domenica 25 aprile 2010

Glenn Hauser logs April 24-25, 2010

** CHILE. CVC, Calera de Tango, is STILL putting out big mushy spurs from the HCJB relay transmitter on 11920, April 24 at 2310 difficult to pinpoint, but with BFO they are centered around 11897.6 and 11942.4, i.e. plus and minus 22.4 kHz. Sometimes they are closer to 20 kHz displacement, or even 18. Portuguese talk and music from fundamental are also audible on the spurs. This started as soon as the relay deal did last October, or was it September (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** CHINA. Firedrake April 24: full bandscan found only a JBA signal on 13970, April 24 at 2318 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** CUBA [and non]. 9660, in Kreyòl, April 24 at 2305, axually matching RHC`s posted schedule for 2300-2330 to Caribbean, also supposed to be on 17705 at same time to S America, not checked. At 2330, 9660 had converted to Portuguese, and that is not on the schedule; in fact, 9660 is unaccounted for between 2330 and Spanish from 0000. It has adjacent interference from Romania 9655.

At 2315, RHC Spanish on 12030, but missing from 12020 (and so is Portugal, this being a Saturday). But at 0012 April 25, 12030 is off and 12020 is on, with same bad crackly audio as yesterday. At 0015 I hear the same defects on poor // 15380.

At 0018 April 25, 5970 RHC in Spanish has co-channel QRM under it, in Dutch; what could that be? RHC // 6000 with no QRM. The victim on 5970 at 0025 closed with the overplayed Orange anthem. Yes, RNW is already scheduled in HFCC for 0000-0027 due south from Bonaire. There would be no such collision if non-HFCC Cuba adhered to its own schedule showing no 5970 until *0100 in English (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** HUNGARY. 6150, at 0056 April 25, open carrier and intermittent tones, 0100 opening in Hungarian, therefore what`s left of R. Budapest, to North America but no English; believed to be still transmitted from Hungary but not for much longer (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** KUWAIT. 15540, R. Kuwait in English again on Saturday April 24 at 1831 check during newscast, good signal. The main newscast on this 18-21 transmission is at 1830, with a summary near the end (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** ROMANIA. There have been some recent changes to RRI`s schedule, including English at 00-01. On April 25 at 0007 I was hearing ``The Week`` on 9580 and weaker 7385, not 7335 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** RUSSIA. 9890, V. of Russia in English at 2308 April 24 with ID, starting ``Music & Musicians`` with Chaikofsky theme, then bells. ACI from DentroCuban jamming and VOA on 9885, almost evitable by sidetuning upward. But there is also a SAH directly on 9885, and the only thing else at 23-24 is BBCWS in English USward from Thailand at 25 degrees. VOR site is Armavir a.k.a. Krasnodar in Russia itself, per the main three online A-10 schedules. Don`t you believe Stewart MacKenzie`s report, already published somewhere, claiming Tajikistan is involved on 9890 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** SPAIN. 15160, REE in Spanish at 2319 April 24, ``Diario de América`` program, // 9620 and synchronized, so not Costa Rica. 15160 is 242 degrees from Noblejas to South America (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** TURKEY. Contrary to what Seref Isler said a month ago, the 2200 UT English broadcast from VOT is not carrying the next UT day`s program content, despite being after local midnight. UT Saturday April 24, DX Corner still on today at 2217-2230* instead of UT Friday. I tuned in 9830 just in time, but reception poor so I brought up the webcast ASAP. And later confirmed to repeat UT Sunday at 0317 on webcast, i.e. on the same old schedule as before.

Seref wings it by reading and replying to some e-mails he has printed out, instead of the usual scripted shows. This was nothing but a mailbag with some reception reports, and hard to differentiate from the Wednesday program Letterbox. At least he`s not plagiarizing material from DX Listening Digest any more, but calling it a DX program is a bit of a stretch, with nothing resembling DX or media news.

At one point he refused to promise a QSL since someone had not provided any proof of reception. At another point, he said they *always* QSLed, wondering why someone sent a follow-up after 99 days. He also said if you want to get an answer on this program, better send by e-mail rather than p-mail, which apparently is just too much trouble to handle, but someone in the office does collect the stamps, so don`t ask for any of those either (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 12160, WWCR-2 confirmed with WORLD OF RADIO`s Saturday 1630 broadcast April 24, this time inbooming since a sporadic-E opening was in progress reaching above 88 MHz in some locations. But reverb has been added, not on my original audio file. Have also noticed this on some other WWCR programming.

I did not get the 0230 UT Sunday broadcast checked early enough on 4840, but when I tuned in at 0258, Voice of Salvation was ending, sounded like more than a promo, no mention on DX Block and into next program. Online schedule not updated since April 9; we`ll have to see if this is a permanent change (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 9690, April 24 at 2329 good signal from WHRI ending program ``Living Like Jesus Miracle Hour``, with contact info in Philippines too fast and too accented to copy even if I had wanted to, then WHR promo, and 2330 ``British Israel World Federation``, from Toronto, from one fringe to another (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 7505.7, open carrier at 0058 April 25, occasional bit of hi-pitched audio cutting on and off, then OC until finally 0104 WRNO ID mentioning transmitter site of New Orleans, Louisiana, not really a sign-on, another ID and into music (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** VATICAN. When I heard Vietnamese on 12035 in the sideband of Cuba 12030, April 24 at 2316, I thought of Vietnam. Seems to me VOV used to be around this frequency. But now it`s that other V-land, broadcasting direct from Santa Maria di Galeria, 500 kW at 75 degrees, 2310-2400. That means it could include that 2.5-minute English prélude which we used to hear on 9600 before Vietnamese at 2314, thanks to sloppy switching (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** ZAMBIA. 1Africa, CVC, is still on the wrong frequency, 9540 instead of 5940 as scheduled at 19-22. Or is it? Registered on 5940, but is it pure luck that there is no collision with anything on 9540, while there would be a collision with Iran via Lithuania on 5940? Maybe CVC intended to use 9540 all along, and ``5940`` was a mistaken entry in HFCC. I`ve advised CVC HQ in UK about this anomaly.

Rechecked 9540, April 24 at 2149, gospel rock, 2153-2159 extremely overwrought dramatization with screaming, something about the international airport in Tanzania. Gospel rap at 2200 until abruptly cut off air at 2203* without so much as a good-night, frequency announcement, or please-retune-to.

I say ``gospel`` but that is only an assumption since any religious content is unclear, due to rapid pace and accents, hard to tell what they are saying or singing. Gotta hand it to these stealth evangelists: they really know how to suck in today`s modern young Africans (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ###