** CUBA [and non]. 11750, Feb 11 at 1421, I am hearing some singing weakly under always weak RHC. I had dreams of SLBC Sri Lanka, the 300 kW Ekala transmitter, but this does not start until 1500 (HFCC) or 1530 (Aoki) or 1530 (Trincomalee, WRTH) or 1630 (Trinco, EiBi) --- instead it must be R. Farda via Biblis, GERMANY, 100 kW at 108 degrees until 1530 (HFCC, EiBi), or -1600 (Aoki).
As for RHC, 11750 is always very weak compared to 11760, yet Aoki shows 11750 as 100 kW, 340 degrees USward, while 11760 as 100 kW non-direxional. Something doesn`t add up here.
13670, today Feb 11 RHC has this frequency on past 1400 when RadioCuba had been turning it off the past week, still going at 1433 with `news`, hetting another strong signal from CRI English via Canada 13675, Commies vs Commies (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** IRAN. 11685, Feb 11 at 1405, S Asian language talk and bits of music, some flutter. Unusual to hear something on the low side of NAA Maine RTTY 11687.5. I soon find better signal on the DX-398 with lots of antenna wire strung around the inside ceiling, than on the FRG-7 with 30+ m external longwire, which runs east-west not favoring northerly sources. Side-tuning to 11684 with narrow bandwidth gets rid of the RTTY.
This is VIRI in Urdu at 1300-1430, 500 kW, 178 degrees from Kamalabad: not the direxion of Pakistan at all, but more or less toward Qatar and Bahrain, for Gastarbeiter? I expect it`s still short-path off the back rather than long-path off the front. 1412 mentions azad, and Iran, crowd chanting along with a lead singer; 1416 ``Yih Teheran`` and news theme from ``Iran islami``. Then I find a weaker // on 11720, which is 500 kW, 118 degrees from Kamalabad, this one really toward Pak (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** JAPAN [non]. 13725, Feb 11 at 1431, Persian M&W mentioning some kHz, and ``Injo`` something. It`s NHK`s semihour due east from 500 kW, Issoudun, FRANCE (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** KOREA NORTH [and non]. 6003, Feb 11 at 1341, Echo of Hope M&W conversation in Korean from the South, no jamming audible for a change (tho RA Brandon DRM from 5995 is bad enough until 1400).
However, heavy Juche jamming pulsing on 6230 at 1342 against no clandestine, just totally obliterating VMW unlike 24 hours earlier (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** MADAGASCAR [and non]. 6135+, Feb 11 at 1427, just as Shiokaze in Japanese from Japan is about to sign off, het on hi side is stronger than it was earlier in the hour, but still far too weak to copy even after JSR QRT at 1430. But without Shiokaze, we would never even notice its presence, surely R. Madagasikara by long path, as frequently logged by Ron Howard et al. in California until 1500*. WRTH says 30 kW (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** NEW ZEALAND [and non]. 15720, Feb 11 at 1450 surprised to find good signal here in English, announcer plugging BBC `Science in Axion` coming up at ``half past four``. Therefore it must be RNZI relaying RNZN on a totally wrong frequency again! Best heard RNZI in quite a while, so kept listening for an hour. Nice selexion of classic rock, such as 1455 Don Fardon`s version of ``Indian Reservation``, a.k.a. ``Lament of Cherokee Indians`` --- just right for an unexpected listener in the Cherokee Strip! 1457 ``Rose Garden`` by Lynn Anderson. 1500 news presented by Roger Gascoyne; 1507 lengthy coastal weather forecasts; 1511 at ``11 after 4`` back to music, Michael Jaxon at age 13, ``My Girl``. How precocious. 1517 outro song by Anitar O`Day, on to Grateful Dead, James Brown, etc.
1530 as promised, `Science in Axion` with several stories including Russian drillers reaching Ozero Vostok far below Antarctica, prehistoric large cricket sounds (which I could not hear), European deepfreeze. Since BBC squeezed this show among others from 27 to 18 minutes, it`s become more superficial. At 1549 YL announcement says ``closing this (unnamed) frequency, retune immediately to 9765``, and off.
So I retune to 9765 but hear nothing, not even a het starting up against VOA Spe-cial Eng-lish on 9760. I then spend a few minutes searching all other RNZI frequencies I can remember, since if it`s on the wrong frequency before 1550, it could well be on another wrong frequency next. But nothing heard on 17675, 13730, 11725, 11675; might have gone to 7440, 6170 or 5950, too late to propagate now.
However, at 1558 I hear that dreaded DRM noise on 9765! So instead of AM, RNZI has brought up DRM on that frequency. Furthermore, at 1600 it`s mixing with something weak in AM, Spanish, i.e. REE Costa Rica // 15125. Also brief ``running water`` ute intruder on and off. At 1602-1603 I try again the other possible RNZI AM frequencies but find it nowhere. Uplooked later, part of their current schedule shows:
1059-1158 15720 AM 9870 DRM Timor
1159-1258 15720 AM [no DRM] Timor
1300-1550 5950 AM [no DRM] Pacific
1551-1750 9765 AM 9890 DRM Cook Islands, Samoa
So maybe the RNZI AM after 1551 was swapped on 9890, which I did not think to check. BTW, 15720 at first was atop CCI from something which hardly expected to be QRMed by NZ, i.e. NHK Hindi via MADAGASCAR at 1430-1515.
This is merely the latest of many instances of RNZI showing up on the wrong frequency, evidently caused by mis-programming of the computer automation controlling QSYs; or Rangitaiki has a mind of its own? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** ROMANIA. 7310, Feb 11 at 0638, RRI `Newsreel` is describing matter-of-factly the new Romanian government and those now in charge; yet popular demonstrations continue (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** SAIPAN. 9705, Feb 11 at 1357 some English gives me pause, phony OM talk about buying a bike, whether to wear a helmet, consecutively translated by YL into idiomatic Cantonese, but cut off abruptly at 1358. Back on a few sex later with a R. Svoboda ID in Russian! Then open carrier until resuming Cantonese at 1400 with VOA theme, ``Mei-guo - Wa-shing-ton``. Signal slightly weaker now. Per Aoki, this is when #3 transmitter at the Robert E. Kamosa Station maintained and operated for IBB by Rome Research Corp. at Agingan Point (as in WRTH under NORTHERN MARIANAS) switches antennas from 285 to 310 degrees, why? Maybe because the 285 is needed for some higher priority language elsewhere at 1400 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** TAIWAN. 9780, Feb 11 at 1559, BaBcoCk music loop ``IS``, 1600 switch to other music, sounds sorta religious, YL announcement in Japanese. Aoki shows it`s Furusato no Kaze, 1600-1630, 250 kW, 45 degrees from Taipei, TAIWAN so also USward.
Since it`s under the auspices of Babcock, and not clandestine for China, the ChiCom allow this to be registered in HFCC, as long as the country is shown as CHN rather than TWN, even tho site is TAI for Taipei, according to the HFCC abbrs. This leads me to look thru the entire Site file at HFCC, to find which of the other ``CHN`` entries are really in Taiwan:
MIN Minhsiung
PLI Pali [ex R. Liberty; still in use?]
TSH Tanshui (not to be confused with TIA Tianshui on the mainland!)
I believe there are quite a few more, e.g. Tainan
(Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** TAIWAN [non]. 5950, RTI via WYFR is back on in English UT Sat Feb 11 at 0225 check, and also on 9680, audio somewhat distorted on both. Dan Elyea at Okeechobee tells me that 5950 was indeed off the air the night before due to antenna problems. This time I also check 6875 during the 05-06 hour and at 0532 find RTI is also back in proper English here, instead of Chinese which had substituted for the past two sesquimonths, due to WYFR`s computer-control `meltdown` which is just now being repaired. At the 06-07 hour, 6875 is still in proper RTI Spanish too for the second night.
Dan Elyea also told me on Feb 10: ``As of last evening the RTI schedule should be back on track. The FSI [WYFR = Family Stations International] transmissions should be as scheduled sometime early next week. Yes, we're finally getting the last bugs out of our program automation system. There may be a few glitches still to be worked out, but the main functions are rolling. It's been a strange and widespread combination of hardware and software issues spread throughout the 30 to 40 computers that make up the overall system. Per the HP techs who helped with one aspect of the failure, our system was maliciously hacked. But other issues played into the total crash, as well. 73, Dan`` (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U K [non]. 17870, Feb 11 at 1439, huge crowd noise over talk in some language; 14-15 is scheduled as BBC Somali via CYPRUS. Maybe covering the silly football tournament in Gabon & Equatorial Guinea if that`s still underway; vuvuzelaless (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. 13570 and 9265, Feb 10 at 2123, WINB is missing from both its frequencies, and no doubt the 18530 harmonic unheard lately; are there breaks now in its formerly continuous broadcasts, with QSY at 2159-2200? A new program schedule is up dated Feb 5, showing on Fridays, `The Amber May Show` starts at 1930, but durations are not indicated for anything. The next item is `Wondrous Story` at 2145, and after that `Treasure of Truth` at 2300. Other weekdays there is nothing starting after 1900 or 1930 until the 2145 show. Amber website is linked from the program list filed under T for The, which in turn linx to a podcast labeled as only 13+ minutes. Therefore the break at least on Fridays is from 1945 to 2145. At 2145, it seems unlikely they would come up for another 15 minutes on 13570, instead just start 9265 at that time instead of 2200, unless Wondrous really wants to be on 13. How long is it? Some days the next show starts at 2230 or 2300, but 45
or 75 minutes duration is very unlikely, especially since on Thursdays the next one is at 2200. So apparently there is another hiatus: Mon 2200-2230, Tue, Thu and Fri 2200-2300. Still plenty of programming in between on Sat & Sun when no break should occur. Weekdays do not start until 1700 or 1730; Sat *1345, Sun *1200, already on 13570 that early. The final program on 9265 now starts every night at 0300, maybe a semihour? Even `Good News Hour` UT Fridays could really be only 50% of that (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. 5050-5055, for the second night, UT Feb 11 at 0225 check, huge ute noise blob is here, and no WWRB on 5050 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. A reminder of WTWW-2 transmitter test, today Sat Feb 11 from 2200 on 9990, 0000-0400 UT Sunday on 5085. Check for spurs or other noise around each frequency, especially any QRM to WWV. Ted Randall will be promoting ham radio and taking phone-ins.
George McClintock tells me there will be another test on same this Monday/Tuesday until 0300 for Brother Stair who might want to buy time on the as yet unpurchased WTWW-4 transmitter (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
As for RHC, 11750 is always very weak compared to 11760, yet Aoki shows 11750 as 100 kW, 340 degrees USward, while 11760 as 100 kW non-direxional. Something doesn`t add up here.
13670, today Feb 11 RHC has this frequency on past 1400 when RadioCuba had been turning it off the past week, still going at 1433 with `news`, hetting another strong signal from CRI English via Canada 13675, Commies vs Commies (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** IRAN. 11685, Feb 11 at 1405, S Asian language talk and bits of music, some flutter. Unusual to hear something on the low side of NAA Maine RTTY 11687.5. I soon find better signal on the DX-398 with lots of antenna wire strung around the inside ceiling, than on the FRG-7 with 30+ m external longwire, which runs east-west not favoring northerly sources. Side-tuning to 11684 with narrow bandwidth gets rid of the RTTY.
This is VIRI in Urdu at 1300-1430, 500 kW, 178 degrees from Kamalabad: not the direxion of Pakistan at all, but more or less toward Qatar and Bahrain, for Gastarbeiter? I expect it`s still short-path off the back rather than long-path off the front. 1412 mentions azad, and Iran, crowd chanting along with a lead singer; 1416 ``Yih Teheran`` and news theme from ``Iran islami``. Then I find a weaker // on 11720, which is 500 kW, 118 degrees from Kamalabad, this one really toward Pak (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** JAPAN [non]. 13725, Feb 11 at 1431, Persian M&W mentioning some kHz, and ``Injo`` something. It`s NHK`s semihour due east from 500 kW, Issoudun, FRANCE (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** KOREA NORTH [and non]. 6003, Feb 11 at 1341, Echo of Hope M&W conversation in Korean from the South, no jamming audible for a change (tho RA Brandon DRM from 5995 is bad enough until 1400).
However, heavy Juche jamming pulsing on 6230 at 1342 against no clandestine, just totally obliterating VMW unlike 24 hours earlier (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** MADAGASCAR [and non]. 6135+, Feb 11 at 1427, just as Shiokaze in Japanese from Japan is about to sign off, het on hi side is stronger than it was earlier in the hour, but still far too weak to copy even after JSR QRT at 1430. But without Shiokaze, we would never even notice its presence, surely R. Madagasikara by long path, as frequently logged by Ron Howard et al. in California until 1500*. WRTH says 30 kW (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** NEW ZEALAND [and non]. 15720, Feb 11 at 1450 surprised to find good signal here in English, announcer plugging BBC `Science in Axion` coming up at ``half past four``. Therefore it must be RNZI relaying RNZN on a totally wrong frequency again! Best heard RNZI in quite a while, so kept listening for an hour. Nice selexion of classic rock, such as 1455 Don Fardon`s version of ``Indian Reservation``, a.k.a. ``Lament of Cherokee Indians`` --- just right for an unexpected listener in the Cherokee Strip! 1457 ``Rose Garden`` by Lynn Anderson. 1500 news presented by Roger Gascoyne; 1507 lengthy coastal weather forecasts; 1511 at ``11 after 4`` back to music, Michael Jaxon at age 13, ``My Girl``. How precocious. 1517 outro song by Anitar O`Day, on to Grateful Dead, James Brown, etc.
1530 as promised, `Science in Axion` with several stories including Russian drillers reaching Ozero Vostok far below Antarctica, prehistoric large cricket sounds (which I could not hear), European deepfreeze. Since BBC squeezed this show among others from 27 to 18 minutes, it`s become more superficial. At 1549 YL announcement says ``closing this (unnamed) frequency, retune immediately to 9765``, and off.
So I retune to 9765 but hear nothing, not even a het starting up against VOA Spe-cial Eng-lish on 9760. I then spend a few minutes searching all other RNZI frequencies I can remember, since if it`s on the wrong frequency before 1550, it could well be on another wrong frequency next. But nothing heard on 17675, 13730, 11725, 11675; might have gone to 7440, 6170 or 5950, too late to propagate now.
However, at 1558 I hear that dreaded DRM noise on 9765! So instead of AM, RNZI has brought up DRM on that frequency. Furthermore, at 1600 it`s mixing with something weak in AM, Spanish, i.e. REE Costa Rica // 15125. Also brief ``running water`` ute intruder on and off. At 1602-1603 I try again the other possible RNZI AM frequencies but find it nowhere. Uplooked later, part of their current schedule shows:
1059-1158 15720 AM 9870 DRM Timor
1159-1258 15720 AM [no DRM] Timor
1300-1550 5950 AM [no DRM] Pacific
1551-1750 9765 AM 9890 DRM Cook Islands, Samoa
So maybe the RNZI AM after 1551 was swapped on 9890, which I did not think to check. BTW, 15720 at first was atop CCI from something which hardly expected to be QRMed by NZ, i.e. NHK Hindi via MADAGASCAR at 1430-1515.
This is merely the latest of many instances of RNZI showing up on the wrong frequency, evidently caused by mis-programming of the computer automation controlling QSYs; or Rangitaiki has a mind of its own? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** ROMANIA. 7310, Feb 11 at 0638, RRI `Newsreel` is describing matter-of-factly the new Romanian government and those now in charge; yet popular demonstrations continue (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** SAIPAN. 9705, Feb 11 at 1357 some English gives me pause, phony OM talk about buying a bike, whether to wear a helmet, consecutively translated by YL into idiomatic Cantonese, but cut off abruptly at 1358. Back on a few sex later with a R. Svoboda ID in Russian! Then open carrier until resuming Cantonese at 1400 with VOA theme, ``Mei-guo - Wa-shing-ton``. Signal slightly weaker now. Per Aoki, this is when #3 transmitter at the Robert E. Kamosa Station maintained and operated for IBB by Rome Research Corp. at Agingan Point (as in WRTH under NORTHERN MARIANAS) switches antennas from 285 to 310 degrees, why? Maybe because the 285 is needed for some higher priority language elsewhere at 1400 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** TAIWAN. 9780, Feb 11 at 1559, BaBcoCk music loop ``IS``, 1600 switch to other music, sounds sorta religious, YL announcement in Japanese. Aoki shows it`s Furusato no Kaze, 1600-1630, 250 kW, 45 degrees from Taipei, TAIWAN so also USward.
Since it`s under the auspices of Babcock, and not clandestine for China, the ChiCom allow this to be registered in HFCC, as long as the country is shown as CHN rather than TWN, even tho site is TAI for Taipei, according to the HFCC abbrs. This leads me to look thru the entire Site file at HFCC, to find which of the other ``CHN`` entries are really in Taiwan:
MIN Minhsiung
PLI Pali [ex R. Liberty; still in use?]
TSH Tanshui (not to be confused with TIA Tianshui on the mainland!)
I believe there are quite a few more, e.g. Tainan
(Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** TAIWAN [non]. 5950, RTI via WYFR is back on in English UT Sat Feb 11 at 0225 check, and also on 9680, audio somewhat distorted on both. Dan Elyea at Okeechobee tells me that 5950 was indeed off the air the night before due to antenna problems. This time I also check 6875 during the 05-06 hour and at 0532 find RTI is also back in proper English here, instead of Chinese which had substituted for the past two sesquimonths, due to WYFR`s computer-control `meltdown` which is just now being repaired. At the 06-07 hour, 6875 is still in proper RTI Spanish too for the second night.
Dan Elyea also told me on Feb 10: ``As of last evening the RTI schedule should be back on track. The FSI [WYFR = Family Stations International] transmissions should be as scheduled sometime early next week. Yes, we're finally getting the last bugs out of our program automation system. There may be a few glitches still to be worked out, but the main functions are rolling. It's been a strange and widespread combination of hardware and software issues spread throughout the 30 to 40 computers that make up the overall system. Per the HP techs who helped with one aspect of the failure, our system was maliciously hacked. But other issues played into the total crash, as well. 73, Dan`` (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U K [non]. 17870, Feb 11 at 1439, huge crowd noise over talk in some language; 14-15 is scheduled as BBC Somali via CYPRUS. Maybe covering the silly football tournament in Gabon & Equatorial Guinea if that`s still underway; vuvuzelaless (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. 13570 and 9265, Feb 10 at 2123, WINB is missing from both its frequencies, and no doubt the 18530 harmonic unheard lately; are there breaks now in its formerly continuous broadcasts, with QSY at 2159-2200? A new program schedule is up dated Feb 5, showing on Fridays, `The Amber May Show` starts at 1930, but durations are not indicated for anything. The next item is `Wondrous Story` at 2145, and after that `Treasure of Truth` at 2300. Other weekdays there is nothing starting after 1900 or 1930 until the 2145 show. Amber website is linked from the program list filed under T for The, which in turn linx to a podcast labeled as only 13+ minutes. Therefore the break at least on Fridays is from 1945 to 2145. At 2145, it seems unlikely they would come up for another 15 minutes on 13570, instead just start 9265 at that time instead of 2200, unless Wondrous really wants to be on 13. How long is it? Some days the next show starts at 2230 or 2300, but 45
or 75 minutes duration is very unlikely, especially since on Thursdays the next one is at 2200. So apparently there is another hiatus: Mon 2200-2230, Tue, Thu and Fri 2200-2300. Still plenty of programming in between on Sat & Sun when no break should occur. Weekdays do not start until 1700 or 1730; Sat *1345, Sun *1200, already on 13570 that early. The final program on 9265 now starts every night at 0300, maybe a semihour? Even `Good News Hour` UT Fridays could really be only 50% of that (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. 5050-5055, for the second night, UT Feb 11 at 0225 check, huge ute noise blob is here, and no WWRB on 5050 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. A reminder of WTWW-2 transmitter test, today Sat Feb 11 from 2200 on 9990, 0000-0400 UT Sunday on 5085. Check for spurs or other noise around each frequency, especially any QRM to WWV. Ted Randall will be promoting ham radio and taking phone-ins.
George McClintock tells me there will be another test on same this Monday/Tuesday until 0300 for Brother Stair who might want to buy time on the as yet unpurchased WTWW-4 transmitter (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
