GLENN HAUSER'S SHORTWAVE/DX REPORT 99-16, April 5, 1999 {Items from this and all our reports may be reproduced and re- reproduced only providing full credit be maintained at all stages} WORLD OF RADIO TIME CHANGES ON WWCR: WWCR: New time from April 10 is Saturday 1130 UT, 6:30 am CDT on WWCR-1 12160 (Adam Lock, WWCR) Fine, tho upon a few checks here lately have not found it propagating much at that UT. Perhaps it will when the flux climbs back up a bit, sun rises earlier, and to the east. And areas west of the terminator may well hear us better via RFPI 6975 which coincidentally already runs WOR at the same time; both, however, are subject to chopoff before 1200 or completion of the program (gh) Ask WWCR, Apr 4 at 1045 on 5070, mentioned that in "about a month" some religious show would appear Sundays at 0930 on 5070. So that would replace a WOR airing, which has already been deleted from the new April WWCR posted sked (gh) CONTINENT OF MEDIA. Edition 99-03 has yet to be produced. Harry Helms tells us that he is selling DXing.com to Universal Radio effective June 1, but they plan to continue providing COM on RealAudio (gh) AUSTRALIA. While RA announced to NAm 9580 would be on at 1100-1400, I found it still loud and clear at 1510 (Glenn Hauser, OK) COSTA RICA. RFPI notes from the April 2 Mailbag with Debra and James Latham: It's been so windy that the 21460-USB antenna has not been repaired; instead, the transmitter has been switched to a backup antenna, the log-periodic, which should have slightly less gain. The outage on 15049 turned out to have been caused by a bad switch on the cooling blower. Dust is a continuing problem, from the unpaved road next to the transmitter room; despite large filters, some dust still gets into the equipment. Fortunately, there has been occasional rain during this dry season. When the rains do come, power lines often fail. There are plans to replace the totally inadequate 1948-vintage power line serving RFPI this year with a whole new system, which will then be extended as far as Jaco Beach area. There was only one letter in the mailbag this week thanks to the usual Holy Week closedown of postal services in CR. RFPI has been raising some funds by selling tapes of some of its own produced programs, such as Millennium Dreams; and more of them will be available for downloading from internet site, which will have a much-simplified URL *such as* [but not necessarily] "rfpi.com" (Glenn Hauser, REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTING) CUBA [non]. R. Marti, 7405, ran slightly past 1400 March 31, including a plug that it is now on iternet, including audio -- not sure if this is really new -- at http://www.ibb.gov/marti (Glenn Hauser, OK) FRANCE. RFI in English at 1600 heard on 17850 and 17605 ex-17620; at 1400 still on 17560 but now clashes with DW in German (Joe Hanlon, PA, April 3, via Hauser) IRAN [non]. A Farsi-speaking monitor tells me that WWCR's Radio (Porsesh) International, April 2 at 1400 on 15685, was a pro-communist program, claiming they are the voice of Iranian Labor Communist Party. This would seem to be at variance with the stance of CHAIR given on its website (Glenn Hauser, REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTING) IRELAND [non]. Emerald Radio, the occasional school-produced series of programs, is returning for a limited run on WWCR from April 26, M-F 1000 on 3210 and 5070. The next Ask WWCR hopes to interview producer Be'rnard Evans (Ask WWCR April 4 via Hauser) KOREA SOUTH [non]. Contrary to info given by RKI Multiwave Feedback two weeks ago we quoted, on Sunday April 4 we found English at the time it would have been if the changes had not been made, 1030 on 11715 via Canada, and barely audible as Bill Matthews talked about QSLs at 1043. After 1100, 9650 was on in Korean. That's when English was supposed to appear, but I gather from Ruben Guilllermo Margenet that the expansion of Spanish and consequent shift in English may not be made until May (Glenn Hauser, REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTING) KOSOVA. Subject: A Kosovo Crisis Web Page I've watched as Pagoo's (Karen J.'s) "Kosovo Crisis" pages have evolved this last week. It is now quite complete and professional. As you might expect, she's been existing on coffee, and neglecting her own research not to mention her pets! I've made some minor suggestions and cheered her on along the way. If you visit and like it, cheer her on too! http://members.tripod.com/~pagoo2/News1/news3-5.html (Chet Copeland, March 30, REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTING) NEW ZEALAND. Hi Glenn: I heard RNZI Mailbox tonight starting at 0305 on 17675 kHz. 73 (Mickey Delmage, Edmonton, Alberta, March 31) i.e. UT Thu April 1; so next appearance April 15 (Hauser) NEW ZEALAND. I am slowly working through all our web pages to see if they are up to date. Yes I am trying to get our Web prog sched correct! I can confirm the time for Mailbox is 0305 UT - this odd hour 03-04 Mon- Fri moves with the clocks. So come October it will revert to 0205 UT. (Adrian Sainsbury, RNZI, April 1, via Hauser) NIGERIA. VON, 15120, has been temporarily off the air since March 23. I spoke to the Director of Engineering on that date, who said the problem was an electronic component that burned out for the service to NAf/Eu/Am. They are waiting for a part to come in from Comcast in Switzerland. (Gordon Hein, Alcester, SD, March 30, WORLD OF RADIO 983) NIGERIA [non]. ABS Radio, via RFPI, caught second program Thu April 1 at 2029 on 15049 //21460-USB. Said would be in two languages today, Yoruba and English; started talking about "Good News of Jesus", so now I wonder if it's evangelical rather than clandestine -- or maybe just inspired by Easter. Previous item was under COSTA RICA (Glenn Hauser, REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTING) NIGERIA [non]. I think I may be able to add something to the item in SW/DX Report 99-15. I've been away on holiday for a week or so, and am not up to speed about RFPI's new Nigerian programme. However, I hope the following is of some use: 1. "Revolutionary United Front". This is the name of the rebel group in Sierra Leone. For some time now, Nigerian forces have been in Sierra Leone supporting the government in their war against the RUF rebels. In fact in 1997-98 the RUF was in power (having overthrown the democratically-elected government). The RUF was itself overthrown last year (with Nigerian help), but continues to fight on (there was severe fighting in and around Freetown earlier this year). In truth, the Sierra Leone government is only kept in power because of the Nigerian military support it gets. Other West African countries also provide support, but the Nigerian contingent is by far the largest. The official name for these foreign forces is ECOMOG (Economic Community of West African States' Military Observer Group) which originally started out as a peacekeeping force in the Liberian civil war of the early 1990s. It got drawn into the civil war in neighbouring Sierra Leone because rebel groups in both countries were popping back and forth across the common border. One of the themes of the Nigerian opposition media used to be that the Nigerian armed forces were suffering far higher casualties in Liberia and Sierra Leone than the Nigerian authorities were admitting. 2. As you say, Swahili is not a West African language. I would be very surprised if a Nigerian opposition station would want to broadcast in Swahili. The three main languages in Nigeria are Yoruba, Hausa and Igbo (spoken in the southwest, north and southeast respectively) - perhaps these are the "three languages" you heard mentioned? (Chris Greenway, BBC Monitoring) ROMANIA. R. Romania makes one or two announcements on freq/sked. Damn if I can make it out! Only two seem to be used at 0200 and 0400; too much QRM and they have poor mod. Very rough copy. At 0200 UT I get 9570 fair to good but never consistently day to day. Of the other old frequencies: 5990 has 5985 splash; 6155 hurt by CKZN-6160 Newfoundland; 9510 splash from 9505 WYFR and RHC Spanish; 11830 has another station on it; can't make it out. At 0400: 5990 has RFI; 6155 Austria; 9510 splashed by 9505; 9570 barely audible cuz 9575 VOA splashes (Bob Thomas, CT, March 29, via Hauser) RUSSIA. Voice of Russia 1800-2100 on new 11675 (ex 12010). Excellent on March 28. Also 0200-0500 on new 9665 (ex 7180). Very good on March 29. (Ivan Grishin, Ont., REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTING) SERBIA. Yugoslavia: I tuned in last night Apr. 5 just before 0100 on 9580 to hear Radio Yugoslavia sign off in Serbian, but stayed off past 0100. Their web-site shows their new schedule valid for just one week, 28 March-4 April. No indication of schedule beyond April 4th. More monitoring needed on this one. (Ivan Grishin, Ont., April 5, R.I.B.) SERBIA [last minute addition]. The 0100 has moved to 0000, presumably except UT Sun (Ivan Grishin) And the 0530 has moved to 0430 also on 9580, and now in the clear. How considerate of RY to shift according to NAm DST (gh, April 6) THAILAND. Thailand 0030-0100 good on new 15395 March 29. (Ivan Grishin, Ont., Joe Hanlon, PA, WORLD OF RADIO 983) TURKEY. Voice of Turkey A99 English schedule is on their web site: To Europe 0300-0400 11655 1230-1330 17830 1830-1930 11765 13695 2200-2300 7190 13640 To Africa 0300-0400 7270 To Australia 0300-0400 21715 1230-1330 17560 2030-2130 7170 To North America 0300-0400 11655 2200-2300 13640 To Asia 0300-0400 7270 21715 1230-1330 17560 2030-2130 7170 (Mike Barraclough, England, March 30, REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTING) UKRAINE. RUI 1100-1200 on 21520. Extremely poor, no definite ID on Mar 28. Tried to monitor for Ukraine at 2100, 0000 & 0300, but could not find them. Summer freqs of 9550 & 12040 definitely absent (Ivan Grishin, Ont., REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTING) U K O G B A N I. Throw away your expensive "BBC On Air" -- BBC WS keeps juggling its programmes contrary to plans just to accomodate more news. Checking 17840 after a transmission break (for site change?) at 1500 April 4, had one minute of news and then Play of the Week, instead of Sports Roundup and Concert Hall in this hour. I didn't hear any reason given, but surmise that it just wouldn't do to leave the one-hour Play at 1830 so there could be no news at 1900 (POTW was the only scheduled programme allowed to play through the top of an hour). What if NATO should be bombing Serbia at that precise moment? Gotta tell the world!! Can't wait until 2000! At least on this first day of DST, 17840 did stay on until 1900 altho rather poor the last hour, site uncertain. Instead of Play at 1830, they ran Andy Kershaw's World of Music, which had been scheduled for 1930. When I checked around 1930, with //12095 still audible, Concert Hall featuring Yehudi Menuhin was in progress. No doubt there are many other examples of such last-minute and pointless jumbling to BBC's long-planned programme schedule. Splitting BBC into news and entertainment streams can't come too soon; until then, anything but news be damned is their attitude. Now, what will happen next week? Does it all depend on how the Kosova situation is going? On this week's Write On, they admitted to having dumped the penultimate episode of an Off the Shelf book reading serial, tough shit. BTW, you know the place is in shambles when even their own mailbag show is farmed out to an outside company, "A Testbed Production". BBC ought to extend everyone's subscription to On Air if they're going to throw out the info in it (Glenn Hauser, REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTING) U K O G B A N I. BBC WS slick frequency folder dated April-July just received from Press Office, tho it wasn't included with April BBC On Air where everybody needed it. This one specifies transmitter countries (if not individual sites), unlike the info below. Unfortunately there appear to be several obvious(?) mistakes: In the W&CNAm section, 6185 at 0200-0500 shows as Canada, while the same transmission in the Caribbean/CAm section shows as USA! We believe it is still Delano as before, stupid as it is with Mexico there. In the W&CNAm section, 9740 via Canada is shown at 2200-2400, evidently the bar put on the wrong line instead of 9590 where it is correctly placed in the Carib/CAm section. An interesting new frequency is 21830 for South Asia, but only at 0800- 0900, from the UK (Glenn Hauser, April 5, R.I.B.) U S A. Ran across a net which wouldn't appear in John Norfolk's Nets To You because it's not ham, tho it sounded much like a ham net. IDed by NCS on hour and half hour as "Arizona Emergency Support System Training Net...by authorization of the Arizona National Guard". This was on 7450.0-LSB, Wednesday March 31 from tune-in 1406. Net control was 57-W -- all calls given phonetically -- who was in the Phoenix area; since I could hear most of the check-ins, I kept listening for a while. 59-H in "high country"; 57-X, 65-F, 57-BV was mobile and slightly off frequency; 57-AI was the only YL; 70-Q Danny is a telco engineer. The group callsign given frequently was "Broadway Consumer Members Net" so with a wacky name like that I first thought it might be Civil Air Patrol. Mundane chat on checkins about temperatures to the tenth of a degree, equipment, daily personal activities, tulip festival, air conditioners, among people who obviously have known each other for a long time. Never heard any official info or traffic handled, and sounded informal enough, but at 1500 changed NCS and went to "informal" segment when I tuned out. Since AZ has the good sense to ignore DST, this probably stays at 1400 UT; however, nothing heard when rechecked on Saturday (Glenn Hauser, OK, REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTING) ELEVEN METRES Yes, its true, Hungary seems to have left 25[.700] MHz after a short period of usage. RFI [25820] starts at 9 with an excellent signal, but I doubt the scheduled closing time of 17 - seems to be much earlier. About ten years ago, there was much more activity on 25 MHz ! I remember for sure that besides RFE, the BBC was using several channels (WS and Hausa), DW had at least one channel in German active, and there were some more I can't remember - I think Dubai was among them. Even the VoA was there, but I can't remember if this went through until the early 90's or if they stopped their 11m relays already in the mid 80's. They were not audible too often in Europe. VoA had a Philippines relay active and a Greenville transmitter - you should know more about them. I hope that Merlin will soon learn that there is another band available - they have just started using SW... Thanks for many WoRs! (Andre Schmidt, Lautert/Germany, Apr 1, REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTING) ###