venerdì 8 aprile 2011

Glenn Hauser logs April 8, 2011

** ANTARCTICA. 15476, LRA36 still missing April 8, after sudden appearance April 6, and absence April 7. Roberto Scaglione says they were working on fixing antenna and transmitter problems. On April 8 I checked repeatedly at 1255, 1330, 1409, 1417, 1447 and never heard even a carrier, tho propagation was poor. Harold Frodge, reporting to DXLD, also looked for it recently at later hours, and indeed they might have the transmitter on beyond previous regular schedule while they are testing and repairing:

``15476, 2156, 5-Apr; Weak het only centering about 15476. Not there at 2315. No het detected at 1700 or 2129, 6-Apr or 1824, 7-Apr (Frodge-MI)`` By ``het`` he means carrier (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** CHINA. 13830, April 8 at 1318, CNR1 jamming // 11990; 13830 is to block R. Free Asia, Tibetan via Tajikistan at 11-14.

15670, April 8 at 1332, Firedrake atop something, // 15900, and no other FD found 8-17 MHz by 1340. 15670 is also RFA Tibetan via TAJIKISTAN at 11-14, and 15900 presumably Sound of Hope.

17705, April 8 at 1308, Chinese vs Chinese, i.e. ChiCom jamming against All India Radio`s Chinese service until 1315, burying Saudi Arabia, q.v. (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** GREECE. 15630, VOG with non-classical music, fair April 8 at 1456, but presumably filling with even more music than usual of some sort, during strike thru Monday (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** GUATEMALA. 4055, April 8 at 0556, R. Truth with multilingual announcements, English at tune-in offering QSL, with postal address Box 5, Chiquimula. Then YL in German; Italian; Swedish? Japanese; native language including Spanish words, all with Hammond organ music background, but audio quality varies greatly from language to language, some hard to copy or even identify. Overall modulation is somewhat distorted, and some T-storm crashes, but good steady signal at S9+20. Then brief sign-offs in Spanish and English, 0602 starting NA (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** GUINEA. 7125, April 8 at 0605, RTG again with Qur`an, in Arabic of course. Did not catch any French translation like before in brief monitoring this time (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** KUWAIT [and non]. 21540, April 8 at 1454, Arabic pop music rather than Qur`an on this Friday, atop co-channel Spain, the SSOB now after Hamada Radio International is finished. Altho Kuwait may be at fault for this stupid collision, Spain could solve it by reactivating vacant 21570 which it was using in B-10, instead of 21540. But that would be too easy and require diligence (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** LIBYA. 17725, I can tell VOAf from the GJ is there, April 8 at 1453, fair signal with undermodulated music during presumed English bihour (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** NIGERIA [non]. 21480, Hamada Radio International, via RMI, April 8 at 1415 is the SSOB --- strongest station on the band of 13m! Frequent mentions in Hausa of Kaduna. This is currently scheduled M-F 1400-1430, due south from Wertachtal, GERMANY with a semi-transmitter at 125 kW. Close second in strength is Kuwait on 21540.

At this hour I am pleased to note 10 audible signals on the 13 m band, unimaginable just a year ago during prolonged solar min: 21470 BBC English via Cyprus, 21480 HRI, 21505 BSKSA, 21540 RK AND REE, 21560 NHK via France, 21610 REE, 21630 BBC Hausa via Portugal, 21655 RDPI Portugal, 21840 DW Amharic via Portugal (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** OKLAHOMA. Re previous report of KWTV-DT 39 adding continuous news on 9.2: Searching their site on ``News 9 Now`` (abbr`d as News9 N on PSIP ID), does get this:

``KWTV'S 'NEWS NOW' TO BECOME 'NEWS 9 NOW' --- News9.com

OKLAHOMA CITY -- News 9 is proud to introduce News 9 Now, formerly known as News Now 53. Beginning April 1, 2011, viewers can find News 9 Now on KWTV's digital sub-channel, 9.2. The news will continue to be broadcast on Cox Cable Channel 53.

"We made this move to make these channels more accessible to our viewers," said Griffin Communications President and CEO David Griffin. "We're happy to continue our successful 15 year partnership with Cox and look forward to serving even more Oklahomans by offering News 9 Now and News On 6 Now over the air."

The new channel will also allow News 9 to carry special programming without pre-empting regular scheduled programming. Viewers may need to rescan their channel lineups in order for the change to take effect. For more information, including a list of cable companies who will carry News 9 Now, check out
http://News9.com/News9Now [website]`` (Glenn Hauser, Enid, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** SAUDI ARABIA [and non]. 17705, BSKSA in Arabic was blasted away by the Indo-Chinese radio war April 8 at 1308, see CHINA; that should have ended at 1315, and at 1411 check, BSKSA is alone again on channel in Arabic (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** SRI LANKA [and non]. 15640, April 8 at 1448, noise jamming, bleeding to adjacent frequencies, perhaps Ethiopia using a Chinese-provided DRM transmitter to jam DW Amharic? NO! Looking it up in HFCC, this really is DRM, the joint BBC/DW service via Trincomalee, 90 kW aimed 5 degrees across India at 1400-1800. It`s so hard to tell DRM from jamming.

And this was in fact jamming an analog signal, Russian-style tune-up tone going on and off! Per HFCC, a Moscow analog site is also on 15640 at 13-18, 500 kW, 190 degrees. But Aoki shows 15640 really in use only at 15-16, for VOR in Russian (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** SUDAN [non]. 17745, Sudan Radio Service, Friday April 8 *1459:20 carrier on via Sines, PORTUGAL, a few sex after VOA Kurdish via Wertachtal finishes 17750 at 1459*. Only fair signal, starts with drumming and other percussion, 1500 echoey YL with sign-on mentioning station name as in English, but otherwise in colloquial Arabic(?).

I made a point of monitoring SRS, since Ivo Ivanov reports to DXLD that this and all other transmissions via Portugal are being deleted from April 9, as well as various vernaculars via UAE at 17-18 on 9590, retaining only these:

``0400-0500 on 13720 DHA 250 kW / 245 deg to EaAf Arabic
  0500-0600 on 13720 DHA 250 kW / 240 deg to EaAf Arabic/English Sat/Sun, ex Daily``

Which are unlikely to be heard well here in NAm, contrary to Sines. But there should be one more SRS broadcast on 17745 via Portugal on April 8 at 15-17, when the first semihour on Saturday is normally in English. Does SRS consider its mission almost accomplished, or another funding cut? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** TURKEY. 15450, VOT English, poor April 8 at 1323 concluding with a few headlines, then YL still thinks she is on two 25m frequencies as in B-10 at 1330+, and into IS. I listen to all the repeats, and they are indeed identical, on some keyboard. We so miss the subtle variations in the old version on a real piano. There was time to play it 15 times, plus 21 of the 26 notes for a sixteenth before cut off the air later than usual at 1328* (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A [non]. 17545, VOA news in English, fair with deep fades April 8 at 1452. Listed 100 kW, 350 degrees from BOTSWANA during this hour only (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A [and non]. 7555, April 8 at 0133, VG open carrier, no modulation detectable, but usual ute hash from France on the hi side. Must be KJES, in another pointless transmission, now scheduled 0100-0230 on this frequency. Supposed to rotate from 335 to 20 degrees at 0200 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 13845, WWCR VG signal April 8 at 1306, much better than 15825 as we again have enhanced propagation below 15 MHz. At 1448, however, 15825 is also VG, indicating HF sporadic E has hit --- so good that I could hear the squeal and detect the #1 transmitter`s spurs on 15840.6 and 15810.4. Now if Es will only build up into VHF beyond 54 MHz for what`s left of analog TVDX. It would also be nice if the Es enhancement last thru 2100 for WORLD OF RADIO on 15825 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A [and non]. 9955, WRMI, April 8 at 1405 has no jamming during RFI English relay but with considerable CCI, and lo het, which per Aoki is KTWR in Cantonese (HFCC says ``Yue``), during this semihour only M-F. TWR itself calls it Cantonese with `Thru the Bible`:
http://www.twr.org/schedule/?language=Cantonese&country=&site=&program_name=

Aoki`s WRMI listings are one hour late, showing RFI at 1500, still not shifted for DST! WORLD OF RADIO lucks out at 1430 Friday on WRMI as that`s in a break between KTWR and *1500 YFR Russian via Taiwan. Checked toward the end at 1457, poor with fair peaks, perhaps some sporadic-E help, no broadcast QRM but some irregular noise bursts, not jamming?

On Saturday, WOR is at 1400, so should also luck out on a KTWR day-off. Other upcoming WRMI times for WORLD OF RADIO are: Sat 0800, 1730; Sunday 0800, 1530, 1730. On WWCR: Friday 2030 on 15825; Saturday 1600 on 12160; Sunday 0630 on 3215. On IPAR/IRRS/NEXUS-IBA: Saturday 1800 on 7290, 1566, 1368. How is reception around Europe now on WWCR, IPAR?

WOR also confirmed on ACB Radio Mainstream webcast after 1500 Friday, to repeat every odd-UT Friday hour thru 2330 via
http://www.acbradio.org/mainstream
(Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A [non]. Rechecking 15670, which was ChiCom-jammed earlier vs V. of Tibet, April 8 at 1310, the Firedrake is gone and instead some weak unjammed talk. HFCC shows it`s YFR in Hindi via Nauen at 1400-1600.

Strangely, from 2 to 25 July the same service is to switch to Issoudun, France site, then back to Nauen, GERMANY. Something to do with higher transmission priorities, RNW and the Tour de France? Very likely, as this year`s Tour runs July 2-24, tho RNW has other holiday deviations in Dutch (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ###