DX LISTENING DIGEST 00-23, February 5, 2000 edited by Glenn Hauser {Items from DXLD may be reproduced and re-reproduced only providing full credit be maintained at all stages} WORLD OF RADIO ON 15685 Sat 1230, Tue 1200: Voice of Tibet daily 1220-12.59:20 now on v15650.21 and 9950 (ex 15685 and ex 9910) (Wolfgang Bueschel, Germany, Feb 4) ** ANGUILLA. Anyone getting spatter from Gene Scott on 11775 from 11540 through 12000? Using a Drake R-8 and a dipole cut for 6955. (Ron Hunsicker, location unknown, Feb 5, swl@qth.net) Well,,, (gh) ** BENIN. Having just got them identified they move back! 7210.2, Radiodiffusion du Benin, 2255-2304* Choral music, identification "Ici Cotonou..", National Anthem and off, ex 7200. Fair signal on clear channel (Mike Barraclough, England, February 1st, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CANADA. Hi Glenn! The membership of the STARF union voted 79.3% in favour of accepting the negotiated settlement, in results announced Thursday evening, Montréal time. Therefore, the strike is over. The return to work will take place over the next few days, so that everything at RCI should be back to normal by Wednesday at 1100 UT. 73- (Bill Westenhaver, Feb 4, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC. Radio MINURCA went off the air Feb 1 at 0615. I'm packing the place up. UN radio should be back on the air from its new home in the CAR in about a month. MINURCA itself ends on Feb 15, however much of the staff has already been sent to other missions. On the positive side, our project for an after-MINURCA radio is going well. A new radio building is under construction at the UNDP compound thanks to a grant from the German government. The Japanese government is likely to buy new equipment for the operation. If all goes well, the new operation could be on the air in three weeks. It will use the same frequencies as Radio MINURCA, with an as of yet to be determined name. This per David Smith, station manager. (via Hans Johnson Jan 29, Feb 2, Cumbre DX via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Smith also did his own report on MINURCA on the Feb 3 RN Media Network, accessible via http://www.wrn.org/ondemand (gh) ** CHECHNYA. Let's begin with news about U.S. international broadcasting. The breakaway republic of Chechnya has lately been one of the most dangerous places to practice journalism. But it is specifically the job of U.S. financed Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, based in Prague, to gather news from all parts of Russia and to transmit it back in Russia. Andrei Babitskiy, RFE/RL correspondent covering the war in Chechnya, was reported missing after filing a story on January 15th. On January 28th, it became known that Mr. Babitskiy was detained by Russian authorities, allegedly for not having the proper credentials to cover the Chechnya war. On Thursday, RFE/RL and the Itar-Tass news agency reported that he was released and was to be flown back to Moscow. But later on Thursday, in a move that Reuters described as 'bizarre,' Mr. Babitskiy was turned over to the Chechens in exchange for three Russian prisoners-of-war. RFE/RL president Thomas Dine condemned this action by the Russians, calling it a violation of human rights. Mr. Dine said he is totally confident that Babitsky has performed according to what he called the highest journalistic standards and has violated no law. He reaffirmed that RFE/RL would do everything in its power to ensure Babitsky's safe return to his family. No specific charges were ever filed against Mr. Bibitskiy. He is a 36-year-old Russian citizen who has reported for RFE/RL for the past ten years. [See the RFE/RL website for news about Mr. Babibitskiy and developments in Chechnya.] (Kim Elliott, VOA Communications World Feb 5 via John Norfolk, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CHINA [non]. CRI via Cuba 9570, English at 0100 has not been showing up since Jan 23. I do hear low/weak RHC on 9570. No CRI so I have heard RRI Bucharest English to NAm at 0200, weak; do not hear them for repeat at 0400; it`s either QRN or splash from VOA 9575 (Bob Thomas, CT, Jan 28, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** COSTA RICA. RFPI has been promoting a special, first airing Sunday Feb 6 at 2000, ``Songs of Freedom`` for the birthday of Bob Marley. And repeated UT Mon 0400, 1200, on some of: 25930-USB, 15049, 6975. BTW, I've noted RPFI seems to have tightened up its timing. While it is not necessary to chop off programs just in order to meet the clock unless a live network feed is coming, it is the `pro` thing to do, to run as closely to ontime as possible, and I frequently note RFPI shows now start within a couple of seconds of hourtop. This is especially helpful to those who may be timer-taping (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** GUINEA-BISSAU (presumed) [NON? -gh]: 4848-4852, Jan 31 0520-0600; s.o. [sic - means sign on??] "Eng. sevice of Guinea Bissau Nat'l Radio, Bissau."; ID at 0530; sig. staggered over the band, not listed in Passport or WRTH on this freq. weak sig. w/strong fade ups- in the clear all talk about African development, by regions. Clandestine? (Ron Guylas, Lansing MI, MARE TIpsheet) [THIS ONE DESERVES A FEW EXTRA EARS ON IT FOLKS! Relay from Cameroon maybe?-MARE ed.] (via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** INDONESIA. RRI Fakfak, which broadcasts from Papua - formerly known as Irian Jaya - was knocked off the air after being looted and ransacked on Friday, January 29, according to newswire detik.com. Although the causes of the riot is unknown witnesses state that local residents have been upset that the state-run broadcaster continued to call the province "Irian Jaya" and not "Papua" as had been declared by President Wahid earlier this year. RRI Fakfak now refuse to return to work until their security can be guaranteed. (Nick Grace, Jan 30, Cumbre DX via DX LISTENING DIGEST) See DXLD 00-22, already back on air 4789 (gh) ** IRAN. Since at least February 1st most of the VoA and RL outlets in Persian language are subject of Iranian government jamming. Some VoA/RL channels are jammed by well known BUBBLE jamming, other channels covered by strong co-channel outlets of VOIRIB Arabic program. Bubble jamming heard at 0700 [scheduled 0430-0730] on 15290 against R Liberty Kavalla Greece relay. Parallel channels 7285 and 9585 both from Lampertheim Germany suffered by co-ch VOIRIB Arabic progr. Original VoIRIB outlet for cross check is 9895. Also Bubble jamming at 1530 [registered 1500-1700] against R Liberty Woofferton outlet of 15410 kHz. Parallel 6015 Lampertheim strong here in Germany, no jamming observed. On 11730 also Lampertheim noted a station jam of at least 3-4 stns. 73 wb df5sx (Wolfgang Bueschel, Feb 5, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ISRAEL. [Re: 15785 presumed Galei Tsahal] Easiest way to ID this one is by the distinctive jingle that they play on the hour. There is an audio file of it on their web site. (Hans Johnson, Feb 2, Cumbre DX via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** JAPAN. NHK World Radio Japan began Friday [Feb 4] distributing an Internet audio stream of its radio programs in 22 languages. This is one continuous RealAudio stream with different languages at different times. English is at midnight, 1, 5, 15, 17, and 21 Universal Time. http://www.nhk.or.jp/rj (Kim Elliott, VOA Communications World Feb 5 via John Norfolk, DX LISTENING DIGEST) The last major ISWBC station to do so? (gh) ** LIBERIA. 4760; ELWA is returning to shortwave and tests could begin as early as February 4th. It is hoped that regular broadcasts can start by the 13th. It will be a simulcast of their FM service initially, but they plan to add other languages. Exact schedule is unknown, but look for them in the local afternoon and evening hours. Power will by 1 kW, with a new transmitter designed by HCJB. Antenna will be a four-pole array. All this per SIM. (DIRECT Hans Johnson Jan 28 Copyright Cumbre DX via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** LIBYA. Foreign policy is currently focused on the African continent to the south rather than the Arab world that it had concentrated on throughout the 1990s. This is reflected in Libya's external broadcasting service which now identifies itself as Voice of Africa (``Sawt Afriqia`` in Arabic). The schedule for VOA is currently 1045- 1230 and 1645-0400 (times may be variable slightly) on 11815, 15415 and 15435. Programmes are in Arabic, with news in English, followed by French, variable at around 1735, 2035, 2335, 0035, 0135 and 0335. Prior to the change to V. of Africa, the external service was called ``Voice of the Greater Arab Homeland`` (Tony Rogers, Feb British DX Club Communication, via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** MEXICO [non]. As a result of Commandante Null's posting (on the ACE page) about the Spanish clandestine [La Voz del Zapatista on 6950, 6955] several of us heard, I e-mailed him and this is the reponse: Charlie, At this point it looks like the pirate mail drop is not going to work out. They realized it was a real clandestine and I can't blame them. I will fwd the vines logs to LVZ but response may take a while. I will post more info as it becomes available. Yes there will be more broadcasts and there may eventually be programing in English. Thanks for your interest. Regards, Commandante Null Charlie, Yes, it's pretty close except I uploaded the show several months ago and I am better known as Commandante Null;). I pretty much dropped out of the Zapatista movement about 6 or 8 months ago due to lack of cooperation and coordination so this a weird development. I received an email from the clandestine/pirate and they plan a re-broadcast plus some more pro zapatista programs. I do have enough material for 10 programs but it is not edited into finished programs so I am not sure what will happen with that. (via Charles Crawford, Free Radio Weekly via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** NEW ZEALAND [non]. Following the recent mentions of Hellschreiber in Glenn's reports, the following may be of interest. It is taken from "Assigned to Listen", a compilation of second world war reminiscences by former staff of the BBC Monitoring Service. In the book, Martin Esslin, a German monitor at the time, and in the 1960s and 70s Head of BBC Radio Drama, wrote: "My greatest achievement as a Roving Monitor [one who would spend their time "roving" up and down the bands, rather than be assigned to concentrate on listening to one station throughout their shift] that summer (1940) was a discovery which also had important consequences. In the very long wavelengths, far beyond normal longwaves, I came across a curious broadcast in German. It was very slow - in fact at dictation speed: a voice read out all sorts of news in that slow tempo. I got myself a typewriter and began to type out what was being dictated. It turned out that, for example, the dictation included the German High Command's daily communique several hours before it was usually released. In other words I had stumbled across the German News Agency's (DNB) [Deutsches Nachrichtenburo] embargoed advance service for the numerous frontline newspapers that were springing up in the path of the German advance through Europe. This became a fruitful source of news and brought the Monitoring Service much kudos. "But then, one day, I typed out an announcement that, as from a certain time the next day, this transmission would cease and be taken over by the 'Hellschreiber', whatever that might have meant. And so it happened. The next day there was still a broadcast on that wavelength but it was merely a wittering electronic sound. I duly reported my belief that the transmission was now being radiated by an electronically controlled teleprinter. "The Germans were obviously certain that it could not be exploited by their enemies, but within a few weeks British technicians, mainly at Beaconsfield [a Foreign Office monitoring station] not only had analysed the signal but had also obtained the necessary equipment for interception. This was the start of the special DNB unit at Evesham [where BBCMS was based between 1939 and 1943, before moving to to Caversham] which regularly received all this advance material, and the Germans never knew we had it. Hitler speeches, one or two days before they were made, the weekly Goebbels [German Propaganda Minister] article which gave the propaganda line for the next seven days, communiques and - above all - all the advance releases of decorations to German soldiers, were thus available to us well in advance. "Years later, when I was working in the German Service of the BBC, we made splendid use of this material. Hugh Carleton Greene, the Head of the German Service (later to be the BBC's Director-General) [and brother of novelist Graham Greene], broadcast a weekly preview to the Goebbels article each Wednesday evening, a day ahead of its appearance, And Goebbels, as his diaries show, was convinced that there must be a British spy in his ministry. He never thought that his ministry itself was broadcasting this material to us. Thus the Germans' belief in their technical superiority had blinded them." For the record, a semi-official history of BBCM published in 1979 says that monitoring of the Hellschreiber service of the DNB began on 23rd October 1941. I know that Hellschreiber continued to be used well after the war. As recently as the 1980s it was still being used by the Chinese government news agency Xinhua to transmit material for later publication in Chinese provincial newspapers, thus also making such material available for interception by BBCMS. I would be most interested to hear of any other recollections regarding this now semi- forgotten technology and its inventor, Rudolf Hell. (Chris Greenway, England, Feb 4, DX LISTENING DIGEST) [For those who may have lost track, the only connexion with New Zealand is that the Hellschreiber was a topic this week on Mailbox; we are keeping the thread here for ease of reference -gh] Chris, We had a Hellschreiber machine already installed in the tower at Croydon Airport when I joined the Civil Aviation service in 1937. It was there for aviation service of course, no doubt for receiving weather reports etc. But in fact it was never used - maybe this is the one that the Foreign Office got hold of. We had good telex and radio connections with Germany, so there was no need for it (Geoff Halligey, Pencoed, South Wales, BDXC E-mail news via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** NIGERIA. 3326, Radio Nigeria, 1740 Feb 3, Live commentary in English of football match between Nigeria and Morocco in the African Tournament (CAN -- that means "Coupe d'Afrique des Nations"). 1758 announcement of result Nigeria 1 Morocco nil. 1702 Mx and then time given and ID by woman in Eg as This is the External service of Radio Nigeria, then continued with talk and again as "This is the External service of Radio Nigeria" then Nx by man. Poor reception (Mahendra Vaghjee, Mauritius, DX LISTENING DIGEST) I thought 3326 was domestic service. Also, the BBCM item about new transmitters referred to ``national coverage`` so one would not expect 15120 to be affected as Hans Johnson suggests; but perhaps the distinction between services is ours, not theirs (gh) ** PAKISTAN. 6075, Radio Pakistan, 1425-1430 Nx in Urdu then signature tune and a few lines of Koran, then talk by man in Pushtu ? mentioning Pakistan, then again a few lines of prayer and followed by songs and talk in between songs on Kashmir. 1445 Mx before Nx then a few lines of prayer and Nx mainly on Kashmir; 1457 ID and went off at 1500 after NA. Distorted Sound (Mahendra Vaghjee, Mauritius, Feb 5, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** SIERRA LEONE. [cf DXLD 00-22] 3316 (Cumbre DX 279 follow up) SLBS says that they were testing last week and that they commissioned the station on Jan 28th. They had finally received spares for their 10 kW transmitter. Their schedule is 0600-1000 and 1900-0000 on 3316. The station is relying on a generator for power, hence the limited schedule. If they can get power from the grid, they will expand from 1000-1900 on 5980. All this per Henry Goodaig Hjax, Assistant Engineer. (DIRECT Hans Johnson Jan 31 Copyright Cumbre DX via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** SOUTH AMERICA. Radio Blandengue from some place in South America will be on the air next weekend performing his pirate activities on 14565 kHz LSB according to the following sked: ALL TIMES AND DATE ARE UTC [sic -- so what are we to make of the 0100- 0300 segment listed after 1100-1300 - is it actually UT Monday?? gh] Sunday Feb 06 on 14565 kHz LSB 1000 - 1130 Emisora Z del Dragon (tentative) 1130 - 1200 Radio Blandengue (tentative) 1200 - 1230 Emisora Z del Dragon (tentative) 1230 - 1300 Radio Blandengue (tentative) 0100 - 0130 Emisora Z del Dragon 0130 - 0200 Radio Blandengue 0200 - 0230 Emisora Z del Dragon 0230 - 0300 Radio Blandengue All reports correct received for snail mail QSL guaranteed And don't forget to include 2 IRC Addresses for reports: --------------------------------------------------------------------- Emisora Z del Dragon, Casilla 159, Santiago 14, CHILE --------------------------------------------------------------------- Radio Blandengue, Box 293, Merlin Ontario N0P 1W0, CANADA --------------------------------------------------------------------- Raul Gonzalez Operator of Radio Blandengue radio.blandengue@altavista.net radio.blandengue@radiolink.net radio.blandengue@usa.net http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Shadowlands/4401/blandengue.html (Radio Blandangue via Hans Joachim Koch, Feb 5, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** SPAIN. [Cf DXLD 00-20]. I have found and confirmed the URL for WorldWide Radio, the internet-only station starting up soon, as I have rementioned it on Mundo Radial: http://www.wwr.fm (Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** SUDAN. I heard this evening (February 4) at about 1740 R. Omdurman with its English programme on 7200 kHz. I don't know if they use now regular the 7200 kHz for the English programme. I found curious their time announcement at 1755 before the news in brief: "the time in our studio is 8.55". That means that Sudan has UTC+3, or this was a recorded programme broadcast at the wrong time. 73s (Erich Bergmann, Germany, hard-core-dx via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** TAIWAN. We noted Rumen Pankov`s unID on 8300 kHz which was probably New Star Radio. Prior to the launch of Radio Free Asia, the US undertook a feasiblity study and this included a survey of all HF output (e.g. target audiences, languages used and hours per week), country by country in the region. For some unknown reason New Star Radio was included in this sweep and was identified as operating from Taiwan. The report was passed to Congress prior to the inception of RFA and no doubt to justify its funding. NSR is an intelligence service transmission sending coded number groups for manual decryption. A report we received from the US: New Star Radio did not appear on any frequency at 1200, 1230, 1300 and 1330 on Tuesday, 21st September 1999 following the earthquake which damaged buildiings and power in Taiwan (Chris Midgley, West Yorkshire, Feb British DX Club Communication via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. VOA's new science show, Our World, is worth a listen, in the alternate odd UT xx:32:30 hours Saturdays when Communications World is not on; first one ended with an item on Carl Sagan and the so far unsuccessful SETI, as heard Feb 5 at 1932:30 on 15580 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. Attention, compilers of DX program lists! Whilst WBCQ 7415 has been on the air for a sesquiyear, and has accumulated a number of shows falling into the DX/media/radio hobby category, I do not see them listed along with World of Radio and Communications World. If your definition is broad enough, I suggest you start including these, for which I add a brief description. And keep checking http://wbcq.net for latest changes - this is excerpted from download Feb 5, with no date on this schedule page, tho the home page was still dated *Jan 3*. Unlike WBCQ we make clear here that all times and DAYS are strictly UT to avoid confusion; all shift one UT hour earlier for DST from April: Planet Program Schedule UT Sunday: 0030-0100 The Real Amateur Radio Show - Mister Mike and the TimTron, interviews Riley Hollingsworth, FCC enforcer; classic pirate tapes such as R. Confusion, R. Morania 0500-0800 Tom and Darryl - live call-in talk show, often with guests, such as Bob Grove (temporarily? starting at 0400, and has been known to run past 0800) 2100-2130 Communications World UT Monday: 0000-0100 Le Show - Harry Shearer satire, especially on the media: he does wicked Dan Rather, Mike Wallace, Tom Brokaw, Mr Blackwell, ``Clinton-Something``... UT Wednesday: 0100-0200 Off the Hook - phones, computers, hacking from WBAI 2230-2300 Glenn Hauser's World of Radio UT Friday: 2230-2300 Radio Detective - music, repairs antiques UT Saturday: 0100-0200 Allan Weiner Worldwide - Live call-ins, WBCQ station news, philosophizing about radio, etc. A number of other programs fall into the Old-Time Radio category, antique music or pirate [non] programming. This is my idea, not prompted by WBCQ (Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** YUGOSERBIA. I`m finding VOA clashing with R. Yugoslavia, to NAm at 0100 on 7115, both in English (Bob Thomas, CT, Jan 28, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ZIMBABWE. 6045, ZBC, 2120, new frequency for this time of day. Heard with Afro music and UTC +2 time checks by male announcer. ID as Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation at 2145 and anthem at 2156. Also checked 5975 to see if they were there as well and there was music underneath BBC via Antigua at 2140. Can someone in Europe check please? Later heard report from Alexander on WOR that Zimbabwe hadn't been heard on "its usual frequencies" in several weeks. So I guess that they have been using 49 mb for a while. Seems to be trend among Africans these days to stay on the higher bands even in the local evenings, perhaps related to approaching solar maximum? (Hans Johnson, Feb 2, Cumbre DX via DX LISTENING DIGEST) CHINESE NEW YEAR Ethnic Chinese all the world over will celebrate Lunar New Year this year on Feb 5 (in East and Southeast Asia: Feb 4 at 1600 UTC). Look for special programs on all Mandarin/Chinese stations all over the world, including the Mandarin services of international stations. The festival traditionally lasts 15 days, but it would only be a public holiday for 3 or 4 days. Special new year programs is always a tradition for stations in mainland China, Taiwan and southeast Asia. The programs typically starts around 1400 UTC on the eve of the lunar new year lasting past 1600 UTC, where most of the Chinese in Asia will mark the beginning of the new year until maybe 1700 UTC or beyond. The Lunar New Year is also celebrated in Vietnam, where it is known as Tet, Tibet and both parts of the divided Korea. (Richard Lam, Singapore, Jan 30, Cumbre DX via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ###