejado a través de los jóvenes productores Marco Miranda y Alejandro Pérez, quienes buscan dar frescura, novedad y libertad a la radio en México. Por medio de Cuadrante Informativo te tendrán al tanto de las noticias más relevantes. Asimismo, habrá cultura, música, entretenimiento y todo aquello que, con palabras, te aporte algo para hacerte reflexionar. Te invitamos a ser parte de la historia, a que participes, a que escuches y opines, a poner tu granito de arena en la construcción de esta nueva plataforma de ideologías, de política, de libertad, de democracia y de esperanza. Todo esfuerzo por unir a México bien vale la pena. ¡Únete, escucha y opina! FUENTE: http://www.quadratin.com.mx/Noticias/Sucesos/Surge-Radio-Nueva-Alianza Sitio Web: http://www.nueva-alianza.org.mx/ ((( ESCUCHAR))) http://www.nueva-alianza.org.mx/radio.aspx (Via @yimbergaviria, noticiasdx yg via DXLD) ** MYANMAR. 7110, Thazin Radio, 1430-1436, May 3. In English; theme music; usual recorded intro; pop songs; covered with white noise jamming at 1436; poor (Ron Howard, Asilomar State Beach, CA, Etón E1, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** NETHERLANDS [non]. 6190, May 8 at 0122 as I am checking on XEPPM 6185, note that RNW via Bonaire is in English instead of Dutch. Soon obvious that it`s the very same interview I ran across weeks ago between RNW YL in Dutch, and a Dutch OM second-generation immigrant to New Zealand, who understands her but replies in English. I guess with RNW Dutch service about to self-destruct, they are just re-running old stuff; sad (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) On May 10/11 Radio Netherlands World Service in Dutch will have a special marathon radio broadcast. Here additional frequencies May 10 2000-2400 on 5955 WER 500 kW / 210 deg to Eu/Af 2000-2400 on 9895 NAU 500 kW / 220 deg to SWEu 2130-2400 on 6020 MDC 250 kW / 255 deg to SoAf May 11 0000-0200 on 6020 MDC 250 kW / 255 deg to SoAf 0000-0500 on 5955 WER 500 kW / 210 deg to Eu/Af 0000-0500 on 9895 NAU 500 kW / 220 deg to SWEu 0400-2000 on 9895 NAU 500 kW / 125 deg to N/ME 0600-1400 on 21485 MDC 250 kW / 045 deg to SoAs 0600-1400 on 21710 MDC 250 kW / 310 deg to NCAf 0800-1500 on 9895 NAU 500 kW / 220 deg to SWEu 0900-1500 on 13700 WER 500 kW / 120 deg to N/ME 0900-1500 on 13700 WER 500 kW / 240 deg to NoAf 1000-1500 on 5955 WER 500 kW / 210 deg to Eu/Af 1200-2000 on 21720 BON 250 kW / 090 deg to WCAf 1300-2000 on 21555 BON 250 kW / 170 deg to SoAm 1300-2000 on 21750 BON 250 kW / 050 deg to NoAf 1600-1700 on 13700 WER 500 kW / 120 deg to N/ME 1600-1700 on 13700 WER 500 kW / 240 deg to NoAf 1700-2000 on 5955 WER 500 kW / 210 deg to Eu/Af 1700-2000 on 9895 NAU 500 kW / 220 deg to SWEu 1900-2000 on 6020 MDC 250 kW / 255 deg to SoAf (DX Re Mix News, Bulgaria, 8 May via WORLD OF RADIO 1616, DXLD) Note the 21 MHz BONAIRE frequencies all day Friday, good for us (gh) ** NEWFOUNDLAND. Hi all! Anyone noticed that Gander Radio weather is on 10050 instead of the usual 10051 USB? I almost thought my radio was off frequency so quickly checked WWV and it was fine; anyone know if this is en error or a permanent change? I've done a small video that will be online later on so check my youtube channel and you'll see (Gilles Letourneau, Montreal, Canada, http://www.youtube.com/tecmtl 2018 UT May 8, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** NEWFOUNDLAND. April was a rather good month for QSL's: CANADA (NEWFOUNDLAND) - CKZN 6160 send FD QSL folder, sticker, and 2008-9 CBC Radio One station list in 153 days for postal report, unreadable v/s (Bruce Portzer, Seattle, WA, May 6, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** NICARAGUA [and non?]. Pescador Preacher --- 8989-USB, after many unsuccessful tries on Saturday evenings, finally heard the Pescador Preacher from tune in at 0005 with vigorous sermon in Spanish, lots of hallelujahs and mentions of Santiago. At 0013 into some two-way communications with his flock but by 0016 or so, not much more traffic. About 0024 the preacher seemingly facilitated a telephone link up between one of the fisherman and someone ashore. For any who may not have followed Bob Wilkner’s and other reports on this, it seemingly is a Nicaraguan evangelical preacher whose “flock” is fishermen in the Gulf [sic]. It would be great to know the whole story about this one. Signal was fair to good. Maybe a little iffy as to SWBC status, though an argument might be made that it could be so considered, rather than a ute. But either way a curious kind of a thing (Don Jensen, Kenosha WI, 0036 UT May 6, NASWA yg via DXLD) ** NIGER. NÍGER, 9705, A Voz do Sahel, Goudel, 2219-2235, 03/5, francês, canções africanas; 45433. 9705 idem, 1207-1250, 04/5, francês, noticiário, programa falado, música; 25432, QRM da ETH após as 1230 (Carlos Gonçalves, PORTUGAL, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** NIGERIA. NIGÉRIA, 6089.88, R. Nigéria, Kaduna, 2145-2158, 04/5, dialecto local, texto; 54444 (Carlos Gonçalves, PORTUGAL, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** NIGERIA. 15120, May 3 at 0600, VON, `News About Nigeria`, YL with humbuzz, but good signal and improving (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** NORTH AMERICA. [Pirates]. 6924.7, WFMT - Family Radio, 2255-2355, pop music by Lady Ga Ga. IDs. Dance music. Good. April 29. 6950, Radio Ronin Shortwave, 0013-0030, music by Steppenwolf, The Animals, Steve Miller Band, and Pink Floyd. ID. Fair to good. April 30. 6925v, Captain Morgan Shortwave, *0335-0405, pop music. Lone Ranger theme music. IDs. Pop music by Harry Nilsson’s “Put a Lime In The Coconut”, Wild Cherry’s “Play That Funky Music”, Bad Company’s “All Right Now”, and David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance”. Good signal. Drifting down from 6925.04 at 0335 to 6924.84 by 0405. May 6. 6925, Radio Ronin Shortwave, 0037-0132*, music by Eurythmics, Prince, ELO, CCR, Gordon Lightfoot, Joan Baez, and others. CW IDs. Voice ID at 0132 sign off. Good. May 6 (Brian Alexander, Mechanicsburg, PA, Icom IC-7600, two 100 foot longwires, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** OKLAHOMA. EXTENSION OF THE OKLAHOMA EDUCATIONAL TELEVISION AUTHORITY WINS FINAL LEGISLATIVE APPROVAL --- A bill extending the Oklahoma Educational Television Authority for two years will now go to Gov. Mary Fallin after winning final legislative approval. The station is Oklahoma's Public Broadcasting System [sic] affiliate. By Michael McNutt | Published: May 4, 2012 Oklahoma's public television system won final legislative approval Thursday to continue to exist for the next two years. Supporters of House Bill 2236 said the Oklahoma Educational Television Authority is the only source of local programming that nearly all Oklahomans can receive for free and is a terrific learning aid for children. Opponents questioned whether it's time for the state to stop subsidizing the TV system, saying corporations and individuals would increase their giving once state appropriations stopped. “In this election year our constituents would rather support and send the money to veterans instead of Big Bird,” said Rep. Mike Ritze, R- Broken Arrow. Rep. Doug Cox, R-Grove, said OETA's daylong programming of “Sesame Street” and other children's educational programs are helping youngsters learn their numbers and colors by the time they enter school. “I never thought that at 59 years old serving in the state Legislature I'd be up here debating in favor of Big Bird, but I've heard a lot of aspersions against Big Bird ... and kind of disrespected Big Bird,” he said. “And you know that's almost un-American. “Big Bird has served a purpose over the years,” Cox said. “There are a lot of kids in this state that the reason they knew how to count when they went to kindergarten or pre-K ... was because they learned those things and they learned their colors from watching Big Bird.” After more than an hour of debate, the House of Representatives voted 53-28 to pass HB 2236. It required 51 votes to pass. All 28 no votes were by Republicans, several of whom mentioned a no vote would help their conservative rating that is compiled by different groups. “Although this may be a conservative index vote,” said Rep. Gus Blackwell, R-Laverne, “all the conservatives in the Panhandle are for OETA for this reason: it's the only news we get from Oklahoma City, it's the only political news we get from Oklahoma City and many times it's the only news station that many of my constituents get from Oklahoma City. It serves a great purpose in the Panhandle area.” Rep. David Dank urged his fellow Republicans not to worry about so- called conservative ratings. “I stand here as a conservative member of this body and just because some group says I am not does not make it so,” said Dank, R-Oklahoma City. “Just because I don't think it's a good idea for members of this body to be able to walk in here with a pistol strapped to their waists doesn't make me a liberal.” HB 2236 now goes to the governor for her consideration. Original bill approved station through 2016 The vote was much closer than in March, when the House passed 77-16 the original version of the bill, which called for extending OETA to 2016. The Senate, after a committee came close to killing the measure, amended the bill to change its sunset date from 2016 to 2014. OETA this fiscal year received $3.8 million in state funding, or about 40 percent of its budget. Rep. Mike Brown, D-Tahlequah, said the state appropriation amounted to the price of a candy bar per taxpayer. Rep. Leslie Osborn, who withdrew a bill earlier this year that would have gradually stopped the state from funding OETA over the next five years, said 17 other states don't fund their public television station systems and they still are operating. “We could spend that funding on things like more foster care to save children that are dying in the foster care system,” said Osborn, R- Mustang. “When the public steps out, private steps in. “We do not have the right to procure money from citizens against their will for things that are not core services of government,” she said. “This has nothing to do with what a good service they provide.” Had HB 2236 failed, OETA programming likely would have stopped this summer and all operations would have been ended within a year, said Rep. George Faught, R-Muskogee, author of the measure. “They would have one year to dissolve the board,” he said. “That's how the sunset rules work.” “We could finish off OETA right now,” said Rep. Mike Reynolds, R- Oklahoma City. Tax credits discussed Dank criticized members for wanting to eliminate OETA and its $3.8 million funding. Legislators will appropriate about $6.6 billion for the 2013 fiscal year, which begins July 1. Several members who complained about OETA's appropriation failed to support efforts to eliminate questionable corporate tax credits, which are costing the state hundreds of millions a year, he said. “This is mind-boggling,” he said. “We have so many giveaways that are really giveaways in this state in terms of exemptions, deductions, tax credits and others that it's a disgrace to this state that we're talking about getting rid of the Oklahoma Educational — Educational — Television Authority that provides programming for our children in ‘Sesame Street' and other programs. “We've got so much waste in this state that it's a sin against the taxpayers that we don't take a look at it, but you want to get rid ... of the only outlet that we have that provides the type of educational programs that serve a purpose for all of these different age groups in the state of Oklahoma.” Rep. David Derby, R-Owasso, said more people are gaining access to the Internet and cable and satellite television systems and don't need OETA as much as earlier. But Dank disagreed, saying many rural residents don't have access to cable or satellite systems, and others, especially those on fixed incomes, may have trouble paying for those services. “There are areas in the state of Oklahoma in very secluded areas and rural areas that OETA is the only station that they can get that provides statewide news and public service programs for those areas,” Dank said. “A large number of our seniors depend on OETA for such program as Lawrence Welk and ‘Masterpiece Theatre' ... rather than those that are full of sex and crime and violence that they have on the regular network stations.” John McCarroll, OETA's executive director, said after the vote he was relieved the House approved HB 2236 and is optimistic lawmakers will fund the system appropriately. He said the agency has asked for an increase in funding in order to bring back its nightly newscasts, which ended two years ago because of budget cuts. “We would like to get that back,” McCarroll said. “We feel like we're going to be OK with our budget, but we know it's not going to be easy. It's going to be the same kind of discussion that we had down here on the floor.” Read more: http://newsok.com/extension-of-the-oklahoma-educational-television-authority-wins-final-legislative-approval/article/3672158#ixzz1twXNnWeK (via DXLD) Now if our governess has enough sense to approve it? OETA, and PBS are so much more than Big Bird and other children`s programming, but evidently that characterization is what it takes to get thru to some of the numbskulls capable of zeroing their budget (gh, DXLD) ** OKLAHOMA [and non]. The 93.3 Enid translator is now off the air, presumably to accomplish a 0.2 MHz QSY to 93.1, as previously reported. But it`s not yet on 93.1 either. May 5 at 1520 UT or so on caradio I am hearing instead Hutchinson KS, (really KHMY Pratt, still its COL), slogan as I-93-1, I thought, but really ``My 93-1``. I suppose K227AT 93.3, translating KIMY 93.9 Watonga, got tired of the CCI from the OKC market station on 93.3, KJKE Newcastle, which normally occupies the frequency without the translator atop it, as heard May 6 at 1408 with ``93-3 Jake FM`` ID, altho not as strong as other OKC stations. Transmitter site is axually S of Newcastle, i.e. west of Norman, beyond the south side of OKC proper (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** OMAN. At 15140 kHz I heard popular music with good reception with a disc jockey in English. I remembered this was Oman. I was inspired to check their transmission from 0330 on 15355 kHz. Good reception there too. We have postal ties with Oman. I will return to Oman and report to them at long last (David Crystal, Israel, Making Contact, May World DX Club Contact via DXLD) ** PAPUA NEW GUINEA. 3205, NBC Sandaun. April 30: 1308* after the “News Roundup” in English. May 3: 1306* suddenly off before the end of the “News Roundup”. 3385, NBC East New Britain continues off the air; believe it has been so for several months now (Ron Howard, Asilomar State Beach, CA, Etón E1, dxldyg via WORLD OF RADIO 1616, DX LISTENING DIGEST) A few decent signals were noted today: Radio Sandaun 3204.96 kHz, 7 May 1300 pop music across ToH, then man in Tok Pisin fair-good, mentioned Sandaun a couple of times and "(something) Broadcasting Corporation of Papua New Guinea". Also mentioned kilohertz and broadcast as though summarizing tomorrow's programs. 1303 switched to national news // 3315 already under way, followed by open carrier 1308-1315* UNID, 3275 kHz, man in what sounded like Tok Pisin 7 May 1300, fair carrier but weak modulation, probably listed Radio Southern Highlands. PAPUA NEW GUINEA, NBC Manus, 3315 kHz, woman in Tok Pisin fair 7 May 1259 then country music song across ToH. At 1302, she said a couple of words I couldn't catch, then "11 o'clock, news time" into NBC News from Port Moresby (Bruce Portzer, Seattle WA, May 7, dxldyg via WORLD OF RADIO 1616, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** PERU. 5025, Radio Quillabamba. Quillabamba, Perú. 2242-2310, 5 mayo. Compartiendo frecuencia con Rebelde, pero por momentos ganándole el canal, para mejor sintonía en USB, programación en quechua y algunos anuncios en español de Gastriplus y Sindicato único de trabajadores de ENACO (Empresa Nacional de la Coca). 5120.2, Ondas del Suroriente, Quillabamba, Perú. 2312-2334, 5 mayo retransmitiendo la señal de Radio Felicidad, emisora musical del Grupo RPP; primera información de Thomas Nilsson, Suecia, vía SWB 1744. Cada hora con anuncios locales de Quillabamba; en la noche y horas de la mañana con identificación y programación de Ondas del Suroriente. 6173.8, Radio Tawantisuyo. Cusco, Perú. 2157, 5 mayo. Pgm: un mensaje a la familia. ID: "...Radio Tawantisuyo, la voz de la expresión andina, transmite desde Cusco, Perú..." Luego de las 2200 con QRM mismo canal con CRI en portugués y luego en español. Luego de las 0000 sin interferencias por una hora (Rafael Rodríguez R., Bogotá D.C. - COLOMBIA, Winradio G303i, Dipolo 10 m, condiglist yg via DXLD) ** PHILIPPINES. 9430, May 8 at 1247, FEBC Chinese, gospel pop music, strong signal but distorted, and carrier wobbling. This problem has been going on for many months, some days worse than others. Listed as a 100 kW transmitter at Bocaue, all the way from 09 to 17 UT. Are they ever going to fix it or replace it with one of the ex-KFBS units? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** POLAND. Polish Radio --- I chatted with Slawek Szefs [swavek shefs] on April 19 about the recent end of shortwave transmissions from Polish Radio at the end of March, although broadcasts in Polish, Russian and Belarusian are continuing on shortwave. Slawek said it was a shame after so many years, but that he hoped listeners would be able to try the live streaming at regular times during the day (times below) and audio on demand available at http://www.thenews.pl via Eutelsat satellite and daily on DAB Spectrum 1 in London at 1900 (local). In addition, Polish Radio in English, Polish and German continues to be available via the World Radio Network http://www.wrn.org Slawek hoped that QSL cards would continue to be available, although probably in another form, for listeners' reports on programming, adding that two-way communication with listeners remains important for Polish Radio. Live Streaming in English 0930-1000 1030-1100 1200-1300 (Live Mon-Fri) 1800-1900 2200-2300 0000-0100 0130-0230 0600-0700 0830-0900 (Jonathan Murphy, Making Contact, May World DX Club Contact via DXLD) ** PRIDNESTROVYE [and non]. Talking of interference, REE, Spain on 9665 kHz is mixed with Radio PMR also on 9665 and both sign on at 1757 UT with transmissions starting at 1800 (Edwin Southwell, Making Contact, May World DX Club Contact via DXLD) MOLDOVA. Summer A-12 schedule of Radio PMR Pridnestrovye Mon-Fri: 1700-1800 on 9665 KCH 300 kW / 309 deg to WeEu deleted in Summer A-12 1800-1830 on 9665*KCH 300 kW / 309 deg to WeEu Russian 15'+ Music 15' 1830-1900 on 9665*KCH 300 kW / 309 deg to WeEu English 15'+ Music 15' 1900-1930 on 9665*KCH 300 kW / 309 deg to WeEu French 15'+ Music 15' 1930-2000 on 9665*KCH 300 kW / 309 deg to WeEu German 15'+ Music 15' 2000-2030 on 9665 KCH 300 kW / 309 deg to WeEu Russian 15'+ Music 15' 2030-2100 on 9665 KCH 300 kW / 309 deg to WeEu English 15'+ Music 15' 2100-2130 on 9665*KCH 300 kW / 309 deg to WeEu French 15'+ Music 15' 2130-2200 on 9665*KCH 300 kW / 309 deg to WeEu German 15'+ Music 15' 2200-2230 on 9665*KCH 300 kW / 309 deg to WeEu Russian 15'+ Music 15' 2230-2300 on 9665*KCH 300 kW / 309 deg to WeEu English 15'+ Music 15' * co-ch 1800-2000 REE in French/English and 2100-2300 CNR-5 in Chinese (DX Re Mix News, Bulgaria, 8 May via DXLD) After local midnite, 2100 UT, it`s UT Sun-Thu, not M-F (gh, DXLD) ** ROMANIA. 21510, May 5 at 2107, VG signal in Spanish, soon clearly is RRI, and // much weaker 17745 in the sideband splash of 17750 Cuba. I certainly had not noticed this bigsig on 13m before; it`s even stronger than Australia 21740, not to mention Guiana French 21690. Indeed RRI Spanish is scheduled on 21510 at 21-22, 300 kW, 247 degrees from Tiganeshti, to CIRAF-14, i.e. northern half of Argentina plus fragments only of all neighboring countries (Glenn Hauser, OK, WORLD OF RADIO 1616, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 21510, R. Romania-Tiganeshti, fair-poor in Spanish at 2129; this best in ECSS-LSB. I don't usually haunt these higher frequencies but in our afternoons that seems to be where the action is. 73 (Jim Ronda, Tulsa OK, May 6, WORLD OF RADIO 1616, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** RUSSIA. Hot on the heels of news that Russia was giving up on DRM, as in last issue, DRM Consortium issues this: DRM Users’ Guide in Russian --- 02-May-12 The Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM) Consortium is pleased to announce the release of the first guide to the DRM standard in Russian. . . http://www.drm.org/news_item/DRM_Users%2592_Guide_in_Russian (via Glenn Hauser, DXLD) ** RUSSIA. 6160, 0100 3/5, Radio Rossii, Monchegorsk, time pips, ID, news in Russian, weak, over CKZN. Transmitter is not so far from Northern Finland. First time I hear it (Giampiero Bernardini, Milano, Italia, RX: Drake R-4C, Excalibur Pro, Elad FDM-S1 / Ant: T2FD / My SW blog: http://radiodxsw.blogspot.it/ dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Summer A-12 of Radio Rossii in Russian: [that`s all?] 0400-0800 on 12070 MSK 250 kW / 265 deg to WeEu 0825-1300 on 13665 MSK 250 kW / 265 deg to WeEu 1325-1700 on 9480 MSK 250 kW / 265 deg to WeEu 1725-2100 on 7215 MSK 250 kW / 265 deg to WeEu Summer A-12 of Adygeyan Radio in Adygeyan: 1700-1800 on 7325 ARM 100 kW / 190 deg Mon/Fri. Good reception in Bulgaria 1800-1900 on 7325 ARM 100 kW / 190 deg Sun, cancelled Transmissions of Kabardino Balkar Radio in Kabardino/Balkarian 1730-1800 on 7325 ARM 100 kW / 190 deg Sun/Wed/Thu, cancelled (DX Re Mix News, Bulgaria, 8 May via DXLD) ** RUSSIA [and non]. 11500, May 3 at 1222, poor signal with heavy flutter, M&W in English. Incredibly, this V of Russia service to S Asia, via TAJIKISTAN, has replaced dead air with programming, at least for today. 11840, May 5 at 1355, tonetest on and off. Presumed VOR Pet/Kam about to start two hours of English at 265 degrees. 15465, May 8 at 1955, poor signal in French; 1957 ID as ``La Voix de la République ---`` I thought, ``de Russie``? Then Soviet (oops, Russian) Hymn = instrumental NA, 1959 ``Chariots of Fire`` IS on balalaika to 2000+*. HFCC shows it`s VOR in French at 18-20, 250 kW, 250 degrees from a tsyrka-Moskva site (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Frequency change for Voice of Russia in Arabic to N&ME: 1600-1700 NF 7305 ARM 100 kW / 190 deg, ex 7325 to avoid CRI in Turkish (DX Re Mix News, Bulgaria, 8 May via DXLD) Moldova: 9665, V Russia WS via Kishinev-Grigoriopol with English re Japanese politics and the court decision of 'not guilty' concerning the fund-raising scandal involving Ichiro Ozawa on "Burning Point". It is always fun to hear Russian spin on Japanese politics, and they were twirling about what this means for Japanese nationalism and the like. Tourism promo at BoH and then News in brief including a teaser item about Russia/China financial cooperation. Then into "Home From Home" at :32 including an item about "Poo WiFi" in Mexico City parks. You put poo in the appropriate receptacle, and it turns on a free wi-fi server for a defined time based on the weight of the feces(!) Fascinating concept and I bet Saint Bernards will become more popular than Chihuahuas as a result! :) In like a local 4+4+54+4+ and // 9800 from Russia was also good 44544. 0005-0035 29/Apr (Kenneth Vito Zichi, Port Hope MI, MARE Tipsheet May 4 via DXLD) DE RADIO MOSCÚ A LA VOZ DE RUSIA, 80 AÑOS. Publicado en mayo 3, 2012 El primero de agosto de este año se cumple el 80º aniversario de la radiodifusión en español desde Moscú. A esta fecha está dedicado el ciclo de programas de Leonard Kósichev titulado “De Radio Moscú a La Voz de Rusia. Apuntes de un veterano”. El artículo y los audios en: http://lagalenadelsur.wordpress.com/2012/05/03/de-radio-moscu-a-la-voz-de-rusia-80-anos/ (Horacio Nigro, Uruguay, noticiasdx yg via DXLD) ** RUSSIA [and non]. Re 12-18: Does KLIB 1110 CA really broadcast Russian Commie Youth programs? Hi Glenn, 1110 AM daytime broadcast coverage area, if active: http://www.radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/pat?call=KLIB&service=AM&status=L&hours=D Checked 1110 AM here in Monterey at 0000, May 5, but nothing heard. Per above map, I would be too far south from Roseville to hear them even if they were broadcasting. Regarding Radio "Komsomolskaya Pravda": Website with audio streaming: http://www.kp.ru/radio/ Per Google translation: Radio "Komsomolskaya Pravda" keeps you informed of what is happening in the country and the world. We argue for the most acute and urgent topics with journalists publishing house MP and experts. Broadcasting 24 hours a day gives us an opportunity to highlight the first major event, and you - do not miss any important news and always be aware of the fact that concern everyone. Synergy ID "KP" and all of his projects ("Komsomolskaya Pravda", "Soviet Sport", the weekly "Football", "Express Gazeta", Internet site kp.ru, press center) are the basic platform to create a unique radio station. Radio Broadcasting "Komsomolskaya Pravda" covers various genres: news, blocks of useful information, talk shows and socially important music programs, programs of interest, entertainment. Radio "Komsomolskaya Pravda" - radio for those who have a head on their shoulders. Smart Radio for adults. No nonsense and platitudes in the air. Only the best music, important news and useful information you need every minute. We are the first minutes of waking up to the last sip of tea at night. Listen to the radio, "Komsomolskaya Pravda", if you want to be aware of all at once. Cities that broadcast "Komsomolskaya Pravda": Moscow - 97.2 FM Vladimir - 104.3 MHz Tver - 99.3 MHz Tyumen - 99.6 MHz Krasnoyarsk - 107.1 MHz Barnaul - 106.8 MHz Yekaterinburg - 92.3 MHz Volgograd - 96.5 MHz Stavropol - 105.7 MHz Saratov - 90.6 MHz (Ron Howard, Monterey, Calif., dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** SAIPAN. 9720, May 4 at 1157, M&W in Asian language, both modulation and carrier breaking up, off at 1158*. I bet it`s the rickety old IBB Saipan transmitter, which frequently displays such problems. Yes: HFCC shows RNW in Indonesian at 1100-1157, 100 kW, 225 degrees from Saipan. I did not recognize it as Indonesian in this very brief period, and it could have been another SNAFU putting some other station/language on for a post-minute after RNW. Are they aware of this problem back in Hilversum?? Following on 9720 from 1200 is KSDA in Chinese, unchecked (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** SARAWAK [non]. 15420, R. Free Sarawak via Palau, 1149-1200*, May 5. Decent reception in vernacular with report via the phone; clear ID; fair. I often check here, but rarely heard at this level. MP3 audio at https://www.box.com/s/27f15fa9b497f1b57503 Their website is at http://radiofreesarawak.org/ (Ron Howard, Asilomar State Beach, CA, Etón E1, dxldyg via WORLD OF RADIO 1616, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 15420, 06/May 1101, PALAU, R Free Sarawak in Iban. Commentator external or an interviewee. At 1105 OM back talking the studio, but the interview continues. 35433. 73 (Jorge Freitas, Feira de Santana, Bahia, 12 14´S 38 58´W - Brasil, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) PALAU, Summer A-12 schedule of Radio Free Sarawak in Bahasa Malay/Iban 1000-1200 on 15420 HBN 100 kW / 270 deg to SEAs (DX Re Mix News, Bulgaria, 8 May via DXLD) ** SENEGAL. [Re 12-18] ``6535/USB, Dakar, Senegal ATC; 0320, 29-Apr; ATC working Swiss 92 hvy [?] calling Dakar-Dakar; both sides good (Harold Frodge, Midland MI, DXing at Port Hope MI2; Drake R8B + 400 ft. unterminated east bev, All logged by my ears, on my receiver, in real time! DX LISTENING DIGEST)`` When an aircraft IDs as "heavy", it means their total weight exceeds a certain amount (Harold Frodge, May 6, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** SERBIA [non]. Taking of interference, International Radio of Serbia at 2100 UT on 6100 kHz mixed with China Radio International in Arabic (Edwin Southwell, Making Contact, May World DX Club Contact via DXLD) 9685, May 8 at 0125, IRS is missing, no signal tho supposedly scheduled until 0130 in Serbian to NAm [except English on UT Sundays, says Aoki]; propagation fine with 9665 VOR Pridnestrovye in well (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** SLOVAKIA. Miraya QSL: see SUDAN [non] ** SOMALIA [non]. U.K., Radio Damal, Voice of the Somali People in Somali changed start date from May 1 to May 8, according to latest BABCOCK schedule dated May 1: 0400-0700 15700 DHA 250 kW / 205 deg EaAf, but no signal this morning 1830-1930 11740 WOF 300 kW / 122 deg EaAf, please check today evening 1930-2130 11650 DHA 250 kW / 205 deg EaAf, please check today evening (DX Re Mix News, Bulgaria, 8 May via DXLD) ** SOUTH AFRICA. Re 12-18: ``3345 is a fundamental frequency from Meyerton at 1800-1830 for AWR in English, says HFCC. So I wonder if instead of being spurs out of 3320, the 3345 carrier is on early, and thus produces the leapfrog over 3320 on 3295. How do the modulation levels compare? Do you hear them at other times? What happens at 1800? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)`` Thanks for your suggestion. I take your point about the AWR carrier from the same transmitter site. However, although quite badly distorted, I was hearing Afrikaans on 3345 at an equal level to 3295, with both // the intended programme on 3320. Both 3295 and 3345 were at a much lower level than the 3320 fundamental. I don't record s- levels unless they strike me as being unusual or particularly interesting, so unable to be more precise on that particular transmission. Tonight (May 7): At 1735 surprised to find Sonder Grense on 3320 is almost inauduble, and ditto for BBC WS on 3255. Most unusual; Meyerton transmitter is only about 25 miles away and usually a strong / reliable signal at this time. TWR Manzini on 3200 and VOA on 4930 from Selebi-Phikwe are both nice and strong (3200 is a bit noisy but very readable). So by 1755 I am sitting waiting on 3345. At 1759 there is a brief but very weak, almost inaudible, bit of afro music then silence again. At 1800 I can just make out a YL with "This is Adventist World Radio", but at noise level. I guess this experiment will have to wait for another evening. At 1806 Sonder Grense still barely audible and certainly unreadable, BBC suddenly improved, now readable with "World Have Your Say" (Bill Bingham, RSA, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Hi Glenn, Both BBC WS (3255) and Sonder Grense (3320) on air normally tonight. In fact BBC WS already on air by 1530 (as usual) even though Aoki and EiBi say it starts at *1600. Both are strong signals as usual, s9+20 to s9+30, surely Meyerton must have been having problems with more than one transmitter last night when they were both unreadable at 1735 onwards (as was AWR on 3345 from 1800). Sonder Grense came on air a couple of minutes before *1700, and at 1715 was once again putting very distorted spurs onto 3295 and 3345, although very much weaker than my last report of April 30 - mostly at noise level or below. I would expect the AWR carrier to just squash the one on 3345 when it comes on at *1800, since it should also be about s9+20. AWR carrier on at 1755, varying s9+10 to s9+20. African language with piano music, kids shouting and singing(suspect Masai, but not certain). ID at 1800 "This is Adventist World Radio, the Voice of Hope" then "This broadcast is in English". And yes, the spur was squashed. Regards, (Bill Bingham, RSA, May 8, ibid.) ** SOUTH CAROLINA [non]. 6130, April 7 at 1820, Overcomer Ministry, Reflections, English, SIO 433 (John Sadler, Herts., May BDXC-UK Communication via DXLD) Wasn`t aware TOM was on such a frequency. Aoki now shows Bible Voice Broadcasting has a complex schedule via Wertachtal, Germany during that hour; was a Saturday, so 1815-1845 in English. But what English? No details of individual programs, but TOM doesn`t usually buy such small segments, and there has not been any connexion with BVB, altho there has been with M&B, operator of the site (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) QSL: USA - WWRB 3185 kHz, Overcomer Ministries QSL card depicting Brother Stair, mushroom cloud, tsunami, WTC on 9/11 & similarly themed items. Also included form letter and misc promo stuff. Report was sent via the comment form on the WWRB website, but the QSL was mailed from Overcomer's Walterboro address. 12 days (Bruce Portzer, Seattle, WA, May 6, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** SPAIN. Spanish AM call signs --- Just found an official Government of Spain document from 2002 listing AM call signs... http://www.boe.es/boe/dias/2002/12/20/pdfs/A44967-44969.pdf This is more recent than an earlier 1993 document I found. I guess the licences are updated every 10 years - so I suspect we will see an updated document soon in 2012. Bottom line: these call signs are still officially valid!! Why not use them? My list of other new & old call signs: http://dxinfocentre.com/Call_Signs.htm (Bill Hepburn, Ont., April 18, WTFDA-AM via DXLD) Check SW sexion too, where there are lots of never-used callsigns (gh) ** SPAIN [and non]. Talking of interference, REE, Spain on 9665 kHz is mixed with Radio PMR also on 9665 and both sign on at 1757 UT with transmissions starting at 1800 (Edwin Southwell, Making Contact, May World DX Club Contact via DXLD) ** SPAIN [and non]. 17595 direct and 11880 via COSTA RICA, May 7 the `Españoles en la Mar` pen-hour 1305-1355 was occupied by a very interesting documentary about the early XVI century age of exploration and conquest, mainly in the Pacific, ``the Spanish lake``. 15091, 15100.5, 15119.5, 15129, May 7 at 2040 check, the REE 15110 transmitter with very strong signal is again putting out these spurs peaking at multiples of about 9.5 kHz. Opens at 1855, so probably messes up Nigerian DRM 15115-15125 during following hour. Sometimes the spurs are employed, sometimes not; tweak that transmitter! 11795, UT Tuesday May 8 at 0124, REE weekly Sephardic service is VG on clear frequency intended for SAm; historical talk and one must listen closely to decide whether it`s really in judeo-español or just plain Castilian intermixed. Words with j- should as judeo are pronounced [dzh] like an English J, instead of an [x] aspirated H, so it must not be Castilian (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** SUDAN [non]. QSL - Radio Miraya via Rimavska Sobota 9670, brief email confirmation from Dorji Wangchuk [ex-Bhutan] for report + MP3 file sent to dwangk(at)gmail(dot)com for April 2011 reception. I'd tried unsuccessfully to get QSLs via IRRS, Hirondelle Foundation and direct from the station, so I was very happy to finally close this one. Thanks to Wendel Craighead for the tip (Bruce Portzer, Seattle, WA, May 6, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) re: for April 2011 reception --- lucky guy; old logs of April 2011 authenticate the Apr 11 / 12 as very last relay transmission via Slovak Republic site Rimavská Sobota. 73 wb (Wolfgang Büschel, ibid.) I thought the change took place on or about June 1 of last year. See the Sudan(non) listing in DXLD 11-23 dated June 9, 2011 for a lengthy discussion about it (Bruce Portzer, ibid.) ** SUDAN [non]. A-12 schedule of Radio Tamazuj in Sudanese Arabic: 0400-0430 on 11650 SMG 250 kW / 145 deg to SDN 0400-0430 on 15400 MDC 250 kW / 330 deg to SDN 0400-0430 on 15550 DHA 250 kW / 225 deg to SDN (DX Re Mix News, Bulgaria, 8 May via DXLD) ** SUDAN [non]. 15150, 06/May 1612, MADAGASCAR, R Dabanga (Relay) in Sudanese. OM interview a man on the phone. // 15725 with good signal. 35433 (Jorge Freitas, Feira de Santana, Bahia, 12 14´S 38 58´W - Brasil, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) A-12 schedule of Radio Dabanga in Sudanese Arabic: 0430-0600 on 11650 SMG 250 kW / 145 deg to SDN 0430-0600 on 15400 MDC 250 kW / 330 deg to SDN 0430-0600 on 15550 DHA 250 kW / 225 deg to SDN 1530-1630 on 15150 MDC 250 kW / 325 deg to SDN 1530-1630 on 15725 TRM 250 kW / 270 deg to SDN (DX Re Mix News, Bulgaria, 8 May via DXLD) Note: FWIW, the WRTH A-12 update places the above stations under SUDAN, and the below station under SUDAN SOUTH, in target sexion (gh) ** SUDAN SOUTH [non]. 15725, Voice of South Sudan Revolutionary Radio, *0404, May 1. Open carrier noted at 0403; on with African music; poor; mostly in vernacular (Ron Howard, Asilomar State Beach, CA, Etón E1, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) 15725, May 7 at 0504, JBA signal with music and talk, presumed V. of South Sudan Revolutionary Radio rather than Pakistan (Glenn Hauser, OK, WORLD OF RADIO 1616, DX LISTENING DIGEST) May 7 noted suddenly on at 0401 with African music; seemed like the usual ID in English at 0405 and into talks in vernacular; poor with very heavy QRM from 15720 (New Zealand). (Ron Howard, CA, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Co-channel between Voice of South Sudan Revolutionary Radio in Sudanese Arabic and FEBC in Russian both 1500-1600 on 11650, but only on May 5. From May 7 Voice of South Sudan Revolutionary Radio in Sudanese Arabic and English at new time 1334-1501 again on 11650, co- ch CRI, see DX RE MIX 728. 73! (Ivo Ivanov, Bulgaria, May 8, DX LISTENING DIGEST) with clips attached to the dxldyg New transmission of clandestine station Voice of South Sudan Revolutionary Radio in Sudanese Arabic & English. First noted on Sat, May 5 1434-1651 on 11650, co-channel till 1500 CRI in Amoy; 1500-1600 FEBC in Russian. Here is the situation on May 6, 7, 8: new start & new end time, new duration: 1334-1501 on 11650, co-channel till 1400 CRI in Esperanto; 1400-1500 CRI in Amoy. VERY BAD FREQUENCY SELECTION ON 11650, ALSO SAME PROBLEM MORNING ON 15725!! Observations of other transmissions on V. of South Sudan Revolutionary Radio 0404-0621 on 15725, no transmission on May 8, cancelled? 1830-1930 on 15725, no transmission on May 6, 7, cancelled? 2000-2300 on 15650, no transmission on May 5, 6, 7, cancelled? Any ideas? (DX Re Mix News, Bulgaria, 8 May via WORLD OF RADIO 1616, DXLD) Not a trace of Voice of South Sudan in the last few days on 15650/15725 (Thorsten Hallmann, Münster, Germany, http://africalist.de.ms May 8, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** TAIWAN [non]. PCJ Radio contest --- Starting this month PCJ Radio will launch a new contest. At the end of May, June, July, August, September, October November we will be giving away a new SANGEAN ATS909X EACH MONTH! For details tune this week to Media Network Plus and Happy Station Show. https://www.facebook.com/PlushUK#!/keith.perron/posts/10150772511387271 (Keith Perron on Facebook 8 May 2012 via Mike Terry, dxldyg via DXLD) Requires login; what about those of us who refuse to participate in FB? (Glenn Hauser, ibid.) They have all audio files in their website - http://www.pcjmedia.com/ - I listen them via web (Partha Sarathi Goswami, Siliguri, West Bengal, India, ibid.) Happy Station shows available to download or listen at: http://www.pcjmedia.com/ (tab down to Recent editions) Media Network Plus shows available to download or listen at: http://www.pcjmedia.com/medianetworkplus - shortwave, WRN and satellite schedule also at this page (BDXC-UK moderator via DXLD) see also CANADA, PCJ ** TATARSTAN [non]. RUSSIA. A-12, Tatarstan Wave in Tatar and Russian: 0410-0500 on 15110 SAM 250 kW / 060 deg to FE 0610-0700 on 9690 SAM 250 kW / 060 deg to CeAs 0810-0900 on 15195 SAM 250 kW / 295 deg to EaEu (DX Re Mix News, Bulgaria, 8 May via DXLD) ** THAILAND. 9890, May 3 at 1241, fair signal in English, commercial for Bangkok Airways, so I bet it`s HSK9 --- yes, soon followed by two IDs for Radio Thailand. Only lite ACI from 9885 bearing VOA Spanish and pulse jamming (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** TIBET [and non]. 11595, May 4 at 1357, open carrier with humwhine; 1400 modulation has been added to the humwhine, sounds like CRI or CNR. Of course: Aoki shows R. Free Asia in Tibetan, 250 kW, 78 degrees via KUWAIT is scheduled on 11595 at 1400-1500, which Must Be Jammed. However, it`s missing from latest HFCC May 4, and if I were a clueless listlogger going by that, which I checked first, I would think 11595 was the 35 kW Thessaloniki, Greece ERA transmitter at 09-14, which no longer exists, but ERA is *still* registering for the current A-12 dates, like so many other wooden entries; why, o why? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) RFA does not have Tibetan at 1400-1500. VOA does, but not on 11595. I see the Aoki entry has been deleted. See the change file at http://www.hfskeds.com/skeds/AokiChanges_120505.htm (DanFerguson, NASWA yg via DXLD) ** TIBET [non]. MADAGASCAR, Summer A-12 schedule for Voice of Tibet in Tibetan: 1400-1430 on 17560 MDC 250 kw / 045 deg to CeAs. Strong jammer from China! (DX Re Mix News, Bulgaria, 8 May via DXLD) [and non]. Sabato 5 maggio 2012: 1212 - 15437, V of TIBET - Yangi Yul (Tajikistan), Tibetano o Cinese, parlato OM. Segnale sufficiente- insufficiente. Firedrake su 15435 ma *insieme* (Glenn, *together*!! !) hanno spento su queste frequenze alle 1213 e riacceso alle 1216 su 15443 (VOT) e 15445 (FD). They both have perfect radio-controlled clocks!!! (Luca Botto Fiora, G.C. 09E13 - 44N21, Rapallo (Genova) - Italia, playdx yg via DXLD) ** TUNISIA. 17735, May 8 at 0455, fair signal in Arabic, kept mentioning Ibrahim mixed with nice bits of music on plucked instrument. Figured it was probably Iran, but Aoki shows IWT is now on 17735 not only in the evening at 1600-2110, but also in the morning at 0300-0610, both 250 kW, 100 degrees from Sfax. However, not audible much after 0500, so suspect these times are again one hour off, as we know the evening is really finished around 2010, fortunately for the rest of RCI`s co-channel in English. I guess 17735 replaces previously scheduled 9725 at both spans; should be // 12005. Aoki and HFCC also show 17735 with VOA Tibetan at 03-04 via Tinang, 04-06 via Thailand, but no sign of that now nor ChiCom jamming. HFCC still shows Tunisia on 9725 thru 28 Oct, never on 17735 (Glenn Hauser, OK, WORLD OF RADIO 1616, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** TURKEY. 9830, Voice Of Turkey, 2200-2255 UT. Broadcast to both Europe & North America. At sign-on, it suffers interference from RTTY. Recommendation: Use your computer or your wifi internet radio to hear the Voice OF Turkey (J K Johnson, Atlanta, Georgia, May 7, Cumbre DX via DXLD) ** TURKEY. Summer A-12 schedule for Voice of Turkey: Arabic 0900-0955 on 11750 1400-1455 on 9540 17770 1830-1925 on 11690 Azeri 0700-0755 on 11730 1530-1625 on 9530 Bulgarian 1100-1125 on 7210 Chinese 1100-1155 on 15240 Dari 1500-1525 on 11765 English 0300-0355 on 6165 9515 1230-1325 on 15450 1630-1725 on 15520 1830-1925 on 9785 2030-2125 on 7205 2200-2255 on 9830 French 1930-2025 on 9535 9635 Georgian 1000-1055 on 9655 German 1130-1225 on 13760 1730-1825 on 11835 Italian 1400-1425 on 9610 Kazakh 1330-1355 on 11880 Pashto 1530-1555 on 11765 Persian 0830-0955 on 11795 1500-1555 on 9765 Russian 1300-1355 on 11965 Spanish 0100-0155 on 9770 9870 1630-1725 on 11930 Tatar 1000-1025 on 9855 Turkish 0000-0155 on 7260 0400-0555 on 6040 11980 0600-0855 on 11750 11955 13635 0900-1155 on 11955 13635 1200-1255 on 13635 1300-1555 on 9840 1600-2055 on 5960 9460 Turkmen 1200-1225 on 11825 Urdu 1200-1255 on 13710 Uyghur 0200-0255 on 9465 1230-1325 on 11700 Uzbek 1030-1055 on 13650 1600-1625 on 11765 (DX Re Mix News, Bulgaria, 8 May via DXLD) ** U K. Reminder: Possible last transmission from Orfordness this Thursday-Friday A reminder that at 2000 GMT tomorrow (Thursday), Radio Netherlands begins its 24-hour farewell transmission in Dutch. Various frequencies and sites will be used during the 24 hours (details on page 17 of this month's Communication) but for Europe it is simplest to remember that 5955 (Wertachtal) and 9895 (Nauen) will be on throughout. It will also be on 1296 from Orfordness for the whole 24 hours. As things stand, this may be the last ever transmission from Orfordness. After BBC WS dropped its two hours a day of DRM on 1296 in March, RN in Dutch has been the only user of the site (648 has been silent since last year). No new clients have been announced for Orfordness, so Babcock will have to decide whether to keep the station in mothballs in the hope of a customer appearing, to sell it as a working transmitting station (I can't see that as likely) or to dismantle it and hand the site over to the National Trust (Chris Greenway, May 9, BDXC-UK yg via DXLD) ** U K [and non]. 15105, May 3 at 0559, BBCWS still treats us to some Bow Bells, prior to the only hour in English currently on this frequency (otherwise French, Hausa), 06-07, 300 kW, 170 degrees from Woofferton, instead of ``no programming on this frequency``. Then truncated version of ``Lilliburlero`` leading up to 0600 timesignal and news. They can`t spare a few more seconds to play the ``whole`` thing? I always feel like I am falling off a cliff when it stops incomplete. Poor signal and with a het, from what? 9860, May 3 at 0617, BBCWS in English news, fair signal suffering from splash de VOA GB 9880 in French, and 9860 is // 9410 which is slightly behind. HFCC shows 9860 is in use by BBC during this hour only, 100 kW, 15 degrees from SOUTH AFRICA. While 9410 is 250 kW, 65 degrees from Ascension (and N.B., 9410 from 8 May at 06-07, will be 300 kW, 180 degrees from Skelton, probably replacing ASC tho HFCC registration has not been altered, showing both in effect until 28 Oct!). Note also that in the previous hour 05-06, 9410 is from Meyerton. 9915, May 4 at 0531, BBCWS Arabic has VG signal but fluttery, and it seems the Doppler effect is even causing the received carrier to wobble, but there is no big buzz on the modulation unlike 48 hours earlier. 9915, May 6 at 0528, BBCWS Arabic, again good signal, but flutter and resuming buzz on unstable carrier; which UK site? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Glenn, listen to the 140degr WOF and 180 degr SKN outlets as MP4 file on IBB RMS. Before 0500 UT single signal from Woofferton is clean. But from 05-06 UT some NOISE/Hum/Buzz/Growl heard accompanied in Tunis and Addis Ababa posts. Maybe is mixture of unsynchronized signal of both outlets? (Wolfgang Büschel, WORLD OF RADIO 1616, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 9915, May 7 at 0511, BBCWS in Arabic this time has OK modulation, but heavy flutter. Not the kind of propagation disturbance one would expect hereward, so now I am wondering if Skelton and Woofferton are that far apart in frequency to cause such a SAH, as both are scheduled during this hour (Glenn Hauser, OK, WORLD OF RADIO 1616, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. 13750, May 4 at 1204, VOA Spanish news, but modulation is somewhat distorted and crackling; little jamming audible. Americans, Latin and otherwise, might want to sign this petition: http://www.change.org/petitions/the-united-states-congress-save-voice-of-america-spanish-broadcasts-to-latin-america This reply is received: ``Thanks for signing our petition, "The United States Congress: SAVE VOICE OF AMERICA SPANISH BROADCASTS TO LATIN AMERICA." Winning this campaign is now in your hands. We need to reach out to as many friends as we can to grow this campaign and win. Thanks for your support, The Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting`` (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Viz.: SAVE VOICE OF AMERICA SPANISH BROADCASTS TO LATIN AMERICA The Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting (CUSIB), a former Voice of America (VOA) director, president of Women’s Rights Without Frontiers and representatives of other free media and human rights organizations have signed a petition to the United States Congress asking for Congressional support to continue Voice of America Spanish broadcasts to Latin America. The Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), which controls VOA, wants to severely cut journalistic positions and broadcasts to this important part of the world for the United States. The BBG had earlier proposed and then canceled, in response to numerous public protests, elimination of Voice of America radio broadcasts to Tibet and VOA Cantonese radio, television and Internet news to China. Because of its even closer links to the United States, its fragile democracy, and anti-American propaganda coming from Cuba, Venezuela, Russia, Iran, and China — Latin America must not be abandoned to hostile voices while the Voice of America is silenced by BBG bureaucrats. The BBG proposal to cut broadcasts to Latin America is not about saving money. BBG officials do not plan to give this money back to the U.S. Treasury. Instead, they want to spend it on themselves. American taxpayers should demand that this mismanaged agency must keep VOA broadcasts to Latin America rather than keep investing in its own bureaucracy. Here is an introduction to the petition on change.org: “Voice of America Spanish Service celebrated a milestone in its communications with the countries of Latin America last year, including its immensely popular Breakfast Show, Buenos Dias America, as well as other broadcasts throughout Central and South America on AM and FM affiliate stations and satellite and also available on podcasts, the VOA website and on mobile phones. This legacy of communication, which impacts the people of an important part of the world strategic to our interests, will stop if the cuts are approved by Congress. The BBG is wrong in concentrating its resources only on the Middle East and Asia while ignoring the nations of Latin America, whose trade surpasses those of China, India and Russia all together. Don’t let the Broadcasting Board of Governors deny essential and uncensored Voice of America news and hope to the people in Latin America while BBG executives divert U.S. taxpayers’ money to create new high-level bureaucratic positions, pay themselves bonuses and sign a $50 million multi-year contract with the Gallup Organization. As U.S. taxpayers, you fund and support the Voice of America. Demand that your money be used to bring uncensored American news to Latin America and other regions of the world that do not have free media rather than being spent on the salaries of government officials at the Broadcasting Board of Governors.” SAVE VOICE OF AMERICA SPANISH BROADCASTS TO LATIN AMERICA Dear Member of Congress, This letter is to request your strong support to restore the funding in the FY2013 Budget for Voice of America (VOA) Spanish Broadcasts to Latin America. We adamantly oppose plans for FY2013 by the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) to enact a major Reduction-in-Force for the essential VOA Spanish Service which broadcasts to Latin America. Over 20 employees are scheduled to be fired or displaced. We believe that the cessation of U.S. broadcasts to an extremely important region, which is strategic to U.S. interests, is a major blunder for our foreign policy. For over 50 years, the Voice of America has been broadcasting to this critical part of the world in our hemisphere. At its anniversary celebration last year, the VOA Spanish Service celebrated the milestones in its communications with the countries of Latin America including its immensely popular Breakfast Show, Buenos Dias America, which covers historic events, news about our country, and international events in a style accessible to both elites and working people. This show, as well as others are broadcast throughout Central and South America on AM and FM affiliate stations and satellite and are also available on podcasts, the VOA website and on mobile phones. This legacy of communication, which impacts the people of an important part of the world strategic to our interests, will stop if the cuts are approved by Congress. The BBG is wrong in concentrating its resources only on the Middle East and Asia while ignoring the nations of Latin America. This region which had become synonymous with the words junta, banana republic and turmoil, is now emerging with a new level of political and economic maturity: exactly the audience that we want to reach. Democracy as well as economic upward mobility in many of the countries of Latin America is starting to grow which could be a definite stimulus for tourism to the United States. However, the Hugo Chávez and Castro models of centralized control with their strong anti-Americanism and opposition to the free market are undermining the growth of democracy in Latin America especially with the constant anti-American diatribes of broadcasting agencies like TELESUR, a 24-hour TV network. The Chavez model in Venezuela is negatively affecting other countries in the region including Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina and Nicaragua. Most important, if America stops its communication with the emerging democracies of Latin America, the results could be most serious for U.S. national security. China and Iran have expanded their influence in Latin America. China has now replaced the U.S. as the major trading partner of Brazil. Both countries are opening new cultural centers throughout Latin American countries. At the beginning of the year, Iran launched a 24-hour TV network which is broadcasting an aggressive anti-American message. Most seriously for global security, Iran is getting uranium for its fuel rods from Brazil and has negotiated an agreement with Bolivia’s leftist leader, Evo Morales, to extract lithium in commercial quantities. Their political and economic ties are growing, while the U.S. does not seem to be paying attention, which