GLENN HAUSER'S SHORTWAVE/DX REPORT 99-40, Sept 16, 1999 {Items from this and all our reports may be reproduced and re- reproduced only providing full credit be maintained at all stages} THIS WEEK ON WORLD OF RADIO #1003. See topic summary at http://www.angelfire.com/ok/worldofradio/wor1003.html [NOTE that these URLS are now entirely in lower-case] ** AUSTRALIA [non]. Glenn, Mr. Mitsuo Yamada, a member of the Asian Broadcasting Institute noticed today that Radio Australia also has English program relayed via Radio Taipei International between 0900- 1000 UTC on 11550kHz. He informed me and I also received RA at 0905 UTC today. From 1000 UTC, RDP International to Timor could be heard on the same frequency. FB DXing! (Toru Yamashita, Asian Broadcasting Institute http://www.246.ne.jp/~abi/ , Sept 15, WORLD OF RADIO 1003) ** AUSTRALIA [non]. Glenn: Radio Australia has just begun special SW broadcasts to Indonesia via Taiwan. There may be more in the offing. How ironic that RA needs to go "offshore" to get a better (hell, even useable) signal into neighboring Indonesia, when the country has the (currently unused) Darwin facility. Great policymaking there, eh? The Minister of Communications, Senator Alston ought to be suspended by his thumbs for this masterpiece of planning. 73 (John Figliozzi) >Here are those broadcast times and frequencies. UT AEST E.Timor Freq. Language Site Power (kW) 2300-0000* 0900-1000 0700-0800 11550 Indonesian Taiwan 250 0900-1000* 1900-2000 1700-1800 11550 English Taiwan 250 * special, temporary broadcasts to central & western Indonesia established by ABC on Sunday 12 September 1999 (2300-0000 UT) and Wednesday 14 September 1999 (0900-1000 UT). EST = UT + 10 hours E. Timor = central Indonesian Time = UT + 8 hours (Roger [Broadbent, presumably at RA] via John Figliozzi, Sept 15, WORLD OF RADIO 1003) **CANADA. CFRX, 6070 had a live report from hurricane-ravaged Lumberton NC Sept 16 when at 1118 the carrier went silent for somewhat less than a minute. I'll bet this was another failure by the automatic twice-an-hour SW identifier, the timings of which are not coordinated with programming in progress, and which deliberately disrupt CFRB programming. CFRX has enough problems with absolutely no frequency protection by Canadian or international authorities against the likes of Cuba, Chile, Irian Jaya and Thailand. It's time for CFRB and the Ontario DX Association to put an end to such self-inflicted disruptions (Glenn Hauser, REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTING) ** COLOMBIA. Clandestine: Voz de la Resistencia del Bloque Oriental heard on new 6095 Sept 11 at *1130-1230* and also for the second broadcast at *2130-2230 (Yimber Gaviria, Cali, WORLD OF RADIO 1003) ** CUBA [and non]. The dentro-cubano commie jammers finally found R. Marti on new 5985 -- Sept 14 at 1035 check, some bubbling was audible under the huge RM signal, even tho at the moment they were talking about H. Floyd and inviting calls to 305-437-7116 to check on relatives. Past hurricanes threatening Cuba itself led to temporary suspension of jamming against RM, but as long as this one merely threatens the worms in Florida, looks like Cuba will not relent. Meanwhile, more jammers were still ammassed against nothing on RM's ex-5890 (Glenn Hauser, REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTING) ** IRAQ. Glenn, Listening to "Baghdad Radio Iraq International" (that's the way that he announced it) as I type this today (Monday Sept 13) at 1900 UT in English on 11786.94 Khz. With it's usual lousy low and very muffled and distorted/buzzy audio. Very hard to make much out. Frequency announcement/ID was right at 1900 UT. Transmitter dropping out a number of times just before 1900. Regards, (David Zantow, Janesville, WI, WORLD OF RADIO 1003) That would be new time for English, unless anomalous (Hauser) ** IRELAND [non]. Re WOR 1002 comments: RTE, 6155 was broadcasting EWTN because it was a program about right wing-type radio programs. They also played that Pete Peters. Incidentally, I think the RTE program is called World of Radio (!) (Dave Hughes, Kansas City MO, Sept 11 via Hauser) Hmm, bears rechecking UT Sun 0130 on 6155 (gh) ** MADAGASCAR. Andy/Jonathan FYI, With the help of us (and our possibility to do checks with remote receivers) our technicians at Madagascar found the problem to be in one of the 500 Watts modulation amplifiers in the Philips no 1 transmitter. The problems was solved last Friday. Cheers, (Rocus de Joode, Network & Frequency Planning, Program Distribution, Radio Netherlands via Andy Sennitt, WORLD OF RADIO 1003) Re the mixing problem on 17495 we previously reported ** PORTUGAL. Glenn, I didn't receive any reply to my e-mail from RDP yet, but now it is not necessary. You are right; the transmissions to East Timor on 17600 and 17740 kHz are direct from Portugal. I heard this morning an interview with the president of RDP, Jose' Manuel Nunes, who stated that RDP is broadcasting to East Timor 24h a day, using its most powerful SW trasmitter of 300 kW, located at Pegoes (about 80 km or 40-50 miles east of Lisbon). He added that RDP has also leased a transmitter in a country of the Asia-Pacific region (he didn't specify which one), in order to reach East Timor more easily. This certainly is the 11550 kHz outlet [TAIWAN]. Curiously, though, he said that this transmitter is broadcasting RDP programmes 4 h a day, but in RDP's web site we find only 2 hours. Mr. Nunes also said that he contacted the leader of the East Timorese Resistance, Xanana Gusmao, offering him the help of RDP to build a radio in the new country, including a network of transmitters throughout the territory. Probably some of these may be on tropical SW bands. 73 (Fernando de Sousa Ribeiro, Oporto, Portugal, Sept 16, via Hauser) ** UKRAINE. For technical and financial reasons, such as the lack of replacement valves, all SW transmitter sites but one have now been closed down. The megawatt at Lviv was decommissioned Sept 2. There remain 4 x 100 kW at Brovary, near Kiev [sic], on this schedule in addition to LW 171 at 2200-0000: 1700-0200 5905 2100-0500 6020 0600-2000 6020 0600-1600 6130 1700-0100 9560 0200-1600 9620 0400-1700 11840 RUI's coverage area is now reduced to Eu/ME/CAs (V. of Russia DX Klub website Sept 12 via BBC Monitoring, condensed by gh for WORLD OF RADIO 1003) ** U K O G B A N I. Once again we are in the season beyond high summer when we are at a loss for decent reception of BBC WS Am stream during the prime morning half hour of 1130 UT, which carries a nice lineup of features. Especially when prop conditions are subnormal, the only possibility, 15220 from Antigua, just isn't propagating. The alternatives: 5965 from Sackville you can't even be sure is on amid the QRM - Cuba? And 6195 Antigua, which as always by this hour is fading out and always clashing with BBC itself via Singapore with a different stream (before this streaming nonsense we would merely have echoes of the same programming). We long for Sackville 9515 to come on half an hour earlier. So on Monday for Pick of the World I had no choice but to listen to the occasional fragments of good audio on the RA stream between network congestion dropouts -- a whole lot better than 15220! For anyone better situated, or to remind us what we're missing, here's the current lineup at 1130: Sat People and Politics Sun In Praise of God Mon Pick of the World Tue Omnibus Wed Sports International Thu documentaries: 16th Future Perfect; 23rd Sierra Leone Rose; 30th The Boer War (presumably Assignment will be returning here) Fri Focus on Faith Reception is usually better, even listenable at this hour on the Asia stream from Singapore 9740, which in some charts BBC recognises has a North American subaudience: Sat My Century Sun Play of the Week (60, 75 or 90 minutes) Mon Omnibus Tue On Screen Wed Meridian Live Thu Meridian Books Fri Music Review (Glenn Hauser, REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTING, schedules from BBC On Air Sept via Chris Hambly) ** U S A. VOA's Talk to America Monday Sept 13 was actually about creationism/evolution, as scheduled. But of all the frequencies listed, the only one sort of audible here was 9770 -- Philippines as previously reported when checked at 1730, and 15135 from Greenville is long gone. BTW, I object to evolution being characterised as an "extreme" as in the VOA blurb in an effort to be noncommital. (Glenn Hauser, OK, REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTING) THIS DAY'S TETUM LESSON Glenn Hauser wrote [...] > "Loro Sae" in Tetum means "rising sun" - I bet it's corrupted Portuguese for "the gold is coming" ?! Glenn, I disagree completely. Never, in the history of the Portuguese language, "the gold" has been pronounced as "l'oro" (like in Italian) or "el oro" (like in Spanish). It has always been "o ouro", even in the archaic Portuguese of the Middle Ages. I don't see how "o ouro" could give origin to "loro". As to the word "sae", it could come from the Portuguese "sai", but this could also be a coincidence. Of course there is a Portuguese influence on the Timorese language Tetum, but maybe this is not as strong as we think. Tetum is a language related to various other languages of the Pacific region, not with Bahasa Indonesia or Malay. The contacts between the Portuguese merchants and colonists and the Timorese inhabitants gave birth to a creole language called Creole Tetum. This dialect had indeed a strong Portuguese influence, but it is now practically extinct. Tetum itself is not creole and, therefore, we should not look too much for Portuguese in it. Best wishes (Fernando de Sousa Ribeiro, Oporto, Portugal) I bow to your much closer familiarity with the situation. Still, only one letter stands in the way of my rather colourful scenario (gh) [later:] Regarding the Timorese language Tetum, I made yesterday evening a quick search on the Web with Altavista, having found the following: ------ [...] Tetum and Other Languages of East Timor from Dr. Geoffrey Hull's Preface to Mai Kolia Tetun: A Course in Tetum-Praca (The Lingua Franca of East Timor) [...] At least sixteen distinct languages are indigenous to East Timor, some of them closely related, others completely unrelated to each other. Of these twelve, the most widely spoken is Tetum, originally the vernacular of the Belu people. Austronesian Languages Tetum belongs to the great Austronesian family of languages spoken in a vast area of the globe between Taiwan in the north, New Zealand in the south, Easter Island in the east, and Madagascar in the west. [...] Tetum is structurally quite different from Malay and its offshoot Bahasa Indonesia, and in many respects closer to the Melanesian vernaculars of coastal New Guinea and the Western Pacific. [...] Status of Tetum Tetum has between 300,000 and 400,000 native speakers, but well over two thirds of the population of East Timor are conversant with the lingua franca (ie. Tetun-Dili) exception the extreme west, where Fatuluku-speakers have traditionally used Portuguese as their second language. On the other hand Tetum is current among the Vaikenu (Atoni) speakers of the Oe-Cussi enclave in western Timor. Portuguese has lost its official status when East Timor was annexed by Indonesia in 1976, Bahasa Indonesia occupying all of its historical positions, but attachment to the old colonial language remains strong, and Portuguese is still a major source of loanwords for Tetum. [...] Tetum - Tetun? The correct spelling of this name in English has become a matter of some controversy. My choice of the Portuguese spelling Tetum, the traditional form of the language name in English, is deliberate. Native speakers call their language [tetu], with a final nasal vowel. This is conveniently spelt Tetun in the standard orthography of the language, but the English pronunciation of the name with the consonant [n] rather than the nasal vowel is phonetically even more incorrect than to pronounce a consonantal [m] in the now unfashionable spelling Tetum. [...] I hope this helps. Best regards (Fernando de Sousa Ribeiro Porto, Portugal, via REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTING) ###