** ALBANIA [non]. 15770, April 1 circa 2015, WRMI relaying Prague in Amerenglish somewhat distorted, but too weak to copy by 2040 whether it`s still Radio Tirana --- which current sked shows is the only remaining time, 2030 Mon-Thu and Sat, blown away from 0230 or 0130 repeat times. See also USA: WRMI (Glenn Hauser, OK, WOR)
** CHINA [non]. 11880, April 1 at 1445, NO signal from CRI Plus, English relay via CUBA, which started March 29 at 1400-1600, ex-15700 which has not come back either. Something`s always wrong at RadioCuba. Nor anything on 9570, the pre-1400 Cuban relay in case forgot to QSY. But we do hear CRI this hour on 13710 via EAST TURKISTAN: see SAUDI ARABIA [non] (Glenn Hauser, OK, WOR)
** COSTA RICA. 18127-USB, April 1 at 1437, Javier, TI2##, the OSOB in contact from CR, call and name fonetik but too much fading to copy. Maybe only one-letter suffix. Just to show that propagation is barely open over this path (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** CUBA. 711.00 kHz, April 2 at 0025, presumed R. Rebelde off-frequency hetting legitimate 710.00 kHz stations --- again and also again the ~200/minute beat or 3.33 Hz from another 711 kHz transmitter, in Cuba or somewhere. Now 31 minutes before LSS here of 0056 and only legit TA`s making it this early are 891 Algeria and much weaker 936 presumed Morocco. Since 711 was first widely heard across North America March 25, it seems everyone else quickly lost interest in it/them (Glenn Hauser, OK, WOR)
** CUBA. 11880, April 1 at 2326, RHC English is S9+10/20 but now distorted and hummy, much like 15140 has long been earlier in the day including 1900 English. Tsk2. Something`s always wrong at RHC (Glenn Hauser, OK, WOR)
** CUBA. 15730, April 1 at 2329, RHC already opening Brazuguese for 2330, now also distorted much like 11880 English. Something`s always wrong at RHC (Glenn Hauser, OK, WOR)
** KURDISTAN [non]. 11530, April 1 at 2015, Dengé Welat clandestine via FRANCE, mostly talk in Kurdish or Turkish; by 2039 clear ID and mostly music, enjoyable songs as long as I don`t understand the lyrix, S7-S9 right up to 2100* cutoff (Glenn Hauser, OK, WOR)
** NORTH AMERICA. 5165.04, April 2 at 0014, S7 JBA music, must be a pirate; low weaker het from closer to 5165.00, maybe birdie. Depend on hfunderground to clear it up: numerous logs here https://www.hfunderground.com/board/index.php/topic,64931.0.html as Radio Illuminati starting at 2133 April 1 until off at 0032 April 2. AFD is reputed to be a prime day for piracy, but only one I hear, none on 6.9 MHz band (Glenn Hauser, OK, WOR)
** SAUDI ARABIA [non]. 13710, April 1 at 1441, S9-S7 of Amerenglish, must be CRI on NF for A-20, instead of SBC, which was a regular here scheduled 15-18 until the end of B-19, and besides, it was always off-frequency, unlike this, which runs this hour only, 500 kW, ubiquitous 308-degree azimuth from Kashgar, EAST TURKISTAN, land of brainwashing Uighurs. In fact with 11880 CUBA relay AWOL, it`s our best CRI signal now. (Well, I should recheck for Sa`udi after 1457.)
Furthermore, am not hearing anything on 11820+ in our afternoons, which was another Sa`udi regular at 18-23. As of latest HFCC March 30, still not a single entry for ARS transmitters, nor even a blank space in the schedules by Broadcasters or FMOs. Is anyone hearing Sa`udi on SW, or have any access to a current schedule?
Ordinarily there would not have been many changes from previous season. Here`s the B-19 schedule:
http://hfcc.org/data/schedbybrc.php?seas=B19&broadc=ARS
Nothing after 2300, but B19 scheduled to start at 0200: 7410; from 0230: 9800; all these from 0300, mostly but not all in Arabic: 9580, 9675, 9835, 11710, 12025, 13650, 13660, 15170, 15220, 17760, 17895, 21665. Is anyone hearing any of these? Nothing at UTwente on 7410 by 0216 April 2. Jeff White says Sa`udis did not attend A-20 HFCC in KL Malaysia, but have not withdrawn from the organisation (Glenn Hauser, OK, WOR)
** SWAZILAND. 9585-, April 1 at 1448, noisy open carrier S7-S4, presumably TWR which is scheduled to start at 1453 with Malagasy/French service; slightly off-frequency minus. May well be long-path, aimed ENE (Glenn Hauser, OK, WOR)
** TAIWAN [non]. 7780, April 1 at 2218, R. Taiwan in Spanish with Chinese lesson, confirmed new WRMI relay toward Europe, but only fair at UTwente SDR. Should be 2200-2230 only despite self-contradictory WRMI grid as 2200-2300 on 7780 #1 transmission sked; RTI publicity via Nino Marabello says they will be half-hours altho original Spanish may be for an hour. Not officially starting until UT April 6.
