dxld0084 DX LISTENING DIGEST 00-84, July 1, 2000 edited by Glenn Hauser, wghauser@hotmail.com {Items from DXLD may be reproduced and re-reproduced only providing full credit be maintained at all stages, and we are provided exchange copies. DXLD may not be reposted in its entirety without permission} ** ARGENTINA. Hi, here in Europe RAE has for years now also a interference problem, as 15345 is occupied by the Moroccan Nador transmitter. After local midnight, when Nador has closed down, RAE reception is frequently usable, at times even a armchair copy, but the broadcasts during the European evening are of course spoiled. I dimly remember that RAE was a few years ago for a while on 15335 instead but then returned into 15345. It seems they accept this situation. (Kai Ludwig, Germany, June 30, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** AUSTRIA. Following a summary of the statements from ROI director Roland Machatschke on this weeks "Intermedia" show, first aired on June 30th at 1830: The new situation is the result of a cancellation of the contract between ORF and the Austrian government about ROI, the further possibilities of foreign broadcasting from Austria are still unclear. For 2000 a reduced budget is guaranteed, it is uncertain if ROI will still exist in 2001 but Machatschke expects a further reduced budget also for the next year. From autumn ROI will broadcast what Machatschke is calling a heavily limited "essential program", mainly consisting on take-overs from the ORF domestic networks alongside with few own productions, Machatschke mentioned magazines and the "Intermedia" show. English broadcasts will be continued, Machatschke expects that they will be able to maintain the Spanish service, too, but ROI will have to do without broadcasts in Arabic and Esperanto. Regarding the transmitter operations Machatschke stated, that ROI will have to save transmission hours "very drastic". Machatschke referred to a current investment at the Moosbrunn site, where ORF will soon put a new transmitter in operation [should be a 100 kW unit as replacement for the ancient 100 kW transmitters from the sixties, which are alongside with two modern Telefunken S4005 500 kW PDM models still in use -kl]. The new situation was not foreseeable and arose suddenly. Note: Not any details about the "drastic" reduced shortwave operations in B00, namely the airtime exchange with RCI; evidently this is as uncertain as the continuation of the "ADR" system satellite transmissions. Regards, (Kai Ludwig, Germany, June 30, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CROATIA [and non]. Croatian Radio: 6165, 7365, 9830 and 13830 are operated directly from Croatia. They have a single 100 kW and two 10 kW transmitters available but no suitable antennas to cover targets outside Europe, hence the additional usage of Jülich. By the way, I noted a while ago that the English news ("from the Croatian Information Centre") was aired not only on shortwave but also on mediumwave, at least on 1134. (Kai Ludwig, Germany, June 30, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** DOMINICAN REPUBLIC. 4930.05, Radio Barahona, 0210 July 1, announcer with US baseball scores. ID "Radio Barahona Internacional presentó Deportes 12-40..." Ad/promo into LA pop vocal. Good signal. (Mark Mohrmann, VT, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** EUROPE. Test#2: Radio Stella is supposed to be on this frequency right now: 15843.5. However, the op said something about running on 15804 kHz tomorrow. I kinda wonder if this might be a typo for 15084. I dunno. Radio Stella typically runs for very long periods, so expect that they could be on all weekend. (Andrew Yoder, PA, June 30, DX LISTENING DIGEST) RADIO STELLA 15843.6/U (presume), 2320-2330, 30 June; Barely detect that something's there; tip from UK relayed via Wolfish; seems to be only USB; pretty well shot by 2330 (Harold Frodge, MI, Free Radio Weekly via DXLD) Test#3: Radio East Coast Holland. >Now we are back and will start again on short wave with a test to America and Australia in the 26 meter band. We will use 11485 KHZ or 11490 KHZ independent which freq. is free. We are starting on 01-07-2000 around 23.15 utc, hopely you will enjoy the programm, everything is live that night with a lot of music and information. (via Andrew Yoder, PA, June 30, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** FINLAND. 11690, 2200-2245+ Scandinavian Weekend Radio: Weak at start with announcements and pop music, faded up, heard London Calling by the Clash, later Scandinavian versions of pop songs, two male announcers in Finnish and English. Suffering from quite deep fades, best on LSB as Indonesian(?) speaking station on 11695. Some good peaks being noted 2250, not bad for 50 watts. (Mike Barraclough, England, June 30th, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** FINLAND. Good signal on 11690 from Scandinavian Weekend Radio from tune-in at 2200 Friday - not bad for a 50 Watt transmitter. No trace here on 11720 - perhaps only one frequency in use? Supposed to be on air for 24 hours so worth checking both frequencies tomorrow. Tuning around tonight conditions generally seem to be excellent - lots of strong signals on the higher bands. 73s (Dave Kenny, England, June 30; The above information may only be reproduced if full credit is given to the original contributor AND to the British DX Club (BDXC- UK). Via DXLD) ** FINLAND. Hi, SMR quite good here considering the low power of 50 Watts. 2200 UTC, SINPO 25433. 73's (Martin Elbe, Wolfsburg, Germany, June 30, hard-core-dx via DXLD) ** FINLAND. Scandinavian Weekend Radio on its first broadcast can be heard right now at 0825 UTC here in Denmark on 11720 with weak, but clear signal, mostly in Finnish. Some BCQRM. Power today is just 50 watts according to the message below which I received last night. At 0900 Scandinavian Weekend Radio changed from 11720 to 11690 which is heard much better in Denmark. SINPO 35444 at best. Right now there is a Rock programme mostly with presentation in English. Best 73, (Anker Petersen, Denmark, July 1, Electronic DX Press via DXLD) Not that it would propagate here around 1130, but 11720 had RNZI and 11690 that awful mix of RTTY and Chile. Jordan is another occupant of 11690. In the registration list, we did not even go into all the adjacent QRM from 11685, 11695, 11715, 11725 (gh, OK, DXLD) ** FINLAND. Some checks here in St. Petersburg: +0735-0745+ and +0839-0844+ - R. New Zealand Int'l on 11720 only (not any other station even on the deep background), VoTurkey with a powerful signal on 11690. Maybe at 0855 when Turkey will leave 11690? (Mikhail Timofeyev, Russia, July 1, hard-core-dx via DXLD) ** FINLAND. Hi, At 0600 UTC the Scandinavian Weekend Radio came in very good here on Gotland - on 11720 kHz. Only Finnish talk and really dull, Finnish music. I promised myself not to listen more minutes than to make a decent report of reception. "Scandinavian"? I hope they will make it better later on, otherwise they will not get any others listeners than themselves. A real "pirate flop" in my opinion. (Björn Fransson, July 1, hard-core-dx via DXLD) ** FINLAND. During the night SWR came in here (Northern Bavaria/ Germany) with good signals, partially with SINPO 44444!! on 11690 kHz. Nothing could be heard on the free frequency of 11720 kHz. This morning, at 9.40 UTC, still weak signals audible on 11690 kHz. Regarding reception reports, what's the exact spelling of the town, that was mentioned. Scandinavian Weekend Radio, P.O. Box 35, 40321 ??Jyväskylä ?? Visit their homepage http://www.swradio.net 73s, (Andy Schmid - Pennant Museum, July 1, hard-core-dx via DXLD) ** FINLAND. Quite good here until 2300 UTC. At the moment, 0930 UT, again here on 11690 with rock'n roll music show. I have heard a Finnish announcement by a woman on 11720 at 0900, then talks. At 0940 UTC very faint and I cannot identify the language. 11690 quite good now: at 0945 power suddenly became stronger and they are at 35433. 1000 UT English news on 11720 (Radio Australia?) SWR on 11690 with good signals. 73 de (JOACHIM Stiller, Germany, July 1, hard-core-dx via DXLD) ** FINLAND. When back from my usual night stroll at 2240 I found SWR on 11690 with a amazing signal, carrying rock music and DJ talks in both Finnish and English, all with somewhat tinny audio. "Amazing" of course refers to the reported power of just 50 watts, i.e. it was no armchair copy. Now at noon no show at all, 11720 has a hint of a carrier, perhaps the remains of a SWR signal. I would call the operation a licensed hobby pirate. (Kai Ludwig, Germany, July 1, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** GUATEMALA. 4052.48, Radio Verdad, 0226 July 1, Religious ballad in Spanish. 0228 Full ID over chime instrumental hymn. Bird chirp sounds, then ID repeated again, into rustic guitar vocal. Good signal. (Mark Mohrmann, VT, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** INDIA. All India Radio is back on 11620 at 2045-2230, but is now beamed to Australia/New Zealand, via a new 250 kW shortwave transmitter in Delhi. See the new edition of WWDXC Top News for July 1, now up on the web, for more info on new frequencies from this new transmitter, along with other AIR frequency changes: http://www.wwdxc.de/topnews.htm (Joe Hanlon in Philadelphia, June 30, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** INTERNATIONAL VACUUM. Glenn, I just got this press release. Check it out. Date: Sat, 1 Jul 2000 10:37:35 -0500 Subject: Sirius Announces Successful Launch of Satellite Sirius Satellite Radio is proud to announce that the first satellite in our three satellite constellation, Sirius-1, launched successfully from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, on Friday, June 30 at 6:08 p.m. EDT (Saturday, July 1 at 4:08 a.m. Baikonur time). Satellite radio is now a reality. The deployment of Sirius-1 means that within weeks we will be able to verify the fundamental capabilities of our system, including a coast-to-coast signal and digital-quality sound. The remaining two satellites in our three- satellite constellation are scheduled to be launched and tested by November. We will then be poised to launch the Sirius Satellite Radio revolution, transforming the nature of radio forever. Log onto http://www.siriusradio.com for launch footage and mission details, as well as information on future launches. And thanks for your interest in Sirius Satellite Radio. (Serguei Sossedkine, MI, July 1, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** LIBYA. I am not able to use a satellite dish here in my apartment (a really annoying position!), but I was told, that at least a part of the Libyan radio audio on a certain Eutelsat bird is as bad as on SW and MW, so the cause are the feed circuits or studio problems. (Kai Ludwig, Germany, July 1, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ZIMBABWE [non]. VOP 7215: I guess the problem for the Madagascar station was an antenna switch, which is not necessary when carrying RVI on 41 metres, too. By the way, first I was in error about the VOP slots, but considering that they do not overlap with this RVI transmission... still any questions? Yes, for example, where are the VOP broadcasts produced? My assumption is the WRN studios at London. (Kai Ludwig, Germany, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ZIMBABWE [non]. Dear Glenn, You wrote: Aha! 1800 happens to be the transmission via Madagascar now sandwiched between the two V. of People clandestine airings to Zimbabwe, also from Madagascar if our theory is correct. Scenario: it was too much trouble for Mad to go from 7 to 11 and back to 7 MHz during this period, so Belgium agreed to change to a 7 MHz frequency to facilitate transmitter tuning. Good thinking! You were also right to point out my error about the time between the first Radio VOP transmission and the RVI relay. As for the RVI frequency change, an alternative theory is that they have realised from the Radio VOP experience that 7 MHz is a better choice than 11 MHz for propagating from Madagascar into southern Africa at that time. After all, it is mid-winter down there now, and by 1800 the path will have been in darkness for several hours. (Chris Greenway, England, July 1, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ###