Re: [HCDX] 657 in South Africa

[Jean Burnell <jburnell@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Many thanks to André du Toit in Meyerton for replying to my request for
information about Radio Pulpit:

>When we do maintenance which must be after
>midnight our time (22:00 UTC) we must obtain
>permission from Radio Metro to switch off. From
>Radio Pulpit we do not obtain permission because
>they should be off. However on quite a few occasions
>we had to wait for them as they sometimes carry on
>untill 00:30 our time (22:30 UTC).  This is no problem
>to us as we do maintenance on  R Metro while R Pulpit
>carry on. Once R Pulpit stop the freq. should be clear.
>Whatever you hear on 657 must be from outside the
>RSA. I will however make some enquiries.

I also received a reply from the "Terrestrial Planning" department at Sentech:
"The station [Radio Pulpit] advertises its broadcast hours as 0400 to
midnight (0200-2200 UTC).  However on Friday nights/Saturdays mornings and
Sunday nights/Monday mornings there is no break in transmission and they
have a musical and chat programme on the air."
It's my guess that maintainance is not carried out on Friday or Sunday
night. Is that correct, André?

>Just out of curiosity how far away has R Pulpit 657 and
>R Metro 576 been heard.

They have both been heard by myself here in Newfoundland in eastern Canada,
but these are very rare visitors indeed (Metro heard once and Pulpit
twice). Xhosa on 846 is the only South African station that I've heard many
times on MW, but it requires a Beverage antenna even when an aurora knocks
out Roma.

Best wishes,

Jean Burnell, St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada
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