[HCDX] Glenn Hauser logs October 3-9

[Glenn Hauser <wghauser@xxxxxxxxx>]

** ALBANIA. R. Tirana, 13750, Oct 9 *1257 OC, 1302 schedule announcement in
English still incorrect, says 0145 on 6115, 7425, 0230 on 6115, 7625, the
latter a persistent typo; while the 0145 broadcast shifted to clearer 6120
April 23 (but the 6 MHz frequencies may be off for antenna maintenance shortly
if not already). Program summary for Tue, originally Mon or Sun? includes press
review, Albania in a Week, Sports Roundup; 1303 into news. Settled into listen
to the broadcast with F-G reception, but at 1305 blown away by spurs from 13680
CUBA [q.v.] (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** ANGUILLA. DGS on 6090 much later than scheduled 1000*, heard at 1219 Oct 9,
weakening, and not audible at 1235 recheck. By 1253, PMS was VG on daytime
frequency 11775. I suspect wide variation in switchover times, nominally 1000 &
2200, is due to a human being having to be present to accomplish that, and I am
sure the engineer has better things to do than be tied to the station twice a
day, every day at the same times (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 

** CHINA. A quick check Oct 7 at 1325-1330 found Firedrake audible and in // on
10300, 7445, 6030; not audible on 18180, 13970, 9200; and on 7300 there was
something in Chinese without FD (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** CUBA. RHC missing from 15190 at 1339 check Sunday Oct 7 during DX program; I
wonder if that`s the transmitter now on 13760. By 1400, 11875 was on, much
stronger with Cuban NA and opening Aló, Presidente service (Glenn Hauser, OK,
DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** CUBA. No thanks to R. Habana Cuba for blowing away the entire 22 meter band
when it turned on, late as usual, its 13680 transmitter at 1305 Oct 9. Huge
spur noise first noted on 13750 when trying to listen to R. Tirana, and to ID
the station on 13745; soon traced to 13680, which was putting out noise
continuously thru the entire band, but with peaks at approx 49-50 kHz above and
below 13680. They weakened progressively the further from 13680, and I could
detect them as far up as 14465 and as far down as 12845, all approximate. Some
of the worst-hit areas were: 13581 wiping out Prague in English to North
America; 13730, 13780, 13830; inside the 20m hamband at 14325, 14275, 14225,
14125. Around 1315 I also noticed smaller peaks halfway between the 49-50 kHz
peaks. 

At 1328 recheck, 13680 had gone to open carrier, so perhaps the ``engineers``
realized something was wrong, but the noisy spurs persisted, as they did not
result from the modulation on 13680 anyway. They must have been tweaking it,
since at 1345 the 13680 OC was still on but the spurs had gone away. Modulation
resumed at 1406, whew, just in time for RHC`s most important program, Voces de
la Revolución, a fragment of a speech by Fidel from the 1990s in Pinar. BTW,
much weaker 13760, not a spur, had been on an hour earlier, but was off in the
meantime, and now back too, plus its 13720 mixing product with CRI relay 13740
(Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** CUBA. According to timeanddate.com, Cuba is matching the US DST dates,
despite a certain hostility, i.e. extended a week until Nov 4 (Glenn Hauser,
OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** INDIA. AIR IS, Oct 7 at 1319 on 9425, 1320 into singing group, G but some
flutter, and not // weaker VBS on 9870. Aoki says 9425 is the AIR National
Channel opening in Hindi from Bangalore, 500 kW, 18 degrees; while 9870 is only
250 kW at 174 degrees. ?? Now why would they be aiming a domestic service
southward from S India? Previously on 10330 from Bangalore, it was 500 kW at
335 degrees, also favoring us.

AIR Vividh Bharati Service, 9870, is supposed to re-open at 1245, but Oct 9 at
tune in 1242 it was already going with harp-like instrumental music, 1245 brief
announcement and vocal music. What is the point of a semi-sesquihour break at
1200 in the nominal schedule, anyway? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** JAPAN [non]. Not only does the 6110 relay of NHK Warido Radio Japan via
Sackville at 0500-0530 suffer heavy QRM from the off-frequency Latin Americans,
but the 6120 broadcast, which has contracted to 1200-1230, does as well, as
noted Oct 9 at 1220 during discussion of genetic modification. At first I
thought the QRM with low het might be in Spanish but after NHK closed at 1229
it was obviously R. Singapore International, Indonesian service as scheduled,
with M&W dialog, laughing. Which one is off-frequency, or both? 

I rarely tried to listen to R. Japan before Oct, when the 6120 relay was at
1000-1200, but the same collision must have existed then with Singapore using
6120 at 0900-1400. Now NHK/Sackville also uses it at 1000-1030 in Spanish, but
not in between.

R. Japan, English at 1410, fair on 13630, running a few words or a semi-second
behind Sackville 11705. 13630 is Rampisham at 62 degrees (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX
LISTENING DIGEST)

** MEXICO [and non]. I keep checking 6045 at various times hoping for a
reappearance of XEXQ, R. Universidad de San Luís Potosí, which has not been
heard for a few months now. Oct 9 at 1234 there was a bit of classical music
which got my hopes up, but soon followed by announcement in Chinese, which
would be Voice of Russia via Vladivostok.

XEYU, 9599.2+ good here around 2200 Oct 8 with classical music (Glenn Hauser,
OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** MEXICO. According to timeanddate.com, DST is to end in Mexico on Oct 28,
even tho the USA has extended it one week longer. I suspect Mexico will really
follow suit --- or maybe not; in previous years they started much later in the
spring; but not matching will be bad for NAFTA commerce (Glenn Hauser, Oklahoma
(UT -5 too, but should be UT -7), DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** NEW ZEALAND. Once again, RNZI analog 9615 missing when checked at 0551 UT
Oct 9, tho DRM was buzzing away on 9885-9890-9895, so not a propagation
problem. However, at 0557 recheck, 9615 was on and inbooming as usual.
According to http://www.rnzi.com/pages/listen.php 9615 is supposed to open at
0459, but I am wondering if this recently updated sked is out of date, and
13730 has been extended an hour. Need to look for that next time 9615 be
missing (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** OKLAHOMA. Around 0030 UT Oct 7, I was passing by Tonkawa OK on US 
60, and as usual tuned to 90.7, the lowish-powered student station 
KAYE at Northern Oklahoma College, which I had previously heard 
running commercial advertising. No sign of it this Saturday night, 
allowing the fringe-signal from Wichita 90.7 to occasionally fade in. 
FCC FM Query says KAYE is now 1.2 kW, and has a 60 dbu radius of 7.5 
miles, i.e. not quite reaching Blackwell to the north. All the info:
http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/fmq?list=0&facid=49589

However, the webstream played at 128 kbps when checked at home 4 hours 
later at mms://media.north-ok.edu/radio
with rock, altho the link next to it for the station itself, on NOC`s 
home page in the lower-right corner under Media Services,
http://www.north-ok.edu/ics/Portlets/ICS/bookmarkportlet/viewhandler.ashx?id=89f95354-e687-41d3-9768-a54ea3dd4b3e&target=mms%3a%2f%2fmedia.north-ok.edu%2fradio
does not work. This is the same situation as previously noted. The NOC 
website is rather strangely uninformative, for a publicly-supported 
college, requiring password and login to get to many parts of it. And 
KAYE maintains a very low profile. Should anyone listen long enough to 
the stream to still hear some commercials, please let us know, with 
details. And if anyone still hears it on 90.7 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING
DIGEST)

** RUSSIA. Ratchety very dirty spur around 15495-15515, peaking at 15505, Oct 9
at 1324. Soon found the modulation peaks matched VOR on 15605. This is the
Hindi service via Moscow site. I could also hear traces of the spur down to
15430, but not on the high side of 15605. By 1345 recheck the spur center had
shifted down to 15495. This is the same transmitter with English at 14-15, but
by then it was weaker and did not hear the spurs (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX
LISTENING DIGEST)

** SUDAN [non]. Southern Sudan Interactive Radio Instruction, 15650 via South
Africa, Tue Oct 9 at 1414 spelling English words, including malaria, with
mbira(?) music bed, tone cues for learners to speak, ``very good``
encouragement even tho they couldn`t possibly hear the students respond. Then
practiced counting numbers from one to ten on fingers. Very elementary.
Wrapping up at 1426, said the show named ``The Terbia[? sounded like] Market``
airs in the morning on M/W/F, repeated afternoons Tue/Thu/Sat. Credits to
several agencies in the hierarchy, concluding with EDC and USAID. 1428 cute
jingle with girl choir in English extolling Southern Sudan; 1429:30 to OC and
off at 1430* This transmission via Meyerton is in fact scheduled Tue/Thu/Sat
1400-1430 with 250 kW at 5 degrees, brokered by VT/Merlin. Good reception too
in Northern Oklahoma (Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** TAIWAN [non]. RTI, 15600 via WYFR, Mon Oct 8 at 2220-2231 in Generation Y
program, YL discussing quite unabashedly, masturbation among teenagers in
Taiwan. I wonder if they were embarrassed about this in Oakland? But then the
non-Christians in Taiwan must be embarrassed by a lot of what WYFR preaches
(Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A [non]. On 15640, religious talk in unID language at 1317 Oct 9; 1318
cut off the air for a moment. Spelled out URL in English, but fading and could
not catch it all, except it included .co which rules out USA; familiar WYFR
hymn theme and off at 1358* Per Eibi this is Urdu via Wertachtal beamed due
east. Can`t help but wonder how many Pakistanis they manage to covert to Harold
Camping`s wacky theology, but that, of course, does not keep them from trying
as long as they have plenty of money to do it (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING
DIGEST)

UNIDENTIFIED. 9996-SSB, 2-way in Spanish discussing kilos; wonder what that
could be about? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

UNIDENTIFIED. 13745, still trying to figure out what the station here is at
1300 next to Tirana 13750, as HFCC still shows TWR Kigali at 1300-1315 on 13745
as funxional only on Fri & Sat, but Tue Oct 9 at 1256 there was talk,
tentatively in a Persian-like language mixed with drumming; 1300 singing with
reverb, but from 1305 blown away by 13680 spurs from CUBA [q.v.] (Glenn Hauser,
OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

UNIDENTIFIED. 15645 with multiple jamming, Oct 8 at 1503. There was some weak
talk I could not make out, as an oscillating jammer, rapid high-pitched tone
shifts back and forth, was dominating. At 1526 I could hear a second, slower
jamming, with lower pitched whoops varying pitch gradually. This continued past
1530 when there may have been a third very low-pitch roar to interfere. Did not
recheck until 1635 when everything was gone.

There is NOTHING scheduled on this frequency at any time, per current Aoki,
EiBi, HFCC listings, and WRTH May update. Searching the DXLD archive, however,
we find that exactly a year ago, Deewa Radio, IBB`s Pashto service for Pakistan
border areas, was making its first appearance, altho at an earlier hour, on
this frequency via Briech, Morocco. It was later changed, in February? And
still is not on the Deewa schedule. 

So what could be the service which is now attracting so much (non-Chinese,
non-Cuban type) jamming on this new frequency? Reception was relatively good
for a change on this band, e.g. with Israel inbooming on 15760, Greece on
15630, Saudi Arabia on 15435.

Checking out 15645 again Oct 9 after hearing jamming on it Oct 8: nothing at
all audible until 1459 a very weak carrier, and at 1501 oscillating jamming had
started, but all weaker than the day before. I heard nothing at all on 15640,
so this may well be Israel`s Persian service at 1500-1630 shifted up 5 kHz.
Meanwhile, Israel 15760 aimed this way was quite strong. The jamming seemed to
be centered right on 15645. Wolfgang Büschel suggests this is Iranian jamming.
Strangely, we never hear anything like it on Radio Farda frequencies (Glenn
Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ###


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