** CUBA. 9545, Sept 6 at 2040 with cohetes at variable rates from the DentroCuban Jamming Command on a frequency which needs no jamming at this hour until República comes up at 2300; meanwhile wall of noise jamming on 9565 against Martí (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** ECUADOR [and non]. Bandscanning 49m at an unreasonably early hour here Sept 6, and despite hi noise level after getting Mérida on 6104.8 [see MEXICO], I looked for more, and found a signal on 6050 at 2045, also in Spanish, so has to be HCJB`s regional service roughly two hours before sunset there and four hours before sunset here. At 2053 a bit stronger with
choral hymn, amen, 2055 Spanish talk. Hoped to get definite ID and/or characteristic automatic timesignal at 2100 but by then it had faded down and out. A fluky reception.
BTW, a quirk of my FRG-7 (or all of them?) is that in the overlap within each MHz band between about 965 and 055 kHz, there is noticeably greater sensitivity by tuning up from below rather than down from above. Can this be evened out be realignment, and would one even want to? So for 6050 I had a choice of 5 MHz + 1050 kHz, or 6 MHz + 50 kHz. With the former I was getting a stronger signal measuring S9+5 at peak. Best 49m signals at this time were Habana on 6000 and 5965; also barely audible CFRX 6070 and WBOH 5920 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** EQUATORIAL GUINEA. Tuned in 15190 at 2111 Sept 6 to find open carrier from Radio Africa. Not unusual for there to be VERY long periods of dead air from this station, so while my attention was focused elsewhere, left this turned up to find out just how long the dead air would last: until 2122, when with never an ID, abruptly started a preacher from North Carolina concerned about the last days and the return of Jesus; good modulation on this one, and he paused briefly to turn off an alarm beeper. So the dead air was at least 11 minutes. Are the Radio Africa operators dozing off, inebriated, stepping out for a smoke or some other important business, or just totally nonchalant about getting the paid-for evangelists on the air? What does pointlessly burning 50 kW for 11+ minutes cost in this poor country? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** GERMANY [non]. 11670, Arabic station with good signal, Sept 6 at 2033 with several mentions of ``Al-mania``, soon confirmed with DW jingle. Hmmm, that cognates with Alemania, the Spanish name for Germany, so did the Spaniards get it from the Arabs or vice versa, and why call it something completely unrelated to ``Deutschland`` or ``Germania``? Or is Ger a translation of Ale or v.v.? One might ask the same of the French. O, this is DW at 19-21, 250 kW, 100 degrees via Sines, PORTUGAL (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** MEXICO. Despite hi local noise level, I minimised it as best I could by closing down several known household noise sources, and boldly commenced to bandscan as low as 6 MHz at the early hour of 2043 UT Sept 6 = 2 hours and 11 minutes after local mean noon, closer to that than to sunset. Yay, bits of Spanish could be heard at a couple signal peaks on 6104.8, has to be XEQM, RASA Mérida. I did not stay on frequency constantly, but often checked in next semisesquihour, heard it no more altho could detect weak carrier when I quit at 2133. HCJB was also poking in around the same time; see ECUADOR; and also UNIDENTIFIED 9600 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** ROMANIA [and non]. 9765, Sept 6 at 2039 with roughly equal mix of Castilian and British talk, fast SAH between them of approx. 15 Hz. Looked up later, this clash is between Spain via Costa Rica site and Romania via Galbeni site, the former using 9765 for very long hours and the latter only during this semihour designated for Europe, altho exactly the same 300 degree heading as designated to NAm at same time on other frequencies; can RRI adjust the vertical takeoff angle to optimize for closer or further targets at the same azimuth? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. Substituting for the ``Available Time Slot`` show on WBCQ 7415, Sunday Sept 6 at 2104 was a repeat of Allan Weiner Worldwide, which he said was // 5110, but that referred to the Friday 2300 live airing. Later in hour, as reception was improving, he was advising pirates not to deliberately interfere with other services, a good idea (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A [non]. YFR keeps shifting around different relay sites and frequencies, testing? 5930, weakly heard Sept 7 at 0053 with Harold Droning in English // 7360, both of which have adjacent interference from much stronger signals: 7365 DentroCuban Jamming Command and Radio Martí; 5935 WWCR and DGS. These are both via French Guiana (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
UNIDENTIFIED. 6110, open carrier as I tuned in at 2107 Sept 6, then off after a few sex. Likely VOA Greenville tuning up for Spanish service which does not start until 2300 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
UNIDENTIFIED. My 49m bandscan uncovering signals out of the noise level earlier than expected found TADIL-A beeping on 6130, greatly improved with BFO on, Sept 6 at 2107; 5 beeps and then a longer noise/data burst. However, one could also detect briefer noise/data bursts at the end of each short beep (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
UNIDENTIFIED. 7175 at 2101 Sept 6, sure sounded like DRM roar centered here, but there would not be any broadcaster now that it`s a hamband. But it could be Ethiopian jamming against Eritrea, which others have reported sounds a lot like DRM (or could even be DRM used for this nefarious purpose?). But it vanished at 2102 before I could monitor any further. Could also have been ham experimenting with DRM, or would that have been restricted to below 7100? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
UNIDENTIFIED. A weak het on 9600 caught my ear Sept 6 at 2036, roughly one semikHz on the hi side, or more like 9600.4. That immediately brings visions of XEYU, Radio UNAM, Mexico City, which when last active a couple years ago was always slightly off-frequency on the low side. But we have no reason to believe it`s back on the air, since the engineer who was trying to keep it on SW moved to another job. What else might be off-frequency here? Not likely Kashgar with its rather new equipment, but which probably provided the other side of the het. Habana not on the air at this hour, for sure. There is really nothing else listed anywhere, so a faint hope remains for XEYU, with further chex called for (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
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