martedì 1 marzo 2011

Glenn Hauser logs February 28-March 1, 2011

** ANTARCTICA. 15476, still no signal detectable from LRA36, supposed to reactivate this week, checked March 1 at 1439, 1522, 1536. At least nothing on 15475 to impede it (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** AUSTRALIA [and non]. 15340, HCJB longpath making big het against Morocco 15341, March 1 at 1438; it`s atop Morocco at 1455 in slow English, then at 1459 RTM dominates in Arabic until off at 1500:20*. We`re in luck, Morocco QSYing at its nominal time instead of an hour late! Its 15345+ carrier was already on a minute later.

Meanwhile HCJB in the clear on 15340: suspected it was `Spotlight` show, stealth evangelism thru English learning, and so it was, running a bit late, with outro contact info at 1501, plugging http://www.radio.english.net and 1502 offering weekly texts by e-mail. Then Oz-accent, presumed local break from Melbourne as I break for breakfast of raisin bread and unprocessed red grapes, from Chile? [Who needs Twitter?] 1520 recheck, signal a lot weaker (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** CANADA. Propagation conditions were quite disturbed morning of March 1, with 13m almost dead, many signals fluttery, even trans-equatorial ones like Australia on 9590. Quite a contrast between two Sackville frequencies at 1424: 9610, RCI strong and steady, aimed thisaway; 9625, CBCNQ weak and fluttery plus Doppler causing frequency to wobble as it bounces off the auroral zone, aimed thataway (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** CHINA. Firedrake March 1:
 8400, fair with flutter at 1422; not audible at 1526
10300, fair with flutter at 1427; just barely audible at 1526
14700, good with flutter at 1434
In next hour did complete bandscan 8-22 MHz and only found this too:
13970, poor at 1532. Was not heard an hour earlier (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** CHINA [and non]. 13725, March 1 at 1533, huge collision of Chinese vs Chinese, with flutter: CNR1 jamming vs R. Free Asia, 1500-1700, 250 kW, 295 degrees via TINIAN, per Aoki (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** GUAM. 5765-USB, AFN is back, March 1 at 1412 during phone conversation with YL in studio about taxes, public employees, health costs, probably Dr Joy Browne show as usual at this hour when AFN has not switched to country music format. Better signal than usual (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** LIBYA [and non]. VOAf from the GJ, still normal canned programming about Africa, March 1 --- when will the rebels ever capture the Sabrata transmitter site and/or the Tripoli studios? Like many external SW services, it may go unnoticed in its own country, skip-zone, with domestic MW takeovers understandably a much higher priority.

17725, March 1 at 1446 poor and undermodulated, about Bamako; 1448 nothing making it on 21695 during disturbed propagation, and just a trace of Spain on 21570, 21540. 1451, ``end of this program, thank you for listening, and goodbye``. 1453 on to geographical stuff about Sénégal.

By 1525, 21695 has a JBA carrier, while the SSOB is Camping/Ascension 21840, then Spain 21570. 1541, 17725 with ID, African music, and 21695 still JBA carrier (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** SRI LANKA [and non]. 15209.3v, YFR via Ekala, March 1 at 1436 is making more of a het than usual against WYFR via Okeechobee 15210.0, and along with it some audio, but can`t split it off with my receivers lacking really tight bandwidth. Besides, who wants to listen to Family Radio content? Yet I tried the ICF SW-07 with sync detexion, but not enough signal from the loop in a south window to lock it in on LSB.

WYFR was in Portuguese about what else? May 21 rapture. It`s incredible how many language broadcasters Brother Camping has persuaded of this nonsense. What will they all do May 21 when nothing happens? Or is their delusion so pervasive that they will imagine something happens?

Trans-polar signal was enhanced by propagation disturbance, but also Dopplering, and further at 1436 made one of its characteristic shifts of about 0.1 kHz as the defective SL transmitter jumped frequency (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A [and non]. Allan Weiner notified me Feb 28 that the 1900-1930 weekday slot on WBCQ 7415 has been sold, so he is moving WORLD OF RADIO to Wednesdays at 2215, instead of Tue/Wed/Thu at 2000.

Being two hours closer to sunset should improve reception initially, altho sunset moves inexorably later. CRI English via Kashgar to Europe is on 7415 at 2100-2200, which means that after DST starts here March 13, WOR will be colliding with that at 2115 Wednesdays, so enjoy the clear frequency for two weeks at least. This also means we must hustle to get WOR done by early UT Wednesdays instead of Thursdays, lest the only WBCQ airing remaining be a week old by the time it appears.

`Frecuencia al Día`, which has been running Mondays at 2000 must also be moved or dropped. These changes have not yet been made on
http://schedule.wbcq.com/main.php?fn=sked&freq=7415
(Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. A new month is underway, so on March 1 I check online program schedules for updates: WRMI still dated Feb 1.

WWCR homepage has this surprising note: ``WWCR will broadcast on 3.195 MHz from 2300-0200 UTC, 5PM-8PM Central on Monday, February 28th 2011 until further notice.``

But WHICH of the four WWCRs? That change is still not entered on the full schedule:
http://www.wwcr.com/transmitter-sched.html
and there was no previous 23-02 block on any of them, so 3195 must replace more than one frequency. The pdf program guide is still dated 1 Feb (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 9479, WTWW, Feb 28 at 2150 has pre-empted Pastor Pete Peters; instead I am hearing Ted Randall interviewing some gospel huxter about an evangelical TV network to Africa and the Mideast, all atop crowd-noise background. Could be live, from the National Religious Broadcasters convention, always in Nashville, yearly at this time.

Never identified him by name, even at conclusion, but brief word from his companion Dennis called the first guy Rex. No ID at TOH, and 2202 into gospel music. Checking the WTWW website, it says ``We are live from NAB`` and autolaunch of audio --- beware going to http://wtww.us if you are already listening to something else! It`s NRB, not NAB!

Later that evening and next morning, WTWW was back to PPP. NRB 2011 dates are Feb 26-Mar 1, so it`s almost over. Ted Randall`s own site http://www.tedrandall.com also autolaunches audio now with QSO show.

However, at next check 1734 March 1, 9479 has BOTH PPP and Ted Randall at the con, at about equal levels; is anyone paying attention? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A [non]. 15485, Harold Camping infests yet another frequency, March 1 at 1522, poor signal from unknown YFR relay in English as I was checking for LRA36 on 15476. Nothing listed yet on 15485. Guess maybe GERMANY which I think has used this frequency previously (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A [non]. 11775, talk in Persian, March 1 at 1530, unseems R. Farda, no music, fair but clear in absence of ANGUILLA. Yes, it`s VOA Persian service per Aoki, 1530-1630, 100 kW, 105 degrees via Biblis, GERMANY (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 15500-USB, looking for WJHR on new frequency March 1 at several chex including 1536, but no trace of it here or on original 15550-USB. However, there was a very weak carrier on 15500 at 1440, which would not be pure-SSB WJHR, but nothing else is supposed to be there.

Another check at 1733 March 1: WJHR is BACK on 15550-USB, good signal with usual gospel huxter, so was 15500 a mistake? A test? Or will WJHR just be there before 1630 until Iran clears 15550?? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

UNIDENTIFIED. 13715, nasty noise blob centered here, March 1 at 1432, still at 1533. Sounds rather like low-rate DRM, and it pulses slowly, but no DRM is listed any closer than NZ 13730, and not at this hour. May be just an utility intruder, or a malfunxioning SWBC transmitter tho none scheduled (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ###