** BOLIVIA. 3310.0, Oct 1 at 0129, I am hearing something besides local mix of KGWA and KCRC Enid which has blocked this frequency for ages! (960 + 960 + 1390; both of them are still blasting in on fundamentals.) Poor signal unseems Spanish or not all Spanish, dialog with kid voices, hard-sell ads? 0132, music bits with talk, then fuller music. Poor signal, but surely R. Mosoj Chaski, 10 kW ND from Cochabamba, per Aoki at 0830-1200 & 2100-0200; while WRTH shows 09-13 and 21-01. Eibi has yet another version: 09-12 and 2030-0130, partly in Quechua. S American conditions are hot tonight; cf PERU 5980 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** BOLIVIA. 4717, Oct 1 at 0107, no signal from Yura, presumed off; 5952.4, Oct 1 at 0100, no signal from Radio Pio Doce, also presumed off, as S American signals are otherwise better than usual, e.g. 4875, 5980, 6135- (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** BRAZIL. 4875.0, Oct 1 at 0109, Brazuguese with ``21 horas e 9 minutos`` timecheck; 0125, mentions Boa Vista. So it`s certainly R. Roraima, which is in the minority UT-4 zone from Boa Vista in the northern tip of Brasil. Carrier is on exact frequency, but there is a squealing blob on the hi side difficult to pinpoint but audible 4876-4878. If there had not been several reports of this station varying with spur, I might assume the blob is unrelated, possibly from a local device. Anyhow, it`s now avoidable, especially by listening to 4875 on LSB (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** CUBA [and non]. 4765, Oct 1 at 0106, no R. Progreso on new frequency Arnie Coro announced on DXers Unlimited as to start Oct 1 at 0030-0400; I suppose he must have meant Oct 1 local date, i.e. 24 hours later. RHC website has been redesigned, apparently eliminating the DXers Unlimited archive, but now his alternative blogspot is active, so here is exactly what Arnie scripted about this for the Sept. 29 edition:
``This is Radio Havana Cuba, the name of the show is Dxers Unlimited and here is news about the experimental Tropical Band transmissions to begin on the first day of October by Radio Progreso Cadena Nacional, that means of course Radio Progreso National Network, Cuba´s second most important AM, FM and now it is going to be also on short wave.
Radio Progreso will begin its Tropical Band broadcasts on 4765 kiloHertz, again four thousand seven hundred and sixty five kiloHertz on the 60 meters Tropical Band starting at zero hours thirty minutes UTC with the popular music show Nocturno, and the broadcast will end at zero four hours UTC with the late evening news.
The Tropical Band transmission will provide excellent coverage of the Cuban archipelago and the sorrounding countries. Transmitter power is registered at 50 kiloWatts and a classic high departure angle antenna will be used as required for the Near Vertical Incidence Skywave transmissions.
With Radio Progreso´s new Tropical Band Service , Cuba will have on the air three signals on that band, Radio Rebelde on 5025 kiloHertz , Radio Havana Cuba 5040 kiloHertz, and now Radio Progreso 4765 kiloHertz.
Reports of the new Radio Progreso Tropical Band transmissions may be sent to inforhc at enet dot cu, again inforhc at enet dot cu , and I will relay the reports to my good friend Radio Progreso´s chief engineer Jose Antonio Fuentes.``
Meanwhile, there *is* a JBA carrier, very weak signal already on 4765, and at 0108 can hear some talk. I`ve assumed it was probably Tajikistan, but could be Brasil, and whichever, is about to get creamed by the Cubans:
Aoki shows:
4765 R. Emissora de Educação Rural 0800-0300 1234567 Portuguese
10 ND Santarem PA B 0226S 05441W ZYG363
4765 Radio Progreso 0030-0400 1234567 Spanish
50 ND CUB CMBC Oct. 1-
4765 Tajik Radio 1 2300-2000 1234567 Tajik
100 ND Dushanbe-Yangiyul TJK 3829N 06848E Tajik R1
EiBi also shows Tajikistan on now plus two Brazilians:
4765 0900-0400 B Rádio Integração P B cs
4765 0900-0200 B Rádio Rural, Santarém P B sa
4765 2300-2000 TJK Radio Tajikistan TJ CAs y
WRTH 2013 lists only R. Rural under Brazil; and only R. Integração, Cruzeiro do Sul, but irregular, in the master frequency list!
We haven`t seen any updates in several months by the Brazilian DXers who were supposedly keeping track of which ZYs are really active.
Arnie will not doubt assert that 4765 is registered with the ITU, and tough luck to the other stations on the frequency. We recall that long ago, 4765 was used for Soviet relays via Cuba. Dusting off old crystal? Or dormant registration (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** DIEGO GARCIA. 12759-USB, Oct 1 before 0100 nothing heard from AFN, but by 0116 JBA broadcast-intoned talk (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** INDIA. 11985, Oct 1 at 0059, AIR Delhi-Khampur site is again mixed up, running the AIR IS in the middle of what is supposed to be the 0045-0115 Sinhala service // 11740 via GOA, which is stronger and broadcasting other music. 11985 is presumably again about to air the start of the Sindhi hour by mistake. Recheck at 0115 to find the 11985 carrier still on until 0115:51* while the 11740 carrier was already off by 0115 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** IRAN. 11820, Oct 1 at 0119, VIRI IS is already playing, fair with flutter; 0123 announcement, national anthem, usual sign-on routine, in this case: Kazakh scheduled at 0123-0220, 500 kW, 5 degrees from Sirjan // 9790 Sirjan.
In his final DX Re Mix News #800, Ivo Ivanov presents a full revised VIRI schedule, ``Effective from Sunday, Sept. 29 all shortwave broadcasts from Voice the Islamic Republic of Iran begin 7 minutes earlier, e.g.: new times: xx23-xx20 / xx53-xx50, instead of xx30-xx27 / xx00-xx57.``
I asked, ``could this just be to account for the interval signal preludes which have already been playing for several minutes before each broadcast; with programming still opening on the half-hour???`` The answer is NO --- they really are starting at 23 or 53 minutes past the hour, which is likely to mess up other stations` frequency coordination; why???
Thus the so-called ``Voice of Justice`` only English to North America must now be at 0323-0420 on 13650, 15470.
Our best wishes to Ivo who says he is now retiring from shortwave; after a job very well done! (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** IRAN [non]. 15680, Sept 30 at *1629:50 carrier on, 1630:07 music starts, could be choral anthem, 1631:30 YL sign-on announcement, the new clandestine Radio Mehr, which appears only Mondays and Fridays during this semihour; poor signal. Aoki shows 250 kW, 90 degrees from FRANCE without specifying Issoudun, which of course it has to be if really from that country.
DX Re Mix News, Bulgaria, final issue #800 shows this:
``IRAN (non) A new clandestine station Sedaye Radio-ye Mehr Iran has started 1630-1700 on 15680 ISS 250 kW / 085 deg to WeAs Persian Fri/Mon from Sep. 23`` (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** JAPAN. 774, Sept 30 at 1159 UT, 27 minutes before sunrise here, my TP carrier search below 1200 kHz finds only this one from the NW, and tho it`s JBA, I decide to zero-beat the BFO on it and see if I can hear a timesignal: yes! There it is, 3 + 1, the final one higher pitched and prolonged, typical NHK style, so JOUB, 500 kW NHK-2 is for sure. Akita is on the far side of Honshu, west coast toward the north end, almost 40 degrees north, but this doesn`t prevent it from being one of the best TP signals into deep North America. Here`s how it might have sounded with slightly better reception, another NHK-2 recorded almost four sesquiyears ago:
http://www.intervalsignals.net/files/jap-nhk2_jorb_kochi_011107.m3u
(Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** OKLAHOMA. David Yocis says the FCC CDBS shows 1640 changing from KOAG to KZLS so the new format stays with the previous call. Most of the day Monday Sept 30, 1640 was still ``The Farm Station, All-Ag`` but there`s music at 0027 UT Tuesday October 1. 0028 ``True Oldies Channel`` slogan, ``Hotel California``. Listening on a noisy receiver, too close to the computer, the signal suddenly weakens at 0030, which is not the correct time to cut from 10 to 1 kW, Sept LSS being 0045 UT (to be 0000 in October; LSR 1215 in Sept, 1230 in Oct) (finally straightened out these times from previous posts).
Richard N Allen, near Perry OK, heard a KZLS legal ID on 1640 but as Hennessey-OKC, instead of Enid-OKC, Hennessey being the closest town to the transmitter site, so are they really abandoning Enid as City of License? X-band 1640, of course, was originally supposed to *replace* KCRC 1390, which never happened. Richard also heard promos still referring to 99.7, the ex-True Oldies sibling, which is now Hank FM, KNAH (Glenn Hauser, Enid, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** PERU. 5980, Oct 1 at 0057, R. Chaski is in much better than usual carrier maybe with traces of modulation. Now despite 5990 China-via-Cuba still being on, I can axually copy some program details: keyboard music first; shortly after 0100, ``Son las 20 horas --- Red Radio Integridad``, i.e. the network ID from Lima 700 MW always being relayed by Urubamba in the evenings without its own ID. Modulation is somewhat muffled and too bassy. Claudio Galaz, Chile, also hears 700 and often reports 5980 with modulation problems.
By 0101, 5990 is off. Just before 0102, 5980 plays usual daily fanfare, maybe introducing a devotional capsule. Slightly after 0103, another music jingle. There are some intermittent noise bursts, maybe the on-channel Cuban jammer trying to intrude, but not too much of a problem this time. 0104 talking about 200 mil watts, sure not its power! And a website .com reference, P O Box address somewhere.
Cuts off at 0105:39* which is 4.5 seconds later than yesterday. Intervals seem to be varying slightly; several previous cycles had the timer being reset to ahead of 0100 before it ever reached 0106, so we are alert for this to rehappen any day now. However, this may depend on human intervention which could be more variable than the timer slippage (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** SRI LANKA. 11905, Oct 1 at 0114, open carrier, good with flutter, then music thru 0115, 3-pip time signal 10 seconds late, the third one prolonged, SLBC signing on in Hindi (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. 5110-CUSB, UT Tue Oct 1 at 0111, WBCQ again for the second Monday night in a row, heard with unscheduled airing of `Marion`s Attic`, she and her sidekick discussing an ancient record, then playing it starting with an Arabic (?) announcement and Mideast music. Still not on the 5110 schedule at:
http://schedule.wbcq.com/main.php?fn=sked&freq=5110
Occasional QRM from ute noise bursts, a risk this far out of band
(Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** BOLIVIA. 4717, Oct 1 at 0107, no signal from Yura, presumed off; 5952.4, Oct 1 at 0100, no signal from Radio Pio Doce, also presumed off, as S American signals are otherwise better than usual, e.g. 4875, 5980, 6135- (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** BRAZIL. 4875.0, Oct 1 at 0109, Brazuguese with ``21 horas e 9 minutos`` timecheck; 0125, mentions Boa Vista. So it`s certainly R. Roraima, which is in the minority UT-4 zone from Boa Vista in the northern tip of Brasil. Carrier is on exact frequency, but there is a squealing blob on the hi side difficult to pinpoint but audible 4876-4878. If there had not been several reports of this station varying with spur, I might assume the blob is unrelated, possibly from a local device. Anyhow, it`s now avoidable, especially by listening to 4875 on LSB (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** CUBA [and non]. 4765, Oct 1 at 0106, no R. Progreso on new frequency Arnie Coro announced on DXers Unlimited as to start Oct 1 at 0030-0400; I suppose he must have meant Oct 1 local date, i.e. 24 hours later. RHC website has been redesigned, apparently eliminating the DXers Unlimited archive, but now his alternative blogspot is active, so here is exactly what Arnie scripted about this for the Sept. 29 edition:
``This is Radio Havana Cuba, the name of the show is Dxers Unlimited and here is news about the experimental Tropical Band transmissions to begin on the first day of October by Radio Progreso Cadena Nacional, that means of course Radio Progreso National Network, Cuba´s second most important AM, FM and now it is going to be also on short wave.
Radio Progreso will begin its Tropical Band broadcasts on 4765 kiloHertz, again four thousand seven hundred and sixty five kiloHertz on the 60 meters Tropical Band starting at zero hours thirty minutes UTC with the popular music show Nocturno, and the broadcast will end at zero four hours UTC with the late evening news.
The Tropical Band transmission will provide excellent coverage of the Cuban archipelago and the sorrounding countries. Transmitter power is registered at 50 kiloWatts and a classic high departure angle antenna will be used as required for the Near Vertical Incidence Skywave transmissions.
With Radio Progreso´s new Tropical Band Service , Cuba will have on the air three signals on that band, Radio Rebelde on 5025 kiloHertz , Radio Havana Cuba 5040 kiloHertz, and now Radio Progreso 4765 kiloHertz.
Reports of the new Radio Progreso Tropical Band transmissions may be sent to inforhc at enet dot cu, again inforhc at enet dot cu , and I will relay the reports to my good friend Radio Progreso´s chief engineer Jose Antonio Fuentes.``
Meanwhile, there *is* a JBA carrier, very weak signal already on 4765, and at 0108 can hear some talk. I`ve assumed it was probably Tajikistan, but could be Brasil, and whichever, is about to get creamed by the Cubans:
Aoki shows:
4765 R. Emissora de Educação Rural 0800-0300 1234567 Portuguese
10 ND Santarem PA B 0226S 05441W ZYG363
4765 Radio Progreso 0030-0400 1234567 Spanish
50 ND CUB CMBC Oct. 1-
4765 Tajik Radio 1 2300-2000 1234567 Tajik
100 ND Dushanbe-Yangiyul TJK 3829N 06848E Tajik R1
EiBi also shows Tajikistan on now plus two Brazilians:
4765 0900-0400 B Rádio Integração P B cs
4765 0900-0200 B Rádio Rural, Santarém P B sa
4765 2300-2000 TJK Radio Tajikistan TJ CAs y
WRTH 2013 lists only R. Rural under Brazil; and only R. Integração, Cruzeiro do Sul, but irregular, in the master frequency list!
We haven`t seen any updates in several months by the Brazilian DXers who were supposedly keeping track of which ZYs are really active.
Arnie will not doubt assert that 4765 is registered with the ITU, and tough luck to the other stations on the frequency. We recall that long ago, 4765 was used for Soviet relays via Cuba. Dusting off old crystal? Or dormant registration (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** DIEGO GARCIA. 12759-USB, Oct 1 before 0100 nothing heard from AFN, but by 0116 JBA broadcast-intoned talk (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** INDIA. 11985, Oct 1 at 0059, AIR Delhi-Khampur site is again mixed up, running the AIR IS in the middle of what is supposed to be the 0045-0115 Sinhala service // 11740 via GOA, which is stronger and broadcasting other music. 11985 is presumably again about to air the start of the Sindhi hour by mistake. Recheck at 0115 to find the 11985 carrier still on until 0115:51* while the 11740 carrier was already off by 0115 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** IRAN. 11820, Oct 1 at 0119, VIRI IS is already playing, fair with flutter; 0123 announcement, national anthem, usual sign-on routine, in this case: Kazakh scheduled at 0123-0220, 500 kW, 5 degrees from Sirjan // 9790 Sirjan.
In his final DX Re Mix News #800, Ivo Ivanov presents a full revised VIRI schedule, ``Effective from Sunday, Sept. 29 all shortwave broadcasts from Voice the Islamic Republic of Iran begin 7 minutes earlier, e.g.: new times: xx23-xx20 / xx53-xx50, instead of xx30-xx27 / xx00-xx57.``
I asked, ``could this just be to account for the interval signal preludes which have already been playing for several minutes before each broadcast; with programming still opening on the half-hour???`` The answer is NO --- they really are starting at 23 or 53 minutes past the hour, which is likely to mess up other stations` frequency coordination; why???
Thus the so-called ``Voice of Justice`` only English to North America must now be at 0323-0420 on 13650, 15470.
Our best wishes to Ivo who says he is now retiring from shortwave; after a job very well done! (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** IRAN [non]. 15680, Sept 30 at *1629:50 carrier on, 1630:07 music starts, could be choral anthem, 1631:30 YL sign-on announcement, the new clandestine Radio Mehr, which appears only Mondays and Fridays during this semihour; poor signal. Aoki shows 250 kW, 90 degrees from FRANCE without specifying Issoudun, which of course it has to be if really from that country.
DX Re Mix News, Bulgaria, final issue #800 shows this:
``IRAN (non) A new clandestine station Sedaye Radio-ye Mehr Iran has started 1630-1700 on 15680 ISS 250 kW / 085 deg to WeAs Persian Fri/Mon from Sep. 23`` (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** JAPAN. 774, Sept 30 at 1159 UT, 27 minutes before sunrise here, my TP carrier search below 1200 kHz finds only this one from the NW, and tho it`s JBA, I decide to zero-beat the BFO on it and see if I can hear a timesignal: yes! There it is, 3 + 1, the final one higher pitched and prolonged, typical NHK style, so JOUB, 500 kW NHK-2 is for sure. Akita is on the far side of Honshu, west coast toward the north end, almost 40 degrees north, but this doesn`t prevent it from being one of the best TP signals into deep North America. Here`s how it might have sounded with slightly better reception, another NHK-2 recorded almost four sesquiyears ago:
http://www.intervalsignals.net/files/jap-nhk2_jorb_kochi_011107.m3u
(Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** OKLAHOMA. David Yocis says the FCC CDBS shows 1640 changing from KOAG to KZLS so the new format stays with the previous call. Most of the day Monday Sept 30, 1640 was still ``The Farm Station, All-Ag`` but there`s music at 0027 UT Tuesday October 1. 0028 ``True Oldies Channel`` slogan, ``Hotel California``. Listening on a noisy receiver, too close to the computer, the signal suddenly weakens at 0030, which is not the correct time to cut from 10 to 1 kW, Sept LSS being 0045 UT (to be 0000 in October; LSR 1215 in Sept, 1230 in Oct) (finally straightened out these times from previous posts).
Richard N Allen, near Perry OK, heard a KZLS legal ID on 1640 but as Hennessey-OKC, instead of Enid-OKC, Hennessey being the closest town to the transmitter site, so are they really abandoning Enid as City of License? X-band 1640, of course, was originally supposed to *replace* KCRC 1390, which never happened. Richard also heard promos still referring to 99.7, the ex-True Oldies sibling, which is now Hank FM, KNAH (Glenn Hauser, Enid, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** PERU. 5980, Oct 1 at 0057, R. Chaski is in much better than usual carrier maybe with traces of modulation. Now despite 5990 China-via-Cuba still being on, I can axually copy some program details: keyboard music first; shortly after 0100, ``Son las 20 horas --- Red Radio Integridad``, i.e. the network ID from Lima 700 MW always being relayed by Urubamba in the evenings without its own ID. Modulation is somewhat muffled and too bassy. Claudio Galaz, Chile, also hears 700 and often reports 5980 with modulation problems.
By 0101, 5990 is off. Just before 0102, 5980 plays usual daily fanfare, maybe introducing a devotional capsule. Slightly after 0103, another music jingle. There are some intermittent noise bursts, maybe the on-channel Cuban jammer trying to intrude, but not too much of a problem this time. 0104 talking about 200 mil watts, sure not its power! And a website .com reference, P O Box address somewhere.
Cuts off at 0105:39* which is 4.5 seconds later than yesterday. Intervals seem to be varying slightly; several previous cycles had the timer being reset to ahead of 0100 before it ever reached 0106, so we are alert for this to rehappen any day now. However, this may depend on human intervention which could be more variable than the timer slippage (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** SRI LANKA. 11905, Oct 1 at 0114, open carrier, good with flutter, then music thru 0115, 3-pip time signal 10 seconds late, the third one prolonged, SLBC signing on in Hindi (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. 5110-CUSB, UT Tue Oct 1 at 0111, WBCQ again for the second Monday night in a row, heard with unscheduled airing of `Marion`s Attic`, she and her sidekick discussing an ancient record, then playing it starting with an Arabic (?) announcement and Mideast music. Still not on the 5110 schedule at:
http://schedule.wbcq.com/main.php?fn=sked&freq=5110
Occasional QRM from ute noise bursts, a risk this far out of band
(Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
