sabato 19 maggio 2018

Glenn Hauser logs May 18-19, 2018

** CUBA. 11860, May 18 at 2134, RHC in Spanish, post-Castro president what`s-his-name remarx on plane crash, // 11760, 11840, 12000. Aoki lacks any 11860 entries for RHC! EiBi shows Spanish at 21-23 to Europe, following 1930-2100 French/Portuguese/Arabic. This must really mess up the Saudi/Yemen service. Neither that nor RHC in HFCC so they`re on their own (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** CUBA. 9530, May 19 at 0102, RHC is S9+20 // 11760, ex-9535! A mistake, or QSY? Now it blox any trace of the Progreso 2 x 4765 harmonic, and 4765 music is certainly not // this. That leaves 14295 third harmonic possible (not to be confused with another third harmonicizer, Tajikistan). In the morning, however, RHC still on 9535 at 1350 check May 19 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** CUBA. 6270, May 19 at 0627, RHC English is JBA on this leapfrog mixing product of 6060 over 6165 another 105 kHz higher. Also a weaker JBA carrier on 6230, which is 6100 over 6165 another 65 kHz higher. Since they exist, altho Arnie will never admit it, I must add them to DX/SWL/MEDIA PROGRAMS schedule after 0500 for DXers Unlimited. 6000 is not involved with these, since it`s from a different site, Quivicán, than 6060/6100/6165, all Bauta, per EiBi (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** CUBA. 13740, May 19 at 1353, S9+30 open carrier except for a swishing sound, instead of RHC Spanish which is supposed to run here until 1400. Rather, that transmitter is off, and the CRI relay transmitter is on early, as ``China Plus Radio`` with ``CRI news`` starts undermodulatedly at 1400, and this time with no overlap. Aoki/NDXC says 13740 CRI at 1400 is Quivicán site, but doesn`t know about RHC until 1400. EiBi says the latter is Bejucal site. Meanwhile, RHC is nominal on 13700 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** KUWAIT. 17550, May 18 at 2010, very weak Arabic, S0-S1, as R. Kuwait is scheduled at 20-24, and barely propagating (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 13565, May 19 at 1354, K6FRC beacon CW IDs repeating, JBA from Patterson, California. I tune the HIFER band at least once a day, but hearing any of them is a rarity. My last log was March 9 at 1524. LWCA list shows K6FRC on 13565.035 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 13670, Friday May 18 at 2132, dead air at S9+20, and the SSOB! Too bad there`s no modulation from Greenville for the M-F 2130-2200 VOA Bambara service. Listed GB // is 15120, unheard; 9490 Ascension, 11900 Vatican, unchecked. (RHC also uses 13670 but only at 11-12 per Aoki). (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. WORLD OF RADIO 1930 monitoring: not confirmed Friday May 18 at 2330 on WBCQ, 9330v, as BS still playing at 2334. Since WBCQ won`t tell me what their intention is about this, how much longer need I keep checking for sporadic WOR playbax? 

Not confirmed, Saturday May 19 at 1457 on 6190 HLR via UTwente, nothing audible. But Alan Gale, England, reports:

``Hi Glenn, Mixed conditions again today on 6190, Radio Tropical was weak but audible, but the signal went down again during Media Network. World of Radio started to fade up around 1446 UT and by 1451 the signal was quite good and stayed audible right until the HLR sign off at 1500. There was also a noticeable carrier on the channel earlier, and checking this on USB it should a zero beat at 6191 kHz, so if it comes from a BC station, then it's off frequency. I was able to remove this with a notch filter, though it wasn't noticeable after WoR came up in strength.``  Next:

Sat 1930v  WA0RCR 1860-AM ND [off this week, back May 26]
Sat 2130   WBCQ 9330v to WSW [maybe][or 2330?]
Sat 2300   WRMI 7780 to NE
Sun 0200   WRMI 7780 to NE [canceled?]
Sun 0310v  WA0RCR 1860-AM ND [off this week, back May 27]
Sun 1030   HLR 9485-CUSB to WSW
Sun 1900   WRMI 9395 to NNW
Sun 2330   WBCQ 9330v to WSW [maybe]
Mon 0130.5 WRMI 5850 to NW, 7780 to NE
Mon 0300v  WBCQ 5130v Area 51 to WSW
Mon 0330   WRMI 9955 to SSE
Mon 0400   WRMI webcast only
Mon 2330   WBCQ 9330v to WSW [maybe]
Tue 0030   WRMI 7730 to WNW
Tue 2030   WRMI 7780 to NE, 5950 to WNW [or #1931?]
Tue 2130   WRMI 7780 to NE, 5950 to WNW [or #1931?]

Full schedule for WOR on all outlets, not just SW; podcast linx:
http://www.worldofradio.com/radioskd.html
(Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 7390.04 to 7490.03, UT Sat May 19 at 0001, WBCQ opening `Allan Weiner Worldwide` with ``William Tell Overture``, but soon apparent it`s another oldie playback, in fact the same one heard last night, despite AW claiming to be ``live`` --- should have edited that out; with girlfriend Angela and the WE mic; I thought that was from Feb, but at 0053 recheck he`s referring to Brother Scare having been arrested ``last month``, which was December. Unlike last week, this show is not duplicated on 9330 where BS continues. 5129.8 probably is // but a JBA carrier buried in the summer storm noise level (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 9455, May 18 at 2007, music at VP level, much weaker than S6 9395 WRMI relay of RAE in Italian. At 2135, 9455 is a JBA carrier, still much weaker than 9395 now with S4-S9 of Oldies. At 2325, JBA English talk, gospel huxter? Now I search for possible parallels --- not 9395, not 7780, not 7570=BS, not 9955, not 9475-WTWW, not 6115-WWCR. At 2340 there seem to be two audios on 9455, one of them Brother Scare; 2344, gospel music, no //s. 2348, another fadeup now sounds like Bob Biermann low-key preaching in `Your Weekend Show`, mixing with something else. 2359 no IDs audible. 

Two audios is a symptom of a mixing product, but I cannot figure out any mathematical explanation, by the usual formulas, such as 2B-A, 2A-B, A+B, or B-A, for any combination of WRMI frequencies. I also try my two local overloaders, 1390 and 960, with no fits. If it`s two different transmitter sites, that means the mixture is resulting locally here. But what are the chances of such occurring on a frequency WRMI has just stopped using? Or as I suggested before, remotely possible somepirate is doing this to confuse us.

As of May 19, the WRMI skedgrid claims that not one of the 14 transmitters is on 9455 at any time. I continue to suspect for some reason WRMI is experimenting with an exciter running on 9455, and/or some antenna angle bad for us resulting in such a weak signal. Or it could be something unintentional.. I`ve asked WRMI about it, but no reply yet. Should this go away, that may imply they got the message and fixed it (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 9930, May 18 at 2007, WTWW-2 is on again, gospel/C&W music at S9+50, flanked by the plus/minus 12.9 kHz spur carriers. Perhaps there will be a lot more unusual activity from WTWW during the Xenia Hamvention this weekend? But 2035 and 2130 rechex, 9930`s air is dead (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 6014.5 approx., May 19 at 0629, extremely distorted music and talk in Spanish at S5-S3 – at first I suspect Conciencia, Colombia out of 6010v transmitter as it has done before, but then at 0637 I find a match on 5925.5 at S9, call-in show, stronger than the upper one, so both are squeezed out of the 5970 WEWN transmitter which itself is just barely modulated! 5925.5 demodulates much better, almost quiet, when tuned in FM mode! Way out of whack, plus and minus 44.5 kHz. But by 1345 recheck, 5970 is back in whack with normal amplitude modulation level and no spurs audible (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 15670, May 19 at 1359, no sign of DRM noise, as WINB is supposed to be testing at 11-17 UT with 15 kW. Ooops, this is Saturday and it`s Monday-Friday only per this from Hans Johnson via Alokesh Gupta: 

``A new ASI transmitter, a CE-50000WS, is on the following test schedule: Monday-Friday 1100-1700 UT on 15670 kHz. The transmitter is rated at 15 kW and is using a rhombic antenna at 62 degrees. At times when the ASI transmitter is not being tested, WINB will be testing in DRM via its existing Continental 417B transmitter on 9265 kHz via a rhombic antenna beamed 242 degrees. Programming is from WINB's Internet audio stream and is in English and Spanish``.

On the WOR io group, Tim Gaynor in Australia wondered, ``Any ideas on what bitrate they will be using? A common problem with other DRM transmissions is they use a too high bitrate which makes DXing DRM difficult``

Alokesh replied with a screenshot, which Alexander Busneag, Germany interprets: ``8.28 kbps --- seems good. But wait: It's MSC 64-QAM, and only 5 kHz wide - so it has the same robustness like a 10 kHz wide DRM transmission with 17.5 kbps! Visit page 21 of the "DRM Handbook 2018":
http://www.drm.org/DRM_Handbook_2018.pdf
for more information on DRM system bitrates``.

15670 is in fact registered those hours in HFCC, but as 50 kW in D = NOT DRM, rather regular analog. It will be interesting to observe how the wobbly old 9265 transmitter handle DRM! A third WINB on the books is 7325 at 07-09 M-F, 50 kW analog at 62 degrees.

Stephen Luce, Houston TX, asks, ``What is an "ASI" transmitter?  Nothing about that and the "CE-50000WS" on a quick Google search.  What company is this?`` (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

This report dispatched at 1717 UT May 19