DX LISTENING DIGEST 8-073, June 26, 2008 Incorporating REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTING edited by Glenn Hauser, http://www.worldofradio.com Items from DXLD may be reproduced and re-reproduced only if full credit be maintained at all stages and we be provided exchange copies. DXLD may not be reposted in its entirety without permission. Materials taken from Arctic or originating from Olle Alm and not having a commercial copyright are exempt from all restrictions of noncommercial, noncopyrighted reusage except for full credits For restrixions and searchable 2008 contents archive see http://www.worldofradio.com/dxldmid.html NOTE: If you are a regular reader of DXLD, and a source of DX news but have not been sending it directly to us, please consider yourself obligated to do so. Thanks, Glenn SHORTWAVE AIRINGS OF WORLD OF RADIO 1414 Wed 2100 WBCQ 15420-CUSB Thu 0530 WRMI 9955 Thu 1430 WRMI 9955 Thu 2330 WBCQ 7415 Fri 0100 WRMI 9955 Fri 0800 WRMI 9955 Fri 1930 IPAR/IRRS/NEXUS/IBA 7290 [NEW] Fri 2030 WWCR1 15825 Sat 0800 WRMI 9955 Sat 1630 WWCR3 12160 Sun 0230 WWCR3 5070 Sun 0630 WWCR1 3215 Sun 0800 WRMI 9955 Sun 1515 WRMI 9955 Mon 0415 WBCQ 7415 [time varies] Tue 1100 WRMI 9955 Tue 1530 WRMI 9955 Wed 0530 WRMI 9955 Wed 1130 WRMI 9955 Latest edition of this schedule version, including AM, FM, satellite and webcasts with hotlinks to station sites and audio, is at: http://www.worldofradio.com/radioskd.html For updates see our Anomaly Alert page: http://www.worldofradio.com/anomaly.html WRN ON DEMAND: http://new.wrn.org/listeners/stations/station.php?StationID=24 WORLD OF RADIO PODCASTS VIA WRN NOW AVAILABLE: http://www.wrn.org/listeners/stations/podcast.php OUR ONDEMAND AUDIO: http://www.worldofradsio.com/audiomid.html or http://wor.worldofradio.org ** AFGHANISTAN [non]. R. Solh, via Rampisham 17700, to Afghanistan, 1722-1735 June 7 in either Pashto or Dari (listed) with M announcer and breathtaking Afghan music. 30-45 dB signal was full quieting with incredible audio (Richard W. Parker, KB2DMD, Pennsburg PA, by P-mail, retyped by gh for DX LISTENING DIGEST) REINO UNIDO, 17700, Radio Solh, 1604-1610, escuchada el 24 de junio en idioma afgano con emisión de música folklórica local, SINPO 45444 *Sigue viéndose que Aoki anuncia servicio de 1200 a 1500, mientras que EiBi lo anuncia de 1200 a 1800 (José Miguel Romero, Burjasot (Valencia), España, Sangean ATS 909, Antena Radio Master, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ALASKA. KNLS sign on in English at 1201z on 7355. Weak but in the clear (Jerry Lenamon, Waco Texas, Drake R8B, sloper, June 26, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) see also MADAGASCAR [and non] ** ALGERIA [non]. R. Algerienne, via Portugal 7150 to NAf, 0421-0424 June 10 in Arabic with talks about Iran. Excellent 70 dB signal but badly overmodulated (Richard W. Parker, KB2DMD, Pennsburg PA, by P- mail, retyped by gh for DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ANTARCTICA. LRA36, Arcángel, 15476, 1918 UT June 26, Spanish songs, good signal but verry poor audio. Best longwire 25meter and MFJ1020C, with the Perseus receiver. Gr. (Maurits Van Driessche, Belgium, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Last report of this in DXLD was 8-060, May 12, also by MVD. Had they been off the air for a few more weeks? (gh, DXLD) ** ASIA [non]. Radio Free Asia announces its 22nd QSL card that is scheduled for distribution for all confirmed reception reports dated July 1 to August 31, 2008. This QSL card celebrates the XXIX Summer Olympic Games in Beijing, China which will be held August 8-24, 2008. The Games have always brought people from around the world together in peace to respect universal moral principles. The card shows the graphic of Radio Free Asia’s pin, as created by RFA’s Brian Powell, which will be used by our reporters at the Games. Yours Sincerely (via Md. Salahuddin Dolar, President, Global Radio Fan Club, Vill. + P.O. Chaumahani, P.S. Motihar, Rajshahi-6000, Bangladesh, Mobile: +88 01712 337439, June 24, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ? You mean the Chicom accredit reporters from a station they jam? And the jammed station accept this rather than boycotting?? (gh) ** ASIA [non]. USA [non] A-08 RFA Daily Broadcast Frequencies. All times in UTC. # new transmissions. Burmese now additional +2 hrs, Tibetan +2 hrs, Khmer +1 hr. Burmese (6 hours daily) 0030-0130 13820IRA, 13865TIN, 17835SAI 0300-0400#11605IRA, 17830TIN 1230-1330 9320IRA, 9455TIN, 13675TIN 1330-1400 9320TIN, 9475TIN, 11540TIN 1400-1430 9320TIN, 11540TIN 1630-1730# 7505TIN, 9305IRA 1730-1830# 7505IRA, 9300TIN Cantonese (2 hours daily) 1400-1500 7280TIN, 11595SAI 2200-2300 9355SAI, 11715TIN, 11785TIN Khmer (3 hours daily) 1130-1230# 9455TIN, 12140TIN in summer season only, til Aug 2 after national elections. 1230-1330 9320IRA, 9455TIN, 12140TIN-2x, 13675TIN, 15525IRA 2230-2330 7580IRA, 13740TIN http://www.electionguide.org/country.php?ID=37 Cambodia Future elections * Parliamentary - July 27, 2008 Past elections * Parliamentary - July 27, 2003 * Parliamentary - July 26, 1998 Korean (5 hours daily) 1500-1600 1350 , 5870IRA, 7210IRK, 7490TIN 1600-1630 7490IRA 1600-1700 1350 , 5870IRA, 7210IRK 1630-1700 7490TIN 1700-1800 1350 , 5870TIN, 7465TIN, 9370IRA 1800-1900 1350 , 5870TIN, 7210TIN, 7465TIN 2100-2200 1350 , 7460 , 9385TIN, 9770TIN, 12075SAI Lao (2 hours daily) 0000-0100 15545TIN, 15690IRA 1100-1200 9355SAI, 15560IRA Mandarin (12 hours daily) 0300-0600 13760SAI, 15130TIN, 15635IRK, 15680TIN, 17615TIN, 17880SAI, 21550TIN, 21690TIN 0600-0700 13760SAI, 15165TIN, 15635IRK, 15680TIN, 17615TIN, 17880SAI, 21550TIN 1500-1600 9455SAI, 9905PAL, 11540TIN, 12005TIN, 12025SAI, 13675TIN, 15495TIN 1600-1700 9455SAI, 9905PAL, 11540TIN, 11795 , 12025SAI, 13675TIN, 15530TIN 1700-1800 7260TIN, 7280TIN, 9355SAI, 9455SAI, 9540TIN, 9905PAL, 11540TIN, 11795 , 13625TIN 1800-1900 7280TIN, 7355TWN, 9355SAI, 9455SAI, 9540TIN, 9865TIN, 11540SAI, 11700 , 13625TIN 1900-2000 1098TWN, 7260TIN, 7355TWN, 9355SAI, 9455SAI, 9850TIN, 9865TIN, 9905PAL, 11700 , 11785TIN, 13625TIN, 15510TIN 2000-2100 1098TWN, 7260TIN, 7355TWN, 9355SAI, 9455SAI, 9850TIN, 9905PAL, 11700 , 11740TIN, 11785TIN, 13625TIN 2100-2200 1098TWN, 7105TIN, 7355TWN, 9850TIN, 9905PAL, 11740TIN, 11935TIN, 13625TIN 2300-0000 7540 , 11760TIN, 11785TIN, 15430TIN, 15485SAI, 15585TIN Tibetan (10 hours daily) 0100-0300 9365KWT, 11695UAE, 11975WER, 15225TIN, 17730 0600-0700 17510 , 17780KWT, 21500TIN, 21690UAE 1000-1100#15460LAM, 17750KWT, 21510KWT 1100-1200 7470 , 13830 , 15375UAE, 17750KWT 1200-1400 7470 , 11590KWT, 11605TIN, 13830 , 15375UAE 1500-1600 9370 , 11550KWT, 11585TIN, 11795UAE 2200-2300# 5865TIN, 7500TIN, 9880LAM 2300-0000 7470 , 7500KWT, 9805UAE, 9875TIN Uyghur (2 hours daily) 0100-0200 9350 , 9490BIB, 11895UAE, 11945UAE, 17640TIN 1600-1700 9350IRA, 9370 , 9555UAE, 11750IRA Vietnamese (2 hours daily) 1400-1500 9455SAI, 9715TIN, 11605TWN, 11680TIN, 12140IRA 2330-0030 7525IRA, 11580 , 11605TWN, 13740SAI, 15535VLD, 15560TIN (Radio Free Asia website, via Gordon Brown-UK, NWDXC April 4; updated June 23, BCDX June 26 via DXLD) ** AUSTRALIA. Hi Glen[n], Radio Symban. Just to inform you and your fans, that 2368.5 is currently off air with an antenna problem which should be resolved with the next week or so. However, the tests are encouraging. Definitely, DXers in the USA and Finland have heard 2368.5 kHz (John Wright, Australian Radio DX Club, June 24, WORLD OF RADIO 1414, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Radio Symban --- for the moment the reason why no one has heard this for a short while: Well, it`s off air due to an antenna problem (teething issue). However as soon as back on air on 2368.5 kHz will try to advise all beforehand. Cheers from OZ (John Wright, Australian Radio DX club, June 25, HCDX via DXLD) ** BAHAMAS. BROADCASTING CORPORATION OF THE BAHAMAS TO BE REVITALISED Senator the Hon. Kay Forbes-Smith, Parliamentary Secretary in the Office of the Prime Minister of the Bahmas, said during the budget debate last week that the transformation of the Broadcasting Corporation of the Bahamas (ZNS) “is critical” to the growth and development of the country. She said that the government is addressing the challenges facing the corporation, particularly in the face of global digital television. In order to facilitate this move, an executive management team would be appointed to “provide the vision and leadership” required to transform ZNS. “This team will demonstrate the ability to better manage its budget and bring fiscal prudence to an organisation that has historically been considered a drain on the public purse,” Senator Smith said. She added that the chairman and the board of directors are working with executive management to ensure the creation of an organisational structure that “causes the organisation to become more efficient and productive in the execution of its duties.” In May, ZNS completed the upgrades to the Northern Service Antenna System, replacing a condemned tower and installing ground radials to re-establish its signal pattern to comply with internationally approved directional array, Senator Smith said. The 1540 AM portion of the ZNS network is in “dire need” of an upgrade, she said. The obsolete 50 kW transmitter is only producing 8 kW of power, making it “impossible to service” a portion of the central and all of the southeast Bahamas. The corporation is also embarking on the New Providence Upgrade Project, Senator Smith said. Already purchased are the replacement directional tower and the required material to re-establish the signal pattern. The new state-of-the-art 50 kW transmitter is scheduled to be delivered by mid-July. A contractor has been engaged to ensure installation within the eight-week specified time. “So we are optimistic that before the end of the summer, the AM network of the Broadcasting Corporation of The Bahamas will be fully restored and providing the essential service to the entire country,” Senator Smith said. Another budgetary provision is the redevelopment of the News Department and television programming and production, training of staff and other infrastructural changes, she said. There is also a move to transform ZNS into a National Public Service Broadcaster. Discussions began in January when the Government, ZNS and corporate partners hosted the 27th Biennial Conference of the Commonwealth Broadcast Association in Nassau. (Source: TheBahamasWeekly.com) Related story: Broadcasting Corporation of the Bahamas to become public broadcaster http://blogs.rnw.nl/medianetwork/broadcasting-corporation-of-the-bahamas-to-become-public-broadcaster (June 24th, 2008 - 11:39 UTC by Andy Sennitt, Media Network blog via WORLD OF RADIO 1414, DXLD) Several conflicts in the ZNS epistle. The ZNS "northern service" consists of ZNS-3 810 in Freeport running 1 kW non directional, into a 90 degree tower. The 1540 in Nassau is presently running 8 kW and expects to be full tilt into their two tower array in August. I question the 50 kW transmitter being "obsolete" as it's a solid state Nautel that was installed in the mid 90's. The 1540 facility uses a two tower array to cover from New Providence (Nassau) south to cover the Family Islands (Jerry Kiefer, NM, NRC-AM via DXLD) [more below] Well, maybe their system was so poorly maintained, the solid state transmitter got ruined/broken by poor or no upkeep (Paul B. Walker, Jr., NE, ibid.) I wonder if WDCD is cleaning their clock in the outer areas? Or one of the Cubans? It would be good if someone could arrange a DX test from ZNS-1 in conjunction with the facilities maintenance / upgrade. Even better if this could be timed to be during auroral activity to purge the channel of WDCD, CHIN, KXEL, et al. These guys do make it to New England. Among other loggings, I remember them blasting over then-WPTR when I listened to 1540 on an NYC-to- Boston train as it passed along the shore through the New London, CT area back in December of 1963 (Mark Connelly, WA1ION - Billerica, MA, NRC-AM via DXLD) Wonder how long 1540's been at reduced output? During that brief period when they operated non-directional a few years ago was the first time in nearly 40 years of DXing I'd EVER managed to log them from here in Missouri -- still seemed awfully weak for a 50 kW blowtorch. Mark's right -- a DX test would be fantastic once their new rig is up and running! (Randy Stewart, Springfield MO, ibid.) I used to be able to hear them along Florida's east coast on a DAILY basis almost 24/7 back in Mid 2005! (I only ever tried in the late afternoons or mid mornings, but got a "listenable" signal from them each time!) (Paul B Walker, Jr., Ord NE, ibid.) Y'know, while I don't get to Florida very often, I've *never* heard them on 1540 while I was there. (I have however heard them a few times up here in Tennessee) 810, on the other hand, was pretty good across most of eastern Florida on a car radio (Doug Smith W9WI, Pleasant View, TN EM66, ibid.) Until a Florida station went on 810 --- which should have touched off an international diplomatic flap (gh, DXLD) I spoke with an old buddy, George Harris tonight, who's been at ZNS for the past 23 years. Here's the story. The 50 kW Nautel transmitter that was new in 95 is shot. When it was installed and for a number of years the transmitter building had no A/C, only big fans moving lots of air and it took its toll. The salt that got into the transmitter did a number on the copper and aluminum causing corrosive action. The AC was installed a few years back but the damage was done. They lost lots of mosfets and were always sending power modules back to Nautel to be rebuilt. Things manifested themselves last hurricane when the most they could do was 22 kW. One of the two towers in the DA was replaced in the mid 90's and the other one gets a replacement this summer. Add to that, somebody made off with a large portion of the ground system. George said, gone are the days of DX reports from Barbados but they hope to be hitting on all cylinders by sometime this fall (Jerry Kiefer, NM, June 25, NRC-AM via DXLD) ** BIAFRA [non]. V. of Biafra, opposition via WHRI, 17650 to WAf, 2043-2058 Friday June 13, in English with heavily accented M giving impassioned revolutionary speech about ``one Nigeria, freedom, independence, self-determination`` -- Patrick Henry would be proud of this guy! 2056 into anthem, 2058 ID. Outstanding 70 dB signal (Richard W. Parker, KB2DMD, Pennsburg PA, by P-mail, retyped by gh for DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** BOLIVIA. 5952.43, Radio Pio Doce, presumed, 0205-0215 24 June. Signal isn't very strong and was nil heard before when Radio República was on the air [until 0200; see CUBA [non]]. Noted female in Spanish comments while splatter interferes with the copy. Our signal from Pio Doce was poor (Chuck Bolland, Clewiston, Florida, NRD545, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** BRAZIL. Radio Guarujá, Florianópolis SC. Goed op 5980.57, 2049 UT, Male and Female in conversation (Portuguese) Gr (Maurits Van Driessche, Belgium, bdx mailing list via DXLD) That`s pretty early, but winter solstice helps get the signal going at 1749 LT (gh, DXLD) ** CANADA. CBC/RCI application for 41MB frequencies approved by CRTC First time I have seem the CRTC get involved in this... Broadcasting Decision CRTC 2008-127, Ottawa, 26 June 2008 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Sackville, New Brunswick Application 2008-0567-4, received 16 April 2008 Broadcasting Public Notice CRTC 2008-39, 5 May 2008 CKCX Sackville – Licence amendment 1. The Commission approves the application by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) to amend the broadcasting licence for its radio programming undertaking CKCX Sackville in order to add the frequencies 7310 kHz, 7325 kHz and 7345 kHz for its short-wave operation. 2. CKCX rebroadcasts the programming of Radio-Canada International and CBC North Quebec. The CBC indicated that the frequencies would be used a few hours a day and only during certain months of the year. 3. The Commission did not receive any interventions in connection with this application. 4. The Commission reminds the licensee that pursuant to section 22(1) of the Broadcasting Act, this authority will only be effective when the Department of Industry notifies the Commission that its technical requirements have been met and that a broadcasting certificate will be issued. 73, (via Deane McIntyre VE6BPO, June 26, also via Ricky Leong, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Original application for this was discussed previously in DXLD. If RCI had to go thru CRTC for all its SW frequency usage, that would really be an obstacle. There must be something special about 40m requiring it. Now, I want to hear them IDing on the air as CKCX! (Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CANADA. Big shakeup coming at CKMS August 1: more struxured programming, more commercial, of necessity: http://watserv1.uwaterloo.ca/~ckmsinfo/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=461&Itemid=136 (Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CANADA. 103.5, CKCH Sydney NS now on the air under the brand "103.5 The Eagle". Format is today's best country. Interestingly, the local semi-pro hockey team is the "Cape Breton Screaming Eagles". I wonder how long AMer 1270 CJCB will be able to hold out as a C&W station. The market is way too small for two C&W stations. With present CRTC rules, MBS Radio, owners of CJCB, could not flip CJCB to FM because they already own two FM stations in the market - CKPE and CHER. Of course, MBS radio might try begging and pleading for the CRTC to grant an exemption. For that matter, the CRTC might change the rules anyway in the near future. Here is their website: http://eagle1035.com/index.asp (Phil Rafuse, PEI, June 23, ABDX via DXLD) See also USA ** CANADA. Interesting little item on 540 CBK --- I found the following little blurb on the net: http://watrous-sask.com/history1.htm "The CBK Radio Station --- For years the claim to fame of Watrous was its proximity to Lake Manitou. On July 29, 1939 an additional attraction was added with the opening of the CBK, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's 50,000 watt prairie transmitter. It was the only CBC outlet between Winnipeg and Vancouver. Engineers tell us that in order to get as large a coverage area as CBK, a transmitter located in Ottawa would have to have 20 times the power. The reason? Well, it's the same as for Lake Manitou - minerals! This gives the soil greater conductivity and hence, greater coverage. Radiating from the base of the 465 foot tower, like the spokes of a wheel, 120 wires each five hundred feet long are ploughed underground for a proper ground system. Reception has been reported from as far away as New Zealand and Australia. The low broadcast frequency of 540 Ke [sic]. also helped give excellent primary coverage to the prairies - so Watrous was chosen. The brick, tile and stucco building was very modern - imagine having air conditioning in 1939. It has four split levels. The main floor houses the transmitter with its forty-foot long red panel and chrome trim. The top level has two studios, a steno office, a main office and half-bath. CBK was a very popular tourist attraction. Hundreds of people toured it daily. With the start of World War II in September, however, it was closed to visitors for the duration. The war delayed the prairie expansion which the CBC had planned so that the temporary programming from Watrous continued until 1948. This programming was in English and French. CBK was the only French station west of Winnipeg. In 1948, studios moved to Winnipeg and a few years later to Regina, the present location. Staff was reduced from 14 to about 7. In the 1960's an addition was built to house an emergency power plant with a 10,000 gallon fuel tank. This was partly due to the atomic bomb scare. Later a fall out shelter was added for the same reason. This was about 24 feet square with 18 inch concrete thickness all underground. Transmitter and diesel controls were duplicated here. In 1974, it was retirement time for the reliable old RCA 50 Kw transmitter. It was in service for 35 years - quite a record considering the guarantee period is only 10 years. It was replaced by a newer type of the same power but only about 1/20 the physical size. This could be controlled from Regina studios. On June 4, 1976 the 465 foot tower blew down during a violent windstorm. A 40th anniversary at the transmitter in 1979 drew hundreds of loyal fans and in 1980 an extra 10 kW emergency transmitter was installed. In all the years of operation, CBK has an enviable record for safety - never an accident. This was due to excellent maintenance procedures and safety features built into the equipment. There has been talk of moving the transmitter from Watrous but "soil conductivity" still prevails to keep it here radiating the most powerful signal in the West!" Go groundwave go! (Phil Rafuse, PEI, June 23, ABDX via DXLD) Very cool. CBK was my first QSL from Canada, Dec 28, 1963. I heard them on my 4 transistor Arvin portable. According to the illustration on the QSL card the groundwave coverage extends almost to BC in the west, near to Winnipeg in the east and well into North Dakota and Montana to the south (Jerry Lenamon, ABDX via DXLD) ** CHINA. An answer from Peking: Liebe Freunde freier Amateurfunkfrequenzen, die beiliegende Fax-Nachricht habe ich soeben aus Peking (Beijing) vom Radio Regulations Department erhalten. Ob sich was tut? Dear friends, I have just received the attached email from Peking (Beijing) Radio Regulations Department. Do you think the firedrake jamming will stop soon? Viele Grüße / regards, (Uli Bihlmayer DJ9KR, June 24, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Viz.: Dear Sir or Madam, The Administration of the People`s Republic of China acknowledges receipt of your letter. At present, it is under investigation. Once the interference is identified, we will take measures to eliminate it. If the similar issue occurs again, it will be appreciated if you can file an interference complaint through German Telecoms. Authority to this Administration, in accordance with 15.34 of the Radio Regulations. Best wishes, yours faithfully, Xie Yuansheng, Deputy Director General, Radio Regulatory Department, Ministry of Information Industry, 13, West Chang`an Avenue, Beijing, China 100804, June 18 (to DARC, retyped by gh for DXLD) ** CHINA. 9855, June 25 at 1223 Chinese W&M conversing, with slight echo, which I associate with short path/long path. The only thing scheduled per Aoki is: 9855 CHINA RADIO INTER. 1200-1257 1234567 Chinese 500 215 Beijing CHN 9855 CHINA RADIO INTER. 1300-1357 1234567 Chinese 500 215 Beijing CHN 11627E 3957N CRI a08 How pleasant to find a Chinese-language station which is not subject to Firedrake jamming! (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CHINA [and non] June 25 at 1231 on 17705 heard some weak S Asian singing, occasionally spiking up to listenable level. Aoki lists: 17705*ALL INDIA RADIO 1145-1315 1234567 Chinese 500 58 Bangalore IND 7713E 1314N AIR a08 And I was not hearing Firedrake, which is the usual case, as the paranoid Chicom don`t allow India to speak to China, signified by the asterisk. However, at 1321 recheck there was Firedrake, weaker than // 17565 against V. of Tibet. No AIR or anything else is supposed to be on 17705 after 1315, so is there something new to be jammed or just faded up in meantime and overrunning? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** COSTA RICA. 5954.13v, unidentified ELCOR transmitter, Guápiles; no trace of this for weeks here (the last log -- at least the last one I entered into the logbook -- was on April 23). Anything different to report from Costa Rica, Raúl? (Terry L Krueger, Clearwater, Florida USA, 27.55.83 N, 82.46.08 W, June 23, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CUBA. R. Habana, 6180, 0635-0640 June 6, 100 dB signal colliding with an equally strong VOA Greenville transmission to W Africa creating total bedlam (Richard W. Parker, KB2DMD, Pennsburg PA, by P- mail, retyped by gh for DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CUBA. Radio Taíno, [heard] on 92.9. But there isn't a Taíno outlet listed either in Emisoras de FM or on their website. [later:] Aha! I now see that Nick Langan had this last year. After checking back previous postings, I note that jim T. was able to ID this directly from R. Taíno as a pirate relay presumed to be 1 kW in Pinar del Rio province (Russ Edmunds, Blue Bell, PA, ( 15 mi NW of Philadelphia ), WTFDA via DXLD) ITU's IFL shows a few other 92.9's in Cuba but doesn't list the operator : 92.9 Alquizar, Havana Prov. 3.2 kW - new in 2005 92.9 Loma de Cunagua, Ciego de Ávila 3.2 kW - new in 2005 92.9 Baguanos, Holguín 2.0 kW - new in 2006 (Bill Hepburn, Ont., ibid.) In case you are wondering, the International Frequency List is not online, but for sale on CD-ROM (gh) ** CUBA [non]. GERMANY, Radio República to Cuba in Spanish via Media Broadcast: 0100-0200 on 5955 NAU 125 kW / 285 deg Tue-Sat, cancelled from July 1 (DX Mix News, Bulgaria, June 24 via WORLD OF RADIO 1414, DXLD) UnID [sic], 5955, Radio República, 0130-0200 June 24. Noted Spanish talk by various persons. At 0140 a male talks about Cuba and Soviet Union in Spanish. At 0155 plenty of ID's and an address in Miami to send mail. Signal was fair and off at 0200 (Chuck Bolland, Clewiston, Florida, NRD545, dxldyg via WORLD OF RADIO 1414, DX LISTENING DIGEST) See also BOLIVIA ** CUBA [and non]. Hi Jeff, Nothing but heavy jamming on 9955 last night (UT Thursday June 26) 0530. Is WORLD OF RADIO still on then or have you changed to a Cuban program? (Glenn to Jeff White, WRMI, via DXLD) Glenn: WOR is still on then, but of course that's going south. Interestingly, I got an e-mail from Sheryl Paszkiewicz in Wisconsin saying she had very good reception of 9955 last night at 0200, and recently reception has been good there of 9955 in the evenings -- which I thought was interesting since that's on the southern antenna (Jeff White, WRMI, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Tnx a lot, Arnie! Your DX show doesn`t get jammed; why should mine? This was heavy grinding overlaying 2-per-second pulses. On other occasions, WRMI has not been jammed at this hour (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CUBA. Arnie Coro is now blogging, discussing the usual topix: http://dxersunlimited.blogspot.com The idea is to be able to keep radio hobby enthusiasts up to date on topics like HF and VHF propagation, antennas, homebrew equipment etc. PLUS, the regular postings of the DXers Unlimited´s scripts. Please send your comments to: inforhc @ enet.cu (Arnie Coro, HCDX via DXLD) ** CUBA [non]. More spook news - Phoenix Air Group [this is the company contracted to fly Air Martí, not mentioned in this story; in a previous item, Terry Krueger told of his visit to their airport] PHOENIX AIR GENERAL COUNSEL TAKES IN-HOUSE ROLE TO NEW HEIGHTS RANDALL DAVIS DIVIDES HIS TIME BETWEEN LEGAL WORK AND PILOTING PLANES Katheryn Hayes Tucker, Fulton County Daily Report, May 14, 2008 Plenty of general counsel travel on international business, but in Georgia there is one GC who also flies the planes. Anything, or anyone, could be on board with him: a wealthy Arab seeking medical treatment in the U.S., an American injured on an African safari, leftover Libyan nuclear material going to safekeeping, monkeys on the way to a zoo or an occasional whale headed to a research institution. Randall H. Davis is vice president and general counsel of Phoenix Air Group Inc., a worldwide provider of specialized jet aircraft services based in Cartersville. The headquarters sits across Highway 61 from the Cartersville-Bartow County Airport, which the company manages. The largest tenant there, Phoenix Air has five maintenance hangars and two office buildings where 125 technical and aviation specialists maintain and operate more than 40 aircraft. The company is privately owned -- partly by Davis -- and does not disclose financial information. However, the Department of Defense last month announced that Phoenix Air had been awarded a $10 million contract with the U.S. Navy to clear missile testing ranges. . . [much more, with portrait] http://www.law.com/jsp/ihc/PubArticleIHC.jsp?id=1202421360427 (via Terry L Krueger, FL, June 24, DXLD) ** CZECHIA. Hi Glenn, Checked as usual for Radio Prague transmission to Europe at 0700 on 11600 and 9880 kHz, on 26th June [sic], but no transmission. Also checked periodically today [June 26], but nothing. According to Radio Prague's web page, violent storms have swept Czech Republic Wednesday, leaving one person dead and others injured. This storm is what has interrupted some transmissions. Transmissions have still not resumed as of 1447 UT. Kind Regards (Christopher Lewis, England, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Here`s the full story I found at http://www.radio.cz/en/news#1 --- ``Woman dies during violent storms --- One person was killed during violent storms which hit the Czech Republic on Wednesday night. A woman of 45 died a few hours after being hit by a falling tree at Svitavy in east Bohemia; she had apparently been sitting at a table in a beer garden, a rescue services spokesperson said. Fire brigades were called out to deal with fallen trees and other problems at hundreds of places around the country. Thousands of households were left without electricity, some trains were cancelled and some flights from Prague Airport were briefly delayed. The storms also interrupted some Radio Prague shortwave broadcasts.`` Interrupted, just how? Damage to SW antennas? Interrupted program feed routing? Power outage? How about the relays via Sackville, Ascension? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ECUADOR. 4909.17, Radio Chaskis, Otavalo, 1055 24 June with upbeat música andina, series of numbers - not frequency. mentions of "Madre de Dios" brief locutora at 1101 into locutor "...Cinco presenta la ...." Good signal! (Bob Wilkner, Pómpano Beach, Southeast Flórida, US, June 24, Icom 746Pro and Drake R8, DX LISTENING DIGEST) see unID 12000 ** EGYPT. Radio Cairo --- by gordonsweet You are browsing in: Archive List > British Army Contributed by gordonsweet People in story: Eric vast Location of story: Egypt Article ID: A2506682 Contributed on: 09 April 2004 THE CRYSTALS OF ABU ZAABAL Abu Zaabal was a scruffy Egyptian village some 20 miles NE of Cairo. It is also the site or Radio Cairo, which in the forty’s was an enormous beast of several hundred kilowatts, Marconi Vintage. At that time there was also a civilian radio terminal which our forces used for unimportant traffic. It is probably still there. One day I was told to go to the radio terminal, and see what spares they really did need from us, and to cut down their rather optimistic shopping list. This being completed the chief man led me to see their now dug-out (paid for by British tax payers), of which he was extremely proud. Well he might be. It was obviously the bottom story of a high building to be, complete with large holes in the 2ff thick roof for stair cases, pipes etc All dug out probably unique in military history. The scene was of course somewhat dominated by the masts and Aerials of Radio Cairo, Which operated at about 550m. It was one of those prestige stations and was an object of great National Pride, with a potential coverage of all the neighbouring Arabic speaking lands. It broadcast in roughly equal times of French and Arabic plus a little English news for the troops. . . http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/stories/82/a2506682.shtml (via Chris Lewis, England, March 2, DXLD) Delayed in hotmail ** ERITREA/ETHIOPIA. Hallo zusammen, ein paar Ostafrika-Logs von heute nachmittag/abend: (26/6/2008): 7100: unID, East African music, -1558* (ERI 1?) 7175: noise jammer + unID, -1559* (ERI 2?) 7200: *1600* noise jammer, 1725 unID East African music (ERI 2?) 7999.4: *1559 unID carrier (ERI 1?), nothing at 1725 8000.0: -1557*, 1602+, Ethiopian Clandestine to ERI? 5990//7110//9704 + 7165//9560 1730 R. Ethiopia, 6110 R. Fana (?), 5950 V of Tigray Revolution, all around 1730, none of the usual // heard. 73 (Thorsten Hallmann, Münster, Germany, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ETHIOPIA. Tentative: 5100 Bana? 1749 with hilife songs. Fair signal un common time!! At 1759 with presumed Ethiopian, off 18* Also 1615 on 12th with hilife songs. English talks (possibly lessons of English language) at 1730 (Zacharias Liangas, Fourka Chalkidiki, Greece, 20/6/2008, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** FRANCE [non]. Re 8-072: RFI, 15515 via Guiana French, tuned in at 1229 June 25 to hear some high-energy music just before abrupt cutoff at 1230* without so much as an au-revoir. One June 22 this stayed on past 1300 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** GREECE. Der 3. Sender beim Kurzwellensender Avlis war vom 28.5. bis 19.6. in Reparatur. Seit gestern Freitag morgen um 0500 UT in Albanisch wird auch wieder der mehrsprachige Inlandsdienst Radio Filia auf 11645 kHz uebertragen (Wolfgang Büschel, June 20/21, wwdxc BC-DX TopNews June 26 via DXLD) ** GREECE. Dear Friend Babis: Previous to today, Avlis 3 on 9420 was having adjacent-channel interference from Radio Prague on 9415, both of which were broadcasting to the Americas at 2200-2330 UT. Now that this problem has evidently been fixed by Radio Prague's moving to an as yet unknown new frequency. What is the source of the noise on 9420 kHz; is it a transmitter or is it an antenna problem? Regards, (John Babbis, MD, June 25, to ERT via DX LISTENING DIGEST) I`m afraid Prague`s absence is only temporary; see CZECHIA (gh, DXLD) ** HAWAII [non]. HAWAIIAN RADIO BROADCASTS HALTED BY TRABING FIRE KEENAN WEATHERFORD - SENTINEL CORRESPONDENT Article Launched: 06/25/2008 01:32:44 AM PDT http://www.mercurynews.com/centralcoast/ci_9689084 APTOS -- Hawaiian music lovers across the county had their listening schedules thrown off by last week's Trabing Fire. The blaze, which scorched 640 acres, also knocked out power in the Larkin Valley area, which temporarily halted broadcasts by KAPU, the all-Hawaiian music radio station that has a broadcast antenna on Trabing Road. KAPU hasn't broadcast its trademark island tunes since around 3 p.m. Friday, according to Norman Markowitz, a member of the station's board of directors and one of the station's volunteer DJs. Flames crept up to the base of the antenna and might have damaged it, he said, but the damage can't be assessed until the antenna can be tested after power is restored to the area. "It all depends on PG&E," said Markowitz, who goes by the handle "Kaukini Norm." "They're working very hard." Power won't be restored for a few days, said a Cal Fire spokesman. Meanwhile, the station has been receiving phone calls and e-mails from listeners curious where the music has gone. Markowitz said listeners yearning for a Hawaiian music fix should check out the station online at http://www.kapu.org which has recordings of several interviews with Hawaiian artists as well as links to local bands and music samples. The station, which transmits at 104.7 FM, began operation in September 2004 as a low-power station; it uses a 52-watt antenna [sic], which allows coverage from the edges of Santa Cruz to Watsonville. A link on the station's Web site encourages viewers to write letters to the Federal Communications Commission requesting that KAPU be licensed for 100-200 watts, which would increase coverage to most of Santa Cruz County and hopefully swell the ranks of listeners, now estimated at roughly 5,000, according to Markowitz. There is a strong interest in Hawaiian music and culture in the Santa Cruz area, Markowitz said. Local musicians who play Hawaiian music often visit the radio station, located in Watsonville, to perform live on the air. "We're one of the hubs of groups of people that love all things Hawaiian," he said. "It's an important part of the Hawaiian community in Santa Cruz." (via Kevin Redding, TN, June 25, ABDX via DXLD) ** INDIA. AIR, Aligarh, 11735 to Afghanistan, 0335-0343 June 12, presumably in listed Dari with W announcer, Baliwood music and Western-style pops. 60 dB signal was full quieting with superb audio (Richard W. Parker, KB2DMD, Pennsburg PA, by P-mail, retyped by gh for DX LISTENING DIGEST) Is there is a Bali-Mumbai connexion, or did you mean Bollywood? (gh, DXLD) ** INDONESIA. 3987.03, RRI-Manokwari, 1347-1425, June 24, in BI, EZL songs, ToH song of Coconut Isles, 5 minutes of news, National Anthem, back to songs, weak. Checked after ToH and found // to RRI Fak Fak (4790.03). 4925, RRI-Jambi, 1223-1247, June 24, in BI, phone conversation / interview, parallel to 3325 (RRI Palangkaraya) and 4790.03 (RRI Fak Fak) till BoH, National Anthem, then their own pop music program. Recently Jambi has had a decent signal but very faint audio until today (Ron Howard, Asilomar Beach, CA, Etón E1, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** INDONESIA. Re 8-072: After a ten day hiatus, RRI Yakarta 9680 is back with the usual clean and best of all signals on 31m around 1000 UT heard this Tuesday 24. I can't tell if this happened yesterday as I didn't check. VOI 9526 was there with weaker signal and beautiful local songs (Raúl Saavedra, Costa Rica, June, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) 9524.96, Voice of Indonesia, Jakarta-Cimanggis, 1324-1357, June 25, EZL songs, CRI (9525.0) suddenly signed on with Chinese music at 1357, totally covering VOI (Ron Howard, Asilomar Beach, CA, Etón E1, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) VOI back on nominal 9525 (9524.96, says Ron Howard), June 25 at 1220 in Japanese, drumming. But June 26 at 1300 transitioning from Japanese to Korean, on 9526 again, and marred by previously unheard big continuous tone with several carrier peaks on the high side, no other modulation detectable, so I think this is a new defect coming out of the VOI transmitter itself. Not the CRI het from 9525 which does not start until 1400 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** IRAN. IRIB, Zahedan, 11655 to ME, 0312-0317 June 12 in Arabic with talks, 70 dB signal, excellent (Richard W. Parker, KB2DMD, Pennsburg PA, by P-mail, retyped by gh for DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** IRAN [non]. R. Farda, USA via Wertachtal, 9510, 0208-0223 June 12, in Farsi with rap and techno dance music --- bringing wholesome Western culture to those savage Iranians; is it any wonder we`re so despised? 60 dB signal, excellent (Richard W. Parker, KB2DMD, Pennsburg PA, by P-mail, retyped by gh for DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** KOREA NORTH [non]. 6020, Shiokaze/Sea Breeze (JSR) via Yamata, Japan, *1400-1412, June 25 (Wed.), in English, detailed information about abductees taken from Japan in the mid-1960s, fair, no jamming today (Ron Howard, Asilomar Beach, CA, Etón E1, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** LAOS. 6130, Lao National Radio, 1417-1431, June 25, completely in French, assume scheduled language lesson, played one French ballad, poor with fading, one hour earlier their reception was much better (Ron Howard, Asilomar Beach, CA, Etón E1, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** LIBYA. R. Jamahiriya, Sabratha, 21695 to EAf, 1547-1557 June 7 in English, mostly weak in deep fades but clear ``Voice of Africa`` ID by W at 1552 (Richard W. Parker, KB2DMD, Pennsburg PA, by P-mail, retyped by gh for DX LISTENING DIGEST) That the tail of 2-hour English from 1400 (gh) LIBIA, 15660, Voice of África, 1635-1640, escuchada el 23 de junio en francés a locutora con comentarios políticos acompañado de música clásica, “...unión política… solución al problema desde la democracia... lucha de clases social... régimen dictatorial”, “desde la asamblea parlamentaria”, SINPO 55544 (José Miguel Romero, Burjasot (Valencia), España, Sangean ATS 909, Antena Radio Master, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** MADAGASCAR [and non]. PRESIDENT OF MADAGASCAR VISITS NASB MEMBER WORLD CHRISTIAN BROADCASTING -- by Paul Ladd, WCB It's not every day that a head of state visits World Christian Broadcasting's headquarters in suburban Nashville, but staffers were ready when President Marc Ravalomanana of Madagascar arrived in town for World Christian Broadcasting's annual benefit dinner in May. When staff got word of President Ravalomanana's impending visit, there were a lot of arrangements to be made and not much time to take care of them. The U.S. Secret Service customarily provides protection for foreign leaders when they're in America and agents made several visits to World Christian's building to prepare for Ravalomanana's arrival. Agents also visited the hotel where the presidential party would stay, as well as the venue for the dinner itself. WCB staffers also began making preparations for the President and those who wold accompany him to the U.S. President Ravalomanana and his party arrived on Wednesday, May 8 at a hangar on the campus of Nashville International Airport. They were escorted by Madagascar's chief envoy to the U.S., Ambassador Jocelyn Radifera and his wife Erna; and Earl Young, a friend of World Christian Broadcasting and also President of the U.S.-Madagascar Business Council. Also in the party were presidential staff, including medical and press officers. Several World Christian Broadcasting staffers were on hand to greet the visitors, who were soon hustled into waiting cars and driven to their hotel. That evening, President Ravalomanana and his wife Lalao were guests of honor at a dinner hosted by World Christian board member Caroline Cross at her home. Also in attendance was former Tennessee Governor Winfield Dunn. Thursday morning, WCB staff gathered in the conference room for the President's arrival. The guests arrived shortly after 9 AM and President Ravalomanana greeted each staff member, after which he sat down for an interview in the KNLS studio. Next, the party headed to Lipscomb University where President Ravalomanana spoke at a brief convocation and then a luncheon and news conference arranged by WCB and Lipscomb staff. Ravalomanana, Lipscomb officials and officials from World Christian Broadcasting discussed ways they might be able to work together in the future. Prior to the benefit dinner, a reception was held in President Ravalomanana's honor at the Embassy Suites Cool Springs. Distinguished guests in attendance included Mayor John Schroer of Franklin and Chuck Blackburn, husband of Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn, who was in Washington for a vote. 2008 WCB NASHVILLE BENEFIT DINNER --- by Rob Scobey, WCB The banquet hall at the Franklin Embassy Suites had space for 700. Kathy Caudill was already expecting a capacity crowd at World Christian Broadcasting's 2008 Spring Benefit Dinner. The invitations for the dinner had already gone out. Other than the WCB website, there was no practical way to get out the late word that Madagascar's president would attend. The people came anyway. And so did the president – with the protection of our U.S. Secret Service. It was this determined President Marc Ravalomanana who had donated the 84 acres for the new radio station, Madagascar World Voice. And the crowd gave him a standing ovation as he and his wife Lalao entered the room. The president said: "From the new radio station, you will send a message from Madagascar to many countries of the world. The content of this message is, 'Let's shape this world around our Christian values.' In the end, we'll not be able to come up with a rose garden. But we'll be able to leave [the world] with less poverty, more peace and security, and better opportunities for future generations." After the President spoke, WCB President Charles Caudill presented him with a painting of irises, the state flower of Tennessee. The painting is the work of Murat Kaboulov, husband of WCB Russian language specialist Marina Aboulova. World Christian Broadcasting Vice President Andy Baker then introduced the 2008 video "The Next Step, to Cover the Earth," which includes interviews with those working on the construction site in Madagascar (June NASB Newsletter via DXLD) ** MALAYSIA. 7295, Traxx FM via RTM, 1249-1322, June 25, in English, DJs playing pop songs (Sheryl Crow with "The Last Cut Is The Hardest", etc.), ToH "Time for the news from the RTM News Center at Kuala Lumpra" (item about illegal immigration in Saba, etc.), time check ("9:14"), poor-fair with QRM splatter (7290 and 7300 both had strong stations). Newly redesigned website at: http://www.traxxfm.net/ which after registering provides live audio/TV streaming for most of the RTM stations (radio: Klasik Nasional FM, Asyik FM, Traxx FM, etc. and TV: RTM1 & 2), most of the streaming worked well for me and was interesting to watch some Malaysian TV (Ron Howard, Asilomar Beach, CA, Etón E1, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** MEXICO. 6010.009, XEOI Radio Mil, México DF; 1244-1250 15 June, 2008. Good with ranchera vocals. 6044.94, XEXQ Radio Universidad, San Luis Potosí; 1240-1244 15 June, 2008. Classical piano/orchestral music, clear and fair. 6104.89, XEQM, Mérida, Yucatán; 2057-2122 June 14, 2008. Possible remote DJ event, into Spanish pop ballad, "Candela" at 2112, ad strong, back to vocals 2116. Clear and fair in thunderstorm QRN. Modulation the best yet. Also, 15 June, 2008 from 1236-1240, measured to 6104.985 (they're getting closer) and great modulation, no ID or slogan. They must be working on the transmitter to get it up to par. Again at 1704-1715 22 June, 2008 with Spanish pop, male and female at around 6104.92, no ID or slogan heard. Raúl: I bet this one comes in nicely in Costa Rica? 6184.86V, XEPPM Radio Educación, México DF; 0042-0051 21 June, 2008. Tune-in to the ending of George Thoroughgood "Bad To the Bone" and Spanish male talk, then repeated "Bad To the Bone" seguéd into Spanish harmony vocal. Rather drifty -- 6184.86-6184.96 -- so maybe the next Mexican shortwave transmitter to drop into barely-work mode soon? 9599V, Radio UNAM, México DF; sporadic checks for over a week in the 1300-2200 range seems to find no trace of this. Transmitter fried forever? (Terry L Krueger, Clearwater, Florida USA, 27.55.83 N, 82.46.08 W, June 23, dxldyg via WORLD OF RADIO 1414, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** MEXICO. 6104.9, Mérida, 1110 to 1140 24 June, "seis en la mañana" by locutor, call-in "como se llama..." rancher music, variety of station sound effects, "Candela" ID at 1130 by locutor, seems to relay other stations? Amazing signal strength; does anyone know the power? (Bob Wilkner, Pómpano Beach, Southeast Flórida, US, June 24, Icom 746Pro and Drake R8, WORLD OF RADIO 1414, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Re: How can this 250 watts be ``blasting in`` to S Florida, while it is just barely audible in OK and CO? Directional antenna? (gh, WORLD OF RADIO 1414, DXLD) Good question! The 6104.8v. signal is excellent here. Odd Florida conditions as 90 meter band HCJB is very strong as is 4815 Ecuador Radio El Buen Pastor. 73s (Bob Wilkner, DX LISTENING DIGEST) They used to be a (local) daytime regular back when I presume it was more certain that they were 250 watts, here on the west coast of FL. I QSLed them for a daytime log and believe they listed the power as 250 watts in the late 70's or early 80's, which would have been from Casselberry (interior central Florida). Also, while I cannot recall powers without going back to various old WRTVH's, many of the now- inactive Hondurans were daytime regulars here. Can't attest for subjective words such as "blasting in" however, but possible (Terry Krueger, Clearwater FL, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Hi Robert: XEQM or XEMQ short wave has just 250 watts power, believe or not, using a very old "hand made" transmitter. I have recently being able to listen it here in Mexico City normally by 7:00 am (Central) and by 7.00 pm (Central) [1200 & 0000 UT] with an overall SINPO of 2. It belongs to an important national radio group in Mexico (RASA) and it seems it carries "Candela FM" programming and perhaps MW 970 kHz both from the city of Mérida capital of the State of Yucatán. 73´s (Julián Santiago Díez de Bonilla, DF, June 24, condiglist yg via DXLD) 6104.88, Candela FM, Mérida (very tentative), 0353-0406, June 26, in Spanish, LA music, best in LSB, poor to almost fair, the best reception so far (Ron Howard, Asilomar Beach, CA, Etón E1, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Re Ron's logs, I also was hearing what I hoped was Candela FM on 6104.9 around 0315 but just too weak (Sheryl Paszkiewicz, Manitowoc WI, June 26, NASWA yg via DXLD) Hi Sheryl, Mérida Mexico seems on 24 hours a day and you most likely had them. 73s, (Bob Wilkner, FL, ibid.) ** MICRONESIA. [Cf. AUSTRALIA]. Re: R. Symban is off - Pacific Missionary Aviation Radio --- Hopefully they'll be able to sort out their antenna problem faster than that of Pacific Missionary Aviation Radio (The Cross) in Micronesia has. They've apparently been off nominal 4755 since October 20, 2007. My last contact with the station I believe was in January and at that time Roland Weibel indicated that the antenna was still being fixed. Has anyone heard them on? I've seen no recent reports (Steve Lare, Holland, MI, USA, June 26, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** MYANMAR The following observations are from Bangkok, 18-21 June: ????-1600 on 576 kHz (the Bangkok station on 576 is helpfully on a reduced daytime-only schedule at the moment allowing Myanmar through in the evening, but 594 kHz is blocked all day here by a local station) ????-0130 on 5985.76 kHz not \\ 7185.16 kHz 0930-1600 on 5985.00 kHz \\ 576 kHz whenever 567 kHz can be checked 0030-0230 on 7185.16 kHz (closes later on weekends - after 0400 but before 0800). I can't hear anything on 5040. I heard 594 kHz last week early morning and evening in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. English is heard at 1530-1600 on 576 and 5985 reduced to a 30-minute slot, and they also announce 594 kHz in the English transmission. Nothing can be heard from Myanmar on 5040 or 5915. It's of note that 5985v is consistently on 5985.76 for the morning transmission, but on 5985.00 in the evening. So likely from different transmitters? (Alan Davies, Thailand, June 21, wwdxc BC-DX TopNews June 26 via DXLD) Not on 5915 kHz anymore. Seems to be trying out experiments. Noted today on 9730.75 kHz going past 0800 UT and still on Burmese Service at 1502 UT. (late note: sign-off at 1512 UT) this has continued all evening. 5985 kHz and 5770 are on as regularly skeded. No sign of 5040 yet, not since the Cyclone devastation. [later] As luck would have it they sign off at 1512 UT on 9730.75 kHz, but 5985 and 5770 kHz continue (Victor Goonetilleke, Sri Lanka, 4S7VK, DXplorer June 21 via BC-DX June 26 via DXLD) ** MYANMAR/BURMA. 5770, Myanmar Defense Forces BC (presumed) via Taunggyi, 1307-1327, June 24, in vernacular with EZL pop songs, some indigenous music and songs, weak (Ron Howard, Asilomar Beach, CA, Etón E1, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** MYANMAR/BURMA. 9730.74, R. Myanma (presumed), 1235-1245, June 25, first time I have checked on this one, very poor, QRM splatter from 9735, playing EZL music, seemed to be in vernacular. Needs more monitoring and better conditions, clearly not // 5985.0 (Ron Howard, Asilomar Beach, CA, Etón E1, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** NETHERLANDS. After suffering from sustained harassment, Deborah Rey (f/k/a Dody Cowan of Radio Nederland's His and Hers program), has withdrawn her recent book from publication. Rachel Sarai's Vineyard, published by Bluechrome in the UK, was the autobiographical story of Deborah's involvement as a young child in the Dutch resistance against the Nazis. To quote Deborah, "Very sad day today." See: http://www.rachelsarai.blogspot.com/ Also: http://www.booktrade.info/index.php/showarticle/15404 (Daniel L. Srebnick, June 24, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** NETHERLANDS [non]. A reminder that our Dutch service begins its additional midsummer transmissions on Sunday 29 June. These are additional shortwave transmissions for the benefit of Dutch holidaymakers in Europe, and will continue to the end of August. The details are already in our online schedule. http://www.radionetherlands.nl/features/media/080330-rnw-summer-schedule (Andy Sennitt, Media Network newsletter June 26 via DXLD) ** NEW ZEALAND [and non]. Radio New Zealand carrying BBC broadcasts -- - Does anyone know if Radio New Zealand International is carrying programing from the BBC? I was listening to RNZI last night (6/23) at 0000 UT with their regular broadcast on 15720 kHz. When I tuned in again at 0100 I heard the BBC news and business broadcast on this frequency. I know both Radio Australia and RNZI carry each other's news and programs (Denny Dollahon, June 24, primetimeshortwave yg via DXLD) Denny, Yes, see http://www.rnzi.com/pages/schedules.php which shows BBC World Briefing M-F at 0100-0130. Nothing else on that grid with BBC in its name, tho some other BBC-produced shows certainly show up on RNZI, or during unspecified National Radio relays, for which you have to find separate schedules, probably not // anything currently on the World Service. 73, (Glenn Hauser, ibid.) ** NEW ZEALAND. 15720, RNZI, 0219-0230, June 26, interview with woman about to go to Indonesia to do research on orangutans, good (Ron Howard, Asilomar Beach, CA, Etón E1, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** NIGERIA. VON, Ikorodu, 15120 to NAm, Eu, 1935-1943 June 7 in English with highlife music. 50 dB signal and outstanding audio (Richard W. Parker, KB2DMD, Pennsburg PA, by P-mail, retyped by gh for DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** PAPUA NEW GUINEA. 3385, Radio East New Britain is really booming in this morning; best I've heard them for a long while (and they continue as I type this at 1246). A fair number of other PNGs, including 3905 on as well. 2368.5 [AUSTRALIA] still seems off the air (Walt Salmaniw, Victoria BC, June 26, IRCA via DXLD) ** PERU. 4826. XXX Radio Sicuani, Sicuani seems silent 4834. XXX Radio Marañón, Jaén seems silent 73s, (Bob Wilkner, Pómpano Beach, Southeast Flórida, US, June 24, Icom 746Pro and Drake R8, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** PERU. 6019.38, R. Victoria, 0319-0339, June 26, in Spanish, LA music, best in LSB to get away from 6020, clearly heard // 9720.0 with very weak signal. 6047.17, R. Santa Rosa (tentative), 0235-0307, June 26, in Spanish, excited coverage of a fútbol game till ToH, tentative ID, LA music, poor-fair, it's been about a year ago that I last heard them this well (Ron Howard, Asilomar Beach, CA, Etón E1, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** PRIDNESTROVYE. MOLDAVIA, 12135 R. PMR, 1614-1619, escuchada el 24 de junio en inglés a locutor con noticias, referencias a Moldavia y el Presidente; se aprecia interferencia de VOA en uzbeco con emisión por 12140, SINPO 43443 (José Miguel Romero, Burjasot (Valencia), España, Sangean ATS 909, Antena Radio Master, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** RUSSIA. Some changes for Voice of Russia effective June 15: 1600-1800 NF 13670 MSK 250 kW / 169 deg, ex 13730*in Arabic 1700-1800 NF 13750 S.P 200 kW / 215 deg, ex 15465 in Italian 1700-1800 on 15465 MSK 250 kW / 250 deg, additional frequency French 1830-1900 on 7130 S.P 400 kW / 147 deg, cancelled in Arabic *to avoid Radio Austria Int. in German till 1700 (DX Mix News, Bulgaria, June 24 via DXLD) ** RUSSIA. Re 8-072, RUI on Samara, Brovary site plans -- concerning the Samara discussion: Does anybody know what happened to the shortwave site at Yekaterinburg? It has obviously been closed down, at some point between spring 2005 and spring 2007 it seems. I never saw any reports about this, other than the ones for yours truly who back in last year noted that the site had just vanished from all schedules (Kai Ludwig, Germany, June 23, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** RUSSIA [non]. Re 8-072, VOR at 0423: I meant // 9480 via Germany, not 9450, as a log from Richard W. Parker reminds me (gh, DXLD) ** SEYCHELLES [non]. U.K. (non) Summer A-08 schedule of FEBA Radio [last figure is azimuth in degrees E of N] NORTH INDIA, NEPAL, TIBET 0015-0030 smtwtfs BANGLA 7375 TAC 100 kW / 131 0030-0045 s..w... HINDI 7375 TAC 100 kW / 131 0030-0045 .mt.... MIXED LANGUAGES 7375 TAC 100 kW / 131 0030-0045 ....tfs BANGLA 7375 TAC 100 kW / 131 0045-0100 smtwtfs HINDI 7375 TAC 100 kW / 131 1200-1230 smtwtfs TIBETAN 15215 DHA 250 kW / 085 1430-1445 smtwtfs URDU 12025 DHA 250 kW / 070 1445-1500 ...wtfs KASHMIRI 12025 DHA 250 kW / 070 1445-1500 smt.... MIXED LANGUAGES 12025 DHA 250 kW / 070 1430-1500 smtwtfs HINDI 9540 TAC 100 kW / 131 1500-1530 smtwtfs BANGLA 7370 TAC 100 kW / 131 SOUTH INDIA 0030-0100 smtwtfs TAMIL 7225 DHA 250 kW / 105 0130-0200 s...tf. TELUGU 9725 DHA 250 kW / 105 0145-0200 .mtw..s MIXED LANGUAGES 9725 DHA 250 kW / 105 1400-1430 s...... ENGLISH 12025 DHA 250 kW / 110 1400-1415 .mtwtfs MALAYALAM 12025 DHA 250 kW / 110 1415-1430 .mtwtfs MIXED LANGUAGES 12025 DHA 250 kW / 110 PAKISTAN, AFGHANISTAN, IRAN 0200-0300 s...... URDU 12035 DHA 250 kW / 070 0200-0230 .mtwtfs URDU 12035 DHA 250 kW / 070 0230-0300 .mtwtfs MIXED LANGUAGES 12035 DHA 250 kW / 070 0200-0230 smtwtfs PASHTO 9725 DHA 250 kW / 045 0230-0300 smtwtfs DARI 9725 DHA 250 kW / 045 1400-1445 smtwtfs URDU 9500 NVS 250 kW / 195 1445-1500 smtwtfs MIXED LANGUAGES 9500 NVS 250 kW / 195 1430-1500 smtwtfs PASHTO 9830 ARM 200 kW / 104 1500-1530 smtwtfs DARI 9830 ARM 200 kW / 104 1530-1545 smtwtfs HAZARAGI 9830 ARM 200 kW / 104 1545-1600 smtwtfs MIXED LANGUAGES 9830 ARM 200 kW / 104 1515-1530 s....fs BALUCHI 9840 ARM 100 kW / 147 1530-1600 smtwtfs PERSIAN 9840 ARM 100 kW / 147 AFRICA, ETHIOPIA, SUDAN 1530-1545 smtwtfs AMHARIC 12125 MEY 250 kW / 019 1545-1600 smtwtfs MAKONDE 12125 MEY 250 kW / 019 1600-1630 s...tfs AMHARIC 12125 MEY 250 kW / 019 1600-1630 .mtw... GURAGENA 12125 MEY 250 kW / 019 1630-1700 smtwtfs AMHARIC 12125 MEY 250 kW / 019 1600-1630 smtwtfs AFAR 11655 ARM 300 kW / 188 1630-1700 smtw... TIGRINYA 9865 DHA 250 kW / 230 1630-1700 ....tfs AMHARIC 9865 DHA 250 kW / 230 1700-1730 smtwtfs SOMALI 9865 KIG 250 kW / 030 1730-1757 smtwtfs TIGRINYA 9865 KIG 250 kW / 030 1700-1730 smtwtfs OROMINYA 6180 DHA 250 kW / 230 1830-1900 smtwtfs FRENCH to WeAf 7255 MEY 100 kW / 345 2145-2215 ....tf. HASSINYA/PULAAR to WCAf 11985 ASC 250 kW / 027 MIDDLE EAST 0800-0845 smtwtfs ARABIC 15280 MOS 300 kW / 115 1900-1930 smtwtfs ARABIC 7230 WER 250 kW / 105 1900-2030 smtwtfs ARABIC 9550 KIG 250 kW / 030 (DX Mix News, Bulgaria, June 24 via DXLD) So is the only English left, Sunday 1400-1430 on 12025, or is it one of the ``mixed languages``? Yes, and no: Just checked the WRTH May update and indeed, only the weekly 1400 remains. Belay that --- WRTH also has a category of languages: ``Various``, including some more on 12025 during that time other days of week. O well, if there is more English, we can be confident it`s just gospel huxtering. But to be merely a member of `various` or `mixed`, surely it must be a minor language, more minor than Guragena, right? (Glenn Hauser, DXLD) ** SINGAPORE. Re 8-072: >> Which raises the question of whether the domestic service relays on SW like this will remain, after R. Singapore International closes down at Julyend. << Obviously not. Following a full translation of the e-mail from Peter Jenus, as in DXLD 8-071, which no doubt is meant to express a complete shut-down of the transmitters: "I got an e-mail from the former technical director of the SBS: The Kranji shortwave station will be shut down at the end of July 2008. That's due to a decision by the government of Singapore to close the station, because of decreased listener numbers and increasing costs. It concerns all shortwave frequencies and languages. The opposite station of the BBC will stay." See http://maps.google.de/?ie=UTF8&ll=1.422583,103.728919&spn=0.015037,0.018797&t=k&z=16 To the left, with the blue transmitter building and all antennas aiming at 320 degrees, the station of Mediacorp Singapore, to the right the BBC site (Kai Ludwig, Germany, June 23, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) All of the SBS transmitters (6 X 250 kW and 1 X 100 kW) are of ABB manufacture and date from 1992 (or thereabouts), while those of the BBC are Marconi's (4 X 250 kW and 4 X 100 kW) dating from 1978, and having been used previously at Tebrau, plus 4 X 250 kW dating from 1987 and moved from Daventry according to Ludo Maes` Transmitter Documentation Project. It's an interesting situation, and I wonder what will really happen to the SBS plant? (Noel R. Green (NW England), dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Richard Buckby, the retired BBC engineer, visited the BBC Kranji site a few years ago, and told about the very old BBC Kranji Marconi units there [non-automatic, manually frequency change procedure ...], which similar transmitter type he used in the 60ties in Daventry and Woofferton already .... ! I've been in Tebrau-Malaysia at BBC's Far Eastern site in January 1978 and had a look to these Marconi beasts too (Wolfgang Büschel, ibid.) ** SPAIN. REE, Noblejas, 11680 to SAm, 0133-0140 June 14, Spanish with opera. Excellent 80 dB signal (Richard W. Parker, KB2DMD, Pennsburg PA, by P-mail, retyped by gh for DX LISTENING DIGEST) And no co- channel Habana? ** SPAIN. Cambios en Amigos de la Onda Corta???? Me comenta Héctor Frías, Chile, que ha escuchado el programa de REE "Amigos de la Onda Corta" en horario y frecuencia diferente a la que informa la emisora y no lo escucha en las que sí informan. Esto parece el preludio de lo anunciado, así comenzaron algunas de las emisoras que terminaron con sus emisiones o programas... Cordiales 73 (José Bueno, Córdoba, España, June 26, dxldyg via DXLD) Viz.: EL PROGRAMA AMIGOS DE LA ONDA CORTA DE R.E.E. ESCUCHADO EN CHILE SOLO EN EL HORARIO DE LAS 1830 UT DE LOS DIAS SABADOS DE CHILE EN LA FRECUENCIA DE 17715 KILOCICLOS. ATTE, (HECTOR FRIAS, JEFE COMISION DE RADIOESCUCHAS, FEDERACHILE (via Bueno, ibid.) ** SUDAN [non]. CHIPRE, 17585, BBC Darfur Salaam, 1705-1708, escuchada el 25 de junio en árabe a locutor y locutora con cuña acompañada de música, comentarios y entrevista con referencias a Darfur, 35333 (José Miguel Romero, Burjasot (Valencia), España, Sangean ATS 909, Antena Radio Master, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** SUDAN [non]. PORTUGAL, 17690, Sudan Radio Service, 1555-1603, escuchada el 24 de junio en árabe a locutora en programa musical, referencia a Sudán, música con cánticos, locutor y locutora con cuña; se aprecia una ligera deficiencia en la modulación, ligeramente sobre modulada, ID, locutora con noticias, referencias Darfur, SINPO 55454 (José Miguel Romero, Burjasot (Valencia), España, Sangean ATS 909, Antena Radio Master, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) PORTUGAL, 17690, Sudan Radio Service, 1650-1656, escuchada el 25 de junio en idioma nuer a locutor con comentarios, referencia a Darfur y Sudán; se aprecia un ligero pitido y hay que templar a 17689 para evitarlo, ID “Sudan Radio Service”, cuña con música, desgarradora cuña acompañada con gritos de una mujer y nueva ID en voz de una mujer, bonita canción interpretada posiblemente por niños, ritmo pegadizo y muy alegre, corte abrupto de la transmisión, SINPO 44444. * Los nuer, o nath como se llaman a sí mismos, son una sociedad africana, que fue estudiada a profundidad por Sir Edward Evans Evans- Pritchard durante 1930 y 1956 y más tarde por Sharon Hutchinson durante la década de 1990. Nuerlandia se localiza principalmente en el sur de Sudán, a ambos lados del Nilo, en su confluencia con los ríos Bahr el Ghazal y el Sobat. Actualmente existen grupos nuer en Etiopía además de Sudan. Los nuer son una sociedad de más o menos 200.000 personas, que se dedican especialmente a la ganadería. Fuente Wikipedia: http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuer (José Miguel Romero, Burjasot (Valencia), España, Sangean ATS 909, Antena Radio Master, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** SYRIA. SÍRIA, 9330, 2220-2226, R. Damascus, Adra, Jun 24, OM talk sírio. Músicas tradicionais com interrupções e locução de uma YL. SINPO 35433 (CAJ). 73's (Cleiber Andrade, Jr., Conselheiro Lafaiete MG, Brazil, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** TAJIKISTAN. Re 8-072: ``4635 ofta 0100 Har inte IDat denna stn med bra styrka, förmodligen Dushanbe men stämmer inte med WRTH, skall kolla upp den men styrkan är på nedåtgående just nu. LES" There are two entries in WRTH for 4635 kHz: 0400-1000 and 1400-0400. There is an update on http://www.wrth.com/updates_national.html which says 2300-2000. 73, (Mauno Ritola, Finland, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** THAILAND. 15275, R. Thailand, 0205-0215, June 26, National News, talk about their king, Global News, poor-fair with fading (Ron Howard, Asilomar Beach, CA, Etón E1, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** TURKEY. Some changes for Voice of Turkey effective June 21: 1530-1555 on 9690*CAK 250 kW / 313 deg in Serbian >> new transmission 1600-1605 on 9605 EMR 500 kW / 290 deg in Croatian, ex Serbian *co-channel CRI in Burmese + Voice of Nigeria in Yoruba (DX Mix News, Bulgaria, June 24 via DXLD) ** TURKEY. TURKISH PRESIDENT APPROVES LAW ENABLING FOREIGN LANGUAGE BROADCASTS | Text of report in English by Turkish news agency Anatolia Ankara, 25.06.2008: Turkish President Abdullah Gul OKed Wednesday a law, enabling the state-run Turkish Radio and Television Corp (TRT) to broadcast in different languages and dialects other than Turkish. Under the law, TRT will also be able to employ foreign nationals under contract. The law allows the national public broadcaster of Turkey to sign contracts, agreements or protocols with other radios and TV channels broadcasting in Turkey. TRT can sell news reports and video footages to local, regional and national TV channels. The prime minister's approval will be required for contracts, agreements or protocols between TRT and international radio and TVs. TRT was founded in 1964 as the national public broadcaster of Turkey. It was the only television and radio provider in 'Anatolia' for years before the introduction of the first commercial radio in 1990, and the first commercial television in 1992. TRT broadcasts around the world, especially in Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia. Source: Anatolia news agency, Ankara, in English 1244 gmt 25 Jun 08 (via BBCM via DXLD) ** UGANDA. R. Dunamis had been back up on 4750 from 6 pm to 10 pm local time (1500-1900 UT), but is now off the air again with transmitter problems. Maintenance work is in progress but moves slowly in Uganda. Per Marty McLaughlin at BVB (Bruce W. Churchill, CA, June 25, Cumbre DX via DXLD) ** UKRAINE. Re: RUI on Samara, Brovary site plans --- ``But is there any plan to actually use Brovary? For some seasons now we have seen only Kharkiv, Lviv and Mikolaev on the transmission schedules.`` "Some seasons" = almost eight years. I have in my files that what I called back then the emergency schedule of RUI, i.e. only a single frequency (via KHR, using two transmitters, but alternately and never together) plus a second one during certain hours for North America (now via LV because curtain antennas for this azimuth at Kopani have no longer been repaired due to lack of funds, leaving only rhombics for this target), came into force in autumn 2000. The only shortwave transmissions via Brovary since then I'm aware of were tests in October 2006, with UR1 on 5970. It seems that these tests were driven by hopes to reestablish transmissions via Brovary, but to no avail. Also no any transmissions of foreign customers via Brovary after 2000 became ever known. I think the question is if the transmitter operator RRT wants to keep the Brovary shortwave site in spite of this really bleak situation (Kai Ludwig, Germany, June 23, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** UKRAINE. R. Ukraine International missing? June 25, 2008, 0000 UT, 7440 kHz. Checking for RUI. Not heard. Transmitter problems? Power problems? 73, (Kraig Krist, KG4LAC, Manassas, VA USA, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Nothing here about an outage, where they have mentioned such before: http://www.nrcu.gov.ua/index.php?id=162 Is it still unheard? (Glenn Hauser, June 26, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Hello Glenn, I did notice that Ukraine was off the air today June 26 at 0000 UT on 7440; there was nothing heard, I will try again tonight and post a message here to let you know if it came back (Gilles Letourneau, Montreal, Canada, ibid.) Saludos cordiales, estoy escuchando el servicio en inglés de Radio Ukraine International, en 7490 a las 1938, aunque la señal es buena el ninel de audio es muy bajo, SINPO 44332 JMR (José Miguel Romero, Spain, June 26, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) [earlier] UKRANIA, 7510, 2144-2146, R. Ukraine Int., Kyiv, Jun 24, YL talk English, mx's classicas com orquestra de violinos. SINPO 33443 (CAJ). (Cleiber Andrade, Jr., Conselheiro Lafaiete MG, Brazil, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U K. Re 8-071, DRM test from Rampisham: ``The text that can be transmitted in a DRM bitstream, similar to the Radiotext feature of the RDS system on FM. And it turned out that Ascension could be reached from Woofferton only with robust mode, transmitting a glorious 11 kbps feed: http://www.drmrx.org/forum/showthread.php?t=1973 (Mike Barraclough, ibid.)`` Glenn: That should be credited to Kai Ludwig. Thanks http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dxld/message/28907 (Mike Barraclough, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U K [and non]. Dear Glenn, Listening to the BBC World Service this evening, and heard an announcement that they are closing their Romanian language service. This was heard during a news cast. After nearly 70 years it justified the decision due the expanding media market in Romania. The full announcement is heard during the news at 2200 GMT on 25th June. This is a shame, especially after 69 years of broadcasting, it is the end of an era really. Reception of BBC is very good here in the UK on the DEGEN DE 1103 Chinese built receiver. Am using the provided extension antenna. Currently listening on 15400 via the Ascension Island relay at 2200 UT. Reception was also very stable on DRM at 2100 on 5870-5875-5880 via Norway. Best Wishes (Chris Lewis, England, June 25, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Viz.: BBC SHUTS DOWN ROMANIAN SERVICE The BBC World Service is to close its Romanian language service, after 69 years of broadcasting. Transmissions in Romanian will cease on 1 August. In a statement, World Service Director Nigel Chapman praised the service, which he said had been "a beacon of free and independent information". The closure was a result of increased media competition in Romania, falling audiences and the need for savings across the World Service, he said. The Romanian Service will be the only language service to close during the term of the current World Service budget, which runs until April 2011, he said. The World Service plans to retain all 31 remaining language services, six of them within Europe. Mr Chapman said most Romanians preferred to get their news from television now and the service's audience figures had fallen to less than 3% of the adult population. BBC broadcasting in Romanian to Moldova will also cease with the closure. 'Devastating blow' During the Cold War the service battled against the tight media control exercised by Romania's communist authorities. "Everyone agrees that their presence has contributed to the building of free and open media in Romania," Mr Chapman said in his tribute. In December 2005 the BBC announced the closure of 10 language services - eight of them broadcasting to Eastern Europe - to pay for a new Arabic TV channel. The National Union of Journalists' broadcasting organiser, Paul McLaughlin, told the BBC News website that the closure was shocking. "It is a devastating blow for a service that is renowned for providing exemplary journalism, covering the area and the region." He said that coming after management had given the impression that no more language services would be closed it represented a "double blow". "It seems that, bit by bit, the BBC is intent on dismantling the World Service," he said, adding that members were considering the possibility of strike action. Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/europe/7473778.stm Published: 2008/06/25 16:17:32 GMT © BBC MMVIII (via Christopher Lewis, Alokesh Gupta, DXLD) ** U S A. Strangely enough, the 60 Minutes story on al-Hurra sparked a fad of similar reportage --- U.S. NETWORK FALTERS IN MIDEAST MISSION --- DESPITE $350 MILLION SPENT BY TAXPAYERS, NETWORK HAS FAILED TO GAIN TRACTION The Washington Post updated 10:44 p.m. ET June 22, 2008 CAIRO - The Egyptian bureau of al-Hurra, an Arabic-language television network financed by the U.S. government, boasts a spectacular view of the Nile River and the capital's bustling streets. But inside, all is quiet. The bureau's satellite link was unplugged with little explanation a few weeks ago by a local company, making it impossible to broadcast live. Since then, staffers have had to use a studio controlled by the Egyptian secret police, who have warned guests not to say anything controversial on the air. . . http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25321273/ (via Mike Cooper, DXLD) Throwing out the Alhurra bathwater, and probably the baby, too. Alhurra, U.S. international broadcasting's 24-hour Arabic television channel, as well as its audio counterpart Radio Sawa, have come under a torrent of media scrutiny... http://kimelli.nfshost.com/index.php?id=4289 (linx to more stories re, kimandrewlliott.com via DXLD) Kim's commentary on Alhurra's week of scrutiny. http://kimelli.nfshost.com/index.php?id=4288 [for further linx] We can expect this press attention to result in indignant reaction by members of Congress, think tank, and the like. In fact, we have already heard from Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), who previously expressed opposition to U.S. international broadcasts containing "all this diversity of thought." The result could be the end of Alhurra. It's budget might be zeroed out. Or Congress may order that it be replaced by a resurrected VOA Arabic Service. As much as this would please many at VOA, such legislation could also come with instructions for U.S. international broadcasting to support U.S. policies. If so, U.S. international broadcasting would be a resurrected Radio Moscow, along with Radio Moscow's most notable characteristic: its dearth of audience. One now can understand why BBC Arabic Television had many months of preparation, and is still only on the air 12 hours per day. Filling a 24/7 television schedule requires parsimony, and that often comes in the form of talking-heads programs. Arab talking heads are not always supportive of U.S. policies or fulsome in their praise of Israel. All 60 Minutes, ProPublica, or the Washington Post had to do is wait for inevitable utterance that offends U.S. sensibilities. Larry Register said, "I don't think any government should be involved in news gathering." Ideally, international broadcasting should be a private endeavor. But there are audiences that need to be served in markets that have no commercial potential for international broadcasting. Public funding is necessary, but this can be done with government control. BBC World Service, funded by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, is the prime example. It does require decades of demonstrating that the publicly funded broadcaster is independent, to establish the credibility necessary for success in international broadcasting. For U.S. international broadcasting, ensuring that independence is the job of the Broadcasting Board of Governors. The BBG can succeed if administrations, Congress, and the BBG members themselves accept the spirit as well as the letter of the International Broadcasting Act of 1994, which established the BBG as a firewall. Is the concept understood, even by American journalists who ought to know better? The ProPublica piece begins by stating that Alhurra and Radio Sawa were "founded by the Bush administration to promote a positive image of the United States." The Washington Post article provides this background: "Propaganda has become a primary front in the war against terrorism, with the United States and al-Qaeda each investing heavily to win over hearts and minds. This article examines one aspect of the U.S. effort to influence people through the airwaves." Promote a positive image? Win over hearts and minds? Influence people over the airwaves? People tune in international broadcasting to get news that is more comprehensive, more reliable, and more credible than the news they get from their state-controlled domestic media. As a general rule, the most credible station wins. Until U.S. decision makers, experts, and journalists understand this concept, there will be limited prospects for successful U.S. international broadcasting (Kim Andrew Elliott, ibid.) ALHURRA MEDIA SCRUTINY: THE SECOND WAVE Discussion with James Glassman, undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs and former chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, and Shibley Telhami, a professor of Middle East politics at the University of Maryland. "Telhami: Think about this for a minute. It's a government-funded news outlet. Look at the criticism that it's been receiving just in the last two days about airing a couple of segments that are critical of Israel on Al Hurra. Well, if you can -- even if they continue to do this, they're going to think about it twice. If you're a reporter, you're going to look behind your shoulder." ... Glassman: A lot of members of Congress don't understand -- I want to say it right now on this television show. We are professional broadcasters, and members of Congress who want us to be propagandists, we won't do that. We absolutely will not do that." PBS NewsHour, 23 June 2008. Daniel Schorr compares Alhurra to "unflashy Voice of America" and says the former is "trying to sell a propaganda line." National Public Radio, 24 June 2008. "I do think al-Hurra nowadays reports most of the basic news in a fairly straightforward manner. In speaking to a number of Arab journalists and others who want al-Hurra to succeed, however, there was a common complaint: al-Hurra doesn't go far enough in reporting the hard stories, the pieces about corruption and torture that are also ignored by their competitors in the Arab world. Covering those subjects would allow al-Hurra to stand out, and give it more credibility." Craig Whitlock online discussion, Washington Post, 24 June 2008. "I wrote about the on-its-face ludicrous idea that you could make a Radio Free Europe for the Middle East back in March 2006. Michael Young attacked the idea two years before that." Matt Welch, Reason, 24 June 2008. "The upshot of it all is that though the Arab world has many problems, it's just not a situation like Eastern Europe. Most Eastern Europeans regarded their governments as not only repressive, but as puppets of a Moscow-based Russian empire and many were willing to embrace the idea of US-assisted liberation. A lot of Americans would like Arabs to see the geopolitics of the Greater Middle East in that way, but relatively few actually do. ... But the essential first step is to not let our picture of the situation be clouded by wishful thinking or a weird kind of nostalgia and al-Hurra reflects both." Matthew Yglesias, TheAtlantic.com, 23 June 2008. "Al-Hurra is not perfect, but it is pretty good, and in some areas, such as the Iraq-market, I tend to see it as the market leader. When Iraqi politicians want to be heard and seen, they rush to get airtime on Al-Hurra. ... In order to understand the array of anti-Al-Hurra agendas, here’s a breakdown of Al-Hurra’s American and Arab enemies and my take on their probable motivations: ... -Voice of America apparatchiks (federal employees, many of them leftie journalists too) who covet Al-Hurra’s budget, and resent being frozen out of its control." Nibras Kazimi, Talisman Gate, 23 June 2008. "Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors Los Angeles (CJHSLA) is calling upon Congress to immediately investigate why the State Department is using the money of US taxpayers to spread hateful pro- terrorist and anti-Israel propaganda." Press release, 24 June 2008. "Alhurra, the U.S. government-funded Arabic news channel, paid former Bush and Clinton administration officials, lobbyists and high-profile Washington journalists tens of thousands of dollars in U.S. taxpayer money to appear on the network as commentators, according to interviews and a review of company records." ProPublica, 24 June 2008. "A former Alhurra employee was arrested earlier this month when he tried to break into the White House. The incident came just days after Homam Ali, 22, was allegedly fired for poor performance from his production assistant job at Alhurra, headquartered in Springfield, Va., where he had worked three years, according to two people at Alhurra familiar with his employment status." ProPublica, 23 June 2008 (see http://kimelli.nfshost.com/index.php?id=4298 for numerous linx, via DXLD) All these media pieces have not produced firm evidence that Alhurra has either a pro-U.S. or anti-U.S. bias. If ProPublica could only come up with one recent offending passage in its content analysis, that might be the exception that proves that Alhurra is playing it relatively straight. And I don't think Daniel Schorr is sufficiently fluent in Arabic to conclude that Alhurra "is trying to sell a propaganda line." The USC analysis of Alhurra content could be interesting, when it is released (if it is made public). If U.S. international broadcasting concentrates on providing accurate, objective, balanced news, to the extent humanly possible, there should not be problems in the future, even if there were problems in the past. (Well, okay, there will problems among those who think U.S. international broadcasting should transmit propaganda. And speaking of which, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen's (R-FL) call for a hearing about Alhurra might not be heeded, because the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Howard Berman (D-CA), is friendly with Norm Pattiz, the former BBG member who created Alhurra.) The real test is the ability to attract an audience. Here it would be useful for the BBG to make a frank and comprehensive public presentation of the audience research it has done in the Arab countries. It is probably unrealistic to expect Alhurra to have audiences larger than those of Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya. It is more reasonable to give Alhurra the goal of competing well with BBC Arabic Television, but even that may be difficult. The answer may be for Alhurra to counterprogram BBC, doing this when BBC is doing that, doing that when BBC is doing this. Then Alhurra may find a respectable niche. Posted: 25 Jun 2008 (Kim Andrew Elliott, ibid.) ** U S A. All, I don’t know how many of you might have known Marion Hales at IBB, a long time employee and their RF guru, but sadly Marion passed away on Thursday 19th June in Washington DC. He was a good friend and a fun guy to have on a visit. Best regards (John B. White, Thomson, DX LISTENING DIGEST) obit ** U S A. WBCQ Saturday Night Sked Changes? Anybody out there have the revised planned schedule for WBCQ on 7415 kHz on local Saturday nights (UT Sunday 0000-on)? "Cut The Crap with AJ", which was on at 0000 UT, is moving to Tuesday nights (0000 UT Wed.). And the new "QSO With Ted Randall" ham-radio program at 0300 UT Sunday announced within the program this past weekend that it is expanding from one hour to three hours long, but gave no exact times (grrr.... :-). So is everything else shifting? Is "Marion's Attic" moving earlier or later, or will it remain the anchor to the evening's programming at 0100 UT? The online WBCQ sked is still un-updated from 4 June, so no data there yet. 73, (Will Martin, MO, June 23, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Nor http://www.tedrandall.com but I think he intends to run later into the night rather than start earlier (gh, DXLD) This is going to be a lot of fun! (Ted Randall, DX LISTENING DIGEST) GO LONG ON SHORTWAVE FOR ARRL FIELD DAY http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2008/06/26/10185/?nc=1 Have you ever dreamed about being able to broadcast with hundreds of thousands of watts [sic] and talk about Amateur Radio to a worldwide audience? Ted Randall, WB8PUM, of Lebanon, Tennessee, will be "Live from Field Day" on 7.415 MHz on WBCQ -- a shortwave radio station -- from 2 PM EDT to 5 PM EDT [1800-2100 UT Sat], then from 11 PM EDT to 2 AM EDT on Saturday, June 28 [0300-0600 UT Sun]. "This is a chance for all ARRL Field Day locations to call in and do a special live 'remote' broadcast from your Field Day site," Randall said. "This international broadcast has a potential audience of more than 200 million people." Randall, who will be "in the field" but connected to a radio studio, said he will be prepared to take calls from any ARRL Field Day location, "so line up your best chatterbox that likes to rag chew and call in." But before you get on the phone and call in, he offers some advice: "Cell phones are great and sometimes sound better than land lines, and have several folks lined up to say a few words." These calls will not be broadcast on Amateur Radio, but rather on the shortwave bands. Randall says to not let goings-on at your station affect your phone call: "Background noise is okay, as long as you are louder than it is. And there is so much you can talk about." Some of things Randall mentioned as being good subjects are: Your setup Your community Any officials that have visited -- if they are still there, Randall suggests handing them the phone and he will interview them Any interesting stations you have worked All about your club activities. The number to call during the broadcast times to get on-the-air -- or any time during Field Day for information -- is 931-528-0133 (the phone will not be answered prior to Field Day). "As far as we know," Randall said, "nothing like this has ever been done before, so be sure and call in and do your 'broadcast' from your ARRL Field Day site -- listeners will love to hear from you. You are welcome to call in twice if you wish -- at 2 PM-5 PM, as well as from 11 PM-2 AM EDT. We will read any press releases on-the-air that you have about your Field Day activities, as well as talk about what you are doing." Press releases should be sent to Randall via e-mail at the station. If you have problems getting thorough or just general questions, you can send them here. Shortwave broadcasting -- the common term for HF broadcasting -- is an FCC-licensed radio service operating between 5.950-26.100 MHz. Shortwave is an international broadcast service intended to be received by the general public in other countries and remains the only medium capable of direct communication from one country to listeners in another country without governmental intervention. With more than 1.5 billion shortwave receivers in use worldwide, the BBC estimates that at any given moment, more than 183 million people listen to shortwave broadcasts each week. Especially in developing countries, shortwave remains the dominant mass communications medium. "Just remember -- major networks and news services all monitor shortwave," Randall said, "so you never know who will be listening to you tell the world about Field Day and Amateur Radio." (ARRL via Ted Randall, June 26, DXLD) ** U S A [and non?]. WEWN, 17510 to SAm, 1639-1642 June 7, in Spanish colliding with Spanish/YL 5-digit numbers station (Richard W. Parker, KB2DMD, Pennsburg PA, by P-mail, retyped by gh for DX LISTENING DIGEST) Re 8-071, Portuguese? from WEWN during the Spanish service: Checked a couple times for a few minutes during the 1930 semihour Monday June 23 on 17510, rather than 11550, but they are // --- heard overlapping M&W conversation in Spanish only, not even a Brazilian accent, altho I did not hear the name of the program, to be certain it was the one on the sked ``Boteia Radio`` (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. WTJC, 9370, playing a military medley, Wednesday June 25 at 1255, such as Air Force Hymn going at 1257 to Marine Corps Hymn, 1300 news. Maybe just fill as does not appear on their program schedule for 8:55 am at http://www.fbnradio.com/new_page_copy(1).htm (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. Re 8-072, clothesline? Hi Glenn: Do we have to draw you a picture 'spooky'??? When extended, the 1000 feet of trailing wire creates a lot of drag. The Autopilot will not hold the aircraft steady. Nonstop 'Dutch rolls'. You have to 'hand fly' the airplane the whole time it's extended, up to 7 hours at a time. Takes about 10 to 15 Minutes to make a 180 degree turn! See ya!! By the way: I am installing a 28210 kHz 10 meter propagation Beacon here at the WWRB transmitter facility. The antenna is CB 'ground plane', 140 feet AGL. Power is 90 Watts. Call letters: WA4SZE (Dave Frantz, Manchester TN, June 23, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ``Airline Transport Communications`` --- Well aren't they special? Interesting that no legitimate hits for them are located on Google search, or Hoovers.com (which I have full access to). (Terry Krueger, FL, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Did you see this? At least he does have a 1972 Cessna: http://tennessee.aircraftdata.net/record/5259Q/airline-transport-communications-inc.aspx (Glenn Hauser, ibid.) Nice! He can really do a lot with that (Terry Krueger, ibid.) Hi Glenn: This kinda off way off topic but worth mentioning! from a communications perspective?? I fly almost every day for Airline Transport. It seems about the only aircraft flying anymore are small business jets! Just 1.5 years ago you could NOT get a word in edgewise with air traffic control! The chatter in my head set was NON STOP! Now, I can be sitting at 41 thousand (FL410) and hear NOTHING on the VHF radio for up to 45 minutes or MORE. That`s at 41 thousand and NO targets showing on the TCAS! I find myself calling 'center' just to check my VHF radio! Many times the air traffic controller(s) working me will tell me that I am the ONLY 'customer' in his sector! This is economic situation is getting very interesting to say the least! Regards!! (Dave Frantz, ATC, WWRB, June 26, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. 'The Voice of the Prairie' at the Colony Theatre in Burbank ‘VOICE’: Tom Dugan, background, is a storyteller and Michael Matthys is the broadcaster who discovers him. John Olive's play recalls the golden age of radio and the uproar it caused in America's heartland. THEATER REVIEW By David Ng, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer June 24, 2008 The Midwestern plains are inundated. The lives of thousands of farmers and small-town citizens will never be the same. But wait: It's 1923, not 2008. And the disruptive waves are coming from the newfangled radio, not the swollen Mississippi River. John Olive's 1986 play "The Voice of the Prairie" charts a geographic upheaval of historic proportions. In the impressively acted revival at the Colony Theatre in Burbank, the advent of radio technology is a veritable tidal force, an unstoppable transformation that caught the American heartland off guard. 'The Voice of the Prairie' --- Three actors embody close to 20 characters in this panoramic epic. The protagonist is David Quinn (Tom Dugan), a farmer whose gifts for storytelling are discovered by an itinerant short-wave broadcaster (Michael Matthys). . . [illustrated] http://www.latimes.com/news/local/valley/la-et-voice24-2008jun24,0,1415442.story (via Kim Andrew Elliott, DXLD) Not sure what the reference to "itinerant short-wave broadcaster" means. Maybe it's really long-distance medium wave broadcasting, which was popular in the prairie at that time. 73 (Kim Elliott, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ``Voice of the Prairie``, or was it plural, the slogan of CFVP 6030 Calgary, surely coincidental, and perhaps originally that of its MW parent. Ah, the good ole days of itinerant SWBCers (gh, DXLD) ** U S A. A great example of local radio! I'm helping edit the Texas listings for the upcoming NRC Log, and one of the ways I'm checking data is by visiting web sites for various stations. Here's a gem I stumbled across, the web site for KPAN in Hereford. Folks, this is what LOCAL radio is supposed to be about! http://www.kpanradio.com/ (Harry Helms W5HLH, Corpus Christi, TX EL17, June 24, http://harryhelmsblog.blogspot.com/ ABDX via DXLD) A great local station and a great website. What a shame that there isn't more of this currently in the country. There are many local stations like this that cannot be bothered to have any website, but KPAN's site is superb. I've listened to this station quite a bit at night since there's nothing close to strong on 860 at night when I phase CJBC out. KPAN often dominated, but weakly as one would suspect, while I would chase the many other distant westerly targets on 860. Alas, that is basically a memory now, due to KOA night IBOC which makes it hard to DX anything weakish on 860. One also has to wonder what KOA's IBOC does to KPAN at night? I'll bet it cannot be good for fringe listeners. 73 KAZ Barrington IL who is helping with his local area for the NRC log (Neil Kazaross, ibid.) Like Kaz, I used to hear KPAN often from my Iowa locale in the early fifties. Would power in at sunrise/sunset with ease. I always loved to log those Texas Panhandle stations (Don Kaskey, S.F. CA, ibid.) (I was part of it 50 years ago!) From the URL Harry provided, we read of Clint Formby's first commercial, in 1948: "Then a student at Texas Tech University, Formby read the station's first commercial. Western Auto offered a one-day $29.95 special on its "two-tube Truetone radio." "The nervous youth stumbled over the tongue twister. "Formby went to the business at noon and apologized profusely to the proprietor. "The store owner laughed. He had sold out of the advertised item by 10 o'clock that morning. "'Everybody who comes in,' he told Formby, 'wants to see the radio that ol' boy couldn't pronounce!'" My second radio job, from late August 1958 to early September 1959, was at KPAN, then a sunrise-to-sunset AM-only daytimer. I had come out of the Army earlier that summer, joined my parents in Canyon, Texas, 30 miles from Hereford, and applied for a job KPAN had advertised in Broadcasting Magazine. Formby hired me as news director/chief announcer. I did the morning board shift (s/on at sunrise to 1 p.m.), then gathered news and recorded commercials in the afternoon. I learned the basics of local radio from Clint Formby, and one of the biggest mistakes of my life came when I thought it would be difficult to continue at KPAN while going back to school at West Texas State in Canyon ... so I accepted a night job at KIXZ-940 in Amarillo and left KPAN. If I had been sufficiently mature to recognize that I had done well enough at KPAN that Clint probably would have worked my radio schedule around my classroom schedule, I could have continued with one of the two best local station owners in America. (The other being Warren Hasse at KPDN-1340, which went silent a few months after Hasse retired and the new owners were unable to maintain the operation.) Clint's radio commercial reminds me of an on-air flap I caused at KPAN, when the salesman who handled the Little's Department Store account failed to replace the live Dollar Day Little's script the day after Dollar Day. I flipped the page in the continuity notebook and didn't recognize the copy error until after the uttering, in stentorian tones, the first sentence. "Little's has done it again!" I said, double-took, and said "And so has somebody else." Don Little's first reaction was to cancel his ads ... but so many people came in to ask what Little's had done, he recognized the value of KPAN's listenership. In 1958-59, I didn't realize how good the KPAN formula was. And, obviously, still is. Good local radio can still be done, but only by dedicated broadcasters whose properties are virtually useless as metro rimshot signals and whose market is relatively thriving Qal R. Mann, Krumudgeon (John Callarman, Krum TX, ibid.) I'll add my two cents here and post what I think is the best local station here in New England. http://www.959watd.com/ (Keith McGinnis, Hingham MA, ibid.) Great stations for sure. Here is my pick for the best station in Atlantic Canada: http://ecfm.ca/index.php (Phil Rafuse, PEI, ibid.) A great example of local radio is WRVK, which is a traditional country music station in Mount Vernon/ Renfro Valley, KY. They play various country music programs, local interest programs, local news, etc. for the nearby area. They are on the web at http://www.wrvk1460.com/ I guess WRVK plays old Top-40 at some times, also (Dick W., ibid.) ** U S A. WBAI, and George Carlin: see TIPS FOR RATIONAL LIVING below ** URUGUAY. 550, unID, JUN 22 0800 UT - Sounds like an ID in Spanish, beginning with marching band music, possibly an intro to sport news. Uploaded in the Loco the DX Cat files. Thank you for listening. (Bruce Conti - Nashua NH, http://members.aol.com/baconti/bamlog.htm realdx yg via DXLD) But I can`t find it on his own website (gh) Radio Colonia uses this march when cueing in to their news. Interesting catch! (Henrik Klemetz, Sweden, Realdx yg via DXLD) It`s the opening of ``Stars & Stripes Forever!`` by Sousa, sheesh (gh) Thank you Henrik! I believed that it was Radio Colonia but wasn't 100% sure. This is a new log for me and possibly a U.S. first if not a North American first - I'll have to check the past Newfoundland DXpedition logs. It was received with a terminated Delta antenna aimed south while on a camping DXpedition in Camden, Maine, over the weekend (Bruce Conti - Nashua NH, ibid.) That IS an interesting catch! I don't think Uruguay has been heard in the US during my DX lifetime starting in the mid 60's. For it to happen in the 21st century is nothing short of amazing. Japan and Uruguay in the last year. You're going to have a hard time topping that (Chuck Hutton, ibid.) I can't document it but I believe that Gordon Nelson and either Ray Moore or Bill Bailey or someone else up that way heard Uruguay in the 1969-72 timeframe (Russ Edmunds, Blue Bell, PA ( 360' ASL ), ibid.) Bruce, as Andrew Brade is pointing out, the station name is indeed mentioned "at 3.6 sec." During Argentine military governments and periods of censorship, Radio Colonia used to be of prime importance for listeners in Buenos Aires. I once met Ariel Delgado - a Radio Colonia news reader whose cue "hay maaaaas inforrrrrmaaaaciooo nes en Radio Colonia" is still remembered. He was happy to make an impromptu sign on announcement for my tape recorder. Absolutely special. Only paralleled by Colombian Ph.D. Cristóbal Américo Rivera, who has been reading the news on Horizonte /on 540 and 5970, decades ago/, Radio Super, Radio Reloj and perhaps on one or two more Bogotá stations. (Henrik Klemetz, ibid.) ** VATICAN. / BOLIVIA non Re 8-072: >> Unfortunately here in Denmark the Vatican Radio is blocking the frequency 4005. At 2300-2330* it has Italian, then one hour with their open carrier QSA 5, and then from *0030 program in Portuguese << ... which is also listed for 1260, from the same transmitter building within Vatican City (Marconi Palazzo) than 4005. So perhaps German 2210-2230, English 2230-2300 and Italian 2300-2330 are on 1260 as well, also here followed by an hour of open carrier? (Kai Ludwig, Germany, June 23, dxldyg via WORLD OF RADIO 1414, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** VENEZUELA. VENEZUELA HFCC Venezuela http://www.itu.int/ITU-R/terrestrial/broadcast/hf/refdata/reftables/site.txt shows 20-JUN-2008 Global HF Transmitter Site Table 20-JUN-2008: add: CLZ Calabozo, VEN, 10N30 066W52 Der ganze Eintrag ist mistig. 10N30 066W52 liegt direct in der Grossstadt Caracas neben dem Flughafen, im high resolution. 100.000de Haeuserschluchten. Niente. Fallingrain zeigt Calabozo - Estado Guárico, 180 km suedlich Caracas gelegen, 08 56 04 N 67 25 36 W direkt an einem grossen See Sabana Larga, was ja gut fuer eine Wellen- Ausbreitung waere. Und eine Menge ins Wasser ragende Halbinseln, wie einst bei DWL Malta. Nur die linke Seeseite und die Stadt sind in hoher Aufloesung, der interessante rechte Teil mit den Halbinseln [noch] nicht (Wolfgang Büschel, June 24, wwdxc BC-DX TopNews June 26 via DXLD) Coordinates registered with ITU for new Calabozo, Guárico site are way off, instead leading to Caracas airport; Maiquetía? (gh, DXLD) ** WESTERN SAHARA [non]. ARGELIA, 6300, Radio Nacional Saharaui, 1709- 1715, escuchada el 25 de junio en árabe a locutor con canto del Corán, locutor con presentación, música folklórica local, SINPO 44433 (José Miguel Romero, Burjasot (Valencia), España, Sangean ATS 909, Antena Radio Master, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) See also UNIDENTIFIED 6300 ** ZIMBABWE. STREET VENDOR ARRESTED FOR LISTENING TO VOICE OF AMERICA Police in Harare have charged a street vendor for listening to a special news programme on Zimbabwe broadcast by the Voice of America, as President Robert Mugabe’s government tries hard to limit alternative information available to voters ahead of a run-off presidential election next week. The vendor, Noel Tichawana, who was arrested about three weeks ago will appear in court on 15 July to answer to charges of committing criminal nuisance after he was caught listening to the programme, Studio 7, that broadcasts political, economic and general news on Zimbabwe. Tichawana, who is probably the first person to be charged for listening to the Studio 7 programme that is considered hostile by Mugabe’s government, faces up to six months in jail if found guilty. According to court papers a Zimbabwe army soldier arrested Tichawana after having observed on several occasions the vendor listening to Studio 7 from his radio set that he kept at his vending site. “On several occasions, accused person would play his radio set at high volume attracting a crowd as he would switch it to America’s Studio 7. . . informant then arrested the accused and brought him to St Mary’s police station,” reads the charge sheet submitted to court. (Source: The Zimbabwean)( June 24th, 2008 - 13:21 UTC by Andy Sennitt, Media Network blog via WORLD OF RADIO 1414, DXLD) TSVANGIRAI SAYS VOTERS WILL BE FORCED TO THE POLLS Category: World Service; News Date: 26.06.2008 Zimbabwe's opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, in a rare interview with BBC World Service from his refuge in Harare, told his supporters not to offer resistance if ZANU-PF militants or government soldiers come to force them to the polls on Friday. He said: "Maybe they even have to vote ZANU-PF, it doesn't matter... It makes no difference because the vote is a fraud anyway." . . . http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2008/06_june/26/zimbabwe.shtml (BBCWS press via DXLD) UNIDENTIFIED. 6300: some sort of mixing product heard here at 0656 25/6/08 but definitely not // RHC; this one has two streams of talk while RHC is playing music. Lost under presumed Polisario station in Arabic later (Tim Bucknall, England, harmonics yg via DXLD) see also 27360 UNIDENTIFIED. Olá pessoal, Hoje de madrugada novamente locução feminina de números em espanhol nos 6785 kHz AM, das 0720 até 0740 UT. Havia ruído na faixa porém o sinal era tão forte que conseguia suplantar o problema, entre 59+10 e 59+30 dB com rápido QSB. Antena dipolo 1/2 onda 7 MHz IC-706MKIIG (Flávio Archangelo, Jundiaí - SP, June 26, radioescutas yg via DXLD) UNIDENTIFIED. 6875 AM NO ID, 1820-1831, escuchada el 23 de junio extraña emisión musical. Casualmente se ha producido un corte de fluido eléctrico de unos treinta minutos en la zona, anunciado previamente para reparaciones; esto me ha permitido captar una extraña música, cómo de caja de música, una melodía corta repetida constantemente. La señal era débil y por momentos era interferida por un QSO en USB; una vez restablecido el servicio eléctrico el ruido impide escuchar la señal, SINPO 23342 (José Miguel Romero, Burjasot (Valencia), España, Sangean ATS 909, Antena Radio Master, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) At first I thought it might be the famous numbers station Lincolnshire Poacher, but searching in UDXF yg found these recent items: unID German Number station on 6875 kHz --- Hi, yesterday evening / last night a very strange German "Number Station" was on nonstop over many many hours on 6875 kHz in AM (A3E, both sidebands). Format: OM in German gave the numbers "9 8 5 6878" while the first 3 figures were spoken with a remarkable gap and 6878 as one string. In the background (nonstop without a break when the numbers were spoken) "tones" (maybe the tones are a kind of selcal? or a "camouflaged" message?). No other traffic seen. Only this "calling" (?) marker over manyyyy hours. A sound file on http://freenet-homepage.de/adolle/sounds/06875-GermanNr.WAV Can't find any matching entry in the ENIGMA listing... "New" Number station ? 73, (Tom M. Rösner, DL8AAM, May 29, UDXF yg via DXLD) Hi Tom, Sounds more like a malfunctioning transmission from Russia with their polytone transmission (also not normal) in the background. 73, (Ary Boender, ibid.) Could the robotic German numbers mixed with the tones have been the `QSO` JMR2 heard? (gh) Saludos cordiales Glenn, le comento que la estación musical que escuché no tiene nada que ver con el audio que proporciona aquí; sin embargo en Enigma2000 han proporcionado un audio de youtube en la que muestran la misma música que yo escuché y parece ser ha sido captada por varios compañeros en varias partes de Europa: Dear group, Following on from Phil's heads up. I present the following YouTube video sound track of the station as it is to me today. Best in LSB but it is a AM signal. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0WNRTNxLIQ Hey Jochen, the music boxes are getting in on the act now! Kind regards, Mike T (via José Miguel Romero, dxldyg via DXLD) Re: 6875 NO ID, se trata de Radio Playback Int. con emisión de pruebas. Saludos cordiales, adjunto mensaje recibido por Silveri desde Cataluña, la extraña emisión musical captada en el día de ayer en la frecuencia de 6875 es de Radio Playback Int., normalmente emitiendo en 6882: (José Miguel Romero, Spain, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Hola Jose Miguel, jo també vaig escoltar la musiqueta de capseta de musica antiga... es tracta de R Playback Int. fent proves. He escoltat altres vegades aquesta coseta... i en altre freq. sempre per la mateixa banda. Normalment surt als 6882 però si te interf. es busca la vida en altres llocs. Bona festa (Silveri Gómez, via JMR2, ibid.) UNIDENTIFIED [non]. Unknown country, Unknown station, 12000, 2350, English/Spanish, 444, June 21, YL with Tonga Food supplies item. Also comments on serious health problems, then an OM with comments in slow English. In Spanish at 0000 news items on the Hamas rebels. Also mentioned Taliban often (Stewart MacKenzie, WDX6AA, Huntington Beach, California, USA, DX LISTENING DIGEST) This is the weekly English-learning show Spotlight, Saturdays 2345- 2400 in the Spanish service of HCJB, 330 degrees at 23-01 on 12000, mentioned several times already in DXLD; you should surely have heard HCJB ID at 2359:30 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) UNIDENTIFIED. Carrier fading in and out, 27360 now, nothing on 13680 here (Tim Bucknall, England, harmonics yg via DXLD) This was in same post as 6300 unID. When is `now`?? Timestamp on post was 2:42 AM June 25. If that means 0742 UT, Habana certainly would not be on 13680 anyway, nor propagating on 27+ MHz (Tim Bucknall, England, harmonics yg via DXLD) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ PUBLICATIONS ++++++++++++ ITU GE75 #119 available for download http://www.itu.int/ITU-R/publications/brific-ter/files/ge75/2008/GE75_119.pdf (Dragan Lekic, Serbia, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Frequency list of LW/MW changes, planned, added, modified, deleted in Afroeurasia. Deadline for comments: 14 Oct 2008. What means GE? (Glenn Hauser, DXLD) UHF CHANNEL LOOKUP Handy website --- I found this UHF lookup on a Sennheiser website --- you feed it a zip code and it'll spit back all the UHF TV licenses within a radius. It's designed to help find clear wireless mic frequencies. http://www.sennheiserusa.com/findfrequency/default.asp 73, (Bruce Collier, York, PA 722ft ASL, FM19px, WTFDA via DXLD) DX-PEDITIONS [continuing thread from 8-082] ++++++++++++ The few DXpeditions I have done have were both of the mini & solo variety from my car; using an Icom R75, 12V adapter and 300+ foot longwire. My preferred location is in the middle of nowhere, a.k.a. Sugar Hill Scenic Outlook on the Kancamaugus Highway, deep in the heart of the White Mountain National Forest. Great views, especially during sunrise and miles from any RF pollution. Occasional moose sightings are a bonus. I've never heard anything different than what I can monitor hear at home on the outskirts of the Mount Washington Valley, but what I hear via DXpedition is "cleaner". The only problem with DXing via automobile here in the mountains is during the winter months you quickly freeze your fanny off and during the summertime the black flies & mosquitos will bleed you dry. Both get old very quick. 73, (Scott Barbour, NH, NASWA yg via DXLD) Hello Mike, My "Barrio" neighborhood has a lot of older power poles and pots and etc. and there has been a rising level of background noise here, so I do a lot of DXpeditioning. I often camp in a Coleman tent with an old car battery and my Drake R8, or take battery radios like my ATS-803A and Panasonic RF-2200 (casual listening and MW DXing). I live in the West, and there are vast uninhabited areas to set up, lots of Government land. It is legal to camp anywhere you can plunk down a tent. Nearby Yuccas (New Mexico) or Saguaro Cactus (Arizona) provide handy antenna masts. I take rolls of wire to set up longwires, and have my "quickie" antenna for higher bands- my famous "tomato stake" antenna --- technically, a helically wound vertical. it's a plastic garden stake, 9' tall, with a whole lot of wire wound around it from bottom to top. I just jam it into the ground. I just clamp a ground wire to a screwdriver and jam it in the ground also. But I also have made use of the little cabins at KOA Campgrounds. You might want to check into KOA.com and see what they might have to offer near you. The KOAs won't be devoid of ANY power lines like, say, camping in the "bootheel" of S.W. New Mexico, but it is not an "urban" environment either. There is a writing table at each cabin by the front window that makes the perfect spot to set up the "shack". Some cabins have great heaters (like the KOA at Silver City , New Mexico), but others (Benson, Arizona) have these tiny little portable devices that barely heat at all --- but enough that you're not freezing either. I am guessing it may not be as good as French Creek (I have never been there), but the KOA "Kamping Kabins" work for me, especially in the winter here. Hope any of this gives you some ideas! Good Listening, 73 (Rick Barton, AZ, NASWA yg via DXLD) Rick: At the KOA near Allentown, PA, the Kabins are pretty close together; not much room to run an antenna. Have you used a vertical antenna when you've set up your shack there? (Richard Cuff / Allentown, PA, ibid.) A "no" on the vertical, other than the "tomato stake", but it`s just an "extra" monitor antenna, or for higher frequencies. I have had luck in running the wires around the length of the cabin towards the back. The ones in Benson, AZ are next to a fence; on the other side of that is a ranch. So I run the wire out that way. You're right, I have seen other KOAs where the cabins are really close so you can't go from side to side. One other thing I just thought of --- some KOAs like to install those &%$#@*#!!!! fluorescent light bulbs, so byob (bulb - not beer) or keep the lights off and use the flashlight. And it would not be good if you were in a campground where the cabins were so close that the neighbor's light bulbs were causing QRM. That hasn`t been a problem for me yet. Really, my preference IS going out with my own tent, and with the type of weather we have in the Arizona desert, it isn`t out of the question to camp out even in the middle of winter. I had planned to spend New Year's Eve camping out with my wife and sister in law, but I came down with a cold. I would advise other DXers to take a good look at the campground ahead of time before reserving that cabin, of course! (Rick Barton, AZ, ibid.) Mike, There is nothing I enjoy more than going on a DXpedition with a friend or two, or only alone! My favorite routine is to travel some nine (9) miles from home (here in N.E. Philadelphia, PA) to Militia Hill in Fort Washington State Park, in Fort Washington (Right next to Flourtown), PA. This is a high point in the park general that is often used by the local chapter of the Audubon Society (where that have build a large tower / platform) for Bird Watching. One can see for quite some distance much as Washington`s lookouts once did during the Revolutionary War (the place reeks with history)! I am usually there during a weekday (when there are far fewer people about) either early in the morning or in the mid to late afternoon hours. I choose a shaded picnic table, set up a small reel antenna, my Sagean ATS909 Super with earbuds and my logbook, etc. Additionally, I often bring some lunch from a wonderful privately owned sub shop (called: My Brothers Place) and I am then set for several hours of quality SW listening! The noise is extremely low and reception is excellent! I am often visited by squirrels, chip monks, beautiful birds, ground hogs and even deer that approach (Often within yards of the picnic table). In fact, the animals seem as curious of what I`m doing as other human visitors to the park are! Speaking