5010 // 5800 // 7780, April 2 at 0200, RTI Spanish via three WRMI frequencies contrary to schedule, repeating the ancient special about World Radio Day which was Feb 13 (Glenn Hauser, OK, WOR)
** TURKEY. 9830, April 1 at 2200, NO signal from VOT English, despite this being the *only* transmission correctly announced in their sign-on! RTTY from NAU Puerto Rico is however running until it stops at 2210*, still no VOT, all as monitored at UTwente, let alone Enid. That`s a 25% success rate so far for VOT in A-20. Something`s always awry at Ankara, erroneous at Emirler.
9830, April 1 at 2347 recheck direct, now it`s on -- Turk music and soon conveniently ID in German, Die Stimme der Türkei! So they couldn`t get English going on time, but sometime since 2210 came on the air including spurious 2300- hour in German, just like they used to do far too often on 5960 at 0000 failing to turn that off after English at its later winter hour. At 2352 runs the multi-multi-language ID filler reel starting with English. But wait: there`s more.
2353 IS keeps on going, and BTW, it sounds off-key in USB unless more precisely tuned to 9830.04 or .05. 2356 starts inserting ID amid IS in yet another language; 2359 I recognize it as Luso-Portuguese! Another totally off-schedule SW transmission. April 2 at 0000:03, timesignal ends 3 seconds late compared to WWV, and sign-on in Portuguese takes 2.5 minutes to list all the satellite parameters. Since they can`t get their SW frequencies right in English, I shudder to think how they may mangle all that Ku-band info. 0003 finally starts the notícias, still on at 0011. But we don`t get another full hour; by 0024 recheck it`s off. I can just imagine the sleepyrator at Emirler finally arousing. Did management notice? WRTH 2020 shows NO VOT Portuguese at any hour on SW; a rare treat. I hope some Portu-Brasilians caught it (Glenn Hauser, OK, WOR)
** U S A [and non?]. 5000.0000, April 2 at 0018, checking WWV for exact time compared to TURKEY, q.v., also the minute for propagation info: SF=69, K=3, no disturbances past or future --- but with extremely fast RTTY QRM on the plus side covering 5000-5004! It`s even audible by tuning 5000-LSB. What`s that?!?! The little SF band is sacrosanct (Glenn Hauser, OK, WOR)
** U S A. WORLD OF RADIO 2027 monitoring: confirmed Wednesday April 1 from 2100:25 on WBCQ 7490.1v, VP in S9 local noise level; slightly better even backward at far UTwente.
Also confirmed final SWBC, UT Thu April 2 at 0100 on WRMI 7780, good at UTwente.
WOR 2028 should be downloadable by early UT Friday April 3, and first SWBC at 2200 on WRMI 9955.
Thanks last week for financial support from Gerald T Pollard, Raleigh NC, a generous seasonal check in US funds on a US bank, to Glenn Hauser, PO Box 1684, Enid OK 73702
Thanks this week for financial support from Robert Brunner via PayPal to woradio at yahoo.com --- PP not necessarily in US funds
Full schedule including AM, FM, webcasts, satellite, podcasts:
http://www.worldofradio.com/radioskd.html
(Glenn Hauser, OK, WOR)
** U S A. Some WRMI observations UT Thursday April 2:
0030:
5950 // 9395, closing `Walking in Power` gospel huxter a bit late, into music, Oldies
7730, Wavescan, first feature about Paraguay
0100: unchecked, except:
7780, WORLD OF RADIO 2027 confirmed, good at UTwente SDR
0130: via Alexandria SDR:
9395 // 5800, Prague in English; new time replacing Tirana; why?
9455, Hal Turner is back; was replaced by TOMBS last night
5850 // 5010, Oldies
7780, Wavescan on Paraguay
0200:
7780 // 5800 // 5010, RTI in Spanish on extra frequency, q.v.
(Glenn Hauser, OK, WOR)
** U S A. 15555-USB, April 1 circa 2015, WJHR audible again with what else; this time also neighbors 15825 WWCR, 15610 WEWN, 13845 WWCR and perhaps also 15770 WRMI are getting sporadic-E boosts, the latter relaying Prague in Amerenglish somewhat distorted, but too weak to copy by 2040 whether it`s still Radio Tirana --- see ALBANIA [non]. DX MAPS show numerous HF blobs above 16 MHz MUFs mostly over eastern USA (Glenn Hauser, OK, WOR)
This report despatched at 0222 UT April 2
