domenica 3 maggio 2009

Glenn Hauser logs May 2, 2009

** BULGARIA. Just tuned in 9800 at 2229 May 2 to hear the Minute Waltz played on a wind instrument, weak signal off at 2230* without announcement. Since it`s an -00 frequency, the prime suspect is R. Bulgaria, and indeed nothing but it is scheduled there, at 2130-2230 in Spanish (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** ISRAEL. 15785, weak mix of music and talk, fading out, modulation seems distorted, but carrier is stable, May 2 at 2146 and still there at 2201 presumably in Hebrew as nothing else known here but Galei Zahal, IDF station. HFCC ignores it; Aoki has it only at 07-16 with 5 kW non-direxional, so I`ll have to go with EiBi showing time as 06-24. Only other station at any time on 15785 is CRI via Xi`an not continuously between 0100 and 0700 in English, Chinese (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** MOROCCO [and non]. 15345, RTM, fair with Arabic music, May 2 at 2148, no sign of Argentina, altho Chile was VG on 15410; but RTM still on at 2201 with YL in Arabic news, and now a low het barely audible, BFO confirming two carriers on slightly different frequencies. Morocco still on at 2205, back to music, so suspended efforts to hear RAE at the moment (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** SAUDI ARABIA. BSKSA, non-buzzy 11820, again in the clear, May 2 at 2158 check with Qur`an, tnx to RHC`s move away May 1 to 11770 after we exposed their big mistake in ever going on 11820 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** TURKEY. VOT, 9830, English to North America, Saturday May 2 at 2221 had Seref reading letters from listeners; did not sound like mere reception reports, but hard to make much of it due to severe co-channel RTTY QRM; yet it was indeed ``DX Corner`` as announced ending at 2226. I tried various bandwidths on two receivers, USB and LSB, stepping up to 3 kHz either side, and could not get rid of the RTTY which must be centered exactly on 9830.0.

Therefore VOT would be well advised to get off this frequency, which has been occupied by RTTY for ages, and should never have been chosen in the first place. At this time there was nothing on 9825 or 9835, so a 5 kHz shift should fix it. Per online listings, 9825 is clear during this hour, altho VOA starts Spanish at 2300 from Greenville and probably would be running open carrier long before then; I did not check. Portugal could run as late as 2300 on 9820, which would be a problem, altho not today, off earlier.

Nothing listed on 9835. If Radio República were to resume 9840 at 21-23 drawing Cuban jamming, that could be a problem, but no sign of that. Overall, the better choice would be for VOT to shift up to 9835, unless they want to look for an opening further afield (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 15600, WYFR preaching in Spanish bothered by squealing, extremely distorted modulation, May 2 at 2149. At first I thought its own transmitter was defective, but then it became clear the QRM was from an external source, since it did not match WYFR modulation and worsened during WYFR fades. Same situation after 2200 when WYFR switched to French.

Right next to it at S9+20 on 15610 is WEWN, 250 kW at 40 degrees in English, and guess what --- matching spur on 15620 except it was not noticeable because it had nothing to beat against, until I turned on the BFO. So this is the WEWN transmitter we have recently complained about putting out plus/minus 10 kHz spurs, e.g. on 9330 and 9350 from ex-fundamental 9340, but the same problem goes back many years on many frequencies. Any station daring to broadcast only 10 kHz away from WEWN is asking for it. Catholix vs Protestants! (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. WWCR, 13845, inbooming May 2 at 2154 evidently with HF sporadic E assistance, so strong that under DGS I could hear modulation from another WWCR transmitter bleeding thru, confirmed as // 7465 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ###