[HCDX]: G Hauser's Shortwave/DX Report 99-74

[Glenn Hauser <wghauser@xxxxxxxxx>]

        GLENN HAUSER'S SHORTWAVE/DX REPORT 99-74, December 14, 1999

{Items from this and all our reports may be reproduced and re-
reproduced only providing full credit be maintained at all stages. If 
excerpting, this means appending the line above, or explicably 
abbreviated, to each item}

**ARGENTINA. Nacional, 15345, with medicine and chocolate ads at 0932 
Dec 13, ID ``Desde Buenos Aires, Nacional y sus 40 emisoras...'' and 
Xmas greeting; 0933 ``Nacional de Noticias, edicion de la man~ana''. 
Note the name of the station, no longer Radio Nacional. Fair signal 
but no comparison to powerhouse Chile 15375 //11690. Nacional also 
audible on //6060, which had been better half an hour earlier when I 
noticed Cuban jamming upon it. Wherever Radio Marti goes, it leaves 
destruction in its path, as our comrades in Habana are too lazy and 
unsympathetic to confine jammer operations to the hours they are 
really needed (Glenn Hauser, OK)

** BRAZIL. Radio Trans Mundial (RTM), Sao Paulo. Effective December 
24, RTM will change the frequency of its daily broadcasts from 11705 
to 11735 kHz. This is done in order to comply with orientations from 
the Ministry of Communications of the Federal Government of Brazil. 
Tests for this alteration have already started.

The schedule from December 24 on will be the following: 5965, 9530 
and 11735 kHz, at 0700-0100 UT, in Portuguese. RTM/Brazil's programs 
are also broadcast from TWR Bonaire, 800 kHz, daily at 0700-0900 and 
2300-000 [sic; 0000?] UT.

Radio Trans Mundial requests reception reports about this change. 
Accurate reception reports will be confirmed with QSL cards. In 
December RTM is issuing a new edition of its QSL card.

RTM?s mail address is: Caixa Postal 18300, 04626-970, Sao Paulo SP, 
Brazil. Electronic mail that may also be used for these reports are: 
transmun@xxxxxxxxxxxxx (Radio Trans Mundial / Board) or 
amigosdoradio@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Programa ?Amigos do Radio', our 
DX-program) Best regards, and Merry Christmas (Rudolf Grimm / Jose 
Eduardo Dias Radio TransMundial)

** COSTA RICA. George Jacobs takes credit as broker for the sale of 
TIAWR to the University Network; still available are WRMI, WSHB and 
WRNO (George Jacobs & Associates annual newsletter)

** COSTA RICA. 2599.46, Radio La Fuente Musical - TILC (2x1300) 
(harmonic) 1106-1130, Lots of ads and ID's between Ranchera vocals. 
"1300 AM" (repeated 3 times), and "...La Fuente Musical..." Many 
mentions of "Cartago". Good sustained peak for almost half an hour. 
(Mark Mohrmann, Coventry VT, Dec 11)

** INDIA. AIR GOS was in the clear and on 13750.0 Dec 13 at 1900 
during news, 1905 commentary about Yeltsin In China; no sign of 
TIDGS, which was audible on 9725 at the time. With BFO on AIR 13750, 
the frequency was fluttering, indicating a trans-polar Doppler 
effect. Somewhat better on // 11620 but still hard to understand for 
an American ear (Glenn Hauser, OK)

** IRELAND [non]. RTE were not paying any attention to what was going 
out on Merlin SW relays, nor watching the clock in Dublin; else they 
would not have been interrupted in mid-sentence when 13640 via 
Sackville (and I suspect 21630 via Ascension which I was not 
monitoring until a few seconds later) cut off at the no doubt 
scheduled instant of 1859:30 Dec 13 (Glenn Hauser, OK)

** ISRAEL. Effective Dec 19, Kol Israel replaces 9390 with 9385 for 
the Hebrew service, 50 kW, 318 degrees at 1900-2200 and 2359-0500; 
and adds 7510, 250kW, 324 degrees for English, French and Spanish at 
2000-2100 (Moshe Oren, Bezeq, Dec 14)

** ITALY. Tuning around 31m Dec 13 at 1945 happened to find on 9760 
RAI International concluding its ``English newscast from Italy'', into 
music. I thought VOA had this channel tied up almost 24 hours from 
multiple sites and the line from the Dec 13 IBB schedule shows it 
should be Kavalla now, but no trace of it heard here (Glenn Hauser, 
OK)
        9760 1700 2100 VOA A ENGL KAV 10 105 10/31/1999 03/25/2000 

** JORDAN. A special Christmas concert with listeners choices will be 
on Dec 25th. 100 songs will be played plus 100 prizes sent to 
listeners. 1100-1730 on 11690 kHz in English for more details. (Rumen 
Pankov, Bulgaria, PanIview Nov 30)

** KUWAIT. R. Kuwait, 17885, had some great Arabic music Dec 13, then 
going into Qur'an at 1351; would this have been local sunset? Well 
over BBC WS in English on 17885, and Kuwait also //15505 (Glenn 
Hauser, OK)

** MAURITANIA. 4845: No chance to have Radio Mauritania in the past 
few years and it could easily be listed among the rare African 
stations which was not audible here until December 10. In fact, it 
was an unexpected surprise to hear this station on that day at 0015. 
The reception was poor and QRM from Malaysia [Tamil] at that time but 
started improving around 0135 until a sudden loss of signal at 0210. 
No ID has been heard but instead "Mauritania" mentioned in the 
announcement at 0200. The program was in Arabic as follows: 0015-0130 
Chat between two men on political/religious matters; 0130-0200 
Telephone program by auditors on religious; 0200-0210 announcement - 
Mx and then followed by recital of Koran until loss of signal. 
//again on December 12 and no change in signal level. (Mahendra 
Vaghjee, Mauritius, Dec 14) 

This is of course, a benefit of Ramadan's extended schedules (Hauser)

** NEW ZEALAND. Radio New Zealand International's website invites 
listeners to check out "the first nation in the world to celebrate 
the arrival of the Year 2000." RNZI transmission hours will be 
extended over the New Year period. They'll be on the air CONTINUOUSLY 
from 1650 GMT December 30th, 1999 through to 1005 GMT January 1st, 
2000. (Ed Mayberry, swprograms Dec 13) Would be nice if they would 
bring back 9700 for the occasion (Hauser)

** PITCAIRN ISLAND. VP6BR PITCAIRN WEB PAGE ACTIVE. Lech/LA7MFA and 
Jukka/OH2BR have announced that the VP6BR site is now operating at: 
http://www.qsl.net/oh2br/ The Web has updates/information on the 
upcoming Janaury 2000 operation. Jukka will be active as VP6BR to 
celebrate his 40 year long Amateur Radio career. Activity will be on 
160-6 meters CW/SSB/RTTY. QSL via OH2BR. (KB8NW/Ohio-Penn DX Bulletin 
439/BARF80 via John Norfolk, OKCOK)

** SWEDEN [and non]. Our remarks about the storm here provoked these 
responses:

Surely it was a hurricane. I've never experienced anything like this 
and according to the weather department, it was the ever worst 
hurricane for more than 100 years, that did hit Denmark and Southern 
Sweden on Friday 3rd and early Saturday 4th December. Houses were 
totally destroyed at the westcoast of Denmark (and Glenn Hauser: I 
mean TOTALLY!), seven people died due to the weather, roofs were 
smashed, radio transmitter antennas for local radiostations were 
damaged and many were off the air for many days, and national TV-
transmitters were also off the air. Insurance companies say, the 
damage from the hurricane will cost around three billion Danish 
crowns (about 450 million US dollars). I was lucky - I only lost some 
of the roof, four big trees in the garden - and all my antennas. Best 
73's (Bjarke Vestesen, Denmark, hard-core-dx)

Whatever it was that struck southern Denmark and Southern Sweden on 
Friday December 3rd/Saturday December 4th it sure made a lot of mess. 
Hi! Well, indeed it was a hurricane, though of course not a "tropical 
hurricane". Some remainders of tropical hurricanes occasionally hit 
parts of Europe but never with hurricane force winds. Now on Friday 
Dec 3rd 1999 winds were coming in with about 185 km/h on the 
southwestern coast of Denmark, which makes it a category 3 hurricane 
- to the best of my knowledge. Such a hurricane is not developed the 
same way as a tropical hurricane (obviously) but is developed due to 
an extremely severe low depression. When a wind is stronger than a 
storm, which is very rare here, then it's a hurricane for sure. The 
word in Danish is "orkan" and that translates into "hurricane". Best 
73s (Stig Hartvig Nielsen, Denmark, hard-core-dx)

Glenn, Southern Sweden and Denmark were of course not hit by a 
*tropical* hurricane, but certainly by a hurricane if defined as wind 
gusts in excess of 40 or 50 metres a second. All news media coincided 
in labeling it a hurricane, and as such almost as unusual for its 
latitude as the green November we enjoyed in northern Sweden. (Henrik 
Klemetz)

Sorry to hear about all the damage. It is just a matter of 
terminology. In North America, we would call these ``hurricane force 
winds'' but reserve ``hurricane'' only for the tropical storms. George 
Wood is also checking into the damage and may have an item about this 
on next fortnight's Sweden Calling DXers/MediaScan Dec 21 (Hauser)

Thanks Glenn, The Swedish Weather Service (SMHI) defines a hurricane 
as a kind of tropical storm. Websters defines a hurricane as "a 
violent tropical cyclone". These were hurricane force winds. 
"Hurricane force" is a windspeed definition. It must have been a 
terrible experience. I've gathered a bit more information, and I'll 
be posting it next Tuesday. Thanks again, (George Wood, R. Sweden, 
Dec 14)

** U S A. Dr. Demento is back in Oklahoma!! Quite by chance heard a 
promo on KSPI 93.7 Stillwater that he is on Sundays at 8 pm CST (UT 
Mon 0200-0400). Years ago he was cancelled by KRXO 107.7 OKC (Glenn 
Hauser, Enid)

** U S A. While checking IBB sked for 9760 under ITALY, also looked 
up the VOA Communications World SSB frequencies: 

 6873  700  730 VOA C1 ENGL GA 10 045 6 11/27/1999 03/25/2000 
18275 1400 1430 VOA C1 ENGL GA 11 045 6 11/27/1999 03/25/2000 

The 6 before the dates means both are on Saturday only, error? 18275 
had been on Sunday, 6873 on Saturday, tho on this week's show someone 
suggested swapping the days to avoid conflicting with other DX 
programs (Glenn Hauser)

** U S A. Unavoidably awake Tue Dec 14 at 0922 I checked WRMI 7385, 
and confirmed Viva Miami was on. Jeff White introduced a 
transcription from SRI with Bob Zanotti reporting from some canton on 
Xmas customs. There is something defective and forced about WRMI 
modulation; and flanked by Marti on 7365 and 7405, the YB-400 could 
not help but accompany WRMI with crossmod, not so the ATS-909. 0930 
signed off 7385. BTW, George Jacbos is still trying to sell WRMI 
(Glenn Hauser, OK)                                             ###


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