venerdì 25 marzo 2011

Glenn Hauser logs March 24-25, 2011

** ANTARCTICA. 15476, another week completes with LRA36 still a no-show, checked Friday March 25 at 1310, while Turkey had a fair signal on 15480 // stronger 15350 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** AUSTRALIA [and non]. 7240, RA after 1400 to Pacific and hence USward, is usually in the clear, but March 25 at 1411 there`s an SSB ham net not needing any other BFO. One in St Louis; they were complaining about the QRM, ``the broadcaster is just about covering you up``, but seemed to think they could not QSY to 7235 or 7245. I also checked for RA on 7140, as has been reported recently, evidently an inexplicable spur, but nothing heard there (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** CHINA. Firedrake March 25:
 8400, poor at 1228
10300 good with flutter at 1236; very poor at 1537 recheck
15375, fair mixing with something at 1308 and 1357. Now 8400 and 10300 are off so cannot compare whether //. The target is R. Free Asia in Tibetan, 75 degrees via UAE at 11-14 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** CUBA. 5025, R. Rebelde, March 25 at 0517 with distorted undermodulated audio during talk, rather like out of phase stereo into mono. A shame, as this has lots of good music.

6010, RHC by 0517 March 25 was on in English, and 11760 off as well as Spanish on 5040 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** GREECE. 12105, March 25 at 0053, Greek talk from VOG, weaker than // 9420 and 7475. 12105 is B-10 scheduled at 23-03, 285 degrees (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** GUATEMALA. Please monitor our signal --- Dear Glenn, We have repaired our transmitter and we are testing with only 100 Watts. We need to know if we are on frequency. We are going to increase to all power (maybe 500 or 600 Watts) later. We are checking the amplifier right now. They are all repaired. We ask you monitor the signal and Please send us your report. Thank you and Blessings! (Edith Madrid, R. Verdad, Guatemala, 2327 UT March 24, to gh via DX LISTENING DIGEST)

Edith, I just checked at 0005 UT --- 6:05 pm your time, right? It is not dark yet and there is a lot of noise on the band, but I detect a very weak carrier just slightly below 4055.0 (NOT 4052.5), so if you are now trying for 4055, you are very close (if that is really TGAV). I can`t measure it exactly, but I would estimate about 4054.98 or .99. I would hope there is nothing else on 4055 it could be mistaken for. It seems that this 4055 is closer to correct than 4052.5 which was a little further off to the low side. I will check later in the evening when it is fully dark (Glenn to R. Verdad, ibid.)

Thank you, Glenn. I think we'll try to put on the full power tomorrow morning (Friday). We need to do some adjustments. May God bless you (Dr. Édgar Madrid, Radio Verdad, ibid.)

By 0040 some audio was making it. Now at 0115 UT your signal is much better, and I can hear talk in Spanish. It seems very close to 4055.0, also comparing it with Spain on 6055.0. There is however a weaker carrier on the high side causing a heterodyne about 0.2 kHz. Possibly that is from my computer. I may have a chance to turn it off before my next check (Glenn Hauser, ibid.)

Thank you, Glenn for your report. Radio Verdad is still transmitting in 200 Watts today. Eng. Rafael Wayne Borthwick from Canada is here in Guatemala helping my father. They will continue working tomorrow. Please monitor the signal tomorrow. We appreciate all your reports. My father will explain you with more details. Many thanks, (Edith Madrid, ibid.)

[Later:] Since 0130 UT signal has been much better and mostly readable. Still heterodyne from 4055.2 which is not from an internal source here. Not a major problem but I am surprised to be hearing that. Have you turned up the power? (Glenn to RV, ibid.)

Thank you, Glenn. By that time, we had put on 200 watts power. We hope to put on 500 or more watts power tomorrow Friday (in the morning?). May God bless you (Édgar Madrid, Radio Verdad, ibid.)

