lunedì 14 febbraio 2011

Glenn Hauser logs February 13, 2011

** CUBA. RHC anomalies Feb 13: at 0637, English back on 6010, missing 24 hours earlier, // 6050, 6060, 6150.

At 1403, 13750 in Spanish is on, // 13780, with feature about the Holguín Book Fair in March. What nerve, where freedom of the press and freedom of thought are banned! At least they have a [censored] book store in that city, unlike Laredo.

13750 is the Sunday-only frequency supposedly for `Aló, Presidente`, but two others, 15370 and 17750 still haven`t shown up by 1436. Except at 1414 I heard an open carrier on 15370 but soon cutting off. Maybe they aborted an attempt to fire up. 13680 was wisely off, vs QRM from Farda. But all on later: see VENEZUELA [non].

At 1435, `En Contacto` RHC DX program features RAE and then interviews a visitor from Argentina; tho he`s allegedly in Cuba, talk is via phone with dogs barking behind him (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** EGYPT. 15080, Feb 13 at 1423 ME music, 1424 distorted YL talk, apparently Arabic, undermodulated as usual. Is R. Cairo, scheduled 13-16, 250 kW, 241 degrees from Abis site near Alexandria. We may only hope that the post-Mubarak era will see R. Cairo`s perpetual modulation problems repaired. Wolfgang Büschel observes that the other Abu Zabaal site near Cairo is still off the air (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** KUWAIT. 21540, R. Kuwait at 1419 Feb 13 in Qur`an atop REE with SAH; unusually, also propagating on 13m was SAUDI ARABIA, q.v. (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** SAUDI ARABIA. 21505, Feb 13 at 1416 talk in Arabic and music bits, poor. Must be BSKSA, which I haven`t heard on 13m for months; yes, a bit later made it // 17705. Meanwhile, Spain, Libya, and Portugal had better 21 MHz signals. Also making it, KUWAIT, q.v.

HFCC and/or EiBi show several BSKSA 13m channels on air past 1400: 21460 until 16, 21505, 21530 and 21640 until 15, but only 21505 audible here. Aoki, however lists ONLY 21505, until 1457, and that matches what I am hearing, and not (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. I am disappointed to hear that not only WINB, but also WWCR treats our national anthem as produxion music, to be excerpted and talked over in canned ID, heard Feb 13 at 0658 on 3215 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 15550-USB, WJHR surprisingly strong Feb 13 at 1427, peaking S9+18, but audio is continually breaking up badly, like a CD playback problem; preacher plugging Fundamental Voices, Galax, VA. Still breaking up in music from next(?) show at 1431. Slight QRM from Iran AM co-channel. Recheck at 1456, WJHR is gone.

Maybe got a boost from unexpected HF sporadic E, no sign of which later anywhere near VHF. And there was nothing from WEWN on 15610, only usual very poor signal from WWCR on 15825, at similar distances which would likely be affected too by any Es enhancement (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** VENEZUELA [non]. Altho RHC fired up only 13750 of the five `Aló, Presidente` frequencies as early as 1400 UT Sunday Feb 13 with its own programming, see CUBA, at next check 1640, all five were on the air with El Hugazo, in decreasing order of strength here: 13750, 17750, 15370, 11690, 13680. 11690 was barely audible beside the RTTY, and 13680 just plain very weak. Unlike previous Sundays, NO other RHC frequencies were on the air, now that the 24-hour Spanish service has been halved, breaking from 1600 to 2200 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

UNIDENTIFIED. 15254.5-SSB, INTRUDERS, Feb 13 at 1410, 2-way in slurred colloquial Spanish; about all I could understand was ``cambio``; het from 15255 broadcast carrier, all weak (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ###