** ALASKA. 9655, August 18 at 1335, English lesson, ``please leave more space`` and spelling s-p-a-c-e, alternating with Chinese. It`s KNLS, as registered in HFCC for this hour on 9655 and 9920, despite one transmitter active and own English website still claiming 9920:
http://www.knls.org/broadcasting-front.html
Their Chinese website, schedule presented in English does show 9655: http://www.smzg.org/Schedule_in_English.htm
(Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** BANGLADESH. 15105, Aug 18 at 1248, finally getting the 1230 English broadcast of Bangladesh Betar, but very poor signal with S Asian music, 1249 announcement in English; 1252 rock music; 1256 segué to another we can recognize, ``Thriller`` by M. Jackson! Just what we need to hear from BB. 1259 closing with request to ``write us`` with Dhaka P O address, probably e-mail too. 1300 cut to tone test over 1 kHz. Thruout, bothered by lightning crashes, but no thunder sonically audible yet, so still on external antenna.
15105, retune at 1314, now the BB IS with drone is playing, signal somewhat better. 1315 5+1 timesignal ending 21 seconds late, sign-on in presumed scheduled Nepali, 1318 news? but soon into music. After Nepali, at 1345-1347.5*, tone test on 15105.
Two of the schedule versions via DX Mix News, one for 15520, the other for 15505, neither in use now for these broadcasts, show English at 1230-1300 is for SE Asia at 140 degrees, then Nepali at 1315 reversed 180 degrees to an azimuth of 320 degrees, which is right on Kathmandu, and also London, but hitting the Americas right across Venezuela.
At 1359, 15105 only has B-B-C- chimes from Ascension prior to Hausa, so like yesterday I check 15505 and find BB has moved there, with their IS best heard yet.
This time the timesignal ends 19 seconds late. Is it consistently circa 20 seconds late? No, on Aug 13 I timed it 7 seconds late. If they can`t do better than that, they should eliminate it, no timesignal at all, but just playing a recording with a margin of error, deception of the worst kind.
Anyhow, presumed Urdu is then opening with a ``salaam aleikum``. This one is listed at 290 degrees, further offbeam for us than Nepali. T-storms are getting closer so after 1400 I change to internal antenna, where 15505 is still audible weaker (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** CHAD. 6165, August 18 at 0527, 4+ kHz het against CKZN but sufficient to escape it by slight uptuning, assertive talk in French, so must be RNT, mixing bits of music; 0528 just drumming for a sesquiminute; 0529.5 French announcements, Chad mentioned, YL with news? Then OM mentioning ``islamique``. S9+12 this late and rather undermodulated. Makes up for degraded propagation from Africa on higher bands, e.g. 15400 Dabanga/Madagascar much weaker than usual, and also even R. Australia on that band.
Ndjamena sunrise today was 0449, and will still be a month from now; varies little at 12 degrees north, per gaisma.com, only one semihour over the entire year. RNT had apparently been inactive for a few weeks; always beware of co-channel Zambia which would never be in French. Or rather almost co-channel: Chad has been measured by others at 40v Hz low, while Zambia is spot on (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** CHINA. Firedrake August 18, before 1330:
16100, very good at 1320 with heavy flutter; none in the 17s or 18s
15755, fair at 1323; one which jumps around a lot
15570, fair at 1324 with flutter
15495, fair at 1320 plus noise, het on hi side
12320, fair at 1326; none in the 14s or 13s
(Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** JAPAN [non]. 6110, Aug 18 at 0525, NHK World R. Japan via Sackville is back to normal, including English modulation unlike 48 hours earlier.
11655, August 18 at 1307, NHK Warudo Japanese service via Sackville is playing nice traditional music, then into a version of ``Sakura`` I have not heard before; there must be countless ones.
11685, August 18 at 1329 continuing past 1330, I logged as ``praise music, then unknown language``, poor signal but better than adjacents 11680 N Korea, and 11687.5 RTTY NAA Maine. I was expecting to find a gospel huxter, but must not have been praise, as listed really as NHK Bengali service, 1300-1345, 250 kW, 315 degrees via SINGAPORE (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** MADAGASCAR. 13765, Aug 18 at 0537, Vatican Radio in Portuguese, defective modulation with whistle varying along with the speech. At 0530 switch from English to Portuguese, Talata also changes from a 158 antenna at 270 degrees to a 105 antenna at 300 degrees, which ought to be more favorable for us.
HFCC antenna definition reference table shows:
158 AHR(S)2/4/1.0
105 AHR1/2/0.3
Would anyone like to explain those in plain English?
BTW, 15115 after 0600 Aug 18, SW Radio Africa via Madagascar was JBA carrier, with propagation degraded unlike last weekend; not surprised, since 15400 R. Dabanga before 0600 was also very weakened. Hope for better luck on Sunday when in English (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** MEXICO. 710, Aug 18 at 0600, looking for Mexican NAs, but instead hear a different one: since lyric mentions ``chihuahuense`` I am confident it is Chihua2`s and therefore the usual dominator XEDP Ciudad Cuauhtémoc. A good time to hear the state anthem any night. There was also an unusual lo het on the frequency; R. Rebelde reverberators were nulled (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A [and non]. 15580, Saturday Aug 18 at 1402, YL with VOA news; she`s rather halting and makes some stumbles, probably depressed or inexperienced due to drastic cuts in VOA English. Since it`s a weekend, we don`t have to put up with `Music Mix` fill following, but instead 1405 `On the Line` discussion about Nigeria including the head of VOA Hausa service, about Islamic extremist violence there by Boko Haram vs civilians, SOS Clinton`s recent visit. Then found much better signal on 17530, an echo ahead of 15580. Today`s HFCC shows both as São Tomé, but I think Greenville must be substituting again on the upper one (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. QSL: received Aug 17 the special card direct from IBB Greenville, except Greenville is mentioned nowhere on it: rather, VOA, with IBB, 3919 VOA Site B Road, Grimesland NC 27837 postal street address. Superimposed over view of antenna towers, and headed ``Edward R. Murrow Transmitting Station``.
Full details at bottom: 08 06 [June] 2012 0138 UTC 15590, signed by Glenn Swiderski, W7GS, who wrote this note on the blank back: ``Yes, that was GB6 @ 250 kW testing on 15590 using a rhombic antenna bearing 175 degrees from Greenville``
Since ``DXing`` Greenville is hardly a challenge from here, I wanted my special QSL to be a bit different, so reported this log which was without any modulation:
``UNIDENTIFIED. 15590, June 8 at 0138, big S9+25 open carrier. Kept monitoring and never any modulation past 0200 until cut off at 0204.5*. (Meanwhile found another one just like it on 13620, q.v.). So what could it be? Nothing scheduled, of course at this time, but HFCC reminds us 15590 is a longstanding imaginary registration for inactive WRNO at 14-01. I don`t think so. Maybe it`s the ghost of KUSW/KTBN. It`s also the morning frequency for VOA Greenville in Spanish. They have to fiddle a lot with their old transmitters to keep them going, and I suspect this was most likely`` (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. 12105, August 18 at 1327, WTWW-3 is on again, only fair signal, in Russian with deep fades. Had not heard it this early in the morning for some time. At 1409 check with better strength, they have switched to Arabic, plus dramatic music accompaniment, Bible story? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. WORLD OF RADIO 1630: in case anyone gave up hearing it before it started late at 0200 UT Saturday this week on WBCQ 5110v, a reminder that there is one more good opportunity, UT Sunday 0400 on WTWW 5755 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. 11715.0, August 18 at 1330, the occasionally active and heard KJES, The Lord`s Ranch, near Vado NM, where the robokids are back! This time they are really yelling as they repeat in English what the leader has just spoken about Yahweh, Jesus (should that be Yesus?). 1332 into off-key hymn with guitar accompaniment (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
UNIDENTIFIED. 6935.0-AM, Aug 18 at 0535, very poor signal from pirate with music, vs uteblaaps; 0536 quick announcement maybe ID; 0543 still VP but music recognizable as ``Delilah`` by Tom Jones; 0544 quick announcement again unreadable; by 0548 it`s JBA. Will have to check for other logs of this maybe with an ID. Frequency matched 5935.0 WWCR PMS (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
UNIDENTIFIED. 9675, Aug 18 at 0553, I am again hearing a het between two weak signals, both South American? Pitch is about B3 = 247 Hz.
Replying to my previous unID, Bryan Clark in Mangawhai, New Zealand says: ``Glenn, Subsequent to Carlos' report last month I began monitoring the low side of 9675. Usually Brazil dominates around 9675.01 to 9675.02 but with a heterodyne from around 9674.8. I was eventually able to establish that the signal on 9674.8 carried a gospel music format and on a subsequent day that it was broadcasting in Spanish.
Then on 6 August, just before 0458 UT I caught a full ID in Spanish for Radio del Pacífico [PERU] on 9674.79 kHz. The station address was
given. Nothing was traced on their traditional 60 metre channel at this time [4975v]. The heterodyne interference between the two stations is evident most days around 0500 UT but mostly Canção Nova is too strong here, and del Pacífico too weak.``
However, Wolfgang Büschel in Germany was checking 9675 at almost the same time I was: ``At 06-07 UT Aug 18:
9674.766 ... 768 wandered, probably Riyadh Saudi Arabia.
9675.0 CNR Beijing tx center #572
9675.006 probably ZYE971 Radio Canção Nova, Cachoeira Paulista SP``
(Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
UNIDENTIFIED. Another check for the mystery weak carriers in the 11.7s, August 18 at 1312: only ones I can detect are on 11751.5 and 11768 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
UNIDENTIFIED. 11995, Aug 18 at 0453, open carrier with hum again. Someone is burning an awful lot of kW for nothing, heard every night before and after 0500. Today`s HFCC still has nothing here but RFI Issoudun, 04-05 English, which we know is defunct, and 0600-0630 Hausa (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
http://www.knls.org/broadcasting-front.html
Their Chinese website, schedule presented in English does show 9655: http://www.smzg.org/Schedule_in_English.htm
(Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** BANGLADESH. 15105, Aug 18 at 1248, finally getting the 1230 English broadcast of Bangladesh Betar, but very poor signal with S Asian music, 1249 announcement in English; 1252 rock music; 1256 segué to another we can recognize, ``Thriller`` by M. Jackson! Just what we need to hear from BB. 1259 closing with request to ``write us`` with Dhaka P O address, probably e-mail too. 1300 cut to tone test over 1 kHz. Thruout, bothered by lightning crashes, but no thunder sonically audible yet, so still on external antenna.
15105, retune at 1314, now the BB IS with drone is playing, signal somewhat better. 1315 5+1 timesignal ending 21 seconds late, sign-on in presumed scheduled Nepali, 1318 news? but soon into music. After Nepali, at 1345-1347.5*, tone test on 15105.
Two of the schedule versions via DX Mix News, one for 15520, the other for 15505, neither in use now for these broadcasts, show English at 1230-1300 is for SE Asia at 140 degrees, then Nepali at 1315 reversed 180 degrees to an azimuth of 320 degrees, which is right on Kathmandu, and also London, but hitting the Americas right across Venezuela.
At 1359, 15105 only has B-B-C- chimes from Ascension prior to Hausa, so like yesterday I check 15505 and find BB has moved there, with their IS best heard yet.
This time the timesignal ends 19 seconds late. Is it consistently circa 20 seconds late? No, on Aug 13 I timed it 7 seconds late. If they can`t do better than that, they should eliminate it, no timesignal at all, but just playing a recording with a margin of error, deception of the worst kind.
Anyhow, presumed Urdu is then opening with a ``salaam aleikum``. This one is listed at 290 degrees, further offbeam for us than Nepali. T-storms are getting closer so after 1400 I change to internal antenna, where 15505 is still audible weaker (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** CHAD. 6165, August 18 at 0527, 4+ kHz het against CKZN but sufficient to escape it by slight uptuning, assertive talk in French, so must be RNT, mixing bits of music; 0528 just drumming for a sesquiminute; 0529.5 French announcements, Chad mentioned, YL with news? Then OM mentioning ``islamique``. S9+12 this late and rather undermodulated. Makes up for degraded propagation from Africa on higher bands, e.g. 15400 Dabanga/Madagascar much weaker than usual, and also even R. Australia on that band.
Ndjamena sunrise today was 0449, and will still be a month from now; varies little at 12 degrees north, per gaisma.com, only one semihour over the entire year. RNT had apparently been inactive for a few weeks; always beware of co-channel Zambia which would never be in French. Or rather almost co-channel: Chad has been measured by others at 40v Hz low, while Zambia is spot on (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** CHINA. Firedrake August 18, before 1330:
16100, very good at 1320 with heavy flutter; none in the 17s or 18s
15755, fair at 1323; one which jumps around a lot
15570, fair at 1324 with flutter
15495, fair at 1320 plus noise, het on hi side
12320, fair at 1326; none in the 14s or 13s
(Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** JAPAN [non]. 6110, Aug 18 at 0525, NHK World R. Japan via Sackville is back to normal, including English modulation unlike 48 hours earlier.
11655, August 18 at 1307, NHK Warudo Japanese service via Sackville is playing nice traditional music, then into a version of ``Sakura`` I have not heard before; there must be countless ones.
11685, August 18 at 1329 continuing past 1330, I logged as ``praise music, then unknown language``, poor signal but better than adjacents 11680 N Korea, and 11687.5 RTTY NAA Maine. I was expecting to find a gospel huxter, but must not have been praise, as listed really as NHK Bengali service, 1300-1345, 250 kW, 315 degrees via SINGAPORE (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** MADAGASCAR. 13765, Aug 18 at 0537, Vatican Radio in Portuguese, defective modulation with whistle varying along with the speech. At 0530 switch from English to Portuguese, Talata also changes from a 158 antenna at 270 degrees to a 105 antenna at 300 degrees, which ought to be more favorable for us.
HFCC antenna definition reference table shows:
158 AHR(S)2/4/1.0
105 AHR1/2/0.3
Would anyone like to explain those in plain English?
BTW, 15115 after 0600 Aug 18, SW Radio Africa via Madagascar was JBA carrier, with propagation degraded unlike last weekend; not surprised, since 15400 R. Dabanga before 0600 was also very weakened. Hope for better luck on Sunday when in English (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** MEXICO. 710, Aug 18 at 0600, looking for Mexican NAs, but instead hear a different one: since lyric mentions ``chihuahuense`` I am confident it is Chihua2`s and therefore the usual dominator XEDP Ciudad Cuauhtémoc. A good time to hear the state anthem any night. There was also an unusual lo het on the frequency; R. Rebelde reverberators were nulled (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A [and non]. 15580, Saturday Aug 18 at 1402, YL with VOA news; she`s rather halting and makes some stumbles, probably depressed or inexperienced due to drastic cuts in VOA English. Since it`s a weekend, we don`t have to put up with `Music Mix` fill following, but instead 1405 `On the Line` discussion about Nigeria including the head of VOA Hausa service, about Islamic extremist violence there by Boko Haram vs civilians, SOS Clinton`s recent visit. Then found much better signal on 17530, an echo ahead of 15580. Today`s HFCC shows both as São Tomé, but I think Greenville must be substituting again on the upper one (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. QSL: received Aug 17 the special card direct from IBB Greenville, except Greenville is mentioned nowhere on it: rather, VOA, with IBB, 3919 VOA Site B Road, Grimesland NC 27837 postal street address. Superimposed over view of antenna towers, and headed ``Edward R. Murrow Transmitting Station``.
Full details at bottom: 08 06 [June] 2012 0138 UTC 15590, signed by Glenn Swiderski, W7GS, who wrote this note on the blank back: ``Yes, that was GB6 @ 250 kW testing on 15590 using a rhombic antenna bearing 175 degrees from Greenville``
Since ``DXing`` Greenville is hardly a challenge from here, I wanted my special QSL to be a bit different, so reported this log which was without any modulation:
``UNIDENTIFIED. 15590, June 8 at 0138, big S9+25 open carrier. Kept monitoring and never any modulation past 0200 until cut off at 0204.5*. (Meanwhile found another one just like it on 13620, q.v.). So what could it be? Nothing scheduled, of course at this time, but HFCC reminds us 15590 is a longstanding imaginary registration for inactive WRNO at 14-01. I don`t think so. Maybe it`s the ghost of KUSW/KTBN. It`s also the morning frequency for VOA Greenville in Spanish. They have to fiddle a lot with their old transmitters to keep them going, and I suspect this was most likely`` (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. 12105, August 18 at 1327, WTWW-3 is on again, only fair signal, in Russian with deep fades. Had not heard it this early in the morning for some time. At 1409 check with better strength, they have switched to Arabic, plus dramatic music accompaniment, Bible story? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. WORLD OF RADIO 1630: in case anyone gave up hearing it before it started late at 0200 UT Saturday this week on WBCQ 5110v, a reminder that there is one more good opportunity, UT Sunday 0400 on WTWW 5755 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. 11715.0, August 18 at 1330, the occasionally active and heard KJES, The Lord`s Ranch, near Vado NM, where the robokids are back! This time they are really yelling as they repeat in English what the leader has just spoken about Yahweh, Jesus (should that be Yesus?). 1332 into off-key hymn with guitar accompaniment (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
UNIDENTIFIED. 6935.0-AM, Aug 18 at 0535, very poor signal from pirate with music, vs uteblaaps; 0536 quick announcement maybe ID; 0543 still VP but music recognizable as ``Delilah`` by Tom Jones; 0544 quick announcement again unreadable; by 0548 it`s JBA. Will have to check for other logs of this maybe with an ID. Frequency matched 5935.0 WWCR PMS (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
UNIDENTIFIED. 9675, Aug 18 at 0553, I am again hearing a het between two weak signals, both South American? Pitch is about B3 = 247 Hz.
Replying to my previous unID, Bryan Clark in Mangawhai, New Zealand says: ``Glenn, Subsequent to Carlos' report last month I began monitoring the low side of 9675. Usually Brazil dominates around 9675.01 to 9675.02 but with a heterodyne from around 9674.8. I was eventually able to establish that the signal on 9674.8 carried a gospel music format and on a subsequent day that it was broadcasting in Spanish.
Then on 6 August, just before 0458 UT I caught a full ID in Spanish for Radio del Pacífico [PERU] on 9674.79 kHz. The station address was
given. Nothing was traced on their traditional 60 metre channel at this time [4975v]. The heterodyne interference between the two stations is evident most days around 0500 UT but mostly Canção Nova is too strong here, and del Pacífico too weak.``
However, Wolfgang Büschel in Germany was checking 9675 at almost the same time I was: ``At 06-07 UT Aug 18:
9674.766 ... 768 wandered, probably Riyadh Saudi Arabia.
9675.0 CNR Beijing tx center #572
9675.006 probably ZYE971 Radio Canção Nova, Cachoeira Paulista SP``
(Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
UNIDENTIFIED. Another check for the mystery weak carriers in the 11.7s, August 18 at 1312: only ones I can detect are on 11751.5 and 11768 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
UNIDENTIFIED. 11995, Aug 18 at 0453, open carrier with hum again. Someone is burning an awful lot of kW for nothing, heard every night before and after 0500. Today`s HFCC still has nothing here but RFI Issoudun, 04-05 English, which we know is defunct, and 0600-0630 Hausa (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
