** CHINA. Firedrake May 16: not heard on 13970 before 1300, but at 1313 a good signal from it; became very good by 1340, and still audible at 1522 check. 15150 had FD weakly audible mixing with something else at 1315 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** CROATIA [non]. Confirming that VOC via Germany has belatedly replaced 7375 with 9925 for the summer, at 2353 UT check May 15, VG signal on 9925, rock music with Slavic(?) lyrix, nothing on 7375. English segments presumably remain at 2215 and 0200 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** CUBA. RHC`s big signals on 22m, 13680 and 13780 both missing at 1302 May 16; just the weak one on 13760. So I checked the two frequencies they supposedly move up from at 1300, 6180 and 9600 --- yes, those were still running at 1304; I sat on 6180 to hear when it would finally go off, and that was at 1307*, while 13780 finally came up at *1309 just as the `news` was ending; presumably about the same for 9600/13680. By 1312 both 13680 and 13780 were on as well as their leapfrog spurs on 13880 and 13580, which means that R. Prague was free of that QRM for the first dekaminute or so of its English to North America on 13580.
I also checked the RHC 19mb channels: after missing a few days, 15120 was back on May 16 at 1304 check but JBA; by 1314 it had improved a lot and now // 15360 became JBA with flutter. Quite a disparity between these and the inboomers just one band lower on 13 MHz (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** ECUADOR. HCJB, 9745, May 16 at 0500-0503* with several choral verses of the Ecuadorian National Anthem, a good chance to hear it with good reception. They used to play a bit of other music a few sex after it finished, before turning off the transmitter, in a persistent bit of mis-programming; now that no longer happens.
But the big news is that HCJB has finally fixed their automated Spanish IDs in the morning, removing the extinct 21455 frequency from the announcements, 10.5 months after it was closed down June 28, 2008, as reported in detail in DXLD 8-074. In the meantime, we have filed numerous log reports, most recently May 2, quoting outdated announcements at 14:30, 29:30, 44:30, and/or 59:30 past the hours until 1500:00, whenever there is a break between programs, which insisted on saying ``11690, 21455, y 11960 kHz`` -- usually, except we caught one saying only one of the 11 MHz frequencies twice.
Now on May 16, 2009, we find the announcements have been fixed, removing mention of 21455. Listening to 11960 at 1259:30, 21455 was omitted, 8 am TC, and into Cruzada con Luís Palau. Another check at 1344:30 found no frequencies mentioned at all, but instead a promo for Ecuador being one of 17 countries with the most ecological diversity, a jingle ID, and 1345 into BGEA`s Momentos de Decisión, contrary to the English version which is Hour of Decision --- in Spanish, no time to waste in upmaking your mind. At 1359:30, just 11690 and 11960 given. After Aventura Diexista, at 1459:30-1500:00* the old cacao-producing promo, but once again 21455 absent from the list. They are still uncoördinated, having to fade out the last few sex of the previous program in time for the ID (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** GERMANY [non]. DW Russian via Rampisham, ENGLAND, on new 15510, May 16 at 1529, scheduled at 1400-1559 since May 15. This replaces 15265, where it was equally well-heard here, so why the change? Nothing else listed during this bihour on 15260, 15265 or 15270 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** KOREA SOUTH [non]. 9650, KBSWR via Sackville, Saturday May 16 at 1250 in Worldwide Friendship with a few minutes of ``listening tips from North America`` voiced by Kevin O`Donovan, starting with VOA plans to cut three languages next fiscal year. Then info on how to hear KBS via non-SW relays in UK, Canada, which you would think they would have been able to tell us about directly from Seoul.
There were no SW/DX tips on this segment, but such were invited by Kevin who would resume next week. He was also credited with sending KBS daily reception reports, which must have led to his getting this gig. Never heard where he is located, and I don`t recognize the name from any DX clubs or lists, so where did he come from?
Meanwhile, 9650 was bothered by continuous tone test underneath at 1250-1255, no doubt IBB Tinang warming up for the R. Netherlands Dutch 1300-1327 and English 1327-1330* relay which by then QRMs the 9650 Sackville relay of CRI English, even in mid-America, tsk2 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** SAUDI ARABIA. 15435, Saut ul-Buzz, still awful self-inflicted noise at 1530 check May 16, atop talk in Arabic, which I doubt even a motivated native speaker could have comprehended beneath the buzz (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** TAIWAN. The spurs from RTI`s 9735 Japanese service were back, May 16 at 1323, producing similar-pitched hets on BBC 9740 and CRI 9730. Most days the spurs are not there, but they keep upsprouting irregularly (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. WEWN, 7555, May 16 at 0510 in Spanish, noticed some continuous utility QRM on hi side, multiplex without a specific carrier. One could evade it by tuning to low side of WEWN. Have not noticed this before; such are the risks of broadcasting on a fixed band. Especially if it`s US-based, military or commercial, the ute might well complain and get WEWN removed, since these 7.3+ MHz US SWBC stations are allowed only on a non-interference basis (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A [non]. 11725 with YFR Chinese service at 1343 May 16 spelling out P-O-B-O-X address in Oakland; letters pronounced in English, numbers in Chinese. In English, of course, they never announce a box, just the zip code is sufficient. WRTH only shows a street address, but spelling out H-E-G-E-N-B-E-R-G-E-R would just be too much to grapple with. The rough audio processing is instantly recognizable as not coming from Okeechobee, so whence? Pet-Kam, RUSSIA, 244 degrees. I was also hearing this an hour earlier.
R. Thailand, 9455, in Thai at 1330 May 16 still free of YFR Taiwan Vietnamese interference, so I research in Aoki where it is now: during the 13-14 hour, moved May 11 to 9960 and is also on 7260 Taiwan, 11895 Irkutsk, none of them checked yet, but the important thing is that they got off 9455 following my tipoff that they were colliding with Thailand. You`re welcome (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A [and non]. 11715 at 1500 May 16: KJES big signal but just barely audible with kid giving address in Spanish, as VOA was going thru sign-off routine in English; per Aoki the latter being PHILIPPINES, Tinang 50 kW unit at 220 degrees used only at 1400-1500, but nonetheless producing a clash, Americans vs Americans!
As for KJES, Aoki shows the 13-16 transmission as M-F only, but that is wrong, as this was Saturday; also shows 13-15 English, 15-16 Spanish, but they were already in Spanish at 14. Furthermore, they supposedly change azimuth each hour from 70 to 350 to 150 degrees. So I wonder if they were rotating the hefty LP from 70 to 350 degrees as I listened. If so, it made no difference, while bringing up the modulation to normal level would have made a big difference. WRTH A-09 update says daily, 13-15 English, 15-16 Spanish (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ###
