** AUSTRALIA. 2325, Sept 5 at 1157, first thing I do upon awakening is tune to CRI on 7325, turn on BFO slightly offset, and then turn the MHz dial on the FRG-7, and repeak the preselector to detect carriers on 3325 (Indonesia/PNG), and even on 2325, which has to be VL8T, but it`ll take a much better signal to cut any modulation thru the noise level here (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** AUSTRALIA [and non]. 15340, Sept 5 at 1256, HCJB with hymn in S Asian language, would you believe is the SSOB (strongest signal on band)? 1258 announcement with P O Box, the numbers 6-9-1 presumably in that unknown language, but own schedule grid Wednesday shows Rawang for Myanmar daily until 1300. No English ID at hourtop, ``Namaskar`` and into another language, Nepali mentioned as scheduled for Wednesdays et al. No transmission break around 1300 either as all of this is on the 307-degree antenna, whether for SE or S Asia.
RHC never heard on 15340 this morning, tho it might have cut on and off briefly as often happens. HCJB 15340 remained stronger even than RHC 15230, still nice music at 1316 with Marathi. By 1342 during Hindi, HCJB has weakened and 15230 has strengthened; still, only other signals on 19m are quite attenuated and many ordinarily heard (e.g. Turkey before 1322) are absent. At 1424 final check, HCJB still audible in Urdu on 15340 with no RHC.
Hi-latitude paths from Asia, Europe, Mideast are suffering, but HCJB has a great advantage of trans-equatorial propagation with great-circle paths to Enid no further toward the poles than 38 degrees, but am I getting it long- or short? It`s all over-water too until reaching the USA. Longpath over Indian Ocean skirts Cape Town, and the NE point of Brasil, into NAm between Jaxonville and Savannah; shortpath over the Pacific goes between Lisianski and Midway at the far end of the Hawaiian chain, enters CONUS circa San Francisco.
VOA Korean 15775 also aimed USward at 21 degrees from Tinang, Philippines, unlike usual good signal, is JBA, which leads me to believe HCJB is in fact long-path the opposite way around thru our antipodes off Madagascar. VOA Somali via Madagascar 15730 is also audible poorly at 1318, aimed due north (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Aussie fax QRMing WEWN from another WA site: see USA [and non]
** BANGLADESH. 15505, Sept 5 at 1359, tone test, briefly to IS but too short to copy for sure; timesignal is now fast, ending at 1359:35, very poor signal with flutter, but no doubt Bangladesh Betar opening Urdu service in typical behavior. Nothing audible on 15105 earlier for the 1230 English, 1315 Nepali, and I am surprised to be getting this much, considering very poor hi-latitude propagation conditions; see AUSTRALIA HCJB (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** BRAZIL. 15191.5, Sept 5 at 0511 as I am bandscanning across 19m, expecting maybe R. Africa, instead immediately hear ``duas e onze``, i.e. Brazilian Portuguese timecheck which can only come from R. Inconfidência, Belo Horizonte. Then checked frequency and it`s right here, maybe .49 but probably within margin of error (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** CHINA. Firedrake Sept 5, before 1300:
12230, very poor at 1246
12320, fair at 1246
12670, fair at 1246; none in the 10s, 11s, 13s, 14s, 15s, 16s
Before 1400:
13920, very poor at 1322 under fax, from Australia? See USA: WEWN
14700, poor at 1323 with flutter
15490, very poor at 1343 with noise, het on lo side
15605, very poor at 1342 with noise, het on lo side
After 1400:
15495, very poor at 1424 with flutter
(Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** COSTA RICA. 5965, Sept 5 at 0521, REE is back on proper frequency // 9630, after excursion to 5995 last night (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** INDONESIA. 9526-, Sept 5 at 1347, VOI is gone again, no trace of a signal during English hour (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** MEXICO. 730, the mystery is solved about where ``Ke Buena`` is coming from. As suggested by Neil Kazaross, IL/WI, it is in fact a new name for XEHB in Hidalgo del Parral, Chihuahua, ex-Radio Viva Villa. Rather sorry to find that colorful name in homage to Pancho Villa has been retired (or moved elsewhere?).
Sept 5 at 1200 UT, expected VG signal on SRS, but no NA is played, just hyper Mexican music. 1201, full ID including ``XEHB-FM, 107.1, 25 kW, Hidalgo del Parral, cadena internacional, Radiorama``. This very recent change is not showing up yet in the listings, notably Cantú, rechecked at 1400 UT. Neil says he`s asked Fred about it.
Ke Buena is listed there on 700 instead:
700 XEGD Ke buena + FM 90.3 Hidalgo del Parral, Chih. 5,000 1,000
so we wonder if the formats on 700 and 730 have been swapped? But it`s not that simple as the FM frequency doesn`t match the announced 107.1 heard on 730. And 107.1 is not listed for anything in that city.
I also check 700 at 1200 UT, and a much weaker signal has a low-key discussion in Spanish, 1203 mentions Coahuila, but that`s all I could get, source unknown. It`s not clear if XEGD and XEHB are jointly owned, lacking weblinx for either in Cantú by-state listings. Martin Foltz, who is compiling the next IRCA Mexican Log, is checking whether the other Ke Buena on 730, in Ensenada BCN, retains that slogan.
In fact, the only Hidalgo del Parral station in the Radiorama affiliate list is yet another one:
Hidalgo Del Parral RADIO MIL XEHPC 1000AM
(Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** MEXICO. 750, Sept 5 at 1205 UT, after NA, Chihuahua anthem, no ID but into CV of some official from the steel industry, Horacio Campaña Acosta, must be this guy originally from Sinaloa, matching CV items:http://sinaloensesejemplares.com/horacio-campana-acosta/
Then, president Calderón gobierno federal PSA also mentioning Secretaría de Educación Pública. Relying on Cantú. station must be
750 XEOH La Jefa + FM 96.1 Cd. Camargo, Chih. 1,000 750
Altho I see he has now expanded his cross-border listings to include 5 US K-call stations in El Paso del Norte, under Ciudad Juárez, including the one on 750, KAMA, with Univisión América. I assume KAMA has not ``gone Mexican`` to the extent of playing their NA and state anthem; but you never know. Surely there`s no law against a US-licensed station doing so, altho there probably is a law prohibiting Mexicans from playing the Star Spangled Banner or Deep in the Heart of Tejas (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** OKLAHOMA. 1170, Sept 5 at 1220 UT, as I should keep bandscanning for SRS Mexicans, I get stuck on KFAQ as they are interviewing Tulsa Mayor Dewey Bartlett about firing some official, a Dr Addison-Turner. Read all about this, instead Lana Turner-Addison:http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=334&articleid=20120905_16_A13_CUTLIN215701
And an earlier story:http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=11&articleid=20120728_16_A15_CUTLIN829256
(Glenn Hauser, Enid, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A [and non]. 15615, Sept 5 at 1319, strong fax signal is obliterating WEWN, which is only a trace of a carrier; fax maybe closer to 15616. Sounds a lot like the Aussie fax on 13920 vs Firedrake. By 1343 the fax is off and WEWN is poorly audible in the clear.
A June 2011 post by Hugh Stegman to the UDXF yg shows both of these:
Australian BOM Charleville: 2628 5100 11030 13920 20469 [Qsld.]
Australian BOM Wiluna: 5755 7535 10555 15615 18060 [W Australia]
BOM = Bureau of Meteorology. This correlates with the good signal from another WA site, Kununurra; see AUSTRALIA [and non] (Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGESET)
** U S A. 1010, Sept 5 at 1215 UT, station break between gospel huxters, ``We are 10-10 AM, KXEN, good news for Saint Louis``. Sufficient signal I find hard to believe is the alleged temporary 350 watt transmitter at WGNU in Illinois. Makes 6 bars on the DX-398 signal meter; what about 50 kW KMOX at same time? Also 6 bars! But must have been in a fade, since the latter soon increases to 8 bars. But then a portion of its power is wasted on the IBOC sidebands. I wonder how the groundwave strength of KXEN seems in the St Louis area now. Could be the temporary antenna setup favors skywave (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. 14320-USB, Sept 5 at 1328, K4GFW is NCS of some net, taking check-ins and assigning sequential numbers to each station. 5 & 9 from him but I can`t hear any of the others, all over the US, except neighbor W4OMH, but K4GFW is Gerry, in Plantation FL. Says it`s daily except Sundays at 9 am Eastern. Seldom mentions name of net, but sounds like ``Narnia`` or ``Nadia``?? 1336 finally finishes about 20 check-ins and goes back to #1 to axually start the roundtable, but some of the first few are no longer there, out for coffee? I finally give up after 15 minutes at 1343, and try to find it later.
Per QRZ.com lookup, K4GFW is: GERALD C GRUENBAUM, SUNRISE, FL 33322, but he must have moved to another nearby Fort Lauderdale suburb in the meantime. Nothing works in ARRL list under such net names starting with N, or anything on 14320. On the time I finally get a hit on: KNOTHEAD! And that matches up with K4GFW who is also trustee of the Motorola ARC, W4MOT. Then I find that Knothead was listed in the final Nets to You of April 2007, with slightly different data: ``1430 1330 14310 KNOTHEAD Monday-Friday [Informal]`` What is the purpose of this net? ``social`` (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. 1330, Sept 5 at 1236 UT, West Texas oil drilling news with locations, per-barrel prices, ``from the KCKM news desk, the West Texas powerhouse``, back to music. Easily overcomes KNSS Wichita at SRS. So this Monahans station still exists in English, despite once-related KCKN 1020 Roswell NM 50 kW flipping to 24/7 Radiovisión Cristiana a few days ago // 1330 in New York, Dominican Republic, elsewhere (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. 1440, Sept 5 at 1225 UT, once again dead air on large carrier; a minute later at 1226 finally wakes up to play outro of previous preaching program with normal modulation level, ID as 1440 AM y 102.5 FM, i.e. Radio Luz, 50 kW KTNO University Park (Dallas) TX (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
UNIDENTIFIED. 17750, Sept 5 at 1425-1427* large steady open carrier, stronger than RHC on 17730, which is the only usable signal on 16m. Possibly RHC testing as 17750 is their afternoon frequency, but more likely Greenville B in a tuneup for 17530 which starts Portuguese at 1700, but not using 17530 now to avoid interfering with São Tomé 17530 with VOA English (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** AUSTRALIA [and non]. 15340, Sept 5 at 1256, HCJB with hymn in S Asian language, would you believe is the SSOB (strongest signal on band)? 1258 announcement with P O Box, the numbers 6-9-1 presumably in that unknown language, but own schedule grid Wednesday shows Rawang for Myanmar daily until 1300. No English ID at hourtop, ``Namaskar`` and into another language, Nepali mentioned as scheduled for Wednesdays et al. No transmission break around 1300 either as all of this is on the 307-degree antenna, whether for SE or S Asia.
RHC never heard on 15340 this morning, tho it might have cut on and off briefly as often happens. HCJB 15340 remained stronger even than RHC 15230, still nice music at 1316 with Marathi. By 1342 during Hindi, HCJB has weakened and 15230 has strengthened; still, only other signals on 19m are quite attenuated and many ordinarily heard (e.g. Turkey before 1322) are absent. At 1424 final check, HCJB still audible in Urdu on 15340 with no RHC.
Hi-latitude paths from Asia, Europe, Mideast are suffering, but HCJB has a great advantage of trans-equatorial propagation with great-circle paths to Enid no further toward the poles than 38 degrees, but am I getting it long- or short? It`s all over-water too until reaching the USA. Longpath over Indian Ocean skirts Cape Town, and the NE point of Brasil, into NAm between Jaxonville and Savannah; shortpath over the Pacific goes between Lisianski and Midway at the far end of the Hawaiian chain, enters CONUS circa San Francisco.
VOA Korean 15775 also aimed USward at 21 degrees from Tinang, Philippines, unlike usual good signal, is JBA, which leads me to believe HCJB is in fact long-path the opposite way around thru our antipodes off Madagascar. VOA Somali via Madagascar 15730 is also audible poorly at 1318, aimed due north (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Aussie fax QRMing WEWN from another WA site: see USA [and non]
** BANGLADESH. 15505, Sept 5 at 1359, tone test, briefly to IS but too short to copy for sure; timesignal is now fast, ending at 1359:35, very poor signal with flutter, but no doubt Bangladesh Betar opening Urdu service in typical behavior. Nothing audible on 15105 earlier for the 1230 English, 1315 Nepali, and I am surprised to be getting this much, considering very poor hi-latitude propagation conditions; see AUSTRALIA HCJB (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** BRAZIL. 15191.5, Sept 5 at 0511 as I am bandscanning across 19m, expecting maybe R. Africa, instead immediately hear ``duas e onze``, i.e. Brazilian Portuguese timecheck which can only come from R. Inconfidência, Belo Horizonte. Then checked frequency and it`s right here, maybe .49 but probably within margin of error (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** CHINA. Firedrake Sept 5, before 1300:
12230, very poor at 1246
12320, fair at 1246
12670, fair at 1246; none in the 10s, 11s, 13s, 14s, 15s, 16s
Before 1400:
13920, very poor at 1322 under fax, from Australia? See USA: WEWN
14700, poor at 1323 with flutter
15490, very poor at 1343 with noise, het on lo side
15605, very poor at 1342 with noise, het on lo side
After 1400:
15495, very poor at 1424 with flutter
(Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** COSTA RICA. 5965, Sept 5 at 0521, REE is back on proper frequency // 9630, after excursion to 5995 last night (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** INDONESIA. 9526-, Sept 5 at 1347, VOI is gone again, no trace of a signal during English hour (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** MEXICO. 730, the mystery is solved about where ``Ke Buena`` is coming from. As suggested by Neil Kazaross, IL/WI, it is in fact a new name for XEHB in Hidalgo del Parral, Chihuahua, ex-Radio Viva Villa. Rather sorry to find that colorful name in homage to Pancho Villa has been retired (or moved elsewhere?).
Sept 5 at 1200 UT, expected VG signal on SRS, but no NA is played, just hyper Mexican music. 1201, full ID including ``XEHB-FM, 107.1, 25 kW, Hidalgo del Parral, cadena internacional, Radiorama``. This very recent change is not showing up yet in the listings, notably Cantú, rechecked at 1400 UT. Neil says he`s asked Fred about it.
Ke Buena is listed there on 700 instead:
700 XEGD Ke buena + FM 90.3 Hidalgo del Parral, Chih. 5,000 1,000
so we wonder if the formats on 700 and 730 have been swapped? But it`s not that simple as the FM frequency doesn`t match the announced 107.1 heard on 730. And 107.1 is not listed for anything in that city.
I also check 700 at 1200 UT, and a much weaker signal has a low-key discussion in Spanish, 1203 mentions Coahuila, but that`s all I could get, source unknown. It`s not clear if XEGD and XEHB are jointly owned, lacking weblinx for either in Cantú by-state listings. Martin Foltz, who is compiling the next IRCA Mexican Log, is checking whether the other Ke Buena on 730, in Ensenada BCN, retains that slogan.
In fact, the only Hidalgo del Parral station in the Radiorama affiliate list is yet another one:
Hidalgo Del Parral RADIO MIL XEHPC 1000AM
(Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** MEXICO. 750, Sept 5 at 1205 UT, after NA, Chihuahua anthem, no ID but into CV of some official from the steel industry, Horacio Campaña Acosta, must be this guy originally from Sinaloa, matching CV items:http://sinaloensesejemplares.com/horacio-campana-acosta/
Then, president Calderón gobierno federal PSA also mentioning Secretaría de Educación Pública. Relying on Cantú. station must be
750 XEOH La Jefa + FM 96.1 Cd. Camargo, Chih. 1,000 750
Altho I see he has now expanded his cross-border listings to include 5 US K-call stations in El Paso del Norte, under Ciudad Juárez, including the one on 750, KAMA, with Univisión América. I assume KAMA has not ``gone Mexican`` to the extent of playing their NA and state anthem; but you never know. Surely there`s no law against a US-licensed station doing so, altho there probably is a law prohibiting Mexicans from playing the Star Spangled Banner or Deep in the Heart of Tejas (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** OKLAHOMA. 1170, Sept 5 at 1220 UT, as I should keep bandscanning for SRS Mexicans, I get stuck on KFAQ as they are interviewing Tulsa Mayor Dewey Bartlett about firing some official, a Dr Addison-Turner. Read all about this, instead Lana Turner-Addison:http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=334&articleid=20120905_16_A13_CUTLIN215701
And an earlier story:http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=11&articleid=20120728_16_A15_CUTLIN829256
(Glenn Hauser, Enid, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A [and non]. 15615, Sept 5 at 1319, strong fax signal is obliterating WEWN, which is only a trace of a carrier; fax maybe closer to 15616. Sounds a lot like the Aussie fax on 13920 vs Firedrake. By 1343 the fax is off and WEWN is poorly audible in the clear.
A June 2011 post by Hugh Stegman to the UDXF yg shows both of these:
Australian BOM Charleville: 2628 5100 11030 13920 20469 [Qsld.]
Australian BOM Wiluna: 5755 7535 10555 15615 18060 [W Australia]
BOM = Bureau of Meteorology. This correlates with the good signal from another WA site, Kununurra; see AUSTRALIA [and non] (Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGESET)
** U S A. 1010, Sept 5 at 1215 UT, station break between gospel huxters, ``We are 10-10 AM, KXEN, good news for Saint Louis``. Sufficient signal I find hard to believe is the alleged temporary 350 watt transmitter at WGNU in Illinois. Makes 6 bars on the DX-398 signal meter; what about 50 kW KMOX at same time? Also 6 bars! But must have been in a fade, since the latter soon increases to 8 bars. But then a portion of its power is wasted on the IBOC sidebands. I wonder how the groundwave strength of KXEN seems in the St Louis area now. Could be the temporary antenna setup favors skywave (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. 14320-USB, Sept 5 at 1328, K4GFW is NCS of some net, taking check-ins and assigning sequential numbers to each station. 5 & 9 from him but I can`t hear any of the others, all over the US, except neighbor W4OMH, but K4GFW is Gerry, in Plantation FL. Says it`s daily except Sundays at 9 am Eastern. Seldom mentions name of net, but sounds like ``Narnia`` or ``Nadia``?? 1336 finally finishes about 20 check-ins and goes back to #1 to axually start the roundtable, but some of the first few are no longer there, out for coffee? I finally give up after 15 minutes at 1343, and try to find it later.
Per QRZ.com lookup, K4GFW is: GERALD C GRUENBAUM, SUNRISE, FL 33322, but he must have moved to another nearby Fort Lauderdale suburb in the meantime. Nothing works in ARRL list under such net names starting with N, or anything on 14320. On the time I finally get a hit on: KNOTHEAD! And that matches up with K4GFW who is also trustee of the Motorola ARC, W4MOT. Then I find that Knothead was listed in the final Nets to You of April 2007, with slightly different data: ``1430 1330 14310 KNOTHEAD Monday-Friday [Informal]`` What is the purpose of this net? ``social`` (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. 1330, Sept 5 at 1236 UT, West Texas oil drilling news with locations, per-barrel prices, ``from the KCKM news desk, the West Texas powerhouse``, back to music. Easily overcomes KNSS Wichita at SRS. So this Monahans station still exists in English, despite once-related KCKN 1020 Roswell NM 50 kW flipping to 24/7 Radiovisión Cristiana a few days ago // 1330 in New York, Dominican Republic, elsewhere (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. 1440, Sept 5 at 1225 UT, once again dead air on large carrier; a minute later at 1226 finally wakes up to play outro of previous preaching program with normal modulation level, ID as 1440 AM y 102.5 FM, i.e. Radio Luz, 50 kW KTNO University Park (Dallas) TX (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
UNIDENTIFIED. 17750, Sept 5 at 1425-1427* large steady open carrier, stronger than RHC on 17730, which is the only usable signal on 16m. Possibly RHC testing as 17750 is their afternoon frequency, but more likely Greenville B in a tuneup for 17530 which starts Portuguese at 1700, but not using 17530 now to avoid interfering with São Tomé 17530 with VOA English (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
