DX LISTENING DIGEST 14-20, May 14, 2014 Incorporating REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTING edited by Glenn Hauser, http://www.worldofradio.com Items from DXLD may be reproduced and re-reproduced only if full credit be maintained at all stages and we be provided exchange copies. DXLD may not be reposted in its entirety without permission. Materials taken from Arctic or originating from Olle Alm and not having a commercial copyright are exempt from all restrictions of noncommercial, noncopyrighted reusage except for full credits For restrixions and searchable 2014 contents archive see http://www.worldofradio.com/dxldmid.html For restrixions and searchable 2013 contents archive see http://www.worldofradio.com/dxldmid13.html [also linx to previous years] NOTE: If you are a regular reader of DXLD, and a source of DX news but have not been sending it directly to us, please consider yourself obligated to do so. Thanks, Glenn WORLD OF RADIO 1721 CONTENTS: *DX and station news about: Australia, Brazil, Cuba, Egypt, France, Indonesia, Japan, Korea North, Korea South, Mexico, Myanmar, New Zealand, Nigeria, North America, Papua New Guinea, Sarawak nono, South Carolina and non, Spain, Sri Lanka, Tibet non, USA, Uruguay, Vatican SHORTWAVE AIRINGS OF WORLD OF RADIO 1721, May 15-21, 2014 Thu 0330 WRMI 9955 [1720 replayed] Thu 1230 WRMI 9955 [confirmed] Thu 2101 WTWW 9475 [confirmed] Fri 0326v WWRB 5050 [something else aired] Sat 0630 HLR 7265-CUSB Hamburger Lokalradio Sat 1430 HLR 7265-CUSB Hamburger Lokalradio Sat 2330v WTWW 9930 [probably not aired but TOM] Sun 0030 WRMI 9495 [1720 replayed] Sun 0401 WTWW 5830 Mon 0300v WBCQ 5110v-CUSB Area 51 Tue 1100 WRMI 9955 Wed 0630 HLR 7265-CUSB Hamburger Lokalradio Wed 1315 WRMI 9955 [on northwest antenna] Wed 1430 HLR 7265-CUSB Hamburger Lokalradio Thu 0330 WRMI 9955 [or 1722 if ready in time] Latest edition of this schedule version, including AM, FM, satellite and webcasts with hotlinks to station sites and audio, is at: http://www.worldofradio.com/radioskd.html or http://schedule.worldofradio.org or http://sked.worldofradio.org For updates see our Anomaly Alert page: http://www.worldofradio.com/anomaly.html WORLD OF RADIO PODCASTS HAVE RESUMED starting with #1701: Tnx to Dr Harald Gabler and the Rhein-Main Radio Club. http://www.rmrc.de/index.php?option=com_podcast&view=feed&format=raw&Itemid=156&lang=de OUR ONDEMAND AUDIO: http://www.worldofradio.com/audiomid.html or http://wor.worldofradio.org DAY-BY-DAY ARCHIVE OF GLENN HAUSER`S LOG REPORTS: Unedited, uncondensed, unchanged from original version, many of them too complex, minutely researched, multi-frequency, opinionated, inconsequential, off-topic, or lengthy for some log editors to manage; and also ahead of their availability in these weekly issues: http://www.hard-core-dx.com/index.php?topic=Hauser DXLD YAHOOGROUP: Why wait for DXLD? A lot more info, not all of it appearing in DXLD later, is posted at our yg without delay. When applying, please identify yourself with your real name and location, and say something about why you want to join. Those who do not, unless I recognize them, will be prompted once to do so and no action will be taken otherwise. Here`s where to sign up: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dxld/ ** ALASKA. HAARP TO BE SHUT DOWN IN JUNE AND DISMANTLED Air Force prepares to dismantle HAARP ahead of summer shutdown By DERMOT COLE May 14, 2014 FAIRBANKS -- The U.S. Air Force gave official notice to Congress Wednesday that it intends to dismantle the $300 million High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program in Gakona this summer. The shutdown of HAARP, a project created by the late Sen. Ted Stevens when he wielded great control over the U.S. defense budget, will start after a final research experiment takes place in mid-June, the Air Force said in a letter to Congress Tuesday. The University of Alaska has expressed interest in taking over the research site, which is off the Tok Cutoff in an area where black spruce was cleared a quarter-century ago for the Air Force backscatter radar project that was never completed. But the school has not volunteered to pay $5 million a year to run HAARP. Responding to questions from Sen. Lisa Murkowski during a Senate hearing Wednesday, David Walker, deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force for science, technology and engineering, said this is "not an area that we have any need for in the future" and it would not be a good use of Air Force research funds to keep HAARP going. "We're moving on to other ways of managing the ionosphere, which the HAARP was really designed to do," he said. "To inject energy into the ionosphere to be able to actually control it. But that work has been completed." Comments of that sort have given rise to endless conspiracy theories, portraying HAARP as a superweapon capable of mind control or weather control, with enough juice to trigger hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquakes. Scientists say all of that is nonsense, and that the degree of ionosphere control possible through HAARP is akin to controlling the Pacific Ocean by tossing a rock into it. Built at a cost of more than $290 million, the site has 180 antennas on 30 acres that are used to direct energy into the ionosphere, which is 55 miles to 370 miles above the Earth, and monitor changes in the flow of charged particles. Stevens was the godfather of HAARP, which he helped start two decades ago with annual earmarks slipped into the defense budget. At the hearing on defense research and innovation, featuring six representatives of the Pentagon, no one said HAARP has a future in the defense budget. Walker said the Air Force has maintained the site for several years and the last project is one by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Once completed, the site will close. DARPA Director Arati Prabhakar said, "The 'P' in DARPA is projects. We're not in the business of doing the same thing forever, so very naturally as we conclude that work, we're going to move on. It's not an ongoing need for DARPA despite the fact that we had actually gotten some good value out of that infrastructure in the past." Walker said the Air Force would like to remove critical equipment this summer to avoid the expense of winterization. Alan Shaffer, assistant secretary of defense for research and engineering, said HAARP is a "world-class facility," but the department does not need it anymore. "With all the other issues and problems and challenges facing the department at this time, we just don't see that that investment, over a long-term period, is where we would prioritize our investment," said Shaffer. "No one else wants to step up to the bill, ma'am," Shaffer said to Murkowski. Read more here: http://www.adn.com/2014/05/14/3470442/air-force-prepares-to-dismantle.html -- (Alaska Dispatch, Anchorage Daily News May 14 via David R. Alpert, 818-588-NEWS, Twitter: twitter.com/DaveAlpert http://www.newsjunkiepro.com May 15, DX LISTENING DIGESET) I wonder what it would have taken to convert this into a super SWBC site? Just aim the antennas horizontally instead of vertically. Or as is, NVIS, blanketing Alaska & vicinity; in fact, wasn`t there a plan to do this for public radio? (Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ALBANIA. 9845, May 10 at 0120, R. Tirana IS again on early, good signal; 0132 news items concern a political hunger strike, trade or aid from Germany; valuable gifts sought for Tony Blair (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 9845, Radio Tirana; 0145-0157*, 11-May; W in English with native chants by a featured group; 0155 "Goodbye from Albania", 20 second IS & off. SIO=554 (Harold Frodge, Port Hope MI DXpedition, Drake R8B + 250 ft. LW + 85 ft. TTFD, All logged by my ears, on my receiver, in real time! DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ANGOLA. [Re DXLD 14-19:] Glenn, No teasing meant, really, but I simply cannot disclose certain details passed on to me by someone who was in the "country" because of RNA's transmitters, viz. the MF & the VHF-FM ones. I wish I could tell you more. Now, taking 4950v as an example, I happen to know since last year why its modulation is varying from fair to weak, very weak or then as if there's none - apparently, it has nothing or little to do with tx/peripheral equipment mishandling (I think it also has though) by the RNA technicians; apparently, what's happening (for too long!) is that this transmitter (or one being used for 4950v) is being used for "certain" tests. I won't go into further about this for now, neither on RNA's txs, particularly MF but also HF. 73, (Carlos Gonçalves, Portugal, May 12, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ANGUILLA [and non]. 6090-, May 9 at 0122 and later in the hour, no signal from PMS/DGS, leaving a much weaker signal slightly on the lo side, presumably R. Bandeirantes, Brasil (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Hi Glenn, Yes, also noted absence of 6090 and 6180 tonight (May 9 UT). Also off the air was WRNO (7505.18). Was unable to locate religious pirate YHWH (Ron Howard, California, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) 6090, May 10 at 0107, Caribbean Beacon is back on with usual VG signal propagating DGS/PMS, after missing last night. Its absences are never predictable nor prolonged. 6090, May 11 at 0537, C.B. is back on after missing a few hours earlier, audiblizing Brazil (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 6090, religious powerhouse is on air again May 14 (Wolfgang Büschel, wwdxc BC-DX TopNews May 14, dxldyg via DXLD) ** ANTARCTICA. 15476, 1930 Arcangel nästan varje vardagskväll med olika program; aktualiteter, tangoinspirerad musik etc. Vanligen kvinnlig announcer. Kör på USB + bärvåg. Ingen signal på LSB. 1- 3 SA [no date??? gh] 15476, 1930, Arcangel almost every weekday evening with various programs; actualities, tango inspired music, etc. Usually a female announcer. Running USB + carrier. No signal on LSB. 1 - 3 SA (Stig Adolfsson, Vallentuna, Sweden, SW Bulletin May 11, translated by editor Thomas Nilsson for DX LISTENING DIGEST) (No date given in his log but think he means first week of May /TN) 15476, 9/5 1930, LRA36, R. Nac. Arcángel San Gabriel - Base Esperanza, Antártida Argentina, SS NX suff (Roberto Pavanello, Italy, playdx yg via DXLD) 15475.90, 1956 UT, LRA36, Radio Nacional Arcangel San Gabriel. Llegando con baja señal por Santiago de Chile. Comentarios de locutoras, bloque musical en "Esperanza al día" 25332 (ce3BBC, Hugo López C., Santiago de Chile, May 9, condiglista yg via DXLD) ** ARGENTINA. Radio Nacional on 15345.2 kHz with talk in Spanish. 2155 to 2205 UT. News after 2200- Good signal. (S7) (Giovanni IZ5PQT, QTH Pisa, IC-756Pro3 + inverted-L antenna, May 10, cumbredx yg via DXLD) ** ASCENSION. 6135, BBC Hausa, buzzy hum audio, S=9+10 -65dBm (Wolfgang Büschel, Log 0500-0630 UT May 9th slot this UT morning, like CAN/USA nighttime, All remote SDR unit log of Alberta-Canada location, wwdxc BC-DX TopNews May 9, dxldyg via DXLD) ** AUSTRALIA [and non?]. Alberta TPs for 10 May 2014 --- Between vacation and work commitments (not to mention mornings totally lacking in TPs) it's been a while since I reported. Finally listened again yesterday, and found all the action was DU and limited to the X-band. 1611 - Just the faintest of audio traces at 1129. 1629.03 - traces of man speaking at 1128 1656 - Man talking at 1131. Too weak to determine language, but it wasn't English. Possibly Greek. 1701.07 - AUSTRALIA, R. Brisvaani. Easily the best of the DU signals, with quite consistent signal from 1125 to 1135. Mostly Indian vocals, but some talk too. Carriers also noted on 1638, 1674, 1683, as well as on a few channels in the regular band above 1500 kHz. 73, (Nigel Pimblett, Dunmore, Alberta, IRCA via DXLD) ** AUSTRALIA. Radio Symban - 2368.5kHz - missing again. Has been off 2368.5kHz for a full seven (7) days now (Ian Baxter, NSW, 0009 UT May 9, dxldyg via WORLD OF RADIO 1721, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** AUSTRALIA [and non]. RA on May 10 at 1150 with live "AFL Grandstand" coverage of the "Dogs" (Bulldogs) vs the Demons; 4835 (VL8A Alice Springs NT) // 5995 // 6080 // 6140 (via Singapore) // 6150 // 9580 (strongest) // 12065 (Ron Howard, Asilomar State Beach, CA, E1 & CR-1, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) 6150, RA, 1343+ 10 May. A quick break from chasing static to enjoy "Saturday Night Country" with Catherine Britt, playing Graveyard Train's "It Takes One To Know One" (1 youtube channel says this band is "horror country"; dunno, not that scary-sounding this morning -- maybe it's an Aussie thing and being a "seppo" [Aussie slang "septic tank = Yank"] I just don't get it). (Dan Sheedy, Swami's Beach, CA PL380/6m X wire, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 15530, RA 0445-0500+ 13 May. Punch-up error for unheard 15300? "Bush Telegraph" program 'til TOH, ID, ABC/RA news // the usual crew (Dan Sheedy, Encinitas, CA G5/6m X wire, WORLD OF RADIO 1721, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 15530, May 13 at 0508, R. Australia on new frequency, as I had just found 15300 missing, which is scheduled 0300-0600; // 15240 a little weaker as usual. Why move??? No CCI or ACI known to 15300, while 15530 has Iran in Russian at 0450-0520 but not audible here under Australia tonight. Possibly a mistake? Dan Sheedy in California also heard 15530, wondering if a punch-up error for 15300? Check again May 14. 9580 & 12065, May 13 at 1210, dead air from R. Australia carriers --- oh2, has the budget cut just announced already killed RA? No, still modulating on 9475, interview about injured birds; 1211 modulation comes up on the first two frequencies. But there may be further disruptions, uncertainty. 15300, May 14 at 0300, yes, R. Australia is back here tonight, not 15530, but with news in English. A token French broadcast had been scheduled 0300-0315 M-F; what became of that? See also UNIDENTIFIED 15300 15300, May 14 at 0508, R. Australia is still here in English instead of 15530, 24 hours earlier (Glenn Hauser, OK, WORLD OF RADIO 1721, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Hi Glenn. As you probably already know, RA was back on 15300 at 0435 14 May // 15240 & so on (Dan Sheedy, CA, WORLD OF RADIO 1721, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Re: Australia: ABC BRACING FOR HUGE BUDGET CUTS Update for those interested: According to the budget website of the Australian government, the 2014-15 budget will be released at "7:30pm Tuesday May 13" which converts to 0930 UT the same day. We may know much more about the fate of Radio Australia after that time (Steve Luce, Houston, Texas, May 11, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Australia Network should have been cut and privatized years ago. They more or less have no audience and very poor distribution in Asia (Keith Perron, Taiwan, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Robin Harwood VK7RH, Tasmania, tells the DXLD yg: ``Both ABC and SBS have their budget cut by 1%; plus ABC loses contract for Australian Television network. Foreign Aid Budget also heavily cut. If Australian Television network is closed as is likely, will probably flow over to Radio Australia as well`` (Glenn Hauser, OK, WORLD OF RADIO 1721, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ABC BUDGET RESPONSE The ABC’s budget will be cut by $120m over the next four years as a result of decisions made by the Federal Government in tonight’s budget. Operational funding cuts of close to $40m over four years will come on top of the termination of the $220 million contract to deliver the international broadcasting service, Australia Network. The 2014-15 budget also foreshadows further significant funding cuts in the wake of the Lewis review into the operations of the ABC and SBS. “The funding cuts will be disappointing for audiences. The government gave repeated commitments before and after the election that funding for the Corporation would be maintained,” the ABC’s Managing Director, Mark Scott said. Mr Scott said while the ABC would look to make its operations more efficient, the funding cuts would regrettably and inevitably result in redundancies and a reduction in services. The ABC Board and Executive would need time to work out the full impact and to review strategies and internal budgets. Mr Scott said the decision to cut the funding for Australia Network was very disappointing, given the ABC was only one year into a 10-year contract with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. “Countries around the world are expanding their international broadcasting services as key instruments of public diplomacy. The ABC had negotiated a detailed strategy with DFAT to develop relationships with major broadcasters in the region and to target locals likely to trade, study in or travel to Australia. This partnership had resulted in expanded audiences in key markets and was on track to deliver all agreed targets. “This decision runs counter to the approach adopted by the vast majority of G-20 countries who are putting media at the centre of public diplomacy strategies to engage citizens in other countries. “It sends a strange message to the region that the government does not want to use the most powerful communication tools available to it to talk to our regional neighbours about Australia. “The agreed strategy with DFAT based on broadcasting, online partnerships and social media was proving successful. This decision cannot be justified in terms of performance against agreed priorities.” Mr Scott said the ABC Board would now have to examine how the ABC delivers its international Charter obligation, which requires it to broadcast programs that, among other things, “encourage awareness of Australia and an international understanding of Australian attitudes on world affairs”. In addition to the funding cuts, the ABC will also have to manage the cessation of funding for the online disability website,ABC Ramp Up at the end of this financial year. Mr Scott said the ABC was aware of the tight fiscal environment and constantly reviewed its strategy and performance to find better work practices and greater efficiencies. “The ABC is very tightly geared. We have been diligent in reducing backroom costs over recent years to ensure the ABC can deliver better and more varied content to our audiences. That strategy has enabled the ABC to self-fund important new initiatives like iview, ABC News24, triple j Unearthed online and a range of other new digital services.” Mr Scott said the budget made it clear the Lewis efficiency exercise would impose additional demands on ABC budgets over the next few years. The Department of Communications has been conducting a study into ABC and SBS efficiency with the assistance of ex-Channel 7 CFO and recently appointed CFO of Southern Cross Austereo, Peter Lewis. “The task ahead will be extremely challenging for ABC management and staff,” Mr Scott said. “We will need to make funding cuts, while trying to also save money to invest in new priorities to ensure the ABC remains a compelling feature of the Australian media landscape – a public broadcaster in the digital era.” (Press Release) --- (via Alokesh Gupta, New Delhi, May 13, cumbre dx via DXLD) John Figliozzi also relies on Tasmania: ``Info to assist in analysing ABC Budget outcomes | Tasmanian Times`` http://shar.es/SOxEh (Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Viz.: The ABC: INFO TO ASSIST IN ANALYSING ABC BUDGET OUTCOMES Glenys Stradijot, Friends of the ABC (Vic) office Campaign Manager, http://www.abcfriends.org.au Twitter @FriendsoftheABC http://www.facebook.com/CakesforABC 13.05.14 1:20 pm COALITON’S PRE-ELECTION PROMISE: “no cuts to the ABC and SBS” Before the last federal election, Tony Abbott categorically ruled out cuts to the ABC. He replied, "no cuts to the ABC and SBS" when asked by Anton Enus for SBS World News on 6.9.2014 if the ABC and SBS would be in the firing line. 1 minute 43 seconds into: http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2013/09/06/no-cuts-abc-or-sbs-abbott ABC FUNDING . The ABC is funded on a triennial basis. As well as triennial funding’s importance to enable the ABC to plan, it helps to maintain the ABC’s independence from government. ABC triennial funding was last set in the May 2013 Budget and should not have been due to be considered until 2016. . As a share of government spending, ABC funding has almost halved since 1996. source: Business Spectator http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2014/1/30/politics/abcs-aunties-budget Yet During a period of funding decline, ABC services have had to expand for the ABC to remain relevant. E.g. The public broadcaster now provides online services, digital channels such as ABC3 children’s TV and ABC News 24, iView catch up television service, apps for mobile services, and the ABC Open website for regional Australians to contribute their stories. . The ABC’s operational funding has decreased in real terms by 22.5% since 1985-86. It has decreased in real terms by $251m (22.5%). (source: Federal budget appropriations, ABC 2013 Annual Report) . Leaks from KPMG report into adequacy and efficiency of ABC funding revealed ABC was seriously under-funded If the Govt was genuinely interested in the ABC’s efficiency, it would have released the KPMG report into the adequacy and efficiency of ABC funding which was commissioned by the former Howard Coalition government. That report cost the public about half a million dollars and was never released. Leaks from the report revealed the ABC was seriously under-funded. While the former Labor government increases since that time, with the exception of additional funding to rebuild the ABC’s embarrassing low level of local Australian TV drama, increased funding was in the most for new services, not to maintain or rebuild existing services. (e.g. funds were provided for the ABC to establish the children’s TV channel) Note: First run Australian TV drama on the ABC had fallen as low as 3 hours per year after the cuts of the Howard government. . For three times the population of Australia, the BBC receives six times the funding of the ABC. . ABC funding figures – using the right information ABC funding figures quoted by some politicians give a misleading picture of ABC funding. Operational funding is the most appropriate measure for comparing ABC funding – outlined in ABC Annual Reports and in government appropriations legislated through the annual Appropriations Bills Nos 1 and 2. Sometimes governments use, and others repeat without checking, figures that include funding which is provided for the ABC to purchase its transmission needs – funding which governments have had to provide to since the Howard government sold Australia’s national transmission network to a private monopoly in 1999 that can set its own prices. Sometimes the figures they use also include funding which is provided separately by DFAT for the ABC to provide the Australia Network international television service. . Inadequate indexation: Even when ABC funding is not cut outright, it continues to be cut in practice because the indexation system applied to its funding does not reflect the cost of its business. (The WACI 6 (Weighted Average Composite Index) applied to the ABC is generally 1% less than the CPI.) AUSTRALIA NETWORK (AN) . Cost: The ABC provides Australia Network under a $223 million, 10- year contract with DFAT. With the contract having another seven years to run, there will presumably be costs for the ABC to break contacts it has made. . Other ABC services will suffer: If the service is axed it would impact on other parts of the ABC, such as its Asian coverage, because, although AN is not funded by the ABC’s budget, some resources are shared across AN, Radio Australia (which is funded from the ABC’s budget) and other areas of the ABC. . Govt prohibited from outsourcing international broadcasting: The ABC Act specifies that international broadcasting is a responsibility of the ABC and that the ABC is the only organisation that the Commonwealth can fund to provide international broadcasting. This prohibition on putting the service out to a tender that Sky News would win, is presumably the reason the Coalition Government is considering the absurd action of closing down AN altogether. . No other government in the world outsources its international broadcasting. . Brief history of Australia international TV – commenced in 1993 Australia’s international television service (then known as ATVI) was established by the ABC in 1993. In 1997, the Howard government sold ATVI to Kerry Stokes’ Channel Seven. In a saga that was costly and embarrassing for Australia, Seven ran the service down and eventually closed it in 2001. In 2001, on the understanding that, subject to a performance review, the contract would be renewed in 2006 for a further five years, the ABC agreed to resurrect the service (now called APTV) – rebuilding its audience and credibility. That changed when Sky News lobbied the government to put the service out to tender. However, the ABC won the 2006 tender to provide the service until 2011 and the name of the service was changed again, to Australia Channel. With News Corp aggressively campaigning for Sky News to be awarded the contract to run Australia Network, as the service had now become known, in 2011, the Rudd Labor government again put the service out to tender (this time for a 10-year contract) News Corp was hoisted on its own petard by leaks favouring Sky News. In November 2011, the Government terminated the tender process on the advice of the Australian Government Solicitor that significant leaks of confidential information to the media had compromised the tender to such a degree that it was unlikely a fair outcome could be achieved. The Labor Government amended the ABC Act so that government-funded international broadcasting would be provided by the ABC. GS: ABC Friends 11.5.2014 (via John Figliozzi, May 13, dxldyg via DXLD) The attack on the ABC is purely ideological in nature. Furthermore, the Abbott government's pre-electoral assurances about protecting this and other departments from cuts turns out to be a bald-faced lie, which of course the Australian electorate will have to sort out for itself. Some on this forum might view themselves as "clever" and with it" for expressing views that support what now appears to be a somewhat coordinated, global effort on the part of some calling themselves conservatives to damage and then systematically dismantle public institutions like public service broadcasting in favor of less community-minded private alternatives. A $23 million per annum commitment toward attempting to develop a service presenting a public face for Australia to the region is hardly a budget-busting enterprise, especially in the face of multi-billion dollar "incentives" granted to private businesses that are left wholly untouched by this so-called "responsible" approach toward the government budget. No, my friends, something much more sinister appears to be at work here, and not only in Australia. (John Figliozzi, Halfmoon, NY, Sent from my iPad, 1523 UT May 13, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Budget 2014: ABC, SBS funding cut, Australia Network contract cancelled | ABC Radio Australia Updated 14 May 2014, 8:43 AEST By Lexi Metherell and staff http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/international/2014-05-13/budget-2014-abc-sbs-funding-cut-australia-network-contract-cancelled/1310662 The Federal Government will cut the funding of the ABC and SBS by 1 per cent as well as cancel the ABC's contract to run Australia Network. The ABC and SBS will have their base funding cut by 1 per cent, $43.5 million over four years. (Credit: AAP) The federal budget has confirmed the Government will save $43.5 million over four years from cuts to the base funding of the ABC and SBS. As expected, the ABC's $220 million, 10-year contract with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to run the Asia Pacific television service, Australia Network, will be scrapped, one year into the contract. Australia Network broadcasts to 46 Asia Pacific countries including the Solomon Islands, India and Papua New Guinea. In a statement, ABC managing director Mark Scott says the funding cuts break repeated pre-election commitments from the Coalition. "The Government gave repeated commitments before and after the election that funding for the Corporation would be maintained," Mr Scott said. What are your thoughts on funding cuts to the ABC and SBS? Have your say. Government committee wanted $250 million cut It is understood Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull fought off those in the Government baying for bigger cuts to the public broadcasters. The base funding cut of 1 per cent is less than the 10 per cent reduction that is understood to have been pushed for by the Government's expenditure review committee. It is understood Mr Turnbull argued against the committee's plan to impose an efficiency dividend on the broadcasters, which would have cost them about $250 million over the next four years. However, he has promised the committee that further savings will be found, describing the 1 per cent budget cut as a "down-payment" on the recommendations of an Efficiency Study the Minister commissioned earlier this year. The review, aimed at cutting fat from the broadcasters, was undertaken by former Seven chief financial officer Peter Lewis and has now been handed to the Minister's office and the boards of the broadcasters. The ABC understands it has six headings: working together; harnessing technology; modernising the business; revenue opportunities; better resource allocation; and financial management and governance. Video: Tony Abbott tells SBS there will be no cuts to the ABC or SBS during 2013 election campaign (SBS World News) It calls for supply and demand for services to be better matched, and for low-rating programs to be cut. Mr Turnbull is considering issuing the broadcasters' boards with a "statement of expectations", which would outline the financial outcomes he wants the Corporation to achieve, such as in the way they manage property and super liabilities. The initial response of ABC and SBS to the review's recommendations is said to be mixed, with executives supportive of some measures, indicating others need more consideration, and outright rejecting others. Mr Turnbull has released a statement saying the ABC and SBS cuts do "not constitute an ongoing efficiency dividend". "The 2014-15 Commonwealth Budget includes a 1 per cent saving on base funding as a down-payment on back office savings identified and being considered by the Government and the public broadcasters over the coming months," he said. "The Government is confident the broadcasters can improve work practices and operate more efficiently in their day-to-day operations. "Critically, the Government expects those efficiencies can be achieved without cutting their diverse range of program and services or affecting their editorial independence." ABC to cut jobs, services In his statement, Mr Scott says the funding cuts will result in redundancies and cuts to services. An ABC spokesman declined to comment on how many jobs would be lost. Mr Scott says the ABC's board will need time to work out the impact of the cuts. The Government gave repeated commitments before and after the election that funding for the Corporation would be maintained. ABC managing director Mark Scott --- He says the loss of Australia Network "runs counter to the approach adopted by the vast majority of G20 countries". "Countries around the world are expanding their international broadcasting services as key instruments of public diplomacy," he said. "It sends a strange message to the region that the Government does not want to use the most powerful communication tools available to it to talk to our regional neighbours about Australia. "The agreed strategy with DFAT [the Department of Foreign Affairs] based on broadcasting, online partnerships and social media was proving successful. This decision cannot be justified in terms of performance against agreed priorities." The Government has previously said Australia Network had failed to deliver a cost-effective vehicle for advancing Australia's interests in the Indo-Pacific region (via Dan Say, BC, DXLD) ** AUSTRALIA. [Re 14-19:] Glenn, I think you are assuming that my amateur call as published in the May ADXN is a typo or some other glitch (i.e., "sic" notation after it each time in the latest DXLD), but I can assure you it is correct and as per the apparatus license. A bit of a tongue-twister to say on air, though! Regards, (Craig VK2FEAE Seager, May 11, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Hi Craig, That`s interesting. Of course +4 letter calls are unusual altho now it seems that any amount of numbers are OK in certain countries. I had not noticed this before; did you just get it, or get a call change? Was it your request, vanity call signifying something, or randomly assigned? Well, that`s one way to have 26 times as many calls available. 