could directly impact our national security. Cutting VOA Spanish broadcasts to Latin America at this critical time makes no sense. There are 50 million people of Latino heritage in the United States and their individual success stories in politics, business, culture, medicine and entrepreneurship in our society are an important and inspiring factor in our communications with the people of Latin America and in forging alliances with those countries. Cutting U.S. broadcasts to Latin America sends the wrong message to the Hispanic- American community, alienates Latino voters, and destroys the possibilities of communicating U.S. ideas, ideals and institutions. This would be a blow to U.S. public diplomacy in the region. In its budget submission for FY2013, the BBG states that its actions are part of a long-range consolidation of VOA Spanish and Radio/TV Martí. To our knowledge, there is no mechanism for consolidation of VOA Spanish and Radio Martí in the language of the Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act (P.L. 98-111) where the mission of Radio Martí is specifically spelled out. We do not believe that there has been any directive from Congress to change the mission of Radio/TV Martí whose broadcasts are targeted to the Cuban people. The mission of the VOA Spanish Service is codified in the VOA charter contained in P.L. 94-350. Therefore, we do not understand how and why the BBG is undertaking these actions unilaterally without consultation with or approval from the U.S. Congress. The most glaring example of how vital the VOA’s Spanish Service is for the United States was the recent Summit of the Americas in Colombia. As never before, the United States was isolated while nearly 30 regional Presidents refused to sign a joint Summit Final Declaration in protest against U.S. policies towards Cuba. In fact, there is growing support for the inclusion of Cuba at the next scheduled Summit. This highlights the steady decline of U.S. influence in a region whose economic growth rates are the envy of the developed world. We urge you to require that the FY 2013 Budget funding for the Voice of America’s Spanish broadcasts be restored, and to undo the proposed cuts in other news and information services so that Voice of America can continue to fulfill its mandate to provide an accurate, balanced and comprehensive view of significant American thought and institutions and to clearly present the policies of the United States in news-restricted nations. Respectfully, The Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting (CUSIB) Roberty Reilly, American Foreign Policy Council Tim Shamble, President Local 1812, American Federation of Government Employees Robert Senser, Human Rights for Workers Manny Papir, Human Rights Advocate Ted Lipien, Committee for US International Broadcasting Ann Noonan, Committee for US International Broadcasting Herb Stupp, Adjunct Lecturer at Baruch College Marie Ciliberti, Retired VOA Broadcaster Reggie Littejohn, Women’s Rights Without Frontiers [Your name - CLICK HERE TO SIGN THE PETITION] http://www.change.org/petitions/the-united-states-congress-save-voice-of-america-spanish-broadcasts-to-latin-america SOURCE: SIGN A PETITION TO SAVE VOICE OF AMERICA to TIBET, CHINA and OTHER NATIONS WITHOUT FREE MEDIA http://www.change.org/petitions/save-voice-of-america-radio-to-tibet (Via @yimbergaviria, Colombia, WORLD OF RADIO 1616, DXLD) ** U S A. VOA GREENVILLE REDEDICATED TO HONOR EDWARD R. MURROW. http://www.witn.com/home/headlines/VOA_Site_Named_In_Honor_Of_Edward_R_Murrow_149937995.html (via Richard Cuff / Allentown, PA, NASWA yg via DXLD) with video Greenville VOA site rededicated | Eyewitness News 9 http://www2.wnct.com/news/2012/may/02/greenville-voa-site-rededicated-ar-2235023/ [also with 6-minute video, and four more videos, three raw --- gh] On the VOA Greenville rededication. Second item is video short video tour of site, others are the speeches. http://www2.wnct.com/news/2012/may/02/greenville-voa-site-rededicated-ar-2235023/ http://video.wnct.com/v/55897763/raw-video-voa-murrow-station-video-tour.htm?q=voa+rededication+murrow http://video.wnct.com/v/55897759/raw-video-voa-rededication-casey-murrow-speach.htm?q=voa+rededication+murrow http://video.wnct.com/v/55897760/raw-video-voa-rededication-rep-walter-jones.htm?q=voa+rededication+murrow http://video.wnct.com/v/55897762/raw-video-voa-rededication-victor-ashe.htm?q=voa+rededication+murrow http://video.wnct.com/v/55897761/raw-video-voa-rededication-richard-lobo.htm?q=voa+rededication+murrow (Glenn Hauser, WORLD OF RADIO 1616, DX LISTENING DIGEST) GREENVILLE, N.C. - In 1963, the U.S. was in the midst of the cold war. Iconic former CBS correspondent Edward R. Murrow was running the Voice of America when President Kennedy dedicated the Greenville relay station. At the time, the station consisted of three locations surrounding Greenville. Today, only the one near Black Jack is still in service. Wednesday, the short wave transmitter station was re-dedicated to Edward R. Murrow. It was originally named for him after his death in the 1970's, but the name was dropped following the 9/11 attacks for security reasons. Today, the Murrow name again adorns the site. A facility, Casey Murrow says, is still needed today just as much as in is father's time. "It does reach people who simply have no other access, overseas, whether that is in Cuba or South America or if the signal is redirected elsewhere. It also seems to be important to keep at least one such facility in place in the United States because it can't be influenced by anybody else and it can't be shutdown or moved or whatnot,” said Casey Murrow, Edward R. Murrow's son. Today, the transmitters broadcast to many areas of Central and South America, especially Cuba with programs from Radio Marti, but when needed can send programs anywhere (via Kevin Redding, ABDX via DXLD) VOA GREENVILLE REDEDICATION REPORT AND VIDEOS BBG Watch has posted a report on the VOA Greenville rededication. It includes a number of videos. These include a four and a half minute video produced by the BBG on its history and a 7 minute Eyewitness 9 News video of a tour of the station. This ends with what I assume is a map showing the locations of listeners who have sent reports since they started issuing their own QSL cards and a file of those reports. http://www.usgbroadcasts.com/bbgwatch/2012/05/03/u-s-rep-jones-and-bbg-governor-ashe-pledge-support-for-shortwave-radio-broadcasts/ (Mike Barraclough, UK, May 8, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) MetroPulse (Knoxville), 2 May 2012: "Former Knoxville Mayor and Ambassador to Poland Victor Ashe continues to give his fellow board members heartburn. Ashe is on the board of governors for the agency that sets up and operates what used to be called the Voice of America, beaming broadcasts into totalitarian countries. The agency wanted to close a shortwave facility in North Carolina, the last facility still on American soil and under American control. Ashe argues that facilities in other countries, especially in Asia, are not reliable because they do not want to antagonize China by broadcasting into Tibet. Ashe has worked with a North Carolina congressman to put up signs identifying the facility as the Edward R. Murrow broadcasting station, named for the legendary TV newsman who was from North Carolina, complete with Murrow’s son attending a re-dedication ceremony to unveil the new signs. This will make it even harder for the broadcasting staff to move to close the facility again." (kimandrewelliott.com via DXLD) ** U S A [non]. VOA English to Africa broadcast daily from 2000 to 2200 very good music programs, but SW frequencies reception is poor or nil here in Europe; an option for South West Europeans is trying to hear the MW station relay in São Tomé: it can be received regularly on 1530 kHz at evenings, and from 2020 when Vatican Radio signs off, free of QRM. I have attached the QSL received direct from the Pinheira station, it verifies the "Classic Rock Show" aired on 12/10/11, devoted that day to The Beatles. Unfortunately, among the VOA music programmes aired to Africa is not "Jazz America", targeted only to Asia, being very difficult or impossible to catch here. Anyway, I have discovered thanks to the Aleksandr Egorov music programmes list, an alternative for the Europeans: the Radio Liberty's "Time of Jazz” with Dmitry Savitsky, on air Sundays at 1907 with 50 minutes of an excellent jazz selection; the frequencies are 5920 9840 (good to fair), 7285 9795 (not received). According to Aleksander's list, there is a repeat Mondays at 0605, A12 frequencies per Aoki are 9480, 9520, 11850, 17560 kHz. My music programmes listings can be downloaded now at this site: http://blocs.mesvilaweb.cat/node/view/id/220039 Aleksandr Egorov's music programmes lists can be viewed (via Google translate) at: sw: http://dxing.ru/informatsija/54-muzyka-v-am-efire/1275-muzyka-na-kv-po-vremeni.html mw/lw: http://dxing.ru/informatsija/54-muzyka-v-am-efire/1310-muzyka-na-svdv-po-vremeni.html (Rafael Martínez, Listening Post, May World DX Club Contact via DXLD) ** U S A [non]. 15265, May 7 at 1408, `VOA Music Mix` very poor on new frequency, soon confirmed as such by // 15580 and 17530, both São Tomé. HFCC shows this as a new daily frequency effective 9 May, but obviously already in use, 100 kW, 100 degrees from SÃO TOMÉ. This presumably trumps the still-listed usage of 15265 weekends only at 1430-1500 by MBR Issoudun thru 27 Oct. Also shows another hour 15-16 of IBB English via Wertachtal, 250 kW, 180 degrees, as from 9 May (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Frequency changes of IBB: Voice of America 1300-1400 NF 17650 SMG 250 kW / 139 deg to EaAf, ex 12030 in Somali 1500-1530 NF 11930 UDO 250 kW / 316 deg to CeAs, ex 12120 in Uzbek Radio Free Asia, additional txion in Khmer from May 14 to June 10 1130-1230 on 12140 TIN 250 kW / 270 deg to SEAs 1130-1230 on 15145 TIN 250 kW / 270 deg to SEAs Radio Liberty, Caucasus Echo 1700-1800 on 11845 BIB 100 kW / 088 deg to CeAs, ex 6040 in Russian (DX Re Mix News, Bulgaria, 8 May via DXLD) ** U S A. 25950 FM, KOA Denver, 2240 UT 5-Abr-2012 S:7-8. Sección de noticias alternada con anuncios comerciales e identificacion de la emisora. Buena señal con algunos altibajos y desvanecimientos propios de señales de FM. 73 y Buenos DX (José Luís de Vicente, Rx: icom706- llg, Ant: dipolo V invertida, QTH: Bogotá D.C., Colombia, condiglist yg via DXLD) Since this was posted May 3, 2012 at 2254 UT, I question accuracy of the date on it (gh, DXLD) Utes: 25910/FM, WBAP Fort Worth TX (Dallas transmitter) studio link; 1509, 1-May; Call-in show on bin Laden's demise. Very good peaks. Gone at 2054 check. 25990 KLIF studio link missing. 25950/FM, KOA Denver CO, studio link; 1511-1518+, 1-May; Lengthy commentary re bin Laden's demise to calls; 1518 IDs as 8-50 KOA & Radio 8-50 KOA. Good peaks with many washouts. Last heard 2/27/12. Gone at 2054 check (Harold Frodge, Midland MI, USA, Drake R8B + 85 ft. RW & 180 ft. center-fed RW, All logged by my ears, on my receiver, in real time! DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A [non]. 5980, April 10 at 0930, Hamburg Lokalradio, Kall, WORLD OF RADIO, English, SIO 243 (Dave Kenny, England, HF Logbook, May BDXC-UK Communication via DXLD) Tuesday schedule during DST. I hope he is using the SIO system lacking 5s, i.e. I-4 means no QRM (gh, DXLD) ** U S A. WORLD OF RADIO 1615: first SW airing will be 2100 UT Thursday May 3 on WTWW 9479; then 0330 UT Friday on WWRB 5050; 0130 UT Saturday on Area 51 via WBCQ 5110v-CUSB; 0400 UT Sunday on WTWW 5755. Also on WRMI 9955: Sat 0800, 1500, 1730, Sun 0800, 1530, 1730, Mon 0500, 1130. And on WRN via SiriusXM 120, Sat & Sun 1730, Sun 0830. WORLD OF RADIO 1615 monitoring: first two SW broadcasts confirmed, Thu May 3 at 2100 on WTWW 9479, and UT Fri May 4 at 0330 on WWRB 5050. Next: UT Sat 0130v on Area 51 via WBCQ 5110v-CUSB; UT Sun 0400 on WTWW 5755. And on WRMI 9955: Sat 0800, 1500, 1730, Sun 0800, 1530, 1730, Mon 0500, 1130. WRN via SiriusXM 120: Sat & Sun 1730, Sun 0830. (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 9955, May 7 at 0511 and later no signal at all audible from WRMI, during scheduled UT Monday 0500 WORLD OF RADIO broadcast, despite no jamming at all either; off the air? Propagation seemed OK, and Cuba was strong on 9790. WORLD OF RADIO 1616: completed early UT Wednesday May 9 so ready for first SW broadcast UT Thu May 10 at 0330 on WRMI 9955, which no doubt will be jammed if on the air. Further WRMI airings: Sat 0800, 1500, 1730, Sun 0800, 1530, 1730, Mon 0500, 1130. Also: Thu 2100 on WTWW 9479, UT Fri 0330 on WWRB 5050, UT Sat 0130v on WBCQ Area 51 5110v-CUSB/LSB, UT Sun 0400 on WTWW 5755, Tue 0930 on HLR Germany 5980. Also on WRN via SiriusXM channel 120, Sat & Sun 1730, Sun 0830. Full schedule including many more webcasts: http://www.worldofradio.com/radioskd.html (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. 9330-CUSB, WBCQ lost modulation again, May 3 at 0613 just open carrier and some hum; plus suspicious weaker carrier on 9313 approx., but louder same pitch hum, spur from 9330? Not matched by another around 9347. Others have reported spurs from this transmitter. 9330, next check at 1216 May 3, far-right wingnut railing about the New World Order, banksters, Russian troops in Colorado. Doesn`t sound like the usual occupant of this transmitter, Rod Hembree`s religious Good Friends Radio Network, including Radio 2:11. Then at 1217, preacher talking about a messiah cuts on at equal level, and the two audios mix! Could one be on LSB, the other on USB? I start to tune the DX-398 to find out, but by 1218, the FRWN has stopped and we hear only the religious programming. Next2 check at 1316, 9330 how with Pacific Garden Mission promo for its `Unshackled` program, now in 13 languages around the world, kept referring to Thanksgiving, about a semiyear out of synch, and back to hokey moralistic drama. Thanks, but no thanks, I`ll take the ``shackles`` of rational free thought. Presumably another show included in the Good Friends Radio Network feed. I foolishly went looking for a program schedule via http://www.biblediscoverytv.com/ and audio launched immediately interfering with something else I was listening to, and could not get it to stop short of exiting the site. Beware! (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. 13570, May 3 at 2036, WINB is already back on with screaming gospel huxter, usual rapid wobble on the carrier, made obvious with BFO engaged. Haven`t checked the WINB sked lately and now I see it has been updated April 22 to show weekday afternoon programming resumes at 2030 with `Power of Prayer` instead of 2045, and presumably still switches to 9265 at 2100. However, this schedule doesn`t mention 9265 any more, just 13570 at 13-16 EDT, but that accounts for only three hours = 17-20 UT. The time conversion with UT for the programming is finally correct! First program on M-F is now at 1530, Sat from 1245, Sun from 1000; presumably the first part at least on Sundays being on 9265. 13570, May 5 at 1255, WINB is already on its higher frequency, this Saturday; *1245 is its start according to website schedule. Maybe on Sundays starting at *1000 they still use 9265 for the first hour or two (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. WJHR Improvements --- In a recent "Worldwide DX Club Top News" (April 25, 2012) compiled by Wolfgang Büschel he mentions the GE location of WJHR in Milton FL (near Pensacola) and remarks one can count the elements on the log periodic antenna. It's a very good image. But, when looking at Bing Bird's Eye one sees a multiband yagi rather than a log periodic. So, improvements at some SW sites are still underway. http://www.bing.com/maps/?form=flredr#JnE9LjMwJTJiMzklMmIwMyUyNTQwMjAyJTJiTiUyYiUyYjg3JTJiMDUlMmIyMSUyNTQwMjU1JTJiVyU3ZXNzdC4wJTdlcGcuMSZiYj0zMC42NTEzNDc0MDgzNjQ0JTdlLTg3LjA4ODU0MDY3OTIxOTglN2UzMC42NTA1OTc5MTcyMzg0JTdlLTg3LjA4OTc5ODAwMDIxNTc= JL Waco, Tx (Jerry Lenamon, May 3, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Yes, one can see it by zooming all the way in. However, Mock probably has his ham station at same site, of which WJHR is a glorified outgrowth; however2, no other antenna is visible around there (Glenn Hauser, DXLD) Hi Jerry, According to GE imagery; somewhere around year period 2006- 2010 the type of antenna changed to a Log Periodic (LP). GE imagery of 2012 shows a LP. Interestingly the FCC licence records of 2011 show a Cubix Quad antenna! --- and I thought FCC records were meant to be accurate!? But if memory serves me correctly the licensee has plans for other antenna/s on site - so maybe the antenna aspect of the licence will be accurate in future??? 73's (Ian Baxter, shortwavesites yg via DXLD) ** U S A. 7555, May 8 at 0507, WEWN is missing from usual good signal in Spanish; at 0511 still on the other two, fair 11520 English, poor 11870 Spanish; and all three are active after 1300 check, 11550, 12050, 15615 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. Uncle Harold also made note of the fact that we heard No robo-kids on KJES at any times over the weekend -- was there a shake- up at the Lord's Ranch? Or just budget issues? Inquiring minds want to know! (Ken Zichi, MARE Tipsheet May 4 via DXLD) They're baaaaaaack --- Las roboniñas on about 7555.1 at 0200 (Harold Frodge, MI, UT May 6, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 11715+, May 7 at 1415, KJES in English, M&W adults alternating with verses in English; modulation crackling and carrier unstable. Sounds between 100 and 200 Hz on hi side (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. Please note the following changes to the WYFR A-2012 operating schedule (effective 11 May 2012): Delete 7520 kHz, 2200-0045 UTC, 142 degrees, zone 15 Add 11650 kHz, 2200-0045 UTC, 142 degrees, zone 15 Delete 6915 kHz, 2245-0100 UTC, 160 degrees, zone 16 Add 15620 kHz, 2245-0100 UTC, 160 degrees, zone 16 Sincerely, (Brenda Constantino, WYFR, May 9, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 7520 has been Spanish-Portuguese-English; 6915 all Spanish (gh, DXLD) ** U S A [non]. CHILE: 17680, CVC Int'l La Voz; 2233-2242+, 1-May; Cubano & Jeezus pop tune to ID promo at 2241, "CVC Int'l...La Voz Onda Corta..." SIO=4+54, a nihil obstat signal (Harold Frodge, Midland MI, USA, Drake R8B + 85 ft. RW & 180 ft. center-fed RW, All logged by my ears, on my receiver, in real time! DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. KSL hits 90 years --- See a 5 minute video about KSL which also acknowledges world wide DX interest http://www.ksl.com/?nid=960&sid=20272204 73 (Steve Whitt, UK, May 8, MWCircle yg via DXLD) ** U S A. 1190, May 3 at 1157 UT, sorrowful breakup song suitable for teeny-boppers, from what else, Radio Disney, dominating frequency for a while, then Home Depot ad (whose customers are presumably adult), 1158 fading and losing out to a Fox Sports outlet, but enough signal at 1200 to hear a local ID for KPHN Kansas City [MO], meshing with the NE/SW DF on it (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. EE.UU: LA RADIO REBELDE DE MIAMI - Jueves, 3 de mayo de 2012 Reproductor multimedia --- Utilizar un reproductor alternativo [WOCN] Una pequeña emisora de radio de Miami se enorgullece de representar la voz más a la izquierda de la ciudad. En Radio Miami es posible escuchar defensas de los gobiernos de Cuba o Venezuela, pero sus periodistas se definen como independientes. Emiten cada día una hora en el dial de Unión Radio (1450 de AM) y también pueden ser seguidos en internet. http://www.radio-miami.org/ El periodista de BBC Mundo Fernando Peinado visitó la emisora. Véalo en este video de BBC Mundo. FUENTE: http://www.bbc.co.uk/mundo/noticias/2012/05/120503_video_radio_rebelde_miami_lav.shtml En la foto aparece 1210 kHz AM (Via @yimbergaviria, May 4, DXLD) ** U S A. 1650, May 3 at 1146 UT, ``16-50 The Fan`` with sports talk, i.e. KCNZ Cedar Falls IA. Already too late to get XEARZ, with my local sunrise now 1136 UT, one minute earlier every morning (Glenn Hauser, Enid OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. BRATTLEBORO COMMUNITY RADIO BACK ON THE AIR [WVEW Vermont] Community radio in Brattleboro has a long and colorful history, and the latest change only adds one more chapter to that story. Back in 1998, a small group of area residents started Radio Free Brattleboro, which eventually grew into a 10-watt station with a dedicated core of volunteers and DJs. An extract from the Brattleboro Reformer on May 5, 2012: Radio Free Brattleboro never received an FCC license, and after years of battles with the federal government in the courts, the FBI raided the studio on June 22, 2005, seized the equipment and shut down the station. While Radio Free Brattleboro was fighting for its life, an independent group, which later took the name of Vermont Earth Works, applied for a low-watt permit, which was granted in March 2005. Brattleboro Community Radio, which went on the air on Sept. 1, 2006, was run by a different group than the one which ran Radio Free Brattleboro. And while the station thrived under its new structure, and with the FCC license, Maxwell said there was always some tension between the board, and some of the disc jockeys who had come over from Radio Free Brattleboro. Radio Free Brattleboro was largely controlled by the board of directors, which held the FCC license, and the board was made up of area residents who were invited to join. After the fire, Maxwell said, when it was time to make decisions about the future of the station, all of those issues between the board and the disc jockeys caused hours of acrimonious debates. After a tragedy such as a fire, under FCC rules a radio station only has 12 months to get back on the air, and Maxwell said as the months passed it became clear that changes were needed or Brattleboro would once again be without a community radio station. Insurance covered the equipment, so the station was able to invest in new, modern radio and computer technology. But as decisions had to be made about the move, and about how the station would emerge from the fire, the meetings tuned emotional. "The board was under incredible pressure to get all this done with the clock ticking," Maxwell said. "Everyone had strong opinions, and passions. We had to figure out how to get back on the air, but we also had to address all of the other issues and it was very, very hard to do both things at the same time." Maxwell said as the deadline neared, the remaining Vermont Earth Works board members made decisions to move the process along, which created further friction. The station had until early May to get back on the air and it was able to meet the deadline by a about a week (it`s just made it)! Full story here: http://www.reformer.com/ci_20554001/brattleboro-community-radio-is-back-air-overcoming-brooks?source=most_viewed (via Mike Terry, dxldyg via DXLD) ** U S A. "FAMILY BATTLE OFFERS LOOK INSIDE LAVISH TV MINISTRY" (TBN) Link follows of a NY Times story about the TBN Religious Broadcasting empire and some intrafamily battles that have caused some of the more over the top areas of the ministry to come public. Shades of 1980's PTL (Jim and Tammy Bakker). [my personal note: TBN has no stations currently on air locally although there was once analog LPTV relayers in Little Rock (ch34) and Greenville MS (ch42) in past years. WBUY 41 (40-n) Holly Springs MS (Memphis metro area) is the closest full power, DTV O&O station of TBN]. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/05/us/tbn-fight-offers-glimpse-inside-lavish-tv-ministry.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hpw (Fritze H. Prentice, Jr., KC5KBV, Star City AR EM43aw twitter.com/fritzehp DX LISTENING DIGEST) Will this come out of your quota of free NYT articles? No such notice appeared. What if you go to it separately twice? (Glenn Hauser, DXLD) http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/05/us/tbn-fight-offers-glimpse-inside-lavish-tv-ministry.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print (via Mike Cooper, DXLD) ** U S A. Question --- While doing some informal DXing in the car last night, I heard a little bit of an old time radio show that had a live spot for a cigarette brand. It wasn't edited at all, the whole thing was there. That surprised me. So now I have to ask if anyone knows of any exemption in the FCC R&R for tobacco advertising in historic programs. My guess is that there isn't any, but they let it slide for the historic value connected with the program, or I suppose it's also possible that it's just a gray area that nobody cares to bother with. Any opinions? 73, (Kit W5KAT, May 6, ABDX via DXLD) My understanding is that it's not considered "advertising" in that context, because there's no consideration changing hands from the "sponsor" to the station. It's the same reason noncommercial FM stations can air old-time radio shows that contain vintage ads. In any event, it's not the FCC's regulations that ban tobacco advertising. It was an act of Congress in 1970, the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act. I'm not familiar enough with its wording to know whether it includes an exemption for vintage ads. s (Scott Fybush, NY, ibid.) That was so long ago, I didn't even remember how it came about. It seems odd to view old TV shows online now that had cigarette sponsors. To quote an oldie but goodie, "you've come a long way, baby!" 73, (Kit, ibid.) What time was it when you heard this ad? (Kevin Redding, Crump, TN, ibid.) I'm thinking it must have been around 9 PM because it was already dark (Kit, ibid.) You can put on anything pretty much if its after 10 PM (Kevin, Crump, TN, ibid.) That's usually when I play my Abba albums on the air, after 10PM. But that's a totally different subject. Totally different (Ron Gitschier, FL, ibid.) Those "safe harbor" rules you're thinking of cover only indecency. They don't affect advertising content - a cigarette commercial that's actually paid for by a tobacco company would be just as illegal at 11 PM as at 7 PM. s (Fybush, ibid.) When I worked for SDPTV/Radio in the early 1990s there were "set rules" for content though we could get away with a bit more because we were "Public". A cigarette ad as part of a historical program would have been considered "relevant content" even if it was broadcast during day or prime time. Some of the documentaries we produced did contain the F-bomb and N- word unbleeped because they were relevant to the historical context. Our overnight Rural Health ITV service would carry breast feeding and emergency childbirth videos that in any other context would have gotten our ticket pulled. "The Lathe of Heaven" version with Richard Thomas was broadcast on a Sunday afternoon. One scene had full frontal nudity of the male and female leads but it was left in because it was considered "Relevant content" in the context of "The Artistic Style of the Film". Some of the music and poetry played on our State network was the same way because it was part of the "Artistic or Historical" relevant content (Tim Hills, Sioux Falls, SD, May 7, ibid.) Wow, I never knew South Dakota was such a liberal state! When Monty Python first started being shown in the US on public TV stations in the 70s, I had never heard of it because I lived in Mississippi. When I went up north to see some friends one summer, we watched it on their local public station and I was almost shocked that it was on over the air TV, but I also liked the show a lot. When I got back home, I contacted Mississippi Public Broadcasting in Jackson and asked when they were going to show Monty Python. The reply I got was "the people of Mississippi are not ready for that kind of thing." You can just imagine how little of a chance there would be of them ever showing anything as risque as full frontal nudity in our lifetime. As for radio, I know at least some obscenity has been broadcast in Mississippi because I was guilty of doing it, but not knowingly. When I used to hang out at our local station with a friend who worked there before I got my first job there, I would mess around in the control rooms after sign off while he was doing production work. One night we had a Richard Pryor album playing the in the FM control room when someone called the station and asked why we were broadcasting that filthy stuff. We told them we were off the air, so it couldn't have been us. It turned out it was us because we didn't realize that even after turning off the transmitter, out exciter was still on. Our signal from the exciter could be heard for at least a half mile from the station. Oops! 73, (Kit, W5KAT, CO, ibid.) It should be noted that the FCC's policy regarding indecent content has shifted considerably since the 1970s. What might have been acceptable late at night as "artistic" or "educational" can sometimes draw a $325,000 fine now - and the Commission is so maddeningly inconsistent when it comes to making that decision (so inconsistent, in fact, that it may well result in the Supreme Court tossing that whole set of rules out, but that's another story.) Point is - if you're a public broadcasting station manager in 2012, do you want to run the risk that carrying an unedited Monty Python episode, or a documentary with an unbleeped "F"-bomb, *might* land you a $325,000 fine, *if* someone complains, and *if* the FCC is in a bad mood that day? There's a new culture of caution out there that's distinctly different from what prevailed in the 1970s and 1980s. s (Scott Fybush, ibid.) Reference the exciter, one time when I was working at our FM station, we had high school boys taking care of the station's automation system at night. One night after sign off, one of the boys got to banging away on the piano in the big studio next to the control room. He must have seen the "On Air" light on and he said, "Are you recording all this shit?" No, I wasn't at the station, I was at home three and a half miles away. Today, one of those boys is a middle school math teacher who has a combo on the side. He played for our 45th high school reunion last week. I reminded him about that incident. The transmitter was a Gates FM 1-G. We put in 1 kW to the antenna for an ERP of 3 kW. I wonder if that meant the 10 watt exciter was actually putting out 30 watts ERP? (Bob Smoak, Bamberg, SC, ibid.) ** U S A. Re: [NRC-AM] Does KLIB 1110 CA really broadcast Russian Commie Youth programs? [thread diverges based on wikipedia entry] Wikipedia says: ``The station was taken off air in April 2006.[2] Companion AM Station KFSG-AM (1690 kHz) was licensed for operations in 2001 [1] as part of the FCC's expanded AM band program.[2] At the end of the 5 year period, the licensee (Way Broadcasting) would have to either discontinue operations in the expanded band or return the original license (KLIB in this case) and cease operations. The station went silent in 2006 and removed its directional phasing equipment to comply, but also filed a request to retain both licenses. On February 20, 2007, the FCC granted a temporary authority to resume operations using a lower power non-directional antenna pending the final disposition of the expanded band license issue.`` (via gh, DXLD) The "requirement" that an expanded band station licensee, in order to "reduce the congestion on the AM band", must surrender the license of one of its two stations at the end of five years, was a joke. Most stations ignored it with impunity. The ones who complied and turned in a valuable license must feel like suckers (Steve Francis, Alcoa, Tennessee, NRC-AM via DXLD) In the end, I don't think there were more than a tiny handful of stations that surrendered their original license and were unable to get it back. What happened, at least behind the scenes, was that both broadcasters and the FCC itself quietly realized that the expanded AM band wasn't going to accomplish anything useful as far as reducing congestion on the existing band. The FCC essentially stopped doing ANYTHING with the X-band early in the 21st century. The filing window for new AMs and major modifications to existing AMs that opened in 2004 explicitly excluded the X-band. By then, broadcasters had effectively stopped the clock by filing a rulemaking petition to revoke the five-year shutdown rule. The petition argued (quite correctly) that any improvement to the overall AM band from the five-year shutdowns was more than made up for by all the new AM noise that was created by the new filing window (and by AM IBOC!) The FCC has never acted on that petition, and that's not by accident. By failing to act on the petition, the FCC doesn't have to do anything at all about the proceeding. A few of the stations that had gone silent (like KLIB) were quietly allowed to return to the air under Special Temporary Authority. The others that had remained on the air were allowed to stay on. I can think of only a few stations that went silent and stayed silent. A few couldn't come back because they couldn't coexist with their X- band counterparts (1590/1610 Atmore, Alabama), and a few just couldn't justify keeping a big directional array in place (570 Biloxi, Mississippi). One could argue that the bigger losers were the stations that never built their X-band assignments because they thought the X-band facility would be worse than their existing signal. WTRY 980 in Troy never built on 1640, WGIN 930 in Rochester NH never built on 1700 - but would they have done so if they'd known they could have kept 980 and 930, too? So, yes, the X-band has not worked out the way the FCC intended...but one can argue that the Commission has at least figured out that the best way to avoid making even more of a mess was to just stop doing anything with it at all (Scott Fybush, ibid.) When I phoned the station in NH in the 90s, the GM told me that they had no plans to build 1700. I was disappointed as it would have made it much easier to log a rare state like NH from OR. 1290 Portland went away when the went after 1640, now Radio Disney. 73, (Patrick Martin, Seaside OR, KGED QSL Manager, ibid.) X-BAND-RELATED TURNED-IN LICENSES 540 Costa Mesa CA 570 Biloxi MS 600 Redding CA 800 Brigham City UT 920 Lexington Park MD 950 Denison-Sherman TX 1290 Lake Oswego OR 1290 Frederiksted USVI 1360 Camuy PR 1370 Sussex WI 1390 Des Moines IA 1440 Monroe LA 1470 Adel GA 1470 Kalamazoo MI 1530 Moreno Valley CA 1550 Arvada CO 1550 West Fargo ND 1560 Iowa City IA 1580 Merced CA 1580 Waco TX 1600 Warner Robins GA 1600 Muskegon MI 1600 Charlotte NC 1600 Brownsville TX 1610 Atlanta TX 1620 Blackfoot ID Not included is WGYJ-1590 Atmore AL, since their proximity to 1620 required immediate surrender of the 1590 license; consequently, the "five-year plan" never applied to them (Steve Francis, Alcoa, Tennessee, ibid) ** U S A. TWO STATIONS, SAME CALLSIGN? Not sure whether this is a policy change or just a clerical error: For years, there has been a KFMT-FM on 105.5 in Fremont, Nebraska. On Tuesday, the FCC assigned the calls KFMT to a new FM station in Lewistown, Montana. Now, the calls *are* different (no -FM in Montana). However, it's not been FCC policy in the past to allow the same four-letter "base call" to be used on two different stations in the same service by using or not using the -FM or -TV suffix.* * it *has* been permissible to use them on two different stations in *different* services -- for example, on a full-power TV station and a LPTV (WPXJ-LP Jacksonville, Florida and WPXJ-TV Batavia, New York, for example). – (Doug Smith W9WI, Pleasant View, TN EM66, 03 May, WTFDA via DXLD) ** UZBEKISTAN [non]. 21590, May 4 at 1322, CNR1 with poor signal // 11990 with double-signal echojammer. Why? Because BBCWS is broadcasting in Uzbek on 21590 at 1300-1330 via Cyprus (unheard), and the ChiCom interfere with the internal affairs of Uzbekistan, since some Turkic Chinese citizens can understand it. Axually, the repressive Uzbek government may well approve of this ``foreign aid`` (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** VANUATU. see UNIDENTIFIED 7260; I suppose this overlap on both frequencies falls in the the time range given in their latest schedule: ``operating currently on 3945 kHz between 1825-0035 & 0525- 1230 and on 7260 kHz between 2125-0735`` on http://wrth.com/updates_national.html I still can't hear the audio in the youtu.be clip. Best regards, (Mauno Ritola, Finland, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) you can try this URL http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9f94EnmhqnA&feature=youtu.be Thanks & Regards, (Partha Sarathi Goswami, Siliguri, Dist. Darjeeling, West Bengal, INDIA, ibid.) ** VATICAN [non]. 11890, May 3 at 1359, poor signal with Vatican Radio IS. Chances are when you hear this just before the hour they are about to sign off*, not *on, and yes, off at 1400*. HFCC May 1 shows this had been Vietnamese at 1315-1400, 250 kW, 280 degrees from TINIAN, which HFCC now attributes to the country abbr`d MHL --- ``11890 1315 1400 49 TIN 250 280 0 216 1234567 250312 281012 D 16000 Vie MHL VAT VAT 13012`` MHL, what`s that, a new one? HFCC does not provide a reference for country abbrs. Check ITU instead: it`s missing from this listing: http://www.iarums-r1.org/iarums/itu.pdf Looks suspiciously like short for MARSHALL, but that`s shown as MRL. However, on page 658 of the WRTH 2012, MHL is listed as the ITU code for Marshall Islands! Also among Marshalls` many abbrs. here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Country_codes:_M#.C2.A0Marshall_Islands TROUBLE IS, Tinian and Saipan, are NOT in the Marshall Islands. Here`s a map of the ones which are, and further info on them: http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/26551.htm Tinian is in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, which is about 25 degrees of longitude further west, quite a miss! Here`s an equivalent map and info: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/cq.html Aoki and EiBi correctly show the country abbr. as MRA. BTW, another VR transmission on 11890 preceding this one, Chinese at 1225-1315 is instead via PUG, PHILIPPINES, 250 kW, 320 degrees. BTW2, there are lots of Marshallese in Enid, strangely enough. We often drive by one of their churches on the way to the cemetery. A serious injury fight involving one of them at a middle school was labeled a hate crime, and made national news. 13730, May 4 at 1205, Vatican Radio in English with seemingly secular news reports from stringers ``for Vatican Radio``, in Moscow about missile defense systems; in Veracruz about drugs; in Geneva about something else. But PBXVI always manages to make ``news`` before the cast is over at 1214. Only fair signal via CANADA, aimed south (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** VATICAN [non non and non]. VR`s 10 kW transmitter within the actual Vatican City is registered for A12 on 3975 at 0400-0645 and 1555-2100. I also noted it over the Easter weekend as late as 2300 (including English 2230-2300). This transmitter is notable by being off-channel, 3974.75v and only in USB + carrier (Dave Kenny, DX News, May BDXC-UK Communication via DXLD) 3974.75, 2240 6 April, VR, unscheduled English (for Easter?), USB only, SIO 344 (Dave Kenny, England, Tropical [sic] Bands Logbook, May BDXC-UK Communication via DXLD) 3975, 1902 6 April, VR, English, Easter broadcast, announced // 558, 1260 and SW frequencies, Sio 454 (Nick Rank, Derbyshire, ibid.) 3975, 1904 6 April, Spanish to 1905 then live English coverage ``from the Coliseum``, SIO 454 (Alan Pennington, England, ibid.) 6 April was `Good Friday` not Easter itself. The May 3 HFCC does show VAT as above, 10 kW at 340 degrees, so also USward, while the SMG site is on 3975 at 0230-0400 at 35 degrees, & 2100-2215 at 340 degrees, both 100 kW. So on non-holydays you should notice quite a change at 2100 if you can hear the Garden transmitter at all before then. What about 7250 now? The same latest HFCC has some very suspicious entries for *SMG* as only 10 kW -- do they have another such low-power transmitter there, or is this really the same dentro-Vatican site? 7250 0400 0420 28 SMG 10 26 10 386 1234567 250312 281012 D 7194 Pol CVA VAT VAT 8122 NEW 7250 0420 0440 28 SMG 10 4 -6 386 1234567 250312 281012 D 7194 Deu CVA VAT VAT 8126 And then SMG 250 kW takes over immediately in French from 0440, and then English, Latin, Italian, French, English, until 0645, except Sundays a sesquihour in Latin from 0600. Plus lots more usage thruout the day. If we`re lucky, we might hear 7250, even 3975 at *0400 in North America, so compare them, and also at 0440 whether 7250 suddenly jumps from 10 to 250 kW. It so happens that sunrise over the so-called Holy See is currently 0400 UT, and will get as early as 0335 in June, so don`t delay. Europeans can much more easily confirm whether VR is on 7250 or 3975v at 0400, or both, and whether both are weak. 7250, May 5 at 0403, bigsig in Polish as scheduled from VR. At first I thought there was CCI under, but turned out to be BXVI pontificating in some other language, being voice-overed, until brought up from under at conclusion. I was checking this because HFCC A-12 shows this as a 10 kW transmitter in Santa Maria di Galeria [SMG], along with another 10 kW starting at 0400 on 3975 in the Vatican itself [VAT]. I don`t believe there is any mere 10 kW at SMG, and this was certainly not so feeble, so registration must be wrong, but did it mean 7250 is really VAT Gardens at this time? Apparently not. 3975, if on, was totally lost in the high spring storm noise level on 75m. 0400 happens to be the current sunrise time over the so-called Holy See, so chances of hearing it are diminishing every night. I did manage to hear the 10 kW VAT when really on 7250 in the winter until the former 0528 switch to SMG 250 kW (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** VIETNAM. 11720, VOV-1, 1338-1401, May 2. Thanks to the tip from Sei-ichi Hasegawa (Japan), heard this reactivated frequency, after being off for almost one year; in Vietnamese; signed on shortly after 1331. At 1359 IS, pips and NA (“March to the Front”); // 5975, 7210, 7435 and 9635; fair. Nice to have another frequency to hear them on! MP3 audio at http://www.box.com/s/c493bfcc18940d4b14be Not on the air May 3, so perhaps still an irregular schedule? (Ron Howard, Asilomar State Beach, CA, Etón E1, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** WESTERN SAHARA [non]. 1550, R. Nacional Sahara, Rabuni, 2158 UT May 2, woman with ID in Arabic, music. Receivers: Kenwood R-5000 & Yaesu FRG-100 with 320 foot wire. Good DX (Allen Willie, Bristol's Hope, Newfoundland, VO1-001-SWL / VOPC1AA, ABDX via WORLD OF RADIO 1616, DXLD) Fiesta on 1550 kHz --- Radio Sahara again came in quite strong here in Germany on 1550 kHz last night (3 May 2012) with SINPO up to 43433- 44444 (S9) at 2300 UT. Live broadcast from a festival with announcements in Arabic and Spanish, including solidarity messages for the Saharan people. From 2305 studio program in Arabic with news and local music. 2332 signing off after a short announcement. 73 (Harald Kuhl, Germany, May 4, BDXC-UK yg via DXLD) ESTAÇÕES CLANDESTINAS, 1550, Frente POLISARIO, Rabouni, ALG, 1213- 1303*, 04/5, programa em árabe e castelhano, canções, texto; 25332 (Carlos Gonçalves, PORTUGAL, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ZANZIBAR. TANZANIA: 11735, Zanzibar B.C. (guess); 2055-2059:44*, 1- May; Tuned in to ME-style music; M in Arabish? to 2058+ new M in not- Arabish-sounding. Anthem 2059 to s/off. Did not hear any key location names. SIO=343 with muted audio & weak buzz QRM (Harold Frodge, Midland MI, USA, Drake R8B + 85 ft. RW & 180 ft. center-fed RW, All logged by my ears, on my receiver, in real time! DX LISTENING DIGEST) [and non]. 11735, May 3 at 2029, during the following semihour frequent chex for RTZ, and BIAFRA [non], q.v., i.a. Z was also JBA carrier at first; 2042 poor signal with some music, never got any better. Propagation was subnormal today, judging from the KUWAIT signals on 15540 and 17550 being only poor-fair, JBA carrier only from ISRAEL 15850, nothing from EQUATORIAL GUINEA 15190 - maybe already off by now, nor from VOSSRR on 15725 or 15650; is anybody hearing that any more in the African evenings? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) May 5 1802-1812, 11735, news in English by OM: East African Community Market, Addis Ababa (died from heart attack), South Africa, violence, raid, Sudan, France (Presidential vote), Senegal, Guinea-Bissau. 42432, splatter from 11740 (Tony Ashar, West Java, Indonesia, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) TANZÂNIA, 11735, R. Tanzânia, Dole, Zanzibar, 1830-1850, 05/5, suaíli, canções locais, programa falado; 45444. 73 (Carlos Gonçalves, PORTUGAL, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ZANZIBAR, 11735.00 Radio Tanzania Zanzibar, 2055-2100*. Got a pretty good recording of the last 5 minutes before sign-off today, with music of the region and announcement, but not able to pick out an ID. Also heard yesterday and today around 2000, with the curious feature on both days that the time signal (which is Beijing style 5+1) was about 1 minute and 40 seconds late! Seems like a lot even if they're relaying via satellite from a remote studio. May 6 (Art Delibert, N. Bethesda, MD, WinRadio, Excalibur, ProCollins 51j-4, Pennant antenna with DX Engineering Amp, HCDX via DXLD) Estos últimos días hubo muy malas condiciones en HF. Sin embargo hoy llegó bajito una UNID en 11735 que pienso que es la de Zanzíbar. De hecho un colega estadounidense la reportó a la misma hora en que la escuché yo (2045 a 2100 UT) y con igual programación. Llegaba con señal fuerte pero un ruido de la gran siete. SINPO 33232. Enviado desde mi BlackBerry de Personal (Arnaldo L Slaen, Argentina, condiglist yg via DXLD) ZANZIBAR BROADCASTING CORPORATION NOT RADIO TANZANIA Zanzibar logged on 7th May 2012 at 1800 UT. Strong signals with clear ID following interval signal of drums, time pips and ID in English announcing "Zanzibar Broadcasting Corporation". Ten minutes of English news till 1810. Zanzibar is a semi-autonomous region of Tanzania with its own President and own legislature http://www.wikipedia.org/zanzibar The structure of Zanzibar Broadcasting Corporation is not clear. I am tempted to draw a parallel with Radio Kashmir which is the way All India Radio (AIR) in Kashmir calls itself (Supratik Sanatani, Kolkata, India, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ZIMBABWE [non]. MADAGASCAR. A-12 schedule for Voice of People in English/Shona/Ndebele 0400-0500 on 9870 MDC 050 kW / 265 deg to ZWE 1600-1630 on 9445 MDC 050 kW / 265 deg to ZWE 1800-1900 on 7330 MDC 050 kW / 265 deg to ZWE (DX Re Mix News, Bulgaria, 8 May via DXLD) UNIDENTIFIED. Co-channel on 5110 --- Dear Glenn, I'm listening to WOR on WBCQ right now on 5110 and I`m hearing some weird Oriental music interfering. Do you know what this could be? (April Yamane, 0154 UT Saturday May 5, DX LISTENING DIGEST) April, I wish I had been monitoring this evening. You don`t say where you are or what kind of receiver, but my guess would be a receiver- produced image from 6020, China Radio International in English via Albania. It`s a common problem for stations to show up 910 kHz below their true frequency on certain lower-priced receivers. If it`s still happening, compare 5110 to 6020. Did WOR start at 0130 and end at 0200 UT? You would also be getting images of other strong 6 MHz band stations on 5 MHz and up at -910 kHz. You might be able to get rid of it by reducing the gain on the receiver, if you can do that. Regards, (Glenn Hauser, to April, via DXLD) I'm in Metro Detroit listening on a Grundig Satellite 750, with a 23 foot wire antenna attached to the whip and leading out of my window and around my house a little, attached to an antenna. WOR started at around 0130 and ended around 0200. I've heard strange Oriental music on 5110 before and even CRI on that frequency before, which makes me think it might be that, or there's something the Red Chinese want to jam on that frequency. Or even something via Cuba, with amigo Arnie hating American free speech? It was definitely something Asian sounding. I've never heard the Firedrake but it might have been that? Lots of questions. I mean, *never definitely heard the Firedrake, I've probably heard it before but didn't pay attention to it because it wasn't bothering what I was listening to. At any rate the music lasted for the duration of WOR and ended when Area 51 started playing Jean Shepherd (April Yamane, ibid.) Firedrake comes only out of transmitters inside China, as far as we know, for jamming purposes. So it would not be a factor in the evenings here on 5 MHz. You could surely hear it in the mornings if you check some of the many frequencies I report almost every day. I really doubt that Cuba or China (or anyone) would be deliberately interfering with WBCQ/WOR. I`ll ask if anyone else noted any music this evening. Was there nothing but musical interference during the half-hour? CRI programming would normally include a considerable amount of talk in English. But if you have heard CRI before when tuned to 5110, that`s a good indication it is one of those images (not really transmitted on that frequency). Later in the evening, 04-06 UT, the CRI relay on 6020 is from Canada instead of Albania, and should have a much stronger signal. I tried to find out the intermediate frequency (IF) of the Sat 750, but the specs I found don`t say anything but ``double conversion`` (in French at least in the manual). Double conversion makes 910 kHz images less likely but still possible if one of the IFs is 455 kHz (Glenn, ibid.) I'll make sure to check tomorrow night around the same time to see if it's there, if I'm awake. I'll let you know if it's there too (April Yamane, UT May 5, ibid.) Dear Glenn, Monitored 5110 at the same time as I did last night from 0130 to 0200. No musical interference was detected, just the usual Saturday night music show on Area 51 (April Yamane, UT May 6, ibid.) UNIDENTIFIED. 5745-5890: May 5 at 0538, I happen to tune to 5745 and hear a signal very slowly moving upward, seems to have multiple digital carriers, zero-beats downward across WTWW 5755 and then pitch increases again. This is typical behavior of an ionosonde, probably aiming vertically, probing the ionosphere for MUF propagation research. I decided to time its rate of ascent, altho I had not noted the exact second it was on 5745, 5755. I got ahead of it going across 5890 WWCR with non-BS gospel huxter, at 0542:15; then retuned to 5910 but it never reached there to cross Alcaraván whose much weaker signal would have made it easy to spot. Then I retuned all the way from 5 to 7 MHz but never found it again. Perhaps it deliberately avoids the broadcast band officially starting at 5900. Assuming 0538:00 UT for 5745, and 0542:15 for 5890, the rate would be: 145 kHz per 255 seconds = 0.57 kHz/sec or kc/sec/sec, like an acceleration. Or 5.7 kHz every 10 seconds (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) UNIDENTIFIED. Re: ``Papua New Guinea or Mongolia? 7260 kHz at 1113 UT: prop is open to Asia-Pacific for me at this QTR. http://youtu.be/9f94EnmhqnA Obviously is not Xinjiang, Urumqi; Anyone can recognize this? Thanks in advance. 73 de CX2ABP`` Regarding the above posting of 28 April, I am just catching up on DXLD postings after some time away. Radio Vanuatu is currently audible here in New Zealand on BOTH 7259.97 and 3945 in our late afternoon and evening period. I have listened to the audio clip but do not believe it is coming from Radio Vanuatu (Bryan Clark, Mangawhai - New Zealand, May 4, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) This clip Language seems Mongolian to me, also the time and strength matches too. They use 50 kW transmitter I read in combined schedules from hfskeds.com/skeds/ (Partha Sarathi Goswami Siliguri, West Bengal, India, ibid.) See also VANUATU UNIDENTIFIED [non]. Re: UNID broadcast in Chinese on 11300 kHz ``Weak signal in Central Europe, but good in Japan at 2230 UT. Will make pilots and air traffic controllers in NE Africa more than happy. 73, (Günter Lorenz, Freising, Germany, RX: Perseus ANT: ALA1530+SSB, March 31, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST)`` ``Looks as if the station is 24/7. Best heard here at 1100 but does not seem to be parallel with SOH when they are heard when Firedrake goes silent at the TOH. Can others check it to assist with the ID? (Robin L. Harwood, VK7RH, Norwood, Tasmania, April 1, ibid.)`` Receiving this signal again today (I do not check regularly) - has it been identified? YL talks at threshold level, at 2142 UT. 73, (Günter Lorenz, Freising, Germany, RX: Perseus ANT: ALA1530+SSB, May 2, ibid.) Günter and others, I have not heard it recently but that is due to my health issue. 11300 seem to be there but I haven't heard Firedrake which usually comes up on any SOH frequency. Incidentally SOH + Firedrake is on 12300 at the same time but seemingly different audio to 11300. I have heard Chinese and American English on 11300 but it didn't sound like SOH. I'll keep monitoring when I am able (Robin VK7RH Harwood, Norwood, Tasmania 7250, May 3, ibid.) Chinese station which I can receive on 11300 kHz is SOH. This frequency is almost 24 hrs service on unofficial frequency from Taiwan. There is not the jamming for 11300 kHz. Often an announcement of "Xiwan zhi sheng". de Hiroshi (S. Hasegawa, Japan, ibid.) Hi Sei-ichi, 11300 also noted May 3 with the usual ID in English at 1211; spelling out ``w-w-w-s-o-u-n-d-o-f-h-o-p-e-o-r-g`` and saying ``Sound of Hope``; all over a background of soft religious music; no Firedrake jamming. Back on April 21 on 13970, I also heard the same ID at the same time of 1211. MP3 audio of that ID is at http://www.box.com/s/aa2b324dfa7ac2f6e301 (Ron Howard, Asilomar State Beach, Calif., ibid.) Thanks to all confirming that it indeed is SOH from Taiwan. I suspect that as it is a busy aero channel in Africa and parts of the Mid-east, Firedrake has not appeared (Robin VK7RH, SWLR-KS001, May 4, ibid.) UNIDENTIFIED. 13780, May 3 at 2034, very distorted music, and then talk in Chinese. Deep fades all the way out, occasional peaks. BFO is no help with the distortion. Sounds like it could be a spur of a much stronger signal, but there is nothing like it on this band. Peak at 2038 has M&W in Chinese, with constant whine, the pitch varying along with the modulation, like shoving it slightly aside. Another peak at 2046. Gone at 2102 check. Nothing in HFCC or Eibi at this hour, but RFA Mandarin via Tajikistan is on 13780 at 17-20, surely attacked by ChiCom jamming. Maybe this was running over, and/or RFA extended an hour. However, Aoki also shows 13780 as a 100-watt Sound of Hope nuisance frequency from Taiwan at 20-17, and that would be enough for the ChiCom to attack with this kind of jamming if not Firedrake (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) UNIDENTIFIED. 15747 approx., May 8 at 0520, DRMish noise centered around here; nothing scheduled, maybe utility or jamming (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) UNIDENTIFIED. 15870, May 3 at 0556, very poor carrier with flutter, broadcast station? Only Aoki shows a possibility beyond the far right of the 15 MHz band, WWCR and Galei Tsahal: what else but a Sound of Hope nuisance transmitter from Taiwan (or maybe Firedrake): ``15870 SOH Xi Wang Zhi Sheng 2000-1700 1234567 Chinese 0.1 ND ? TWN 11955E 2610N SOH a12`` (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) UNIDENTIFIED. WWV 20 MHz buzz --- Hey there, just been listening to WWV on 20000 kHz and this loud buzz that I've heard on many shortwave bands is there right now just interfering with WWV. Anyone know where this might come from? (Gilles Letourneau, Montreal, Canada, http://www.youtube.com/tecmtl 1657 UT May 4, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ TESTIMONIALS ++++++++++++ ACKNOWLEDGED ON WORLD OF RADIO 1616: Thanks to Chuck Ermatinger, St Louis, for a contribution via PayPal to woradio at yahoo.com TO BE ACKNOWLEDGED ON FUTURE EDITIONS OF WOR: Hi Glenn, Thanks for all your ``all-killah, no-fillah`` DXLD work; the info in `LD has given me a lotta new loggings over the years --- & belated congratulations on DXLD`s 8th anniversary --- may there be many more (easy for me to say --- you do all the work!). Continued success with DXLD, good listening & happy Spring (with not so many tornados, ya?) Alla best from Encinitas (Dan Sheedy, with a check to P O Box 1684, Enid OK 73702) PUBLICATIONS ++++++++++++ AFRICALIST has been updated May 7th: http://www.africalist.de.ms (Thorsten Hallmann, Münster, Germany, May 8, DX LISTENING DIGEST) WRTH A12 SCHEDULES FILE NOW AVAILABLE FOR FREE DOWNLOAD The WRTH Editorial team is pleased to announce that the Summer/'A' season broadcasting schedules file is now available to download, free of charge, from the WRTH website - click on http://www.wrth.com and follow the link "Latest PDF Updates". The file is in PDF format (you will require the free Adobe Acrobat reader to open this file. If you do not have the Acrobat reader, please visit http://www.abobe.com to download and install it). The 86 page file is approximately 4500kB in size and contains the following information: Summer / 'A' Season broadcasting schedules for over 200 international and Clandestine/Target stations; Frequency listing of the above stations to facilitate band scanning; Broadcasts in English, French, German, Portuguese and Spanish; International DRM broadcasts. Please feel free to pass this information on so that we may reach as many SWL's, DX-er's and professionals as possible. For contact details, transmitter sites and much more, please refer to the printed WRTH, which is available to order from the website. We hope you find this a useful accompaniment to the printed WRTH. On behalf of the publisher and editorial team at WRTH, happy listening! Regards, (Sean D. Gilbert, International Editor - WRTH (World Radio TV Handbook), DX LISTENING DIGEST) SHORTWAVESCHEDULE.COM The best SW site I have seen is www.shortwaveschedule.com/ It is real time too, not a list that may be days or weeks old and easy to use. It is worth a look. 73's [ or in this case, 36 and a half ] (Al Rayment, Nelson, BC, May CIDX Messenger via DXLD) No, it isn`t --- nice funxionality in displaying info, but apparently uses Aoki only, which includes lots of outdated listings, especially Latin American, i.e. years old. That could explain why elsewhere in same issue, Al in BC reports a log of R. Victoria, Peru on 6020, in Spanish at 1430 UT on 23 April. I don`t see how he could have heard anything in Spanish on that time and frequency, but it sure wasn`t R. Victoria because 1) it`s been off the air for at least a year, and 2) it wouldn`t propagate (gh, DXLD) RNW MEDIA NETWORK RETROSPECTIVE - THE "NOUGHTIES" Andy Sennitt's review of shortwave history through the lens of Media Network has its latest post online - for the decade beginning in 2000. It's an interesting look at how shortwave and, specifically, Media Network and Radio Network, have evolved over the years. http://www.rnw.nl/english/article/media-network-years-noughties (via Richard Cuff / Allentown, PA, Swprograms mailing list via DXLD) CONVENTIONS & CONFERENCES +++++++++++++++++++++++++ EDXC CONFERENCE 2012 IN GERMANY COMBINED WITH DSWCI ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING Dear DX-Friends all over the World! You can read more about our Conference in May at the following homepages: http://www.edxc.org or http://www.rmrc.de PLEASE OBSERVE : NEW ! NEW ! NEW ! On Monday, June 4, we will have the opportunity to visit the Radio Museum in Koenigs-Wusterhausen. Please look at: http://www.radiomuseum.org/museum/d/sender-und-funktechnikmuseum-koenigs-wusterhausen/ Please do inform Dr. Harald Gabler : DrGabler@t-online.de if you wish to participate on this tour. Best wishes and greetings from EDXC. (T i b o r S z i l a g y I, EDXC Secretary General, E-Mail : tiszi2035@yahoo.com DX LISTENING DIGEST) DX-PEDITIONS ++++++++++++ DXERS RIDE MARCONI’S WAVELENGTH [true editor`s nonsense title --- gh] by Saul Chernos on 04.23.2012 Imagine the awe and personal satisfaction Guglielmo Marconi must have felt on Dec. 12, 1901 when he announced the first transatlantic wireless reception. Marconi and his team used a kite to raise a 500-foot antenna atop Signal Hill in St. John’s, Newfoundland, and waited for pre-arranged Morse code signals from Poldhu, Cornwall, more than 2,000 miles away. The signals he reported were extremely faint, occurred during daylight and lacked independent authentication. However, he soon achieved comparable distances under more optimal circumstances from a ship in the mid-Atlantic and, later, from Nova Scotia. Radio proceeded to capture imaginations the world over. Even as it works to define itself in today’s digital age, some dedicated listeners continue to get the same charge Marconi did. Saul Chernos is shown with a Tecsun receiver at the Signal Hill National Historic Site, reception point of the first transatlantic wireless signal. [caption] Diligent listeners Each fall for the past 20 years, a group of us has met near the southeastern tip of the Avalon peninsula, a two-hour drive from Signal Hill, to set out lengthy arrays of wire and hunker down with the latest high-tech receivers. . . http://www.rwonline.com/article/dxers-ride-marconi%E2%80%99s-wavelength/213091 (via Chuck Rippel, WTFDA-AM via DXLD) MUSEA +++++ SHORTWAVE STATION 9XF IN CHICAGO There’s no place like Chicago: Fascinating article published today by Adrian M. Peterson http://www.radioworld.com/article/shortwave-station-xf-in-chicago/213309 (via Mike Terry, May 7, dxldyg via DXLD) SIXTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE START OF RADIO FREE EUROPE'S POLISH SERVICE -- which closed 18 years ago. Posted: 07 May 2012 Polskie Radio, 3 May 2012: "To mark the 60th anniversary of the start of Polish programming of Radio Free Europe, Head of Polish Radio's English Section John Beauchamp interviews Professor Zdzislaw Najder, who was the station's director between 1982-1987. Programmes were first started on 3 May 1952 by Jan Nowak-Jezioranski, who, in his opening statement on the air, underlined that Radio Free Europe would fight against the Russification of Poland. Three decades later, and only months after the imposition of martial law in Poland, Zdzislaw Najder became the Polish section's diector. ... Joining the Polish section at Radio Free Europe in 1982, Zdzislaw Najder was the first person to head the service who was directly from behind the Iron Curtain. This was too much for the communist authorities in Poland, who in 1983 sentenced Najder to death in absentia for spying. 'They wanted to mete out an exemplary sentence,' Najder reminisces, furthermore stating that being a director at Radio Free Europe made him a spy 'by default'. The Polish Section of Radio Free Europe continued to broadcast until 1994. More on the Polish service, including image galleries and sound clips from yesteryear (in Polish), can be found at Polskie Radio's dedicated website: http://wolnaeuropa.polskieradio.pl " With audio. Cold War Radios, 25 Apr 2012, Richard H. Cummings: "On May 2, 1952, at 11 A.M., Radio Free Europe's first broadcast to Poland, as the 'Voice of Free Poland,' from the new studios in RFE's broadcast center in Munich, and from four new short-wave transmitters on the 25, 31, 41 and 59 [49?] meter bands. On February, 2, 2012, the Polish Senate declared May 2012, 'the month on the Polish Section of Radio Free Europe.' The Senate resolution read, in part: ... 'Throughout its existence, Radio Free Europe Polish Service was sustaining and shaping social and cultural consciousness of the Polish people. It was building up on Polish patriotism. It would prepare us to the freedom we gained in 1989 and to the new rules of international co-existence, by which we are operating in European Union and Convent of the North Atlantic frames.'" (kimandrewelliott.com via DXLD) DIGITAL BROADCASTING --- DRM See also AUSTRALIA; BELGIUM non; INDIA; ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ITALY; RUSSIA; SPAIN; UK; UNIDENTIFIED 15747; PUBLICATIONS DR111 DRM RECEIVER PRE-PRODUCTION SAMPLES RELEASED NewStar Electronics has released a limited number of pre-production samples of their DR111 receiver. Most have gone to wholesalers and business owners though some listeners have received then. Pre- production sample price was $120US plus shipping. The future price will be less if/when they go into production with increased volume. Detailed reviews of the receiver can be found at http://drmnainfo.blogspot.co.uk and some videos of the receiver in action can be found on YouTube by putting DR111 DRM receiver in the search engine. The New Star Electronics website is http://www.cdnse.com/ (via Mike Barraclough, May World DX Club Contact via DXLD) DIGITAL BROADCASTING --- IBOC +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Wonder how much stock in ibiquity he has....? http://www.radioink.com/Article.asp?id=2450546&spid=24698 TOM KENT THRILLED WITH NEW HD RADIO --- 5-7-2012 In a letter to the Radio Industry, Tom Kent, of the Tom Kent Radio Network details his first experience with an HD radio and implores the radio industry not to give up on the technology. He says it's the most excited he's been about radio since working at WLS in Chicago back in 1980. Read he entire letter about HD here. "I recently got a new car with HD radio. My fellow broadcasters, I implore you PLEASE don’t give up on HD radio! This is the most excited I’ve been about radio audio since I worked at WLS in Chicago back in 1980 and I heard AM stereo. Imagine AM stereo in HD! As Steely Dan would sing… ”No Static at All”… Yes AM that sounds just like FM! I know we’ve all been hearing about it for years but until you’re driving down the road trying to loosen your load with seven women on your mind and listening to “Take it Easy” by the Eagles in FM-HD, well you just haven’t lived. The sound is the best I’ve ever heard coming from any radio EVER!" "Like many of you I never heard HD in a car so I quickly dismissed the idea. After all, how could we expect our listeners to go out and invest in new gear when they have so many other options. The auto listening experience has got me really geeked on HD radio. My local affiliate WMJI 105.7 FM here in Cleveland sounds amazing in HD 1 and HD 2. The sound quality absolutely blows away satellite radio which I also have in my car. No offense Mel, but every one of your satellite channels sounds like a bad washed out internet stream. HD terrestrial radio sounds even better than a CD and the side by side comparison of satellite vs. HD….well, there is no comparison." "I’d like to call upon our industry to rally on behalf of HD radio. Yes, right now it’s dead in the water. The only way it’ll take off is if the automotive industry equips their radio platforms with HD radio as standard equipment and even then critical mass would be at least five years away. Five years isn’t that long and if that were to happen, the future of subscription radio would be in serious jeopardy. For me now that I have HD in the car, my free satellite trial will end with no renewal. Terrestrial radio needs to lobby the car makers to step up and give their customers something truly excellent for free!" (5/7/2012 3:17:09 PM) I think 1975 was about the last time I heard someone say they didn't like the audio quality of their car radio. - Barry O'Brien (5/7/2012 2:54:03 PM) Sirius/XM is running scared of both HD Radio and Pandora. Both offer superior quality audio. Neither costs as nearly as much as Sirius/XM (well you do use data if streaming Pandora over 3G, but most people don't come close to using up their 2GB of data each month). Automakers are flocking to HD Radio and even adding wireless connectivity for Pandora. Look at the P/E ratio of SIRI, higher than Apple! The stock should be trading at about $1. Kent gets it! - Larry Knopf (5/7/2012 2:29:13 PM) Both Volvo and BMW have outstanding Technical Service Bulletins against HD Radio's many problems (they offer it as standard). Ford still does not offer a stand-alone, factory-installed HD Radio option, and they are an iBiquity partner. Once the other automakers get enough complaints, I would expect more TSBs to be issued. So, what's the incentive for the automakers, outside of Ford's HD Radio fraud? - Smitty (5/7/2012 2:20:24 PM) Yeah, so many people are audiophiles that will buy an HD Radio based on audio quality. That explains why compressed mp3s have close to 100% awareness and are selling like hotcakes. People don't buy radios. They buy things that have radios in them. When cars install HD Radio as standard, people will accept it (unknowingly). - matt (5/7/2012 1:19:13 PM) Don't be fooled by others' claims, and influenced studies, that there is a demand for automotive HD Radio, or HD Radio in general: http://www.google.com/trends/?q=hd+radio,+ford+hd+radio,+bmw+hd+radio,+volvo+hd+radio,+ford+sync&ctab=0&geo=us&date=all&sort=0 Google Trends doesn't lie, and clearly shows a declining interest in HD Radio. All JD Powers had to do was simply run these graphs, which are used by many marketing firms, instead of a "carefully worded" survey, if they ran one at all. - HDRadioFarce (via Kevin Redding, ABDX via DXLD) He forgot to mention the part about losing the signal more than 20 miles from the transmitter site. For those who didn't read the article a couple of years ago, some engineers tested AM IBOC in Seattle, where a number of stations were using it. Most of those stations were 50 kW. They were not able to find any one location anywhere in the Seattle metro area where all of those signals could be received. That should say it all about how well the system works. 73, (Kit, W5KAT, ibid.) Just remember the digital power on FM is 1% of the analog power. All they need to do is turn off analog and go full digital..... :) (Powell E. Way III, W4OPW, ibid.) Here is what I posted over there. I was called "rabble" for my efforts, even though the comments ran 8:1 against HD radio: "My main concern with AM HD is driver safety. HD AM is very sensitive to interference. A listener in a car, passing under a power line, hears a very nice AM HD signal, abruptly interrupted by a very loud powerline hash. The driver is startled by the change. Listening in analog, the volume of the powerline hash slowly increases, giving the driver time to turn it down. With a range of 10 miles or less, compared to a range of 300 miles for C-Quam AM stereo, a large city station would be foolish to deploy a defective system that could only reach a fraction of their listening area. And as large footprint stations have discovered in Texas, AM HD severely limits their coverage and their building penetration. As for FM HD radio, the sound improvement only comes when the station runs only an HD-1. The moment they add HD-2, the quality deteriorates badly to almost the level of satellite radio. The difference between HD-FM and regular analog FM, though, is only discernible on a very high end audio system. The difference in noise floor would be indistinguishable in the automotive platform. FM HD also badly degrades analog coverage - by as much as 60 miles on some Texas stations. Therefore, it also will degrade building penetration locally. FM HD also suffers very badly from airplane flutter, reducing FM coverage to just a few miles in the vicinity of airports. Given the lock time of the HD radio, persons living near approach paths to airports cannot expect reliable HD reception at any time a flight is in approach or departure, as signal fluctuations can be as much as 60 dB. I am pleased that the author finds his local HD-2 selections compelling. Houston HD offers me only two formats of any interest, one of which will soon be available over the air. Compared to dozens of compelling formats on satellite - none of which are available on HD-2, the choice is very clear." (Bruce Carter, ibid.) Give me a freakin' break - a marketing plant if I ever saw one - trying to make HD radio cool to - somebody. Not sure who. Here, I'll write their next ad: "OMG, HD radio is like - so rad, totally to the max. Totes cool. You ought to like - get one," That should appeal to the valley girls stuck in a time warp from the 80's (Bruce Carter, ibid.) Just putting it in the vehicles won’t do the job. It will have to be available in inexpensive portable and table radios as well. C-Quam was tried in the vehicle approach, it didn’t save am stereo (Dick W., ibid.) Re: Wonder how much stock in ibiquity he has....? Whether or not he owns any stock, he does stand to gain financially since he has a syndicated show that a number of stations around the country carry. It stands to reason that if there are more stations using this technology to expand his universe of possible clients, there could be something in it for him. The way I see it, Murderola was 50% responsible for the death of C- QuAM, and along with it the entire AM band, and the FCC was the other 50%. Of course, IBOC is not a product of Murderola, unfortunately, because that would surely be its undoing. If the FCC handles IBOC as poorly and irresponsibly as it handled C-QuAM, maybe we will be spared yet and IBOC will die a quick death. I still believe that AM would be alive and profitable with music stations if the whole AM stereo undertaking had been handled properly by the FCC. It seems that nearly every FCC decision regarding AM in the past several decades has had nothing but negative effects on the band, almost as if they wanted to kill it. Break down the clear channels to cause more interference, cut the bandwidth even more to make it sound worse, and allow an inferior system like IBOC to trash up the band. In the words of Ronald Reagan, "Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem." 73, (Kit, W5KAT, ibid.) Actually a big part of radio`s demise was the government`s decision to let the market determine the method of AM stereo transmission. Most people feel that if, early on, the government had mandated a particular system and mandated AM stereo receivers with AMAX standards, AM might well have been saved. The government also threw out the ownership restrictions, resulting in the feeding frenzy that took place. Diversity disappeared, local programming died. Certainly breaking down the clear channels, cutting bandwidth, and allowing IBOC was a disaster, but it was something the radio industry pressured the government to do (Dick W., ibid.) On 5/2/2012 5:11 PM, Steve W wrote: HAS ANY HD SUBCHANNEL APPEARED IN ANY MARKET'S ARBITRON RATINGS EVER? WMRQ-HD2 was a 2.0 in February. Actually, this is not true. What is showing up is really W246CC in Bolton on 97.1, which WMRQ-HD2 carries. A while back WMRQ's HD was off and La Bomba was still on (97.1). That shows you that WMRQ-HD2 does not originate the station. It's all a big scam. If 97.1 wasn't on, WMRQ HD2 would have a big fat zero for ratings (Mike Bugaj, Enfield, CT, 2 May, WTFDA via DXLD) It appears to me that the best use of HD subchannels (from the broadcaster's perspective, at least) is to shoehorn a 250-watt FM translator and new format into a market. Makes DXing even tougher in urban areas, but some of these translators get out pretty well if on a high enough tower. WWWQ-HD2 ("Journey 97-9") in Atlanta is one HD subchannel that's appeared in the Arbitron ratings: 0.5 share and 109,400 listener cume in February (per Radio-Info.com). The 97.9 translator W250BC has a decent signal on a car radio for at least a 20 mile radius around downtown Atlanta (Rory Francisco, Richmond, Virginia, ibid.) Rory, You're right, and it shouldn't be legal. Doing that gives a broadcaster licensed for one frequency a total of four. At least if they do go the translator route, they then should be obligated to turn off the HD. – (Rick Lewis, ibid.) That may be, but almost nobody is doing that, at least on the commercial side. The second program on some of the public stations are good in that they can provide two formats not otherwise available in the market - such as local WRTI's use for classical and jazz (Russ Edmunds, WB2BJH, 15 mi NW of Philadelphia, ibid.) RADIO EQUIPMENT FORUM +++++++++++++++++++++ TECSUN PL-380 vs PL-310 I have been blind. In WRTH-2011, I did not see why the Tecsun PL-380 costs $5 more than the PL-310. Look at the pictures. The PL-380 has ETM, and the PL-310 does not have such a sticker. ETM means double memories, one set for ETM and a second for conventional use. Easy Tuning Method means bringing all the stations (of SW, MW or FM) into memory and then you can scan memory, one station with each notch or detent. ETM is possible thanks to the brand of Digital Signal Processing here, which gives a stronger signal on the exact frequency of the station. I activated ETM on my Tecsun PL- 360 around 1430 UT outdoors on short wave. I then tuned from top downward. [mentions 15140, OMAN, q.v.] So with so much empty desert on short wave, ETM is a great help, well worth $5. The Tecsun PL-360 is not a monitoring receiver because it does not work well indoors. Outdoors, it works very well. We monitors are very serious people, sitting at a table with paper and pen. We need an occasional recess. We love the short wave world and we don’t want to leave it during our recess, so, just take the PL-360 outdoors, do ETM and make discoveries! The Tecsun PL-360 is a recess receiver and we need it. Universal Radio does not sell the PL-310 and the PL-380. They are selling three more, very new, interesting receivers. Write to Universal and ask for one copy of their “Universal Sales-Alert” newsletter. The Tecsun PL-360 is the first recess receiver. You wouldn’t know that from the write-up in Universal Sales-Alert. I have no room and no need for three more receivers. They need to `be properly reviewed. The Tecsun PL-360 delivers plenty of good sound. We are in a new era. There are plenty of vacant frequencies. There will be much less interference. Problems can be solved amicably by Frequency Managers at the High Frequency Coordination Conference. This means we will need Exalted Carrier Single Sideband much less, and a good receiver will cost much less. It also gives freedom to designers. With the Tecsun PL-360 we have directions, short press a button and long press that button, with very different results. True, we have never had such directions before, but I must master them. Of course I made mistakes, but they did not cause permanent harm. I had wrong ideas about directivity. In 1982, Sony was selling the ICF-7600A. It was respected and used by journalists. It had no jack for an external antenna. Mine sat on my table, with-the telescopic antenna vertical. Only recently, I tried waving that antenna around. I found directivity, just like I have directivity with the Tecsun PL- 360. I was shocked. I had been doing too much reading. Conclusions we have directivity with any telescopic antenna on any frequency. When I am monitoring and reporting, I don't want to sacrifice one hand for holding a receiver at an angle. So I use a long wire antenna, which is usually not directional. But when not monitoring, there is hope for good reception with the Tecsun PL-360. I just have to test it thoroughly. On 13 March 2012 around 1300 UT, I was listening to a station on 16 meters. I had three receivers on my table: a Grundig G4000A with a Sony ANLP1-antenna; a Kaito KA1107 and the Tecsun PL-360. Everything went dead - a Sudden Ionospheric Disturbance. The Grundig stayed dead. I persuaded the Kaito to give some signal, but it was with a loud noise. The Tecsun PL-360 did work well enough to be useful. This shows my testing is going to need care. The Tecsun PL-360 operates with three AA batteries but uses only 2.7 volts. This is why the batteries have a very long life and their power is thoroughly used up. The batteries are located at the base of the receiver, and the third battery makes the receiver more stable when standing up, by lowering the centre of gravity (David Crystal, Israel, Making Contact, May World DX Club Contact via DXLD) PROPAGATION +++++++++++ NASA'S LATEST SOLAR MAXIMUM PREDICTION: http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/predict.shtml Not surprisingly, it's now predicted to be very low, given the rather low sunspot numbers up until now. As one wag pointed out, at what point does a prediction become an observation? The above site does give some interesting background as to how the predictions are made. Best wishes, (Nick Hall-Patch, BC, 3 May, IRCA via DXLD) That is all well and good, but since the experts took nearly two years deciding whether or not we had entered Cycle 24, and ultimately deciding we had done so a year or so prior, IMHO this is either 1) a perception of the obvious at present which is potentially pretty accurate or 2) a prediction which will prove to be wrong in a year or so. I am reluctant to accept that we are 3 years into Cycle 24, and that's the assumption the prediction is based on, partially based on my comments above. If I am correct, then the maximum may not be hit until a year or perhaps more beyond what is predicted here., and as a result, the number predicted is probably low (Russ Edmunds, 15 mi NNW of Philadelphia, ibid.) There is no question that we won't know until after it's happened, Russ, and that their previous predictions have failed to warn us of the slow take-off of this cycle, if I recall correctly. But as far as the date of the minimum, doesn't that have something to do with the number of sunspots of one cycle becoming outnumbered by the sunspots of the next cycle? (they have reversed magnetic polarity). http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-SORCE-2008-now.png with its blue and orange data points indicating the sunspots from different cycles, seems to indicate that the minimum occurred somewhere around three years ago. Best wishes (Nick Hall-Patch, ibid.) I believe that you are correct. As I recall, the problem was that the minimum was so prolonged that there was a period of many months where there was discussion back and forth because through those months there were appearances of both polarities with roughly similar numbers bouncing back and forth as to which was predominant. Many proclaimed the start of 24 the very first time there were different polarity spots. Others proclaimed it the first time the new polarity outnumbered the old, but then the balance swung back again. So it all is somewhat relative in this case as there really didn't seem to be a clear cut switchover. The chart you referenced does seem to bear that out. But since I'm on a roll here, the other factor is that Cycle 23 was anything but normal length, and so one could suggest that there is now less cause to expect that 24 will suddenly revert to the norm. If for instance 24 were also elongated, the peak *might* be delayed (Russ Edmunds, 15 mi NNW of Philadelphia, ibid.) We may be getting into the angels dancing on the point of a pin territory, Russ, but doesn't the sunspot cycle peak fewer years after the minimum than it takes to decay back to the minimum from the maximum? Much of the elongation of the last cycle was in its decay down to minimum, greatly appreciated by high latitude DXers everywhere. Best wishes, (Nick Hall-Patch, BC, ibid.) Historically, that has been the case more often than not, but by any reasonably recent historical measure, 23 was extreme. 23 reached 'normal' minimum levels well before any reverse polarity sunspots actually occurred, and then that was followed by the period of back- and-forth I had mentioned which was also atypical. A typical cycle is 11 years. True maximum and minimum levels generally cover less than a full 12-month period. So if for argument's sake we presume a full year of max and a full year of min, and then 4 to build up and 5 to decay, that would be a strawman for a typical cycle. And if indeed we count 24 as beginning 3 years ago, max would be sometime early-mid 2013 in a typical cycle as currently predicted. But since 23 was so far off from the norms in several ways, I am less confident that 24 will suddenly revert to form. So no, I don't think we're necessarily nit-picking here, just seeking to analyze two somewhat different possibilities (Russ Edmunds, 15 mi NNW of Philadelphia, Grid FN20id, ibid.) For what it's worth, when the solar cycle 24 forecasts began coming out back in 2008, I forecasted that it would be the smallest solar cycle in 100 years. At the time almost all of the other forecasts were for a large cycle. You can see my discussions at http://www.wcflunatall.com/nz4o4.htm A major problem when making solar cycle forecasts is that there is no agreed-upon scientific standard as to what constitutes the beginning or ending of a particular solar cycle. Therefore we don't know until we look in the past. Here are my solar cycle 24 forecasts. The fact that I produced two forecast updates means that I don't know what I'm talking about either. Nov 2, 2010, smoothed sunspot number (SSN) peak of 95 in Dec 2013 Mar 30, 2009, smoothed sunspot number (SSN) peak of 100 in Jul 2013 Feb 1, 2008, smoothed sunspot number (SSN) peak of 105 in Oct 2012 73 & GUD DX, (Thomas F. Giella, NZ4O, Retired Meteorologist & Solar Physicist, Lakeland, FL, USA, May 3, dxldyg via DXLD) CURRENT SOLAR SITUATION LINK AND LINKS!! Derived from NASA, Southgate ARC and Mike Terry, this seems very up to date. Many Links for further research if required (Including relatively Rare One, from Greenwich Observatory also up to Date-this, I believe of particular interest to our Propagation Department) I 'use' Solar Flux, as I find it the most reliable guide (or at least I did, regularly until I mostly went 'Digital'!!) http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/images/ssn_predict_l.gif (Ken Fletcher, P-Code CH43, BDXC-UK yg via DXLD) nice wallpaper Propagation outlook from PIG May 6 P.I.G. Bulletin 120506 Solar activity enhancement in average is expected, in subrange 120 - 145 s.f.u., with irregular occurrence of C class and occasionally M class eruptions. Geomagnetic field will be: Quiet on May 15, 25, 28 - 29, 31, June 1 - 2. Mostly quiet on May 8, 12 - 13, 16 - 17, 23 - 24, 26 - 27. Quiet to unsettled on May 7, 11, 14, 30. Quiet to active on May 9, 18 - 20. Active on May 10, 21 - 22. High probability of changes in solar wind which may cause changes in magnetosphere and ionosphere is expected on May 8 - 10, (19 - 20) and 21 - 22. F. K. Janda, OK1HH, Czech Propagation Interest Group (OK1HH & OK1MGW) e-mail: ok1hh(at)rsys.cz (via Dario Monferini, DXLD) SUPER-MOON HYPE While I agree the ``super-Moon`` was a nice sight, the widely published photos of it are totally bogus --- or can be. All you have to do is use a telephoto lens with some object on the horizon, making the moon appear absolutely huge --- but there is no telephoto lens in our eyes. Just as impressive photos could be obtained with Moon at apogee, using slightly longer lens. You can fool some of the people -- - (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Geomagnetic field activity was at predominantly quiet levels all week. Unsettled levels occurred late on 02 May into early 03 May associated with a prolonged period of negative Bz and again late on 03 May in response to a solar sector boundary change. Solar wind speed measured at the ACE spacecraft ranged from 300-400 km/s throughout the week. FORECAST OF SOLAR AND GEOMAGNETIC ACTIVITY 07 MAY - 02 JUNE 2012 Solar activity is expected to be low to moderate as Region 1476 makes its way across the visible solar disk. No proton events are expected at geosynchronous orbit. The greater than 2 MeV electron flux at geosynchronous orbit is expected to reach high levels on 11-14 May and again on 23-29 May in response to recurrent coronal hole high speed wind streams. Geomagnetic field activity is expected to begin at unsettled levels for 07-08 May in response to a solar sector boundary crossing and CME arrival. The arrival of a recurrent coronal hole high speed stream will bring active levels on 09-11 May. After a brief return to quiet levels, unsettled conditions are expected in response to another coronal hole high speed stream on 14-15 May. Mostly quiet levels are then forecast until 19 May when unsettled to active conditions are expected to accompany the arrival of a coronal hole high speed stream. Active levels will persisit through 23 May followed by a return to quiet conditions through the end of the period. :Product: 27-day Space Weather Outlook Table 27DO.txt :Issued: 2012 May 07 1445 UTC # Prepared by the US Dept. of Commerce, NOAA, Space Weather Prediction Center # Product description and SWPC contact on the Web # http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/wwire.html # # 27-day Space Weather Outlook Table # Issued 2012-05-07 # # UTC Radio Flux Planetary Largest # Date 10.7 cm A Index Kp Index 2012 May 07 115 7 2 2012 May 08 115 7 2 2012 May 09 115 12 3 2012 May 10 115 15 5 2012 May 11 115 12 3 2012 May 12 115 5 2 2012 May 13 115 5 2 2012 May 14 115 8 3 2012 May 15 120 8 3 2012 May 16 130 5 2 2012 May 17 140 8 3 2012 May 18 145 5 2 2012 May 19 145 8 3 2012 May 20 140 10 4 2012 May 21 135 15 5 2012 May 22 125 15 5 2012 May 23 120 15 5 2012 May 24 120 8 3 2012 May 25 115 5 2 2012 May 26 115 5 2 2012 May 27 115 5 2 2012 May 28 115 5 2 2012 May 29 115 5 2 2012 May 30 115 5 2 2012 May 31 115 5 2 2012 Jun 01 115 5 2 2012 Jun 02 115 5 2 (SWPC via WORLD OF RADIO 1616, DXLD) ###