lunedì 31 gennaio 2011

Glenn Hauser logs January 30-31, 2011

** CHINA. Firedrake Jan 30, all //:
13960, poor-fair at 2342
14950, good at 2342
15900, fair at 2343
10300, good with flutter at 2347
 8400, poor at 2348
During these few minutes I searched continuously between 8 and 19 MHz; quite a good haul, five of them, for this time of day (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** CHINA. 15550, while searching for Firedrake, one Chinese talk broadcast of significance, at 2352 Jan 30 with usual over-assertive style in dialog, announcements, fair with flutter; timesignal to 2400* and off. Aoki shows this is jamming RFA via Tinian, also until 2400, while CNR1 supposedly continues until 0800, 100 kW, 175 degrees from Beijing 572 site, but none of that audible (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** CUBA. 6010, RHC, Jan 31 at 0631, `Ed Newman` in mailbag says the USA is refusing mail from RHC; in fact there is no postal service between Cuba and USA now. Listeners have been wondering why they haven`t received their 2011 RHC calendar cards. E-mail inquiries are being replied with a Cuban government notice about this. Meanwhile, RHC is (finally) designing an E-QSL. Naturally, RHC blames the US, while this BBC story says it was Cuba`s decision to block all mail:

``CUBA STOPS POSTAL SERVICE TO US 'UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE'
21 January 2011 Last updated at 16:30 ET
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-12257412

Large numbers of letters and parcels have been refused entry to the US

Cuba has suspended all postal deliveries to the United States until further notice. The suspension follows the introduction of stricter security measures by the US last year after the attempted mailing of explosives from Yemen.

The Cuban postal service says large amounts of mail were refused entry and returned in the following months. Correspondents say the cost of so many returns may have led to the decision to stop the service.

Postal service between the US and Cuba had been suspended for 42 years after Cuba's communist revolution, and only resumed in 2009 via third countries.

[is this true? Weren`t RHC QSLs etc., getting thru somehow by P-mail before 2009??? --- gh]

President Barack Obama's decision to renew the service was widely seen as a move towards repairing relations between the two countries.

Its suspension is likely to be interpreted as a setback to the president's efforts at easing tension and improving people-to-people ties between Cuba and the US.

The US tightened its security on air cargo after bombs hidden in cartridges were intercepted on route from Yemen to the US in cargo planes.``

Finally have discovered additional times for RHC`s Spanish DX program `En Contacto`. UT Monday Jan 31 at 0733 I come across it on 6050, 6060, 6120, 6150, 5040 until 0746, so it must have started circa 0731.

Manolo was playing an old clip of R. Progreso, the station whose building RHC shares at Infanta 105. Another anniversary/birthday, I suppose.

Then he announced FOUR times for his show, with all the frequencies for each: I hope I got them all copied as given.

1, to America, Caribbean, Sunday 1435 on 11760, 13750, 13780, 13680, 11730, 12040, 15360, 15120, 15230, 6140 [wrong: not all of these are on, but instead on El Hugazo frequencies 15370, 17750, which start circa 1400 on Sundays]

2, ``sobre las 2005``, meaning approximately, on 11730, 12040, 15230, 6140 [this is the interim `new` day-time I had been searching for but never managed to find]

3, ``sobre las 2240``, on 11730, 12040, 9820, 15230 [not exactly: see our previous monitoring of all frequencies in use at this time]

4, `0235 [UT Monday], on 6140, 11760, 6060, 6120, 15360, 15120; and to Europe on 11770 [sic --- 15120 is certainly not on in the tarde, and 11770 Europe applies to 2240, not 0235!]

HOWEVER, I was axually hearing EC at a fifth time he still doesn`t know about: UT Monday 0730v!

Next item referred to audio archive of his and many other Spanish DX programs at
http://www.geocities.com/programasdx/encontacto.htm
He listed the others, even including Mundo Radial de Glenn Hauser!