73, (Glenn to Craig, via DXLD) Hi Glenn, Recent call, randomly allocated. Interestingly, one can pay ACMA (our FCC equivalent) a fee to allocate a call or a slightly higher fee for what you term a "vanity" call. Either way it's on top of the base charge. The extra letter is due to the "F" part, which in Australia signifies a Foundation licence; less electronic theory in the exam, limited output (10 watts), and not all bands available. Standard and Advanced licenses tend to be shorter calls, but still with prescriptive nomenclature. A bit of a soft target for someone who has been around radio and electronics for 40 years, but hopefully a step on the path to better things and adds a dimension to the hobby. All the best, (Craig, ibid.) ** BANGLADESH. 15505, May 9 at 1359, BB IS is JBA, and just enough to detect the mistimesignal ending at 1359:48. Why do I keep reporting this, and SLBC`s at 0115? Because it`s a travesty to be transmitting inaccurate timesignals. I also occasionally mention stations with accurate timesignals, like Spain and Turkey (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Hardly audible since 9455, Bangladesh Betar via Dhaka, 1326 nepal chant m avec tablas, 11 mai 14. 73 (Michel Lacroix, France, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** BOLIVIA. RADIO PÍO XII, EMISORA EMBLEMÁTICA DE LOS MINEROS BOLIVIANOS, CELEBRÓ SU 55 ANIVERSARIO by gruporadioescuchaargentino http://gruporadioescuchaargentino.wordpress.com/2014/05/12/radio-pio-xii-emisora-emblematica-de-los-mineros-bolivianos-celebro-su-55-aniversario/ Radio Pio XII, la emblemática radioemisora de Siglo XX, de propiedad de los sacerdotes Oblatos, ha cumplido 55 años este 1 de mayo y lo ha hecho como ha sido su existencia: en un marco de respetable austeridad y ratificando su vocación de servicio al pueblo boliviano, particularmente, al minero. Esta radio fundada en plena guerra fría y con el propósito de poner límites a las consignas comunistas vigentes en los distritos mineros – entonces centros neurálgicos de la economía nacional– es un testigo excepcional de los importantes acontecimientos nacionales que tuvieron en Siglo XX y en todas las zonas mineras del occidente del país su origen. Pero, no sólo ha sido expresión de las luchas mineras, sino también, identificada con los anhelos de la población minera, Radio Pío XII, “la Pío”, es un referente de la denominada “comunicación alternativa” o “comunicación popular” que ha dado origen a nuevos paradigmas comunicacionales en su sentido de horizontalidad en la relación entre emisores y receptores. Ambos factores, su identificación con las esperanzas y demandas mineras, así como su concepción de la comunicación horizontal, fueron suficientes para que, como otras radios del sector, sea el blanco preferido de las represiones durante las dictaduras, y que, en democracia, todas las corrientes vigentes en la vida política traten de acercarse para poder llegar, con niveles de buena recepción, a la población minera. Pero, también ha sido considerada una adversaria cuando, precisamente por su identificación popular, no ha sido cooptada por los gobiernos que se han sucedido en la plaza Murillo. Así, hoy como desde su fundación, la Pío mantiene los principios de la independencia ideológico-política y su decisión de seguir siendo la radio minera por excelencia. Es importante señalar que Radio Pío XII es reportada por diexistas de todo el mundo en la frecuencia variable de 5952 Khz, en la banda de 49 metros. Los mejores segmentos horarios para intentar la escucha son entre las 1030 a 12 UT por las mañanas y entre las 2230 y las 0030 UT por las noches. Muchos de sus programas se irradian en aymara (GRA blog via DXLD) ** BRAZIL. Rádio brasileira em 1640 kHz --- Boa tarde, Ontem por volta das 20:30h (Horário de Brasília) sintonizei em 1640 kHz uma emissora que estava transmitindo a programação da Rádio Globo BH, sinal muito fraco. Equipamento: Degen 1103 e antena CCrane Twin Coil (Paulo Labastie, Pindamonhangaba SP, 8 May, radioescutas yg via DXLD) Lotsa Brazilians on 820, likely source of harmonic on 1640, including two Rádios Globos per WRTH 2014: One in RJ; and ZYL255 in Barbacena MG, which would be the one closest to Belo Horizonte, 5 kW day but at that hour should be on night power of 0.25 kW (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Esta harmónica existe há muitos anos, e è Barbacena 820 x 2 (Rocco Cotroneo, RJ, op. cit.) ** BRAZIL. LISTA DE EMISSORAS BRASILEIRAS ATIVAS EM 2.014 NAS ONDAS TROPICAIS (ATUALIZADO MAIO 2014) http://dxbrazilsw.blogspot.com (DANIEL WYLLYANS, NOVA XAVANTINA MT, BRAZIL, May 15, dxldyg via DXLD) ** BRAZIL. 5939.806, Rádio Voz Missionária, Camboriú, SC, Port., weak S=6 -88dBm 5970.010, ZYE523, Rádio Itatiaia, Belo Horizonte, MG, present audio modulation, fine signal, S=7 -85dBm. 6080.040, BRA stn, probably ZYE726, Rádio Marumby, Curitiba, PR, weak on threshold level. Male Portuguese announcement. 6090, Antilles not on air May 9th, instead heard: 6089.953, ABBA singer popular song at 0555 UT May 9. S=9 -74dBm. Probably R Bandeirantes, São Paulo, SP, or Nigerian R Kaduna instead. 6119.873, ZYE726, SRDA Super R Deus é Amor, Curitiba PR, weak 6180, RNB NOT ON AIR at 0600 UT, no scratchy replacement unit (Wolfgang Büschel, Log 0500-0630 UT May 9th slot this UT morning, like CAN/USA nighttime, All remote SDR unit log of Alberta-Canada location, wwdxc BC-DX TopNews May 9, dxldyg via DXLD) ** BRAZIL [and non]. 6009.957, UNID carrier at 0550 UT, 6009.950 at 1030 UT. Probably BRA? ZYE521 Rádio Inconfidência, Belo Horizonte MG. 6010.059, La Voz de tu Conciencia, Lomalinda, Puerto Lleras, Meta, CLM S=6 -88dBm very nice Latin American music. And approx. 100 Hertz hum buzz hit each other (Wolfgang Büschel, Log 0500-0630 UT May 9th slot this UT morning, like CAN/USA nighttime, All remote SDR unit log of Alberta-Canada location, wwdxc BC-DX TopNews May 9, dxldyg via DXLD) 6010+, May 11 at 0103, Brazuguese mentioning saudade, até méia-noite. Poor signal but in the clear, no hets and no carriers from Colombia or México. So it`s R. Inconfidência, while their // achieves only a JBA carrier on 15190+, both slightly on the hi side. At 0133 however, there is enough signal on 15190.1 or so to make a // modulation match, not that there was any doubt (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) And two BRA/CLM signals mixed on 6010v at 0630 UT on May 11, little weaker 6010.063 and that stronger on 6010.137 kHz. 73 wb (Wolfgang Büschel, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** BRAZIL. 6090-, May 11 at 0106, it`s my lucky night for Brazilians, as Anguilla is off again; jazzed up ``Workin` on the Railroad`` tune, 0106 full ID for R. Bandeirantes, São Paulo, with all their ZY- calls and frequencies. Slightly on the lo side. 11925 is also audible at 0144 but with the usual big het, presumably IBB Kuwait to Afghanistan at 0030-0230, because Brasil is off-frequency, just like it also is on the third SW channel, 9645.3v, not checked tonight (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** BRAZIL. 6120, May 14 at 0101, poor signal with music, presumably the Brazilian SRDA so I check 11765 on the other radio and they are // and almost synchronized as both go into wacky wailing gospel huxter Davi Miranda. 6120 is ex-R. Globo, in São Paulo, while 11765 is Super Rádio Deus é Amor, Curitiba. BTW, if you lose the acute over the e, you are misstating the name as ``Super Radio God AND Love`` instead of ``Super Radio God IS Love``. Accents matter! (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** BRAZIL [and non]. 6180, May 8 at 0510, RNA is off, can`t even detect a carrier aside 6175 WHRI/VOV; but RNA is still on 11780. 6180 has been missing quite a bit lately; better to be off completely than haywire elsewhere on the 49m band. 6180, May 9 at 0119, RNA is still off, but now that ominous rapid clicking sound is ranging from 6144 to 6167 and even audible underneath 6165 RHC, much like the previous 6180 transmitter out of whackiness; 11780 is on and OK. 6000 RHC also has similar clicking but only underneath it and not beyond, so in that case I suspect it is part of RHC`s own mismodulation (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Hi Glenn, Yes, also noted absence of 6090 and 6180 tonight (May 9 UT) (Ron Howard, California, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) 6180, May 10 at 0107, RNA is back on with VG signal after missing a few nights. Still on and OK at 0533, but at 0527 check of // 11780 found that at VG strength with music, but modulation a bit rough to go with unstable wobbling carrier as detected with BFO. Here we go again? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) RNB is back on 6180.004 kHz again this morning on May 11, 0610 UT, S=9+10 or -61dBm in NY-US remote SDR unit. \\ 11780.003 kHz S=9 or - 70dBm (Wolfgang Buschel, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) 6180, May 12 at 0118, RNA is gone again. 6180, May 12 at 0556, RNA is still off, while at 0559, 11780 is on, and rather distorted with overmodulation and rough unstable carrier. 11780, May 13 at 0511, RNA still rough modulation and unstable carrier. At first thought 6180 was off again, but then detectable // in heavy music splash from 6175 Vietnam/South Carolina (Glenn Hauser, OK, WORLD OF RADIO 1721, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 6180.006, RNA is back on air May 14 again, S=9+15dB or -56dBm at 0844 UT. \\ 11780 kHz in 25 mb (Wolfgang Büschel, wwdxc BC-DX TopNews May 14, dxldyg via DXLD) ** BRAZIL. 9664.36 approx., May 12 at 0125, poor signal in Brazuguese, tonight`s off-frequency measurement of Voz Missionária (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** BRAZIL. 11915.0, May 11 at 0143, fair signal, no het from Brazilian in the clear, unexpected timesignal to 0145:05, torch song by YL in Brazuguese tho it could have been in English. So R. Gaúcha, Porto Alegre, one of the more unusual ones here on 25m. Also audible: 11925v stronger with het; 11855v, 11765v, and of course 11780. 11815 RBC has not been heard for several weeks, nor the other ones listed (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** BRAZIL. Até quando vão as transmissões analógicas? Boa tarde ao grupo. Uma pergunta, não sei se já discutida aqui, mas gostaria de saber até quando vão as transmissões analógicas de TV aqui no Brasil? Agradeço as respostas (César Augusto Merlin - PY2HC, May 11, radioescutas yg via DXLD) A última que eu tive em uma reunião da ABERT em SP, foi que no caso de SP em 2016 não teremos mais TV analógica, mas segundo algumas pessoas que eu conversei na Feira Broadcasting, no Brasil todo isso pode acontecer a partir de 2018. Vamos ver, mas por questões técnicas, isso pode ser alterado a qualquer momento (Cassiano A. Macedo, 13 May, radioescutas yg via DXLD) ** CAMBODIA [non]. TAJIKISTAN, Frequency change of CMN Cambodia Media Network Radio: 2300-2330 9940 DB 200 kW / 125 deg SEAs Khmer Sun/Tue/Thu till May 4 2300-2330 9945 DB 200 kW / 125 deg SEAs Khmer Sun/Tue/Thu from May 6 (DX RE MIX NEWS #852 from Georgi Bancov and Ivo Ivanov, May 14, 2014 via DXLD) ** CANADA. 530 IS SEVERELY RESTRICTED --- by Jon Pearkins 530 kHz appeared to be the perfect solution to solve the CBC's issue of coverage in the Canadian North. Unplanned additions of new transmitters and increases in existing power are both strong evidence that the CBC's switch from AM to FM is only making matters worse. Those of us familiar with CBC history, and the importance that CBK-540 played in that history, had been wondering out loud why the CBC didn't exploit the tremendous potential of groundwave coverage on 530 kHz. Any radio built in the last 20 years includes 530 as part of the AM band. The CBC came into being on November 2, 1936. As both regulator and national broadcaster, they immediately limited private stations to 1,000 watts, but grandfathered CFRB and CFCN at their current 10,000 watts, and CKAC and CKLW at 5,000 watts. In less than three years, they had four 50,000 watt stations of their own on the air. As well as Canada's two largest cities, Toronto with CBL and Montreal with CBF, the CBC completed two very ambitious plans for regional stations: CBA to serve the Maritimes (excluding Newfoundland, which was not yet a part of Canada) and CBK to serve the entire Canadian Prairies: Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. The "K" in CBK stands for Henry Kelsey, known as "the first explorer of the Canadian Prairies". According to the Canadian Communications Foundation: “The two 460 foot radiators for CBK and CBA were the first guyed radiators designed in Canada, made by the Canadian Bridge Co. of Walkerville, Ontario. Both radiators were patented and were of triangular cross-section vertical design, having three sets of guy wires extending from the structure to heavy concrete anchors.” Given the huge size of the region that they were attempting to cover, the CBC went a lot further with CBK. Both Sackville and Watrous were selected for their excellent ground conductivity, but CBC Vancouver engineers that I interviewed for a DX Monitor article in 1968 explained that ground conductivity was further enhanced with the addition of underground radials one quarter mile long extending out in multiple directions from the tower. Then, of course, there was the frequency: 540 kHz. Bottom of the dial gave them the strongest groundwave possible. Coming on the air barely one month before Canada joined World War II, CBK remained the only CBC-owned station in the Canadian Prairies until long after the War ended (IRCA DX Monitor May 17 via DXLD) ** CANADA. More on CJLO 1690 adding 107.9 in Montreal and blocking Vermont Public Radio: http://radioinsight.com/community/topic/montreal-radio-updates/ (via Artie Bigley, May 12, DXLD) ** CANADA. 6159.976, CKZU Vancouver, S=9+15 -63dBm in Alberta, 0558 UT May 9 (Wolfgang Büschel, Log 0500-0630 UT May 9th slot this UT morning, like CAN/USA nighttime, All remote SDR unit log of Alberta- Canada location, wwdxc BC-DX TopNews May 9, dxldyg via DXLD) ** CHILE. 21290-USB, May 10 at 2045, CE2MVF calling CQ Contest. Per QRZ.com, MATTHIAS ACEVEDO VON FREY P.O.BOX. 147 CP. 2290000 LA CALERA V REGION Chile More including antenna shots: http://www.qrz.com/db/CE2MVF (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CHINA. FIREDRAKE MUSIC GENRE http://www.hfunderground.com/board/index.php/topic,16953.0.html « on: May 10, 2014, 0017 UTC » When I'm in the right mood, I can listen to Firedrake, the Chinese jamming station. But most of the time it comes off as brash and annoying. The other day I was under the influence and listening to it. It was pretty cool, the song ended with a stringed instrument that sounded like a bird calling out. So I'm interested in the music. It sounds patriotic. And it could be 100s of years old for all I know, they are an old culture and the instruments sound traditional. Can anybody share some background on the music? What is the genre of music that is played? (Antennae, California Central Coast, Radio Shack DX- 398 (Sangean ATS-909) portable receiver, 97' skyloop connected directly to coax into my domicile, 12' above ground, HF Underground via DXLD) « Reply #1 on: May 10, 2014, 0520 UTC » I've heard it referred to as Chinese classical music, if that helps at all (Chanter, Madison, WI, U.S.A., Tecsun PL-660 and Realistic DX-398, QSL's appreciated, There's a geeklady turning that dial! SWLer, MWLer, LW beaconeer, DXer of all bands and program listener. RNW forever, ibid.) « Reply #2 on: May 10, 2014, 1259 UTC » I used to think it's Chinese opera music, because it sounds so much like it -- many of the same instruments are used. But I think Chanter is correct, it's Chinese orchestra music (BoomboxDX, An AM radio Boombox DXer, + GE SRIII & TRF on MW, The usual Realistic culprits on SW (and a Panasonic), ibid.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4eltuzg8BA https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/china-broadcasting-chinese/id417718575 (Token, T! Mojave Desert, California USA, ibid.) « Reply #4 on: May 10, 2014, 2017 UTC » It's just traditional Chinese music. Lots of strings like erhu, jianghu, etc. And wind instruments like the dizi and sheng. I used to really enjoy the provincial broadcasters both on radio and TV during my time living in mainland China, because there was always at least a few hours a day of music like that from whatever region the transmissions came from. The stuff they play on the Firedrake is alright, but if you want to relax, I suggest listening to some guzheng music: Guzheng: "Spring River Flower Moon Night" ?? - ??…: http://youtu.be/ujzMHLac404 (taschenrechner, ibid.) Reply #5 on: May 10, 2014, 2115 UTC » http://www.satdirectory.com/firedrake.html (Skeezix, Minneapolis, MN, ibid.) Thanks everybody. That link that skeezix posted is pretty cool. The guzheng is a lot more relaxing than the Firedrake stuff (Antennae, ibid.) ** CHINA. CNR1 jamming after 1330 May 9; no Firedrake noted: 12910, May 9 at 1331, CNR1 jammer, poor; none in the 13s or 14s 15115, May 9 at 1332, CNR1 jammers echoing, fair-good, plus CCI 15195, May 9 at 1332, CNR1 jammer, no echo, poor-fair 15265, May 9 at 1333, CNR1 jammer, fair, with Taiwan off-fq het 15940, May 9 at 1334, CNR1 jammer, fair 15970, May 9 at 1334, CNR1 jammer, fair 16100, May 9 at 1335, CNR1 jammer, fair; none in the 17s, 18s, 19s (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) EAST JAMMERSTAN: 9805, Chinese Music Jammer; 2317, 10-May; Crash & Bang Lite with lotsa flutes, then into real Crash & Bang. Just barely over co-ch Chinese? Probably against RFA via UAE in Tibetan (Harold Frodge, Port Hope MI DXpedition, Drake R8B + 250 ft. LW + 85 ft. TTFD, All logged by my ears, on my receiver, in real time! DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CHINA. Firedrake found on one frequency, rest CNR1 jammers: 15195, May 12 at 1229, Firedrake music jammer, poor; no CNR1 mix? Still FD here and only here at rechex 1306, fair; 1344 poor with CCI 11605, May 12 at 1238, CNR1 jammer, very poor with CCI 11640, May 12 at 1238, CNR1 jammer, fair with heavy CCI 11785, May 12 at 1238, CNR1 jammer, fair 11825, May 12 at 1238, CNR1 jammer, very good with CCI not synch 17300 13795, May 12 at 1234, CNR1 jammer, very poor 13830, May 12 at 1234, CNR1 jammer, very poor with CCI 15115, May 12 at 1306, CNR1 jammer, fair with CCI 15250, May 12 at 1230, CNR1 jammer, fair with 1+1 time pips 15265, May 12 at 1306, CNR1 jammer, fair with usual het, ex-15250 16300, May 12 at 1231, CNR1 jammer, good 16920, May 12 at 1231, CNR1 jammer, poor 17300, May 12 at 1232, CNR1 jammer, good; none in the 18s, 19s, 14s 14600, May 12 at 1343, CNR1 jammer, good with flutter; no 12s, 13s 16100, May 12 at 1345, CNR1 jammer, poor-fair 16360, May 12 at 1345, CNR1 jammer, fair-good 16920, May 12 at 1345, CNR1 jammer, very poor 17300, May 12 at 1346, CNR1 jammer, fair; none in the 19s 18930: see TIBET [non] (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 15505, CNR1 1615+ 13 May. Jamming away v. unheard VOA Tibetan (sked 16-17 Su/Tu/Th/Sa). Also loud on 11685/15560 (both v. RFA Chinese 16- 17). (Dan Sheedy, Swami's Beach, CA PL380/6m X wire, DX LISTENING DIGEST) CNR1 jammers morning of May 14, no Firedrake heard: 16100, May 14 at 1254, CNR1 jammer, fair; none in the 17s, 18s 13130, May 14 at 1256, CNR1 jammer, very poor; no others in the 12s, 14s; and inband only in the 15s But see also TIBET [non]: 19000, 18990 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CHINA [and non]. [GERMANY / OMAN] China mainland jamming of digital like scratching DRM type, mainly used against English services of BBCWS, RA, VOA and others, heard at 1355 UT on 15310 kHz, BUT ALSO against AWR Chinese service from Nauen Germany at 1425 UT, scheduled daily 13-15 UT. 17810 kHz of course, VEILED DIGITAL SCRATCHY JAMMING - not Firedrake jammer - BUT ALSO against AWR Chinese service from Nauen Germany at 1425 UT, scheduled daily 13-15 UT (Wolfgang Büschel, wwdxc BC-DX TopNews May 14, dxldyg via DXLD) ** CHINA. 9410, Once again CNR 5th light pop music program from Beijing #491 site (acc Nagoya Aoki list) has a TERRIBLE AUDIO SCRATCHY quality signal. Sometimes 20 kHz wide, and also accompanied by some spurious signals in lower side of the 31 meterband. Scheduled at 1000- 1705 (Wolfgang Büschel, wwdxc BC-DX TopNews May 13, dxldyg via DXLD) ** CHINA. 13700, CNR13 (Lingshi), 1342-1356* 6-9 May. Usually weak but clear in Uyghur with soothing chat by W and lounge-lizard instrumental background, though on 9 May was running (presumed) promo/ad with crowd noises + ambulance siren just before closing. 9890, CNR13 (Lingshi), *1357-1435+ 6-9 May. After 13700 closes, they open here, battling the tail-end of FEBC's Yunnanese broadcast; 5+1 pips, "CNR" news sounder, then Chinese IDs by M/W, "salaam aleikum" followed by news in Uyghur read alternately by M/W, (presumed) ads, etc. just before BOH + piano-harp intro to ID "radyostansiya... programa..", CNR sounder. Listed // 9420 is just a fantasy, tnx CNR6 (Beijing). (Dan Sheedy, Swami's Beach, CA PL380/6m X wire, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ``Radyostansiya`` ??? Russian influence (gh, DXLD) ** CHINA [non]. According to the May issue of CQ plus, page 121, the following are "SOME" US stations carrying China Radio International. KCFJ 570 Alturas CA WUST 1120 Washington DC KHCM 880 Honolulu HI WNWR 1540 Philadelphia PA KXPD 1040 Tigard OR KGBC 1540 Galveston TX WILD 1090 Boston MA KADD 93.5 Logandale NV (Fred Kincaid, MARE Tipsheet May 9 via DXLD Does 1540 CHIN carry CRI? (Harold Frodge, ed., ibid.) ** CHINA. Glenn, Re your query on V. of South China Sea in DXLD 14-19, I saw the note in the WRTH B14 update. I heard the station on one other occasion (4/24) at a level good enough to hear their ID. Since then, though, some murmurs heard on 17710 after 0600, but nothing clear enough to ID. If the CRI Cantonese service on 15170 comes in well on 15170 after 0500, I'll check for the South China Sea service an hour later, unless the Mariners game on TV goes into extra innings. You would think CRI would step up the air time for this service, considering the thrash they're having with the Vietnamese over CNOOC anchoring its oil-drilling rig in contested waters (Chuck Albertson, Seattle, Wash., May 12, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CHINA [non?]. AS-143. Just a reminder that a group of Chinese hams will be active from the rare Yongxing Island, Paracel Islands, sometime between now and May 15th. The actual operation period depends on the schedule of the ship. Only one radio is allowed to be on the air 24 hours around the clock due to the limit of operators by the local authority. The assigned callsign will be B7CRA. Operators mentioned are Terry/BA7NQ, Che/BA7CK, De/BA7JA, Dick/BD7YC, Lin/BI7IOB and Vange/BA7IO. Equipment listed: 2xICOM 756PRO3 with 2x1KFA, 2xSB and 1 GP. QSL via BA4EG (Ohio/Penn DX Bulletin No. 1162, May 12, 2014, Editor Tedd Mirgliotta, KB8NW, Provided by BARF80.ORG (Cleveland, Ohio via Dave Raycroft, ODXA yg via DXLD) ** COLOMBIA. 5910.073, Alcaraván Radio, Spanish nice Latin America music, S=7-8 -82dBm (Wolfgang Büschel, Log 0500-0630 UT May 9th slot this UT morning, like CAN/USA nighttime, All remote SDR unit log of Alberta-Canada location, wwdxc BC-DX TopNews May 9, dxldyg via DXLD) ** COLOMBIA [and non]. 6009.957, UNID carrier at 0550 UT, 6009.950 at 1030 UT. Probably BRA? ZYE521 Rádio Inconfidência, Belo Horizonte MG. 6010.059, La Voz de tu Conciencia, Lomalinda, Puerto Lleras, Meta, CLM S=6 -88dBm very nice Latin American music. And approx. 100 Hertz hum buzz hit each other (Wolfgang Büschel, Log 0500-0630 UT May 9th slot this UT morning, like CAN/USA nighttime, All remote SDR unit log of Alberta-Canada location, wwdxc BC-DX TopNews May 9, dxldyg via DXLD) 6009.958, HJDH. Loud and clear identification "La Voz de tu Conciencia, from Lomalinda Puerto Lleras, Meta" noted at 0839:10 UT May 14, S=8-9 or 77dBm strength. The other peak on 6010.078, seemingly the ZYE521 R. Inconfidência from Belo Horizonte MG much weaker in slot before 0900 UT (Wolfgang Büschel, wwdxc BC-DX TopNews May 14, dxldyg via DXLD) ** CONGO. 6115, May 13 -1828*, Radio Congo, ID by female at 1825, more announcements, short piece of music, then off. The same pattern as yesterday, often noted as missing the weeks before. 73 (Thorsten Hallmann, Münster, Germany, http://www.muenster.org/uwz/ms-alt/africalist dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) 6115.000, Radio Congo in French announcement, til 1830 UT, but transmitter suddenly switched OFF earlier at 1828:30 UT. 73 (Wolfgang Büschel, May 13, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CUBA. 1010, May 4 at 0558 UT, amid QRM I hear the ``RR`` Morse code ID of Radio Reloj; but WRTH 2014 shows no Cuban on this frequency! Nearest is 1020, 10 kW in Victoria de las Tunas; don`t think this was bleedover to next channel. How about R. Reloj`s own frequency list? http://www.radioreloj.cu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=39:cadenas-de-trasmision-de-radio-reloj-por-am&catid=12:programacion-de-la-emisora-radio-reloj&Itemid=138 indeed shows Tunas on 1010, not 1020, with 5 kW (was the town named for a fishing tournament or a musical competition? Ask Ernest) {Terry Krueger says Reloj, Jobabo, Las Tunas has been head on 1010 since 1997, and there is another Reloj on 1020 somewhere in eastern Cuba.} (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Viz.: Per my own list I've heard it quite a long time ago and the site is supposedly as below probably correlating to your notation via the Reloj page: 1010 KHz Radio Reloj Jobabo Las Tunas N Krueger/Rodriguez 1999-09 site per Osvaldo Rodriguez of Reloj; hrd by Krueger 1997-02 Oh and I should say 1020 Reloj is very much still on the air, easily heard here (Terry Kruger, FL, DX LISTENING DIGEST) So where is the 1020 Reloj transmitter, then? His list just says ``east end of island``; there was also a jammer on 1020 from Tunas? (gh, DXLD) ** CUBA. 1000, Radio Artemisa, Artemisa, Aretemisa. 0032 May 6, 2014. Cuban rap/rock into "Roar" by Katy Perry. Parallel 1020, both very good. 1220, Radio Caribe, La Fe, Isla de la Juventud. 0040 May 6, 2014. Nice Cuban pop/rock (Terry L Krueger, Clearwater FL, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CUBA. 1620 kHz, May 9 at 0137 UT, as my streetlite ignites after LSS, dominant signal at tune-in is R. Rebelde FM ID and produxion credits; 0139 mentioning Día de las Madres, which is apparently coördinated with the Yanqui calendar! Unlike various other Latin countries. Convenient to be in step with the gusanos in Miami. Indeed not // R. Rebelde (AM) on 5025, 1180. How much of the time, or is it all the time that this 1620-AM carries the ``FM`` service? (Glenn Hauser, OK, WORLD OF RADIO 1721, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CUBA [and non]. 9790, May 8 at 0528, huge open carrier with hum, obviously the CRI HAB relay which wasn`t turned off at 0500. Standard remark, burning countless kWh for nothing. Take it out of RadioCuba operator salaries? 6000, May 8 at 0512, the latest SNAFU at RHC: in English correctly for a change, but with very heavy SAH of about 8 Hz from an equally strong carrier --- it must be a nearby RHC transmitter, supposed to be on 6100, which is missing! 6060, 6165 and 5040 are nominal. 13740, May 8 at 2100, I catch RHC signing on its `Revista Iberoamericana` bihour, with frequency list in Soviet-style disorder: ``13740, 11670, 11760, 11840, 9710, 9810, 5040, 102.5``. All the SW are audible, except 11670 is late coming up: 2102 carrier on and off and 2103 back on with modulation. I couldn`t hear India along with it, but presumably they are still colliding further east (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) See also BRAZIL BTW - Weak audio heard under Cuba on 6165 after 0300, so assume might have been Turkey? (Ron Howard, California, UT May 9, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) 6165, May 9 at 0520, RHC English is weaker than usual, as also noticed earlier in evening; in fact, not much ACI to CBC 6160! From strongest to weakest now on 49m, the Cuban Four: 6000, 6100, 6060, 6165. 6100 is now the clicky one. 15340, May 9 at 1333 is today`s missing RHC frequency while 15370 is on; impossiblizing any leapfrogs on 15400 or 15310. 15340 still off at 1401. 6165, May 10 at 0107, RHC is on tonight in English // 6000, the latter very undermodulated. 6100, May 10 at 0534, now this one is very undermodulated (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 15230, Radio Habana Cuba; 1417, 10-May; M&W discussion in Spanish. SIO=3+35-; // 15310 SIO=2+33- with whine QRM; // 15340 S30; // 15370 S20 (Harold Frodge, Port Hope MI DXpedition, Drake R8B + 250 ft. LW + 85 ft. TTFD, All logged by my ears, on my receiver, in real time! DX LISTENING DIGEST) 15310 being leapfrog of 15370 over 15340 (gh, DXLD) India vs Cuba, 11670 --- Hello Glenn, I just want to correct my post this week [14-19]. I had not realised that I wrote the wrong country in my anger post; I wanted to say Cuba, but for some reason wrote India. You are right. My anger was misplaced, but it's not what I wanted to say. I was angry at Cuba not going by the rules. Sorry about that! 73! (Gilles Letourneau, Montreal, Canada, May 10, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) 11670, May 10 at 2102, AIR is weakly audible, presumably news in English, as RHC hasn`t come on yet; tho on 13740, sign on from *2100 with frequency list including 11670; among the others, RHC 11840 is muffled and distorted. Not until 2106 do I notice that RHC has come up on 11670, with AIR suppressed underneath it. Tnx a lot, Arnie! 12165, May 11 at 0123, poor talk in English vs double or triple CODAR swiping; fades in and out. O yeah, yet another extra frequency from RHC, matching modulation on soft 6000 plus loud 6165. I can hear 12165 on both the PL-880 and DX-398, and I think this is transmitted sum rather than receiver overload but not positive. My streetlight ignites with a burst of RF as I am rechecking 12165 at *0142 (Glenn Hauser, OK, WORLD OF RADIO 1721, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 6000, May 11 at 0536, open carrier/dead air from RHC English; nominal on 6165, 600, 6060, 5040, Arnie science segment ending. 9580, May 12 at 0113, no signal from CRI relay via Habana, but tune back across at 0115 and now CRI English is on // 9570 Albania. 6165, May 12 at 0119 as I tune across Arnie Coro, he is mentioning that R. Mayabeque, 104.7 FM transmits from a tall TV tower in Habana, even tho it serves a separate province (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Hi Glenn, Cuba - May 12, from 0325 to 0339, noted series of speeches ending with applause; all // on 5025, 5040, 6060 and 6070; all fair. Recently have found several cases of 5025 being // RHC (Ron Howard, CA, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) 12330, May 12 at 1212, RHC Spanish with VG signal on this totally strange frequency! This is no mixing product or accidental harmonic, but full strength transmission even if erroneous. // and synchronized with 11760, an echo apart from // 12010. But which frequency is missing? 11860. Most obvious way RHC could come up on 12330 would be mistuning the 6165 transmitter to radiate only on its second harmonic. Yes, nothing now on 6165, tho 6000 is propagating. 6165 is normally used, most of the time, only for English at 01-07. Further chex of 12330: at 1236 it`s off, so they realized the mistake? 11860 is still off too. No, at 1303, 12330 is back on, and still no 11860. But 12330 cuts off at 1310*, still no 11860, but next check at 1341, 11860 is finally on. 15340, May 12 at 1304, no signal yet from RHC or 15370, but at 1305, 15340 comes on with modulation, while 15370 is dead air at first, modulation on, and off and then on to stay. These are synchronized with 12330, so from same site (Glenn Hauser, OK, WORLD OF RADIO 1721, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 9850, May 13 at 1204, open carrier/dead air from RHC, while 9820 is JBA under China. At 1206, modulation has started on 9850. 9810, May 14 at 0113, RHC Spanish modulation is cutting out, on usual very poor signal here, // much stronger 11670 and an echo apart from it, so from the two different sites. Aoki shows 9810 as 100 kW, 340 degrees from Habana --- no way, with that crummy signal that it`s toward USA. RHC`s own schedule claims it`s for Central America, http://www.radiohc.cu/interesantes/estaticas/frecuencias which is more like it, roughly off the side here with minimized signal (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CUBA. Cuban TV sked can be found here.. http://www.tvcubana.icrt.cu/cartelera-de-la-tvcubana/740-cartelera-de-la-television-cubana-domingo - de WRH ON (Bill Hepburn, Ontario, WTFDA DX BB via DXLD) ** CYPRUS. 9942-9966, May 10 at 0131, strong OTH radar pulsing, presumed from here, QRMs 9965 Cairo, and 9955 WRMI, adding to the Cuban jamming against PCJ Radio International (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** DOMINICAN REPUBLIC. 24891-CW, May 10 at 2113, CQDX HI3LFE HI3LFE over and over, too perfect to be hand-keyed, and omits the ``DE``: LORENZO FERNANDEZ P.O. Box 173 SANTIAGO Dominican Republic Lots of photos and QSL instruxions at http://www.qrz.com/db/HI3LFE (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ECUADOR. 3380v Apr20 0305 OID men troligen Centro Radiofonico de Imbabura. Hördes några nätter runt påsk och varierade i frekvens mellan 3379 - 3381. Mycket svag och cd runt 0310. SA 3380v, Apr 20, 0305, UNID but probably Centro Radiofónico de Imbabura. Heard a few nights around Easter and varied in frequency between 3379- 3381. Very weak and closedown around 0310 (Stig Adolfsson, Vallentuna, Sweden, SW Bulletin May 11, translated by editor Thomas Nilsson for DX LISTENING DIGEST) Long thought to be inactive (gh, DXLD) ** EGYPT. For the first time since 2010, Egypt is to observe summer time, and clocks will go forward on 15 May. However, clocks will go back again for Ramadan (which this year starts around 29 June), so there will be a lot of chopping and changing (Chris Greenway, May 8, dxldyg via WORLD OF RADIO 1721, DX LISTENING DIGEST) IIRC in last DST period, external broadcasts did not timeshift, (except I suppose domestic relays in Arabic), altho it hardly matters with their unreadability (gh, WORLD OF RADIO 1721, DXLD) 9965, Radio Cairo; 2307, 10-May; W in English with nature feature; pips & tone at 2315:15 into anthem. 2315+ "Good morning ladies & gentlemen... Radio Cairo." (Apparently they're on FCT, Flexible Cairo Time.) SIO=4+33 w/strong hum, but decent copy! (Harold Frodge, Port Hope MI DXpedition, Drake R8B + 250 ft. LW + 85 ft. TTFD, All logged by my ears, on my receiver, in real time! DX LISTENING DIGEST) 11710+, May 11 at 0119, R. Cairo with VG signal level, but distorted and suppressed modulation; ``Radio Cairo presenta --- [algo] América Latina`` with tango theme; slightly on the hi side and without any Argentina het on weekend, which tangos a lot better. This time 11710 sounds about as awful as // 12070; // 9315 is much weaker but clearer. 12070, May 14 at 0129, R. Cairo Spanish service with no program modulation at all, very strong signal with some hum, and motorboating spikes, extending out plus/minus 25 kHz ranging 12045-12095. // 11710v has plenty of Spanish program modulation here and very distorted, plus Argentine het. Other // 9315 is also somewhat distorted and overmodulated, but much better by comparison (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 15535.088, Radio Cairo Arabic service to Sahel and Western Africa registered at 13-16 UT from Abis site; on odd frequency and totally distorted audio, and spurious portion on lower side from 15521 to 15535 kHz, and also 8 kHz wide on upper side to 15543 kHz. Heard at 1345 UT May 14. S=7 -87dBm sidelobe signal into southern Germany (Wolfgang Büschel, wwdxc BC-DX TopNews May 14, dxldyg via DXLD) ** ETHIOPIA. 6110, Fana Broadcasting Corporate; 0255-0304+, 10-May; IS from 0255 tune-in to jazz and ID at 0258; ID in English into unknown language at 0300, into more jazz & Afro-pop. SIO=3+53; nothing heard on listed 7210 (Harold Frodge, Port Hope MI DXpedition, Drake R8B + 250 ft. LW + 85 ft. TTFD, All logged by my ears, on my receiver, in real time! DX LISTENING DIGEST) 6110.000, Radio Fana in Oromo via Gedja Jawe, 18-19 UT window on this channel, only ETHIOPIA on air. S=8 -74dBm, HoA music at 1827 UT. And between on 6113.200 kHz looks like a carrier whistle from probably Eritrea jammer? 5950.000, V of Tigray Revolution, Gedja Jawe, 1815 UT May 13, S=8 - 75dBm, HoA music. 6029.986, R Oromiya, from Gedja Jawe in Oromo, S=8 -78dBm signal strength. 73 (Wolfgang Büschel, May 13, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ETHIOPIA. 7236.923 ... 7236.993, Hefty wandering signal from Gedja Jawe Ethiopia noted on May 12th and 13 again, 1530 UT, after break of some weeks now. Very odd signal wandered approx. 60 Hertz up and down. Scheduled broadcast at 0300-2100 UT, - I guess (Wolfgang Büschel, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) No - it did almost always only broadcast in the past until 1800 or 1835v* and there was certainly no break of several weeks recently - External Service until 1800 and occasionally and Voice of Peace & Democracy or Voice of Eritrea/Dimtsi Eritrea afterwards. I do not remember any logs for s/on at 0300, I believe it does broadcast only on certain days in the mornings from 0400 with Voice of Peace & Democracy. 73 (Thorsten Hallmann, Germany, ibid.) Radio Ethiopia, Voice of Democratic Alliance, and Voice of Peace & Democracy scheduled here (wb, wwdxc BC-DX TopNews May 13, ibid.) 7236v, May 13, R. Ethiopia already off at 1832, was on 7236.8 an hour or so ago. 73 (Thorsten Hallmann, Münster, Germany, http://www.muenster.org/uwz/ms-alt/africalist dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ETHIOPIA. New Photo Album & Discussion Topic - Hi all, I've added a NEW Photo Album in our Yahoo Group. It's Album No. 59 and it's named 'Analyse This'. I've posted a first diagram in the album & it's a diagram of the antennas & types seen at the Ethiopian site of: Geja Dera. There's been some changes at this site between 2004 & 2010. Another new (additional) TX building with antennas (or masts at least) surrounding in a circular arrangement around the building. This is all new to me. A look around the entire site reveals: 1. 2 or 3 Rhombic antennas RHO 1 with azimuths of 150 or 330 deg RHO 2 " " " 168 or 348 deg RHO 3 with azimuths of 62 or 242 degrees 2. 2 x Fountain antennas 3. 1 x Yagi Style Log Periodic antenna 4. One or two MW antennas/masts (maybe) Designations: M1 & T1 5. Another 12 masts M2 to M13 6. The new TX building to the west has 13 masts surrounding it (yellow circle line). This site appears as 08N46 038E40 in WRTH 2014 Geja Dera. Supposedly the domestic SW broadcasters use this site. That said there are 3 ND fountain antennas & 1 V type antenna at the other Geja SW external broadcast site - I wonder? This looks to me to be "mainly" MW BCB & HF utility. Any comments & information welcome regarding this site (Ian Baxter, SHORTWAVESITES Group Owner, May 11, via DXLD) ** FINLAND. While writing this at 1115 UT (11 May 2014) I am listening to the time signals coming from MIKES (Finland) on 25000 kHz AM. So, please don´t confuse this with reactivated WWV (USA) on 25000 kHz AM. Note that WWV also has spoken time announcements and station identifications, while MIKES just broadcasts time pips all the time. Regards (Harald Kuhl, Germany, BDXC-UK yg via DXLD) ** FRANCE. RFI special? Today's HFCC update mostly consists of a 10- day special, starting today, of Radio France Internationale. Why? Cannes Festival: 14-25 May. Euro elections: 25 May. Soccer / TourDeFrance: June/July. So none of these. They used to transmit their Météo at these hours. Will they be on air at all? They registered a crazy amount of 11 transmitters for 4 frequencies, so it must be important or someone's wishful thinking. Nothing found on http://rfi.fr of course. Maybe someone can check, I'll be at work. These are the registrations: 1100-1130 UT, 12 May - 22 May 2014, all ISS 9790 for 28/29 (Eastern Europe), 500 kW/85 deg 15300 for 18SE,19,20,28NE,29,30N,31NW (E Eur, Siberia), 500 kW/60 deg 15300 for 37S,46 (West Africa), 500 kW/200 deg 15300 for 37,38W,46E,47 (N Central Africa), 500 kW/165 deg 17630 for 37S,46 (West Africa), 500 kW/185 deg 17630 for 4,8,9,80 (North America!), 500 kW/300 deg 17630 for 38,39,48 (ME/East Africa), 500 kW/120 deg 21690 for 52,47,38,37,46E (Ce Africa), 500 kW/150 deg 21690 for 11 (Ce America), 500 kW/270 deg 21690 for 12,13 (So America), 500 kW/240 deg 21690 for 40,41,42,29,30 (E Europe, We/Ce/So Asia), 500 kW/70 deg 73, (Eike Bierwirth, May 12, dxldyg via WORLD OF RADIO 1721, DX LISTENING DIGEST) http://hfcc.org/data/schedbyfmo.php?seas=A14&fmor=TDF says "Elections européenne" for each of the registrations. I will try and remember to check tomorrow morning when I'm in work via Twente SDR. I found this page on the RFI website about the extra transmissions: http://www.rfi.fr/europe/20140509-elections-europeennes-campagnes-audiovisuelles-officielles/ "The official campaign in France for the European elections begins Monday, May 12 and ends Thursday, May 22 All candidates have a strict equality of speaking time and antenna according to the rules laid down by the Higher Audiovisual Council (CSA). In this context, RFI broadcasts campaign spots of the various candidates shortwave from 11am to 11:30 UT (in kHz), from May 12 to 17 inclusive and 19 to 22 May inclusive. You will find below the frequencies depending on your region. Eastern Europe: 15300 Southern Europe: 9790 North Africa: 15300 Central Africa: 21690 West Africa: Dakar to: 15300 West Africa: towards Abidjan: 17630 Eastern Africa - Middle East - Middle East: 17630 Central America: 21690 South America: 21690 North America: 17630 South East Asia - North India: 21620" Translated by Google but it gets the gist of it. Sounds like what we in the UK would call party political broadcasts, I assume for French living abroad and registered to vote in the elections in France by postal vote (Stephen Cooper, dxldyg via WORLD OF RADIO 1721, DX LISTENING DIGEST) I can hear the broadcast on the Twente SDR on 15300 (strongest), 17630, 21690 and 21620. Nothing on 9790 though (Stephen Cooper, 1107 May 13, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Special broadcasts of Radio France Internationale on shortwave for the European elections. In this context, RFI broadcasts campaign spots of the various candidates from May 12 to 17 and from May 19 to 22 as follows: 1100-1130 on 9790 ISS 500 kW / 085 deg to South Europe 1100-1130 on 15300 ISS 500 kW / 060 deg to East Europe 1100-1130 on 15300 ISS 500 kW / 165 deg to North Africa 1100-1130 on 15300 ISS 500 kW / 200 deg to West Africa 1100-1130 on 17630 ISS 500 kW / 120 deg to Middle East 1100-1130 on 17630 ISS 500 kW / 185 deg to West Africa 1100-1130 on 17630 ISS 500 kW / 300 deg to North America 1100-1130 on 21690 ISS 500 kW / 070 deg to South Asia 1100-1130 on 21690 ISS 500 kW / 150 deg to Central Africa 1100-1130 on 21690 ISS 500 kW / 240 deg to South America 1100-1130 on 21690 ISS 500 kW / 270 deg to Central America (Ivo Ivanov, DX Re Mix May 14 via DXLD) ** GEORGIA [and non]. US BROADCASTER RFE/RL EXPANDS GEORGIAN BROADCASTS | Text of report by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) website on 7 May RFE/RL's Georgian Service, known locally as Radio Tavisupleba, expanded its broadcasts to 18 hours today, via FM transmitters leased from Radio Green Wave, the service's longtime broadcast affiliate in Georgia. RFE/RL executives say the expansion on Green Wave's nationwide network of 16 transmitters will dramatically increase the reach and impact of its programming in this vital Caucasus market. RFE/RL editor-in-chief Nenad Pejic hailed the expansion of programming, calling it "an ideal opportunity to mobilize the strengths of both RFE/RL and our partners at the Voice of America to offer the people of Georgia a diversity of balanced, credible news and analysis found nowhere else on the country's airwaves." Pejic noted that the mix of programming allows RFE/RL to address the informational needs not only of ethnic Georgians, but also of Georgia's largest ethnic and linguistic minority groups. Following an offer by Radio Green Wave in late 2013, RFE/RL worked with VOA's Georgian Service to programme the 8.00 a.m.-2.00 a.m. stream with content from Radio Tavisupleba and its Russian-language Ekho Kavkaza ("Echo of the Caucasus") unit, as well as RFE/RL's Russian Service, Armenian Service, and Azerbaijani Service. VOA's Learning English and Music Mix services are also part of the programming, and a live newscast runs at the top and bottom of each hour. Radio Tavisupleba, which has broadcast since 1953, is a trusted source of balanced journalism in a country where much of the press openly supports, both editorially and through the selection of news, either the government or opposition parties. The service's programmes target educated, 20-40 year old professionals and opinion leaders frustrated with the country's polarized media market who seek independent information and perspectives. The service's Russian-language Ekho Kavkaza seeks to use impartial reporting to overcome mistrust between the peoples of Georgia and the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Source: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty website, Washington D.C., in English 7 May 14 (via BBCM via DXLD) RL Georgian not SW for some years now (gh, DXLD) ** GREECE [and non]. 15630, May 8 at 0518, Avlis is JBA with talk // 9420 which is only poor now. Nothing on 7450 or 7475. 9420, May 12 at 0122, no signal from Greece, audiblizing very poor signal from IRAN; nor any Greek on 7475/7450 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Again surprisingly broadcasts of ERT on May 13: from 1300 on 9420 AVL 170 kW / 323 deg to WeEu Greek from 1300 on 9935 AVL 100 kW / 285 deg to WeEu Greek from 1300 on 15630*AVL 100 kW / 285 deg to WeEu Greek * co-channel Radio Free Chosun in Korean via Palauig-Zambales http://swldxbulgaria.blogspot.com/2014/05/again-surprisingly-broadcast-of-ert.html -- 73! (Ivo Ivanov, dxldyg via DXLD) This is my reception report for Tuesday and Wednesday, May 13-14, 2014 TUESDAY 5/13 | WEDNESDAY 5/14 1900 2000 2100 2200 2300| 0000 0100 0200 kHz Az kW Xmtr 00000 15241 15241 45344 XXXXX|XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX 7450 323 100 1 15241 25242 25242 25242 XXXXX|XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX 15630 285 100 2 XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX 55555|55555 55555 55555 7475 285 100 1 XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX 00000|00000 00000 00000 15650 226 100 2 15241 25342 35333 45344 55545|55555 55555 55555 9420 323 170 3 (John Babbis, Silver Spring MD, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 9420 VG > 7475 F > 15650 VP, May 14 at 0105, Elleniki Radiophonia still going on all three Avlis transmitters, woman in Greek mentioning socialism (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) The report by DWL Deutsche Welle German sce Bonn: http://www.dw.de/schwerer-start-für-neuen-staatssender/a-17620104 and today at 0915 CEST moved by the DLF in a post. http://ondemand-mp3.dradio.de/file/dradio/2014/05/14/dlf_20140514_0923_e15cd0ea.mp3 Program "EUROPA today". "Narrow Gauge program - After the start of the new state broadcaster TV and Radio in Greece, the skepticism remains." re ERT / new NERIT --- since yesterday start again at 13 UT noon on shortwave 9420, 9935, and 15630 kHz. Re : [A- DX ] NERIT / ERT --- Re ERT rebels radio via Avlis continues. Nice to the 385 billion euro loan for the state for 6 years. Again loans the greedy hedge funds from last week to come. Which are now frittered away by Avlis, and we SWL Consumer are happy. 73 (Wolfgang Büschel, wwdxc BC-DX TopNews May 12-14, dxldyg via DXLD)) Bumpy automatic translation: really a typical Greek solution. Not real BBC standard in TV and radio of new NERIT organization. Everything like since Papadopolos in 1982 handled, nepotism, relationships and political influence and interference everywhere. Only from the threat of unemployment is one-third of the workforce joined in the new NERIT come across and makes as ever, all cousins ?? are took over in coming decade and then set the influence of the upcoming Greek governments continues. PS: So we enjoy the beautiful music on shortwave --- (Wolfgang Büschel, May 13, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 9420 and 9935 ERT rebels Avlis, only open carrier on air, no audio feed from 13 UT, but also in Greek heard then from 1410 UT (Wolfgang Büschel, wwdxc BC-DX TopNews May 14, dxldyg via DXLD) Surprising broadcasts of Elliniki Radiophonia Tileorasi ERT May 13 from 1300 on 9420 AVL 170 kW / 323 deg to WeEu Greek from 1300 on 9935 AVL 100 kW / 285 deg to WeEu Greek from 1300 on 15630*AVL 100 kW / 285 deg to WeEu Greek * co-ch Radio Free Chosun in Korean via Palauig-Zambales from 1500 on 9420 AVL 170 kW / 323 deg to WeEu Greek from 1500 on 9935 AVL 100 kW / 285 deg to WeEu Greek from 1500 on 15650 AVL 100 kW / 105 deg to SoAs Greek May 14 from 0200 on 7475 AVL 100 kW / 285 deg to NoAm Greek from 0200 on 9420 AVL 170 kW / 323 deg to NoAm Greek from 0200 on 15650 AVL 100 kW / 226 deg to CeAm Greek from 0500 on 9420 AVL 170 kW / 323 deg to WeEu Greek from 0500 on 11645 AVL 100 kW / 182 deg to NoAf Greek from 0500 on 15630 AVL 100 kW / 285 deg to WeEu Greek off around 0605 from 0800 on 9420 AVL 170 kW / 323 deg to WeEu Greek from 0800 on 11645 AVL 100 kW / 182 deg to NoAf Greek from 0800 on 15630 AVL 100 kW / 285 deg to WeEu Greek is not on air from 1000 on 9420 AVL 170 kW / 323 deg to WeEu Greek from 1000 on 11645 AVL 100 kW / 182 deg to NoAf Greek from 1000 on 15630 AVL 100 kW / 285 deg to WeEu Greek is not on air from 1200 on 9420 AVL 170 kW / 323 deg to WeEu Greek from 1200 on 11645 AVL 100 kW / 182 deg to NoAf Greek from 1200 on 15630 AVL 100 kW / 285 deg to WeEu Greek is not on air from 1400 on 9420 AVL 170 kW / 323 deg to WeEu Greek from 1400 on 9935 AVL 100 kW / 285 deg to WeEu Greek from 1400 on 15650 AVL 100 kW / 105 deg to SoAs Greek is not on air (DX RE MIX NEWS #852 from Georgi Bancov and Ivo Ivanov, May 14, 2014 via DXLD) ** GUATEMALA. 24950-USB, May 10 at 2042, TG9NX calling QRZ, making quick contacts in English. Seems to be the OSOB, or at least the SSB SSOB, while I didn`t find any activity on 28 MHz, but some on 27 MHz. Still going at 2112, QRZ Caribbean. Franco Capuano 16 AVE 17-20 Zona 10 Guatemala city 01010 Guatemala Geez, he has horror stories about QSLing, and very strict rules: http://www.qrz.com/db/TG9NX including ``no duplicate QSOs`` --- meaning he never wants to talk to you again? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** HAITI. For anyone interested in TV & FM news from Haiti --- Haiti is currently preparing to make the DTV transition and is holding *town meetings* in numerous cities throughout the country during the entire 2014 year. These meetings are open to the public to explain the digital television transition and answer questions. They began the *town meetings* on February 19, 2013 and currently have a transition date of June 15, 2015. Their documents refer to ATSC in the digital television, so I would presume they are staying with the standard the US & Canada have adopted. I have the latest database for FM for Haiti (dated December 31, 2013), which includes everything that was currently licensed up to that date. They have removed the calls (and power) from the database now and are only referring to the stations by their station name. The listings are referenced by numerical frequency, then alphabetical city, they alphabetical station name. They also indicate if a station is $ (if not, it`s mono) and the date of the station's license. There are now 285 FM radio stations operating in Haiti. I have the complete list as an .XLS file. If you would like a copy, email me OFFLIST. jethomas1955 @ gmail.com "It's dx time. Get in, sit down, shut up, dx like crazy, and hold on." - Anonymous (Jim Thomas, Springfield, Missouri, May 12, WTFDA gg via DXLD) Jim, Thanks for sending that information along. I returned from the Dominican Republic and Haiti on April 16 and find it of interest. Unfortunately, the hotel I stayed at in Port-au-Prince had satellite and I couldn't check on-air. I should have taken a battery powered TV but didn't. The room had a flat screen HDTV but it sure wasn't HD. In Santo Domingo it was the same story. Haiti is so poor I am surprised they are converting to HDTV at this time. The center of Port-au-Prince is still rubble with few exceptions. But still happy, friendly and helpful people. No problems (Dave Pomeroy, Topeka, Kansas, ibid.) ** INDIA. 9470.972, Very odd signal of AIR National Channel in Hindi & English via Aligarh site. Scheduled at 1320-0043 UT acc Eibi list. Noted at 1620 UT May 13, hit by powerful adjacent signal from RA Shepparton, carrying religious Gregorian chorus of students (Wolfgang Büschel, wwdxc BC-DX TopNews May 13, dxldyg via DXLD) ** INDIA. 11985, May 9 at 0113, tail of AIR Sinhala service is very poor here with music, but seems same as on // 11740 which is much stronger, unusually. Sites are Delhi-Khampur, and Goa respectively. 11985, May 11 at 0101, no signal from AIR Sinhala service, via Delhi- Khampur, not even a carrier, while // 11740 via GOA is poorly audible, so suspect 11985 is really off. ** INDIA. 11985, May 12 at 0111, JBA carrier from presumed AIR Sinhala service via Delhi-Khampur, while no signal at all on 11740-Goa; the opposite of last night. SRI LANKA 11905 is much more reliable (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) All India Radio (presumed) now on 11650 kHz ? ex-11620 kHz? 0025 UT 14 May 2014. New frequency? or error? Nothing audible on 11620 kHz (Bruce Fisher (New York, USA), dxldyg via DXLD) Heard later on 11620 (gh) ** INDONESIA. 4869.93v, RRI Wamena, 1227-1255, May 8. Another Thursday with the English programming of Kang Guru Indonesia (KGI); heard Greg with his Australian accent; almost unusable, but slowly improved. Nice to find RRI still carries this. http://www.kangguru.org/ (Ron Howard, Asilomar State Beach, CA, E1 & CR-1, dxldyg via WORLD OF RADIO 1721, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** INDONESIA. 9525.892, Odd frequency signal of V of Indonesia from Cimanggis in Arabic, 16-17 UT, logged downunder in Australia at 1630 UT May 13, S=8 at -80dBm level (Wolfgang Büschel, wwdxc BC-DX TopNews May 13, dxldyg via DXLD) ** IRAN [and non]. 13785, May 9 at 1328, poor signal with chanting & drumming; 1330 Iran`s three rising chimes and news theme. It`s merely the 9-hour Arabic service from VIRI starting at 0520, 500 kW, 178 degrees from Kamalabad toward east Arabia. Only other significant signal on the band is Greenville Martí on 13605 (song in English; what`s with that??), not even WWCR 13845 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** IVORY COAST [non]. 15155, May 10 at 2054, nice classical music with flutes, but just filler until 2055, Radio Mondiale Adventiste, La Voix de l`Espérance outro in French, with address in Côte d`Ivoire; fair with flutter. HFCC shows 2030-2100 daily, 300 kW, 210 degrees via Moosbrunn, AUSTRIA (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** JAPAN. UNIDENTIFIED. 8785-USB, May 13 at 1151, Japanese OM talking: sounds like a broadcast, not a traffic list. Perhaps marine weather. Stops at 1156; back briefly at 1158 maybe attempting a contact. From 1200, ACI from WLO/KLB on 8788 but only for brief ID info at hourtop. Searching various utility resources on 8785 gets very few hits. From UDXF yg: ``8 April 2011: 8785 USB 1131z: Japanese sounding OM reading long message. Perhaps maritime informational broadcast? Brandon Menifee CA USA http://solarix.net `` ``6/27/10 11:45 UTC 8785 USB Unid Japanese OM steady talk as if talk show host. If you are willing to have a listen and clue me in as to what he was talking about I can send the recording. Tried to upload to the group site but it was too large as I had used highest quality recording. Many thanks in advance, Eric Cisar, Everett, Washington USA Icom PCR - 1000, Long wire`` ``27 June 2010: 8785.0Khz usb Unid Japanese OM steady talk as if talk show host. 12:02:08UTC (2010-06-27) (Bubba99 in Washington, USA on StarChat#wunclub)`` ``8.785,00 JC.. - ..... J GYOGYO RADIO J3E/USB 29-nov 2210 NW/WX JAP - 2011, Bruno Casula`` Searching on ``Gyogyo Radio`` gets ONE hit to this page, http://www.pg9hf.nl/pdf/Util_J.pdf which lists numerous Gyogyo stations in Japan, with callsigns and locations but no frequencies. Gyogyo clearly is not a place itself. Googling around, it seems that the word has something to do with fishery. Could be just news from home for the extensive oceanic fishing fleet. How about specific info from Japan on this station? Callsign, agency and location? (Glenn Hauser, OK, WORLD OF RADIO 1721, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** JAPAN [non]. MYANMAR [non], 11740, NHK (Kranji [SINGAPORE]) 1455- 1458* 8 May. Heard the closing ID/web address of NHK's 1430-1500 Burmese program while looking for AIR (Panaji). CNR2 is also here, making AIR pretty much a lost cause (Dan Sheedy, Swami's Beach, CA PL380/6m X wire, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** JAPAN [non]. 11950, May 10 at 2059, French announcement with frequencies, including 11950, but no ID caught, poor with flutter, OC a bit past 2100 until off*. HFCC shows it`s NHK at 2030-2100, 250 kW, 305 degrees from MADAGASCAR (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** KOREA NORTH. SAVED BY AN ILLEGAL, HOMEMADE RADIO: video: http://edition.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/world/2014/05/13/pkg-hancocks-north-korea-defector-radio.cnn.html Interesting. 73 de (Horacio Nigro, Uruguay, May 13, dxldyg via DXLD) ** KOREA NORTH [and non]. 3912, (V of People), 3985 // 6003 (Echo / Voice of Hope), 6015 (KBS Hanminjok Bangsong 1) 1220 10 May. All these guys are clear at 1220+ with NK white-noise jammer kicking in by 1238 recheck (Dan Sheedy, Swami's Beach, CA PL380/6m X wire, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 6015, KBS Hanminjok Bangsong 1. May 11 at 1038 another case of no white noise jamming; pop song (Cyndi Lauper) and chatting in Korean; recently jamming has been erratic, leaving this KBS in the clear with strong signal and good reception. (Ron Howard, Asilomar State Beach, CA, E1 & CR-1, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** KOREA NORTH [non]. UZBEKISTAN, Frequency change of Voice of Martyrs from May 6: 1600-1730 NF 7530 TAC 100 kW / 065 deg to KRE Korean, ex 7505 // 2nd harmonic 15060 (DX RE MIX NEWS #852 from Georgi Bancov and Ivo Ivanov, May 14, 2014 via WORLD OF RADIO 1721, DXLD) UZBEKISTAN, 7530, Voice of Martyrs from Tashkent UZB here broadcast 1600-1730 UT, mixed music and talk program in Korean language. Fair S=7 or -83dBm signal strength, fluttery signal, heard downunder in Australia on remote SDR unit (Wolfgang Büschel, wwdxc BC-DX TopNews May 13, dxldyg via DXLD) ** KOREA NORTH [non]. Voice of Freedom, 6135, new clandestine: see KOREA SOUTH ** KOREA SOUTH. 6135, UNID KBS service. May 8 at 1150 and subsequent checking found only an open carrier from what must have been the KBS tx; at 1312 N. Korea pulsating noise jamming for Shiokaze started; whereas 6015 (KBS Hanminjok Bangsong 1) had normal audio with the usual white noise jamming (Ron Howard, Asilomar State Beach, CA, E1 & CR-1, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) 6135, unID/Voice of Freedom? 