giovedì 14 gennaio 2010

Glenn Hauser logs January 13-14, 2010

** CHINA. Firedrake Jan 14 at 1437: poor on 8400, nothing on 9000, 10210 or 11300 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** CUBA [non]. 7210-LSB, Cuban exiles hams in Spanish on their favorite frequency, Jan 14 from 1439 tune-in; at 1446, musing why Cuba has not attempted to make Haïti a socialist state --- not worth it? Usual counter-revolutionary remarx such as assertions that any disaster aid to Cuba gets sold instead of reaching victims. One of them IDed as N4RAU in Miami and that chex out at ARRL callsign lookup as:
Oropesa, Raul L, N4RAU (Extra)
Miami Dade, FL 33175
Previous call sign: KI4QQR

I wonder if Cuba will invade Haiti with any disaster relief, risking running into yanquis et al.

From 1445 could hear music in the background, as some broadcaster must have begun on this shared band? Nothing scheduled to start then, so maybe just not audible or noticed before then. Aoki presents these possibilities:
7210 CRI    1400-1457 Chinese   150 95 Beijing           CHN
7210 VOV1   2145-1700 Vietnamese 20 ND Daclac            VTN
7210 VOBME1 (Dimtsi Hafas)
            1355-1600 Kunama    100 ND Asmara-Selae Daro ERI
(Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** INDONESIA. 9680, RRI Jakarta at 1454 Jan 14 with ``Indonesian opera``, soprano et al., with gamelan orchestra, continued past 1500 instead of previous cutoff at 1457; finally at 1504, 9680 went to talk, 1507 more music now a pop ballad. Went off sometime during the next semihour as gone at next check. 9526v VOI was already off after 1400 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** KOREA NORTH [non]. 5910, Thu Jan 14 at 1426, Shiokaze via JSR JAPAN was concluding Japanese broadcast with usual sad piano music background; but also a fast SAH from some co-channel QRM not noted before. Uplooked later, maybe it was Iran`s Bengali service scheduled for 1430 via Kamalabad, and they ordinarily do come on a few minutes early, so Sea Breeze should still be clear for most of the broadcast from 1400, aside from Juche jamming, none audible today (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** MALAYSIA/SARAWAK. 5030, RTM Kuching, Jan 14 tuned in time to monitor the 2-pip timesignal at 1500 --- this time it was close to correct rather than 3 seconds late, no doubt having noted my previous observations (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U K [non]. 5875 is a BBCWS English frequency we can hear fairly well in our mornings, despite its official destination 25 degrees from Thailand to most of China, North Korea. But Jan 14 at 1425 as I tuned by, noticed some ute QRM, sounded like TADIL-A. Next at 1427 that was gone but instead was hearing mix of English and something in Arabic which was somewhat atop! The latter also had ``that BBC sound``, and at 1332 while English was wrapping up news headlines before Crossing Continents, Arabic ran BBC sounder, so tnx to WRTH 2010, easily looked up listed Arabic frequencies during this hour, and sure enough, 5875 was // Cyprus 9915, and also // 15790 but an echo apart. BBCWS vs BBCWS on 5875! Possible explanation: another Cyprus transmitter is scheduled to take over from Thailand with Persian at 1600 on 5875. Maybe it got turned on much too early with the Arabic programme feed. Or equally SNAFU`d, possibly double programme audio feed input to Thailand
 transmitter, nobody noticing (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. WBCQ with the first SW broadcast of WORLD OF RADIO 1495, Wed Jan 13 at 2005 check on 9330-CUSB, much better signal than // 7415, but 9330 modulation a little rough. I hope they left 9330 on for the rest of the semihour, but did not get it rechecked before 2030, as I had already heard the show. You never know whether 9330 will be on at this time, as committed to use 7415 only, Tue/Wed/Thu 2000 for WOR (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. WTWW was testing with music on 9480 UT Jan 14 around 0030, but propagation had dropped out here, so weak and fading.

At 0045 came up on 5755, much better signal with music, S9+15 on the FRG-7 but that`s just slightly above the local noise level with computer on. Much better than 5745 station, presumably WWRB. Modulation seems good but still not a solid signal. Don`t know how much longer they will be on tonight.

5755 rechecked at 0117, MUCH stronger signal S9+22 or so, now solid, as if they turned up the power but were supposedly full power earlier, so maybe we had just hit a propagational hole then.

Still much stronger than Brother Scare on WWRB 5745, and much much stronger than WWCR PMS/DGS on 5935. WWCR 5890 PPP does not start until 0200. Comparing signals to these neighbors should be helpful.

0120, 0124, 0130 IDs, apparently between each tune, say ``Coming to you from near the banks of the Upper Cumberland River in middle Tennessee, this is WTWW, Lebanon, Tennessee, U S A, performing equipment tests``. Mod seems a bit distorted now and/or with selective fading distortion. Disappeared at 0126:30 or so, back on at 0128.

Here`s the ID recorded around 0134 UT Jan 14 on 5755, the final one before went off at 0136:
http://www.w4uvh.net/WTWW.rm
(Glenn Hauser OK, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A [and non]. 5050, WWRB on the air after 0700 Jan 13 must have been a fluke (or a make-good?), as it was gone again 23+ hours later at 0622 check Jan 14, with R. Cultura do Pará again in the clear on 5045, as always playing nothing but pop music, never classical as one might expect (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ###