** CHINA. Firedrake June 21, before 1300:
12320, fair at 1255
13920, fair at 1256
14700, good at 1257
14950, very good at 1257
15555, good at 1258
16100, very good at 1258
16980, very good at 1258
17170, fair at 1259; none in the 18s
Before 1330:
7365, poor at 1319 with flutter // 15565. Unusual on this band, especially 7365 which is scheduled this hour with VOA Cantonese via Thailand, and the Beijing ChiCom don`t normally bother to jam this minority language! Getting tougher, even more paranoid?
15485, fair at 1310
15560, fair at 1310, ex-15555 above
15565, good at 1320, ex-15560
Before 1400:
7365, JBA at 1357; see above
15495, good at 1349
15605, fair at 1320
After 1400:
13430, fair at 1423 vs CODAR; recently new, first heard in May; wondered if it was a punch-up error by SOH or FD for previous 13130
14700, fair at 1422
15605, fair at 1403; this one only stayed on from before 1400 above
15615, very poor at 1412, ex-15605, and WEWN is missing
17450, fair at 1420
17565, poor at 1420 with CCI; so V of Tibet via Madagascar is here today instead of 17560 or 17570
(Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** CUBA. 11860, June 21 at 1356, RHC Spanish is very undermodulated, tho strength is only a little less than OK 11760 // synchronized from same site. It was that way too much earlier in the hour (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** CYPRUS. 15490-15515, June 21 at 0453, OTH radar pulses, presumed from here, like 24 hours earlier, but this time no matching twin area a few hundred Hz higher (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** INDIA. 13695, June 21 at 1203, S Asian pop music, good with flutter: no news on the hour/half hour here, AIR`s Tamil service at 1115-1215, 500 kW, 108 degrees from Bengaluru per Aoki (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** ITALY. UNIDENTIFIED. 10000, June 21 at 1210, as I tune across, hear some music and talk in unID language --- could it be the new Italian station widely heard in Europe, Italcable? Probably not, as peaking preselector got rid of it, so overload from some other signal on 31m, maybe WTWW; see U S A.
Italcable, which used to transmit point-to-point voice mirrors on SW sesquidecades ago, merged with something else, and now someone has acquired that name and put a transmitter on 10 MHz with time signals and even music! See <http://www.italcable.it>
That site is registered to one Marco Volpe in Viareggio, and the location is in grid square JN53DV. See also Andrea Lawendel`s blog:
<http://radiolawendel.blogspot.de/2012/06/10-mhz-nelle-onde-corte-sempre-piu.html>
translated if necessary and especially the comments appended, where Marco says it`s not a pirate.
Anyhow, our best chances for hearing this are during the minutes when neither WWV nor WWVH is making an announcement or intoning, such as this one, 10 minutes past the hours. I wish I had a handy list of when all of them are (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** KUWAIT. 15540, June 20 at 1820, R. Kuwait is back in English, just as I tune in, ``in the name of God, most gracious`` by pompous host of the Islamic evangelism show, still a rarity on SW compared to all the infidel Christians doing it. 1821 on to western pop music; 1830 & 1836 news theme bracketing YL in English, but too poor to copy; 1836 back to C&W song now, ``Tell Her I Love Her``. Next check 2040, still in pop music rather than Qur`an. Who knows what they will put on this 18-21 UT transmission from one day to another (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** MEXICO. Sporadic-E analog TV DX June 20: Just as I am starting my WORLD OF RADIO 1622 recording session, June 20 at 1905 UT, notice CCI on ch 2 and 3 in Spanish from south. All I can do is keep one eye on the monitor and occasionally check as I pause, but nothing definite IDed, and it was a pretty good opening with signals soon up to ch 4 and 5 from 1907 for quite a while, in and out, all gone by 2037 (Glenn Hauser, Enid OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. 17530, June 21 at 1325, open carrier and brief tonetest, off, typical behaviour of IBB Greenville checking out creaky transmitter, hours before needed for later transmission today (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. 9479, June 21 at 1214, WTWW-1 is already on with SFAW discussing B-vitamins, usual huge signal causing some overload here on 31m. As of today, the switchover time from 5755 has been moved up from 1300 to 1200, and the evening switch from 9479 to 5755 had already been moved later from 0000 to 0100 UT, due to the current paucity of darkness (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. WEWN anomalies, June 21: 15615, English channel absent at 1350, so no QRM to Firedrake; see CHINA. WWCR 15825 was inbooming with sporadic E help from approx. same distance in somewhat different direxion; 1412 still no trace of WEWN on 15615. Spanish frequencies at 1424: 12050 distorted and crackling; 11550 better, breaking up less (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. WORLD OF RADIO 1622: completed in time for first airing UT Thursday June 21 on 9955 WRMI; repeats: Sat 0800, 1500, 1730; Sun 0800, 1530, 1730; Mon 0500, 1130. Also:
Thu 2100 on 9479 WTWW; UT Fri 0330v on 5050 WWRB; UT Sat 0130v on 5110v-CUSB Area 51 via WBCQ; UT Sun 0400 on 5755 WTWW. Full schedule including FM, webcasts: http://www.worldofradio.com/radioskd.html
(Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
UNIDENTIFIED. 7077, June 21 at 1221, ``polytone`` transmissions, presumably hams using this strange mode. First one heard has very regular alternation of several tones, each lasting the same amount of time. Seems to be regular AM, with this as modulation, rather than CW cutting carrier on and off. Finishes and a much weaker signal replies. At 1226 a different one comes on with tones which are much faster and less regular; the last note prolonged before cutting carrier. This is not Morse code being sent in A2 instead of A1, but must be conveying messages somehow. Polytone is what Richard W Parker, PA called this in a log on 80 m which he thought was spy-numbers, but doubtful within the ham band, tho I don`t find any use of polytone in ham radio terminology, rather in music. What is this really called and how does it work? How are the tones generated? Probably mechanically or electronically, altho playing a flute, recorder or keyboard would suffice. The
7077 area is a favorite for this stuff at many different hours. The ARRL bandplan is far too vague: http://www.arrl.org/band-plan-1
(Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
12320, fair at 1255
13920, fair at 1256
14700, good at 1257
14950, very good at 1257
15555, good at 1258
16100, very good at 1258
16980, very good at 1258
17170, fair at 1259; none in the 18s
Before 1330:
7365, poor at 1319 with flutter // 15565. Unusual on this band, especially 7365 which is scheduled this hour with VOA Cantonese via Thailand, and the Beijing ChiCom don`t normally bother to jam this minority language! Getting tougher, even more paranoid?
15485, fair at 1310
15560, fair at 1310, ex-15555 above
15565, good at 1320, ex-15560
Before 1400:
7365, JBA at 1357; see above
15495, good at 1349
15605, fair at 1320
After 1400:
13430, fair at 1423 vs CODAR; recently new, first heard in May; wondered if it was a punch-up error by SOH or FD for previous 13130
14700, fair at 1422
15605, fair at 1403; this one only stayed on from before 1400 above
15615, very poor at 1412, ex-15605, and WEWN is missing
17450, fair at 1420
17565, poor at 1420 with CCI; so V of Tibet via Madagascar is here today instead of 17560 or 17570
(Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** CUBA. 11860, June 21 at 1356, RHC Spanish is very undermodulated, tho strength is only a little less than OK 11760 // synchronized from same site. It was that way too much earlier in the hour (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** CYPRUS. 15490-15515, June 21 at 0453, OTH radar pulses, presumed from here, like 24 hours earlier, but this time no matching twin area a few hundred Hz higher (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** INDIA. 13695, June 21 at 1203, S Asian pop music, good with flutter: no news on the hour/half hour here, AIR`s Tamil service at 1115-1215, 500 kW, 108 degrees from Bengaluru per Aoki (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** ITALY. UNIDENTIFIED. 10000, June 21 at 1210, as I tune across, hear some music and talk in unID language --- could it be the new Italian station widely heard in Europe, Italcable? Probably not, as peaking preselector got rid of it, so overload from some other signal on 31m, maybe WTWW; see U S A.
Italcable, which used to transmit point-to-point voice mirrors on SW sesquidecades ago, merged with something else, and now someone has acquired that name and put a transmitter on 10 MHz with time signals and even music! See <http://www.italcable.it>
That site is registered to one Marco Volpe in Viareggio, and the location is in grid square JN53DV. See also Andrea Lawendel`s blog:
<http://radiolawendel.blogspot.de/2012/06/10-mhz-nelle-onde-corte-sempre-piu.html>
translated if necessary and especially the comments appended, where Marco says it`s not a pirate.
Anyhow, our best chances for hearing this are during the minutes when neither WWV nor WWVH is making an announcement or intoning, such as this one, 10 minutes past the hours. I wish I had a handy list of when all of them are (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** KUWAIT. 15540, June 20 at 1820, R. Kuwait is back in English, just as I tune in, ``in the name of God, most gracious`` by pompous host of the Islamic evangelism show, still a rarity on SW compared to all the infidel Christians doing it. 1821 on to western pop music; 1830 & 1836 news theme bracketing YL in English, but too poor to copy; 1836 back to C&W song now, ``Tell Her I Love Her``. Next check 2040, still in pop music rather than Qur`an. Who knows what they will put on this 18-21 UT transmission from one day to another (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** MEXICO. Sporadic-E analog TV DX June 20: Just as I am starting my WORLD OF RADIO 1622 recording session, June 20 at 1905 UT, notice CCI on ch 2 and 3 in Spanish from south. All I can do is keep one eye on the monitor and occasionally check as I pause, but nothing definite IDed, and it was a pretty good opening with signals soon up to ch 4 and 5 from 1907 for quite a while, in and out, all gone by 2037 (Glenn Hauser, Enid OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. 17530, June 21 at 1325, open carrier and brief tonetest, off, typical behaviour of IBB Greenville checking out creaky transmitter, hours before needed for later transmission today (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. 9479, June 21 at 1214, WTWW-1 is already on with SFAW discussing B-vitamins, usual huge signal causing some overload here on 31m. As of today, the switchover time from 5755 has been moved up from 1300 to 1200, and the evening switch from 9479 to 5755 had already been moved later from 0000 to 0100 UT, due to the current paucity of darkness (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. WEWN anomalies, June 21: 15615, English channel absent at 1350, so no QRM to Firedrake; see CHINA. WWCR 15825 was inbooming with sporadic E help from approx. same distance in somewhat different direxion; 1412 still no trace of WEWN on 15615. Spanish frequencies at 1424: 12050 distorted and crackling; 11550 better, breaking up less (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. WORLD OF RADIO 1622: completed in time for first airing UT Thursday June 21 on 9955 WRMI; repeats: Sat 0800, 1500, 1730; Sun 0800, 1530, 1730; Mon 0500, 1130. Also:
Thu 2100 on 9479 WTWW; UT Fri 0330v on 5050 WWRB; UT Sat 0130v on 5110v-CUSB Area 51 via WBCQ; UT Sun 0400 on 5755 WTWW. Full schedule including FM, webcasts: http://www.worldofradio.com/radioskd.html
(Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
UNIDENTIFIED. 7077, June 21 at 1221, ``polytone`` transmissions, presumably hams using this strange mode. First one heard has very regular alternation of several tones, each lasting the same amount of time. Seems to be regular AM, with this as modulation, rather than CW cutting carrier on and off. Finishes and a much weaker signal replies. At 1226 a different one comes on with tones which are much faster and less regular; the last note prolonged before cutting carrier. This is not Morse code being sent in A2 instead of A1, but must be conveying messages somehow. Polytone is what Richard W Parker, PA called this in a log on 80 m which he thought was spy-numbers, but doubtful within the ham band, tho I don`t find any use of polytone in ham radio terminology, rather in music. What is this really called and how does it work? How are the tones generated? Probably mechanically or electronically, altho playing a flute, recorder or keyboard would suffice. The
7077 area is a favorite for this stuff at many different hours. The ARRL bandplan is far too vague: http://www.arrl.org/band-plan-1
(Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
