DX LISTENING DIGEST 00-18, January 29, 2000 EDITED BY GLENN HAUSER {Items from DXLD may be reproduced and re-reproduced only providing full credit be maintained at all stages} ** ANGUILLA. So-called University Network back with spikesplatter Sat Jan 29 from 11775 at 1208 check: mostly on high side up to 11865 where it was worst, also audible up to 11915 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** COSTA RICA. RFPI was on 15049 but not 25930-USB around 1800 UT Sat Jan 29, for WOR 1021; and at 1830 a special 75-minute program on the sacred Black Mesa area, ``Broken Rainbow`` about the US government`s attempt to divide the Hopi Reservation, and move Navajo out of their traditional homes, all mixed up in coal mining interests. After an 8- minute introduction, plays soundtrack of documentary of same name. Intro mentioned a website findable by searching Big Mountain, and this is what I found, apparently from the Navajo point of view: http://www.aics.org/BM/bm.html and for recent news http://www.aics.org/BM/news.html Gist seems to be that the federal government should butt out; Dineh and Hopi would have settled this between them if the USG were not involved in designating reservations and their boundaries. This pre-empts RFPI Mailbag, and delays Counterspin and Making Contact one hour to 2000 and 2030. Therefore, the repeats will be UT Sun 0230-0345 and 1030-1145 Broken Rainbow, 0400 and 1200 Counterspin, 0430 and 1230 Making Contact. (Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ECUADOR. Excuse me, I misinterpreted HCJB`s frequency usage in Spanish from the printed schedule, accompanying the selected programming in DXLD 00-17. Iberoamerican service should read: 0900-0500 6050 / 15140 0900-1600 11960 / 17670 I am hearing the lowest three in parallel at 1225 and also 17670 at 1330 check. Presumably the / means `and` (Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ECUADOR: re possible DST shift on HCJB's English to Europe: this idea is nothing new -- in the '80's the station did time-shift their morning (but not their evening) service to Europe for the summer season, with English, and other languages, heard one hour earlier (in those days it was 0545-0730 UTC). (Joe Hanlon in Philadelphia, Jan 28, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ECUADOR. They already back in last year decided to air their German broadcasts this way: Straight at 7 AM and 10 PM local time in Central Europe, i.e. 0600 and 2100 UTC in winter, 0500 and 2000 in summer, respectively. They accepted for that (I would even claim, it was partly a pretext) a cancellation of their two other broadcasts, including the one at 0430, which used to provide especially good reception. (Kai Ludwig, Germany, Jan 28, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** MADAGASCAR. Did you know... I didn't, until I found it - Radio Madagascar has a web site at http://takelaka.dts.mg/radmad/ The station has also an eMail -address: radmad@dts.mg 73 de PUL (Pentti Lintujarvi, Helsinki, Finland, webmaster of 1000 Lakes DX Page at http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Park/3232/dx.htm via hard-core-dx) Partly in French, partly in Malagasy; did not find any program or frequency schedules beyond references to meter bands (Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** NORWAY. Sveio digital tests on 6055 0900-0930, on 7130 0934-1000. Very strong signals, lots of hash up to 100 kHz on each side, also in the 7050 to 7100 amateur band. Well comparable to the worst former USSR jammers. Opened with AM annts twice in En, mentioning Sveio site. Too bad if these poorly engineered transmissions will go on the air regularly. (Olle Alm, Sweden, 27 Jan, via Wolfgang Bueschel, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** RUSSIA [non]. >> VOR is resuming Spanish to Spain Tue Feb 1 for half an hour only, at 2130 UT, frequencies not yet known. << I guess it will include (or even completely refer) to MW 1323 from the German Wachenbrunn site. The four tower array for these frequency there aims at 220 degrees and was designed to cover especially France and the Iberian Peninsula, contrary to the previous 100 kW non- directional operation from Leipzig-Wiederau, which was in 1988 replaced by the new outfits at Wachenbrunn. In the past 1323 used to carry during daytime RM/VoR German and English (when no German was on air), after 7 PM CET followed by French, Spanish and Portuguese. >> Faithful listeners who have sacrificed hours of sleep to hear the Latin American service are now recompensed << That inevitably reminds me to those guys in Spain, who used to pick up the Spanish service of Deutsche Welle, certainly booming in via Wertachtal but after midnight. I guess there was a couple ones, but for well-known reasons they used to do so in the past but no longer... Regards, (Kai Ludwig, Germany, Jan 28, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** SPAIN. After a few weeks of starting early enough in the hour to be missed, REE`s Radio Waves, a rerun this week, was back to its usual time of 0022 UT Sun Jan 30 on 6055, BTW propagating poorly for a change, while Window On Spain was at 0010. We are at the mercy of the ``magazine`` concept, wherein there is no guarantee elements within the hour will be heard at a reliable time (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A [and non]. I ran into this web page on the origins of radio and TV call letters with this tag at the top. Last Modified - Date: 2000-01-01 18:35:08-06 Copyright 1988-2000 by Bob Nelson Dallas, Texas From Bob Nelson's main web page it is described: Origins Listing ... an HTML-ized version of the Call Letter Origins Listing is available. The 27 November 1999 listing is now at version 89. It's a compilation of over 2290 "call letters" used by broadcast stations (radio and television) and the meanings that often lurk behind these seemingly random sequence of letters. For example, KRLD here in the Dallas area stands for "R)adio L)abs of D)allas". http://cgi.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/6375/origins.html and http://cgi.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/6375/origins.call-list.html (Pete Costello, Jan 29, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. United States Early Radio History: http://www.ipass.net/~whitetho/index.html 73 (Bill Smith, W5USM, "Shortwave Since 1950", DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. With not much else to listen to on SW, and BBC a total loss Saturday mornings here due to silly ball games (I can remember a couple sesquidecades ago when BBC had a special NAm service of other stuff on Saturday mornings), I checked AFN again on 12689.5 USB to see what was offered. After NPR WESAT, Jan 29 at 1505, The Environment Show, about wolves, monarchs, recycling construction and demolition waste, produced by WAMC, which is becoming quite a non- commercial programming source; address green@wamc.org. Then at 1530- 1600 went to call-in Real Estate Today, 1605 Tech Nation as reported last week (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. VOA Communications World remelds into one 25-minute program next week, Saturdays from Feb 5: 0132:30 Am 5995 6130 9455 [local Friday] SAs 7115 7200 9740 9850 11705 11820 15250 15300 17740 17820 Gulf 1548 0532:30 Af 5970 6035 6080 7295 9775 12080 909 ME/NAf/Eu 7170 9700 11825 15205 0932:30 EAs 11995 13650 15150 CEu 1197 Europe ASTRA 1332:30 E/SAs 6110 9355 9645 9760 11705 15425 21665 Eu 1197, ASTRA 1732:30 SAs 6110 7125 7215 9645 15395 21510 21555 Af 11920 12040 15240 15445 17895 ME/NAf/Eu 6040 9760 2132:30 ME/NAf/Eu 6040 6095 9595 9760 1260 1548 Au/NZ 11870 15185 17735 [local Sunday] [no mention of the Sat 0700 and Sun 1400 DSB; to continue?] (as announced by Kim Elliott, VOA CW Jan 29 via Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ###