** BRAZIL. The 25 mb was hopping with stations Feb 21 at 0714-0730+, led in strength by RNA 11780, of course, with promo at 0727 ``Carnaval no Brasil é Nacional`` implying congruity, a somewhat excessive claim bound to be disputed by countless other stations and entities.
11815 was next, R. Brasil Central, with live DJ talk and music. I was wanting to catch a definite timecheck from any of them confirming that DST has just ended in the Brasilian states where it had been reigning, but at 0717 they said was 2:17 in Miami; yeah, so?? 0723 with some great music involving harmonica; 0730 greeting listeners around the country.
11925v, R. Bandeirantes also with live programming, and a TC I could not copy precisely. Not as strong as it often is.
11765, SRDA Curitiba, had wacky wailing preacher David Miranda, oblivious to Carnaval as he is to any remnant of reality. Well atop a bit of CCI, no doubt BBC English, 27 degrees from Ascension.
11749.9 weaker, mostly music from another transmitter turned over the gospel huxters, Voz Missionária.
11895 at 0719 the weakest one with song I am pretty sure was in Portuguese from R. Boa Vontade, Porto Alegre; Spain anyway is supposed to finish 11895 at 0700, and its // 12035 tho still on, was inaudible.
With DST over, RNA should be signing on 6185 an hour later, anywhere between 0725 and 0800 UT, giving us back an hour of unimpeded XEPPM reception after Vatican finishes at 0620. We`ll see from Feb 22, as RNA runs all night on UT Sundays only (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** CHINA. Firedrake, traditional music-only jamming, UT Feb 20 at 2337 found a number of `morning` frequencies, presumably inspired by Sound of Hope, the insignificant station which Must Be Jammed, as Ron Howard has also been hearing in California, much more than in the Asian evenings.
First noted on 17970 where it really stix out in an aero band, but here rearranged into reverse frequency order rather than the exact chronological order tuned:
18180 at 2337, fair, a bit better than 17970
17970 at 2337, fair. No recognizable CRI/CNR signals on 16m unlike 19m
16700 at 2339, poor with heavy flutter
15970 at 2339, poor with worse flutter than 16700
14970 at 2339, fair with flutter. They like `970s, but no 13970 any more
9000 at 2345, very poor vs hets
8400 at 2345, just barely audible
I see that the 20 Feb edition of Aoki has all these plus several more on the higher bands, except 15970 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** CUBA. 6933, 5-digit Spanish YL spy numbers, Feb 21 at 0703, usual big signal but this one quite undermodulated, a Cuban trait normally reserved for RHC (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** CYPRUS. 18460-18485, OTH radar pulses, presumed from here, Feb 21 at 1500, just where they belong, far away from any broadcasters (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** EAST TURKISTAN. 4980, at 0049 Feb 21, Asian language talk with intonation resembling Korean, but that would have to be something new. The old `2009`, meaning 2008 PWBR by the radio showed only one possibility, Xinjiang PBS in Urumqi.
Besides the imaginary Ecos del Torbes listing, Aoki Feb 21, 2010 agrees it can only be XPBS, and the language is Uighur, i.e. only what the imperialist Han ChiCom want their grossly outnumbered subjects to hear, while they jam external broadcasts in Uighur.
After talk-only segment, from 0052 mixed in some music, 0056 more speech by YL, now much stronger signal than India 5010. Music overlapped 5+1 timesignal at 0100, fanfares and announcements. It`s also stronger than adjacent Brasil 4985, tho the latter is improving (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** GERMANY. Tnx to Kai Ludwig for reminding us of an unpublicized once-a-year broadcast, and to Wolfgang Büschel for more info about it, we were standing by Feb 21 at 1600 for Radio Öömrang, on 15245 or 15230.
At 1600 it was inbooming S9+22 on 15245, just missed English ID but there would be more later. VG signal must be aimed USward, or rather toward New York, whose local time was mentioned. Mostly talk in a strange dialect of German, interspersed every few minutes with halting English IDs, which had hum on them, and went approximately, including at 1629 and 1637:
``Hello, this is Radio Öömrang, the free voice of the Friesian people.
Welcome to the new year 2010. Welcome to our broadcast on high nineteen FM via Juelich with the frequenz 1-5-2-3-0 k-h-zed``
Yeech, only once a year and they get the frequency wrong! Will they have it corrected by 2011y? Jülich? Guess it`s hard to keep up with the latest site demolitions. It also seems they have a very hazy idea about the difference between KW and UKW.
At 1611 talking about megabits per second, etc. Just what is the purpose of this? At 1630 about the CDU and the SPD. Do these Friesians have some political ax to grind?
At 1638 in English introduced segment, ``facts about the Friesian people`` --- but that was not in English! Obviously this effort is not really meant to reach the world at large beyond their minority dialect, but just a feel-good promotion for the insiders.
Later plugged their Facebook site. http://www.facebook.com/oomrang
Without the umlauts? No, the above does not work, I think, since I am not signed up with Facebook anyway. Someone please explain what the name means, and its cognate in High German. Is this Friesian dialect the same as the Plattdeutsch used e.g. by HCJB?
At 1655, English closing: ``the producer says goodbye until 2011``; contact info with Niebüll postal address, no e-mail mentioned. Niebüll is a small town at the northern tip of Germany some 12 km from the Danish border.
``PS: if you want to sponsor this broadcasting, it`s only paid by Mr. ----``. Further production credits and ``Goodbye``, 1656 to open carrier, until off at 1659*. They wasted two precious sesquiminutes of expensive (?) 500 kW (?) airtime from Wertachtal! And of course they wasted the whole thing for people tuned to 15230 instead.
Wolfgang Büschel later explained: ``Started in Friesian (lower German) language, which is similar to Dutch West Frisian language spoken in North Western Netherlands. The Kiel student Anna read the (local?) news and also a weather report of North Sea area could be traced.``
A weather report once a year just won`t do (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** INDIA. 5010, S Asian music, Feb 21 at 0048. Surely AIR Thiruvananthapuram, and it must have been close to grayline peak, gradually fading down noticeably by 0100 and weaker than 4980, see EAST TURKISTAN.
Madagascar 5010 would propagate but normally not on air all night; Dominican Republic goes off by 2400, and has rarely been reported lately even before that. Also missing for a long time is HREZ`s sesquiharmonic of 3340 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** JAPAN [non]. 17605, NHK is still devoting a Sunday-morning hour to western classical music, at 2335 UT Saturday Feb 20 check, good signal altho 170 degrees, via Bonaire, 250 kW. Axually it`s a bihour transmission starting at 2200, following a semihour of Japanese on same parameters from 2100 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** NEW ZEALAND. 11725, as I tuned past around 0711 Feb 21, nothing there, but a minute later RNZI inbooming with old recording on Sounds Historical show, then cut off the air again. I quickly retuned to 9765, but not there either, whilst DRM noise was grinding away on 9865-9870-9875. According to current schedule,
http://www.rnzi.com/pages/listen.php
11725 is supposed to QSY to 9765 at 0658-0659, and stay there (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** NORTH AMERICA. Plenty of piracy as I was casually tuning the prime band Saturday evening Feb 20:
6930-USB at 2330, immediately heard ID on the semihour as ``WBZO``. Good signal with rock music, still at 2346 recheck. 2350 with a speech of some sort; 2353 WBZO IDs again, Mr. Bozo. I see that a pirate with variations of this name has been reported for at least five years in Free Radio Weekly, most recently in January, but as CBZO/KBZO rather than WBZO.
6950-USB at 2333, another pirate here with rock music; local fifth harmonic of KCRC-1390 not a problem at the moment, which is easily recognizable with incessant sports-talk.
6951-AM, at 2346 next check some music here instead of 6950-USB, and then intermittent SSB QRM.
6925 USB, next tuneby at 0044 Feb 21 found only one pirate at the moment instead of 6930, 6950/6951, don`t know which (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** PORTUGAL. Following the terrible flooding and mudslides on Madeira, made a point of listening to RDPI`s weekly ``Abraço da Madeira`` show, Sunday Feb 21 on 15560, at 1435. Announcer from Funchal studio was trying to make phone contact with people, not always successfully, who needed to convey messages to relatives and friends; including someone in the Czech Republic. Excellent signal here as usual on weekends to NAm (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** SAUDI ARABIA. 17660, R. Riyadh, French service of BSKSA, is usually audible here but marginally; poor with flutter Feb 21 at 1431 some kind of drama was playing funereal music led by bagpipes, then mixing French and Arabic with more dramatic music (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** SUDAN [non]. 17745, Sudan Radio Service via Portugal, Feb 21 at 1502 in English with usual pro-democracy and pro-elexion propaganda, re upcoming general elexions in the north and south, later refined to ``in the free areas``. Included music and SFX. Much of the talk had annoying echo on it just like long/short path, but seems really to be inserted into the audio produxion to make it cooler, and less intelligible. This frequency continued past 1600, while:
17700, new Sudan Radio Service frequency, Feb 21 at 1559 with VTC music fill/prélude, 1600 opening SRS in Arabic but pronouncing station name in English. Another English ID in passing amid Arabic at 1607. Not // 17745. It is totally unclear why they would add another non // frequency at the same time to compete with themselves, but this is registered as 250 kW, 65 degrees via Ascension, 1600-1700 daily except Saturdays, causing DX Mix News Bulgaria to assume it would be carrying the new service for Somalia from March 1, Radio Bar-Kulan/Meeting Place. Maybe that will come true, with SRS just a place-holder till then? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. 5070, ``Ask WWCR`` started a minute or two earlier than 0245 UT Sunday Feb 21, so would be done in time for frequency change to 4775 before hourtop; as I tuned in at 0244, already in progress. Three-way discussion by Brady, Jerry and Phil, only about the recent frequency changes and management.
An interference problem from Slovakia to WWCR 5935 is apparently being lessened by slightly changing their azimuth, i.e. on 5930. In A-10, RSI plans to use that instead of 6040 for NAm starting at 0100 with English. Here in CNAm, it`s RSI which will lose out by being that close to DGS, just like R. Prague at other hours. Those two don`t seem to get it that they must stay at least 10 kHz away from any US SW stations, when broadcasting to North America.
WWCR guys congratulated selves on getting rid of 7095 mixing product after only one night (not mentioning who told them about it; and altho I did hear it again later, JBA).
And said such things cannot be anticipated. Axually they can, as I explained previously with the formulae for possible mixes of any two frequencies, e.g. 5205 could appear if 4775 and 9980 are ever on air at same time, 5205 being the difference between them.
It was all very positive, with no discussion of these changes` impact on other stations such as TWR on 4775, or Djibouti 4780. But they welcome comments to 4775 @ wwcr.com
This edition should be audible on demand for another week via http://www.wwcr.com/ask-wwcr_309.mp3
I also listened a bit to 4775 at 0606 UT Sunday as ``Into Tomorrow`` with Dave Graveline was starting, for the Valentine weekend!!! As they mentioned repeatedly. So what we get on WWCR is one-week delayed; why? (Glenn Hauser, OK, Feb 21, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ###
11815 was next, R. Brasil Central, with live DJ talk and music. I was wanting to catch a definite timecheck from any of them confirming that DST has just ended in the Brasilian states where it had been reigning, but at 0717 they said was 2:17 in Miami; yeah, so?? 0723 with some great music involving harmonica; 0730 greeting listeners around the country.
11925v, R. Bandeirantes also with live programming, and a TC I could not copy precisely. Not as strong as it often is.
11765, SRDA Curitiba, had wacky wailing preacher David Miranda, oblivious to Carnaval as he is to any remnant of reality. Well atop a bit of CCI, no doubt BBC English, 27 degrees from Ascension.
11749.9 weaker, mostly music from another transmitter turned over the gospel huxters, Voz Missionária.
11895 at 0719 the weakest one with song I am pretty sure was in Portuguese from R. Boa Vontade, Porto Alegre; Spain anyway is supposed to finish 11895 at 0700, and its // 12035 tho still on, was inaudible.
With DST over, RNA should be signing on 6185 an hour later, anywhere between 0725 and 0800 UT, giving us back an hour of unimpeded XEPPM reception after Vatican finishes at 0620. We`ll see from Feb 22, as RNA runs all night on UT Sundays only (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** CHINA. Firedrake, traditional music-only jamming, UT Feb 20 at 2337 found a number of `morning` frequencies, presumably inspired by Sound of Hope, the insignificant station which Must Be Jammed, as Ron Howard has also been hearing in California, much more than in the Asian evenings.
First noted on 17970 where it really stix out in an aero band, but here rearranged into reverse frequency order rather than the exact chronological order tuned:
18180 at 2337, fair, a bit better than 17970
17970 at 2337, fair. No recognizable CRI/CNR signals on 16m unlike 19m
16700 at 2339, poor with heavy flutter
15970 at 2339, poor with worse flutter than 16700
14970 at 2339, fair with flutter. They like `970s, but no 13970 any more
9000 at 2345, very poor vs hets
8400 at 2345, just barely audible
I see that the 20 Feb edition of Aoki has all these plus several more on the higher bands, except 15970 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** CUBA. 6933, 5-digit Spanish YL spy numbers, Feb 21 at 0703, usual big signal but this one quite undermodulated, a Cuban trait normally reserved for RHC (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** CYPRUS. 18460-18485, OTH radar pulses, presumed from here, Feb 21 at 1500, just where they belong, far away from any broadcasters (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** EAST TURKISTAN. 4980, at 0049 Feb 21, Asian language talk with intonation resembling Korean, but that would have to be something new. The old `2009`, meaning 2008 PWBR by the radio showed only one possibility, Xinjiang PBS in Urumqi.
Besides the imaginary Ecos del Torbes listing, Aoki Feb 21, 2010 agrees it can only be XPBS, and the language is Uighur, i.e. only what the imperialist Han ChiCom want their grossly outnumbered subjects to hear, while they jam external broadcasts in Uighur.
After talk-only segment, from 0052 mixed in some music, 0056 more speech by YL, now much stronger signal than India 5010. Music overlapped 5+1 timesignal at 0100, fanfares and announcements. It`s also stronger than adjacent Brasil 4985, tho the latter is improving (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** GERMANY. Tnx to Kai Ludwig for reminding us of an unpublicized once-a-year broadcast, and to Wolfgang Büschel for more info about it, we were standing by Feb 21 at 1600 for Radio Öömrang, on 15245 or 15230.
At 1600 it was inbooming S9+22 on 15245, just missed English ID but there would be more later. VG signal must be aimed USward, or rather toward New York, whose local time was mentioned. Mostly talk in a strange dialect of German, interspersed every few minutes with halting English IDs, which had hum on them, and went approximately, including at 1629 and 1637:
``Hello, this is Radio Öömrang, the free voice of the Friesian people.
Welcome to the new year 2010. Welcome to our broadcast on high nineteen FM via Juelich with the frequenz 1-5-2-3-0 k-h-zed``
Yeech, only once a year and they get the frequency wrong! Will they have it corrected by 2011y? Jülich? Guess it`s hard to keep up with the latest site demolitions. It also seems they have a very hazy idea about the difference between KW and UKW.
At 1611 talking about megabits per second, etc. Just what is the purpose of this? At 1630 about the CDU and the SPD. Do these Friesians have some political ax to grind?
At 1638 in English introduced segment, ``facts about the Friesian people`` --- but that was not in English! Obviously this effort is not really meant to reach the world at large beyond their minority dialect, but just a feel-good promotion for the insiders.
Later plugged their Facebook site. http://www.facebook.com/oomrang
Without the umlauts? No, the above does not work, I think, since I am not signed up with Facebook anyway. Someone please explain what the name means, and its cognate in High German. Is this Friesian dialect the same as the Plattdeutsch used e.g. by HCJB?
At 1655, English closing: ``the producer says goodbye until 2011``; contact info with Niebüll postal address, no e-mail mentioned. Niebüll is a small town at the northern tip of Germany some 12 km from the Danish border.
``PS: if you want to sponsor this broadcasting, it`s only paid by Mr. ----``. Further production credits and ``Goodbye``, 1656 to open carrier, until off at 1659*. They wasted two precious sesquiminutes of expensive (?) 500 kW (?) airtime from Wertachtal! And of course they wasted the whole thing for people tuned to 15230 instead.
Wolfgang Büschel later explained: ``Started in Friesian (lower German) language, which is similar to Dutch West Frisian language spoken in North Western Netherlands. The Kiel student Anna read the (local?) news and also a weather report of North Sea area could be traced.``
A weather report once a year just won`t do (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** INDIA. 5010, S Asian music, Feb 21 at 0048. Surely AIR Thiruvananthapuram, and it must have been close to grayline peak, gradually fading down noticeably by 0100 and weaker than 4980, see EAST TURKISTAN.
Madagascar 5010 would propagate but normally not on air all night; Dominican Republic goes off by 2400, and has rarely been reported lately even before that. Also missing for a long time is HREZ`s sesquiharmonic of 3340 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** JAPAN [non]. 17605, NHK is still devoting a Sunday-morning hour to western classical music, at 2335 UT Saturday Feb 20 check, good signal altho 170 degrees, via Bonaire, 250 kW. Axually it`s a bihour transmission starting at 2200, following a semihour of Japanese on same parameters from 2100 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** NEW ZEALAND. 11725, as I tuned past around 0711 Feb 21, nothing there, but a minute later RNZI inbooming with old recording on Sounds Historical show, then cut off the air again. I quickly retuned to 9765, but not there either, whilst DRM noise was grinding away on 9865-9870-9875. According to current schedule,
http://www.rnzi.com/pages/listen.php
11725 is supposed to QSY to 9765 at 0658-0659, and stay there (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** NORTH AMERICA. Plenty of piracy as I was casually tuning the prime band Saturday evening Feb 20:
6930-USB at 2330, immediately heard ID on the semihour as ``WBZO``. Good signal with rock music, still at 2346 recheck. 2350 with a speech of some sort; 2353 WBZO IDs again, Mr. Bozo. I see that a pirate with variations of this name has been reported for at least five years in Free Radio Weekly, most recently in January, but as CBZO/KBZO rather than WBZO.
6950-USB at 2333, another pirate here with rock music; local fifth harmonic of KCRC-1390 not a problem at the moment, which is easily recognizable with incessant sports-talk.
6951-AM, at 2346 next check some music here instead of 6950-USB, and then intermittent SSB QRM.
6925 USB, next tuneby at 0044 Feb 21 found only one pirate at the moment instead of 6930, 6950/6951, don`t know which (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** PORTUGAL. Following the terrible flooding and mudslides on Madeira, made a point of listening to RDPI`s weekly ``Abraço da Madeira`` show, Sunday Feb 21 on 15560, at 1435. Announcer from Funchal studio was trying to make phone contact with people, not always successfully, who needed to convey messages to relatives and friends; including someone in the Czech Republic. Excellent signal here as usual on weekends to NAm (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** SAUDI ARABIA. 17660, R. Riyadh, French service of BSKSA, is usually audible here but marginally; poor with flutter Feb 21 at 1431 some kind of drama was playing funereal music led by bagpipes, then mixing French and Arabic with more dramatic music (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** SUDAN [non]. 17745, Sudan Radio Service via Portugal, Feb 21 at 1502 in English with usual pro-democracy and pro-elexion propaganda, re upcoming general elexions in the north and south, later refined to ``in the free areas``. Included music and SFX. Much of the talk had annoying echo on it just like long/short path, but seems really to be inserted into the audio produxion to make it cooler, and less intelligible. This frequency continued past 1600, while:
17700, new Sudan Radio Service frequency, Feb 21 at 1559 with VTC music fill/prélude, 1600 opening SRS in Arabic but pronouncing station name in English. Another English ID in passing amid Arabic at 1607. Not // 17745. It is totally unclear why they would add another non // frequency at the same time to compete with themselves, but this is registered as 250 kW, 65 degrees via Ascension, 1600-1700 daily except Saturdays, causing DX Mix News Bulgaria to assume it would be carrying the new service for Somalia from March 1, Radio Bar-Kulan/Meeting Place. Maybe that will come true, with SRS just a place-holder till then? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. 5070, ``Ask WWCR`` started a minute or two earlier than 0245 UT Sunday Feb 21, so would be done in time for frequency change to 4775 before hourtop; as I tuned in at 0244, already in progress. Three-way discussion by Brady, Jerry and Phil, only about the recent frequency changes and management.
An interference problem from Slovakia to WWCR 5935 is apparently being lessened by slightly changing their azimuth, i.e. on 5930. In A-10, RSI plans to use that instead of 6040 for NAm starting at 0100 with English. Here in CNAm, it`s RSI which will lose out by being that close to DGS, just like R. Prague at other hours. Those two don`t seem to get it that they must stay at least 10 kHz away from any US SW stations, when broadcasting to North America.
WWCR guys congratulated selves on getting rid of 7095 mixing product after only one night (not mentioning who told them about it; and altho I did hear it again later, JBA).
And said such things cannot be anticipated. Axually they can, as I explained previously with the formulae for possible mixes of any two frequencies, e.g. 5205 could appear if 4775 and 9980 are ever on air at same time, 5205 being the difference between them.
It was all very positive, with no discussion of these changes` impact on other stations such as TWR on 4775, or Djibouti 4780. But they welcome comments to 4775 @ wwcr.com
This edition should be audible on demand for another week via http://www.wwcr.com/ask-wwcr_309.mp3
I also listened a bit to 4775 at 0606 UT Sunday as ``Into Tomorrow`` with Dave Graveline was starting, for the Valentine weekend!!! As they mentioned repeatedly. So what we get on WWCR is one-week delayed; why? (Glenn Hauser, OK, Feb 21, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ###
