domenica 16 settembre 2012

Glenn Hauser logs September 15, 2012

** BANGLADESH. 15105, Sept 15 at 1239, no signal from BB, so I am not missing any English today but they probably are; nothing either on 15105 around 1330 amid supposed Nepali semihour. Not on then either?

15505, Sept 15 at 1359, tune-in just in time to hear last part of IS before very early 6-pip timesignal to 1359:27, and opening Urdu. Now a good signal from BB. Who in the world originates such way-off timesignals? I bet they are just playing a recording at the studio (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** BRAZIL [and non]. 9645.4, Sept 15 at 0529, no R. Bandeirantes het detectable vs very strong Vatican bells on 9645.0. In fact, not heard since my Sept 3 report, so suspect the reactivation was short-lived. We continue to hear a het every night on 9675, one side of which is surely Brazilian, proving that propagation is funxional (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** CHINA. Firedrake Sept 15, before 1300:
12230, very good at 1235
12320, very good at 1235
12670, very good at 1234
12980, very good at 1234; none in the 13s, 14s
15555, poor at 1240; none in the 16s, 17s
15555 only, still on at 1303, and by now it`s surged to very good
(Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** COLOMBIA. 14950+, Sept 15 at 1237 tuneby in Firedrake search, Salem Stereo audible with gospel music (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** JAPAN [non]. 6110, Sept 15 at 0524, open carrier/dead air from Sackville instead of NHK World Radio in English. Was it thus from the onset at 0500?? Weakly audible OK on 5975 via UK; and NHK Spanish via BONAIRE was fine on 6080 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** KOREA SOUTH [and non]. 9650, Sept 15 at 1248, KBS WR starts Kevin O`Donovan`s 2-sesquiminute Listening Tips, mentioning that autumnal equinox is best time for him in NM to hear V. of Mongolia along the grayline, English at 1000 on 12015, but no luck now due to QRM.

[Axually English is supposed to be on 12085 and at 1030, but this hour blocked by CNR1 jamming, apparently because VOM dares to broadcast in Chinese at 1000, as recently explained in DXLD. Try 1530 on 12015]

Kevin always concludes with upcoming sports coverage on SiriusXM, yawn. There was some important news about KBSWR elsewhen on today`s broadcast, which Partha Sarathi Goswami reports to the DXLD yg that he caught at 0830 on WRN Europe following WORLD OF RADIO at 0800 Saturdays:

``Just heard in the mailbag program, they said about the fate of KBS World Radio to USA, the Sackville relay will be replaced by direct Kimjae Transmissions - but there may be a gap - yes, a gap because they are getting two new transmitters for Kimjae at the end of this year, that will be installed and used to transmit towards America, and the host mentioned it`s an in-house information, yes, not published so she is uncertain about the actual gap period but there will be a gap, as Sackville will be closed by the last week of October 2012``

More importantly, perhaps, they may not have any appropriate antennas for NAm back in the homeland; current HFCC shows the only azimuths anywhere eastward from Kimjae are 81 and 96 degrees, mainly for short hops to Japan, I think, and too far southward for NAm.

Geez, there are several other potential relay sites they could still use to NAm, such as Guiana French or WHRI, and could be even better than Sackville, especially if they could find a clear frequency for a change (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** MAURITANIA. 7245, Sept 15 at 0526, no signal from IGIM on the Sabbath unlike the Fribbath 24 hours earlier (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** MEXICO. 870, Sept 15 at 1216, mañanitas long version on and on, no doubt XETAR Guachochi, Chihuahua, as also heard a few minutes earlier in native language; now weak but mostly clear. Sunrise skip from NW Mexico was below average today. Enid LSR: 1214 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** MEXICO. 980, Sept 15 at 1202 UT, temp and time ``5:02 en Cananea, Sonora``, refers to ``radio pública`` more than once, ID in passing as XEFQ. It`s the IMER station whose formal name La Voz de la Ciudad del Cobre was not heard today (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** MOROCCO [and non]. 9570, Sept 15 at 0530, distorted hummy French blob, with BFO, unstable so no carrier can be pinpointed. A spur from something? Didn`t have to go far to match the audio on another receiver: 9575, so it`s right next to source R. Médi Un, which sounded softer. Fortunately no match on the other side as weaker Africa No. Un, Gabon remained in the clear on 9580 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** NEWFOUNDLAND [and non]. 6160.9, Sept 15 at 0525, I haven`t checked the het between CKZN and CKZU lately, so: it`s somewhere between A5 880 Hz and Bb 932 Hz; call it .9 kHz or so, tho CKZU has been measured slightly below 6160 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** NIGERIA [and non]. 15120, Sept 15 at 0541, no signal from VON, so I check 19m for other Africans: unlike 24 hours earlier when Africa was up, Australia down, now it`s the reverse: RA G-VG on 15515, 15240; JBA signals from 15400 Madagascar, 15580 Botswana, and 15725 Sudan South [non, whencever it emanate]. No signal on 15190 either but R. Africa could easily have been off the air. Nigeria probably off too, but by 0650 it was on in English, 0700 French, 0800-0900 English, says Ivo Ivanov in Bulgaria, who measured it offset again to 15121.0. My previous log of VON may also have been on 15121, as I did not check the frequency exactly. This of course makes no sense, as it will produce a het with China or whatever interference, worse than colliding head-on; unless the object is to damage the competition at VON`s own expense (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** OKLAHOMA. The POS Enid translator on 93.1 (ex-93.3), K226BR, supposed to relay KIMY 93.9 Watonga, is still acting up. Sept 14 at 2130 UT on the caradio, once again it`s transmitting that horrible sucking-straw-in-an-almost-empty-cup vibration. Recheck at 2224, that is alternating intermittently with ``The Gospel Station`` KIMY input. Apparently instead of muting, when the KIMY signal fades, the off-air receiver introduces this awful noise into the retransmitter.

Checking the callsign for this at FCC FM Query, I look at all the ENID listings, and also see there are two applications for a translator on 106.9, one from ``Florida Public Radio`` which is axually a gospel-huxter satellator network, to rebroadcast KREJ 101.7 Medicine Lodge KS; and the other from Community Broadcasting Inc., to rebroadcast KQCV-FM 95.1 Shawnee, but funxioning as an OKC market station from the far side, also a gospel huxter.

A couple little problems here: both have overlooked the fact, using a faulty find-a-frequency search facility? that we have a local 14 kW real station on 107.1, KNID, except it`s licensed to North Enid, not that that makes any difference in the real world, such a geographical offset best understood by Chisholm Trail Broadcasting which parked their own plain old Enid station there after moving the better facility on 99.7 to Mustang/OKC. (After the original KXLS on 99.7, an independent station, breaking the duopoly in Enid commercial radio, was bought out by CTB and eventually moved to 95.7, where it had also bought out another independent challenger licensed to Lahoma OK (not to be confused with OKlahoma).

Furthermore, KQCV input from 95.1 would be troubled by co-channel from Wichita, as any local listener could have told them. Will the FCC figure out the 106.9/107.1 conflict before granting anything, or will KNID have to head them off? (Glenn Hauser, Enid, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** SOMALILAND [non]. 7120, Sept 15 at 1357 I strain to hear even a JBA carrier from R. Hargaysa/Hargeisa, by longpath, but nothing yet, despite no QRhaM at the moment, altho 7110 carrier from Myanmar is still audible. By now it should be fading in on west coast at least, so maybe as we get a little more darkness, during optimum conditions we can nab it.

The long path great-circle route from Har-whatever to Enid is: across the Indian Ocean south of Australia, just south of New Zealand, Chatham Islands, more all-water across the Pacific near Tahiti, hitting N America at La Paz BCS.

The short path, tho not so aqueous, would be fine if they would just broadcast in the mornings, coming right across France, hitting N America across Labrador and Québec, Chicago (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** TAIWAN [and non]. 11530, Sept 15 at 1226, fair signal in Chinese spelling O-A-K-L-A-N-D, a good hint that it`s FSI, confirmed by YFR IS following; all the while with squishy +9 kHz spur QRM on 11529 from much stronger WEWN 11520 English, which is back on air today, and must be getting a sporadic-E boost, Catholix vs. --- whatever Family Radio is, sorta Protestant, minus churches.

