** CHINA. Firedrake Jan 2: 8400 fair with flutter, 9000 very poor, nothing audible on 10210, 11300 or 11350 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** CHINA [non]. 7405, CRI English, via Urumqi, EAST TURKISTAN, Jan 2 at 1531 but with lite pulsing QRM from the DentroCuban Jamming Command, which failed to close down completely with nemesis Radio Martí at 1400: Commies vs Commies! (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** GREECE. 9420, no signal from ERA, Avlis, Jan 2 at 1520 check, tho there was a poor signal on 15650. Constant VOG monitor John Babbis in Maryland says 9420 has been missing since Dec 28 when he checks every evening. One of the transmitters is definitely down. Wolfgang Büschel, however, says 9420 was on and 12105 missing until 1000 Jan 2, then 9420 missing from 1100 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** INDIA. 60m had lots of intriguing grayline signals, Jan 1 at 1335 but most of them were quite weak. These fit for All India Radio: 4800 Hyderabad, 4820 Kolkata, 4840 Mumbai, 4850, 4920. The last, probably Chennai, had S Asian music, tho Lhasa is also on frequency. 4850 was open carrier at the moment (or very low mod); would like to think it was AIR Kohima, altho the steady signal makes me doubt it. 4800 had something SAHing underneath fifth harmonic of my local KGWA-960. See also TAJIKISTAN.
Walt Salmaniw, from his Masset BC DXpediton was also hearing a ``big open carrier`` on 4850 around 1735 Dec 29 and 30. One idea: possibly the Alaska DRM transmitter in non-DRM mode, which was active a couple months ago centered on 4845?? Or some utility since after all this is a fixed band in NAm (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** INDONESIA. 9526, VOI carrier but little modulation detectable, Jan 1 at 1355. But no carrier at all detectable Jan 2 at 1444.
However, RRI Jakarta, 9680 had good signal Jan 2 at 1447 with drama, singing, cut off rudely and abruptly at 1457* (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** IRAN. 9575, GIRI in Russian, Jan 2 at 1446, S9+18 but just barely modulated! Same at 1517 recheck. What in the world are they doing at Sirjan? Might as well turn it off if they won`t modulate it. This is 330 degrees, so also USward accounting for the strong signal. Well, if we can`t hear Russian there, tune down to 9570 for PHILIPPINES (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** JAPAN [and non]. 5955, NHKWNRJ, Sat Jan 2 at 1414 unusually playing classical music, a movement from one of Vivaldi`s Seasons. Quickly switched to Sackville relay 11705 for much better reception. Turned out this was a `live` performance by a Japanese string quintet named `Seasons` (but the final S is silent; go figure); players were interviewed briefly – all young women and the extra is a violinist. Then played a somewhat more modern opus, ``Twenti-First Century Schizoid Man``; an unrelated song by some singer; back to the SQ for their version of a Nirvana tune, ``Smells Like Teen Spirit``. Wow, I really dig string quartets/quintets which transcend classical and modern, as pioneered by Kronos.
Outro: this was a special `live` concert on Pop-Up Japan, more of same next weeks in January. Went back and listened to this week`s 19-minute audio: http://www.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/radio/asx/saturday.asx
Access to all past week`s programs:
http://www.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/radio/program/index.html
(Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** PHILIPPINES. While Iran was failing to modulate its Russian hour on 9575, Russian could be heard clearly on adjacent 9570, Jan 2 at 1521. The Shiites better watch out lest they lose their audience to the Catholix: it`s R. Veritas Asia, Philippines, carrying the R. Blagovest program at 1500-1557 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** RUSSIA. 6075, R. Rossii, Pet/Kam, Jan 1 at 1400 timesignal 4 seconds late, and 8GAL overlapped it; see UNIDENTIFIED. RR`s motorboating carrier remained on past 1402, but no programming unlike yesterday/year (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** SLOVAKIA [and non]. 6055, Jan 2 at 1432, poor and fluttery signal in German, so has to be R. Slovakia International as scheduled, 305 degrees, unusual time for C Europe-to-CNAm, but apparently close enough to grayline; and despite two other broadcasters you would expect to be dominating, per Aoki, so it`s odd there was no sign of these, altho as far as I can tell they are still scheduled:
R. Liberty, Turkmen, 300 degrees via Thailand,
CRI, Cambodian, 200 degrees via Nanning
R. Nikkei is never on 6055 this late, altho closing time depends on day of week. WRTH shows it until 1415 on Fridays only; 1400* some other days, while Aoki shows B-09 until 1400 on Fridays too (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** TAJIKISTAN. 60m had lots of intriguing grayline signals, Jan 1 at 1335 but most of them were quite weak. See also INDIA. A pair which point to Dushanbe were 4765 and 4975:
4765, Jan 1 at 1335, weak music, flutter. Only thing known on this frequency now is Tajik Radio 1 at 2300-2000 per Aoki, 100 kW ND from Yangiyul site. However EiBi shows the time as 14-11, so by that, would theoretically be off the air when I was hearing this. But WRTH 2010 sides with the 23-20 version.
4975, Jan 1 at 1335 with talk in Asian language, 1339 familiar music briefly as theme, Polovetsian Dances from Borodin's Prince Igor, then other music, fluttery, gone by 1355. It`s the VOR relay in Pashto/Dari at 13-15, same site and parameters (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** TIBET. 4905, Jan 2 at 1400 Chinese talk and music, flutter, somewhat better than 4920 which is supposed to be // but did not confirm that. The only station listed on 4905 is PBS Xizang, Lhasa, but it`s supposed to be the first channel, in Tibetan, // MW 594.
(BTW, looking up in WRTH 2010 page 143 I see a string of listings on ``595``, between 576 and 594, all of which must be typos for 585. These were correctly 585 in WRTH 2009.)
Aoki also shows 4905 with no Chinese, mainly Tibetan except for a bit of English and Kham. So the Han are encroaching even on their Tibetan-language network? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. WTWW did make it on the air in 2009, Central Time, at least: transmitter first fired up at 0545-0600 UT January 1, 2010, George McClintock tells me, with 15 kW on 5755, but just with carrier and squealing tones, like sometimes audible on WWCR and others, showing that some modules need to be replaced. But did anyone hear it? No reports have been received yet, nor have I heard it, so this is info, not a log.
He says the FCC has been extremely helpful, willing to authorize program test authority upon filing of the licence application by e-mail; but not yet ready for that.
The high voltage meter had been wired backwards, so he fixed that. Some other problems: getting the water pumping properly for the cooling system, but that and the leaks have now been fixed; a couple bad buttons on the frequency selection keypad, so only eight funxion instead of ten.
However, WTWW will surely not need all those, altho George says there are some frequency issues to be resolved, and would like to try some others besides these two. Yet to test on other registered frequency, 9480, unknown when. 5755 was on again the next night, no time given; did anyone catch that?
The latest as of Jan 2, Saturday morning: ``Now have audio to transmitter. Ran ID audio on carrier (5755) for about 5 minutes last night before an overload. I will need to look at this today. Transmitter ran about 35 kW. Tube is mounted in water and will need to get new water cleaning agent before proceeding forward in power.``
(Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. 3325-USB, Navy MARS net, Fri Jan 1 at 2358, NNN0AVT explaining a WinMor (?) program and then running digital test. Googling indicates this is in the Kansas/Nebraska area (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A [non]. 11715, nothing but Tagalog audible, Jan 2 at 1515, i.e. R. Veritas Asia, via Vatican at 130 degrees; no trace of robokids underneath even during modulation pauses, so where is KJES?
WRTH 2010 shows 14-17 on 11715 to NAm, from which you would not know that they rotate the antenna every hour, from 70 to 350 to 150 degrees, per FCC and Aoki, the first two hours in English, then Spanish.
350 is certainly unfavorable for here, so we should try during the previous hour 14-15 when it`s supposedly aimed 70 degrees from The Lord`s Ranch, right on Oklahoma City, but really too close and may be skipping over if really on and the MUF is adequate; the collision then is with R. Liberty, Uzbek via Lampertheim, Germany.
The 70-degree boresight from Vado NM carries on thru Cairo IL, Lexington KY, between which the first hop should come down best, exiting North America across the DelMarVa Peninsula, and next hitting land at Dakhla, ex-Villa Cisneros, Western Sahara. 70 degrees is not used at all on its other frequencies 7555 and 15385.
We suspect KJES operation is quite irregular. However, tho FCC, HFCC, WRTH and EiBi all show it daily, no doubt reflecting its authorization, Aoki says it runs M-F only, and this was a Saturday. In any event, another instance of Vatican collisions, Catholix vs pseudo-Catholix (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A [non]. 11525, fair but fluttery, VOA World News Now, Jan 2 at 1528 with Today in History, the jam-packed 2-minute segment hourly at this time, announcer properly pronouncing ``short-lived`` with a long I, since the term derives from ``life``, which is not pronounced ``liff``, and whenever that happens I find it worthy of note.
9310 at 1534 Jan 2, VOA, Art Chimes introducing science-technology magazine show, ``Our World``, // 11525 but about one second ahead of it. 9310 is 283 degrees from Tinang, PHILIPPINES, while 11525 is 25 degrees from Iranawila, SRI LANKA (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** URUGUAY. Since Horacio Nigro had confirmed it reactivated two hours earlier, I looked again for R. Sarandí on 6045, Jan 2 at 0552. I could detect an extremely weak carrier, and perhaps some music at 0557 before blasted away by KBS/Sackville *0559:45. But there should not be any carrier if the CX is pure SSB; is it? Equally unlikely possibilities on 6045 at this hour: Zimbabwe and XEXQ. BTW, Aoki still shows KBS at 0600 as only half an hour tho it was expanded to a full hour some months ago, so forget about Uruguay until 0700; in fact, forget about it until 0800 as KBS runs another hour via UK. Yes, this is purely an unID log, but it concerns Uruguay (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** VATICAN [and non]. 9540, Jan 2 at 1445, Asian language poor with BBC Woofferton QRDRM 9540-9545-9550. Listed on 9540 is Vatican in Urdu during this semihour. I could avoid most of the DRM by sidetuning below 9540, but should I have to? Of course, Vatican emits some DRM transmissions too, so they can hardly complain (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
UNIDENTIFIED. 6074, Jan 1 at 1400, V/CQ marker from 8GAL weakly audible at first mixing with final timesignal of R. Rossii, 6075 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
UNIDENTIFIED. 6930-USB, pirate at 0607 UT January 1, 2010 with weird music, 0611 announcement with ID but could not catch it; 0619 soul music; 0635 ``Sloop John B`` by the Beach Boys, 0639 ``Paperback Writer`` by the Beatles; 0642 ``Low Rider``. Poor signal with occasional peaks. That could be enough for a QSL, please? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
UNIDENTIFIED. 7415, Jan 2 at 1530-1532* open carrier. I think it was in Chinese before 1530, but was not paying much attention. Should have, as nothing is on the schedules after 1500 when YFR is via Pet/Kam, so maybe that has been extended. Fortunately, tho authorized 24 hours on 7415, WBCQ is not attempting to use it in the mornings (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
UNIDENTIFIED. 9583.5, approx., strong 2-way Spanish intruder on SSB, VG signal but intermittent, Jan 2 at 1516; apparently discussing ETA or itinerary, but could not hear the contact, maybe duplex on another frequency. Concluded at 1519 with ``igualmente; buen día``. Poachers or narco-traffickers? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
UNIDENTIFIED. 9600.3, extremely weak het on estimated frequency vs something equally weak on 9600.0, Jan 2 at 1521. So another entry in the could-it-possibly-be-XEYU-annals? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ###
