domenica 9 febbraio 2014

Glenn Hauser logs February 8-9, 2014

** AMSTERDAM ISLAND. 14185-USB, Feb 9 at 0114, presumed FT5ZM awarding 5s & 9s to quick contacts, not bothering to mention his own call or location, just QRZ and on to the next one who gets thru the pileup. Here often overcome by clueless co-channel callers, causing others (pilots?) to interject ``listening up 5``, as this DX-pedition is probably about to dismantle. I sought here after first hearing pileups circa 14190-USB (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** CHINA. 9455, Feb 8 at 1610, Firedrake good with flutter, against RFA Chinese via SAIPAN; nothing on 9355 yet, since that // Saipan relay doesn`t start until 1700 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** CUBA. 1620, Feb 9 at 0134 UT, Spanish with Waco/Omaha nulled, soon partial ID as ``punto 7, sensacional``, and music. Expected R. Rebelde, but *not* // 5025, which is in a slow-paced ballgame with crowd noise, presumed base, since keywords such as ``faul``, ``bola``, ``aut``, ``bateador``, which does match the Rebelde pileup on 1180. (And R. Martí 6030 is not in a game this Saturday night.) Therefore I conclude that this 1620 is instead relaying the FM side of Rebelde on 96.7 from Habana, probably the 5 kW Guanabacoa, CH outlet. Cuba only ventured into the X-band originally to block WDHP Virgin Islands relaying Martí at limited times; does it still? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** EAST TURKISTAN. 6005, Feb 9 at 0053, very poor signal in English, but recognizably the same on 6020, which is CRI via Albania, whilst 6005 is 174 degrees from Kashgar to S Asia at 00-01 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** KOREA NORTH [non]. 9780-, Feb 8 at 1607, good signal in Japanese. I bet it`s a Korean clandestine and since it`s slightly off frequency, the site is Taiwan --- yes! Aoki shows Furusato no Kaze, at 1600-1630, 250 kW, 45 degrees from Tainan and thus also USward (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** MEXICO. 6185, Feb 9 at 0146-0148+, nothing but background noise is being modulated. Might have been during an event, but no change in it for 2+ minutes, be it crowd, surf, traffic, open STL, from Radio Educación; a pity as its signal is a little better than usual vs 6180 Brasil (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** NIGERIA [and non]. 15120-AM, Feb 8 at 0708, my pre-sleep bandscan finds a poor signal here detectably in French intonation, so V. of Nigeria is barely propagating thru the night.

NO signal on 15190, a time when R. Africa, nearby Equatorial Guinea used to be active. Is anyone hearing them any more direct on 15190 at any time? The 20-23 period only being via WRMI (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** NORTH AMERICA. 6925-USB, Feb 9 at 0056, dramatic narration about ``QRM --- the dark side of shortwave radio``, in exaggerated accent, Radio Free, Whatever ID; it`s QRMental; RFW goal is to be so great that people will go out and buy SW radios to hear it; rudely criticizes Brother Stair and his 15 frequencies; plus T-shirts available from a website. Sufficient signal, still on at 0119, and 0148 chex (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** NORTH AMERICA. 6940-AM, Feb 9 at 0119, very poor signal with rock music; several logs here say it`s Radio True North:
http://www.hfunderground.com/board/index.php/topic,15289.0.html
(Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** NORTH AMERICA. 6950-USB, Feb 9 at 0120, a third pirate is now active with jazzy vocal from the 40s? ``Chestnut Street``; 0122 Wolverine Radio ID and more music. Good signal, as usual better than the others on the band at the time. Still on and another ID at 0148 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** OKLAHOMA. 1580, UT Sunday Feb 9 at 0137, talk about OSU basketball, during game? atop some QRMusic (MusiQRM?), so must be KOKB Blackwell, part of Triple Play Sports originating in Stillwater. BUT: its usual sibling, KOKP 1020 Perry is not //, instead Fox Sports Radio, and so is the third station, KOSB 105.1 FM, nominally Perry, which I can easily hear. Normally the three match, but optionally split away for games, especially when two or three are playing at once, but why put OSU BKB only on the farthest station from Stillwater, which is allegedly only 49 watts at night? O yeah, maybe a blackout in hometown. Website is down when I try to check on game schedules, as if I cared for any purpose but this log (Glenn Hauser, Enid, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** OKLAHOMA. 88.3, Feb 9 at 0156 UT, sacred music from Family Radio translator in Enid, K202BY, but with stereo headphones, the balance is off, mostly from the left side compared to any other signal. Unfortunately this one has remained more or less active, but it`s better with such music than rock, house crap on several other gospel huxters around here (Glenn Hauser, Enid, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** OKLAHOMA. 104.9, Feb 9 at 0139 UT, long list of local sponsors on KREK, i.e. 5 kW Bristow station, and still no sign of new KEUC Ringwood, 400 watts but closest to Enid; last time I tried for it, I heard yet another OK station, 6 kW KKWD Bethany (Glenn Hauser, Enid, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** PERU. 5980, Feb 9 at 0055, JBA carrier from R. Chaski. This time I monitor constantly from 0058 expecting a new earlier cutoff time since last night it was already gone at 0103. Yes, now it goes off at 0102:10*, so they didn`t set it back very far this time.

I can`t help but notice that some log editors find tracking this behavior to be of no interest, ``automatically`` deleting such logs. I remind that this is very weak-signal DX, and I am so familiar with its behavior that there is no need to hear an ID, or even any modulation (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** SOUTH CAROLINA [non]. 9980 WWCR and 9930 WTWW are off, Sat Feb 8 at 2203, leaving nothing but 9370 WWRB to hear Brother Scare!! This deprivation is horrible!!! 9955 WRMI is on, but with some other gospel huxter, who is however talking about fixed-tuned radios, just the thing for your one-of-a-kind ministry, the only one with a direct link from God, or your ruthless dictator. Sked shows `Impact Radio`, as 9955 quits BSing an hour earlier on weekends, to other programming from 2200 instead of 2300 weekdays. Feb 1 WWCR-4 schedule claims to be with TOM until 2300 weekends, 2400 weekdays. Not (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** URUGUAY. 6125, Feb 8 at 0713, JBA carrier weaker than something on 6120. Possibly the reactivated Radiodifusión Nacional del Uruguay, which first appeared Jan 23 to nearby listeners who can hear it in the daytime, and supposed to be 24 hours.

The propagational and operational window for possible reception in N America is 0556-1000 UT, after Spain and before China co-channel, but sunrise in Montevideo is circa 0900. I mention this merely to call attention to possible reception of this now rare SWBC country (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. WORLD OF RADIO 1707 monitoring: surprised to find it`s already started on 5085 WTWW, UT Sunday Feb 9 at 0022 tune-in; at first item Australia, so must have just started circa 0020. Not rechecked until 0050, when it`s not over but instead about Nigeria almost in synch with 9495 WRMI which surely started at 0030:03 after a Zanotti ID. Therefore, WTWW-2 must have restarted playback at proper 0030 time. Also confirmed UT Sunday Feb 9 from 0500:54 on WTWW-1 5830, good but not super signal, and some fading.

Next: UT Monday 0400 on Area 51 via WBCQ 5110v-CUSB; Tuesday 1200 & Wednesday 1400 on WRMI 9955; Wednesday 0730 & 1530 on HLR 7265-CUSB (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 12105, Sat Feb 8 at 1605, WTWW-3 is on today in AraBible so another missed chance to hear the Zim cland. 9475 WTWW-1 is also on, but not 9930 WTWW-2.

9475, Feb 8 at 2159, WTWW during SFAW has some IADs, or are they drop-ups? First noted on 9225, a receiver mixing leapfrog over also very strong 9350 WWCR, another 125 kHz lower, where there would be `beeps` at irregular intervals, pushing up the S meter. Cleared up after 2200. Strange (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 5810, Feb 9 at 0053, no signal from WEWN; one transmitter must be down again; at 0109, strong in English on 11520, and in squealy Spanish on 11870. At 0152, still absent from 5810 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 690, Feb 9 at 0131 UT, open carrier, dead air obviously from my nearest, KGGF Coffeyville KS, allowing WLW IBOC noise to be heard unimpeded by ancient amplitude modulation. This *could* go on for hours and hours, as heard from KGGF in the past, e.g. during a ballgame except no ballgame, just the local commercial inserts; and OC overnight. I haven`t bothered to log it lately, but it`s still signing off with patriotic music other than NA, and taps shortly after local midnight, 0600 UT, but not cutting the carrier then (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

UNIDENTIFIED. 870, Feb 9 at 0127 UT, country love song with WWL talker nulled, but fading. From NRC AM Log, best bet by format, proximity, direxion and legal night operation is: KPRM Park Rapids MN, 40/1 kW (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

UNIDENTIFIED. 9570, Feb 8 at 2202-2203:04* fair open carrier, from what? Nothing scheduled just before or after 2200 in EiBi, Aoki or HFCC (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

UNIDENTIFIED. 15120, Feb 9 at 0117, open carrier, fair with flutter. Nothing scheduled here after CRI finishes at 0100 via Habana, so maybe they haven`t turned it off, tho not usual to flutter; next up is AIR Bengaluru in Kannada from 0215 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)