venerdì 9 luglio 2010

Glenn Hauser logs July 8-9, 2010

** ALASKA. Walt Salmaniw found out from KNLS that both transmitters were off the air as of July 6, but one of them was supposed to resume on July 7. He heard nothing that date, tho. Don`t know about July 8, but July 9 at 1240, 7355 is weakly audible with typical KNLS programming, pop music probably gospel rock; 1243 YL in English mentions Norway, then OM interviewing YL but too poor to copy in QRN, QSB. Anyhow, KNLS` only surviving English broadcast at 12-13 is back, tho admittedly reruns thru July (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** AUSTRALIA. RA on new 9500 for English and Chinese, ex-9475. I wonder if they finally had enough of the 4-kHz het from WTWW 9479? (Tho missing for hours on July 8, 9479 was back on at 2217 check.) WTWW said it had surprisingly good reports from E Asia during its test phase.

July 9 at 1251 Late Nite Live discussion of technology on 9500, weaker than // 9560, 9580, 9590, but nothing detectable on 9475 aside WTWW. At 1304, 9500 had switched to Chinese, which was what used to happen on 9475, vacant. 1402, 9500 RA Chinese still audible in the clear. Per Aoki, 9500 was already in use by RA Shepparton but only at 19-22 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** CHINA. Firedrake July 9:
8400, poor at 1241
9040, fair-good at 1248; poor at 1318; JBA at 1428; ex-9000?
9380, good at 1249 vs WWRB BSplatter from 9385; poor at 1318
None higher in scans to 19 MHz by 1318; CNR1 jammers on 15285 and 15265 with het weaker than usual. Generally poor propagation on higher bands, no Antarctica (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** CUBA. 9600, RHC, July 9 at 1257 Coro with a science segment in Spanish, but cut him off at 1257:30 to brief open carrier and off the air as it`s time to switch this ``Chicago`` frequency to 13680. 9600 was squealing like 5040 at night, same transmitter? And so was 13680 when checked at 1311. Schedules do not overlap. Of course, more than one of their rickety transmitters could suffer from this, but can`t say I have noticed squeals on two non-spuriously-related units at once.

As for cutting off poor Arnie, this is par for the course at RHC. They are in Spanish 24 hours, or nearly so, but do not build in pauses for frequency changes, like a seriously professional station would. That would require unthinkable coördination between studio and transmitters.

12030, July 9 at 1308, RHC now not only outputting spurs on 12000 and 12060 but filling the gaps between them with frying-sound buzz; at 1425 axually detectable to 11995 and 12080, but fluxuating.

9565, July 9 at 1401, tonal pulsing from the DentroCuban Jamming Command against nothing. Apparently does not start until CRI relay is finished with 9570 at 1400, altho R. Martí does not bring up 9565 until 1700! Standard remark about hungry Cubans not being fed because of this waste (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** INDONESIA [and non]. 9680, RRI, July 9 at 1258 Indonesian announcement, Song of the Coconut Islands IS atop the channel. Not sure if Taiwan and Chicom jamming are still here; hope not. 1259 ``Inilah Radio Republik Indonesia ---`` by YL, pause, no timesignal, pause, a few more words and music sounds like a national anthem. 1302 a public speech starts in Arabic with reverb from PA, then voice-over by YL, translating to Indonesian?

At 1302, I check 9525.9 for VOI, and it is //! Must be a very important event to blow away normal English programming. 9525.9 signal is much better, VG but with some hum. 1305 Qur`an recitation. 1320 recheck the two are not // as 9525.9 is playing pop song. Continued to monitor and compare: this turned out to be the pattern: VOI would dip in and out of the live event which kept going unobstructed on 9680.

1325, VOI English announcers periodically explain what is going on, not a pure translation but summarizing and commenting. Apparently they can`t or won`t keep it up, so throw in music breaks every few minutes, which don`t seem to be in keeping with the solemnity of the situation!

It`s a [something] commemoration program in the presidential palace, speech by the imam of the Islamic University of Indonesia; about Mohammed in Baghdad when he had no confidence, not trusted by society, Seventh Heaven, etc.

1328, 9525.9 break for another song, while speech continues on 9680. 1331, back to celebration of Ishra Morash, it sounded like. Googling on holidays in Indonesia we get instead: ``Lailat al Miraj, Ascension of the Prophet, Thursday [sic], 9 July 2010``.

1336, says it is a joint broadcast of VOI and Pro 3 of RRI Jakarta, and cutaway again to music on VOI. Neither Aoki nor WRTH say which Pro is on 9680, but Ishida
http://www.max.hi-ho.ne.jp/a-ishida/ins/ says it`s Pro 4! ``9680 kHz RRI-Jakarta, Siaran Pro 4``.

1337, on 9680, speech continues, poor but atop QRM level.

1340, 9525.9, VOI ID mentioning streaming and three SW frequencies, 9525, 15150, 11785! Apparently the announcers axually believe they are on all three frequencies at once, none of which are correct. Ongoing now, ``advice to the communal [sic] by the imam of National Islamic University`` --- ``better to have spiritual treasures than higher education`` --- yeah, right. And he heads a ``university``??? That explains why Islamic countries are no longer at the cutting edge of science and technology, but tnx for past work.

1343, back to music break. 1348 mentions that several cabinet ministers are attending. 1349 switch to another speaker, the Indonesian Religion Minister (obviously, Separation of Mosque and State is unthinkable here). He too introduces his remarx with something in Arabic. Addresses the president, first lady, honorable vice president, ambassadors of friendly countries.

1354, VOI announcer refers to the parking area in front of the RRI building, stick around. 1355 music.

1355, 9680 now has QRM from Russian tune-up tones atop RRI, but at 1400 it`s still open carrier, cannot make out any modulation. The day before, Ron Howard discovered that VOR in English had appeared on 9680 at 1400-1600. Wolfgang Büschel says this apparently started July 1, via Pet/Kam, 265 degrees to S Asia. What a wonderful frequency choice.

1359, 9525.9 has the expected het from CRI Russian 9525.0 which starts at 1357, but VOI stays on and is stronger; 1402 it`s still in English, trying to reach reporter at the event while Qur`an is being recited. Then reporter is on the line, but cellphone breaking up, as always happens. Aren`t stations glad they abandoned their own dedicated two-way radio communication systems for the convenience of cellphones?

1404, 9680 Qur`an vs. open carrier, SAH.

1421, 9525.9 still on with speech in Indonesian interrupted for comments by announcers in English, CRI het too annoying, so I quit (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** JAPAN [non]. 11655, NHKWNRJ via Sackville, CANADA, Friday July 9 at 1427 no American music this week but Japanese dialog, tho did not have a chance to check rest of hour (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. WORLD OF RADIO 1520 monitoring chex: Confirmed on ACB Radio webcast after 0100 UT Friday July 9, to be repeated every two hours thru 2330.

Confirmed on WRMI 9955 via webcast during the 1430 semihour Friday July 9. (However, Jeff says the UT Friday 0030 is being replaced with something else from next week.)

The July WWCR program guide now shows our airings as:
Fri 2030 15825 (should be 2029 really)
Sat 1630 12160
Sun 0230 4840
Sun 0630 3215
Sun 2330 9980
(Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ###