** ANTARCTICA [and non]. 15476, LRA36 monitoring Friday May 6: started at 1232, but no signal, and still none at 1241. I was about to give up, but checked again at 1243 and now it`s suddenly on with the best signal yet, S9+15, opening routine with ``Soy Feliz`` themetune, `Amanecer Austral`, YL mentions ``falta de agua``, a water shortage the latest problem at Base Esperanza: guess it has not been snowing much yet. Now modulation is good both on the talk and the music, as she proceeds to name the support staff including Lt. Cols. Guillermo Borger, Pablo González, and a third person as technical operator whose name I can`t catch. One of the other XYLs is speaking and she is off-mike compared to her compañeras.
1246 music mix finally stops and the three say their welcomes, phone numbers including 0297 444 5309, e-mail. 1249 temperature mentioned as 8 grados, not sure if plus or minus, but maybe they get that warm above zero? Rapid chatter continues, hard to copy. 1254 has weakened to only S9+10, but still stronger than 15480 UK producing lite het unless I sidetune downwards; 1257 music.
Meanwhile since 1255 there has been intermittent scratchy SSB QRM on the low side traced to 15471-USB, a problem only due to side-tuning and the wide selectivity of the FRG-7. Sounds like weak 2-way intruder in Chinese rather than Spanish. At 1310 LRA36 has romantic song with piano accompaniment; 1316 more romantic with guitar past 1329. 1346 final check has faded to S9+5, still music (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** CANADA. `The Current` from CBC Radio 1 had a fine segment on Harold Camping and his Rapture nonsense starting the Friday May 6 program; final playback for the Pacific zone is 1537-1600 UT, but then to be on demand at the start of the show.
First, another gospel huxter who falls for this, then Dave Silverman of American Atheists; afterwards, somewhat more rational religious scholars. This page http://www.cbc.ca/radio/
has a photo of Harold Camping as he appears today. Perhaps that will be preserved in the link to archive later.
For me the zone feed program listings are always displayed one hour off, claiming that the Central zone feed was starting at 1437 UT, while it was really the Mountain. Do others see them that way? And why does CBC insist on claiming The Current starts at :30 past the hours?? (Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** CHINA. Firedrake May 6; all checked were //:
7970, fair at 1222
10300, good at 1223
10965, good at 1223
11500, tune-in at 1224 to open carrier, but Firedrake audio is then faded up; so it looks like the OC heard previously was also FD
13920, good at 1226; none were found in the 12s on the way to this
14700, fair at 1227
15545, poor at 1228; and a het went off at 1229* as VOT QSYed
15550, poor at 1304 with het from 15552 VOT; also oscillating tone. At 1306 the het is gone, now a carrier with talk on 15558; FD still 15550
15555, very poor at 1330, not positive it`s FD, with too weak carrier on 15558, far enough away in the cat-and-mouse game with V. of Tibet; both mainly evidenced by the het between them
15900, fair-good at 1229
15970, very good at 1229, quite a contrast to 15900
16980, fair-good at 1230. No more up to 19 MHz (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** INDONESIA. 9526-, VOI absent May 6 at 1217, 1303 chex (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** JAPAN [non]. 17690, good May 6 at 1231, R. Japon opening in French, whence? It`s 250 kW, 305 degrees USward from MADAGASCAR, where else? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** KOREA NORTH [and non]. 6518, May 6 at 1208, surprised to hear music in the clear and no jamming! V. of the People, from South to North, 1212 YL Korean talk, poor signal. Meanwhile the // 6600 seems even more heavily jammed than usual, sounds rather like a video carrier buzzing. 6348 Echo of Hope also has heavy jamming but not the video sound (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** SAIPAN [non]. Looking for KFBS as per schedule in last report: 11650, May 6 at 1156, no sign of it, but instead Chinese lesson from CRI English, via Wulumuchi, EAST TURKISTAN; 1159 giving CRI websites (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENINGN DIGEST)
** U S A. 9885, VOA Spanish, May 6 at 1219 says the program in progress is `Estudio 45`, lunes a viernes a las 8 de la mañana. Naming a program for the studio where it originates, of significance only to those within the building, demonstrates a profound lack of imagination, but hardly the first time this has been done. And what if the studio has to be changed for technical reasons; then what? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. 2390, WWRB, as usual the preacher before us ran about a minute over, so at 0332 UT Friday May 6, Dave Frantz comes on live announcing that from Monday May 9 all programming on 2390 will be heard on the summer frequency 5050. Apparently this is a roundabout way of saying that 2390 will be off for the summer, as the two have already been running // for several weeks, especially during WORLD FO RADIO. So what will become of the 2390 transmitter in the evenings? Or will he be putting some other programming on it?
As also often happens, there followed dead air as Dave attempted to get the WOR 1563 playback started. At 0333 he said something about ``waiting for the internet to send it to us`` altho we already sent the file by ftp to WWRB. Finally started at 0334:30.
Next chances: via WWCR, Friday 2030 on 15825; Saturday 1600 on 12160; Sunday 0630 on 3215. WRMI 9955: Saturday 0800, 1730; Sunday 0800, 1530, 1730; IPAR Saturday 1800 on 7290 via Slovakia; WRN via Sirius/XM 120, Saturday and Sunday 1730; Sunday 0830 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. 9370, WTJC`s out-of-whackness the worst yet, May 6 at 0549, spreading continuously from 9250 to 9470 with extreme distortion, especially bad for other US stations on 9330, 9355, 9385. Do WBCQ and WYFR care about this? Inconsequential compared to The Rapture.
At 1226, the main spurs are on 9320, 9345 vs VOK, and 9395 vs FEBC in Chinese on 9400 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** VATICAN [non]. 13730, May 6 at 1200 checking whether VR via CANADA is still in English? Yes, ``good morning`` and news in English, but very poor reception so far (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ###
1246 music mix finally stops and the three say their welcomes, phone numbers including 0297 444 5309, e-mail. 1249 temperature mentioned as 8 grados, not sure if plus or minus, but maybe they get that warm above zero? Rapid chatter continues, hard to copy. 1254 has weakened to only S9+10, but still stronger than 15480 UK producing lite het unless I sidetune downwards; 1257 music.
Meanwhile since 1255 there has been intermittent scratchy SSB QRM on the low side traced to 15471-USB, a problem only due to side-tuning and the wide selectivity of the FRG-7. Sounds like weak 2-way intruder in Chinese rather than Spanish. At 1310 LRA36 has romantic song with piano accompaniment; 1316 more romantic with guitar past 1329. 1346 final check has faded to S9+5, still music (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** CANADA. `The Current` from CBC Radio 1 had a fine segment on Harold Camping and his Rapture nonsense starting the Friday May 6 program; final playback for the Pacific zone is 1537-1600 UT, but then to be on demand at the start of the show.
First, another gospel huxter who falls for this, then Dave Silverman of American Atheists; afterwards, somewhat more rational religious scholars. This page http://www.cbc.ca/radio/
has a photo of Harold Camping as he appears today. Perhaps that will be preserved in the link to archive later.
For me the zone feed program listings are always displayed one hour off, claiming that the Central zone feed was starting at 1437 UT, while it was really the Mountain. Do others see them that way? And why does CBC insist on claiming The Current starts at :30 past the hours?? (Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** CHINA. Firedrake May 6; all checked were //:
7970, fair at 1222
10300, good at 1223
10965, good at 1223
11500, tune-in at 1224 to open carrier, but Firedrake audio is then faded up; so it looks like the OC heard previously was also FD
13920, good at 1226; none were found in the 12s on the way to this
14700, fair at 1227
15545, poor at 1228; and a het went off at 1229* as VOT QSYed
15550, poor at 1304 with het from 15552 VOT; also oscillating tone. At 1306 the het is gone, now a carrier with talk on 15558; FD still 15550
15555, very poor at 1330, not positive it`s FD, with too weak carrier on 15558, far enough away in the cat-and-mouse game with V. of Tibet; both mainly evidenced by the het between them
15900, fair-good at 1229
15970, very good at 1229, quite a contrast to 15900
16980, fair-good at 1230. No more up to 19 MHz (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** INDONESIA. 9526-, VOI absent May 6 at 1217, 1303 chex (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** JAPAN [non]. 17690, good May 6 at 1231, R. Japon opening in French, whence? It`s 250 kW, 305 degrees USward from MADAGASCAR, where else? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** KOREA NORTH [and non]. 6518, May 6 at 1208, surprised to hear music in the clear and no jamming! V. of the People, from South to North, 1212 YL Korean talk, poor signal. Meanwhile the // 6600 seems even more heavily jammed than usual, sounds rather like a video carrier buzzing. 6348 Echo of Hope also has heavy jamming but not the video sound (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** SAIPAN [non]. Looking for KFBS as per schedule in last report: 11650, May 6 at 1156, no sign of it, but instead Chinese lesson from CRI English, via Wulumuchi, EAST TURKISTAN; 1159 giving CRI websites (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENINGN DIGEST)
** U S A. 9885, VOA Spanish, May 6 at 1219 says the program in progress is `Estudio 45`, lunes a viernes a las 8 de la mañana. Naming a program for the studio where it originates, of significance only to those within the building, demonstrates a profound lack of imagination, but hardly the first time this has been done. And what if the studio has to be changed for technical reasons; then what? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. 2390, WWRB, as usual the preacher before us ran about a minute over, so at 0332 UT Friday May 6, Dave Frantz comes on live announcing that from Monday May 9 all programming on 2390 will be heard on the summer frequency 5050. Apparently this is a roundabout way of saying that 2390 will be off for the summer, as the two have already been running // for several weeks, especially during WORLD FO RADIO. So what will become of the 2390 transmitter in the evenings? Or will he be putting some other programming on it?
As also often happens, there followed dead air as Dave attempted to get the WOR 1563 playback started. At 0333 he said something about ``waiting for the internet to send it to us`` altho we already sent the file by ftp to WWRB. Finally started at 0334:30.
Next chances: via WWCR, Friday 2030 on 15825; Saturday 1600 on 12160; Sunday 0630 on 3215. WRMI 9955: Saturday 0800, 1730; Sunday 0800, 1530, 1730; IPAR Saturday 1800 on 7290 via Slovakia; WRN via Sirius/XM 120, Saturday and Sunday 1730; Sunday 0830 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. 9370, WTJC`s out-of-whackness the worst yet, May 6 at 0549, spreading continuously from 9250 to 9470 with extreme distortion, especially bad for other US stations on 9330, 9355, 9385. Do WBCQ and WYFR care about this? Inconsequential compared to The Rapture.
At 1226, the main spurs are on 9320, 9345 vs VOK, and 9395 vs FEBC in Chinese on 9400 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** VATICAN [non]. 13730, May 6 at 1200 checking whether VR via CANADA is still in English? Yes, ``good morning`` and news in English, but very poor reception so far (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ###
