** ALBANIA. Radio Tirana is making some frequency changes as of November 20/UT 21 to resolve interference or propagation problems,
all 100 kW Shijak, UT:
2001-2030 Italian 6000 ex-6155, Mon-Sat, non-direxional
2100-2130 English to Europe 7430 ex-7520, Mon-Sat, 300 degrees
0000-0130 Albanian to North America 6130 ex-6110, daily, 300 degrees
0130-0145 English to North America 6130 ex-7425, Tue-Sun, 300 degrees
0245-0300 English to North America 6130 ex-7425, Tue-Sun, 300 degrees
Reports will be welcome, especially from North America (Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** ANGUILLA [and non]. 11775, PMS inbooming S9+20 at 0606 Nov 20, while 6090 is supposed to be the night frequency for Caribbean Beacon. Transmitter must be stuck again, or neglected by the frequency-changer. Not surprising it`s well-heard this night, as Cuba also inbooming on 11760. At 0622, nothing on 6090 but seems DRM spreading from hi side, 6100? By 0633 the DRM was coming from the lo side, 6085 and DGS had replaced PMS on 11775, as she takes turns with The Dead.
Luckily, running 11775 during the hours it is supposed to be on 6090, 22-10 UT, does not cause too many problems; only R Free Asia via Tinian is scheduled at 22-24. In fact there are more collisions during the time CB is supposed to be on 11775, 10-22, which were not avoided in coordination, i.e. AIR 1215-1430, +ChiCom jamming, and VOA 1530-1830.
Next check at 1500 found 11775 missing, so are they running the schedule in reverse? By then could not be sure whether 6090 was on, but could detect a carrier at 1704, and 11775 still off at 1712. Further SE, 6090 should be audible in daytime as CFRX 6070 and RHC 6110 are all-day, weakly, even here.
As for the QRDRM, DRM-DX.DE shows Romania on 6100 until 0626, while BR Ismaning, Germany is on 6085 before and after (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** AUSTRALIA. As RA in English was incoming well on 13630, 15160 and 15240, I could also hear it but much weaker on 15415, Nov 20 at 0603. At first thought it was Tok Pisin, but then registered as scheduled Indonesian with which it bears some similarity; 329 from Shep, per Aoki (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** BIAFRA [non]. 15665, V. of Biafra International, reconfirmed still here for the Friday 19-20 broadcast via WHRI, Nov 20 around 1910 with English news in usual broad African accent (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** CHINA [and non]. On a whim, thought I would check my favorite Firedrake frequencies much earlier than usual, Nov 20 at 0610, and there they were! 8400 JBA, 9000 barely audible, and much better achieving fair reception on not // 10210. These are probably all 24 hours a day, tied up by tiny SOH ham transmitters on Taiwan.
BTW, Alokesh Gupta forwards a new (? dated Nov 18) article about Sound of Hope from the Epoch Times:
Sending Shortwaves of Hope from Manhattan to China
By Matthew Robertson, Epoch Times Staff
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/25385/
which claims: `` SOH later boosted its signal strength and broadcast hours, and their signal now is mostly free from disruption.`` Make that: disrupted to the point of inaudibility (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** CROATIA [and non]. Bandscanning on the way home from an Enid Public Schools 6-band concert and fiesta dinner (i.e. taco salad), UT Nov 20 at 0115, I was hearing tell-tale hets on the caradio 10-kHz-only tuning, indicating Trans-Atlantix were in on 1215, 1134 and 756 kHz, so ahome I quickly switched to the direxional DX-398, set-to-9-kHz-on-MW, and on battery power to minimize line noise.
1134 immediately provided musical and talk audio at 0120 and // 7375 via Germany, so Hrvatski Radio, the number-one TA, is a definite. Monitoring on a single receiver, I could not evaluate the delay. Also // at some further chex, 0139, 0150. However it faded in between, leaving nothing but IBOC noise, presumably from KMOX 1120, tnx a lot!
Between 0120 and 0200 I repeatedly scanned the MW band and detected many more TA carriers, but no audio. I could make educated guesses about the most likely sources, but will refrain. I will put them in frequency order here, not the order heard, most more than once:
549, 621, 639, 693, 711, 819, 855, 882, 891, 909, 972, 999, 1089, 1179, 1215, 1251, 1269, 1341, 1359, 1431, 1521 (Glenn Hauser, Enid OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) See also JAPAN [and non]
** CUBA. 6140, Nov 20 at 0622 check was in RHC English instead of Spanish; the other 49m outlets nominal (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) See also VENEZUELA [non]
** INDIA. AIR Aligarh 9470 distortion blob Nov 19 at 1425: 9475-9500, peaking on 9485 against something, but RA 9475 almost unscathed on the edge of today`s range. 9485 during this hour is YFR in English via Irkutsk, due south for Indonesia, so everybody there dying to hear Brother Droning is no doubt cursing the Indians, i.e. no one.
Congratulations! Nov 20 at 1507 check, 9470 back to normal frequency and modulation // AIR music on much stronger Bengaluru 9425; ditto at 1700 recheck. But we know better than to assume the blobmitter has been fixed or replaced for good.
11620 with Indian pop vocal music, Nov 20 at 1713, fair with flutter. Aoki says it`s the Russian service at 1615-1715, 335 degrees from Bangaluru, and thus also USward. Should have kept listening another biminute to confirm language in sign-off (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** JAPAN [and non]. After detecting all the TA carriers the previous evening --- see CROATIA [and non], I was motivated to look for Trans-Pacific MW the morning of Nov 20. Again with the DX-398 set on 9-kHz spacing, and on battery power inside the house with some noise but in the quietest spot I could find, too cold outside, I stepped thru all the channels with BFO on, and could hear the same pitch het on most of the appropriate frequencies, except as noted, but too weak for any audio, except as noted. (The LSB/SSB is slightly offset on this receiver, which is convenient for this purpose, altho I could zero it by taking off the faceplate and adjusting a pot.) It helped to switch between LSB and USB to minimize QRM from the NAm 10-kHz-spaced stations. In two or three scans between 1230 and 1245 UT, all these carriers were looping NW/SE more or less, using internal ferrite antenna only, just as the TA ones had been NE/SW:
558, 567, 576, 594, 603, 648, 666, 693, 702, 711, 729, 738, 747, 756, 774, 828, 846, 855, 873, 882, 891, 945, 972, 981, 1008, 1044, 1053, 1134, 1143, 1179, 1242, 1251, 1323, 1475, 1593.
The strongest ones were on 774 and 972, so I went back and listened to those for a while to see if I could pull any audio. Now I have plugged in the AC adapter, since the batteries are getting weak.
747, at 1252, yes! Bits of clearly enunciated English by YL, apparently language lesson, mixed with Japanese, and music riffs, cues to speak in the lessons.
972, at 1254, some audio, think it was Korean as expected but not positive.
1098, circa 1300 add another frequency with a carrier.
855, at 1308, stepping thru the scan with BFO on, this one was a different pitch, obviously off-frequency, not sure which side.
774, at 1310, definitely in Japanese.
The big 500 kW NHK Radio 2 stations on 747 and 774 were expected to be the easiest catches here in deep NAm, as they have been before. This is the educational network which includes some foreign languages, altho WRTH 2009 does not mention LL: English. 747 is JOIB Sapporo, Hokkaido and 774 is JOUB Akita, on the far side of northern Honshu.
855, the off-frequency one is surely KOREA NORTH, as in http://www.myradiobase.de/mediumwave/mwoffset.txt
``855.055 KRE KCBS Pyongyang Pangsong (Sangwon) 2100-2030 [855.0454-] 20090110``. WRTH 2009 lists this as 500 kW in the Asia/Pacific list; not in the domestic sexion page 253-254, but in the international sexion page 446, as apparently for S Korea and // SW 3250, 3320, 4405, 6250, 6285, 6400, 9325 and several MW frequencies.
972 is surely the 1500 kW KBS station HLCA in Dangjin, KOREA SOUTH.
1475 (definitely not on-channel 1476) is surely the 700 kW RTM Labuan, in Tuaran, Sabah, MALAYSIA which per WRTH is only on air at 1100-1330.
Could make educated guesses about many of the others, but I`ll stop there. Local sunrise was 1314 UT (Glenn Hauser, Enid OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** MEXICO. As I was MW-bandscanning for TA carriers, I was distracted by some Mexicans on even frequencies which further east are dominated by Cubans.
710, Nov 20 at 0143, atop the het from 711, quite an adstring, phone numbers, typical Mexican addresses --- street names such as Reforma, Cuauhtémoc, Obregón appear in every Mexican town so are of no use at all in local IDing below the country-level. Never could get anything more definite. 0145 to live announcer who talked for a few minutes. I thought I heard an ID go by just as I tuned in, last letter of callsign being -M (or maybe -N), but that doesn`t fit. Direxion roughly SW from OK, which points to one station each listed by Callarman in Chihua2, Sonora, Sinaloa. XEDP Cuauhtémoc, Chihuahua is closest, and I was also getting that state on 1180, but 710 is supposed only 100 watts at night; not enough to go on.
Another one on 1180, atop the het from 1179, where it`s nice to hear neither Cuba nor Cuba [non], Nov 20 at 0131, timecheck for 6:31, temp 18 grados centígrados, so it`s in the MST zone. At 0156, ``Romántica 11-80`` slogan, 0200 YL DJ. Callarman 2008 list shows the only 1180 with that slogan is XEDCH, Ciudad Delicias, Chihuahua, which is in MST, and the temp is credible for that area SE of Chihuahua city. WRTH 2009 upbacks these assumptions (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** MEXICO [and non]. Finally on Nov 20 I managed to tune in XEPPM 6185 a bit earlier to check QRM from Vatican which nominally closes at 0620, much more reliably than when Brasília opens on same. At 0614 I was hearing XEPPM on top, instead of music, historical narrative about Obregón punxuated with gunshot SFX. A rippling SAH from CVA since XEPPM is off-frequency. VR and the SAH just disappeared around 0619, leaving Radio Educación in clear as they had moved on to a burrito recipe(!). Where`s the eclectic music? Did not get back to frequency until 0632 by when jazz piano; 0636 RNA starts cutting on and off a few times and then stays on ruining XEPPM (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** RUSSIA. As I tuned across 9840 early in the 0600 UT hour Nov 20, I was hearing VOR in English unimpeded // weaker 9855 both from DVR sites, but at 0640, 9840 was in Russian, R. Rossii way over barely audible VOR. As complained before, Russians vs Russians, ruining reception of VOR English to NAm by using same frequency circa Moscow. See also RWM log (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** RUSSIA. 4996, Nov 20 at 0627 binary timecode signals, maybe at the rate of 10 per second? Seems transmitted in straight CW, 0630 into solid carrier, quite weak but separable from WWV. Surely RWM Moscow.
9996, Nov 20 at 0658 found same binary signals as a semihour earlier, and stronger here, also less QRM from weaker WWV/H 10000. Format also matches with solid carrier from 0700 to 0708, and did not detect any minute markers, but surely there was something. Nothing audible 0708-0709, but 0709-0710 sent RWM ID multiple times on CW – just ``RWM``, no V, CQ or DE. 0710 finally started conventional timesignals with second-pips, but some of them were double just before bottoms of minutes, continuing past 0713 when I quit.
This reception correlates well with R. Rossii Moscow-area site on 9840 at same time. WRTH shows both RWM frequencies as 5 kW, 24 hours; also 24h on 8 kW 14996 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. 15580, VOA News Now in English, Nov 20 at 1710, VG S9+20, too strong to be anything but Greenville, which we thought in B-09 was being employed on this frequency only for Music Mix at 21-22. Now it`s also 94 degrees at 17-18, ergo 274 degrees offbackward too (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. Six days after evangelist Bernie Lazar ``Tony Alamo`` Hoffman was sentenced to 175 years in prison for multiple child sexual abuse, WINB breezes along like nothing has happened, still broadcasting him Nov 19 at 1620 check on 13570, no doubt one of three weekdaily hours devoted to him. Not distorted this time, but carrier as usual is slightly unstable, obvious with BFO on (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. WRMI inbooming on 9955 in the nightmiddle, S9+20, no jamming audible, Nov 20 at 0608, W&W in Wirelight talk, no doubt on the reactivated NW antenna this UT Friday (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A [and non]. WYFR, 9355 in Italian, Nov 20 at 0609, with no underlanguage audible even at long pauses, after three nights of such transmitted crosstalk, and one night not checked.
YFR is getting to be as bad as CRI, showing up everywhere and dashing hopes for something more interesting, but keeps VTC et al. in business: 9530, Nov 20 at 1701 choral music sounded Russian style, but then www.familyradio URL, and ``Mighty Fortress is our Bog`` theme music. However, this hour is scheduled as Arabic via Rampisham. Having rapidly lost interest, did not stay with it any further to determine which language would axually be used.
The same can be said of 17505, some African language, VG S9+15 signal Nov 20 at 1708, along with some hum. But this is Aoki-listed merely as English YFR via Ascension, 250 kW, 102 degrees. They often start a new transmission with English until they are ready to inaugurate a new exotic language, but which? Target area is Zambia/Zimbabwe/Botswana. This transmission is not listed in any language in the seemingly comprehensive YFR schedule via DXLD 9-079, nor in EiBi (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. 17775, KVOH, Nov 20 at 1706 at S9+22, enough to bring with it signs of the spur circa 17920 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** VENEZUELA [non]. RNV CI, 11680 via CUBA, missing as I tuned in at 1517 Nov 19. Hmm, I had heard it earlier in the hour. And again when it popped back on at 1518. Start calculating the refunds, RHC. Nahh, RNV not likely to notice, as they don`t even know this broadcast exists: just listen to their totally outdated schedule announcements in every transmission.
Next day Nov 20 I was listening to 11680 at 1500 when RHC Spanish frequency announcement started, abruptly cut to RNV in broken English YL (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
UNIDENTIFIED. 11435, huge carrier at S9+30 or so, mostly open, but every 5 minutes would transmit some kind of digital data noise, Nov 20 at 0604, 0609, 0614, 0619, 0624. This was even stronger than RHC on 11760, only S9+25, and presumably from CUBA too. 11435 was enough to desensitize several dekakHz around it by its mere presence. It went off at 0628:30.
Nothing was on 11532 while 11435 was on, but at next pass thru 11 MHz at 0652, 11532 big open carrier was hetting WYFR 11530, but 11532 went off at 0653*. Theory is they are same transmitter, or at least both from the DentroCuban spy centre. Similar huge signals with numbers in voice or cut numbers in code, and data bursts are heard around this time in the 5.8-5.9 MHz range (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
