lunedì 21 settembre 2009

Glenn Hauser logs September 21, 2009

** BRAZIL. 11735 with Brazilian Portuguese dominating over North Korea for a change, but making lo het with it, Sept 21 at 1401 full Rádio Transmundial ID, giving ZY- callsigns (ze-úpsilon-) for several frequencies including this and one on 50 m, but fading prevented detailed copy, peaking S9+12. 1403 opening program ``Bom Dia, RTM`` tho it`s already 11 am there. Believe it or not, this had much better signal than 250 kW Brasília on 11780, and no other Brazilians audible on 25m at the usual spots. No doubt also the source of the het I was hearing later in a previous day against Zanzibar. Aoki says this is 50 kW at 60 degrees from Santa Maria-Camobi site, 0800-0200 UT (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** CHINA. Firedrake Sept 21 at 1320: fair on 8400, nothing on 9000. No higher ones heard, tho I keep looking for the new one Ron Howard uncovered, 14970 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** GERMANY [non]. 15700 at 1413 Sept 21, DW jingle and Russian ID under open carrier making 2 Hz SAH. Most likely explanation is that Bulgaria failed to drop carrier immediately at usual handover time 1400. Its programming is just taking a one hour break before resuming in Bulgarian at 1500; perhaps in Plovdiv they don`t see the necessity of closing down completely for DW to squeeze in its Russian hour on same via Woofferton (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** INDONESIA. Tuned in 9680 at 1310 Sept 21 to hear a nice ballad atop the CCI, 1312 clear ID as Radio Republik Indonesia, Jakarta, then to open carrier at S9+20 which remained on when checked at 1335, 1350, 1416, 1431, 1455, off at 1500*! Was that a sign-off announcement back at 1312? No Qur`an today. Perhaps at Cimanggis they are not kept informed about widely variable end of programming times, so leave the 250 kW burning just in case. Or just following orders to run it until 1500, modulation input or not.

Meanwhile, VOI on 9524.9 was back on the air after missing yesterday, and modulation greatly improved tho still not up to par with some hum, Sept 21 at 1318, economic news by M with good intelligibility, S9+20. 1324 to W who is harder to understand, with Indonesian Wonders about arts and culture, but could not figure out specific topic today. 1335 a novelty song, 1350 soprano with a familiar western popular classic I could not quite place, 1357 ruined by CRI carrier and prélude on 9525.0.

So I retuned as soon as CRI was finished at 1457, and found still good signal from VOI, classical flute music, 1458 jingle, VOI English ID, 1459 transition announcement in English that Malay was finishing and English about to resume, pompous ``sound of dignity`` slogan, 1500 opening English with usual three-frequency announcement which one would be entitled to assume means three frequencies at once rather than only one of the above, since they say ``and`` rather than ``or``; right into news. I knew this would end only in frustration, so merely switched on the BFO to clarify when the carrier would be cut off abruptly. Today it was 1508:50* (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** JAPAN. 9595, R. Nikkei at 1315 Sept 21 English lesson with useful phrases such as ``my head aches``, ``ringing in my ears`` (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** SPAIN. REE, 15385 already on with open carrier at 1415 Monday Sept 21, 1420 starting IS, 1425 theme and opening weekly Sephardic semihour, once again not on 15325 as announced and in some schedule versions (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ###