DX LISTENING DIGEST 9-034, April 19, 2009 Incorporating REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTING edited by Glenn Hauser, http://www.worldofradio.com Items from DXLD may be reproduced and re-reproduced only if full credit be maintained at all stages and we be provided exchange copies. DXLD may not be reposted in its entirety without permission. Materials taken from Arctic or originating from Olle Alm and not having a commercial copyright are exempt from all restrictions of noncommercial, noncopyrighted reusage except for full credits For restrixions and searchable 2009 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 1456, April 16-22 Thu 0530 WRMI 9955 Thu 1900 WBCQ 7415 Fri 0000 WBCQ 5110-CUSB Area 51 Fri 0100 WRMI 9955 Fri 1130 WRMI 9955 Fri 1900 WBCQ 7415 Fri 1930 IPAR/IRRS/NEXUS/IBA 7290 Fri 2030 WWCR1 15825 [or 2029] Sat 0800 WRMI 9955 Sat 0800 IPAR/IRRS/NEXUS/IBA 9510 [except first Sat] Sat 1630 WWCR3 12160 Sun 0230 WWCR3 5070 Sun 0630 WWCR1 3215 Sun 0800 WRMI 9955 Sun 1515 WRMI 9955 Mon 0500 WRMI 9955 Mon 2200 WBCQ 7415 Tue 1100 WRMI 9955 Tue 1530 WRMI 9955 Tue 1900 WBCQ 7415 Wed 0500 WRMI 9955 [or new 1457 starting here?] Wed 1530 WRMI 9955 Wed 1900 WBCQ 7415 Latest edition of this schedule version, including AM, FM, satellite and webcasts with hotlinks to station sites and audio, is at: http://www.worldofradio.com/radioskd.html or http://schedule.worldofradio.org or http://sked.worldofradio.org For updates see our Anomaly Alert page: http://www.worldofradio.com/anomaly.html WRN ON DEMAND: http://new.wrn.org/listeners/stations/station.php?StationID=24 WORLD OF RADIO PODCASTS VIA WRN NOW AVAILABLE: http://podcast.worldofradio.org or http://www.wrn.org/listeners/stations/podcast.php OUR ONDEMAND AUDIO: http://www.worldofradio.com/audiomid.html or http://wor.worldofradio.org ** ABKHAZIA. Venerdì 17 aprile 2009, 0702 - 9535 kHz, APSUA R. - Sukhumi (Georgia), Musica locale. Segnale insufficiente-sufficiente (SWL I1-0799GE, Luca Botto Fiora, G.C. 09E13 - 44N21, Rapallo (Genova), Italia, R7 Drake, Satellit 500 Grundig, 2 DE1103 Degen, bclnews.it yg via DXLD) ** ALBANIA [and non]. 7390 collision: Maybe I missed it but I don`t recall seeing any reports of what happened at 0630-0700 this past Saturday with WHRI/WHRA. So a reminder maybe you guys want to check it this Saturday morning. 73, (Glenn Hauser, April 17, to Noel Green and Wolfgang Büschel, via DXLD) No Glenn, you didn't miss it, but I did check it, and WHRI?WHRA? was again co-channel. Albania was just about on top of a weaker American signal. Why HRI should be here instead of clear channel 7365 (at 0630 anyway) is a mystery that may never be solved! I'll tune it again tomorrow just in case. 73 Noel Green, England, April 17, DX LISTENING DIGEST) I checked 7390 today - Saturday the 18th - and I found only Shijak using the frequency at 0630 UT. Signal strength and audibility good. WHRI/WHRA was using 7365 instead - signal peaking to 10dB over 9, so it would have caused a lot of problems today, at my location, if still using 7390. So it seems that George Jacobs - or someone he knows! - has arranged for this to happen, and now we can listen to both stations in the clear. Despite World Harvest beaming (according to HFCC registrations) to southern Europe and NW Africa on Saturdays, I didn't find the signal much different to what I hear during weekdays on 7365. If there is a change in azimuth from 42 to 75 degrees then it is hardly noticeable to me. Greetings from sunny Blackpool (Noel Green, ibid.) Hi Glenn, I woke up for some minutes monitoring around 0655 UT: I noted Shijak 7390 only on the channel with a peoples theater joke play or something else. WHRI 7365 was very poor signal here at my location, only S=1-2 strength or so. regards de Wolfy (Büschel, ibid.) ** ALGERIA [and non]. 252, R. Algérienne, Tipaza, 2205-, 17 Apr, French, French songs; QRM de MRC 171 - Luxembourg effect? Most likely. At some instances, the signal was annoyingly strong. Today [19 Apr] at around 1100, the same phenomenon could be noticed underneath R. Algérienne tx at Béchar 153 though at a much smaller scale (Carlos Gonçalves, Portugal, April 19, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ANDAMAN ISLANDS [and non]. Report from India. A fast check reveals on 15th April, that both Lucknow and Port Blair have left their old frequencies and have moved to their new ones [7 MHz] as planned. More, very soon. While you have all the nature near you, we have in Bangalore, nothing but noise, pollution in the air, power cuts, etc. (Arasu Manuhar, VU2UR, to Uli DJ9KR, Apr 15 via BC-DX April 17 via DXLD) ** ANGUILLA [non]. Re 9-033, Melissa Scott: In my opinion, with her preaching, this is just another way of prostituting herself. Probably she should go back to calling herself "Barbie Bridges". 73, (Kraig, KG4LAC, Krist, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ANTARCTICA. 15476, 15/04 2010, R San Gabriel [sic], Spanish, desde San Gabriel, com 10 kW, mx pop Argentina (dessa vez não ouvi os tradicionais tangos), às 2011 UT OM e YL talk e depois mais music, às 2020 sinal degradou e não mais ficou audível, #gravado#, 35333. 73 (Jorge Freitas, http://www.ipernity.com/blog/75006 Feira de Santana Bahia - Brasil, Degen 1103, Antena Dipolo de 16 metros e balum 4:1 em toroide. Direção Leste/Oeste, HCDX via DXLD) ANTARTIDA, 15476, LRA 36 Radio Nacional Arcángel San Gabriel, Base Esperanza, 1800*-2010, 17-04. Inicio del programa a 1800, canción, locutor: "Vd. está escuchando LRA 36, Radio Nacional Arcángel San Gabriel, transmitiendo en la frecuencia de 15476 kHz, banda de 19 metros, desde Base Esperanza, Antártida Argentina", más canciones, locutora: "Muy buenas tardes queridos oyentes, aquí empieza nuestro programa de Esperanza al mundo". A las 1845 locutora: "Seguimos con las noticias internacionales", noticias, terremotos en Afganistán y en Chile. 1859: "Pasamos a la segunda hora, para que el mundo conozca Argentina a través de la radio, Radio Arcángel San Gabriel, de Esperanza al mundo, de lunes a viernes de 15 a 18 horas, para todo el mundo por la frecuencia de 15476 kHz.". "Vamos a conocer todo sobre la música folclórica argentina" (Manuel Méndez, Lugo, España, escuchas realizadas en Friol, Grundig Satellit 500 y Sony ICF SW7600 G, Antena de cable, 10 metros, orientada WSW, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ARGENTINA. 15345.07, Rdif. Argentina al Exterior (presumed); 2327- 2335+, 14 Apr; 2M discussion in Spanish; several mentions of Argentina; BoH pips but no break in discussion. SIO=3+53, tough copy due to undermod. 6060 nor 11710 audible (Harold Frodge, Midland MI, USA, Drake R8B + 125 ft. bow-tie, 85 ft. RW & 180 ft. center-fed RW, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ASIA [non]. RFA streaming audio --- If you listen to Radio Free Asia on short waves. but you're not sure is it RFA, here are their streaming links. All 4 channels are 24/7, but I've listed only those broadcasting on short wave. All audios are in WMA format, 128 kbps, 48 kHz, stereo (DUAL MONO actually): RFA Channel 1: mms://a1545.l2130853544.c21308.g.lm.akamaistream.net/D/1545/21308/v000 1/reflector:53544 RFA Channel 2: mms://a652.l2130856651.c21308.g.lm.akamaistream.net/D/652/21308/v0001/ reflector:56651 RFA Channel 3: mms://a386.l2130822385.c21308.g.lm.akamaistream.net/D/386/21308/v0001/ reflector:22385 RFA Channel 4: mms://a359.l2130858358.c21308.g.lm.akamaistream.net/D/359/21308/v0001/ reflector:58358 RFA-1: 0300-0700mand 1400-1500cant 1500-2200mand 2200-2300cant 2300- 2400mand RFA-2: 0030-0130burm 1230-1330burm 1400-1500viet 1500-1900kore 2100- 2200kore 2330-0030viet RFA-3: 0000-0100laot 0100-0200uygh 1100-1200laot 1230-1330khme 1330- 1430burm 1600-1700uygh 2230-2330khme RFA-4: 0100-0300tibe 0600-0700tibe 1000-1400tibe 1500-1600tibe 1630- 1730burm 2200-2400tibe DL (Dragan Lekic, Serbia, April 15, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** AUSTRALIA. Had a fair signal of Shepparton 11945 kHz English service, readable program content at 0900-1000 UT Apr 17th, S=6-7 signal strength. 73 wb (Wolfgang Büschel, Germany, April 17, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** AUSTRALIA [and non]. Radio Australia takes it on the chin on 31 metres --- For decades it was a pleasure to listen to news + from the other side of the world from Radio Australia. For the last 5 years though, listening on RA's long time 9580 frequency has been marred by CRI's sloppy Cuban relay on 9570. I and others have complained about this in the past to no avail. Listeners in this area had an alternative tho: slightly weaker 9590 but this too now receives interference because Cuba itself now uses 9600 kHz. There oughtta be a law (Andy Reid, Peterborough Ontario, April 19, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) 9600 closes at 1300 anyway (gh, DXLD) See also FIJI ** AUSTRALIA. 6507-USB, VMC Charleville *1330-1337 Apr 16. Popped on at 1330 with "Forecast for eastern Northern Territory and Queensland coastal waters" - warnings and weather for these areas, including Coral Sea and Great Barrier Reef. Good with ute QRM (John Wilkins, Wheat Ridge, Colorado. Drake R-8, 100-foot RW, Cumbre DX via DXLD) ** BAHRAIN. 6010, R. Bahrain, Apr 05 1606-1626, 24322-23322, English, Dance music, SJ at 1618 (Kouji Hashimoto, Japan, Japan Premium via DXLD) = singing jingle?? 6010, R Bahrain, Abu Hayan, 0110-0120, Apr 06, English ann [sic --- does that mean announcer or announcement? There is a difference --- gh], English pop music, 33333, QRM R Sweden in Swedish, via Sackville. Thanks for tips from Goonetilleke in Dubai! (Anker Petersen, Skovlunde, Denmark, DSWCI DX Window April 15 via DXLD) ** BANGLADESH. Last (17th April) night Bangladesh Betar MW stations were noted with extended broadcasts due to cyclone "Bijli" that hit coasts of Bangladesh. Following MW outlets were noted all night with Bengali songs & special weather bulletin every half an hour. 558 kHz - Khulna 630 kHz - Dhaka A 693 kHz - Dhaka B 873 kHz - Chittagong As per on air announcements MW outlets at Barisal (1287 kHz) & Cox's Bazar (1314) were also on air with extended broadcasts but not heard at my location (Alokesh Gupta, New Delhi, India, dx_india yg via DXLD) Early this morning I heard them on 558, 693 & 873 at around 1.00 am (1930 UT). 73 (Jose Jacob, VU2JOS, National Institute of Amateur Radio, Raj Bhavan Road, Hyderabad 500082, India, April 18, ibid.) ** BANGLADESH. Bangladesh plans to start applying summer time UT +7h in June (WRTH Update April 14 via DXLD) What nonsense! That will make it a sesquihour ahead of India which is not only west, but north and east of Bangladesh, and even a semihour ahead of Burma further east (gh) ** BELARUS. The Hrodna shortwave transmitter of 7110 kHz has moved to 7280 kHz. BR2 MW and BR1 SW transmitters operate now on reduced schedule, between 1500-2100 (WRTH Update April 14 via DXLD) ** BELARUS. I have checked the Belarusian home service channels in 49 and 41 metrebands at various times, since I noted them off on Apr 01. The stations seem to have reduced their schedules considerably from 0400-2200 during B08 to 1500v-2100 in the present A09 period. Their sign on times have been observed as follows in April: *1430: BR1 on Brest 6010, Hrodna 6040, BR2 in Hrodna 7265, BR1 Hrodna 7280 (ex 7110). *1440: BR1 on Brest 6070, Minsk 6080, *1500: BR1 on Minsk 6115, Mahilioú 6190, Mahilioú 7135 (ex 7145). (Anker Petersen, Skovlunde, Denmark, DSWCI DX Window April 15 via DXLD) 7210, R. Belarus Minsk, 2132-2145, April 15, English. M & W talk and music bits; frequency schedule at 2135 with contact info; URL; jazz- like music at 2137, into music program featuring same; ID at 2140; poor-fair; difficult to detail; // 7255-weak under Nigeria; // 7390- barely audible (Scott R. Barbour, Jr., Intervale, NH-USA, NRD-545, RX- 350D, MLB1, 200' Bevs, 60m dipole, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** BIAFRA [non]. V. of Biafra International via WHRI on 17520 for the second Friday in a row! So maybe they will stay a while. Reception this time sufficient, April 17 at 1858, frequency already on with long-form WHRI ID giving frequency and militaristic in-your-face-to- the-heathens, Onward, Christian Soldiers theme --- we will conquer and convert you by force if necessary. {The OCS theme on WHR is instrumental-only, so the unchurched will not be aware of its virulent lyrix, invoking the Crusades.} 1900 switches to VOBI theme, ID and usual opening of Finlandia, and All Hail Biafra --- BTW, the English lyrix really take some forcing into the metre of the music, so originally some other song, or some other lyrix? 1906 ``Let Us Pray``, but instead of 5-minute supplication, a lively song in vernacular for a sesquiminute, hardly seemed prayerful. 1907:30 already into newscast in Biafran English. By then, three station IDs by The Orator, with webfeed artifacts, had gone by, none of them mentioning the frequency. Has it been updated on their own website http://www.biafraland.com/vobi.htm – of course not! Still shows 15280 at 2000, where it existed only in the dim, distant past. Yet this same page has been updated with the latest audio file linx including April 17 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** BIAFRA [non non]. Re 9-033, UNIDENTIFIED: Glenn, Enugu has certainly been back on the air for some time now. I am not able to measure the exact frequency and on’t know the exact hours of transmission but I can confirm the station is on the air. I checked 6025 on 15/04/2009 at 2059 just in time to hear Enugu join the network service of Radio Nigeria for the Network News at 2100 (parallel to Kaduna on 4770). The "national station" in Ilorin (6050) has been inactive for many years and I have not heard the Abuja station (7275) for a long time either. With best wishes from (James MacDonell, Niger State, Nigeria, April 16, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Thanks Glenn! Great news, and many thanks to James for the confirmation they were active. I initially suspected this was Enugu from the start due to the fade-out pattern of the carrier. A few nights ago I was able to make out drumming at 0425 and talk by man in what sounded to be heavily accented English from 0430. Fingers crossed I can get them good enough for a proper ID and enough details to try for a QSL before they disappear again. 73, (Brandon Jordan, TN, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** BOLIVIA. Hi Glenn, Just finished a DX session, these logs are "hot off the press." Excellent trop band condx in Australia tonight. 4796.274, tentative, R. Lípez, 1047 April 17, presumed with occasional snatches of Andean music. Very weak and only readable in LSB to avoid Chinese station high side (David Sharp, FT-950 and ICF-2010, NSW, Australia, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** BOLIVIA. 6155.26, Radio Fides, La Paz, 0105-0145, April 17, Spanish talk. Spanish ballads. Ads. ID at 0127. Poor to fair (Brian Alexander, PA, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** BOLIVIA. 5952.5, Radio Pio XII, Siglo XX, 2206-2222, 17-04, locutor, comentarios, español, "Radio Pio XII cumple 50 años", "En esta primera parte de nuestro programa", "Cochabamba, Oruro, el departamento de Potosí", "continuamos con la actualidad de nuestros municipios". 23322 (Manuel Méndez, Lugo, España, escuchas realizadas en Friol, Grundig Satellit 500 y Sony ICF SW7600 G, Antena de cable, 10 metros, orientada WSW, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** BRAZIL. 4805, Rdif. do Amazonas, 0945, Lively Portuguese man in full reverb, with brief music bridges, several local references. 4865.015, Tentative, R. Alvorada, 0958, religious talk by a man but no clear ID. Weaker than 4805. Apr 17 (David Sharp, FT-950 and ICF-2010, NSW, Australia, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** BRAZIL. BRASIL, 4915, Radiodifusora Macapá, Macapá, 0556-0622, 18- 02, locutor, locutora, portugués, comentarios, canciones brasileñas, identificación a las 0601: "630 kHz onda media, 4915 onda tropical, Radiodifusora Maacapá AM, a nossa voz". "Acabamos de presentar Clube da Madrugada". 35433. 4925.2, Radio Educação Rural, Tefé, Amazonas, 2127-2137, 17-04, locutor, locutora, portugués, comentarios. A las 2132 identificación: "Rádio Educação Rural, onda tropical 4925 kHz, faixa de 60 metros, Tefé, Amazonas", noticias de la región del Amazonas. A las 200 programa "A Voz do Brasil". 24322. 9818.9, Radio Nove de Julho, São Paulo, 0903-0910, 18.04, portugués, canciones religiosas, comentarios por locutor. Señal muy débil. 14321 (Manuel Méndez, Lugo, España, escuchas realizadas en Friol, Grundig Satellit 500 y Sony ICF SW7600 G, Antena de cable, 10 metros, orientada WSW, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** BRAZIL. 10000, 15/04 2149, BRASIL, time signal do Observatório Nacional, 44333 (Jorge Freitas, http://www.ipernity.com/blog/75006 Feira de Santana Bahia - Brasil, Degen 1103, Antena Dipolo de 16 metros e balum 4:1 em toroide. Direção Leste/Oeste, HCDX via DXLD) Amigos: estou ouvindo nesse momento nos 10000 kHz com sinpo 55555 uma emissora que se identifica como Observatório Nacional. Uma locutora de 10 em 10 segundos diz o horário "Observatorio Nacio [sic] 15Hs com 40 segundos....." (Anderson José Torquato, Garopaba SC, Brasil, 1842 UT April 19, radioescutas yg via DXLD) 9999.96, Observatório Nacional, Río de Janeiro, 2004-2008, April 19, Portuguese, pips, IDs & announcing QTR each 10 seconds by female : "Observatório Nacional --- 16 horas, sete minutos, 10 segundos", 35443 (Arnaldo Slaen, Argentina, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** BULGARIA. 6000, R. Varna, Apr 05 *2055-2115, 33433-34433, Bulgarian, 2055 sign on with test music, 2059 SJ [singing jingle?], 2100 Chorus music, Opening announce, News and music, 2114 SJ. 6000, R. Varna, Apr 12 2058-2108, 33333-32332, Bulgarian, Test music, SJ at 2059, 2100 chorus music, Opening announce, News (Kouji Hashimoto, Japan, Japan Premium April 17 via DXLD) HFCC has this as Sunday and Monday 2130-0300, but surely means one transmission starting on Sunday and ending on Monday, and the hours are obviously wrong. DX Mix News showed: RADIO VARNA Bulgarian 2100-2400 Sunday Black Sea 6000 V100/ND 0000-0300 Monday Black Sea 6000 V100/ND And while we`re looking at their schedule, let`s outpoint these odd transmissions: EURANET English 0700-0710 Sat/Sun West Europe 9600 P300/306 EURANET German 0710-0720 Sat/Sun West Europe 9600 P300/306 EURANET Spanish 0700-0710 Sat/Sun South Europe 11800 P170/260 EURANET French 0710-0720 Sat/Sun South Europe 11800 P170/260 HORIZONT HS-1 Bulgarian 0900-1200 Mon-Thu West Europe 11900 S050/306 DRM 0400-0700 Friday West Europe 9400 S050/306 DRM 0600-0900 Sat/Sun West Europe 11900 S050/306 DRM (Glenn Hauser, DXLD) ** BURMA [non]. 12140, April 15 at 1337 in Burmese, bits of Handel music, a nice touch, but 1343 into Burmese rap(?) with drumming, QRMing CODAR; see UNIDENTIFIED. This is Radio Free Asia via Tinian, 1330-1400 with 250 kW at 267 degrees but good signal way over here too (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** BURMA [non]. Today, Apr. 19 at 1428z I tuned to 15480 kHz and what I heard was the short beep tone, which I recognized as WRN feed tone (when no program is aired) on HotBird satellite. At 1430z started Democratic Voice of Burma in Burmese. Reception was very good (15480 kHz/1430-1530z/ERV/300/100/DVB). Then I checked on HB satellite: "GBTS5" (12.597 GHz/A:2043) and there it was! Yerevan-Gavar & HB with no delay. So, now we know those GBTS channels on HotBird are for feeding SW transmitters. By the way, GBTS7 no longer carries WRN Moscow feed. Regards, DL (Dragan Lekic, Serbia, April 19, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CANADA. CHU - On April 12 - 09. Son #2 drove me around Ottawa looking for the transmitter towers for CHU. Son #2 thought this was really dumb. I tried to explain how I had listened to this station since I was a kid and just for the heck of it I wanted to see the transmitter towers. All I could find out on-line was the location was in a suburb of Ottawa (can't recall name at the moment). Anyway #2 knew where it was. Upon arriving near the location I turned on my 2010 and all 3 CHU frequencies were hammering in. #2 asked what that noise was and when I told him that the station I was seeking was a time signal station. He rolled his eyes. We saw 2 towers. Both were near the corner of Greenbank and Strandherd. The one was covered with satellite dishes and tons of other hardware. I think it belonged to the fire and ambulance dept. The second was a standard red and white tower but had no antenna on it that I could see. #2 had enough and we headed back but while speeding east on Fallowfield I saw an open field with 3 small towers spaced quite far apart but there was no turning back. I figured this might be CHU but was not sure. Back at the house continued to make my case for wanting to see the CHU towers but I got little sympathy. I even dialed CHU (613-745-1576) and let them listen to the telephone version. Blank stares. I told them CHU was just one of many services offered by the National Research Council of Canada. At this point #2 mentioned he had seen NRC on a sign at the 2nd tower we saw but didn't feel it was important enough to bother mentioning. Normally I would say, "You had to be here", but since most reading this (if Liz allows it on the tip sheet) are radio heads like myself I think most will understand (Jerry Coatsworth, Easter weekend in Ottawa, Ont., MARE Tipsheet April 17 via DXLD) Of course I'm going to allow it. The thought of looking for a Canadian time signal sends chills down my spine (Ed. Liz Cameron, ibid.) 6660/USB, CHU Ottawa ON, Canada; 2043, 14 Apr; Time station, 2 x 3330. // 3330 & 7850; 14670 not heard. 6660 covered by periodic ute bursts (Harold Frodge, MI, MARE Tipsheet via DXLD) ** CANADA [and non]. 6030, after 1300 April 17, Chinese and less than 1 kHz het on hi side, jamming against Ming Hui Radio or something else? At 1314 surged an ID for ``Classic Country AM 1060``, then ``I`ll Only Love You``, i.e. from CFVP Calgary (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CHAD. Tnx to Brandon Jordan`s tip, I looked for RNT on 6165 during the one-hour RN Bonaire break. April 17 at 0450, hilife music, good signal, pause for brief announcement in French saying good morning from Ndjamena. Modulation was slightly distorted on music. Blocked at *0458 by RNW OC and IS, opening Dutch (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 6165, RNT, *0434-0459. April 18, abrupt sign on with local African music. Some French talk. Good signal but covered by a strong Radio Nederland at their 0459 sign on (Brian Alexander, PA, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CHECHNYA [non]. Chechnya Svobodnaya / Program Kavkas closed down? All references to radio transmissions have been removed from the http://www.chechnyafree.ru website. This must have been done not earlier than on Friday, since they are still in the Google cache from April 17. Is somebody able to check out 171 from Tbilisskaya? Here in Germany the frequency is blocked by Bolshakovo (Radio Rossii for the Baltics and/or Belarus), so it is not possible to find out from here (Kai Ludwig, Germany, 1354 UT April 19, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) The state of emergency in Chechnya was lifted a few days ago - this is probably connected to that event (Dave Kernick, UK, ibid.) Kai, it's heard loud and clear in Moscow throughout the whole broadcast day. The location of the Russian capital is such that you can quite easily listen to either Tbilisskaya or Kaliningrad here (Kaliningrad is weaker than Tbilisskaya, though). But you are right, I don't see a link to a live streaming on http://www.chechnyafree.ru/ - only recorded reports and a link to Russia's news TV channel Vesti. Moreover, the old audio link http://radio.chechnyafree.ru:8000/listen.pls doesn't seem to work anymore. But news are still updated. So much for Bystritskiy's promise of a bright Internet future for VoR's services! VoR's Programma Kavzaz is now dealing with wider Russia's Caucasus plus Georgia proper. Well, it's coming from Tbilisskaya, after all :) I wonder if Kavkaz is going to launch a new website and if it still has Chechen service. 73, (Sergei S., Moscow, April 19, ibid.) Be careful when you are writing to Kavkaz radio service. On their website they publish a monthly mail review. In it they have a nasty habit of publishing email addresses of everyone they respond to. Here's one interesting entry from January 31, 2009 translated from Russian by Google with a bit of my editing: Tsunehito Inoi, Japan, 45 years, tsune960(AT)ybb.ne.jp: Hello! I'm Japanese. From autumn to spring I listen to European and Asian LW radio stations. I used to listen to Chechnya Svobodnaya radio at a frequency of 171 kHz. But in the last month or two I can not find the call sign Free Chechnya that you used to carry every half hour. Now I hear something that sounds like programma Kavkaz of the The Voice of Russia radio company. What does this mean? Is there still radio Free Chechnya. Or has it changed its call sign? If you have any information, please write to me. Thank you! Answer: Yes, indeed, there were some significant changes in our program. Now it is called Kavkaz (the Caucasus). Chechnya Svobodnaya was set up at a time when the Chechen Republic had an extremely tense situation. There was an urgent need to pay maximum attention to Chechnya. Today the situation in our republic returned to normal. The management of our radio station decided it would be appropriate to inform the audience about the events taking place not only in Chechnya proper but also in the entire Caucasus region, including Ingushetia, Kabardino- Balkaria, Daghestan, North Ossetia, etc. That is why the program is now called Kavkaz. Now only one program is specifically devoted to the Chechen Republic. It goes on the air daily from 16.30 to 17.30 (12.30-13.30 UT). Its reruns can be heard the same day 22.30 to 23.30 (18.30-19.30 UT) and the next morning from 10.30 to 11.30 (6.30-7.30UT). Listen to our programs on 171 and 657 kHz. Source: http://www.chechnyafree.ru/article.php?IBLOCK_ID=377&SECTION_ID=0&ELEMENT_ID=84948 (Sergei S., dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CHINA. 3900, China, PBS Hulun Buir, Hailar. April-19 CC 0940 pop music, 0941 YL talks, 0943 romantic chinese music, 0947 YL talks followed by a chinese lachrymose romantic music (tending me to tears), 0950-0952 YL talks on music near its end, after OM talks. Consistent 3905 PNG QRM with Het and splash, 22222 (Lúcio Otávio Bobrowiec, Embu SP Brasil - Sony ICF SW40 - dipole 18m, 32m, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) LOB, Welcome back to DX reporting after about two months (gh) ** CHINA. I do not know if it has already been mentioned somewhere, but Xinjiang PBS is also still operating on 7120 from 0320 and on 7155 from 0300 in the evacuated band (Olle Alm, Sweden, 17 April, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CHINA [and non] Firedrake, 1514-1535, April 16. Scanned every 5 kHz. from 7000 to 19000, but did not find any noticeable Firedrake. Are they really gone? (Ron Howard, Asilomar Beach, CA, Etón E1, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) 15 April, 0728 - 13970 kHz, FIREDRAKE -> Sound of Hope TWN, Segnale sufficiente. April 15: 15900 kHz 0858 - Mx CHN non in // a 13970. 0859 - Firedrake in // a 13970. 0900 - S/off 0913 - S/on non in // a 13970. Segnale sufficiente- insufficiente prob. -> Sound of Hope TWN. 16 April, 0926 - 15840 kHz, FIREDRAKE -> Sound of Hope TWN, Segnale insufficiente- sufficiente, 15900 off (SWL I1-0799GE, Luca Botto Fiora, G.C. 09E13 - 44N21, Rapallo (Genova), Italia, R7 Drake, Satellit 500 Grundig, 2 DE1103 Degen, bclnews.it yg via DXLD) UNIDENTIFIED station with accompanied Firedrake music jammer, noted at 1000-1200 UT, Apr 18 on 15840 kHz. Maybe another Xi Wang Zhi Sheng SOH-Sound of Hope service from Taiwan? 73 wb (Wolfgang Büschel, Germany, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Puzzle -- Firedrake on 15635 kHz at 1300-1400 UT, against ?? 73 wb (Büschel, April 19, ibid.) ** CHINA. 7130 & 7185 previously reported as "China Business R" and commented by Ron Howard in DXLDyg 13Apr'09 do seem to be CNR-1, and suggested comparisons against other CNR-1 outlets which I did yesterday, 18 Apr, so while tuning 7130, I found the same program content as follows: at 1620 UTC, \\ 7365 CNR-1 at 1712 UTC, \\ 6145, 7345 CNR-1 However, another Mandarin (?) program was observed underneath, just as I reported back on 13 Apr - surely Taiwan being jammed (Carlos Gonçalves, Portugal, April 19, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CHINA [and non]. 7270, Nei Menggu PBS (presumed), 1312-1340 Apr 14. Alternating long segments of talk and regional music // 9750. The 7270 signal was way under Kuching, and 9750 was way under NHK (John Wilkins, Wheat Ridge, Colorado. Drake R-8, 100-foot RW, Cumbre DX via DXLD) ** CHINA [non]. 15 Apr at tune-in 1720 CRI seems to be on 963 in Romanian. And at 1800 in German (Jari Savolainen, Kuusankoski, Finland, dxldyg via WORLD OF RADIO 1456, DX LISTENING DIGEST) and here past 18 UT, CRI is in GERMAN on 963. So probably German 18- 20, and NOT 20-22?? (Erik Köie, Copenhagen WORLD OF RADIO 1456, ibid.) Probably a misunderstanding: The editors got the slot specified as 20:00-22:00, were believing that it was UT while in fact they were given CET times. I had only time for a quick check at 2050 and found a Chinese language lesson in progress, probably as part of French programming. Strong signal, clearly dominating the frequency here. Still the same audio processing than in the YLE days. Other reports mentioned that also English is carried on 963 until 1700 (Kai Ludwig, Germany, ibid.) Pori 963 kHz now at 1610 on the air with CRI English. No noticeable offset. The good thing is that now Finland is back and available in AM with a high-power transmitter! 73, (Mauno Ritola, Joensuu, Finland, April 15, mwoffsets yg via MWC via Mark Connelly, NRC-AM via DXLD) Now it turned out that CRI's announcement was correct and just the wrong feed on air for the first two days. Tonight I checked back while walking home at 2030, and now German was on as announced. Earlier in the evening Olle Alm noted that the transmitter went on at 1558 for Russian, still going on after 1700. Beyond that he found the transmitter also on when checking shortly after 0300, and it stayed on until 0600, with an apparent relay of FM programming from Beijing, presumably still the wrong feed, so it remains to be seen what is scheduled for 963 in the morning. For now it's clear that 963 carries Russian 1600- and German 2000-2200. Another interesting news: Since Wednesday a CRI signal is also on air via Eutelsat Hotbird 8, on 11.604 GHz h: http://de.kingofsat.net/sat-hb8.php Michael Schnitzer reports in the A-DX mailing list that it contains German at 2000, too, so it is quite obvious that this is the audio source for Pori. This multiplex is run by Media Broadcast from their Usingen uplink station (if that name rings a shortwave bell: Usingen was once a utility site and became a satellite teleport after the demise of the fixed ute. services). This Hotbird signal is presumably a remux from Intelsat 10 where CRI runs a multiplex with more than 30 audio channels on 4.085 GHz v. Picking it up directly at Pori appears to be not feasible: http://www.lyngsat-maps.com/maps/intel10_c.html (Beware; dish sizes given by Lyngsat refer to hobby purposes only, real requirements for such a 34 dBW C-band signal are 4 metres for professional use and 3 metres for private installations.) This is not a surprise, both Media Broadcast and Digita (the operator of the Pori site) belong to the TDF group. Still it is another question if the Hotbird signal is merely a feed to Pori or aims at private dish owners, too. 963 kHz and Hotbird in a package, so to speak (Kai Ludwig, April 17, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Info from Finnish DX mailing list and onlinelog (kotalampi.com), credits to Arto Mujunen, Hannu Perttula, Juha Solasaari and Heikki Aarrevaara; ..... China Radio International via 963 Pori: Language / UTC Russian / 0200-0400 Estonian / 0400-0500 Lithuanian / 0500-0600 Russian / 1600-1800 Polish / 1800-1900 Czech / 1900-2000 German / 2000-2200 Info via Digita The Estonian program mentions often Futuvision and radio86.com websites that are also mentioned in Finland during "Chinese Hour" program in Finnish on Classic Radio FM network (Jari Savolainen, Kuusankoski, Finland, April 18, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Can someone confirm those Estonian/Lithuanian services please? The thing is: CRI never broadcast in those languages before. No webpages for Estonian/Lithuanian seem to exist on CRI.cn. The station has good relay connections in Lithuania proper. Why wouldn’t it carry Lithuanian programs locally? Note that CRI Ukrainian still functions as an online-only service. Ruud, to be fair CRI came a long way from R.Peking of old days. Give it a try, CRI today isn’t exactly some kind of hard core propaganda. It’s unfortunate that YLE chose to stop using that 600 kW transmitter. Now the transmitter is up for hire (SRG, April 19th, 2009 - 20:16 UTC, Media Network blog via DXLD) This Tampere-based company also handles the CRI relays via Marnach- 1440 since New Year's Day 2008, when CRI ceased to work with WRN. In the days before some rumours appeared here in Germany about 1440 to carry "Radio 86" instead of CRI, and it was quite a disillusionment for the mediumwave fans when the day came and it turned out that "Radio 86" is merely a new can for the same wine. Perhaps somebody has more insight on this Futuvision company, but it is my impression that this is basically an European branch of SARFT in general or CRI in particular. Presumably RTL and various FM relayers (like Classic Radio in Finland) prefer to work with such a European company instead of SARFT itself. In the case of CRI Finnish, Estonian and Lithuanian such frequent mentions of Futuvision / Radio 86 are no surprise because these programs are not on shortwave and apparently never were, it seems that they came to life as rebroadcasting offerings. I don't know if it has already been mentioned: CRI no longer uses the transmitters in Lithuania since April 1. Judging from the schedule it is quite apparent that they in practice replaced the arrangements in Lithuania by the Pori relay. And those with Hotbird reception capability could also check out what is on the satellite channel when the mediumwave transmitter is not on air (Kai Ludwig, Germany, ibid.) Two or three days ago, I heard the French programme at 2000. But it was unreadable. Probably a test? (J-M Aubier, France, April 18, ibid.) As mentioned last night: Apparently the Usingen teleport first picked a wrong one of CRI's 30+ satellite channels. So just a switching error that was corrected yesterday. It appears that for the first two days German 1800-2000, French 2000- 2100 and English 2100-2200 were carried. This would be the feed meant for the Luxembourg relay, and indeed reports indicate that 963 was // 1440, away from some delay, caused by the additional satellite distribution step (it's not just the famous third second but also all the time required for the multiplexing at the uplink site, something that can take up to a couple of seconds). RTL seems to take the feed from China directly since 2008, and during the first days they had quite some problems with it. Well, in all likelihood it was the very first time BCE had to deal with huge C-band dishes. Romanian 1700-1800, also carried by this mistake on Hotbird and 963, is presumably meant for the Fllaka mediumwave site in Albania, to be relayed on 1215 there. Anything else, in particular the FM programming heard in the morning, does not appear to be directly related to relays in Europe. Amendment: I was just told that 963 was a bit less than a second ahead of 1440. So presumably no four metres dish in Luxembourg but some more complicated feed route, with the signal for the 1440 relay being picked up somewhere else (Kai Ludwig, Germany, ibid.) ** COLOMBIA. 5910.073, Marfil Estereo, 0819, best signal ever, with traditional Spanish ballads, pre-recorded ID, then ad (or similar) and into more music. 17 Apr (David Sharp, FT-950 and ICF-2010, NSW, Australia, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** COLOMBIA. OCUPA EJÉRCITO COLOMBIANO EMISORA DE GUERRILLA DEL ELN domingo 19 de abril de 2009 La entidad señaló en un comunicado que desde las instalaciones se emitía señal a una amplia zona del departamento del Casanare BOGOTÁ, COLOMBIA.- Militares colombianos ocuparon una emisora clandestina del Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN), durante una operación contra uno de los campamentos del grupo rebelde en el oriente del país, informó hoy el Ejército. La entidad señaló en un comunicado que desde las instalaciones se emitía señal a una amplia zona del departamento del Casanare, donde opera el ELN, el segundo mayor grupo guerrillero de Colombia. Precisó que en la operación, ejecutada por efectivos de la Décima Sexta Brigada, se decomisaron los instrumentos de la radioemisora y se ubicó además una fábrica de explosivos y un sitio adecuado para albergar a unos 50 integrantes de la organización rebelde. En su interior se hallaron 280 kilogramos del explosivo anfo, 40 kilogramos de súper anfo, cinco kilogramos de metralla, cuatro minas antipersonales, 440 estopines eléctricos y 20 granadas hechizas, entre otros elementos. Fuente: http://www.informador.com.mx/internacional/2009/96050/6/ocupa-ejercito-colombiano-emisora-de-guerrilla-del-eln.htm NOTA: La Voz de la Libertad que emitia en los 95.5 MHz FM [logo, QSL?]: http://www.nodo50.org/patrialibre/fgo/imagenes/voz2.jpg Ir a URL: http://www.nodo50.org/patrialibre/fgo/donde.htm (via Yimber Gaviria, Colombia, http://yimber-gaviria.blogspot.com April 19, DXLD) ** CROATIA. 3984.94, Hrvatski Radio, Deanovec, 0131-0208, April 15, presumed Croatian/English. "Crooner" ballads in vernacular; cut-off at ToH for 2+1 pips; English ID, into "Croatia Today" program re war crimes; international news re Somali pirates; poor-fair listening with ECCS-LSB (Scott R. Barbour Jr. Intervale, NH-USA, NRD-545, RX-350D, MLB1, 200' Bevs, 60m dipole, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Should be much better via Germany on // 7375 (gh, DXLD) ** CUBA. 13880, new RHC mixing product thanks to new fundamental 13780, over which old 13680 leapfrogs, April 15 at 1320. 13880 had similar modulation breakup as on 13680, but not 13780. There should be a matching one on the other side, 13580, and indeed I could hear traces of RHC under R. Prague in English to NAm during this semihour - -- Commies vs ex-Commies! Recheck at 1349 when Praha had changed to less favorable azimuth, RHC more detectable on 13580, but still stronger on 13880. Meanwhile RHC continued with much weaker and lower-modulated signal on // 13760 from the other site. At 1403 Bárbara Betancourt plugged the upcoming Mesa Redonda at 6:30 pm [2230 UT] on 9820 and 6000. Apparently she has not read RHC`s new frequency schedule which shows 9640 instead of 9820 for that, maybe facilitating Nove de Julho reception; BTW, per HFCC, 9640 collides with CRI via Kashi in Spanish to Spain until 2300. I have also noticed after 0500 when both 6000 and new 6010 are on in English that there is an echo between them if you tune just right to 6005 with adequately wide bandwidth. It`s a safe bet than whenever two RHC or China/Venezuela relay frequencies are only 10 kHz apart, as happens in several other cases, they are from two different sites, and thus cannot spawn leapfrogs (Glenn Hauser, OK, WORLD OF RADIO 1456, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CUBA [and non]. As usual, RHC`s new online schedule is inaccurate and incomplete. http://www.radiohc.cu/espanol/frecuencia/frecuencias-espanol.htm {Not only does it ignore the pervasive mixing products but it fails to mention all the fundamentals actually in use.} I am still hearing RHC in Spanish on 6120, altho on the schedule it shows only one semihour per week, Sunday 2330 in Esperanto to CAm. April 17 at 0447, RHC in Spanish, rough modulation on 6120. I was looking for // to 5965, where RHC continues to collide with REE Costa Rica; at the moment RHC was on top, along with Vatican Radio in French for a 3-way SAH; at 0440 Vatican changes from 10 to 330 degrees with 250 kW from SMG; and 330 tho intended for Europe carries on to NAm beyond. After 0500 Vatican is in English. Back on 6120 at 0459, RHC signing off mentioning 6000 and 6180 which I assume were referring to *1100 channels. Played a different version of national anthem, which seemed to mix in bits of La Marseillaise! Then plugged repeat of transmission coming up on webcast only, IS and off. REE was playing some nice ME music before 0500, which I wish I had time to stay with, clearer on 6055 direct, but also with RHC ACI from 6060. Then I went to 6010 waiting for that new RHC English frequency to come on. Finally did at *0502 overriding sermon in English being translated into Spanish, i.e. LV de tu Conciencia, COLOMBIA --- this may explain people hearing English from HJDH elsewhen. The modulation on RHC 6010 was much better than on 6120, so I hesitate to conclude they were the same transmitter. At 0515 I was also getting RHC English weakly on 5960, but this may have been receiver overload rather than transmitted, i.e. 6060 leapfrog over 6010. As soon as RHC`s new frequency to Europe became known, I outpointed that it would collide with Saudi Arabia, already using 11820. This usage is even in PWBR `2007` at 1800-2300 to Western Europe, which means they have been using it since at least 2006 and probably longer; so there`s no excuse for RHC`s frequency manager missing it, really blowing this pick. How long will they keep clashing, to avoid losing face by admitting their mistake? April 17 at 2040, found RHC making a SAH of about 5 Hz atop some muezzining underneath on the non-buzzy BSKSA channel. I`ll bet it`s a different story in Europe, BSKSA aiming 500 kW at 320 degrees from Riyadh. RHC 11820 signal here stronger than its // 11800 for all the Arabs in the Caribbean. At 2101, these were going into Spanish, opening announcement 50% wrong as to four frequencies in use: ``13760, 9550 to S America; 11800 to Caribbean; 11750 to Europe``. As per RHC online sked, 9550 and 11750 have been replaced by 13790 and 11820 respectively. Besides its legion of technical problems, internal communication at RHC is so bad that the left hand does not know what the left hand is doing (all hands there are left). Then to Siboney-on-synthesizer theme, which had an audio cut of several sex in it. Meanwhile I checked the English frequencies on the 2030-2130 broadcast. At 2046, I could barely detect the new one, 17660, very poor with music // but not synchronized to 11760. How`s it doing for all the Anglophiles in Rio de Janeiro, the apparent target? And what about São Paulo, Brasília, Curitiba, etc., etc.? At 2057 a song was cut off in the middle for more than two minutes of dead air before it resumed. 13780, April 18 at 1433, Cancionero Iberoamericano, hostess mentioned that it is on the air ``cada tarde de sábado`` --- no doubt it also airs Saturday evenings, but she seems unaware that it has been a Saturday morning staple for many sesquiyears. This week, Argentine group El General Paz (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CUBA. RHC English internet webcast? Dear Radio Friends, Can you please let me know at what times in UT I can tune in to Radio Habana's English program through the internet webcast? Thank you (Kris Janssen, Belgium, April 19, DX LISTENING DIGEST) According to Arnie Coro`s announcements it is only at 0500-0700 UT, tho I have not confirmed this. 73, (Glenn Hauser, ibid.) ** CUBA [and non]. Glenn, after 46 years of embargo, time is over-due for negotiations between both. Cuba is not the colony of USA, - US government is in the learning curve now. Germany would be still divided, if we had never talked on negotiations with the communists. Raul Cuba should be on the Trinidad table too. 73 wolfy (Wolfgang Büschel, DX LISTENING DIGEST) R. Martí reporting on Pres. Obama thawing relations with Cuba, new rules on remittances, 1415 April 18 on 11845, still jammed. If the DentroCubans really want to improve relations, Mr. Castro, start by TEARING DOWN THAT WALL of radio noise (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CZECHIA. English number station with Czech accent noted 0846-0848 UT Friday morning April 17th on 9575.95usb mode. Announced "232 Oblix Zer" over and over again. In previous year same intelligence service was in 9580-9610 kHz range on few mornings too (Wolfgang Büschel, Germany, April 17, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CZECHOSLOVAKIA [and non]. PAVEL MINARÍK AND THE COLD WAR ON THE AIRWAVES [09-04-2009 07:48 UT] By David Vaughan Listen 16kb/s ~ 32kb/s If there was one sound guaranteed to infuriate Czechoslovakia’s communist leaders during the 1970s and 80s it was the call-sign of the US-funded Radio Free Europe, broadcasting from Munich to the countries of the Eastern Bloc. After the Soviet-led invasion of 1968, many Czech and Slovak émigrés of a wide variety of political hues ended up working for the station’s Czechoslovak Section. Back home they found a receptive audience and Czechoslovakia’s communist leaders became little short of obsessed with discrediting Radio Free Europe’s broadcasts. Here is a short extract from a Czechoslovak Radio programme from 1976, which opened by playing that despised call-sign: Pavel Minarík in 1976, photo: CTK [caption] “This is the signature of an illegal radio station, which is a tool of the subversive and espionage activity of the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States of North America [sic], infamously known by the abbreviation CIA.” The report then turned its venom to dissidents within Czechoslovakia: . . . http://www.radio.cz/en/article/115140 (via Kraig Krist, VA, dxldyg via DXLD) ** EASTER ISLAND. The following comes from Bryan Clark – A remarkable LF catch of the NDB beacon on Easter Island by Roelof Bakker in Holland. “At 0220 UT a weak station surfaced on 281.026 kHz. The lower sideband is at 278.970 and just a bit better than the upper sideband. IPA-280 was received on my mini-whip, mounted 5 metre high, 6 metre from the house in my small garden”. Bryan comments – Not aware if the frequency is clear in NZ but we should have better chance of hearing the station if it is (April NZ DX Times via DXLD) There was another log of this reported recently from Brasil, but I can`t seem to find it now (gh, DXLD) ** ECUADOR. Hi Glenn. HD2IOA, 3810, 1009, clear but weak with pips and time checks every minute by a man in Spanish. Have been trying for this for several nights - first logging of this here. 16 Apr (David Sharp, FT-950+ICF-2010 NSW Australia, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ECUADOR. 3279.71, LV del Napo, 1011, Continuous talk by Spanish man, presumed, no clear ID. 17 Apr (David Sharp, FT-950 and ICF-2010, NSW, Australia, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** EGYPT. R. Cairo responded with "Dear Andrew, Thank you for your message, I'll follow up the QSL cards' staff in the Egyptian Overseas Radio and their work to send your QSL card. And I'll do it again till you tell me that you received it, even if I had to visit USA myself :). Your friend, Marwan Khattab or MIRO" (Andrew Yoder, PA, Drake R8 + 100'longwire (I rolled up 200' so that I could mow the yard), Cumbre DX via DXLD) ** EQUATORIAL GUINEA. Radio Nacional and Radio Malabo, 6250 and 5005, Spanish, 2105, both stations in parallel with national news. 6250 much stronger. 12 Apr (David Sharp, FT-950+ICF-2010 NSW Australia, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Radio Nacional (Bata): 5005, 4/16/09, 2255-2300* Afro-pop song, then NA. MARS net started as NA was ending. No ID or any other talk heard, but assume it was them. Good sig (Andrew Yoder, PA, Drake R8 + 100' longwire (I rolled up 200' so that I could mow the yard), Cumbre DX via DXLD) 6250, Radio Nacional, Malabo, 2035-2259*, April 17, Afro-pop music. Some Euro-pop ballads. Spanish talk. Radio Malabo IDs at 2253 and 2256. Sign off with National Anthem. Fair. 5005, Radio Nacional - Bata, 0521-0540, April 18, tune-in to Euro-pop music. Afro-pop music. Some periods of dead air. Only heard an open carrier after approximately 0535. Weak. Not // 6250. 6250, Radio Nacional - Malabo, 0521-0610, April 18, Euro-pop music. Spanish pop music. Spanish talk. Possible news at 0600. Radio Nacional ID at 0602. Radio Malabo ID at 0608. Good. Not // 5005 (Brian Alexander, PA, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** EQUATORIAL GUINEA ECUATORIAL. 5005, Radio Nacional de Guinea Ecuatorial, Bata, 2000-2130, 17-04, comentarios en español por locutora y locutor, canciones africanas, canciones en inglés. A las 2100 identificación por locutor: "Radio Nacional de Guinea Ecuatorial", comentario por locutor y locutora sobre como prevenir el paludismo, canciones, a las 2110 noticias: "Tiempo de noticiario en Radio Bata", noticias de Guinea Ecuatorial, "22 horas 13 minutos en toda la Guinea Ecuatorial, 1 hora menos Tiempo Universal", "Noticias de fuera de casa", noticias internacionales. Durante las noticias, en paralelo con 6250 Malabo. Después de las noticias a las 2130, programa de música distinto en cada emisora. 35433. También escuchada 0500*-0520, 18-04, con inicio de programación matinal, canciones africanas. 35433. 6250, Radio Nacional Guinea Ecuatorial, Malabo, 1810-1835, 17-04, canciones africanas, locutora, locutor, comentarios. A las 2110 noticias de Guinea Ecuatorial y del mundo, en paralelo con 5005, Radio Bata hasta las 2130 horas que terminan las noticias, luego programa independiente de música en cada emisora. A las 2200 noticias de nuevo por Radio Malabo. 24222. También escuchada *0500-0540, 18-04, inicio de la programación de la mañana, canciones africanas, a las 0530 noticias. Programa distinto del de Radio Bata en 5005. 24322. 15190, Radio Africa, 1820-1835, 17-04, inglés, locutor, comentario religioso. 45444 (Manuel Méndez, Lugo, España, escuchas realizadas en Friol, Grundig Satellit 500 y Sony ICF SW7600 G, Antena de cable, 10 metros, orientada WSW, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 15 April, 0700 - 15190 kHz, R. AFRICA - Bata, EE, tk OM e mx Gospel. Segnale insufficiente-sufficiente. Molto irregolare (SWL I1-0799GE, Luca Botto Fiora, G.C. 09E13 - 44N21, Rapallo (Genova), Italia, R7 Drake, Satellit 500 Grundig, 2 DE1103 Degen, bclnews.it yg via DXLD) ** EQUATORIAL GUINEA [and non]. Hi Glenn, Perhaps you can be of assistance. I need to find an authoritative website that explains the new regulations pertaining to the changes for 7100 to 7200 kHz., so that I can send it along to Robin Boggs at Pan American Broadcasting (Radio Africa) regarding 7190, that he claims is still their frequency. Please see the following email in response to my question to him about the status of their supposed 7190 frequency and I mentioned the new regulations. I assume that if R. Africa is on 7190 (which I wonder if this is really true), that they would be subject to vacating that frequency. Thanks for your help. Any suggests or comments would be appreciated! (Ron Howard, Asiomar Beach, CA, April 15, to gh, via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Viz.:P Original message: Subject RE: Radio Africa reception in Monterey, CA Hi Ron, Thank you for your report on our Radio Africa Network, it truly is a blessing to receive reports like this, it is solid testimony of the power of this Christian radio Outreach inside of Africa. The Radio Africa Network is broadcasting on two frequencies, 7190 & 15190. We are constantly upgrading our station for better quality radio service. As we celebrate our 25th year inside of Africa, we are truly the major source for Christian radio, Amen. We have a full schedule, thankful for those dedicated ministries sharing and witnessing the Gospel across Africa. *I am not aware of any regulations at this time pertaining to frequencies*. We thank you again for this report, God Bless you, Robin Boggs, Pan American Broadcasting (via Ron Howard, ibid.) Hi Ron, There is probably something more specific and legalistic available from ITU, but I quickly found this at HFCC: http://www.hfcc.org/pro/A09-7MHz-changes.pdf Where one can infer that 7190 is not available for broadcasting. http://www.iaru.org/ac-08spec.pdf shows 7100-7200 exclusively for amateur now in all regions including 1 where they are. Probably more at ARRL, but IARU should be more relevant. I assume 7190 has been off for a long time, never any reports. 73, (Glenn to Ron, via DXLD) ** ERITREA/ETHIOPIA. ERITHIOPIA --- Yesterday's ex-41m-Log at 1655 / 1715 was quite interesting: on 7165 three signals: R. Ethiopia, VoBME 1 and Dimtsi Ertran making each other completely unintelligible, 7100 and 7175 clear, also 7220. 73 (Thorsten Hallmann, Germany, April 16, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ERITREA. 7175-7165, VOBME, program 2, *0354-0410, April 18, sign on with IS/ID sequence. Vernacular talk at 0400. Completely covered by noise jammer at 0400. Eritrea moved down to 7165 at 0401 and jammer followed at 0402. 7209.98, VOBME, program 1, *0354-0410, April 18, sign on with IS/ID sequence. Horn of Africa music at 0400. Vernacular talk. Fair (Brian Alexander, PA, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ETHIOPIA. 6090, 6.4 1730, OID, men alldeles säkert Amhara Regional State Radio, Etiopien, eftersom musiken var från ”Horn of Africa”- typisk. ID-ar: ”Amara Kilil Radio”. Stördes av BBC på Dari och kl 1757 kom CRI och förstörde nöjet helt. BEFF (Björn Fransson, Sweden, SW Bulletin via DXLD) 6090, 6.4 1730, UNID but certainly Amhara Regional State Radio, Ethiopia, because the music was typical ”Horn of Africa”. ID as: ”Amara Kilil Radio”. Disturbed by BBC in Dari and at 1757 CRI starting up destroying the pleasure completely. BEFF (translated by editor Thomas Nilsson for DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ETHIOPIA. 6110, R. Fana, Addis Ababa, 2051-2056, 15 Apr, Oromifa (as listed), talks, songs; 33442; lost under even stronger adjacent QRM (Carlos Gonçalves, Portugal, April 19, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ETHIOPIA [non]. via Samara, Russia, 15350, Radio Xoriyo Ogadenia, *1700-1715+, April 17, sign on with Horn of Africa music and opening ID announcements. Talk in listed Somali. Brief breaks of Horn of Africa music. Good signal for first minute but then fairly well covered by noise jammer at 1701. Only heard a strong noise jammer on listed // 17870. Mon, Fri only (Brian Alexander, PA, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** EUROPE. Old Time Radio from Finland will be on the air again Saturday --- Hello all Free Radio Friends! Old Time Radio from Finland will be on the air again with high power this weekend. Broadcasts will be on 19, 48 and 180 metrebands, somewhere frequency areas 15050-15100, 6200-6325 and about 1650-1670 kHz or other potential frequencies nearby. Reception reports are very welcome. E- mail address is: oldtime48@gmail.com Messages will be answered later because there is no Internet connection to the broadcasting site but it is possible that you will receive some information e-mails when we are on the air. Also address for letters: SRS Deutschland Old Time R. Postfach 101145 99801 Eisenach Deutschland 73's, Old Time Radio team (via José Miguel Romero, April 18, dxldyg via DXLD) Here in north-east part of Germany now on 6285 with SINPO 35343. vy 73 (Peter Vaegler, 1813 UT April 18, bclnews.it yg via DXLD) Hi power on 15 MHz? Doubt it (gh) 6285, Oldtime R, 1835-, 18 Apr, German/English, pops, postal address info, asked for reception reports; 45444. 6305 UNID (Oldtime R?), 1718-, 18 April, pops; 44433. 1675, Oldtime R, HOLLAND? FINLAND?, GERMANY? Where? 2106-2110*, 18 Apr, Dutch/English, talks, c&w music; 34443. According to José Miguel Romero, Spain, in DXLDyg (18Apr'09), this station is in Finland. If we're talking about the very same station, don't they use the Finnish language? Also, the signal (check 6285 & 6305 below) seemed to be quite strong. 73, (Carlos Gonçalves, Portugal, April 19, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) see also NORTH AMERICA ** FIJI [and non]. RNZI's Version of the Closing of Radio Australia's Fiji FM Relays --- Interesting that RFI is still on air! http://www.rnzi.com/pages/news.php?op=read&id=45961 FIJI INTERIM REGIME CUTS FM REBROADCASTS OF RADIO AUSTRALIA Posted at 02:27 on 15 April, 2009 UTC Fiji’s interim government has ordered the shutdown of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s radio transmitters in Fiji which are operated by the Fiji Broadcasting Corporation. Fiji technicians were ordered to close down the two FM relay stations in the capital Suva and in Nadi. The shutdown also affects Radio New Zealand International whose weekday current affairs programme Dateline Pacific is rebroadcast by Radio Australia. Radio Australia is still broadcasting to Fiji on short wave as is Radio New Zealand International. The rebroadcast of Radio France International has not been cut. News Content © Radio New Zealand International, PO Box 123, Wellington, New Zealand (via Barry Hartley, Auckland Operations Manager, Radio New Zealand, Te Reo Irirangi o Aotearoa, DXLD) FEARING DIFFICULTIES, FIJI TIMES REJECTS RNZI AD Posted at 07:03 on 16 April, 2009 UTC http://www.rnzi.com/pages/news.php?op=read&id=46003 The Fiji Times newspaper has refused to accept an advertisement from Radio New Zealand International. RNZI sought to place the advertisement to inform Fiji about how to listen to its broadcasts after Fiji’s interim government ordered the shutdown of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s FM radio transmitters in Fiji. The ABC’s service includes a daily RNZI programme. Radio New Zealand’s Communications Manager John Barr says they merely wanted to remind listerners in Fiji of the frequencies to tune in to RNZI. “The response that we got back from the Fiji Times was that they could not accept the advertisement from Radio New Zealand. They considered it provocative and it would potentially result in difficulties for their senior staff.” Radio New Zealand International continues to broadcast into Fiji on shortwave radio and the internet. News Content © Radio New Zealand International PO Box 123, Wellington, New Zealand (via Barry Hartley, RNZ, April 16, DXLD) FIJI MILITARY SHUTS DOWN FOREIGN FM RELAYS The current media crisis in Fiji deepened earlier today [April 15] when Radio Fiji technicians accompanied by armed soldiers shut down the two local FM relay transmitters of Radio Australia. The local relays [Nadi on the western side of Viti Levu island and Suva on the eastern side] both broadcast on 92.6 FM and carried 24/7 broadcasts from Radio Australia in Melbourne. The main international airport is located at Nadi, and the relay also served tourists in the popular resort areas nearby. Suva is the capital. The closure of the Radio Australia FM relays currently leaves just the BBC and Radio France International FM relays as independent news sources for residents and visitors alike apart from shortwave broadcasts. Military personnel are stationed in newsrooms of local radio stations, many of which are operated by the state broadcaster Radio Fiji. News bulletins are censored under an emergency decree issued over Easter weekend, and no negative items about the new interim government or its activities are permitted. Radio Australia and Radio New Zealand International continue to serve Fiji with shortwave broadcasts. It's not yet clear if popular RNZI news programs such as 'Dateline Pacific' will still be carried on local AM and FM stations without local censorship in Fiji. According to the Radio Heritage Foundation, Radio Fiji operates six separate radio channels, the main private competitor another five channels, and a variety of other local FM stations operate mainly from studios in Suva. The closure of the Radio Australia local FM relays in Fiji is a set back for the broadcaster, which has been expanding its Asian and Pacific FM network. It recently claimed high levels of local listenership to these relays. According to RNZI, internet cafe owners in Fiji are also reported to be closed down as their operations are investigated by government officials. A number of blog sites carrying negative comments about the interim government have received widespread publicity in recent days. Currently, people in Fiji can still listen to foreign news broadcasts via shortwave or from some of the more powerful local AM stations in Australia and New Zealand that can be heard at night. Relays of Radio Australia and RNZI news from Radio Tonga [1017 AM] and 2AP Samoa [540 AM] may also be heard at night in some parts of Fiji. The Indian language Radio Tarana station in Auckland [NZ] broadcasting in Hindi at 1386 AM is often well received at night throughout Fiji. Internet streaming of Radio Australia broadcasts can be received in Fiji as well, so long as the local ISP operations remain open. The Fiji military is reported to be considering shutting down non-government internet access. Fiji TV has already had to curtail news bulletins after initially defying the military, and the situation regarding relays of satellite delivered TV news channels channels via local rebroadcasters remains unclear. Individuals with satellite dishes are probably still able to use them, at least for now. The situation regarding amateur radio operations is also unclear. There are no reports of clandestine radio broadcasts attempting to circumvent the military crackdown on media news coverage. This report draws on coverage from Radio Australia, RNZI and independent sources. The Radio Heritage Foundation is a registered non-profit charitable trust connecting popular culture and radio heritage across the Pacific. To read about Fiji's radio history at our website, enter 'Fiji' in the Google search box at http://www.radioheritage.net (RHF David Ricquish, DX LISTENING DIGEST) FIJI RADIO SILENCED, RNZ HIT http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/south-pacific/2337232/Fiji-radio-silenced-RNZ-hit Fiji's military regime has forced the shut down of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's (ABC) radio transmitters in Fiji, affecting Radio New Zealand International (RNZI). ABC Radio Australia said it had been ordered to close its FM relay stations in the capital, Suva, and in the tourist town of Nadi, AAP reported. "Local sources have since confirmed Radio Australia is off the air in both locations," the ABC said. RNZI manager Linden Clark said its Dateline Pacific programme was affected by the shut down. Radio New Zealand International re- broadcasts programmes via the ABC. Ms Clark said RNZI was still able to broadcast on its shortwave transmitter. The clampdown comes a day after TV3 reporter Sia Aston, cameraman Matt Smith and ABC correspondent Sean Dorney were deported from Fiji by officials unhappy about international coverage of the political upheaval. The military government, in power since a December 2006 coup, has gained more strength in recent days following a Court of Appeal ruling that the government was illegal under the 1997 constitution. In reaction, the country's ailing president Ratu Josefa Iloilo dissolved the constitution, sacked the judiciary and briefly removed Frank Bainimarama from power before reinstating him as prime minister. Bainimarama has since imposed tough reporting constraints on the media, telling Radio New Zealand this morning that press freedom had been "causing trouble" in Fiji. Thumbing his nose at democracy, he said he did not want to hear any opposition to changes he imposed. Media freedom group Reporters Without Borders has called the restrictions on media a "mortal blow" to press freedom. "The military government is heading dangerously towards a Burmese-style system in which the media are permanently subject to prior censorship and other forms of obstruction," Reporters Without Borders said. It was appealing to the European Union and United Nations to respond "to this manifest desire to restrict the free flow of news and information by speaking out and firmly condemning media censorship". NZPA, AAP (via Zacharias Liangas, Greece, April 15, DXLD) But in this case, RA has fully retained its shortwave frequencies for this region and maintained those broadcasts *in addition to* the local relay in Suva. So, the local FM was 'value-added' and probably increased listener awareness and use of the service. The effect is likely to be that motivated Fijian listeners will just switch to the HF frequencies that the government has no power to interdict. RA likely has more listeners in Fiji now than what it had as a shortwave only service. I think using local relays *instead of* shortwave is folly because the service is more likely to lose use of the local relay precisely at the time the service is needed most--during a time of crisis. Respectfully, Paul, I think this is what you meant to say had you been as wordy about it as I am here. (John Figliozzi, April 17, HCDX via DXLD) Hi John, Very true, but the result would still have been the same had Radio Australia followed the examples of other broadcasters and shut down shortwave, in this case, it would have boosted Radio New Zealand International's listener figures. I heard on this morning's RNZ local news, foreign reporters will again be admitted into Fiji, RNZI will be sending in a reporter over the weekend, I imagine that this could be a step along the way to having the local RA FM station reinstated (Paul, NZ, ibid.) When I was listening to Radio Australia during their morning show, they announced this and said two SW frequencies have been added, not sure which ones as they didn’t announce it on air. FM or AM relays in a country are good, but when you have a political situation which is unstable, this always happens. I see it this way. In underdeveloped countries programs on domestic relays are always subject to censors who edit programs and when things get hot, just remove them. In developed countries, the programs air at very odd times like 2 or 3 in the morning. But yet SW still gets through. Here in Taipei the BBC World Service is also on FM for an hour a day. Monday to Friday from 5 to 6 am and weekends from 12 to 1 am. But yet I can pick them up clear as a bell on SW at more reasonable times. Last year when I was in Singapore I heard a program from Radio Netherlands on Media Corp. Singapore. Well, an upcoming story was on Human Rights in Asia and guess what happened? For maybe the 4 to 5 minutes the piece was, there was nothing but music. That night I had to tune to SW to hear the report (Keith Perron, April 19th, 2009 - 4:28 UTC, Media Network blog via DXLD) ** FINLAND. China on MW 963: see CHINA [non] ** GABON. And another non-log re: UNID 7270: absolutely clear at 1700, if Gabon was there at that time, I would have expected at least a carrier. Maybe only nighttime when Africa No. 1 is off 9580? 73 (Thorsten Hallmann, Germany, April 16, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** GERMANY. EMR 33rd Birthday programme Time 0900 to 1000 UT Date 19th of April 2009 [Sunday] Channel 6140 kHz 0900 to 0920 Tom Taylor 0920 to 1000 Mike Taylor (mail box programme) Good listening 73s (Tom Taylor, April 16, DX LISTENING DIGEST) and in advance on the dxldyg ** GERMANY. Harmonic DLF Heusweiler 1422 x 5 = 7110 kHz. Im Saarland wird der DLF auf 7110 kHz im neuen ausgeweiteten 40 mb gehoert. Harmonic Mittelwellensender SR / Sender Heusweiler 5. Oberwelle von 1422 kHz auf 7110 kHz. Wir hatten auf 2844.00 kHz gleiches Programm wie 1422 kHz (Wolfgang Büschel, Stuttgart, April 10, wwdxc BC-DX TopNews Apr 17 via DXLD) ** GOA. Ronald Rodrigues wants to share [41] photos with you! http://tinyurl.com/dyr98r Hello! Kindly find photos of our recent Gardi Island, Goa, India IOTA Dxpedition. Yours sincerely, (Jose Jacob, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** GREECE. 9420, Voice of Greece (presumed); 1921-1932+, 14-Apr; Monks? Chanting to 1927+, then M commentary in Greek; chanting continued at 1932. SIO=3+52+, // 15630, SIO=2+52. Noticeable improvement in 9420 at 1930, but not so much on 15630. Both target Americas per A09 sked. Same combo there at 2116 (Harold Frodge, Midland MI, USA, Drake R8B + 125 ft. bow-tie, 85 ft. RW & 180 ft. center-fed RW, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** GUATEMALA. 4052.5. On Apr 04 I sent an e-mail to Mr. Edgard [sic] Amílcar Madrid asking him about the works with the transmitter of Radio Verdad and on Apr 05 he reply me. Here is his mail translated from Spanish. We hope the words of Mr. Edgard will be true and R Verdad return to the air in a month. "Apreciado amigo Don Manuel: Thanks for your mail and interest expressed about the repair of the transmitter of Radio Truth. I must inform you that we are still hoping that we receive the transistors that we need for repairs. We trust that we will receive them soon, so that we can be on the air in less than a month, if God permits. When we are on the air, we will inform you by e-mail. Meanwhile, on the Internet you can tune in to any of the following two addresses: http://radioverdadguatemala.blogspot.com and http://www.radioverdad.org May God bless you and protect you. Édgar Amílcar Madrid, Director y Gerente." (Manuel Méndez, Spain, Apr 5, DSWCI DX Window April 15 via DXLD) ** GUIANA FRENCH. TDF Montsinery will transmit a special DRM programme to NAB Las Vegas using the following parameters: *Montsinery (French Guiana) G3 **Transmitter *P = 150 kW Freq = *17545 kHz* antenna = Toucan 1 azimuth = 308 config = 4/4 Programme = RFI DRM mode B MSC=16 QAM B=10 kHz cr=0.62 bit rate # 14,5 kbits/s audio encoding = AAC *Time schedule = *2059-0050 UT (13h59-17h50 Las Vegas local time) *Associated datas = * label = < TDF Montsinery > Text Message = "DRM transmission by TDF, French Guiana, to NAB - Las Vegas - USA; F=17545 kHz" *Days of transmissions* = Saturday 18-04-09 + Sunday 19-04 + Monday 20-04 + Tuesday 21-04 + Wednesday 22-04-09 DRM transmissions have no priority in case of breakdown of an other transmitter which could be backuped by G3 transmitter. *Remark:* On 23 and 24 April, DRM transmissions to Mexico will be performed using different parameters to be specified. Wishing you happy listening in Las Vegas and other parts of the United States! Regards. Jacques Gruson F6AJW (via Alokesh Gupta, India, April 18, dxldyg via DXLD) ** INDIA. SPECIAL AIR PROGRAMMES ON POLLING DAYS The News Services Division of All India Radio has made elaborate arrangements to Broadcast Special Radio Bridge programme from 9.30 P.M to 10.30 P.M on each day of polling in the General Elections. The first programme in the series will go on the air on 16th April 2009. In this hour-long bilingual programme in Hindi & English, AIR Delhi will be linked through Radio Bridge with important capital stations of the States/Union territories going for polls in the first phase. Eminent Journalists, experts/commentators and AIR correspondents will take part in the discussion. Similar Live programmes will also be broadcast on the dates of the remaining four phases of polling on 23rd and 30th April and 7th and 13th May 2009. The programme will be broadcast on the National hook up and on Rajdhani channel. The News Services Division is also planning day long elaborate programme for the counting day i.e. the 16th of May 2009 (Press Information Bureau, Govt.of India via Alokesh Gupta, New Delhi, India, April 15, dx_india yg via DXLD) Have Indian national elexions always been spread out over a month? I realize it may be impractical to do it all in less than 24 hours, when the day finally comes, as in the USA, since India is expecting 300-400 million voters and many of them are in rural areas, but it seems to me this allows for elexioneering DURING the axual voting process spread out for so long, five Thursdays in a row. At least we get a `snapshot` of the voters` will as of a certain day, but in India, without knowing what the ultimate numbers will be, the voting could overall be favoring one side on day 1 and the other side on voting day 5 depending on what happens in the interim, not least these AIR programmes. Or are different races (electoral contests) voted on different weeks, so a single race would all be handled on a certain day? But then people would have to go to the polls five times, which would be counterproductive; or is it by regions? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** INDIA. 9425, AIR Bengaluru - National Channel, 1431-1440, April 15. In English; news bulletin; ID seemed to be: “This is the National Channel of A.I.R. on 191.6m, 1566 kHz, 246.9m, 1215 kHz, and on shortwave 9425 kHz and 9470 kHz, in the 31m band”; program “Vividh”(?) with talk about “Leadership in Education”. This is the regular program in English that I have recently been hearing at this time and seems to only be in English every other day, but needs more monitoring to confirm. Unable to hear them on 9470 (Ron Howard, Asilomar Beach, CA, Etón E1, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** INDIA AIR Khampur DRM on 6100 kHz --- On 11th April, 2009 All India Radio DRM transmission via Khampur on 6100 kHz was noted till 1212 UT, way past its scheduled sign off at 1200, with Tamil program between 1200-1212 UT (Alokesh Gupta, New Delhi, Apr 15, dx_india yg via DXLD) ** INDIA. UT-April 17: Fair reception of Indian music between 0107 and 0125 on 5990, some splash from Cuba +10 at times. This is All India Radio in Sindhi for Pakistan, from Aligarh, 250 kW, 240 degrees (Joe Hanlon, NJ, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** INDIA. Yesterday 17 April 2009, just after 0845 UT I heard AIR Kolkata on 7200 instead of 7210 kHz. Today they were noted back on 7210 kHz. This is for your kind info. 73 (Jose Jacob, VU2JOS, National Institute of Amateur Radio, Raj Bhavan Road, Hyderabad 500082, India, dx_india yg via DXLD) ** INDONESIA. 3325, RRI Palangkaraya, 1222-1302 Apr 13. Jak news just ending; into local programming at 1224 with flute opening, then YL taking a bunch of phone calls (dedications?); finally into a block of sub-continental music a few minutes later; alternating telephone and music blocks continued past ToH to 1302 tuneout. Fair signal (John Wilkins, Wheat Ridge, CO, Drake R-8, 100-foot RW, Cumbre DX via DXLD) ** INDONESIA. The VOI/Banjarmasin log in 9-033 was indeed on Tuesday, correct date April 14, not 13 (Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 9525, Voice of Indonesia, 1005-1030 Noted a male giving the news in English language. "... is coming from the Voice of Indonesia in Jakarta" ID by a female. After, she continues with the news. Signal was good (Chuck Bolland, April 17, 2009, Clewiston, Florida, Watkins Johnson HF1000, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) 9524.98, Voice of Indonesia, 1001-1020+, April 17, English programming with opening ID announcements at 1001. English news 1002. Commentary at 1014. Fair to good signal (Brian Alexander, PA, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** INDONESIA. 9680, RRI Jakarta, 1052 17 April, soft Island music with vocals by W, 1056 W in Indonesian with apparent song announcements, then another soft song. 1101 jingle, a few words by M, then lively music with M giving RRI Jakarta ID and mention of Radio Nasional. 1103 choral NA, then same studio W announcer returned. Co-channel QRM slowly taking over. 73 (Dave Valko, Dunlo, PA, USA, NRD-535D, HQ-129X, T2FD, Windom, HCDX via DXLD) 9680, RRI with atonal singing accompanied by seemingly unrelated gamelans, Sat April 18 at 1305; no QRM, so maybe the Taiwan/China radio war abates on weekends? Same music still going at 1348 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** INTERNATIONAL. AUMENTO DE LAS EMISIONES EN ONDA CORTA? Hola a todos: ¿Habéis observado el último listado de Aoki? Me da la sensación de que aumentó el número de tranchas horarias y con ello el uso de la onda corta, lo que sería buena señal para los aficionados, aunque generalmente son emisiones de tipo religioso y en idiomas extrañísimos para un europeo. Pero ahí están los datos. Parece como si los radiodifusiores hubiesen decidido "enmudecer" en el PRIMER MUNDO y concentrar toda su artillería en el resto. Como si la situación en el primer mundo no fuese lo suficientemente dura como para dejar de informar y no manipular. ¿La nueva técnica de mantenernos como exclavos-consumistas sin que abramos los ojos? (JUAN FRANCO CRESPO, E-43800 VALLS-TARRAGONA (ESPAÑA-SPAIN-ESPAGNE-SPANIEN), DX LISTENING DIGEST) Hard to quantify; is this true? (gh, DXLD) ** INTERNATIONAL INTERNET. Hi Glenn, I have an online station called Radio For Life http://www.radioforlife.net which is a Christian and family based station. I would like to carry World of Radio and air it on Saturdays at 1:00 central daylight time (1800 UT). I've been a fan forever and think that what you do is the greatest. All the best and thanks for what you do and how honest you are (``BMW``, April 15, to gh via DXLD) This is from Lynn White of Bible Gateway. Program schedule in UT -4 is here: http://www.radioforlife.net/schedule.html It`s not on 24/7, but Saturday at 1550 with some rollicking Motown. We are now on several webcast-only stations, in addition to live streaming from most of the broadcast stations carrying WOR (Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** INTERNATIONAL VACUUM. Re First interplanetary echo of ham radio signals. Glenn, someone wrote to your DXLD 9-031 that some German hams lately had been the first hams to bounce ham radio signals off another planet. In point of fact, hams have been doing this for decades with VHF and UHF signals and the obviously piercingly capable homemade equipment complements needed to get the bounce done. Integrated (repeated, synchronized) signal transmission and recording is always needed with the result that the return is usually recorded but about as exciting to look at (candidly not ultimately) as watching paint dry. It`s a pity though that a lot of the equipment that`s accomplished this often goes with the ham to Florida or Scottsdale, Arizona or similar when the ham retires and gets discarded locally. Even though "plumbing" radio with its WE-315B tubes, sometimes specially cooled semiconductors and similar doesn`t generate any as many QSOs as the shortwave stuff, it`s good for future hams to keep experimenting (and succeeding) in their hobby (Frederic Jodry, April 19, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** IRAN. VOIRI: In response to an e-mailed report to VOIRI, I received "Hello Dear Listener, I hope you feel OK. We're going to publish a magazine on the occasion of 30th anniversary of victory of the Islamic Revolution of Iran, so your viewpoints on this occasion will be highly appreciated. We 're going to publish them in our magazine. Thanks in advance." Nothing received since (Andrew Yoder, PA, Drake R8 + 100' longwire (I rolled up 200' so that I could mow the yard), Cumbre DX via DXLD) Give them you phone number so they can call you in the middle of the night like they do Sue Hickey (gh, DXLD) ** IRAN. 15 April, 0724 - 13800 kHz, IRIBuzz - Zahedan (Iran). AA, reportage telefonico OM. Segnale buono-sufficiente. Anche eco che non sembrava propagativo. 13790 senza buzz, 13620 in italiano sovramodulata (SWL I1-0799GE, Luca Botto Fiora, G.C. 09E13 - 44N21, Rapallo (Genova), Italia, R7 Drake, Satellit 500 Grundig, 2 DE1103 Degen, bclnews.it yg via DXLD) ** IRELAND [non]. 6220, RTE, relay via Meyerton, SOUTH AFRICA, 1950- 2010, Apr 09, English interviews on financial/economic topics, news summary at 2001, TC’s 30 minutes out of synchronization, so obviously they rebroadcast the 1900-2000 segment at 1930-2030, very good signal (Vashek Korinek, Florida Hills, Rep. of South Africa, DXplorer via DSWCI DX Window April 15 via DXLD) ** ISRAEL [and non]. ISRAEL/IRAN 9986 / 11595 KOL Israel in Persian and accompanied Iranian intelligence service oscillating whoop-whoop bubble jammer at 1500-1600 UT on 11595v. Two jammers on 11594.91 and 11596.20 kHz. Another bubbler on 9986.03 kHz, but I couldn't trace the KI signal close there, but noted a carrier on 9986.00 even though (Wolfgang Büschel, April 15, wwdxc BC-DX TopNews Apr 17 via DXLD) ** ISRAEL. 15784.55, Army forces radio Galei Zahal was on even frequency since Kol Israel ceased their program. But now traced today on a very odd frequency, at 0900-1000 UT, signal S=7-8 in Germany (Wolfgang Büschel, Germany, April 17, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 15784.88, once again odd frequency, Israel forces radio Galei Zahal with distorted audio at 1000-1100 UT, Apr 18. 73 wb (Wolfgang Büschel, Germany, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ITALY. All RAI MW-, FM- and TV- transmitters in the Abruzzo earthquake area are operating, a friend of mine, a journalist with the local team of RAI, told me on Apr 09. The hit area is about 600 sq. km wide in the Province of L'Aquila. The sole MW transmitter is located on the Adriatic Coast (over 100 kms far from the quake zone) on 1035 kHz (Pescara San Silvestro). Radio is playing a major role in the area. On Apr 08 evening, a popular TV programme helping to find missing people was partly broadcast on RAI Radio 1 network to reach survivors who are relying on radio as their first source of information (Luigi Cobisi, Firenze, Italy, DSWCI DX Window April 15 via DXLD) ** KOREA NORTH. 3960, North Korea, KCBS Pyongyang, Kanggye. April-19 0953-1002 orchestral music. During past week the KCBS unlisted 3980 appeared // 3960, today seemed off; deteriorating 24322 (Lúcio Otávio Bobrowiec, Embu SP Brasil - Sony ICF SW40 - dipole 18m, 32m, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** KOREA NORTH. Re 9-033: Korea, DPRK / North. Apparently a new super power transmitter is now used by Radio "Voice of Korea" heard between 15 and 20 hours with programs in Russian and German on 9352 kHz (Rumen Pankov, R. Bulgaria DX March 27 via DXLD) ?? No other reports of this on 9352; really a spur from 9335 or something? Or a typo of 9325? (gh, DXLD) The frequency is 9325 - there's no signal on 9352. The signal is better than usual at 1545 in Russian, and peaking to S9. Parallel 12015 is much weaker. Maybe it's just conditions as 15245 and 13760 were also well audible at 0800 today (April 15). (Noel R. Green (NW England), dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** KOREA NORTH [non]. 5910, Shiokaze/Sea Breeze, ex: 6120, *1400- 1430*, April 15. In Korean with piano music in the background; fair to good reception; another clear frequency for them. This is a good solution to their problem of jamming by N. Korea. Just change frequency before any jamming is used against them. Most listeners know by now that they stay in the 49m band during this time period, so it is not difficult to re-locate them. They were on 6120 for about two weeks (Ron Howard, Asilomar Beach, CA, Etón E1, dxldyg via WORLD OF RADIO 1456, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** KOREA NORTH [non]. 17 April, *1300:27 - 11640 kHz, OPEN RADIO FOR NORTH KOREA, Tashkent (Uzbekistan), Coreano, tk OM/YL e mx jazz. Segnale sufficiente-buono *1330 - 11560 kHz, NORTH KOREA REFORM RADIO - Orzu (Tajikistan), Coreano, tk YL/OM. Segnale insufficiente-sufficiente. QRM Pakistan 11565 (per EiBi 11570). (SWL I1-0799GE, Luca Botto Fiora, G.C. 09E13 - 44N21, Rapallo (Genova), Italia, R7 Drake, Satellit 500 Grundig, 2 DE1103 Degen, bclnews.it yg via DXLD) ** KOREA SOUTH [and non]. My sincere thanks to Alan Davies for alerting me to a GE update to South Korea. Indeed all of South Korea is now in medium/high res; unfortunately not what you would call very high resolution, still difficult to resolve some landmarks. I believe the Hwaseong SW (?) site might be here: 37 12 51 N 126 46 41 E (very difficult image). The image for the Kimje SW site also reveals the towers - image remarkably similar (same?) as that from Yahoo Maps (Alan Davies, Thailand, Ian Baxter, Australia, shortwavesites yg Apr 13) Fair resolution image in Google Earth. KBS Sagang Hwaseong SW site. 37 12 49.04 N 126 46 40.29 E (Ian Baxter, Australia, SW TXsite, via BC-DX TopNews Apr 12) Gimje/Kimje is a little bit better, you can count even the masts/curtains. Still on poor/fair resolution: KOR HLAZ Cheju 1566 kHz 33 29 10.16 N 126 23 07.16 E (wb, SW TXsite Apr 13) South Korean clandestine SW radio stations: Radio Echo of Hope 3985 6348 kHz and Voice of the People 3912 6600 kHz. Webpage has been updated this year & I'm fairly certain that the SW transmitter site location/names have changed for the above respective stations. Check out: So on looking at the website & GE: Radio Echo of Hope TXing from: Hwaseong-si, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea (37N09 126E59) which is what we have listed in the Excel files (Extinct) as: Suwon: 37 09 25 N 126 59 36 E (Ex. KBS Radio Korea Int.) usage. As for: Voice of the People (126E50 37N35) 'Goyang-si'; I didn't look hard enough, but Mauno Ritola-FIN has located the SW TX site at: 37 35 40 N 126 50 40 E - this looks promising. (Ian Baxter, Australia, SW TXsite Apr 13) Bingo - bright and glossy 4 curtains 37 35 42.90 N 126 50 50.20 E 37 35 42.82 N 126 50 47.57 E 37 35 41.77 N 126 50 37.69 E 37 35 39.31 N 126 50 32.38 E 1 easy dipole in between, 37 35 42.28 N 126 50 40.55 E 2 MW single masts on the south-eastern and south-western corner 37 35 37.29 N 126 50 43.86 E 37 35 36.91 N 126 50 27.84 E And center north - just north of the two easy dipole masts: a fountain signal like 4/5/6 MHz STEEP SIGNAL BEAM with 4 masts and central supply feed at 37 35 43.53 N 126 50 42.72 E, like R Rebelde 4-mast array 5025 / 6000 kHz for non-direxional Steep target at Quivicán, Cuba, 22 49 25.47 N 82 17 47.46 W or like at Gavar Armenia 6-masts for 4810 kHz, 40 25 16.57 N 45 12 04.20 E (Wolfgang Büschel, shortwavesites yg Apr 14; all via BC-DX April 17 via DXLD) ** KUWAIT. 15 April, 0735 - 11675 kHz, R. KUWAIT - Kabd, Musica locale in // 13650. Segnale insufficiente- sufficiente. Per EiBi s/off 0700. NF? Anche alle 0840! (SWL I1-0799GE, Luca Botto Fiora, G.C. 09E13 - 44N21, Rapallo (Genova), Italia, R7 Drake, Satellit 500 Grundig, 2 DE1103 Degen, bclnews.it yg via DXLD) ** LAOS. Lao National Radio, 4412.7, 1041, low modulation but solid S7 signal. Nice local music with occasional talk by a woman. Have seen this parallel on prior checks with 6130. 16 Apr (David Sharp, FT- 950+ICF-2010 NSW Australia, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 4412.61v, Lao National Radio - Sam Neua (site per EiBi), 1222-1233*, April 16. Talk in vernacular; // 6130 till sign-off announcement and choral National Anthem (Pheng Xat Lao); both frequencies about equal strength; 6130 continued on (Ron Howard, Asilomar Beach, CA, Etón E1, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) 4412.646, 1107, drifting down from usual 4412.7 and tonight much stronger with full modulation. News read by a woman to 1110, then into local music. Didn't check to see if parallel to 6130. 17 Apr (David Sharp, FT-950 and ICF-2010, NSW, Australia, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** MADAGASCAR [non]. 5895, R Mada Internationale (Cf. DX-Window no. 373). I have tried several times, but there is no trace of it (at least not on 5895) here in Johannesburg neither at 0400-0430 nor 1700- 1730. Sentech’s website still shows it as 0400-0430 via Meyerton on 5895 (Vashek Korinek, Florida Hills, Rep. of South Africa, April 13, DXplorer via DSWCI DX Window April 15 via DXLD) Did you try before it was suspended after April 6 at 0430? (gh, DXLD) WRN BROADCASTS RADIO MADA INTERNATIONALE ON SHORTWAVE WRN recently broadcast a series of special, one-off shortwave broadcasts for Radio Mada Internationale, a clandestine station which supports the deposed Madagascan president Marc Ravalomanana. WRN was contacted on 17th March by followers of the deposed president who had aspirations to broadcast into Madagascar on shortwave. At the time, Radio Mada existed purely as an idea, however, under WRN's guidance, the station was launched and broadcasting on shortwave within 24 hours. The station is an initiative of Tiako I Madagasikara (I Love Madagascar, TIM) which is a political party in Madagascar founded by a group of individuals on July 3, 2002. It is now the largest party in the National Assembly of Madagascar with 106 of 127 seats, after the parliamentary election held on September 23, 2007. For more information on WRN’s shortwave services, contact Sales at sales@wrn.org (Wired [sic], WRN News April 2009 via DXLD) WRN CONFIRMS INVOLVEMENT IN GETTING RADIO MADA ON SHORTWAVE Andy Sennitt adds: Although WRN does not mention the transmitter site, Madagascar Online says that the shortwave transmissions were from South Africa, i.e. Meyerton. Thanks to Kai Ludwig for spotting that. (April 15th, 2009 - 17:37 UTC by Andy Sennitt, Media Network blog via DXLD) ** MALAYSIA. 6049.6, RTM-Suara Islam, Kajang, 1633-1659, 12 April, Malay, light songs; 34432, blocked by R Liberty in Bielorussian (Carlos Gonçalves, Portugal, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** MALI. 5995, RTV du Mali, Apr 15 0618-0645. Tuned-in to fabulous tribal music featuring great vocal gymnastics and lots of drums. The next songs featured guitars and drums that swept past BoH until 0639 when a high-energy announcer came on, introducing more vocals. Signal was decent and was audible over local lightning crashes. Music continued until tune-out at 0645 (Bruce Barker, Broomall, PA, NRD 535D and an Alpha Delta DX Sloper, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) 5995, RTVM, *0555-0630, April 18, sign on with guitar IS. National Anthem at 0558. Flute IS at 0559 along with French ID announcements. Local guitar music & rustic tribal vocals at 0601. “Radio Mali” IDs. Poor to fair with some adjacent channel splatter (Brian Alexander, PA, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 9635, R. Mali, Bamako. April-19 FF 0922 OM talks, short music, mentions of "Somalian, Burundi" many "Mali", 0931-0936 short African music, canned announcements on music, OM talks. 24422 (Lúcio Otávio Bobrowiec, Embu SP Brasil - Sony ICF SW40 - dipole 18m, 32m, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** MEXICO. Radio Mil, 6009.967, 1017, presumed with nearly non-stop Spanish pop music. Brief talk by a man but couldn't pull an ID. 16 Apr (David Sharp, FT-950+ICF-2010 NSW Australia, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** MEXICO. Muy buena propagación para Radio Mil y Radio Educación. 6010, Radio Mil, México D. F., 0359-0758, 18-04. Identificación a las 0400: "Vive México en Radio Mil, locutora, comentarios, canciones, a las 0436 amplio comentario y entrevistas sobre la industria del vino de Querétaro, entrevista sobre embotellado y etiquetado del vino. Anuncio del Instituto Electoral Federal, otros anuncios, "El chocolate, producto 100% mexicano", anuncios sobre programas, "Escucha en Buenas Tardes México, aquí a las 3 de la tarde...", "Núcleo Radio Mil", luego canciones mexicanas e identificación entre canciones. 24322 e incluso 34333 entre las 0700 y las 0720. Ni rastro hoy de La Voz de tu Conciencia. 6185, Radio Educación, México D. F., 0407-0752, 18-04, locutora, canciones y música, comentarios sobre las canciones. Identificación a las 0602, "Radio Educación, donde está siempre la radio", "Radio Educación... Colonia del Valle, México D. F.". "Relieves, tema de actualidad, escúchenos todos los días por 1060 AM", "En Radio Educación estamos en donde se siente la radio". 34333 (Manuel Méndez, Lugo, España, escuchas realizadas en Friol, Grundig Satellit 500 y Sony ICF SW7600 G, Antena de cable, 10 metros, orientada WSW, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** MEXICO [and non]. Interesting Things at Mexico's Radio Centro??? I gotta wonder what is going on down at Radio Grupo Centro in Ciudad México. I did TOH recordings overnight in the semi-null of semi-local 690-KGGF in Coffeeville [sic], KS and tracked two Mexican stations and another US station at almost every TOH. KGGF went off at our local midnight (0500) and reappeared at local 5:00 AM (1000 UT). I never did ID the other US station or the second Mexican. However, the slightly more dominant Mexican was XEN, Ciudad México. What threw me for quite a while in the deep overnight is that they were running XERED-1110 programming, their sister Radio Grupo Centro flamethrower on 1110 in Mexico City. On 690, there were numerous "Radio Red, La Red" IDs at TOH times. I just don't understand paying the electric bill to run TWO flamethrowers in the same market with the same programming. However, at 1100, there was a classic Mexican National Anthem followed by slowly and clearly enunciated "X-E-N, Cuidad [de] México" and the frequency and power followed by "Grupo Radio Centro." I was hurrying to another sign-on and I did not catch whether XEN then started their "La 69" programming or continued to simulcast XERED. Verrrry interesting. I wonder what about a megawatt of electricity each night costs???? (John Bryant, Stillwater, OK, April 16, IRCA via DXLD) ** MEXICO. XESDD(AM), NEAR TIJUANA, STILL SEEMS GROSSLY OVERPOWERED Question (paraphrased): What can you tell me about XESDD, 1030 kHz? They still seem to be grossly overpowered toward the U.S. They put a VERY STRONG signal 25 miles west of Yosemite and I've heard them further east near Lake Tahoe with a good nighttime signal! (Name withheld) Answer: In 2004 and 2005, the CGC Communicator did a series of articles on XESDD and a few other Mexican stations that did not appear to be living up to their internationally coordinated engineering terms. XESDD should have three towers, but a recent report (CGC #840, June 2008) indicates that they are still using only one tower. XESDD is authorized for 5 kW unlimited hours with a three tower directional pattern, same pattern day and night, and their published relative field pattern indicates that they should produce very little signal toward the U.S. XESDD apparently used a slant wire at one time in an attempt to somewhat directionalize the station. Considerable information on XESDD is available by visiting CGC's word search Web page and doing a search on "XESDD" (without the quotation marks): http://www.bext.com/_CGC/search.html (CGC Communicator April 17 via Kevin Redding, ABDX via DXLD) ** MEXICO. Tampico Cultural Radio cumple un año ¡al aire! La página tampicocultural.com.mx/radio celebrará “más o menos un año de transmisiones más o menos ininterrumpidas” e invita a los internautas a escuchar mañana su programación especial. Mar, 14/04/2009 - 20:21 Tampico.- Los editores del portal de arte y cultura regional tampicocultural.com.mx afirman haberse bajado de la periquera al dar sus primeros y cibernéticos pasos con su estación de radio por Internet. Tampico Cultural Radio celebrará mañana miércoles 15 de abril su primer aniversario con una programación continua de 9:30 am a 8:00 pm donde los locutores platicarán con el público, pondrán música y debrayarán “como siempre”, lee el boletín. Para ser partícipe de este proyecto virtual que cumple “más o menos un año de transmisiones más o menos ininterrumpidas, y de ofrecer contenidos que representen una opción distinta -o cuando menos divertida- a los medios de comunicación de la localidad” la dirección es la siguiente: http://www.tampicocultural.com.mx/radio Y aunque se trata de profesionales poco convencionales, no son ajenos a las redes sociales más populares como el MSN; puedes agregarlos a tus contactos: tampicocultural@hotmail.com o bien usar el Facebook, buscando un amigo llamado “Tampicocultural” les encontrarás.La página, iniciativa del fotógrafo Miguel Ángel Camero, ha sido desarrollada por distintas personas y computadoras, actualmente Josué Picazo, Roberto González y practicantes universitarios como Christian Cabrera y Alexandra Schultz son quienes más tiempo dedican a ella. Fuente: Milenio.com http://www.milenio.com/node/199348 via Yimber Gaviría, Colombia, March 14, DXLD) Beware, audio autolaunches at station website, how rude! Maybe we are already listening to something else or even recording it and don`t want it interrupted without permission?! Not cultural in the sense of high culture, one soon learns (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** NEPAL. Likewise, I emailed Radio Nepal about their shortwave service, which, from their website, "seems" to be on the air. There's been no reply to that inquiry (and I haven't heard any of their transmitters at my location). 73's (David Sharp, FT-950 and ICF-2010, NSW, Australia, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** NEW ZEALAND. See FIJI [and non] ** NIGERIA. Tuned into Radio [sic] Nigeria, 15120, just after 1800 April 17, found them there, however the audio is horribly distorted. 17 April (Steve Lare, Holland, MI, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** NIGERIA [non]. Re 9-033. I enjoyed reading the report of Aso Radio so much that I failed to pay attention to the details. I`m afraid at 18-19 on 15215 it`s Libya in Hausa instead, as in the schedule also in that issue, while Aso Radio on 15215 is at 1600-1630 (Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Viz.: "NIGERIA" - 15215, Aso Radio International, *1600-1630* Apr 16. Usual flute/drum opening, then into Hausa talks and commentaries; went off about 1630. Good on peaks but QSB. Via Samara (John Wilkins, Wheat Ridge, Colorado. Drake R-8, 100-foot RW, Cumbre DX via DXLD) ** NORTH AMERICA & EUROPE. QSLs and responses --- It's a shame that few SWBC stations seem to QSL anymore. I sent out maybe 5-10 reports (some via e-mail and some through the mail) over the holidays and received nothing, except a few greetings. [see EGYPT, IRAN, RWANDA] By contrast, I've received about a dozen pirate QSLs over the same time period, with some stations (Channel Z and R. Zulu Delta) going above expectations by mailing nice color QSLs when I had only e-mailed reports. It's a shame that in this era, whe't [sic] funding bodies by the amount of mail they receive, that they discourage mail by not responding. On the other hand, having started DXing in the days when many serious DXers dismissed pirates, I find it ironic that today the pirates are much more reliable and generous QSLers than the SWBC stations. Barnyard R.: 6925U, f/d color smiling donkey e-QSL in 1 day for report on frn.net. Thanks! (Yoder,PA) R. First Termer via WEAK R.: 6925U, f/d color tank in Iraq e-QSL in 1 day for report on frn.net. Thanks! R. Zulu Delta (Netherlands): 6307, f/d skull & crossbones glossy card in two months for an e-mail report. Only 1 watt AM! Voice of KAOS: 6925U f/d color secret agent e-QSL in a few days for an e-mail report. Radio Paardenkracht (Netherlands): 6205 f/d transmitter e-sheet and color e-QSL. 400 w from Rohde & Schwartz ex-army SK050 transmitter (Andrew Yoder, PA, Drake R8 + 100' longwire (I rolled up 200' so that I could mow the yard), Cumbre DX via DXLD) Andrew: Yes QSL's are more rare than the Dodo bird these days; suggestion: audio record all your broadcast logs and satisfy yourself that what you heard is what you say. Not only is the QSL rate 100%, but you get the satisfaction of hearing your logging over and over again! (Bruce Churchill, CA, ibid.) ** OKLAHOMA. KTBO-14 OKC was on the FCC list to close down April 16. I did not notice when they went off, but certainly gone as of April 18. I never did see them running any warning streamers about the impending analog closedown. Like other TBNs they have FIVE digital channels, all of them crap from RF 15. BTW KOCB-DT-33.7 carrying SD from parent station KOKH-DT-24 lasted only a few days. Must have been a temp need by some cable system. So the remaining analog fullpower OKC stations are: KFOR-4, KOCO-5, KSBI- 52, KOPX-62. April 18 around 2130 UT as there is severe weather in NW OK, I notice that KFOR-4 analog has a permanent weather warning map as usual in the UR corner --- but it`s missing on KFOR DT-27.1, just an unmarred 16:9 letterboxed HD NBC pix from a golf course. This axually comes in handy, e.g. during SNL`s Weekend Update when some of their grafix were right under the weather map on the analog version. But KOCO-5 and KOCO-DT-7.1 are both running their own weather warning map in the UR corner. KFOR and KOCO also have continuous but more generalized regional and national weather on their .2 channels (Glenn Hauser, Enid, April 18, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** PAKISTAN [and non]. Re DST change to UT +6: and R. Pakistan news in English heard today at 1000-1004 on 15100 and 17835 kHz. 73, (Mauno Ritola, Finland, April 15, WORLD OF RADIO 1456, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Mauno - there is no PAK transmission at 1600 on either 9385 or 11565, so my guess is that it MIGHT appear at 1500-1515 within the service to the Gulf & ME at 1330-1530. 73 from (Noel Green April 15, via Mauno Ritola, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Hi Noel, you are right: English at 1500 on 9385 and 11565 kHz. 73, (Mauno Ritola, Finland, ibid.) 15100, 17835, R Pakistan, Islamabad, English news at 1000-1004:02, when both transmitters switched OFF midst on the sentence (Wolfgang Büschel, Germany, April 17, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 15 April, - 0850 - 15100 kHz, R. PAKISTAN - Islamabad, Musica locale. Segnale sufficiente- buono. Per EiBi 15105. Typo? (SWL I1-0799GE, Luca Botto Fiora, G.C. 09E13 - 44N21, Rapallo (Genova), Italia, R7 Drake, Satellit 500 Grundig, 2 DE1103 Degen, bclnews.it yg via DXLD) Already discussed in DXLD. Nominal 15105, really 15100 (gh, DXLD) But VOA Urdu didn't moved time slot, like last year(s). I wonder why? (Dragan Lekic, Serbia, April 15, dxldyg via DXLD.) It has now: see U S ** PAKISTAN. STEPS BEING TAKEN TO IMPROVE SW TRANSMISSION OF RADIO PAKISTAN --- Pakistan’s Parliamentary Secretary for Information Azeem Daultana has told parliament that that Radio Pakistan is broadcasting external services programmes in seven languages and steps are being taken to improve shortwave transmission for world and external services (Source: South Asian News Agency) (April 17th, 2009 - 10:11 UTC by Andy Sennitt, Media Network blog via DXLD) how vague ** PAKISTAN. The April 18 (weekend) edition Wall Street Journal had this piece http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124001042575330715.html on the Pentagon's plan to jam Taliban FM stations in Pakistan (as many as 150 are operating, and not just on the border with Afghanistan). (Chuck Albertson, Seattle, Wash., April 19; also via Mike Cooper, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Plus lots more about PsyOp. And one excerpt, WTFK?: As part of this push, the U.S. has started U.S.-funded radio stations in many rural parts of Afghanistan. In one example, Army Special Forces teams in eastern Paktia, a restive Afghan province that abuts the Pakistani frontier, put on air a radio station late last year called "the Voice of Chamkani," referring to the village where the U.S. base is located, and distributed hundreds of radio receivers (via Glenn Hauser, DXLD) ** PAPUA NEW GUINEA. 2410, R Enga, Wabag (presumed), 1110-1120, Apr 07, a male and female talking together in English. Noise is very strong. Threshold signal did not improve (Chuck Bolland, FL, DSWCI DX Window April 15 via DXLD) Reactivated after tribesmen attacked the tower system in July 2007 ? (DSWCI Ed. Anker Petersen, ibid.) MW harmonic unlikely on 2410 (gh) ** PAPUA NEW GUINEA [and non]. Grayline reception has been very good the past three mornings, with all but two of the 90m PNG stations heard around 1200; but 60m was dead. 120m also good for the VL8s and 105m for 2850 Korea North (William Brown, Independence MO, April 16, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 3335, R. East Sepik (presumed), 1216-1237 Apr 14. Chatty M announcer, selections of vocal music; think language was Pidgin, but not sure. Fair signal but usual band noise was present; still there at 1307 re- check but weaker (John Wilkins, Wheat Ridge, Colorado. Drake R-8, 100- foot RW, Cumbre DX via DXLD) The NBC Papua New Guinea website still lists 4890 and 9675 as active. I've asked about the status of these transmitters, and whether they will be reactivated, but no reply to my email (David Sharp, FT-950 and ICF-2010, NSW, Australia, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** PAPUA NEW GUINEA. 7325, 0745 5 March, Wantok Radio Light. Fair in local dialects (Ian Cattermole, Blenheim, New Zealand, JRC 535, EWE, April NZ DX Times via DXLD) ** PERU. 4746.934, Radio Huanta Dos Mil, 1123, very good with a solid S9 signal, greetings by lively male announcer, music bridge, time check at 1127. 17 Apr. 4824.466, LV de la Selva, 1135, starting to fade but still good -- not much more than a carrier on previous nights -- one reference to "Iquitos" by male announcer, local music. 17 Apr (David Sharp, FT-950 and ICF-2010, NSW, Australia, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** PERU. 6195.83, Radio Cusco, 0045-0105, April,17, Spanish talk. Spanish ballads. Peruvian music. ID at 0057. Poor but readable. Very poor & very difficult reception after 0100 due to strong adjacent channel splatter from Prague 6200 & unidentified station on 6195.0 (Brian Alexander, PA, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** PHILIPPINES. 9570, R. Blagovest via R. Veritas Asia, Mar 31, 1507- 1517, 44444, Russian, Talk, Gongs IS and ID at 1513. 17830, R. Blagovest via R. Veritas Asia, Mar 31 *0130-0148, 55444, Russian, 0130 sign on with IS, ID, Opening announce, Talk (Kouji Hashimoto, Japan, Japan Premium April 17 via DXLD) ** POLAND [non]. Poland was all the 5's 17-18 UT here in Copenhagen via their new 9790 Issoudun, FRANCE (ex 9555). 73, (Erik Koie, April 15, dxldyg via WORLD OF RADIO 1456, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** PORTUGAL [and non]. Re 8-031: ``15770, April 8 at 1349 was only hearing RDPI, tho WYFR in Spanish is scheduled until 1400, then its own Portuguese. Propagation was poor, but a bit better from Europe than Florida at this hour. At 1400, RDPI timesignal and time check as usual mentioning an hour earlier in Madeira. 1454 recheck, WYFR Portuguese was totally dominant, with RDPI barely audible underneath. Also of curious interest, when I intuned at 1349 there was an open carrier on the side at 15768. It lasted almost until 1400, and then came back on. Nothing was audible on 15560, which is RDPI`s NAm frequency, but guaranteed on the air this early only on weekends, otherwise reserved for `special` transmissions. 15770 is for ME/India (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)`` Glenn, This is late, I know, and also of little relevance. You have either misheard or the announcer was wrong as both mainland and Madeira share the same Summer Time, UTC+1 h, whereas the Açores have UTC. Conversely, Winter times are UTC for POR+MDR, UTC-1 h for the AZR. I'd expect a stronger signal via the back lobe should they be able to apply 300 kW onto the ME/India rhombic. VEN at 261º is also at 100 kW for the same reason. Those rhombics are, as far as I could learn, the last remaining of this type at the CEOC, and I wonder why they don't invest in new units; space is by no means an issue at their site. 73, (Carlos, Gonçalves, Portugal, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** PRIDNESTROVYE. Moldova / Radio PMR - has anybody heard them lately, and if yes, where and at which time? 73, (Erik Koie, Copenhagen, April 17, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) As reported in recent DXLDs, 9665 at 2215-2300 just before VOR relay. UT Sun-Thu (Glenn Hauser, ibid.) 9665 2200-0500 UT: PMR 2200-2300 VOR 2300-0500 Nothing on afternoon anymore, no budget, no money; Grigoriopol transmitter site belongs now to Russian commercial communication company. 73 wb (Wolfgang Büschel, ibid.) MOLDOVA. 9665, Radio PMR; 2219-2232+, 15 April; English feature on history of the Moldova/PMR/Romania conflict; gave frequency as 6240-- not there. Continued in French at 2231+. SIO=4+53+ (Harold Frodge, Midland MI, USA, Drake R8B + 125 ft. bow-tie, 85 ft. RW & 180 ft. center-fed RW, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** PUERTO RICO. Saludos cordiales, queridos colegas diexistas. Espero se encuentren muy bien. Escuchada a las 2345 UT la transmision de Radio Paz 810 AM de Puerto Rico con transmisión deportiva. He revisado el WRTH y en esa frecuencia aparece "AM 81/Cabe M; podría algún colega diexista con el WRTH 2009 confirmar que emisora aparece en esa frecuencia? Voy a grabar la señal para tenerla de muestra. Receptor utilizado SONY SRF-M-37. Atte: (José Elías Díaz Gómez, Venezuela, April 17, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Hola Jose Elias, WKVM, AM 81, Cabe M y no dice Radio Paz. 73, (Glenn to JE, via DXLD) Saludos cordiales, amigo Glenn. Entonces quiere decir que WKVM, AM 81 Cabe M ha cambiado de nombre, porque te comento que todo se refería a Bayamón, y en WRTH aparece San Juan. A lo mejor la cambiaron hasta de localidad, que piensas tu? Un abrazo y gracias por tu respuesta. (José Elías, ibid.) Bueno, Bayamón es un suburbio de San Juan así es que no importa mucho [and another report from JEDG said they were carrying a SBG from there] (Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST) De acuerdo a esta información, AM 81 Cabe M no existe más; ahora es Radio Paz 810. Así que actualicemos ese dato en nuestros WRTH. Mientras que Radio PAZ 810 AM, antes conocida como WKVM 810 AM, también enfrenta una renovación que tiene como centro “una programación de sentido evangelizador”, según dijo Alan Corales, gerente general y vicepresidente de programación de ORO 92.5 y Radio PAZ, quien destacó el “jingle” de ésta última, fue realizado por Alberto Carrión. La info completa en : http://www.vocero.com/noticia-19199-buscan_hacer_ms_con_menos.html (José Elías Díaz Gómez, Venezuela, ibid.) Its legal callsign is still WKVM, unheard on your clip, but don`t know if you made it at hourtop. Per FCC AM Query, owner is now: CATHOLIC, APOSTOLIC & ROMAN CHURCH IN PUERTO RICO so no wonder it`s religious. 50 kW direxional, same pattern day and night, major lobe 120-154 degrees; least signal, but not a really tight null, at 308 to 329 degrees, apparently protecting ZNS3 Freeport. However, has an application to have different constants day and night, still three towers, but new pattern plot does not load (Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ROMANIA. 7440, Radio Romania International; 2207-2212+, 15 Apr; English feature about Romania-Moldova conflict -- didn't mention PMR. SIO=453-, QRN (Harold Frodge, Midland MI, USA, Drake R8B + 125 ft. bow-tie, 85 ft. RW & 180 ft. center-fed RW, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ROMANIA. R. Romania International: 11735, 4/15/09, 1704-1743 YL with news. Later, chamber music by Madrigal Choir, including “I Cried Out to Thee, O' Lord” & “I Praise Thee, Lord”. Excellent signal. At QRT, said transmission was beamed to W Europe (Andrew Yoder, PA, Drake R8 + 100'longwire (I rolled up 200' so that I could mow the yard), Cumbre DX via DXLD) And then, ZANZIBAR, q.v. ** ROMANIA [non non]. Something wrong conclusion on the following item: ``ROMANIA [non]. GERMANY. 9770-9775-9780 DRM, Radio Romania International via apparent German "Transradio Sender" site according to DRM text, 1852-1858*, 04/11 with a test transmission. Email reports were requested to c.hoerlle @ tsb-ag.de 95% DRM copy on an S8 signal. (Dan Srebnick, Aberdeen, NJ Equipment: Perseus SDR, Alpha Delta DX-CC dipole and 130' end fed wire, NASWA Flashsheet via DXLD, Apr 14)`` There is no >"Transradio Sender" site< in Germany. RRI Bucharest at Tiganesti transmitter site in Romania uses 2 x 300 kW US Continental 419G shortwave transmitter gear. 9775 1800-1857 TIG 300kW 307deg One of these transmitters is fed by an additive DRM modulation "sender" exiter, which call identification is "Transradio Sender", see DRM DMOD3 on pages 13 - 15 on http://www.transradio.de/DRM-AM-TRANSRADIO1.pdf Noted for the first time on Oct 30th, 2008 as test on 6115 kHz via RRI Tiganesti with DRM call identification "SNR Tiganesti E2". 73 wb (Wolfgang Büschel, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** RUSSIA [and non]. Checking VOR frequencies, April 16 at 0135, 9890 poor, and 9665 had a fast SAH of approximately 12 Hz. That must be CRI via Brasília, which is registered on 9665 at 01-02, 250 kW at 215 degrees in Spanish, so not much signal here, but enough to bother VOR when southern conditions are up and northern propagation is down. CRI/Brasília resumes at 03-04 in Spanish, this time at 314 degrees but I`ve yet to check how the collision goes during that hour. {And this transmitter repeatedly goes haywire putting out spurs and distortion.} Every A-season, Russia [non] and China [non] clash like this, but now it`s more serious with only one alternative from Russia --- 9890 until 0200, then no alternative (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) VoR A09 schedule about to change? The Voice of Russia seems to have received plenty of listeners' complaints about limited reception in the new season. Upon my enquiry, editor Marina Chechneva replied that a new frequency schedule is currently being worked out, and promised to send it to me as soon as it's available. No further details, as to which language services will be affected. Let's hope it's change for the better. Good dx, (Eike Bierwirth, CO, April 15, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) I couldn't find the link to the complete VoRussia .pdf file yet. see frequency list Choose your language English French German Italian Polish Portuguese Russian Serbian, also 11840 Spanish Arabic Mandarin Chinese Dari Hindi Japanese Mongolian Pashto Persian Turkish Urdu (Wolfgang Büschel, April 12, wwdxc BC-DX TopNews Apr 17 via DXLD) ** RUSSIA. V of Russia has started following DRM transmissions to India : UTC Days Freq Beam Target Power Lang Site ------------------------------------------------------------------ 1200-1300 Daily 9445 234 India 15 Russian Irkutsk-Odinsk 1300-1400 Daily 9445 234 India 15 Hindi Irkutsk-Odinsk 1400-1500 Daily 9445 234 India 15 English Irkutsk-Odinsk 1500-1600 Daily 9445 234 India 15 Hindi Irkutsk-Odinsk 45 minutes of log for VOR English at 1410-1455 UT: http://alokeshgupta.googlepages.com/9445_090413_1410_alokesh.JPG Screenshot of VOR English at 1452 UT: http://alokeshgupta.googlepages.com/vor.eng_9445_1452utc_13apr2009.JPG Screenshot of VOR Hindi at 1502 UTC (On screen lang ID says English!!) http://alokeshgupta.googlepages.com/vor.hindi_9445_1502utc_13apr2009.JPG (Alokesh Gupta, New Delhi, India, dx_india yg via DXLD) ** RUSSIA. RUSSIAN TV REPORTS ON THE VOICE OF RUSSIA (video + translation) On March 31, the Russian news channel Vesti run a report on the Voice of Russia. You can watch it here: http://www.vesti.ru/doc.html?id=269847&cid=1 I used a google translator to translate Russian transcript into English, with some additional editing for clarity. Time markers are also added. Sergei News host: Broadcasting Company "The Voice of Russia" launched a new project - a 24x7 information channel for the Russian-speaking audiences worldwide. For now it is available only on the Internet, but soon will appear on the FM-band. Another news from the company - the Voice of Russia started a non-stop service in English. Natalia Litovko reports: "This is the Voice of Russia Word Service. The news. First - the headlines." The Russian news in English is born here, in a small studio. A host Svetlana Yekimenko is on the air. Right now she is the "voice of Russia." "We already have a rather wide audience that listens to us all over the world, - says Yekimenko. - I have a lot of close friends in different countries who have corresponded with me for many years. They were surprised when we stopped a round-the-clock service." Now the news, analysis, cultural entertainment and musical programs will go on non-stop. The World English Service of Voice of Russia is switching to round-the-clock operation. 1:01 Vladimir Zhamkin, Program director of the World English-language service of Voice of Russia, explains why:"First, this will mean better audience coverage. We have been broadcasting on the block-based structure. Previously, when we broadcast in North America, we were not heard in China. So now program goes into non-stop mode. " The Voice of Russia now broadcasts to 160 countries, on the short and medium waves - more than a hundred hours of airtime daily. The radio station is heard across all continents in 38 languages, including Urdu, Pakistani, Indian Hindi, Afghan Pushtu. 1:45 On display in the lobby - the history of the creation of the Voice of Russia. Here's one of the first buildings. The first radio narrators. The first equipment. Radio then was called upon to tell the foreigners about the Soviet Union. In the world it was the time of mass radio development. The home radios went on sales in stores, and central radio gradually penetrated into the remotest corners of the USSR. External broadcasting in the Soviet Union started in the late 1920s. Russia was the first country to enter the international radio market. The station was initially called Radio Moscow. Later it was renamed the Voice of Russia. The words spoken then by the host into a microphone are now a legend: 2:34 "Hier ist Moskau! Greetings from Moscow!" That was a radio call sign heard by the residents of Germany for the first time on October 29, 1929. Thus began the history of the Russian external broadcasting. Radio Moscow started "speaking" in German. Later English and French broadcasts were added. BBC's International Service started broadcasting three years later, and the Voice of America - seven years later. 3:00 A well-known journalist, writer, political observer Valentin Zorin is about the same age as the Voice of Russia. He has worked at the station for more than half a century. The walls in his office display his own photo-version of VoR's history. His journalistic career began in the External Service. Today, this respected specialist on the US says that it was a great journalistic school. Such people as Primakov, Lyubimov, Taratuta worked at the Voice of Russia. Russia's oldest radio company is still the place for preparing top-notch communicators. Now Professor Vladimir Zorin himself trains others by sharing his experiences with young journalists. "Once I met with a prominent American journalist, who told me that he was listening to Radio Moscow, including my commentaries. And he told me, 'I do not agree with you.' I replied, 'Why don't we start a discussion?' And he says, 'No, we cannot. We are not allowed to do that. According to the opinion of our authorities, we shouldn't draw attention to the Voice of Russia'," - remembers Mr. Zorin, station's political observer and a professor of the Institute for USA and Canada Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences. 4:22 Major changes are awaiting The Voice of Russia in the near future. There will be a technical upgrade. For now the equipment is far from modern but the station is already expanding its online presence. Audio, video and graphic files are now available online. "When the Voice of Russia first appeared, there was no television. Now we live in a totally different environment. And this fact is changing the Voice of Russia. Our service will become more and more multi-media oriented," - explains the chairman of The Voice of Russia Andrei Bystritsky. In the future, The Voice of Russia will launch broadcasting in a few new languages of the CIS. The station is planning to expand its Latin American service. All this while it is preparing to celebrate its anniversary. - This year the Voice of Russia will turn 80 years old (via Sergei S., Russia, dxldyg via DXLD) Thank you for pointing out this! Another face to a voice I already heard so often, even just by chance (for a German there is of course little point in listening to VoR English). Two notes: >> We have been broadcasting on the block-based structure. Previously, when we broadcast in North America, we were not heard in China. So now program goes into non-stop mode. << --- Which does not mean that they will be heard also in China when they broadcast to North America. It seems that editors have been told they are again audible around the clock at every point in the world, but this is just not true. The other round this "block-based structure" was not logical either. Here in Germany it was during its existance a familiar DXer's joke that VoR uses the Wachenbrunn mediumwave transmitter to serve Asia, because during the morning they emphasized so much that they are broadcasting to Asia while they were on 1323 (and later the other frequencies in Germany as well), too. >> There will be a technical upgrade. For now the equipment is far from modern << --- Apparently quite true, no matter that their current studios are almost brand-new. The footage seems to indicate that they are just small chambers. Could it be that these are completely different rooms than the previous studios, fitted in preparation for the 1980 Olympics? And then the small, portable-looking mixer in the control room. The shots do not reveal much details at a first look, but these open XLR connectors at the top of the mixer are not promising. Could it be that continued maintenance of the ageing Hungarian consoles started to become a problem, forcing them to install new studios on a shoestring budget? (Kai Ludwig, April 18, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) see also RADIO PHILATELY below: POPOV stamp ** RUSSIA. 7320, Radio Rossii, 0950-1005 April 17, With a program of music and Russian comments from a male and females. The male must be very funny since he seems to be tickling the gals with his comments. On the hour, canned ID's as, "Radio Adygeya ..." possibly? Actually the ID sounded like "Radio Ah-key", phonetically speaking. Following the ID, news presented. Signal was good (Chuck Bolland, April 17, 2009, Clewiston, FL, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Good Morning Chuck, Interesting log you had for Russia. Just noticed a similar log by José. Same station? Wish you continued good listening! (Ron Howard, Asilomar Beach, CA, via DXLD) RUSSIA?? 7325, Adygeyskoye Radio??, Krasnodar, 1730-1739, escuchada presuntamente el 13 de abril en idioma sin identificar, probablemente en Adigués, locutora con comentarios, segmento musical, locutor con comentarios, SINPO 33442 (José Miguel Romero, Burjasot (Valencia), España, Sangean ATS 909, Antena Radio Master A-108, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) 7320 is certainly the Magadan transmitter on the air at 1000 and for long hours before and after. The Adygeyan stuff is on a very limited schedule on 7325 via Krasnodar per Aoki, but the question is whether R. Rossii on 7320 would ever be carrying any such programming. Viz.: 7325 R. MAJKOP 1700-1800 .2...6. Adygeyan 100 190 Krasnodar RUS 04048E4436N MAJKO a09 7325 R. MAJKOP 1800-1900 1...... Adygeyan 100 190 Krasnodar RUS 04048E4436N MAJKO a09 7325 R. NALCHIK 1730-1800 ....5.. Balkarian 100 190 Krasnodar RUS 04048E4436N NALCH a09 7325 R. NALCHIK 1730-1800 1..4... Kabardino 100 190 Krasnodar RUS 04048E4436N NALCH a09 (Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST) See also CHECHNYA [non] ** RWANDA. R. Rwanda responded with "Happy New year Andrew. Yes we recieved your email and we r glad you listen to Radio Rwanda. Hoping you will spare some tym to visit this beautiful country called a land of a thousand hills. Keep in touch! Happy New 2009" I wrote back describing what QSLs & e-QSLs are & have heard nothing the past 4 months (Andrew Yoder, PA, Drake R8 + 100'longwire (I rolled up 200' so that I could mow the yard), Cumbre DX via DXLD) ** SAIPAN. Re 9-034, DRM tests from FEBC Saipan --- Depending upon conditions, 11650 can give a useful signal at my location in NW England, and has done so for many years. Propagation is poor today (April 15th) but at 0930 UT I can hear the roar of something in DRM, even though the signal is registering only 1 or 2 S points. I wonder how many reports they will receive from Russia of this broadcast? (Noel R. Green, England, April 15, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** SAUDI ARABIA. Anoche también descubrí que ARABIA SAUDITA en la trancha horaria de 1800-2255 en idioma árabe (Sagrado Cor`án) en la frecuencia de los 11915 (como siempre potente como nunca) tenía en paralelo la de 11925 que no me consta en el listado Aoki recién distribuido. CORDIALES SALUDOS / GOOD LUCK / (JUAN FRANCO CRESPO, E-43800 VALLS-TARRAGONA (ESPAÑA-SPAIN-ESPAGNE-SPANIEN), DX LISTENING DIGEST) Mercoledì 15 aprile 2009, 0646 - 17730 kHz, BuzzSKSA - Ryadh (A. Saudita) AA, Radiodrama. Segnale sufficiente-buono 17740 on-off senza buzz. Lavoravano sul tx sbagliato? 15 April - 0711 - 17730 kHz, BSKSA - Ryadh (A. Saudita), AA, tk OM/YL. Segnale molto buono. On-off e poi il buzz è sparito. April 15, 0908 - 17805 kHz, BuzzSKSA - Ryadh, AA, tk OM. Segnale "buono". Se ne sono accorti e hanno spento. Alle 0912 il buzz era sparito. Giovedì 16 aprile 2009: 0729 - 17730 kHz, BuzzSKSA - Ryadh, AA, consulenze mediche. Segnale "molto buono" Di nuovo il buzz! 0918 - 17805 kHz, BuzzSKSA - Ryadh, AA, tk OM. Segnale sufficiente - buono Ieri era subito sparito, oggi no! (SWL I1-0799GE, Luca Botto Fiora, G.C. 09E13 - 44N21, Rapallo (Genova), Italia, R7 Drake, Satellit 500 Grundig, 2 DE1103 Degen, bclnews.it yg via DXLD) 17805: As usual BUZZ radio from Riyadh, with S=7-8 at 0900-1200 UT. 1st program also \\ 9675 and 21705 kHz, but 11730 was OFF. HQ Holy Qur`an program at same time on 11935 17615 and 21495 kHz (Wolfgang Büschel, Germany, April 17, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** SAUDI ARABIA. 15120, Radio Saudi Arabia. Apr. 15 at 1200-1230 in Bengali(?). SINPO 34433. S/on with National Anthem till [sic] 1200, then ID. Male talk followed. Kor`an recitation at 1203 (Iwao Nagatani, Japan, Japan Premium via DXLD) Per WRTH, BSKSA opens both Bengali and Urdu at 1200, on different frequencies in B-08. Current Aoki does not have any BSKSA on 15120, but it is Bengali (Glenn Hauser, DXLD) ** SERBIA [and non]. Existence of Radio Yugoslavia to call into question - the gravity of the situation. See also French and Serbian version in FOCUS. [could not find it in French either --- gh] http://glassrbije.org/F/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=21&Itemid=34 http://glassrbije.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=20&Itemid=33 missing yet on the English website http://glassrbije.org/E/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=23&Itemid=32 73 wb DIE EXISTENZ VON RADIO JUGOSLAWIEN IN FRAGE GESTELLT. 17.04.09 Die Selbstständige Gewerkschaft von Radio Jugoslawien (Internationales Radio Serbien) möchte auf diese Weise die Öffentlichkeit über die sehr schwierige Situation benachrichtigen, in der sich, nicht durch ihre Schuld, die Beschäftigten in diesem Medienhaus nach 73 Jahren seines Bestehens befinden. Der Grund für eine solche Situation ist nicht nur der undefinierte Status unseres Hauses, sondern auch das unregelmäßige Finanzieren der Tätigkeit, zu der auch die Auszahlung der Gehälter der Angestellten gehört. Obwohl der Haushaltsausgleich für 2009 angenommen wurde, hat die Öffentliche Bundesanstalt Radio Jugoslawien immer noch keine offizielle Information über die Höhe der jährlichen Budgetrate für die Tätigkeit des Hauses bekommen. {...} Quelle: http://glassrbije.org/N/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=19&Itemid=32 (via Christian Milling via Wolfgang Büschel, dxldyg via DXLD) ** SINGAPORE [non]. Re 9-033, Wavescan Canceled: What is Wavescan's current schedule? I only found a few 2005 Wavescan announcements and files at AWR.org. Here's AWR language/frequency grid: http://schedule.awr.org/CurrentSchedule.php Also, there are two news items from AWR.org that I'm forwarding to the list (Sergei S., Russia, April 16, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Wavescan schedule? See http://www.worldofradio.com/dxpgms.html For KSDA, Wertachtal and WRMI airings (Glenn Hauser, ibid.) Viz.: LIVE STREAM DISCONTINUED Written by Daryl Gungadoo, Wednesday, 15 April 2009 AWR has officially terminated our live stream from the Europe satellite feed in favor of a multilingual service of Internet audio- on-demand and podcasting. Your patience is appreciated as we test and deploy this service throughout this year. This service will be run by an asset management system recently purchased by AWR . It is the same platform used by international broadcasters and service providers like CNN, Ascent Media, Globecast, HBO and BBC World Service. For more information contact the web team. AWR ASIA/PACIFIC REGION OFFICE TO RELOCATE Written by Shelley Nolan Freesland, Monday, 13 April 2009 The Adventist World Radio Board of Directors has voted to relocate AWR's Asia/Pacific region office from Singapore to Batam Island, Indonesia. The move is scheduled to take place by the end of May this year. "Just by relocating, AWR expects to save well over $100,000 per year. The money we save will go toward airtime for our broadcasts, and should cover the costs of broadcasting several languages," says AWR president Ben Schoun. Batam Island is located just off the coast of Singapore, with a population of approximately half a million people; it can be reached in about half an hour by ferry. It is a developing location with a fast-growing economic market. There is already an Adventist radio station on the island. As the cost of living and operating in Singapore continued to rise over the past few years, AWR began exploring the feasibility of other locations in the region. "This opportunity on Batam Island came about through the generosity of a committed Adventist Indonesian businessman, Stevanus Widjaja," Schoun says. "He owns several buildings there and made a tremendous offer to AWR, not only of office space but also of several houses. Our staff will be able to have the same Internet access for their work and can easily travel across to Singapore as needed. We are pleased with this solution, and greatly appreciate Mr. Widjaja's contribution to AWR's ministry." (via Sergei S., dxldyg via DXLD) I fail to see the correlation between moving across to Batam and the need to cancel Wavescan (Glenn Hauser, DXLD) In case anyone is wondering if this will affect the 2009 DX Contest, I got this response from Shelley Nolan Freesland, Communications Director at AWR, after asking the question via the online form. "Hello Jonathon: Thank you for taking the time to write to us re: Wavescan. AWR has announced that the Asia/Pacific region office will be relocating to Batam Island, Indonesia, by June 2009. The future of Wavescan is currently being examined, but we expect that any changes would not take place until after the DX contest. Sincerely, Shelley" So it looks like the contest is still on for now (Jon Pukila, Thunder Bay, ON, Canada, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** SOLOMON ISLANDS. Also of note: over past days, I am hearing SIBC Honiara less often, on 9541v. A few weeks ago, they seemed to be running 24/7 to compensate for the loss of 5020. But now the second transmitter is proving less reliable (David Sharp, FT-950 and ICF- 2010, NSW, Australia, April 17, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 9541.51, SIBC, Apr 06 0736-0802, 45444, Pidgin and English, Music, Address announce at 0750, 0800 IS, News (Koiji Hashimoto, Japan, Japan Premium April 17 via DXLD) ** SOMALIA. On Sam Voron's website https://sites.google.com/site/somaliahamradio/ among other interesting stuff, there's a mention of new Somali shortwave station Radio Hage. Info says it operates from Galkayo with 1.25 kW on 3980 and 6915 at 0900-1000 and 0300-0500 UT. Direct links about Radio Hage: https://sites.google.com/site/somaliahamradio/somalia-short-wave- radio-broadcasts https://sites.google.com/site/somaliahamradio/radio-hage-somalia (Jari Savolainen, Kuusankoski, Finland, April 16, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) While discussing with Sam Voron about Somalian shortwave activity, the following request was made: ----- In case it becomes possible to find a donor for Somalia do you know of any QUICKLY available AM short wave linear amplifiers in Europe for 1 kW or more AM output (4 kW pep)? Most amateur linears are 1.5 kW pep (400 Watts AM maximum). If not, please keep a lookout and maybe we can get something to help the community Radio Galkayo back onto short wave. 73, Sam ----- If you've got something available, please contact Sam at somaliahamradio at yahoo.com (Jari Savolainen, Kuusankoski, Finland, April 18, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) I`d want to be damn sure any contribution goes only to the good guys in Somalia (Glenn Hauser, DXLD) ** SOMALILAND. 7145.04, 1712, SOMALIA, Radio Hargeisa very good in clear 31/3, thanks to most international broadcasters evacuating 7100- 7200 kHz range. Monitored in presumed Somali through to 1900 closedown with educational and religious talks including some Qur`an, regular idents, popular local songs (Bryan Clark at Mangawhai with AOR7030+ and Alpha Delta Sloper, EWEs to NE, E and SE, plus various 100 metre BOGs to the Americas, April NZ DX Times via DXLD) SOMALIA. 7145.03, R Hargeisa, Somaliland, 1630-1900v*, Mar 31, Apr 01, 02, 03, 04, 08 and 09, Somali talk, reports and songs with string instrument, hymn at 1659, ID as Hargeisha and Somalia at 1700, Horn of Africa music, news with several mentions of Hargesia and Somalia, National Anthem at close, QRM from radio amateurs, 44534 deteriorating to 22222 (Bernardini, Liangas, Mille, Petersen, Rajeesh, Robic and Romero, DSWCI DX Window April 15 via DXLD) But no trace of R Hargeisa at s/on as listed 0330 (Harald Kuhl in DXplorer, ibid.) As in WRTH 2009 which said: 7530v 1 kW imactive: 0330-0600, 0900-1200, 1500-2000 (gh, DXLD) ** SOMALILAND. You guys monitor about stations and what is the use of that? I see every they posting RADIO HARGEISA came on air bla bla even on youtube from Japan; I`m lost. Don`t see why someone sits in front of a radio trying to see who is on air (Kayse April 8th, 2009 - 5:49 UTC, Media Network blog via DXLD) Yep, the station is heard loud and clear on 7145 during recent days in Hurghada, Egypt. On some days it seems to start at noon UT and others at 1500. No trace of morning broadcasts. I’m not sure when the programs finish. (I heard them as late as 1630 UT.) The language is Somali Arabic, with some music and frequent mentions of Somaliland. It sounds like a pretty professional operation. I listened to R. Hargeisa on Sony ICF-SW7600G with both a telescopic and long wire antenna (SRG, Moscow, April 15th, 2009 - 17:44 UTC, Media Network blog via DXLD) 7145, 6.4 1655, Radio Hargeisa är nu igång med, troligen, en ny sändare. Hördes riktigt skapligt, men modulationen var skral och det hördes att den kommer långt bortifrån. Det var svårt att hitta något rapporterbart. Somaliska språk. S. 2-3. BEFF (Björn Fransson, Sweden, SW Bulletin via DXLD) 7145, 6.4 1655, Radio Hargeisa most certainly with a new transmitter. Heard quite well but with lousy modulation and you could clearly hear that it was a faraway station. Difficult to find anything to report. Somali language. S. 2-3. BEFF (translated by editor Thomas Nilsson for DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** SUDAN. R. Omdurman (tentative): 7200, 4/16/09, 0250+ Seemed to sign on around this time. Heavy QRM from a ham net. One ham said “I'll try to reach you through this wailing African garbage.” Guess their transceiver tuning knobs don't work. On with what appeared to be Qur`an, into pop music. Solid S9 sig -- is it usually this strong? (Andrew Yoder, PA, Drake R8 + 100'longwire (I rolled up 200' so that I could mow the yard), Cumbre DX via DXLD) 7200, SRTC, 0232-0430:35*, April 17, tune-in to Arabic talk. Qur`an at 0235-0245. Talk & possible radio-drama at 0245. Time pips at 0301:30 followed by news to 0311. Announcements and promos with jingles. Short breaks of a variety of Mid-East style music & local pop music. “Huna Omdurman” IDs. Time pips again at 0401:30 followed by news. Abrupt sign off. Fair to good signal initially but started to get weaker after 0350 and was very weak by sign off (Brian Alexander, PA, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** SWEDEN. 13600, Radio Sweden; 1552-1600+, 14 Apr; Radio Sweden Tuesday; Swedish features in English; close with rock tune--lyrics sounded like random words picked out of a dictionary. Continued in unknown language at 1600 after multi-lingual IDs, SIO=3+54- (Harold Frodge, Midland MI, USA, Drake R8B + 125 ft. bow-tie, 85 ft. RW & 180 ft. center-fed RW, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** SWITZERLAND [non]. Swissinfo Returns to WRN English --- WRN is pleased to announce that as of March 29th 2009, Swissinfo is back on the WRN English Networks. Celebrating 10 years of International broadcasting this March, Swissinfo is a multimedia platform that produces news about Switzerland in nine languages for an international audience. Based in Bern and part of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation, the portal replaced shortwave radio broadcasts previously produced for decades by Swiss Radio International. Swissinfo aims to provide an authentic image of Switzerland through coverage of a wide array of topics of worldwide interest including special reports. Their target audience is Swiss nationals living abroad and those with ties to, or an interest in the country. Teams produce content in three national languages – French, German and Italian –as well as English, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, Chinese and Japanese. For more information on Swissinfo visit http://www.swissinfo.ch For further information on the WRN Radio Networks, visit http://www.wrn.org (Wired [sic], WRN News April 2009 via DXLD) ** TIBET. 7350, CNR-11 (Tibetan service), 1430-1500, April 16. Starts with C.N.R. and Holy Tibet IDs; items about economic developments in Tibet and three Nepali Sherpa brothers plan to stay on top of Mt. Qomolangma and set a world record; segment “Tourism in Tibet”; Tibetan music and songs; // 6010; both poor to fair (Ron Howard, Asilomar Beach, CA, Etón E1, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** TIBET [non]. 15412, V. of Tibet, Apr 12 1353-1400*, 35433, Tibetan, Talk, Closing music, 1400 sign off. 15412, V. of Tibet, Apr 13 1330-1347, 35433-45444, Tibetan, Opening music, Opening announce, Talk (Kouji Hashimoto, Japan, Japan Premium April 17 via DXLD) 15410*VOICE OF TIBET 1300-1330 1234567 Chinese 100 131 Dushanbe- Yangiyul TJK 06848E3829N VOTi a09 15412 (Aoki A09 via DXLD) ** TURKEY. TRT has started a 24h Kurdish service on 1062 kHz (WRTH Update April 14 via DXLD) Presumably the 300 kW at Diyarbakir, Kurdistan. When I was in the USAF 1969-1970, there was a base there, which had a hardship reputation (Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** UGANDA. 4975.97, R Uganda, Kampala, 2050-2115, Apr 10, light pops, English ann and chats, gone when I re-checked at 2130. Fair signal, but stronger than what has become a norm lately; probably consistent with the nominal 10 kW (Vashek Korinek, Florida Hills, Rep. of South Africa, DXplorer via DSWCI DX Window April 15 via DXLD) ** U K. On the World Service for years --- Broadcaster, writer and politician Sir Clement Freud has died at 84. “Just a minute” of silence, please (Brock Whaley, HI, April 16, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Clement Freud has passed away. Longtime BBC World Service and Radio 4 listeners will know Clement from his appearances, and dry wit, on the panel game "Just A Minute". http://www.cbc.ca/arts/books/story/2009/04/16/obit-freud-clement.html Clement Freud, a grandson of Sigmund Freud who became a well-known writer, politician and urbane regular on British radio, has died. He was 84. Freud died Wednesday at his home in London, his family said. The cause of death was not announced. He was best known from his three decades appearing on the BBC game show, Just a Minute, in which panellists compete to see who can talk the longest without hesitation, deviation or repetition. Freud's well- stocked vocabulary and his slow, deadpan speech made him a master of the game. "Cheek is when someone of diminished responsibility goes to the British Broadcasting Corp. and elects to be chairman of a panel game on the basis that he might have some idea of how to control people whose multi-syllabic words he doesn't understand, whose meaning he is unable to comprehend," he once said during a typical delivery. Freud had a testy relationship with his brother, the famed artist Lucian Freud, rooted in childhood suspicions that Lucian was his mother's pet. Family fled Nazi Germany Born in Berlin, Clement Raphael Freud came to England with his family in 1933 — "refugees from the Nazis before the habit had caught on," he said. He knew his grandfather, who died in London in 1939, as a sickly older man with mouth cancer. "But he was to me not famous, but to me a good grandfather in that he didn't forget my birthdays." Years later, as a member of a parliamentary delegation to China, Freud noticed that a fellow legislator — the grandson and namesake of the wartime prime minister Winston Churchill — was always given better accommodations. "It's the only time I've been out-grandfathered," Freud remarked. He was educated at the prestigious St. Paul's School in London and then was an apprentice cook at the Dorchester Hotel, where he saw in the new year of 1942 with 10 portions of Beluga caviar and a bottle of Dom Perignon pilfered from his employer. "Sat in the store room having the most memorable New Year's Eve meal of my life to date," he recalled. Following his army service, he was a liaison officer at the war crimes trial in Nuremberg. He was a restaurateur and nightclub proprietor who developed a line in writing about food, which opened further doors commenting on sports and politics. From 1973 to 1987, he was a Liberal member of Parliament, a source of great pride. "Other Freuds had been nominated for Nobel and Turner prizes," Freud wrote in his 2001 book, Freud Ego. Having won the election, "it suddenly occurred to me that after nine years of fame, I now had something solid about which to be famous." There was also the satisfaction of having bet 1,000 pounds on himself to win, at 33-1 odds. The earlier fame came from his appearances with an equally morose- looking bloodhound in television advertisements for Chunky Meat Minced Morsels. When asked what he would expect for a fee, Freud reportedly said, "What the prime minister gets." "For 45,000 pounds, I was prepared to sit next to a dog called Henry," Freud said. Stephen Fry among Freud's fans Comedian Stephen Fry told the BBC Thursday that he was charmed by Freud's "air of disreputability." "He, during the 1950s and 1960s, was a real Soho figure," Fry said, referring the bohemian quarter of London. "He knew all the girls of easy virtue, he knew the pimps, he knew the racetrack tipsters and, of course, the restaurateurs, which is where he learnt his business as a chef. "His fund of stories about that time was simply remarkable, and he lived a sort of life on the edge." Freud was granted a knighthood in 1987, an honour Lucian scathingly disparaged. "I was offered a knighthood but turned it down," the Sunday Telegraph quoted Lucian Freud as saying last year. "My younger brother has one of those. That's all that needs to be said on the matter." Clement Freud had no interest in reconciling with his brother. "I'm not great at forgiving. If I decide that I don't like someone, that's it," he said in an interview with the Observer newspaper in 2001. In 1950, Freud married Jill Flewett, who was said to have been C.S. Lewis' inspiration for the character of Lucy in the Narnia tales. He is survived by his wife, along with three sons and two daughters (via Fred Waterer, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Hi Glenn: We know him from "Just a Minute," but I also enjoyed his appearances US television talk shows. I think it was on the brief revival of Jack Paar on ABC. If not, then Dick Cavett. http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5h7SWYkr5RWhQf9JbJIe5xtIhGEOQ (Kim Elliott, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Portrait: http://blogs.rnw.nl/medianetwork/files/2009/04/clementfreud.jpg (via DXLD) OBIT ** U K. Here's the answer as to those mystery BBCWS transmissions from my contact in Audience Relations. Listen now; won't last long (Richard Cuff / Allentown, PA USA, April 15, ODXA yg via DXLD) Viz.: Hi Richard, 15245 kHz (from the UK) is/was a BBC Russian service frequency which is currently carrying our Middle East English with 'Europe Today' at 1600 GMT. BBC Russian is having to cut back their short-wave hours but the changes couldn't be implemented at short notice before the schedule rollover, so those which will eventually be dropped are currently carrying English as a filler. Apparently it won't be for long, though (via Cuff, ibid.) ** U K. BBC’s Radio 4's "Americana" to tap AIR producers, stations --- Thought news of this new BBC 4 program about the US might interest this list. In this case AIR stands for Association of Independents in Radio (David Goren, April 19, swprograms via DXLD) Viz.: BBC’S RADIO 4'S "AMERICANA" TO TAP AIR PRODUCERS, STATIONS I’m so pleased to share the press announcement below that was issued yesterday in the UK about a new BBC program focusing on the U.S. and distributed via Radio 4. You may have seen Erin’s Friday announcement here that the BBC has joined AIR's ranks, and we’ve been consulting Executive Producer Maria Balinska in recent months on commissioning freelance work as they craft an authentic representation of the U.S. for a British listening audience. Maria previously produced the popular BBC international “eavesdropping” program A World in Your Ear, which was cancelled in 2007 (to our dismay). She recently moved to DC, and is very excited to tap the AIR ranks, build a contributor list, and to try out new ideas. Here’s a bit more from the Americana’s mission statement. Combining discussion and reportage, Americana will hear from the front line of change – political, cultural, social – across America, getting between the coasts to the towns and cities of the ‘flyover states’ to engage the listener with America in new and unexpected ways. The show’s guest list will be deliberately eclectic, ranging from emerging cultural stars (like comedian Tina Fey and Austin-based creator of the King of the Hill cartoon series Mike Judge) and provocative commentators (like conservative Michelle Malkin and ‘progressive populist’ Arianna Huffington) to leading thinkers (like Chicago based Garry Wills, Stanford African American conservative Shelby Steele and Steven Waldman, CEO of Beliefnet.com the country’s largest faith and spirituality website)…. The journalistic and production standards are high for the program. The production team will be commissioning one 6 to 8 minute feature per program/week. They are, Maria says, “looking for engaging stories which provide original insights into contemporary America and which use sound imaginatively to enhance the narrative and to provide the listener with a strong sense of 'bei ng there.'” Maria is familiar with AIR’s recommended fee structure and says that the rates they’ll pay fall within the range we’ve outlined. http://tiny.cc/E6TQ9 The Americana team is in the process of sorting out what particular issues and themes will be of immediate interest to the program - and will be posting them on the AIRdaily in the days/weeks ahead. If you want more information, you can contact Maria directly at , or call AIR at 617 825 4400 (Sue Schardt, AIR Media April 19, via Goren, ibid.) Viz2.: :: PRESS RELEASE :: AMERICANA BRINGS VOICES FROM ACROSS AMERICA TO BBC RADIO 4 Americana, a new weekly programme presented from the world’s most powerful country by Matt Frei, launches on BBC Radio 4 this spring. Matt will be joined in the Washington DC studio by an eclectic panel of guests. Emerging cultural stars, provocative writers and some current prominent thinkers aim to give the Radio 4 audience an insider’s guide to the people and stories shaping the USA. Americana will also team up with radio stations around the country, bringing reports and features from places off the beaten track. America’s first black president has made ‘change’ his mantra. The meltdown of Wall Street has dislocated the country’s status. President Obama is trying to change the way the country carries out its diplomacy. Americana will look at what these changes mean for America itself, and the rest of the world. Mark Damazer, Controller BBC Radio 4 says on his blog today: “Since Alistair Cooke’s death and the demise of his Letter From America, I have been thinking about a new programme that would ruminate about America - one that would give fresh insights– from the city streets of Chicago and LA, to the small towns of Tennessee and Montana. Americana will bring Radio 4 listeners a sense of the country’s vibrant and often complicated character.” Presenter Matt Frei says: “ I’m very excited by the prospect of Americana. There is nothing like it on national radio. I feel sure the discussions with leading thinke [cut off here] (via Goren, ibid.) ** U K [and non]. INTERNATIONAL MARCONI DAY AMATEUR STATIONS TO LISTEN FOR International Marconi Day (IMD) is a 24-hour amateur radio event held annually to celebrate the birth of Guglielmo Marconi on the 25th April 1874. The IMD event is not a contest: it is an opportunity for amateurs around the world to make point-to-point contact with historic Marconi sites using HF communications techniques similar to those used by Marconi, and to gain an attractive Award for achieving the requisite number of Marconi stations worked (see IMD Award ). IMD is usually held on the Saturday closest to Marconi's birthday, when amateur radio stations are established and operated from original historic sites, or nearby. These stations are known as the 'Award Stations' and are listed on this Web Site. The list is regularly updated as the various stations confirm their availability to operate. Watch this site for more details as they come in, and please help to spread the word about this website, the only OFFICIAL site for International Marconi Day 2009 http://www.gb4imd.org.uk/introduction.htm#Page%20Top A full list of the participating stations can be found on the GB4IMD website http://www.gb4imd.org.uk/ http://www.rsgb.org/news/0001.php (via Mike Terry, dxldyg via DXLD) ** U S A [non]. New timings for VOA Urdu Service --- Fri, 17 Apr 2009 Due to the introduction of DST in Pakistan the following changes are effective 19th April for VOA URDU SERVICE : MW 972 1539 kHz is available at 1300-0100 instead of 1400-0200. SW service 0000-0100 (ex 0100-0200) on 9515(IRA) 7460(KWT) kHz. SW service 1300-1400 (ex 1400-1500) on 11835 15725(both from UDO) kHz. (Alok Dasgupta, Kolkata, India, http://dxasia.info/news/20090417 via Alokesh Gupta, New Delhi, April 18, dxldyg via DXLD) Thanks for this information. Question: On 972 kHz (Tajikistan), not only VoA but also the Voice of Russia is scheduled to broadcast in Pashto/Dari, Urdu, and Hindi from 1200 to 1600 UT. Who is actually on this frequency at the overlapping time? Do greenbucks win, or Kremlin friends? Thanks, (Eike Bierwirth, CO, HCDX via DXLD) Re: VoA Urdu. And 1400-0200 UT also relayed via Al Dhabayya UAE mediumwave site 1539 kHz. Consequence also for ASIANET RADIO Dubai, which uses the remaining 0200-1400 UTC slot on 1539 kHz UAE. 73 wb (Wolfgang Büschel, ibid.) ** U S A. A rationalization of U.S. international communication may be under way: 1) Public diplomacy will be the purview of the State Department's public diplomacy section. 2) The Pentagon will limit itself to information operations in area where forces are deployed. 3) International broadcasting, under the Broadcasting Board of Governors, will provide news. The first two will have to coordinate, to make sure their messages are on the same page. The third must not coordinate with the first two, or it won't be genuine news. Posted: 19 Apr 2009 (Kim Andrew Elliott, kimandrewelliott.com via DXLD) ** U S A [and non]. Not really news, since the document dates back from last year, but nevertheless some points from the BBG's budget request for fiscal year 2009: As already in DXLD: "In FY 2007, Engineering initiated plans to install a shortwave broadcast capability operating on the region’s widely used tropical bands at the OCB’s transmitting facility in Marathon, Florida. Work continues at the BBG’s Greenville Transmitting Station to convert a medium wave transmitter, originally used at the closed BBG station in Belize, for these shortwave (tropical band) broadcasts from Marathon. In FY 2008, Engineering is installing a transmitter and basic antenna system to support broadcasts to Cuba." (Comment: Apparently not accomplished so far. Are they still planning to go ahead with this now at all? Acc. separate BBG Highlights March 2009 publication the new solid-state transmitter for 1180 kHz is in use since February, with substantial cost saved by carrying out the installation with own IBB workforce.) About the airborne transmissions to Cuba: "On October 24, 2006, AeroMartí, OCB’s new airborne broadcast platform, made its maiden broadcast flight with full operational capabilities, including a live TV satellite antenna. OCB is now broadcasting five hours per day, six days per week from the airborne platform. OCB is utilizing contractor-owned-and-operated aircraft rather than government-owned aircraft because the contractor has the specialized skills and resources to handle aircraft ownership responsibilities, including compliance with all FAA airworthiness directives, maintenance and repair requirements, and liability issues. By mid-FY 2007, OCB had two contract aircraft equipped and operational. Also in FY 2007, work began to provide VHF television transmission capability. The project, which should be completed during FY 2008, will greatly enhance the AeroMartí broadcast capabilities." About the closure of the Ismaning post: "The BBG ceased operations at the Ismaning site of the Germany Transmitting Station in 2007. The facility served the network as a satellite gateway and as an administrative center. The BBG has transferred the facility’s administrative functions to other sites in Germany and reconfigured its primary satellite gateway functions to Kuwait. Two of the three primary systems in Kuwait became operational on December 16, 2007. The third primary system in Kuwait and the minor systems in Lampertheim, Germany will be completed and activated in February 2008." About the Briech equipment: "The BBG will deploy usable assets from Morocco to other network locations." About the installation of an ex-Kavála transmitter at Orzu: "In early 2008, installation of one of the shortwave transmitters from Greece is expected to get underway in Tajikistan, scheduled for completion in 2009." About the installation of the ex-Rhodes transmitter in Kuwait: "Installation of one of the medium wave transmitters is underway at the BBG’s Kuwait Transmitting Station with completion scheduled in 2008." (Comment: Apparently not accomplished so far. Was supposed to operate on 1386 kHz.) Upgrades in the VOA building: "Numerous projects were completed in the BBG’s Cohen Building headquarters, including renovation of Studios 47 and 49." VOA has a quite extensive spare broadcasting facility at an apparently classified location outside Washington, maybe even in an underground shelter: "Continuity of Operations (COOP) Engineering continued to support the BBG disaster recovery plans to enable the Agency to continue essential broadcast mission functions in the event of catastrophic network loss of its main telecommunications and program production complex in Washington, D.C. The BBG, in July 2007, successfully and fully tested alternate radio broadcasting facilities and an associated major COOP telecommunications hub at a remote location outside of Washington, D.C. Training exercises for VOA radio programming staff conducted at the COOP site in August 2007 confirmed that these radio broadcast facilities and supporting communications can be set up and fully operational within 12 hours as required by Federal regulations. These COOP facilities can support radio operations in 10 of VOA’s highest priority languages. The COOP telecommunications hub functionally bypasses and replicates the essential capabilities of the IBB’s Network Control Center and international communications complex in Washington, D.C. that feeds and distributes radio, television, and Internet programming worldwide. The COOP telecommunications facilities are functional 24/7 and are capable of rerouting, on a moment’s notice, all essential communications services for all BBG broadcasting entities. In 2008, Engineering will support COOP planning and implementation of a limited television broadcasting capability, further technical improvements to the radio capability, and additional staff training exercises." And an engineering upgrade at Alhurra where they must have suffered quite serious trouble, judging from such a straight admission: "Upgrading Television Production ($3.5 million) The BBG proposes to replace Alhurra’s broadcast automation system – the backbone of its television production capability – to eliminate streamline editing; improve news system integration, eliminating bottlenecks and on-air interruptions of live programming; increase availability of video content, saving hours spent on manual retrieval; and establish a reliable online video archive system, providing data security. This project is essential to correct system instability and avoid operational failures and archive system failures, which diminish broadcast quality. These system failures directly undermine MBN’s credibility and reliability in the region." (Kai Ludwig, Germany, with his comments, April 19, dxldyg via DXLD) ** U S A. Tropical band transmitters in South Florida? Glenn, I read that IBB plans to install a SW transmitter on the tropical bands (60 mb, likely) at Marathon, FL. That brings me to Jeff White's WRMI station, which I could hear most days at only fair-to-poor levels on 9955 (I did try to hear that opening of the New Happy Station Show on UT-April 16 at 0100 but reception was, well, as above!). Has Jeff ever given any thought, a'la WBCQ's 5110, to trying a lower frequency on 60 meters to improve reception in the Americas? With the solar cycle just getting above low levels (solar flux being at 70-72 of late), this would be a good opportunity for Jeff to look into using lower frequency areas such as 60 meters -- and Miami is just inside the tropical zone which might help also (Joe Hanlon, NJ, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Glenn: I had not heard about Radio Marti's tropical band plans. As for WRMI, it would be a very good idea, but I'm told that it would be difficult to modify our transmitter to operate on 60 meters. I don't believe our antennas are capable of operating that low either. So unfortunately it makes the idea a moot point without a very large infusion of cash and a bit more space (Jeff White, WRMI, ibid.) Still no WRMI on 9955 in afternoon. Wonder what your plans are about this, as I am sure people would like to be able to hear the WRN stations. As for tropical band, could you still go back on 7385 if you wanted to? How much lower could the transmitter and antennas handle without modification? (Glenn to Jeff White, via DXLD) As of this coming Monday, April 20, we will be coming on at 2100 UT in the afternoon. The first week we will have a special 3-hour program from Radio República from 2100 to 0000 April 20-24. Then probably WRN during that time block. It looks like WHRI has snapped up 7385 for most of the day for A09. I'm not sure exactly how low the transmitter and antennas could go without modification. I'll have to do some research on that. But I think it's safe to say 60 meters would require modification to both (Jeff White, WRMI, April 18, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. 9955.0, 0530-0545, USA, 11.03.09, Frequencia [sic] al Dia, via Radio WEWN, Spanish (Vashek Korinek, RSA, log in April DSWCI SW News via DXLD) It seems he is slightly out of touch, as 9955 is WRMI 24 hours (except lately, taking the afternoons off). And could you imagine WEWN carrying a DX program? WRMI carries FAD and several others. Before WRMI started using 9955 24 hours, some other US stations shared it, including WEWN, as listed in the `2007` PWBR, altho not at this hour. Axually, another CONUS station is on 9955 per FCC A09 schedule: 9955 0400 0900 WMLK 125 53 27,28,39 1234567 290309 251009 But that one has been inactive for years! And even when it was active never used this frequency. `KHBN` Palau is also listed on 9955 at 0800-1700, but broker VTC hands off some of this time to Taiwan site, off-frequency hetting WRMI (Glenn Hauser, DXLD) ** U S A. 9317.16, WWRB Manchester TN (presumed); 1935-1943+, 14 Apr; Bro. Stair says that no one will go to Hell because of the sins they've committed; they'll go to Hell because they rejected Jesus Christ. What a deal! I think B.S. is onto something here. Believe in J.C., and sin all you want. SIO=352+ on peak with gravelly audio and QSB to zilch; // 9385, SIO=4+54. HFCC lists 9385 but not 9320 (in 09 Passport), so is 9320v now a spur? The Bible thumpers seem to frequently be spurious. Same combo there at 2102 (Harold Frodge, Midland MI, USA, Drake R8B + 125 ft. bow-tie, 85 ft. RW & 180 ft. center-fed RW, DX LISTENING DIGEST) WWRB 3185 is producing spurious signals on 3117 and 3253. The former is loud and scratchy, while the latter is almost completely covered by noise but is clearly audible on the sidebands. The fundamental at 3185 is spewing out at least 10 Kc on both sides, completely covering between 3175 and 3195. I thought that shortwave broadcasters were limited to 5 Kc bandwidth via international agreements or FCC regulations, but it seems that Dave's outfit is ignoring the rules as well as failing to suppress the spurs adequately. On 3185, at 0100, a certifiably insane paranoid conspiracy kook named "Dr." Richard Kimble of "Future Prophecy" spent a half hour ranting about everything from Prescott Bush to the impending collapse of society, all wrapped up in a typical Nazi-Papal-New World Order stew of nuttery. We actually heard him say "Satan. You Suck!" and immediately segué into prayer. Does Dave screen any of the weirdo programmers on his station? Brother Smear on 3145, presumably also from WWRB Manchester, is strong but not the splattery flamethrower that 3185 is this evening. Observed UT Friday, April 17, 2009, from 0100 to 0215, using an Icom R-75 with G5RV dipole, and vintage 70s Reader's Digest multiband radio with 100 foot random wire. We copied the 3185 spurs on both radios (Larry Will, Mount Airy, Maryland, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) WWRB spur on 9317, April 17 at 2044, weak but // 9385 as someone other than Brother Scare was talking, no doubt one of his psychophants. Besides plus and minus 68 kHz from 9385, there are several reports of plus and minus 68 kHz spurs from 3185 at night (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. 11715, KJES Vado NM (presumed); 1543, 14 Apr; Young girl with religious commentary in Spanish. SIO=453-, audio sounds suppressed like under a stronger OC (Harold Frodge, Midland MI, USA, Drake R8B + 125 ft. bow-tie, 85 ft. RW & 180 ft. center-fed RW, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A [non]. 9895: Two US religious mission stations het each other at 1800-1845 UT. Auf 9895 kHz schlagen sich zwei US religioese Missionssender gegenseitig zwischen 1800 und 1845 UT: YFR Juelich in Rumaenisch und TWR Al Dhabayya-UAE in aethiopischen Sprachen (wb, April 10, wwdxc BC-DX TopNews Apr 17 via DXLD) ** U S A. Dorrough Family battles against title company and developers to establish unique shortwave radio service for blind and visually- impaired audiences and artists. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwfzbA3uZ2M&feature=related (via Artie Bigley, DXLD) We had stories about this sesquiyears ago; Oregon is a town in Wisconsin (gh) ** U S A. WARM, ONCE-HOT STATION, GOES COLD --- STATION THAT INTRODUCED TOP 40 ROCK ‘N’ ROLL TO NORTHEAST PA. GOES OFF THE AIR By Jerry Lynott Business Writer April 16 PLAINS TWP. – WARM, the AM-radio station synonymous with Northeastern Pennsylvania, is off the air after broadcasting news, music and sports for more than 50 years. Former WARM radio personality Harry West mans the station in 1983. He worked there from 1959 through July 1992. [caption] The station has been silent and a posting on its Web site thanked listeners for their support. “We love you and we’ll miss you,” it read. Calls to the Citadel Broadcasting Co.-owned station were not returned Wednesday. “WARM is done,” said Sam Liguori. “Unless there’s a miracle they ain’t coming back.” Liguori, 72, of Forty Fort, hosted a Saturday polka show. He said the station’s backup transmitter had failed. “It’s a big technical problem that would cost a lot of money” to repair, he said. Listeners found static when they tuned in to the station’s 590 kHz frequency for the past week. . . http://www.timesleader.com/news/WARM__once-hot_station__goes_cold_04-16-2009.html (via Artie Bigley, DXLD) It seems kind of odd to shut the station down because of a transmitter failure. Maybe the station has been losing a lot of money and this was perhaps a good excuse to pull the plug? I would think the license and facilities are worth a couple hundred thousand, even in Scranton in a downer economy, and a replacement transmitter would cost - what - $10,000? It seems like a prudent expenditure to protect their investment. WARM is or was a 5 kW station at the bottom of the dial, so it should be worth something to a potential buyer, even if the owners need to unload it at a fire sale price (Bruce Portzer, WA, IRCA via DXLD) A 5 kW solid state transmitter costs at least 3x that $10,000 figure.. plus I`m sure there's other work that needs to be done there, engineering wise (Paul Walker, ibid.) Here is a GREAT READ on the issue..... http://insidemusicmedia.blogspot.com/ I read Jerry's blog DAILY.... He "gets it" A 5 kW Harris AM transmitter has a list price of $38 K, so Paul is pretty darn close. A 6 kW Nautel lists out at $37.4 K (Lee J Freshwater, Ocala, FL, ibid.) I am shocked at what looks like the permanent demise of WARM. I remember listening to them fairly regularly when I was growing up in Middletown, NY. What a signal. And what great programming for a station in a market that size, That they have what appears to be the best AM signal in the market, with a 0.5 contour that extends practically from Binghamton to Philadelphia, it's very hard to imagine that it could not make it, even in difficult times, and with FM sister stations to help support it. From what I've read, however, such thinking does not jive with the Citadel business model of not spending any money on non-profitable AMs. It's that kind of thinking that has probably helped put Citadel in the hole. That being said, WARM is probably, to a large extent, a victim of its own programming. A largely satellite fed station with minimal local content, and a lot of spec programming on the weekends, is not going to develop a consistent following. The Polka Show aside, which is a long-time traditional component of the station, some of the other elements just don't fit: like the Sinatra programming. Most people who listen all week long to rock 'n roll oldies are not, for the most part, going to stay tuned for standards on the weekend. To make a long story short, the station has a definite identity crisis. They would have done better sticking with the true oldies format 164 hours per week (4-hours devoted to the polka show) and filling the satellite breaks with lots of local content to keep the station identifiable with the community. When all is said and done, it would seem that if Citadel is no longer interested in running WARM. If that is the case, they should either dump the silent station at a discount, or make the necessary engineering repairs to get it on the air and make the station salable at a reasonable price. 73, (Rene' Tetro, Philadelphia PA, ABDX via DXLD) Funny thing - when KXAM was signing off Wednesday night, I was sitting in a hotel room in Scottsdale listening. (Since then, I've been driving the desert, last night in Tucson and tonight in El Centro listening to Mexicali radio...) I really can't find much fault with Jerry's logic on this one. You either treat a station like it's worth promoting and investing in, or it dies. Too many AMs are in that latter category, but few actually go dark like KXAM and WARM. And that's the one piece of Jerry's article I take factual issue with - he says "hundreds of stations" have returned their licenses. By my count, the real number is less than a dozen over the past year. I think he's looking at the FCC "silent station" list. Usually, someone still values the license enough to buy it, or to turn it back on one day shy of a year, and thus keep the license alive just to run it even cheaper and even deeper into the ground. And the screwed-up way the FCC rules work mean that if a station DOES go dark, someone can come along at the next window and apply for facilities on the same channel that (for complicated reasons having to do with badly-written interference protection rules) actually have to be WORSE than the previous occupant of the station. Taking a frequency dark and leaving it that way forever is nearly impossible to do under the FCC rules, which generally means that the stations that still care about AM and put effort into their programming can't expand their signals to take advantage of others going dark. s (Scott Fybush, April 17, ABDX via DXLD) It`s that old mindset that AM can`t make it, no one is listening, so let`s put some format on the air that no one will listen to --- and then down the road wonder why the station is not making it. If someone were smart down there in WARM territory, someone should buy that station and make something of it and show these big companies how to run a radio station, draw and keep listeners and make it profitable to boot. WARM should not be allowed to go silent without its community fighting to keep it on the air. True a station such as this could combine local talent with their ABC Oldies satellite feed. You run a cheap sounding operation, and you'll get ZERO return out of it. I know; I've run several satellite formatted stations in my time under my programming and operations hats. If you do not maintain some local flavor, the station will flounder. Now, WARM-AM could get an STA, stay off for 6 months while the economy improves, capital investment come from the company to make the needed transmitter repairs and revamp their programming and return with a polished sound. Obviously there are other stations in the group; keep the employees that were performing duties under WARM and temporarily assign them to other stations. How can companies expect the economy to get better when they lay off people --- who now do not have an income to buy things to simulate the economy-? DUH! I really do not know what some people up the "food chain" in these major corporations are thinking. Keep your budget balanced, provide something the public will use and enjoy, thus which brings advertisers that spend money with the station, which pays the bills and the cycle continues. WARM-AM really doesn't have to fade away into the static. someone with some business sense, great programming abilities, talent with great pipes that know the area, account executives that could sell the wheels off a vehicle while in motion type attitude --- and such a station could be one of the top 20 most listened to stations in the market again, even though the station is AM (Bob Carter - KC4QLP - WQJK414, Mid-Atlantic-Engineering-Service of Utica NY, ibid.) Apparently WARM has been off the air since Tuesday April 14, 2009. Local contacts about the station said that they don't expect it to return to the air. The FCC confirmed that the station has been silent since Tuesday, but that station officials have not let them know about the future of the station. Citadel owns WARM and they reported to the Securities and Exchange Commission earlier in April that they expect a continued decline in radio revenue in the first half of 2009. They were uncertain regarding their ability to comply with their debt obligations through 2009 (Bob Seaman Hazleton, PA, April 18, WTFDA-AM via DXLD) ** U S A. The KXAM Shutdown --- I've never quoted this statement publicly, and I won't say who made it, but in the early '90's, a stable KXAM employee told me that "the Detroit Pistons owner bought the station for his son to play with." That statement could have been unduly sharp, but the station stayed in the same hands for all these years, going from easy listening to big bands to more syndicated talk, and finally to the combination of national and local talk shows they had till Wednesday. My own editorial comment here, but one thing remained stable: Matt Gerson's celebrity interviews. Presumably Matt Gerson was the "son" referred to by the employee.) Fifteen years ago, they were probably freshly made. But the same ones ran over and over again, whether or not the celebrities were still living, but presented as if they were. For many years, Those interviews were promoted more than the rest of the station. And KXAM had no night signal in the west valley, and really not much of one outside of Scottsdale and Mesa. Till the internet came along, 1310 sounded like a graveyard frequency in much of the Phoenix metro. I can't understand how KXAM stayed in business as long as they did, but it may simply be the talented staff, which changed over the years, but they always had a core of dedicated and hardworking on-air talent. More emphasis has been put on WARM in Scranton in the past few days because of its signal and heritage. But it's always a shame to see owners mismanage their stations, eventually resulting in loss of jobs for the staff, who work hard to give the impression that the emperor has clothes on; their credibility depends on it (Rick Lewis, AZ, April 18, ABDX via DXLD) ** U S A. Why AM radio still rules in Chicago WBBM-AM 780, WGN-AM 720 REMAIN CHICAGO'S TOP-BILLING RADIO STATIONS Phil Rosenthal | Media, Chicago Tribune, April 15, 2009 Good times and bad, some things just don't change in Chicago. Year after year, the news never stops and people keep tuning in to hear the Cubs not win the pennant. CBS Radio's WBBM-AM 780 and Tribune Co.'s WGN-AM 720 remain Chicago's top-billing radio stations, the two perennial AM powerhouses accounting for 17 percent of the market's 2008 revenue, according to BIA Financial Network, which tracks radio business. "You'd be hard-pressed to find another market where the top two are AM stations," said Mark Fratrik, BIAfn vice president. Nationally, the radio business was off 8.5 percent, compared with 2007. Chicago slipped only around 6 percent, Fratrik said, dropping in 2008 to $522 million from $555.2 million. Newsradio 780 remained the No. 1 station in town, with $44.9 million, followed by Cubs flagship WGN, which took in $44.5 million. Tribune Co. owns WGN and, for now, the Cubs, as well as the Chicago Tribune. After that, the numbers drop off. Bonneville International's WTMX-FM 101.9 remained third at $34.8 million. Clear Channel's WGCI-FM 107.5 was still No. 4 with $29.7 million. Univisión's Spanish-language WOJO-FM 105.1, which in '07 was sixth behind Clear Channel's WLIT-FM 93.9, traded places to take fifth at $22.9 million. Signal corps: What used to be Chicago Heights' WCGO-AM 1600 signed off Saturday, enabling the sister station formerly known as Evanston's WONX-AM 1590 to double its daytime signal to 7,000 watts as the new WCGO-AM 1590. The new WCGO, which airs brokered ethnic programs, fulfills the ambition of Frank Kovas, a radio entrepreneur who died in 2005. Kovas' company acquired those stations and two others with a goal of combining their power into a single outlet with Federal Communications Commission approval. ... ... You can read the rest of the article (the rest isn't as interesting) here: http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/columnists/chi-wed-phil-column-0415-apr15,0,7679432.column (via Chris Kadlec, Fremont, Mich., amfmtvdx at qth.net via DXLD) ** U S A. KXDS-FM 91 to start new station with CLASSICAL DIXIE STATE COLLEGE BEGINS CLASSICAL RADIO BROADCASTS By Wendy Leonard Deseret News Published: Wednesday, April 15, 2009 11:00 p.m. MDT Residents in southern Utah now have the option of tuning in to classical music, broadcast directly from Dixie State College. "We hope that the music we play will lift up and inspire the community, much like this community has lifted and inspired Dixie State College," said Paul Bulkley, the station's program director and adjunct radio professor at Dixie. Dixie's old radio station, which played mostly top 40 selections from vinyl records, phased out when its license lapsed in 1999, but students are relaunching the station with a classical twist, "because they know that a classical station will go a lot further on their resumes and cover letters," Bulkley said. The entirely student-run KXDS has been previewing on Simmons Media station KURR 103.1 FM, since Monday, while its permanent location, 91.3 FM, is getting some final tuning. The school's own Classical 91 should be up and running within 30 to 60 days. . . http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705297436/Dixie-State-College-begins-classical-radio-broadcasts.html (via Kevin Redding, ABDX via DXLD) ** URUGUAY. A month ago, Mr. Gustavo Cirino, who is a person in charge of the technical matters of various radio stations in Uruguay and knows me from the multiple queries for updated data from radiostations for many years, called me consulting for the general use of SSB on the shortwaves by broadcast stations. He told me that URSEC, the country's regulatory telecom authority, had just urged R Sarandí Sport, Rivera, to reactivate the SW on 6045 or to resign to it [meaning give up the frequency, I assume --- gh]. The power had to be 2 kW, but using a transmitter of such power would have been so much in terms of electrical consumption. An alternate way, he thought would be to use SSB, which appears to be feasible. I have been in contact with him, and now I am expecting more info as starting date, real power to be used, equipment and antenna to use, if LSB. The schedule would be the same as on MW (890) and simulcasting it. The authorized beam is to HFCC CIRAF zone 14 (Argentina, part of Paraguay, etc.) In the past (1980s) a 6010 SODRE transmitter was also fired on LSB beamed to the Antarctic Uruguayan base, but this lasted for short time and was experimental. Later SODRE discarded SSB broadcasts. Currently 6125 is active from them, but with low power and lately reported with low modulation (Horacio Nigro in DXplorer, Apr 07 via DSWCI DX Window April 15 via DXLD) ** VATICAN [and non]. 7320 QRDRM? I came across the Vatican Radio DRM outlet on 7320 UT at 1405 UT, but read on the registration front a co- channel RRI Italian service from 100 kW Saftica site too. 7320 1400-1430 28 SMG 100 350 0 DRM German/PO Polish? CVA VAT 7320 1400-1430 28SW TIG 100 270 0 Italian ROU RRO 73 wb (Wolfgang Büschel, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** VIETNAM [non]. 4739.60v, R. TV. Son La. This has not been heard for about two months now. Have been checking randomly from about 1245- 1400. Their normal sign-off was 1401 (Ron Howard, Asilomar Beach, CA, Etón E1, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ZAMBIA. 5940, 17/04 2053, CVC, English, desde Lusaka, com 100 kW, OM talks e pop music gospel, diversas vinhetas CVC, 35333 (Jorge Freitas, http://www.ipernity.com/blog/75006 Feira de Santana Bahia - Brasil, Degen 1103, Antena Dipolo de 16 metros e balum 4:1 em toroide. Direção Leste/Oeste, HCDX via DXLD) This is the first log I`ve seen since A-09 began confirming this new frequency ex-9420 (gh) ** ZAMBIA. 6165, ZNBC, Radio 2, 0420-0434, April 18, very weak but in the clear with English talk. Local African music. “Radio 2” ID. Completely covered by Chad at their 0434 sign on (Brian Alexander, PA, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ZANZIBAR. R. Tanzania-Zanzibar: 11735, 4/15/09, 1802-1901+ Decent carrier by 1855, but barely any audio; just faint (Andrew Yoder, PA, Drake R8 + 100'longwire (I rolled up 200' so that I could mow the yard), Cumbre DX via DXLD) ** ZIMBABWE [non]. 5995, Zimbabwe Community R., Apr 05 *2000-2038, 33433-34433, English, 2000 sign on with IS, Opening music, ID, Opening announce, Talk, ID at 2000 and 2010 and 2013 and 2030. 5995, Zimbabwe Community R., Apr 06 *2000-2038, 24332-34433, English and vernacular, 2000 sign on with IS, Opening music, Talk, ID at 2021 and 2026 and 2032. 5995, Zimbabwe Community R., Apr 07 *2000-2040, 33433, vernacular and English, 2000 sign on with IS, Talk and music, ID at 2028 and 2035, QRM from ORTM on c/c (Kouji Hashimoto, Japan, Japan Premium April 17 via DXLD) 5950, Zimbabwe Community R, Dhabbaya, United Arab Emirates, has moved again, this time to 5950 (ex 5995, ex 5935). Refers to the "broadcast from U.A.E. on 5950 kHz between 10 and 11 p.m." (= 2000-2100 UT). Fair signal on Apr 09, but 5995 was better in Johannesburg (Vashek Korinek, Florida Hills, Rep. of South Africa, DXplorer via DSWCI DX Window April 15 via DXLD) UNIDENTIFIED [non]. A tribute to "Wolfman Jack" I reported to you on 19 July 2008 on the noted frequency of 5300 Kc was apparently not a pirate station. It was a two days early debut of a tribute series to him broadcasted out of Lithuania with a stated frequency of 6055 Kc (Frederic Jodry, April 19, DX LISTENING DIGEST) An image? UNIDENTIFIED. Saludos cordiales, desde las 1810 estoy captando en 10000 kHz una emisión en árabe que no coincide con el servicio de Radio Cairo en 9990; me pregunto si es alguna señal espúrea o alguna emisión fantasma, la señal es muy débil, pero llego a captarlo en LSB u USB, evidentemente muy interferida por señal CW de estación horaria. 73 (José Miguel, April 14, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) I believe 10000 spur was previously correlated with Jordan on 9830. See if that matches. 73, (Glenn Hauser, ibid.) No further reports UNIDENTIFIED. 11740: Noted an unID Turk language, but could also be Tatar/Armenian/Georgian ??? at 0930-0945 UT Apr 17. S=6-7. Special program of Vatican Radio to eastern churches? (Wolfgang Büschel, Germany, April 17, DX LISTENING DIGEST) UNIDENTIFIED. 11946.6 aprox., 2042-2056*, 15 Apr, English, classical music program; underneath our RDPi 11945. It seemed their transmitter slowly moved to 11945 nearly at (abrupt) sign off. I was picking up too much QRM for the RDPi to be able to get any clue, but I'd say the sort of English accent sounded like BBC. 73, (Carlos Gonçalves, Portugal, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) UNIDENTIFIED. Noted VTC-ex-Merlin `Cello pause music from London control room continuously from 1400 to 1456 UT on 11960, today Apr 15th. 73 wb (Wolfgang Büschel, dxldyg via DXLD) UNIDENTIFIED. CODAR range detected April 15 at 1405: 12005-12060, and stronger (at least two transmitters mixing) 12100-12270. I rarely hear this as low as 12000, but those closer to a nearby transmitter have. The actual range must not have a sharp cutoff, so the closer and/or stronger the signal, the wider (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ UNSOLICITED TESTIMONIALS ++++++++++++++++++++++++ Hi Glenn, I have sent a donation for you. I look at DXLD often, and it is a help in my hobby. Thanks for your work. Sincerely (Chris Lewis, England with a donation via PayPal to woradio at yahoo.com) PUBLICATIONS ++++++++++++ 2009 EMISORAS DE FM Pre-orders Just a quick reminder, in case you forgot - I am currently taking pre-publication orders for the 2009 edition of 'Emisoras de FM'. For more info and ordering information, please go to the WTFDA website: http://www.wtfda.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=146&Itemid=75 (Jim Thomas, wdx0fbu, Milliken, Colorado, (40 miles north of Denver), 40 18.642'N 104 52.566'W, WTFDA via DXLD) But a later post said pre- publication orders closed April 17. I`ve been proofreading it (gh) BDXC DX PROGRAMMES, AFRICA, SOUTH ASIA & ME GUIDES UPDATED http://www.users.waitrose.com/~bdxc/articles.html (Alokesh Gupta, New Delhi, India, April 16, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Africa guide is particularly recommended, altho our enews about Enugu did not make the deadline (gh) SHORTWAVE YEARS IN REVIEW Saludos Lic Glenn, Me pregunto si depronto tiene REPASO DEL AÑO 2001 EN LA ONDA CORTA por GLENN HAUSER. Me encontré con este en la web traducido x Horacio Nigro, Depronto tiene de los otros años, 2002 hasta 2008 ?? Me podría dar el enlace. Gracias (Yimber Gaviría, Colombia, April 17, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Saludos Yimber, Dejé de revisar los años, el último, 2002: http://worldofradio.com/audiomid.html#voa 73, (Glenn Hauser, ibid.) RADIO PHILATELY +++++++++++++++ RUSSIA`S POPOV STAMP 16 march 2009 Russia has issued a stamp in block to remember 150 years of POPOV birthday. The info is coming from Christer Brunstroem compiler of the playdx philatelic page. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bclnews/attachments/folder/758811001/item/565650340/view 73's (Dario Monferini, 16 April, bclnews.it yg via DXLD) CONVENTIONS & CONFERENCES +++++++++++++++++++++++++ CONTINENTAL HOSTS DRM PANEL AT NAB Las Vegas - On April 21 from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. in the Continental Electronics booth (N7007) at the NAB Show, executives from several companies will discuss the benefits, features, receivers and transmitters of the Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM) system. The panelists include Ruxandra Obreja (BBC and DRM chair), Michel Penneroux (TDF), Jochen Huber(Transradio), Alexander Zink (Fraunhofer), Lindsay Cornell (BBC), Darko Cvjetko (Riz) and Dan Dickey (Continental Electronics). A Q&A session will be held after the presentations. A drinks reception will follow after that. Continental will also hold in-booth DRM briefings daily at 3:30 p.m. http://radiomagonline.com/convention_news/nab_show/nab_insider_04142009/#drm 'COMMERCIAL-GRADE' DRM+ SYSTEM WILL BE DEMONSTRATED AT NAB http://www.radioworld.com/article/78544 (via Alokesh Gupta, New Delhi, India, dxldyg via DXLD) RADIO EQUIPMENT FORUM +++++++++++++++++++++ IBB REMOTE MONITORING SYSTEM VIDEO A video with Bill Whitacre explaining how to listen to sounds recorded by the IBB Remote Monitoring System has been posted to YouTube. IBB operates a network of over 70 remote monitoring systems [RMSs] in order to determine and demonstrate the audibility of its own and others' broadcasts. Each RMS consists of an antenna, a radio and a computer attached to the internet. A simple text file script is used by the computer to collect and encode sound samples and bandscan information from the radio. YouTube Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GI9IPVTCGUE Webpage: http://monitor.ibb.gov/rms/ (via Mike Barraclough, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) POWERLINE COMMUNICATIONS ++++++++++++++++++++++++ AUSTRALIA SAVED FROM BPL? Hams down-under appear to be safe from the rollout of a nationwide Broadband over Powerline or BPL system. This as Australia's government announces that it will be building a system based on fiber optic technology. Graham Kemp, VK4BB, is in Brisbane with the details: The Australian Federal Government has announced its decision on Australia`s National Broadband Network. In a surprise move, instead of deploying a widely expected half-way-house fiber-to-the-node (FttN) solution from a consortium of companies, the Government is moving ahead with its own full-blown 100 Mb/s fibre to the home rollout, (FttH). The reported $43 billion project will include a mix of government and private sector funding which may or may not include telecommunications companies. Telecommunications analyst Paul Budde states: "This is the most ambitious infrastructure ever undertaken in Australia and will be the most ambitious FttH network anywhere undertaken in the world. The Australian Government is one of the few governments who, in a holistic way, understand the importance of broadband across the various sectors. This network is not just for high-speed Internet and entertainment but, more importantly, for healthcare, education, smart grids, etc." This is good news for Australians in general, and also for Australian radio amateurs. Australia's largest telecommunications carrier, Telstra, was excluded from the original selection process on the grounds of submitting a non-compliant bid, however, as Telstra owns most of the copper cable in the ground, any fiber-to-the-node solution which did not include Telstra would have resulted in a variety of 'alternative' access technologies used to connect the `node' to customers premises. Although there may be many steps along the way, the predominant access technology in Australian cities will now be fiber, and in less populated areas will likely be wireless. This decision would appear to remove the possibility of widespread interference to radio communications from any network-wide adoption of BPL technology, but still leaves as a concern the possibility of interference from in-home use of BPL as an internal distribution technology. The decision by Australia to opt away from BPL is likely a major blow to the world-wide implementation of this technology. This is because other nations will look at Australia's decision to go fiber and based upon it reconsider any commitment to BPL (WIA News via Amateur Radio Newsline Report 1653 - April 17 2009 via Mike Terry, dxldyg via DXLD) BRAZIL TARGETED FOR BPL There has been a lot of concern recently about PLC being authorized in Brasil, and its likely dire effect on the SW bands. Here`s an extensive article about it, 22 pages with grafix (gh) Hello Glenn, Following, a link to an article that I wrote (in Portuguese) with extracts of DX Listening Digest, credits linked to your page. The objective is warning about problems of BPL implementation in Brazil and how Broadcast HF could still be an interesting segment: http://archangelo.net/temp/plc/archangelo_plc_texto1.pdf (Flávio PY2ZX Archangelo, DX LISTENING DIGEST) LOCAL QRM --- MAN CAUSED NOISE Since the first week in April my neighborhood has been subjected to a warbling noise, not like any noise or hash I've ever heard. I recorded and examined a short segment using an audio editing program. The QRM extends from about 4325 kHz to 20800 kHz. I'll add the wav file to the DXLD Files section. The audio display (on the editing program) shows a series of pulses separated by a period of time that is about twice the duration of the pulse. It looks rather like this on the display (except the ^ is pointing down on my display) -^--^--^--^--^--^--^--^--^--^--^--^--^--^--^--^--^--^--^--^--^--^--^-- There are two different pulse rates (or audio frequencies); one about 650 Hz with a duration of about .05 (five/one hundredths) of a second. I count 32 pulses in .048 second as represented in the above illustration. -^--^--^--^--^--^--^--^--^--^- The second pulse is about 1000 Hz with a duration of about .01 (one/one hundredth) of a second. I count 10 pulses in about .01 second. See above. The two pulse rates alternate so that it takes about .058 second for both groups to appear one time. I don't see any relationship to 60 Hz line frequency. Although I haven't turned off power to the house, I have turned off every computer, and appliance in the house with no change in noise. Using only the internal whip on my Eton E-1 reduces the noise level dramatically, confirming my thought that the noise is external to my house. There is a power line running along my property line, about 80 feet from the house. The outdoor antennas vary in distance from the power line from about 40 feet to as much as about 100 feet. All of the outdoor antennas have some level of noise. Has anyone heard or seen a noise generator like this ? BPL ? Wireless networking ? (Jerry Lenamon, Waco, April 18, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Is this noise heard across the full sweep from 4325 to 20800 or is it at various points?? If so a few numbers would help. Is it 24 hour or only certain times? Has this been heard on more than one radio? Have you tried this a various locations in area? Is there anything "new" happening, that might give a clue?? This info would be needed to be any stab at what the cause might be (Keith, UK, ibid.) It's continuous although the strength is not uniform. The noise may be at S-9 on one frequency but only S-3 only 5 or 10 kHz away. It's audible on all of my shortwave radios. Destop and portable. It's heard all over my block. I haven't tried walking several blocks to see how widespread it is. I guess that is the next step. The only thing new is technology. No telling what my neighbors have added. I've heard that some of the new networking devices use shortwave spectrum but I don't know how they function. I haven't heard anything about BPL in my area. I haven't seen any utility crews working the area but I'm not around during the day (Jerry Lenamon, ibid.) This QRM sounds very much like the type of plug-in device used to distribute broadband and TV via the mains wiring. Here is the UK these "homeplug" devices are being widely used and they are causing havoc to SW reception across the country. They typically radiate QRM from 3 to 30 MHz, often with nulls in the ham bands. A group has been set up here in the UK to campaign over the issue and they have a web site and yahoo group. See http://www.ukqrm.org We also have a page about this on the BDXC web site with links to examples of the problem See http://www.bdxc.org.uk "Shortwave Interference from BT Vision Adaptors" (Dave Kenny, ibid.) Hi Jerry, This sounds like the Power Line Adapters (also known as Home Plugs) that we have here in the UK that send TV/data around the house using the mains wiring of that house. To do this they use the frequency range of 3 to 30 MHz. I know what it's like - I've had the same problem here for some time (although hopefully soon to be resolved). I have a page on the World DX Club webpages including some sample mp3 files of me stepping through selected shortwave ranges in 5 kHz steps at http://www.worlddxclub.org.uk/WDXC_UKQRM.html You should also look at http://www.ukqrm.org/ where the UKQRM Group is fighting to have these things banned (Alan Roe, Teddington, UK, ibid.) May Interfere with Short Wave Radios http://d-link.com/press/pr/?prid=493 D-LINK NOW SHIPPING NEXT-GENERATION POWERLINE KIT FOR EXPANDING THE HOME NETWORK USING EXISTING ELECTRICAL WIRING Equipped with D-Link Green™ Technology to Detect Data Transmissions and Power Down When Not in Use, Saves Energy and Costs "FOUNTAIN VALLEY, Calif., April 15, 2009 — D-Link, the end-to-end solutions provider for consumer and business, today introduced its next-generation PowerLine adapter kit, an ideal solution for connecting computers, high-definition (HD) media players, game consoles, network attached storage (NAS), and Internet content throughout the home." "With the new D-Link® PowerLine HD Ethernet Adapter Starter Kit (DHP-303) anyone can take advantage of existing home electrical wiring to create or extend a network. The kit includes two PowerLine wall plugs/ adapters. The DHP-303 turns every power outlet in the home into a wall-to-wall network for connecting when connected to a switch or wireless access point." "This product may interfere with devices such as lighting systems that have a dimmer switch or a touch-sensitive on/off feature, short wave radios, or other powerline devices that do not follow the Universal Powerline Association (UPA) standard." (via Benn Kobb, April 15, dxldyg via DXLD) DIGITAL BROADCASTING - DTV ++++++++++++++++++++++++++ SEVERAL ANALOG TV STATIONS TO SIGN OFF TODAY More analogs scheduled to sign off today. http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-09-589A3.pdf (Steve Rich, Indianapolis, IN, April 16, WTFDA via DXLD) See OKLAHOMA DIGITAL CHANNEL 6 IN NYC News from the New York City metro area: I caught WNYZ-LD Channel 6 on the air this evening using virtual channel 1-1 for an over-the air display. Pulse 87, the quasi-FM station using analog aural carrier frequency 87.75 MHz, was still on the air. It looks like they are going to try to make the digital TV signal and the faux 'FM' signal co-exist. Very interesting to see. Reasonable reception seen about 45 miles north of NYC in Northern Westchester. I am also getting DT carriers on channels 26, 32, 35 and 43. All five of these channels are licensed for DTVs as Island Broadcasting, Inc. I have not yet resolved the four UHF signals to see signal content. Hopefully, more to come (Karl Zuk, N2KZ, April 13, WTFDA via DXLD) FCC DTV COVERAGE MAPS, BEFORE & AFTER http://www.fcc.gov/mb/engineering/maps/ While a part of our well-known FCC site, I know that I never saw it before. It shows, for each full-power station, their pre- and post- transition coverage. More importantly, it shows the loss (and/or gain) for each station after the transition occurs. You will notice gains where previous adjacent channel interference was a blocker (see WKBW as it comes up close to Rochester's WROC. They had been on analog channels 7 and 8 respectively.) You'll also see how successful coverage in mountainous areas (see WHSV in Harrisonburg, VA) on low- band VHF becomes somewhat dicey as they transition to UHF over rough terrain. You can enter your address or a city name to pull up the relevant ("receivable") stations and then click on the call letters for particulars about the station. After that you can click on a detailed coverage map pre- and post-transition with gains and losses shown. You can even move the little cursor around on the Google Map to point exactly to your home or to that special DX site that may have identified for special reception. I'm finding it very informative. Cheers! (Rick Lucas, Rochester, NY, WTFDA Via DXLD) Rick, That is an excellent website. I have seen some of this information elsewhere, but it is all together in one location here. Their reception estimates are off some. Some digital signals at my location are much stronger than predicted and others are somewhat weaker. Some digitals which they predict I should not be able to receive come in very well (Bob Seaman, Hazleton, PA, ibid.) DIGITAL BROADCASTING - DRM See also BULGARIA; GUIANA FRENCH; INDIA; ++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ROMANIA; RUSSIA; SAIPAN; VATICAN; C & C What's screwing up shortwave is its continued use of Ancient Modulation (Benn Kobb, ABDX via DXLD) I don't know about that. I am not one who hates digital. It has a place above 30 MHz and is excellent above 220 MHz. DRM is too full of dropouts and can't handle fading to be effective on shortwave. If lower frequencies were stable enough, I would be very supportive of it. I personally have little problem with digital on the FM band even and wish the government would allow the stations to increase the power for it. I would love to hear HD again out here in the country. I just don't think DRM is viable on HF (Kevin Redding, TN, ibid.) It might be if power was increased to target areas & enough receivers were available. As far as digital goes on FM lets keep it with increased power & drop analog. Either that or offer converters like there are for digital TV (Robert M. Bratcher, TX, ibid.) Anyone who thinks digital modulation is viable on frequencies where propagation is via skywave is a damn fool. Period. End of discussion. (Harry Helms W5HLH, Corpus Christi, TX EL17, http://harryhelmsblog.blogspot.com/ ibid.) Harry and I agree 100% (would be more than 100% if possible). 73 KAZ wondering how much more his hobby will be ruined by stupidity and greed of the clueless (Neil Kazaross, IL/WI, ibid.) Shortwave broadcast should remain AM. Like iBOC AM, digital modes are useless during times of high geomagnetic flux (strong selective fading), or very weak signals / cochannel hets. The average African tribal member trying to get news and info on their crank-powered handheld shortwave radio would hear nothing but hash and buzz if all stations were digital. At least if you have a weak AM signal, it's still usually easily audible and intelligible even on the lowest-end cheap economy shortwave radios (Darwin Long, CA, ibid.) ``I personally have little problem with digital on the FM band even and wish the government would allow the stations to increase the power for it.`` I have a big problem with it, and if all the locals around here (17 or more) increased their iboc power I'd hang up the hobby and walk away. I've been darned close to doing it already. I would love to hear HD again out here in the country. The only place FM Dxing is any good anymore is in the country. Let's not put HD out there and ruin that, too (Mike Bugaj, Enfield, CT, ibid.) As far as skywave propagation goes, even without IBOC hearing reliably something from outside NA is a thrill, but when you add to that the new owner of Citadel which don't turn off WABC-HD Digital transmissions at night, then the two best frequencies for Latin American DX, 760 and 780, are lost. When I say there are lost, it means that, in the summer, when fewer foreign mediumwave and longwave signals are propagating, there would be NOTHING from South America on AM in the Montreal area. If I write a complaint to the FCC saying I'm an expatriate Colombian willing to hear news from RCN Cadena Basíca on 760 kHz (the Barranquilla repeater) and that the RCN Cadena Basíca Internet stream is unreliable, would they believe me? Nulling WABC also nulls Barranquilla in the way of WJR-760! I'm so frustrated. I haven't done too much DXing since WABC-770 went into using IBOC all night long, about two weeks ago. I even hear some of this hash against YVKS/WSB-750. I can't tell whether they are QRMing 790 or not, since the splatter from local CJAD-800 would be stronger than the next-to-adjacent WABC-770 IBOC hash. . . As far as shortwave is concerned, with the advent of satellite or Internet radio, I doubt any DRM SW broadcaster would start broadcasting mainstream Arabic pops or something like that to be heard around the world with the colourful sound of our hobby. Think about it: the biggest obstacle of DX is either the lack of targets or the huge amount of interference! On SW, we have a lack of targets (when I began DXing back in 2000, I was slightly more attracted by SW than MW) and on MW we are overwhelmed with QRM. . . Shortwave is DEAD. What are the major international broadcasters doing? Instead of testing DRM, more often than not, they cut down on their services to North America or they cut SW completely! What are the tropical bands broadcasters doing in countries like Colombia or Ecuador (and several years ago in Venezuela)? They left SW! I'm not an expert on the economy of broadcasting, but what is more expensive? To broadcast on SW using either IBOC or DRM technology or to broadcast on the Internet? We moved here from Romania back in 1997 and we had Internet here very quickly after our move. After several months, I found Internet less and less appealing. It's like long-distance calls. It's nothing unusual, you are feeling like anyone else. On mediumwave however, and even on shortwave, you feel like looking forward a huge amount of gold. Well, that was my 2 cents worth of it! May the good DX be with you! (Bogdan Chiochiu in Pierrefonds (Montreal's West Island), QC, ABDX via DXLD) Bogdan, We wrote, screamed and put all kinds of comments in to the FCC. What you fail to realize is that the Bush Administration and FCC Chairman Michael Powell did not give a steaming crap about the public. They wanted to care for the corporations. They took care of the corporations and the public be damned. They allowed IBOC on MW where it doesn't belong because the corporations asked for it. We had these arguments over and over since 1999. People from this list sent in scientific surveys and documents, they wrote about people in cars not being able to hear safety warnings, they wrote about being forced to buy radios, they wrote about everything and it still happened that we got IBOC on MW. Write until you wear out the buttons on your keyboard but the FCC doesn't give a fat stinking fig about what we want. What's done is done and we can't change it. All we can do is not whine about it and move on. Those of us on ABDX were most of the ones who complained from the DX world to the FCC in Docket 99-325. IRCA was not represented and a few from the NRC but not many made comments. The ones who did not comment seemed to be the biggest complainers when they found out what really happened once the noise generators were fired up. Sorry about 760 and 780 but they are gone. We can't hear them either so we feel the same pain. The real adult world stinks. Sorry you had to find out how things worked with this IBOC mess fouling the MW airwaves. If you want to hear South America, I suggest HF or net radio. ABDX does accept HF logs and net radio logs as well (Kevin Redding, ibid.) I agree 150%, I guess you could say I'm overmodulating in my agreement. Digital is best left to wires, cables and the like where things are predictable and certain. Pretty reasonable too, at UHF frequencies and above. Skywave on MW and SW, and tropo on FM [keep in mind that there are some parts of the world where tropo is a pretty regular thing] make digital problematic at best (Phil Rafuse, PEI, ibid.) More importantly, what is the future of analog broadcasting on the MW band? The economy in America is terrible and stations are starving for ad money. Some stations are beginning to go dark. Stations have fired their people and gone to the satellite to afford to stay on the air. Sometimes a station can sell the land under the antenna for more than they can make doing radio for many years. Few people under 30 listen to radio these days preferring CDs and iPods. The question should be, will AM radio be around in 10-15 years? IBOC will not be a big thing on MW unless the government mandates it. As it stands today, there is no reason for the government to mandate IBOC on MW. IBOC will be on MW for probably 10 more years and then finally gone. Sorry (Kevin Redding, ibid.) RDS Traffic I'm not sure what the point of RDS is, except maybe the equivalent of digital TV and HD Radio - humans always trying to make things better, better, better, even when what you have to start with is great. Although the latter two can kiss my rear end, RDS has been my friend, except when I'm DXing and it won't decode! If you mean traffic tags, such as the "TRAF" that shows up like on my RDS, naturally they keep those on 24/7 because it's part of their RDS that indicates that frequency runs traffic reports. It doesn't mean they will at 2 am, although some do, but it means that in general, they do. However, some don't. Traffic tags confuse me, because some stations that run them have overall weaker RDS signals. In the instance of one of my locals, the RDS readout completely decoded for a radius of about 60 miles. Then they added the traffic tag, and nothing but the traffic tag would show up, even within 10 miles of the transmitter. They've been switching back and forth between using it and not using it and it either takes out the RDS or is flawless. Must be switching between two different systems. But NO ONE has been able to tell me anything about RDS, even what kinds of systems there are, how much they cost, etc. Station format tags aren't correct usually because the station is run by a big corporation that hastily sets up RDS just for the hell of it and enters the wrong codes. Power 92 (WPWX), an urban station, is still running PTY Country, while R&B station WSRB down the road is also PTY Country. They're certainly not trying to attract country listeners to their stations. Even after telling them about it, 6 months later, not a thing has changed. Many stations haven't touched their RDS since it was turned on and I bet the employees don't have a clue how to work the systems. As for religious stations listing themselves as rock, every now and then I'm sure you get a station that does it on purpose, 99% of them probably because they have on-air fundraising and abuse the system for their own profit. If my car wouldn't show RDS messages while in motion, I would freak out. As an RDS message collector, I would be left in the dark, since my only radio is my car. Thankfully I can safely write down RDS messages while driving and doing other things, after 10 years of practice with such things. Gee, otherwise I'd probably fall asleep at the wheel without RDS or DXing keeping my attention!! I think the purpose of RDS is to --- well, I'm not sure. You'd think it is to get someone money, and the last time I saw one of those RDS systems - at WXXI - they're pretty expensive looking. But hey, hearing a song I like and seeing the title on the screen prevents writing down lyrics I sometimes don't understand. I'm all for that. 2008, which was my first year with RDS, was my best ever FM DX season due to those RDS messages. But would I be happier if it had never existed? Most certainly I would (Chris Kadlec, Fremont, Mich. http://www.beaglebass.com/dx April 15, WTFDA via DXLD) There are two traffic flags in the RDS standard. "TP" means the station regularly broadcasts traffic bulletins - and it would make sense for that flag to be set 24/7. "TA" means the station is broadcasting a traffic bulletin *NOW* and can be used to force the radio to switch from a station without the TA flag, or to silence the CD player & switch the radio on. – (Doug Smith W9WI, Pleasant View, TN EM66, ibid.) I know I wouldn't be happier without it. I have a good number of FM DX loggings over the past several years which I'd never have ID'ed without RDS. Not only that, there've been many times when I'd tune to a new frequency during an Es session, hear a strong signal, and within seconds the RDS unit would tell me it wasn't a new logging and I could move on (Russ Edmunds, WB2BJH, Blue Bell, PA, ibid.) PROPAGATION +++++++++++ E-skip thoughts - and a very interesting find from PBS I don't think anyone can chase sporadic-E skip for thirty years without developing their own "theories" (hypotheses would be more correct) about the phenomenon of Es. I always found the thunderstorm theory hard to swallow for a number of reasons. Thunderstorm activity increases in March and Es doesn't, there is a distinct "second season" for Es around the new year, but no increase in thunderstorms, and, on rare occasion, the whole world can erupt in out-of-season Es, with no unusual storm activity at all. Noticing that Es very often comes in a pattern of about 28 days, that some particular days were incredibly likely to have Es (e.g.: 22 May, Field Day weekend, and 17 July in years past), and that other phenomena, such as aurora and meteors, could enhance or even cause Es, I arrived at what I call the "pixie dust" hypothesis. The idea is that the Earth, spinning around the Sun, and otherwise speeding through space, is running into something in space that we can't see (hence "pixie dust"), perhaps a super fine powder or some kind of gas, was striking the E Layer, ionizing it, and stirring it up with turbulence - producing Es. The seasonal difference could be due to the orientation of the Earth in relation to its orbital motion changing through the year. In March, the North Pole (and its resultant magnetic "hole") is speeding head on into the space in front of it. In June, the North Pole is at "port", facing the sun, anything that the earth was running into would be drawn across it at great speed, like a dog sticking his head out the window of a Ferrari. The position of the Moon could explain the 28-day cycle (then again, so could the Sun's own axis rotation.) Tonight (4-14), WTVS showed a program, "400 Years of the Telescope", with the latter part of the program showing the latest advances in large telescope systems. The part that really got my attention dealt with an earth-based telescope system that measured scintillation of a known star and "subtracted" the scintillation from objects being observed, producing sharp images with an earth based telescope. Here is where Es comes in: "where something is being observed where there are no strong stars to use as a reference, an artificial star is produced, using a powerful laser. The laser beam is aimed (in the direction of that which is being observed) to produce the image of a star. This is possible because 100 KILOMETERS ABOVE THE EARTH'S SURFACE, IS A LAYER OF SODIUM ATOMS PRODUCED BY MICROMETEORS" (all caps for emphasis mine). 100 km? Sounds like the E-layer. Sodium produced by micrometeors? could this be "pixie dust"? Any comments - especially critical ones, would be appreciated. Or, better yet, just bring me a lot of skip! (Rob, N8NU EN81fs, Grant, WTFDA via DXLD) I believe the "second season" can be partially explained. Basically the Es season for the southern hemisphere bleeds over north of the equator, observed primarily by our southern radio enthusiasts, but much less frequently by us in the northern reaches. It seems to me that Es is more prevalent in the late spring rather than centered around the June date of sun retreat. In fact my most memorable Es outbreak occurred 57 years ago today when I, living just outside of New York City, was copying mid-west FM stations like they were local, and for hours on end (Allan Dunn, K1UCY, April 15 Speaking of 28 day cycles, I've noticed here that Es is more common between the 20th and 25th of the month during the off months (February-April and September-November). Everyone here knows the seasons change around the 21st in March, June, September, and December. I've never been a fan of the thunderstorm theory, either. (Danny Oglethorpe, Shreveport, LA, ibid.) Thunderstorms, of the usual variety have no connection. Thunderstorms - severe ones particularly in conjunction with a large weather front which also can produce tornadoes is an Es connection I can't ignore simply because it's happened so many times and in so many places. It's not the storms themselves which trigger the Es, but something about certain weather fronts seems to go right along with Es. The geomagnetic connection has been discussed here many times. It's another one of those situations that happens too frequently to be discarded but not often enough to be a rule. But if there's a large sunspot area producing storming, if it's still there the next period, that's the 28-day cycle at work. That there is a correlation between Es and some kind of disturbance in the E layer isn't in much dispute. It's what the various component elements are. My interest in these sorts of things has come into play with FM/TV DX, AM BCB DX ( where geomagnetic disturbances have other sorts of effects) and even in 2m hamming. I've read more scientific papers on geomagnetic effects than I can remember over the years, and it doesn't seem that science is a whole lot closer to having the answers than was the case 30 - 40 years ago! (Russ Edmunds, WB2BJH, Blue Bell, PA 40:08:45N; 75:16:04W, Grid FN20id, ibid.) I have long wondered if there are multiple causes - various factors which can ionize the e-layer and either on their own or in some combination create the e-skip effect. Perhaps there are different 'kinds' of e-skip, all behaving roughly the same way. Example: aurorally-induced Es that occur mostly at night, in northern latitudes, the summery midday stuff further south, etc. I think it's awesome that we're all up to our necks in something about which so little is known and/or proven. We should get some truly academic researchers to weigh in (Saul Chernos, Ont., ibid.) I recall that one summer during a tornado in the FL panhandle I got Es from that area, and nowhere else (John Ebeling in MN, ibid.) VENUS DISAPPEARS DURING METEOR SHOWER NASA Science News for April 17, 2009 A meteor shower. A crescent Moon. A disappearing planet. These three things will be on display next Wednesday, April 22nd, when the Moon occults Venus during the annual Lyrid meteor shower. Full story at http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/17apr_lyrids.htm?list1066436 (via Mike Terry, dxldyg via DXLD) METEOR SCATTER MECHANIX When a meteor strikes earth's atmosphere, a cylindrical region of free electrons is formed at the height of the E layer. This slender, ionized column is relatively long, and when first formed is sufficiently dense to reflect and scatter television and radio signals, generally observable from 25 MHz upwards through UHF TV, back to earth. Consequently an incident television or radio signal is capable of being reflected up to distances approaching that of conventional Sporadic E propagation, typically about 1500 km. A signal reflected by such meteor ionisation can vary in duration from fractions of a second up to several minutes for intensely ionized trails. The events are classified as overdense and underdense, depending on the electron line-density (related to used frequency) of the trail plasma. The signal from overdense trail has a longer signal decay associated with fading and is a physically a reflection from the ionized cylinder surface, while an underdense trail gives a signals of short duration, which rises fast and decays exponentially and is scatter from individual electrons inside the trail. Frequencies in the range of 50 to 80 MHz have been found to be optimum for meteor scatter propagation. The 88 - 108 MHz FM broadcast band is also highly suited for meteor scatter experiments. During the major meteor showers, with extremely intense trails, band III 175 - 220 MHz signal reception can occur. Ionized trails generally reflect lower frequencies for longer periods (and produce stronger signals) compared to higher frequencies. For example, an 8-second burst on 45.25 MHz may only cause a 4-second burst at 90.5 MHz. The effect of a typical visually seen single meteor (of size 0.5 mm) shows up as a sudden "burst" of signal of short duration at a point not normally reached by the transmitter. The combined effect of several meteors impinging on earth's atmosphere, while perhaps too weak to provide long-term ionisation, is thought to contribute to the existence of the night-time E layer. The optimum time for receiving RF reflections off sporadic meteors is the early morning period, when the velocity of earth relative to the velocity of the particles is greatest which also increases the number of meteors occurring on the morning-side of the earth, but some sporadic meteor reflections can received at any time of the day, least in the early evening. When a meteor strikes earth's atmosphere, a cylindrical region of free electrons is formed at the height of the E layer. This slender, ionized column is relatively long, and when first formed is sufficiently dense to reflect and scatter television and radio signals, generally observable from 25 MHz upwards through UHF TV, back to earth. Consequently an incident television or radio signal is capable of being reflected up to distances approaching that of conventional Sporadic E propagation, typically about 1500 km. A signal reflected by such meteor ionisation can vary in duration from fractions of a second up to several minutes for intensely ionized trails. The events are classified as overdense and underdense, depending on the electron line-density (related to used frequency) of the trail plasma. The signal from overdense trail has a longer signal decay associated with fading and is a physically a reflection from the ionized cylinder surface, while an underdense trail gives a signals of short duration, which rises fast and decays exponentially and is scatter from individual electrons inside the trail. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV/FM_DX (via Mike Terry, dxldyg via DXLD) NASA SUN PROBES WATCH OVER EARTH By Jonathan Amos, Science reporter, BBC News Scientists say they have demonstrated the principle of a very effective early warning system that would give notice of huge eruptions on the Sun. Two Nasa spacecraft have been used to track massive clouds of energetic particles thrown off our star. These eruptions, when they hit the Earth, can damage satellites, disrupt communications and harm astronauts. The Stereo probes have shown how two widely separated vantage points can be used to forecast an impact's arrival. Although Stereo is only a scientific research mission, the project team says its work illustrates clearly how an operational "space weather" early-warning system could work. "For the event we describe [in an upcoming scientific paper], we would have been able to give 24 hours' advance notice," said Dr Chris Davis, of the UK's Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, a key partner on the mission. "That's ample time to power down a satellite until the worst of the storm has passed; and if you're an astronaut on the space station, you would have had plenty of time to get into an area that has much better shielding." The Stereo (Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory) spacecraft were launched on 25 October 2006. 'Petit dejourner' [sic] One probe was put just ahead of the Earth as it moves around the Sun; the other was stationed just behind. They have been allowed to gradually drift apart, and that separation has enabled the orbiters to construct 3D images of the Sun-Earth system. Scientists are using these pictures to model the structure and movement of Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) . . . Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/7998867.stm Published: 2009/04/14 18:15:03 GMT © BBC MMIX (via Dan Say, BC, DXLD) http://www.spaceweather.com/ has an interesting comment on the present weakness of coronal mass ejections (CMEs). These are the solar upsets that are often associated with auroral events. Best wishes, (Nick Hall-Patch, Victoria, BC, Canada, April 15, IRCA via DXLD) ###