[HCDX]: G Hauser's Shortwave/DX Report 99-58

[Glenn Hauser <wghauser@xxxxxxxxx>]

        GLENN HAUSER'S SHORTWAVE/DX REPORT 99-58, Nov 21, 1999

{Items from this and all our reports may be reproduced and re-
reproduced only providing full credit be maintained at all stages}

** COSTA RICA. Glenn, 15050 has been off while we worked on the 
antenna for 6975. Project should be finished today, Saturday. (Joe 
Bernard, RFPI, Nov 20)

New RFPI Mailbag appeared Nov 21, UT Sun 0230, with James Latham and 
Joe Bernard. Ted Turner and Jane Fonda are coming to a meeting at the 
University for Peace this week starting Sunday. RFPI hopes to 
interview them (and why not see about a few hundred million while 
they?re at it...) There are now two antennas for the 6975 range. New 
quad is just about finished. The backup antenna is on a free-standing 
lower tower not so subject to high winds and with no guy wires to 
mess up radiation pattern. James has been spending 15-20 hours up on 
the tower.

Michael ---, who set up RFPI's computer system which crashed a few 
weeks ago, is solving the problem by sending them a whole new 
computer, which should arrive by mid-week and then face at least 4-5 
days in customs. So should be back up in 2 weeks tops and again able 
to upload Mailbag, PNN and other programming audio.

[BTW, tnx to RFPI for running our RIBOLD promos a lot lately, but we 
have been trying to get word to them to stop. At least for the time 
being, we seem to be spending our time with these more frequent 
public DX reports than producing RIBOLD for subscription, still 
suspended]

RFPI is now streamed! Charlie Wilkinson, somewhere in eastern US, who 
set up their original website, has volunteered to handle this, 
talking the feed off SW. Requires mp3 player which for Windows 98 can 
be downloaded free from http://www.icecast.org and the streaming is 
at http://www.boinklabs.com:8000

** COSTA RICA/CUBA. Two of my favorite people are fighting over a 
frequency, 13750 with a het of about 200 Hz: still dragging its feet 
three weeks after B-99 began for everyone else, RHC is still on 13750 
for the European service 2000-2200, and on Nov 20 at 2120 we found 
Arnie Coro mixing with Dr. Gene Scott. If we listen on USB for some 
RHC advantage, we get an even deeper pitch from DGS. It's no better 
on RHC's only other frequency to Europe, 13660 USB, which is STILL 
clashing with Switzerland, as we pointed out weeks ago (Glenn Hauser, 
OK)

And also clash on 13750: 2100 RHC ahead, but Scott Cahuita-CTR on odd
13749.81 and til 2030 AIR Bangalore IND too. (Wolfgang Bueschel, 
Germany, Nov 20)

** CUBA. On DXers Unlimited Nov 20, Arnie Coro took a swipe obviously 
at yours truly (tho not by name - out of professional courtesy or 
blacklisting??), provoked by my comment in 99-53 which reached him 
somehow (I have not said this on the air). I did not claim to have 
discovered or invented harmonic DXing, or been first to do it, but to 
have ``pioneered promotion of this DX angle sesquidecades ago.'' Said 
his elmer in Cuba, Oscar in 1955 had shown him on an SP-600 how the 
54th harmonic of an Argentine 900 kHz station could be heard on 48600 
kHz by trans-equatorial propagation as a pilot for 6 meter openings. 
Although it is conceivable, even I find this hard to believe, because 
48-50 MHz was an old broadcasting band, and in fact Chilean 
fundamentals in that area have been reported only recently. But that 
was a long time ago and I wasn?t there in free Cuba.

I don't remember the exact dates, but for a few months I wrote a 
column in NASWA FRENDX, called ``Hunting Harmonics with Hauser'' so I 
have an informal claim to the expression ``Hunting Harmonics..'' which 
Arnie has been using lately. The little one-page column was soon 
cancelled for no good reason by club management at the time, whose 
names I will withhold now out of professional courtesy. In those 
days, it was difficult to convince some DX editors in that club and 
elsewhere that DXing harmonics was not: 1) imaginary, 2) illegal, 3) 
immoral, 4) irrelevant, or 5) godforbid, non-SWBC even when the 
fundamentals were broadcasters! If Arnie did any promotion of DXing 
harmonics as early as that in organized DX circles, I'd like to hear 
about it.

Anyhow, Arnie is about to do his harmonics special this week, not 
clear whether Tuesday or Saturday. He should start with RHC on 12000, 
2 x 6000 which several have reported lately. I applaud anyone, 
including Arnie, promoting harmonic DXing, and his particular 
emphasis on keeping track of propagation on the higher frequencies! 
Yes, you heard me right. I just said something nice about Arnie 
(Glenn Hauser)

** CYPRUS [non]. Don't expect anything Middle Eastern from Radio 
Middle East except the name! Nary an oud nor a muezzin was to be 
heard during this program floating on WBCQ 7415 Sat Nov 20 from 2136 
tune in until cut off at 2200 for TimTron Worldwide. We did enjoy the 
classic rock and pop tunes and the professional style of Nathan 
Morley, who might as well be doing this from London, but announced P O
Box 30582, Ayanapa, Cyprus, and fulfilled a number of requests,
including a ``live'' phone interview with Edward in Lethbridge, 
Alberta, where it ``is'' 35 degrees C. Somehow I think this was a
while ago. Edward's last name was never mentioned, but I think it must
be Kusalik in nearby Coaldale. Isn?t it great that the active SWL 
community is so small that we can guess identities like this? 
(Answer: no) (Glenn Hauser, OK)

** GREECE [non]. The VOG/VOA saga continues. On Sat Nov 20 at 1830 
check, we found 17565 back on, //17705 and this time both are 
precisely in synch - so that must mean they are both via Delano at 
the moment. However, no mixing products at 17425 and 17845 were 
detectable. With all this Delano RF raining down upon me, that?ll be 
the cause of a brain tumor someday, as I never use a walkie-talkie 
(a.k.a. cell phone). Would I have a case since VOA is prohibited from 
broadcasting within the USA, but does so anyway? Except during loud 
music, cross-talk from another ERT program was audible, but not as 
bad as yesterday.

Another surprise came at 1900 when an English program started, 
``Hellenics Around the World'', for the Greek diaspora (come to think
of it, that is a Greek word meaning scattering, or for that matter, 
broadcasting, not a Hebrew word at all though originally applied to 
the Jews!). So not only on Sunday but on Saturday there is English at 
1900. This lasted until 1943, hosted by Katrina ---, with technician 
Ol'ga ---. Katrina has a way of speaking as if she is reading a 
script all the time. She gave an URL starting with http: backslash 
backslash.

For newbies and anyone else who does not actually use a computer 
keyboard but has no choice but to speak computerese now and then: 
this is not the first time I have heard someone on the air pronounce 
an URL with the words ``backslash'' to show they are savvy? This 
backfires, since that character \ NEVER appears in URLs, but only in 
offline computer commands. Since URL slashes are always forward, it 
is never necessary to modify the word slash with forward OR back. 
Furthermore, since ``slash'' is so harsh-sounding, violent, I prefer 
and urge everyone to use the word ``slant'' instead, which is just as 
valid for the / symbol, long used by amateurs in expressing their 
remote or mobile suffixes, later prefixes. Other astounding errors I 
have heard elsewhen: speaking only one slash after http: or omitting 
a dot after www. This is not nit-picking, as anyone will soon 
discover if they try to get anywhere on the net without everything 
precisely correct.

The show began after some music with a long phone interview from 1907 
in English with Nicholas ---, of the Hellenic Studies Program, 
Princeton, until 1935 music break; 1940 a brief report on the 
Convention of the American Hellenic Institute in Cyprus and Athens 
Nov. 13-16. No sensational coverage of the anti-American riots 
Clinton's visit provoked here, as one might have expected or even 
wanted from the Greek point of view (Glenn Hauser, OK)

** INDIA. Despite its transpolarity, AIR GOS on 13749.9 is managing 
to override TIDGS around 1840. Nov 20 it was even audible on the 
relatively insensitive DC-777 with some nice Indian classical music 
as I was driving around Enid, USA provoking a sense of culture shock. 
We don't even have an Indian restaurant (Glenn Hauser, OK)

** ISRAEL. New for IBA English at 0500 is 21715, well heard here 
(Chris Hambly, Australia, Nov 21)

** PAPUA NEW GUINEA. Regarding the ``correxion'' to Chris Hambly's 
report about RWNB 3235 having come back after a year: Chris tells me 
he checked very frequently for it and had not been hearing it. (The 
one year silence was just a guess off the cuff when I asked him for 
how long.) Possibly the Grayland DXpedition in July with beverage 
could hear it when nearby Chris could not, but it certainly had been 
inaudible for some time. BTW, I have seen another recent report that 
3235 had just been reactivated, without specifying after how long 
(Glenn Hauser)

** TUVALU. In reporting on the .tv domain affair, Kim Elliott on this 
week's Communications World remarks that I have a pet peeve against 
the word ``tiny'' being applied to places like Lithuania which are not 
really tiny, but surely even I would approve of Tiny Tuvalu. Well, 
yes, the land area is 10 sq mi, less than half of Manhattan NY, but 
even that tiny amount is spread out over 9 islands stretching in a 
360-mile chain, says the World Almanac (Hauser)

CIRAF ZONES. Dear Glenn, A map with CIRAF-zones can be found at 
http://www.air-time.org . The correct URL for Tom's list with CIRAF-
zones is http://www.trsc.com/ciraf_zones.html (with an 's' at the 
end). Kind regards, (Ludo Maes, Belgium)            ###



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