DX LISTENING DIGEST 1-104, August 4, 2001 edited by Glenn Hauser, wghauser@hotmail.com {Items from DXLD may be reproduced and re-reproduced only if full credit be maintained at all stages and we be provided exchange copies. DXLD may not be reposted in its entirety without permission. For restrixions and searchable 2001, 2000 contents archive see} http://www.angelfire.com/ok/worldofradio/Dxldmid.html [NOTE: If you are a regular reader of DXLD, and a source of DX news but have not been sending it directly to us, please consider yourself obligated to do so. Thanks, Glenn] WORLD OF RADIO 1090: (STREAM) http://www.angelfire.com/ok/worldofradio/wor1090.ram (DOWNLOAD) http://www.angelfire.com/ok/worldofradio/wor1090.rm (SUMMARY) http://www.angelfire.com/ok/worldofradio/wor1090.html WORLD OF RADIO ON WBCQ: Second broadcast, UT Thursday is 0415-0445 on 7415, ex-0400v on 9330. See under USA. CONTINENT OF MEDIA 01-07 is now available at DXing.com: (STREAM) http://www.DXing.com/com0107.ram (DOWNLOAD) http://www.DXing.com/com0107.rm (SUMMARY) http://www.angelfire.com/ok/worldofradio/com0107.html INFORME DX DESDE NORTEAMERICA, AGOSTO 2001: escuchar Part I en Radio Enlace, Agosto 3-5 o en: http://www.omroep.nl/cgi- bin/streams?/rnw/spaans/programa/radioenlace.rm guión del informe entero: http://www.angelfire.com/ok/worldofradio/mr0108.html ** ANGOLA. Government paper says Catholic Radio Ecclésia plays opposition role | Excerpt from report from Angolan government newspaper Jornal de Angola web site on 30 July As we do not all believe in any religious doctrine, some supernatural being, or yet its representatives on Earth, we do not all have to pray for forgiveness... The endemic insecurity that continues to beset several parts of the country is caused by the fratricidal war that Jonas Savimbi is waging against the very people he promised "new pants" back in 1992. In view of the above, the common Angolan citizen who is rational from a political standpoint, and Catholic in his religious beliefs, and who follows and assesses the serious crisis in the country as reported by the Catholic Broadcasting Corporation of Angola [reference to Radio Ecclésia], is bound to come to the conclusion that this radio station is Catholic only at some points during the day. For the most part it sounds like a church doubling up as opposition political party. It is well known that a serious social crisis has come down {upon} the people of Angola and, in particular, on the economy, health, housing, agriculture, education and so forth in the wake of the introduction of a capitalist economic model in the best Western fashion. Well, some well known figures in the Catholic faith are trying by all means to hammer a set of ideas into the minds of their followers to push them ever further from the Angolan government, and to ensure that our citizens do not vote for the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola, MPLA, in the coming ballot. The good that the government has done for the common welfare of society does not seem to count. This, despite the fact that the government has had to deal with added difficulties posed by the problem of a war waged by [National Union for the Total Independence of Angola, UNITA leader] Jonas Savimbi, who lost the country's first multiparty elections nine years ago... What is really happening in Angola on the social and economic front is that the forces led by Jonas Savimbi have carried out a campaign of selective destruction against the natives of this land, and the material goods, and infrastructure needed for survival. All this has been done for the alleged defence of a profound cause, or so they say. Now, when the Catholic Broadcasting Corporation of Angola announces, for instance, that "FAA [Angolan Armed Forces] soldiers use bush knife to burn the buttocks of a Lunda Norte Province traditional chief, allegedly because he supported UNITA," or when it says that "Defence Minister Kundy Paiama says the suffering of Angolans is set to continue, and increase," or that "men in the service of the Luanda Provincial Government" drove bulldozers to tear down the homes of peaceful displaced people running from war at Morro Bento" without bothering to analyse the circumstances surrounding these incidents, one has little choice but wonder whether the Ecclésia radio station's premises of "all the truth," and "trust" do not in fact hide specific material interests under the church's ideological habit. Does the church perhaps think it can serve its ideological quests through politics? It is surprising that the Catholic Broadcasting Corporation of Angola rarely has a word to say in its newscasts about the displacement of compatriots, or the precarious physical and psychological condition they are in as a result of life in the bush. Curiously enough, it also does not say that FAA soldiers are routinely executed when captured by the Savimbi-led rebels in Bié Province... Source: Jornal de Angola web site, Luanda, in Portuguese 30 Jul 01 (via BBCM via DXLD) ** ANGOLA [non]. Friday morning August 3, 19 meters was great in Virginia. At 0500-0555Z on 15545 I heard a very strong Radio Ecclésia Emissora Católica de Luanda Angola, emissão experimental [via Germany]. Tape loop followed by news. Schedule announced was 15545 6- 7 horas and 13810 19-20 horas. Presumably this is 5-6 and 18-19 GMT. Lots of good Portuguese at the high end of 19 m that morning but RDP Lisboa is not DX news. 73 Tu amigo alemán (Anton Kasemacher, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** AUSTRALIA. I see that the conflict on 15240 from 0800 due to Radio Australia transmitting from both Shepparton and via a Taiwan relay has come up again. I reported this some months ago in DXLD 1-031. This was taken up on my behalf by a former Australian Broadcasting Corporation senior engineer who spoke to Nigel Holmes, their Frequency Manager. (My calls to Nigel Holmes were not returned.) Apparently Radio Australia think this interference due to the delay on the Taiwan transmitter is not a problem in the two different service areas of the transmitters. Shepparton is beamed about 90 degrees to the South Pacific while Taiwan is beamed about 230 degrees to Indonesia. What seems like a mess here in Australia and to the reporter in Portugal may not be in the RA target areas. Some comments from those areas would be interesting (Morrison Hoyle, Australia, August 5, DX LISTENING DIGEST) But Bob Padula claims it was a big problem when he was monitoring last in SE Asia... And it seems to me even a very much weaker signal, 4 seconds offset, from the unwanted site would still be an annoyance. Frequency-sharing often looks a lot better on paper than in practise (gh) ** AUSTRALIA. The latest info from HCJB states that the Shire Council of Kununurra have asked for 60 days to raise any questions related to the impact on the HCJB site in Western Australia. Main issues concern health, and safety for the local community. Also mentioned are the possible effects on aircraft, and other communications facilities in the area. They ask all Christians to pray such that the answers given will not pose any problems for this venture (Don Rhodes, Yarra Glen, Victoria, Australia via SHORTWAVE AUSTRALIA, EDXP via DXLD) ** AUSTRIA. ROI budget will be cut in half: Budget von "Radio Oesterreich International" soll halbiert werden. Nur noch 45 Millionen Schilling fuer ROI. http://derstandard.at/?channel=ETAT&ressort=RADIO&id=665698 (Christoph Ratzer, Austria, OE2CRM, A-DX Mailing-Liste - Aug 1, via BC-DX via DXLD) ** AUSTRIA. External radio budget to be halved following new ORF law | Text of report headlined "Radio Austria International Budget Halved" by Austrian newspaper Wiener Zeitung on 2 August The new ORF law that entered into force yesterday has already led to initial consequences. Since Radio Austria International will now no longer be financed by the government, the budget for the foreign- language radio broadcasts on shortwave is to be drastically reduced next year. During an internal ORF session on Tuesday [31 July], an "approximate value" of 45m schillings was mentioned for the budget of the ORF foreign-language radio. Compared with this year's budget of 90m schillings, this would mean that the budget would be halved. Nevertheless, radio director Manfred Jochum considers it will be possible to make very good programmes. The name Radio Austria International should be maintained, and foreign-language broadcasts - in English, French and Spanish - should continue to be aired. Synergies with all radio programmes should be used to a greater extent. Cooperation already exists with the radio news magazines. In the future, cooperation is to be initialled with Oe3, the provincial studios, and FM4. Jochum: "A large number of Radio Austria International's listeners are only abroad temporarily. They should be able to listen to their usual Austrian radio programmes there." Jochum also confirmed that Radio Austria International will be brought under the control of the radio management on 1 January 2002. The existing post of director for the foreign-language service on shortwave - currently held by Roland Machatschke - will be eliminated as a result of the law. The Green media spokesman Stefan Schennach also commented on the impact of the ORF law yesterday. The ORF law will lead to the "complete assumption of power by the OeVP." He also fears that there will only be a "bogus invitation of tenders" in connection with the Austrian private television frequency. Schennach also demanded a collective agreement for the ORF's approximately 2,000 freelance journalists. Source: Wiener Zeitung, Vienna, in German 2 Aug 01 p 15 (via BBCM via DXLD) ** BELGIUM [non]. The weekly shortwave transmissions of Radio Sunshine (Belgium) ceased by the end of July. According a posting in a German forum, the broadcast on July 29 was announced as last one on shortwave, further details not reported (Kai Ludwig, Germany, August 2, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** BHUTAN. I received a long awaited QSL card from Bhutan Broadcasting Service today and a letter signed by Sonam Tobgay, Station Engineer. The card was supposed to be for a reception from November 16, 1992 on 5025 kHz but alas it was filled out for the day he sent the letter (July 2, 2001), on 6035 kHz and the wrong time to boot! He does have an e-mail address toby@bbs.com.bt so I've tried a gentle follow-up to see if I could get a corrected QSL. He was still in school when I heard this broadcast from BBS! The QSL card is very interesting...on the back it says the card is printed from traditional Bhutanese handmade paper made from the Daphne plant, widely found in Bhutan. The BBS web site is pretty interesting... profiles and pictures of key staff, including Sonam, as well as pictures from around the station and the radio and TV schedules (Bruce Churchill, CA, Cumbre DX August 3 via DXLD) ** BOLIVIA. 6135, Radio Santa Cruz, date and time friendly Spanish letter with station stamp, in 6 months, v/s Yolanda Marco Escobar- Secretaria de Dirección, for EE report and IRC. She tells me that although their target audience is Bolivian, they are always happy to hear from listeners abroad. Also she said Radio Santa Cruz's anniversary is October 25th. The transmitter is 10 kW into a dipole antenna. Return postage was Bs.5 Address: Casillas 672 or 3213, Santa Cruz, Bolivia. E Mail: irfacruz@roble.scz.entelnet.bo Fax: (519-3) 532257 (Joe Talbot, Alberta, Cumbre DX August 3 via DXLD) ** BOLIVIA. 6035, R Trópico, Trinidad, Beni - I stopped by R Trópico on 16 Jul on vacation while they were changing frequencies from the old 4552+/- to their newly assigned 6035 kHz. According to owner Eduardo Ávila-Alberdi, they finally received their frequency allocation from the government. They had been operating under a temporary permit since 1979! The move was made since most of their listening audience has trouble finding portable SW radios that cover 60m. Expect to see more Bolivian stations trying to move out of 60m and into the 49m band. I pointed out that RCN-Colombia is also on 6035 kHz and the engineer indicated they might move a few kHz. I found them transmitting on 6027 that evening, but they may move around a bit in that general vicinity for the next few weeks before settling down. The schedule is 0600-0900, 1200-1430, and 1830-2100 local time or 1000-1300, 1600-1830, and 2230-0100 UT with 1.5 kW. The transmitter is rated for 3 kW, but they run at half power. They are interested in hearing how their signal is getting out after the frequency change. If you log them, be sure to send a report to the address in WRTH and especially mention any messages heard - their emphasis is as a message service and that will get their attention and give them ammunition for advertising. Pictures of the station are on my web site at http://www.comportco.com/~wfair/Photos/index.html and follow the links under "Radio Stations". (Walt Fair, Cumbre DX August 3 via DXLD) ** BOLIVIA. When I have had time, I listened to the radio on 3343.6. I have many hours of recordings, but only at one time did they say, RADIO AYOPAYA ONDA CORTA. I need to listen to it a few more times to make sure. Sunday night (0035 Monday), I was listening to a program in Spanish, CORACION ALEGRE, A program with musical salutations, and dance music (cumbias) but the announcer never mentioned the name of the station. Ayopaya isn't very far but it is difficult to get there and there are social problems with the farmers closing the roads. They won't let me get there (Rogildo Fontenelle A., Bolivia, Jul 31, Cumbre DX via DXLD) Shouldn`t that be CORAZÓN ALEGRE, as in ``happy heart``? (gh) ** BURMA [non]. Democratic Voice of Burma, latest DTK sked: 9490 2330 0030 41,49 208 80 218 1234567 260601 281001 DVB 15405 1430 1530 41,49 203 70 218 1234567 010701 281001 DVB No Kvitsøy [NORWAY] anymore; whole time span via Jülich now. 17805 1455 1530 41,49 201 70 218 1234567 060601 281001 DVB (DTK Jülich via WWDXC, Aug 2 via Wolfgang Büschel, DXLD) ** BURUNDI. State-owned Radio Burundi has been heard again on shortwave after a lengthy absence. The station was heard on 2 August on its former shortwave frequency of 6140 kHz. Radio Burundi's shortwave operations have been highly erratic since 1993, with the transmitter often being off the air for months or even years at a time. During its shortwave absences, Radio Burundi has continued to broadcast on FM. Source: Monitoring research 2 Aug 01 (© BBC Monitoring via DXLD) ** CANADA. Spokesman denies changes detrimental to external radio | Text of report by Radio Canada International audio web site on 1 August A spokesman for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation [CBC], RCI's [Radio Canada International] domestic service, is denying claims that the CBC is making changes at Radio Canada International that are detrimental to the service. Andre Beaudet says the CBC's intention is to improve RCI and not cut the service. He was reacting to articles Tuesday [31 July] in two Canadian newspapers in which it was claimed that the CBC was out to undermine RCI. The National Post and the Ottawa Citizen newspapers went on to say that in recent months the CBC has cancelled RCI-generated news broadcasts in English, French, Chinese, Russian, Ukrainian, Spanish and Arabic during weekends. And during the week, RCI's original programming has been reduced. The newspapers also referred to RCI's employee action committee. The committee wants to protect the service's mandate and see the restoration of full programming. RCI, which has been broadcasting for more than 50 years, has been traditionally a separate service of the CBC-Radio Canada main domestic networks and the service is funded separately by the federal Heritage Department. Source: Radio Canada International audio web site, Montreal, in English 0100 gmt 1 Aug 01 (via BBCM via DXLD) ** CANADA. CRTC hearing a 'kangaroo court,' pirate broadcaster says http://www.nationalpost.com/news/national/toronto/story.html?f=/stori es/20010803/635851.html Here's more on that CRTC hearing Ricky tipped us to. 73- (Bill Westenhaver, DXLD) {Star Ray TV} ** CHINA. 6060, Sichuan PBS, 0925 July 20, Programme for young people hosted by YL from first check around 0925, then at 1000 apparently prerecorded ID with "Sichuan Renmin Guangbo Diantai, Jin Qiao zhi Sheng" said by male and then female announcer, followed by frequency announcement and male voice saying in English, "This is the Voice of Golden Bridge", then back into Chinese for the news. Fair signal here. The announced frequencies are 954 and 5900 kHz, but nothing audible on 5900 at the time so the announcement is presumably out of date (Alan Davies, Thailand, Cumbre DX via DXLD) ** CHINA. Heilongjiang People's Radio Station. Station identification: "Heilongjiang Renmin Guangbo Diantai" (Heilongjiang People's Broadcasting Station). Address: 181 Zhongshan Lu, Harbin, Heilongjiang 150001. Tel: +86 (0)451 262 7454. Fax: +86 (0)451 289 3539. E-mail: am621@sina.com Web Site: http://www.am621.com.cn SW schedule: 2100-1300 on 4840 in Mandarin. (© BBC Monitoring, August 1, condensed for DXLD) Inner Mongolia People's Radio Station. Main Studio: Hohhot. Station identification in Standard Chinese: "Neimenggu renmin guangbo diantai" (Inner Mongolia People's Broadcasting Station). Address: 19 Xinhua Dajie, Hohhot, Inner Mongolia 010058. Tel: +86 (0)471 696 2288. Fax: +86 (0)471 696 1082. SW schedule in Mandarin: 2200-0115, 0900-1605 on 4000, 4620, 6045; 0115-0900 7105, 7165, 9520. (© BBC Monitoring August 1, condensed for DXLD) ** CONGO. (Brazzaville): R Congo from txs at 'PK Rouge' site was (is?) strong on 4765 although not on their other freqs on 49 mb. Apparently they use only one tx and change freqs at times. The political situation in this part of Congo has been very difficult during the last decade or so, but only little has been reported thereof in the international media. So their permanent presence on SW surprises me a bit. Via a private contact I got a QSL letter from Radio Congo by fax in 1994. However, as far as I know, the stn has no fax machine of its own, but a friend of a colleague's friend had access to a fax machine. At least they have a QSL formletter and friendly personnel and if postal services work all right QSLs might reach us also by ordinary mail (Wolfgang Schweikert, Germany, Jul 29, BC-DX via DXLD) ** CYPRUS. Government positive on VOA transmitter plans | Text of report by Greek Cypriot Mega Channel TV on 31 July The Americans want to set up the largest relay station of the well- known US propaganda [sic] radio network - Voice of America [VOA] - of the Eastern Mediterranean in Cyprus, which they regard as being the most suitable choice given its geographic location. The radio station will relay American messages to the Middle East and the Arab Gulf. According to Mega Channel's reliable reports, a VOA official visited Cyprus and met in private with the President of the Republic. The government views the Americans' request positively and also seeks to protect its state interests. The Americans' first choice was to set up the VOA relay station on the republic's territory in the Akrotiri region in Limassol. However, this idea was soon abandoned because of the strong reaction to the British [Sovereign Bases'] aerial. Two sites are currently under consideration. The first is the area near Cape Greco, where a French relay station is already operating. The second is an area in Liopetri village. As government officials confirmed to our station, the government's objective is to ensure that the aerial, which will have to be installed in order to implement the US plans, will not harm the environment in any way and that the radio station will only relay radio programmes. The American project will cost about 10m dollars and is regarded as being of optimum importance for US foreign policy. The President of the Republic has displayed special sensitivity in relation with how Cyprus can benefit, as well as with its political problem. As a well- informed source told Mega, had it not been for the Akrotiri [British Bases'] incidents, the VOA relay station would have already been a reality. Source: Mega Channel TV, Nicosia, in Greek 1720 gmt 31 Jul 01 (via BBCM via WORLD OF RADIO 1090, DXLD) Dear Glenn, Tonight on our local CyBc TV Channel at local time 8.20 pm we heard for the first time that at Cape Greco prosposals to erect the Voice of America relay station. To beam all over the Middle East area. Local Greenpeace spokesman up in arms over this deal which must be approved first by the Cypriot government (Costa Constantinides, Cyprus, Aug 1, WORLD OF RADIO 1090, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Dear Glenn, Re VOA new proposed MW Station in Cyprus. According to the Friday 3rd August "The Cyprus Weekly" The following headline: "Terrorist fear over VOA installation" Quote ...An application by Voice of America to set up a relay station in Cyprus covering the Middle East has the government pondering whether the US broadcaster could become a terrorist target ..unquote. Meanwhile Greens MP George Perdikis requested that the VOA issue be included on the agenda for the House Environment Committee`s next meeting. Mentions other stations using this site at Cape Greco such as Radio France International, Radio Monte Carlo MW relay, since the 1970s. Reports quoted the site is a favorite for runner as Cape Greco is nearer the Middle East for their Arabic service; costs estimated to cost $15 million to get up and started (Costa Constantinides. Cyprus, August 4, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Web site for Cyprus Weekly is http://www.cyprusweeekly.com.cy ** ECUADOR. HCJB plays DXPL for 28 July at 3 August, 2310, 17660 kHz. Announced news followed by the nth rerun of the beginners' special. (Joël Rubin, NY, DX LISTENING DIGEST) [Ed. note: The following does not bear directly on radio, and since DXLD 1-103 was already overflowing we did not run it then. Now DXLD 1-104 is also overflowing, but we think it should appear as some insight into life in Ecuador, and may well give a hint why there has been so much turnover in DXPL hosts since the Clayton Howard era. gh] Quito July 26 2001. I normally never watch TV, never go to a movie and never borrow a video film – but it seems I have seen too much of that stuff. But the things below can`t be a reality -- or? Everything is otherwise fine here -- a wonderful summer climate all the year, nice and friendly people and you feel totally secure when staying in the countryside in small/medium sized cities like Riobamba, Otavalo, Ibarra or Ambato. But, and that`s a big BUT -- personal safety has been dramatically changed for the worse during the recent two years in the capital of Quito. When I was in Ecuador and Quito for the first time autumn 1995 there were only two things to ``worry about`` and that is walking south of "La Marín" and climbing the mountain "El Panecillo" where you have an enormous overlook of the city. When employees and children at an orphanage in central Quito made their annual visit at this mountain they always have military escort. Now 6 years later, several of my relatives have been in trouble or have friends who having experienced robbery, assault, etc. Sad to say but it might end up with a move out to the countryside if the violence continue to escalate. On the list of most dangerous places in the world, Ecuador is in fourth place. This seems to be taken from a criminal novel but is unfortunately true: As you know my wife and I are living in a small flat in the bottom of the house of my parents-in-law and from this small bottom flat we have built a small one-storeyed house. From the kitchen window, totally cut out, and a long ladder two armed men entered the second floor. Veronica, my wife`s sister`s daughter, woke up when they searched her bedroom and she heard them say "shall we rape or kill her if she wakes up"? When the two tall men in their 30s searched the other rooms, Veronica got upstairs to her sister Karina who in turn rang us -- of course both were very terrified. My wife called the police at once. We were told to stay calm and do nothing; according to the police it is common that the robbers of houses/flats often kill people. Susana and I were very anxious when we knew nothing of what happened upstairs. The police came very quickly. Within 6-7 minutes there were 5-6 armed policemen around the house. Very scary to see them on their knees with guns aimed at our house! The two robbers managed to run away just before and no one in the house was injured. We have contacted some companies who will improve the security in the house in different ways, alarm, etc. The robbers grabbed one TV-set and some money. Veronica did act exemplary; just imagine what could have happened if she had screamed for help and my father-in-law had woke up! It will cost about 8000 Swedish Crowns to fix the alarm and fit heavier iron bars on all windows (Björn Malm, Quito, Ecuador, SW Bulletin July 29, translated by Thomas Nilsson for DXLD) ** EGYPT. v15374.76, similar [to China vs TAIWAN 15265] buzzy noise signal heard yesterday [Jul 31] on 15375 kHz, no program audio could observed on that channel, not even a carrier on my AOR 7030. I guess that is seemingly one of the faulty R Cairo txs, observed on 31 and 25 mb in the past. Cairo is scheduled 1830-2200 towards W Africa. 73 (Wolfgang Büschel, Germany, WORLD OF RDIO 1090, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** EGYPT. Escutei ainda ontem a R Cairo em Português às 2300 UTC com sinal fraquíssimo, forte ruído, mas ainda estão lá. Continuam usando o transmissor de 100 KW da Ublisht, uma empresa russa que fabricava os mais terríveis transmissores da época. Graças a Deus, fecharam em 85. Eles mudam o transmissor e antena para emitir em árabe em muitos horários. É por isso que ora se escuta bem, outras não. R Cairo sempre me pagou rapidamente meus QSL, embora tenham se esquecido de um perdido num canto que foi pago com 2 anos de atraso (Denis Zogbi, São Paulo-SP, @tividade DX Aug 31 via DXLD) QEAFK? 15420? (gh) ** FINLAND. One of the "oddities" of shortwave listening appears to have gone off the air. "Nuntii Latini", the 5 minute news digest in Latin relayed by R. Finland each Sunday at the end of the English broadcasts was no longer to be heard on the last 3 weeks. There was a short break in transmission each time, after which they usually announced (in Finnish) the upcoming program, which then started at TOH. It remains to be seen, whether it has been scrapped from shortwave for good, or it is just that the Latin announcers are on a well-deserved vacation (Christian Mocanu, Romania, July 29, Cumbre DX via DXLD) Everybody deserves a vacation, but there is no excuse for leaving the audience hanging (gh, DXLD) ** FRANCE. French-language international TV5 launches new streams for Americas | Excerpt from report by French news agency AFP Paris, 1 August: The actual launch of TV5 Monde, new name for the French-language TV5 channel, took place today, Wednesday, with the introduction, from Paris, of two programming streams for the USA and Latin America, respectively. These two regions had so far been covered by programmes prepared and produced by TV5's Canadian entity. Adapted to local habits, the new schedules aim at broadening the current traditional audience made up of expatriates, Francophones and Francophiles around five themes identified by the same number of colours: news, fiction works, weekend, children and football. "By the end of the year, and stretching from San Francisco to the rest of the USA, TV5 will be available on 115 cable networks", more than double the current number, the channel's president, Jean Stock, told AFP... The channel will start broadcasting on 11 new cable networks in San Francisco, "a very Francophile zone", as early as 9 August, said General Manager Marie-Christine Saragosse. The "TV5, 5 TVs in one" concept, specially designed for the United States and Latin America, makes news a priority with 15 daily bulletins, namely the France 2 and France 3 live and pre-recorded bulletins, as well as nine bulletins prepared by TV5 newsroom. A match from the French soccer championship will be transmitted live every Saturday, and a summary of the day's matches will be transmitted the following day. Source: AFP news agency, Paris, in French 1048 gmt 1 Aug 01 (via BBCM via DXLD) Yes, a new program schedule went into effect today, with a few more live newscasts from France 2 and France 3, the state-run channels. There seems to be more emphasis in general on news, which, at least initially, appears to be at the expense of feature programs. We're also being promised more films, and more repetition of them. There was no corresponding change in the schedule for TV5-Canada. This new schedule for the US reflects the fact that responsibility for TV5-USA has shifted from Montreal to Paris, partially because of its stagnant growth in the U.S. A recent Le Monde report indicated that the U.S. service has only about 5,000 subscribers -- far short of expectations and virtually unchanged from when the service was about a year old. At that time, I was told that there were about 1,000 subscribers to RFI via Dish Network. (Mike Cooper, GA, August 1, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** GERMANY. Re "DW Radio DX Committee" program in English language by Wolfram Hess heard on last Saturday of the month 2300-2345... Da hat er recht mit dem "lax". vln dk info, lbr Kai! So weit ich weiß: The DW Radio World DX Meetings are on the air every last Saturday of the month plus repetitions (Sundays, too) in all English pxs with "Mailbag Asia". Kindest 73, (Wolfram Heß, August 2 via Kai Ludwig, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** GERMANY. Other changes [besides Sunshine, BELGIUM] on DTAG shortwave transmissions: Voice of Hope replaced 1300-1559 on 13820 by 1330-1430 only on 15750. Adventist World Radio now also 1600-1659 on 13720. Also a further frequency for SRI since July 10 is shown: 1625-1815 on 17735 (115 degrees), added to existing 15220. Voice of Oromo Liberation now on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays 1700-1759 on 15715, all from Jülich, no longer Wertachtal. Instead now Evangeliumsradio (a small Hamburg-based program producer, not to be confused with the German TWR branch "Evangeliumsrundfunk") on Wednesdays 1730-1759 on 6015 is aired from the Wertachtal site. At this time of the day already all 12 transmitters at Jülich are otherwise occupied, hence this use of Wertachtal for own transmission business away from Deutsche Welle, too. In these cases the 500 kW beasts at WER are operated with 125 kW "only" to maintain the well-known low airtime charges (Kai Ludwig, Germany, August 2, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** GERMANY. TELEFUNKEN company Berlin, which built SW, LW, and MW highpower tx units in the past, merged/purchased by Continental Dallas-TX in about 1996. But last year a buy out took place, and the remaining Telefunken Berlin staff founded a new tx factory, which produces MW & LW txs only, no SW units anymore. Telefunken produce the txs under the header TRAM (Wolfgang Büschel, ibid.) Yes, the TRAM series covers both MW and LW. Both Oranienburg Zehlendorf 177 and the abandoned Burg 261 are such TRAM txs (Zehlendorf in fact a 2 x 250 kW pair, like the 2 x 125 kW solution at Wilsdruff). Also a VLF variant is available, interesting for submarine operators. Perhaps it is worth to note that these units are actually fixed-frequency txs; a frequency change is possible but requires an extensive re-set instead of a simple retuning. These txs are available for MW and LW, and on request for VLF, too. The customer must mention the intended freq for the adjustment in the works. It is possible to change to another freq later but this is actually a modification, I guess due to the design which consists of many independent stages; actually such txs are clusters of individual PA stages of 1.5 kW or so, so many as needed to get the wanted power (Kai Ludwig, Germany, Jul 29, ibid.) Look to the company's website, includes English descriptions, too, the 177 kHz longwave tx is seen, also some explanation on share holders, amongst them stillclick on the British flag under: http://www.telefunken-sendersysteme.de Maybe the SW & three mast MW antenna towers shown there, originate from Taiwanese[?] installations, (Wolfgang Büschel, Germany, BC-DX via DXLD) ** HONDURAS. 5010.1, HRMI. July 31 0400 ID with station location given my a male. Spanish language religious program with music between talk. Fair signal with moderate fading. Programming up to 0428 when ID was given again and music up to loss of signal at 0432. Did not hear official sign off but with ID and no more signal, I guess that was it for the night (Gary Froemming, AZ, Cumbre DX via DXLD) I recently spoke with Dr. Planck of IMF World Missions, the parent organization for this station. The second transmitter for this station, which is to operate on 3340, still has not been shipped to Honduras. Dr. Planck thought it would be at least a few more months before it was there (Hans Johnson, Aug 3, Cumbre DX via DXLD) ** HONG KONG. The Hong Kong Observatory now has a Web site offering weather for Hong Kong in both text and voice formats. You can listen to the coastal waters forecast.... AUDIO ...and several other categories of weather information, including one labeled Radiation Level. It gives you the average hourly gamma radiation dose rate for various locations in Hong Kong. You can even listen to a summary of the year's astronomical events... AUDIO The URL is www dot weather dot gov for government dot hk for Hong Kong. [http://www.weather.gov.hk] (Kim Elliott, VOA Communications World July 28 via John Norfolk, DXLD) ** HUNGARY. RADIO BUDAPEST ... reminds motor sport fans of the 16th Hungarian Grand Prix on August 20 at the Hungaroring and their aired comments on the events of the day. (direct) day: programme: Mon-Fri Hungary Today Saturday DX Blockbuster Sun 12 Aug Spotlight Sun 19 Aug Eur. Unlimited Mon 20 Aug Millennium Anniversary Sun 26 Aug Heading for Hungary Sun 9 Sep Spotlight Sun 16 Sep Eur. Unlimited Sun 23 Sep Heading for Hungary Sun 30 Sep and the Gatepost (via Arthur Ward, Aug World DX Club Contact via Mike Barraclough, DXLD) ** HUNGARY/CHINA/CUBA. Glenn, The clash between R. Budapest and CRI via Cuba on 9570 (as mentioned in DXLD 1-042) continues. August 2, 2001 *0230-0259* CRI was causing severe QRM to the R. Budapest English. SINPO 41541. Majority of times CRI completely overran R. Budapest. A few times I did manage to hear something from R. Budapest. Overall, not enjoyable listening at all. 73, (-.. . Kraig, KG4LAC, Krist, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** INDONESIA. Mailbag program of V of Indonesia announced URL http://www.rrionline.com and mentioned to send at least 4 IRC to receive a QSL card from them (Swopan Chakroborty, India, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** INTERNATIONAL WATERS [and non]. Radio Broadcasting from Ships 3 - Europe & Atlantic Back during the era of the 1920s and 1930s, it was the custom of the day for ships passing each other in mid-Atlantic to salute each other by playing musical records over their communication radio transmitters. On many occasions this interesting phenomenon was noted, though usually the printed DX reports do not mention the name of the ship. However, at least seven famous passenger liners during that era are noted by name as broadcasting radio programming, at least on a temporary basis. The SS ``Bremen`` of the German Lloyd Line laid claim to being the first passenger liner fitted with a wireless telephony set. This ship was launched around the year 1900 with the original callsign DDDX, though this was later changed to DOAH. The famous ship, ``Titanic``, is sometimes credited with sending in 1912 the last distress call in Morse Code as CQD and the first as SOS. Though this claim is discredited, yet it is probable that the Titanic sent the first and last combined CQD-SOS call. Interestingly though, it is claimed that the ``Titanic`` also made several broadcasts of recorded music on its first and only voyage into the Atlantic. Available information would suggest that the first music broadcast took place as the ship was nearing Queenscliff in Ireland and again as it was leaving. On July 20, 1920, the SS ``Victorian`` left England and among its many passengers were delegates attending the Imperial Press Conference in Ottawa, Canada. Each day, a program of speech and music was transmitted on the longwave channel 107 kHz to the ``Victorian`` from MZX at Chelmsford and from MPD at Poldhu in Cornwall. Each evening while en route across the Atlantic, the ``Victorian`` broadcast brief concerts to passing ships from its own 3 kW transmitter MVN. Two years later on October 29, 1922, the first radio broadcast in Denmark was made from a ship anchored in the harbor at Copenhagen. This was an experimental demonstration broadcast and the receiver was located in a lecture hall in the city. The famous French liner, ``Normandie`` was launched in 1932 and we quote the DX report from a listener in Australia. He says: On Sunday morning October 30 at 12:45 am, Radio Paris made a special broadcast on 25.6 metres when it described the launching of the new French liner, ``Normandie``. The christening of the vessel by Madame Lebrun, wife of the president was heard first, and as the liner ran down the slipway the playing of the ``Marseillaise`` was plainly audible. This ship, the ``Normandie``, also made music broadcasts during its voyages across the Atlantic under the callsign FNSK. The great Cunard liner, ``Queen Mary`` was launched on September 26, 1935, and it commenced its maiden voyage across the Atlantic 8 months later. When the vessel left Southampton on May 26, 1936, a broadcast from the ship was relayed by the BBC, and two days later an early morning relay was made. During its inaugural voyage and on several subsequent occasions, ``Queen Mary`` made many broadcasts under the callsign GBTT while plying the Atlantic. Our seventh ship in this historic line-up is the Dutch hospital ship, ``De Hoop``. This mercy vessel was launched in 1964 and it served fishing boats in the North Sea with medical, technical and spiritual aid. Religious services were broadcast in the Dutch language each Sunday and Wednesday with 300 watts on 2316 kHz under the callisgn PHKS. When the collecting of QSL cards came into vogue in the early 1920’s many of the ships on the air at the time issued verification cards or letters in response to reception reports from many different countries. RADIO BROADCASTING FROM SHIPS ------------------------------------------------------------- Year Ship Call Country Location Broadcasts ------------------------------------------------------------- European Waters & Atlantic 1900 Bremen DDDX Germany Atlantic 1st with telephony 1912 Titanic MGY England Atlantic Music broadcasts 1920 Victorian MVN England Atlantic Music broadcasts 1922 Denmark Copenhagen 1st radio broadcast 1932 Normandie FNSK France Atlantic Launching ceremony 1936 Queen Mary GBTT England Atlantic Music broadcasts 1964 De Hoop PHKS Holland North Sea Religious broadcasts (Adrian Peterson, AWR Wavescan July 22 via DXLD) ** IRAN [non, Anti Iranian govt.]. Station GHI [what does that mean?? --gh], 17520 is heard from tune in 1543 and past 1700. The signal was strong at first (peaking S=9 +20dB on my meter) but down to about 9 by 1700, and slowly dropping. Language is Persian and ID "Seday-e Iran"??? Hardly audible in jamming by 1725. Off 1730??? Jamming was not too bad at first but increased in intensity as the signal level dropped. It seems to consist of an offset carrier (LSB) and warbling noise. Could it be the one formerly heard on 15690? I don't hear anything there, but there is another on 11635 [Maiac-MDA] - or was - under jamming. Not in \\ to 17520. I heard the Persian GHI station start today (30th) also. A jammer was first to appear briefly on - then off - then on again at 1525. LS appeared at 1528 playing a march tune sung by a choir. The ID sounds "Seday-e Iran". Combined signal strength only fair today so far - peaking to about S7, but slowly increasing (Noel R. Green, UK, Jul 29/30, BC-DX via DXLD) UNID new 17520 unID clandestine GHI station in Persian, ID, sermon heard at 1530-1730 July 31, slight Iranian jamming started at 15.33:44 UT. 33333, modulation reminds me of Jülich relay (Wolfgang Büschel, Germany, ibid.) On Tuesday I listened to 17520 before the 1530 s-on. The txer came on at 1528.40 with program from 1529, so it seems safe to conclude that this is not a CIS site; these normally sign on much earlier. Propagation seems variable between full propagation and scatter propagation, but I cannot make an estimate of the distance. An antenna switching test clearly excludes anything from the southeast (Olle Alm, Sweden, Aug 1, ibid.) The freq being used would seem to indicate that the tx is located in the West rather than the East, unless it has been chosen to try to make jamming by Iran more difficult. I had also come to the same conclusion - that it does not seem to be a CIS site, because it doesn`t start in the way they do. ISR also seems a little close to the target area for 17 MHz (Noel R. Green, UK, Aug 2, ibid.) ** KASHMIR. Pakistan: Guerrilla group starts radio station in Indian Kashmir | Text of report by Pakistani newspaper Nawa-i-Waqt on 2 August Srinagar: A mojahedin group fighting the Indian army for freedom of occupied Jammu and Kashmir, Lashkar-i-Toiba, has decided to set up a radio station in occupied Kashmir. Lashkar-i-Toiba's radio station will start broadcasting its programmes on 5 August on FM 350 [as published] in morning and evening. The mojahedin radio programmes will cover mojahedin activities and respond effectively to Indian propaganda. This will be the mojahedin's second radio station. They already have a radio station named Sadai Hurriyat [Voice of Jammu and Kashmir Freedom]. Source: Nawa-i-Waqt, Rawalpindi, in Urdu 2 Aug 01 (via BBCM via DXLD) ** KOREA NORTH. 19196.4, UNID 3 x 6398.8?, 1250 UT 4 Aug, Weak-Fair strength, but poor modulation. YL speaking, but couldn't determine language due to garbled audio. I did find a carrier exactly at 1/3 the freq (6398.8), so I think this might be R Pyongyang which is listed on 6398v. Too late to get any audio from 6398.8, which fades here around 1230 or so. 19196.4 peaked @ 1330 and quickly faded @ 1340. Does anyone know this spur? (David Hodgson, TN USA, harmonics via DXLD) Yes, David, the same now on 19196.4 (//6398.8) PYONGYANG in Korean basic: F/G harm: just recognisable 1607 UT (1907 Local). Also noticable 2nd Harm 12797.6 (Vlad, Kremenchuk, Ukraine, ibid.) ** LEBANON. As far as I know there are no more txs on SW from this country. In the 1990's I read about plans of the govt / official Radio Lebanon to install high powered SW txs (Radio Lebanon had transmissions on SW when I started to listen to the bands in the late 1970's). Does anyone have more information about this or is it simply a matter of lack of funds? (Wolfgang Schweikert, Germany, Jul 29, BC- DX via DXLD) ** MEXICO. 4918, XERTA: I have been tuned in XERTA, Radio Transcontinental de America on 4918, with bad modulation, at 0300, yesterday (UT Aug 3). Singing off at 0400 with national anthem (Hector Garcia Bojorge, DF, Cumbre DX via DXLD) Nominal 4810, I think, ex-4800, but has been jumping all over the 60mb trying to get adjusted; and rarely reported outside the local area (gh, DXLD) ** NIGERIA. External broadcaster plans new offices, extra languages | Text of report in English by Nigerian newspaper This Day on 31 July Voice of Nigeria (VON), the nation's external broadcasting outfit, has concluded plans to establish offices in the six geo-political zones of the country and foreign bureaux in some African countries as well as Europe and USA. Its director general, Mr Taiwo Allimi said this became necessary to properly position the organisation towards facilitating the discharge of its assigned task of projecting Nigeria's socio-cultural values, political breakthroughs and economic potentials to the world. Allimi told newsmen at the weekend during a facility tour of VON installations, that the first of the zonal offices would be commissioned on 9 August in Gombe to cover the north east zone, adding that the south east and south-south zonal offices at Enugu and Port Harcourt respectively would follow soon. He said the station which currently broadcasts in six languages - Hausa, Fulfude, Ki-Swahili, French, Arabic and English - would soon add three more - Igbo, Yoruba and German Allimi, who marked his second year in office as VON director general on Sunday, also disclosed that the organisation would soon open external bureaux in South Africa, Senegal, North Africa, East Africa, London and USA. The VON boss said the organisation which was comatose when he took office on 29 July 1999, has now been rejuvenated and reinvigorated to reposition it for the task ahead. Allimi said on assumption of office, he met a debt profile of 50m naira, obsolete equipment, non-functioning or epileptic transmitters and a demoralized workforce. He, however, noted that "with the remarkable support given to us by Mr President (Olusegun Obasanjo), the unique assistance of the Minister of Information and National Orientation, the due consideration of the Federal Executive Council and the National Assembly," the new VON has been successfully re-engineered for quality external radio broadcasting. He said on 21 September last year, the new management made a public presentation of the new VON logo, a new call signal, vision and mission statements, corporate brochure and a new programme schedule. "All Voice of Nigeria's broadcasting operations in Abuja, Lagos and Ikorodu have been computerized with internet access," the Director General said, adding that the organisation would soon install three new digital studios at the Broadcasting House, Ikoyi. Allimi, who was with the organisation's Director of Programmes, Mr Ayodele Sulaiman, said VON had invested heavily in capacity building with no fewer than 200 members of staff trained in computer appreciation and programming while more than 25 staff drawn from Engineering, News and Programmes Divisions had received overseas training in Singapore, United Kingdom, France, USA, Germany, Switzerland and Egypt, "to bring them in tune with modern realities in broadcasting." He disclosed that with the eventual stabilization and recommissioning of the organisation's three malfunctioning transmitters, "the news and programmes on VON's frequencies in English, French, Arabic, Hausa, Ki-Swahili and Fulfude, are now received worldwide," adding "we have received listeners' letters, postcards, requests for assistance and meaningful suggestions from listeners as far away as New Zealand and as near as Cameroon and from within Nigeria." Source: This Day, Lagos, in English 31 Jul 01 (via BBCM via WORLD OF RADIO 1090, DXLD) ** OKLAHOMA. This may have been going on for some time, since we rarely watch it, but K32DZ, Enid, was noted August 1 with some text- streaming local ads (featuring typos) at the bottom for a locksmith, etc., as MTV-2 was running. ID by those calls also appeared in the lower-left corner. K45EJ, the unnecessary Enid translator of KSBI-52 OKC, which is often off the air for weeks at a time, was noticed back on the air the morning of August 1, but vanished again less than a sesquihour later. Ironically, the first thing we saw on it was a commercial for Memoriez 96.9 KMMZ, the Enid station which has moved into the OKC market from a tall tower near Crescent. We finally visited 96.9 site on July 21, having a bit of time to spare on a return trip from OKC to Enid. It`s on a dirt road about a mile north of a paved road running from the north side of Crescent westward to the south side of Dover –-- a perfectly good country highway which you would never know exists by consulting the official Oklahoma state highway map. Just as many other such roads are inexplicably omitted, making it seem that some small towns have no road connexion to the outside world! The road is unnumbered, which perhaps requires the bureaucracy to pretend it not exist, and as we recall, unmarked. The tower was not visible from State Hwy 74, which runs N/S through Crescent, just north of the notorious ex-Kerr McGee plutonium plant of Karen Silkwood fame. We didn`t clock it, but the tower is considerably closer to Crescent than to Dover. It`s hard to miss once you approach on the paved road. It`s rather impressive, not only as to height (so Enid will barely be in local coverage area as well as OKC), but as to girth. It was a very hot late afternoon, and the area was infested with grasshoppers, threatening to invade the car if we opened the door or window for more than a few seconds, so we did not trespass beyond the gate, which advertised ``tower space available`` along with the well-known phone number originating with KCRC-1390, 580-237-1390. The following may not be accurate since we did not get right up to the tower, but it appeared to be made up of cubical sections, rather than vertical sections, stacked one on top of the other, with a square rather than triangular cross-section, quite sturdy and obviously capable of bearing more than just one FM antenna; strobe lights were flashing in daytime, as they customarily do. Fortunately, grasshopper central did not extend back to the paved Crescent/Dover road, but one hardy hopper clung to the windshield wiper at 65 mph until we stopped and deliberately flicked him off. Cycling the wiper had only made him cling tighter, whee! (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) {The new Enid not-the-phone-company directory received Aug 16 shows KMMZ main office now in OKC; we think the STL pickup dish was still aimed at Enid, however.} ** PHILIPPINES. If anyone of you has good information about the actual location of the PHL txer on 9580v I would like to see what you have. It seems to be on the air local daytime only and using low power from a rather ancient txer. The site name I have seen is Marulas. Clearly it is not from the VOA Tinang station. It seems that the 9580 tx originally was the ex-VOA Manila (Malolos) 50 kW unit with the calls DUR2 (Olle Alm, Sweden, Aug 1, BC-DX via DXLD) ** PHILIPPINES [non]. Dear friends, From Erik Køie I just received the following message: "The Far East Broadcasting Corp. will conduct a week long test transmission from Wertachtal Germany: Wertachtal (WER) 250 kW, 11895 kHz, 1800-1830 UT, HRS4/4/0.7, Azimuth 120 to CIRAF 39. The Transmission will start on Sunday August 5 and end on Saturday August 11." http://www.febc.org/ Best 73, (Anker Petersen, Denmark, August 3, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** RUSSIA. Glenn... Today Radio Gardarika added another test broadcast to North America on 17690 at 14-15 UTC; they also have one more test tonight (UT-Friday) at 02-03 on 9940 kHz. This info from an e-mail to me from Mikhail Timofeyev in Russia (Joe Hanlon in, Philadelphia, August 2, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Dear friends, I would like to thank all of you for your reception reports and comments about our tests relays to North America. These tests were first ones to North America from St. Petersburg for many years! There were some 200 kW transmitters (only one for each relay) and some curtain/rhombic aerial systems with 327, 312 and 308 degrees in use. Not any exact date of Radio Gardarika regular broadcasts yet. Their very tentative future schedule is: 0200-0300/0400 UT on 9940 kHz (it looks quite OK at this time)... (Mikhail Timofeyev, St. Petersburg, Russia, August 4, hard-core-dx via DXLD) ** SA`UDI ARABIA. Source: Radio of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia 2. Main Studio: Jedda. This schedule is based on frequency information from the broadcaster. Programming was confirmed in August 1999. Address: (technical/frequency management) PO Box 61718, Riyadh 11575; Tel: +966-1-442-5170; Fax: +966-1-404-1692. SW portion of sked, daily in Arabic: 0300-0600, 1700-2200 9579v; 0600-1700 11855v (© BBC Monitoring August 1 condensed for DXLD) ** SUDAN. 7200 SNBC Omdurman, *0150-0220. Native percussion instrument of the xylophone type; repeated chords and sequence to c0159. Brass band NA (presumed) and annts to 0202. Holy Qur`an recital to 0215, and into programme. All in the presence of variable Yakutsk to Russian NA and R Rossii ID plus program. Quite distinctive IS and, although difficult to hear the ID in Arabic due to Rossii, there is little doubt, in view of the various items referred to in the program, before losing out to Rossii. Not above 32322 (Ray Merrall, UK, DXW Jul 29, via BCDX via DXLD) ** TAIWAN. RTI is being heavily jammed (by ?) during 1500-1600 UT on 15265 kHz for their Chinese program. Sometimes jamming starts during English (1400-1500 UT) also (Swopan Chakroborty, Kolkata, India, August 1, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Hi Glenn, yes, observed that Chinese jamming on 15265 also here in Europe yesterday (Wolfgang Buschel, Germany, August 1, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** TAIWAN. WW2 Memorabilia - The Radio Scene in Taiwan The island of Taiwan is a little more than 200 miles long and it lies a little less than 100 miles off the coast of China. It was settled by migrants from China some 1500 years ago, and it was administered from China until 1895 when it was ceded to Japan. In 1945, the island came under Chinese control once again. The entire era of radio development in Taiwan was under Japanese administration and the first radio broadcasting station on the island was established at Taipei in the year 1928. This station was on the air at first only on shortwave though soon afterwards a mediumwave transmitter was added. The original callsign was JFAB and the original channel was 30.50 metres, corresponding to 9835 kHz. Somewhere around 1937, it seems that two different shortwave stations were constructed, one at Taihoku and the other at Tyureki. The original purpose of these two stations was for phone communication with Japan. Later information would suggest that the shortwave transmitters located in these two communication facilities were rated at 3 kW. The callsigns in use at these two stations as heard in Australia and New Zealand were in the series, JIB JIC JIE. From the scanty information available, it would seem that there were probably two transmitters at the same power in each location. As was the practice in this pre-war era, communication stations were frequently employed also for program broadcasting. Around the beginning of 1938, program broadcasting was noted from Taiwan, with generally two transmitters on the air simultaneously. The programming was usually a relay from the mediumwave station JFAK, with a bulletin of news in English at midnight in the western Pacific. Several DXers during this era sent reception reports to these shortwave radio stations in Taiwan, but without response. One listener sent four reception reports over a period of time, but complained in the Australian magazine ``Radio & Hobbies`` that he had received no response. However, in the August 1940 issue of the same magazine, column editor Ray Simpson reported that he had finally received a QSL letter from Taiwan after a wait of two years. The letter verified his reception of station JIB on 10535 kHz. The station manager, Mr Jiro Hayashi, explained that QSL cards were not available, but he included with his letter four postcards showing picturesque scenes in Taihoku. This is the only known QSL from the pre-war shortwave stations in Taiwan. The last reference to these shortwave stations on Taiwan carrying program broadcasting is around mid 1940. In view of the fact that they were low powered units, it is probable that they were not used for programming on subsequent occasions. However, the first edition of the World Radio Handbook, for the year 1947, lists two shortwave stations at Taipei in Taiwan under the country heading of China. These two stations are identified as XUPA & XURA with 3 kW each. It is presumed therefore that these two units were the same units identified previously as JIB and JIE. As far as radio broadcasting during the Pacific War is concerned, there are no references to their usage during this era. References JFAB Taipeh 39.50 m (7595 kHz); WRTVHB 1934 Radio Doings 96 JFO Taihoku 9636 not JFAK but JFO Manager Jiro Hayashi; RN 7-38 54 JFO Taihoku 9525 English news good signal; R&H 79.11 5-39 58, 6-39 61 JFO Taihoku 9635 heard until mid Sept; R&H 79.11 11-39 56 JIA Tyureki 15750 kHz phone station; WRTVHB 1937 Aug RN 148 JIB Tyureki 10535 kHz phone station; WRTVHB 1937 Aug RN 148 JIB Taiwan 10530 heard in USA; RN 1-38 418 JIB Taiwan relays JFAK 10530 8650 19820 kHz; RN 3-38 549 JIB Taihoku 10535 English news good signal; R&H 79.11 5-39 58, 6-39 61 JIB Taihoku 10535 4 reports sent, no response; 79.11 R&H 7-39 56 JIB QSL letter after 2 years, no cards, sent 4 scenic cards; R&H 8-40 54 JIC Taihoku 5890 kHz phone station; WRTVHB 1935 Aug RN 117 JIE 7295 English same lady as JIB previously, relay JFAK; R&H 12-39 48 JIE Tyureki 7295 JFAK; R&H 12-39 52 JIE & JIE2 in parallel 10 kW each RN 9-39 45 JIE2 & JIE in parallel 10 kW each RN 9-39 45 JIE2 9690 relay JIB; R&H 8-39 57 JIE2 Tyureki 9695 new station heard after MN; R&H 11-39 56 JIE3 Tyureki 9695 after MN; R&H 79.11 6-40 63 XUPA & XURA Taipei 3 kW 9600 & 7220; WRTVHB 1947 54 XUPA 9690 relay JIB; R&H 8-39 57 XURA & XUPA Taipei 3 kW 7220 & 9600; WRTVHB 1947 54 (Adrian Peterson, AWR Wavescan July 15 via DXLD) Note: references to ``WRTVHB`` before 1947 are Adrian`s private notebooks of info (gh) ** TAJIKISTAN. Glenn, do you have any information about Radio Dushanbé`s two English transmissions for A-01? They happen to be one of my favourite DX targets. In past years I've just been barely able to hear an English programme somewhere around 0245 or 0345 on around 11645 I believe, but haven't seen anything about their A01 program sched. Thanks, (Walt Salmaniw, BC, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Walt, I checked DXLD archive, and several English broadcast listings, and see nothing specific about A-01. Some summer skeds are still showing 7245 at 1645 and/or 0345, no mention of 11 MHz. Probably should ask Dave Kenny at BBCM about it (Glenn Hauser, DXLD) ** TIBET. CHINA There has been a major change in the SW transmissions of Xizang PBS (Tibet). Acc to the NDXC website this happened 12th July. Now txs at Xi`an and Baoji are used to relay Xizang PBS Chinese and Tibetan programs. Instead the traditional low freq channels like 4035, 4750, 4820, 5240 and several 49 mb ones are silent. The full schedule can be picked up from http://www2.starcat.ne.jp/~ndxc/cn/cnr.htm (Olle Alm, Sweden, Aug 3, BC-DX via DXLD) ** UKRAINE. Evidently Brovary is already back on air. At 1730 check all 5905, 9640 and 11840 are up, together with Kharkiv 9560 and 12045 as well as Kopani 7150 (carrying Ukrainian // 6020, not German like all other frequencies as supposed in recently distributed schedules). Last night at 0035 I heard 5905, too (other frequencies not checked because I had the schedule not at hand), like 12040 with English, so they finally managed to play the right tapes. After 0040 12040 was off for some time but back on when rechecked later (Kai Ludwig, Germany, August 2, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 12040 RUI switched to another txer at the same time as 7150 finally came on the air, so whatever site they were using 11 to 17 July, it is now Kopani as scheduled. The signal is only modest here, but that can be ascribed to the sharply focused beam which does not reach far enough to the north (Olle Alm, Sweden, Aug 1, BCDX via DXLD) RUI seems to have some problems with the reactivated Kopani txer on 12040. Early this morning they first had very distorted audio and then were off for short and long periods. Later they were back with normal audio. The sign on was at 2325 instead of scheduled 2300. Other RUI channels seem to be on normal schedule (Olle Alm, Sweden, Aug 3, BCDX via DXLD) Yes, 12040 uses to be quite poor here now. Evidently we are already outside the lobe of the antenna they use now, which I guess is a 8/8 or perhaps even 8/16 monster curtain. Needless to say that some pictures from Kopani etc. would be really interesting. I found already the curtain row of the old KWZ site near Nauen [Germany] quite impressive, and these are (or were) "only" 4/8 designs. (Wolfgang Büschel, ibid.) ** U A E. Abu Dhabi - Brown Boveri-Switzerland units, 4 x 500 kW in 1985. English product erected in Dubai: All Marconi, 3 x 300 kW in 1979, and addit single 500 kW in 1985 (Kai Ludwig, Germany, July 31, BC-DX via DXLD) New 17730 WYFR via Dhabbaya, UAE - towards CAs and Indian subcontinent, heard in English at 1510, carrying "Foundation of the World" program. Equal level co-ch QRM by DW Antigua. 21221 (Wolfgang Büschel, Germany, July 31, BC-DX via DXLD) 1400-1700 to S As 500 kW, 85 degrees (Vlad Titarev. Ukraine, DXplorer Jul 31, ibid.) ** U A E. As noted by Noël, Dubai seems to be doing some technical work. They usually leave all four txers on the air with blank carrier throughout the night, and did so last night as well. Just before 0200, when the morning shift arrived, two txers appeared to go off while the other two switched to their morning freqs. Two of the txers are still noisy, but the level of the noise seems to have gone down considerably. This noise of the Leszczynka type has been there ever since the txers first came on the air, so it seems to be a design bug. Just as in the case of Leszczynka the theory of pump vibrations carried into the power tubes by the cooling water seems to be a very realistic one. The character of the noise is more mechanic than electronic. The so called microphonic effect is probably well known to most DXers who have used tube receivers. If you knocked at a tube you could hear the knocks in the receiver audio (Olle Alm, Sweden, Aug 3, ibid.) ** U K. Our Susy Radio (Sussex Surrey Radio Group) RSL is now on again, this time not on FM... but uniquely on 531 AM. Fund raising from this broadcast is for St. Catherine's Hospice. Air dates 4-31 August; studio telephone 0870 7650 531; http://www.susyradio.com August 14 is to be a day of programmes about offshore and other stations from the 60s, 70s and 80s, including Caroline, Laser, Sunshine, Jackie and the documentary 'On The Run'. Groundwave goes on and on for miles of course at this frequency if you can dig it out from the Algerian, Spanish, Swiss and Faroes stations on the channel. Best chance for catching any skywave is probably around dawn, just after the stations further East in Europe have faded down. Regards, (Trevor, August 4, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U K. The Times: The Man Who Saved BBC Radio 2 (Aug. 4) [Note: Mr. Snoddy's column has the first mention I've seen that my fav radio columnist, Peter Barnard is now "...The former Times critic...."] Chet Copeland/nyc +++++++++++++++++++++ BY RAY SNODDY Jim Moir has turned a failing station into the most popular one in the country. Jim Moir knew what it meant when, at the age of 52, he was appointed deputy director of corporate affairs at the BBC. He was being kicked upstairs to the bureaucracy after being passed over for the BBC1 controller's job -- despite having been involved in producing or commissioning some of television's most popular programmes over the years, from The Generation Game to Absolutely Fabulous. The moment was not right for someone with a light entertainment background to take over BBC1. There was much foolish talk of BBC programmes scaling Himalayan peaks, and the corporate gyroscope was heading in the direction of gravitas... (Read the rest of the article:) http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,66-2001264190,00.html (Chet Copeland, NY, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U K. I posted on the savebbc.org site (not sure if everyone read it) that there are rumors rampant in Bush House that the BBC is going to put the South American services on the chopping block. I was talking to a journalist from the World Service Brazil section when I was at the 112th IOC Session in Moscow and he told me that his co- workers are very worried about losing jobs. I also directed him to the URL of the savebbc site and he said he would log in and encourage his co-workers to also do so. We still need to keep the pressure on!! 73 (Maryanne Kehoe, August 2, swprograms via DXLD) These rumours refer to services in Spanish and Portuguese, not English. And they have been in circulation for many months. If and when such a decision is announced, it's likely that it will reach the international listening community via a leaked internal memo, as happened with the May decision. It does appear that cost-cutting has become something of a crusade within the BBC. Another leaked internal memo, quoted in The Guardian, says that the Corporation is withdrawing free biscuits (cookies) from staff meetings! Things really must be tight... (Andy Sennitt, ibid.) The BBC World Service management will truly be a bunch of real idiots if they cut Spanish and Portuguese to the Americas. I realize that they already are a bunch of idiots, but at least their lousy excuses for cutting BBCWS from NA and the Pacific may look plausable to the uninformed. However, in Latin America the Internet infrastructure is much less developed. I have friends in Mexico who are part of the class of the "movers and shakers" that the BBC has stated they want to reach. They have trouble getting on the internet all the time, because the phone system is not up to par. They definitely would not be able to listen via the Internet, English-language or otherwise. Shortwave has to be the primary way of being heard in these countries. Apparently, the Americas hold no interest at all for the BBC. I think the morons at the BBC are lying to everyone because they know they can get away with it. They might as well state who is worthwhile to receive their product and who is not (Dan Barriball, ibid.) ** U K/ASCENSION. Radio Atlántico del Sur? For those of you too young to remember, that was a hastily concocted service created by the Foreign Office, which used its powers to 'commandeer' one of the transmitters on Ascension Island. The service originated from government studios, not the BBC. The two speakers, a male and female, were FO employees who had learned Spanish from a Colombian and thus spoke with pronounced Colombian accents, causing much mirth in downtown Buenos Aires, as they were claiming to be Argentinian! Apparently, the man started 'chatting up' the woman on air at one point. The programme apparently had quite a big audience amongst Argentinians with a penchant for unintentional comedy. The service was run by Neil ffrench-Blake (the spelling is correct), whom I had met in 1976 when he was the first MD of Radio 210 in Reading. People at BBCWS were incandescent with rage at this amateurish operation by civil servants, broadcast on well-known BBC frequency. Meanwhile, the Argentines responded with a comic production of their own, featuring 'Argentine Annie'. Sadly, while this nonsense was going on, British and Argentinian servicemen were losing their lives. Some of those who survived had horrible injuries. Some (including a close relative of mine) lost friends and colleagues. Sometimes, in those dark days of 1982, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry!! (Andy Sennitt, ibid.) Although I work for Radio Netherlands, I am participating here on an individual basis. Opinions expressed are my own, and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Radio Netherlands. As I recall, RAdS was on 9710, which was chosen to be close to, but not the same as, a well-known BBC frequency (gh, DXLD) ** U K [non]. DX Information from the British DX Club (BDXC-UK). Here's my question to the Radio Authority yesterday: "Hello, Does Radio Caroline have a shortwave licence for the frequency of 6210 kHz? It`s listed on the RA website. Thank you" And here's the reply today from Alison.Sear@radioauthority.org.uk : "Dear Mr Terry, I must apologise for the error on our website which made it appear that Radio Caroline has a shortwave licence from us. Radio Caroline have a licence to broadcast a satellite radio station and certainly don`t have a shortwave licence. The offending information entered in error will be removed by our IT department. Thanks for pointing this out to us and I apologise for any confusion this error has caused. Yours sincerely, Alison Sear" (via Mike Terry, BDXC-UK August 1 via DXLD) Hi All, Thanks Terry for getting this response. The anomaly appears to be that the BBC are still responsible for negotiating frequencies exclusively on behalf of the UK. This is particularly odd when the BBC domestic and overseas services are transmitted by private companies. You have a morse key...it is not a radio station, but connect it to a transmitter and antenna and it is. The BBC has become simply a programme provider hiring time on other peoples` transmitters, satellites, internet servers or cable to make hemselves heard. The RadioCommunications Agency are supposed to be responsible for managing the radio spectrum. It is they that allocate frequencies to commercial and utility users of the radio spectrum. Even amateur users have their frequencies negotiated by the DTI when it comes to international negotiations. So I can't see why the BBC and any other potential SW broadcaster cannot apply to the RadComAcy who could then negotiate on behalf of all British users on an international basis. After all a proportion of licence fees for commercial broadcasters and others are collected by this agency. In the USA it is not the VOA that negotiates SW frequencies for the many religious stations but the FCC which equates to our DTI. It is crackers that the BBC should be able to literally "own" Britain's share of the SW bands and only allow friendly stations to use their spare capacity. This situation is identical to Laker Airways who were trying to establish cut-price trans-Atlantic air travel, only to be told the major airlines occupied all the landing and take off slots at the major airports. Virgin Airways later overcame this problem in the courts in the USA, which led to a price war intended to force the newcomer out of the sky, with BA and others deliberately selling tickets at a loss. It is trade protectionism which is not illegal in the UK, but none the less distasteful, particularly when applied by our government (Andy Cadier, BDXC-UK via DXLD) ** U K. Some comments interspersed which also follow on from Andy Cadier's comments: ``I have asked our Engineering department and have found out the following for you. The frequencies granted to the Authority by the Secretary of State to support our various terrestrial licences, ie. national, local, and restricted, and digital radio multiplex (national and local), are within the medium frequency and VHF ranges. This is consistent with our remit, which is for broadcasting within the UK, not abroad. HF frequencies (short wave) have characteristics well-suited to international broadcasts, but not really for domestic broadcasting.`` Hobby pirates and radio amateurs have shown you can get domestic coverage using the 75, 49, 41 and 31 metre bands at various times of the day. ``Of course you cannot apply for a particular frequency from the Authority, you have to apply for a licence which will use a frequency chosen by the Authority from within the ranges ceded to it, and the Authority then applies to the Radiocommunications Agency for a detailed transmitter assignment (frequency clearance). ``My understanding is that government policy is that no licences are available to broadcast on short wave from the UK; the framework for frequency use in any case differs from that applied to MF and VHF broadcasting bands. The government allows (indeed requires) the BBC to broadcast external services outside the UK, and we believe there is an arrangement whereby a private company (Merlin Communications) may sub-let transmission time to third parties, but only under the BBC's auspices (i.e. with its agreement). HF frequency resources remain finite, with demand generally outstripping supply for the best frequencies to the most popular target areas. Therefore even if government hypothetically were minded to make arrangements for external broadcasting by parties other than the BBC, this would, hypothetically, (a) imply an opportunity cost {sic -- lost?} for the BBC/UK in its international negotiations on using HF frequencies, and (b) need to be consistent with any government policy concerning British broadcasts to foreign countries, with all that might entail.`` Looking at the A01 frequency list and the HFCC site I believe that in fact the Authority is the RadioCommunications Agency, the frequency management organisation is Merlin, they certainly are the HFCC representatives NOT the BBC, and they negotiate frequencies for their clients, the main one being the BBC, which the RadioCommunications Agency then submits to the ITU for clearance. Obviously BBC engineers will liase with Merlin as to their requirements. In the USA George Jacobs does frequency management for several of the private stations. I also remember an interview with Merlin where Kim Elliott asked them about whether they would rent transmission time to anyone and they said that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, where BBC WS get their grant from, would not allow them to broadcasters whose broadcasts might be considered contentious and they simply would check with them if they felt the broadcasts would present a possible problem. In Australia they have legislation recently introduced for independent shortwave, which of course could easily be done in this country, and licences have been issued to HCJB and Christian Vision, both of whom are HFCC members, and quoting Matt Francis in Cumbre DX: "Both licences were granted after consultation with the Minister of Foreign Affairs on national interest considerations. Legislation gives the government the option to issue formal warnings to a broadcaster and to revoke an international broadcasting licence on national interest grounds should a service prove contentious at some stage." Here we have no legislative framework and a private monopoly renting time to whoever it likes with little oversight as long as it is careful not to let political clandestine stations or the more controversial religious stations use their transmitters. Despite the requirement that shortwave be used for external transmissions, some frequencies have been chosen to give good UK coverage; in particular, Merlin Network One and the Merlin Caroline rebroadcast. Standards for Merlin clients are different from standards for domestic broadcasters. Even the most cursory glance at the A01 assignments shows that there would be little problem in getting additional UK frequencies particularly for low power stations wishing domestic and West European coverage. Denmark and Finland have got clearance in recent years for low power stations for example so the cost element cannot have been particularly prohibitive for the stations involved. There is then the question of UK competition laws. Michael Fabricant has put down a couple of recent questions on this: Michael Fabricant: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport if she will ask the Office of Fair Trading to investigate the market power of the BBC. [4506] Dr. Howells [holding answer 17 July 2001]: No. It is open to anyone with the appropriate evidence of alleged infringement of the Competition Act 1998 to raise this with the Office of Fair Trading. Michael Fabricant: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what powers the Office of Fair Trading has to prevent the abuse of market power by broadcasters. [4507] Miss Melanie Johnson: Under UK competition law the Director General of Fair Trading is required to apply and enforce the provisions of the Competition Act 1998 to prevent conduct by one or more undertakings which amounts to the abuse of a dominant position in a market in the UK (or a part thereof) and which may affect trade within the UK (the Chapter II Prohibition). This of course could equally be applied to Merlin and Trevor Brook is in correspondence with the OFT. His latest letter, sent on the 23rd July, which he is quite happy to be reproduced, says: "You have reiterated why the present situation does not infringe my human rights but not dealt with the matter of freedom to operate a business where a limited resource may have to be divided amongst traders. ``I drew the historical parallel between permits for more than one British carrier to operate transatlantic flights, and licensing on short wave. Richard Branson could buy a ticket to New York on British Airways, yet could not fly his own airline there because of the policy of a public body. This is equivalent to myself being prevented from trading and competing as a short wave broadcaster. In his interview on 20 July on BBC Radio 4, John Vickers stated that the OFT was "explicitly a pro-market organisation... hungry for evidence of people breaking competition laws" and keen to deal with "even restrictions coming from government rules and regulations". Since the Radiocommunications Agency refuses to sell a short wave licence to anyone other than Merlin, surely it is an undertaking engaged in commercial or economic activity which prevents competition and hence is covered by the Act?" If anyone on the list wishes to make similar points to the Office of Fair Trading to make them more aware of this abuse of power their address is: Director General John Vickers Office of Fair Trading Fleetbank House 2-6 Salisbury Square London EC4Y 8JX (Mike Barraclough, August 3, BDXC-UK via DXLD) The above information may only be reproduced if full credit is given to the original source, contributor AND to the British DX Club (BDXC- UK). ** U S A. Dear Glenn, Had to cancel WOR on 9330 at 0400 UT Thursday due to paying client wanting time. Will move you to Thursday morning 0415-0445 UT on 7415 to serve west coast listeners. Also of note- Radio Caroline programming is coming to WBCQ. Will be airing their programs on 7415 Thursday thru Sunday at 2000-2100 UT. I have always pledged to get Radio Caroline programming back on the radio airwaves so listeners from around the planet can enjoy the great music and Loving Awareness theme. Start date is August 16th at 2000 UT on 7415. As always we are continuing to get more interesting programs to broadcast on the shortwaves. More and more people are finding WBCQ and are very pleased with MOST of what they are hearing. Take care, (Allan Weiner, WBCQ, August 2, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Now we have the time for Caroline on 7415, which won`t carry far that early in the afternoon, but he makes no mention of 17495 as in the previous item direct from Caroline (gh, DXLD) ** U S A. A Different Kind of Oldies Show Update, August 4: This week's show: We continue with the concept we did on last week`s show, playing a track from the LP`s we`re filing away. If you missed last week`s live broadcast, we have a stack of records that have to go on the bottom shelf, alphabetically P through Z. Last week we went from P to S, this week from S to W. This week we`re prerecorded. Tune in on WBCQ, 7415 kHz, Saturday night at 8 PM Eastern Daylight Time, (Midnight UT, Sunday). The playlist for this show, #131, will be posted on Saturday Night. Since this week`s show is pre-recorded, we will have it up on live365.com at the same time as the broadcast. Open http://64.152.82.194:7970 (33.6k Mono) or http://166.90.143.149:9056 (56k Stereo), in your mp3 player. We will be prerecording shows over the next few weeks since we`re getting ready to go on vacation. If you`re reading this on our website or on a newsgroup but would like to get it in your mailbox instead, please write me back at bigsteve387@msn.com Similarly, if you do not want to be on our mailing list, also write me at the same address. Do not use any other e-mail address we may have. I am no longer using the email.com address. I`m looking for ideas for the website. Do you like the black background and the letter style on the menu? Should I go back to the old backgrounds on the home and table of contents? Send me some feed back at the above address. Website reconstruction: I`ve been backlogged at work, but plan a few more changes. Some items will be combined. The Link and E-Mail will be moved to the Bio page, once I decide to finish it. Once I can find a new source for address books, polls and such we will try to have them on that page as well. Don't forget to join in as Mike The Jokeman, L.F. Midwood and I banter along with Johnny Lightning on Radio Newyork International over WBCQ Sunday nights at 8 PM Eastern. Pick up the full fidelity studio feed from live365.com by entering http://www.live365.com/stations/222095 in your browser, or directly in your player at http://166.90.143.139:11334 (-Steve Colletti, August 4, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. Re WWCR/WNQM on 4860, WNQM on 2600: Glenn was correct. When I checked 1300 @ 0030 on the 31st I found that there indeed was a match. This mixing product fades in and out here, which suggests that I am receiving not only groundwave, but also skywave propagation. The signal seems to be sufficiently strong to propagate at least one hop. Should make for nice DX. I also checked 2600 and found a dirty 2nd harmonic at a fair level (David Hodgson, Nashville TN, Aug 1, Cumbre DX via DXLD) George McClintock checked these out and found no audible harmonic on 2600; however, such spurs 80 dB down are not uncommon (Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. KAIJ: Recently, there was an item in DXLD [Dorner via FCC] that this one had been sold. As near as I can tell, this was simply an internal sale from one of Dr. Scott's holdings to another. The buyer, Peoria Broadcasting Services, also owns a TV station in Palm Springs that airs Gene Scott (Hans Johnson, Aug 3, Cumbre DX via DXLD) ** U S A. [Piñón] New Mexico station. I spoke to Dr. Planck about his planned New Mexico station, but he had no further information that he was willing to share at this time. He did say he would have an announcement soon (Hans Johnson, Aug 3, Cumbre DX via DXLD) ** U S A. WJCR took a power surge a few days ago that took both of their transmitters off of the air. I hope to have them back on by the weekend of August 4th (Larry Baysinger, Aug 2, Cumbre DX via DXLD) ** U S A. Before I get buried in mail, let me say that ONLY Delano transmissions can be verified for now. Unlike what I was doing at Bethany, I need to get the OK from the folks in Washington to do other VOA....IBB sites. Plus, Washington would need to supply me with cards, since all we have here, are cards for Delano, and not very many of these. New cards are being designed, reflecting the new "corporate`` name IBB (John Vodenik, swl@qth.net via DXLD) ** U S A. One thing you might want to write about is your memories of listening to the Voice of America over the years. In February, 2002, VOA will celebrate its sixtieth anniversary. A committee is beginning to plan activities to mark that anniversary. You can help our committee by sending in any anecdotes or reminiscences of listening to VOA during any of its sixty years. And if you have any old audio recordings of VOA, those would be especially welcome. e-mail to cw@voanews.com [ cw@voa.gov still works, too]. (Kim Elliott, VOA Communications World July 28 via John Norfolk, DXLD) ** U S A. The subsequent Ask WWCR replied again to Will Martin (not Martin as first name), about the same New Horizons show being repeated week after week. It seems that the computer failed to refresh with a new show when it was supposed to, input to one of the transmitters, while it was doing so for the other one... (Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. In response to the news of WWCV (World Wide Christian Voice): I'm sorry to read that another fundamentalist Christian station plans to take to the SW bands. I don`t know what your religious affiliation is, if any, and don`t wish to offend, but doesn`t the world have enough SW radio evangelism, already? I can`t imagine who listens to these stations? I guess since revenues come from the pockets of the faithful, it doesn`t matter if anyone listens. I suppose what I find disturbing about fundamentalism in all its forms, even beyond being intellectually offensive, is that the underlying impetus is conversion. Whether it be Pentecostal Christianity, Islamic fundamentalism, or Chinese communism, the drive is conversion of the masses to a certain narrow ideology. Any other point of view is simply not tolerated, and viewed as a threat. At the most extreme level, such as what China has been doing in Tibet, or to Falun Dafa people, tortured and killed by the thousands, in the name of ideology. With less violent forms of fundamentalism it is nevertheless the same process of conversion which motivates the faithful. I hope I am preaching to the choir, as they say. Well, that is my sermon for the day, hi, hi. 73s, (David Hodgson, TN, August 1, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. KOME-1630-Clovis CA: Per a follow-up phone call to engineering, there is a good chance they will not use 1630, as in new tests the 5 kW 790 covers better. So another one we can scratch. 73s, (Patrick Martin, Seaside OR, August 3, IRCA via DXLD) ** U S A. Here's a followup on the WNIB classical music station in Chicago (Michael A. Mathis, DXLD) <---- Begin Forwarded Message ----> Date: Sat, 04 Aug 2001 02:07:56 -0500 From: Bruce Duffie duffie@voyager.net To all the wonderful people who wrote to me in the weeks surrounding the death of WNIB, plus a few other friends - both professional and personal - around the world... First, let me tell you I survived Chicago's recent heat and the high water, so I guess that means I'm going to be around a bit longer. Several of you have written, asking what I'm up to, and for the moment I have little news. I have put a few more items up on my website - more interviews, more pictures, and lots more links. And in case you ever lose or forget my web address, I've secured http://www.bruceduffie.com ! Right now, it's just an entrance back to the older site, but it will house some of my newer work in the near future. Since most of you were fans of WNIB, I want to tell you of a display of memorabilia currently at the Harold Washington Library. On the 8th floor, there's a nice showcase of items from the station. A few pictures and some of the articles about the announcers, plus a few special items (including my ASCAP/Deems Taylor Award). It's a small but tasteful reminder of what was our station, and will run through the end of August. I must tell you, however, that I was NOT informed about this by anyone. I just happened to be at an art show of James Mesple [see his works via the link on my website] when an old friend of mine who worked at the Library strolled in. He was accompanied by another librarian who had put the display together and she mentioned it to me. Had I not been there at that precise moment to run into them, I would not have had an inkling about this public show. *sigh* Anyway, I hope all of you are finding great music someplace - either live or recorded. I continue to work on several ideas and projects, and will tell you of the good news when the time is right. Thanks again for your kindness to me! Bruce <-- End Forwarded Message --> (via KB9NXD Michael A. Mathis, DXLD) ** U S A. ABC to Take Over WEVD, Bastion of Liberal New York Radio By JAYSON BLAIR The group that owns WEVD, the venerable New York radio station that was founded to promote fiercely liberal programming, has signed an agreement to turn over control of the station to ABC, which plans to turn it into an outlet for ESPN Radio, executives close to the companies said today. The deal means the end to an era in independent New York City programming and bolsters the national presence of ESPN Radio, which has had a strong presence in nearly every large United States sports market except this one. Full story: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/01/business/02WEVD.html?ex=997772935&ei=1&en=0600f38e7948d19f and: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/02/business/media/02RADI.html?ex=997762475&ei=1&en=1798f16f4f7ca82f (via Bill Westenhaver, Chet Copeland, DXLD) The NY Daily News piece on the WEVD sale, in Thursday's edition, is at the following URL: http://www.nydailynews.com/2001-08-02/New_York_Now/Television/a-120337.asp Here's the link to another story, in today's New York Daily News, about the WEVD sale. Note that it also includes a link to savewevd.com, although I couldn't get that site to open up before it timed out. http://www.nydailynews.com/2001-08-03/New_York_Now/Television/a-120478.asp WEVD in NYPOST.COM. To read the story, click here: http://www.nypost.com/entertainment/36454.htm (all via Bill Westenhaver, QU, DXLD) Reports that old Debs was turning over in his grave could not be verified. One wonders what will happen to 620 kHz, currently Sporting News Radio WSNR, when it has to go up against the Mouse and the Eye? Is there room for 3 sports talk radio stations, two of them owned by huge corporations? Forward Story on WEVD: http://www.forward.com/issues/2001/01.08.03/news4.html (via Joël Rubin) ** VIETNAM. 5597.3, Lao Cai Radio Station, 1243 July 28, Vietnamese spoken word program interspersed with Hmong hill tribe folk songs. // 6692.2. Signal stronger on 6 MHz freq (Richard Lam, Singapore, Cumbre DX via DXLD) ** VIETNAM. VOV-4 minority language service retimed some programmes at the beginning of July. Now at 0930-1030 on 6020 and 0930-1100 on 7210, replacing previous times in 1145-1300 period. Each frequency carries a separate stream of 30-minute language segments. There are probably still other transmissions in local early morning and again before noon on the same frequencies, but they are not audible here. 6020 and 7210 carry VOV's 2nd and 1st networks respectively at other times. Hmong Sce on 5035v and 6165 seems to be unchanged at 0500-0600 and 1200-1330; 2200 transmission not checked recently (Alan Davies, Thailand, Cumbre DX via DXLD) ** VIETNAM [non]. Re DXLD 1-103: In a July 29 reply on the SWBC group, Ludo Maes says that Radio Free Vietnam, 15230 kHz at 1400-1430 Monday to Friday, is being relayed via Russia; I would guess that it's from a site in the Russian Far East (Joe Hanlon in Philadelphia, August 1, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 15235 (not 15230) Radio Free Vietnam. R Free Vietnam was heard at *1400-1429* on 15235 in Vietnamese. Lots of spoken items about VTN, some mx. Ending with their address in Louisiana, which I take as an ID. As it seems there was another program in a different Asian language (Burmese?) following before they pulled the plug at 1431. I think I heard something like "Democratic Myanmar". May be a hint at the station carrying Radio Free Vietnam (Harald Kuhl, Germany, DXplorer Aug 2 via BC-DX via DXLD) Either via 50 kW RNW MDG unit or via DTK Jülich, vailed operation not mentioned in latest DTK schedule, ed. [which is supposed to start DVB immediately after this on another frequency: -gh] 15405 1430-1530 41,49 70 0107-281001 DVB DTK 17805 1455-1530 41,49 70 0606-281001 DVB DTK 15235 R Free Vietnam, 1410-1430*, Vietnamese comment about the situation in Indonesia, talks with several mentions of Vietnam, Vietnamese songs, 1423-1428 Speech from Florida in Vietnamese with a telephone ringing in the background. Big applause at the end. Closed with Vietnamese instrumental mx and freq annt. Weak QRM on 15235 by R Rossii \\ 5940, possibly from Khanty-Mansiysk (3 kW). 34444. I had no indication of which tx was used, but I do not think it is Jülich, because it was much stronger than Dem VoBurma via Jülich on 15405, and it is not mentioned in the DTK schedule for Jülich as of Aug 1 (Anker Petersen, Denmark, DSWCI Aug 3, via BCDX via DXLD) ** VIETNAM [non]. CLANDESTINE from USA to VIETNAM. Radio Free Vietnam (the California, not Louisiana one) Per Clandestine Radio, this is the station of the Government of Free Vietnam. Ulis Fleming passes along the URL for a good Washington Post article on them. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4058-2001Jul29.html (Hans Johnson, Aug 3, Cumbre DX via DXLD) ###