1318+ 10 May. Possibly the new KBS station here with W DJ with pop music/Korean chat, weak/clear until Shiokaze's *1330, then it's 90% Shiokaze & 10% VoF. Thanks to Ron, Bill, Sei-ichi, S. Aoki, Mauno, Hiroshi & anyone else I may have forgotten, for the info/ID (Dan Sheedy, Swami's Beach, CA PL380/6m X wire, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 6135, Voice of Freedom. Will attempt to summarize what is now known about this station, based upon my own observations and the valuable input from Sei-ichi Hasegawa, Mauno Ritola, Hiroshi, S. Aoki, Bill Harms and several online sources. Voice of Freedom is a clandestine operated by the Republic of Korea's Defense Ministry which is new to SW (in past years was on FM) and established to provide propaganda broadcasts into the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Seems that portions broadcast are made up of VOF programs and other portions are perhaps KBS programming. ID and helpful comments from Bill Harms after listening to a recording made by S. Aoki: "Isang-eulo Jayuui Sori Bangsong-eul machigessseubnida. ... Jayuui Sori Bangsong-eun ... danpa " (This is a liberal transliteration.) It roughly translates as "and now the Voice of Freedom broadcast comes to a close. The Voice of Freedom Broadcast .... on (Shortwave) ...." The word "Danpa" is indistinct. The sentence in between the rest were wiped out by interference. I occasionally heard them in Seoul on 103.1 MHz when we lived there. I had understood that they had stopped broadcasting on FM and were using loudspeakers along the DMZ. But that was several years ago. If I remember right, they played the Voice of Freedom program for three or four hours per day, and regular KBS programming the rest of the day, but my memory is fading." Thanks Bill! Additional info: A 2011 article: http://www.strategypage.com/dls/articles/The-Air-War-Over-North-Korea--10-19-2011.asp A 2010 article: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia-pacific/2010/05/201052534421773321.html Schedule now at Aoki database. I welcome any additional comments, observations or corrections to the above info. Appreciate any additional feedback! (Ron Howard, Asilomar State Beach, CA, May 9, dxldyg via WORLD OF RADIO 1721, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ``Danpa`` must be cognate to Japanese ``Tampa`` meaning shortwave (gh) Voice of Freedom schedule according to the announcement: 0300-0500, 0800-2000 and 2100-2400 UT on 6135 kHz, FM 101.7, 103.1 and 107.3 MHz (S. Hasegawa, May 10, WORLD OF RADIO 1721, ibid.) 6135, Voice of Freedom (presumed), 1235-1330, May 10. Mostly chatting in Korean and playing ballads, patriotic sounding songs, etc.; until 1302 poor with ACI, but after that fair reception; no English language lesson today (Saturday), as I have noted weekdays; 1330 sign on of Shiokaze (in Korean), with no N. Korea jamming today but with Shiokaze now totally blocking VOF. My local sunrise was at 1305 UT. Audio: https://app.box.com/s/vtnrog8dazhkdpicy012 6135, Voice of Freedom. May 11 at 1044 totally covered by pulsating jamming for Shiokaze and also with OTH radar, so impossible to tell anything about VOF. 6135, Voice of Freedom. May 12. Sei-ichi Hasegawa noted VOF stopped suddenly at 0830; I found from 1148 to 1245 the frequency clear of any jamming and very quiet conditions, but VOF was off the air, but Mauno Ritola noted VOF on the air at 1645, on 6135.026 kHz, till they were hit by jamming at 1648. So today was not a full schedule. 6135, Voice of Freedom. May 13 back to normal schedule; first tuned in at 1105 with decent reception. At 1300 usual weekday English language lesson (not carried last Saturday - so only on weekdays?). Appropriate lesson - "Where can I listen to the radio?" Am I correct that this would probably be a KBS program or could it actually be a VOF program? Enjoyable listening. Audio at https://app.box.com/s/zwpfw5vuxlf5cw23hkbc Thanks for this quick response from Sei-ichi Hasegawa: “I think that it is an original program of VOF [1300 English language lesson]. Possibly Global Korean Network may produced it.” Appreciate Sei-ichi's continued assistance with providing info about VOF (Ron Howard, Asilomar State Beach, CA, E1 & CR-1, dxldyg via WORLD OF RADIO 1721, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** KOREA SOUTH. 15575, May 10 at 1355:13.5-1358:12.5, Kevin O`Donovan`s 2-sesquiminute DX news/listening tips are again on KBS World Radio`s `Listeners Lounge` this second Saturday: R. Tirana English sked, which he says is Mon-Fri local instead of Mon-Sat; CRI via Albania; RNB 11780; and http://www.radio360.eu as source for webcasts of several minor SW stations --- as he picks up another item originally on WOR, and in DXLD, see 14-17 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** LAOS. 6129.988, Lao National Radio Vientiane noted at 1530 UT, scheduled -1600 UT. S=9+20dB or -55dBm strength. 918 kHz MW replaced - and to be moved soon from Vientiane suburb to the wider countryside, - IS NOT YET ON AIR again (Wolfgang Büschel, wwdxc BC-DX TopNews May 9, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** MADAGASCAR. 5010.3v, May 13 1810+, presumed R. Madagascar, instable carrier. 73 (Thorsten Hallmann, Münster, Germany, http://www.muenster.org/uwz/ms-alt/africalist dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** MALAYSIA. 5965, R. Klasik Nasional (via RTM-Kajang) 1355-1420+ 29 April. Heard well today with singing jingle, station promo, ML pop. RKN was right on 5965 today, so when CRI (Xian) opened in Korean at 1400, Klasik held its own rather well. Klasik apparently way irregular here, as unheard since (as of 10 May at least). (Dan Sheedy, Swami's Beach, CA PL380/6m X wire, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 11665, Wai FM (tentative); 1341-1408+, 5-May; Pop vocals in unknown language & M in LL talking over music; numerous words ending in, or sounding like -alam. Commentary 1400-1405+ mentioning Kuala Lumpur & back to pop music. SIO=252+ till 1400, then weak co-channel + 11660 splash, but Wai still on top. In the recent past, 1400 CRI s/on has swamped them (Harold Frodge, Midland MI, USA, Drake R8B + 125 ft. bow- tie; 85 ft. RW & 180 ft. center-fed RW, All logged by my ears, on my receiver, in real time! DX LISTENING DIGEST) 11665, May 8 at 1226, fair signal with song, 1227 announcements sound Indo/Malay, think I heard Wai FM mentioned, as this relay back to Sarawak remains active unlike 9835 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) May 8 still finds both Radio Klasik (5964.69) and Sarawak FM (9835) silent! (Ron Howard, Asilomar State Beach, CA, E1 & CR-1, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) 11665, Wai FM (tentative); 1214, 11-May; W in language with peppy music and taking phone calls; she opened calls with word sounding like "wai", but probably equivalent of Chinese word "wei" used in phone calls like we use "hello". Got a call from Australia, opened in English but went into unknown language. SIO=2+53 (Harold Frodge, Port Hope MI DXpedition, Drake R8B + 250 ft. LW + 85 ft. TTFD, All logged by my ears, on my receiver, in real time! DX LISTENING DIGEST) 7295, Traxx FM via RTM, 1156, May 12. Usual program about Islam in English, but today with terribly distorted audio; unable to understand what was said; fair signal strength. Radio Klasik (5964.69) and Sarawak FM (9835) remain silent through May 12. Sent an email today to Mr. Zulkifli Ab Rahim at RTM detailing all these problems. Wai FM (11665) with daily good reception. 7295, Traxx FM via RTM. May 13 - After yesterdays terrible audio, today was heard with only an open carrier; no audio at all. Working on the problem? Hope so! Radio Klasik (5964.69) and Sarawak FM (9835) remain silent through May 13. No response yet from Mr. Rahim at RTM after yesterday`s email to him (Ron Howard, Asilomar State Beach, CA, E1 & CR-1, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) FYI - Response to my email to RTM (MALAYSIA) and my update back to them. Ron On Wed, May 14, 2014 at 6:01 PM, Hj. Zulkifli Bin Abdul Rahim wrote: Dear Mr Howard, Thank you for your email and informing us. Zulkifli Ab Rahim Jabatan Penyiaran (RTM) Seksyen Produksi Radio Angkasapuri 50614 Kuala Lumpur. Tel: +60 3 2288 7258 / Fax: +60 3 2284 7592 PS : Mr Khairuddin / Amiruddin : Any problems with the transmitters? (via Ron, DXLD) ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Ron Howard Date: Wed, May 14, 2014 at 6:25 PM Subject: Re: Off the air on SW - Radio Klasik (5964.69 kHz) and Sarawak FM (9835 kHz) To: "Hj. Zulkifli Bin Abdul Rahim" Cc: Amiruddin Bin Jemaat, Khairuddin bin Hj Osman, Sharifah Norehan Syed Salleh, Fee Lin Chew, "Othman Md. Said" Gentlemen, Update on RTM SW transmitters as of today - 14 May: Today and yesterday Traxx FM on 7295 kHz heard with transmitter on the air with open carrier, but no audio/modulation at all. Radio Klasik (5964.69 kHz) and Sarawak FM (9835 kHz) continue to be off the air (transmitter not on at all). Normally I have good reception from all three transmitters. Wai FM on 11665 kHz continues to daily have excellent reception as usual, with a strong signal. Am also hearing Asyik FM fine on 6050 kHz. Wish you good luck with fixing the three transmitters. I do miss hearing your very good programs! I continue to be your faithful listener. Terima kasih! Ron Howard, California, USA (via DXLD) ** MALI. 5995, Radio Malienne (presumed); 2347-2401:06*, 10/11-May; M&W in French with Afro-pop & reggae tunes; anthem at 0000. SIO=432 with 5990 CRI splash in English via Cuba which went off at 0000 (Harold Frodge, Port Hope MI DXpedition, Drake R8B + 250 ft. LW + 85 ft. TTFD, All logged by my ears, on my receiver, in real time! DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** MEXICO. 600, XEMN La Regiomontaña, Monterrey, Nuevo León. 1044 May 11, 2014. Mexi-tune ending, clear male canned la Regiomontana slogan. Poor in co-channel. Listed as 1000/500. Is there really a tilde in montaña when prefixed with regio? It didn't sound it or was very soft in the slogan heard (Terry L Krueger, Clearwater FL, DX LISTENING DIGEST) No, there is not (gh, DXLD) ** MEXICO [and non]. 850, May 9 at 0548 UT, extolling the benefits of leche materna, and Milenio Radio ID in passing, i.e. XEM Chihuahua2, at times even dominating KOA with a 4 Hz SAH. 1-A KOA`s coverage into neighboring New Mexico must be even more damaged by this, where nulling one or the other is not so easy (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** MEXICO [and non]. 1140, XEMR Radio Esperanza, Monterrey, Nuevo León. 1101 May 10, 2014. Super truncated version of anthem beginning at tune-in, ending 1102, excited male, mention of Monterrey so tentatively the one. Barely there in the multiple Cuban and probable WNWF co-channel. 1140, FLORIDA, WNWF, Destin. 1102 May 10, 2014. Briefly up though weak in co-channel with definite Fox Sports Radio audio. Presume the one, ex-1120 kHz, on a check after being tipped by Gerry Bishop in Niceville, FL that this one had moved (as per FCC application) as per his logging the eve before (Terry L Krueger, Clearwater FL, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** MEXICO. A bit of sporadic E analog TV DX, morning of May 10: 1423 UT turn on ch 2 to find CCI from the south 1427 UT ch 2, it`s `Sabadazo` show bug lower left, and Televisa-2 Star bug in lower right 1430 UT, zero-beat CCI on 2 from animation with net-7 bug in upper right; horizontal rolling which I think means almost exactly zero-beat 1436 UT on 2, Sabadazo has a conjunto in the studio, fade out by 1445, but brief fade-in stronger at 1453. Not sure whether this show includes animation elements, or that was all from the CCI; nothing further in the following hour+ until: 1608 UT May 10 on 2, sudden fade-in with large website at bottom, http://www.neovision.tv and soon a different one, while in upper right is the giveaway bug of TELEACTIVA = XEFB-TV, Monterrey NL. As in http://tvdxtips.com/mexlogosch2.html Danny Oglethorpe`s valuable reference which however has not yet been updated since last summer. Plus CCI in and out. 1618 UT May 10 on 3, fade-in net-5 bug in LR with animation, little audio with MUF between 62 and 65 MHz, but briefly // audio to ch 2 amid the CCI. So more to come? As I close out this report. Keeping an eye on NTSC channel A2 for some time, May 12 at 2252 UT finally some signals fade in with antenna SSE toward OKC; stronger co- channel interference when I shift to SSW. 2300 on 2, old movie or travelog with scenes of DF landmarx, music 2314 on 2, still heavy CCI but think I glimpse the Gala TV = Televisa- 9 net swirl bug in the lower right; 2318 strengthening 2318 on 4, now MUF up to here with CCI; and one weak fading video on 5 2330 on 4, chat show with audio; 2331 inserted across top of screen in very large font: XELN-TV. No mistaking that! Would that every Mexican TV station ID this way, instead of tiny type in the corner. Lasted 5- 10 seconds as I scrambled for my camera, but too late. XELN-TV is 100 kW from Torreón, Coahuila, per W9WI.com on Televisa-5 net. IIRC, 50 years ago this was a low power one and quite a catch. LN presumably alludes to Laguna, now a dried-up but landmark ex-lake. 2332 on 5, animated ad, generic Televisa bug in LR 2335 on 4, Soriana ad with grocery prices; nationally the same? 2348 on 4, novela; on 2 novela; on 5 heavy CCI; on 3 algo 2351 on 5, Televisa net-5 bug in LR, video only; 2352 All-Bran ad 2355 on 4, bug in UR with triangles? Maybe Azteca-13. UnID. Opening is still going full force, but I am going to a choral concert at Enid High; no FM Es noted on caradio anyway in transit. UT May 13, back to TV and the opening is still going: 0125 on 2-5, still Es CCI, 2 and 4 strongest 0126 on 4, talk show, Azteca-13 bug UR 0129 on 2, `The Simpsons`, dubbed, CCI. It`s just not the same without the original vocal characterizations; guess Harry Shearer and Hank Azaria don`t dub in Spanish?? 0132 looks like a tiny ID supered UR, illegible. Simpsons closing theme at 0135. I wonder which network / station this is on. Very time-consuming to search out, and I really don`t want to mess up my local settings on TVGuide.com I jockey the antenna and find the peak signals are still from the SSW, not SW or WSW 0133 on 3, Televisa-5 net bug in LR 0140 opening fading down but still CCI at least on 2 0226 on 3, Televisa-5 net bug in LR; 0247 net 5 with KARAOKE big font 0300 opening about to fade out with lite CCI on 2 and 3 a bit longer Monitoring from 1415 UT May 13, no Es showing until: 1651 on 2, CCI starts, also algo on 4 1653 on 2, novela, tentative TELEACTIVA bug UR = XEFB Monterrey NL; fade out again, what next? Nothing develops in next hour, just some weak CCI (Glenn Hauser, OK, WORLD OF RADIO 1721, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** MICRONESIA. 4755.54, PMA-The Cross Radio, 1047, May 11. Christian songs; 1059 ID ("You are listening to the Cross Radio"); into preaching in English; poor with heavy QRN (Ron Howard, Asilomar State Beach, CA, E1 & CR-1, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** MYANMAR. 5985.00, Myanmar Radio. Both May 9 and 10 found on exact frequency with much better reception via this newer tx than via the older off frequency one; noted about 1150 both days (Ron Howard, Asilomar State Beach, CA, E1 & CR-1, dxldyg via WORLD OF RADIO 1721, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 5985.000, Myanmar Radio, Rangoon heard properly loud and clear Friday May 9th on even frequency at 1500 UT, location SDR unit in eastern Thailand. Dear Ron, our one of my closest old DX friend - since at least 35 years - Uwe from Hannover Germany, is now in position to glide over to retirement, his new location house and remote Perseus unit (to connect!) now situated in eastern Thailand (Wolfgang Büschel, WORLD OF RADIO 1721, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 5985.00, Myanmar Radio, on May 12 at 1146 and subsequent checking though 1224 with fair reception. Must be working on the off frequency transmitter (Ron Howard, Asilomar State Beach, CA, E1 & CR-1, dxldyg via WORLD OF RADIO 1721, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 9730.0, Myanmar Radio, May 14, starting with the Wednesday edition of ABC/Radio Australia's "Lesson 19 - At the Festival," at 1108; repeat of Mondays show; off at 1145, running past their normal 1130 sign off (Ron Howard, San Francisco/Ocean Beach, CA, E1 & CR-1, dxldyg via WORLD OF RADIO 1721, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** NETHERLANDS [non]. 9925, May 11 at 0131, Mighty KBC with Radiogram from VOA`s Kim Elliott; heavy selective fading here, so wonder if that detracts from the images. 0132 back to Uncle Eric for more of his music and DJ style until 0148-0152, Kraig Krist`s ``Forgotten Song``, this week ``Sunrise`` from November 2003 by group Simply Red (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** NEW ZEALAND. RADIO NEW ZEALAND 'DOING FINE' Stuff.co.nz 9 May 2014 Despite advocacy groups, Labour press releases and "Save Radio New Zealand" T-shirts, the public broadcaster has told the parliamentary commerce select committee it is doing just fine. Radio NZ bosses were at Parliament yesterday for its 2012-23 financial review. Despite a six-year funding freeze, the broadcaster would "continue to be in decent financial shape for the next financial year", chief executive Paul Thompson said, Beyond that, it would need to "come up with new ideas". "We've made major savings in production procedures," he said. "It's been a calculated risk but one we think we can manage into the future. To answer the question, how much longer can we cut the cloth? Not much longer." Thompson, a former editorial boss at Fairfax Media, the publisher of The Dominion Post, said Radio NZ had about 500,000 regular listeners but wanted to double that in 10 years. Forty per cent of its listeners were older than 65, and mostly Pakeha. He said there would be more focus on diversity, and part of that meant becoming a multimedia organisation, rather than just a broadcaster. Radio NZ chairman Richard Griffin said constraints meant the broadcaster had focused on efficiency and effectiveness, which was "an upside". http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/10025723/Radio-New-Zealand-doing-fine (via Mike Terry, dxldyg via WORLD OF RADIO 1721, DXLD) ** NIGERIA. My week with Voice of Nigeria --- Hello again with non- news of my favourite chaos: The last almost two weeks I found time to monitor Voice of Nigeria in the morning, the afternoon and evening most days. In general: all transmissions on even frequencies were quite irregular (last weekend I only caught it on 15120 on saturday evening 1758-1801) but if on, always on scheduled frequencies (except May 3rd, when it seemed to be on 11770 1730-1800), the ones on odd frequencies incl. DRM were regular (DRM starting on 1757 occasionally instead 1830). Most of the scheduled live broadcasts from Lagos did not take place (but news at 0600 were often aired, and started late or ended earlier on some days) and were replaced by taped programmes, the same few shows over and over. Live broadcasts had usually relatively low audio while taped programmes varied between the extremes. Livestream was off when checked. So in brief: there seems to be big chaos in Lagos, but at least some regularity in Abuja. 73 (Thorsten Hallmann, Münster, Germany, http://www.muenster.org/uwz/ms-alt/africlist May 13, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) 15120, May 13, 13-1758*, Voice of Nigeria, talk in Arabic, loud and clear, surprisingly. DRM not appeared by 1843, surprisingly. [later:] DRM was on at 1930 recheck. On May 14th the morning segment on 15120 consisted only of the usual selection of taped programmes from 0600 to 0830, with very good audio quality. 73 (Thorsten Hallmann, Münster, Germany, http://www.muenster.org/uwz/ms-alt/africalist WORLD OF RADIO 1721, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 15120, May 13 13-1758*, Voice of Nigeria, talk in Arabic, loud and clear, surprisingly. DRM not appeared by 1843, surprisingly. 73 (Thorsten Hallmann, Münster, Germany, http://www.muenster.org/uwz/ms-alt/africalist dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Surely not started at 1300? (gh, DXLD) ** NIGERIA [and non]. Tonight at 2200 UT on UT May 12: 6089.854 NIG Kaduna 6089.953 BRA Bandeirantes, São Paulo, SP 6090.000 CHN CNR2 Business Radio from Geermu site. 73 wb df5sx Thorsten heard Kaduna regional from Nigeria again in northern Germany this afternoon. Now also heard Kaduna, now in 2155-2210 UT range in southern Germany. Was on air last time logged here on 2nd Febr 2014! Kaduna NIG 6089.856 kHz (Wolfgang Büschel, May 13, dxldyg via WORLD OF RADIO 1721, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Before *2200v 6090 Anguilla (gh) To be more exact, the noted signals on 6089.8 and 6090.5 were observed at 1820+, the former with some modulation (talk and music) that made it very likely to be R. Kaduna. I do not believe that it was off for more than three months. I did miss it for a while and did not exactly not the dates, but reported it as tent. in A-DX on March 30. Quite sure that I also heard it some time in April. 73 (Thorsten Hallmann, May 13, ibid.) 6089.9, May 13 1830+, presumed R. Kaduna, not much to make out of the audio. 73 (Thorsten Hallmann, Münster, Germany, http://www.muenster.org/uwz/ms-alt/africalist WORLD OF RADIO 1721, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Um 1820 UT nur Kaduna ganz allein auf 6089.855 kHz, kein Stäubchen auf 6090.5 kHz. 6089.855, Radio Nigeria Kaduna in Hausa S=8-9, -75dBm at 1822 UT. HQ prayer, followed by talk in Hausa. 73 (Wolfgang Büschel, May 13, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** NORTH AMERICA. Frequencies used by religious pirate YHWH (Yahweh) since March: 00 5840, 6995, 11130, 14350 01 3235, 5770, 5865, 6010, 6075, 6150, 6925, 6950, 7125, 7180, 9775, 9800, 11725, 11800, 14350 02 3235, 5730, 5770, 5785, 5820, 5860, 5865, 5870, 5990, 6010, 7125, 7175, 7180, 7102, 7330, 9730, 9835 03 3235, 5730, 5770, 5785, 5800, 5865, 5870, 7125, 7175, 7180, 7194, 7205, 7300, 7330, 9730, 9835, 14275, 14350 04 3845, 5800, 5865, 5870, 6010, 7182 05 6010 12 6793 15 17490 16 17490 17 21440 18 6793, 7400, 17490, 17590, 21450 19 21450 20 21450 21 21450, 21453 22 21453 23 5840, 9775, 11130, 14350, 21450, 29130 --From various sources (Harold Frodge? MARE Tipsheet May 9 via DXLD) Altho certain Christian cults throw around ``Yahweh``, like The Overcomer, Station YHWH makes it clear that their Yahweh is not the Christian/Jesus god (Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Hi Glenn, tonight (May 9 UT), was unable to locate religious pirate YHWH (Ron Howard, California, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) 5/10, 1802, 7400/AM; Odd religious screed. ID at 1804 "thank you for tuning in to radio station YHWH pasted in in the middle of the talk. ID followed by strange middle eastern-like music at 1807. Off abruptly at 1808. Fair signal, s5, noisy conditions. Off-air recording at http://radionewyorkinternational.com/archives/pirate/off-air/2014-0510-1802-7400-YHWH.mp3 (Larry Will, MD, Free Radio Weekly via WORLD OF RADIO 1721, DXLD) Midday reception on the 7 MHz band on the east coast makes a west coast location unlikely for this one (gh, WORLD OF RADIO 1721, DXLD) Was unable to find YHWH after many band scans (Ron Howard, California, UT May 12, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** NORTH AMERICA. 6876.0-AM, May 12 at 0128, tune-in to a few words, ``follow us``, could have been YHWH but then plays music past 0136. Very poor vs storm noise level. This thread says it`s The Crystal Ship, per ID at 0157, on past 0235: http://www.hfunderground.com/board/index.php/topic,16979.0.html (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Noted The Crystal Ship on 6876.0-AM going off at 0237 after an ID (Ron Howard, California, UT May 12, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** OKLAHOMA. 7391-USB, May 10 at 2105, Oklahoma Navy MARS net, NNN0YCJ and NNN0AZO discussing weather, etc. AZO has rough modulation. Previously heard `YCJ on 5004.5-USB, Nov 21, 2013 at 0103. `AZO is Billy and `YCJ is Mike P. Baker (Glenn Hauser, Enid, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** OMAN. 15140, May 11 at 0131, ME music, good signal from R. Sultanate of Oman on the frequency supposed to stop at 2200, and nothing on 9500; did they ever go to 15355 in the 22-24 interim? Probably not (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** PAPUA NEW GUINEA. 3260, NBC Madang, 1044, May 14. Speech in Tok Pisin/Pidgin; 1146 program of Pacific Island songs; 1202 news in English; off at 1206 just after the news. Enjoyable music per attached audio. About same decent signal as 3905 NBC New Ireland. Off the air were NBC Sandaun (3204.96) and NBC East New Britain (3385) (Ron Howard, San Francisco/Ocean Beach, CA, E1 & CR-1, dxldyg via WORLD OF RADIO 1721, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** PAPUA NEW GUINEA. Ron, Just back from our latest Asian vacation - I was unable to hear any sign of Wantok Radio Light whilst in Denpassar and Singaraja (Bali) between 16 and 21 April, or from Singapore on 25 April. By the time propagation was favourable for my limited receiving set-up of the Sony ICF7600G and short wire antenna, it was after 1000 UT and only CRI's Japanese service to be heard. But - since arriving home on 29 April I have been able to hear them fading in daily around 0610 and also traces around 2000. I measure their frequency at 7324.97 (Regards, Bryan Clark, SW Bulletin May 11 via DXLD) Nothing heard from PNG though on April 28. 73 (Wolfgang Bueschel, DF5SX, ibid.) ** PERU. 5980, May 9 at 0108, R. Chaski carrier until off about 0110:39*, some 5.5 seconds later than yesterday. 5980, May 10 at 0105 R. Chaski carrier until cut at 0110.45.5* which is 6.5 seconds later than yesterday. 5980, May 11 at 0102, R. Chaski with some talk modulation making it, until cutoff at 0110:50.5* which is 5 seconds later than yesterday. 5980, May 12 at 0107, for the first time in weeks, altho not checked every single night, I am not sure R. Chaski carrier is here, tho maybe something JBA; a lot of storm noise from NW Oklahoma. Maybe they have finally reset; next time must check by 0059. 5980, May 14 at 0100, R. Chaski carrier and enough to push thru some talk modulation, still running later and later until cutoff at 0111:08* which is 17.5 seconds later than last check two sesquidays ago May 11 when it was 0110:50.5, averaging 5 and five sixths seconds later per 24 hours (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** PERU. 1190, OAX7B, R Tawantinsuyo, Cusco: From Carlos Gamarra Moscoso: AHORA ESTOY AUTORIZADO A ENVIAR QSLS DE R. TAWANTINSUYO DE CUSCO PERU EN 49M [6174v] ME GUSTARIA QUE LO INFORMES A TODOS LOS DIEXISTAS DE EUROPA QUE ESCRIBAN O REENVIEN SUS CARTAS DE INFORME DE RECEPCION A adalidcusco@hotmail.com o a Carlos Gamarra Moscoso, Avenida Garecilaso 411, Distrito de Wanchaq, Cusco, Peru. Se enviará QSL electronica. cordiales DX Summary in English: Carlos has been authorized to issue QSLs for R Tawantinsuyo. He will be pleased to receive reports from all DXers in Europe. Send or resend your reports to the electronic or physical address mentioned. QSLs will be sent electronically (ARC SOUTH AMERICAN NEWS DESK 12/5 2014, Tore B. Vik, Kirkåsveien 15, NO-1850 MYSEN, Norway, editor, via ARC mv-eko 12 May via DXLD) ** PHILIPPINES [and non]. 15190.0, May 9 at 1859, pop song past 1900 with fair signal, 1901 M&W conversation in Tagalog. With the demise of R. Africa, and WRMI not coming up on 15190 until 2100, we many now be certain the 15190 station between 1730 and 1930 is Radyo Pilipinas (via Tinang). Except: watch out for R. Inconfidência`s very weak and irregular signal from Beautiful Horizon, making a het as it varies up to 15191, and sometimes a bit below 15190, but none of that now; supposedly on air 24 hours. EiBi and HFCC show RP language as English only; Aoki as English/Filipino (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ROMANIA. 15170, May 8 at 2052, RRI with very good signal, the SSOB by far, // much weaker 17510 only poor-fair; headlines outroed as ``Spotlite on Europe`` until 2055 signing off with times and frequencies of next two English broadcasts. 17780 & 15340, May 14 at 0527, RRI IS and off, closing French to Africa via Tiganeshti; 17760, May 14 from *0528, RRI IS preceding English to Africa via Galbeni; all poor but that IS really cuts thru (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** SARAWAK [non]. 15460, Radio Free Sarawak, per Aoki via Palauig- Zambales (Philippines), 1153-1158, May 8 with unusually good reception; certainly one of their better days; IDs given occasionally 15460, Radio Free Sarawak, per Aoki via Palauig-Zambales (Philippines), 1056, May 13. Actually starts before 1100 with pop songs; intro ID at ToH. Audio at https://app.box.com/s/i73ivmuhv8hl52aqt8co (Ron Howard, Asilomar State Beach, CA, E1 & CR-1, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) 15460, May 13 at 1215, all talk by M, Malayish-sounding, so presumably Iban, from R. Free Sarawak, which has been trying several frequencies lately including this one, now settled, ex-15420? Often not audible at all, but today declining from poor to very poor by a bit of music before off at 1230*. Site presumably still via RVA, Palauig, PHILIPPINES. See DXLD 14-19, WORLD OF HOROLOGY, for report about Peter John Jaban of RFS being honored by RSF as one of ``100 information heroes`` (Glenn Hauser, OK, WORLD OF RADIO 1721, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 15460, Radio Free Sarawak, per Aoki still via Palauig-Zambales (Philippines), 1215-1230*, May 14. Better reception than yesterday; ID and "special report" about "Human Rights Watch" and "Philip Morris International"; off with ID and indigenous music (Ron Howard, San Francisco/Ocean Beach, CA, E1 & CR-1, dxldyg via WORLD OF RADIO 1721, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** SAUDI ARABIA. 15119.997, BSKSA Riyadh in Bengali at same time [1345 UT May 14?] No Nigeria signal co-channel (Wolfgang Büschel, wwdxc BC- DX TopNews May 14, dxldyg via DXLD) 15434.994, Strong 100 Hertz BUZZ fence spoilt, visible of BSKSA Riyadh's outlet, political talk of probably General 1st radio program, no HQ prayer program at 1550 UT. Registered 1450-18 UT. S=9+15dB or - 56dBm in southern Germany. But spoilt also by two spurious signals each side. Broadband buzzy scratchy signal 15415 to 15455 kHz, and smaller also two minor 3 kHz wide each side at 15404 and at 15451 kHz (Wolfgang Büschel, wwdxc BC-DX TopNews May 14, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** SERBIA [non]. 6100.000, IR Serbia via Bijeljina Bosnia, in Russian at S=9+45dB level at -30dBm powerhouse. 1825 UT, political commentary Serbian male pop music singer. 73 (Wolfgang Büschel, May 13, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Later off air due to flooding? ** SOUTH AFRICA. 3320, May 9 at 0135, poor signal with Afrikaans talk, R. Sonder Grense. This is commonly heard and I don`t bother to log it, but here once for the record; it is at quite a distance for 90 meters, 100 kW westward from Meyerton. Also usually audible somewhat better after 0500 on day frequency 7185 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** SOUTH AFRICA. 11605, May 11 at 0542, open carrier/dead air, fair with flutter. No doubt the only thing scheduled, but failing to modulate, RFI French, 100 kW, 345 degrees from Meyerton at 0500-0600 (to be followed by another hour but shifted 3 degrees to 342, per Aoki; why?) (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Meyerton weirdness --- I noted two 'odd' transmissions from what I presume to be South African transmitters last weekend: 11790, BBC WS (site presumed) listed as R France in Swahili via Meyerton — again, is Meyerton messing up or is this a real schedule change? Talks re Religious Think-Tanks on “World, Have Your Say”. Audio cut out at :45 but carrier did not stop until ToH when there were pips and the shutdown without comment or explanation. 44+54+4 with HF Het and splatter marring things slightly. 0535-0600* 11/May -- Zichi MI2 15255 BBC WS with Outlook including a talk with an author re his book, a break for news headlines at the BoH and into more outlook features at :32. This channel is listed as Channel Africa -- did the Meyerton facility play the wrong feed or is this a change? The BBC does NOT list this channel as one of theirs, and AOKI, the WRTH update and EiBi all agree. Definite ID at BoH. 3+5444 0615-0645 9/May --Zichi MI2 Anyone else observe this sort of weirdness (I mean other than the general 'issues' Meyerton seems to have) -- (Kenneth V Zichi, MI, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Hi Ken, Suspect it was just another routine Sentech / Meyerton disaster. All back to normal today, May 14. Radio France International, 11790 Meyerton. May 14, 2014 Wednesday. 0529-0539. Already on at 0529 with talk in French. RFI jingle at 0530, then sounded like news in heavily French-accented Swahili. Barely readable so I could be wrong about the Swahili, but it certainly wasn't French, despite the accent. At 0538 ID “Radio France Internationale”. Very poor, but if targeted to East Africa I am well inside the skip zone, being a mere 25 miles north of Meyerton. Channel Africa, 15255 Meyerton. May 14, 2014 Wednesday. 0607-0615. Already on air with news in English about South Sudan. At 0610 moved on to talk about African Union accusations of bias at the International Criminal Court. That is, bias against Africa and Africans. At 0614, ID “Africa Rise and Shine. It is 8:14 Central African time. Coming to you from Channel Africa in Johannesburg South Africa." Then the news continued. Good. Targeted to Central Africa (EiBi). Jo'burg sunrise 0438 (Bill Bingham, Johannesburg RSA. Sony ICF2001D, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) BBC via Meyerton was already on air at 0650 UT tune in today, the 14th, on 17880. This one is scheduled at 0700-0730, so perhaps it's been put on early, as Meyerton is known to do, but the first time I've noted an early start on this frequency. Lot's of news about the Nigerian situation (Noel R. Green (NW England), ibid.) Why disaster? it's not unusual - the weirdness at Meyerton staff, is the regular behaviour and I see and like the positive procedure. I heard often a WARM-UP transmission from Meyerton, just before program start at the hour. Often heard an interessant different piece of program content. 73 wb (Wolfgang Büschel, ibid.) They can warm up without putting the wrong programming on the air, causing needless confusion and making the client/customer look incompetent (Glenn Hauser, DXLD) ** SOUTH CAROLINA [and non]. 5085, WTWW, English male sermon prayer, "Hallelujah, Hallelujah" S=9+15dB -57dBm strength. Broadband 5075.5 to 5095.5 kHz. 5890, WWCR, Brother Stair program, S=9+15dB -57dBm, 5884.5-5895.5 kHz. (Wolfgang Büschel, Log 0500-0630 UT May 9th slot this UT morning, like CAN/USA nighttime, All remote SDR unit log of Alberta-Canada location, wwdxc BC-DX TopNews May 9, dxldyg via DXLD) 12105, WTWW Lebanon TN (presumed); 0139, 11-May; Non-B.S. huxterage talking about The Prophet & "moving on" (has The Prophet succumbed -- definitely not as omnipresent this weekend as usual); huxter mentioned "the Philadelphia Church Age" (?). 0142+ B.S. promo for the Overcomer into B.S. huxterage. S30; // 7730 WRMI (presumed) SIO=554; // 9370 WWRB (presumed) S20. 15770, WRMI Radio Miami Int'l (p); 1427, 10-May; Overcomer B.S. huxtering away. SIO=454. B.S. completely missing on all freqs checked at various times on 5/9 (Harold Frodge, Port Hope MI DXpedition, Drake R8B + 250 ft. LW + 85 ft. TTFD, All logged by my ears, on my receiver, in real time! DX LISTENING DIGEST) 9370, May 11 at 0540, WWRB is still on here with TOM, but faded to very poor level, no 3185. And BS also still on 12105 from WTWW-3, faded to poor level but more readable than 9370. By 1300 recheck, 12105 is off again, and 9370 still on (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 12105, May 13 at 0513, TOM is poorly audible vs CODAR, from WTWW-3. If #3 transmitter needs to substitute for inoperative #2, I wonder why they don`t put it on the #2 frequencies, 5085 night and 9930 day? BTW, the two SW schedules on the Overcomer Ministry website are total disasters as always, mixing current and outdated info, wrong frequencies, wrong stations, incomplete (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Another cancelled transmissions of Brother Stair effective from May 7: 1800-2100 21600*HRI 250 kW / 085 deg CeAf English Mon-Fri WHRI Angel 1 * listed 14-21 on 17730, but really was 21600! 73! (Ivo Ivanov, May 13, dxldyg via DXLD) Well, 21600 was certainly on today afternoon; did not bother to log (Glenn Hauser, May 13, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Ivo, Brother Stair is currently on 21600, 1800 UT May 13; so not cancelled yet (Peter W Hansen, Bethpage, NY, USA, op. cit.) Yes, today is on the air, but no signal on May 7-11 (Ivo, 1925 UT may 13, ibid.) Heard from 0800 UT hour: 5085.000 (5079.5 to 5090.5 kHz wideband signal) carrying WTWW English sermon at 0820 UT May 14. S=9+20dB or - 55dBm strength, noted on remote units in NY and NJ (Wolfgang Büschel, wwdxc BC-DX TopNews May 14, dxldyg via DXLD) Speakers other than Brother Scare are being heard a lot lately on The Overcomer Ministry, making us wonder if BS is OK (health-wise; he`s been out of his mind forever). 9370, 9955, 9980, 9690, May 14 at 1409 I catch BS himself but only in generic canned contact announcements, then discussion of Temple Mount turned over to others. Has anyone heard BS himself mention current events lately? Of course, once he`s really in the boneyard on his homepage there will be countless recordings to play forevermore like other deceased but radiologically immortal huxters (Glenn Hauser, OK, WORLD OF RADIO 1721, DX LISTENING DIGEST) see also USA: WTWW, WRMI, WWRB ** SPAIN. 15385, Friday May 9 at 1858, surprised to hear the REE IS, very poorly, 1900 talk but so weak not sure of language, then music. HFCC is the worst source for REE skeds, A-14 claiming that 15385 is available only at 1400-1700 Mon-Sat. But EiBi and Aoki both add 1900-2000 M-F in Portuguese to Africa, 161 degrees from Noblejas. They disagree on the days for 1500-1700 in Spanish: Aoki says Mon-Sat, EiBi says Mon-Fri. And the only 15385 usage before 1500 is the Monday-only Sephardi service to ME at 1425- 1455 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** SPAIN? 17341/USB, UNID SWBC Relay?; 1955-2037:33*, 9-May; Continuous commentary by W in oddly accented Spanish. I did not specifically hear "Radio Exterior de España", but did hear sprinkled in, "Radio Exterior", "España", Español", "Barcelona", "mundial", "familia", "economía", "Mario Gómez" y "Monaco" several times. SIO=353- with muted audio and QRN. Heard about this time before, but not every day and not // REE broadcasts on the air. Nothing 1930-2000+ on 5/10 (Harold Frodge, Port Huron MI DXpedition, WORLD OF RADIO 1721, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** SRI LANKA. 11905, May 9 at 0114, SLBC carrier is on, 0114:47 music starts, 2+1 pip timesignal ends much later than usual at 0115:40, opening Hindi, very poor signal. However, assuming it`s always Hindi for starters is incorrect, as Jose Jacob kindly sends a neat table of the content of this transmission as of May 8, transformed into text: ``Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation 0115-0330 UT, 11905 kHz to India: Sun: 0115-0130 Bangla, 0130-0230 Hindi, 0230-0330 English Mon: 0115-0130 Bangla, 0130-0330 Hindi Tue: 0115-0130 Bangla, 0130-0230 Hindi, 0230-0245 English, 0245-0330 Hindi Wed: 0115-0130 Bangla, 0130-0330 Hindi Thu: 0115-0230 Hindi, 0230-0300 English, 0300-0330 Hindi Fri: 0115-0330 Hindi Sat: 0115-0130 Bangla, 0130-0300 Hindi, 0300-0330 English News in Hindi: Sun: 0229-0230, Mon-Sat: 0300-0301 Hindi = Golden Oldies (Old Hindi Film songs) Bangla & English are Christian programs`` What a shame SLBC has no interest in a true external service in English with news and secular cultural programming *about SL*. 11905, May 10 at 0114, SLBC open carrier, poor with flutter; 0114:48 music starts, 0115:17.5, 2+1 mistimesignal ends; and since it`s Saturday, opening must be in Bangla, not Hindi, per Jose Jacob. 11905, May 11 at 0114, SLBC carrier, 0114:46 music starts with drumming; 0115:17.5 offtimesignal ends, very poor. 11905, May 12 at 0114, OC from SLBC, 0114:47 music starts, 0115:18 mistimesignal ends, poor with flutter (Glenn Hauser, OK, WORLD OF RADIO 1721, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** SURINAME. 4989.990, Radio Apintie, just on very, very weak threshold level at 0830 UT, S=4 -100dBm, even when switched OFF AGC by hand, couldn't understand music or spoken content (Wolfgang Büschel, wwdxc BC-DX TopNews May 14, dxldyg via DXLD) ** SWAZILAND. 6129.870, TWR Manzini, um 1832 UT S=9+5dB -68dBm, chorus of Chokwe/Umbundu folks. 73 (Wolfgang Büschel, May 13, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** TAIWAN. [to VIETNAM], 9564.916, RFI Paris in Vietnamese language, scheduled 15-16 UT via Taipei-TWN site. Noted low modulated on sidelobe in Queensland-AUS downunder, S=9+5dB or -70dBm strength. TX off 1600:45 UT (Wolfgang Büschel, wwdxc BC-DX TopNews May 13, dxldyg via DXLD) ** TAIWAN [non non]. News from Keith Perron as of May 1: ``On May 18th 2014 we will be doing the first test from our own site. Target: Southeast Asia Time: 1300-1400 UT [Sunday] Frequency: 11765 kHz Power: 20 kW To cut down the bureaucratic process of registering a frequency with the NCC, Radio Taiwan International will be letting us use one of their frequencies for the test. Regards, Keith Perron, PCJ Radio International`` Per Aoki, that hour on 11765 is a gap between RTI in Vietnamese until 1300, and CRI English via Urumqi from 1400. Over here there is likely to be QRM from Habana on 11760. Over there there is likely to be QRM from CRI English via Kunming on 11760. PBS Xinjiang, Urumqi is also on 11770 (Glenn Hauser, OK, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** TAIWAN [non]. 9955, UT Sat May 10 at 0110, PCJ Radio International (Media Network+?) via WRMI, discussion of international broadcasting including someone with a British accent, but too much jamming to follow it; tnx a lot, Arnie! See also CYPRUS (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** TIBET [non]. TAJIKISTAN, 15612 kHz, Probably more outlet at 1430- 1445 UT via Dushanbe, Tibetan of Voice of Tibet, Dalai Lama often mentioned. NOT hit by CHN jamming. S=8 -78dBm. Still heard at 1452 UT in progress. But 2 kHz whistle interference of adjacent US WEWN signal 15610 kHz. 15612, Voice of Tibet still heard at 1500 UT in progress. Transmitter cut midst on male announcer speak at 1500:45 UT (Wolfgang Büschel, wwdxc BC-DX TopNews May 14, dxldyg via DXLD) ** TIBET [non]. 18930, May 12 at 1348, JBA something, presumably RFA Tibetan via KUWAIT as per Aoki scheduled only on Mondays during this hour; rather than CNR1 jamming since it`s not // 17300 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** TIBET [non]. 18990, May 13 at 1255, very poor signal with fast SAH. This must be the Tuesday 12-13 frequency for the jumparound R. Free Asia Tibetan service via KUWAIT on this otherwise empty band. 1258 music, 1300 two timesignals mixing, one 5 seconds fast and then everything off. Maybe I was hearing two CNR1 jammers unsynchronized as to time and exact frequency. 18980, May 13 at *1300, now RFA Tibetan via Kuwait is here, musical theme, and alone on frequency. Not until *1310 does CNR1 blast on, overriding it, much stronger and // 11785. EiBi has added all these, but not specifying days of week! Back to Aoki, which fits: 18980 Tuesdays & Fridays at 11-12 & 13-14; 18990 same days at 12-13. 19000, May 14 at 1251, heavy CCI between CNR1 jammer and presumed RFA Tibetan via KUWAIT (and on the FRG-7 also combating the internal MHz birdie). 1308 recheck, now there`s a very poor signal on 18990, with whine, different jamming? Until *1309:10 CNR1 jammer overrides, goes off and back on to stay. The 19000-to-18990 switch at 1300 matches the RFA schedule in Aoki for Wednesdays (and Saturdays) (Glenn Hauser, OK, WORLD OF RADIO 1721, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** TURKEY. Weak audio heard under Cuba on 6165 after 0300, so assume might have been Turkey? (Ron Howard, California, UT May 9, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) 9770 May 11 at 0109, no signal from Voz de Turquía, while // 9870 is audible in stilted Spanish. 9770 still off at 0117, but finally on at another check 0147, with about equally poor signals (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** UGANDA. 4976, 2141 English & vernacular, 11 mai 14. 73 (Michel Lacroix, France, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** UGANDA. 4976, May 13 1830+, R. Uganda, untraced yesterday at this time, much much stronger then pressumed Kaduna and also R. Ethiopia. R. Congo in contrast was almost equally strong. Talk in English with strong accent at 1848. 73 (Thorsten Hallmann, Münster, Germany, http://www.muenster.org/uwz/ms-alt/africalist dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** UKRAINE. DONETSKAYA'S REPUBLIC (UKRAINA) --- Voice of the People's Republic of Donetsk (Radio Republic) broadcasts in Donetsk clock frequency 90.5 FM. Live broadcasts can be listened to here http://www.ustream.tv/channel/%D0%A0%D0%B0%D0%B4%D0%B8%D0%BE-%D0%A0%D0%B5%D1%81%D0%BF%D1%83%D0%B1%D0%BB%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%B0 In radio news broadcasts, information about the referendum announcement Council DNR, special treatment to local law enforcement officers, music, as well as direct relay Radio Vesti FM from Moscow. Station ad: "You listen to the official voice of the People's Republic of Donetsk - Radio Republic". (sent Sergei Sosedkin, USA, Moscow Information DX Bulletin, Weekly electronic publication # 892, May 6, 2014, Editor of the current issue: Fedor Brajnikov, via RusDX May 11 via DXLD) ** UKRAINE. 11980.086, A small 300 watt hobby station of the Ukrainian technicians on FM&TV tower at Zaporizhia heard regularly, but with different signal strength each day. Noted at 0620 UT May 9th just above threshold. Dniprovska Khvylia Zaporizhia contained female voice announcing followed by Russian? soft singer "You loub you" - "I love you", S=6 at -88dBm and suffered heavily by adjacent RTA ISS HQ prayer on 11985 kHz even (Wolfgang Büschel, df5sx, wwdxc BC-DX TopNews May 9, dxldyg via DXLD) ** U K. STANDBY DROITWICH --- From various sources Antenna maintenance Maintaining the outdoor network of a high power station like Droitwich is not a task to be taken lightly. Usually the antenna cannot be worked on unless the weather is good (light winds, warm air and definitely no lightning around). And the transmitter has to reduce power or switch off to protect the riggers and painters working aloft. As reported in the last issue of MWN, this is what is happening at Droitwich for some more weeks. Standby To do the work a complete standby transmitting station has been installed by Arqiva the transmitter operator. The standby is located at Chase Farm, 2 km NW of Kenilworth NGR, SP264740 Bing Maps: A 52m tall mobile mast has been installed to serve Radio Five Live: 693 kHz, Absolute Radio: 1215 kHz and Talk Sport 1053 kHz. This temporary MW station was set up in spring 2014. A grounded 52m lattice tower supports a "fat" cage vertical radiator fed against a ground mat laid upon the surface of the field. It is expected to be in service during daylight hours for about six months. The transmitter power on each programme is reported as being 8 kW, with an ermp of 10 kW. Information Though the BBC has been forthcoming in announcing the impact of the maintenance on its listeners, it seems that the two commercial stations want to remain tight-lipped. Arqiva were not much more helpful when John Williams phoned to investigate and was told “"I do not think I can give you that information as it has not been given to the general public!" On a positive note, Dave Pick, G3XYM, has been most helpful, providing photos and an interesting article that describes the complex antenna triplexer used to combine 3 transmitters into one antenna mast. The article http://www.kintronic.com/resources/pressReleases/2.pdf dates back to 2001 but the equipment described has been the emergency/standby transmitter held in storage by Arqiva. Dave Porter G4OYX also comments that the standby transmitter has not been properly audiosynchronised with co-channel transmitters, “in BBC days non sync audio was tantamount to death!” (May-June MW News via DXLD) ** U K [non]. Additional frequency of BBC World Service from May 5: 0600-0700 on 3255 MEY 100 kW / 000 deg to SoAf English (DX RE MIX NEWS #852 from Georgi Bancov and Ivo Ivanov, May 14, 2014 via DXLD) Thanks Ivo, Yes, confirmed extension of the 0500-0600 slot to 0700. But reception was so poor after about 0630, well after sunrise, that I wonder if it's worth it; might as well stick with 6190. Still, the sun is rising later every day so it could improve. I am about 25 miles north of Meyerton. BBC WS relay, 3255 Meyerton. May 9, 2014 Friday. 0535-0701* Amongst others, kidnapped Nigerian girls, South African elections, “Newsday” ID at 0542 as the phone line to or more likely, in, Johannesburg was lost (again, according to the announcer who said “we've been having trouble all morning”) Followed by sport, my cue to (mentally) switch off and do other things. Just before 0600 a teaser for “Witness”, then at 0600 time pips and BBC WS ID, teaser for “Outlook” then world news. At 0606, into “Outlook”. BBC WS ID and time pips at 0700, into “Newsdesk” then suddenly off air at 0701* Good at first, deteriorating as the morning moved on. Almost unreadable by 0700. Jo'burg sunrise 0436 (Bill Bingham, Johannesburg RSA. Sony ICF2001D. dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) see also SOUTH AFRICA ** U K. 15180, strong powerful BaBcoCk Cello music test signal from Woofferton, switched off at 1340 UT (Wolfgang Büschel, wwdxc BC-DX TopNews May 14, dxldyg via DXLD) BaBcoCk tests: see UNIDENTIFIED 6145 ** U S A. 25000/AM, WWV, Fort Collins CO time station; 1820, 10-May; Caught 2 clear IDs before fade to zilch (Harold Frodge, Port Hope MI DXpedition, Drake R8B + 250 ft. LW + 85 ft. TTFD, All logged by my ears, on my receiver, in real time! DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. 21320-USB, May 10 at 2044, ``CQ 15 from W8PW in the State of New Mexico`` despite the -8- call area, ex-Ohio. Per http://www.qrz.com/db/W8PW RICHARD A JEDLICKA 5573 CHARLES RUSSELL ROAD LAS CRUCES, NM 88011 USA with photos of his shack in the desert, CV, and proud of his Four- Square Antenna. This log is short/sporadic E skip, about a megameter, and one of the SSOB. Es was very active further east, FM band wide open from Dominican Republic to South Carolina; earlier in the day I was getting Mexico up to 66 MHz (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. 7438/LSB, Armed Forces Day special event station broadcasting from the WW2 memorial ship U.S.S. LST325 anchored at Evansville IN; control ID'd only as NWVC. Celebrating a week early! 2135, 10-May (Harold Frodge, Port Hope MI DXpedition, Drake R8B + 250 ft. LW + 85 ft. TTFD, All logged by my ears, on my receiver, in real time! DX LISTENING DIGEST) [and non]. My Logs from the May 10, 2014 Armed Forces Day Crossband Military/Amateur Radio Communications Tests: AAC, Barrow Army Reserve Training Center, Lexington, KY, 7360 USB AAZ, Fort Huachuca, AZ, 14512.5 USB ADB, Camp Foster, Okinawa, 20994 USB AGA2SY, Hancock Field Air National Guard, Syracuse, NY, 13993 USB AGA4AR, Arnold Air Force Base, Tennessee, 7457 USB AGA5SC, Scott Air Force Base, IL, 7545 USB NBL, NAVMARCORMARS, Groton, CT, 14391.5 USB NMC1, USCG Island, Alameda, CA, 15740.5 USB NNN0ASF, NAVMARCORMARS, Easton, MO, 13974 USB NNN0CQQ, USSS Midway Museum Ship, San Diego, CA, 14463.5 USB NPD, NAVMARCORMARS, Milllington, TN, 7476.5 LSB NWKJ, USS Yorktown, Hollywood, SC, 14467 USB NWVC, USS LST-325, Evansville, IN, 7438 LSB WAR, Pentagon, Washington, DC, 14663.5 USB WUG-23, US Army Corp of Engineers, Wynne, AR, 7421 USB 73, (Brandon Jordan, Fayette County, TN http://www.swldx.us WinRadio G33DDC, WinRadio G313-e, RFSpace SDR-IQ, Icom R75, Eton E1 DX Engineering NCC-1 Phased Dual Active Verticals Array Solutions AS-SAL-12 Shared Apex Loop Array Solutions AS-SAL-30 Shared Apex Loop, May 10, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. KENNETH TOMLINSON, CONSERVATIVE VOICE, DIES AT 69 By DOUGLAS MARTIN Mr. Tomlinson was a conservative journalist who used his leadership role in federal communications agencies to counter what he regarded as liberal bias. . . Or, copy and paste this URL into your browser: http://nyti.ms/1ipsMUN (via David Cole, OK, DXLD) and ran the VOA for a while (gh) Viz.: Kenneth Tomlinson, Conservative Voice in Broadcast Oversight, Dies at 69 --- By DOUGLAS MARTIN, MAY 7, 2014 Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, then chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, testifying before the Senate in 2005. Credit Carol T. Powers for The New York Times [caption] Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, a conservative journalist who used his leadership role in federal communications agencies to counter what he regarded as liberal bias, died on May 1 at a hospital in Winchester, Va. He was 69. The cause was a melanoma, his son Lucas said. Mr. Tomlinson, a former top editor of Reader’s Digest, was director of Voice of America in the early 1980s and, from 2002 to 2007, chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which oversees the federal government’s international broadcasting. His most prominent role was as chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting for two years during the administration of President George W. Bush. The corporation is a private nonprofit body created to shield public broadcasting from political pressure and provide general direction. It has no direct authority to order PBS or NPR to broadcast something, but its grants for programming and other purposes are influential. Mr. Tomlinson was appointed to the corporation board in 2000 by President Bill Clinton to fill a Republican seat. The board is divided between Democrats and Republicans, and not more than five of its nine members can be from one party. The board elected him chairman in 2003. Mr. Tomlinson immediately campaigned to eliminate what he perceived as the corporation’s leftward tilt. “It is absolutely critical for people on the right to feel the same ownership stake in public television as people on the left have,” he said in an interview with The New Yorker in 2004. His biggest target was the PBS program “Now With Bill Moyers,” which he believed had veered into blatant liberal partisanship. In particular, he criticized Mr. Moyers’s political commentaries, like one he delivered after the Republicans captured both houses of Congress in the 2002 midterm elections. In that segment, Mr. Moyers said Republicans would “eviscerate the environment” and “force pregnant women to give up control over their own lives.” Mr. Moyers, interviewed by The New York Times in May 2005, six months before Mr. Tomlinson’s resignation, contended that Mr. Tomlinson had “waged a surreptitious and relentless campaign against ‘Now.’ ” In part that was a reference to a $10,000 study Mr. Tomlinson had ordered to investigate whether the program was politically balanced. To add what he considered needed objectivity to PBS, Mr. Tomlinson introduced conservative programming, including “The Journal Editorial Report,” a weekly talk show featuring columnists from The Wall Street Journal. Another was hosted by the conservative commentator Tucker Carlson, titled “Tucker Carlson: Unfiltered.” In 2005, at the end of his mandatory two-year term as chairman, Mr. Tomlinson successfully pushed for the appointment of Patricia S. Harrison, a former chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, as the corporation’s president. This drew criticism that he was acting on behalf of his friend Karl Rove, President Bush’s political adviser, which he denied. Mr. Tomlinson left the board after the corporation’s inspector general questioned his authority to order the study of Mr. Moyers’s show and to hire two lobbyists without the board’s knowledge. Mr. Tomlinson disputed all accusations of wrongdoing. He nonetheless resigned. The board, in a statement, said that he had not “acted maliciously or with any intent to harm C.P.B. or public broadcasting.” His travails were not over. In 2006, the State Department investigated his chairmanship of the Broadcasting Board of Governors. It found that Mr. Tomlinson had put a friend on the payroll and had run a “horse- racing operation” with government resources, specifically that he had bought and sold thoroughbreds from his office. He countered that the employee had been fully qualified and that he had at most exchanged one email a day with his horse farm in Virginia. Weathering the storm, he did not leave the broadcasting board until 2007. Kenneth Young Tomlinson was born on Aug. 3, 1944, in Mount Airy, N.C. His father, a farmer and factory worker, was killed in an industrial accident when Kenneth was 5. At 16 he had at summer internship at The Richmond Times-Dispatch. After graduating from Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Va., with a degree in history, he returned to the newspaper. He joined Reader’s Digest as a correspondent in 1968 and reported from Vietnam, Somalia and Europe, where he became an editor. In 1982 Mr. Tomlinson took a two-year leave to become director of Voice of America, where he replaced aging equipment and introduced editorials, often extolling policies of the Reagan administration. “Someone complained that ‘your editorials sound just like Ronald Reagan,’ ” Mr. Tomlinson told The New York Times in 1984, “and I said, ‘You’re darn right and I’m proud of it.’ The editorials should reflect the viewpoint of the party in power.” Later, as chairman of the broadcasting board that oversees Voice of America, he helped start an Arabic-language television channel to broadcast to the Middle East. Leaving Voice of America, Mr. Tomlinson returned to Reader’s Digest in 1984 and rose to editor in chief. In 1994, he ran an article about Lt. Col. Oliver North’s race for a Senate seat in Virginia that questioned the qualifications of a man many conservatives admired. It was titled “Can Oliver North Tell the Truth?” Financially well off at 52, Mr. Tomlinson retired to his horse farm in Middleburg, Va., in 1996. Four years later, he was appointed to the board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Besides his son Lucas, Mr. Tomlinson is survived by his wife of 39 years, the former Rebecca Moore; another son, William; and a sister. In his second retirement, Mr. Tomlinson wrote articles for conservative publications, including The Washington Times. In a negative review of former Gov. Sarah Palin’s 2009 book, “Going Rogue,” for the paper, he suggested that she read Reagan’s radio speeches for inspiration (NYT via Mike Cooper, DXLD) obit Bill Moyers & Company survives on public television! One of the best shows available. This week`s guest and next week`s is David Suzuki, Canadian science activist, once a shortwave host on Quirks & Quarks from CBC. see http://billmoyers.com (Glenn Hauser, OK, May 11, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. VOA Radiogram this weekend is all MFSK32, except for the surprise mode at the end. The show include six MFSK32 images. Details: VOA Radiogram, 10-11 May 2014, MFSK32 with lots of images We will transmit another all-MFSK32 show (except for the surprise mode at the end) for the weekend of 10-11 May, including six images. Here is the lineup... http://voaradiogram.net/post/85203625337/voa-radiogram-10-11-may-2014-mfsk32-with-lots-of VOA Radiogram transmission schedule (all days and times UT): Sat 0930-1000 5745 kHz Sat 1600-1630 17860 kHz Sun 0230-0300 5745 kHz Sun 1930-2000 15670 kHz All via the Edward R. Murrow transmitting station in North Carolina (Kim Elliott, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) LOG: 2014-05-10 KBC (11.30z) + VoA (16.00z) - Radiogram http://www.rhci-online.de/VoA_Radiogram_2014-05-10.htm And at the end of the HTML, as usual, some digital SSTV-images. This time from the eastern and southeastern parts of Europe. (roger, Germany, ibid.) ** U S A. 7305, May 11 at 0140, good open carrier, must be Greenville warming up for the papists at 0200 to violate Separation of Church & State; didn`t keep with it to hear whether stayed on or not (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. 9930, WTWW Lebanon TN; 2340-2400*, 3-May [Sat]; Glenn Hauser's World of Radio #1719 to 2359, then WTWW ID & close, saying to retune to 5085. S25 peaks. I was trolling for YHWH and found Glenn! (Harold Frodge, Midland MI, USA, Drake R8B + 125 ft. bow-tie; 85 ft. RW & 180 ft. center-fed RW, All logged by my ears, on my receiver, in real time! DX LISTENING DIGEST) WORLD OF RADIO 1720 monitoring: first airing confirmed on WRMI-10, 9955, UT Thursday May 8 from 0330:01.5, following gh ID for WRMI, and that followed from 0329 tune-in a bit of fado fill music we have heard many times before; while a nice diverse set of music, it may be time for some refreshing of WRMI`s filler medley. Lite pulse jamming during WOR, tnx a lot, Arnie! Surprisingly little noise considering the storms around here. Second airing also confirmed on WRMI-10, 9955, Thursday May 8 at 1230, also following gh ID, but now the signal is only poor and the pulse jamming is worse by comparison; tnx a lot, Arnie! At 1256 the other WRMI transmitter, 11, cuts on 9955 with much stronger carrier overriding WOR on #10 to the SSE, since #11 is aimed NW. In another minute, modulation on WRMI-11 starts, so the last two minutes of WOR are loud & clear. Third airing missed: Thursday May 8 at 2046, oh2, WTWW-1 absent from 9475, and remained off past 2130, while 9930 with BS was on, and 12105 also off. (BTW, 13845 WWCR very poor at 2050, low MUF.) Did not check 5830 until later, in case night frequency was on early, but nothing there either. Finally, 9475 cut back on at 2310. Next chance: UT Friday 0327v on WWRB-1, 5050. Hope this is back on tonight, as last couple nights it was also missing, with both WWRB transmitters devoted to Brother Scare, on 9370 and 3185 simultaneously. As late as 0230 UT May 9, 5050 is still off, boding ill for us, and so is 3185; only 9370 remaining with BS. Further WOR SW airings: Saturday 0630 & 1430 on Hamburger Lokalradio, 7265-CUSB. How is this low-power outlet doing now in Europe propagationally, and any QRM? Saturday 2330 on WTWW-2, 9930 (also check 5085) UT Sunday 0030 on WRMI-14, 9495 (may be previous edition) UT Sunday 0401 on WTWW-1, 5830 UT Monday 0300 on Area 51 via WBCQ-4, 5110v-CUSB Tuesday 1100 on WRMI-10, 9955 Wednesday 0630 & 1430 on Hamburger Lokalradio, 7265-CUSB Wednesday 1315 on WRMI-11, 9955 WORLD OF RADIO 1720 monitoring: as feared, another missed opportunity, as WWRB 5050 remains off the air during the WOR slot, UT Friday May 9 at 0330. Next: Saturday 0630 & 1430 on HLR 7265-CUSB Saturday 2330 on WTWW 9930 UT Sunday 0030 on WRMI 9495 (maybe previous edition) UT Sunday 0401 on WTWW 5830 UT Monday 0300 on Area 51 via WBCQ 5110v-CUSB While WOR, ``a listener-supported public service program about communications around the world, especially the dynamic medium of international shortwave, between the AM and FM bands`` is primarily *on* SW, I wouldn`t blame people for listening online more reliably or even subscribing to podcasts, via http://www.rmrc.de WORLD OF RADIO 1720 monitoring: as feared since WTWW-2 had been off all day, and for several days, no signal on 9930 (or 5085) for the Saturday May 10 2330 UT airing. Confirmed UT Sunday May 11 after 0030 on WRMI-14, but as often happens it`s a replay of the previous week`s 1719. After intermittence on 9475 and staying on as late as 0141, WTWW-1 is back on 5830 with VG signal for confirmed airing of WOR 1720, UT Sunday May 11 from 0400:53; and no breaks in transmission heard to 0430. Next: UT Monday 0300 on Area 51 via WBCQ, 5110v-CUSB. WORLD OF RADIO 1720 monitoring. I missed confirming the 0300 UT Monday May 12 broadcast via Area 51 on WBCQ 5110v-CUSB, but at 0355 there was a JBA signal on frequency, so probably fulfilled. Next: Tuesday 1100 on WRMI-10, 9955 Wednesday 1315 on WRMI-11, 9955 Wednesday 0630 & 1430 on Hamburger Lokalradio, 7265-CUSB WORLD OF RADIO 1720 monitoring: 9955, Wed May 14 at 1315, WRMI ID by some guy in OK interrupts the Austrian winner of the Eurovision Song Contest, which was on the tail of the Cypriot show running a bit late; then WOR 1720 confirmed on final(?) repeat. WORLD OF RADIO 1721: UT Thursday 0330 on WRMI 9955 (if ready in time) Thursday 1230 on WRMI 9955 Thursday 2101 on WTWW 9475 UT Friday 0327v on WWRB 5050 Saturday 0630 & 1430 on Hamburger Lokalradio 7265-CUSB Saturday 2330 on WTWW 9930 UT Sunday 0030 on WRMI 9495 (may be previous edition) UT Sunday 0401 on WTWW 5830 UT Monday 0300 on Area 51 via WBCQ 5110v-CUSB Tuesday 1100 on WRMI 9955 Wednesday 1315 on WRMI 9955 Wednesday 0630 & 1430 on Hamburger Lokalradio 7265-CUSB Chances are high that some of the above airings will be missing for some reason, so please keep trying (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. 7455, WRMI English, call-in by phone on "kids matter...", S=9+45dB tremendous signal into Alberta province location. But hit of adjacent RTTY signal S=8 on peaks 7454.57 and 7455.43 kHz (Wolfgang Büschel, Log 0500-0630 UT May 9th slot this UT morning, like CAN/USA nighttime, All remote SDR unit log of Alberta-Canada location, wwdxc BC-DX TopNews May 9, dxldyg via DXLD) 9955, May 12 at 1354, big open carrier, dead air from WRMI on NW antenna, comes to life at 1359 with Sennitt ID, 1400 into Brother Scare matching 15770, 9690. The Monday-Friday 1345 program is supposed to be `Moments in Bible Prophecy`. I just figured out the proportion of secular vs religious programming on 9955: per week, 52.25 hours secular, 115.75 religious, close to a 1:3 ratio: 31% secular. (Approx., as some program titles are unfamiliar, ambiguous). This includes non-English, so a much smaller proportion of secular shows in English. Of course, all the other WRMI transmitters are overwhelmingly religious, mostly 100% except for token relay deals with Taiwan, Japan, but never in English! (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. 9475, May 9 at 1333, WTWW is off, allowing R. Australia to be audible poorly; WTWW also off 9930 and 12105, and not on 5085 or 5830 either --- all off. By 1401, only 9475 is back on. At 1545, 9930 and 12105 are still off. It must be a tough task to figure out how much to charge Brother Scare for the time he is really transmitted on 9930 and 5085. 9475, May 9 at 1905 check, this is the only WTWW transmitter active. Next check at 0101 UT May 9, 9475 is *still* on instead of having QSYed to night frequency 5830 at nominal 0000; and *still* still on at rechex 0121, 0137; but by 0202, 5830 has finally come up. Circa 1230, 5830 on; and at 1400 trying 9475 I hear Australia until *1401 WTWW-1 cuts on with SFAW in progress, so no QSY at 1300? 5085 off at 0535 check and 9930 at 1545 chex May 10: WTTW-2 not heard at all for a few days now, which bodes ill for WOR at 2330 Saturday, but try 5830 UT Sunday at 0401. 12105, May 11 at 0035, the WTWW-3 frequency is back on, now with Brother Scare, formerly on WTWW-2, 9930/5085, which has been missing all day and for several days. 12105 had also been off for quite a while until now. Now WTWW-1 is also missing from 9475/5830. But at 0115, I find 9475 back on, day frequency at night, with SFAW music, and still at 0141 as well as 12105 BS, VG signals so far. By 0358, 12105 is still on but faded to poor level; while sometime in the interim, 9475 has moved to 5830, very good for WORLD OF RADIO, q.v. 5830, May 11 at 1308, WTWW-1 is still on night frequency with SFAW; by 1401 next check it`s on day`s 9475. And nothing from WTWW-2 or -3. 12105, May 11 at 2030, WTWW-3 frequency is on again, very good signal with The Overcomer Ministry, but others than Brother Scare speaking as has been the case a lot lately: is he taking a some time off? This usage substitutes for WTWW-2 on 9930 which transmitter is apparently still out of order. WTWW-1 is currently on too with SFAW on 9475. 12105, May 12 at 0108, JBA carrier vs CODAR, presumed still WTWW-3 but faded way down, as nothing else is scheduled. Nothing on any of the lower WTWW frequencies which would be propagating if on: 9930, 9475, 5830, 5085. However, at 0114 recheck, 9475 is back on with VG signal, altho it`s time for the night frequency 5830, but the switchover lately has been way later than nominal 0000. 12105, May 12 at 0558, Brother Scare with fair signal, same as on 9955 and 7570 WRMIs --- so WTWW-3 is again with BS, instead of WTWW-2, silenced on 5085. Next check at 1213, only Chinese is audible on 12105, i.e. KSDA at 11-13, partly in Amoy, Cantonese. Ivo Ivanov thinx that 12105 is now running 14-07 UT with BS (and on at 1620 UT check here), while day/nite switch times on 9475/5830 are nominally 1400/0200 UT (Glenn Hauser, OK, WORLD OF RADIO 1721, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Brother Stair via WTWW 3, instead [of!] via WTWW 2 00-13 on 5085, 13- 24 on 9930. 0656-0703 on 12105 TWW 100 kW / 040 deg to ENAm. Also was observed on May 11 at 1700, 1900, 2100. Here video from today, May 12 via SDR receiver in California. http://swldxbulgaria.blogspot.com/2014/05/brother-stair-via-wtww-3-instead-via.html -- 73! (Ivo Ivanov, QTH: Sofia, Bulgaria, dxldyg via DXLD) Updated summer A-14 schedule of WTWW We Transmit World Wide effective from May 11. All times are moved according to registration in HFCC Database WTWW-1 0200-1400 on 5830 TWW 100 kW / 050 deg to ENAm English, ex 0000-1300 1400-0200 on 9475 TWW 100 kW / 050 deg to ENAm English, ex 1300-2400 5830 is off the air at 0720 and 9475 is on the air at 1515 UT May 14 WTWW-2 0200-1400 on 5085 TWW 100 kW / 180 deg to SoAm English, ex 0000-1300 1400-0200 on 9930 TWW 100 kW / 180 deg to SoAm English, ex 1300-2400 5085 is on air at 0720; no signal on 9930 at 1400/1500/1600UT May 14 WTWW-3 1400-0600 on 12105 TWW 100 kW / 040 deg to ENAm English, Brother Stair 12105 is off the air at 0548 May 14; at 0613 May 13; 0703 UT May 12 WTWW-3 cancelled all transmissions in various languages as scheduled: 1300-1400 12105 TWW 100 kW / 040 deg to ENAm Russian 1400-2000 12105 TWW 100 kW / 040 deg to ENAm Arabic 2000-2300 12105 TWW 100 kW / 040 deg to ENAm French 2300-0200 12105 TWW 100 kW / 040 deg to ENAm Spanish 0200-0400 12105 TWW 100 kW / 040 deg to ENAm Portuguese 0400-0500 12105 TWW 100 kW / 040 deg to ENAm Portuguese, very irr. 0500-0800 12105 TWW 100 kW / 040 deg to ENAm Yoruba, very irregular 0800-1100 12105 TWW 100 kW / 040 deg to ENAm Chinese, very irregular 1100-1300 12105 TWW 100 kW / 040 deg to ENAm Russian, very irregular (DX RE MIX NEWS #852 from Georgi Bancov and Ivo Ivanov, May 14, 2014 via DXLD) WTWW-1 on 5830 is off at 0720 May 14 WTWW-2 on 5085 is on at 0720 May 14 WTWW-3 on 12105 TOM till 0703 May 12 WTWW-3 on 12105 TOM till 0613 May 13 WTWW-3 on 12105 TOM till 0548 May 14 Update: WTWW-1 on 5830 is off at 0720 UTC May 14 WTWW-2 on 5085 TOM is on 0720 UTC May 14 WTWW-3 on 12105 TOM, till 0548 UTC May 14 WTWW-3 on 12105 TOM, till 0613 UTC May 13 WTWW-3 on 12105 TOM, till 0703 UTC May 12 -- 73! (Ivo Ivanov, QTH: Sofia, Bulgaria, dxldyg via DXLD) 5085, May 14 at 0549, The Overcomer Ministry is back on here, after missing more than a week, i.e. the WTWW-2 frequency with VG signal. // but not synch 7570 WRMI, 3185 WWRB and 5890 WWCR. 5085 was not on earlier in the 01-02 period. Circa 0520, TOM was still audible on substitute(?) frequency 12105, but not once I hear it on 5085. So the question is, whether 5085 is now the #2 or #3 transmitter? Wolfgang Büschel was still hearing 5085 at 0820. All three WTWW transmitters are absent from all five frequencies, May 14 at 1407, 1417 chex, despite nominal start now at 1400 on day channels. But at 1525 check, it`s back to abnormal with TOM on 12105, SFAW on 9475 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. 5110, WBCQ Monticello ME; 0102, 11-May [UT Sun]; "Lumpy Gravy Radio Show on WBCQ"; played tune If My Nose Was Running I'd Blow It All On You. SIO=4+54; // 7490, SIO=554 (Harold Frodge, Port Hope MI DXpedition, Drake R8B + 250 ft. LW + 85 ft. TTFD, All logged by my ears, on my receiver, in real time! DX LISTENING DIGEST) Just received word that WBCQ will be relaying Andy Walker's "Before They Were Famous" - Part 4 program on Saturday night at 11 PM Eastern Time (0300 UT Sunday). 5110 kHz and possibly 7490 kHz. (The past 3 weekends they've relayed at 10 PM, so it may be a good idea to check at 10 PM in case they relay the show an hour earlier). (Channel Z, May 9, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Well, worldmicroscope.com shows for Saturday May 10/UT Sunday, 5110 AND 7490: 0200 The Lost Discs Radio Show; 0300 Andy Walker on Channel Z Radio – Before they were famous part 3; 0400 off (Glenn Hauser, 0208 UT May 11, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) 7490 // 5110-CUSB, UT Sunday May 11 at 0137, Area 51 is almost synchronized on the two, a split-second apart with a Broadway tune. Channel Z notified us that these would be carrying a ``Before they were Famous`` feature at 0300-0400 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 9330-CUSB, May 14 at 0117, Rod Hembree preaching as if were an American, fair signal on WBCQ. This frequency has been inaudible a lot lately, especially in the daytime; was unsure if due to propagation or QRP. It used to be listed on WBCQ schedules as 24 hours (or rather 23, except for some financial show), but in A-14 HFCC it`s shown as 12-06 only. Now the WBCQ program schedules have been updated to show Hembree`s Good Friends Radio Network (which includes programming from various other gospel huxters), greatly reduced on 9330 but added at certain times to two other WBCQs: 5110: 0200-0500 UT Tue-Sat 7490: 0200-0500 UT Sunday 9330: 2300-0200 daily plus UT Mondays until 0500 Hey, Assad, now`s your chance to get R. Damascus thru to North America before 2300 without `BCQ blockage! {but Syria SW off for years} 7489.72, May 14 at 0120, BS via WBCQ measured this far off-frequency but nothing to het it (Glenn Hauser, OK, WORLD OF RADIO 1721, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Updated summer A-14 schedule of WBCQ The Planet. Changes include extended schedule of 5110vCUSB and very limited schedule on 9330 CUSB: 0000-0200 5110vBCQ 050 kW / 245 deg ENAm English CUSB Sun/Mon 0200-0400 5110vBCQ 050 kW / 245 deg ENAm English CUSB Daily 0400-0500 5110vBCQ 050 kW / 245 deg ENAm English CUSB Tue-Sat 0000-0100 7490vBCQ 050 kW / 245 deg ENAm English Sun 0000-0300 7490vBCQ 050 kW / 245 deg ENAm English Mon-Sat Bro Stair 0200-0300 7490vBCQ 050 kW / 245 deg ENAm English Sun 0300-0400 7490vBCQ 050 kW / 245 deg ENAm English Daily 0400-0500 7490vBCQ 050 kW / 245 deg ENAm English Sun 0000-0200 9330 BCQ 050 kW / 245 deg ENAm English CUSB Daily 0200-0500 9330 BCQ 050 kW / 245 deg ENAm English CUSB Mon 1400-1700 15420 BCQ 050 kW / 245 deg ENAm English CUSB Sat Bro Stair 1700-2100 15420 BCQ 050 kW / 245 deg ENAm English CUSB Daily 1900-2000 7490vBCQ 050 kW / 245 deg ENAm English Tue 2000-2100 7490vBCQ 050 kW / 245 deg ENAm English Mon-Fri 2100-2130 7490vBCQ 050 kW / 245 deg ENAm English Sun/Mon/Fri 2100-2130 7490vBCQ 050 kW / 245 deg ENAm Spanish Tue-Thu 2130-2300 7490vBCQ 050 kW / 245 deg ENAm English Sun-Fri 2300-2400 7490vBCQ 050 kW / 245 deg ENAm English Daily 2200-2300 9330 BCQ 050 kW / 245 deg ENAm English CUSB Mon-Fri 2300-2400 9330 BCQ 050 kW / 245 deg ENAm English CUSB Daily 2300-2400 5110vBCQ 050 kW / 245 deg ENAm English CUSB Sat/Sun 5110v=5109.8 7490v=7489.8 (DX RE MIX NEWS #852 from Georgi Bancov and Ivo Ivanov, May 14, 2014 via DXLD) ** U S A [and non]. 5050, May 10 at 0108, WWRB is still gone, and so is 3185, but 9370 is still on; seems only one transmitter is working now and first priority is for Brother Scare, and even running the day frequency overnight, as still on at 0537 check. HFCC registrations call for WWRB on 9370 at 13-24 UT only. However, the only 9370 competition would be Pakistan in Bengali and Nepali at 0900-1030, not a problem over here even if they were really on the air, as WRTH A-14 Update shows the true frequencies for those are 11860 and 15180 and even so are ``irregular and running on minimal power`` -- and * next to them is spurious. So – why not WWRB? 5050, May 12 at 0107, WWRB is back on here after missing a few nights, but dead air; just a pause before preacher resumes. 3185, May 12 at 1202, BS is JBA on WWRB, and not yet 9370; just enough to make it // 9980 WWCR bigsig. 5050, UT Wednesday May 14 at 0116, WWRB-1 is on the air again, with Terry Blalock preacher, who seems to have cultivated Tourette`s Syndrome to make himself sound more assertive. 9370 also on with BS but unheard on 3185 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. Hi Glenn, tonight (May 9 UT) off the air was WRNO (7505.18) (Ron Howard, California, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) 7505.16 approx., May 10 at 0112, JBA carrier but no WRNO programming. This off-frequency very weak carrier, however, implies that WRNO`s exciter is on the air, unable to fire up the full transmitter. 7505.2, May 11 at 0136, can`t make out even an exciter carrier from WRNO vs the noise level. 7505.20, May 14 at 0118, WRNO back on the air at full strength, gospel rock, but somewhat undermodulated. 7505.2, May 14 at 0538, JBA carrier on the current off-frequency of WRNO, presumably leaving the exciter on after the full-power broadcast which did occur earlier after 0100, nominally only until 0400 (Glenn Hauser, OK, WORLD OF RADIO 1721, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 7505.219 Yes, a very weak peak visible on SDR screen at 0850 UT May 14 (Wolfgang Büschel, wwdxc BC-DX TopNews May 14, ibid.) ** U S A. 11985, May 10 at 2058, surprise bigsig with car race coverage from Indy Motor Speedway --- but it`s weeks from the 500! ID as ``Indy Car Radio`` on the Indy Radio Network or something like that, pausing 10 seconds for station identification, successfully accomplished by WHRI Cypress Creek as roars continue in the background. Latest HFCC as of May 8 does NOT have HRI registered on this frequency! Nor does the FCC A-14 schedule. Nor is it here: http://www.whr.org/Frequencies.cfm so apparently a last minute booking for this very special event, and probably a dry run for the big one on May 25. Some preliminaries are already underway but nothing on the 500`s own schedule for May 10 (Glenn Hauser, OK, WORLD OF RADIO 1721, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 11880, May 12 at 1210, WHRI music is such a huge signal that it`s overloading the FRG-7, popping up at other spots on the 25mb unless I attenuate. Even worse, it`s mixing with local Enid KCRC: 13270, May 12 at 1225, instead of Gander or New York Radio on USB, I am hearing a buzzy mess, so at first I check KCRC 1390, which puts out such harmonix at least up to 13900, but no match in modulation. Not from locals 960 KGWA or 1640 KZLS either. Now in talk, it does match 11880 WHRI, so here we have 11880 plus 1390 = 13270. Fortunately, 11880 is on for only one hour at 12-13 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. 17775, May 12 at 1308, KVOH is propagating with fair signal only a few minutes after weekday sign-on, preacher in Spanish. But 1401 recheck, it`s down to only a JBA carrier (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. 15825, May 13 at 1311, WWCR with black gospel music, `Inspiration Across America`, good signal now but highly variable depending on time of day and whether sporadic-E short-skip boost it. Part of the 15825 schedule is soon moving to a new frequency. But why? There are no other broadcasters on 15820, 15825 or 15830, and we never hear any ute interference either. Did Dr Jerry see my remark that WWCR no longer needs to be so far out of band to have a clear frequency? It will still remain on the Far Right of the 15 MHz band, on new 15795, now in HFCC as of May 13, effective from 1 June but only at 09-13, while 15825 is still also registered from 09 to 22, so evidently will remain after 1300 and still be available earlier if 15795 doesn`t work. 15795 is not a good choice: EiBi shows AIR in DRM Chinese at 1145-1315, thus also jammed; but the real schedule avoids most of this by QSYing at 1200, from the WWCR website and starting already May 19: ``WWCR A14 Schedule May 19, 2014 to Aug 31, 2014 Transmitter #1 - 100 KW - 46 Degrees 12:00 AM-04:00 AM 0500-0900 3.215 MHz 04:00 AM-07:00 AM 0900-1200 15.795 MHz 07:00 AM-05:00 PM 1200-2200 15.825 MHz 05:00 PM-08:00 PM 2200-0100 6.115 MHz 08:00 PM-12:00 AM 0100-0500 3.215 MHz`` (Glenn Hauser, OK, WORLD OF RADIO 1721, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Frequency change of World Wide Christian Radio, WWCR-1 from May 19: 0900-1000 15795 WCR 100 kW / 046 deg to WeEu English, ex 15825 1000-1030 15795 WCR 100 kW / 046 deg to WeEu Russian Sat, ex 15825 1000-1030 15795 WCR 100 kW / 046 deg to WeEu English Sun-Fri, ex 15825 1030-1115 15795 WCR 100 kW / 046 deg to WeEu English, ex 15825 1115-1145 15795 WCR 100 kW / 046 deg to WeEu Ara/Rus Mon-Fri, ex 15825 1115-1145 15795 WCR 100 kW / 046 deg to WeEu English Sat/Sun, ex 15825 1145-1200 15795*WCR 100 kW / 046 deg to WeEu English, ex 15825 1200-2100 on 15825 WCR 100 kW / 046 deg to WeEu English 2100-2200 on 15825 WCR 100 kW / 046 deg to WeEu Spanish Mon-Fri 2100-2200 on 15825 WCR 100 kW / 046 deg to WeEu English Sat/Sun 2200-0100 on 6115 WCR 100 kW / 046 deg to NoAm English 0100-0900 on 3215 WCR 100 kW / 046 deg to NoAm English * from 1145 on same frequency DRM broadcast of All India Radio in Chinese (DX RE MIX NEWS #852 from Georgi Bancov and Ivo Ivanov, May 14, 2014 via DXLD) ** U S A. ``17805``, May 8 at 0119, with the DX-398 on the porch, as I am scanning the 16m band, not much, but here`s Pastor Melissa ``Barbie`` Scott! fading in and out suspiciously and immediately confirmed to be synched and // with 5935 WWCR, as heard on the PL-880, each with its separate reel-out/short wire antenna plugged in. Reversing them, I do not hear 17805 on the PL-880, so am quite sure this is a *receiver*-produced third harmonic, the 5935 signal so strong it breaks thru the DX-398`s image rejexion threshold. I skipped mentioning this in previous report, but WTH, might be useful warning to some fellow DXer. Not a real transmitted harmonic log, which could also happen (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. Updated summer A-14 schedule of WINB effective May 4: 1130-1400 on 9265 INB 050 kW / 242 deg to CeAm English Sun 1400-1615 on 9265 INB 050 kW / 242 deg to CeAm English Sat/Sun 1615-2045 on 9265 INB 050 kW / 242 deg to CeAm English Daily 2045-2100 on 9265 INB 050 kW / 242 deg to CeAm Eng/Spa Mon-Fri 2045-2100 on 9265 INB 050 kW / 242 deg to CeAm English Sat/Sun 2100-2230 on 9265 INB 050 kW / 242 deg to CeAm English Daily 2230-2300 on 9265 INB 050 kW / 242 deg to CeAm Spanish Mon 2230-2300 on 9265 INB 050 kW / 242 deg to CeAm English Tue-Sun 2300-2400 on 9265 INB 050 kW / 242 deg to CeAm English Daily 0000-0200 on 9265 INB 050 kW / 242 deg to CeAm English Daily 0200-0230 on 9265 INB 050 kW / 242 deg to CeAm English Tue-Sun Wrong (winter) UT times on , Sched by Time (DX RE MIX NEWS #852 from Georgi Bancov and Ivo Ivanov, May 14, 2014 via DXLD) ** U S A. 570.04, KGRT, NM, Las Cruces – 4/29 0759 [EDT = 1159 UT] – C&W music to 0759:55 legal ID: “...This is Classic Country 570 KGRT Las Cruces;” Fox news ensued at ToH, followed by state and local news; weather at 0806 was followed by more C&W music. They have reverted to their original call letters after a few years as KSNM. They have not, however, reverted to their original frequency of 570, choosing instead to remain on 570.04 for the umpteenth year for whatever reason. Fair signal with local KLZ-560’s IBOC off (John Wilkins, Wheat Ridge, CO, Drake R-8, 4-foot box loop, NRC DX News May 12 via DXLD) So that`s the cause of the ``rumble`` against real 570.00 stations we hear at night (gh, OK, DXLD) ** U S A. 690, May 14 at 0557 UT, open carrier presumed KGGF Coffeyville KS as the DF fits, not really off following their ``sign- off`` shortly after 0500 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** KKZN Denver To Drop Liberal Talk Last Updated on May 9, 2014 at 7:30 am http://radioinsight.com/blog/headlines/88602/kkzn-denver-to-drop-liberal-talk/ Yet another of Clear Channel’s Liberal Talk stations is dropping the format. “AM 760? KKZN Thornton/Denver is next in line to shift to another Talk variation following similar moves in recent months at sister stations in Portland and Los Angeles. Morning host Gloria Neal posted on Facebook that she had been fired as the station would be changing formats. With Randi Rhodes ending her syndicated show next week the station is losing two of its shows. Greg Foster, VP/Programming for Clear Channel Denver confirmed to the Denver Post that Neal was let go. “I can confirm that Gloria Neal’s show is no longer on KKZN and she is no longer with our company. We will be announcing new programming for KKZN in the near future.” Clear Channel registered RealTalk760.com last December that could potentially be used for KKZN. With the company also owning News/Talk/Sports 850 KOA and Conservative Talk 630 KHOW perhaps the company will follow in the footsteps of its Los Angeles and San Francisco clusters and move Rush Limbaugh off of KOA to enable it to focus on all local programming. After KKZN drops the Liberal Talk format, Clear Channel will be left with three Liberal talkers in Albuquerque, Asheville, and Madison in their portfolio (via Artie Bigley, DXLD) ** U S A. 910, May 9 at 0559 UT amid the jumble, instead of Miamuh OK, I am hearing a promo/PSA for a university in Roswell (an ENMU campus?), KBIM radio mentioned, then full ID as KBIM 910 and FM xx.7, into ABC News. The original KBIM-FM was 94.9 and it got out well by tropo to the east, but I suppose they were divorced long ago. Now NRC AM Log shows the FM translator of 910 is on 93.7, K229BV, and 910 is only 500 watts at night with pattern a circle tangent south, no good for us; yet KVIS` pattern is a tight figure-8 toward Enid. Something seems amiss here with one or both, or just a propagational fluke (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. 1510-, May 9 at 0532, ESPN Radio is dominant, looping NE/SW, and about 5 seconds ahead of ESPN on 1500 KSTP. This is obviously KCTE Independence MO (circa Kansas City), 15 kW *daytimer* cheating yet *again*, *and*, *always* off-frequency far enough to cause an audible heterodyne. Poor WLAC doesn`t have a chance, only as a carrier to het. (And then there was another 1510 daytimer logged a few nights ago around midnite, WQQW circa St Louis, but not tonite). Who cares? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. TXDOT CEASES OPERATION OF 1610-AM TRAVEL INFORMATION RADIO http://amarillo.com/news/local-news/2014-05-10/txdot-ceases-operation-1610-am-travel-information-radio Texas Department of Transportation will no longer operate its 1610-AM Travel Information Radio frequency as of the end of May. The radio system has operated since 1998, after receiving a license from Federal Communications Commission. After a recent review of the license agreement, it was discovered that FCC regulations did not permit the weather broadcast on 1610-AM, according to a TxDOT news release. Although TxDOT will no longer operates the Highway Advisory Radio System, it will continue to use existing digital message signs and the Intelligent Transportation System traffic cameras to share weather information. “We regret the action that we have to take, but the agency faced heavy FCC fines if we continued to operate the system as before,” said TxDOT Amarillo District Engineer Ron Johnston said in a TxDOT news release. “Rather than spend thousands of dollars upgrading a 16-year-old system to make broadcasts comply with the FCC rules, we feel it is a better use of public funds to invest in more current technology to get our traffic safety messages to the public,” Johnston said. TxDOT is investing $70,000 in upgrading the local traffic camera system, and upgrades to ITS technology will be made in the future, according to the news release. (via Kevin Redding, ABDX via DXLD) O yes, used to find NWS via TIS 1610 quite handy driving thru Amarillo; why should it be contrary to rules? NOAA Weather Radio is government, noncommercial, public service, after all!! But not many caradios tune 162 MHz band frequencies (Glenn Hauser, DXLD) ** U S A. Har under en längre tid ganska ofta haft utbyte med Christoph Ratzer i Salzburg. Eftersom antalet stationer på tropikbanden (som varit hans specialitet) minskat drastiskt, har han kommit igång riktigt ordentligt på MV. Ett antal mycket fina loggningar har hamnat i nätet. Han har sin utrustning uppe i Alperna på 800-900 m höjd och i det närmaste helt störningsfritt. Den 24 april kl 0329 hörde Christoph Ratzer en mycket ovanlig station. Han skrev så här i ett exalterat mail till mig: ``Found a special signal on my Friday (poor - but best of the week) recording: Highway Advisory Radio on 1680 from Virginia. Never heard before about this station, but I found a webpage which also mentioned this system: http://www.virginiadot.org/travel/highway_advisory_radio.asp And in my clip you can listen to a clear ID „VDAT Highway Advisory Radio on 1680“. Only for 2 minutes audible, a seldom catch? 73 Christoph`` Och naturligtvis blev det sensation hos stationen och först kom ett ganska kort svar: ``Dear Mr. Ratzer, Thank you for contacting the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) regarding the Highway Advisory Radio (HAR) station. How exciting that you have heard the station in Austria! Thank you, and we send you our best wishes from the United States, Jennifer Gwaltney, Public Information Officer, Hampton Roads Transportation Operations Center Virginia Department of Transportation Hampton Roads District, 1700 N. Main Street, Suffolk, VA 23434, 757- 925-2583`` Thomas Nilsson 12.5.2014 forts: Lite senare kommer så ett mycket trevligt brev från deras maintenance manager: ``Dear Mr. Ratzer, The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) sincerely appreciates receiving your reception report from Salzburg, Austria dated April 24, 2014. I can authenticate the audio you sent me was from our AM Highway Advisory Radio transmission and this e-mail will serve as an official confirmation for your DX records. I brought your e-mail report to the attention of our consultant engineer and he was very excited when he listened to the audio clip that you recorded of our 1680 KHz AM radio station broadcasting the FCC ID and scheduled transmission for 23:30 EST, 4/24/14. We did not anticipate Short/Mid Wave Listener reports since the station footprint is intended for local motorist in the Hampton Roads area in Virginia, USA. and therefore VDOT does not have an official confirmation card (QSL) to reply on SINPO reception reports. Technical Info: Our Highway Advisory Radio (HAR) comprises of 8 transmitters located throughout the Hampton Roads Area, Virginia. USA. Each transmitter is simultaneously broadcasting on 1680 KHz. AM running 10 Watts RMS and are GPS coordinated for simultaneous transmission using "Text To Speech" software. The antennas are vertically polarized with a 40 ground radials. The antenna height is restricted to 49 ft. maximum as per federal regulations. Thank you very much for contacting us and sharing your reception report with us. All the Best and Sincerely, Frank Shearman, Maintenance Manager, Hampton Roads TOC, 970 Reon Drive, Virginia Beach, VA 23464`` (ARC mv-eko 12 May via DXLD) ** U S A. Applications to extend existing STAs were received from: WMEN-640 Royal Palm Beach FL (higher power, unspecified, to overcome Cuban QRM); WXQW-660 Fairhope AL (reduced night power, lost a tower); KKOH-780 Reno NV (parameters at variance); WFTL-850 West Palm Beach FL (U4 50000/24000); WRNS-960 Kinston NC (night pattern at variance); KCKN-1020 Roswell NM (U2 1000/1000, but expects to be back to 50 kW by the end of April); WALO-1240 Humacao PR (U1 1000/5000 to overcome QRM from HICV Barahona, Dom. Rep.); WSUA-1260 Miami FL (parameters at variance); KKOL-1300 Seattle WA (U4 50000/43000 with patterns at variance); WADB-1310 Asbury Park NJ (pattern at variance); WINT-1330 Willoughby OH (U1 125/10); WMTE-1340 Manistee MI (U1 500/500 from alternate site); WFNS-1350 Blackshear GA (antenna detuned due to tree growth at transmitter site); WVEI-1440 Worcester MA (pattern at variance until proof of performance completed); WKHZ-1460 Easton MD (U3 500/500 using night pattern 24 hours); WINW-1520 Canton OH (D3 250 from a temporary site); KOKC-1520 Oklahoma City OK (night parameters at variance); WYCL-1540 Niles OH (D1 125). (via David Yocis, AM Switch, NRC DX News May 12 via DXLD) Of particular interest here are 1020 KCKN, and 1520 KOKC but decided to repro the whole list from this issue (gh, DXLD) ** U S A. EXPLAINING CHRISTIAN RADIO by Eric Bueneman (NØUIH) My first experience working in Christian radio came at WFTD 1080 in Marietta, GA in the spring of 1989. At that point, I was lured away from WRFG 89.3 in Atlanta with more hours and work as a local engineer for what was then a Skylight Radio Network affiliate. It was through that job that I learned that Christian radio stations, for the most part, operate on a different principle from their secular counterparts. Christian radio stations are more of a ministry outreach than a for-profit business. The Christian radio station I worked for was operated by a not-for-profit foundation connected with Roswell Street Baptist Church, then the largest Southern Baptist church in Cobb County and the third largest in the entire state of Georgia. The Nielsen ratings service (which took over Arbitron) has it all wrong when it clumps Christian radio stations into the “Religion” category. When a station is listed as “religion”, you would assume that such a station would sell air time to Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, or even the Hare Krishna faith. The more accurate name for such stations is Christian. Since such stations sell air time to predominantly Protestant ministries (heavily dominated by fundamentalist denominations, such as the Southern Baptists), then they should not be listed by Nielsen as “religion”, but rather, as the more accurate format description of Christian. In this case, “religion” does not truly exist as a radio format. In this day and age, Christian formats are very fragmented. There are different types of Christian music and spoken word formats on the air these days. Some of them target a wide range of denominations (predominantly Protestant), while others target a single denomination that is not well-served by most Christian radio stations. Some also broadcast Christian programs full-time in languages other than English (the most common being Spanish). Let’s explain the various Christian radio formats in more detail. Contemporary Christian: The industry’s abbreviation for this format is CCM. It is Christian radio with a pop and rock feel to it. The first songs in this format came out in the mid-1970s; the first stations to air this format came on the air later on in the decade. Among the first stations to air this format were AM stations such as WWDJ 970 (now WNYM) Hackensack, NJ and WAEC 860 Atlanta, GA. The first musicians performing this style of Christian music were rock musicians from the 1960s who became Born- again Christians, and began writing this music with references to Jesus and various Bible verses. CCM formats generally target younger Christians with a Bible message with a contemporary feel to it. This kind of music has its critics, too; a number of more fundamentalist Christians tend to associate the contemporary beats of CCM with Satan (a position I don’t agree with). Today’s CCM playlists tend to lean more toward an Adult Contemporary style. These days, the format is more widely programmed on FM stations than on AM stations. The major network that carries this format is K- Love, one of two networks owned by the Educational Media Foundation. The most commonly logged K-Love affiliate on AM is WNWT 1520 in Rossford, OH (a Toledo suburb). In addition to KLove, a number of Salem-owned radio stations air this format under the name “The Fish” (most notable being WFSH 104.7 Athens, GA); Salem also offers a satellite-distributed version. Another example is the network of stations owned by New Life Media, operating out of the studios of WBGL 91.7 Champaign, IL and WCIC 91.5 Pekin, IL. The network covers most of Illinois and parts of Missouri and Indiana. Northwestern College, the Minnesota-based Christian college which created Skylight Radio Network, also operates a group of CCM stations; some of them using the “Life” identifier (most notably KNWS-FM 101.9 Waterloo, IA, KJNW 88.5 Kansas City, MO and KNWI 107.1 Osceola, IA). It is often said that CCM is the best way to reach younger Christians with a faith message. Christian CHR: This format mixes in elements of Christian Rock, Rap and Hip-Hop with Contemporary Christian music. It sounds like the secular CHR format, but the lyrics in these songs are Christian in nature. It is a relatively new format; the most common network carrying this format is EMF’s second format, branded as “Air 1”. Local versions of this format are starting to appear; the most notable being St. Louis’ “Boost 101.9”, broadcast on three analog FM transmitters (K270BW 101.9 Bellefontaine, KPVR 94.1 Bowling Green and KHZR 97.7 Potosi, all MO), as well as the second digital channel of KLJY 99.1 Clayton, MO (the main analog and the first digital channels run the previously mentioned CCM format). This format tends to target high school and college age Christians. Urban Gospel: This format is more commonly called “Black Gospel”, targeting primarily African-American audiences, primarily in urban areas. A number of such stations are also available in smaller towns in the South. This format is more widely available on AM radio than on FM. The format features music recorded by small groups, solo artists and large choral groups, with a variety of flavors. Contemporary and R&B flavors are most common in this format; some Christian rap selections and Hip-Hop flavored selections are also included. Some of the biggest such stations in the country include WCAO 600 Baltimore, MD, KSTL 690 St. Louis, MO and WBBP 1480 Memphis, TN. Salem distributes a satellite-fed version of this format. Among the most notable artists in this format are Kirk Franklin, the New Jersey Mass Choir and the late Mahalia Jackson. A number of pop and R&B artists also got their start in this form of Christian music, most notably Aretha Franklin. Teaching programs and church remotes are also a major part of this format. These days, the term “African-American” is preferred over “Black”; I don’t know about you, but I prefer the Urban Gospel name for this format over Black Gospel. Southern Gospel: This particular form of Christian radio is very common in the Deep South. It is Christian music with elements of Bluegrass, Country and Western styles. A number of Country artists, along with a few Rock artists (most notably Charlie Daniels) have done albums of Christian music in this style. Salem also distributes this format via satellite. This format is also more common on AM stations than on FM. As with Urban Gospel, teaching programs and church remotes are a major part of Southern Gospel radio. One of my closest stations with this format is KHCR 99.5 Bismarck, MO. WIGN 1550 Bristol, TN is among the more frequently logged Southern Gospel stations in the Southeast and Midwest. Traditional Christian Music: This format does not include a single Contemporary Christian tune; the playlists tend to gravitate toward the Easy Listening genre. Light vocals, traditional instrumental and choral hymns make up the bulk of what is played in this format. Teaching programs are also a significant part of this format. The Bible Broadcasting Network is a major provider of this type of music; BBN originates from WYFQ 930 Charlotte, NC; among the AM stations they own are WYFN 980 Nashville, TN and has added KYFI 630 St. Louis, MO in the past year. This type of music is also featured overnights on the Moody Broadcasting Network, mainly on FM stations. Those who listen to this format believe that drum beats, as frequently found in Contemporary Christian music, are influenced by Satan. Christian Teaching: The schedule on Christian Teaching stations are filled with programs that focus on teaching from the Bible. This is where you’ll find well- known shows as “In Touch”, “Through the Bible”, “The Alternative” and “The Overcomer”, along with locally-produced Bible teaching ministries. This format, while more common on AM radio, is being increasingly programmed on FM. An offshoot of this is Christian Information, which mixes teaching programs with information programming oriented toward the Christian population, such as “Focus on the Family” and inspirational programs like the drama “Unshackled” (produced by the Pacific Garden Mission, based in Chicago). An example of a radio station that focuses all of its programs on Christian teaching is KXEN 1010 Festus/St. Louis, MO. A primary example of a Christian Teaching and Information format is the Bott Radio Network, of which several AM stations are part; among them KCCV 760 Overland Park, KS, KQCV 800 Oklahoma City, OK, WCRT 1160 Donelson, TN and KSIV 1320 Clayton, MO. Moody Bible Network also carries large amounts of Christian teaching and informational programming. Christian Talk: This is a talk radio format that has a Christian slant, primarily fundamentalist. Some of the talk show hosts in this format are very critical of non-fundamentalist denominations; a number also direct their ire toward the Roman Catholic Church. Several hosts also get very political in nature; their politics is often of an extreme right wing variety. This format is more common on AM than on FM; Crawford Broadcasting-owned stations have programmed this format, which is also referred to as “Talk Radio Hell Hates”. Until September 2013, this format was in St. Louis on KJSL 630 (now KYFI). Catholic Radio: Originally on only a handful of stations, the format has exploded since the mid-1990s, thanks to the establishment of EWTN Global Catholic Radio, an audio version of the Eternal Word Television Network. Until EWTN put on its shortwave outlet, WEWN (located in Vandiver, AL, near Birmingham), Catholic programming was only available through a handful of radio stations, most notably Vatican Radio. The programs on this are varied, from discussion programs, Masses and teaching programs to music (most notably “Catholic Jukebox”) and prayers like The Holy Rosary. Christian radio stations largely rejected programming produced by Catholic media outreach ministries, leading many organizations to establish Catholic-oriented radio apostolates (another name for an outreach ministry). Catholic Radio seems to be equally available on AM and FM stations. The most notable organizations dedicated to Catholic radio include Relevant Radio in the upper Midwest, Covenant Network in the Midwest and parts of the Mid-South, Radio Maria on the Gulf Coast and in the Dayton, OH area, and Immaculate Heart Radio on the West Coast. Some notable stations broadcasting Catholic programming full- time include KBVM 88.3 Portland, OR, WLYV 1450 Fort Wayne, IN and KSFB 1260 San Francisco, CA. Lutheran Radio: This format originated with the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, and is the oldest single-denomination Christian radio format on the air. The teaching and music programming is oriented primarily to the members of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, the most conservative of the Lutheran faiths. The music is primarily conservative (a la BBN) in nature; some Classical music with a Christian theme is aired. The first such station signed on the air in 1924, in the form of KFUO Clayton, MO. KFUO, whose calls stand for “Keeping Forward, Upward and Onward”, began as a share-time station with KSD (now KTRS) St. Louis, MO before becoming a limited-time station, first on 830 kHz. The LCMS also operates Lutheran Hour Ministries as its radio ministry arm, producing “The Lutheran Hour”. While Lutheran Hour productions are on various Christian radio stations, the Lutheran format is exclusive to KFUO 850 Clayton, MO and KNGN 1360 McCook, NE; it is probably the rarest Christian format on the air. Spanish Christian: Christian music and teaching are not only available in English in the United States. Christian programming is also available in the second most commonly spoken language in the United States: Spanish. In addition to Christian teaching, the Catholic format and Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) have also been translated from English to Spanish. Tejano music, the local popular music of the Rio Grande Valley, has also been adapted for Christian audiences. For Catholic audiences, EWTN also has a Spanish service on their shortwave frequencies; I don’t know if EWTN is offering Spanish programming for AM and FM stations. The Guadalupe Radio Network offers a Spanish language service (the most notable station carrying this format is KJON 850 Carrollton, TX, in the Dallas/Fort Worth market). A number of stations also carry Protestant teaching and music in the Spanish language. Protestant-oriented programming in Spanish is also available on a number of AM and FM stations across Latin America; many of the FM frequencies have replaced lower-power shortwave transmitters (mainly in the 3 and 4 MHz tropical bands) in recent years. Christian programming is also available in other languages, including French, Portuguese, different South American dialects, Asian and African languages and dialects, and numerous eastern European languages (even Russian). Trans World Radio is perhaps one of the largest Christian organizations providing Protestant-oriented programming in various languages; many of us have heard PJB on 800 kHz from Kralendijk, on the island of Bonaire off the northern coast of South America. TWR also owns KTWG on the island of Guam at 801 kHz. TWR also contracts for air time on various AM and shortwave transmitters around the world. The largest organization providing Catholic-oriented programming is Vatican Radio, which has two AM transmitters broadcasting on 585 and 1260 kHz, also contracting for air time on various transmitters around the world, in addition to their own facilities at Santa Maria di Galeria, Italy. So, when you see a station listed as “religion” in a report in any of the DX bulletins, it really is a Christian format. Describing such stations as “religion” is not only inaccurate, but will make the listener believe that any religion can buy air time for their programs. No all-Buddhist or all-Jewish stations are established at the present time, but we’re starting to see a few Hindu stations on the West Coast. We should not use the word “religion” to refer to Christian radio stations; even the ratings services, such as Nielsen, should start using the correct term, Christian, to describe Christian radio stations. The “religious” format, as I’ve said earlier, does not truly exist as a radio format (IRCA DX Monitor May 17 via DXLD) Hmmm, he doesn`t include LDS/Mormon, who insist they are Christian too: after all ``Jesus-Christ`` is their middle name! The LDS Church has or has had a significant hand in broadcasting, but more commercial than evangelical, notably KSL in Salt Lake City, and WNYW New York. Mormon Tabernacle Choir produxions are widely syndicated, combined with soft-sell ``Music and the Spoken Word``, presumably Book of Mormon if not regular Bibling, as I zone out. The Reformed Church of Jesus Christ of LDS, HQ Independence MO, used to produce a fine organ music show. Note how all the Christian music formats Eric covers have nothing to do with classical or traditional sacred hymns! The Mormons at least make up for this. Despite the huge worldwide missionary outreach of the LDS church, it`s really person- to-person rather than via broadcasting. One is hard pressed to think of a single Mormon teaching/evangelical radio broadcast, other than M&SW, let alone station (Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. `Mad About Music` in current syndication by the WFMT Network, started in April and runs for 52 episodes (maybe more beyond that, from 10 years of archives?). Finally found the details of each show, but already for the July-August-September period: http://www.wfmt.com/main.taf?p=12,11,72 The May 11 guest via KUCO at 21-22 UT was Mike Nichols And here is the info for the Santa Fe Chamber Musical Festival, April- May-June only: http://www.wfmt.com/main.taf?p=12,11,21 Unfortunately, WFMT does not provide any info on affiliates carrying each program, so we have to find them or run across them. Here`s the entire list of programs: http://www.wfmt.com/main.taf?p=12,2 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** URUGUAY. La Voz de Artigas (URU) --- Escuchando en este momento (1710 UT) Radio La Voz de Artigas en 6076.3 kHz. SIO 343. Con publicidades locales y música (Luis Poapredes, LU2EMH, Argentina, May 8, condiglista yg via WORLD OF RADIO 1721, DXLD) En efecto. La estoy escuchando muy bajo e interferida por la polucion electrica que tengo a las 1801 UT por 6076.3 kHz. No alcanzo a escuchar nada en 4945 kHz (Rodolfo Tizzi, http://elterrorylavirtud.blogspot.com/ ibid.) Esto es lo mejor que he podido escuchar a CXA3 La Voz de Artigas en 6076.29 kHz, a las 2057 UT. El QRM de Radio Marumby en 6080 es atroz, lo que me obligo a aplicar casi todos los filtrados que puedo: http://youtu.be/4lecoX0Ngz0 -- (Rodolfo Tizzi, Uruguay, May 8, WORLD OF RADIO 1721, ibid.) ** VANUATU. 7260, R. Vanuatu (tentative), 1007-1031, May 11 (Sunday). Religious program in vernacular with preaching and singing; language and format sounded correct for Vanuatu; by 1031 had faded down to unusable and other station(s) on frequency were fading up. This would seem to correspond to what Dave Valko heard last Sunday at the same time, but his religious program was in English. Also heard with QRN. 3945 - As it was the weekend, there was no strong RN2 (Japan) to contend with here, but all I could hear was an open carrier below threshold level (no audio), so unable to confirm via // (Ron Howard, Asilomar State Beach, CA, E1 & CR-1, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Escuché esto en 3945 kHz el domingo pasado al amanecer hora uruguaya (1047 UTC) y lo subi a Youtube pensando que se trataria de Radio Nikkei, una de mis favoritas de la onda corta en las madrugadas, pero he aqui que un amigo japones me dice que el idioma de este clip no es el de su pais... Será una nueva frecuencia reactivada de Radio Vanuatu, quizas en paralelo con 7260 kHz (la cual si pude escuchar)? 3945 kHz a las 1047: http://youtu.be/ZSzs8hrgE_8 7260 kHz a las 0903: http://youtu.be/uBYHCTdSwUI -- (Rodolfo Tizzi http://cx2abp.blogspot.com/ May 12, dxldyg via DXLD) 3945 not NIKKEI, as ID "Radio Vanuatu" at 0:08 your youtube file. s/off on Sunday of Radio Nikkei 2 at 1000 UT (S. Hasegawa, Japan, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Gracias a la información aportada por Arnaldo y Miguel, como así mismo la de Sei-ichi y Taka en Youtube, se pudo identificar positivamente el audio de este clip como el de Radio Vanuatu. El nuevo clip con la información correcta está ahora en: http://youtu.be/Pjqbi_CJszc Un saludo a todos y gracias por la colaboracion. 73! -- (Rodolfo Tizzi, http://cx2abp.blogspot.com/ condiglista yg via DXLD) 7260, R. Vanuatu, 0944, May 14. Semi-clear reception; several monologues; 1002 ID for "Radio Vanuatu, the Voice ..."; drums and conch shell (attached audio) before the start of the news in vernacular with many sound bites; hard to say when the news ended; 1026 musical fanfare into speech; poor with QRM gaining on them by 1030. 3945 - May 14 (Wednesday) at 1000 check noted a normal weekday with strong "RN2" (Japan) (Ron Howard, San Francisco/Ocean Beach, CA, E1 & CR-1, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** VATICAN. Hi, some local report say that yesterday was knocked down the big medium wave antenna (directional, 4 towers) of Vatican Radio in Santa Maria di Galeria, this one: http://www.waniewski.de/MW/Vatikan/vatican_mw_1en.htm I hope to find some photos soon. 73 (Andrea Borgnino IW0HK, May 9, shortwave[sic]sites yg via DXLD) VATICAN CITY STATE/ ITALY --- In the morning of May 08, the four towered directional MW antenna which used to be operated on 1530 kHz from Santa Maria di Galeria by Vatican Radio have been demolished. MW 1530 kHz went off air in 2011, but antennas and transmitter were still on site. The demolition abruptly occurred 13 years after accusations of electromagnetic pollution were formulated. Vatican R MW covered Europe and the Mediterranean with a very good signal at night. The end of MW broadcasts deeply affected travellers as well as everyone not having a access to the Internet, but also dramatically reduces any opportunity to make the Pope's message reach the world independently from other operators and connections. The demolition does not affect MW 585 kHz serving Greater Rome area and 1260 kHz covering the Vatican and limited sorrounding areas, whose antennas are located within the walls of the Vatican (so called Leonine City). Santa Maria di Galeria, a rural area 30 km north of Rome, continues its SW services. Another piece of radio history is cracking (Luigi Cobisi, Firenze, DSWCI DX Window May 14 via WORLD OF RADIO 1721, DXLD) At the EDXC Conference in Florence in 1996 we visited this impressive site (Anker Petersen, ibid.) ** VATICAN [non]. 15440, May 13 at 1231, poor-fair signal in Russian; a few minutes earlier had noticed open carrier here. EiBi shows it`s Vatican Radio to Siberia via IBB Tinang, PHILIPPINES; thus violating Separation of Church and State, the US Government`s exclusive arrangement with the one and only religion it recognizes for relay deals. Yet the RCC has its own SW station in the Philippines, Radio Veritas Asia with time to spare after 1230: see SARAWAK [non] (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** VIETNAM [non]. 12005, May 10 at 0129, surprised to find no signal from VOV relay via Woofferton UK to North America, but *0130:10 carrier and soon opening in Vietnamese. HFCC does show a 2-minute break at 0128-0130, and also at 0228-0230 before and after the Vietnamese hour, but why? Exactly same parameters are in use also for the two English broadcasts: 250 kW, 282 degrees, -12 slew, 618 antenna; and all effective starting 11 April instead of 30 March for A-14 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** VIETNAM. 5975 // 7210 // 7435.0 // 9635.73 (the best reception), Voice of Vietnam-1, 1202, May 10 in Vietnamese (Ron Howard, Asilomar State Beach, CA, E1 & CR-1, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) 7210.000, Voice of Vietnam 1st domestic program from 'Daclac/Dak Lak - Buon Me Thuot' site scheduled 2145-1700 UT, S=9+25dB or -47dBm heard in eastern Thailand on remote SDR unit. But also produced two wider spurious signals of 4 kHz wide each, on 7196.300 and 7223.700 kHz. S=9+10dB or -66dBm And two smaller spurs of 2 kHz wide each on 7182.700 and 7237.200 kHz too. 2 mast array 60 mb http://binged.it/1jIonN6 12 degr38'39.43"N 108 degr01'14.01"E 2 mast array 49/41 mb http://binged.it/1hCztiH 12 degr38'30.35"N 108 degr01'07.44"E VTN_Dak Lak, Buon Me Thuot MW 819 kHz, inactive 690/1090 kHz, registered SW 4800/6020/7210 kHz, 20 kW. 7284.970, VOV 'Hanoi Me Tri' site, scheduled Thai til 1600 UT, was still on air with carrier late at 1615 UT May 9th. S=9+35dB or - 38dBm strength in eastern Thailand (Wolfgang Büschel, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Voice of Vietnam-1 heard on May 10 at 1202 with 7435.0 // 9635.73; whereas May 13 at 1125 heard 7435.56 // 9635.00. Interesting how they switch tx! (Ron Howard, Asilomar State Beach, CA, E1 & CR-1, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ZAMBIA. 5915, zambie, 2143 vernacular discussion, 11 mai 14. 73 (Michel Lacroix, France, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ZANZIBAR. TANZANIA: 11735, Voice of Tanzania-Zanzibar (tentative); 1750-1803+, 10-May; Afro & Arabish tunes; W in unknown language, not Arabic, so maybe Swahili; mentioned Tanzania. SIO=252; much better 2006-2020, 10-May W in Swahili? & Arabish songs including one really loooooooong one (good DJ toilet break tune). SIO=353 (Harold Frodge, Port Hope MI DXpedition, Drake R8B + 250 ft. LW + 85 ft. TTFD, All logged by my ears, on my receiver, in real time! DX LISTENING DIGEST) 11735, May 13 1800+, Zanzibar Broadcasting Corporation, news in English. 73 (Thorsten Hallmann, Münster, Germany, http://www.muenster.org/uwz/ms-alt/africalist dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) UNIDENTIFIED. [Re 14-19:] Mystery longwave "jamming" --- Both of the previous days when Rémy heard "jamming" on/around 198 were Saturdays (19 April and 3 May), so I encourage those who can (across Europe) to check tomorrow to see if they can hear anything (Chris Greenway, England, Friday May 9, BDXC-UK yg via DXLD) Glenn, Listed under UNIDENTIFIED in DXLD 14-19 were reports of jamming on the BBC Radio 4 long wave frequency of 198 kHz. I do not mean to dismiss these reports, but may I remind folks that the 500,000 watt Droitwich transmitter has been off the air for maintenance at frequent intervals as of late. This leaves just the two 50,000 watt synchronous transmitter in Scotland on the air. We all know how susceptible long wave is to interference, most of it generated by all manner of consumer electronics. I check long wave daily at different times, and have noted the Droitwich transmitter off the air at various times throughout the day. Sometimes as early as 0600. Perhaps what was reported as “jamming” was a noise source picked up in the absence of the Droitwich transmitter. Or, it could have been some sort of test signal originating by the Droitwich station. Just a theory. I was in Amsterdam in late April and bought a 1956 Grundig radio model 3035. Four speakers, and a ferrite antenna that rotates from a knob on the front for the best long and medium wave reception. It was up on a shelf, behind some albums at a used record store. It was in such great shape I could not resist buying it for 35 Euros. It needed a new EM85 tuning eye tube, and the band switches cleaned, but other than that it fired up and sounded great. In my hotel room in the Netherlands, I had no problem receiving Radio 4 in the daytime when Droitwich was on. When it was off the air, the Scottish transmitters were very weak and in the noise. Of course this was not the ideal DX location. Back at my home QTH, the Scottish transmitters can be heard with no problem, but are much weaker than the Droitwich signal (Brock Whaley, Ireland, For DXLD) Brock, That all makes sense, but still there is the theory that it could be Algeria testing a new LW DRM transmitter, as heard further south in France. That would also be more obvious in the absence of Droitwich (Glenn to Brock, via DXLD) Glenn, Yes, that could be true. I'll keep an ear out for anything that sounds like DRM, or looks like it on the SDR waterfall. Algeria makes it here at night, and 153 kHz makes it here under Germany in the winter, and down on the coast near Cork all year. With sunset approaching 2200 local, I'm doing less listening during evening conditions. 73's (Brock Whaley, ibid.) UNIDENTIFIED. 960, May 14 at 0502 UT during KGWA Enid Fox-hole, among the sigs audible with KGWA hummy carrier nulled as much as possible, is one playing ``Let It Be`` instrumentally. I have heard this more than once during the hole, so it may be a midnite tradition at some station, possibly musical WABG Greenwood MS, tho it`s nominally Blues format. Or a (pseudo)-Catholic station? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) UNIDENTIFIED. Test transmission 6145 kHz? e-mail transmissiontest@gmail.com off at 0845 UT. Any ideas who this might have been? Very strong here, OM in English with various music. 73's (John Hoad, May 10, Faversham Kent UK, Sent from my iPad, BDXC-UK yg via DXLD) I have had this reply with regard to my report but still no idea who it is! Sent from my iPad (Hoad, slightly later, ibid.) Begin forwarded message: From: "Trans Mission" Date: 10 May 2014 10:06:15 BST Subject: Your transmission test reception report Re: Test transmission 6145 kHz ``Hello and thank you for taking the time to email us your transmission test report. We will send you a QSL shortly.`` (ibid.) Hi John, These transmissions have been reported every few weeks or so over the last several months and are believed to be Babcock test transmissions - the Babcock music loop has been heard on occasion at the end of the test. I and others have had the same auto-reply that you have had, but I haven't heard of anyone getting any further reply or QSL from them (Alan Roe, Teddington, UK, ibid.) The transmissiontest@gmail.com email is usually used by Babcock tests (from Woofferton, Shropshire site?). Usually announcements with instrumental music loop, but no ID. Previously heard on in past year on frequencies including 6145, 6175 and 7325 kHz. Maybe somebody "in the know" could let us know the reason for the tests? Incidentally, my report to Babcock Media for their tests on 1296 kHz in September last year sadly never resulted in the promised QSL :-( 73, (Alan Pennington, Caversham, UK, BDXC-UK yg via DXLD) Many thanks to both Alan's for their very welcome response. I will let you know if I receive a QSL. 73's John (Hoad, ibid.) UNIDENTIFIED. OTHR broadband 9250 - 9310 kHz, 1610 UT May 13 S=8 in AUSTRALIA (Wolfgang Büschel, wwdxc BC-DX TopNews May 13, dxldyg via DXLD) UNIDENTIFIED. 13560.5, May 9 at 1229, JBA signal with music, fading in and out, mostly out, announcement then in that exaggerated style of old-time-radio. Brief interruption by a much stronger AM signal slightly off to cause a het, sounds like a CBer remarking about what he`s heard. Fortunately nothing more heard from him. (Worth noting that twice this frequency would be in the CB, 27121.) I keep straining to hear something identifiable; 1237 CODAR starts up, twice per second pulses, weak but plenty QRM in this case; it comes and goes too. 1242 brief fade-up sounds like an OTR drama, M&W dialog also with exaggerated dixion of the era. No laughs audible, so maybe not comedy with studio audience or enhancement. At 1254 with FRG-7 BFO warmed up, I compare the frequency to whatever is on 1560, and get a pitch close to C#5 on my keyboard, i.e. 554 Hz; but earlier stepping 13560-13561 on the YB-400, seemed like the unID was a tad closer to 13560. CODAR stronger at 1259, and after no ID, no signal audible at ToH, I give up for now and go to breakfast. Propagation is so poor on this band, that I doubt it could be from beyond North America. Surely the same pirate I heard previously at a very different time, and for those who missed it, here`s that complete log again from DXLD 14-17: ``UNIDENTIFIED. 13560.7-AM approx., April 18 at 0520 I encounter some kind of broadcast with unreadable talk, not sure if English, and some music fading in and out; very poor signal and also vs CODAR. First I check to be sure it`s not // local KCRC 1390 somehow overloading or mixing; 0528 a little better with ``Columbia Broadcasting System`` ID for some program ``every Sunday night``, so it`s old-time-radio, ad for something about Adam? 0532 for Adler`s Elevator Shoes, making a man seem two inches taller, as he has every right to appear! 0533 ``The 1920`s Radio Network presents: `The Inner Sanctum``` and into that classic show. By 0535 it`s a little stronger. Meanwhile I am figuring out possible fundamentals if this be an harmonic: Not heard on 6780, 4520 or 3390. No longer heard a bit before next check 0600. So anyhow, appears to be a pirate, probably in North America, tho legit signals from Europe to Australia are propagating on the 22m band. Searching freeradiocafe and hfunderground gets zero hits on 13560; nor do I find any recent logs on that frequency in DXLD archives. Amid the log I did hear an ID for the 1920s Radio Network, and its program grid #2 http://www.the1920snetwork.com/grid/index.html does show `Inner Sanctum` M-F at 1-2 am, presumably EDT, as the service originates with public radio WHRO in Virginia. It`s online and available for relay anywhere, but I don`t find any real radio affiliate list as it`s mainly a streaming service. It so happens there is only one even MW frequency which could produce a harmonic on 13560, and that is 1130 x 12, extremely unlikely, less likely than a pirate (Glenn Hauser, OK, WORLD OF RADIO 1718, DX LISTENING DIGEST)`` Since then I have seen zero other logs of any pirate on 13560, so now I search again: zero hits on 13560 or 13.560 at the fiery http://freeradiocafe.com At http://www.hfunderground.com there are some hits, but all about ditters and beeps. It would be helpful if others would pay attention to 13560 any time of the day or night. The 1920s Radio Network grid #2 shows the M-F 8:30 am (ET) show is `Curtain Time`; grid #1 shows ``20s-40s`` all morning, evidently referring to music. Re my two reports of oldtime radio on 13560+, Harry Smith replies, ``Hi Glenn, It could possibly be a FCC Part 15 station on 13.560 MHz in the U.S. A certain amount of r.f. radiated power is legally allowed on that frequency, though it is originally intended for such uses as RFID. Because that frequency is used for RFID, it is relatively easy to modify parts and equipment to get a signal on 13.560 MHz`` Frequent chex since then have sometimes found `hash` around the frequency, could be local, or maybe real RF IDing? 13560.68 approx., May 14 at 0122, JBA AM carrier with spoken programming, vs CODAR and much stronger hash on the lo side, so best heard in USB mode. Just too weak, but the third time this has shown up here, the last two with old-time radio shows. Could be someone`s part- 15 device for his own use; or a pirate? BTW, when I`m DXing in the 01-02 UT period, I always check for pirates on the 6.9 MHz band, but mostly don`t hear any there. When I do, I surely report those logs (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) UNIDENTIFIED. This morning at 1303 and still at 1405 UT, I am hearing what sounds like DRM, centered below 13835 but above 13830. Certainly has not been there before. DRM-capable monitors, please check this out (Glenn Hauser, OK, 1418 UT May 11, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Then discussion with Christopher ``Fibber`` Rumbaugh, DRM enthusiast: ``Nothing here Glenn, but perhaps it is Europe and I am too far out West. Is it the characteristic OFDM waveform of 10 kHz?`` Was not as wide as 10 kHz; just going by the sound of it. No longer heard at 1427 check. Suspect it`s Chicom jamming against RFA Tibetan at 11-14 via Tajikistan on 13830 [where there had been a JBA carrier]. When DRM is used for jamming, is there any intelligible info contained, like ID info? Glenn Fibber: ``There is likely the ID information imbedded, but the on- channel noise could very well obliterate it - Even the FAC (broadcast format info) let alone the SDC (where the ID lives) and the MSC (the audio and other program content). I was getting AIR Delhi yesterday but no ID made it through. Too weak and too many hops to be stable, I think`` (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) [and non]. Hi Glenn. Spent a little time the last couple mornings listening to 13830-13835 to see if I could help out a bit concerning your unID DRM thingy -- dunno if the following is much use, but here ya go: CHINA + [non], 13830, CNR1 1346-1400* 13 May. Jammer (loud) v. RFA Tibetan 11-14 (unheard). 1414+ 12 May loud "whoop-whoop" jammer on 13834a--usually this is on 13825a v. RFA Vietnamese 14-15 (also heard 13 May at 1356+ with the signal peaking around 13828a just before RFA started up). (Dan Sheedy, Swami's Beach, CA G5/PL380 + 6m X wire, DX LISTENING DIGEST) UNIDENTIFIED. 15300, May 14 at 0131, open carrier/dead air on fair signal. Nothing scheduled here until 0300; see AUSTRALIA. RA already audible at 0131 on poor 17795, fair 17840 during country music (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) UNIDENTIFIED. 15490, at 1202 GMT on 5/5/14. A man said, "You are listening to a test transmission. Please send your reception reports to testtransmission@gmail.com." Good. Shut down was at 1204. I sent a reception report, and an almost immediate automatic response was received. It thanked me for my report, and told me I'd have a QSL shortly. Five days later, I still do not have a verification or transmission site (Bob Brossell, Pewaukee, WI, JRC NRD-545; Eton E1; Sony ICF SW77, NASWA Flashsheet via DXLD) BaBcoCk, probably Woofferton UK; don`t hold your breath. Promises, promises (gh, DXLD) UNIDENTIFIED. 15615, May 13 at 1216 good strength open carrier aside 15610 WEWN. I keep on it, hoping for something identifiable. 1217* off, *1218 back on, 1220* off and on and off 1221*, etc. 1227 adds 1 kHz tone past 1230, back to OC at 1232. Bit of music at 1235, back to OC until finally cut off for good at 1253*. WEWN strength and spurs were not building up until 1300. No broadcaster listed on 15615 except RFA Tinian in Chinese at 04-07, plus jamming of course. EiBi also shows VMW Wiluna, W Australia with meteo fax on 15615, but not heard now. 15615, May 14 circa 1245, the mystery open carrier heard yesterday around this time is absent today. Possibly it was a CNR1 jammer transmitter with nothing to jam at the time, like V of Tibet (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) UNIDENTIFIED. 17341/USB, UNID SWBC Relay?; 1955-2037:33*, 9-May; Continuous commentary by W in oddly accented Spanish. I did not specifically hear "Radio Exterior de España", but did hear sprinkled in, "Radio Exterior", "España", Español", "Barcelona", "mundial", "familia", "economía", "Mario Gómez" & "Monaco" several times. SIO=353- with muted audio & QRN. Heard about this time before, but not every day and not // REE broadcasts on the air. Nothing 1930-2000+ on 5/10 (Harold Frodge, Port Hope MI DXpedition, Drake R8B + 250 ft. LW + 85 ft. TTFD, All logged by my ears, on my receiver, in real time! WORLD OF RADIO 1721, DX LISTENING DIGEST) UNIDENTIFIED. 21324-USB, May 14 at 1920-1950 approx., intermittent ham with British regional accent discussing auto repair with inaudible contact. Never heard any ID. Hardly anything else making it on 15m band (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) UNIDENTIFIED. 21330-USB, May 11 at 2027, good signal from Y3PSL, American accent, advising a much weaker colleague, KG9E, Nick, on how to proselytize without offending the locals, apparently going to somewhere in Latin America. Y3PSL doesn`t seem like a real callsign; you can`t have a single-letter prefix unless the entire YAA-YZZ series be assigned to a single country. Then I thought he was saying YN3PSL, but swallowing the N. That`s not a real call either per QRZ.com but if it were, would be in Nicaragua. Someone does use Y3PSL on social media. Could be Y3TSL or Y3TFL or Y3PFL, as fonetixi never employed. Checked W3PSL too just in case, and another no-hitter. Maybe will catch him again. Or could it really be a tactical call from a clandestine ham? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) UNIDENTIFIED. 27019, May 10 at 2117, big local AM carrier from some CBer (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ UNSOLICITED TESTIMONIALS ++++++++++++++++++++++++ ACKNOWLEDGED ON WORLD OF RADIO 1721: Hi Glenn, here`s ``a little something`` (channeling Pooh Bear) to help you keep DXLD/WOR rolling along in 2014. Thanks, as always for the high qualty/relilale DX information you and the rest of the contributors provide. Cheers from the beach, my friend (Dan Sheedy, WB6FJD, with a check to P O Box 1684, Enid OK 73702) Hope to have someone else to thank by next week. One may also contribute via PayPal, not necessarily in US funds, to woradio at yahoo.com (Glenn Hauser, WORLD OF RADIO 1721, DX LISTENING DIGEST) PUBLICATIONS ++++++++++++ GERMAN RADIO FREQUENCY HANDBOOK "SENDER UND FREQUENZEN 2014" spring supplement 2014 to download via http://www.vth.de/fileadmin/user/Zeitschriften/FMT-online/Mai_14/sf-2014-n1.pdf (April 29 via bcdx 6 May via RusDX 11 May via DXLD) RADIO SEARCH ENGINE During the *heat* of an Es opening, you might really get frustrated with one non-stop song after another on a 'skip' station, with no RDS, no verbal ID, and no geographical references. Then there was yes.com, but it went away. Here's a new bookmark for you --- Radio Search Engine http://radiosearchengine.com/ It's still a 'work in progress' from the creators of the website, but what I've seen from them in the past six months, they've really added a lot of stations to their searchable list. And they'll direct link to the audio stream of a station you might be trying to track down. So far, it's the best online search tool I've been able to find for song and artist, since Yes.com went away (Jim Thomas, Springfield, Missouri, May 12, WTFDA gg via DXLD) Given that Yes is now No, this tool will be useful. Thanks, Jim! (Saul Chernos, ibid.) Just tried it. While the interface is a bit kludgy it does work and is pretty fast. Very useful - thanks, Jim! (Bill Nollman, ibid.) CONVENTIONS & CONFERENCES +++++++++++++++++++++++++ MAY 15-16 NASB AT GREENVILLE A reminder that the NASB and DRM meeting is almost here at VOA Greenville NC, open to anyone: http://www.shortwave.org/meeting/meeting.htm (Glenn Hauser, May 11, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) DX-PEDITIONS ++++++++++++ BORDER INN DXPEDITION ANYONE? In the near future I'm planning a weekend DXpedition at the Border Inn, on US 6/50 at the NV/UT border http://www.borderinncasino.com From this location one can easily run wires over 3000 ft in directions from E to SE (though my SE wire last year was a magnet for Phoenix pests, so I might limit myself to E to ESE like I did back in 2002). I'm actually tempted to bring some duct tape and run some wire across the highway to the ENE or NE just for kicks. The highway is a sparsely traveled 2 lane road. The terrain is nice and flat for miles to the east, but there is a state highway running S about 3300 ft E of my DX parking spot at the motel, and a dirt road running from that road to the SW that has an occasional truck driving on it. The owner is friendly. Last year I introduced myself and told her what I was up to. Nearest locals are KELY-1230 (about 50 miles west) and KNAK-540 (about 80 miles east). They have a gas station, convenience store, and a restaurant (6 am-10 pm). This year I'm hoping to have the Perseus up and running for the first time. My latest work laptop isn't as horribly noisy as the previous ones so I'm hoping it will work OK with a good antenna. I have the necessary 5V batteries and almost cobbled together the necessary adapter today (had to order one piece online that Radio Shack didn't have). If anyone is interested please email me off list for the dates. I try not to let the whole Internet know when I'll be out of town :) 73 (Tim Hall, Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile, ABDX via DXLD) MUSEA +++++ KGB SHORTWAVE MONITORING IN LATVIA Article posted May 5 including link to previous article from March 2013 on jamming. http://latvianhistory.wordpress.com/2014/05/05/shortwave-radio-monitoring-by-the-kgb-in-latvia/ (Mike Barracklough, May 8, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) GREAT VINTAGE BROADCASTING FILMS Some wonderful vintage French film here. Behind the scenes of French 441 line television in 1947 and the Videophone of the future with a topless woman. Even a visual prediction of video on a smartphone: http://www.ina.fr/video/CPF04010181/television-oeil-de-demain-video.html Behind the scenes of French 819 line television in 1956: http://www.ina.fr/video/CPF02009182/tournage-tele-dans-les-studios-de-la-tour-eiffel-video.html The France-Inter long wave transmitter from 1966 http://www.ina.fr/video/CPF86625886/l-emetteur-de-france-inter-video.html The history of Radio Strasbourg http://www.ina.fr/video/SXC9807131495/radio-strasbourg-video.html Eurovision master control and how it works 1966: http://www.ina.fr/video/CPF86625872/l-eurovision-video.html (Brock Whaley, Ireland, May 8 for DXLD) DIGITAL BROADCASTING --- DTV See BRAZIL ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ DIGITAL BROADCASTING --- DRM See CHINA; NIGERIA; USA: WWCR; ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ UNIDENTIFIED 198; 13830+ RADIO EQUIPMENT FORUM +++++++++++++++++++++ BIRD MIGRATION AFFECTED BY LF & MF RADIO SIGNALS The electronic and AM radio signals have a surprising effect on migratory birds, since they can become disorientated them. According to research published in the journal Nature these devices disrupt the activity of the internal compasses of birds night, indispensable to direct your flight. The study raises the possibility that cities, full of this electromagnetic "noise" created by human beings, have significant effects on bird migration patterns. Many nocturnal songbirds rely on the weak magnetic field of the Earth to navigate, but until now, there was little evidence of the electromagnetic radiation created by human beings to affect the sensory system of these animals. Los dispositivos electrónicos y la radio AM desorientan a las aves migratorias The biologist Henrik Mouritsen and his team have shown signals of AM radio and electronic equipment to disrupt the internal compass of European Robins (Erithacus rubecula). In the experiment, conducted at the University of Oldenburg, a German city of 160,000 people, they kept the birds in wooden cabins, a standard procedure that allows researchers to study the magnetic navigation while they ensure that birds are not receiving signals from the Sun or the stars. But they found that birds could not be oriented in the correct migratory direction. So Mouritse decided to cover the huts with aluminum panels electromagnetic noise at frequencies ranging from 50 kHz 5 megahertz, which includes the range used for AM radio transmissions. Under these conditions, the birds were Yes able to orient themselves. Before sharing their results, the team spent seven years performing double-blind tests replicated independently by different generations of students. «We wanted to make sure that we could actually document what we were seeing was real,» says Mouritsen Nature. The results are that human activity and life in the cities could be modifying in any way the migration of birds and, therefore, their survival. More here: http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/182077-new-research-confirms-that-our-electronics-and-radio-waves-disrupt-migratory-birds?utm_source=feedburner (via Steve Whitt, ed., May 8, MWCircle yg via DXLD) I don't buy that argument. The magnetic half of a man made RF signal is too weak (excluding point blank proximity to the transmitting antenna) to interfere with bird magnetic field navigation. The only RF signal capable of doing that is a lightning bolt, of which millions occur everyday around the globe. That's my .05 cents worth of opinion due to inflation. 73 & GUD DX, (Thomas F. Giella W4HM, Lakeland, FL, USA, SWL Since 1965, mwcircle yg via DXLD) ELECTROMAGNETIC `NOISE' CAN DISRUPT MIGRATORY BIRDS' NAVIGATION, STUDY SAYS === By Brady Dennis, http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/electromagnetic-noise-can-confuse-migrating-songbirds-study-says/2014/05/07/c4ef1bdc-d5fc-11e3-8a78-8fe50322a72c_print.html For decades, scientists have known that migratory birds rely on the Earth's magnetic field as one way to help orient themselves and fly the right direction. But researchers in Germany have documented for the first time that the electromagnetic "noise" produced by modern societies could cause those avian navigation systems to go haywire, according to findings published Wednesday in the journal Nature. "Basically, anything you plug into a plug will sent out electromagnetic noise at some frequency," said Henrik Mouritsen, one of the paper's co-authors and a professor of neurosensory sciences at the University of Oldenburg in Germany. He likened the overall effect in urban environments to an orchestra of potential disruptions at various wavelengths. What might that mean for the migratory birds trying to maneuver through this busy electromagnetic landscape? The good news is that they possess other navigation systems, such as relying on the sun and the stars, Mouritsen said. But an overcast day in an urban area teeming with electromagnetic noise could, at least theoretically, cause problems. "If it doesn't have any compass available, it might not migrate at all . . . or it might fly in a random direction," he said. "We don't really know." Mouritsen and his colleagues stumbled upon the startling findings by chance, and the conclusions were seven years in the making. Years ago, they were trying to conduct a basic, often-repeated experiment in which European robins are placed in an enclosed, funnel-shaped container lined with scratch-sensitive paper during the migration season. Even inside a cage, without visual cues, the birds typically orient themselves using their internal compasses and scratch in the appropriate direction of migration. But again and again, the birds in Oldenburg could not seem to orient themselves, Mouritsen said. Only when researchers covered the small wooden huts with metal screening and connected it to a grounding wire, blocking man-made electromagnetic noise, did the birds go in the right direction again. "It's significant, because we found a very clear, repeatable effect of electromagnetic noise made by electrical equipment that prevents a bird, in this case a European robin, from using its magnetic compass," Mouritsen said. He said relatively minor levels of electromagnetic activity, with an intensity 1,000 times below limits laid out by the World Health Organization, appeared to be enough to disrupt the birds. The interference that switched off the birds' internal compasses did not appear to come from cellphone signals or power lines, as their frequencies were either too low or too high. Rather, signals in the range of AM radio stations or fields generated by other electronic equipment are more likely to blame, although researchers have not pinpointed the precise cause. "The levels of radio-frequency radiation that affected the bird's orientation are substantially below anything previously thought to be biophysically plausible, and far below levels recognized as affecting human health," Joseph L. Kirschvink, a professor at the California Institute of Technology, wrote in an essay accompanying Wednesday's study in Nature. The researchers also cautioned that the effect could be an intensely localized one. Those birds that could not orient themselves in Oldenburg? When researchers took them outside the town limits to a more rural area, they easily found their bearings. Roswitha Wiltschko, a longtime bird navigation researcher at the Goethe University in Frankfurt, said Wednesday's study seemed very well done but left unanswered important questions about the precise source of the disruptions. She said during decades in which she and her husband had studied the same type of migratory birds in Frankfurt -- a much larger city than Oldenburg, population 160,000 -- she had never seen evidence of "electric smog" interfering with the birds' internal navigation. "We never used any shielding, and our birds were well-oriented in the field," Wiltschko said. "Without knowing the origin of these magnetic fields, it's hard to know what it means . . . In order to assess this, we have to know more about where they come from. . . . It's really mysterious." Still, the Nature study raises intriguing questions about the sensory mechanisms inside migratory birds, and how it is that man-made electrical outputs could be scrambling nature's navigation systems. What actions could humans take to avoid the potential of causing trouble for migratory birds? Mouritsen said it would be "completely unrealistic" to expect civilization to unplug everything, everywhere, but small steps could help. For instance, perhaps we should refrain from placing strong AM radio emitters along routes where huge concentrations of birds migrate. Kirschvink thinks such ideas are worth examining. "If the effect reported by the authors stands the acid test of reproducibility," he wrote, "we might consider gradually abandoning our use of this portion of the electromagnetic spectrum and implementing engineering approaches to minimize incidental low-frequency noise, to help migratory birds find their way." More from The Washington Post: Brutal winter for Chesapeake Bay blue crabs Tough little shrimp inspires superstrong materials Oil spill left tuna, other species with heart defects Officials give up on evicting pythons from Everglades (c) The Washington Post Company (via Mike Cooper, DXLD) Hi all, We need to look carefully at the statistical correlation of the empirical data in that study and also see how the data were collected. I am not choosing sides here, but "thinking"; things and "knowing" things are vastly different. It is not a good idea to stand up and say with unfounded confidence that you know the study is flawed, this is in fact a self fulfilling prophecy. I want the study to be wrong also, yet I rarely get exactly what I want. We need to have humility on this subject as these animals deserve at least that much respect. Remember this much if nothing else: If all humans vanished from the planet, all other life would flourish. If all the birds vanished from the planet this would be an indicator of some serious structural problem in our ecosystem and quite possibly all large mammals (humans) would go extinct. Our world is an integrated system with humans on the BOTTOM of the supply chain. Again, humility is in order here. Kind Regards, JMP (Mark Polinsky, k7cbr, mwcircle yg via DXLD) RECEIVER IMAGES OF SW ON MW More about Gary Vance's mystery appearances of CRI on 810 & 1030: Larry Russell: It is probably more complex than that. First, an example that is common here: 560/1470 560 KHz + 455 KHz Intermediate Freq. = 1015 KHz oscillator freq. But 1470 - 1015 also equals the 455 kHz I.F. So I have my local 1470 producing a product in radios which causes a het on 560, or audio on some radios. With your examples: 830/1030 nominal, Take [830 + 455] times some multiple X... to get 455 kHz above, or below your shortwave targets. Take [1030 + 455] times some multiple X... to get 455 kHz above, or below your shortwave targets. 6190+455=6645 6190-455=5735 5735/10 +455 = 1028.5 -> possible match 9690+455=10145 9690-455=9235 9790+455=10245 10245/8 -455 = 825.6 -> possible match 9790-455=9335 Or something even more complex may be the reason, involving other oscillators in the radio. Paul Dobosz: A strong local AM broadcast carrier can act like a local oscillator in a receiver that does not have any pre-selection ahead of the first RF amplifier stage. That configuration describes most modern receivers on the market today. While the quality of receiver front end designs resistant to overload with higher third order intercepts is greatly improved over those of yesteryear they still are not as bulletproof as a tuned RF amplifier (remember the antenna trimmer on the older SW receivers) or a dedicated pre-selector circuit. An extremely strong signal on a frequency to which a receiver is not tuned can drive the RF amplifier into its non linear region, producing a rich supply of strong harmonics. At the same time the overloaded amplifier also can function as a fairly efficient mixer. Back to back ESD protection diodes across antenna inputs to protect against a static zap to the exposed whip antenna can also generate harmonics and act as a mixer in the presence of any rf signal sufficiently strong to bias them into their active region. Couple either of these scenarios with a strong SW signal and you have a recipe that could well explain what you are hearing (MARE Tipsheet May 9 via DXLD) TRENDS IN TECHNOLOGY: AM RADIO KBRT AM740`s tower array in California. Photo by Scott Fybush. As I read through the trades it seems that most of the talk about AM radio has to do with its diminishing stature. Young people don`t listen to AM at all; or, the venerable AM powerhouse stations are simply shadows of their former selves; or there`s no point in playing music on an AM station. On the other hand, as I look at the latest BIA/Kelsey revenue report for 2013, I see that five of the top 10 billing stations in the country are AM radio stations. The Commission is soliciting ideas on how to improve the AM band. Clearly the AM band retains much of its viability. Ninety years after the first AM broadcasters made their debuts, is it still worth investing in an AM radio station transmitter plant? For many broadcasters, the answer is yes, and we`re going to look at a couple of examples in this article. Communications technology continues to evolve, and it`s bringing AM radio along with it. Main and backup transmitters for both KRKO and KKXA. Washington State - KRKO and KKXA Anyone who has visited AM transmitter sites knows that they use up a substantial amount of land. Often transmitter sites that were built ``outside of town`` 40 or 50 years ago are now surrounded by houses or otherwise very valuable property. Selling the land under the transmitter site is not an uncommon occurrence, especially if the transmitter site can be moved into a diplexing arrangement with another AM station in the immediate area. The building of a new AM transmitter site can often be facilitated this way, because it saves on land expense and it means no new towers need be erected. . . [much more, illustrated] http://radiomagonline.com/transmission/transmitters/trends_am_radio_0505/ (via Kevin Redding, ABDX via DXLD) PROPAGATION +++++++++++ GEOMAGNETIC INDICES Compiled by: Phil Bytheway Geomagnetic Summary April 1 2014 through April 30 2014 Tabulated from email status daily (K @ 0000 UTC.) Date Flux A K Space Wx 1 153 6 1 moderate, R2 2 155 5 1 no storms 3 153 6 2 no storms 4 157 6 3 no storms 5 142 14 2 no storms 6 141 5 4 no storms 7 140 11 1 no storms 8 132 5 0 no storms 9 131 5 1 no storms 10 137 3 0 no storms 11 138 8 3 no storms 12 136 25 3 minor, G1 13 137 16 2 no storms 14 150 8 3 no storms 15 162 6 1 no storms 16 184 5 2 minor, R1 17 179 11 1 no storms 18 172 8 3 moderate, R2, S1 19 169 15 2 minor, S1 20 163 22 4 minor, G1, S1 21 159 18 2 no storms 22 145 5 1 no storms 23 136 7 2 no storms 24 130 10 3 no storms 25 125 9 1 strong, R3 26 121 6 2 no storms 27 118 4 2 no storms 28 121 6 1 no storms 29 120 6 4 no storms 30 124 18 1 no storms Sx – Solar Radiation Storm Level Gx – Geomagnetic Storm Level Rx – Radio Blackouts Level (IRCA DX Monitor May 17 via DXLD) :Product: Weekly Highlights and Forecasts :Issued: 2014 May 12 0259 UTC # Prepared by the US Dept. of Commerce, NOAA, Space Weather Prediction Center # Product description and SWPC contact on the Web # http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/weekly.html # # Weekly Highlights and Forecasts # Highlights of Solar and Geomagnetic Activity 05 - 11 May 2014 Solar activity reached high levels during the period. The week began at low levels, the largest flare was a C8 at 05/1828 from Region 2056 (N04, L=258 class/area Eki/430 on 09 May) as it rotated onto the east limb. Activity increased to moderate levels on 06 - 07 May. Region 2051 (S09, L=058 class/area Dkc/310 on 03 May) produced three M1 flares at 06/0903 UTC, 06/2209 UTC and 07/1549 UTC. Activity increased further to reach high levels on 08 May due to an M5/2b flare at 08/1007 UTC from Region 2056. The event was accompanied by moderate radio emissions in the 1415 MHz to 15.4 GHz range including a 390 sfu Tenflare. Low levels were observed for the remainder of the period, however, Region 2058 (S15, L=231 class/area Fao/140 on 10 May) produced a C7/1f flare at 09/1501 UTC and Region 2056 produced a C8/1n at 10/0658 UTC. At around 09/0221 UTC a filament eruption was observed in SDO/AIA imagery from behind the west limb and appeared to be associated with Region 2051 as seen in STEREO-A imagery. Type-II (estimated 960 km/s) and Type-IV radio emissions were observed in conjunction with this event. No Earth-directed CMEs were observed during the period. The greater than 10 MeV proton flux showed a slight enhancement from 07 - 10 May as a result of the M1/Sf Flare at 07/1629 UTC from Region 2051, but remained well below alert threshold. The greater than 2 MeV electron flux at geosynchronous orbit was at normal levels throughout the period. Geomagnetic field activity was at quiet to unsettled levels on 05 May due to waning CME effects. Mostly quiet conditions were observed on 06 - 07 May. Unsettled to active conditions were observed on 08 May, likely due to a small transient feature and prolonged periods of southward IMF Bz with a maximum deviation of -11 nT. Mostly quiet to unsettled conditions prevailed for the remainder of the period with an isolated active period from 11/0000 - 0300 UTC due to coronal hole high speed stream effects. FORECAST OF SOLAR AND GEOMAGNETIC ACTIVITY 12 MAY - 07 JUNE 2014 Solar activity is expected to be low with a chance for M-class activity due to potential flare activity from Regions 2055 (N12, L=271 class/area Ehi/530 on 09 May) and 2056 followed by the return of old Region 2051 (S09, L=059) on 19 May. No proton events are expected at geosynchronous orbit. The greater than 2 MeV electron flux at geosynchronous orbit is expected to be at normal to moderate levels throughout the period. Geomagnetic field activity is expected to be quiet to unsettled on 12 May due to residual coronal hole high speed stream (CH HSS) effects. Mostly quiet conditions are expected on 13 May. Quiet to unsettled conditions with isolated active periods are expected on 14 - 15 May due to a recurrent CH HSS. Mostly quiet conditions are expected to prevail throughout the remainder of the period with the exception of 21 - 22 May and 04 - 07 June when recurrent negative polarity coronal hole high speed streams are anticipated to become geoeffective. :Product: 27-day Space Weather Outlook Table 27DO.txt :Issued: 2014 May 12 0259 UTC # Prepared by the US Dept. of Commerce, NOAA, Space Weather Prediction Center # Product description and SWPC contact on the Web # http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/wwire.html # # 27-day Space Weather Outlook Table # Issued 2014-05-12 # # UTC Radio Flux Planetary Largest # Date 10.7 cm A Index Kp Index 2014 May 12 160 8 3 2014 May 13 160 5 2 2014 May 14 165 10 4 2014 May 15 165 8 3 2014 May 16 160 5 2 2014 May 17 150 5 2 2014 May 18 140 5 2 2014 May 19 130 5 2 2014 May 20 130 5 2 2014 May 21 125 10 3 2014 May 22 120 8 3 2014 May 23 120 5 2 2014 May 24 120 5 2 2014 May 25 120 5 2 2014 May 26 120 5 2 2014 May 27 115 5 2 2014 May 28 115 5 2 2014 May 29 115 5 2 2014 May 30 120 5 2 2014 May 31 125 5 2 2014 Jun 01 135 5 2 2014 Jun 02 135 5 2 2014 Jun 03 140 5 2 2014 Jun 04 145 8 3 2014 Jun 05 150 8 3 2014 Jun 06 150 8 3 2014 Jun 07 150 10 3 (SWPC via WORLD OF RADIO 1721, DXLD) Solar activity forecast for the period May 16 - 22, 2014 Activity level: mostly low X-ray background flux (1.0-8.0 A): in the range B2.5-B9.5 Radio flux (10.7 cm): a fluctuation in the range 110-170 f.u. Events: class C (0-13/day), class M (0-4/day), class X (0/period), proton (0-1/period) Relative sunspot number (Ri): in the range 30-135 RWC Prague, Astronomical Institute, Solar Dept., Ondrejov, Czech Republic, e-mail: sunwatch(at)asu.cas.cz ______________________________________________________________________ Geomagnetic activity forecast for the period May 16 to May 22, 2014 quiet: May 17, 19 and 22 quiet to unsettled: May 16 and 18 unsettled: May 20 and 21 active: 0 minor storm: 0 major storm: 0 severe storm: 0 Geomagnetic activity summary: geomagnetic field was quiet on May 7, 9, 12, 13 and 14, quiet to unsettled on May 10, unsettled on May 8 and May 11. RWC Prague, Geophysical Institute Prague, Geomagnetic Dept, Czech Republic ______________________________________________________________________ Geomagnetic activity forecast for the period May 16 - June 11, 2014 Geomagnetic field will be: quiet on May 28 - 30, June 2 - 3, 10 - 11 mostly quiet on May 17 - 19, June 5 - 6, 9 quiet to unsettled on May 21 - 26, 31, June 1, 4 quiet to active on May 16, 20, 27 active to disturbed on 31, June 1, 7 - 8 Amplification of the solar wind is expected on May (18 - 20,) 29 - 30, June 4 - 6 Preliminary summary: - Cycle 24 maximum is apparently just behind us. Although it was not low, were among the lowest in the last hundred years. Sunspot activity increased already at the end of October 2013, but the response of the ionosphere was particularly evident later, from the end of February to early April. Now, we expect a roughly four-year decline in solar activity to the next minima. Remark: - Parenthesis means lower probability of activity enhancement. F. K. Janda, OK1HH, Czech Propagation Interest Group (OK1HH & OK1MGW, weekly forecasts since 1978) e-mail: ok1hh(at)rsys.cz (via Dario Monferini, DXLD) ###