Glenn Hauser logs February 20-21, 2019

** CUBA. 6100, Feb 21 at 0632, RHC English is S9+30 but modulation spikes only, totally useless; wiggle that patchcord! // 6165 is S9+10, OK modulation but with CCI, presumably NHK Arabic via France until 0630 not turned off yet; 6000 somewhat distorted; 6060 overmodulated distorted. Somethings are always wrong at RHC (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** CUBA. 15700, Feb 21 at 1527, CRI Plus English relay is S9+30 of dead air except for some lite crackle. Something`s always wrong at RadioCuba (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** GERMANY [non]. 15215, Feb 21 at *1600, annual broadcast of ``Radio Amrum, the Frisian Voice`` via FRANCE, carrier on and soon sign-on in English mentioning 500 kW, the edition for 2019 --- but the ``19`` was clearly edited in, replacing ``18``, or even earlier! This is the ``tenth issue`` -- or was that referring to a previous year now being played back? The following content certainly sounds familiar. It would be nice if they could come up with new stuff, perhaps even some local music breaks. The date is coordinated with a celebration on Öömrang every Feb 21 at 5-6 pm, a bonfire of non-toxic, non-plastic materials collected over previous months. Live coverage of this would be moreexciting!

Host introduces ``latest news`` at 1603 but then switches to German. Several English bits interspersed are only brief, so for those not fluent in German, much less Frisian, little is comprehensible, but since this is such a special occasion I monitor the entire hour.

Mostly it`s an informal conversation among a woman and one or two men, except at 1611 they seem to be reading a script. Apparently the host only speaks (high) German and English, while most of the hour is in the Frisian dialect. I wonder how well standard German speakers can understand Frisian?

1604 English something about a ``special game`` and back to Frisian. 1625 English about happy birthday to a Mr. Peters who has been married for 15 years. 1633 English about having made a trip to New York, also in German about Australia, New Zealand; in Frisian about Las Vegas.

1639 break ID as on 15215 k-h-z from Jülich! How many years now has the original DW site been kaput?? And times as 11 in NY, 17 M-E-Z; ``welcome from Amrum to New York``. 1645 talking about schnee (snow).

1659 apologizes for interrupting the conversation, but promises to be back on Feb 21, 2020, 500 kW on 15215, ``to all Amrum exiles all over the world, especially New York``. Also said earlier that more of them live elsewhere in Germany than on the islands. Credits those responsible for this annual broadcast, Ian (Eien?) Kursel? at 25946 Niebel, and two contact phone numbers repeated in English and German: 046822688 and 01704425007; inviting donations. 1659 dead air and 1700*

VG S9+20 signal here in deep North America, fading to S9. Simul-monitoring via UTwente found it much weaker/poorer, too close to Issoudun, skipping over, and worsening by 1642 check.

Via UTwente only, from the outset and further chex, there is scratchy intermittent SSB ACI from some INTRUDERS. I do not manage to isolate it, but seems to be USB, slightly from the lower side.

There is also constant tone-pulsing QRM underneath for the entire hour, at the rate of approx. 7X per second. What is this? At times it seems to fade independently, so jamming? Toward the end I find it peaking about 0.5 kHz above and below 15215.0; it continues during the brief dead air at conclusion, and goes off at exactly the same time as carrier. So I conclude it`s a defect at Issoudun, not external jamming, and not on the Amrum program audio either. Other monitors were also hearing it. I alerted the WOR iog, British DX Club and Hard-Core-DX an hour earlier, and will round up several resulting reports in next DXLD.

Wolfgang Bueschel recorded most of it and also wonders about the source of pulsing: ``steht auf der Box zum Anhören: https://app.box.com/s/dlolfr18x2wr311e13qm800v6rvpeh6b
Kann mir mal jemand erläutern woher dieses Bubble-Geräusch pulsend herkommt? 73 wb  df5sx``

This fine reception into deep North America demonstrates that even at solarmin, any European broadcaster could serve us successfully on 19m at our mid-mornings, but not a single station is willing to do so. Remember when, sesquidecades ago, London Calling had a separate North American service? I think it was on 11 metres then during solarmax circa 1958!

15215 also had a JBA carrier before Amrum, at 1530 Feb 21 check, and after it went off at 1700; nothing else whatsoever listed so maybe of local origin (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** IVORY COAST [non]. 7375, Feb 21 at 0627, S9-S7 music and French ID as ``Radio Mondiale Adventiste, La Voix de l`Espérance`` with Abidjan postal address, also e-mail like lavoixdelesperance@yahoo.com then AWR theme and plug Bible-par-correspondence course until 0630*.

HFCC shows 0600-0630, 250 kW, 162 degrees via FRANCE. Amusingly, sandwiched between two imaginary entries on 7375: 0500-0600 Nauen in Croatian; 0600-0800 Thumrait, Oman RSO in Arabic. Hey, how about another imaginary 7375 entry in memory of RFPI Costa Rica? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A [and non]. WORLD OF RADIO 1970 monitoring: missed the 2200 openings, so unknown if WRMI made it on air in time this week, caught the endings: Wednesday February 20 at 2227, S9+10 fading to S7 on WBCQ 7490+, now better than WRMI 9955, which is running 15 seconds ahead of WBCQ. Also confirmed UT Thu Feb 21 at 0100 on WRMI 7780, poor S9-S7 vs noise level. As usual, I hope that the 7780 emissions arrive much better further east on 44 degree azimuth. Next:

0930 UT Friday    Unique  5045-LSB NSW ND
0729 UT Saturday  HLR     6190-CUSB Germany to WSW
1200 UT Saturday  Unique  5045-LSB NSW ND [alt weeks: March 2]
1230 UT Saturday  WRMI   *9955 to SSE
1531 UT Saturday  HLR     9485-CUSB Germany to WSW
2030vUT Saturday  WA0RCR  1860-AM MO non-direxional
2200 UT Saturday  WRMI   *9955 to SSE
0400vUT Sunday    WA0RCR  1860-AM [nominal 0415], ND
0830 UT Sunday    WRMI    5850 to NW, 5950 to WNW, 7730 to WNW
1130 UT Sunday    HLR     7265-CUSB Germany to WSW
2130 UT Sunday    WRMI    7780 to NE
0230 UT Monday    WRMI    5950 to WNW, 9395 to NNW
0400vUT Monday    WBCQ   *5130v Area 51 to WSW
0430 UT Monday    WRMI   *9955 to SSE
0930 UT Monday    Unique  5045-LSB NSW ND
2330 UT Monday    WRMI   *9955 to SSE
* also webcast; direct linx to these and many others at:

Complete WOR sked, all affiliates, satellite, webcast, AM&FM, podcast:
http://www.worldofradio.com/radioskd.html
(Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 13750-13755-13760, Feb 21 at 1421, WINB DRM on new frequency, ex-13685-13695, why? Neither was on yesterday. Got to be WINB with distinctive hybrid of DRM noise on the top half, multiple non-DRM carriers on bottom half, which no one else seems to notice or explain. 13690 was close, but not too close to Cuba 13700. 13755 center looks like a clear choice, but may be too close to Cuban FM spurs when they surely resume. HFCC has nothing on 13755 but imaginary English from Jakarta at 0800-0900; but adjacent 13750 could bear something from MBR Nauen at 1330-1530, plus IBB Kuwait at 1630-1700 in Swahili; and on adjacent 13760, imaginary VOR Moskva in Russian at 1200-1500 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 1120, Feb 21 at 0008 UT, I`m trying again for definite reception of KCRN, Limon CO now with 50 kW day power. On the DX-398, KMOX is nulled and hearing English religious talk, but that could be Austin. Simulmonitoring on R-75 with E-W longwire on 1060, I get // audio just a reverb apart, i.e. KRCN Longmont CO, the sibling Catholic Radio Network station. KRCN is also 50 kW day power but unlike KCRN may continue at night with 111 or 105 watts, but none of that matters since it also has a puny 92.1 FM translator. Paul Walker says 1120 also has a new 102.3 translator in Black Forest, which is near Colorado Springs. 1120 should be putting equally bigsig into Denver and CS, less so Pueblo further south.

Not enough 11520 signal to // WEWN. At 0013, 1120 fades in better when I can tell it`s a Catholic Radio fundraiser, phone 888-447-2425 --- so KCRN for sure, way out of their broad major lobe westward, here to the SE (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 1480, Feb 20 at 2218 UT on caradio, already hearing Vietnamese from presumed KBXD Dallas QRMing closer KQAM Wichita English talker. At 2229-2230+ Vietnamese talk now on DX-398, same slow SAH between them as before; 2255 during Viet mentions ``Cámara de Diputados``, i.e. Spanish name about the Mexican House of Reps!; 2257 break for legal English ID as ``KBXD, 1480-AM, Dallas`` and back to VV.

Tim Hendel in AL had been trying to confirm via webcast, KBXD in Vietnamese instead of người Tây Ban Nha (español), but was hearing Banda Trece programming. I too found a webcast attributed to KBXD but with Banda Trece, so not really what was on the 1480 air! Tim agrees this was probably the case. Meanwhile, I was wondering if the Viet I had been hearing could have been from KLVL Houston market, which has had Vietnamese in past, mainly Spanish now? But the bigsig vs KQAM has been typical of KBXD, whatever the programming language.

2359 recheck, Vietnamese still audible in mix on 1480. Feb official SR/SS times are 1315/0015 UT; March: 1245/0030. At night KBXD must cut from 50 to 1.9 kW on a similar pattern with major lobe to NW, but a notch NNW toward us. We are still wondering if KBXD now be 100% Vietnamese, or what? Someones in The Metroplex could easily check this out (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 17775, Thu Feb 21 at 1530, 1616 & 1700 chex, still no signal from KVOH now off the air for a week, awaiting a replacement part (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

This report despatched at 1922 UT February 21