DX LISTENING DIGEST 9-074, October 1, 2009 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 2009 contents archive see http://www.worldofradio.com/dxldmid.html 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 SHORTWAVE AIRINGS OF WORLD OF RADIO 1480, October 1-7, 2009 Thu 0530 WRMI 9955 Thu 1200 WRMI 9955 Thu 1900 WBCQ 7415 9330-CUSB? Fri 0000 WBCQ 5110-CUSB Area 51 Fri 0100 WRMI 9955 Fri 1130 WRMI 9955 Fri 1430 WRMI 9955 Fri 1900 WBCQ 7415 9330-CUSB? Fri 2028 WWCR1 15825 Sat 0800 WRMI 9955 Sat 0800 IPAR/IRRS/NEXUS/IBA 9510 [2, 4, 5 Sats] Sat 1330 WRMI 9955 Sat 1630 WWCR3 12160 Sat 1830 IPAR/IRRS/NEXUS/IBA 7290 Sun 0230 WWCR3 5070 Sun 0630 WWCR1 3215 Sun 0800 WRMI 9955 Sun 1130 SHR 5835 [see U K] Sun 1515 WRMI 9955 Mon 0500 WRMI 9955 Mon 2200 WBCQ 7415 Tue 1100 WRMI 9955 Tue 1530 WRMI 9955 Tue 1900 WBCQ 7415 9330-CUSB? Wed 0700 WRMI 9955 [or new 1481 starting here?] Wed 1530 WRMI 9955 Wed 1830 SHR 3935 [see U K] Wed 1900 WBCQ 7415 9330-CUSB? 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 WRN ON DEMAND: http://new.wrn.org/listeners/stations/station.php?StationID=24 WORLD OF RADIO PODCASTS VIA WRN NOW AVAILABLE: http://podcast.worldofradio.org or http://www.wrn.org/listeners/stations/podcast.php OUR ONDEMAND AUDIO: http://www.worldofradio.com/audiomid.html or http://wor.worldofradio.org ** ABKHAZIA. 9495, Apsua (Abkhaz) Radio. News in Russian 0800-0808 and then relay a sound of some TV program and close/down at 0814 (at 1109 after news usually for some minutes relay FM Avto Radio (ce. [central?] studio in Moscow), 15/9. At 1620 relay Radio Rossii // 9480, MW 1350 (stream Dubl 4, but on 4050 at 1620 was stream Dubl 2 of Radio Rossii) 16/9 (Rumen Pankov, Sofia, Bulgaria (Sony ICF-2001, Marconi), Oct Australian DX News via DXLD) ** AFRICA. I compiled an update of africalist which is downloadable on http://www.africalist.de.ms as usual, but I switched the commercial pop-up off now. Thanks to Ron Howard it's very up to date concerning Madagascar! 73 (Thorsten Hallmann, Münster, Germany (West), Sept 30, WORLD OF RADIO 1480, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ANGOLA. 7216.75, R. Nacional Angola, Luanda. Not even enough carrier to zero-beat the frequency, but this is definitely active, though not much more than a het, 11/9 (Craig Seager, DXpedition at Cataract Scout Camp, near Wollongong NSW, Oct Australian DX News via DXLD) Time? Risky assumption; could be NAm ham running AM, e.g. (gh, DXLD) ** ANTARCTICA. Hi Glenn, I`m continuing with my pre-occupation with this as previously never had even a carrier. 15476, R. Nacional Arcángel, S.7 with fading, folk type music, OM and YL announcements ID R Nacional San Gabriel, from sign on at 1800, writing at 2009. No signal whatsoever last night but making a good recording tonight. Amazing how this makes the trip as 20m amateur band is dead! As Noel in Blackpool mentioned there is nothing but sea between us. It will be interesting to see what happens when we revert to UT as opposed to BST and the nights get darker. This has been a pretty much every night visitor throughout September. Does anyone have any details how to contact them? All the best and good DX (Mark Davies, Isle of Anglesey, England, Sept 30, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ARGENTINA. PIRATA/ARGENTINA, 27615-USB ¿La Voz de Mataderos?, Barrio de Mataderos, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, reportada a las 1512 UT+, Septiembre 27 de 2009, música folklórica argentina interpretada por Atahualpa Yupanqui, 45444. Esta emisora fue descubierta por el amigazo y colega Enrique Wembagher el pasado domingo 20 de Septiembre de 2009 (Arnaldo Slaen, Argentina) PIRATE/ARGENTINA, 27615U ¿La Voz de Mataderos?, Buenos Aires City, 1512-1520, September 27, folk songs (by Atahualpa Yupanqui), 45444 Pirate station discovered by the DXer and friend Enrique Wembagher past Sunday 20/09 (Arnaldo Slaen, Argentina, radioescutas yg via WORLD OF RADIO 1480, DXLD) ** AUSTRAL AND MARQUESAS ISLANDS. TX5 (Reminder/Update). Just a reminder that Les/SP3DOI, Jan/SP3CYY, Wojciech/SP9PT, Jozef/SP9-31029 and Michel/FO5QB will activate Tubuai Island (OC-152) in the Austral Island group between September 29th and October 12th, as well as Nuku Hiva Island (OC-027) in the Marquesas Islands group between October 16-22nd. Callsigns have been confirmed and are TX5SPA (Austral) and TX5SPM (Marquesas). Their goal is to make as many QSOs as possible, mainly with Europe on the lower frequency bands. Both countries rank 21st and 19th respectively on the most wanted list in that area, but they do not intend to ignore the stations from other continents. If possible (propagation), they will also be working on all the higher bands. They are planning to be active on CW, SSB and RTTY (maybe PSK31). PLEASE NOTE: Operators would like to emphasize that all the costs of the DXpeditions are covered entirely by its participants. They do not accept any sponsors, and are going there for their own pleasure, using their own money. The QSL Manager for their DXpeditions is going to be Wojciech, SP9PT. For more details and update: http://fo2009sp.pl UPDATE: According to their Web page (as this was being typed), the team was expected to fly to Tubuai Island on Sunday, September 27th. (Ohio/Penn DX Bulletin No. 927, September 28, 2009, Editor Tedd Mirgliotta, KB8NW, Provided by BARF80.ORG (Cleveland, Ohio), via Dave Raycroft, ODXA yg via DXLD) or should this be filed as POLAND [non]? ** AUSTRALIA. Two significant changes have already happened at Cox Peninsula. English 17775 0000-0130 UT is now 17665 0000-0200 UT, same bearing of 317 degrees into SE Asia (including Burma) and Indonesian 15180 0600-0630 UT is dropped. We're also testing 11865 kHz in English to Burma until 25 October 2009: 250 kW from Cox Peninsula Darwin (brg: 317 deg) 1600-1700 UT (Nigel Holmes, RA Transmission Manager, via John Wright, Oct Australian DX News via DXLD) ** BAHRAIN. 6010, R. Bahrein. Again heard here on 16/09. At 0215 a song from Jimmy Somerville, at 0221 a disco version of song "Do Wah Diddy Diddy" (originally by Manfred Mann in 60s), ID by DJ (Rumen Pankov, Sofia, Bulgaria (Sony ICF-2001, Marconi), Oct Australian DX News via DXLD) Now that HCJB is kaput on 9745, look for Bahrein there in the local mornings (gh) ** BELGIUM [non]. 17750-17755-17760 DRM, TDP Radio via Darwin. Snatches of audio only, despite transmitter proximity - a function of current propagation and the relatively high bitrate (20.96 kbps). SNR to 15 dB, Euro pops, 12/9 (Craig Seager, DXpedition at Cataract Scout Camp, near Wollongong NSW, Oct Australian DX News via DXLD) ** BELGIUM [non]. TDP QSLs --- I was very pleasantly surprised today to receive an envelope with 7 QSLs from TDP. Some reports had been out for 7 years! All cards are the blue cards TDP was using several years ago, and all have complete data except for transmitter sites. Sites below are those indicated by various websites and publications at the time of loggings. Reports were sent to: TDP, P.O. Box 1, B-2310 Rijkevorsel, Belgium. I suspect, and hope, others are now receiving TDP QSLs. DENGE MEZOPOTAMYA via GRIGORIOPOL to Iraqi Kurdistan, 12115 in 7 years VOICE OF OROMIYAA via GRIGORIOPOL? to Ethiopia, 12115 in 7 years. VOICE OF LIBERTY ERITREA via SAMARA to Eritrea, 15675 in 52 months. Logged in Bao Loc, Lam Dong, Vietnam. QUE HUONG RADIO via VLADIVOSTOK to Vietnam, 15680 in 52 months. Logged in Bao Loc, Lam Dong, Vietnam. RADIO FREE VIETNAM via KWHR to Vietnam, 11855 in 52 months. Logged in Bao Loc, Lam Dong, Vietnam. RADIO VOICE OF ENUF via SAMARA?, 12120 in 4 years. RADIO FREE SOUTH CAMEROONS via ? to Cameroon, 11840 in 42 months. (Craighead-Kansas, USA, & Bao Loc, Lam Dong, Vietnam; Prairie Village KS, Sept 29, Cumbre DX via WORLD OF RADIO 1480, DXLD) That`s nice, but lest the irony of this be lost: TDP stands for Transmitter Documentation Project, an originally excellent effort to research and publish on website info about SW transmitters around the world, make and model, when they were installed or out of service, etc. Unfortunately, it has not been kept up to date, and for years now TDP REFUSES TO DOCUMENT even the location of the transmitters it brokers time on! Ludo Maes must be clearing out quite a backlog of QSL requests; see also KURDISTAN [non] (Glenn Hauser, WORLD OF RADIO 1480, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** BOLIVIA. 4699.951, Radio San Miguel, Riberalta, 0950 to 1010 time check and ID by om, much improved signal for last two weeks. 73s de (Bob Wilkner, Pómpano Beach, Florida, US, Drake R 8 ~ Icom, 746Pro DL, Noise reducing antenna, 60 meter band dipole, Sept 29, WORLD OF RADIO 1480, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 4700, RADIO SAN MIGUEL. Riberalta, 2255-2320 sep 26. Promo del programa: Somos Iglesia. ID: ``Radio San Miguel, una radio que escucha, aprende y educa; una radio que hace historia; Radio San Miguel es una institución católica y presta un servicio social; asociada a la red de emisoras más importante de Bolivia, por que lo hacemos pensando en ti seguiremos trabajando para ustedes; continuamos juntos para seguir avanzando. Radio San Miguel, 4700 kHz, banda de 60 metros onda corta, 99.1 frecuencia modulada, Radio San Miguel... siempre con nuestra gente..." Adjuntio audio (Rafael Rodríguez R., Bogotá, D.C.- Colombia, Winradio G303i, Hilo de 15 metros, playdx yg via DXLD) ** BRAZIL. 2379.9, Brasil, Radio Educadora, Limeira, SP, presumed in Portuguese 0930 to 1000, deep fades 21 September. 73s de (Bob Wilkner, Pómpano Beach, Florida, US, Drake R 8 ~ Icom, 746Pro DL, Noise reducing antenna, 60 meter band dipole, Sept 29, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** BRAZIL. 3365, BRASIL: R. Cultura, Araraquara – SP, 27/09 2152. Segmento ‘Domingão Esportivo da Cultura’, nx de esportes da Ferroviária, gols na Série A, nx de esportes do interior de SP. Um sinal excelente recebido aqui em São Bernardo – SP, esperando-se que a emissora volte para ficar nos 90 m, 45554 (Rudolf Grimm, São Bernardo SP, BRASIL). Rx: Kenwood R-1000, Ant.: Horizontal 20 m + MFJ-1026, Vertical 3 m indoor + Acoplador reostato MCJ. 73, (Rudolf Grimm http://www.radioways.cjb.net radioescutas yg via DXLD) ** BRAZIL. Re: Radio Maria Brasil 4885 --- Amigos, 4885 Radio Maria de volta aos 62 metros. Não transmitem a ID, o SINPO está 35443 aqui em São Bernardo com programação católica. Mensagem católica diretamente de uma missa, com cânticos e homilia. 73, (Rudolf Grimm, São Bernado SP, radioescutas yg July? via Dario Monferini, playdx yg via DXLD) Radio Maria, Anápolis, Goiás, Brazil has been logged on 4885 kHz. This station with call sign ZYF692 has previously been broadcasting under the name Radio Voz do Coração Imaculado, but it has now been overtaken by Radio Maria Brasília. Transmitting power is 1 kW. Test transmissions are scheduled at 0700-2400, possibly only on weekends. http://finndxer.wordpress.com/2009/07/31/radio-maria-anapolis-is-new-on-4885-khz/ (via Dario, ibid.) Ciao! Radio Maria Brasil 4885 kHz è sbarcata nei 62 metri --- ma non potevano scegliere un'altra Frequenza??? 4885 kHz da 50 anni è usata da Radio Clube do Para !!!! di Belem, uno dei pochi segnali Brasiliani ricevibili dalle nostre parti. Scrivete le vostre proteste alla loro email! radiomaria @ radiomaria.org.br real audio : http://radiotime.com/WebTuner.aspx?StationId=96546 che ripete i 94.5 MHz di Rádio Maria Brasília. Booohhhhhhhh (Dario Monferini, playdx yg via DXLD) ** BRAZIL. 11725, R. Marumby, Curitiba. Portuguese religious service passed the WRTH 2100 s/off. Started doing report at 2115 but at 2120 s/off!!! Fair level in the clear 12/9 via LP. Shame about the report! Next year! (John Wright, DXpedition at Cataract Scout Camp, near Wollongong NSW, Oct Australian DX News via DXLD) Devotional songs 2105, occasional Portuguese announcements, in the clear, 12/9 (Craig Seager, DXpedition at Cataract Scout Camp, near Wollongong NSW, Oct Australian DX News via DXLD) ** BRAZIL. Prezado Glenn Hauser, NA PROGRAMAÇÃO DA RADIO LEGAL, dentre outros programas, poderá ouvir: RECORDANDO A PRK 30, um programa humoristico da decada de 1940, o de maior audiencia no Brasil, no Programa QTC Legal. Dedicado a Radioescuta, Dexismo e Radioamadorismo, o PROPAGANDO AS ONDAS DE RADIO onde estamos falando de forma detalhada e abrangente sobre a propagação das ondas de rádio. Endereço Rádio Legal: http://www.radiolegal.org QRV (Ulysses Galletti, Itatiba- SP Brasil, Sept 28, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CANADA [and non]. 6030, Calgary - CFVP relaying CKMX (AM 1060), 0331-0417, Sept. 28 (Mon.). C&W songs and C&W religious songs; frequent IDs (“Classic Country AM 1060”). Their usually clear frequency on Monday, without R. Martí or the jamming from Cuba, was spoiled by the presence of the jamming, which someone forgot to turn off. Without the jamming this would have been almost good. Hope this does not become a habit with them! Think this would also interfere with Rich D’Angelo’s, et al., attempting to receive Radio Oromia (Ron Howard, Asilomar Beach, CA, Etón E1, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Ron, Thankfully, CFVP did not interfere with Radio Oromia [ETHIOPIA, q.v.] which was heard last night from 0350 to about 0420 when it seemed to fade out. Horn of Africa music until 0400 when apparent news. No sign of the Canadian but there was a lot of buzzing noise on the channel which marred reception considerably. The signal was much stronger tonight but the buzzing made things worse overall. 73, (Rich D`Angelo to and via Ron, ibid.) ** CANADA. Insight | Hot button: NEWSTALK 1010 CFRB TWEAKS NAME Monday, September 28, 2009 Sep 27, 2009 04:30 AM Tamara Baluja Staff Reporter The news Radio station Newstalk 1010 CFRB is tweaking its name. Effective Oct. 5, the station will be dropping its historic call letters, which stand for Canada's First Rogers Batteryless. The station, which took to the airwaves in 1927, was formed by Edward S. Rogers, the father of the late Ted Rogers, of the current-day broadcasting and cable empire. Rogers Senior made world history when he helped build the first radio that could be operated using house current. To promote sales of the radios, Rogers created a radio station. It changed hands to Standard Radio in 1941, and later Astral Media in 2007, but the call letters were always part of the station's personality. The Views "We are simply rebranding ourselves to let our listeners know what we are really all about - news talk. It's to the point. And it's not such a drastic change. We have been slowly phasing out CFRB and keeping the focus on Newstalk 1010 for a while now, and this is being reflected in our ads, which show Newstalk 1010 in bolder terms than the call letters. I know there is a historical meaning attached to the call letters, but really, how many people actually know what it stands for?" Mark Bendixen, program director for Astral Media Radio And other comments: http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/article/701618 (via Dan Say, BC, WORLD OF RADIO 1480, DXLD) Item in Northeast Radio Watch: CFRB REDUCING EMPHASIS ON ITS CALLSIGN See http://www.fybush.com/nerw.html What specifically caught my eye was the mention that Industry Canada requires hourly "legal" station identification. ..I thought that all Industry Canada required was a legal ID once per day? At least that's what I remembered back in the 1970s. I specifically remember when Toronto's Q-107 (CILQ) was testing. It was playing AOR like Buffalo's "Q-FM" (then WGRQ) but for the weekend of its testing it was not adhering to Canadian Content rules, nor was it IDing. So...do those "in the industry" know if Canadian stations must legally ID once per hour even though most don't? Just curious. – (Richard Cuff / Allentown, PA USA Sept 29, odxa yg via DXLD) A lot of stations in Canada especially on FM, do not use their calls and if they do, very seldom. Now CBC...... (Andy Reid, Ont., ibid.) I posted your query to the SOWNY board (Southern Ontario Western NY TV Radio Forum... http://www.sowny.ca Got this response: 7.3 Identification of Broadcasting Undertakings 7.3.1 Pursuant to the Radiocommunication Regulations, section 18 and to BETS-11, the holder of a broadcasting certificate shall identify the broadcasting station by a voice announcement in English or French, giving the call sign - by articulating each letter and number in the call sign, and by giving the principal city or community that is served by the undertaking. For TV undertakings, the voice announcement may be replaced by a visual announcement of not less than three seconds in duration that identifies the call sign and the principal city or community that is served by the undertaking. The announcement is to be made every hour, on the hour. Where a program is of more than one hour in duration, the announcement shall be made within 10 minutes of the hour, except where it is necessary to retain the continuity of a program in its entirety without interruption, in which case the announcement may be made at the beginning and at the end of the program. http://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/smt-gst.nsf/eng/sf08545.html In my experience, very few stations actually follow this rule. Including the CBC. The only time I have ever heard CBC callsigns is at 5 or 6 am when they officially begin their broadcast day (Fred Waterer, ibid.) I don't have a reference for this, but I remember reading somewhere that the identification rules are different for stations that merely retransmit programming from elsewhere and have no programming of their own, I think they're required to give a legal ID only once a day. This is the category that most CBC stations would fall into (Greg Shoom, ibid.) ** CANADA. 6070, CFRX. Toronto. 0650-0730 sept 27. Anuncios comerciales de Great Power Insurance y oregancure.com. "... you are listening astro [sic] media radio station... All news, newstalk 10- 10... " programa: Peter Coverman show" ...Newstalk 10-10 CFRB..." Buen DX (Rafael Rodríguez R., Bogotá D.C.- Colombia, Winradio G303i, Hilo de 15 metros, playdx yg via DXLD) ** CANADA. Peter Anthony Holder, ``released`` in August from CJAD and consequently from CFRX, was guest on this week`s Happy Station, monitored on WRMI 9955 Oct 1 at 1500+; from 15 hours a week on CJAD he has gone to a weekly one-hour podcast, called The StuPH file, which he planned to put out once a week on Mondays, now three of them done; accessible in iTunes, via http://www.peteranthonyholder.com or http://peteranthonyholder.blogspot.com (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CANADA. Radio Canada Immigration, 9515, Monday Sept 28 at 1444 once again in wrong language contrary to its own schedule for Russian until 1505: really Brazilian Portuguese, with French lesson for crianças, lecture about Québec folkloric traditions with occasional French words interjected by child`s voice, closing referring to http://www.rcinet.ca for more info. Recheck at 1452, more of same in Brazilian, except now it`s for English learning; 1457 woman telling story in English about a Mother Canada Goose and her goslings wanting to fly south with her; of course, she lets them, rather than freeze (Canada geese set a rather poor example, fleeing the country every fall; what`s with that?). Then some comments in English by Sophie The Child, same one as in French? I ask you: how many Brazilian child immigrants to Canada are likely to be listening to this on SW on a Monday morning during schooltime, when the schedule says RCI is in Russian, anyway? And do young children really need something like this to pick up English and French? Or are there classes everywhere set up to listen to this somehow if not on SW? 1504 English RCI ID plugging satellite and internet, no mention of SW. 1505 RCI news in English, 1510 The Link with what else, stories skewed toward the vast immigrant audience, starting with latest court action from Vancouver in the case of the Pole who was taser-killed by RCMP shortly after deplaning a couple years ago. At least that has led to redesigning the terminal accomodations for immigrants (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) See also NEWFOUNDLAND ** CANADA. Today at 4PM, 2000 UT Sept 28, CKRU 980 [nee CHEX] signed off air. Peterborough Ontario's first AM station was its last, as well. In Eastern and Northern Ontario, all that remains on AM [over 250 Watts] is Belleville, Cornwall, Ottawa x 5 and North Bay. Sudbury will be shutting down soon - in theory! (Andy Reid, Ont., Sept 29, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) I assume he meant Sept 29, as posted at 2001 UT that date (gh) Andy, were the reception problems with 100.5 ever addressed? From driving around the county I can attest that, as far as coverage is concerned, it is a poor replacement for 980. Perhaps they only concern themselves with covering the City of Peterborough. It's interesting to note that CKDO in Oshawa went to FM (from 1350 AM to 107.7 FM) yet they still have an AM transmitter relaying them on 1580 (Mark Coady, ODXA yg via DXLD) Mark, I understand they are aware of the reception problems and "are working on them". Several AM's to FM's opted for a nested solution, namely in Ontario: leaving the AM on for long range while the FM provides the local high-fidelity; for instance CHOK, CFCO and Oshawa as you note. I do not know why Corus went this route. I can only assume they want to be rid of AM as much as possible. 980 CKRU got out quite well. Up the Ottawa valley, lower Algonquin Park and the lakeshore past Kingston. I remember staying over night at my Aunt & Uncle's in Renfrew and I could listen to the local news on 980. On the other hand, my local AM power house is gone. I am hoping this helps out my longwave listening, as without a preselector, I could hear 980 across the band. (Andy Reid, ibid.) ** CANADA. Neat piece of BCB History picked up today Hi Guys: Today I attended the London, ONTARIO HAMFEST for umpteenth time and I came home with something pretty cool, or at least I think so. One of my Old Local Stations, CHLO 1570, who went off the air a few years back, was located just a little south of London in ST. THOMAS, ONTARIO. I used to listen to this station when I was a kid growing up. Many years ago I obtained a Souvenir Drinking Glass from my Grandmother that was inscripted [sic] with CHLO's Logo and showed them as being on 680 kHz and serving London/St. Thomas. Apparently the LO in CHLO stood for "LONDON". They later swapped frequencies with CFTR Toronto. Anyways, I have kept that glass for many years and have it on Display in my Radio Shack. Today I picked up another piece of CHLO Memorabilia!!!!! To make a long story longer, a friend of mine just happened to be driving by the CHLO Transmitter Site the day they were dismantling everything and taking down the tower when they signed off the air. He asked the guys who were taking the tower down if he could have a souvenir to remember the Station by. Turns out they gave him something which he kept for a few years, then passed it along to another friend of ours, who kept it for a few years, and today I obtained that souvenir of CHLO from him!! What I picked up was a set of 2 of the RED BLINKING LIGHTS from the top of the CHLO Tower!!!! They are housed in a Heavy Cast Iron Case that is painted Orange. The Entire unit must weigh about 10 Pounds or so!! So I'm gonna clean them up and maybe repaint the Orange Casing as it's a little worn and then display them in my Radio Room alongside the CHLO 680 Drinking Glass!! Pretty amazing what shows up at a Hamfest sometimes!! And to think it was 2 Good friends of mine that previously owned these Lights, and I never knew either had them!! About 15 years ago at the same Hamfest I picked up 2 SHURE 55S "ELVIS" Chrome Mics that had come from the Studios of CFPL 980 London!! Cool stuff is still out there waiting to be found!!! 73...ROB (Robert S. Ross VA3SW, London, Ontario CANADA, Sept 27, NRC-AM via DXLD) I could hear both CHLO's 1570 and 680 in Toledo as a kid. Great little station. Later, when I was doing some work for CHYR, one of their jocks gave me a copy of their old jingles. That was a FUN time to listen to radio! (Fred Vobbe, Lima OH, ibid.) CHLO was on 1570 as late as 1973, at which time I logged it from New Jersey. I believe it was then licensed to Hamilton (the 'H' in the call?). I logged it on 680, from St. Thomas in 1964 from Syracuse NY. (Russ Edmunds, Blue Bell PA, ibid.) CHLO was on 1570 well into the 90's. They were a good catch in the southeast US until the Atlantic Beacon started on 1570 in late 87. That was also about the time daytimers stated getting post sunset operation (Jerry Kiefer, Roswell, NM, ibid.) CHLO was always licensed to St. Thomas. Logged in Orchard Park NY on 680 in 1968 (11/05/1968) they moved to make room for the Toronto allocation to 1570 and was later logged on 1570 after the move on 03/08/1971, 73 (Wayne N0POH Heinen, CO, ibid.) As they story goes, Ted Rogers bought CHLO/680 to move the frequency to Toronto. He then gave the folks in St. Thomas 1570. CHLO remained in St. Thomas. As I remember, they were 10 kW day and 5 kW night, non directional (Jerry Kiefer, Roswell, NM, ibid.) Which brings up an interesting question. As I look at the AM database on the FCC site, there are many AM stations that have gone to FM, yet the AM frequency is still on the books. Does anyone know if Canada ever has the intention of rebuilding stations on those AM channels? (Fred Vobbe, OH, ibid.) The word has been that they do not, but under existing broadcast treaties, the allocations remain available for Canada to use or not use. Their failure to use them doesn't change the treaties. Only if those are changed to reflect Canada's voluntarily relinquishing their rights to them would anything change (Russ Edmunds, Blue Bell, PA, ibid.) Probably not but never say never. Long-gone CHRO-1350 Pembroke, Ontario is still notified to the FCC. Just last week the CRTC approved a new station in Gatineau, Quebec (just across the river from Ottawa) on this frequency (Doug Smith W9WI, Pleasant View, TN EM66, ibid.) Fred, I don't think it's the Canadian Gov't that has given up on AM Broadcasting. It's the AM Station owners that bailed out and wanted to get on FM!!! I'm sure the Gov't would be happy to take License Fees from any stations that want to occupy the Vacant Channels with programming that was/is half intelligent. I think a lot of Owners just don't think there is a Future Fan Base on AM, and are bailing while they are still afloat!! Anyone in Canada under 40 probably doesn't even know where the AM Band is!!?? Except for DX'ers!! (Robert S. Ross VA3SW, London, Ontario CANADA, ibid.) The reason I bring this up is that in a few cases, Canadians have lost service due to the transition to FM. In specific, I was talking with a friend of mine from your part of the province (VE3GYQ) and commenting on the long drive across the 401 from Windsor to London, and how CBE will be hard to listen to as FM only. Then again, if CFCO were to transition to FM only it would be equally as tough. CFCO enjoys some listenership in Michigan and Ohio, but I would trust that to be gone with an FM only solution. If these stations were afraid of being AM only, I wonder why they didn't just add FM service, and leave the AM's to simulcast programming? (Fred Vobbe, OH, ibid.) The CRTC won't allow it. While they will permit AMs like CFCO and CHOK to have low-power FM relays, they have to justify them as solutions to specific problems with urban AM reception, and they have to use the minimum power needed to cover those urban areas. CHOK had to apply twice to get their FM relay. They were rejected the first time because they wanted too large an FM signal. s (Scott Fybush, NY, ibid.) If they abandon AM, can they then maximize the FM coverage? (Vobbe, ibid.) In these specific cases, no - because the CRTC limits an individual owner to no more than two signals per band per market. CFCO is already co-owned with two FMs (94.3 and 95.1), as is CHOK (106.3 and 99.9). If they could move CFCO and CHOK to FM outright, they'd do so in a heartbeat - but the best they can do under current CRTC rules is to maintain them as full-market AM signals with limited-coverage FM "relays" attached to them. s (Scott Fybush, ibid.) (Check, CFCO had a halfway decent signal into Milwaukee well into the winter mornings, until WTMJ lit up IBOC...) CBE-1550 will be replaced with *two* FM transmitters -- one on the channel 9 TV tower along with Radio Two 89.9, the other roughly 20 miles to the east near Leamington. (same tower as the existing French-language transmitter on 103.1) Will it fill in the entire gap left by the AM? Good question. But I'd think 88.1 Chatham, 90.3 Sarnia, and 93.5 London would kick in where Leamington fades out (Doug Smith W9WI, Pleasant View, TN EM66, ibid.) A lot of people like CFCO, so I would hate to see them disappear. In fairness, I suppose they don't care about this side of the boarder as there are no sales. I can see that there would be some overlap, Doug. But I wonder how many people find their radio stations by looking for them as they drive around. For example, if WSM had three unique frequencies that you had to listen to as truckers drove from one end of Tennessee to the other, you wonder how many people would bother to spin the dial? (Fred Vobbe, ibid.) That's certainly a valid point (in more rural parts of Canada, you can just spin the FM dial and there's at least a 50/50 chance the next station you find will be CBC.....) The AF field in the Radio (Broadcast) Data System (RDS) is supposed to handle that, allowing a station to specify a list of alternative frequencies. If the frequency you're tuned to fades, RDS can automatically tune to one of the alternative frequencies. While the number of radios supporting RDS is skyrocketing, I don't know if they all support AF or if so, how easy it is to use. I know the CBC does use RDS on many if not most of their FM transmitters. Somewhat to my surprise, while DXing FM not too long ago, I noticed a station with an *AM* frequency among the list of alternate channels. Could have been a Wisconsin Public Radio FM station listing WHA and WLBL among the alternatives. Since there is no way to transmit RDS on an AM station, I would suppose you could use AF to autotune *to* an AM frequency but there's no way to automatically go back to FM (Doug Smith W9WI, Pleasant View, TN EM66, ibid.) ** CHAD. Radio Nationale Tchadienne heard on 4905 on September 28 at 1710 UT under stronger signal from China. Not there any more at 1800. Back tonight September 30 on the same channel in French until sign/off just before 2000 UT. 73 (Thorsten Hallmann, Münster, Germany (West), Sept 30, WORLD OF RADIO 1480, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Chad was on 4905 on Sep 29 around 1815 (Jari Savolainen, Kuusankoski, Finland, dxldyg via WORLD OF RADIO 1480, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CHINA. CHINA JAMMING & RADIOS BEING CONFISCATED I'm not sure how clear it is in NA/EU and other areas, but since the middle of September more jamming can be picked up in the evening hours all for the 60th anniversary of the founding of the PRC. My sources in Beijing told me that in areas like Xinjiang the Public Security Bureau (PSB) has also been doing some home to home searches in some neighborhoods and confiscating radios that can be used for listening to foreign radio. One case has been confirmed. Liu Shaogua an electrical engineer with the China State Power Grid was visited on September 23th by officials from the PSB after they were informed by someone in his compound that he had been listening to the VOA, BBC and other foreign broadcasters. His internet connection was also cut until the end of October (Keith Perron, Taiwan, Sept 29, dxldyg via WORLD OF RADIO 1480, DX LISTENING DIGEST) North American DXers aren't that bothered with Chinese jamming. It's not a big issue here. Maybe on the West Coast - I don't know. But try talking to Russian DXers who live in Russia's Far East and you'll hear many words that you can't publish in any respected DX-bulletin. Well, there's too much PRC interference coming to European Russia, too. Sorry to hear about Liu Shaogua. But in all fairness, in 1970s the guy would have got a jail term. And he might have been shot in 1950s and 60s. So it's relative, I guess. Don't they cut Internet in France, too? But I understand it's for life there, not "until the end of October." (Sergei S., IL, ibid.) The only reason why he has not been sent to jail is because he is also a communist party member. Are you saying France cuts off the internet for fear that citizens view the content on foreign websites? I don't think so (Keith Perron, Taiwan, ibid.) I don't know about China but in the USSR being a party member would be an aggravating circumstance. Maybe the guy has some high-ranking relatives? That would be a different story. > Are you saying France cuts off the internet for fear that citizens view the content on foreign websites? No. France cuts off Internet for fear that citizens would acquire "pirated content." Will UK be next? You can read more here: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/music_blog/2009/09/reports-frances-controversial-threestrikes-law-gets-approved-elton-john-joins-uk-debate.html I suspect that from the Chinese perspective the French ways seem to be even more harsh than taking Internet away for a few months for visiting anti-gov sites (Sergei S., IL, ibid.) ** CHINA. Firedrake Sept 29 at 1307: fair on 8400, poor on 9000. Firedrake Sept 30 at 1244: poor with flutter on 8400; very much better to good level on 9000 also with some flutter. At 1254, just barely audible on 10210, and nowhere higher. Firedrake Oct 1: 1353 equally poor on 8400 and 9000 --- altho some days one is very much better than the other. Do they keep shifting transmitters sites, azimuths, or what? At 1357 better on 10210 to fair level (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CHINA. 6040. Nei Menggu PBS, Hohhot, Sept 28, 1457-1529, presumed Mongolian service found here in the clear between co-channel CRI s/off & VOA Farsi s/on. Weak, could not trace // 9750 as this was blocked by DRM. No trace of listed BLR. 73, (Martien Groot, Schoorl, Netherlands, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CHINA. China Radio International coverage of PRC 60th (with UT conversions, in case anyone outside of China might want to tune in). "The People's Republic of China celebrates the 60th anniversary of its founding on October 1st. Grand celebrations, including a military parade, will be held in Beijing to mark the occasion. CRIENGLISH.com will bring you live video coverage of the celebrations. Between 9:55 a.m. and 12 a.m. [sic, probably means 12 p.m., i.e. 12 noon] Beijing Time on October 1st, CRIENGLISH.com will host a live video broadcast of the National Day parade on Chang'an Avenue in front of Tian'anmen Square in central Beijing. Between 7:55 p.m. and 10 p.m., netizens around the world will be able to watch live video coverage of the evening gala and fireworks display at Tian'anmen Square on CRIENGLISH.com. ... Live audio or video broadcasts in other languages will also be available at http://www.cri.cn the official website of China Radio International." China Radio International website, 28 September 2009. (kimandrewelliott.com via DXLD) CRI seems to have joined DW (see previous post) as broadcasters that have forgotten how to convert local time to UTC. Are DW and CRI still international broadcasters? The parade is at 0155 to 0400 UTC, and the gala at 1155 to 1400 UTC. Posted: 28 Sep 2009 (Kim Andrew Elliott, ibid. and in advance on the dxldyg) CCTV in Russian uses only "Beijing Time". The most consistent user of local time has been the Voice of Korea from Pyongyang. I don't think their Russian service ever used anything but "Pyongyang Time". (Sergei S. dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) En inglés, estas son las frecuencias: Desfile militar (0200 UT): For shortwave listening, 11980kHz at 25.04 meter bands in southeast Asia; 5955kHz at 50.38 meter bands in east Asia; 13645kHz at 21.99 meter bands in south Asia; 11690kHz at 25.66 meter bands in Central Asia; 9760kHz at 30.74 meter bands in Oceania; and 17490kHz at 17.15 meter bands in Europe. Gala nocturna y fuegos artificiales (1200 UTC): For shortwave listening, 11980kHz at 25.04 meter bands in southeast Asia; 5955kHz at 50.38 meter bands in east Asia; 13645kHz at 21.99 meter bands in south Asia; 11690kHz at 25.66 meter bands in Central Asia; 9760kHz at 30.74 meter bands in Oceania; and 17490kHz at 17.15 meter bands in Europe. En ocasiones, transmisiones de CRI English hacia el este y sudeste de Asia han sido captadas por mi en Santiago, por lo cual yo pondría especial atención a aquellas. Extra: A todo aquel que envíe su dirección postal a crieng@cri.com.cn en un mensaje cuyo asunto sea "60 years", se le enviará una postal especial del Día Nacional como regalo. Saludos (Eduardo Peñailillo, Chile, Sept 30, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Those frequency lists are surely incomplete, and thanks so much for including the useless metric equivalents --- oh no, I am going out to cut my dipole right now! Ignoring broadcasts to Americas. It does so happen that both at 0200 and 1200, CRI is not on the air in English over here, but in Chinese languages. However, if they stick to normal language schedules, yet break into live rather than canned broadcasts, the second hour of each we can pick up: 0300 on 9690 via Spain, 9790 via Cuba; 1300 on 9650 and 15260 via Canada and the crummy signal via Cuba on 9570 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Will be interesting to check if CRI will use also these frequencies to broadcast the celebrations. It's possible. I think that Cuba, maybe Spain, can be heard here. Canada, depending of the azimuth. Until now, checking the web sites of the languages that I can understand, just English Service has announced that will broadcast the celebrations by shortwave. The rest, just by on-line broadcasts. Best wishes, (Eduardo Peñailillo, Chile, ibid.) Greetings all, Just some quick logs regarding National Day ceremonies on CRI. 0100 UT - 9790 kHz (Sackville), very good, with News & Reports special on National Day preparations, highlights of Chinese foreign policy, and public opinion regarding the National Day holiday. Voices from Other Lands featured interviews with two expats living in China, one of whom first came in the 1960's. Also checked // 9580 kHz (Havana), poor with the same as 9790. However, 9570 kHz (Albania) featured music and talk in Chinese during what should have been a feed of China Drive. As for live coverage of National Day celebrations on SW to North America, I am currently listening on 6020 kHz (Albania) with a good signal. Do check it out (Jon Pukila, Thunder Bay, ON, Canada, UT Oct 1, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) All live streams in different languages for celebration rally in Beijing are here: http://www.cctv.com/english/special/60live/index.shtml It's already in progress. If you have a chance watch it right now. (Sergei S., IL, 0257 UT Oct 1, dxdyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) If you missed it you just need to watch on youtube a celebration from 10 or 20 years ago (Keith Perron, Taiwan, ex-Beijing, 0305 UT, ibid.) Note that those are not just usual CCTV languages but also German, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese. Non-CCTV language video streaming is carried on CRI website. The English link allows to leave moderated comments, like this one: [641zhaow] when I was a child ,there is nothing in my house ,no TV ,no radio ,no washing machine......But now I have two TV and a computer . How amazing that my life changes! Now I can have what I want ,a car ,a radio and so on! Thanks our great country ! Thanks deng and our wise leaders! Now ,I´ll try my best to imporive myself ,make more contribution to our beauty countary! best wishes to our country,and I´m sure our country will become more and more stronger! [sic] And some tongue-in-cheek greetings: [Montana]: lol, I am watching safely in the republic of china. you know, a free country where you can watch what you want on the net! (Sergei S., IL, 0318 UT, ibid.) NYC is also celebrating with a very special tribute to communist China's 60th anniversary! I guess Keith was right, it's OK to use a word "tribute" for someone or something that is still alive (Sergei S., IL, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Viz.: EMPIRE STATE BUILDING LIT FOR CHINA, DRAWING IRE NEW YORK – Red and yellow lights shone from the top of the Empire State Building at dusk Wednesday, a tribute to communist China's 60th anniversary that protesters labeled "blatant approval" of totalitarianism and criticized as inappropriate for an icon in the land of the free. The building is routinely lit with different colors to mark holidays and big events, but opponents questioned whether it's right to commemorate a sensitive political issue, particularly when China has such a poor human rights record. . . [more, illustrated] http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091001/ap_on_re_us/us_empire_state_building_china (via Sergei S., ibid.) ** CHINA. BEIJING WILL IMPLEMENT RADIO CONTROL DURING NATIONAL DAY HOLIDAY Wednesday, September 30, 2009 4:55 AM http://www.chinatechnews.com/2009/09/30/10713-beijing-will-implement-radio-control-during-national-day-holiday Companies operating in Beijing the past few weeks already know that life has been a hassle as the city prepares to celebrate the 60th anniversary of China. Businesses have been ordered closed on certain days, main thoroughfares have shuttered, and public transportation along some bus and subway lines has stopped. Now certain radio transmissions are ready to close, too. According to an announcement from the government of Beijing, the city will implement 24-hour radio control in some of its areas during the National Day of China on October 1, 2009. The actual full official holiday lasts from October 1-8, with companies resuming business throughout China on October 9. With exceptions to radio stations that are approved by radio management administrations and are directly used for the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the country, other radio stations set and used by units or individuals should follow certain temporary rules. First, taking Tiananmen as its center, use of radio devices, including radio interphones, VHF amateur radio stations, wireless microphones, outdoor base stations of wireless local area networks, wireless spread spectrum outdoor stations, and internal wireless paging centers, should be suspended in areas within the limit set by the four lines from Changhong Bridge to Huawei Bridge on the East Third Ring road; from Guanyuan Bridge to Caihuying Bridge on the West Second Ring road; from Ping'an Street and its east extension line to Chonghong Bridge; and from the South Second Ring road and its east extension line to Huawei Bridge. The use of large non-radio equipment that will have radiation of radio waves will also be limited in these areas. Next, use of all vehicle-mounted amateur radio stations, campus FM radio stations, wireless paging centers, FM transposer stations, model remote control equipment, and launch systems with the paging mode should be suspended within the entire city. Also, microwave links that will cross the Tiananmen parade area and broadcasting, radar, and shortwave radio stations should not change their approved technical parameters. During the radio control period, if radio equipment that is not included in the mentioned range interferes with the 60th anniversary celebration, the responsible work unit, company or individual should immediately eliminate the interference in accordance with the requirement of the radio control administrations. Those who violate these rules will be punished in accordance to the related regulations and laws (via Mike Cooper, Kim Andrew Elliott, DXLD) ** CHINA. RADIO PEKING 1967 --- WHY CAN'T THEY DO RADIO SHOWS LIKE THIS ANY MORE? A whole news broadcast on a ‘giant transistor computer --- suitable for all purposes’ that plays the East Is Red every time it starts, a damning criticism by Chinese scientists of the handful of senior Party personnel taking the reactionary, revisionist Soviet capitalist road! Then a news report about the resistance of the Vietnamese People's resistance against US gangster imperialists! Followed by a editorial from the Peking Daily about 'Combating selfishness and criticising and repudiating revisionism is the fundamental principle of the great proletariat revolution’, then 'Quotations from Chairman Mao', followed by a musical interlude, 'Battlesong of Armed Struggle of the Asian, African and Latin American Peoples'. http://www.robertpopper.com/tag/radio-peking/ Come back Radio Peking! We miss you! CRI is just too suave (Edwin Lowe, VK2VEL, Sydney, Australia, Sept 29, ARDXC via DXLD) I miss the giant glossy calendars. They used to depict some stunning Chinese watercolours (Craig Seager, ibid.) Thanks Edwin - it's a great listen! Remember when we use to record these clips by holding a microphone next to the radio speaker to capture these gems to either a cassette or reel to reel! It sounds like this listener held the microphone during most of the recorder, you can hear it being repositioned a few times. Also there are a few sniffs - he must have had a cold! As for the content - Giant Transistor Computers and Combating Selfishness - Priceless! Cheers, (Mark Fahey, NSW, Sept 30, ibid.) ** COLOMBIA. Saludos Colegas, Esta es la NUEVA QSL (ambos lados) y la calcomania de las Emisoras: Marfil Estéreo y LV de Tu Conciencia que tiene para los oyentes que la reporten. Enviada por Rafael Rodriguez y la cual aparece tambien en: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Q1LBB_4WC8 73 de Yimber Gaviría, Colombia, http://www.youtube.com/dxer2010 Sept 29, dxclubepr yg via DXLD) Haven`t heard 5910 lately in the 05-06 UT period chex, and of course 6010 if on is blown away by RHC, along with poor Radio Mil (gh, DXLD) 5910, 2315-2335 20.09, Marfil Estéreo, Lomalinda. Spanish announcement, LA songs, 25232. Best 73, (Anker Petersen, Denmark, on my AOR AR7030PLUS with 28 metres of longwire, via Dario Monferini, Sept 30, playdx yg via DXLD) ** COLOMBIA [and non]. 13927 kHz USB 1545z: USAF MARS Operators "AFA5RS" (Shelbyville IN), "AFA5QW" (Greenwood IN), and AFA9PF (Los Angeles CA) all attempt to work "Reach 581" over Colombia; unable to hear Reach 581. All parties, including Reach 581, clear into my qth. (30/Sep/2009) (AL STERN, Satellite Beach FL http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MilRadioComms Cumbre DX via DXLD) ** CONGO DR [non]. 11690, R. Okapi via RSA, good Sept 28 at 0540 with hilife music, frequent interruptions by French DJ. 0542 Okapi jingle and FM frequency, 0551 phone out to Red Cross guy about potable water issues. 25m was an all-Southern Hemisphere band at this time, nothing audible but this and NZ on 11670-11680, 11725. Okapi is scheduled 04- 06, so overlaps with RHCuba 11690 until 05 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CUBA. Re 9-073: Where is this "Popular" append coming from? I listen to Enci sometimes all day; while running errands in the car; and sometimes nights as my background music station. 530 kHz is local level. They NEVER ID as Radio Enciclopedia Popular. And, while there probably are some lower power in-band Enci's active, 530 is all I can hear at my location any more. None of these channels Charles reports appear here, thus far. 1620 is the most plausible -- if real -- and would likely serve as a WDHP jammer (I presume they are still rebroadcasting Radio Martí at times -- even if not, the Cuban jamming clowns may not have a clue -- witness Martí being silent on 530 for a couple of years now). (Terry L Krueger, Clearwater, Florida USA 27.55.83 N, 82.46.08 W, Sept 28, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CUBA. Re 9-073: Glenn, It appears to that DCJC transmitters are frequency agile. About 5 kW with modulators. They appear to use frequency synthesizers, but use varactor-diode to frequency-modulate the carriers. The Radio Rebelde transmitter on 6030 was probably a DCJC transmitter being modulated. I heard a 5910 Radio Progreso (La Onda de La Alegría) transmitter just yesterday. Tonight no such signal. Probably a DCJC transmitter being modulated. Maybe some technician decided to use either RP or REP program feed. All those Cuban stations have me baffled! (Charles Taylor, NC, Sept 27, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Last evening, No Radio Rebelde on 6030, but Radio Progreso on 5910 (Charles Taylor, NC, Sept 30, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CUBA. RHC language check Sept 28 at 0607: Spanish on 6120, 6000; different musical programming on 6140, 6060, 6000, presumed English service. This matches the current website schedule, so must be the nominal setup, tho from night to night languages and frequencies swap around or one frequency vanishes (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CUBA. Does this one [RHC 6180 at 11-13] absolutely overload and splatter within 20 KHz each side as far north as you? It's as if one was listening to an IBOC (Terry Krueger, Clearwater, FL, Sept 28, DX LISTENING DIGEST) No, I can`t say it is that bad here. You must be close to the boresight, aimed at New York (Glenn to Terry, via DXLD) ** CUBA. RHC check Sept 29 at 0558: English service on nominal 6010, 6060, 6140, a clip of someone speaking English, but with annoying voice-over/consecutive translation into Spanish. Outro as having been Caribbean Outlook show, announcer named Elena Valverde. RHC anomaly report Oct 1: at 0554, 6140 in Spanish instead of English, perhaps due to Spanish transmitter on 6120 missing. English still on 6060, 6010, and Spanish on 6000. 13740, CRI relay in English at 1401 kiept dropping off the air, once right after asserting ``nothing but socialism``, ha2. 1402 back on at first with squeal only, then adding modulation, still hiccuping. Only the worst transmitters are reserved in Cuba for the ChiCom comrades, but this may change soon with some newer ones being installed (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CUBA. 5025, R. Rebelde, at 1223-1225 Sept 30 report during Haciendo Radio show about Radio Cuba improving Rebelde coverage in the mountains of Guantánamo province, presumably more FM and also TV relay transmitters; sounded like Arnie Coro but apparently not. This reminds us that Radio Cuba is in charge of all transmitter operation, no doubt including the unmentionable jammers, spy number stations, and those used by Radio Habana Cuba, a separate agency, probably explaining the incredibly poor communication between the two and RHC`s inability to express its own schedule accurately either in announcements or on website. But then, it`s all owned by Castro & Castro, so what`s the difference? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CZECHIA [and non]. 13580, R. Praga in Spanish mentioning something about Cuba to be on this semihour, Sept 30 at 1404, but with QRM from Cuba itself, the 13780/13680 leapfrog landing on 13580, which however is always much stronger on the upper leap, 13880 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** DENMARK. Some very good Denmark last night. 1062 kHz, DR P5, Kalundborg 28Sep09 0340-0415 - Five minutes of interval signal and s/on announcements by woman in Danish, then man and music program including Paul simon "Kodachrome" and Shakira, "Illegal - You don't even know the meaning of the words I'm sorry" - Recorded - Excellent (Chris Black, Cape Cod, MA, R-75, flag antenna, ABDX via DXLD) This one has been a sensation lately among NAm MW DXers, partly because it`s not on the air fulltime any more, just turned on briefly for news, weathercasts, gymnastix. See WRTH 2009 page 178, and subtract one hour from times during DST; this emission lasted only until 0407 then; are there other reëxpansions? (gh, DXLD) ** DOMINICAN REPUBLIC. 6025, Radio Amanecer, Santo Domingo, 1233 to 1410 on 24 September per Ron Howard tip, om with ID, excellent music. Easy log in Florida. 73s de (Bob Wilkner, Pómpano Beach, Florida, US, Drake R 8 ~ Icom, 746Pro DL, Noise reducing antenna, 60 meter band dipole, Sept 29, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 6025, RADIO AMANECER INTERNACIONAL. Santo Domingo, Repl. Dominicana. 1840-2030 sept 26. Mencionando activiades evangelísticas por el mes de la Biblia de las asociaciones dominicanas norte y sur. Luego música góspel. A la hora en punto "...Ésta es Radio Amanecer Internacional, red de radiodifusoras adventistas de la República Dominicana; en amplitud modulada 1570 kHz para Santo Domingo, 610 región sur; en 6025 Kcs [sic] banda internacional de 49 metros y para todo el mundo radioamanecer.org --- Radio Amanecer Internacional, voz de la esperanza... " (Rafael Rodriguez R., Bogota D.C.- Colombia, Winradio G303i, Hilo de 15 metros, playdx yg via WORLD OF RADIO 1480, DXLD) 6024.98v, R. Amanecer Internacional, 0212, Sept. 28. In Spanish; program of religious songs; after ToH trumpets; ID: “Radio Amanecer Internacional” along with frequency; suddenly off at 0306; poor to fair. On lower frequency than when I first heard them Sept. 24 and also seemed to be drifting slightly lower than 6024.98 today (Ron Howard, Asilomar Beach, CA, Etón E1, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ECUADOR [and non]. Allen Graham en Rosario --- Estimados amigos: Procedente de HCJB Voz Global en Quito-Ecuador (más conocida como La Voz de Los Andes) Allen C. Graham - Director de Entrenamiento en Radio para América Latina - estuvo en Argentina, más precisamente en Mar del Plata, ofreciendo talleres de capacitación en radio. Muchos conocen a Allen por la producción de su programa "Aventura Diexista" junto a Juan Carlos Chimarro y también en la redacción del programa de lengua inglesa "DX Party Line". Dentro de su plan de viaje, Allen tenía un último destino: ROSARIO. Es así que tuve el honor de recibirlo en casa donde pudimos compartir 24 horas de charla, entrevistas, paseo turístico y -sobretodo- amistad. Como ya se ha publicado, el 30 de septiembre de 2009 HCJB cierra sus transmisiones por onda corta, al respecto Allen me comentó que no existen por el momento planes de reactivarla. La Jefatura debe decidir si el programa DX continuará, si vale la pena invertir tiempo en esta temática. Por otra parte, tanto Allen como Juan Carlos ya tienen reasignadas sus tareas en HCJB. El cierre de la OC de La Voz de Los Andes no será reemplazado por la WEB. En HCJB consideran que el INTERNET no es un medio utilizado mayoritariamente por la audiencia potencial de la emisora. Según Allen, no resulta el medio propicio para las áreas necesitadas de una voz radiofónica como son las zonas rurales, las selváticas, las de pueblos aislados... La causa del cierre ya es por todos conocida. El parque de antenas (que ya se están desmontando) se encuentra en línea recta NORTE-SUR a 13 kilómetros de distancia del nuevo aeropuerto de Pifo que comenzará a funcionar en 2010. Ese corredor aéreo obliga a HCJB levantar la planta que funciona desde el 25 de diciembre de 1931. Parte de los transmisores ya está en viaje a Australia donde HCJB tiene otra base regional por lo que pensar en un futuro de reactivación de las emisiones por OC para Latinoamerica no resulta razonable. HCJB Voz Global se queda sirviendo el área de Ecuador a través de AM 690 y FM 89.3 con repetidoras en Esmeralda (98.3), Manabí (92.5), Tungurahua (96.1) y Napo (102.5) y en Guayaquil HCJB-2 - que cumple 38 años el próximo 1 de noviembre - con programación diferenciada en 102.5 MHz y El Oro en 94.7 MHz dirigidas a los oyentes de la costa. Se cierra la historia de casi 80 años de servicio por onda corta en un país sudamericano, Ecuador ha tenido el enorme privilegio de contar con una de las emisoras internacionales más grandes del mundo operando en altas frecuencias. Se pierde una voz más en nuestro idioma y la posibilidad de seguir difundiendo nuestra actividad diexista, lo que no se pierde es el recuerdo imborrable de La Voz de Los Andes transmitiendo desde Quito ni tampoco la amistad y el contacto con Allen Graham. El próximo sábado 12 de septiembre a través de "Antena de la Amistad" de KBS World Radio se emitirá la entrevista que le pude realizar con motivo de su inolvidable visita a Rosario. ¡Gracias Allen por toda la pasión puesta en la difusión del diexismo! (Rubén Guillermo Margenet, Sept 3, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Barely remembered to tune in 9745 at 0503 UT Sept 30, hearing last couple notes of national anthem, OC and off. This might have been HCJB`s final broadcast on this frequency, or could come 24 hours later, when I plan to be monitoring and taping. The final morning broadcast on 11960 is surely today Sept 30, so I intune that too late at 1256 to hear the tail of a speech with a heavy gringo accent in an echoey room, probably the boss in Manantiales de Colorado, about how HCJB Global is moving into New Media; 1258 the congregation started singing HCJB`s favorite hymn, but nothing stands in the way of automation, cut off a few sex for beam change, and faded out in time for ID at 1259:30, this one giving http://www.radiohcjb.org ``desde el centro del mundo``, 3+1 timesignal for 1300 TUC = 8 am. On this special occasion I monitored every quarter hour and taped the variety of automated IDs, all giving correct frequencies 11690 and 11960. 1300 show as usual, Cruzada con Luis Palau, sermon on second of three bad things affecting LAm men: machismo, the first being alcoolismo. I am pleased to hear machismo pronounced correctly as ignorant English- adopters tend to make it a hard k. Says men should emulate NSJC and not cheat on their wives --- but, but, JC was allegedly a bachelor, and whatever sex life he had was not well reported, except for the nasty rumors about Mary Magdalene. 1329:30 ID plugged Ecuador as ``el tercer exportador en el mundo de flores``, [maybe, but this table as of 1995 http://www.ilo.org/public/english/dialogue/sector/papers/ctflower/139e1.htm#table5 shows Ecuador in 5th place with a mere 2.7% of the world market in cut flowers, while Netherlands had more than 50%] 1359:30 ID, quotation from Moody about having the Bible in your heart rather than your head or your pocket. 1400 show Gracia a Vosotros from a Grace Community Church, somewhere. 1429:30 ID faded out the BGEA address before it could finish; about 124 species of hummingbirds in Ecuador, ``el país de los picaflores``. Interesting how the SS focus on the birds` beaksticking into flowers, rather than their sound. 1430 show, Ciudad Médica. 1444:30 ID, quotation from Albert Einstein. 1445 show, Siempre Amigas, for women, yet uses the masculine group plural in further comments. 1459:30 ID, outro theme cut off early, back on a few sex, and then plugs Ecuador as the greatest provider of cacao, which is also its oldest product [maybe, but this table as of 2001-2002 http://www.cacaoweb.net/countries.html shows Ecuador`s produxion is in seventh place] Timecheck 10 am = 15 TUC, timesignal and off. Forever. The sound of silence; or rather band noise. BTW, if VozAndes had been set up in Colombia, it might have got the callsign HJCB, leading to less cumbersome slogans in Spanish and English (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) HCJB pseudo-finale --- A reminder that HCJB is in its final minutes, on 9745, until 0503* UT Thursday. Never mind 6050 (Glenn, 0435 UT Oct 1, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Glenn, thank you for reminding me of this. Pulled out the E1 and got to hear the end of the HCJB I remembered listening to 35 years ago. I still remember the Pifo QSL card I received. (S9+10) 73, (David Coursey, Tracy, CA, ibid.) Yes, thank you very much, Glenn! I listened to it too. With a glass of wine. The reception on 9745 wasn't perfect here in the Midwest but still I enjoyed the broadcast. What are HCJB's plans for 6050? (Sergei S., IL, ibid.) Was having supper by 0325 and suddenly remembered Set. 30th was farewell for HCJB. As always excellent signal on 9745 on what usually is Spanish schedule, but this time was an special English segment about pre-term babies. I think is correct. This last time drove me back to when I heard HCJB for the fist time with Clayton Howard hosting the DX Parrly Line. By tomorrow HCJB will be history. So, enjoy our hobby while still available. 73 (Raúl Saavedra, Costa Rica, ibid.) That was the usual Spotlight, English-teaching show (gh) Monitored what was presumably the final broadcast of HCJB from Ecuador (except for the prolonged regional service on 6050), UT Oct 1 on 9745; tune in around 0430 and something was being said about the finale, but nothing out of the ordinary in the next semihour, which was the regular program `El Camino` referring to who else but JC? Mostly praise music in Spanish, occasional announcements, including one greeting from an ALAS affiliate in Guatemala. All this was bothered by splatter spikes from VOR Spanish via Guiana French on 9735 with an even stronger signal. Fortunately it was off by 0459 so my recording of the HCJB QRT was less marred. Automated ID at 0459:30 plugged the mountain peaks of Ecuador, gave frequencies as 9745 for México and 21455 for Europa! So that frequency closed down a sesquiyear ago still survived in outdated announcements to the very end. Obviously no one is paying attention at Quito studios, so how can they expect listeners to pay attention? Sign-off made no indication it was the very end, but said they would be back on air at 3:30 am in Quechua, no frequency, but 6050? 0500 national anthem, one of many from Latin America I never tire of hearing; the refrain is ``gloria a ti`` which could easily be mistaken for a religious remark rather than referring to the patria itself. Over at 0503, a few sex of open carrier, and then gone forever. Here`s one source for lofi audio both instrumental and vocal, and linx to the lyrix, referring to Ecuador`s breast and forehead: http://www.national-anthems.net/EC This one also has an English translation: http://www.lyricsondemand.com/miscellaneouslyrics/nationalanthemslyrics/ecuadornationalanthemlyrics.html (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** EQUATORIAL GUINEA. 5005.00, 2239-2243 27.09, R Nacional, Bata Spanish announcement, Afropop, 35333 (Anker Petersen, Denmark, on my AOR AR7030PLUS with 28 metres of longwire, via Dario Monferini, Sept 30, playdx yg via DXLD) 5005, RN Bata, 2157 25 Sept with talks, S5-6 (Zacharias Liangas, Thessaloniki, Greece, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ERITREA [non]. Clandestine QSLs: see BELGIUM [non] ** ETHIOPIA. 6110, R. Fana, Geja Dera or Geja Jawe site?, 1718-1841, 26 Sep, Oromiffa (listed), talks, local songs & music; 44433, adjacent QRM (Carlos Gonçalves, Portugal, Sept 28, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ETHIOPIA. 5989.68, R. Ethiopia, Gedja. Massed voices interspersed with announcements. Combination of weak signal and high noise level prevents recognition of language, presumably Amharic, 1923 13/9 (Charles Jones, Castle Hill NSW (Sony 2001D with 7m. vertical), Oct Australian DX News via DXLD) Off-channel a little, which makes it a little easier, tribal music 2048, // 7110, 9704.2, 11/9 (Craig Seager, DXpedition at Cataract Scout Camp, near Wollongong NSW, Oct Australian DX News via DXLD) [Besides MADAGASCAR q.v., longpath], Ethiopia also noted at 1455 Sept 30 on both 7110 and 7165 (not //) (Ron Howard, Asilomar Beach, CA, Etón E1, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ETHIOPIA [non]. V. of Oromo Liberation QSL: see GERMANY; BELGIUM [non] ** EUROPE. Pirate: 7550.5, R. Amica, Italia (presumed), 1538-..., 27 Sep, Italian, non-stop music, IDs; 35332, fair at 1700, and still on at 2200+ (Carlos Gonçalves, Portugal, Sept 28, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** EUROPE. PIRATE. 15070.52v, Cupid Radio, 1500-1700*, Sept 26, pop music. ID. Acknowledged listeners’ reports. Gave Netherlands address for reports. Power reported at 150 watts. Threshold/very weak with occasional peaks to fair levels. Was on 15070.52 at 1500, drifting up to 15070.57 by 1510 (Brian Alexander, PA, DX Listening Digest) ** FRANCE. A court today blocked a plan to eliminate 206 jobs at Radio France International, Agence France Presse reports. The court ruled that the plan, which prompted the longest strike in French public broadcasting since 1968, was full of "irregularities." You can read the court's opinion at: http://rfiriposte.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/attendus-de-la-cours-dappel-28-09-09.pdf (Mike Cooper, GA, Sep 28, WORLD OF RADIO 1480, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Or try to read it: all in French! legalese, crummy askew fax/photocopy, but surely an authentic court docu (gh, DXLD) Viz.: COURT ORDERS RADIO FRANCE INTERNATIONALE TO CHANGE JOB CUT PLAN | Text of report by Radio France Internationale website on 29 September A Paris appeals court has ordered Radio France Internationale (RFI) to make adjustments to its plan to cut staff by 206 posts. In a decision handed down on Monday, the court found the RFI plan contained a number of irregularities, and ordered management to make more serious efforts to redeploy personnel to other public broadcasters. Both unions who called the strike and management expressed satisfaction over the court decision. The unions point to the suspension of the redundancy process, saying that "it is a warning to other public broadcasters who may want to go down the same road". Management noted that the plan to lay off 206 personnel was not rejected by the court. RFI's managing director, Geneviève Goetzinger, said that management would continue with the plan, by "rapidly including the two modifications demanded by the judge. The entire procedure should be completed within a few days." In addition to its call for redeployment efforts and the waiving of trial periods for those redeployed, the court ordered RFI to treat all journalists as part of the same category, thus eliminating different criteria for redundancy between the French-language and foreign- language journalists. The court decision comes against the background of the longest strike in public broadcasting since the general strike of May 1968. The strike began on 12 May, was interrupted on 10 July, and started again at the beginning of September. Management announced the redundancy plan, which included the closure of six language services (German, Albanian, Polish, Serbo-Croat, Turkish and Lao) in January, arguing that listenership was down and that the company had run up large deficits. The French Socialist Party has called for the government to step in to resolve the conflict. Source: Radio France Internationale website, Paris, in English 29 Sep 09 (via BBCM via WORLD OF RADIO 1480, DXLD) Finally, there’s a fair decision! I hope the French court will also make RFI resume English broadcasts to Europe and N. America (SRG, Media Network blog comment via DXLD) ** FRANCE. After listening to Moscow evangelism in English (see RUSSIA) left receiver running on 15605, and just a few minutes after 1600 Sept 28 there was secular music of some sort. Was not paying attention, but uplooked later, this must have switched to RFI English service via Issoudun; music instead of news near hourtop signifies rolling strike mode still in play. Mike Cooper reports that a court ruled today against RFI`s efforts to fire 206 employees, which had brought on the strike (Glenn Hauser, OK, WORLD OF RADIO 1480, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** FRANCE [and non?]. 7265, RFI in French discussion at 0551 Sept 29, with heavy quick echo, à la long/short path. Trouble is, LP would be quite unlikely at this hour from Europe. Could be transmission problem either in audio input or running two unsynchronized transmitters at Issoudun? Scheduled until 0600 at 185 degrees, then 204 degrees. If these are normally two different transmitters, perhaps the second one was onturned too early. 7265, RFI again with heavy echo at 0506 Sept 30 and whenever checked a few more times during the hour. Longpath not an option at this hour over dayside, and nearby European signals, 7250 Vatican and 7240 Portugal at 0537 had no such echo either. Possibly a relay site erroneously or even deliberately is running same frequency as Issoudun, but echo level always seems same rather than independently fading so more likely both the signals are coming out of Issoudun, double audio input or double transmitter output, yet unsynchronized. Is anybody paying attention at the site or at Paris HQ? If it`s out of Issoudun, the echo should be audible everywhere (Glenn Hauser, OK, WORLD OF RADIO 1480, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** FRANCE. RFI missing from 7265, Oct 1 at 0550. This is the frequency which had been heard with a heavy echo the past two nights. Yet SW neighbors 7240 Portugal, 7250 Vatican, 7275 Tunisia were in with good signals, so I think RFI must really have been off, perhaps trying to rid itself of the double audio/transmission. 15160 at 1328 Sept 29 with big collision causing fast subaudible heterodyne. One of them goes off at 1329* leaving the other in Russian with guitar music, it too offgoing at 1330* leaving frequency vacant. At 1230-1329 it`s R. Free Asia in Khmer, 73 degrees from SRI LANKA, per Aoki, while at 1300-1330 it`s RFI in Russian, 55 degrees from Issoudun. Apparently no such collision is expected within Russia or Cambodia. [BTW, Area of Russia is more than 94x that of Cambodia; did you think it was even more?] (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** FRANCE. Internet restrixions: see CHINA ** GERMANY. 9695 & 11760, Voice of Oromo Liberation via Jülich (via RMI Broker) E-mail .pdf QSL statement in 24 hours, after posting a follow-up to Mr. Walter Brodowsky for his assistance. Total time of 52 days (Edward Kusalik-ALBERTA, Canada) Surely Jeff White would verify this at RMI (gh, DXLD) 15745, CVC International via Jülich. Full data (with site, power and azimuth indicated) e-mail letter with confirmation and explanation of service to Africa. Report sent to dxer @ cvc.tv and reply in three (3) days from Brigitte Raper, whose e-mail address is BrigitteRaper @ cvc.tv (Edward Kusalik-ALBERTA, Canada) 15745, CVC International via Jülich. Reply in 24 hours from Walter Brodowsky stating that Jülich is in ownership of CVC (?) using their own short wave radio station to broadcast their own program content. Walter was the only person at Media Broadcast to reply to my request for clarification and a confirmation. E-mail report sent to Media Broadcast & to various other personnel (Edward Kusalik, ALBERTA, Canada, from his final QSL Album, Oct ODXA Listening In via DXLD) ** GLORIOSO ISLAND. FT/G, GLORIOSO ISLAND (Update). The FT5GA team continues to be on the air and is trying to satisfy the international Ham radio community. As of September 27th, they have made over 26.6k QSOs with 9.4k unique callsigns (12885/CW, 11676/SSB and 2070/RTTY). The team has had some problems with radios (two transceivers went down out of the four they had, but one was repaired). FT5GA was active during the CQWW DX RTTY Contest this past weekend. Still most stateside stations report that the FT5GA signals are very weak and propagation is not helping. Operations will last until October 5th, as per the Web page at: http://glorieuses20 08.free.fr QSL Manager is F5OGL: Didier Senmartin, P.O. Box 7, F-53320 LOIRON, FRANCE. Online log is available at: http://www.clublog.org/charts/?c=FT5GA (Ohio/Penn DX Bulletin No. 927, September 28, 2009, Editor Tedd Mirgliotta, KB8NW, Provided by BARF80.ORG (Cleveland, Ohio), via Dave Raycroft, ODXA yg via DXLD) ** GREECE. 11645, Radio Philia (Bulgarian word "philia" means slice) [but in Greek it means friendship --- gh] of Voice of Greece on 15/9 at 0602 during its broadcast in English stopped due to the currency damage [electrical failure] for 6 minutes // MW 666 kHz also, but at same 0602 the currency 220v, in the village where I listened to Radio Philia, also was switched off! (Rumen Pankov, Sofia, Bulgaria (Sony ICF-2001, Marconi), Oct Australian DX News via DXLD) ** GREENLAND. 3815 USB, 2055-2108* 29.09, KNR Tasiilaq. Greenlandic/ Danish jazz music and song, 2100 KNR Newsjingle, news and report in Danish about "... statsministeren ... Obama til Koebenhavn", as usual no closing announcement at the end of the news, 34333 QRM Russian utility calls. (It has not been heard since early May due to summer propagation!) (Anker Petersen, Denmark, on my AOR AR7030PLUS with 28 metres of longwire, via Dario Monferini, Sept 30, playdx yg via DXLD) ** HONDURAS. HONDURAN TROOPS SHUT PRO-ZELAYA RADIO STATION - DIRECTOR Honduran soldiers raided a radio station aligned with ousted President Manuel Zelaya and shut down its operations after the de facto government issued a decree allowing the suspension of some civil rights and media, the radio’s director said today. “Soldiers assaulted the radio this morning, took over the station and took it off the air,” the Radio Globo director David Romero said. “There were no arrests and staff managed to escape.” (Source: Reuters) (September 28th, 2009 - 12:39 UTC by Andy Sennitt, Media Network blog via DXLD) At least this story mentions in passing name of station. Heard this story a few times on US TV networks and name of station was not worth mentioning. OTOH! (gh, DXLD) COUP-INSTALLED HONDURAS LEADER TO REVIVE LIBERTIES TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras – The coup-installed president of Honduras backed down Monday from an escalating standoff with protesters and suggested he would restore civil liberties and reopen dissident television and radio stations by the end of the week. Riot police ringed supporters of ousted President Manuel Zelaya who gathered for a large-scale protest march, setting off a daylong standoff. The government of interim President Roberto Micheletti declared the march illegal, sent soldiers to silence dissident broadcasters, and suspended civil liberties for 45 days. But in a sudden reversal, Micheletti said Monday afternoon that he wanted to "ask the Honduran people for forgiveness" for the measures and said he would lift them in accordance with demands from the same Congress that installed him after a June 28 coup. He said he would discuss lifting the measures with court officials "as soon as possible," adding: "By the end of this week we'll have this resolved." He also repeated his pledge not to attack the Brazilian Embassy, where Zelaya has been holed up with 60 supporters since sneaking back into the country on Sept. 21. He even sent "a big hug" to Brazil's president, a day after giving him a 10-day ultimatum to expel Zelaya or move him to Brazil. . . [much more] http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090928/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_honduras_coup 73/Liz (Cameron, MI, dxldyg via DXLD) SHUTTERED HONDURAN RADIO RESUMES BROADCASTS ON WEB The unofficial radio station of ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya resumed broadcasting via the Internet on Monday, a day after the country’s caretaker government shuttered it by force. The de facto government issued a decree on Sunday suspending media freedom and some civil liberties and sent troops on Monday to shut down Radio Globo and a television station that backed Zelaya, ousted in a coup three months ago. The outside world, including UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, and even local media loyal to de facto leader Roberto Micheletti have condemned the closures of Radio Globo and TV station Cholusat Sur, or channel 36. On Tuesday, Radio Globo DJs played “resistance” music and took calls by mobile phone from a cramped peach-colored bedroom in a safe house at the end of a narrow residential alley. The media curbs have partially stifled Zelaya and his supporters, whose near-daily protests have flagged this week. Radio Globo Director David Romero claimed a large online audience but admitted the station could not maintain its traditional reach. “(Zelaya) has lost his media profile,” Mr Romero said from the makeshift broadcast booth. “Logically, he’s weakened because he does not have the option to communicate.” Mr Romero said police and soldiers raided Radio Globo at dawn on Monday, seizing thousands of dollars worth of equipment. He and his co-workers were tipped off by a security guard and escaped through a back exit before forces knocked down a large metal gate on their second-floor installations. Mr Romero said a loophole in the decree allowed the station to continue broadcasting via the Internet. “They took away communication with the people,” said Raúl Rodríguez, 42, a Zelaya supporter munching on a ration of white bread and clutching a can of sardines during a small protest. “Radio Globo and channel 36 kept us informed of the marches. Now they’ve been destroyed, we don’t hear anything.” (Source: Reuters) (September 30th, 2009 - 9:22 UTC by Andy Sennitt, Media Network blog via DXLD) ** INDIA. 9425, AIR National Channel, Bengaluru, Sept 30 at 1350, big but fluttery signal with loud but distorted Hindi talk, even worse than WWRB 9385 or WTJC 9370. AIR VBS, 9870, fluttery but fairly good signal, enough to enjoy the music, around 1415 UT Oct 1; still going at 1559 recheck after WRMI signed off 9955 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** INDONESIA. VOI, still on 9525.8v transmitter, Sept 28 at 1338 but English modulation JBA, useless. Meanwhile, no such modulation or frequency variation problems on the RRI HS 9680 relay. As usual when checked sometime during the 14 UT hour, CRI 9525.0 in Russian made a big almost 1 kHz het with VOI. RRI Makassar (ex-Ujung Pandang, ex-Makassar), Sulawesi (ex-Celebes), 4750, signal continues to improve as Sept 29 at 1242 a string of hard- sell ads in Indonesian, 1246 song, fair over co-channel China or maybe Bangladesh. No other Indos showing on 60m tho there were signs of activity on 75m. See also UNIDENTIFIED 3325. 9525.9, VOI, Sept 29 at 1301 opening English hour, still undermodulated but marginally readable amid flutter fading. YL introduces perpetual Tuesday excursion as Exotic Indonesia, 1302 greetings from RRI Banjarmasin guy on phone where it`s very hot, 35 degrees Celsius, or did he say 45? Canned sign-on as always gave three frequencies, only one of which is in use for any single broadcast, but live announcer did the same at 1302. Do they really believe this in Jakarta? Axually, I believe 9526v is the only one currently in use for any VOI broadcast, not 11785v or 15150. 1304 over to another YL for news from Jakarta (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Found unexpected VOI on 9525 with ID at 1200z, followed by unexpected English. That could have been Polish Radio, but poor prop prevented certain ID. Both agreed on being on 9524.92, but universal lack of agreement among broadcasters as to where an exact frequency is has rendered the manual fine-calibration of my E1 unsure as well. Bothered by something from Brazil on 9530. Not the clearest conditions this AM, but I'll envy it four months from now when the shroud of snow static has settled in for the winter. (Terry Wilson, MI, Sept 29, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) After a sesquiweek or two of undermodulation, VOI finally jacked it up on Sept 30. Does this require major transmitter repairs or is it must a matter of paying attention to the audio input/output level? 9525.9 at 1336 starting Music Corner, fair signal too, but soft rock songs from the 90s(?), hardly Indonesian. We want gamelans, even in rock music! 1341 outro by YL still uncopyable and hummy. 1351 going from one song to another about friendship. 1356:30 managed to get out www address before CRI 9525.0 carrier/het oncut. If there was anything about the latest Sumatera earthquake, must have been in the first semihour, since it was entertainment business as usual in the second (Glenn Hauser, OK, WORLD OF RADIO 1480, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Padang, capital city of West Sumatra, felt a strong earthquake this morning. RRI Jambi, located about 230 miles away from Padang, was well heard Sept. 30, on 4925, from 1336 to 1400, playing all songs in English (many Beatles hits), then into indigenous music. No special programming about the quake that hit off the coast of Padang at about 1015 UT (Ron Howard, Asilomar Beach, CA, dxldyg via WORLD OF RADIO 1480, DX LISTENING DIGEST) VOI still on 9525.9 Oct 1 at quick check 1355 before being hit by 9525.0 het de CRI prélude to Russian. In English, and also still with sufficient modulation (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** IRAN. Amigos, ontem tive a alegria de receber finalmente o QSL de número 10 do serviço em espanhol da Voz da República Islâmica do Iran. Segundo o esquema de confirmações QSL dessa emissora, quem conseguisse o QSL de número 10, receberia 3 diplomas (1, 2 e 3 graus) e um valioso prêmio (algo do artesanato iraniano). Só recebi o QSL, carta pessoal e um CD com música persa. Uma vez o Adalberto Azevedo falou desse esquema de confirmações QSL dessa emissora iraniana, numa das listas. O Wilson Rodrigues disse sobre o que fora colocado pelo Adalberto referente ao tal esquema de QSLs, que a única pessoa que ele achava capaz de obter os 10 QSLs, seria eu. Bom, foram necessários enviar mais de 1100 [?!?! gh] informes de recepção até receber o último cartão QSL. Você estava certo com relação a eu ser capaz de receber todos os QSLs da Voz da República Islâmica do Iran, amigo Wilson. Não sei se mais alguém aqui do Brasil já conseguiu os 10 cartões QSL. Acho interessante quando uma emissora tem um esquema de QSL, pois, torna mais desafiadora a obtenção dos cartões QSLs. Vou ver com a emissora o motivo de não terem me enviado os 3 diplomas. E o tal valioso prêmio? Eles dão mesmo a quem receber os 10 QSL s? Bom, só de ter conseguido os 10 QSLs, já valeu a pena. Rubens Ferraz Pedroso (SWL1033B). Bandeirantes/ PR. Engenheiro Agrônomo. Membro do DXCB e do DX Clube do Paraná. 7300, 7300, 7300, 7300 Voz da República Islámica do Irã - Kamalabad - IRN, Kamalabad - IRN, Kamalabad - IRN e Kamalabad IRN - Recebido bonito cartão QSL confirmando 4 informes, CD com música persa e carta pessoal - 45 dias. V/S: N. Edalat Manesh. Informes enviados por e- mail: spanishradio@ irib.com . QTH: Vali-e asr Ave., Jame Jam St., P.O. Box 19395-6767 - Tehran - IRN (Rubens Ferraz Pedroso; Bandeirantes - Paraná - Brasil, Sept 29, dxclubepr yg via DXLD) ** IRAN. IRIB Teheran, Sirjan, on 7305 at 2220 in Bosnian, Sept 27. ME vocals, M ID, news highlights at :24 with multiple mentions of Iran, mailing address, strong. Anthem & off at :30 (Icom R75 w/ 70' longwire, Mike Bryant, KY, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** IRAN [non]. 17670 at 1410 Sept 28, fair signal with Queen`s ``Another One Bites the Dust``, then mostly Persian rock, in typical Radio Farda rotation. Dust song could have unpleasantly threatening military connotations, hee hee, tho the Queen lyrix http://www.lyrics007.com/Queen%20Lyrics/Another%20One%20Bites%20The%20Dust%20Lyrics.html are about machine guns and bullets rather than bombing nuclear installations. BTW, the ugly %20s in the URL simply replace spaces in the original URL. 1423 ID in passing. This is via Wertachtal, GERMANY, on 17670 for one standard hour only (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) I am hearing Radio Farda on 15475 from 1655 tune in to right now at this post at 1720 on 9/29/09. Variety music program including that rap song using the Police hit "Every Breath You Take." Three station ID's heard. Good enough signal to listen to music. I don't know which transmitter this is. (Greg Neide, QTH?, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Lampertheim, Germany, at 1630-1730 only (gh, DXLD) ** IRAN [non]. AMIR ZAMANIFAR AND ROSA AJIRI --- September 30, 2009 Two young broadcasters for RFE/RL's Radio Farda -- Rosa Ajiri and Amir Zaamanifar -- have died in a car crash outside the Czech capital, Prague. Broadcaster Mahin Gorji remained in critical condition at a Prague hospital. RFE/RL correspondent Golnaz Esfandiari offers this look at the tragic loss of two much-loved colleagues. Rosa Ajiri and Amir Zamanifar had short lives, but they lived them to the fullest. Rosa was 27 years old, and Amir 29 when they died in an early morning automobile accident on September 29. The preliminary investigation indicated that their car was stopped in the emergency lane of a highway north of Prague when it was struck from behind by a tractor trailer. . . Source: Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty website http://www.rferl.org/content/In_Memoriam_Radio_Farda_Loses_Respected_Colleagues_To_Auto_Mishap/1840260.html (via Yimber Gaviria, Colombia, and Dale Park, HI, DXLD) with portraits ** ISRAEL. Re: Yom Kippur starts today (27 September): Sounds like even their clandestine to Lebanon on 756 is silent too. Galei is silent as well but the transmitter is on. MW is silent as well even program D which is targeting the Arab world. All the best from Cairo, Egypt (Tarek Zeidan, 1025 UT Sept 28, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) 11595 and 13850 kHz of Kol Israel-Persian service were not transmitted on Sep. 27, too. (S. Hasegawa, Japan, NDXC, ibid.) See also SPAIN I noted Reshet Bet returning to air and recorded it (via web stream). Started at 1658 UT with the interval signal (didn't even know Network B had one, this is probably the only time it's aired!), then at 1700 TS and brief Hebrew intro then news. This (sans news) can be heard at Interval Signals Online - http://intervalsignals.net (Dave Kernick, UK, Sept 28, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Yes, Reshet Bet has been on the air for 24 hours a day, since, I believe, the first Persian Gulf war, so post Yom-Kippur is probably the only time the interval signal would be heard. I listened to be sure, but it is an interval signal which has been used for quite a while. On the other hand, it may be better to call it IBA's domestic services interval signal - as, if you listen to "Voice of Israel Network A (Alef) (vintage - 2002)" on intervalsignals.net, it's the same interval signal (Doni Rosenzweig, ibid.) Oh thanks, I didn't notice they're the same. Looking at old editions of WRTH circa 1973 I see the Alef and Bet networks used to have different interval signals. The Dalet network used to have a different one too (see website), but as that's now on air 24/7 presumably they no longer have any need for an IS - unless Dalet goes off air at Yom Kippur too, perhaps. Does it? (Dave Kernick, ibid.) ** ISRAEL. The wandering Jew, Galei Tsahal, on 15783.9 with music at 1410 Sept 30 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** JAPAN [non]. 16m was hopping pretty well, so checked usually dead 13m, Sept 30 at 1416 and pleasantly found NHKWRJ in English introducing Easy Japanese lesson 50; fair and steady readable signal, less than one second ahead of 13630 via Ramipisham UK, and only an echo apart from 11705 via Sackville, CANADA [and no echo there from Yamata direct lately]. 21560 is Issoudun, FRANCE at 152 degrees; only other signal on 13m was a weak trace of Spain on 21570 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** KOREA NORTH [non]. 5910, Shiokaze/Sea Breeze via Yamata, 1413, Sept 30, English news items read by female interrupted by musical bridges. Could only make out a few occasional words, no clear idea about content. Noted to 1430 carrier off after PO Box, website and usual piano.Freq was clear throughout, no jamming noted. Should improve in next few weeks. 73, (Martien Groot, Schoorl, Netherlands, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Hi Martien, Here in California this reception was fairly good. At 1403 the woman started reading specific details about the Japanese abductees taken to N. Korea; starting with an abduction that happened back in Nov. 1967. Actually this program was a repeat of the same one I have heard before. Think almost all these personal data programs are just being recycled again and again. Whereas their Friday segments, “Today’s News Flash” and "Today's News on North Korean Issues", are usually fairly current. The jamming that occurs here is rather random, with some days having light to heavy jamming, while today had none. On Sept. 29, I was interested to hear their program in stilted Chinese, which is rarely heard and was lightly jammed. Audio posted at dxldyg “Files > Station Sounds” (Ron Howard, Asilomar Beach CA, ibid.) ** KOREA NORTH [non]. Korea (non), 9965, Nippon no Kaze (Korean BC) via T8WH, Palau. (See also Palau below). Replied back via e-mail to my e-mail report with short audio clip (MP3) in 4 days to info @ rachi.go.jp Acknowledged my audio and details but stated that they do not issue QSL cards and to check out their web site for additional information about abductions. Did not state the transmitter site per my request 9965, Nippon no Kaze via T8WH. Palau. Full data (with site and name) ’20 years of short-wave Ministry to the World” QSL Card with WHRI-KWHR Sticker for a postal report and MP3 CD to Indiana Address. Reply in 6 months. V/s: ‘LMV’ (Edward Kusalik, ALBERTA, Canada, from his final QSL Album, Oct ODXA Listening In via DXLD) = Larry M. Vehorn? (gh) ** KURDISTAN [non]. Hi, Received a QSL from this station today for a report sent out on 4th November 2005. It is a postcard with the details on the address side and has a tower on the front with a multicoloured symbol and the website address http://www.airtime.be I had given up on this so it is a nice surprise. Frequency was 11530 kHz and transmitter site at the time was Grigoriopol. Regards, (Wayne Bastow, Wyoming, NSW, Australia, Sept 29, ARDXC via WORLD OF RADIO 1480, DXLD) See also BELGIUM [non] ** MADAGASCAR [and non]. 7105, RTVM , 1415, Sept. 30. In French; Lionel Richie “Say You, Say Me”; mostly talking; 1444 Hi-Li music; still heard at tune out at 1455. Clearly // 6134.91v, which had slightly better reception; 1447* while 7105 continued on. Dan Sheedy first passed on to me his log of this back in early June 2009, but I was unable to duplicate it due to strong signal of PBS Nei Menggu on 7105. Now that they have moved away, I can indeed hear Madagascar in the clear. Thanks Dan! Ethiopia also noted at 1455 on both 7110 and 7165 (not //) (Ron Howard, Asilomar Beach, CA, Etón E1, dxldyg via WORLD OF RADIO 1480, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** MEXICO. 4800, XERTA, 0950 to 1020 with very subdued signal, OM with ID 22 September and noted since, poor signal here and in Cedar Key, FL. 73s de (Bob Wilkner, Pómpano Beach, Florida, US, Drake R 8 ~ Icom, 746Pro DL, Noise reducing antenna, 60 meter band dipole, Sept 29, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** MEXICO. 6010.00, Radio Mil, 0810-0820, Sept 27, local pop music. Local ballads. Spanish announcements. ID at 0814. Weak but readable (Brian Alexander, PA, DX Listening Digest) ** MEXICO. XEQM, 6105-6110 (frecuencia muy variable) escuchada aquí en Mérida (Yucatán) el 27 de septiembre con moderadas interferencias de diversas emisoras y señales utilitarias (a pesar de estar a casi 10 km del transmisor) a las 0130 (música ranchera y comerciales), 0315 (música ranchera, comerciales y saludos) y 1330 (comerciales, música salsa en maya y jarana yucateca) UTC demasiado ruido de origen (¿?) y ausente hasta la escucha de las 0130. Receptor digital Radio Shack 20-125, cuya recepción en ocasiones pone zumbido de fondo cuando selecciono para captar señales mas lejanas en vez de locales ¿será que es mejor mi analógico 12-472 que no capta zumbidos? No hay posibles fuentes de ruido por lo menos cercanamente. Como último comentario unas correcciones: En la info del Sr. Méndez no es “Tiendas Tapur” sino “Tiendas Chapur” http://www.chapur.com.mx Envío archivos de audio. http://rapidshare.com/files/286943705/SW6105KHZ-27SEP2009-0130UTC.zip.html Atte: (Ing. Civ. Israel González Ahumada, M.I., Sept 30, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Atte: = atentamente, standard Spanish courteous closing See also URUGUAY [and non]. No one else has reported it varying up to 6110, but only slightly below 6105. I think Terry Krueger`s report of 6105.8 meant to say 6104.8 (gh,DXLD) ** MIDWAY ISLAND. KH4, (Press Release). Tom/N4XP and Dave/WB4JTT, co- leaders for the 2009 Midway Island Dxpedition, sent out the following press release number 7 dated September 23rd (edited): "There is less than a month to go before the K4M team hits the air. Our final dates are now set. We arrive on the Island on October 9th and our return will be October 19th. That gives us two weekends to be QRV. Our website was updated this week with interactive propagation charts. Pick a month and then the time and it will show you openings from KH4 to the world at that moment. The team wishes to thank those 15,000 DXers who voted on our web poll. If you haven't voted on your needed band/mode please do so now as we are going to use this to schedule our operators. We also appreciate all the comments left for us there. Our website is http://www.midway2009.com If you haven't visited it in a while stop by and help support our effort. This month we are highlighting four more team members. You can read all their history at: http://www.midway2009.com/meettheops6.html " (Ohio/Penn DX Bulletin No. 927, September 28, 2009, Editor Tedd Mirgliotta, KB8NW, Provided by BARF80.ORG (Cleveland, Ohio), via Dave Raycroft, ODXA yg via DXLD) ** MYANMAR. 5915.00, Myanma Radio, 1512 Sept 30, Bamar? announcements, westernized pop songs struggling under co-channel CRI. Wiped out when RSI appeared on adjacent 5920 at 1527 so could not determine exact s/off time. 5985.00, Myanma Radio, 1539, Sept 30, English, female closing news. Usual slogans, pop music segment started with Lionel Richie: "Ballerina Girl", to eventual 1601 s/off after NA. Quite a good afternoon for Asian reception! 73, (Martien Groot, Schoorl, Netherlands, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** NETHERLANDS [non]. Mighty KBC leaving Shortwave --- Was listening to The Mighty KBC last night and for the heck of it I sent them a short audio file. This was their response: (Mike Rohde, Sept 27, NASWA yg via DXLD) Viz.: Hi Mike, Thank you for your reaction and MP3. Good to hear from you. KBC is leaving shortwave on 30-9-2009 (last transmission on 6055 at [via LITHUANIA] 2130 UT) We will move to AM soon. With kind regards, Eric The Mighty KBC Argonstraat 6 6718 WT Ede Holland Tel ++31 318 552491 Fax ++31 318 437801 info @ k-po.com http://www.kbcradio.eu (via Rohde, ibid.) SW QRT reported weeks ago in DXLD: now gone (gh) ** NETHERLANDS [non]. I was expecting to hear RNW on usual 9345, but now it`s on 9350, Sept 30 at 1253 in Dutch with ``economic nieuws``, good signal. This is via IBB TINIAN, NMI, 250 kW, at 1230-1257 only, aimed 267 degrees to CIRAF 49 = Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, where there are no doubt oodles of Dutchmen, since Amsterdam is tame compared to Bangkok (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** NETHERLANDS [non]. New shortwave/mediumwave frequency schedule published --- The new B09 RNW shortwave/mediumwave frequency schedule, effective from 25 October 2009, has now been published and is available on our website. This schedule is of course tentative, but our frequency manager Jan Peter Werkman tells me that he does not expect many changes before the schedule goes into effect. http://www.rnw.nl/english/article/rnw-frequency-schedule-winter-20092010 (September 29th, 2009 - 12:54 UTC by Andy Sennitt, Media Network blog via DXLD) ** NETHERLANDS. OUTLANDISH TV STATION COULD BECOME PUBLIC BROADCASTER Outlandish new broadcasting organisation PowNed has been recommended to Dutch Minister of Culture Ronald Plasterk. The Dutch Media Commission, the Netherlands Public Broadcasting organisation and the Culture Council all favour allowing PowNed to become a new public broadcaster. PowNed is an initiative by Internet channel GeenStijl, which is loved and loathed for its outlandish antics, many of which are often designed to put the noses of public figures out of joint. For instance, former integration minister Ella Vogelaar’s refusal to answer questions from a GeenStijl journalist damaged her image so badly that eventually she was forced out of office. Another aspiring broadcaster, WNL, an initiative by mass-circulation newspaper De Telegraaf, has received the approval of the Netherlands Public Broadcasting organisation and the Culture Council, but the Media Commission still has reservations. It wants to clarify WNL’s relationship with the newspaper first. All three organisations have approved the continuation of Max, a broadcasting organisation for senior citizens. However, Llink - a broadcaster promoting green issues and human rights - will be scrapped. The commission has also warned the TROS broadcasting organisation to adhere to the Media Act. The race for members entitling organisations to enter the field of Dutch public broadcasting heated up earlier this year as the deadline for counting each existing and new organisation’s memberships approached. Many new and some existing media initiatives were pipped at the post. There are three Dutch public television channels, and six radio networks. However, numerous broadcasters compete for airtime on these channels. The amount of transmission time in the Netherlands is allocated on the basis of the number of subscribers or members the various organisations can attract. This system of public broadcasting is unique in the world, and dates back to the very beginning of radio in the Netherlands in the 1920s. (Source: RNW News) (September 30th, 2009 - 16:46 UTC by Andy Sennitt, Media Network blog via DXLD) w/logo ** NEWFOUNDLAND. CKZN, St Johns [sic], bad het with CKZU, news type program 0715, a bit difficult to read. I measured at 6161.3, 12/9 (Craig Seager, DXpedition at Cataract Scout Camp, near Wollongong NSW, Oct Australian DX News via DXLD) At that hour it must have been CBC Radio Overnight, relaying some foreign station. Now back almost to 6160.0: (gh, DXLD) ** NEWFOUNDLAND [and non]. After a few weeks off-frequency to 6160.88 or so, and causing a terrible het to the other CBC station and anything else on 6160.0, CKZN is back on frequency, almost: Sept 28 at 0601 good reception, no het from only one CBC station in news. At first I figured it must be CKZU and CKZN was off, but at 0604 already into CBC Radio Overnight and R. Prague, so it had to be CKZN per the schedule at http://www.cbc.ca/overnight/schedule.html which shows Prague weekdays at `3:05` am, and Overnight would not have started yet anyway in the PDT zone. However, with BFO on, stepping 5 kHz up and down from CKZN, compared to other stations, it was clearly a smidgin on the low side now by a few dekaHz [34 Hz, confirmed by Salmaniw, below]. I wonder if CKZU was really off the air at this time, as in the nightmiddle they usually are both audible, previously with a fast SAH before the major offset hit. But around 1325 CBC audible on 6160 and at this hour must have been CKZU (Glenn Hauser, OK, WORLD OF RADIO 1480, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 6160, CKZN at 0555 Sept 29, discussion of viral mutations. Would this be Quirx & Quarx, on its Monday night repeat? That`s at 11+ pm local, so no, too late for CKZN and too early for CKZU which would have it on an hour later. And besides, no sign of host Bob McDonald. Therefore is `N with CBC Radio Overnight which per sked http://www.cbc.ca/overnight/schedule.html would be Radio Australia after `2:30` am. There was a fast rippling SAH, just like old times, presumably CKZU, but way underneath CKZN (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) see also RUSSIA Looks like CKZN is back on frequency when checked tonight at 0100 UT 1Oct09. I'm actually seeing 3 carriers on the Perseus SDR on approximately 6160.031, 6159.969 and 6159.924 (latter is the weakest). Nothing on the way-off frequency CKZN had been on. CKZN is dominant with local ID at 0105. St John's should be on 6159.966 (I rechecked at higher resolution), and it actually sounds pretty good on LSB. The lowest frequency, I suspect is some LA station and not really audible here (Walt Salmaniw, Victoria, BC, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** NEW ZEALAND. 6170, RNZI, Rangitaiki, 1814-1831, 25 Sep, English, talks (no copy thereof given the conditions); 24321, adjacent QRM de HRV 6165, then co-channel QRM at 1830. 7285 ditto, 1617-1648, 26 Sep, English, light songs, talks; 23431. 11725 ditto, 2032-2055*, 25 Sep, English, Mailbox program, with DX & propagation reports, listeners' reports, then some music prior to frequency announcement & IS; 34422, QRM de Brasil. They then switched to 15720: QRM free but very fluttery & weak (Carlos Gonçalves, Portugal, Sept 28, DX LISTENING DIGEST) RNZI (starting 0700z) and RA (starting 0800z) both excellent as per usual. RNZI most good on 6170, featuring reading of bizarre sci-fi story about waygates, aliens who stung people, and the lovers Paul and Laurel. Laurel turned into a tree! While waiting to hear the end of the story with a tag as to what the hell I just listened to, RNZI conveniently closed the frequency. Retuning to 9655 yielded weak signal in band noise, but opening bird tweet loop led only to top of hour news (Terry Wilson, MI, Sept 29, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) At 0425 UT on RNZI Checkpoint Mary Wilson was doing an interview with a person in Samoa where another Tsunami warning was just being issued. For those of you that enjoy live as it happens check RNZI on 15720 kHz (Mick Delmage, Sherwood Park, AB, Canada, HCDX via DXLD) For best results also post such timely info on a non-moderated list (gh) RNZI schedule change from 17 October 2009 On 16 October Radio New Zealand International (RNZI) transmitters will be off-air from 1135-1700 NZDT (2235-0400 UTC) to allow for changes to the antenna combiners. New frequencies 7440 and 17675 will be used after this work is complete. A complete schedule is on the RNZI website. http://www.rnzi.com/pages/listen.php (Source: RNZI)(September 30th, 2009 - 9:47 UTC by Andy Sennitt, Media Network blog via DXLD) Note that the 16 October schedule is valid for only one week until the end of A09! Why not make the change when B09 starts? 7440 is ex-7280- 7285-7290 both DRM and AM depending on time (Glenn Hauser, ibid.) ** NIGERIA. 25 Sept, 4770, Kaduna, 2153 S7 with nearly vacant carrier! (Zacharias Liangas, Thessaloniki, Greece, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 6089.83, R. Nigeria, Kaduna, 2146-..., 27 Sep, vernacular, talks, references to Kaduna, prayer at 2202; 54433, co-channel QRM (Carlos Gonçalves, Portugal, Sept 28, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** NORTH AMERICA. PIRATES WEEK NO LONGER ON ITUNES Sorry to learn from Ragnar's programme that i-tunes is no longer supporting pirates week. You can still find it on WBCQ or from Ragnar's replay site http://shortwavepirate.info/RFPrograms/wordpress/ or the listen again service of south herts radio from the flash player http://www.southhertsradio.com/again.html Good luck to him for keeping it up (Gary Drew, SHR, Sept 29, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** PAKISTAN. PAKISTAN TO REVERSE CLOCKS BY ONE HOUR FROM NOV 1, 2009 http://in.news.yahoo.com/43/20090928/876/twl-pakistan-to-reverse-clocks-by-one-ho.html Islamabad, Sep 28 (IANS) The Pakistan government has decided to reverse the clocks by one hour from Nov 1, 2009, the Online news agency reported Monday, citing the interior ministry. The government had decided to advance the clocks by one hour for seven months from April 1 to Oct 31 every year to overcome the energy crisis, while the clocks would be reversed by one hour from Nov 1 to March 31, the report said. The main purpose to advance the clocks is to use maximum daylight, it added. Indo Asian News Service (via Jose Jacob, VU2JOS, India, Sept 29, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) I.e. has been UT+6, a semihour ahead of India to the east! But will go back to UT+5 for winter. The `reversal` resumes normalcy (gh, DXLD) ** PAPUA NEW GUINEA. 3275, Radio Southern Highlands, most mornings 1000 to 1020 per John Herkimer [NY], tnx. 73s de (Bob Wilkner, Pómpano Beach, Florida, US, Drake R 8 ~ Icom, 746Pro DL, Noise reducing antenna, 60 meter band dipole, Sept 29, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** PERU. 4774.94, Radio Tarma. Tarma 1015 melodic OA music followed by YL, "Radio Tarma....onda corta..." ID 23 September. 4824.49, La Voz de la Selva, Iquitos very strong after 1020 each morning since the 23rd of September, good music and occasional IDs, very strong on 24 September. 4835.42, Radio Marañón, Jaen, 1028 ID by om over Peruvian music. good signal 23 September. 5460.06, Radio Bolívar, Cd. Bolívar noted 0020 to 0030 with fair signal strength, music 18 September. 6173.90, Radio Tawantinsuyo, Cusco 17 September ~ om en español 0010 to 0015 and 23 September, Música y om en español, 0000 to 0030. Not noted 0900 to 0100. 73s de (Bob Wilkner, Pómpano Beach, Florida, US, Drake R 8 ~ Icom, 746Pro DL, Noise reducing antenna, 60 meter band dipole, Sept 29, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** PERU. 5939.3, RADIO MELODIA. Arequipa, Perú. 2304-2325 sep 26. Música balada de los 70's y 80's en el programa: Melodía en la Familia presentando también notas sobre la salud. Captada también sept 27 a las 1038 con programa: Melodía en la Noticia. Según mis registros no la escuchaba desde Octubre/2008 (Rafael Rodriguez R., Bogota D.C.- Colombia, Winradio G303i, Hilo de 15 metros, playdx yg via DXLD) ** PERU. 6019.26v, R. Victoria (presumed), 0320-0330, Sept. 28. Raspy voiced preacher (David Miranda) in assume portuñol/españuguês; best in LSB; almost fair; heard // 6060 (assume Super Radio Deus é Amor) (Ron Howard, Asilomar Beach, CA, Etón E1, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Yes, drifting further off 6020, worsening the het vs China, sob (gh) 9720.03, Radio Victoria, Lima, 0530-0545, Sept 27, religious programming with emotional female preacher. Poor to fair. // 6019.31 - poor with QRM from China Radio Int via Sackville on 6020 (Brian Alexander, PA, DX Listening Digest) ** PHILIPPINES. I am very concerned about the terrible flooding in the Metro-Manila (Philippines area). Went to Meralco website. Meralco is the power company that serves the Metro-Manila and surrounding area. Meralco is no slouch of an electric company. Reliable as possible for a third-world company (historically, MERALCO=Manila Electric and Railway Company; long since given up its railway holding to Philippine National Railway.) Anyway, Meralco says only 4 of its 27 substations are down. Philippine Broadcasting Service's website hardly makes much mention of the situation. PBS is a up-front operation, so I understand the the situation in not as bad as the US news services make it out to be. BTW, tried to tune VOP-15285 at 0200. No luck. Heard CRI (Kashi, Xinjiang?) and an Arabic speaker underneath (Charles (Chaz/Cholly) Taylor, NC, 1534 UT Sept 29, WORLD OF RADIO 1480, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Glenn, Tried for this one again at sign-on time 0200. Just the CNR outlet. Really didn't expect to get VOP as it's beamed toward the Mideast. Many Filipinos in the Mideast. Often treated like servants (unless they are US citizens, then they are treated like real people). My nephew worked in Dubai. Wages usually two months late. Nephew on the Philippine side (Charles Taylor, NC, Sept 30, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** PHILIPPINES. TYPHOON DAMAGES FEBC TRANSMITTERS Dear Friend, Typhoon Ondoy Flood --- Typhoon Ondoy has compromised the transmitters at FEBC’s Bocaue shortwave installation. We are currently assessing the degree of damage. Extensive destruction would prevent our broadcasts from going out for weeks, even months. Millions throughout Asia who look to FEBC for spiritual life, hope and encouragement would be without gospel broadcasts. Much is at stake for our listeners right now...please pray for the following: * Ask God to protect these precious tools for the spread of the gospel. Ask that God will allow broadcasting to continue without further interruption. * Ask our Lord to help FEBC staff in the affected area. At least 2 of our staff have lost their homes. * Ask God to help and comfort the many thousands of Filipinos living in the flood area, especially those who have lost family members in the typhoon. Thank you for your fervent prayers. Please go to www.febc.org for updates on damages and needs. Thank you for your part in touching millions with the love of Jesus. In Him, Gregg Harris, President, Far East Broadcasting Company (via Noble West, TN, Sept 29, WORLD OF RADIO 1480, DX LISTENING DIGEST) But, but, if an omnipotent god were really backing what FEBC is doing, it would not have allowed this to happen in the first place, duh! (gh, DXLD) ** PHILIPPINES. 6170.40, PBS - R. Magasin DZRM (presumed), 1237 till covered by RNZI sign on at 1259, Sept. 29. Today was the first reception since I last heard them in mid-August. Weak with adjacent QRM (CNR-1 on 6175); best in LSB; mostly a woman talking, occasionally had conversation with a man; the language sounded right; there were a few brief moments when the QRM cleared up and I could distinctly hear them talking (Ron Howard, Asilomar Beach, CA, Etón E1, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) see also URUGUAY [and non] ** PORTUGAL. DRM noise, 15635-15640-15645, Oct 1 at 1440, or is it Ethiopian jamming? No, DW via Sines scheduled 14-16, 90 kW at 40 degrees (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** PORTUGAL. 783, R. Club, Avanca, is (finally!) expected to be on the air very soon, possibly mid / end Oct'09. This site was made ready back in 2007 (!), and comprises a 100 kW, DRM compatible, THALES transmitter and a Spanish made 60 m folded monopole. The DRM compatibility just means either tx (see below) would need some extra [expensive] modifications the owner is simply not willing to meet. Also according to the station, the continued breakdowns of the "twin brother" transmitter used on 1035 kHz (Belmonte, near Lisbon), lead to an agreement with the manufacturer whereby it will be their own people who'll be activating the Avanca unit, which will take place after the THOMSON team checks the Belmonte site. It is almost obvious that MCR - the group owning RCP as well as other [VHF-FM only] stns like R. Comercial - may not feel that happy with the quality of those Thalès (now Thomson) transmitters which, nevertheless, are simply not expected to be run at full power either; I was told the power level will almost surely be just a bit above the level of the active, albeit irregular, unit for 1035, i.e. something in the 30 kW range in order to step down electricity bill. 73, (Carlos Gonçalves, Portugal, Sept 30, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** PRIDNESTROVYE. Radio PMR, 9665 on suddenly at 2215, carrier previous, but no IS. English announcements and into a long talk that dealt with a Moldovan power station, which I believe the announcer said had been destroyed sometime in the past. Poor Sept 28 (Harold Sellers, Vernon, BC Eton E1 and whip antenna, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ROMANIA. DIA DEL OYENTE EN RRI --- Como bien sabéis, hace veinte años, más precisamente en el otoño de 1989, estallaron los cambios revolucionarios en Europa del Este, cambios que culminaron con la sangrienta revolución anticomunista de Rumanía del mes de diciembre. Sin duda alguna, los acontecimientos que ocurrieron hace 20 años influyeron profundamente en la vida de decenas de millones de ciudadanos de Europa del Este, pero también en la vida de muchas personas de otras partes del mundo. Pensemos, por ejemplo, en el impacto que los ciudadanos de la “Nueva Europa”, que salieron de sus países para buscar trabajo, tuvieron sobre los ciudadanos de la “Antigua Europa”. Cabe recordar también que en varios países del mundo hubo transiciones de un sistema político a otro, pacíficas o, a veces, violentas. Precisamente por eso, con motivo del “Día del Oyente” de este año, RRI os invita, queridos oyentes, a escribirnos sobre cómo influyeron en vuestras vidas los acontecimientos revolucionarios que tuvieron lugar, hace veinte años, en el Este de Europa, qué fue lo que sentisteis y vivisteis en aquellos momentos y qué opináis ahora sobre dichos acontecimientos. O, si vivisteis otros tipos de transicciones, en otros países del mundo, tenéis ahora la oportunidad de compartir con nosotros vuestros recuerdos, sentimientos y experiencias. Queridos oyentes, esperamos con sumo interés, vuestras colaboraciones que nos podéis enviar por correo normal, por correo electrónico, por fax o ¿por qué no? grabadas. Los primeros 25 ensayos más interesantes los premiaremos con sendos álbumes sobre la Revolución Rumana ofrecidos por la Agencia para Estrategias Gubernamentales. Os recordamos que nuestra dirección postal es: RRI-Redacción Española calle General Berhelot No. 60-64 CP: RO-010165, Bucarest, Rumanía Nuestro correo electrónico es: span @ rri.ro Y nuestro fax es el: 00 40 21 319.05.62 (via Yimber Gaviria, Colombia, DXLD) Must one write in Castilian dialect, with all those second-person- familiar-plurals, os etc., which sound really odd to an American? (gh) ** RUSSIA. VOR, Armavir (?), on 5900 at 0012 in English, Sept. 28. W interviewing government official about Russia's progress in CO2 control and enviro sustainability. About a second behind // 9665 (Moldavia). Is this new? Only started hearing this recently, and not listed in this time slot in any of the databases I use. Signal good, not as strong as //9665 (Icom R75 w/ 70' longwire, Mike Bryant, KY, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Ex-9890 for S-season, reported in DXLD some weeks ago (gh, DXLD) ** RUSSIA. Hi Glenn, My recent receptions of Radio Pomorye on 6160, from 0310 to 0400 (DXLD 9-073) were possible in large part due to the fact that Newfoundland had shifted to a slightly higher frequency and I only had QRM from Vancouver to contend with. Suspect it would be very difficult to duplicate my receptions now (Ron Howard, Asilomar Beach, CA, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** RUSSIA. 15605, VOR at 1550 Sept 28 going from majestic orchestral waltz to ``Voice of Russia presents the Christian Message from Moscow``, sermon on the passage ``What God has joined together, let no man put asunder``, punxuated by a single bell now and then. 1554 sermon already over, into outro with sacred choral music, program credits. This show is of course, a total violation of Separation of Church and State, as post-Soviet Russia overpendulums totally in the wrong direxion. After 1600 noted some secular music running on 15605, but that must have been FRANCE, q.v. (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** RUSSIA. RUSSIAN JOURNALIST IN HIDING AFTER DEATH THREATS - RSF | Text of report in English by Paris-based media freedom organization Reporters Sans Frontieres press release on 27 September Reporters Without Borders is very worried for the safety of freelance journalist and human rights activist Alexandr Podrabinek, who has gone into hiding after getting death threats over a controversial article about the current government's defence of the Soviet Union despite its crimes against the Russian people. The Moscow correspondent of the French public radio station Radio France Internationale, Podrabinek also writes for Novaya Gazeta (the newspaper that journalist Ana Politkovskaya worked for at the time of her murder) and edits the human rights news agency Prima (prima- news.ru). "This hate campaign against Podrabinek, which has even included calls for his death, must stop at once," Reporters Without Borders said. "The authorities must appeal for calm and curb this outburst of fury. A man's life and respect for free expression in Russia are both at stake. This episode highlights how difficult it is in Russia today to challenge the official version of what happened during the Soviet era." A former political prisoner, Podrabinek wrote his controversial article for the Ej.ru news website on 21 September. It referred to the Soviet regime's crimes against the Russian people and criticised the way apparatchiks in the present-day government are defending the Soviet Union's image in the people's collective memory. The article has triggered an angry reaction from Russian "patriotic" movements, and a campaign against Podrabinek has been orchestrated in newspapers and online. The websites of youth movements that support Prime Minister Vladimir Putin such as Nashi (Ours!) and United Russia Young Guard (which is linked to Putin's party) have been pumping out hate slogans against the article and Podrabinek, some of them of a racist and anti-semitic nature. They have also posted his phone number and urged people to call him. People have gone to Novaya Gazeta headquarters in Moscow asking after him, and some individuals have tried to get into his home posing as postmen or couriers. In an interview for Radio Svoboda on 25 September, his wife, Alla Podrabinek, said the entire family was the target of a "campaign of intimidation" that had been organized "either on the direct orders of the Russian authorities or with at least their tacit accord." Podrabinek is currently holed up in a secret location. Source: Reporters Sans Frontières press release, Paris, in English 27 Sep 09 (via BBCM via DXLD) ** SAINT HELENA. 1 Comment on “Radio St. Helena Day 2009: Saturday 14 November” #1 SRG on Sep 30th, 2009 at 18:56 That’s great! I’m very thankful to everyone who is making this wonderful radio event possible. My only concern is that 5 Euro is kind of steep for a QSL card. It’s seven USD + change, acc. to current exchange rate. I know it’s the smallest bill in Eurozone. But maybe RSH can accept Paypal or something. And for DXers from the poorer nations even $3 is a huge amount. Not to mention that postal services in many countries prohibit sending cash. - An envelope with anything valuable inside doesn’t have many chances of making it outside the post office (Media Network blog comment via DXLD) ** SAUDI ARABIA. 21740, BSKSA, Riyadh. I wrote them many times but ...silence, about their inter-modulation here. On 15/9 observed two signals at 0900 - one with program in Indonesian (fundamental frequency 21670) and another in Arabic from 21705 (Rumen Pankov, Sofia, Bulgaria (Sony ICF-2001, Marconi), Oct Australian DX News via DXLD) 15435, Sawt ul-Buzz, BSKSA Arabic with modulation barely detectable under huge buzz from defective transmitter they blithely ignore, Sept 28 at 1536. BTW, I previously mentioned hearing a very similar but weaker sound on 21735, but now I am positive that is of local origin, since it`s steady all the time, including now. 17660 at 1543 in French punxuated by birds chirping, only fair signal with flutter but thankfully abuzzous, as BSKSA is scheduled also from Riyadh at 14-16. 17895, poor and fluttery but abuzzous Qur`an, Sept 30 at 1413, i.e. BSKSA Riyadh HQS, scheduled 12-15 at 295 degrees. Someone reported this on 17900, but I doubt it (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** SOMALILAND. Radio Hargeisa seems to be back on 7145 with weak modulation (Jari Savolainen, Kuusankoski, Finland, 2031 UT Sept 29, dxldyg via WORLD OF RADIO 1480, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** SPAIN. Yom Kippur did not stop REE from broadcasting its weekly Sephardic/Ladino show on 15385, Monday Sept 28 opening at 1427 with judeo-español talk about Y.K. How are we to take this? Pious Israeli stations close down for the occasion. F-P signal, closing around 1453 still claiming to be on 15325 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** SUDAN. 7200, SRTC, Al-Aitahab, 2035-2055 (signed off at 2100), 22 Sep, Arabic, tribal folk music, interviews; 54444, QRM de RUSSIA (Carlos Gonçalves, Portugal, Sept 28, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** SUDAN [non]. via Slovakia, 15650, 101 Miraya FM, 1501-1510, Sept 27, English news about Sudan. “101 Miraya FM” IDs. Gave “mirayafm.org” website. Into Arabic at 1510. Fair signal (Brian Alexander, PA, DX Listening Digest) ** SWEDEN. R. Sweden, which abandoned its morning audience in North America last year, still manages to be audible despite their best efforts, on 15735, English at 1330 Sept 29 including reports on health care, with Germany and Netherlands recommended as better models for USA than co-lingual Canada and UK; and on auxioning Ingmar Bergman`s stuff. Fair but sufficient and steady signal tho 55 degrees from Hörby (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** TAIWAN. Sept 28 at 1341 was another occasion when RTI Japanese service on 9735 added spurs putting same-pitched hets on CRI 9730 and BBC 9740, during song in Japanese. Most other recent dates checked, including during the 13-14 open carrier hour, hetless but they keep coming back unpredictably (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** TUNISIA. RTT Tunis, Sfax, on 7345 at 2235 in Arabic with lively ME [music?], Sept 27. Strong, about equal with co-channel R. Prague in English (Icom R75 w/ 70' longwire, Mike Bryant, KY, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** TURKEY. 15450, VOT fairly good as reception improves autumnally, Sept 30 at 1315 wrapping up Letterbox, mostly music fill afterwards, but 1324 cut off closing IS before even one iteration could play. It`s the end of September, and it dawns on me that I haven`t heard anything about a VOT essay contest this year. Normally it runs in the spring/summer and winners are already touring Turkey by September. Was there none this year? Nothing found on website, but here is an outdated program schedule where there used to be none at all! http://www.trt-world.com/trtinternational/Generic/SayfaTasarimiGoster.aspx?TaslakKodu=4e127f36-756b-4a65-b6bf-47443fdeddc6&dil=en I am also having trouble getting a live stream from VOT any more. Is it gone? (Glenn Hauser, OK, Sept 30, WORLD OF RADIO 1480, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** UKRAINE [and non]. RUI 7440 and strange propagation. Excellent reception (best I've heard in many months) of RUI in Ukrainian at 0213 UT 30Sep09 with a mailbag type program on 7440. Has anyone noticed that the A/K indices seem to have very little practical value in the day to day monitoring predictions? For example, today`s indices were quite high, at least this morning, and one would usually predict poorer transpolar propagation which is pretty much what RUI has to do to get to the WCNA. Instead it's working very well tonight at absolutely armchair level. Likewise this morning`s trans-Pacific MW dx to Asia was simply phenomenal from the west coast to Japan and China with most 9 kHz channels being occupied by Japan, China, Korea, or Russia. In past years, we'd look for several days of very low A/K indices to achieve excellent trans-Pacific MW DX (Walt Salmaniw, Victoria, BC, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U K. SOUTH HERTS RADIO http://www.southhertsradio.com - Community radio for south Hertfordshire. SHR The re-launch Hello to all newsletter subscribers and those who get also free updates and forwards. This email will be passed on to other selected parties interested in SHR. Join us for the re-launch and the new sound of SHR from tomorrow Monday 28th September at 6am. The new schedule is as follows. [in BST = UT +1] http://www.southhertsradio.com/progs.html (Gary, SHR, Sept 27, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Includes a number of DX programs, including WORLD OF RADIO Wed 1830 and Sun 1130 UT. See also frequencies page http://www.southhertsradio.com/frequencies.html which shows low-power SW outlets: Our own shortwave outlets provide QRP reception at the following UK times. 5835 kHz - 52 Meters (12.00 - 15.30 Sunday) 3935 kHz - 76 Meters (19.00 - 22.00 Monday - Friday / 22.00 - 24.00 Saturday / 21.00 - 24.00 Sunday) So that means WOR might be heard Wed 1830 on 3935, Sun 1130 on 5835! I`d be interested in any reports of axual reception (Glenn Hauser, WORLD OF RADIO 1480, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U K. ROOFTOP BAN FOR LONDON PIRATE RADIO OPERATOR ASBO bans pirate radio operator from every rooftop in London Published by Jon Land for 24dash.com Monday 28th September 2009 - 11:06am A man has been banned from every roof top in London after pleading guilty to installing illegal pirate radio equipment on a tower block in Camden. Working with Camden Council and the police, Ofcom successfully prosecuted Kieran O'Sullivan who received an antisocial behaviour order (ASBO). O'Sullivan also received a suspended 18 week custodial sentence, a three month curfew, a £1,200 fine and had his radio equipment seized. This followed complaints from residents about pirate radio equipment being fixed to roof tops on the Chalcots estate in Belsize. Full story at: http://www.24dash.com/news/Housing/2009-09-28-ASBO-bans-pirate-radio-operator-from-every-rooftop-in-London (via Alan Pennington, BDXC-UK via DXLD) Station was Freeze FM according to Ofcom on http://www.ofcom.org.uk/consumer/2009/09/pirate-radio-rooftop-ban/ Regular on 92.7 until end of 2008? (BDXC-UK moderator, ibid.) ** U K. WHIPPING UP A STORM OVER THE BBC SHIPPING FORECAST SACKING http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2009/sep/16/shipping-forecast-sacking-radio4 The sacking of Peter Jefferson, who read the shipping forecast on BBC Radio 4, has left us all at sea 'Severe gale 9, occasionally storm 10 later' . . . the shipping forecast is pure poetry. Photograph: John Arsenault/Getty Images Can there be anything in any language to match the poetry of the shipping forecast? I doubt it. The aesthetic effect has three elements: first there is you, awake in the dark at 00.48, your day over, now lulled by the swooping sentimentalities of Sailing By, the masterwork of Ronald Binge, that great composer of neglected Mantovani-style classics. Then comes the voice of the announcer (of which more below), the voice of God, all-knowing, untroubled, not one of those crazy Greek divinities squabbling on Mount Olympus, but the voice of pure knowledge, precise, calmed, aware of past and future, generous, loving even, concerned to protect you from the violence of the world. The third element is the sea itself, vast stretches of brutal, storm- ravaged ocean, surveyed as if from high above, entire worlds summoned out of the dark as you lie there imagining their horror: "Rockall, Hebrides. Southwest gale 8 to storm 10, backing southerly, severe gale 9 to violent storm 11. Rain, then squally showers. Moderate, becoming poor." You only need to have been out in a big storm at night once to know the realities that those simple words describe, the thrashing of everything in your sodden, fragile environment, the fear of the big sea breaking behind you, the unspeakable longing for harbour and quiet. "Faeroes, Southeast Iceland. North 7 to severe gale 9, occasionally storm 10 later. Heavy snow showers." That is the poetry: vastness and violence described in tranquility. For this daily dose of the beautiful to work, nothing is more important than the god who administers it. None has been more perfect in the last few years than Peter Jefferson, the voice of perfect modulation, the near-equal of the incomparable Charlotte Green, neither thin nor fruity, effortlessly clear, understanding that the beauty of the moment depends on restraint and the absence of any hint of doubt. But now, it turns out, the BBC has sacked him, "to provide more opportunities to newcomers". The fact that he muttered "f*ck" on the radio last month, having fluffed a line, is apparently nothing to do with it. This is all about new blood and "operational changes". But do they understand nothing? Nearly no one at sea now relies on the shipping forecast for their weather info. Any number of text messaging services, INMARSAT, SafetyNET or international NAVTEX data feeds are piped into bridges and nav stations with immediate and up-to-date satellite imagery. The shipping forecast nowadays is almost entirely listened to by people at home dreaming of past adventures. And for us, we don't want innovation. We want Charlotte Green and Peter Jefferson to continue until they die. God does not speak with the voice of a newcomer (via Fred Waterer, Ont., ODXA yg via DXLD) ** U S A. US INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTING: TOO BIZARRE TO BE EXPLAINED BY POLITICAL SCIENCE. "'Public Diplomacy: Ideas for the War of Ideas,' by MIT political scientists Peter Krause and Stephen Van Evera, was published in Middle East Policy, Fall 2009. ... This is a thought provoking paper. I was provoked to write some notes about the authors' recommendations regarding U.S. international broadcasting." Kim Andrew Elliott, USC Center on Public Diplomacy blog, 28 September 2009. Posted: 29 Sep 2009 http://uscpublicdiplomacy.com/index.php/newswire/cpdblog_detail/us_international_broadcasting_too_bizarre_to_be_explained_by_political_scie/ THE UNITED STATES CAN EXPECT A LONG, DIFFICULT CONFLICT -- AMONG ITS INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION BUREAUCRACIES. "A US Defense Department Internet initiative is stoking a debate among experts about whether the Pentagon is overreaching. The $10.1 million Trans Regional Web Initiative (TRWI) aims to launch a series of language-specific websites, including Russian, Chinese, Farsi, Georgian, Armenian and Azeri. The Pentagon in early September awarded the contract to build the new websites to General Dynamics Corp. The websites will feature news and analysis that helps garner support for US policies. Overall, the Defense Department wants to establish 12 websites within the year under TRWI’s auspices. ... A senior staff member at RFE/RL reacted coolly to the Defense Department initiative, stating bluntly that the US military should "leave journalism to journalists." The staffer also suggested that the Pentagon could better serve American policy objectives by developing technology that prevented websites and other media from being jammed by 'repressive countries.' ... In the opinion of two legal experts -- Daniel Silverberg, counsel to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, and Col. Joseph Heimann, the Senior Appellate Judge on the Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals -- the Pentagon web initiative has the potential to do damage to American public diplomacy. ... In a paper published in the summer of 2009, Silverberg and Heimann said the TRWI plan could blur the line between Department of Defense propaganda and Department of State public affairs initiatives in a way that benefits neither government agency." Deirdre Tynan, Eurasianet.org, 28 September 2009. See previous post about same subject. (kimandrewelliott.com via DXLD) The Pentagon websites will probably not feature news, but a news-like content limited to friendly, soft stories (a common public relations technique). As such, the Pentagon sites will complement the US international broadcasting sites, which are real news. On the other hand, the Pentagon sites will duplicate the work of America.gov, which also provides news-like content in English, Spanish, French, Russian, Arabic, Persian, and Chinese. International audiences will be annoyed with the United States for making them figure out which website has the real news versus the ersatz news (though it won't be hard to spot which is which), and then to try to figure out why the United States has two sites providing real news (VOA and Radio Free Whatever) and two sites (America.gov and the new Pentagon effort) providing the soft, news-like content. Posted: 30 Sep 2009 (Kim Andrew Elliott, ibid.) ** U S A. At VOA/IBB if a transmitter has to be tested under dynamic conditions, never broadcasts any IBB programming, just fill music without any ID (Charles Taylor, NC, ex-Greenville/Delano, Sept 30, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. WTWW CONSTRUCTION PROGRESS, LEBANON TN 1. Phillistran guy wire (non-metallic), Grips, Thimbles... for telephone poles - ordered today (Aug 31). 2. 13,000 feet of antenna wire and grips ordered (Aug 29). 3. Transmission line insulators delivered today (Aug 31). 4. Forms and gravel for concrete pad put in place today (Aug 31) - 60 feet long at back of transmitter building to handle 2 air conditioners and 3 transmitter heat exchangers. 5. Concrete for pad to be poured tomorrow (Tuesday Sept 1). 6. 2 ten ton air conditioners to be delivered this week. 7. Telephone poles to be ordered tomorrow (Tuesday Sept 1) 8. Air conditioning duct work to be delivered next week (Sept 7) (George McClintock, President, Leap of Faith, Inc., WTWW, Aug 31, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Domain now ordered: http://WTWW.US (George McClintock, Sept 7, ibid.) George also sent several photos of the work in progress, which should be on the website. He updated the situation by phone as of Sept 29: Website is up but not yet public pending some finishing touches, perhaps available by the end of this week. Construxion is on schedule. The final tube is installed. IF there are no unanticipated problems, could start testing on air by mid-November, programming by December 1. Antenna parts for the rhombic antenna have been in for a week, i.e. 800 pounds of wire, gobs of insulators. Antenna poles expected in about two weeks. Main lobe will be 50 degrees, but as with WWCR, rhombics are rather non-direxional with certain nulls. Also has an old antenna from KAIJ which might be used later. Audio processing, wiring, racks, alarms installed (for audio and transmitter failure). Studio is being rebuilt, with new cables, walls; external is finished. Conduit is run. Site will have T-1 line. Electrical panels, routing to AC and transmitters expected in 2-3 weeks. Not yet finished: fibre optix carrying modulation to transmitter. A problem now is getting grounding rods more than 8 inches down, as the site is on rock. By end of October only thing left should be installation of electrical power. Final decision on programming for transmitter one not yet made; second transmitter should be on the air next year. George says, ``This is the best installation I have ever put in.`` (notes by Glenn Hauser for WORLD OF RADIO 1480, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Frequencies coincide with ex-KAIJ: 9480 daytime, 5755 nighttime (gh) ** U S A. 12133.5 AFN, Saddlebuch Keys FL, 2148-2205, 26 Sep, talks, music, NPR IDs & website information, newscast on the hour; 25332; \\ 7811 stronger, 5446.5 barely audible, with some QRM. 73, (Carlos Gonçalves, Portugal, Sept 28, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. WINB had been missing from 13570, but back on strong Sept 28 at 1525 with one of 3 or 4 daily hours by convicted sex-offending evangelist Tony Alámo, with his usual snide Biblically-based comments. WINB carrier is still slightly unstable if checked with BFO on. At 1526 he was blown away, all too briefly, by `running-water` ute burst, as he was mocking The Donald. Serves the creep right, but has WINB no shame? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Glenn, closer to home here in Central-Southeastern Arkansas KMTL 760AM Sherwood AR (in metro Little Rock AR) has been airing Alamo weekdays at 2pm. I discovered this trash by accident a week ago when band scanning AM while on lunch break in the car. I didn't listen long, but checked again on Wed and also on Friday at which time I blogged about the "world pastor's" airtime purchase on KMTL. http://tvdxseark.blogspot.com/2009/09/kmtl-760-am-airing-tony-alamos-program.html I've only gotten one "boilerplate" outrage about the blog post, from a anonymous Alamo follower. Since I moderate all comments on my DX blog, its not appeared online. I'm curious of how many other "Christian" radio stations (not on shortwave in the US) allow this creep to purchase airtime on their stations? (Fritze H Prentice Jr, KC5KBV Star City, AR. EM43aw http://tvdxseark.blogspot.com http://www.twitter.com/KC5KBV Sept 28 DX LISTENING DIGEST) Viz.: KMTL 760 AM AIRING TONY ALAMO'S PROGRAM TWO MONTHS AFTER HIS FEDERAL CONVICTION Friday, September 25, 2009 While band-scanning the AM band on lunch break on Monday afternoon (September 21) near the 2pm hour I discovered and was utterly shocked that Sherwood AR radio station KMTL 760 AM airs the paid broadcasts of (self-described) "World Pastor" Tony Alamo (aka Bernie Hoffman). Alamo's show airs weekdays 2pm-3pm. I checked on Wednesday and also today and confirmed its a daily airing. This is two months after this "pastor" was convicted of transporting minors across state lines for illicit purposes. Alamo (aka Hoffman) is to be sentenced next month for his crimes. Shame on KMTL and this type of "Christian" programming! (via DXLD) ** U S A. WTJC, North Carolina, 9370 at 2319 with a program of Gospel songs by a men’s barbershop singing group. 2330 Bible study. Fair Sept 28 (Harold Sellers, Vernon, BC Eton E1 and whip antenna, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. 5850, British-Israel World Federation Inc via WHRI Angel Two Cypress Creek transmitter. V/S returned my reception report indicating my details as correct with check marks. This for a postal report sent to the Toronto address. Web site is http://www.british-israel-world-fed.ca E-mail: biwf.canada @ bellnet.ca Reply in 21 days. V/s: Douglas C. Nesbit (Edward Kusalik, ALBERTA, Canada, from his final QSL Album, Oct ODXA Listening In via DXLD) ** U S A [non]. 15320, Sept 29 at 1326, weak YL spelling out Kowloon address in English. Scheduled as AWR via Nauen, GERMANY, 250 kW at 70 degrees, 1300-1330 in Chinese on this weekday, Uighur on weekends. No jamming heard but there were weak OTH radar pulses 15300-15330. Would the ChiCom at least jam the Adventist Uighur, or is that too esoteric to bother with? Would Beijing axually prefer the Uighurs to be Adventists instead of Islamists? But if you Google adventist hypodermics you get almost 80K hits (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. Jeff, Are you doing any more NW antenna testing in evening this week; or starting at what time? (Glenn to Jeff White, 0019 UT Sept 30, via DXLD) Glenn: We're going north right now. We're going to leave it 0000-0800 UT Wed and Fri for the time being. There may be some alterations to this (times and programs) in the coming days (Jeff White, WRMI, 0027 UT Sept 30, WORLD OF RADIO 1480, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Good signal at 0038 check with English religionist, but plenty of jamming also audible. On schedule as of last week later UT Wed: 0052 Viva Miami, 0100 Studio DX in Italian, 0130 World Baseball Today, 0145 Acontecer Venezolano, 0200 Wire Light infomercial stuff, 0400 R. Prague, 0430 R. Praga, 0500 Wire Light, 0700 WORLD OF RADIO (from last week), 0730 Frecuencia al Día. However, gone here by next check 0140 and never came back in further chex thru 0530 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 9955, WRMI, 0129, 9.30.09 in Italian / English. End of Studio DX (in Italian), WRMI ID in English and Spanish, WRMI jingle, start of Mexican Baseball Today in English with Spanish ads. S9+ with slow fades to S6 about every 4 minutes. Overall a very good signal at this time (Mark Taylor, Madison, WI, G313e, Flextenna, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) MIKE PORCEL EN TROVA LIBRE! No se pierdan este Domingo. 4 de Octubre a las 7:pm hora de Miami [2300 UT, 9955] al cantautor Cubano Mike Porcel, compartiendo con Michael Méndez, el lanzamiento en estreno mundial de su más reciente producción discográfica INTACTUS. Radio Miami International, Tu ventana al mundo! TROVA LIBRE ! WRMI RADIO INTERNACIONAL 175 FOUNTAINBLEU BLVD, SUITE 1N4 Miami, Florida 33172 CENTRO DE ATENCION TELEFONICA: (888) 551 5433 (Trova Libre Sept 29, via Jeff White, WRMI, DXLD) ** U S A. NAVY MARS SHUTDOWN RE: Navy MARS kaput? by N9KWW on May 17, 2009 DOD DIRECTIVE 4650.2 DTD 26 JAN 1998 DOD INSTRUCTION 4650.02 (PROPOSED) NOTAL These are the two documents that pertain to the MARS program. Here is what happened based upon the documentation presented: The administration asked the DOD to increase funding for the MARS program over the next 4 years. DOD in turn sent out a message to the services along with the new proposed instruction. The issue at hand is funding; each branch service funded their MARS program. With the new proposal to increase the funding and program size, the NAVY asked to be out of the new funding requirement. What the NAVY did was to shut down the program; in turn the funding issue goes away. Now as I understand it, the ARMY and AIR FORCE both have taken funds from the weapons programs and redirected into the MARS program. I do not have hard documentation but this is what I believe happened. This again is all based upon the above directives and other public documents. In the end it is a money game; if congress increases funding, I think the NAVY will continue the MARS program. If they are asked to take it out of some other program, I believe the Navy Marine Corps MARS will end. This much is fact; Chief NAVY MARS is shutting down all the MARS stations. “AREA DIRECTORS WILL CLOSE DOWN THEIR OFFICES AND TURN IN ALL EQUIPMENT TO DRMO NOT LATER THAN 30 SEP 2009” I do not see much help in the near future, it sounds like the end is near. Ron NNN0VAG RE: Navy MARS kaput? by CURIOUSHAM on May 17, 2009 Oh yes, it was Navy's decision, to be sure, but the services are all being hit by cuts as a result of Obama's "massive" $17 billion in budget cuts (all of which is from discretionary spending and most of that from defense). I'm sure Navy MARS funding is just a drop in the ocean (no pun intended) when compared to the massive pork being handed out by Obama as rewards to his supporters. In the end, each service has to judge whether the program is justified, and in retrospect, Army MARS was wise, very wise, to enter into a 'reform' mode with its "MARS 101, The Road Ahead" program. Keeping any 'marginal' defense program alive with the peacenicks in charge is going to be tough. It's a shame that Navy couldn't hang in there until 2012. Oh well, Army MARS should be the beneficiary of those who need a soft landing, at least for the present. RE: Navy MARS kaput? by W3LK on May 17, 2009 If Navy MARS is actually shut down, I doubt seriously that I will shift to either remaining MARS branch. I joined to support the Navy and Marine Corps (from eham.net forum via George McClintock, June 14, DXLD) Any updates on what has really happened by now? IIRC, it was to be done by September (gh, DXLD) ** U S A. AIR AMERICA KEEPS WWRL (1600 AM) AS ITS NEW YORK AFFILIATE By David Hinckley DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER Updated Monday, September 28th 2009, 1:01 PM http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv/2009/09/28/2009-09-28_air_america_keeps_wwrl_as_its_new_york_.html The progressive radio network Air America announced this morning it is sticking with WWRL (1600 AM) as its New York affiliate. Under the contract extension, terms of which were not disclosed, WWRL will continue to carry three Air America programs: the Rachel Maddow show, 5-6 a.m., "Montel [Williams] Across America," 3-6 p.m., and "The Ron Reagan Show," 6-8 p.m. Other Air America hosts can be heard over satellite radio or at http://www.airamerica.com Air America, which has had trouble getting its programming on powerful stations in major markets, has devoted considerable resources to strengthening its Web site and promoting alternate delivery methods and platforms like podcasting and cell phones. Progressive radio talk in general, while it has made some inroads the last few years, still lags well behind conservative talk radio in listenership. WWRL, an independent black-owned station that has also struggled in the tough economy the last couple of years, has its own hosts the rest of the day, including Daily News columnist Errol Louis in the morning, Stephanie Miller at 11 a.m. and Ed Schultz, noon-3 p.m. Bill Hess, senior vice president of programming at Air America, said the WWRL deal makes sense for both parties. "Making sure our listeners in the New York area continue to have access to their favorite Air America programming was a key goal of our conversations with our friends at WWRL," said Hess. " 'The Ron Reagan Show's' growth in New York has been explosive, and the opportunities to continue the success of both Montel and Rachel make this a strong package for both the network and WWRL." (via Artie Bigley, DXLD) ** U S A. NYC Area Pirates --- Last night in Newark [presumably NJ] I've noted pirates on 95.1, 95.9, 96.5, 102.5 and 107.9 -- either Latin or Caribbean. I had an ID from one when a whole bunch were on the air but was driving and couldn't make notes. I get the feeling that some operate part-time, maybe only on weekend nights (Rick Shaftan, 27 Sept, amfmtvdx at qth.net via DXLD) ** U S A. Spotted this in the latest DXLD, a reference to something on 1080 in Tampa called WUTT. What? ``12:03 am: Orchestral music with choir, sounds like some sort of anthem in Spanish. Doesn't seem to fit KYMN (Minn), WUTT (Tampa, FL). (W A Jenkins, N. Central TX - Palstar R30C w/ homebrewed indoor passive coaxial cable loop), mwdx yg via DXLD)`` A quick Google search shows: http://www.freewebs.com/wutt/ My stale FLPRS entry ha(d) them on 1020, and with different faux calls: <1020 (LPR) "WUTZ" University of Tampa; reportedly active afternoons/eves, student operated.> I don't recall ever hearing this, and even checked a few weeks ago on a Saturday morning while passing UoT. The original reporter, who no longer lives in Tampa Bay, was a dubious source of much information anyway. But now I have new "calls" and a spot 60 kHz higher to check for the next time I am on the other side of the bay (Terry L Krueger, Clearwater, Florida USA, 27.55.83 N, 82.46.08 W Visit my "Florida Low Power Radio Stations" at: http://home.earthlink.net/~tocobagadx/flortis.html Sept 28, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. Re 9-073, KSOK 1280 Arkansas City KS missing --- it was still missing checked sometime during the daytime on Sept 28, but back on at 1900 UT Sept 29, ID as ``With a library spanning seven decades, the home of the country legends, KSOK, Ark City`` (Glenn Hauser, Enid, DX LISTENING DIGEST) `Ark` avoids dispute about pronouncing Arkansas ** URUGUAY [and non]. It`s many years since a Uruguayan shortwave station has been heard in New Zealand, but I have just had a positive identification for 'Radio Uruguay' on 6125 kHz. The frequency was clear when checked at 0910 UT 1 October, but on rechecking at 0919, I found pleasant folk music followed by commercials and a recorded identification as "Radio Uruguay 1050 AM, Montevideo, Uruguay". From postings to Glenn Hauser's DX Listening Digest this is the 350 watt SODRE transmitter reactivated. I thought this might be a possibility tonight because Mexican Candela FM 6104.76 was at the best strength I've heard them earlier this evening. Also the presumed Filipino on 6170.39 was just making it past the strong RNZI 6170 signal (Bryan Clark, Mangawhai, Northland, NZ, AOR7030+ and EWEs, 0949 UT Oct 1, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** VENEZUELA. CHÁVEZ TIGHTENS VENEZUELA BROADCASTING CONTROL The Venezuelan government has intensified its policy of imposing controls on the media with a swathe of new broadcasting rules, regulations and requirements to the point that it is now empowered to tell radio stations what to transmit during at least part of every day. Under a resolution published in the Gazeta Oficial, the Information and Communication Ministry now has the sole responsibility of deciding the content of what goes over the airwaves for three and a half hours a day. Nobody is betting that these are going to be the “graveyard” in the wee small hours of the night. Read the full story in the Latin American Herald Tribune http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=344535&CategoryId=10717 (September 28th, 2009 - 13:10 UTC by Andy Sennitt, Media Network blog via DXLD) ** VENEZUELA [non]. CUBA, Radio Nacional de Venezuela 11670 at 2224 with a speech (probably President Chávez), numerous mentions of “revolución”. Fair Sept 28. CUBA, Radio Nacional de Venezuela, 15250, signing on just before 2300 with repeated, synthesized musical tune. Man in Spanish with IDs, “R- N-V” and “canal internacional”. 2301 English ID, announcements, several minutes [p]reviewing upcoming features, finally into news at 2304. Very good, // 13680 good Sept 28 (Harold Sellers, Vernon, BC Eton E1 and whip antenna, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Hola Ernesto y demás miembros de las Condiglist/DXpxgroup: Hoy yo también he recibido un paquete de RADIO NACIONAL DE VENEZUELA con abundante material remitido por ENTREGA ESPECIAL EXPRESA (el franqueo es de 52,64 -- Casi U$D25.- no así José Elías?), respondiendo a un reporte vía e-mail enviado el 15 de julio de 2009, a saber: 1.- Material ideológico Libritos: "Con el Alba Despiertan los Pueblos" (Hugo Chávez Frías) "En el Corazón de Quien más lo Necesita" (Ministerio del Poder Popular para la Comunicación y la Información) Folletos: "La Crisis Perfecta" (Hugo Chávez Frías) "Sí al Futuro" (Ministerio del Poder Popular para la Comunicación y la Información) "The Caracas Declaration" (Ministerio del Poder Popular para la Comunicación y la Información) 2.- Material Turístico y Cultural Folleto Venezuela - Margarita "Une Perle des Caraïbes" (MINTUR Ministerio del Turismo)) Póster Archipiélago Los Roques (Instituto Nacional de Turismo) Tarjeta postal alusiva al 25 Aniversario de la OSMC Orquesta Sinfónica Municipal de Caracas (Ipostel) Tarjeta postal alusiva al 65 Aniversario del BCV Banco Central de Venezuela (Ipostel) 3.- Material alusivo a RNV Radio Nacional de Venezuela Copia en papel A4 de las áreas de cobertura con el siguiente esquema (no aclara tipo de horario): 1100-1200 a San Francisco 13740 Khz; 1500-1600 al Caribe 9550 Khz; 1600-1700 a Washington 6000 Khz; 1700- 1800 a Centro América 11760 Khz, a Chile 11875 Khz, a Buenos Aires 15230 Khz y a Río de Janeiro 17705 Khz; 1705-1805 a Chicago 9820 Khz. [!! Don`t you believe it: still totally outdated schedule --- gh] Folleto ilustrativo tipo folder de RNV con los siguientes canales de transmisión: http://www.rnv.gov.ve Cobertura Nacional (32 emisoras de FM) destacándose en Clásico 91.1 Mhz y Juvenil FM Activa 103.9 Mhz. AM 880 Onda Corta Internacional * Dos Tarjetas QSL verificando mis reportes con sello de la emisora pero sin aclaración del firmante. Lamentablemente no han completado los datos de frecuencias y horarios de escucha. Debo aclarar que previamente y a través de correo electrónico que copio más abajo Freddy R. Santos, Asistente de Producción de RNV, me anticipaba que me enviarían vía postal el material detallado arriba: Re: Informe de recepción sonoro -- De: Desconectado canalinternacionalrnv@... en nombre de Canal Internacional RNV (canalinternacional@...) Enviado: jueves, 30 de julio de 2009 11:36:00 a.m. Para: Ruben Margenet (rubenmargenet@...) Muy buenos días querido amigo, de antemano queremos enviarles un cordial saludo revolucionario y decirle que nos complace mucho recibir su correo, en esta oportunidad le confirmamos que la seí±al que pudo sintonizar, fue la seí±al del Canal Internacional del Circuito Radio Nacional de Venezuela, muy pronto le estaremos enviando su tarjeta QSL, folletos, afiches, postales de nuestro país y alguna otra información que usted solicite. Esperemos querido amigo que a partir de hoy sigamos cultivando esta amistad y nos mantengamos en contacto (de llegar a necesitar cualquier cosa que este a nuestro alcance, escribanos a nuestros correos y gustosamente se lo haremos llegar). Sin más a que hacer referencia me despido de usted, esperando su próxima correspondencia. Atte: Freddy R. Santos, Asistente de Producción. Canal Internacional. freddysaac@... (via Ruben Guillermo Margenet, Argentina, Sept 28, condiglist yg via WORLD OF RADIO 1480, DXLD) ** VIETNAM [non]. Clandestine QSLs: see BELGIUM [non] ** VIRGIN ISLANDS US. 1620, WDHP, Sept 29. 2009 0315 UT 1000 Watts; with reggae music. Not heard here in New England for years, no ID netted, but music matches program sked. Very nice when music noticed behind ESPN radio which was being recorded for that one-in-a-million ID. Seems frequency open with "the Point" now gone (Konnie Rychalsky, 090929, CT using Grundig S-350, internal antenna, HCDX via DXLD) What`s the Point? (gh, DXLD) ** WESTERN SAHARA [non]. 6297.13, RASD, Rabouni. Arabic news commentary 0716 then at 0728 surprise with in English said “West Sahara News”, back into Arabic, many mentions of Rabat, good level. 