Unfortunately, this website ceased to be maintained a year or two ago, and now is Unfound by geocities, nor even in the Wayback Machine as GC suggests, which means it`s probably in the 6-month limbo period.

Instead, the current site for Programas DX is:
http://programasdx.com/

Including this very latest EC audio at
http://programasdx.com/encontacto.htm
(Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** EGYPT. 9305, R. Cairo general service in Arabic continues active, Jan 30 at 2336, VG but moderately distorted. Say, how are things going in Tunisia now with everybody focused on Egypt?? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** EQUATORIAL GUINEA. 6250.0, RNGE, poor Jan 31 at 0628 continuous Spanish talk, ute beeps (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** GUAM. 12025, Jan 31 at 1520, English with S Asian accent about Noah, Exodus, poor signal. HFCC shows it`s KSDA, 100 kW, due west from Agat at 1500-1530 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** NEW ZEALAND. RNZI 11725-AM and 11670-11675-11680 DRM were the OSOB, Jan 31 at 0643, poor. BTW, on UT Saturdays around this time they have a variety show from National including comedy (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** OKLAHOMA. 960, KGWA Enid, altho the original station of the AM-FM combo, is now the poor stepchild no one really cares about: Jan 31 at 0650 UT, open carrier; came to life for newcast at 0703 check, but back to dead air at 0707. So the automation can handle the news, but not whatever else was supposed to be on.

I was checking because the usual mixing product with KCRC on 3310 was not being heard, and I suspected one of them was off the air --- but KCRC 1390 was nominal, and lack of modulation on 960 carrier should not have affected the spur (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** OMAN. 15140, R. Sultanate of Oman, making a rare audible appearance, but only poor, Jan 31 at 1459 with YL narrating something in English, 1500 interrupted for switch to Arabic service, with louder modulation, ID, fanfare, and presumed news. S9+10 peaks with deep fades (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** SAIPAN [and non]. 12090, Jan 30 at 2255 Asian song, good signal better than fluttery adjacent 12095 BBC. 2300 YL ``This is KFBS, Saipan, from the Mariana Islands in the Pacific`` and immediately off, as was BBC. Aoki shows 12090 at 2230-2300 in Vietnamese, 100 kW, 278 degrees from Marpi. BBC is 250 kW, 27 degrees from Ascension, taking a one-hour break until 0000 resuming via Singapore (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** SOUTH AFRICA. 5910, fair Jan 30 at 2332, BBC News headlines, 2333 opening `Something Understood`, and then cutting off the air. Another overrun by SENTECH, as BBC is supposedly only at 2200-2300, 100 kW, 330 degrees (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** SPAIN. 15385, REE Emisión Sefarad, fair Monday Jan 31 around 1445, interview in Ladino with an Auschwitz survivor (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 9405, is WINB still on the air overnight? If not, there will probably be no press release to that effect. Jan 31 at 0641, I strain for a signal, and with BFO on occasionally there is a trace. However, the same situation applies to 9370v for WTJC, which often is audible when WINB is not, so maybe they are both ``propped-out`` tonight. WYFR was also VP-JBA on 31m, whilst BBC was S9+12 on 9410 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

UNIDENTIFIED. 3819-LSB, Jan 31 at 0655-0723+ very informal ham net, with tongue-in-cheek often funny comments mentioning
http://www.popebusters.com --- Paul being an *sshol*, hoping to come back as a tube of Vagisil, hee hee. Talkovers (double transmissions) happened several times, as they don`t like to say ``over``, and nary an ID. I was around here checking for HD2IOA on 3810 which was not heard (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

UNIDENTIFIED. 15209.3v, still hearing het upon much stronger WYFR 15210.0, Jan 31 at 1458 while FR was in Portuguese, and a dekaminute later when in English. Still nothing in latest HFCC, Aoki or EiBi to account for anything else on 15210 before or after 1500. So could be a spur. Need monitoring of this in Eurafroasia where WYFR is not such a blockage (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ###