DX LISTENING DIGEST 0-112, September 16, 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. For restrictions and searchable archive contents see} http://www.angelfire.com/ok/worldofradio/Dxldmid.html 1998 GH DX REPORTS MOVED TO LARGE NEW SEARCHABLE FILES: December-July: http://www.angelfire.com/nm/wor/ghdx1998.txt June-January: http://www.angelfire.com/nm/wor/ghdy1998.txt VOA COMMUNICATIONS WORLD: To receive the updated Communications World schedule by auto-reply, send e-mail to cwschedule@voa.gov Text of GH’s media news for the Sept 16 edition is now posted at http://www.angelfire.com/ok/worldofradio/cw0916.html RECEIVER SHORTS: News of some obscure new Radio Shack radios with SW bands in their new catalog: New posting in our Reception Tips section http://www.angelfire.com/ok/worldofradio/rxtips.txt CONTINENT OF MEDIA 00-07 AT DXING.COM as of Sept 15. Hear it via http://www.DXing.com/conmedia.htm ** ANTARCTICA. The Argentinian Base 'Esperanza' has home page at http://www.fcapital.com.ar/esperanza/pagina_indice.htm LRA 36 RADIO NACIONAL "ARCANGEL SAN GABRIEL" is briefly presented at: http://www.fcapital.com.ar/esperanza/pagina_otras.htm 73 de PUL, Pentti Lintujärvi, Helsinki, Finland Webmaster of 1000 Lakes DX Page at http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Park/3232/dx.htm (via hard-core-dx, via DXLD) ** BRAZIL [and non]. Re: DXLD 0-109 Trans-Equatorial Scatter: We can only wonder if TE could ever attain the Florida Keys, if any clear frequencies could be found (Glenn Hauser, DXLD) Glenn et al., I believe it's entirely possible. I recall reading in QST once (mid 80's) about a Paraguayan ham who heard a 2m repeater from Lake Charles, LA via TE and checked into their weekly net. The ZP worked a number of hams before that opening died out. TE reaching that far north and west is a rarity, but it happened and I think it's possible for stations along the Gulf coast to be heard in South America and vice versa. 73, (Todd K0KAN EM29ca Topeka, KS, amfmtvdx via DXLD) TEP to the Miami area is a proven fact on the 2m amateur band. Unfortunately TE prefers stations equidistant to the magnetic (not geographic) equator - and the magnetic equator dips well south of the geographic equator here in the Western Hemisphere. So the USA is not well situated for TEP. Still, those of you in the extreme southern part of the country need to give it a try. (and especially our friends in Cuba, who should be quite well situated for TEP, especially with the relative lack of locals) - -- (Doug Smith W9WI Pleasant View (Nashville), TN EM66, amfmtvdx via DXLD) ** CANADA/INTERNATIONAL WATERS. [Cf DXLD 00-95 under I.W.] Also tonight had a nice chat with Peter VE7QRZ who was operating as VE0NWP/Maritime Mobile aboard the "Simon Fraser" light duty icebreaker which is a support ship for the "St. Roche II". The original "St. Roche" was the first ship to make it through the Northwest Passage in 1942, and the St. Roche II is a replica ship that is re-creating the voyage. The two ships traveled from Vancouver up the Pacific coast through the Bering Sea around Alaska and made their way through the passage over the summer. When I spoke to Peter they were on the homeward leg of the trip from Iqaluit, Nunavut, and were just off Goose Bay, Labrador where they were planning to stop over. Their eventual destination is Halifax. Don't know how long it will take to get from Goose Bay to Halifax by sea, but perhaps you may catch Peter on the air over the next night or two. Peter is a kitchen helper aboard the "Simon Fraser" and gets on the air in the evenings. Look for him around 14132 in the 20 meter band. He was quite loud this evening here in Toronto. He's using a Kenwood TS850 running 100 watts into an Alpha-Delta multiband dipole that's up about 60 ft. in the air. 73 de (Bob VE3SRE Chandler, Sept 14, ODXA via DXLD) ** CHINA. 11590, 1539-1601* Sept 14, China Hua Yi BC Co. Chinese; Lady announcer, Occidental music. ID at 1600 after 6 time pips, English ID by lady and close. Splattered by A.I.R. on 11585 and fading - SINPO 33333. (Bill Flynn, OR, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** COSTA RICA. Tentative special toll-free call-in number for US and Canada during RFPI`s 13th anniversary Fiesta on the Air, UT Sunday Sept 17 0000-0400 is: 1-800-413-7695. Listen for announcements. 15050 has been off the air some following failure of ``doorknob`` capacitors, the backup supply of which is exhausted. This is the frequency which feeds the internet stream. Hints 6970 might be back on in time for the Fiesta, but monsoon rains have delayed antenna construxion (RFPI Mailbag Sept 15 first airing at 2000, notes by gh for DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** GUIANA FRENCH [non]. Since the fire was Sept 10 and it will take a week to get back on air, we may have only until Sun Sept 17 to explore the substitutions. Nothing found on the RFI website, but the normal RFI sked for GUF (in Portuguese, Spanish, Creole, French, but never English) to CAm and SAm is (not necessarily complete): 21765 14-1430, 16-1630 21645 13-1330(Sun -14), 18-1830, 21-2130 17860 12-1330(Sun -14) 17630 18-1830, 21-2130 17620 2030-21, 22-01 17575 14-1430, 16-1630 15515 11-13 15435 10-11 15200 2030-21, 23-01, 02-0230 13640 11-12 11670 09-10 11665 01-02 also from France 9800 01-02 also from France 9790 06-07 [to Africa] We checked 11665 and 9800 at 0130 Sept 15 and they certainly sounded like France only, with that distant European echoey sound, not from French Guiana. We expect that most of the other frequencies, if on the air, have been moved back to the underutilized Issoudun and Allouis sites within European France. We finally got around to checking the CRI relay at 0400 on 9730 UT Sept 16, and it was missing. Later that day, 21645, 17860, 15515, 15435, 13640 were missing, but at 1400 21765 and 17575 were on with very weak and fluttery disturbed high-latitude signals instead of Guiana (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** GUYANA. 3289.7, The Voice of Guyana Sept 8 0645 BBC news relayed till 0800. Christian religious programming till 0830. ID by announcer "The Voice of Guyana" at 0832. Then children singing hymns, till 0840, when ID was given again. The Muslim call to worship, with Islamic chant, ran till 0845. ID given a third time, then time check, and advertisement for sheets from an outfit called Gapwaters. At 0900 music program, with Indian subcontinental music followed by a rendition of Leo Sayer's "I Need You"! Very interesting station. Probably one of the most eclectic formats in the world, due to the wide cultural mix there. Excellent signal, very nice copy here. (David Hodgson, TN, Cumbre DX via DXLD) ** JAPAN. Don't forget that Radio Japan news is now available on- demand at the URL http://www.nhk.or.jp/rj/index_e.html. They also have a questionnaire for users of on-demand audio. I will see if they will reveal the results once the survey is complete - as the questionnaire asks people to sort out internet-delivered audio vs. shortwave. (Richard Cuff, Allentown, PA, USA, Sept 14, swprograms via DXLD) ** KAZAKHSTAN. Does anyone know of any active outlets from Kazakhstan? (73/Liz Cameron, DX LISTENING DIGEST) You can hear a lot of shortwave transmissions from Kazakhstan - but all of them as relays of various international broadcasters (Radio Free Asia, etc.). No any own transmissions from this country at present (Kazak Radio or Radio Almaty)... (Mikhail Timofeyev, St. Petersburg, Sept 15, hard-core-dx via DXLD) ** NEW ZEALAND. 3935, ZLXA Levin was off air for more than a week recently. I first noted them off air on 2 September and noted them back on 12 September. Station founder Allen Little confirms that it was caused by a breakdown in the SW transmitter. As all staff are volunteers it takes longer than one might expect to sort such things out. An added complication was heavy rains at the transmitter site. (Bryan Clark, NZ, Cumbre DX via DXLD) ** OKLAHOMA. September 14, 2000: We asked Rich Fisher of KWGS 89.5 in Tulsa if they were still going to give us an alternative to Quicktime streaming, and remarked about their having to drop BBC overnight during the Olympics. His reply: Glenn, Glad you asked. Today as a matter of fact, we're completely overhauling our computer systems, updating hardware and software at the same time. Wish us luck. Once that is up and running, we will be installing a decoder which will allow us to switch over to Windows Media. It's taken a lot longer than I thought. And I hesitate to tell you when it will be complete, as that may not happen until after we install our new transmitter and back-up generator at the transmitter site. We will probably be off the air for better part of a weekend day for that. But, after that, our off-air problems will be a thing of the past (knock on wood.) (Rich Fisher, GM, KWGS Tulsa, Oklahoma Broadcasting News via DXLD) [continued under UK] for more new items in OBN see http://www.angelfire.com/ok/worldofradio/Oklahoma5.html ** PAPUA NEW GUINEA. Rabaul, 3385 has been operating its morning service *1900-2200* for many months, contrary to the advice from C. Hambly. Please refer to my PNG summary from North Queensland on Aug- 23! Radio Bougainville, formerly Radio North Solomons, is currently using 5985 during local evening hours, from a txer located at Rabaul and a nuisance here from 0800-1200! NBC operations on 6 MHz are not authorised outside of local daytime hours per ITU, to protect legitimate users (e.g.: Yangon 5985). I suspect that the current 5985 evening operation is due to an operational error, as allocated channel is 3325 and unheard there. The other Rabaul txer is allocated 3385 morning & night, 5985 day (Radio East New Britain) 5985 does not propagate into Melbourne during our local daytime, but was a bonzer signal 2230-0100 when I was touring North Queensland recently with educational programming for the Gazelle Peninsula. (Bob Padula, Sept 14, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** RUSSIA. Glenn, I have to correct a perhaps misleading typo: Russian transmitters still uses [means needs? -gh] to have longer warm-up periods. I should also mention that it is already the main switching centre at Moscow who puts the typical test tones into the feed circuits although some sites also uses to insert locally generated signals instead. So the finding of Ivan Grishin, that 11825 does not come up until 0059, indeed suits to Santa Maria di Galeria with the VoR circuit already connected when they switch on the carrier. The "informer" cannot help for the moment, as he has no information about the origin of 11825 yet. Regarding VoR in general, the case of the popular 1386 AM channel clearly shows that they indeed can use only the rest anymore. A few years ago the scheduled VoR German service was simply kicked off this channel whenever RNW wanted to use it for ballgame coverage. Listener complaints to VoR were commented on air with a resigned "this is out of our control". (Kai Ludwig, Germany, Sept 15, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U K. Subject: Imagination Radio --- part 2 Imagination can now announce its future plans! ".....we are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams...." Stafford Broadcasting Society's Imagination is to close its short wave service at the end of September, but from Thursday 5th October it will increase its programme length when it begins broadcasting in stereo across Europe by satellite as part of Radio Caroline's output. The station, which each week broadcasts a programme of soft and progressive rock music, began broadcasting in October last year and in its short life has accrued thousands of listeners in more than 30 countries spread across 6 continents. Imagination's owner, Rob Leighton, said that the closure of the short wave service was a great disappointment but that it was necessary. "Although we have listeners right across the world, the bulk of our listeners are in Europe. There are more cost effective ways of reaching this audience without the reception problems associated with short wave, and by restricting our coverage to Europe we will make reception clearer and make the programme easier to find." The programmes will be audible each Thursday evening, between 8pm and 10pm UK time (1900 to 2100 UTC northern hemisphere summer, 2000 to 2200 UTC northern hemisphere winter), to people with analogue satellite TV receivers tuned to the Astra 1C satellite at 19.2 east. To hear the programme tune your TV to the TV Travel Shop programme on channel 35 (10.994GHz Horizontal), press the audio button on your remote control unit, and quickly press the 'up' button to display 7.38 when you'll hear Radio Caroline. Rob Leighton will be presenting the first hour at 8pm, while Andy Tillison Discdrive will present a second, more specialist progressive hour at 9pm. Radio Caroline already broadcasts predominantly rock music on Monday evenings and at weekends, and Imagination's programmes have found an ideal home in Caroline. Up to date information is available at Imagination's website at http://www.imagination.clara.net and at Radio Caroline's website at http://www.radiocaroline.co.uk. Radio Caroline's ship, the Ross Revenge, is anchored in the Thames Estuary just off the UK's Kent coast and is visible from the Isle of Sheppey. Listeners are invited to contact Imagination at Box 346, Stafford, ST21 6PU, UK or at imagination@clara.net. Music publishers and performers should use the same address. (via Thomas Völkner, Germany, and Baiju, UAE, Sept 15, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U K [non]. As for the BBC, I couldn't believe it either. Apparently, they hold some sort of foreign broadcast rights, but no Internet rights at all. Here's the text from our BBC contact: ``As you are probably aware, the International Olympic Committee has banned the INTERNET streaming of ALL audio and video material originated from Olympic venues during the games. This, according to clarification the BBC received from the IOC this week, includes clips in news programs. This is a universal ban applying to every website, including ours and yours. So because our programs will carry include such material, I'm afraid I have to ask you to stop streaming the BBC for the duration of the games. There will be an army of lawyers checking websites around the world for copyright infringement, and any breaches could have serious legal and/or financial consequences. This does not of course apply to our radio service, which will be providing comprehensive Olympic coverage throughout. As for our own wesbite, we will be replacing normal news and sports programs with an on-demand, Olympic-friendly service.