martedì 6 novembre 2012

Glenn Hauser logs November 4-5, 2012

** ARGENTINA. 13363.5-LSB, Sunday Nov 4, excited talk in Spanish, so the LTA army feeder (to Antarctica?) is on again, as probability is highest on weekends. Not play-by-play game, however. 2317 a long adstring mentioning such things as Cataratas de Iguazú, Buenos Aires and Monte Grande addresses, and most of them cite 0-800 phone numbers which I assume are the Argentine equivalent of toll-free. Those and websites in .ar (pronounced as one syllable), addresses are spewed so fast that I don`t see how even native speakers can retain or copy them --- but hey, gotta make the most of a 30-second spot. One of them even has an even worse compressed-speech tag.

2322 mentions ``Super-Monumental`` --- is that an ID in passing, or the name of a team? El Monumental is the name of the major fútbol stadium in Buenos Aires. Then resumes talking about some game involving a pelota (so it`s not ice hockey), replete with phony enthusiasm, also mentions Rioja, but still no play-by-play. Never caught originating station ID, could be Rivadavia or Continental, or ??? Signal sufficient in LSB mode, but *much* weaker than 15345, q.v. At 0016 Nov 5 recheck, still audible now mentioning goals (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** ARGENTINA. 15345.0, unusually on-frequency, Nov 4 at 2306 checking for R. Nacional after hearing the 13363.5-LSB feeder: LRA is *much* stronger, S9+15 with flutter unlike the SSB outlet, but undermodulated during a drama; at 2328 timecheck as 8:26, ID in passing as ``Nacional, la radio pública argentina``. The government station doesn`t even give the correct time, LOL (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** BANGLADESH. 15505, Nov 5 at 1359, JBA carrier, so presumably Bangladesh Betar in Urdu; have not been hearing this the past few days (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** BRAZIL [and non]. 6180, Nov 5 at 0227, RNB gone again, helpful for the undermodulated 6185 XEPPM, which could hold its own against the other side 6190 Serbia [non] (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** CHINA. Firedrake Nov 5 before 1400: NONE found 18-12 MHz at 1351-1354. Some CRI frequencies were making it on 13 MHz (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** CUBA. The crazy Cubans have done it again --- program times have shifted one hour later with end of DST, but not all the transmission/frequency times have done so, causing mismatches.

The European service per own schedule ``effective Nov 1`` is supposed to be on 15340 ex-17750, but Nov 4 at 2151, 17750 is open carrier prior to 22-24 Spanish segment (now there`s a one-hour gap after 1930-2100 otherlangs, times unchanged for them). 17705 is off. 2200 opening with IS, no frequencies given but Fidel clip, multilingual IDs including English and two incomprehensible tongues which have got to be Guarani and Quechua, despite Guarani having been dropped two or three years ago.

And still nothing on 15340 at 2306. (That`s fine: when it does start in the evenings, it will QRM Argentina 15345v). Meanwhile after 23, 15370 is on in French, 15230 in Portuguese, and now both 17705 and 17750 very good in Spanish.

Nor has the change from 6050 to 6140 been implemented for English yet: at 0223 UT Monday Nov 5, `DXers Unlimited` is ending with Morse code on 6050 // 6000, and also audible on 6060 mixing with RHC Spanish. Is that overload? Unseems, but really two RHC transmitters on 6060! So HCJB will have to wait a while longer for its only frequency to be unusurped. 6140 remains open before 0300 for RHC.

Meanwhile, how is the Jamming Command doing in hitting targets?
 5745, Nov 5 at 1327, weak R. Martí is also weakly jammed
11930, Nov 5 at 1345, R. Martí with heavy jamming
15330, 13820, Nov 5 at 1345, jamming against no Martís yet

9885, 13750, 15590, at 1338-1344+ VOA Spanish with no jamming, but it used to be an hour earlier (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** GREECE. 15630, Nov 5 at 1435, no signal from V. of Greece, so have they cut back again? John Babbis` latest schedule shows 15630 at 1300-1850 after the silent period at 0900-1300 (and then 15650 at 1900-0250). (Meanwhile 15650 is occupied in our mornings 14-16 by YFR Hindi via Nauen). Was still hearing 9420 good and 7475 fair with music before and after 0600 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** GUIANA FRENCH. 9496-9501, 9504-9508, 9482-9486, 9477-9481, Nov 5 at 0017, approx. spans of squealing spurs from TDF Montsinéry carrying R. República via RMI, still scheduled in B-12 as 0000-0200 daily, with no timeshift. These have probably been there all along, but only came to light the night before when there was something to beat against as QRM to The Mighty KBC on 9500 from Bulgaria. These ranges determined from  1-kHz stepping on the DX-398.

5844, 5994, 6076 approx. centers of hum-roaring spurs also from TDF Montsinéry are still here from 5960 at 0221 Nov 5 check during the 0200-0400 NHK Japanese relay. The TDF GUF relay needs some serious maintenance! (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** INDIA [and non]. 9870, Nov 5 at 1336, AIR martial news theme, on to song starting with whistling, the Vividh Bharati Service, but the ChiCom continue to spoil it in a new season, CCCCI with flutter unlike the AIR signal. (I explain once more: ChiCom co-channel interference; if in Chinese language it becomes CCCCCCI.)

HFCC B-12 shows AIR, 500 kW, 35 degrees from Bengaluru at 0010-0435, 0845-1200, 1230-1740. CRI, 500 kW, 292 degrees from Xian in Russian at 13-14; 500 kW, 200 degrees from Xian in English at 14-16. Also spoiling 9870 is RNZI in DRM! Scheduled now 0800-1200 (own sked shows 0759-1258). And RFI Portuguese, 250 kW, 328 degrees from South Africa at 1700-1733. Maybe we have better results with the 0010-0435 VBS broadcast? The Indians need to be a bit more assertive at HFCC to protect their frequencies (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** INDONESIA. 9526-, Nov 5 at 1333, VOI is back on air with very poor carrier.
http://rri.jpn.org agrees it`s back since 0915 today when in English at wrong time; had not been heard since the 1200 Japanese broadcast on Oct 28. And Atsunori Ishida says VOI continued today past 1400 in Indonesian (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** KAZAKHSTAN [non]. 15525, Nov 5 at 1350, neat music of singing and strumming, cut off rudely in mid-note at 1358 without any announcements. HFCC shows IBB in Kazakh, i.e. R. Liberty, 100 kW, 77 degrees via Lampertheim, GERMANY (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTNEING DIGEST)

** MEXICO [and non]. 960, Nov 5 at 0601 UT, clear ID mentioning ``la frontera, XEK, Nuevo Laredo, 5 mil watts`` and then the 4-descending ``XEW`` chimes, which I had heard before on this frequency. My persistence in monitoring the KGWA dead-air pentaminute every night, now shifted to 0600-0605 UT, has paid off. Very strong local 1 kW carrier a few miles away has to be nulled very precisely with my altazimuth antenna mount, i.e. my wrist and left hand manipulating the DX-398. And at certain near-null positions, terrific hum level appears, why? Even on battery, not AC. XEK soon loses out to QRM, 0603 back to something in English (Glenn Hauser, Enid OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** OKLAHOMA. 93.1, Nov 4 at 1907 UT, local Enid translator K226BR of KIMY 93.9 Watonga gospel-huxter is once again defaulting to ``straw sucking on an almost empty cup`` noise, which has often been the case, but not bothered to log this POS; and I seldom have any reason to tune above 91.7 on FM (Glenn Hauser, Enid, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** OKLAHOMA. 960, UT Monday Nov 5 at 0600-0605, KGWA Enid has shifted its non-modulated Fox hole one UT hour later to stay at midnight local CST, accomplished without noticing the error in programming. And this time I get a definite log from MEXICO, q.v. (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** RUSSIA. 6135, Nov 5 at 0226, humroaring with little intelligible audio, also bothered by bonker on low side. Must be the St. Petersburg transmitter with B-12 VOR Spanish as scheduled, and now even more of a menace toward R. Santa Cruz, Bolivia, which just celebrated its sixtieth anniversary, previously audible in the clear during same period on 6134.8v (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** SPAIN. 15385, Monday Nov 5 at 1422, REE IS and 1425 opening weekly  ``Emisión Sefarad``. No frequency announcement at the beginning, and anyhow need to confirm which frequencies they are really on for the two repeats to the Americas: UT Tuesday 0115 on 11780 or 11795? UT Tuesday 0415 on 9650 or 9690? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 13750, Nov 5 at 1341, VOA Spanish now one hour later, no jamming, but CCI from Iran in Arabic, which is on from 0830 to 1430, southward from Kamalabad, but plenty signal here. // 9885 and 15590 VOA also jamming-free for now. VOA might want to move, as it has done previously on the 22 mb (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. WORLD OF RADIO 1641 monitoring: confirmed at new time 0530 UT Monday Nov 5 on WRMI 9955, amid heavy jamming, which also applied to R. Vaticana in Spanish until 0530. WOR axually started at 0530:41 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 17510, Nov 4 at 2150, WHRI is not on the air in B-12, so scratch one previously confirmed DWC airing.

5920, UT Monday Nov 5 at 0221, DWC is still here like last week during this semihour (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 17575, Nov 4 at 2152, dramatic cinematic music, somewhat distorted modulation, from what? 2159 opening WYFR in Portuguese. This is scheduled 2145-2245, but usually the warmup period before hourtop is just dead air (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 15420-CUSB, Nov 4 at 2153, WBCQ`s `Global Spirit Proclamation` is still going, so on the air one UT hour later after DST, but gone after 2200. Program schedule at
http://schedule.wbcq.com/main.php?fn=sked&freq=15420
has already been updated to show 18-22 daily, with other stuff at 15-18 Saturdays only. I suppose we may hear some WBCQ fill music a few minutes before 2200 now instead of 2100 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 5051 // 3195, WWRB is still 1-kHz-offset on the upper channel at 0230 UT Nov 5 check (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A [non]. 17605, Nov 5 at 1438, HOA music, notes up and down, up and down, etc., good signal, as we are indebted to the 7DAdventists for presenting this Afar service via Austria, 300 kW, 145 degrees from Moosbrunn, but sufficiently off-the-back USward, 325 degrees at 1430-1500 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 1480, KBXD Dallas TX, is coming back on the air. Jerry Kiefer, who has been rebuilding it, says he was testing Nov 4 at 2327 UT with open carrier at 50 kW for half an hour and then some music, but by the time I checked at 0015 Nov 5 it must have gone off; only KQAM Wichita audible. Jerry says it ``should be cooking by Tuesday``.

KBXD 50 kW day pattern (ex-KNIT as still labeled from February):
http://transition.fcc.gov/ftp/Bureaus/MB/Databases/AM_DA_patterns/1482706-117518.pdf
Major lobe at 323 degrees, considerable dropoff further north but still some toward Enid (Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** VATICAN. 6075, Monday Nov 5 at 0631, my ears perk up as I hear some Hungarian, certainly an endangered language on SW these years, and in fact officially canceled even by Vatican Radio, but they throw in some multilingual announcements starting the Latin mass at this hour; then some Bach.

In fact, the handy ADDX language-sort schedules at
http://www.addx.de/Hfpdat/plaene.php
show Hungarian (under U), only from CRI, TWR and Croatia, and tho dated as of 4. Nov, I am not convinced the details are correct, like 13830 for Croatia (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

UNIDENTIFIED. 5885, Nov 5 at 0221, nothing here unlike 24 hours ago when there was English followed by 0230 French, and no BBC on 5875 either, nor any of this at 0229. So it was likely a SNAFU, or possibly a non-daily transmission, but not in the schedules.

[non] 5985, Nov 5 at 0229, B-B-C chimes, English BBCWS ID and into Farsi with beeping liner akin to BBCWN on TV (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)