** ALGERIA [non]. 13820, July 21 at 1829, fair signal with Qur`an, good modulation, 1830 some other music, 1832 Arabic talk, maybe sermon, 1847 another bit of music. Had me mystified until uplooked: RTA via FRANCE at 18-20, no longer clashing with Martí moved to 13605.
BTW, the RTA collision on 9535 with Spain at 0500-0600 goes on and on now that we are halfway thru the A-14 season, and we bet it will last the entire season; who cares? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** AUSTRALIA. 11595, July 21 at 1252, Kununurra has now replaced the old HCJB IS & ID, with different music, but still ``uplifting`` on steel guitar, fiddle, etc., and periodic IDs as ``This is Reach Beyond Australia; our program on this frequency will commence shortly``; 1245 opening S Asian service, into language, scheduled as Bengali on Mondays; fair signal. That makes it RBA by abbr (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** BRAZIL. 11750 & 11810, July 21 at 0524 check, still distorted spurs from 11780 RNA. Why don`t they fix all this? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** CHINA. CNR1 jammers, July 21:
13530, July 21 at 1230, CNR1 jammer, fair; none now in the 14s, 16s, 17s, 18s; 1248 vs CODAR
13830, July 21 at 1231, CNR1 jammer, very poor but // 13530
15195, July 21 at 1231, CNR1 jammer, poor, no Firedrake today
15265, July 21 at 1231, CNR1 jammer, poor
12370, July 21 at 1235, CNR1 jammer, fair, out of synch with 13530; I think it`s 12370 that is a syllable ahead of 13530
12980, July 21 at 1240, CNR1 jammer, very poor
11785, July 21 at 1241, CNR1 jammer, poor with CCI
12980, July 21 at 1321, CNR1 jammer, fair with flutter, CODAR
15115, July 21 at 1324, CNR1 jammer, with CCI
15195, July 21 at 1324, CNR1 jammer, still no Firedrake
15265, July 21 at 1325, CNR1 jammer, with usual het, Taiwan off-frequency; none in the 16s, 17s, 18s, and 19s
16500, the non-Firedrake concert I heard July 17 before and after 1400, has not shown up again despite daily chex (Glenn Hauser, OK, July 21, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** INDONESIA [and non]. 4870-, July 21 at 1200, JBA carrier on the lo side, probably RRI Wamena; 4835 VL8A in better than usual just after WWCR is off 4840 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** MALAYSIA [non]. I don`t intend to pursue this endlessly, but one more time: despite all the media shorthand about ``MH Flight 17``, there is such a flight *every day* from AMS to KUL, so either always add the date of the doomed flight (July 17), or preferably refer to the unique callsign of the aircraft which was shot down, 9MMRD (which I have *never* heard or seen in any press about this).
Checking flightradar24.com, for flight delays by avoiding Ukraine since the shootdown, the July 19 flight, aircraft 9MMRF which left more than 4 hours late, took 11:47. July 20: 9MMRQ took 11:38. July 21: 9MMRC took 12:02. Of course part of the delay/variation could be due to stack-ups at the destination.
As for possible HF channels used by ongoing flights MH17: Noel Green, NW England, says ``the most active station that might contact one of the MH flights seems to be Mumbai, and possible calling frequencies are 8879, 8909 and 8948 or possibly 6655. I only see one frequency (in the lower range at least) for Kuala Lumpur on 8942, and it *seems* that Singapore may handle international traffic in that area on that frequency. All courtesy of the 2012 edition of Airwaves. Maybe someone from S Asia has better information``. Normally air and ground are simplex on the same frequency. ATC often specifies a secondary frequency (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** MEXICO. 1570, July 21 at 1145 UT, XERF is still playing ``Mañanitas`` songs at this time every morning, followed by another tune, and at 1150, ``Servicio Social --- Avisos Personales``, mainly missing persons but also missing purses. Lots of people trying to make contact on both sides of la frontera; station phone number announced for input is 877-108-7046. Seems unusual for a 1 to be in 4th place, but maybe not for toll-frees; several phone numbers but not this one are on their contact page http://www.imer.mx/lapoderosa/contactanos/
Starting to fade out at 1154, and at times some English US station occupying its null; LSR here was 1130 UT (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** NEW ZEALAND. 6170, Monday July 21 starting at 1330:48, RNZI `Mailbox`, not early this week as sometimes we`ve found it in progress already at 1328 or 1329. Reception is holding up a little longer with our later sunrises (but still two hours earlier, 1130), but only poor, starting with a Samoan song (Australia 6150 is much better, tho further). I listen to it later ondemand via:http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player/20142458
No DX report this week from Kevin Hand due to a misunderstanding of the scheduling, but other usual features: Mike Bird with propagation report and not much news about cutbacks at Radio Australia; chat by Adrian Sainsbury back from 7 weeks in Europe (they must have a great vacation package at RNZI), while Myra Oh has only been to Fiji.
