** ASCENSION. 15105, Feb 12 at 1948, heavily accented French but it`s just
waiting to be translated to Hausa, which is the language this semihour of BBCWS,
good signal but with a pronounced hum --- typical of at least one of the
Ascension transmitters, which indeed this is as registered. Why don`t they
repair it, or at least filter out the hum? A shameful situation for a major SW
site (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** BANGLADESH. 15505, Feb 13
at 1359:27, tuned in just in time to hear mistimesignal ending from Bangladesh
Betar; very poor (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** CHILE.
21412-USB, Feb 12 at 2351, XQ3PC is calling for check-ins to a maritime net, one
of the better signals on 15m now; sounds like an American, and most of his
contacts are from the USA. Substituting for the NCS, wherever that may be, in
case somestations can copy him better. John Norfolk`s final April 2007 Nets2you
roster had a Pacific Maritime net at 2200 daily on this frequency. QRZ.com
lists:
XQ3PC
James Thurston Edwards
Capitan Orella 2775
Ñuñoa -
Santiago 7750525
Chile
QSL: CASILLA 207-11 SANTIAGO
(Glenn Hauser, OK,
DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** CHINA. 15970, Feb 12 at 2345, JBA signal from
algo modulated, presumably CNR1 jammer since Aoki has this as an *, which is far
more likely than the 100-watt Sound of Hope from Taiwan.
12950, Feb 12 at
2358, CNR1 jammer, poor with flutter; retune just before 2400 timesignal and
off, sounded like the last few notes of the Cuban national anthem, of all
things, so part of CNR1 programming (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING
DIGEST)
** EGYPT. 15800, Feb 13 at 1515, fair signal, fading, with open
carrier/dead air, or maybe JBM with music. What else but R. Cairo, the
laughingstock of international broadcasting, scheduled here at 13-16 UT via Abis
site in Arabic. Earlier that UT day, I had skipped noting the usual defects of
9965, 9905, 9860 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** JAPAN [and
non]. 13650, Feb 12 at 2356, big clash between choral music and talk in Burmese;
the music cuts off at 2356:45 leaving NHK closing in the clear. This is R.
Japan`s Thai/Vietnamese/Burmese hour equally split into thirds, while the
otherstation was of course CRI Portuguese via CUBA (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX
LISTENING DIGEST)
** KUWAIT [and non]. 15140, Feb 12 at 1947, Radio
Sultanate of Oman has a standout signal with ME music, Arabic, as hardly
anything else is audible in the lower part of the 15 MHz band [except ASCENSION,
q.v.] --- yet 15540, R. Kuwait English service is nothing but a JBA carrier. How
can there be such a disparity? Let us compare the HFCC registered
parameters:
15140 is 100 kW, 315 degrees from Thumrait to CIRAF 28, 39N;
ant 218
15540 is 250 kW, 310 degrees from Kabd to CIRAF 27,29; antenna
211
I.e., almost same azimuths toward western Europe, and consequently
North America beyond, yet allegedly 2.5 times the power from the much weaker
one. Thumrait site is in southwest Oman not far from the Yemen border, but far
from Musqat and the BBC A`Seela site in northeast Oman, as obvious from the
slick color map on page 57 of the WRTH 2015. Kuwait is quite a bit further
north, but also further west and it turns out that the great-circle paths to
Enid from the two are virtually identical, reaching no further north than 65
degrees over Iceland. You never know whether a station is really running
anywhere near its rated transmitter power, but chances are it is not, and of
course antenna type and gain can also make a big difference. Vertical takeoff
angle is another important factor often overlooked. Kuwait`s may be higher,
meaning better coverage closer in, worse further out.
Modifying my remark
about *no* activity now on the 18-19 MHz band, not quite: 0430-1130, when we can
never hear it, R. Azadi (Free Afghanistan) is running via Kuwait, alternating
Dari and Pashto hours (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
**
OKLAHOMA. 94.3, Feb 12 circa 1930 UT I notice that KLGB-LP is open carrier/dead
air --- or rather, with volume up to max I can barely hear some music, which
proves to be bleedover from other LP at same site, KVBN-LP 99.9, which otherwise
is still funxioning normally.
I had first noticed something was wrong,
when on caradio near KLGB site, I was getting QRM to 91.7 KOSU apparently on one
side or the other, later confirmed to be same 99.9 audio source. Driving by
KLGB, we can see there are *no* cars parked by the building, evidently running
unattended. Next check at 1528 UT Feb 13, 94.3 is *still* (almost) silent.
I have a modest suggestion, that the licensee of any US radio station
should lose it forthwith, if dead air is allowed to occur for more than, say,
one hour; and that would be extremely generous. If there had been another
applicant for the frequency, they should get it as a result.
88.3, Feb 12
and 13 chex, note that the Fámily Radio translator in Enid is off the air again,
and may have been for some time: K202BY. May it ever be so. Sporadic-E FM DX
now, please (Glenn Hauser, Enid OK, DX LISTENING DIGESTS)
** PERU [and
non]. 5980, Feb 13 at 0055, JBA carrier(s) from R. Chaski and perhaps BBCWS via
UAE, tho not clear when the latter carrier come on before the 0100 Hindi
service. By 0100 there must be both, but this time too close to detect a SAH
between them. One of them cuts off at 0102:10* leaving a much weaker one, so the
departee is R. Chaski. Last check was 48 hours earlier until off at 0101:58*, so
averaging 6 seconds later per (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
**
ROMANIA. 7395, Feb 13 at 0201, VG signal with good Romanian music, French
announcements. It`s the RRI French hour at 02-03, 300 kW, 310 degrees from
Galbeni. Surprised they would start right off with music rather than news, but
fine with me (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** SOMALILAND.
7120-, Feb 13 at 1358, JBA carrier from presumed R. Hargeisa, longpath. When I
get back at 1400 after BANGLADESH, it`s already off. When it resumes at 1500,
too late for propagation here (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
**
U S A. WORLD OF RADIO 1760 monitoring: confirmed, the Thursday 2201 UT airing on
Global 24 via WRMI 9395, for the third week is still missing Feb 12: `Dialogos
Greece`, the 21-22 UT program, really continues until 2215, than `Eu News Net`.
Yet the G24 program sked grid still shows WOR at this time. Repeated inquiries
to G24 and WRMI merely to find out the status of this have not been answered, so
all we can do is proceed to remove it from our WOR schedules.
However,
WOR still confirmed UT Fri Feb 13 at 0001 on G24 via WRMI 9395, sufficient.
Next:
Fri 2130 on WRMI 7570 & 15770
Sat 0730 & 1530 on Hamburger
Lokalradio 7265-CUSB
Sat 1000 on WRMI 5850
Sun 0231 on KVOH 9975
Sun
2300 on WRMI 11580
Mon 0400v on Area 51 via WBCQ 5110v
Mon 2201 on Global
24 via WRMI 9395
Tue 1200 on WRMI 9955
Wed 0401 on Global 24 via WRMI
9395
Wed 0730 & 1530 on Hamburger Lokalradio 7265-CUSB
Wed 1415 on
WRMI 9955
Wed 2200 on WBCQ 7490v
Wed 2201 on Global 24 via WRMI
9395
(Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. Correcting date
on this item: Thu Feb 12, not Wed Feb 11:
9955, Thu Feb 12 at 1329 &
1359, flanking WORLD OF RADIO, Bruce Baskin plugging WRMI as the ``leader`` in
sports coverage, the first one promoting the second one ``at 9 am and 9 pm``.
Yet these spots of one minute or less are hardly enough to do anything justice;
I just don`t get it, tho I am hardly eager for WRMI to waste any more time on
silly ballgames (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. 17775,
Feb 13 at 1445, KVOH is back on air with VG signal, praise music, piano and
voice, Spanish. Oddly there is very slow regular fading, at the rate of 84 times
per minute, i.e. a subaudible heterodyne from another carrier 1.4 Hz away. No
conflicting modulation, and nothing else is listed on 17775 at this time, which
leads to the suspicion that it`s another KVOH transmitter being tested
simultaneously (they have two old ones already). How about that, Ray Robinson?
Recheck at 1512, no longer a SAH, but still a hum. He also replied Feb 12 to our
non-log of 17775 Feb 11:
``The transmitter overheated at about 1615 UT on
Wednesday, 2/11, and took itself off the air. We are working on fabricating some
replacement parts, but it was off the air for the remainder of the broadcast
yesterday and is off again today. There is no impact to our evening broadcasts
on 9975, which have just been extended (now 0000-0600 Tu-Sa, 0130-0500 Su,
0230-0500 Mo).
Work on the 100 kW transmitter continues, but has been
more extensive than we anticipated. We're still several weeks away from being
able to bring that online. Ray Robinson, KVOH, Los Angeles``
The program
grid
has
not yet been updated to show what occupy the expanded hours (Glenn Hauser, OK,
DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. 9265, Feb 13 at 1404, surprised to find
WINB this early on a weekday, gospel huxter saying ``Jesus has cursed this
planet, humanity``. Shux! New program schedule (rather beyond `new` since it`s
post-dated Feb 15), shows WINB now starts at 1400 M-F, with `Manning Report` for
two hours until 16 (then 16-17 `Classic Red Neck Radio` --- could that be
musical?). I see `TruNews` is also on there at 19-20, so would that be // WRMI
11550? I search the entire schedule in vain for a DX program, but no `Wavescan`
or anything else. It seems all their huxters can now be listened to on demand,
whew, what a luxury (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A.
970, Feb 13 at 0615 UT, `Jim Bohannon Show` resuming from commercial break,
loops N/S vs the CCI. My first guess is WDAY Fargo ND, and that proves to be
correct per website listings at 10 pm - 1 am CT = 04-07 UT, i.e. the 06-07 hour
is a repeat of the first hour which would have been live at 03-04.
No
970 affiliates elsewhere on this axis in NE, TX or even LA (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX
LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. 2660, Feb 13 at 0608 UT, gospel music, no
doubt KGLD 1330 x 2 from Tyler TX. Better signal now than I had at 1200-1300+
when I managed to re-identify it definitely. 0614 UT announcement but fading.
Maybe a fluke, but night power is supposed to be only 77 watts on 1330, so the
harmonic should be minuscule. Strongly suspect they were really running 500 or
1000 watts to start with (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
**
VATICAN. 15550, 15400, 15100, Feb 13 at 1517, bigsigs all from SMG site relaying
R. Tamazuj, R. Tamazuj, and R. Veritas Asia, all supposedly toward the
southeast. The VR site remains remarkable for how strong it signals into North
America when supposedly aimed elsewhere, more or less opposite. Wonder if their
antenna rigs were mis-wired 180 degrees off where they think they are aiming? Or
maybe their rotors need synchronizing (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING
DIGEST)
This report dispatched at 1801 UT February 13
