mercoledì 22 agosto 2012

Glenn Hauser logs August 21-22, 2012

** ALBANIA. 7425, Aug 22 at 0145, R. Tirana`s only English broadcast left to N America, fair signal with noise and fading, somewhat muffled modulation and her accent make it hard to follow what Klara is saying (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** ARGENTINA. 11711v, Aug 22 at 0200, RAE is on with multi-lingual IDs in leisurely opening for the English hour, fair signal; earlier at 0137 it was missing, no carrier at all (nor on 15345v), as Gilles Letourneau in Québec had noted at 0120. On Aug 14 at the same time, I had noticed RAE on the 11710.9 air, but no modulation; either way, no Japanese to be heard during that hour. I wonder if that language service is intentionally suspended/canceled? How about at 10-11 M-F on 11711? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** COLOMBIA. 14950.7, Aug 21 at 1952, JBA carrier no doubt from Salem Stereo; and also at 0137 Aug 22 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** COSTA RICA. 17850, Aug 21 at 1951, REE relay shortly before 2000* is not putting spiky spurs all over the place today. Thomas Witherspoon has notified them in Madrid of the problem, but since it was irregular anyway, we can`t assume yet that it has been permanently fixed (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** CUBA. 17750, Aug 21 at 2003 tune-in, RHC Brazilian Portuguese service supposedly aimed at Europe, is instead dead air for a sesquiminute until modulation kix on at 2004:28 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** CYPRUS. 9438-9463, Aug 22 at 0138, strong OTH radar pulsing, presumed from here; after 0200 it would QRM WYFR on new 9455 in Spanish (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** EQUATORIAL GUINEA. 15190, Aug 21 at 1953, fair signal from R. Africa with mumbling gospel huxter who could be the convicted and imprisoned for 175 years ``Tony Alamo``, and whose agents have been trying to get him back on a US SW station; but would not stay tuned long enough to be more sure (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** GUATEMALA. 4055, Aug 22 at 0159 check, TGAV is on, good signal with music, whew; as had been missing late last night (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A [non]. 15580, August 21 at 2006, two programs are clashing at about equal levels. Either it`s two program feeds into and out of one transmitter, or two transmitters virtually zero-beat; I can`t detect a regular SAH vis-à-vis propagational fading. One of them is obviously VOA African service scheduled via BOTSWANA, mostly music but finally at 2012 English announcement during `The African Beat`.

The other is harder to figure out due to all the QRM. At first I think it`s in French, for a while it even sounds like Japanese, then it`s tonal and probably Hausa, assuming this is another VOA service. I was hoping something would ID at 2030 but both just kept going as I listened past 2035. Neither was // 15730 or 17530 which are in VOA French until 2030 weekdays, via Greenville and Bonaire respectively, also mostly African music.

If it was Hausa, VOA doesn`t start that language on other frequencies until 2030, and BBC ends at 2030. Since IBB keeps switching transmitter sites even in the middle of a single language broadcast, it`s entirely possible two different VOA sites are mistakenly on same frequency with different programming. But there was no variation in signal/modulation levels between the two thruout on 15580, so my best guess here is that both were coming out of a single transmitter, most likely Botswana. Don`t they monitor their own air? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 6145, August 22 at 0139 check, WYFR is extremely strong with only English broadcast aimed across N America, at 355 degrees, 2215-0300, a change made Aug 13 from 6115.

9455, another new WYFR frequency at 02-04 in Spanish, ex-9385, much weaker here at 0240 check August 22 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 6875, Aug 22 at 0139, WWCR-1 very strong here with typical programming. I log this now for the record as I think I never got around to it since they started using this way out of band channel (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 7506.4, Aug 22 at 0140, WRNO with usual sermonizing; rather undermodulated but not requiring full volume to hear it, and not very distorted (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 9838-9847 and 9872-9882, approximate expanse of huge dirty distorted FMy spurblobs matching very strong clear signal on 9860, Aug 22 at 0143 with wacky far-right conspiracy discussion, with a gold/money angle, blame Soros. The spurs peaked approximately 9843-44 and 9877-78, i.e. 16-17 kHz either side of WHRI, listed as 100 kW at 315 degrees. Then found same program // and spurless on weaker 5920, despite being 250 kW tho at 47 degrees, all per HFCC, and 5920 was running four seconds behind 9860, why? WHR schedule shows ``TruNews`` with Rick Wiles on both during this hour, what crap to match the spurs (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 4875-USB, Aug 22 at 0153 looking for some LA AM DX, I encounter some scratchy sideband vs the hi local noise level, so pursue it instead: another Air Force MARS net, not as struxured as it should be as there are some talkovers with people not observing the `over` rule, not giving their callsign with every change, and not always fonetically. They were discussing measuring each other`s frequency offsets, to the Hz, or cycle as one of them prefers (he means cycle per second).

Either the net itself or the NCS was going to be away for two weeks. They all seemed to be in the -4- area, and the NCS closing it at 0156 sounded like AFA4GA tho not sure of the third letter. Hunting thru the list I googled for the earlier AF MARS log, I don`t find that call but an AFD4GA:
``AFD4GA GA Ball Ground 30107 Deputy GA State Dir``. Ball Ground is a small town at the end of I-575 north of Atlanta, which means there must be something important there to justify such a highway. Or is it to ``nowhere``?
http://cityofballground.com/ Like I say, every DX log is a potential learning experience, even if it`s tentative (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)