venerdì 23 ottobre 2015

Glenn Hauser logs October 23, 2015


** KOREA NORTH [non]. 6020, Friday Oct 23 at 1333, very poor signal with talk in Korean and distinctive Shiokaze sounders, so still here for the 1330-1430 broadcast from JAPAN, having missed presumed English on Thursday only. May well jump to another of their alternate 49m channels in November (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** MEXICO. 1060, Oct 23 at 0630, looking for possible KXPL El Paso at night from the west, not since 0230, but instead from the south, weak ID from Radio Educación, XEEP DF. Also with a LAH from XERDO Tamaulipas, off-frequency as always; almost: I meant to mention with earlier KXPL log that then I was not hearing a het even when I aimed south (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) See also USA: KXPL

** U S A. 770, Oct 23 at 1315 UT, still no pop-on from KKOB Albuquerque NM, its nominal Oct sunrise time for ND pattern. I guess it`s strange (lack of) normal SRS propagation, unless they are off-schedule. Used to be reliable (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 1060, Oct 23 at 1315 UT, no sign of KXPL El Paso, with the presumed all-music format, at its official Oct sunrise time when it could go 10 kW ND; NRC AM Log says it also has a 500-watt PSRA, which means it can start at 6 am local with that (a.k.a. 0800 ``ELT``), i.e. 1200 UT now, 1300 UT after DST is gone from November 1. However, if it`s cheating at night two hours past sundown, why follow the rules in the morning either? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Note to editors converting my domestic reports from UT to ``ELT``: when I am talking about the conversion and timechange as above, it won`t make any sense unless you leave in the UT references

** U S A. 1190, Oct 23 at 1318 UT, ``All new Talk Radio 11-90`` non-ID, traffic report but can`t recognize anything distinctive, promo new show `Watch Tower`, Sundays at 9 am, long adstring mostly national past 1325 UT fading out. DF fits DFW and of course it`s only KFXR, The Metroplex. Program sked at 
confirms `Watch Tower` show; now who could be behind that? (The J.W. normally make it one word, Watchtower.)

First a Yahoo search on the slogan above suggested WOWO and KEX as well as KFXR. I try the Wikipedia article on KFXR which includes this long list about a station which for a decade never had been able to decide on and keep any identity. And altho the calls have stayed KFXR now for almost a sesquidecade, the format has not:

``Former callsigns 
KLIF (1947-1991)
KLAF (1990)
KYII (1990-1991)
KUII (1991-1992)
KGBS (1992-1995)
KDFX (1995-1997)
KOOO (1997-1998)
KLUV (1998-2000)
KJOI (2000-2001)
KTRA (2001)``

That is no doubt based on FCC AM Query which shows exact dates:

Altho 50/5 kW, the signal here is not reliable at all, night or day, due to extremely complex direxional patterns requiring 4 towers in the daytime, 12 towers at night, from two different sites! Which presumably accomplishes its main goal, best possible coverage of The Metroplex while protecting KEX, WOWO (and XEWK?). NRC Pattern Book shows day has major lobes to ESE and WSW and a minor lobe north, Okieward (but lies too far away to serve us on groundwave, as even KRLD 1080 is quite weak daytimes), while night pattern has the WSW lobe only (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 15555-USB, Oct 23 at *1402:20, WJHR Milton FL pops on the air with music already playing (seems it`s always 2+ minutes late), sign-on with contact addresses, but missed whether George Scott Mock now announces 15555 instead of 15550. Then playing theme music `Rock of Ages` and joining deceased John Hill offensive preaching in progress. The station exists only as a memorial to him.

This replaces 15550-USB, noticed by Walt Salmaniw yesterday and before that ``last week`` by Paul Walker, as now on the ``wrong`` frequency. Sheryl Paszkiewicz, Wisconsin, tells me she had it on 15555 USB, already Oct 15 at 2144.

Axually, it`s the *right* frequency, where they should have moved long ago to avoid conflict at 1500-1630 with Vatican transmitting Radios Tamazuj and Dabanga, which is to continue in B-15. Maybe they finally noticed my log reports about this collision? And HFCC B-15 does show WJHR on 15555 instead of 15550, so it`s just a head-start. Wolfgang Büschel found that they had already requested 15555 from FCC as of August 12, before the Brisbane HFCC B-15 conference.

15555 should encounter no direct collisions in B-15 unless Voice of Tibet via Tajikistan, and consequent CNR1 jamming happen to land around there. Current Aoki shows *15557 at 1230-1235 only, but you never know where they will go next, and at later hours. DW, RFI and Radio Biafra will be on 15560 during the 16-20 UT span amid the WJHR span of 1402-2202 UT. So from 1600 to 1627 at least, WJHR will be squeezed from both sides.

WJHR started on 15550 circa Xmas 2009y; it remains quite an anomaly, USB and no carrier (which delayed my zeroing in on it at sign-on), and obviously a weak transmitter, but claimed to be 50 kW, which maybe they attain only in terms of PEP, and thus supposedly comply with FCC requirements; azimuth 5 degrees, pretend-target CIRAF 4 only = Ontario, Quebec and northward (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

This report dispatched at 1659 UT October 23