Bad news: this program is being canceled after one more episode in a fortnight; summarizing:
Mailbox is to retire after 65 years of service, sad to say. Manager Lynden Clark says as part of a review of all our programming, due to increasing costs and decreasing funding, reluctantly decided to end DX program Mailbox, and consolidate funds on our core services. Mailbox has been on since 1990 in current format, first hosted by Tony King.
RNZI however will continue on SW. DRM transmission times have also been reduced for cost saving, no longer 18 hpd, but now on and off as required by rebroadcasting stations in the Pacific.
Richard Lemke also notifies us of this and points out there is another broadcast of the current show, UT Tuesday July 22 at 0330 on 15720. (We`ve yet to confirm whether there is really another repeat on Friday circa 1935 on 11725, as shown on the schedule.) Let`s hope they leave up the large archive of previous Mailboxes for a while longer.
15715-15720-15725, July 21 at 2023, DRM noise must be RNZI, as now scheduled until 2150. Can`t say I`ve noticed this before, but sounds like it might be strong enough to decode. The // AM frequency, 11725, never propagates here in our afternoons. 15720 should be OK after 2151 when it switches to AM (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** OKLAHOMA. 780, July 21, KSPI Stillwater on the air at various chex during the day, despite missing well before sunset lately. One promo was for religious programming instead of sports on Sundays from 8 am to noon CT (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** TAIWAN. 11915, July 21 at 1301, RTI in non-Mandarin Chinese, listed as Amoy, after familiar theme also used by `Religion & Ethics Newsweekly`` on PBS TV in the USA; fair (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) See also USA: WRMI
** U K. The two-month Promenade Concert season began July 18 with live broadcasts on BBCR3 (and also now the other networks according to website). Perhaps a few excerpts will appear on BBCWS? We normally try to hear almost every concert online, but this year the BBC website has been very uncooperative, often with dead linx where the concerts are supposed to be. Our best luck so far has been hitting the pop-up player reached via http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007v097/episodes/player
which is also fussy about which browsers it will accept. Supposedly these are available now for 30 days rather than 7, altho the menu already lacks some of the earlier concerts less than one week after them. One can also listen live more reliably on BBCR3, but it`s much more convenient to listen a few days later ondemand for pausing, skipping (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A [and non]. 9955, July 21 at 1249, the CCI with SAH from France via Taiwan in Chinese is even stronger than WRMI and the pulse jamming, while nearby frequencies go unused (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. WORLD OF RADIO 1730 monitoring: July 21 check on the new 15770 airing via WRMI: 2059 BS plugging his website; 2059:30 cutaway to Bob Zanotti ID; 2100 back to BS; 2101:30 join WOR 1730 in progress. Fair signal at best here off the side, aimed toward Europe. Meanwhile, 15190 with Radio Africa Network is much stronger. I suspect the delay with WOR may be due to not enough hands to manually manage the RAN QSY from 17790 to 15190 at the same time as the program shift on 15770. Next:
Tue 1100 on WRMI 9955 [see also log of Taiwan QRM still there]
Wed 0630 on HLR 7265-CUSB
Wed 1315 on WRMI 9955
Wed 1430 on HLR 7265-CUSB
Wed 2100 on WBCQ 7490v
(Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. 17895, July 21 at 1827, VOA news in English, fair with fades, off by 1830. Note: this is the LAST VOA ENGLISH BROADCAST FROM GREENVILLE (except for those beeping Radiograms), daily 1730-1830 eastward for Africa. Should normally be fine beyond the skip zone off the back in central and western North America (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
UNIDENTIFIED. 15445, July 21 at 0528, lite vocal music, maybe praise; 0531 French announcement, more music, poor. Thought it might be AWR but HFCC and EiBi show CRI Russian via Kashgar at 0400-0600 on 15445! WRTH shows no French from CRI before 0600, on other frequencies (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
This report dispatched at 0323 UT July 22
BTW, the RTA collision on 9535 with Spain at 0500-0600 goes on and on now that we are halfway thru the A-14 season, and we bet it will last the entire season; who cares? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** AUSTRALIA. 11595, July 21 at 1252, Kununurra has now replaced the old HCJB IS & ID, with different music, but still ``uplifting`` on steel guitar, fiddle, etc., and periodic IDs as ``This is Reach Beyond Australia; our program on this frequency will commence shortly``; 1245 opening S Asian service, into language, scheduled as Bengali on Mondays; fair signal. That makes it RBA by abbr (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** BRAZIL. 11750 & 11810, July 21 at 0524 check, still distorted spurs from 11780 RNA. Why don`t they fix all this? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** CHINA. CNR1 jammers, July 21:
13530, July 21 at 1230, CNR1 jammer, fair; none now in the 14s, 16s, 17s, 18s; 1248 vs CODAR
13830, July 21 at 1231, CNR1 jammer, very poor but // 13530
15195, July 21 at 1231, CNR1 jammer, poor, no Firedrake today
15265, July 21 at 1231, CNR1 jammer, poor
12370, July 21 at 1235, CNR1 jammer, fair, out of synch with 13530; I think it`s 12370 that is a syllable ahead of 13530
12980, July 21 at 1240, CNR1 jammer, very poor
11785, July 21 at 1241, CNR1 jammer, poor with CCI
12980, July 21 at 1321, CNR1 jammer, fair with flutter, CODAR
15115, July 21 at 1324, CNR1 jammer, with CCI
15195, July 21 at 1324, CNR1 jammer, still no Firedrake
15265, July 21 at 1325, CNR1 jammer, with usual het, Taiwan off-frequency; none in the 16s, 17s, 18s, and 19s
16500, the non-Firedrake concert I heard July 17 before and after 1400, has not shown up again despite daily chex (Glenn Hauser, OK, July 21, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** INDONESIA [and non]. 4870-, July 21 at 1200, JBA carrier on the lo side, probably RRI Wamena; 4835 VL8A in better than usual just after WWCR is off 4840 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** MALAYSIA [non]. I don`t intend to pursue this endlessly, but one more time: despite all the media shorthand about ``MH Flight 17``, there is such a flight *every day* from AMS to KUL, so either always add the date of the doomed flight (July 17), or preferably refer to the unique callsign of the aircraft which was shot down, 9MMRD (which I have *never* heard or seen in any press about this).
Checking flightradar24.com, for flight delays by avoiding Ukraine since the shootdown, the July 19 flight, aircraft 9MMRF which left more than 4 hours late, took 11:47. July 20: 9MMRQ took 11:38. July 21: 9MMRC took 12:02. Of course part of the delay/variation could be due to stack-ups at the destination.
As for possible HF channels used by ongoing flights MH17: Noel Green, NW England, says ``the most active station that might contact one of the MH flights seems to be Mumbai, and possible calling frequencies are 8879, 8909 and 8948 or possibly 6655. I only see one frequency (in the lower range at least) for Kuala Lumpur on 8942, and it *seems* that Singapore may handle international traffic in that area on that frequency. All courtesy of the 2012 edition of Airwaves. Maybe someone from S Asia has better information``. Normally air and ground are simplex on the same frequency. ATC often specifies a secondary frequency (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** MEXICO. 1570, July 21 at 1145 UT, XERF is still playing ``Mañanitas`` songs at this time every morning, followed by another tune, and at 1150, ``Servicio Social --- Avisos Personales``, mainly missing persons but also missing purses. Lots of people trying to make contact on both sides of la frontera; station phone number announced for input is 877-108-7046. Seems unusual for a 1 to be in 4th place, but maybe not for toll-frees; several phone numbers but not this one are on their contact page http://www.imer.mx/lapoderosa/contactanos/
Starting to fade out at 1154, and at times some English US station occupying its null; LSR here was 1130 UT (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** NEW ZEALAND. 6170, Monday July 21 starting at 1330:48, RNZI `Mailbox`, not early this week as sometimes we`ve found it in progress already at 1328 or 1329. Reception is holding up a little longer with our later sunrises (but still two hours earlier, 1130), but only poor, starting with a Samoan song (Australia 6150 is much better, tho further). I listen to it later ondemand via:http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player/20142458
No DX report this week from Kevin Hand due to a misunderstanding of the scheduling, but other usual features: Mike Bird with propagation report and not much news about cutbacks at Radio Australia; chat by Adrian Sainsbury back from 7 weeks in Europe (they must have a great vacation package at RNZI), while Myra Oh has only been to Fiji.
Bad news: this program is being canceled after one more episode in a fortnight; summarizing:
Mailbox is to retire after 65 years of service, sad to say. Manager Lynden Clark says as part of a review of all our programming, due to increasing costs and decreasing funding, reluctantly decided to end DX program Mailbox, and consolidate funds on our core services. Mailbox has been on since 1990 in current format, first hosted by Tony King.
RNZI however will continue on SW. DRM transmission times have also been reduced for cost saving, no longer 18 hpd, but now on and off as required by rebroadcasting stations in the Pacific.
Richard Lemke also notifies us of this and points out there is another broadcast of the current show, UT Tuesday July 22 at 0330 on 15720. (We`ve yet to confirm whether there is really another repeat on Friday circa 1935 on 11725, as shown on the schedule.) Let`s hope they leave up the large archive of previous Mailboxes for a while longer.
15715-15720-15725, July 21 at 2023, DRM noise must be RNZI, as now scheduled until 2150. Can`t say I`ve noticed this before, but sounds like it might be strong enough to decode. The // AM frequency, 11725, never propagates here in our afternoons. 15720 should be OK after 2151 when it switches to AM (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** OKLAHOMA. 780, July 21, KSPI Stillwater on the air at various chex during the day, despite missing well before sunset lately. One promo was for religious programming instead of sports on Sundays from 8 am to noon CT (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** TAIWAN. 11915, July 21 at 1301, RTI in non-Mandarin Chinese, listed as Amoy, after familiar theme also used by `Religion & Ethics Newsweekly`` on PBS TV in the USA; fair (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) See also USA: WRMI
** U K. The two-month Promenade Concert season began July 18 with live broadcasts on BBCR3 (and also now the other networks according to website). Perhaps a few excerpts will appear on BBCWS? We normally try to hear almost every concert online, but this year the BBC website has been very uncooperative, often with dead linx where the concerts are supposed to be. Our best luck so far has been hitting the pop-up player reached via http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007v097/episodes/player
which is also fussy about which browsers it will accept. Supposedly these are available now for 30 days rather than 7, altho the menu already lacks some of the earlier concerts less than one week after them. One can also listen live more reliably on BBCR3, but it`s much more convenient to listen a few days later ondemand for pausing, skipping (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A [and non]. 9955, July 21 at 1249, the CCI with SAH from France via Taiwan in Chinese is even stronger than WRMI and the pulse jamming, while nearby frequencies go unused (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. WORLD OF RADIO 1730 monitoring: July 21 check on the new 15770 airing via WRMI: 2059 BS plugging his website; 2059:30 cutaway to Bob Zanotti ID; 2100 back to BS; 2101:30 join WOR 1730 in progress. Fair signal at best here off the side, aimed toward Europe. Meanwhile, 15190 with Radio Africa Network is much stronger. I suspect the delay with WOR may be due to not enough hands to manually manage the RAN QSY from 17790 to 15190 at the same time as the program shift on 15770. Next:
Tue 1100 on WRMI 9955 [see also log of Taiwan QRM still there]
Wed 0630 on HLR 7265-CUSB
Wed 1315 on WRMI 9955
Wed 1430 on HLR 7265-CUSB
Wed 2100 on WBCQ 7490v
(Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. 17895, July 21 at 1827, VOA news in English, fair with fades, off by 1830. Note: this is the LAST VOA ENGLISH BROADCAST FROM GREENVILLE (except for those beeping Radiograms), daily 1730-1830 eastward for Africa. Should normally be fine beyond the skip zone off the back in central and western North America (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
UNIDENTIFIED. 15445, July 21 at 0528, lite vocal music, maybe praise; 0531 French announcement, more music, poor. Thought it might be AWR but HFCC and EiBi show CRI Russian via Kashgar at 0400-0600 on 15445! WRTH shows no French from CRI before 0600, on other frequencies (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
This report dispatched at 0323 UT July 22
