DX LISTENING DIGEST 00-28, February 20, 2000 edited by Glenn Hauser {Items from this and all DXLDs may be reproduced and re-reproduced only providing full credit be maintained at all stages} ** AFGHANISTAN. Please be informed that the sound files of AFGHANISTAN have been posted on : http://homepages.go.com/~vaghjee/KABUL.htm and http://pages.intnet.mu/vaghjee/KABUL.htm (Mahendra Vaghjee, Rose- Hill, MAURITIUS, Feb 20, hard-core-dx via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CANADA. Another screwup at RCI, but we always wonder if it happens at the Montreal control board or at Sackville. Sun Feb 20 at 1305 punched up 17710 for RCI Quirks & Quarks, but found BBC WS instead. This continued past 1400, even tho at 1358 RCI claimed to be on this plus 13650, 9640 which did have RCI. I checked 9515 in case this had RCI by mistake, but it was correctly BBC. In any event, no one at Montreal or Sackville is paying attention to what is going out! Feed mixups are a recurring problem with RCI. Obviously they need to revamp their system so this cannot happen, or if it does, someone notices immediately and fixes it! (Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST) That reminds me, ** CANADA. Am listening to filler music on RCI during the time they should be airing Madly Off, 2200 UT Dec 19. This is at least the second recent weekend that RCI has aired the Mailbag and preceding arts program OK, followed by announcement that Madly Off was coming up, then instead had filler music. Wonder just what is going on with them? No other major international broadcaster I can think of seems to mess up the program feeds so often! And it`s not like this is in the middle of Sackville`s local night, when screw-ups could be expected. Instead this repeatedly happens on an ordinary afternoon, admittedly on a Sunday, but what the hell; they ought to be used to shift work by now. Can anybody explain this? They *can* air the silly sports program that follows Madly Off on the schedule, so why not the far-more-interesting-and-enjoyable comedy program? Humph! I suppose I could be accused of ungrateful and snide behavior in saying this, because I just heard on the Mailbag that I was one of their winners of the ``identify the Canadian location`` contest and will get a T-shirt as a result. But I don`t think that it is unreasonable or presumptuous to expect scheduled programming to appear as announced, no matter what the station`s relationship is to you. Later, as 2330 rolls around, RCI`s North American service *is* airing Madly Off! They did start it in mid-intro, having a brief burst of filler music. But if they can get it on the air now, why couldn`t they do it a sesquihour ago? Something is really screwed up at RCI`s control room, I fear. (Will Martin, St Louis, P-mail just arrived, DX LISTENING DIGEST) I think the latest strike may have been underway on Dec 19, which would be the excuse with management personnel trying to do the job of unionists (gh, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CUBA. Otherness: 2-12 1800 kc Habana, 3rd harmonic all nite long (Ron Gulyas, Lansing MI, MARE via DX LISTENING DIGEST) [MARE spells it both Guylas and Gulyas; pronunciation previously given would indicate the latter be correct -gh] ** GREECE. It seems that the schedule reshufflings at Voice of Greece are rather extensive. Dieter Hommel and Günther Weihönig report that German was expanded from 10 to 30 minutes, now 1930-2000 on 7475 and 9345, also announcing MW 792 and 1386 alongside with a couple of FM frequencies in Greece. However, 792 from Kavala is scheduled for VoA Turkish in 1900-2000 range and 1386 is of course impossible to listen in Central Europe when co-channel Bolshakovo is on air (which is no longer the enormous powerblast it used to be here since another antenna aiming at the UK instead of Germany is in use, but it still easily blocks out the 50 kW from Athens). The broadcasts consist of news and a commentary with lots of music in between but still no features or other stuff beyond this. The identification was changed into "ERA Interprogramm". (Kai Ludwig, Germany, Feb 20, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** IRAN. IRN jamming: Hello, some observations of yesterday Sat Feb 19, and today Sun morning RL: [after the elexions] In general no Iranian BUBBLE jamming heard here in EUR against VoA/RL anymore, only on 6085 1900-2000, BUT seemingly wobbling jamming from CHN against TWN Chinese sce on co-channel. RL 0430-0730: 7285LAM and 9585LAM jammed by VoIRI Arabic sce [//9895, 13670, 15125]. but the other two channels jammed by d i f f e r e n t programme from Iran: 0430-0730 12015KAV and 15290KAV disturbed by V of Islamic Revolution in Iraq / V of Palestine [//9610] til 0527, and from 0530 jammed by VoIRI Bosnian/Serbo-Croatian service [//15235 Kamalabad, and satellite delayed Sirjan on both 15510 and 17585]. RL 1500-1700 6015LAM, no jamming heard here in EUR. 11730 LAM, also VoIRI English sce to SoAS/IND heard from 1530 UTC onwards co-channel. 15410WOF, powerhouse in Germany, though no jamming heard so far. RL 1900-2000 6085LAM, Wobbling/Bubble jamming, BUT CHN origin against TWN Chinese?? 7280KAV 9770WOF and 11960KAV, no co-ch jamming heard, but latter one suffered from BSKSA Riyadh 11950 powerhouse. Other strange engine/wobbling tone heard on both AIR Bangalore 15200, and 11620 English at 1745-1945. Talking always about elections in Zimbabwe, any coherence? Other jamming heard on 9685 til 1859. Also CHN type against RFA Mandarin progr 11945 1920, 11790 1940, 9355 1945, 9875 2000, 9885 2000, 9775 2000. The only [Iranian] BUBBLE jamming is against BSKSA Arabic 11930 at 1930. 73 de Wolfy. (Wolfgang Bueschel, Stuttgart, Germany, Feb 20, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ITALY. Rai, English at 2200 Feb 19 to Australia, had no news but mention of a journalists` strike (Chris Hambly, Victoria) Promptly checked at 0050 Feb 20 on 11800, and heard opening giving metres first as 49.92, 31.01 and 25.42, then frequencies as equivalents: 6010, 9675, 11800, even tho it is the meters which are approximate equivalents of exact kHz frequencies! Hey, it`s almost Century XXI! 0051 standard news opener, then about a minute explaining that there is no news due to a strike by the National Press Federation, and summarizing their grievances. 0053 standard news outro and into music. Checking the parallels, I noticed that 9675 had lower-fi audio than 11800, and as best I could tell amid QRM, 6010 was higher-fi (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** KOREA SOUTH. More on RKI`s antenna work: one of the old ones will have to be torn down before the new one can be built since there is no extra space available. This is the antenna for service to Indonesia and the Pacific, which is bound to suffer for several months. Trying to find alternatives, RKI will test Feb 23 and 24 with a non-directional antenna instead on 9570 at 0700-0900 in Korean and English. Comparative reports by monitors in the target area are wanted, along with cassette tapes (Han Hee Joo and Esther Li, RKI Multiwave Feedback Feb 20 via Hauser, also via Bill Bergadano, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** MARIANA ISLANDS NORTHERN. At 1500 very strong signal of registered RFA Saipan 11945 S=55555, much stronger than Tinian 13690, 13735, 15215. So I wonder if there is a location exchange between Saipan and Tinian ?? Also puzzled me up, that the both "MRA outlets" of RFA Saipan and RFA Tinian have a remarkable satellite DELAY each other, when carrying the same programme. I guess, that RFA Tinian is fed via IBB control center Munich Ismaning, were I have seen the satellite circuits towards Asian/CIS/Iranawila/Udorn/SaoTome/Botswana/Kavalla/Kuwait, amongst there 25 satellite dishes and txion equipment, when I visited the station last June [also MW 1197 site]. And opposite the RFA Saipan is still fed via PAC circuits of the previous private religious broadcasting era. (Wolfgang Bueschel, Germany, Feb 20, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** NETHERLANDS. I finally received an RN ``goodie bag`` in November; they had promised me one many months before when I was a called-guest on Sincerely Yours. But it never came and I finally sent them an E- mail after hearing other missing-bag reports on the program from participants in other areas. I had thought that such missing-form- the-mail glitches were a 3rd-world problem and not likely in a Europe- North America shipment, but I then heard a comment on RN that missing stuff was a ``nightmare`` worldwide. I don`t know what the original lost one would have had in it; what came was a T-shirt, cap and tote bag (Will Martin, MO, Dec 19, 1999, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** NETHERLANDS [non]. > Why the hell is there a bubble jammer on 9790 in the 0900-1100 UT timeframe? I didn't try this freq on that time slot. If this is not a local mixture in the rx, one should always try to listen to such outlets on two or three different rxs. It could be VTN jamming against FEBC Manila in Vn at 1100 on nearby 9795. VTN used to set the jamming tx some 2 kHz away from the exact freq, like 15472 against RFA Tinian- MRA 15470 Vn sce 1400-1500. Also VoA Chinese is scheduled on 9790 via Tinang-PHL, but starts from 1300 UTC only. May the CHN set their jamming tx before 1300 UTC already ? 73 de wolfy DF5SX (Wolfgang Bueschel, Germany, Feb 20, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** PERU. 5046.2 R. Integración, Abancay; 17/02 1100-1144 33333 mx en quechua ID “Esta es Radio Integración, son las 6 de la mañana con 10 minutos...” NOTA: la programación se realiza en quechua y español (Pedro F. Arrunategui, Lima, Chasqui DX via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** TIBET [non]. V of Tibet heard yesterday, Sat 19th, at 1230 on v15640.21 via TJK, but couldn't trace on 9910, due to poor ionisation/propagation? and some nearby RTTY stations on 9907.6 and v9912. Today Sun 20th, 9910KAZ heard again, when RTTY 9907.6 was only poor (Wolfgang Bueschel, Germany, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U K O G B A N I. Regarding BBC WS, they still have for example a Czech service, which is carried on a couple of FM transmitters in the Czech Republic and as part of the "CRo 6" network on MW 1233 and 1287. They also still have a service in Slovak, once again using some FM frequencies in Slovakia and more or less regular MW 1521. This AM channel didn't appear on any schedules, seems than one can state they are testing it already for a couple of years now, or was it no longer operational recently? 1521 uses two transmitters, a powerful one at Kosice-Cizatice and a modest power one at Rimavska Sobota. A while ago a lack of proper synchronization of these two was reported. Perhaps BBC WS will soon also have again a German service, produced this time not at London but at Leipzig instead, where an allocation of FM 98.2 seemed to be just a matter of form. However, at the last moment also RFI applied for this frequency, hence a formal decision is now needed; the media authority of Saxonia also suggests a common use of 98.2 by both BBC and RFI like at Budapest. The BBC intended to engage first of all journalism students of the Leipzig university for their local programmes, forcing me to assume it will become a low budget service. By the way, 98.2 is the correct frequency, not 98.5 as previously reported. This 98.5 MHz was used in the past with modest power of some 1 kW for both local programming from Leipzig (during the trade fairs with extended transmission times as "Messewelle" and also on MW 729; contrary to the large Nalepastraße apparatus at Berlin a QSL also for GDR listeners was never a problem) and DT64. It was shut down sometime around 1990. Regards, (Kai Ludwig, Germany, Feb 20, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U K O G B A N I. Sorry for the short notice, but a friend has just alerted me to the fact that this week's edition of Waveguide on BBCWS (Sunday 2105 UTC) is about Cold War jamming. Some of you may be interested in that topic. I also noted that BBCWS program schedules are now downloadable in Excel spreadsheet format, one file per stream per week, which also may be of interest as programmes are apparently being shunted around the schedules. Go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/schedules/ (Andy Sennitt, Feb 20, swprograms) We still have another, better chance at Waveguide, Tuesday 1445 on 17840, 15220, 9590, 9515 (Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. It's been so long since I heard any Space Shuttle Communications via WA3NAN at the Goddard Amateur Radio Club in Maryland I was beginning to wonder if they were still active, but I finally heard it February 19 around 2118 UT on 14295 USB. Signal was weak but audible, at least until two hams came on frequency with a QSO around 2125. Later, I checked on the internet and found that one can find the status of these rebroadcasts at: http://garc.gsfc.nasa.gov/www/retransmission/retrans_status.html For example, I found: "Goddard Amateur Radio Club Shuttle Retransmission Status...As of Sat Feb 19, 2000 14:45:55 (EST) Sat Feb 19, 2000 19:45:55 (GMT) The station is On-The-Air... This is NOT a Shuttle Amateur Radio EXperiment... The Control Operator on duty is Morris Bealle, K3INF... The station is transmitting on the following frequencies... 40 meters SSB 7,185 kHz, 20 meters SSB 14,295 kHz, 15 meters SSB 21,395 kHz, 10 meters SSB 28,650 kHz, 2 meters FM Simplex 147.45 MHz [I assume that the 75 meter frequency of 3860 was off at the time]... You can contact the station at 301-286-6673 or (301-286- 4534 8:00 AM - 5:00 PM M-F Eastern Time only)..." Additional comments included the name of the mission [STS-99], the primary payload, launch date and time, name of Orbiter, mission duration, landing date and time, crew members, next mission dates, etc. (John Norfolk, OKCOK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. Checking the URL for the Save VOA site in DXLD 00-26, I found it really has to be: http://members.aol.com/savevoa/index.html with an L on the end. Seems to be run by hard-hit Polish employees, recounting several ``lies`` about VOA, urging letters to management, congress (Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. In DXLD 00-27 I referenced the Tom Joyner Show on AFN as having been on Sunday; actually I heard it on Thursday (and presumably other weekdays). Again this Sunday Feb 20 at 1205, 12689.5 and 4278.5 had something else, whilst only 6458.5 had Perspective from ABC (Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** USA. 6900.00 WYFR 1015, Spanish religious talk, 1030 ID. Weak signal, // 6105 and 9555. (Mark Mohrmann, VT, Feb 20) 2 x 6105 minus 9555 = 6900, a strange mixing product (gh, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Moments after posting the above: I should have said: 2 x 9555 minus 2 x 6105 equals 6900! (Glenn Hauser, DXLD) ###