11/9 (John Wright, DXpedition at Cataract Scout Camp, near Wollongong NSW, Oct Australian DX News via DXLD) Just those 3 words in English? Never caught any such from them but never listening that late (gh, DXLD) ** YUGOSLAVIA. END IN SITE FOR YUGOSLAV DOMAINS --- Websites using .yu domain extension will cease to be available online from 30 September The extension - assigned to the former Republic of Yugoslavia - has been replaced by .rs (for Serbia) and .me (for Montenegro). Icann - which oversees the assigning of top-level domain names - allowed extra time for sites to make the transition before removing the .yu extension. It is thought up to 4,000 websites have still not migrated to a new domain. However, the Serbian National Register of Internet Domain Names has requested a postponement of several months; The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) is meeting to consider the request. Icann removed the .yu extension from their list of approved country domain names in 2006. The former Republic of Yugoslavia was renamed Serbia and Montenegro in 2003, although Montenegro subsequently broke from the union in 2006. Icann says the .rs and .me extensions are now the appropriate domain names as the Republic of Yugoslavia no longer exists. Established in 1989, the .yu domain was first assigned to the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. With the break-up of the Socialist Republic at the start of the Balkan wars, the .yu domain was held by newly independent Slovenia but was eventually passed on to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1994. Since then, it has been managed by the Yugoslav Domain Registry at the University of Belgrade. Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/technology/8278364.stm Published: 2009/09/29 07:18:35 GMT © BBC MMIX (via Terry L Krueger, Clearwater, Florida, DXLD) ** ZANZIBAR. Voice of Tanzania, Zanzibar, 1800 UT 28 September 2009: Tuned in to 11735 kHz expecting the news in English as per usual on the hour, but - no show! Just two or three minutes talk in Swahili, then music. Good reception though (David Kernick, UK, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ZIMBABWE [non]. On Sep 28 at 1800 while scanning the bands, noted Zimbabwe Community Radio again on 3955 via Meyerton (Jari Savolainen, Kuusankoski, Finland, dxldyg via WORLD OF RADIO 1480, DX LISTENING DIGEST) UNIDENTIFIED. 3325, Sept 29 at 1248 solo singing with pauses, still same tho weakening at 1258. Could not decide whether it`s RRI Palangkaraya, Central Kalimantan, or PNG. WRTH 2009 shows Radio Buka, Buka, Bougainville in the PNG listing and Radio Bougainville, Kubu in the page 570 frequency list; while PWBR `2009` splits the difference as Radio Bouganville [sic], Buka. Aoki shows Radio Buka as in Kieta. Well, it`s all one station, whatever you call it. And would it be too much to ask for PNG and Indonesia to spread out their few remaining SW stations so none of them are on the same frequency? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) UNIDENTIFIED. Sep 29 at 1605 noted on 5060 unID station with HOA music and talks in local language. Signed off at 1630. I wonder if this is reactivated Radio Bana on new frequency or something else. I checked for parallels on known ERI/ETH frequencies, but no // found (Jari Savolainen, Kuusankoski, Finland, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) UNIDENTIFIED. 6045, estación espía?? Hacia las 2328 fuerte señal portadora marcando S9, creyendo que se trataba del pronto inicio de una transmisión me quedé en sintonía; escuché una voz masculina diciendo "...number.. ...lima.. ...five.. ..." (NL5) luego esto se repitió por unos 8 minutos. Guardé la frecuencia en la memoria del radio y luego más tarde hacia las 0028 otra vez la fuerte señal portadora para luego otra voz masculina repitiendo: ".....mike.. ...romeo. ....six.. ..." (MR6); ya intrigado chequeé la frecuencia a las 0130 y ahora con menos fuerza apereció una distinta voz repitiendo: "...tango. ...uniform ...three..." (TU3). ¿Algún colega sabe de qué pueda tratarse?? No me parece una típica estación de números; la señal captada fue en AM. No la escuché en otros horarios. Adjunto audio (Rafael Rodríguez R., Bogotá D.C.- Colombia, Winradio G303i, Hilo de 15 metros, playdx yg via DXLD) UNIDENTIFIED [non]. 6100. WYFR, 0246, Sept 29, English, Harold Camping taking calls on Open Forum to presumed 0300 off. Atop co-channel RCI R Bulgaria warming-up tone. Seems recent NF, wonder what site this is from? 73, (Martien Groot, Schoorl, Netherlands, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Dear Martien, that is a TEST freq 0200-0300z of WYFR via GUF. 73 (Dragan Lekic, Serbia, ibid.) UNIDENTIFIED. 9600.4, re 9-073: I've checked frequently over the past few days -- mostly daytime local -- with no results. Typically, XEYU, even in their faultiest days, made it fairly well here. It would be nice if they returned, but I'm not holding my breath. Likewise, I haven't heard 6045v in quite awhile (Terry Krueger, Clearwater FL, Sept 28, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 9600.4, very weak het again audible Sept 29 at 1310 after RHC cleared frequency, but now I hear the same pitch on 9500 and 9700. Lacking any confirmation that XEYU transmitter is running, it looks like this is something of local origin, tho I am baffled as to what. Not sufficiently baffled to start unplugging each appliance one by one; besides, it could be neighborly (Glenn Hauser, Enid OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) UNIDENTIFIED. 9620, surprisingly strong open carrier at 0556 Sept 28, rivalling REE Costa Rica 9630, but off by a minute later. Must have been DW Rwanda, modulation ended early, supposedly scheduled in German due south until 0557 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) UNIDENTIFIED. 11789.9, intruders making another showing with intermittent SSB contacts in tonal Asian language, a later hour than previously noted, Sept 28 at 1451, and again at 1520 when there was more broadcast QRM from 11790, something weak in Russian, listed CRI via Urümqi, East Turkistan (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) UNIDENTIFIED. 13950-13970, OTH radar pulses, presumed, Sept 30 at 1310 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) UNIDENTIFIED. 15300-15330, weak OTH radar pulses presumed, Sept 29 at 1325, bothering AWR on 15320. Could they at least keep these out of the broadcast bands? They being presumably the Brits in Cyprus or the French near Paris (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) See also RADIO EQUIPMENT FORUM UNIDENTIFIED. 15960-15985, weak OTH radar pulses presumed, Sept 28 at 1351. Nothing from E Asia making it above 12 MHz, so likely from Cyprus or France (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) UNIDENTIFIED. 17900 1455 27/9 Sem identificação, musica religiosa, seguida de um beep intermitente com delay de aproximadamente 5 segundos. A musica parecia o canto do alcorão 34444. elc Equipamento: Rádio Sony ICF 2001-D, Antena NB9 Rf-sistemas. Att, (Eduardo Casta, Mairiporã- SP- Brasil, Grid Locator: GG66qq, http://www.radiodx.qsl.br radioescutas yg via DXLD) Holy Qur`an, Riyadh, scheduled at 12-15 on 17895 --- were they off- frequency, or were you? Also see SAUDI ARABIA (gh,DXLD) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ UNSOLICITED TESTIMONIALS ++++++++++++++++++++++++ Hi Glenn, I'm shocked and disappointed to see Global Forum in MT ending. It was usually the most interesting part of the magazine, and the main part I read. I think you're right in your note at the end in the Oct. issue, that a roundup and expert gathering of online info into the magazine is valuable -- it saves readers from doing so much searching and screen reading. Best regards, (Eric Bryan) Hi Glenn, They made a mistake in ending your column, one of the only columns I read in MT (private message, name withheld) Hi Glenn, I just read the October issue of MT and was disappointed that your column is being discontinued. There are three features I read monthly, in this order: your column, Outer Limits and the Shortwave Guide. I agree you could find this info elsewhere, like on the Internet, but not as well organized and accurate as your format and presentation. I will miss this, Glenn and thank you for your monthly efforts that have helped me find SWBC information I was searching for. Now I will rely on DXLD. Best 73's, (Ed Insinger, NJ) For decades, Monitoring Times had had exclusive access as a professional print publication to ALL of my DX/SW news gathering. My monthly column was essentially a `best of` compilation of everything funneling through this editor. And now they`ve blown it off on the specious excuse that there`s nothing worthwhile in it for them, not worth devoting three pages a month to. Of course, I could have withheld some of the `best` info several weeks until it was in print in MT, but we are dealing with hot breaking and perishable SW/DX news, so that was not an option, for this editor! The monthly paycheck from Grove Enterprises was also the only real income I was getting for what amounts to a full-time job as my savings steadily deplete. Altho it was a pittance compared to the many hours devoted to that ultimate result, now more than ever, I need voluntary financial contributions from readers/users/contributors in order to try to justify keeping on with DX Listening Digest and World of Radio (gh) PUBLICATIONS ++++++++++++ QSL BLUES IN THE FAR NORTH Glenn, It's been some time now that I have written, (yes, I am still alive) but if you have not heard, I have stepped down as QSL Editor of ODXA. (The last column was posted for the October's edition). The number of contributions have slowly dwindled for the past months for the column. QSLing seems to have really declined in recent years. Very few people seem to be doing it; I for one am trying to keep an interest, but it's been difficult at times. Need to spark the interest again? Since moving further north, I have found that the signal path was some broadcasts are just a bit more difficult to hear. Yet other signals are just great. Yes, location means a lot at times. My last location [Coaldale] was about the best location I ever had for listening. I cannot complain on what I heard down in the southern part of Alberta. I have found that the noise level for this particular town is a bit too high (a number of over-head power lines). To date, I have a number of 'hot' neutrals on some of the lines arcing like a arc welder. Working with Fortis Alberta on these trouble spots. ODXA’s QSL Album for October 2009 It is deep regret that I have to post this announcement but effective with this QSL Report I am stepping down as editor. It has been enjoyment doing this column but with the decline in interest it is difficult to produce a monthly QSL Column. As well, my interest in sending out reports has drastically reduced my continued interest in DX’ing....... Take care (from Daysland, Alberta, Edward Kusalik, Sept 27, DX LISTENING DIGEST) MUSEA +++++ WOLFMAN JACK ONLINE MUSEUM Hello my name is Doug Allen. I run the Wolfmanjack.Org Web page with the help and blessing of the family of the late great Wolfman Jack. Please Help, We are always looking for Audio, Voice trax's, Airchecks, Jingles, Photos, Stores, Ect for archiving. Please let us know if you can help. Thanks, DaWolfshow @ comcast.net (Doug Allen, http://WWW.WOLFMANJACK.ORG 23 May 2009, DX LISTENING DIGEST) MUSEUM OF RADIO AND TECHNOLOGY This museum in Huntington, West Virginia has an impressive collection of radio equipment, pictures of which are available on the web. Video of Rotary Spark Gap transmitter demonstration http://picasaweb.google.com/WVRadioMuseum/MuseumOfRadioAndTechnology#slideshow/5360804172369787346 Slide show of the Museum http://picasaweb.google.com/WVRadioMuseum/MuseumOfRadioAndTechnology#slideshow/ Museum of Radio and Technology http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~postr/MRT/ Southgate http://www.southgatearc.org/news/september2009/museum_of_radio_and_technology.htm (via Mike Terry, Sept 29, dxldyg via DXLD) CONVENTIONS & CONFERENCES +++++++++++++++++++++++++ 2009 IRCA CONVENTION PHOTOS, ALBUQUERQUE Dennis, Thanks for posting your photos from the convention. I've got all my photos up now and they are linked up as well on the IRCA website. http://www.flickr.com/photos/desert4wd/sets/72157622310859295/ 73- (Doug Pifer, IRCA via DXLD) See also 9-074 under U S A RADIO EQUIPMENT FORUM +++++++++++++++++++++ OVER THE HORIZON RADIO [sic] CAUSES INTERFERENCE IARU Region 1 reports that the Russian over-the-horizon radar is active daily on 14.440 MHz and is producing splatter plus and minus 110 kHz. The upper part of the amateur 20m band is affected, too. The location of the ABM2-radar is in the area of Smolensk. The German PTT has been informed. More information is available on their website http://www.iaru-r1.org (GB2RS News http://www.rsgb.org/news/0002.php via Mike Terry, dxldyg via DXLD) I'm curious how do they know it's a _Russian_ radar located _near Smolensk_? QTH info is often difficult to get even for VoR's frequencies (Sergei S., IL, ibid.) BEWARE OF REVERSE POLARITY DURACELL 9 VOLT BATTERIES Recently while working on a piece of battery operated equipment, I was puzzled by the non-operation of the equipment. Then I noticed that the 9 Volt battery was wired in reverse. It took me a moment to believe what I was seeing. I wonder how many of these batteries were manufactured and sold before the mistake was discovered. See attached photo. http://earthsignals.com/add_CGC/Images/9V_Batts.jpg (Marvin Collins, W6OQI, KFIam640 (at) aol.com CGC Communicator Sept 28 via Kevin Redding, ABDX via DXLD) NO RADIO NEEDED IN MALAYSIAN JUNGLE, LET ALONE SHORTWAVE Today I am just back from a few weeks of backpacking (washing elephants in Malaysia followed by the Singapore Grand Prix), and Jono - no I didn't take a radio, but my iphone Internet Radio worked just fine. While in the Malaysian jungle I could listen to Parramatta's win and hear all about the red dust (Mark Fahey, NSW, Sept 30, ARDXC via DXLD) SHORTWAVE SELLS THE ENTERPRISE http://bit.ly/Mganf After radio my next passion is science fiction and Star Trek is near the top of the list for me. This is a very interesting angle on the use of shortwave radio and a great description of what it invokes. Enjoy, (Mark Meece, Miamisburg, Ohio, ABDX via DXLD) ARCHEOLOGICAL [sic] FIND After having dug to a depth of 10 feet last year, New York scientists found traces of copper wire dating back 100 years and came to the conclusion that their ancestors already had a telephone network more than 100 years ago. Not to be outdone by the New Yorkers, in the weeks that followed, a California archaeologist dug to a depth of 20 feet, and shortly after, a story in the Los Angeles times read: ``California archaeologists, finding traces of 200-year-old copper wire, have concluded that their ancestors already had an advanced high-tech communications network a hundred years earlier than the New Yorkers.`` One week later, the Oklahoma Gazette reported the following: ``After digging as deep as 300 feet in his pasture near Mustang, OK, Bubba Mitchell, a self-taught archaeologist, reported that he found absolutely nothing. Bubba has therefore concluded that 300 years ago, Oklahoma had already gone wireless.`` Thank God for Bubba. Who says Okies are hicks? (The Oklahoma Observer, Sept 10, 2009 via DXLD) DIGITAL BROADCASTING --- RDS See CANADA ++++++++++++++++++++ DIGITAL BROADCASTING --- DRM See also BELGIUM; CHINA; NEW ZEALAND; ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ PORTUGAL DRM ON 7325-7330-7335 --- I can received the German News of NDR Info. and data transmission of N-TV on 7330 kHz at 1802-1902 UT. First noted on Sep. 22. de Hiroshi Hiroshi blog in Japanese. http://drm.mediacat-blog.jp/ google translation http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?hl=ja&ie=UTF-8&sl=ja&tl=en&u=http://drm.mediacat-blog.jp/&prev=_t&rurl=translate.google.com&usg=ALkJrhhNArzEIUw0H_ZuCES0yvGLgiVzAw (S. Hasegawa, NDXC, Sept 28, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Geez, whence? another one absent from the supposedly comprehensive schedule at http://www.drm-dx.de/ --- says last updated 9/7/2009. Does that mean July or September?? I gather some details from Hiroshi`s blog: related to the tests formerly heard, also by me, on 9545 at 05-06. Lots of captures of perfect digital images, but no sound was being sent, Echo des Tages (Glenn Hauser, DXLD) PROPAGATION see also UKRAINE [and non] +++++++++++ KNIFE-EDGE REFRAXION Re 9-073, Strange Mountain Propagation: When I attended Deep Springs College in the high desert of eastern California some 20 years ago, I put a RS FM yagi on the roof to see if I could get some FM in addition to the one and only local at the time, KIBS 100.7 from Bishop, CA. Turns out we were in a sweet spot for double knife-edge reception of stations using the Cuesta Peak transmitter site above San Luis Obispo, 250 miles or so away across two tall mountain ranges, the Sierra Nevadas and the White Mountains. We had regular, fade-free reception of about a half-dozen FMs, including KCBX 90.1, KSLY 96.1, KZOZ 101.3 and KIOQ (I think that was the call) on 104.5. KCBX was good enough, in fact, that I used it as the primary for a translator that covered the valley where the college is located. Don't bother looking for records of a license for K243xx - -- out there in the high desert, such formalities aren't always observed, and the statute of limitations has long since passed. (I wasn't alone - in the tiny Nevada town of Dyer, 30 miles away, where we got our mail, there was a translator of Reno's KUNR --- and when I reported it to Bruce Elving, he wrote back to say he couldn't find any record of a license for that one, either. :) s (Scott Fybush, WTFDA via DXLD) In fact from the mid 50s onward knife-edge (TV) translators were so common in the Rockies the FCC began a massive field effort to shut them down. As fast as they would climb an unfriendly peak and confiscate the gear a new one would appear. The Governor of Colorado at one point around 57-59 actually had the legislature adopt a state law which made TV "boosters/translators" legal and he very publicly issued a well worded press warning to the FCC "Stay out of OUR state!". And they did - not that Colorado had the actual legal right to pass such a law that superseded federal authority. In early 1961 the FCC caved in and began to license TV/FM boosters and translators - a subject covered in great detail in my old DXing and later TV Horizons magazines. In February 1961 my magazines sponsored a "TV Booster Conference" in Salt Lake City attended by several hundred including FCC guys who came to make peace with the "outlaws". A most interesting time! (Bob Cooper in NZ, ibid.) PROPAGATION BULLETIN: NEW CYCLE 24 SPOT ON THE FACE OF THE SUN Some good news from the big circular disk in the daytime sky. Spceweather reports that Sunspot 1026 emerged on Sunday, September 20th U-T-C to break a string of 19 consecutive spotless days. Sunspot 1026 is described as being about as wide as the diameter of the Earth. This makes it an easy target for backyard solar telescopes. The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory has measured the spot's magnetic polarity and identified it as a member of new Solar Cycle 24. Could this be a harbinger of more to come? Spaceweather says its apparently is. So stay tuned and keep your radio tuned in (Amateur Radio Newsline Report 1676 - September 25 2009 via Mike Terry, Sept 28, dxldyg via DXLD) Geomagnetic field activity was at quiet to unsettled levels on 21 September with brief minor storm periods detected at high latitudes. Activity decreased to quiet levels at all latitudes during 22 - 26 September. Activity increased to quiet to unsettled levels on 27 September with a brief period of minor storm at high latitudes. ACE solar wind measurements indicated the activity of 21 September was associated with a recurrent coronal hole high-speed stream (CH HSS). The CH HSS commenced late on 20 September and continued through 22 September (peak velocity 489 km/sec at 21/1611 UTC). IMF changes associated with the CH HSS included increased IMF Bt (peak 10 nT at 21/0048 UTC) and intermittent periods of southward Bz (minimum -8 nT at 21/0641 UTC). The activity increase of 27 September was associated with a solar sector boundary crossing (SSBC (toward to away)). IMF changes associated with the SSBC included increased Bt and intermittent periods of southward Bz (minimum -8 nT at 27/0055 UTC). FORECAST OF SOLAR AND GEOMAGNETIC ACTIVITY 30 SEPT - 26 OCT 2009 Solar activity is expected to be very low. No proton events are expected at geosynchronous orbit. The greater than 2 MeV electron flux at geosynchronous orbit is expected to be at normal levels through the period. Geomagnetic field activity is expected to be at quiet levels during 30 September - 01 October. Activity is expected to increase to quiet to unsettled levels during 02 - 03 October with a slight chance for active levels due to a coronal hole high-speed stream. Quiet conditions are expected during 04 - 23 October. Activity is expected to increase to quiet to unsettled levels during 24 - 25 October due to recurrence. A return to quiet conditions is expected on the last day of the period. :Product: 27-day Space Weather Outlook Table 27DO.txt :Issued: 2009 Sep 29 2151 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 2009 Sep 29 # # UTC Radio Flux Planetary Largest # Date 10.7 cm A Index Kp Index 2009 Sep 30 72 5 2 2009 Oct 01 72 5 2 2009 Oct 02 70 7 3 2009 Oct 03 70 7 3 2009 Oct 04 68 5 2 2009 Oct 05 68 5 2 2009 Oct 06 68 5 2 2009 Oct 07 68 5 2 2009 Oct 08 68 5 2 2009 Oct 09 68 5 2 2009 Oct 10 68 5 2 2009 Oct 11 68 5 2 2009 Oct 12 68 5 2 2009 Oct 13 68 5 2 2009 Oct 14 68 5 2 2009 Oct 15 70 5 2 2009 Oct 16 70 5 2 2009 Oct 17 72 5 2 2009 Oct 18 72 5 2 2009 Oct 19 72 5 2 2009 Oct 20 72 5 2 2009 Oct 21 72 5 2 2009 Oct 22 72 5 2 2009 Oct 23 72 5 2 2009 Oct 24 72 8 3 2009 Oct 25 72 8 3 2009 Oct 26 72 5 2 (SWPC via WORLD OF RADIO 1480, DXLD) ###