venerdì 10 gennaio 2014

Glenn Hauser logs January 9-10, 2014

** BRAZIL. 9664.8, Jan 10 at 0109, predicating in Portuguese, or rather Brazuguese, no het, but ZYE890, R. Voz Missionária, SC, has started varying lately; for a long while it was around 9665.6 on the hi side of 9665, but Jan 6 at 0820, Wolfgang Büschel found it way down on 9662.377!!! (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** BRAZIL. 11780.1, Jan 10 at 0113, RNB is still off-frequency to the hi side. No signal here from R. Australia, Burmese via Singapore to het it as scheduled this semihour only (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** CHINA [and non]. 9690, now that WRMI/BS has moved off in the evenings, Jan 10 at 0100 we hear a weak mix of two timesignals, a few seconds apart, then at least one station in Chinese. Per Aoki, we have:

0100-0200 KBS World Radio in Vietnamese (and also 0200-0300 English, news to me; is confirmed? At 225 degrees, no help for North America, // 9580 also useless here); and: 0100-0200 R Free Asia in Uyghur, 500 kW, 50 degrees from UAE, which is of course jammed. I suspect the two timesignals were both coming from CNR1 jammers, unsynchronized, not expecting timesignals from the others (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** CUBA. Latest RHC SNAFU roundup: 11880 & 13680, Jan 9 at 2123, both are bigsigs but OCDA = open carrier dead air. At this time, 11880 is supposed to be in French, 13680 supposed to be off. 11760 is in fact in French, marred by audio breakup noise in the background. Finally at 2135.5, RHC Portuguese modulation in progress cuts on 11880.

11970, Jan 10 at 0114, pointless pulse jamming against nothing, heavier and faster here than on 11930, also against nothing.

12010, Jan 10 at 1401, RHC Spanish is suddenly here, and no spur either. Quickly check known 25m channels and only 11690 is missing, so must be a move from there. This is immediately confirmed by announcement at 1403 that 11690 has moved to 12010 in the mornings, no time specified but probably entire 12-16 span like 11690 was. And repeated before 1500 as effective today Jan 10. Finally RHC escapes the continuous RTTY from NAA on 11687.5 or so; now it`s twice that far away from continuous RTTY on 12015, from what? Per Aoki, the only other broadcaster on 11690 RHC might have needed to escape was CRI English at 12-13, WNW from Xian. There`s no other broadcast on 12010 besides ChiCom-jammed BBC English via Singapore, earlier at 09-11.

First impression of 12010 is that it seems stronger than 11690 was, so maybe some transmitter/antenna change too. Furthermore, comparing the two 16mb signals at 1453 Jan 10, 17580 now sounds louder than 17730, but may be just different audio processing: lo-fi boosted compared to hi-fi normal. Now 17580 has more of an edge over the IBB CCI. Also, these two are an echo apart from different sites (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** EAST TURKISTAN. Checking for Xinjiang PBS, Urumqi`s different language services around the 60mb, Jan 10 at 0053: 4500 with JBA carrier, which would be Mongolian; 4850 also JBA for Kazakh; 4980 Uighur a little better with trace of modulation; and 5060 Chinese not checked (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** EQUATORIAL GUINEA [non]. 17790, Jan 10 at 1415, R. Africa Network ID via WRMI, this time calling itself Radio Africa Two, and with address P O Box 414, Gokwe, Zimbabwe, spelling not only the town but the country as if anyone literate in Africa would not know how to spell it! ``Zee``, not zed. Onward to gospel music. At other times they direct mail to Radio East Africa with a box in Kenya, and also another one in Ghana, just plain Radio Africa. WRTH shows those two but not Zimbabwe (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** FRANCE. 7390, Jan 10 at 0636, RFI French news from Bamako, under open carrier making fast SAH, but it soon goes off. Second Issoudun transmitter test? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** INDIA. 11985, Jan 10 at 0115 tune-in, S Asian instrumental music stops, to open carrier continuing with flutter; while 11740 is already off. Seems the AIR Sinhala service at 0045-0115 is starting to propagate again, via Delhi/Khampur and Goa respectively, so we may soon be able to find them failing to parallel, filling with Für Elise (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** LIBERIA. 4760, Jan 10 at 0529, JBA carrier and also 0600, as I am struggling to hear reactivated ELWA; just too hi noise level here vs low power. Should also check before 2400*, as Harold Frodge in MI has been successfully hearing it both at sign-on and sign-off (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** PERU [and non]. 5980, Jan 10 at 0057, JBA carrier from R. Chaski, suffering from pointless pulse jamming out of Cuba, and splash from CRI 5990 via Cuba. 5980 cuts off at 0103:06.5* as the jamming continues. That`s 11 seconds later than last check Jan 8, 48 hours earlier.

BTW, per Ivo Ivanov, VOA Tibetan service at 00-01 via Sri Lanka has moved off 5980, so that hour should now be clear for Chaski, with the ChiCom jamming also trailing it. But now this service is adopting the probably doomed tactic of switching frequencies depending on UT day of week, as monitored starting Dec 25: 5750 on Mon & Fri; 5760 on Sun; 5770 on Tue/Wed/Thu; 5805 on Sat. Do they really adhere to this every week? It would be slightly more trouble for the jamming monitors (and the audience!) if the jumparounds were random. And also nothing else on 5980 after Turkey until 2156* (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** ROMANIA. 7345, Jan 10 at 0642, RRI English making this announcement just about verbatim as copied from website: ``Dear friends, you can listen to us on your mobile phone, in the US. Our programs in English are available live or on demand, at the following call-to-listen phone number: 716.274.2526. This incurs no extra charge and is the equivalent of making a standard mobile call in the US.`` AC 716 is western NY, around Buffalo. Why would anyone pay anything to listen on a phone when one can simply turn on a SW radio? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** SOUTH CAROLINA [non]. 11825, Jan 9 at 2133, after dead air and WYFR theme (see U S A), Brother Scare cuts back on this WRMI frequency, as he is proclaiming that ``radio broadcasting is going to be curtailed`` in These Last Days (except for his own, of course).

9955, the main RMI frequency, is supposed to be with BS also all day long, but instead Jan 9 at 2136 I find the fill-music loop is running, Greek at the moment, later German song, 2140 polka, etc., etc. Some songs in Spanish, 2155 fado. Still music fill until 2159 when there is a bit of BS during switching, Zanotti ID, cut from strong NW signal to weaker SSE signal at 2200, and resuming music loop with German song. How about 7730? Barely audible, that`s still BS at 2136.

Meanwhile, we are also deprived of BS on 9930, as WTWW-2 is off, and until 2200, 9980 WWCR is in its one-hour break for other programming. By 2201, both 9930 and 9980 are back on BS, but not 9955.

7490-, Jan 10 at 0638, BS with wacko prophesies, as I note WBCQ is again slightly on the lo side.

11825, Jan 10 at 1520, BS on WRMI is saying that from Saturday February [sic] 11, he will be on 25, 25, 25, shortwave transmitters, make that 31 with the six WHR units, frequencies ``too numerous to mention``.

So far the WHR website has no listings when searching on Overcomer, or Stair at
http://www.whr.org/Program-Schedules.cfm#DETAILED_SCHEDULE_SEARCH

Nor does the Overcomer Ministry website, but we can be sure than when it does, it will be full of errors (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. WORLD OF RADIO 1703 monitoring: confirmed from 2201 Thursday Jan 9 on WTWW-1, 9475, very good signal as always here, and playing until completion at 2230.

Also confirmed on WWRB, 3195, good signal UT Friday Jan 10 at 0449 check, after first monitoring webcast: screaming preacher is stopped, faded out at 0429:16; respectful 20-second pause until WOR 1703 starts. (These are the times as heard delayed on web; subtract several seconds for the SW times.) Still no // 5050. 3195 good loud signal, but verging on overmodulation distortion.

Next:
Sat 0730 & 1530 on HLR 7265-CUSB
Maybe, as tried last week:
Sat 2130 on WRMI-1, 7730; UT Sun 0030 on WRMI-14, 9495
UT Sun 0030 on WTWW-2, 5085
UT Sun 0501 on WTWW-1, 5830
UT Mon 0400v on Area 51 via WBCQ, 5110v-CUSB
Tue 1200 on WRMI 9955
Wed 0730 & 1530 on HLR 7265-CUSB
(Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A [and non]. 11825, Jan 9 at 2124, WRMI is competing with RHC 11880 in the dead-air sweepstakes; see CUBA. Usual very good signal. Just before 2128, modulation starts, not with scheduled Brother Scare, but the old WYFR theme on a loop, orchestral version. 2133 suddenly cuts back to BS, which is the only thing supposed to be on 11825.

9955, the main RMI frequency, is supposed to be with BS also all day long, but instead Jan 9 at 2136 I find the fill-music loop is running, Greek at the moment, later German song, 2140 polka, some songs in Spanish, 2155 fado. See SOUTH CAROLINA [non]. Still music fill until 2159 when there is a bit of BS during switching, Zanotti ID, cut from strong NW signal to weaker SSE signal at 2200, and resuming music loop with German song.

11825, Jan 10 at 1520 as BS is talking about adding six transmitters from World Harvest Radio ``Feb 11``, meaning tomorrow, I hear some CCI underneath, from what? Aoki shows VOA Radio Ashna at 1430-1630, first from Woofferton until 1530, then switching to Kuwait (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 11550, Jan 10 at 1524 tuneby, the squeal from WEWN Spanish is louder than ever, just about intolerable if one really wanted to listen to it; it`s also a higher pitch than the squeal on // 12050. These are parasitic spurs circa 4 kHz away from main carrier beating against it, and varying depending on modulation; an awful longtime fault at Radio Católica Mundial which they are unable or unwilling to fix (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 1660, Jan 10 at 0645 UT among the CCI, ID for some station on ``1660 AM dial and 99.1 FM dial``. That should be easy to match, but no such FM // for the 1660 stations in the 2013 NRC AM Log. So I search the WTFDA FM Database for 99.1 stations in the same towns as 1660 stations: the only match is translator K256BW in Waco TX, but unlike some listings, does not show what station it relays. Then I go to KRZI website,
http://www.1660espn.com/ http://www.1660espn.com/ which does show 99.1 also, so that`s it.

BTW, the WTFDA FM DB now includes Mexico as well as Canada. BT2W, on 1660, one often hears True Oldies music matching local 1640 KZLS, and in that case it`s KQWB West Fargo ND (Glenn Hauser, Enid OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

This report dispatched at 1801 UT January 10