However, at 0515, 4055 was a bit weaker vs the het on the hi side. I see in DXLD yg that Bryan Clark in NZ was also getting a carrier with weak audio at 0533 on 4055.2 and thought that was R. Verdad (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** JAPAN [non]. 9770, NHKWRJ in English, March 25 at 0528 closing with Robert Jefferson saying goodbye as he is leaving radio to become financial correspondent for NHK World TV starting Monday. Also mentioned there would be a format change in the half-hour English radio broadcasts starting next week, but did not catch exactly what it is. Of course, they have suspended most or all of their regular features for coverage of the triple-whammy (not that NHK ever uses this term, and I do not mean it to be disrespectful). This 9770 relay via FRANCE at 0500-0530 is moving March 27 to 11970 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** LIBYA. 17725, VOAf from the GJ, already in English March 25 at 1401 talking about Africa, poor signal and still nothing on 21695, altho at this time, even Spain had nothing but JBA carriers on 21610, 21570, 21540 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** OKLAHOMA. 92.1, KAMG-LP, Enid, March 24 at 2046 UT with musicalabanza, super-hype non-ID as ``estás escuchando tu radio 92.1, somos Maranatha!!!`` (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** RUSSIA. 12055, March 25 at 1256, Russian tune-up intermittent tones, 1258 OC, 1259 Golos Rossii sign-on with music I think including some notes from the old R. Moscow IS, 1400 timesignal 3.5 seconds late compared to WWV (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** SPAIN. 17595, REE, March 25 at 1540 as I tune across, there is Allison Hughes with another token 3-minute English newscast, 1541 turning it over to Arabic. This M-F 1530-1545 quadrilingual segment on this and several other frequencies started unexpectedly last fall, and is omitted from REE schedules showing nothing but Spanish around this time. Including the new A-11 at
http://programasdx.com/principal_archivos/frecuenciasreea11.pdf
Perhaps it will shift to 1430-1445 next week, perhaps not (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. WWV and WWVH are making announcements about an NIST survey online. March 25 at 0003 I heard it on 5000. Also at 0516. At 1303 on 5000, the announcement came from WWVH, ending with ``aloha``. Website it is
http://www.ts.nist.gov/survey

``Nist special announcement`` repeated at 1304 on 5000 from WWV with similar wording, ending with ``thank you``.

However, that URL forwards to
http://ts.nist.gov/ and I don`t see any survey, rather homepage of technology services, so ts does not mean timesignals. Searched that page with many linx and the word survey appears nowhere.

O, they are really saying indistinctly without fonetix
http://www.tf.nist.gov/survey --- tf = time and frequency, and that gets you to it.

For starters, people should tell them about the spurs from 10000 WWV on 9950, 10050 and weaker ones on 9900, 10100. Checked at 1307, hardly any WWV audible on 10000, instead dominated by WWVH, and hence no spurs to reconfirm.

But at 1703 UT when I monitor the announcement again on 10000, the signal is now at big daytime level from less than 500 miles away, and with it the awful spurs. To hear it on WWVH again at 1702, I had to listen on 15000 as WWV normally skips over most of its signal there to here (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. Checking WWRB during the WORLD OF RADIO 1558 broadcast, UT Friday 0330 March 25: excellent at 0337 on 2390, and the buzz envelope seems to have been reduced. 5050 is not // but back to promo loop barker, which repeats every 58 seconds. If you`ve heard one, you`ve heard them all.

3195 still missing like last night. But wait --- that transmitter is on 3185, colliding with the other WWRB transmitter! So we are hearing both Brother Scare and the barker loop at equal levels, and a fast SAH between them of maybe 15 Hz. I hope the transmitters did not suffer any damage.

Dave had explained that because of an antenna issue, the 3195 transmitter was used on 3185 the night before. Trouble is, they forgot to change its frequency back to 3195! I e-mailed WWRB immediately about this but kept clashing until the 0400* closedown of the barker transmitter, as 2390 also went off without announcement once WOR was finished, and 5050 too, leaving only BS on 3185. I assume the collision went on for the entire two-sesquihour period 3195 is supposed to be on, 0100-0400.

Yet another problem: the next morning, I am hearing BS on 9250.3 or so, good carrier but undermodulated. It`s synchronized with 9385, so a spur from WWRB, not synchronized with BS on WWCR 9980. 9250.3 had deep fades, and could not hear a match 135 kHz on the other side, around 9520 but it might have been under QRM. At 1408 no longer audible on 9250, while the 9385 signal had weakened (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. WORLD OF RADIO 1558 monitoring: Friday March 25 at 1436, barely audible on WRMI 9955, with some lite pulse jamming, unclear whether deliberate or bleeding from 9965. An hour later WRMI was doing slightly better during Wavescan with Jeff White but still vs lite pulsing.

Next WOR airings on 9955: Saturday 0800, 1400, 1730; Sunday 0800, 1530, 1730. On WWCR: Friday 2030 on 7465, Saturday 1600 on 12160, Sunday 0630 on 3215. On IPAR: Saturday 1900 on 6090, 1566, 1368 in Europe (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A [non]. Looking for the new R. Sawa SW frequencies March 25 at 1238: nothing audible on 17880, 17555 or 15325 where heard before. Dragan Lekic tells DXLD that they keep changing the schedule day to day, latest as of March 24 being:

0730-0900 13735  SAO 000
0730-1030 15650  LAM 132
0730-1300 17880  KWT 285
0900-1100 13835  SAO 360
1030-1300 15325  LAM 132
1100-1300 11950  LAM 132
[so no more via BOTswana]

``This is just for the final two days of the B10 season. If you want to hear ID of Radio Sawa, their newscasts are at 15 and 45 minutes of each hour``. So we may expect further changes for A-11 if not sooner --- if not canceled (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

UNIDENTIFIED. 9981, March 25 at 0520 very strong carrier with occasional low digital/computer sounds, ACI from 9985 WYFR (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ###