** CHINA. 7220, Feb 21 at 1533, soft song in Japanese with guitar; QRM de WA4FUR, Steve in Georgia, who had concluded that no one was using the frequency! Good signal except for intermittent QRHam. What does PWBR `2009` say? Vietnam, RFE/RL, Central African Republic or Zambia. None of these likely with such a good signal in Japanese, so onward as usual to more up-to-date online references. Aoki has these on the air at 1533: V. of Broad Masses, Eritrea; R. Bangui; R. Liberty, Lampertheim in Russian; V of Vietnam in Vietnamese --- AND CRI in JAPANESE, 500 kW, 95 degrees from Jinhua site, obviously the choice. HFCC has same except 59 degrees. EiBi also includes the CRI Japanese broadcast (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** CHINA. 11945, Feb 21 at 1603, good signal but flutter, with classic rock song in English, ``Say You, Say Me,`` by Phil Collins? 1606 Chinese announcement, 1610 YL singing song in Chinese. Your credulous list-logger would assume this is R. Free Asia as scheduled via Tinian. But we know that is thoroly jammed by the Chicom, so we must investigate such a possibility, or rather probability! Tuned around 25m for a parallel and found one just barely audible on 11765, bothered by WHRI 11785 overload. Ahá, per Aoki, no RFA scheduled there, but instead Sound of Hope during this hour. Ergo, what I was hearing on 11945 was not RFA but Chinese jamming, presumably CNR-1 program as usual, which at least at midnight is playing music instead of news (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** INDONESIA. RRI Fak2, 4790 at 1420 Feb 20 going from music to YL talking, still fair signal at this late hour, with inevitable CODAR QRM. Only significant signal on 60m besides 5025 Cuba and 5030 China which were weakening prior to fadeouts. With BFO on, I noticed the 4790 carrier was slightly unstable. Still no sign of 4750 Makasar. This must have been a good Indo morning if I had monitored earlier. Yes: Dave Valko in PA nabbed a number of PNGs and Indos on 3 MHz about 2-3 hours before. Local sunrise in Enid today was 1313 UT (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** KOREA NORTH [non]. 9780, Furusato no Kaze, 250 kW, 45 degrees from Taiwan, good in Japanese just after opening at 1600 Feb 21, just far enough away from Sackville DRM centered on 9800 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** PHILIPPINES. Reception from DW 15620 in Russian this Saturday at 1530 was not very good for Muzprosvet avant-garde music show, so I was glad instead to find on 9570, Feb 21 at 1540, some nice classical organ music with orchestra catching my ear. 1544 Russian ID for Radio Blagovest, seemingly mentioning a seminary in New York, then talk/sermon in clearly enunciated Russian; 1554 ending, banging bells, ID again; 1555 R. Veritas Asia ID by YL in English, said next broadcast would be in Vietnamese, but 9570 off at 1555:40*. Aoki shows the 1500-1557 hour on RVA in Russian is R. Blagovest, 250 kW, 331 degrees. WRTH 2009 does not mention R. Blagovest under the RVA listings; it`s just a program title.
This page at RVA about its Russian service never mentions Blagovest, but quotes some reception reports from Vashek Korinek in South Africa, who seems rather inactive now, and (Iwao) Nagatani, Japan. See http://www.rveritas-asia.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=78&Itemid=127
which also has a crummy map cutting off all of Russia east of Omsk, as if that were not the primary target from the Philippines at 331 degrees!
I don`t find Blagovest mentioned anywhere on the RVA site, but there is no search funxion. Google is unable to translate either component or the whole word, but looking at various hits, it seems to refer to Russian Orthodox music, bells in particular. But RVA is Catholic! A 2004 logging in the HCDX archive from the Ukrainian-Canadian Volodya Salmaniw elucidates what I was hearing:
``PHILIPPINES 11795, 1544-, Radio Blagovest Jun 13 Excellent reception in Russian, with Protestant type programming in Russian, with organ music (foreign to the Russian church), then ID 'Vy sluyshayte Radio Blagovest', followed by Moscow address, and finally 'Radio Blag'. (Salmaniw, Victoria, BC)``
Seems unlikely a Catholic-run station would really be carrying a Protestant program. Perhaps to the Orthodox, anything Catholic sounds so far-out as to be Protestant (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** SAUDI ARABIA. Feb 21 I was standing by on 15435 for the sign-on of BSKSA, and on it popped at *1458, big buzz overriding their own Arabic talk. Continued intolerable, still at 1531 check over muezzin; Sawt ul-Buzz (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. Just as I tuned across WBOH 5920v, UT Sat Feb 21 at 0653:40 they started to play The Star Spangled Banner, until 0654:50, then to honky-tonk hymn with barbershop harmony. Perhaps FBN plays the SSB around this time each day? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** ZAMBIA. 1Africa still on 9420 colliding horribly with Greece, Feb 20 at 2200 tune-in; thought I might have been too late to reconfirm, but CVC stayed on past 2200, giving me time to count a SAH of 215/minute vs Greece, = 3.6 Hz. CVC was again trying to persuade African stations to become affiliates, and finally turned off at 2203:44* leaving Greece descathed. We are waiting and hoping, which Spanish combines into a single word, for CVC to start using 13835, a new frequency they have registered for this same 17-22 UT transmission (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ###
** CHINA. 11945, Feb 21 at 1603, good signal but flutter, with classic rock song in English, ``Say You, Say Me,`` by Phil Collins? 1606 Chinese announcement, 1610 YL singing song in Chinese. Your credulous list-logger would assume this is R. Free Asia as scheduled via Tinian. But we know that is thoroly jammed by the Chicom, so we must investigate such a possibility, or rather probability! Tuned around 25m for a parallel and found one just barely audible on 11765, bothered by WHRI 11785 overload. Ahá, per Aoki, no RFA scheduled there, but instead Sound of Hope during this hour. Ergo, what I was hearing on 11945 was not RFA but Chinese jamming, presumably CNR-1 program as usual, which at least at midnight is playing music instead of news (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** INDONESIA. RRI Fak2, 4790 at 1420 Feb 20 going from music to YL talking, still fair signal at this late hour, with inevitable CODAR QRM. Only significant signal on 60m besides 5025 Cuba and 5030 China which were weakening prior to fadeouts. With BFO on, I noticed the 4790 carrier was slightly unstable. Still no sign of 4750 Makasar. This must have been a good Indo morning if I had monitored earlier. Yes: Dave Valko in PA nabbed a number of PNGs and Indos on 3 MHz about 2-3 hours before. Local sunrise in Enid today was 1313 UT (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** KOREA NORTH [non]. 9780, Furusato no Kaze, 250 kW, 45 degrees from Taiwan, good in Japanese just after opening at 1600 Feb 21, just far enough away from Sackville DRM centered on 9800 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** PHILIPPINES. Reception from DW 15620 in Russian this Saturday at 1530 was not very good for Muzprosvet avant-garde music show, so I was glad instead to find on 9570, Feb 21 at 1540, some nice classical organ music with orchestra catching my ear. 1544 Russian ID for Radio Blagovest, seemingly mentioning a seminary in New York, then talk/sermon in clearly enunciated Russian; 1554 ending, banging bells, ID again; 1555 R. Veritas Asia ID by YL in English, said next broadcast would be in Vietnamese, but 9570 off at 1555:40*. Aoki shows the 1500-1557 hour on RVA in Russian is R. Blagovest, 250 kW, 331 degrees. WRTH 2009 does not mention R. Blagovest under the RVA listings; it`s just a program title.
This page at RVA about its Russian service never mentions Blagovest, but quotes some reception reports from Vashek Korinek in South Africa, who seems rather inactive now, and (Iwao) Nagatani, Japan. See http://www.rveritas-asia.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=78&Itemid=127
which also has a crummy map cutting off all of Russia east of Omsk, as if that were not the primary target from the Philippines at 331 degrees!
I don`t find Blagovest mentioned anywhere on the RVA site, but there is no search funxion. Google is unable to translate either component or the whole word, but looking at various hits, it seems to refer to Russian Orthodox music, bells in particular. But RVA is Catholic! A 2004 logging in the HCDX archive from the Ukrainian-Canadian Volodya Salmaniw elucidates what I was hearing:
``PHILIPPINES 11795, 1544-, Radio Blagovest Jun 13 Excellent reception in Russian, with Protestant type programming in Russian, with organ music (foreign to the Russian church), then ID 'Vy sluyshayte Radio Blagovest', followed by Moscow address, and finally 'Radio Blag'. (Salmaniw, Victoria, BC)``
Seems unlikely a Catholic-run station would really be carrying a Protestant program. Perhaps to the Orthodox, anything Catholic sounds so far-out as to be Protestant (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** SAUDI ARABIA. Feb 21 I was standing by on 15435 for the sign-on of BSKSA, and on it popped at *1458, big buzz overriding their own Arabic talk. Continued intolerable, still at 1531 check over muezzin; Sawt ul-Buzz (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. Just as I tuned across WBOH 5920v, UT Sat Feb 21 at 0653:40 they started to play The Star Spangled Banner, until 0654:50, then to honky-tonk hymn with barbershop harmony. Perhaps FBN plays the SSB around this time each day? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** ZAMBIA. 1Africa still on 9420 colliding horribly with Greece, Feb 20 at 2200 tune-in; thought I might have been too late to reconfirm, but CVC stayed on past 2200, giving me time to count a SAH of 215/minute vs Greece, = 3.6 Hz. CVC was again trying to persuade African stations to become affiliates, and finally turned off at 2203:44* leaving Greece descathed. We are waiting and hoping, which Spanish combines into a single word, for CVC to start using 13835, a new frequency they have registered for this same 17-22 UT transmission (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ###
