martedì 20 novembre 2012

Glenn Hauser logs November 19, 2012

** ANTARCTICA. 15476, Monday Nov 19 at 1413 and later in the hour, no signal detectable from LRA36. It seems the confirmed receptions in S America last Nov 14-15 were only preliminary tests: Horacio Nigro translates for the DXLD yg:

``"This morning I spoke to Base Esperanza and I talked with Mirta, a station announcer. She told me that the transmissions are sporadic and they are performing maintenance on the station to put it on air in early 2013. I left her with the feeling that even the shortwave broadcasts will not be regular, as broadcasters and technicians are getting ready to leave the icy continent, and turn it over to a new staff that will be working in the coming month of February at LRA36. The idea is to leave the radio in perfect condition for the next Antarctic campaign. She also mentioned that the station would come out with a power of 1 kW and they currently broadcast in the FM band for the inhabitants of the base and its surroundings." via Jorge Villavicencio, DRM Radio Argentina (
www.drmradio.com.ar), in Condiglist yg via Horacio Nigro (translated & edited).`` (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** AUSTRALIA. 5982, approx. center of distorted spurblob with hum, talk modulation, but what? Nov 19 at 1404. Searched entire 49 mb for another one, and finally found a slightly weaker blob on 6008 --- aha, what`s halfway between those? 5995! Yes, indeed on another receiver I can match the modulation to R. Australia, which sounds OK on the fundamental. These plus/minus 13 blobs will be happening only at 14-18 UT when 5995 is from Shepparton, not at 08-14 when 5995 is from Brandon. (And not to be confused with North Korean jamming).

Could it be the same transmitter as on 15160 from which Wolfgang Büschel heard +/- 15.5 kHz spurs at 0430 Nov 12? No, that`s Shep-F while 5995 is Shep-A, so they have at least two units with spur problems (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** BANGLADESH. 15505, Nov 19 at 1419, very poor signal with S Asian song, presumably BB Urdu service. I wasn`t really hearing it at 1359-1400+, and propagation from them has been quite degraded lately, but you never know either whether the transmitter will be on the air as scheduled. Tried again at 1515, and found JBA carrier for Hindi (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** CANADA. Congratulations to the International Radio Report, which celebrated its 25th anniversary on CKUT November 18. We listened later online via
http://ckut.ca/c/en/oldgrid/sunday,10:30
which stops abruptly after half an hour, the normal duration of IRR, but this week it`s an hour long, so for the rest of it, we have to pretend to listen to the first half `Free Kick`, the next show:
http://ckut.ca/c/en/oldgrid/sunday,11:00
Sheldon mentions that whether I know it or not, WORLD OF RADIO was an inspiration for the IRR (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** CHINA. Firedrake Nov 19, before 1500:
13970, fair at 1437, none higher up past 18 MHz
13530, fair at 1437 with CODAR
12230, poor at 1437
11970, fair at 1438
And none in the 9 or 10 MHz ranges either
(Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** CHINA. 11736, 11744, 11752, 11768, 11776, 11784, 8-kHz spur field from 11760 CNR1 jammer again audible as JBA carriers or hets against other signals, Nov 19 at 1440 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** CUBA. 6165, and all the other English frequencies including 6270 leapfrog of 6060 over 6165, where I noticed it first, Nov 19 at 0619 with a big ringing sound, RHC gone haywire? Not this time; it`s copycat Arnie doing his own digital-mode text test, which he outros as a history-making ``first`` for RHC.

Must have got the idea from The Mighty KBC via Bulgaria which has been doing this for a few weeks already. At the end of `DXers Unlimited` so I don`t know how he pre-explained it; 0620 switch from phoned-in deliberately degraded audio quality to studio-quality canned outro by Arnie. Sorry, but I can`t get too excited about this marvelous new technology, preferring amplitude modulation. What`s next, SSTV? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** EGYPT. 15160, Nov 19 at 1507, Qur`an but modulating only at peaks, and distorted; long pause, or maybe the original modulation level is just not enough to break threshold --- I bet it`s Radio Cairo. Yes, HFCC shows 15-16, 250 kW, 61 degrees from Abis in Uzbek. The incompetent ERTU has done nothing to fix itself since the ancien régime fell (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** GREECE. 7475, Nov 19 at 0611, Greekish music and talk in uncertain language, maybe Albanian, and not // JBA signal on 9420, so presumed R. Filia separate programming on 7475. No propagation on 11645.

15630 & 15650, Nov 19 at 1417, VOG is missing, tho there are plenty of Eurosigs now on 19m; 1502 recheck, 15630 has come on with vocal music, song from the 30s or 40s (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** GUIANA FRENCH. 5844, 5892, 5926, 5994, 6076, Nov 19 at 0201, NHK World Radio Japan relay in Japanese on 5960 via Montsinéry has just started its bihour broadcast, and so have the panoply of extremely distorted FMy spurs TDF has provided for weeks without fixing them. (There is another on 6028 but obscured by the 6030 Cuban radio war.) (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** ISRAEL. 15760, Nov 19 at 1415, good open carrier with some flutter, continuing past 1432, and at 1443:40 starts a continuous tone test; recheck at 1501 now it`s in Farsi, so presumably Israel Radio was running the transmitter way early before the 1500-1630 Persian service. Just think, they could have played the 15-minute English newscast thrice in that wasted period (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** ITALY [non]. 15215, Nov 19 at 1424, no signal and no Brother Scare who used to be here via IRRS via ROMANIA (?). The Overcomer schedule as of Nov 7 in DX Re Mix News Nov 12 no longer included 15215, or 17770 but still had 7290 at 20-21 via TIGaneshti (however, hardly reliable since it also shows 9990 at 20-23 as via ERV = Armenia instead of WTWW!). The IRRS schedule at
http://www.nexus.org/NEXUS-IBA/Schedules/mon.htm
has not been updated since 23 August! In CET, which is now 1 hour ahead of UT, it still shows TOM at 15-16 UT on 15215, 18-19 on 17770, and 20-21 on 7290. So which of these are really still on the air, if any? FWIW, no signal on 17770 at 1817, tho Spain was making it on 17755, 17715, Tunisia on 17735 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** SOMALILAND. 7120, Nov 19 at 1358, I pull myself away from the REE IS on CRI 7220 and 7435 to hear what is still another novelty, R. Hargeisa, music on poor signal; 1400 announcement in Somali, and I almost think I am hearing the words ``shortwave`` and ``meterband``; usual fanfare and military band with drumming anthem to 1402:07, carrier on until 1402:32* (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** SPAIN. 15385, Nov 19 at 1505, REE is starting `Africa Hoy`, but something else is on 21610; and 17595, 15170 are already off. This is a time when there is a schedule split, but per
http://programasdx.com/principal_archivos/parrillareeb12.pdf
`Africa Hoy` would be at 1530, not 1505, occupying the second half of the 15-16 UT block on weekdays. Guess it really means in yellow that it supplants `Paisajes y Sabores` for most of the entire hour on other frequencies. There must be a better way to present REE program schedules accurately and unambiguously (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 5830, Nov 19 at 0200, WTWW ID by Ted announcing this new frequency for WTWW-1, and back to SFAW programming; has just replaced 5745 all-night, just because R. Martí was already scheduled on 5745 in B-season at 1100-1400. In late A-season, WTWW had to vacate 5755 since some US government/military user reclaimed it, tho that is making precious little use of 5755, so 5745 was temporary solution for WTWW.

George McClintock decided 5830 is the best of several options the FCC availablized in the 5.8 MHz area. I suspect WEWN 5810 until 0500 will bother with its +18 kHz squishy spur on 5828 when and where it attains a bigsig. We see that
http://wtww.us/pages/schedule.php has been updated to show 5830 at 00-14 UT, and ``9480`` (really 9479) at 14-24.

This will also affect the UT Sunday 0500 broadcast of WORLD OF RADIO starting next week, 5830 ex-5745!

We also note that WTWW-3 has not been on 12105 very much; it seems that whenever WTWW-2 is on 9990, which it is now most afternoons, plus 5085 UT Sundays, 12105 is off. That could save on the electricity bill, and sometimes the axual transmitters are swapped, in case one of the three needs some work.

12105 WTWW is on in Arabic, Nov 19 at 1817. BTW, if on at 1600-1658, 12105 collides with new frequency of Zimbabwe Community Radio, 250 kW, 265 degrees from Madagascar (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 5050, Nov 19 at 0203, gospel huxter with NC PO Box address, and // 3195, so WWRB has unpredictably reactivated its other transmitter, but not necessarily every night and not necessarily until 3195 finishes at 0500, but could affect WORLD OF RADIO UT Friday 0430. And not on 5051 this time (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 10000, Nov 19 at 0618, WWV has good signal, in fact the SSOB with little else propagating on 31m, just weak sigs from Morocco/Gabon on 9579/9580, BBC Ascension 9410/9460. Was checking for the propagation minute anyway, where the robofem intoned: SF 141, A 5, K 0 at 0600, so conditions should have been better than this, but winterish nightmiddle MUF plunge trumps --- except this nearby WWV signal itself which must have been boosted by some HF sporadic E (at first I figured it must be WWVH). No VHF sporadic E seen in months, tho I keep running the TV set on channel 2 analog a lot of the time, including as I write this the next morning --- but the winter Es season should bring us some Mexicans again within a few weeks (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A [non]. 15205, Nov 19 at 1422, Pastor Perry preaching in English about who owns Palestine? Israel, says the Bible, so that`s that. Good signal, a substitute for Brother Scare missing from 15215. 15205 is in HFCC as 100 kW, 90 degrees from Wertachtal Monday-Saturday at 1415-1430 only, while on Sundays they expand same to 1400-1430 and tack on another quarter hour until 1445 but boosted to 250 kW eastward. Only by consulting Aoki B-12, now conveniently linked via
http://www.worldofradio.com do we find out which gospel-huxtering service this is via MBR: Pan American Broadcasting (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)