[HCDX] Glenn Hauser logs May 19-21, 2008

[Glenn Hauser <wghauser@xxxxxxxxx>]

** BRAZIL. I scan the 60 mb just about every night around 0600, and never heard anything on 4755 until May 20, besides CODAR, of course. At 0621 music, and talk definitely in Brazilian Portuguese, so my first thought that PMA might finally have come back was quickly dashed; a bit early for them anyway, 1721 local. It was also very slightly on the low side, but I would not say as low as 4754.90. Presumed R. Imaculada Conceição as others have been reporting. Apparently all-night now, and I wonder if that is a recent expansion in hours accounting for its new audibility? However, it sounded more like a commercial station to me than a religionist. Nothing else from Brazil found on 60m except a trace of 4915; 4790 Perú however was stronger than usual.

** BRAZIL. As byproduct of looking for International Radio Serbia on 6185, I had to deal with the splatter from RHC on 6180, May 21 at 0004; 6180 itself had heavy SAH and QRM from Amazonian service, as usual. This was // clear 11780, but when I rechecked at 0021, 11780 was no longer to be heard, just bleedover from DentroCuban jamming against Radio Martí on 11775 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** CANADA. CHU still missing from 7335, May 20 at 1306 but audible on 14670. At 2105, 7335 was back on. Raymond Pelletier of NRC told me they were fixing some tech problems, and that all transmitters would be upgraded this summer (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** CHINA [and non]. In second day of three-day quake mourning period, still no Firedrake jamming to be heard May 20, but instead CNR-1 program feed, in some cases offset with echoes to make it more annoying. At 1306, such jamming on 7445, 6110; on 9930 at 1411, about equal mix of CNR1 and Sound of Hope via KWHR; one was dominating on the FRG-7 with longwire, the other on YB-400 with internal random wire. Same programming but not sure if // on 9450 from Taiwan (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** CUBA [and non]. RHC 13760, May 19 at 1437 had a subaudible heterodyne of about 6 Hz. Per EiBi and Aoki, the only possibility is VOK in French to Europe, tho Aoki lacks the 11-15 UT RHC broadcast on 13760, where it has been for some months; and HFCC of course lacks both N Korea and Cuba!  (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** JAPAN. NHKWRJ, 11985, fair at 1320 May 20 with Today`s Angle, i.e. one dekaminute into the 1310-1340 transmission. This is due west from Yamata, same as the 1400-1430 English broadcast recently reported (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** KOREA NORTH. KCBS, which has been varying down to 11678-11677, May 20 at 1418 was more like 11679.8, judging from the het Korean talk was making with a 11680 station, and BFO confirmed nothing on the lower frequencies. Aoki suggests 11680 should be RFA Vietnamese via Sri Lanka, or VOT in Turkish (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** KOREA NORTH [and non]. 9940, May 20 at 1312 in Korean plus rapid pulsing jammer with pitch varying slightly. This would be North Korea Reform Radio, daily at 1300-1330 via Taiwan, per Aoki. I notice that John Wilkins in CO reported it exactly one week earlier, but no mention of any jamming. Fortunately, DPRK jamming tends to be rather sporadic (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** NEW ZEALAND. RNZI still on 13840 AM, May 21 at 0019 with news reports, no QRM audible, tho the quake jarred China into occupying this frequency where it causes QRM in the Pacific and surely Asia. We have been wondering if RNZI would move as a result. 15715-15720-15725 DRM also in with strong buzz (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** NORTHERN MARIANA ISLANDS. Ah, almost a month from Solstice now and we are getting late-nite HF openings. May 20 at 0609 heard Chinese on 17880, fair with heavy fading, M&W interview, only station on 16m band, // 15680 but the latter running about 1 second behind. These are Radio Free Asia, 17880 via Saipan at 310 degrees, and 15680 via Tinian at 296 degrees. No jamming audible, but Aoki says they are jammed as you would expect. I expect the higher-latitude jamming from China was not propagating as this seemed to be a rather localized opening from the NMI (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** OKLAHOMA. Silly me, thinking XERF 1570 might still reach here on skywave as late as 1252 UT May 20. Nostalgia music in English, ``Let`s Call the Whole Thing Off``, linguistic pronunciation debate; 1254 ``The More Icey You, the More I Want Choo``, 1257 DJ announcement in English, ``Mandy``. 1259 ID as KZLI, Catoosa-Tulsa`` and dominating frequency (Glenn Hauser, Enid, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** SERBIA [non]. International Radio Serbia is gone again from the Bijeljina transmitter in Bosnia-Herzegovina. On May 19 and 20, Wolfgang Büschel and other European monitors were no longer hearing the European service on 6100, just the low-power Stubline unit on 7200v. So is 6185 to North America also off?

Yes, no IRS, checking here UT May 21 at 0003, just XEPPM on 6185 with Mexican music, 0023 Spanish talk. Also with huge splatter from Cuba 6180. Too, see UK for discussion of suggested move to 6190, 6195.

An hour later at 0105 I clicked on their website at http://glassrbije.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=36&Itemid=156
and English stream came on right away. Since they don`t have enough sense to use a clear SW frequency when it`s working, I`m glad I did listen to crystal-clear webcast, embedded autolaunching WM player, so why do they prompt a real player download?? Because I had been wondering about the Eurovision Song Contest, this year from Belgrade. Some of the features were about that; it started today with semifinals, and the finale will be May 24. Nevertheless, IRS seems to be partial to the Serbian entry! Not a good time to lose their main SW capacity again.

I was looking for any word about suspending frequencies, of course not, and finally found the transmission schedule 
http://glassrbije.org/E/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=21&Itemid=34
which is the same one as before including 6100 and 6185. Closing announcement at 0125 claimed we could hear them at the same time tomorrow 6100 and 7240 --- but this transmission has never been on those frequencies! Geez. What`s the story on Bijeljina, Dragan Lekic? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** THAILAND. R. Thailand World Service, nice chime IS and English ID on 11625, May 20 at 1415, mentioning studios in Bangkok, transmitter in Udon Thani, introducing Mandarin, and no jamming! This is the best I`ve heard them in a long time, as the entire English broadcasts just don`t make it here, whether aimed at NAm or not. 11625 is supposed to shift from 54 to 30 degrees at 1315 as languages change from Japanese to Chinese. 30 is better for us (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U K [non]. BBCWS via Ascension to Africa, 21470, unexpectedly good, S9+10, May 20 at 1327, only signal on 13m band, report on how India thrives on chaos, in Global Business. Maybe was getting help on the last hop from some sporadic E (WWCR 15825 also up), and by 1405 had declined to fadey S6-S9.

Checking for SERBIA 6185, May 21 at 0004, also went to the two frequencies I had suggested for them to get away from the QRM, 6190, and 6195. 6190 was still vacant, but very weak signal on 6195, which by 0025 I could tell was in English. Can`t be anything but BBCWS via Singapore, scheduled 22-01, sort of grayline well before sunset here. If BBC would not mind, it could still be used by IRS to NAm, further away from the mess on 6180 and certainly much less of a collision than with the Mex on 6185 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. WWRB, Morrison/Manchester TN, [NOT: McCaysville GA/Copper Hill TN --- that was WGTG, gone for years!] 3185 still audible with Brother Scare as late as 1259 UT May 20, just as Dave Frantz broke in for a legal ID, then more B.S. So I guess they kept going past 1300, but did not keep listening to find out. 

The FCC has now posted an updated A-08 schedule as of 6 May, with a 2 instead of a 1 at the end of the URL:
http://www.fcc.gov/ib/sand/neg/hf_web/A08FCC02.TXT

Its very first entry shows 3185 as 00-13 at 340 degrees. It also still shows 9385 at 13-23 at 340 degrees, but B.S. was still going there until abrupt cutoff in mid-word at 2355* May 20, so it seems FCC schedules are regarded as only approximate by some private US SW stations. After 0000 May 21, we found WWRB with B.S. on 5745, 6890 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. WRMI, 9955, May 21 at 0015 with religious talk in Spanish, apparently without jamming, or maybe weak jamming underneath, could not quite decide. Altho I thought it was some private preacher, per April 1 schedule grid this would be R. Vaticano. But it still has not been updated to move the 22-23 shows to 01-03, and add the new UFO show from OKC at 21-24 weekdays (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** VATICAN. 11740 in Italian at 0612 May 20, so it can`t be ITALY! Except extraterratorially speaking. Yes, soon mentioned Vatican, as scheduled, at 263 degrees; however, on Sundays only from 0600 it`s Latin at 55 degrees. This was fair, but much better than Habana on 11760 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) See also USA, WRMI

UNIDENTIFIED. A ham in Weatherford TX, K5BG, reported a broadcast spur on 1809 kHz, seemingly from Lubbock area, any help on DFing or IDing it? I checked May 19 at 0635 and was barely able to hear a mushy distorted spur on 1809, Readability 0, and only on a longwire antenna so no DF possible. And again May 20 at 0642 past 0700. Mostly a mushy unreadable signal, rarely fading up a bit with some music or talk, hampered by occasional lightning crashes from Kansas (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ###


      

---[Start Commercial]---------------------

Order your WRTH 2008:
http://www.hard-core-dx.com/redirect2.php?id=wrth2008
---[End Commercial]-----------------------
________________________________________
Hard-Core-DX mailing list
Hard-Core-DX@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://montreal.kotalampi.com/mailman/listinfo/hard-core-dx
http://www.hard-core-dx.com/
_______________________________________________

THE INFORMATION IN THIS ARTICLE IS FREE. It may be copied, distributed
and/or modified under the conditions set down in the Design Science License
published by Michael Stutz at
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/dsl.html