`` What's interesting is NPR's lawyers have said, the Internet use is considered fair use, and can't be banned. Apparently, the BBC's lawyers are a bit more risk adverse. Sorry about the inconvenience. I would add in fairness to the BBC, if in fact, a lawsuit was brought forward by the IOC; British or European courts may have a very different view of what constitutes "fair use" in news and sports broadcasts. For example, I love soccer and like to watch Fox Sports World, which is basically Rupert Murdoch's Sky Sports. As far as I can tell, they have a 24 hour ban on showing highlights of the actual soccer match. Imagine a British version of ESPN's NFL highlights show on Sunday evening, where the only highlights that are shown are the players warming up on the field, or shaking hands after the game, while the announcers voice what actually happened during the match!?!! Very strange. That's what happens on Sky Sports for English soccer. In view of that, perhaps the European sport broadcast rights are far more restrictive than here in the US. Regards to You, (Rich Fisher, GM, KWGS Tulsa, Oklahoma Broadcasting News via DXLD) ** U K. Subject: Our chums at the IOC. It isn't just the BBC: ``We're sorry that you can't hear Classic Gold on the Internet at the moment. Classic Gold is broadcast across the UK and Europe via Satellite, and globally on the Internet, and we broadcast comprehensive news and sports bulletins hourly. The International Olympic Committee has placed legal restrictions on us that prevent us from broadcasting audio content from the Olympics on the Internet. As it's impossible for us to monitor in real-time what might and might not break this rule, we have reluctantly taken the decision to suspend audio streaming until after the Olympics (2nd October) in the face of threats of legal action. If you live in the UK, you can find Classic Gold on SkyDigital channel 919, or on the AM band across southern and central England. If you live in mainland Europe, you can find Classic Gold on the Astra 2A satellite at 12.402GHz, Vertical, 27.5Ms/s, 2/3 FEC (PID 8572).`` Presumably there is a reason why the last remnants of fascism don't want me to listen to "Hey Jude" but I must say it quite eludes me. (Nicholas Mead, UK, Sept 16, DX LISTENING DIGEST) [non]. Radio Netherlands is happy to confirm that our regularly scheduled programmes will be streamed as usual on the Internet during the little event that just opened in Sydney :-) (Andy Sennitt, RN, swprograms Sept 15, DXLD) ** U S A. We recently had news of a Route 66 special ham event without adequate details, until now: (gh) There have been a few special event stations operating from along U.S. Route 66 as part of a "Route 66" special event this week...Route 66 being the famous highway from Chicago to Los Angeles immortalized in the old jazz tune "Get Your Kicks on Route 66". So far I've worked six of the stations....they all have "1x1" callsigns -- K6G, K6H, K6S, K6F, K6C, K6L. Most of them are on 20 meters in the evening between around 14260 and 14280. Sometimes they're on other bands. I don't know how many of them there are off hand, but apparently there was a write-up in the current issue of "QST". Apparently there's a nice QSL certificate available. (Bob Chandler, VE3SRE, ODXA via DXLD) Hi Glenn! There's some more info in one of the recent issues of "QST", I think probably the September issue. I don't have a copy because I don't subscribe. I just pick up the odd issue at newsstands. Anyway, these guys sound like they're having a lot of fun, and they're generating some pretty nice pile-ups. Worked a couple more of the Route 66 Stations tonight. Someone announced a website for info as http://www.nadxa.com (it`s apparently the Northern Arizona DX Association) 73 de (Bob Chandler, VE3SRE, Ont, Sept 14, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Site gives all the calls, locations, frequencies and QSL info, but I can`t get that annoying little frame to copy. Hurry (gh, DXLD) ** U S A. Dear Glenn, Just a quick note to let you know we will be doing a special test broadcast of The Scream of the Butterfly on WBCQ, 7415 kHz on Saturday, September 23 2000z UTC (4 pm EDT). We are interested in reception reports for this broadcast, and will be sending out a special ONE TIME ONLY QSL card for correct reports to our address: P.O. Box 1994, Rancho Cordova, CA 95741 U.S.A. Two listeners submitting taped reports will receive rock music videos. This test is our first step toward adding more coverage to the eastern seaboard, Canada and the upper Midwest, at a more convenient hour. Our regular broadcasts on WRMI, 7385 kHz, Sundays 0400 UTC continue. 73s, (JohnnyRockin' The Scream of the Butterfly, Sept 14, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** WESTERN SAHARA [non]. R. Nacional de la República Árabe Saharauí Democrática in Spanish at 1800-1900 on 7450 with pop music, 1830 news bulletin. Occasional jamming starting at that time. At the opening of the broadcast they announce the frequency as 7470 (Ramón Vázquez Dourado, EA1-1265 ADXB, Spain, undated, Noticias DX Sept 15 translated by gh for DXLD) ###