of human visitors, I often have the opportunity to explain my hobby to others while there. Many express surprise when I let them hear some foreign country`s broadcast to which I may be listening. Most leave somewhat impressed by what they have observed. It is a great way to promote the hobby! By the way, I also DXpedition on bicycle trips, when camping or backpacking and always in motel rooms when traveling! (Dr. Mark, NASWA yg via DXLD) Per Rohde's recent question about DXpeditions: The Michigan Area Radio Enthusiasts (M.A.R.E.) have been conducting four DXpeditions per year for many years. The majority are held at the Brighton State Recreation Area near Brighton MI, about 50 miles NW of Detroit. The cabins are propane stove heated, and without any AC power. All gear is run by battery (small cells and car batteries). All manner of antennas are put up, including long wires up to about 1000 ft. Light is provided by propane and battery lanterns. Propane camp stoves and grills are used for cooking. The social aspects are a lot of fun, and I can pretty well guarantee you will hear stations you cannot hear or easily hear at home. Send any questions you may have to mare.radio @ gmail.com (Harold Frodge, MI, June 23, DX LISENING DIGEST) RADIO EQUIPMENT FORUM +++++++++++++++++++++ FM STEREO INNOVATOR CARL EILERS DIES CARL G. EILERS, the "Father of Stereo FM Radio and Stereo Television Sound," died suddenly FRIDAY (JUNE 18th) of an apparent heart attack in his RIVER FOREST, IL, home. He was 83. A native of FAIRBURY, IL, EILERS became known for pioneering work during his 50-year career at ZENITH ELECTRONICS. There he worked on the world's first pay television system, and led ZENITH's development effort on stereophonic FM radio broadcasting. The stereo FM standard he co-developed was first adopted by the FCC in 1961 and is still in use today around the world. As R&D manager, EILERS co-developed ZENITH'S EMMY AWARD winning MTS (multichannel television sound) stereo TV system, adopted by the industry in 1984. Through the '90s, EILERS was a key member of ZENITH's high definition television (HDTV) development team. EILERS was inaugurated into the Consumer Hall of Fame in 2000. He is survived by his wife of 34 years, SANDRA, his son JOHN and daughter JANET AMES. Services are planned for TUESDAY in RIVER FOREST. (allaccess.com via Brock Whaley, HI, DXLD) Remember in all those old WRTH's? "Stereo broadcasts using the pilot tone system." (Brock Whaley, ibid.) LARGER UHF ANTENNAS Sent this e-mail to Channel Master -- who knows, maybe it'll stir things up (Jim Pizzi, June 21, WTFDA via DXLD) You might want to consider re-issuing the 6 and 7 foot parabolic UHF antennas that Channel Master produced years ago. I had the occasion of using them in the 80's in west Texas. Very high gain and very rugged. Digital TV "cliff effect" will be a big problem to fringe area reception. I believe you would have a large sales potential [estimated 20 million rural households will be affected]. Especially if used with your 7775 UHF pre-amp. I wish I still had a 7 footer now. Using a Winegard PR-9032 UHF antenna with a PA-4975 UHF pre-amp[discontinued]. I'm sure I would do much better at my location [4miles south-east of Palmyra, NY]. Only a very few stations will remain on VHF after February 09 and UHF digital needs your help. I sincerely hope you take this suggestion to heart. Thank you for your time. Jim Pizzi, Palmyra, NY 14522-9440 (via WTFDA via DXLD) E-mails or letters like this can't hurt, but CM no longer has the dies to form the curved ribs and framework for the parabolics. They discontinued them because the dies they had were worn too much to produce the 7 FT dishes. Also Rich Wertman contacted them to see if they would supply/sell him the specifications for the 7 FT dish. They can not even locate the original specifications or plans for the antennas or the dies! There have been numerous owners of Channel Master since the original UHF parabolics were designed and the specifications have probably been thrown out or are buried somewhere. My guess is that the latest owners are more interested in producing satellite dishes and receivers than parabolic UHF antennas. I had sent them a letter about the parabolic dishes a few years ago telling them the same thing about the digital signals. This was before I found out from Rich Wertman that they stopped producing them because the dies were worn out (Bob Seaman seamanrobert7 @ gmail.com June 22, ibid.) Somebody must be making the UHF parabolics now. I have noticed three installed at homes just west of Topeka that weren't there three years ago. I ride by occasionally on my bicycle but have never found anyone home at any of the homes. Also, while biking between Ft. Francis and Emo, Ontario the last couple of years I have seen a lot of UHF parabolics pointed to receive UHF translators in northern Minnesota. I should have looked for an antenna dealer in Ft. Francis to see who manufactured them. I'm using a Channel Master 6-foot model and, of course, am pleased with it. However, I have two neighbors using the Channel Master 4228 8-bay antenna without amps getting excellent reception on the Kansas City DTVs as well. But, of course, they aren't DXing trying to get really distant stations (Dave Pomeroy, Topeka, Kansas, ibid.) DIGITAL BROADCASTING ++++++++++++++++++++ WBNS-DT (21), OH Applies For 1700 kW!! I just read this at an internet post, and sure enough, here's the info via the filing with the FCC. This should be interesting to watch. WBNS is a sister station with local WTHR. http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/tvq?list=0&facid=71217 http://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/cgi-bin/ws.exe/prod/cdbs/pubacc/prod/eng_tv.pl?Application_id=1248285 (Steve Rich, June 23, WTFDA via DXLD) Well. That certainly *is* interesting. And it does look like it's legal. See 73.622(f)(5) (which they cite in one of their attachments): http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/cfr_2007/octqtr/47cfr73.622.htm "Licensees and permittees ... may request an increase in either ERP ... or antenna HAAT, or both, that exceed the initial technical facilities specified for the allotment in Appendix B ..., up to the maximum permissible limits on DTV power and antenna height ... OR UP TO THAT NEEDED TO PROVIDE THE SAME GEOGRAPHIC COVERAGE AREA AS THE LARGEST STATION WITHIN THEIR MARKET..." (emphasis mine) Their attachments claim the coverage of the requested 1700 kW facilities falls within the coverage of Columbus station WSYX-DT, channel 13. The FCC's Curves program seems to bear that out. The program suggests the 36dBu noise-limited coverage area of WSYX-DT, channel 13 with 59 kW/286m, extends 105.8 km from the tower. The 41dBu noise-limited coverage area of WBNS-DT, channel 21 with 1700 kW/279m, extends 99.1 km. (Why doesn't WBNS ask for more than 1700 kW and fill in that extra 14 km? For one, because WSYX-DT is directional (WBNS does NOT propose a directional antenna) so WSYX's coverage does not extend 105.8 km in *all* directions. For two, because the two stations' towers are roughly 3 km apart so if they had identical coverage radii, WBNS's signal would extend beyond that of the largest station in the market by 2 km.) (also, there's a "law of diminishing returns" that means WBNS would probably have to run 5000 kW or more to close that 14 km gap!) -- (Doug Smith W9WI, Pleasant View, TN EM66, ibid.) DTV freeze lifted; long-distance moves The FCC has lifted the freeze on DTV power increases. This has led to the filing of several hundred (if not over a thousand) such applications. Most are pretty mundane, specifying power increases into the existing DTV antenna (or the existing analog antenna, for stations moving back to their analog channels). Also, in quite a few cases stations propose to replace a directional antenna with a non- directional antenna. However, five (so far) propose significant tower moves: - KBEH-24 Oxnard, California proposes to move to Mt. Wilson, Los Angeles. - WLED-48 Littleton, New Hampshire proposes to move to the top of Mt. Washington. This would be the only TV station up there since WMTW-8 moved off the mountain a few years ago. - WPXK-23 Jellico, Tennessee proposes to move to Sharp's Ridge in Knoxville. - WSAH-42 Bridgeport, Connecticut proposes to move to the Empire State Building in New York City. - KPXM-40 St. Cloud, Minnesota proposes to move to the Shoreview tower (sharing with KARE-11) near St. Paul. Also, KTCI-26 St. Paul, Minnesota proposes to move to channel 38. As you read earlier, WBNS-21 Columbus, Ohio has filed for 1700 kW, more than the normal 1000 kW power limit for DTV. So far this is the ONLY application filed that proposes more than the nominal power limit. There are probably more of these applications to come (Doug Smith W9WI, Pleasant View, TN EM66, June 26, WTFDA via DXLD) Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) under threat! DIGITAL RADIO'S FUTURE ALREADY HEADING INTO THE PAST Apr 14 2008 By Giles Turnbull It's time to fondly remember our friend radio, who kept millions entertained for much of the 20th century. But its time has passed, and it's now replaced by something else, something more digital. It's still called radio, but it's not the same beast at all. . . http://www.birminghampost.net/birmingham-business/business-comment/giles-turnbull/2008/04/14/digital-radio-s-future-already-heading-into-the-past-65233-20764237/ This story from MWC member Graham Maynard (via Barry Davies, UK, ABDX via DXLD) This story sees things as they are and will become (Kevin Redding, TN, ibid.) Digital Broadcasting notes - It is about 1630 local time [2030 UT June 25] here in Tampa FL as the usual afternoon westerly air flow hits the Gulf air, creating numerous thunder cells in this area. I am listening to WFLA 970 on my Accurian, using the included untuned small loop. The station is 25 kW and the distance from here to their towers is 2.58 miles (two dot five eight miles) So I am definitely in the local coverage area, and not in a daytime pattern null. Static bursts are causing HD unlock at the rate of about 5 per minute with the average unlock time anywhere from 3 to maybe 8 seconds before regaining lock. The analog fallback sync is pretty well timed (you can't hear any stutter or overlap) but the apparent change in level of maybe 3 or 4 dB, and the change in fidelity is somewhat bothersome. The radio is atop a bookshelf about 15 feet away, so there are no proximity detuning effects. In the past, on quiet days, I've found I can force temporary unlock by just moving the loop. Of course, this is a first-gen HD set, but I don't think a newer set would react much differently (Bob Foxworth, FL, June 25, ABDX via DXLD) CHRYSLER TO OFFER WIRELESS INTERNET IN 2009 MODELS The future of radio is here, folks: http://www.hear2.com/2008/06/chrysler-announ.html (Harry Helms W5HLH, Corpus Christi, TX EL17, ABDX via DXLD) "DRM WILL SUCCEED, AND CHEAP RECEIVERS ARE COMING VERY SOON" DRM Update at the 2008 USA DRM Annual Meeting [DRM: see also UK] Adil Mina grew up in his native Lebanon listening to radio stations from around the world on a large shortwave radio, with all of the inherent static, fading and interference. Eventually he would find himself working for Dallas-based Continental Electronics - an NASB member and premier manufacturer of shortwave transmitters. For the past 43 years he helped to design, build and commission many high power mediumwave and shortwave transmitters and systems all over the world. Lately he has been traveling around the world selling shortwave transmitters to religious, government and commercial stations. Mina is a true believer in shortwave. "I can really tell you that shortwave is alive and it is going forward," he told the USA DRM annual meeting in Cary, North Carolina May 8. He admits that sales have been a little slow during the past four or five years. "Except for some huge numbers of transmitters that have been sold to China during the period from 2000 to now, shortwave has been a little bit quiet, especially in the building of new stations." But he says that even with a worldwide recession, many international customers are still making plans to modernize and buy new transmitters. Why is Adil Mina so bullish on shortwave? "I once asked a friend from Saudi Arabia if he was going to put all of his programming on satellite. He said: 'Mr. Mina, do I look that stupid? Do you think for one moment I would trust my broadcasting to anyone who controls a satellite or a local radio and who could shut me off at any moment they desire?' There's what the beauty of shortwave is. Whatever your faith and your belief in shortwave is, it is justified. Shortwave -- no matter how many other ways of broadcasting are invented in the world – DAB, DMB, DVD, whatever it is – is still the only medium that you can broadcast from your backyard to any country in the world." "What's happening today," explained Mina, "is that we finally realize that we, the technical people, should help you [the broadcasters] make that sound clear and make it practical. And that's what DRM is all about. It allows you to broadcast your program with clarity." But Mina admits that DRM is not quite where it should be today. "I'll be very honest about it," he said. "DRM is about two years behind, in our opinion. It's not because of transmitters or antennas or exciters. It's because of the receivers. I would estimate we are about two years behind." The DRM Consortium began 10 years ago at a meeting in China. For 10 years the Consortium was led by Chairman Peter Senger of Deutsche Welle. Most DRM administrative responsibilities during this time have been centered at Deutsche Welle. But Senger had to retire in March of this year due to German law, and his project director Anne Fechner has also retired. The BBC stepped forward to take over the leadership of DRM. Everything is being moved to Bush House. The BBC's Ruxandra Obreja is the new chairperson. Unlike Peter Senger, Obreja is not a technical person. The BBC believes DRM has matured, according to Mina, and thus they nominated a person with business development background instead of technical background to be the chairperson. Mina said "Ruxandra, with her experience in business development, will do a great job in promoting DRM worldwide." Until three and a half years ago, DRM was a digital system for longwave, mediumwave and shortwave – up to 30 Megahertz. Then DRM Plus was introduced. Now DRM works with frequencies up to 108 MHz – basically FM, so it can compete with IBOC/HD Radio. Unfortunately, Mina points out, no major transmitter manufacturer has yet made FM transmitters with DRM Plus because they have spent too much developing IBOC/HD Radio transmitters. "We are still looking for somebody to jump on top of it," says Mina. Now back to the receivers, and the reasons why they aren't readily available yet. "Part of the reason," says Mina, "is maybe we took our time on the standard – deciding what we want the receiver to do. We had a lot of debate and a lot of discussion. What should the receiver have in it? Should it be simply a small receiver that you can buy on the street in Hong Kong or Taiwan hopefully for $10? Well, you can't do that. Most of us were hoping for a $50 receiver to replace what I call the regular or standard $10 or $15 shortwave receiver that you can buy in Asia today. "Some of the receiver manufacturers said: 'I'll wait maybe until you finish your DRM Plus. Why do I want to make one receiver and then possibly have to combat some of the others?'. Some manufacturers said I will combine DRM with DAB and come up with a receiver that some of the early ones – most of them – do. "But for whatever reason, even though we had Sony as a key member of DRM on the Steering Board – and we had Bosch also and many of the others – none of them really came up [with a receiver], even though they were the key people who helped us, and helped Dr. [Don] Messer – one of his subcommittees – to come up with a specification. None of them – Sony, Panasonic or what I would call the big people – the key people who were driving DRM – and I give them a lot of credit; they really pushed and promoted it – none of them came up with a receiver. It is disappointing, I think, to me and to many of the others. "So what I would call some of the secondary players introduced receivers. Many of them were waiting, like everybody knows today, for an IC chip – the good chip, the right chip. We do have some receivers now – Roberts, Morphy Richards, Himalaya. These are some of the receivers that you see today. Many of us have got the software receivers. But even some of the early receivers, in six to eight hours the batteries were gone. They were just eating batteries like crazy. "So the receiver that all of us are looking for is still the small receiver, the inexpensive receiver that will have a good battery life. That's what most people are looking for. It's the one that should be like your Blackberry, your telephone, that can sit for two days, three days, without you having to go back and charge it." But Mina is hopeful. New chips were introduced a few months ago by Analog Devices, and a new receiver is expected to be built in India. "We've seen the prototype," said Mina. "They're very encouraged. And we hope that we will have the $100 receiver." That $100 receiver could be a major improvement on the current situation. "When we started talking about the $100 and the $200 receiver – that was six years ago," said Mina. "Well, there are receivers you can buy today for 200 euros. The 200 figure we were hoping for six years ago is here, but it's in euros, and that's 300 dollars. Many of us are still hoping for the $100 receiver." Mina is also encouraged about what's coming out of China. His friends at Thomson Broadcast found and worked with Dr. Lin Liang who founded a private company, Newstar Electronics, that plans to make DRM receivers. "I have seen three of these small receivers," said Mina. "Today the design is being completed on these receivers – a very, very small receiver. This is the new star that is coming from China, that is going to make DRM a success." The new Chinese receiver will have a small LCD screen, a built-in photo album, a GPS and a DRM receiver. "What's going to make DRM are these devices," Mina believes. "You're going to step out of your airplane. You're going to travel to any city you want. You're going to pull it out, and right there you're going to have a DRM receiver. You're going to receive your program with good quality anywhere in the world. This is what is going to be the success of DRM in my opinion." Mina says there are many other DRM receivers that are being developed right now. Students at LeTourneau University are working on a receiver. Three to five different groups in China are working on receivers. There is also a group in South Africa working on a DRM receiver, specifically for use on shortwave. There had been talk in the business that the Chinese would have a lot of DRM transmissions on air in time for the Olympics. "That's not going to happen," said Mina, "But eventually we will see DRM broadcasts in China." Explains Mina: "The reason China will develop DRM receivers is that all of the transmitters they're buying are DRM- ready. One transmitter is broadcasting DRM, but all of the others are ready. Why would China use DRM? China uses shortwave to talk to their own people. Because of that, they will go to DRM to cover their own territory. People in rural China need shortwave." "DRM will succeed," concluded Mina, "and the cheap receivers will be coming very soon." Mina said that most shortwave transmitters bought during the last 20 years that have solid-state modulators are ready for DRM with a minor modification and new exciter. Older transmitters with high-level plate modulation can be modified for DRM. "We have done many of them. We just finished one in Saipan. We put new solid-state modulators on them, and they're ready." Although DRM isn't being used on mediumwave in the United States, there have been very successful mediumwave simulcast tests in Mexico, Brazil and India. There are also regular DRM broadcasts on mediumwave from many broadcast organizations in Europe. Mina sees great potential for DRM on shortwave. A TCI International study showed that five transmitters could cover all of the United States with a high-quality DRM signal. "We need a UPS, a DHL, a trucking company. Somebody will have the vision to use DRM and send messages or programs over a large area with a single transmitter." If you order a new shortwave transmitter today from companies like Continental, there's no extra cost for DRM capability; it's already built in. If you need a DRM exciter for an existing transmitter, it's a slightly different story. "Our exciters are still a little bit too expensive," said Mina. "We acknowledge that. But prices have come down, and hopefully can come down more." He mentioned that HCJB is trying to develop a low-cost DRM exciter, which if successful could cause the big companies to drop their prices. Mina said prices are still a bit prohibitive for most potential 26 MHz DRM operations. A TCI study showed that a 200-watt AM transmitter could cover the San Francisco Bay Area with one antenna – providing the FCC would license it. "But exciters are still 40,000 to 50,000 euros," he lamented. "That is discouraging." He noted that IBOC exciters cost around $20,000. Finally, Adil Mina thanked former Technical Committee Chairman Dr. Don Messer for all of his contributions to DRM. Messer retired from the DRM Consortium at the end of March, although he is still working hard to promote DRM in the United States. "If you want to get an experimental license for DRM, don't try to do it on your own," cautions Mina. "Contact Dr. Messer." WHAT'S HAPPENING WITH DRM IN THE UNITED STATES? Dr. Donald Messer left the DRM Consortium at the end of March. Some months earlier he had relinquished his role as Chairman of the Technical Committee of the DRM Consortium. He is now actively involved in promoting DRM in the United States. At the USA DRM annual meeting May 8 in Cary, North Carolina, he talked about some of the activities he has been involved in during the past several months regarding DRM transmissions from the US to the US. Messer said there are two major elements involved in domestic DRM broadcasting in the US. One is getting the FCC to approve domestic shortwave broadcasting, which is not permitted currently. Experimental testing is needed for this. The second element is building a constituency by doing developmental work to be able to convince the FCC that domestic DRM has value, includes local content, etc. Thus, we are dealing with getting digital modulation approved in the HF broadcasting bands for domestic use. As far as mediumwave is concerned, Messer agreed with those who have said that it has to be an analog-DRM simulcast on adjacent channels. "You can't disturb the analog transmissions," he said. He noted that very successful simulcast DRM mediumwave tests have been conducted in Mexico, Brazil and India. Messer explained that DRM+ includes all the broadcasting bands above 30 MHz and below 108 MHz. He insists that "there is some activity, although very limited, in the United States with regard to trying to get experimental licenses for DRM+." But shortwave is where most of the activity is with DRM in the United States. Messer divides this into three categories: local coverage on 26 MHz, regional coverage, and traditional shortwave broadcasting for long-distance coverage. On 26 MHz, Messer said transmitters of 200 watts or less can provide local community radio services. He noted 26 MHz is a natural alternative for the FCC, given the controversy about using channels within part of the existing FM band for low power FM community radio stations. Using DRM on 26 MHz would reduce the political pressure that the FCC is receiving from both sides – the NAB on one, and – for example -- universities and religious organizations on the other. These low-power DRM stations would cover 10-100 square miles. Messer says at least three organizations are working with him on developing DRM tests on 26 MHz for local coverage, but no experimental licenses have been issued yet. The second category of DRM on shortwave is a medium-range regional service. Messer explained that he has been working with a group that has filed an application for at least two years of experimental operation in Alaska, and the FCC has recently accepted that application for evaluation. "Alaska is roughly twice the size of Texas," said Messer. "so you're talking about a fairly large regional coverage." The plan is to use a 10 or maybe 20 kHz DRM signal with up to four languages of audio to cover the entire state using old 100-kilowatt Defense Department transmitters near Fairbanks. Says Messer: "The Cold War ended, so the transmitters are up there and are not being used." He says he is working with a company located near Fairbanks that would eventually like to provide a digital audio service throughout the State of Alaska. Does he think the project will be approved? "My guess is that the FCC evaluators will approve this application sometime before the end of this year when the cold sets in and the sun doesn't rise anymore. We will have the antenna field constructed in accordance with a very good antenna design. Then starting next year when the snows go away... we will start experimental broadcasting." Messer cites two key reasons why he thinks the FCC will approve the Alaska application. First of all, he says there isn't much information about ionospheric propagation at latitudes of around 60 degrees north with regard to how a digital signal such as DRM would work for a broadcasting service. "So this is pioneering," he says. Secondly, the Alaska population outside of Anchorage, Fairbanks and Juneau is sparse. Taking this to a global level, Messer says: "If a country has half its population living in three cities, what about the other half?" He criticized some Voice of America research in parts of the world like West Africa that has been used to downplay the importance of shortwave in favor of FM and Internet. Messer asserts that often this research has not taken rural areas sufficiently into account – areas that still depend largely on shortwave. "Without trying to minimize the value this has to Alaska," he said, "this is transportable to other places in the U.S. Just think about – if I can use the phrase – the "red states" in the United States. A lot of them are sparsely populated – the Dakotas, Montana, up and down the Rocky Mountain area." The final category of DRM on shortwave is "traditional" shortwave for long-distance skywave coverage, but aimed at a domestic audience. Messer said TCI International did some research showing that five transmitters could cover the U.S. with a DRM signal "at power levels that are consistently lower than what you're used to." He said it remains to be seen if existing shortwave stations in the U.S. or other commercial concerns will show an interest in the possibility of domestic HF broadcasting. As for the U.S. Government, "the IBB is prohibited from doing this, but I can tell you there is some interest in trying to help us out with some domestic broadcasting." He noted that IBB is a DRM member. Messer realizes that the big challenge in the long term for these domestic shortwave DRM applications is that the FCC would have to change its rules to permit domestic broadcasting of digital signals from the U.S. to the U.S. In summary, for DRM on mediumwave in the United States, Messer says "the technical capability is there. I think the market there depends on how well HD Radio does in the mediumwave band over time." For shortwave – local community services, Alaska-type regional services, and long-range DRM services – the question is, "are there markets – perhaps niche markets – in the U.S. for this kind of broadcasting? The kinds of things I am talking about within the U.S. will require at least 1 to 2 to 3 years of testing. By that time, if there aren't consumer receivers ready, forget you heard this speech." Meanwhile, Messer pointed out that there are currently shortwave DRM transmissions to the United States from Canada, Bonaire, French Guiana and other sites. And "nobody can prevent some Mexican entrepreneur from broadcasting out of Chihuahua or something like that as long as it's coordinated with the HFCC." (June NASB Newsletter via DXLD) PROPAGATION +++++++++++ Geomagnetic field activity was at quiet to active levels on 16 June. Activity decreased to quiet to unsettled levels during 17 - 19 June. Activity increased to quiet to active levels on 20 June. Activity decreased to mostly quiet levels for the rest of the period. ACE solar wind measurements indicated a recurrent coronal hole high-speed stream occurred during the period. Velocities increased through early 17 June with a peak of 784 km/sec detected at 17/0248 UTC, then gradually decreased through 19 June. Another brief increase in velocities occurred from late 19 June into early 20 June with a peak of 613 km/sec detected at 20/1032 UTC. The velocity increase was accompanied by increased IMF Bt (peak 9 nT at 19/2340 UTC), periods of enhanced southward IMF Bz (minimum -8 nT at 20/0222 UTC), and a minor increase in proton densities. Velocities gradually decreased for the rest of the period and reached a minimum of 408 km/sec by the close of the period. FORECAST OF SOLAR AND GEOMAGNETIC ACTIVITY 25 JUNE - 21 JULY 2008 Solar activity is expected to be very low. No proton events are expected at geosynchronous orbit. The greater than 2 MeV electron flux at geosynchronous orbit is expected to reach high levels during 25 June and 13 - 21 July. Geomagnetic field activity is expected to be at quiet to unsettled levels during 25 June - 11 July. Activity is expected to increase to active levels during 12 - 13 July due to a recurrent coronal hole high- speed stream. Activity is expected to decrease to unsettled levels during 14 - 17 July as the high-speed stream gradually subsides. Activity is expected to decrease to quiet levels for the rest of the period. :Product: 27-day Space Weather Outlook Table 27DO.txt :Issued: 2008 Jun 24 2323 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 2008 Jun 24 # # UTC Radio Flux Planetary Largest # Date 10.7 cm A Index Kp Index 2008 Jun 25 65 8 3 2008 Jun 26 65 8 3 2008 Jun 27 65 8 3 2008 Jun 28 65 5 2 2008 Jun 29 65 5 2 2008 Jun 30 65 5 2 2008 Jul 01 65 5 2 2008 Jul 02 65 5 2 2008 Jul 03 65 8 3 2008 Jul 04 65 10 3 2008 Jul 05 65 8 3 2008 Jul 06 65 5 2 2008 Jul 07 65 5 2 2008 Jul 08 65 5 2 2008 Jul 09 65 5 2 2008 Jul 10 65 5 2 2008 Jul 11 65 10 3 2008 Jul 12 65 15 4 2008 Jul 13 65 15 4 2008 Jul 14 65 10 3 2008 Jul 15 65 10 3 2008 Jul 16 65 8 3 2008 Jul 17 65 10 3 2008 Jul 18 65 5 2 2008 Jul 19 65 5 2 2008 Jul 20 65 5 2 2008 Jul 21 65 5 2 (SWPC June 24 via DXLD) [this was not available in time for WOR 1414 produxion, so I quoted from the previous week`s issue instead, since it was not in time for 1413, and on that edition I used Prague propagation info --- gh] TIPS FOR RATIONAL LIVING ++++++++++++++++++++++++ GEORGE CARLIN DEAD AT 71 --- COMEDIAN, CRITIC, ATHEIST GEORGE CARLIN, acerbic and insightful social critic and comedian died Sunday at age 71. Carlin was especially famous for his "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television" routine, and his edgy style of witty commentary that made him one of the nation's funniest and most controversial performers. But for a growing segment of the American population -- the 13% of "godless" Americans who profess no religious beliefs -- Carlin was especially heroic. George Carlin was an Atheist who often eviscerated religious dogmatism in his special, humorous style. Of religion he said: "When it comes to bullshit, big time, major league bullshit, you have to stand in awe of the all-time champion of false promises and exaggerated claims, religion. No contest. No contest. Religion. Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told. Think about it. Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do every minute of the day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry for ever and ever 'til the end of time!" Frank Zindler, Acting President of American Atheists said that Carlin will be especially missed by Atheists, freethinkers and even open- minded religious believers. "Carlin took on all of the religious shibboleths of our age in a way that made people laugh and think at the same time. We've lost a great comedian and a wonderful human being." For more commentary on Mr. Carlin's work and its significance to America's non-religious community, contact: FRANK ZINDLER: (614) 299-1036 DAVE SILVERMAN: (732) 648-9333 AMERICAN ATHEISTS is a nationwide movement that defends civil rights for Atheists; works for the total separation of church and state; and addresses issues of First Amendment public policy. American Atheists, Inc. P. O. Box 5733 Parsippany, NJ 07054-6733 Tel.: (908) 276-7300 Fax: (908) 276-7402 http://www.atheists.org http://www.americanatheist.org For more information, please contact: Frank Zindler, Acting President (614) 299-1036 Dave Silverman, Communications Director (732) 648-9333 (via DXLD) THE STATION THAT DARED TO DEFEND CARLIN’S ‘7 WORDS’ LOOKS BACK By GLENN COLLINS http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/25/nyregion/25wbai.html?ref=nyregion&pagewanted=print As the encomiums for George Carlin have rolled in from stand-up legends, celebrities and scholars, his death at 71 has also been noted at a diminutive [sic], iconic and iconoclastic radio station in Manhattan, WBAI-FM. Its broadcast of the comedian’s “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television” became a landmark moment in the history of free speech. In a 1978 milestone in the station’s contentious and unruly history, WBAI lost a 5-to-4 Supreme Court decision that to this day has defined the power of the government over broadcast material it calls indecent. “It’s a bad time here for us because George Carlin was part of the family,” said Anthony Riddle, the station’s general manager. “I think all the producers are dealing with it in their own way,” Mr. Riddle said, some doing commentary and others running archival material, including a bleeped-out version of the “Seven Words” routine. The 1978 ruling, often termed “the Carlin case,” was actually called Federal Communications Commission v. Pacifica Foundation, and turned on a 12-minute Carlin monologue called “Filthy Words” that appeared on a 1973 album, “Occupation: Foole.” After the Carlin album monologue was broadcast on WBAI in 1973 during “Lunch Pail,” an afternoon show, a listener objected that his young son had heard the words on a car radio. The corporate parent of WBAI, the Pacifica Foundation, received a letter of reprimand from the commission, which the company challenged in court. The Supreme Court said that the broadcast was indecent, though not obscene, and gave the commission the right to determine the definition of indecency and to prohibit such material from being broadcast during hours when children were likely to be listening. Despite this legal Dunkirk, “the fact that his seven dirty words having emanated from here is kind of a source of pride,” said Jose R. Santiago, the station’s news director. The court decision “was about more than just radio,” Mr. Riddle added, “it was about the right to be human beings in the United States.” “It was a gutsy thing for a radio station to do, taking that stand,” he said. Though the station was not fined, Pacifica paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees, said Larry Josephson, the WBAI station manager from 1974 to 1976. Now, broadcasting the seven words “would cost us $360,000 per incident — so those seven words would cost us $2.5 million,” about equal to the station’s annual budget, Mr. Riddle said. “Now we’d be severely limited in taking a chance on protecting people’s free- speech rights.” Recently Mr. Josephson had to abide by the consequences of the very commission decision he was involved in, as the independent producer of WBAI’s annual “Bloomsday” celebration on June 16, which honored James Joyce and his novel “Ulysses.” Though the broadcast began at 7 p.m., the protagonist Molly Bloom’s famous lengthy monologue of erotic musings — which contains several forbidden words — had to be read after 10 p.m. during the “safe harbor” period when the F.C.C. allows the broadcast of what it terms “indecent” material. The station that for generations has spoken truth to power is incongruously situated on the 10th floor of 120 Wall Street, and smack in the middle of the FM dial, at 99.5. Now in its 48th year, WBAI was both an expression, and ringleader, of the counterculture during its peak in the mid-1960s through the Vietnam War. Observers have said that in its heyday, its on-air personalities, like Mr. Josephson, Steve Post and Bob Fass, extended the popularity of FM radio and explored the possibilities of the medium. But its turmoil-filled subsequent history has featured a fiesta of staff clashes, board eruptions, station coups and protests. Amid accusations of every imaginable form of -ism, on-air personalities and producers have been summarily banned; on-air resignations have not been unknown. These days WBAI, whose slogan is “Your Peace and Justice Community Radio Station,” has a paid staff of 25 and 200 independent volunteer producers, Mr. Riddle said, adding that WBAI has more than 200,000 listeners. He declined to say how many subscribers there are, but the number is believed to be fewer than 20,000; the minimum subscription rate is $25 a year. Mr. Riddle, who joined the station in February, said that “it’s always difficult to run a democracy,” adding that “a lot of people believe in the kind of radio we provide,” since the station does not accept advertising, underwriting or grants. If in many ways the station has changed, the legality of broadcasting the “Seven Words” has not. “Now, 35 years later, we can’t take a chance of playing it,” Mr. Riddle said. “Discussion of the words is not acceptable, unless you cut the heart out of it.” (via Kevin Redding, TN, ABDX via DXLD) ###