DX LISTENING DIGEST 00-38, March 13, 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 RFPI: Additional time this quarter, March-April- May: Wed 2300, repeating Thu 0700, 1500. More below under COSTA RICA. ** AFGHANISTAN. Glen: Russian DXers confirm that The Voice of Sharia has indeed begun Russian broadcasting on March 7. The programs are heard 16:30 to 17:00 UTC on 7074v kHz. The frequencies announced by the station are 7000 and 1107 kHz. The reception throughout Russia is poor, with a lot of interference from HAM operators. VoS' poor modulation doesn't help, either. 73! (Sergei Sosedkin, MI, March 10, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** AUSTRIA [corrected]. ROI Wien is radiating on 7575.0 a strong mixing product of the German program, observed 11 March from 0830 to 1230. That is, 13730 minus 6155 = 7575 (Hans-Joachim Koch, Niddatal, Germany, mentally translated by gh for DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** BRAZIL: 9630.12, Radio Nazare FM, via Radio Aparecida; 0749-0800 reportada el 04/MAR/2000. Señal regular e ID: "ZYD216 Radio Nazare FM 91.3 MHz falando ... diferente, integrada a Red Mariana de Evangelizacao." A 0800 UTC continua Radio Aparecida. (Takayuki Inoue Nozaki, Japon, Conexion Digital via DXLD) I believe there should be an acute on the E of Nazare, nah-zah-REH (gh) ** CANADA. RCI will be moving [back] into the Maison de Radio-Canada during April, from the building they have been occupying for some 20 years. Hope this will not cause any disruptions in programming (Bill Westenhaver, CKUT International Radio Report March 12 via gh, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CONGO DR. I heard Radio Liberte on 15725 kHz UPPER SIDEBAND on three consecutive days 6th-8th March (*1805-2305*), and a colleague heard it on the 5th. However, this was with poor reception due to a weak signal, even on the professional equipment and antenna systems I have access to (Dave Kernick, UK, March 11, hard-core-dx via DXLD) ** CONGO DR. Radio Tele Liberté, Tentative, 15725v, 21.00-21.30, Afropop songs and TK in French. The signal was fairly good but intelligibility was very poor due to a low modulation. Only music was easy to copy but only until 2130 when modulation become almost nonexistent. Rechecked at 2300 the situation remained unchanged: fair signal but very low audio. S/OFF at 2304 (Antonello Napolitano, Taranto, Italy, March 11, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** COSTA RICA. Hi Glenn, Well, you're probably chomping at the bit re: our new broadcast schedule for Mar - May. Well, WOR and COM do not see any changes this quarter EXCEPT an additional airing of WOR Wednesday at 2300 for the remaining of this quarter. The University of the Air in on hiatus. Our Mailbag also sees an additional airing on Thursday at 2300. A new program on RFPI, "Honoring Mother Earth: Indigenous Voices" focuses on protecting Mother Earth, defending native lands and indigenous peoples throughout the world while presenting the situations facing native peoples. Native news, interviews, music, commentaries and investigative reports are central to the show. The program serves to protect Sacred Mother Earth and the traditional cultural life ways of indigenous peoples throughout the world. Airtimes: Monday, 2030; Friday, 1600. RFPI web site: new shows from the Global Community Forum, Millennium Dreams, the Tropical Conservation Newsbureau, Mailbag and of course the Progressive News Network are now available. Hope you had a great weekend! (Joe Bernard, RFPI, March 13, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** COSTA RICA. RFPI, 25930-USB, was not only on the air, but audible as late as 0415 UT Sat March 11, including new CONTINENT OF MEDIA 00- 02 at 0300, new WORLD OF RADIO 1027 at 0330, and new RFPI Mailbag at 0400. MUFs were really skewed high this night, as 15049 was much better than 6975, also avoiding T-storm crashes on lower band (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ECUADOR. 2480.24, Radio Sonorama (harmonic 2x1240) 0946, Andean vocals, canned ID, fast talking announcer. Drifting slightly. Good peaks (Mark Mohrmann, VT, Mar 13, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** FRANCE/GERMANY. RFI, 25820, with best signal yet this cycle, March 13 1250-1300* closing with IS; better than DW 25740 which had Ostseewetter, past 1300 with news in German. Both were rather choppy but dynamic (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** JORDAN. DX Information from the British DX Club. Further checks on Radio Jordan seem to show English schedule as: To Europe and North America: 1100-1300 on 17680 1300-1730 on 11690 (Tony Rogers, UKOGBANI, BDXC-UK E-Mail News via DXLD) ** MEXICO. Strong winds last Thursday caused antennas of R. Mil to collapse. This affects the Nucleo Radio Mil MW stations (R. Mil, La Pantera, and R. Sinfonola). The SW XEOI 6010 antenna is also on the side. So far, only XEOY 1000 kHz is back on the air, low power with backup antenna. We hope the regular antenna will be back up shortly so R. Mil can resume regular MW and SW broadcasts. Last Sunday I heard R. Transcontinental de America back on 4802, with very bad modulation (Hector Garcia Bojorge, Mexico City, March 11, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** PERU. 4750.10, Radio San Francisco Solano 0219-0257, A rare catch here, finally ID'ed. Andean vocals, announcer with TC's and ID's in passing between songs. 0227 short canned ID over song. 0253 announcer with live closing announcement over nice guitar instrumental, followed by a final vocal, and carrier off at 0257. Some SSB QRM, slight warble on carrier. Fair to good signal (Mark Mohrmann, VT, Mar 10, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ROMANIA. Romania Actualitati domestic service now heard around 0210 with strong spurs from 7145.0, March 10 on 7090.3, 7035.7 and 7200. Carrier is very unstable and varying up to 2 kHz. Also with a very loud buzz (Hans-Joachim Koch, Germany, March 11, translated by gh for DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** RUSSIA. BBCM checked 29160 kHz today at 1300-1330 gmt - it is parallel with the satellite feed of Russia's Radio/Radio Rossii. Our last full schedule of Russia's Radio had 9720 kHz listed in use from 0600-1500 GMT: The HFCC [High Frequency Co-ordination Committee] at http://www.hfcc.org/data/index.html have the transmitter sites as code RIA, Riazan (Ryzan), 54N37 039E41, Southwest of Moscow booked on 9720 kHz: 9720 0630 1500 RIA 240 240 kW RUS RRS (Chris McWhinnie, Editor 'World Media', Foreign Media Unit, BBC Monitoring, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** RUSSIA. Hi, some remarks about the discussed 9720 outlet of Radio Rossii [harmonics on 19440, 29160]: It originates from a 100 kW transmitter in Moscow area, which currently operates 0200-0600 on 6110, 0630-1500 on 9720 and 1530-2200 on 6060. The azimuth is 240 degrees, straight into Belarus, where Radio Rossii was two years ago kicked off MW 873 and replaced by Belaruskaje Radyjo 2, while Radio Odin Kultura is still carried there on LW 171, presumably without paying any transmitter rent. Remember that Radio Rossii was founded in 1991 as counterbalance to the Ostankino apparatus. In 1997 a Yeltsin edict stipulated a shut-down of Ostankino`s first network, but Radio Odin (= One) continued to broadcast as commercial station with supplemented name. In detail these 240 degree transmissions used to originate from Chkalovskoye, but Olle Alm found back in last year indications for a move to another Moscow area site, perhaps Kurovskoye. Anyway 100 kW "Sneg" model transmitters of old design tend to put out harmonics. Regarding Volgograd, for my best knowledge no shortwave broadcasts originate from there anymore. Radio Mayak used a 100 kW transmitter at Volgograd, which is now off the air since Mayak left shortwave completely, as far as it "own" transmitters are concerned. At Volgograd also the commercial Radio Vedo was on shortwave through former jamming transmitters but is now already since some five years broadcasting on MW and FM only. Radio Vedo used to rebroadcast the former "VoA Europe" network, back in 1994 resulting in some German DXers baffled by hearing this programme on 13710 kHz (Kai Ludwig, Germany, March 10, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** RUSSIA. Glenn, you will remember that I told you at the end of Feb about Radio Rossii [5905 kHz] having fifth harmonic [29525 kHz] propagating long distances during European afternoons. The whole thing came to a head when high MUF conditions allowed the harmonic to propagate across the Atlantic, interfering with the input frequency of the Boston Amateur 10M Repeater W1OJ. When I identified the source station of the offending harmonic for Roger Perkins/Owner of W1OJ, he drafted and circulated a diplomatically toned letter, for forwarding to Radio Rossii. Well, once again it looks as if the proactive pen has been mightier than the sword as a strategy. I have not heard the Rossii harmonic at all the past three local afternoons, while the legitimate fundamental frequency has been audible. I wonder if this promising news can be corroborated in the USA? == However, Radio Rossii is in hot water over another one of its services as per the report in your DX LISTENING DIGEST 00-37, March 9, 2000, source Radio Society of Great Britain GB2RS News. Re the content of fundamental frequency 9720 kHz being heard also on harmonics 19440 & 29160, it says: "...station is being heard in the exclusive amateur band on 29.160 MHz...tentative suggestion is that it is Radio Rossii..." There's nothing tentative about it, as far as this SWL is concerned. The 29160 nuisance signal is easy to hear at my QTH, with lots of "Radio Rossii" IDs to be heard if you hang around long enough, and of course word-for-word paralleling of the fundamental. The GB2RS News is right about 19440 too, but it was very much the weaker of the pair of harmonics when I listened. Here's something interesting: this Sat 11 Feb, 1225 - 1229 UT, R. Rossii broadcast an English-to-Russian translated "interview" with the BBC's Mark Byford [last time I looked he was BBC Director of Regional Broadcasting]. Here's my transcript of what he said, as heard on proper 9720 AND improper 3rd harmonic 29160 kHz [unreliable bits bracketed]: "...I'm delighted to be here with you. It's a great pleasure and a privilege to be broadcasting this afternoon. We believe that the relationship between Radio Russia and the BBC is one of partnership. For many, many years the BBC as you know, has been a shortwave broadcaster across the world, relaying its own programmes. The partnerships with local and national broadcasters across the world has become increasingly important. We now have more than one thousand new broadcasting partnerships across the [globe]. Maybe I shouldn't say this to other rebroadcasters, and I'm not just saying this because I'm speaking to you in Moscow here, but I think the partnership with Radio Russia is of fundamental importance to us. [.....listeners] across Russia who obviously enjoy all of Radio Russia output, but also to have the added dimension of having programmes from the BBC. We recognise the number of things that that partnership can bring. This is [a huge thing] for Russia and of course Radio Russia reaches the whole. [With] the kind of programming that we try to produce, there is a phrase, I don't know if it's relevant in Russia, it takes two to tango. So, I [see that while] we are obviously providing material to the station and output, we hope it's of [the highest] quality and interest, we hope it's appropriately tailored to the listeners' needs, of course you'd expect me to say this, we hope it upholds the worldwide reputation of the BBC itself and we're able to reach the audiences that you already have." Totally innocent Mr. Byford couldn't possibly have been aware of the deep sense of irony attending to some of his remarks for a SWL hearing him on that madly out of band 29160 kHz. By the way, every time Mr. Byford mentioned "Radio Russia", the translator obliged with "Radio Rossii". Who needs official IDs with clues like that? For the record, there were loud-and-clear official station IDs at 1244 UT and after 1300 UT time pips (Finbarr O'Driscoll, Ireland, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** URUGUAY. SODRE was created in 1929; today it has a TV network covering the entire country, originating on channel 5 in Montevideo; three MW stations each with a SW parallel: CX6 on 650 with CXA6 on 9620; CX26 1050 with CXA4 6125; and CX38 1290 with CXA14 on 15275, currently inactive; and an FM on 97.1 MHz. Of interest to DXers is that Mon-Fri CX26 [1050] in parallel with CXA14 [sic: 15275; means CXA4 as above on 6125??] between 1000 and 1100 UT broadcast channel 5`s 7 am newscast audio, allowing it to be accessed on SW (Gabriel Gómez, Montevideo, Uruguay, translated by gh for DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** WESTERN SAHARA [non]. DX Information from the British DX Club. The Polisario station National Radio of the Saharan Arab Democratic Republic heard from tune-in at 2150 tonight (Sunday 12 March) with Saharan music, full ID and news in Arabic at 2200 on new 7470 kHz - fair signal strength but quite low mod. Also confirmed at same time in parallel on 1540 kHz mediumwave (very weak but occasionally audible in peaks) using the Wellbrook K9AY loop. National Radio of the SADR has reportedly used various shortwave frequencies in the past (probably only sporadically) , but has rarely been confirmed by DXers on SW. The MW frequency has also been absent during the past couple of weeks - it recently moved from 1550 to 1540 kHz and now suffers bad splatter in the UK from the various European stations on 1539. 7470 is still clear - 100% audible - as I am about to post this at 2220. (Thanks to Noel Green, Wolfgang Bueschel and Chris Greenway for earlier tips on 7470) 73s (Dave Kenny, Caversham, England, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** WESTERN SAHARA [non]. National Radio of the Saharan Arab Democratic Republic is also on 7470 kHz in the evening, heard on 12th March from 2230 tune-in to sign-off at 2359. Good reception till 2300, then disturbed by co-channel Radio Free Asia. You can hear an audio clip of this station in the Clandestine section of the Interval Signals Archive at http://.home.clara.net/dkernick (Dave Kernick, UK, hard-core-dx via DXLD) ** WESTERN SAHARA [non]. DX Information from the British DX Club. Heard what I presume is the Polisario station on 7470 this morning (13 March). Tune-in to Quran at 0702, brief anns in Arabic, then several North African-type songs, news in Arabic at 0730 mentioning "dimuqratiyah" and "maghribiyah" several times, but no clear ID heard. Signal seemed to peak nicely around 0730 for me, but lost intelligibility by about 0750 (which was before sign-off 0801 observed by WB). (Tony Rogers, BDXC-UK E-Mail News via DXLD) ** WESTERN SAHARA [non}. REPUBLICA ARABE SAHARAUI: 7470 Radio Nacional de la R.A.S.D. in Arabic with national anthem, Quran prayers, traditional music and news, excellent signal (S9+20), slight interference by CW signal, 0700-0750, 13 Mar (thanks Wolfgang Büschel for this tip!!) Vy 73, (Enzio Gehrig, Spain, hard-core-dx via DXLD) ** WESTERN SAHARA [non]. Re: 7470 - Polisario?? Yes, sure. From all corners DX friends tell me also about an evening outlet on 7470, at 1800 UTC, and also 2230. For sure that should be a POLISARIO Radio Station outlet. I miss a little bit pieces of Spanish language, as usually broadcast on their MW stn some fifteen years ago in 1983- 1991, when I listened often to during my leisure time in Tenerife Isl or on Algarve coast in Portugal. 73 wb ___________________ from Chris Greenway: ___________ Thanks for the audio clip, Wolfgang. It's very hard to make out the announcements isn't it? One possibility is the SADR (Polisario) radio. This is scheduled for 0700-0900 with news in Arabic at 0730. I can't think which other national station from that part of the world would just come on for a single hour. Chris ___________________ from Noel Green wrote today: ___________ During the news at 0730 there was a great deal about the Mahgreb and 'Sahara'. There seems to be three words associated with the latter (phonetically) - "Saha", " Zakaharia" or "Sakaharia" and "Sahara- oui". These are repeated often. Could it be a station broadcasting to the disputed Western Sahara. There is/was one on MW 1544 and recent reports of a station on 1389. Are we now hearing a SW outlet too? The signal was good today 12th at 0725 tune in. However, audio was very very weak after the news from 0739 but the "anthem" at 0759 suddenly boomed out at close. There is an Arabic speaker on 7470 evenings around 1930, but splash and then co-ch have prevented an ID of this - maybe it's the same one???? ___________________ from Olle Alm wrote today: ___________ I listened to 7470 Saturday evening from 2158 to 2235. As far as I could make out there were no identifications at all - they just switched from one programme to another. The long newscast mentioned Maghreb (Morocco) and Sahrawi very frequently, and my impression is that this is the Polisario radio just as Chris G suggests. Olle (all via Wolfgang Bueschel, Germany, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** WESTERN SAHARA [non]. Right now at 2240 there is again something on 7470 with rather shallow audio, suffering from 7475-Kavala slop but sounding like Arabic, so seems to be the discussed station. Around 1994, when they already had a shortwave outlet (somewhere on 31 metres) Haiko Hebig, who regrettably widely withdrew from the active scene in the meantime, did more listening to this station, using his Spanish skills, which are undoubtedly better than my English. Perhaps I manage to find his rather detailed report amongst all the old writings. The A00 Merlin schedule includes two odd entries: Tue and from Thu to Sun 1730-1800 15560 from Grigoriopol/MDA to western Asia; Thu and Fri 1800-1900 6130 from Skelton/UK to Africa. No doubt the 15560 entry refers to Radio Internationale, which is currently on 7520, looks like Merlin simply brokered the Grigoriopol transmitter. But who will use the Thu and Fri only slots on 6130? Both 6130 and 15560 are simply listed as "Merlin", without mentioning a certain customer. (Kai Ludwig, Germany, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Cf DXLD 00-37 NIGER? ###