** CHINA. Firedrake March 13:
16100, JBA at 1330
13970, poor at 1325
13130, very poor at 1326
12670, poor at 1327
11500, very poor at 1329; none in the 17s, 15s, 14s, 10s
(Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** CUBA [and non]. 7230, March 13 at 0530, typical Dentro-Cuban Jamming Command pulses weakly in the hamband, and synchronized with stronger ones on 7365, leftover jamming against R. Martí which is never on 7365 at this hour. Bandscanning, came to another one matching on 5375, both approximate. No known targets of course on either 5375 or 7230, tho if it had landed on 7210 I would have suspected they were going after N1NR, the anti-Castro ranting ham in the mornings on his favorite, apparently only, frequency.
Juggling the numbers, I may have found a correlation: 5375 and 7230 are 1855 kHz apart, and if you leapfrog the same amount above 7230, you get 9085, which is a well-known Cuban spy numbers frequency. It stands to reason that spy-numbers, jammers and RHC share transmitting facilities since they are all equally in HF service of the dictatorial, no-dissent-allowed Commie state, and are thus subject to mixing products among them. Maybe another time we will catch 9085 on air at same time as 5375 and 7230.
I haven`t yet tried to tell whether R. Martí frequency schedule has changed an/or jamming is out of synch, but March 13 at 1250 noted 5745 and 5980 bear RM and WON jamming; 7405 is better vs the jamming (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) See also USA: VOA Spanish
** GABON. 9580, March 13 at 0526, AN1 hilife music, VG signal; 0530 ID in French mentioning Libreville and Moyabi (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** INDONESIA. 9526-, March 13 at 1308, VOI still on this off-off frequency, a Tuesday when they might have been on another `Exotic Indonesia` excursion with RRI Banjarmasin, but too much ACI from 9530 and too little modulation from VOI so I could not even tell if it were in English. At 1406 now in clear, undermodulated but sufficient to tell it`s in Indonesian (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** MAURITANIA. 7245, March 13 at 0528, IGIM is already on with M&W conversing in Arabish, the M on a phone line (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** MEXICO. 750, March 13 at 0600 UT, a Mexican had been audible in WSB null and now IDs as ``La Huasteca``, also mentioning Veracruz, i.e. XETI, Tempoal, listed as 250 watts night, 10 kW day (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** NIGERIA. Harald Kuhl reported that March 13 would be the official inauguration of the new Abuja HF site for Voice of Nigeria. So will it suddenly go into full, correct service? Checking 15120:
March 13 at 0522, nothing audible, unlike 24 hours earlier; 15400 was propagating from South Africa, as well as Australia 15240, 15160.
March 13 at 1805 I am using the DX-398 portable only with whip, but nothing audible; at 1900, when on some days they had been turning on the new transmitter, I can make out a just barely audible carrier. (BTW, Bill Bingham in South Africa found this was on 24 hours earlier, but no modulation). Still JBAC at 1920 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** NORTH AMERICA. E-QSL from Red Mercury Laboratories, for my 0326-0332+ UT reception March 12 on 6925-USB, detailed in my previous report. In shades of red (of course), radiation-hazard-like logo with the letters Q, S and L. See it:http://www.w4uvh.net/redmercury.jpg
Now No. 47 via http://www.worldofradio.com/QSL.html
Sender as ``Joe Blow`` but accompanying message March 13 at 0509 UT says: ``Glenn, Thanks for listening... :) The reports help me too, and I like to have them for tuning and such. Have a great night. Red Mercury Labs, Red Mercury, Spike``. BTW red ``mercury`` in thermometers is not mercury but dyed alcohol; real mercury is silvery in color (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** RUSSIA. 6009 and 6074 both checked March 13 at 1259-1302 whether the Russian army CW marker from 2MTL or 8GAL would be audible, as R. Rossii, Pet/Kam was closing down its new frequency 6010 instead of 6075 --- but nothing audible on either. Soon after RR left 6075, we still heard 2MTL once on 6074 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** SPAIN [and non]. What`s going on at Noblejas and Cariari? Is no one paying attention? There continue to be big errors in REE transmission:
15110, March 12 at 2057, extremely strong signal from Noblejas is accompanied by spurs at multiples of approx. 9 kHz: the worst being the four closest ones at 15092, 15101, 15119, 15128, where distorted modulation was clearly audible; but also progressively weaker blobs at 15065, 15074, 15081, 15137, 15146, 15155! I.e. out to plus/minus 45 kHz, thus surpassing similar constant spurs from WEWN English frequencies, such as 15610, which only go out to plus/minus 27 kHz. Same type of defective transmitter?
All this was still happening an hour later at 2155, and also noticed the fundamental 15110 considerably distorted.
17595 transmitter, which the morning of March 11 was on 17795 instead; was back to normal on 17595 March 12; on March 13, 17595 on the air but no modulation, just open carrier from first check at 1331, while other frequencies were nominal, with Basque at 1333, including weak 15585 direct, and 15170 Costa Rica; once 13m faded in poorly at 1404, also on 21610 and atop Kuwait 21540, while 17595 still OC. Left a receiver on 17595, where modulation finally started sometime between 1510 and 1520.
11815 via Costa Rica, March 13 at 1246, is off-frequency again today, and further off than before, producing a het between B-flat and high-C at 1317 with NHK, i.e. just a shade below 11815.50 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. 13570, March 12 at 2052, WINB is still on this frequency with gospel music; also March 13 2056, not yet on 9265. The previous program schedule says 9265 starts at 1700 EST, which is now 2100 UT; yet on M-F there remains a big gap in programming until resuming at 4:45 pm = ``2145``, `Wondrous Story`, which on some days is followed by something else 15 minutes later, so it`s a 15-minute program, altho on other days nothing is shown after it until 5:30/``2230``.
I see that WINB has now put up another program schedule revision, dated March 11, but still showing a 5-hour difference between UT and ET! So either all the UT are wrong, or all the ET are wrong. It was also like this last midyear. I have not yet accrued the patience necessary to sort this out (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. 9330-CUSB, March 13 at 0527, dead air again for at least a few minutes from the WBCQ GFRN/Radio 211 channel. Not checked again until 1258 when modulation had resumed (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. Some WTWW frequencies have been off a lot lately, the most reliable continuing to be 9479/5755 with #1 transmitter.
March 12 at 2156: 9479 on, 9990 and 12105 off
March 13 at 1307 and 1400: 9479 on, 9990 and 12105 off
March 13 at 1805: 9990 and 12105 off; I think 9479 was off too tho I was using DX-398 portable, where it should have still been inbooming
March 13 at 1900: 9479 on, 9990 and 12105 off
March 13 at 2054: 9479 on, 9990 off, 12105 on in French Bible
March 13 at 2330: 5755 already on instead of 9479; neither 9990 nor 5085; and 12105 on in Portuguese Bible.
March 14 at 0040: 5755 and 12105 still on; neither 9990 nor 5085.
George McClintock has been indisposed lately, and if something went wrong he probably couldn`t deal with it immediately. It`s also unclear whether Brother Stair on 9990/5085 had officially been extended, or just allowed to ride several days past February 29 for the time being, but not any more? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. Just as suspected, tho missing from IBB schedules, VOA`s morning Spanish service has shifted one UT hour earlier, to 12-13 UT, heard March 13 at 1237 on 9885, 13750 and 15590 --- no jamming on any of them, and 13750 was weakest, underpowered? instead of 15590 as one would expect from normal propagation. By 1303, after VOA was finished, 9885 had wall-of-noise jamming against nothing; it had been the only one jammed in the mornings recently. At 1319, confirmed, no VOA and no jamming on 13750 or 15590, unlike all winter until last week when VOA Spanish was at 1300-1330 & 1330-1400.
Just as I also suspected, tho missing from IBB schedules, VOA`s evening Spanish sesquihour too has shifted one UT hour earlier, now from 2330 UT on March 13, 12000, 9885 and 5890 all in the clear until the DentroCuban Jamming Command catches on that the winter 0030-0200 timing is no longer in effect. However, at 0043 UT, all three are heavily jammed, presumably starting at 0030 as per old schedule. These changes are solely for the convenience of Washingtonians, as such shifts are nonsensical for the Latin American audience not changing their clox in synch with the EUA, mostly not imposing any DST at all, but they lead to a temporary respite from full jamming thanks to the incompetence of the DentroCubans (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. 5446.5-USB, still trying to locate Jim Hightower commentaries on AFN, which the past few weeks before DST we were hearing weeknights at 0644-0646 UT on the Florida frequencies --- but these have not merely shifted to 0544 for DST as one might expect.
UT Tuesday March 13 at 0539, Kim Komando on security of cell phones being compromised; 0540 Dr. Mitchell Ferry (sp?); 0541 Pam Smith with an olive oil recipe; 0542 designated driver PSA; 0542:30 Our Ocean World on beachcombers; 0544 instruxions for boiling water!; 0545 CBS tidbit about National Geographic show; 0546 ABC news item on Mitt; 0547 Good Eating, and so forth, no Hightower. I`ve already shown how these program capsules do not exactly match what`s on the AFN online ``Interruptible`` program schedule, which is much in need of updating (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. Unseasonably warm weather leading to highs in the 80s, and plenty of humidity prompted some area tropo the morning of March 13, inbringing lots of DTV and some low-power analog TVDX from adjacent states, Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas. In order to intake this at 1440-1740 UT I had to drop everything and keep tuning, delaying compilation of this report, and preparation for the next WORLD OF RADIO. I`ll get a separate report of all that compiled ASAP (Glenn Hauser, Enid OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
16100, JBA at 1330
13970, poor at 1325
13130, very poor at 1326
12670, poor at 1327
11500, very poor at 1329; none in the 17s, 15s, 14s, 10s
(Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** CUBA [and non]. 7230, March 13 at 0530, typical Dentro-Cuban Jamming Command pulses weakly in the hamband, and synchronized with stronger ones on 7365, leftover jamming against R. Martí which is never on 7365 at this hour. Bandscanning, came to another one matching on 5375, both approximate. No known targets of course on either 5375 or 7230, tho if it had landed on 7210 I would have suspected they were going after N1NR, the anti-Castro ranting ham in the mornings on his favorite, apparently only, frequency.
Juggling the numbers, I may have found a correlation: 5375 and 7230 are 1855 kHz apart, and if you leapfrog the same amount above 7230, you get 9085, which is a well-known Cuban spy numbers frequency. It stands to reason that spy-numbers, jammers and RHC share transmitting facilities since they are all equally in HF service of the dictatorial, no-dissent-allowed Commie state, and are thus subject to mixing products among them. Maybe another time we will catch 9085 on air at same time as 5375 and 7230.
I haven`t yet tried to tell whether R. Martí frequency schedule has changed an/or jamming is out of synch, but March 13 at 1250 noted 5745 and 5980 bear RM and WON jamming; 7405 is better vs the jamming (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) See also USA: VOA Spanish
** GABON. 9580, March 13 at 0526, AN1 hilife music, VG signal; 0530 ID in French mentioning Libreville and Moyabi (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** INDONESIA. 9526-, March 13 at 1308, VOI still on this off-off frequency, a Tuesday when they might have been on another `Exotic Indonesia` excursion with RRI Banjarmasin, but too much ACI from 9530 and too little modulation from VOI so I could not even tell if it were in English. At 1406 now in clear, undermodulated but sufficient to tell it`s in Indonesian (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** MAURITANIA. 7245, March 13 at 0528, IGIM is already on with M&W conversing in Arabish, the M on a phone line (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** MEXICO. 750, March 13 at 0600 UT, a Mexican had been audible in WSB null and now IDs as ``La Huasteca``, also mentioning Veracruz, i.e. XETI, Tempoal, listed as 250 watts night, 10 kW day (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** NIGERIA. Harald Kuhl reported that March 13 would be the official inauguration of the new Abuja HF site for Voice of Nigeria. So will it suddenly go into full, correct service? Checking 15120:
March 13 at 0522, nothing audible, unlike 24 hours earlier; 15400 was propagating from South Africa, as well as Australia 15240, 15160.
March 13 at 1805 I am using the DX-398 portable only with whip, but nothing audible; at 1900, when on some days they had been turning on the new transmitter, I can make out a just barely audible carrier. (BTW, Bill Bingham in South Africa found this was on 24 hours earlier, but no modulation). Still JBAC at 1920 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** NORTH AMERICA. E-QSL from Red Mercury Laboratories, for my 0326-0332+ UT reception March 12 on 6925-USB, detailed in my previous report. In shades of red (of course), radiation-hazard-like logo with the letters Q, S and L. See it:http://www.w4uvh.net/redmercury.jpg
Now No. 47 via http://www.worldofradio.com/QSL.html
Sender as ``Joe Blow`` but accompanying message March 13 at 0509 UT says: ``Glenn, Thanks for listening... :) The reports help me too, and I like to have them for tuning and such. Have a great night. Red Mercury Labs, Red Mercury, Spike``. BTW red ``mercury`` in thermometers is not mercury but dyed alcohol; real mercury is silvery in color (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** RUSSIA. 6009 and 6074 both checked March 13 at 1259-1302 whether the Russian army CW marker from 2MTL or 8GAL would be audible, as R. Rossii, Pet/Kam was closing down its new frequency 6010 instead of 6075 --- but nothing audible on either. Soon after RR left 6075, we still heard 2MTL once on 6074 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** SPAIN [and non]. What`s going on at Noblejas and Cariari? Is no one paying attention? There continue to be big errors in REE transmission:
15110, March 12 at 2057, extremely strong signal from Noblejas is accompanied by spurs at multiples of approx. 9 kHz: the worst being the four closest ones at 15092, 15101, 15119, 15128, where distorted modulation was clearly audible; but also progressively weaker blobs at 15065, 15074, 15081, 15137, 15146, 15155! I.e. out to plus/minus 45 kHz, thus surpassing similar constant spurs from WEWN English frequencies, such as 15610, which only go out to plus/minus 27 kHz. Same type of defective transmitter?
All this was still happening an hour later at 2155, and also noticed the fundamental 15110 considerably distorted.
17595 transmitter, which the morning of March 11 was on 17795 instead; was back to normal on 17595 March 12; on March 13, 17595 on the air but no modulation, just open carrier from first check at 1331, while other frequencies were nominal, with Basque at 1333, including weak 15585 direct, and 15170 Costa Rica; once 13m faded in poorly at 1404, also on 21610 and atop Kuwait 21540, while 17595 still OC. Left a receiver on 17595, where modulation finally started sometime between 1510 and 1520.
11815 via Costa Rica, March 13 at 1246, is off-frequency again today, and further off than before, producing a het between B-flat and high-C at 1317 with NHK, i.e. just a shade below 11815.50 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. 13570, March 12 at 2052, WINB is still on this frequency with gospel music; also March 13 2056, not yet on 9265. The previous program schedule says 9265 starts at 1700 EST, which is now 2100 UT; yet on M-F there remains a big gap in programming until resuming at 4:45 pm = ``2145``, `Wondrous Story`, which on some days is followed by something else 15 minutes later, so it`s a 15-minute program, altho on other days nothing is shown after it until 5:30/``2230``.
I see that WINB has now put up another program schedule revision, dated March 11, but still showing a 5-hour difference between UT and ET! So either all the UT are wrong, or all the ET are wrong. It was also like this last midyear. I have not yet accrued the patience necessary to sort this out (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. 9330-CUSB, March 13 at 0527, dead air again for at least a few minutes from the WBCQ GFRN/Radio 211 channel. Not checked again until 1258 when modulation had resumed (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. Some WTWW frequencies have been off a lot lately, the most reliable continuing to be 9479/5755 with #1 transmitter.
March 12 at 2156: 9479 on, 9990 and 12105 off
March 13 at 1307 and 1400: 9479 on, 9990 and 12105 off
March 13 at 1805: 9990 and 12105 off; I think 9479 was off too tho I was using DX-398 portable, where it should have still been inbooming
March 13 at 1900: 9479 on, 9990 and 12105 off
March 13 at 2054: 9479 on, 9990 off, 12105 on in French Bible
March 13 at 2330: 5755 already on instead of 9479; neither 9990 nor 5085; and 12105 on in Portuguese Bible.
March 14 at 0040: 5755 and 12105 still on; neither 9990 nor 5085.
George McClintock has been indisposed lately, and if something went wrong he probably couldn`t deal with it immediately. It`s also unclear whether Brother Stair on 9990/5085 had officially been extended, or just allowed to ride several days past February 29 for the time being, but not any more? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. Just as suspected, tho missing from IBB schedules, VOA`s morning Spanish service has shifted one UT hour earlier, to 12-13 UT, heard March 13 at 1237 on 9885, 13750 and 15590 --- no jamming on any of them, and 13750 was weakest, underpowered? instead of 15590 as one would expect from normal propagation. By 1303, after VOA was finished, 9885 had wall-of-noise jamming against nothing; it had been the only one jammed in the mornings recently. At 1319, confirmed, no VOA and no jamming on 13750 or 15590, unlike all winter until last week when VOA Spanish was at 1300-1330 & 1330-1400.
Just as I also suspected, tho missing from IBB schedules, VOA`s evening Spanish sesquihour too has shifted one UT hour earlier, now from 2330 UT on March 13, 12000, 9885 and 5890 all in the clear until the DentroCuban Jamming Command catches on that the winter 0030-0200 timing is no longer in effect. However, at 0043 UT, all three are heavily jammed, presumably starting at 0030 as per old schedule. These changes are solely for the convenience of Washingtonians, as such shifts are nonsensical for the Latin American audience not changing their clox in synch with the EUA, mostly not imposing any DST at all, but they lead to a temporary respite from full jamming thanks to the incompetence of the DentroCubans (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. 5446.5-USB, still trying to locate Jim Hightower commentaries on AFN, which the past few weeks before DST we were hearing weeknights at 0644-0646 UT on the Florida frequencies --- but these have not merely shifted to 0544 for DST as one might expect.
UT Tuesday March 13 at 0539, Kim Komando on security of cell phones being compromised; 0540 Dr. Mitchell Ferry (sp?); 0541 Pam Smith with an olive oil recipe; 0542 designated driver PSA; 0542:30 Our Ocean World on beachcombers; 0544 instruxions for boiling water!; 0545 CBS tidbit about National Geographic show; 0546 ABC news item on Mitt; 0547 Good Eating, and so forth, no Hightower. I`ve already shown how these program capsules do not exactly match what`s on the AFN online ``Interruptible`` program schedule, which is much in need of updating (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. Unseasonably warm weather leading to highs in the 80s, and plenty of humidity prompted some area tropo the morning of March 13, inbringing lots of DTV and some low-power analog TVDX from adjacent states, Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas. In order to intake this at 1440-1740 UT I had to drop everything and keep tuning, delaying compilation of this report, and preparation for the next WORLD OF RADIO. I`ll get a separate report of all that compiled ASAP (Glenn Hauser, Enid OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