Soon 11530 and several other YFR via Taiwan frequencies will be past-things, as B-12 schedule info reveals those relays will contract to only 6 frequency-hours per day, 11-14 on 6240 and 9280. And consequently the exchange relays of RTI via YFR will also be cut to 6 fq-hrs, not including the longtime English broadcasts at 02, 03 and 05. It`s not yet clear what will happen to the YFR relays via Taiwan on MW, but probably endangered (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** TIBET [non]. 11605, Sept 15 at 1228, unknown language mentions Washington, 1229 ``This is Radio Free Asia; the following program is in Tibetan``. Good clear signal, nice to hear with no jamming, tho it may be entirely different in the target. This is 250 kW, 295 degrees from TINIAN, at 12-14, so the preceding program was also in Tibetan; a dialect switch? No such details on the English announcement (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** TURKEY. 15450, Saturday Sept 15 at 1241, VOT is starting `DX Corner` with Omar. Starts with item about BBC`s ``Radio Reunited`` global simulcast celebrating 90 years on Nov 14; tuned away for other stuff including KOREA SOUTH whose DX program conflicts, confident that Turkey`s so-called DX program would not cover any real DX news (e.g. those daunting times and frequencies), and I could retrieve it later if I get around to it. Recheck at 1252 during an item about Hudson Institute panel discussion of BBG; 1259 after a song which is certainly off-topic for this show, Omar returns with final item, reading the full PR from Radio Free Asia, including boilerplate footer, about their latest QSL for rest of year; ending at 1302 until a fortnight later (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. WORLD OF RADIO 1634 monitoring: confirmed on Area 51 via WBCQ, UT Saturday Sept 15 from 0132 on webcast, as `AWWW` this week ran right up until then, Allan Weiner closing with a prayer to Jesus Christ. Around 0144 checked 5110v-CUSB and found a good clear signal there; reception is improving as we get past summer.

Next: on WRMI 9955: Saturday 1730, Sunday 0800, 1530, 1730
On WTWW 5755: UT Sunday 0400
On WRN via SiriusXM 120: Sat & Sun 1730, Sun 0830
(Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A [and non]. 12105, Sept 15 at 1236, expecting to hear WTWW-3 in Russian as usual on Saturdays, but only a YL in Chinese, i.e. KSDA which is co-channel at 11-15 [and latest HFCC still shows 14-15 also via Trincomalee SRI LANKA in effect until 02 October; I suppose as alternate contingency]. Still no WTWW at 1330 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 680, Saturday Sept 15 at 1210 UT, lexure about expanding our intellexual bandwidth from Afghanistan and Pakistan, to the Pacific. Good dominant signal for a few minutes, no doubt the `Commonwealth Club` from KNBR San Francisco, probably the only hour per week this once great station is worth listening to, breaking format from stupid ballgames, safely at a throwaway 5 am time when audience will be smallest; could be mistaken for a public radio station, many of which also carry this non-commercial hour when audience is awake (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 840, Saturday Sept 15 at 1159 UT, National Guard PSA, 100.5 Newsradio KXNT etc. ID, bong and CBS News, usual fair but steady signal from North Las Vegas NV at this hour, that nominally very minor lobe continuing to serve us well. At 1208, amid infomercial interview about something with enzymes, Resveratrol. So much for all-news. As everyone knows, nothing ever happens on weekends (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** VATICAN. 17865, Sept 15 at 1245, bogged down in low-key Russian talk about God, poor signal from VR SMG aimed northeast, but here right off the side at northwest, we should not even be getting this much (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

UNIDENTIFIED. 970, Sept 15 at 1205 UT choral XE NA ends, but ID tough copy with ACI and CCI; mentioned W, and Éxitos, I think, but W Radio affiliate list at
http://www.wradio.com.mx/escucha/emisoras/ includes nothing on this frequency. Per Cantú the only XE with a W in its call is XESW, Radio Madera, La Mera Mera, Cd. Madera, Chih., 5 kW daytimer (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

UNIDENTIFIED. 11995, Sept 15 at 0536 mystery open carrier with hum, much weaker than Turkey 11980. My gut feeling is that it`s Guiana French aimed elsewhere, which does modulate the frequency earlier, but in all my weeks of reporting this, I have only heard from one other monitor who has even tried to hear it. Those with DFing capability could help resolve it; until then I will keep on reporting it. If the frequency is slightly off, those with precision measuring capability might also match it to the 02-03 RTI relay in Spanish at 195 degrees from GUF. Does it hum too? I could check that.

Checking latest HFCC A-12, TDF/RFI never got around to removing broadcasts extinct as of January:
11995, 04-05 English, 500 kW, 135 degrees from Issoudun to 271012 and
11995, 0600-0630 Hausa, 500 kW, 170 degrees from Issoudun to 271012
Or, does that mean there is some hope of ever resuming them? Keeping the transmitter warmed up, frequency occupied? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)