mercoledì 26 ottobre 2011

Glenn Hauser logs October 25-26, 2011

** ALBANIA. No signals from R. Tirana to be heard UT Oct 26: 0040 on 9860, 7425; 0150 and 0235 on 7425 where there had been English. Nor at 1431 on 13625. So are any R. Tirana broadcasts on air this week? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** CHINA. Firedrake Oct 26, before 1300, mostly with flutter:

 7970, poor at 1255
10300, good at 1255
12230, good at 1255
12500, very good at 1256
13970, very poor at 1257
14600, poor at 1257
15900, fair at 1258
16100, fair at 1259; none in the 17s or 18s by 1300

Before 1400:
16100, very good at 1346
15545, very good at 1348
15440, noise jamming way over the FD at 1349
14600, very good at 1349
13970, very good at 1351
12500, very good at 1352
12230, poor at 1351
11520, good signal at 1353 but very distorted! And mixing with noise
10300, good at 1353
 7970, very poor at 1358
(Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** CUBA. 5040, Oct 26 at 0505, RHC Spanish is still on late past nominal 0500*, via a squealy transmitter, but not as bad as the one with English on 6150 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** CYPRUS. 14693-14718, Oct 26 at 1349, OTH radar pulses, presumed from here, conveniently occupying a space vacated by Firedrake which was on 14600 instead (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** KUWAIT. 15540, Oct 25 at 1757, R. Kuwait is already on, instead of Urdu, in Arabic speech, mentioning Palestine, Sudan, perhaps a special live event, because it continued past 1800 without timesignal, and was // 13650 which is normally in Arabic. 1826 recheck, speech is over, but still in Arabic on both, so looks like English is kaput from 15540, which now is much stronger than 13650. 1914 rerecheck, both still // with Qur`an. 2000 announcement, back to Qur`an, and now the // to 15540 is 17550, weaker but at least audible, ex-13650. 11990, the long-announced English frequency is still not on the air as it ought to be at 18-21. So no more English from Kuwait on SW; we can`t help but wonder if the 15540 broadcast was an ``intentional mistake`` whose time has run out (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** MEXICO. The aurora-induced sporadic E opening of Oct 25 continued to bring in some weak analog ch 2 signals as late as 1815 UT, but no more at 1900 and several later chex that afternoon (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** MEXICO. Pre-sunrise DX Oct 26 UT:

770, Oct 26 at 1225 UT, string of government PSAs, 1228 full ID for XEACH, R. Fórmula Monterrey, including address and 800 number; 1229 rock song in English (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** OKLAHOMA. RF 32, the duplicate ``TV-OK`` signal same as KXOK-LD on RF 31, lasted a few more days and is now gone, without any explanation from the Enid station (Glenn Hauser, Enid, Oct 26, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** TAIWAN. 9960, Oct 26 at 1355, surprised to hear VTC/BaBcoCk fill music loop, but shortly to Vietnamese announcement. Not in original Babcock A-11 schedule or HFCC, but Aoki shows Family Radio at 13-14 on 9960, 100 kW, 267 degrees via Tainan. I guess this is routed thru BaBcoCk, like some other Taiwan relays such as 9950, Furusato no Kaze at same time (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGESET)

** U S A. 9370, Oct 25 at various times I noticed WTJC very undermodulated, and while that was no bother to any neighbor, I said to myself, ``a bad sign, I bet they will be squeezing out spurs before long``. And so they were! Oct 26 at 1218, huge distorted blobs around 9395 and 9345, i.e. 25 kHz either side, while 9370 remained very undermodulated. A weaker pair could be heard 50 kHz on either side, circa 9320 and 9420. However, by 1255, the spurs were gone, no doubt only temporarily, as WTJC goes thru periodic continuous cycles out of whack and back into whack (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 920, Oct 26 at 1232 UT, dominant signal looping NW/SE with low-key local newscast, no hype, no ads, items such as: rock art vandalism in Utah, call BLM; Wyoming/Colorado water pipeline controversy; local elexions in Ballard City; Hallowe`en parade route changed in Roosevelt; tri-county health department sponsoring expired drug drop-off in Vernal. Finally fading at 1239 with increasing religious signal from NE/SW, no doubt KYFR in Iowa. This was obviously KVEL in Vernal UT, 5/1 kW U2 and should have been on night power before sunrise even in Enid (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 1430, Oct 26 at 1245 UT, ``Johnny, Be Good`` by Chuck Berry, 1247 ID sounded like ``All News KQGZ``, then mixing with `The Buzz` from Tulsa. I think the first one must have been KZQZ Saint Louis, where 1430 was originally WIL --- why would they replace a great heritage call with such an ugly unpronounceable one? FCC patterns show 5 kW daytime with a broad lobe to NNW, but plenty of signal to the SW; and a 50 kW daytime CP with quite different pattern, major lobes to the WSW and ENE; is that on air yet? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENINGN DIGEST)

UNIDENTIFIED. 17550, Oct 26 at 1345, open carrier. Maybe the only thing scheduled, R. Cairo in Pashto at 13-16, 250 kW, 70 degrees from Abu Zabaal; but I don`t recall ever hearing it modulating. Also strange open carriers at same time on 17473.5 stronger than 17477.5, producing a 4 kHz het with sufficient receive bandwidth (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)