martedì 24 novembre 2009

Glenn Hauser logs November 23-24, 2009

** BRAZIL. Checking for more possible WWCR tests, on 4755 Nov 24 at 0037 heard instead weak signal in Brazilian Portuguese, M&W mentioning ``bendita`` (blessed), etc. This is surely R. Imaculada Conceição, Campo Grande, Mato Grosso do Sul, which per Aoki is 10 kW non-direxional. WWCR is certainly capable of totally overriding it in NAm, but also with 100 kW also capable of damaging RIC within Brasil over a night-path (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** CUBA. 9620, RHC mix of two Spanish programs weakly at 2209 Nov 23, a leapfrog of main RHC 9660 over Mesa Redonda 9640. Why am I not surprised? BTW, 9660 is one of several RHC channels with degraded narrowband rough modulation. Is this caused by the program feed circuit, or the transmitters? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** OKLAHOMA. Wouldn`t you know it, I spoke too soon about KGYN 1210 Guymon being back to normal with daytime groundwave signal reaching as far as Enid, as heard Nov 22. 24 hours later, Nov 23, also monitoring on caradio in western Enid, at several chex around 1945-2115 UT, nothing heard at all. Except a very weak SAH from who knows what marginal signals. KGYN could have been off the air. Something is certainly going on there with its transmission problems (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** OKLAHOMA. 1120, KEOR, Nov 23, several chex 1945-2045 UT, back to playing album cuts, sometimes with long pauses, old jazz songs, Billie Holliday? No more DJ or highly-produced 1340 simulcast. By 2115 KMOX was dominating frequency altho KEOR carrier still seemed to be there. What`s next? (Glenn Hauser, Enid, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U K [non]. 9915, BBCWS in English, Nov 23 at 2151, interview featuring Indian accents first brought to mind AIR GOS, but not on 9915, which also had tell-tale ``generator whine/hum`` which inflicts various Ascension relay frequencies, which this is at 21-23. BBCWS also uses 9915 at various times between 04 and 21 but in Arabic, via Cyprus, Rampisham, or even Austria (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 9980, WWCR-4, PPP service off the air Nov 23 at 2149 and further chex next dekaminute. Nor on nite frequency 5890. Nor on recently tested frequencies 4775, 4755, 3240. Other transmitters heard normally on 7465, 12160, 13845. Possibly #4 was testing some completely different channel as I did not scan the entire SWBC spectrum, but not on 31m. Also checked WWCR frequencies at 2355 and found 3240 running, no testing on 4 MHz band now, leaving TADIL-A bonker in the clear on 4775.

In case WWCR-4 would also be missing from nighttime channel 5890, checked that around 0235 Nov 24, but it was back on, so never mind looking for R. Peace, Sudan on 5895 if it is really active at 0300-0400 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. VOA Greenville, 13725, 2159 Nov 23 with YDD sign-on, bit of unrelated music at 2200, bad switching, and opening in Creole. Bandscanning upwards, I came to // 15390 at 2205 but it was open carrier. Then Creole audio cut on, off, back on but at very low level, they turned up level. Don`t know if it was all silence until 2205, but such things have happened at IBB. After a transmission starts is not the time to mess around with the modulation input or output (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

UNIDENTIFIED. 9465-9555 rapid pulsing, with several peaks in this range atop any broadcast signals, not the same sound as from OTH radar Cyprus or China previously reported on numerous other ranges, Nov 23 at 2152, still going at 2210 when some broadcast signals could be heard thru it.

Possibly spurious from DRM transmitter on 9450? Also running at 2152 i.e. the HCJB/IBB Greenville test, which has been absent from the DRMDX schedule, and still is. However, the sound is quite different from the 10-kHz intentional DRM spread. These wideband DRM channels can be confusing to downpin on analog receivers: on the YB-400 stepping up and down 5 kHz, I would have been sure it was centered on 9455. But on the FRG-7 it was 9450.

Or something completely different? Since yahoo group searching doesn`t funxion, I looked thru the last month+ of reports on the DRM NA yg and the latest mention of HCJB/IBB 9450 was on Oct 13:

``The current test release to NA is airing from 1600 to 2000 UT on 9450. This has done much better in the Midwest than the evening release did. I've been able to push the bit rate up the maximum in mode B and still get virtually 100 audio decode. I can switch to stereo or parametric stereo but since the source at Greenville is mono it won't gain us anything. We will be testing on Mode A later this week. Charlie Jacobson`` (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX ISTENING DIGEST) ###