DX LISTENING DIGEST 00-66, May 15, 2000 edited by Glenn Hauser {Items from DXLD may be reproduced and re-reproduced only provided full credit be maintained at all stages. DXLD may not be reposted in its entirety without permission} ** EARTH. Pole-to-pole expedition: Right now the ham gear is being repaired and they will be back on the air early June; they are now driving/cycling from Inuvik through to South America. I will keep you posted of changes. (David Balcaen, May 15, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** FINLAND. Checking out the report quoted in DXLD 00-65, Monday May 15 at 1330 on 15400 and 17670, YLE was NOT in English, but Finnish as scheduled (Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** FRANCE. Sounds like another RFI strike is underway. French service, with no explanation, had ``RFI Musique`` sounder and continuous music beginning at 2200 UTC (or midnight French local time) on Monday. No reference yet to strike or reason for the switch. (Mike Cooper, Atlanta, May 15, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** KOREA SOUTH. KBS/RKI English at 1030 via RCI 11715 has been poor to fair in my area. I`m getting quite a bit of splash from RNZI English on 11720 (Bob Thomas, CT, May 10, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** NEW ZEALAND. RKI came in better than usual 1030 May 14 11715, making reception of RNZI [11720] less than ideal, SIGH! We may have to wait until Sept 3 to get a NF from RNZI. 73, (Ivan Grishin, Ont., DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** PERU. 6956.69: Radio La Voz del Campesino, Huarmaca; was heard at 1120-1200 with poor to fair signal on 13/MAY/2000. S/on with a couple of huaynos, then the following opening announcement was given ``La hora exacta, amables oyentes, las 6 con 22 minutos, las 6 de la mañana 22 minutos. Ésta es Radio La Voz del Campesino, iniciando la transmisión correspondiente al día de hoy, sábado, 13 de mayo del año 2000. Amables oyentes, es siempre agradecido a escuchar ... para pedirles para que nos dirigen ... esperando que nuestra programación a irradiarse al día de hoy sea de su más completo agrado. Bienvenidos a nuestra programación ... Hernando Huanca Huanca, a nombre de la gerencia general ... Luis Alvarado Ochoa, nuestra planta de la transmisora ... así mismo a nombre de ...`` According to the announcement, Radio La Voz del Campesino is managed by the same owner which owned and operated Radiodifusora Paratón. It means that the station only changed its name from Radiodifusora Paratón to Radio La Voz del Campesino. It was also heard at *1055-1100 fair on 14/MAY/2000. (Takayuki Inoue Nózaki, Tokyo, Japan, Relámpago DX Logging via DXLD) Part of the text quoted above, is used almost word-for-word on countless Latin American stations. I wonder if it is required by law, or they all go by same announcing textbook? (gh, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ROMANIA. Excerpts from an interview with Doru Vasile Ionescu, director of Radio Romania International, in the 10/2000 edition of the German ``Radio-Kurier`` magazine: About the Chinese service of RRI: ``We wanted to have a Chinese section already back in 1991, but it is very difficult to find a Romanian team which speaks Chinese perfectly. Our colleagues and experts from China Radio International provide us with help and support.`` About the transmitters: ``We have transmitters of 500 and 1000 kilowatts. Unfortunately these transmitters was built with parts from the former Soviet Union and consume lots of energy. Spare parts are difficult to obtain. Hence the quality of the transmitters is not always ideal and they cannot be fully loaded due to danger of failures. Two years ago we started to erect new transmitters.`` - Comment: Indeed Radio Romania has transmitters up to 1000 kW and even more, but on mediumwave. The most powerful shortwave transmitters are 250 kW ones. Some further transmitters are rated at 120 kW, suggesting that these are really ancient rigs, as 120 kW is the output of a common Soviet transmitter model from the Forties. (Kai Ludwig, Germany, May 13, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** RUSSIA/BELARUS. As first noted by Bernd Trutenau, the Belorussian 171 kHz transmitter did not come on air this morning. In addition Nikolay Pashkevich from Moscow reports, that also 1305 there is off and silent, meaning the old Radio 1 has found his fate and was yesterday (May 14th) on air for the very last time. R.I.P. (Kai Ludwig, Germany, May 15, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** RUSSIA. Moscow. In his broadcast on May 10 a commentator of Echo of Moscow Radio Andrey Cherkizov said that Russia's current Minister of Press Affairs Mikhail Lesin is ``obsessed with an 'idée fixe' to sell out the Radio House on Pyatnitskaya, 25 to affluent business structures and that he does not care about the future of radio stations and companies that are based there.`` Note, that on May 10, for the first time in a 46-year history of Radio House, an inexpensive in-house restaurant and all cafes were closed down. There are persistent rumors that instead of an affordable restaurant [frequented by the journalists of the Voice of Russia] soon there will be a casino bar (!!!???) and that all broadcasters will be transferred to Ostankino [Radio and TV Center]. (Forwarded by Pavel Mikhailov, Moscow, Moscow DX Bulletin May 14 translated and via Sergei Sossedkin, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** RUSSIA. Moscow. According to the General Manager of Echo of Moscow Radio Yuri Fedutinov, his station will start broadcasting to Western Europe sometime this May or June. All legal issues of this project are already resolved, and now the station is working out the ``technological issue`` as well as looking for more investments. Echo of Moscow is also seriously considering entering the US radio market. Already for some time, EoM's broadcasts have been carried by its partner stations in Chicago and Seattle with ``an amazing response`` from the Russian-speaking audiences there. Yuri Fedutinov said that ``now we want to cover the broader American territory and we hope to do that in three to four months.`` (From EoM's web-site, Moscow DX Bulletin May 14 translated and via Sergei Sossedkin, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** SOMALIA. Cumbre DX Press Release May 15, 2000: Cumbre DX sends parts to Radio Gaalcayo. Cumbre DX has just sent tubes and other spares to the Somali station Radio Gaalcayo. The station has been on since 1993 and the spares were desperately needed to keep them on the air. Radio Gaalcayo can be heard daily from 1000-1200 and 1600-1700 UTC on 7012 kHz. As part of Cumbre DX's on-going efforts to help both DXers and DX stations, the parts were shipped today and should reach the station by early next month. Cumbre DX is eager to partner with other organizations that are interested in helping small stations. A prime example would be Radio Miskut in Nicaragua. This station is currently off the air which means that the country of Nicaragua is no longer on shortwave. It seems that just a few spares will get both this station and country back on shortwave. If you are interested, you can reach me at hansj@worldspy.net (Hans Johnson, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** SWEDEN. RADIO SWEDEN-- We're making a frequency change in two of our English broadcasts because we've had interference on 17895 kHz, and in fact we've been borrowing 17900. But starting Monday, May 15th, this will switch to 17505 kHz at 12:30 hrs UTC to East Asia, and at 13:30 hrs UTC to Europe and the Middle East. We'd be very happy to receive reception reports on the new frequency, by e-mail to info@radiosweden.org, or via our online QSL service at: http://radiowood.com/qsl.phtml (George Wood, SCDX/MediaScan, also via Bob Thomas, via DXLD) ** UKRAINE. Starting April 30, Radio Ukraine International closed down its powerful SW transmitter in Lvov used to relay RUI to the Americas and Australia. To somehow compensate this loss, RUI is planning to turn on several 100 kW transmitters in Kiev and Kharkov. I'm afraid that was the ``last song`` of Lvov's megawatter, and now it will share the sad lot of its ``brothers`` in Nikolaev transmitting center. As if to add salt to injury, a long-wave transmitter in Lvov on 171 kHz was also shut down, for the first time since its reactivation in August of 1997. Well, as they say, there is no evil without something good in it. So as I was planting potatoes in my garden I had a chance to enjoy a music request show on Radio-1 from Moscow on 171. Unfortunately, Radio-1 is financially broke and out of LW- broadcasting business by now. Anyway, on May 7 LW transmitter from Lvov was back on the air. (Aleksandr Yegorov, Kiev, Moscow DX Bulletin May 14 translated and via Sergei Sossedkin, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U K. Hi Glenn, John Peel is also not as prevalent on the UK domestic schedules as he has been; now only 2200-0000 on Tues, Weds & Thurs, but remember he has been presenting in this slot for over 30 years now. Steve Lamacq partially replacing here as well. It's probably not a perfect solution but Radio 1 is of course streamed over the net at http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1 Incidentally, if you want to hear him in a non-musical but still wry mood, try his Radio 4 program on Saturdays at 0900, repeated Monday at 2300 (also streamed at http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4 ). All times are local UK [SUBTRACT ONE HOUR FOR UT]. Regards, (Nigel Watkinson, BDXC-UK, May 15, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U K. http://www.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/worldservice/sheep.pl/worldservice/waveguide.ra Finally! You can listen to Write-On via on-demand Real Audio. Try the above URL. Thank you BBCWS! (Larry Nebron, swprograms, May 14, DXLD) Indeed, I just listened to the latest edition, in which Penny Turek was very apologetic about all the SNAFUs. Note that Write On and Waveguide share the URL just as they do airtimes, in this case 0745; you get whichever one was on latest (Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A [non]. RFPI Previews for May 17-18: Wed: 2030/Thus: 1800- [presumably repeated 8 and 16 hours later] Guest: Kathleen Blee, professor at the Department of Sociology at the University of Pittsburgh, is the guest on this edition of FRRR. She is a prolific writer and the author of the Landmark Book ``Women of the Klan: Racism and Gender in the 1920s``, and is currently researching for a new book in women in contemporary far right movements. Author Blee takes us through the looking-glass into the world of women involved in extremist organizations of the right from the 1920s to the present. James Latham hosts. NOTE: Archive editions of this program are also available in RealAudio at the RFPI website: http://www.rfpi.org/webcast.html (RFPI Weekly Update via DXLD) ** U S A [non]. Just heard an announcement on World Beacon (1800-2200 on 9675 khz via UK). They invite to tune in a new programme called ``DX-QSL`` on Saturdays at 2100. (Nick Pashkevitch, Sunday, May 14, 2000, 11:54:03 PM Moscow time, also via Sergei Sossedkin, DX LISTENING DIGEST) No doubt just their mailbag (gh) ###