** ANGUILLA. 11775, July 11 at 1330, no signal from Caribbean Beacon, tho I had heard DGS when I tuned by earlier around 1240 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** CHINA. Firedrake July 11, before 1300:
12980, poor at 1248; none lower
13920, JBA at 1248
13970, fair at 1248
15560, very poor at 1249
15970, poor at 1249; none higher, 16m is still dead
(Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** COLOMBIA. 14950+, July 11 at 0245 check no signal audible from Salem Stereo; but at 0514 Spanish with peak to very poor level, 0515 ``la voluntad de dios`` in a verse quotation, then automated YL voice with Salem Stereo ID, timecheck for 12:20, as usual about 5 minutes fast. I wonder if they do that deliberately to overcompensate for delay on stream, which came first? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** CUBA. More mixups at the master of the genre, RHC:
5040 is still on with open carrier at 0510 July 11.
11760, July 11 at 0513 and 0521, English is still on here instead of closing at 0500. 6010 is missing, 6125 is open carrier, leaving only 6050 and 6060 funxioning properly; ahh, redundancy! By 0523, 6125 has started modulating anyway, still no 6010 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** CUBA [non]. 9490, July 11 at 0057 tuned in R. República early to see if there is any jamming yet since resuming via new site GUIANA FRENCH, but RR was already running programming, ``ni el tirano ni su hermano`` referring to Castro & Castro; 0100 Cuban NA and ID, 0101 ``Pasos a la libertad`` (steps toward freedom) program. No frequencies mentioned.
Has the schedule been expanded, or did they just turn it on a bit early? Last week the carrier was coming on at 0058:30 and no modulation until the anthem at 0100 sharp. Still could not detect any jamming, but when on, the GUF signal is so huge at this angle onward, that it might be overriding some, more so than Sackville could accomplish (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
Glenn: Yes, RR decided suddenly to expand to two hours, 0000-0200, as of last night. The extra hour from 0000 to 0100 will continue until at least Dec. 31, then possibly back to one hour from 0100 to 0200. Sign-off (i.e. cutoff of carrier) should now be at 0157:00. I haven't heard any jamming yet either. The Montsinéry signal is extremely strong, as you noted, but I would think we could detect some jamming if it were there (Jeff White, RMI, ibid.)
However, long after RR was over, at a time it never did broadcast, 0459 July 11, 9490 had some lite pulse jamming, and also at 1332, as once a frequency is jammed, at least these ``residual markers`` will continue to show up at any other hour (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** MEXICO. 1570, July 11 at 0508 UT after the NA and the State Anthem, I try again amid the US QRM to catch the new FM frequency XERF is announcing along with 1570. It`s either 103.9 or 106.9 (tres y seis sound a lot alike), due to a fade/distortion as that number was being spoken; power 4,000 watts, but could not copy the callsign either. Nothing about it on the IMER website, so I resort to the webstream
http://www.imer.gob.mx/phpwrappers/player5/info.php?emisora=11
Around 1445 UT they have programming from the virtual station Radio México Internacional with `Antena Radio` newshour. ID at 1501 says XHRF on 103.9.
It seems we are in for a lot more confusion about Mexican callsigns; trying to ID something else, Terry Krueger got this explanation from Fred Cantú of the http://mexicoradiotv.com/coahuila/index.htm listings which still don`t show any FM for XERF, but fortunately when searching the entire site, no other use of XHRF:
"There is a actually a lot of that going on right now because of Mexico's transition from AM to FM. AM stations are being assigned an FM channel and by default the new FM is assigned the XH-- equivalent of their XE-- AM calls. So XEZS's FM will be assigned XHZS. As near as I can tell they'll only change it if the holder of the XH call complains or is widely known. In most cases the change involves inserting a letter E. So XEZS's new FM may be reassigned the calls XHEZS." (Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** SPAIN [non]. 11880, July 11 at 1240, REE via COSTA RICA has again lost the Basque semi-hour; instead, ordinary Castilian in feature about some valuable documents being stolen from Santiago de Compostela (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** SUDAN SOUTH [non]. 15725.0, July 11 at 0516, very poor signal seems Arabish, matching 11725.0 from NZ. At 0500 I was not detecting anything on 15725. Presumed V. of South Sudan Revolutionary Radio. Really poor propagation conditions lately (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. 7506+, July 11 at 0244 check, WRNO is on with big carrier, but just-barely-modulated if at all (could be crosstalk from another transmitter); occasional beeps, tho. Confirms our assumption that they aren`t really serious about SW (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. Note that in my previous report of Es from MEXICO, two Arizona stations were mixed in, here broken apart for the record:
Amid big TV DX opening from BCN, MEXICO, a couple Arizona FMs intervened July 9, UT:
1527 on 88.1, Jesus Christ and KCFY promos, many IDs in passing heard for next 5 minutes. This is 3 kW, Yuma AZ, so FM opening from S and W simultaneously; 1530 on 88.1, KCFY ``Music made to share`` slogan.
1530 on 88.3, Spanish overrides local Family Radio translator, ads with 602-phone numbers, i.e. Phoenix AZ area, contracted from what used to cover the entire state just a few years ago. Promo/ad for Mundo Fox, canal 6, y canal 40 en Phoenix; it`s a commercial adstring, including a body shop. These are fully-produced hard-sell commercials, not ``underwriting announcements`` by any stretch of the imagination! Must be KNAI in Phoenix, which final FM Atlas of 3+ years ago slogans as ``Radio Campesina``. How do they get away with operating a commercial station so blatantly on the non-commercial band? César Chávez should be ashamed; his foundation runs it.
BTW, it`s almost a vanishing breed, apparently a share-timer with KPHF of Family Radio. W9WI.com shows them both licensed with exactly same 22.500 kW power, same latitude 33-35-47.00N, but different longitudes and antenna heights: 112-5-29.00W and 304m for KNAI; 112-5-31.00W and 297m for KPHF; so are they really not sharing the same transmitter and antenna? What a waste. Is there anything in the FCC licensing info about how the time is shared? Did not try to dig that deep. BTW2, 88.3 is the only FM frequency where no (legal) stations anywhere in México are listed by Cantú (Glenn Hauser, Enid OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** CHINA. Firedrake July 11, before 1300:
12980, poor at 1248; none lower
13920, JBA at 1248
13970, fair at 1248
15560, very poor at 1249
15970, poor at 1249; none higher, 16m is still dead
(Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** COLOMBIA. 14950+, July 11 at 0245 check no signal audible from Salem Stereo; but at 0514 Spanish with peak to very poor level, 0515 ``la voluntad de dios`` in a verse quotation, then automated YL voice with Salem Stereo ID, timecheck for 12:20, as usual about 5 minutes fast. I wonder if they do that deliberately to overcompensate for delay on stream, which came first? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** CUBA. More mixups at the master of the genre, RHC:
5040 is still on with open carrier at 0510 July 11.
11760, July 11 at 0513 and 0521, English is still on here instead of closing at 0500. 6010 is missing, 6125 is open carrier, leaving only 6050 and 6060 funxioning properly; ahh, redundancy! By 0523, 6125 has started modulating anyway, still no 6010 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** CUBA [non]. 9490, July 11 at 0057 tuned in R. República early to see if there is any jamming yet since resuming via new site GUIANA FRENCH, but RR was already running programming, ``ni el tirano ni su hermano`` referring to Castro & Castro; 0100 Cuban NA and ID, 0101 ``Pasos a la libertad`` (steps toward freedom) program. No frequencies mentioned.
Has the schedule been expanded, or did they just turn it on a bit early? Last week the carrier was coming on at 0058:30 and no modulation until the anthem at 0100 sharp. Still could not detect any jamming, but when on, the GUF signal is so huge at this angle onward, that it might be overriding some, more so than Sackville could accomplish (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
Glenn: Yes, RR decided suddenly to expand to two hours, 0000-0200, as of last night. The extra hour from 0000 to 0100 will continue until at least Dec. 31, then possibly back to one hour from 0100 to 0200. Sign-off (i.e. cutoff of carrier) should now be at 0157:00. I haven't heard any jamming yet either. The Montsinéry signal is extremely strong, as you noted, but I would think we could detect some jamming if it were there (Jeff White, RMI, ibid.)
However, long after RR was over, at a time it never did broadcast, 0459 July 11, 9490 had some lite pulse jamming, and also at 1332, as once a frequency is jammed, at least these ``residual markers`` will continue to show up at any other hour (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** MEXICO. 1570, July 11 at 0508 UT after the NA and the State Anthem, I try again amid the US QRM to catch the new FM frequency XERF is announcing along with 1570. It`s either 103.9 or 106.9 (tres y seis sound a lot alike), due to a fade/distortion as that number was being spoken; power 4,000 watts, but could not copy the callsign either. Nothing about it on the IMER website, so I resort to the webstream
http://www.imer.gob.mx/phpwrappers/player5/info.php?emisora=11
Around 1445 UT they have programming from the virtual station Radio México Internacional with `Antena Radio` newshour. ID at 1501 says XHRF on 103.9.
It seems we are in for a lot more confusion about Mexican callsigns; trying to ID something else, Terry Krueger got this explanation from Fred Cantú of the http://mexicoradiotv.com/coahuila/index.htm listings which still don`t show any FM for XERF, but fortunately when searching the entire site, no other use of XHRF:
"There is a actually a lot of that going on right now because of Mexico's transition from AM to FM. AM stations are being assigned an FM channel and by default the new FM is assigned the XH-- equivalent of their XE-- AM calls. So XEZS's FM will be assigned XHZS. As near as I can tell they'll only change it if the holder of the XH call complains or is widely known. In most cases the change involves inserting a letter E. So XEZS's new FM may be reassigned the calls XHEZS." (Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** SPAIN [non]. 11880, July 11 at 1240, REE via COSTA RICA has again lost the Basque semi-hour; instead, ordinary Castilian in feature about some valuable documents being stolen from Santiago de Compostela (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** SUDAN SOUTH [non]. 15725.0, July 11 at 0516, very poor signal seems Arabish, matching 11725.0 from NZ. At 0500 I was not detecting anything on 15725. Presumed V. of South Sudan Revolutionary Radio. Really poor propagation conditions lately (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. 7506+, July 11 at 0244 check, WRNO is on with big carrier, but just-barely-modulated if at all (could be crosstalk from another transmitter); occasional beeps, tho. Confirms our assumption that they aren`t really serious about SW (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. Note that in my previous report of Es from MEXICO, two Arizona stations were mixed in, here broken apart for the record:
Amid big TV DX opening from BCN, MEXICO, a couple Arizona FMs intervened July 9, UT:
1527 on 88.1, Jesus Christ and KCFY promos, many IDs in passing heard for next 5 minutes. This is 3 kW, Yuma AZ, so FM opening from S and W simultaneously; 1530 on 88.1, KCFY ``Music made to share`` slogan.
1530 on 88.3, Spanish overrides local Family Radio translator, ads with 602-phone numbers, i.e. Phoenix AZ area, contracted from what used to cover the entire state just a few years ago. Promo/ad for Mundo Fox, canal 6, y canal 40 en Phoenix; it`s a commercial adstring, including a body shop. These are fully-produced hard-sell commercials, not ``underwriting announcements`` by any stretch of the imagination! Must be KNAI in Phoenix, which final FM Atlas of 3+ years ago slogans as ``Radio Campesina``. How do they get away with operating a commercial station so blatantly on the non-commercial band? César Chávez should be ashamed; his foundation runs it.
BTW, it`s almost a vanishing breed, apparently a share-timer with KPHF of Family Radio. W9WI.com shows them both licensed with exactly same 22.500 kW power, same latitude 33-35-47.00N, but different longitudes and antenna heights: 112-5-29.00W and 304m for KNAI; 112-5-31.00W and 297m for KPHF; so are they really not sharing the same transmitter and antenna? What a waste. Is there anything in the FCC licensing info about how the time is shared? Did not try to dig that deep. BTW2, 88.3 is the only FM frequency where no (legal) stations anywhere in México are listed by Cantú (Glenn Hauser, Enid OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
