** CHINA. Hunting for Firedrakes the morning of May 23: conditions depressed, and did not find any between 8 and 19 MHz except: 14420 at 1316, good signal, // weaker 15600.
Note: some of these Firedrakes are likely coming from EAST TURKISTAN sites Kashi or Urumqi, but since SAFRT refuses to register their jammers with HFCC, we can`t be sure. It makes propagational sense for jammers targeting east or central China to be sending from an appropriate skip distance in west `China` (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** CUBA. RHC audio pretty distorted on 11760, May 23 at 1310 during Despertar con Cuba. Wake up and fix it! // 12000 was OK, and well atop the VOR Chinese co-channel. Fortunately, 11760 was not splattering or putting out any detectable spurs; the 22 and 19-mb frequencies were not distorted, either (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** EAST TURKISTAN. Middle-of-night 16 and 19m opening from China May 23 not nearly as good as 24 hours before, but at 0622 on 17680 hearing Chinese-accented Spanish, fair with deep fades, which checks as CRI via Kashi, 294 degrees for Spain (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) see also CHINA
** NORTHERN MARIANA ISLANDS. Unlike the night before, R. Free Asia in Chinese very good on 17880 and 17615 at 0623 May 23, well atop the ChiCom CNR1 jamming if it was audible at all, due to propagational variation. RFA 21550 also JBA (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A [and non]. On Saturdays only, 15170 is not blocked by REE Costa Rica, so May 23 at 1323 I was hearing HOA singing, S9+10 with fades, but undermodulated; still 1335 with weak talk. Per Aoki this is the VOA Somali service via MADAGASCAR, 1300-1400, 250 kW at 359 degrees.
VOA English, 17585 Greenville, often barely audible, but assisted by sporadic E, loud and clear on May 23 at 1426 with anti-AIDS PSA, the underlying assumption being that sex otherwise is acceptable! This is one of those-split-hour transmissions, nonsensically switching transmitter sites in the middle, both aimed at the same target from widely divergent direxions. In this case it`s Greenville 250 kW at 94 degrees until 1430, then Udorn, THAILAND from 1430, 250 kW at 276 degrees, both for all of Africa except the North.
Normally I can`t hear the second half as 16m propagation from Thailand at that hour is not exactly ideal, but this time I could. The next promo at 1429 for VOA`s hip-hop show was cut off sharply at 1429:30 for the Yankee Doodle Dandy sign-off routine from Greenville, but barely audible underneath I could hear a separate YDD as Thailand was signing on. Greenville left its open carrier on until 1438:15* making a SAH of 200/minute = 3 and a third Hz, with the much weaker Thai signal. This was a mixed blessing; the carrier helped to squelch the noise level, but it was still too much to make Udorn readable. At 1450 recheck, Udorn alone was just barely audible.
Now in Africa, assuming roughly equal propagation at that hour from NC and Thailand, the modulation clash at 1429-1431 plus the additional 7 minutes overlap amounts to VOA interfering totally unnecessarily with itself! If they insist on this nonsense of switching sites in the middle of an hour, it should be DCI and CS == one drops carrier immediately and the other crash-starts, so at worst there would be a brief interruption or overlap glitch in the progression of the programming content, which goes on relentlessly. Is anyone paying attention at IBB frequency management? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) See also NORTHERN MARIANA ISLANDS
** U S A. Since thanks to HF sporadic E, WWCR was inbooming again May 23 at 1327, 15825 so strong I could hear the squeal, and 13845 so strong I could hear the crosstalk from 7490 modulation, I looked again for the WWRB harmonic on 18770, and there it was, weak but fading up to S4, // 9385 with Alex Scourby biblical pontifications. But still, WWCR 9980 harmonic not making it on 19960 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ###
Note: some of these Firedrakes are likely coming from EAST TURKISTAN sites Kashi or Urumqi, but since SAFRT refuses to register their jammers with HFCC, we can`t be sure. It makes propagational sense for jammers targeting east or central China to be sending from an appropriate skip distance in west `China` (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** CUBA. RHC audio pretty distorted on 11760, May 23 at 1310 during Despertar con Cuba. Wake up and fix it! // 12000 was OK, and well atop the VOR Chinese co-channel. Fortunately, 11760 was not splattering or putting out any detectable spurs; the 22 and 19-mb frequencies were not distorted, either (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** EAST TURKISTAN. Middle-of-night 16 and 19m opening from China May 23 not nearly as good as 24 hours before, but at 0622 on 17680 hearing Chinese-accented Spanish, fair with deep fades, which checks as CRI via Kashi, 294 degrees for Spain (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) see also CHINA
** NORTHERN MARIANA ISLANDS. Unlike the night before, R. Free Asia in Chinese very good on 17880 and 17615 at 0623 May 23, well atop the ChiCom CNR1 jamming if it was audible at all, due to propagational variation. RFA 21550 also JBA (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A [and non]. On Saturdays only, 15170 is not blocked by REE Costa Rica, so May 23 at 1323 I was hearing HOA singing, S9+10 with fades, but undermodulated; still 1335 with weak talk. Per Aoki this is the VOA Somali service via MADAGASCAR, 1300-1400, 250 kW at 359 degrees.
VOA English, 17585 Greenville, often barely audible, but assisted by sporadic E, loud and clear on May 23 at 1426 with anti-AIDS PSA, the underlying assumption being that sex otherwise is acceptable! This is one of those-split-hour transmissions, nonsensically switching transmitter sites in the middle, both aimed at the same target from widely divergent direxions. In this case it`s Greenville 250 kW at 94 degrees until 1430, then Udorn, THAILAND from 1430, 250 kW at 276 degrees, both for all of Africa except the North.
Normally I can`t hear the second half as 16m propagation from Thailand at that hour is not exactly ideal, but this time I could. The next promo at 1429 for VOA`s hip-hop show was cut off sharply at 1429:30 for the Yankee Doodle Dandy sign-off routine from Greenville, but barely audible underneath I could hear a separate YDD as Thailand was signing on. Greenville left its open carrier on until 1438:15* making a SAH of 200/minute = 3 and a third Hz, with the much weaker Thai signal. This was a mixed blessing; the carrier helped to squelch the noise level, but it was still too much to make Udorn readable. At 1450 recheck, Udorn alone was just barely audible.
Now in Africa, assuming roughly equal propagation at that hour from NC and Thailand, the modulation clash at 1429-1431 plus the additional 7 minutes overlap amounts to VOA interfering totally unnecessarily with itself! If they insist on this nonsense of switching sites in the middle of an hour, it should be DCI and CS == one drops carrier immediately and the other crash-starts, so at worst there would be a brief interruption or overlap glitch in the progression of the programming content, which goes on relentlessly. Is anyone paying attention at IBB frequency management? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) See also NORTHERN MARIANA ISLANDS
** U S A. Since thanks to HF sporadic E, WWCR was inbooming again May 23 at 1327, 15825 so strong I could hear the squeal, and 13845 so strong I could hear the crosstalk from 7490 modulation, I looked again for the WWRB harmonic on 18770, and there it was, weak but fading up to S4, // 9385 with Alex Scourby biblical pontifications. But still, WWCR 9980 harmonic not making it on 19960 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ###
