domenica 20 marzo 2011

Glenn Hauser logs March 18-19, 2011

** CHINA. Firedrake, March 19:
6030, in usual mix with Taiwan and other jamming, fair around 1315.
9350, none before or after 1330, nor on any other frequency in the area, unlike 24 hours earlier. Nor any FD to be heard on 8400, 10300 or anywhere up to 15 MHz (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** CUBA. 11760, RHC English missing March 18 at 2026 check, nothing on frequency, tho Portuguese is running on 11770. New schedule effective March 20 shows first English broadcast moved one UT hour earlier to 19-20 on 11760, to be confirmed; also earlied is the 5040 broadcast, back to original 23-24 as last fall. The complete updated, edited and annotated new RHC sked has been provided first to the DXLD yahoogroup.

13780, March 19 at 1402, RHC timecheck as 9 de la mañana ``en todo el territorio nacional``, so still on UT -5 for one more day. As if Cuba might have more than one timezone, they have to keep saying it applies to the entire territory?

Hmmm, what about Guantánamo Bay? Is that T.N. or not? US military there might find it more convenient to stay with US timechange dates, i.e. already UT-4, but that could confuse the Cuban national civilian employees allowed into and out of the base daily, if that is still the case, presumably having nothing to do with the prison funxion (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** CUBA. 24938, big signal and almost only SSB ham on 12m is again CO8LY in Santiago de Cuba, March 19 at 1506 with QRZ, CQDX, CQ 12 meters, in heavily accented English, working station after station quickly including at 1507, WI9M (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** EQUATORIAL GUINEA. 15190, R. Africa cut off ending of one gospel huxter March 18 at 2157, dead air when it would have been nice to insert an ID, and 2158 starting Tony Alamo show #236 (or 246?). Seems to be usual start time within a minute or two for the disgraced sex-offending and incarcerated for 175 years evangelist (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** FRANCE [non]. 11830, March 19 at 0604, news in French from RFI via SOUTH AFRICA --- I kept expecting them to voice-over into Portuguese, which is the language scheduled during this hour, but kept on in French for a few minutes and still at a later check. Is the Portuguese really M-F only, like morning English, since this was Saturday? Or missing due to selective strike? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** GUATEMALA. 4052.5-, March 19 at 0537 check, preacher in English, and now good clear modulation unlike last mushy log of R. Verdad (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** INDIA [and non]. 9690, March 19 at 1326, pop vocal music, as AIR continues to deprive GOS listeners of its own wonderful interval signal prior to the 1330-1500 English to SE Asia. 1330 that music stops, and ``Namaskar,`` YL sign-on mentioning 9690, 11620, 13710, right into news by OM. Now with talk only, the perpetual hum on 9690 is audible. Without it, I might guess it was some other station! At 1336 checked 13710, but heard only a station in French, i.e. CRI, 308 degrees from Kashgar, EAST TURKISTAN, toward Europe (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** JORDAN [and non]. 11960, rechecking my previous unID in Arabic until 0054.6*: March 19 at 0030 reception is awful, but sounds Spanish so presumably Romania as scheduled this time. At 0505, very poor with heavy flutter in Arabic, which is really when R. Jordan is scheduled for one hour only, but variable per WRTH 2011 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** KOREA NORTH [non]. 9950, March 19 at 1432 playing ``Sakura``, much stronger than adjacent 9955 WRMI; 1435 into Japanese announcements with jingles, from: Furusato no Kaze, 100 kW, 345 degrees from Koror, PALAU, i.e. T8WH. Aoki also reminds us that in previous 13-14 UT hour on 9950, Nippon no Kaze in Korean and FnK in Japanese are instead 100 kW, 2 degrees from Taipei, Taiwan (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** LIBYA. 17725, VOAf from the GJ, still here March 19 at occasional chex up to 1553 in English, but only poor signal generally unreadable, and nothing on 21695 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** OKLAHOMA. 16560, March 19 at 1341 I am hearing a distorted weak signal from local KCRC 1390 with weather, ID. Not an harmonic; could it be one of those MW mixes with an extremely strong SW signal? So happens that 16560 minus 1390 = 15170: only problem is, REE Costa Rica has Saturdays off! Added the other way gets 17950, nothing there, so remains a mystery. I include this as a curiosity, not a DX tip anyone else further from KCRC could possibly hear (Glenn Hauser, Enid, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** SUDAN [non]. After checking LIBYA 17725, went up to 17745 at 1459 March 19 in anticipation of Sudan Radio Service, but nothing there. Sines, PORTUGAL cuts on abruptly at *1500 with sign-on in English already in progress, string of phone(?) numbers, overtly produced by ``Education Development Center, a project of the US Agency for International Development``, then opening ``Let`s Talk``, a radio drama series about democracy in Sudan, from the Sudan Radio Service. Still in English later in this half hour, believed to be regularly on Saturdays. Signal only fair, much weaker than Spain 17595 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. WORLD OF RADIO 1556 monitoring: confirmed timeshifted on WWCR: Friday March 18 at 2030 on 7465, Saturday March 19 at 1600 on 12160. Final repeat to be Sunday 0630 on 3215.

9955, WRMI Sat 1400 airing confirmed March 19 at 1428 closing with propagation outlook; no jamming except 9965 bleed. Times on WRMI Sunday: 0800, 1530, 1730 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 7415, WBCQ with `Allan Weiner Worldwide`, one UT hour earlier now, around 0035 UT Saturday March 19 was talking about numerous program time changes, including `Frecuencia al Día`, which he just moved to 0000 UT Tuesdays, now filled by something else at 2300 Mondays, so moving FAD to either Tuesday or Thursday at 2115. That change not yet appearing by 1900 March 19, but some of the others are, at
http://schedule.wbcq.com/main.php?fn=sked&freq=7415
(Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A [non]. 15280, YFR in English March 18 at 2157-2200*, which Babcock takes credit for as an ASCENSION relay, and with typical hum this once-great site exhibits, plus trans-equatorial flutter much like not // 15195 also ending at 2200 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 9405 and 13570, absolutely no signal audible on either from WINB, not even a carrier, March 19 at 0602, tho Ascension was sufficient on 9410, and Zambia on 13590. WINB has supposedly changed to 13570 all-night (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 11715-, KJES, Saturday March 19 at 1425, VG S9+18 signal, but just barely modulated with call-and-response catechisms (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 1250, trying for the DX test from WYTH in Georgia, March 19: monitored continuously from 0508 to 0530 UT, but nothing definite from this 1 kW non-direxional on daytime facilities, vs the dozens of other stations on frequency, dominated by romantic music in Spanish from the NNE, i.e. KYYS Kansas City KS (successor to WREN Topeka and share-timer KFKU Lawrence). Could null that somewhat on the DX-398, but still too much QRM, much of it a cacophony caused by multiple SAHs rather than propagational fading, as countless stations do not bother to keep their transmitters precisely on 1250.000 as they should.

At 0508 I did think I was hearing a bit of Morse code in the mix, and again at 0523 code at imagination-level. A final check at 0610 during the second test still found the Spanish dominant.

When I turned the radio back on at 1248 UT, KYYS had less competition, playing ``Te quiero, Mexico`` song, and ID as ``La Equis, la súper-estación`` by usual hyper voice actor heard on countless SS stations on both sides of border. ¿Quién es, anyway? Note that there is no X in the callsign, a stretch to make KYYS the last syllable of e-quis. So this station is for Mexicans rather than Americans? Do they ever play American patriotic music in any language? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. Tuning up from 1250 to 1270, March 19 at 1251 UT I notice IBOC noise around 1260 and also 1280, which means it`s coming from the Spanish station on 1270. Per
http://topazdesigns.com/iboc/station-list.html
it must be 50 kW KFLC Fort Worth rather than 5 kW KRVT Tulsa (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 1510 still has audible het, March 19 at 1252 UT, and it`s warbling slightly meaning the transmitter is not only off-frequency, but unstable. Previously traced to KCTE Independence MO; and also again a het of the same pitch, coincidentally? Previously traced to long-time off-frequency KMDO Fort Scott KS (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

UNIDENTIFIED. 25906, March 19 at 1509, scanning 11m SWBC band for anything of interest, found only a weak SSB here speaking Brazilian, presumably freebander. At this time, 10m was almost closed, only with some SSB around 28005, unlikely to have been any licensed ham that low in the band, and a bit of CW a little further up.

BTW, having reluctantly added another piece of gear to my multi-media shack, a Samsung DVD-VR375, I find that when plugged in but ``off`` it puts out whining noise blobs approx. every 65 kHz between 18230 and 25370. So that makes about 110 frequencies possibly blocked for DX, the frequency range no doubt depending on proximity to the antenna. Fortunately they are not very strong, but certainly annoying, first noted in the 13m band: 21470, 21535, 21600, 21665, 21730, 21795 but not inside 16m. I`ve yet to investigate where the spurs fall when it is ``on`` (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)