martedì 12 marzo 2013

Glenn Hauser logs March 11-12, 2013

** CHINA. 15610, March 12 at 0106, Firedrake in drumming-only passage, and traces of its victim talking (RFA Tibetan via TINIAN at 01-02), then adding usual instrumental cacophony; poor with flutter (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** CUBA. Further chex by monitoring of RHC`s DST-adjusted schedule, long before they attempt to revise it on their own website, which is never a 100% match with reality:

11760, March 11 at *1900, English is as expected moved one hour earlier, like it was during last year`s DST season; and 2003 check 11760 is in French; but 15340 remains with Portuguese at same time, Arabic after 2030. And 11880 is not on the air, in case one expected it to shift one UT hour earlier from: 21-23; to: 20-22, as Ivo Ivanov did. After 2030 both 11760 and 11880 are off.

17705, at 2003 is open carrier/dead air already, altho Spanish is not expected to start until 2100. At 2130, Spanish is running on 11840, 15340, 17705. However at 2204, 15340 is off again, but back at next check 2254, so presumably was intended to be continuous at 21-23 like day 1.

11880, at 2203 is now on and in French, like March 10, ex-2100, And in Portuguese before 2300, ex-2130-2200. At 2340 check, 11880 is still on and now in English, unlike yesterday when it was off after 2300. So indeed the 22-23 English hour to Africa has also been moved one hour later to 23-24, regardless of how inconvenient that may be in the target area.

And starting right at 2340 is the weekly `Focus on Africa` ``from the unique perspective of Cuba``, which I assume is on all the Monday/UT Tuesday English hours, not just the one allegedly for Africa itself.

This means English is now on two frequencies at 23-24, the other being 5040 which shifted from 00-01; I`ve yet to check whether the two are synchronized. Some coincidentally simultaneous French broadcasts earlier are aired as much as a minute apart (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** EGYPT. 11116, March 11 at 2202, nothing audible, altho R. Cairo English is on 11890, good level fair signal, but modulation distorted. 11116 was a big mystery heard mainly in Europe, and then Tarek Zeidan in Egypt recognized 11116 as ``Middle East Radio (MW 774 and FM 89.5) in Cairo, first time to hear them on SW. The Arabic ID is Idhaat Elsharq Elawsat``. Guess what, 11890 minus 774 = 11116, so it`s a mixture between SW and MW transmitters at the Abis site, possible on 11116 only during the 2115-2245 English broadcast on 11890. Wolfgang Büschel says it`s intermittent. The 774 mix would also explain the previous strange frequency from Egypt, 9191, 774 kHz below 9965 which is on at 2300-0430, so be on the lookout for anything else 774 kHz away from an Abis R. Cairo frequency (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** OKLAHOMA. 1120, March 11 at 2005 UT on the caradio, no signal from KEOR, gone again, since it had shown up March 9 even with an ID (Glenn Hauser, Enid, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** OKLAHOMA. 1650, March 12 at 0104 UT check, promo for Dial Global Sports, as an ``upcoming show preview on the Big AM 16-50, KYHN, Fort Smith, Arkansas``. So they are *still* stunting, really from offices in Sallisaw OK, and transmitter on this side of the AR border (Glenn Hauser, Enid, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** PERU. 5980, March 12 at 0053, presumed R. Chaski audible with music, very poor, not much CCI, but splash from CRI/Cuba 5990. At 0059 both are still going with instrumental hymn on 5980, and 5990 goes off shortly before 5980 does, at 0100:32* --- but that`s only 3 sex later than last nite! So not only have they reset their turnoff-timer, but also the amount by which it changes during a 24-hour period, no doubt to be followed further as time goes on (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** SOUTH CAROLINA [non]. 9930, no signal from WTWW-2 at 2050 March 11 and later chex; seems to be more active on weekends. When on, it`s not Brother Scare any more who was apparently filling time as an experiment earlier. Overcomer Ministry homepage SW schedule, as usual a big mess, has no recognizable WTWW frequencies, and still has WRMI on the wrong one, 9995 instead of 9955. The FTP link to shortwave stations, which never matches the homepage, still shows 9990 but not what station, altho we know it was the original WTWW-2 daytime frequency, since moved to 9905 and now to 9930 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 13670, March 11 at 2048, big open carrier with tone, no doubt Greenville-B tuning up for the new M-F 2130-2200 VOA Bambara service for Mali, which as of today still is not mentioned at
http://www.kimandrewelliott.com tho he is starting to get caught up with more important news (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 4840, March 12 at 0049, WWCR-3 is already on, with DST now starting at 0000 UT instead of 0100; and plans to keep switching from 13845 at 0000 thru the entire A-13 season. Despite 2.5 hours variation in sunset times at this latitude from winter to summer, WWCR makes this change *earlier* in the summer than in winter. Figure that out; maybe it makes sense to their frequency manager without a feel for SW propagation basix. So much for our Sikkim/Perú 4835 monitoring around 0100, but compensated by 4840 also going up to 13845 one hour earlier in the mornings at 1200 from now thru October, good for ABC on 4835 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

UNIDENTIFIED. 4700, March 12 at 0101, two JBA carriers, maybe a bit of modulation from one. Checking this out again upon inquiry from Thomas Nilsson, Sweden. Around 0300 he was hearing something, the audio clip of which sounds to me like HoA music, i.e. new frequency from V of the Broad Masses of Eritrea as per many other logs, but not a time when I monitor much, and VOBME would not be on at 0100; so my theory remains that one of them I hear is Bolivia, and the other maybe a 5 x 940 harmonic (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

UNIDENTIFIED. 11790-11890, big buzz ranges here, March 11 at 2130, peaking around 11840 vs a strong but undermodulated RHC Spanish signal. I`m not prepared to say that transmitter is responsible for it, but obviously nothing to do with Costa Rica DRM, which isn`t on until 0000, and 11815 at the moment is full of buzz as are many other `open` frequencies, closest to 11840. The buzz could be semi-local, but not from my household as I am hearing it elsewhere in the block, and nothing like it anywhere else on the SW bands.

11740-11940, March 12 at 0053 the buzz is still going and spreading further, even covering 11815 where REE/CR is presumably still DRMing. Need to check around 0500 whether the buzz cut off when RHC 11840 doth (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)