** ALBANIA. 7465, Oct 31 at 2100 trying to hear R. Tirana`s sign-on announcement in English but still too weak here against the noise level. Should improve on the average as we approach Solstice, and also should be better further east.
6100, Nov 1 at 0224 tune-in, R. Tirana is already on the air with music, 0227 IS and 0230 opening English. Poor signal tonight but I could barely tell that Klara was still saying this starts at ``2 o`clock`` --- well, maybe it did! Altho scheduled only from 0230. It`s happened before that the broadcast has come on early, perhaps as warmup, with the Albanian HS, or perhaps even a preplay of English available on the program feed line (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** CANADA. It took until UT Nov 1 for Sackville to turn off all the relay transmitters even tho they were no longer serving any purpose with tones, fill music or clashing programming: 6175 ex-Vietnam was already off, and now at 0223 check, 5960 ex-Japan and 9560 ex-Korea South are also gone. After 0500, 6110 ex-Japan also off.
9625, CBC NQ continues on air but with heavy flutter at 0223 and bothered by ACI from Spain 9620. Since upon CBC request, CRTC has revoked the license of what they call ``CKCX``, effective Nov 1, this should be the final broadcast of CBCNQ and of Sackville itself. So we make a point of listening and taping the final few minutes: at 0455 a report on the late Letitia Baldridge, etiquette experte, concluding `As It Happens, Midnite Edition` by replaying a 1979y interview with her by Barbara Frum. 0459 AIH theme; 0459:30 ID in English for CBCNQ mentioning 9625, Sackville, address and phone in Montreal; 0500 CBC News, which now lasts only three sesquiminutes; 0504:30 NQ sign-off only in French, as far as I can tell the same canned one as always, nothing special; ``Oh, Canada`` 0506:30 but carrier stays on and then tone test added to 0509:16*. Gone forever?
No! 9625 is on again at 1352 check Nov 1, seems Inuk., heavy flutter. This rebirth was also noted by Glenn Swiderski in NC who wonders if it`s now a powerful unlicensed pirate; Kim Elliott in DC; Mark Coady in Ont. who reports that Thomas Witherspoon`s blog says that two transmitters are being maintained (one as backup) to keep the NQ service only on the SW air a bit longer until all the FM relays are funxional in northern Quebec. So whenever that happens, the plug will be pulled without further notice. Thus we are deprived of closure from Sackville, but take what we can get.
BTW, the 0500 Nov 1 CBC News on 9625 was // and almost synchronized with 6160.9, CKZN, if we put up with that annoying het (Glenn Hauser, OK, WORLD OF RADIO 1641, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** CHINA. 11736, 11744, 11752, 11768, 11776, 11784, the 8-kHz spur field from 11760 CNR1 jammer is still here, all barely detectable at 1356 Nov 1 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** CUBA. 6050, UT Nov 1 at 0225, RHC English is still here with bigsig, can`t even detect HCJB underneath, despite published new schedule showing 6140 replacing it from this date. Of course it`s not yet Nov 1 in Cuba, so maybe from UT Nov 2? On the new UT-5 schedule, the morning transmission is supposed to be at 12-16 UT, but just before 1500, 17580 and 17730 were dead air and soon turned off, i.e. still signing off as per A-12 summer schedule. And a partial frequency announcement heard around 1400 sounded like the old one.
The 11760 English broadcast is in progress at 1937 Nov 1, so it hasn`t yet shifted to 2000 as in the new schedule.
Listened to R. Reloj online, and at 1930 UT it announced 3:30 --- so Cuba is still on UT -4, despite website displaying:
``La hora exacta en Cuba --- Thursday 01 Nov 2012 14:27:29pm -0500 America/Havana CST``. What confusion! Havana is never on CST and if it were the time would be 13:27+. To run its website clock, also detects my computer set to UT = Azores DST.
I can`t get any hits on the R. Reloj or R. Rebelde websites about ``hora de invierno`` or ``hora de verano``. Timeanddate.com still says Nov 11 is the date for DST to end in Cuba, so we may be in for a dekaday of confusion, or until Cuba can be confirmed to have deset their clox (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** EGYPT. 11560, Oct 31 at 2007, ME music on poor signal. Modulation seemed OK so did not occur to me it could be R. Cairo until uplooked in HFCC: 1900-2115 in German and French, 200 kW, 325 degrees from Abis so also USward (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** EQUATORIAL GUINEA. 15190, Oct 31 at 1957, tuned in R. Africa just in time to hear a country music hymn cut off the air at 1957.6* (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** GUIANA FRENCH. 11995, Nov 1 at 0513, no carrier with hum detectable; seems I have not been hearing it since B-12 began, tho the original 02-03 relay of Taiwan in Spanish is still there. 11740 was propagating OK with the new R. Japan relay in English (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** JAPAN [non]. 5960, Nov 1 at 0223, NHK Japanese relay via new GUIANA FRENCH is finally in the clear, as Sackville has finally turned off the fill music and the transmitter which had collided with it every night since the end of A-12; somewhat stronger than // 11935.
** OKLAHOMA. 960, UT Thu Nov 1 at 0500, KGWA dead air again, but I can`t DX it tonight with CBCNQ Sackville about to close down (not); see CANADA (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** ROMANIA [and non]. 7220, Nov 1 at 0514, RRI in Romanian has considerable CCI; what could it be? CRI in English via ALBANIA, as in HFCC during same hour, 150 kW at 140 degrees, while Galbeni is 300 kW, 285 degrees. Can`t expect Cërrik to be unidirexional! (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** SOUTH AFRICA. 11755, Oct 31 at 2009, French competes with somewhat stronger but undermodulated 11760, RHC French to Central America (where there are no French-speaking countries), and then ID as Radio Mondiale Adventiste. HFCC shows 250 kW, 328 degrees from SOUTH AFRICA at 2000-2030 (Glenn Hasuer, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U K [non]. 6140, Nov 1 at 0349, English from BBC is sufficient here; but we shall lose it once RHC moves from 6050 to 6140, maybe strong enough to cover it, 0300-0400, 100 kW, 330 degrees from Meyerton, SOUTH AFRICA. BBC is also on 6140 at 02-03 from Oman to Afghanistan, but that should be sharable (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. 7506.4, Nov 1 at 0226, WRNO is back up to full strength tonight, with distorted music (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. WORLD OF RADIO 1641 monitoring: first airing confirmed on WTWW 9479, Thursday Nov 1 at 2101; next is UT Sunday 0400 on 5745.
Also UT Fri 0330v on WWRB 3195 and/or 5050
UT Sat 0130v on Area 51 via WBCQ 5110v-CUSB
Sat 0630 & 1630 on HLR, Germany, 7265 [no UT time shift]
Sat 0800, 1500, 1730, Sun 0900, 1630, Mon 0600, Tue 1200 on WRMI 9955 [with standard timeshift starting Sunday]
On WRN via SiriusXM 120: Sat 1730 [and non longer on Sundays]
(Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** VATICAN [non]. 7305, Nov 1 at 1155 check, poor signal in Spanish about a virgen, so new Vatican relay at 1130-1200 via Greenville, replacing Sackville, must be in play; still haven`t heard the other scheduled broadcast at 0200-0245 altho did not check it Nov 1.
15495, Nov 1 at 1348 piano music reminiscent of Shiokaze, and Vietnamese talk; 1358 VR IS and now with SAH CCI until Vatican off at 1400* and the understation turned out to be AWR Guam theme, ID in English, and introducing Mandarin. VR here is via TINIAN at 1315-1400, but at 1228-1315 15495 Vatican Chinese comes via RVA Philippines (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** VIETNAM [non]. 9640, Nov 1 at 0222 check, VOV in Vietnamese via Woofferton with good signal tonight. English should be at 0100-0130, 0230-0300, 0330-0400 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** ZANZIBAR. 11735, Oct 31 at 2008, vocal music with flutter, no doubt RTZ/ZBC starting to show up here again; modulation sounded OK, unlike some other recent reports (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
UNIDENTIFIED. 6045, Nov 1 at 0336, huge distorted FMy blob with talk, nothing scheduled here, so a spur or some station very out of order. By slope tuning, the intonation sounds English. Try to match it to other 49m signals: No match to RHC English 6050 or Spanish, nor to WWCR. Seems like there is a weaker one like it around 5925, but not sure. 0345 a bit of music, also at 0352. I am listening very carefully up to hourtop hoping for something recognizable; there is some repetitive beat music and cut off the air at 0400:25*
Not much to go on: sure hope they do it again the next night and we have better luck tracing it. For now, what station-frequencies are in English until 0400 on 49m in HFCC?
5920 WHRI
5940 BBC Cyprus & Skelton
6020 CRI Albania
6115 WYFR
6140 BBC South Africa
6155 Channel Africa
Some good prospects there, tho it was not typical BBC behavior. Times in HFCC are often rounded off or approx. so I also looked for endings at 0359, 0358, 0357, 0356, but nothing more. If it wasn`t English there are lots more possibilities (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
UNIDENTIFIED. 930, Nov 1 at 0529 UT, something is occupying the null of Spanish WKY OKC: promo for Rush at 9 am, then temps but no local refs caught; and into Yahoo Sportsradio.com, slogan something like ``Sportstalk 930``. A strange combination, both Rush and YSR? Or maybe the Rush promo was for a sibling station. 9 am means MST or PDT for live airing, but there are no such 930 stations on the Rush affiliate list.
The only 930 stations on the YSR affiliate list:
Jacksonville FL WFXJ-AM 930 AM
Battle Creek MI WBCK-AM 930 AM
Jackson MS WSFZ-AM 930 AM
Greenville NC WDLX-AM 930 AM
None of these have favorable night patterns for us, but Jackson MS is closest. WSFZ website says it`s Super Sport 930. But Rush couldn`t be on at 9 am in that market, not starting until 11 am CT (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
6100, Nov 1 at 0224 tune-in, R. Tirana is already on the air with music, 0227 IS and 0230 opening English. Poor signal tonight but I could barely tell that Klara was still saying this starts at ``2 o`clock`` --- well, maybe it did! Altho scheduled only from 0230. It`s happened before that the broadcast has come on early, perhaps as warmup, with the Albanian HS, or perhaps even a preplay of English available on the program feed line (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** CANADA. It took until UT Nov 1 for Sackville to turn off all the relay transmitters even tho they were no longer serving any purpose with tones, fill music or clashing programming: 6175 ex-Vietnam was already off, and now at 0223 check, 5960 ex-Japan and 9560 ex-Korea South are also gone. After 0500, 6110 ex-Japan also off.
9625, CBC NQ continues on air but with heavy flutter at 0223 and bothered by ACI from Spain 9620. Since upon CBC request, CRTC has revoked the license of what they call ``CKCX``, effective Nov 1, this should be the final broadcast of CBCNQ and of Sackville itself. So we make a point of listening and taping the final few minutes: at 0455 a report on the late Letitia Baldridge, etiquette experte, concluding `As It Happens, Midnite Edition` by replaying a 1979y interview with her by Barbara Frum. 0459 AIH theme; 0459:30 ID in English for CBCNQ mentioning 9625, Sackville, address and phone in Montreal; 0500 CBC News, which now lasts only three sesquiminutes; 0504:30 NQ sign-off only in French, as far as I can tell the same canned one as always, nothing special; ``Oh, Canada`` 0506:30 but carrier stays on and then tone test added to 0509:16*. Gone forever?
No! 9625 is on again at 1352 check Nov 1, seems Inuk., heavy flutter. This rebirth was also noted by Glenn Swiderski in NC who wonders if it`s now a powerful unlicensed pirate; Kim Elliott in DC; Mark Coady in Ont. who reports that Thomas Witherspoon`s blog says that two transmitters are being maintained (one as backup) to keep the NQ service only on the SW air a bit longer until all the FM relays are funxional in northern Quebec. So whenever that happens, the plug will be pulled without further notice. Thus we are deprived of closure from Sackville, but take what we can get.
BTW, the 0500 Nov 1 CBC News on 9625 was // and almost synchronized with 6160.9, CKZN, if we put up with that annoying het (Glenn Hauser, OK, WORLD OF RADIO 1641, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** CHINA. 11736, 11744, 11752, 11768, 11776, 11784, the 8-kHz spur field from 11760 CNR1 jammer is still here, all barely detectable at 1356 Nov 1 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** CUBA. 6050, UT Nov 1 at 0225, RHC English is still here with bigsig, can`t even detect HCJB underneath, despite published new schedule showing 6140 replacing it from this date. Of course it`s not yet Nov 1 in Cuba, so maybe from UT Nov 2? On the new UT-5 schedule, the morning transmission is supposed to be at 12-16 UT, but just before 1500, 17580 and 17730 were dead air and soon turned off, i.e. still signing off as per A-12 summer schedule. And a partial frequency announcement heard around 1400 sounded like the old one.
The 11760 English broadcast is in progress at 1937 Nov 1, so it hasn`t yet shifted to 2000 as in the new schedule.
Listened to R. Reloj online, and at 1930 UT it announced 3:30 --- so Cuba is still on UT -4, despite website displaying:
``La hora exacta en Cuba --- Thursday 01 Nov 2012 14:27:29pm -0500 America/Havana CST``. What confusion! Havana is never on CST and if it were the time would be 13:27+. To run its website clock, also detects my computer set to UT = Azores DST.
I can`t get any hits on the R. Reloj or R. Rebelde websites about ``hora de invierno`` or ``hora de verano``. Timeanddate.com still says Nov 11 is the date for DST to end in Cuba, so we may be in for a dekaday of confusion, or until Cuba can be confirmed to have deset their clox (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** EGYPT. 11560, Oct 31 at 2007, ME music on poor signal. Modulation seemed OK so did not occur to me it could be R. Cairo until uplooked in HFCC: 1900-2115 in German and French, 200 kW, 325 degrees from Abis so also USward (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** EQUATORIAL GUINEA. 15190, Oct 31 at 1957, tuned in R. Africa just in time to hear a country music hymn cut off the air at 1957.6* (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** GUIANA FRENCH. 11995, Nov 1 at 0513, no carrier with hum detectable; seems I have not been hearing it since B-12 began, tho the original 02-03 relay of Taiwan in Spanish is still there. 11740 was propagating OK with the new R. Japan relay in English (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** JAPAN [non]. 5960, Nov 1 at 0223, NHK Japanese relay via new GUIANA FRENCH is finally in the clear, as Sackville has finally turned off the fill music and the transmitter which had collided with it every night since the end of A-12; somewhat stronger than // 11935.
** OKLAHOMA. 960, UT Thu Nov 1 at 0500, KGWA dead air again, but I can`t DX it tonight with CBCNQ Sackville about to close down (not); see CANADA (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** ROMANIA [and non]. 7220, Nov 1 at 0514, RRI in Romanian has considerable CCI; what could it be? CRI in English via ALBANIA, as in HFCC during same hour, 150 kW at 140 degrees, while Galbeni is 300 kW, 285 degrees. Can`t expect Cërrik to be unidirexional! (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** SOUTH AFRICA. 11755, Oct 31 at 2009, French competes with somewhat stronger but undermodulated 11760, RHC French to Central America (where there are no French-speaking countries), and then ID as Radio Mondiale Adventiste. HFCC shows 250 kW, 328 degrees from SOUTH AFRICA at 2000-2030 (Glenn Hasuer, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U K [non]. 6140, Nov 1 at 0349, English from BBC is sufficient here; but we shall lose it once RHC moves from 6050 to 6140, maybe strong enough to cover it, 0300-0400, 100 kW, 330 degrees from Meyerton, SOUTH AFRICA. BBC is also on 6140 at 02-03 from Oman to Afghanistan, but that should be sharable (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. 7506.4, Nov 1 at 0226, WRNO is back up to full strength tonight, with distorted music (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. WORLD OF RADIO 1641 monitoring: first airing confirmed on WTWW 9479, Thursday Nov 1 at 2101; next is UT Sunday 0400 on 5745.
Also UT Fri 0330v on WWRB 3195 and/or 5050
UT Sat 0130v on Area 51 via WBCQ 5110v-CUSB
Sat 0630 & 1630 on HLR, Germany, 7265 [no UT time shift]
Sat 0800, 1500, 1730, Sun 0900, 1630, Mon 0600, Tue 1200 on WRMI 9955 [with standard timeshift starting Sunday]
On WRN via SiriusXM 120: Sat 1730 [and non longer on Sundays]
(Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** VATICAN [non]. 7305, Nov 1 at 1155 check, poor signal in Spanish about a virgen, so new Vatican relay at 1130-1200 via Greenville, replacing Sackville, must be in play; still haven`t heard the other scheduled broadcast at 0200-0245 altho did not check it Nov 1.
15495, Nov 1 at 1348 piano music reminiscent of Shiokaze, and Vietnamese talk; 1358 VR IS and now with SAH CCI until Vatican off at 1400* and the understation turned out to be AWR Guam theme, ID in English, and introducing Mandarin. VR here is via TINIAN at 1315-1400, but at 1228-1315 15495 Vatican Chinese comes via RVA Philippines (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** VIETNAM [non]. 9640, Nov 1 at 0222 check, VOV in Vietnamese via Woofferton with good signal tonight. English should be at 0100-0130, 0230-0300, 0330-0400 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** ZANZIBAR. 11735, Oct 31 at 2008, vocal music with flutter, no doubt RTZ/ZBC starting to show up here again; modulation sounded OK, unlike some other recent reports (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
UNIDENTIFIED. 6045, Nov 1 at 0336, huge distorted FMy blob with talk, nothing scheduled here, so a spur or some station very out of order. By slope tuning, the intonation sounds English. Try to match it to other 49m signals: No match to RHC English 6050 or Spanish, nor to WWCR. Seems like there is a weaker one like it around 5925, but not sure. 0345 a bit of music, also at 0352. I am listening very carefully up to hourtop hoping for something recognizable; there is some repetitive beat music and cut off the air at 0400:25*
Not much to go on: sure hope they do it again the next night and we have better luck tracing it. For now, what station-frequencies are in English until 0400 on 49m in HFCC?
5920 WHRI
5940 BBC Cyprus & Skelton
6020 CRI Albania
6115 WYFR
6140 BBC South Africa
6155 Channel Africa
Some good prospects there, tho it was not typical BBC behavior. Times in HFCC are often rounded off or approx. so I also looked for endings at 0359, 0358, 0357, 0356, but nothing more. If it wasn`t English there are lots more possibilities (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
UNIDENTIFIED. 930, Nov 1 at 0529 UT, something is occupying the null of Spanish WKY OKC: promo for Rush at 9 am, then temps but no local refs caught; and into Yahoo Sportsradio.com, slogan something like ``Sportstalk 930``. A strange combination, both Rush and YSR? Or maybe the Rush promo was for a sibling station. 9 am means MST or PDT for live airing, but there are no such 930 stations on the Rush affiliate list.
The only 930 stations on the YSR affiliate list:
Jacksonville FL WFXJ-AM 930 AM
Battle Creek MI WBCK-AM 930 AM
Jackson MS WSFZ-AM 930 AM
Greenville NC WDLX-AM 930 AM
None of these have favorable night patterns for us, but Jackson MS is closest. WSFZ website says it`s Super Sport 930. But Rush couldn`t be on at 9 am in that market, not starting until 11 am CT (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
