** ANTARCTICA. 15475.98 RCUSB, Nov 17 at 1512, still NO signal from LRA36 into three Brazilian SDRs; nor at 1543 into one Argentine. Formerly active bihour Wed around 14-16, so suspect summer hiatus in progress until the new quadri-woman team take over in Feb or Mar (Glenn Hauser, OK, WOR)
** THAILAND. 13750, Nov 18 at 0002, checking out HSK9 North American service of R. Thailand, as I am amazed by the decent to good reception often reported elsewhere in the continent, but the 250 kW never any good here. My generous meter claims S5-S8 but it sounds VP, with flutter, unreadable. Will there be any change at 0030 when they supposedly switch slews from east coast to west? Well, at 0032 it`s even worse, JBA carrier.
Who cares about reaching the Great Center of North America? HFCC B21 shows CIRAF 7, central for the entire span 0000-0330 UT but axually on periphery of E&W; center beam of 30 degrees only at 0030-0100 is slewed -24 to 6 degrees at 0000-0030 and again 0200-0330 when CIRAF 8 is added = east coast; slewed +8 degrees to 38 for English at 0030-0100 only; English again at 0200-0230 for the east coast, same as at 0000, scheduling which does not make much sense.
As for the approx. center targets of each beam: 6 degrees, north of Alaska, into Detroit; 30 degrees skirting SW Alaska mainland, to Portland to El Paso; 38 degrees, across Aleutians down California coast such as Point Reyes.
Meanwhile, I am also checking remotes, for comparison: in Maryland there is no signal before or after 0030. Of course this path is almost transpolar, and would normally be inferior, less propagable.
However, the KPH remote at Point Reyes on the coast of California is getting it at S3, yet sufficiently readable, also with quick short/long path echo which I am hardly expecting: Comparing short to long path from Udorn to KPH, the short path goes no further north than the Aleutian islands, while LP crosses the Indian Ocean, the other Prince Edward Island, ham DXpedition target Bouvet, across Argentina, Galápagos and up the west coast of México. All this consulting my trusty NGS globe with geometer.
Short distance is 7600 statute miles = 12231 km, per distancefromto.net so long path would be 17300 stmi = 28360 km. The difference between L&S = 16130 km. Compared to speed of light, 298 Mm/sec, that`s 0.054 second, or an echo delay of between 1/19 and 1/20 of one second. All approx., of course, and axual distances bouncing off the ionosphere would be slightly more than great circles at ground level.
Via KPH remote: 0025 a *commercial* for Subaru cars with cruise control, 0026 news headlines. Probably the only government external service with ads. Carrier drops for a few sex at 0029.5, interrupting headlines, back on sounds slightly louder but not on the meter in USB mode. In AM mode it makes S4. And now it switches to THAI rather than another semi-hour in English! as had been the case in previous seasons and still alleged in HFCC B21. Checking KPH again at 0208, reads S3 but sounds JBA in presumed English.
Further evidence that while accessing the VOA relay in Udorn, no doubt as part of the bilateral deal, PRD ought to insist on using Greenville for broadcasts to North America (Glenn Hauser, OK, WOR)
** U S A. 397 MCW kHz, Nov 17 at 0725 UT, ND beacon which is broken. CIN? Third letter stutters. It`s really CIR, 25 watts from Cairo IL, and another listener also found this in RNA Signals List: https://rxx.classaxe.com/en/rna/signals ``20181130 - Bill Stewart reports a 'hic-up' on the 'R'. Often sounds like CIN``. Already went over this anomaly in my last log of January 27. They sure have had plenty of time to fix it! (Glenn Hauser, OK, WOR)
** U S A. 407 MCW kHz, Nov 17 at 0721 UT, regular HRU, 25-watt NDB at Herington KS is mixing with a weaker one, but almost the same period, currently obscuring its first letter, but it ends with OC. Aha, that`s OOC, 25 watt NDB in Natchitoches LA, which I discussed at length recently. RNA Signals List indeed shows a period of 7.90 seconds for HRU, and 7.8 seconds for OOC. So it would take a long wait for them to separate at the rate of 0.1 second per iteration. Eventually they would be totally alternating. I was tuned to 405 USB where I hear them much better than 407 (Glenn Hauser, OK, WOR)
** U S A. WORLD OF RADIO 2111 monitoring: Richard Lemke, Alberta corrects:
``Dear Glenn: So the 5950 kHz, 9955 kHz, were correct as all along have been except for the last line as 9395 kHz, was typed myself Nov 7 UTC, I had found the paper I wrote on it,
5950 kHz, 2332, 2343, very noisy, S9 signal, 9955 kHz, 2330, 2342, S9 signal, 2359, 5950, 9955 kHz, Nov 7 UTC 2021 [Sun]
World of Radio #2112, confirmed, below with details, B 21 season,
5950 kHz, utility noise, QRN, 5950 kHz, 2330, 2337, 2341 (55433), (55434) 2359, 5950 kHz, Nov 12 UTC 2021 [Fri]
9955 kHz, 2332, 2341, 2355, S9 signal, 2359, 9955 kHz, Nov 14 UTC 2021 [Sun]
9955 kHz, 2330, 2343, 2350 (45433), 2357, 9955 kHz, Nov 16 UTC 2021 [Tue; New time]
5850 kHz, got it confirmed, 1030, 1057 (55433), (55434), 1059, Nov 17 UTC 2021 [Wed] (Lemke, Richard -AB)``
Confirmed UT Thursday November 18 at 0130 on WRMIs: 5010 S7 into Maryland; 9395 S7 into Winnipeg.
Next WOR 2113 should be ready early UT Fri Nov 19 for download and first SWBCs on WRMIs 5850 & 7780 at 0130 (Glenn Hauser, OK, WOR)
This report dispatched at 0223 UT November 18
