GLENN HAUSER'S SHORTWAVE/DX REPORT 99-58, Nov 21, 1999 {Items from this and all our reports may be reproduced and re- reproduced only providing full credit be maintained at all stages} ** COSTA RICA. Glenn, 15050 has been off while we worked on the antenna for 6975. Project should be finished today, Saturday. (Joe Bernard, RFPI, Nov 20) New RFPI Mailbag appeared Nov 21, UT Sun 0230, with James Latham and Joe Bernard. Ted Turner and Jane Fonda are coming to a meeting at the University for Peace this week starting Sunday. RFPI hopes to interview them (and why not see about a few hundred million while they’re at it...) There are now two antennas for the 6975 range. New quad is just about finished. The backup antenna is on a free-standing lower tower not so subject to high winds and with no guy wires to mess up radiation pattern. James has been spending 15-20 hours up on the tower. Michael ---, who set up RFPI's computer system which crashed a few weeks ago, is solving the problem by sending them a whole new computer, which should arrive by mid-week and then face at least 4-5 days in customs. So should be back up in 2 weeks tops and again able to upload Mailbag, PNN and other programming audio. [BTW, tnx to RFPI for running our RIBOLD promos a lot lately, but we have been trying to get word to them to stop. At least for the time being, we seem to be spending our time with these more frequent public DX reports than producing RIBOLD for subscription, still suspended] RFPI is now streamed! Charlie Wilkinson, somewhere in eastern US, who set up their original website, has volunteered to handle this, talking the feed off SW. Requires mp3 player which for Windows 98 can be downloaded free from http://www.icecast.org and the streaming is at http://www.boinklabs.com:8000 [LATER: No, corrected to: http://www.boinklabs.com/ifpi.html ] ** COSTA RICA/CUBA. Two of my favorite people are fighting over a frequency, 13750 with a het of about 200 Hz: still dragging its feet three weeks after B-99 began for everyone else, RHC is still on 13750 for the European service 2000-2200, and on Nov 20 at 2120 we found Arnie Coro mixing with Dr. Gene Scott. If we listen on USB for some RHC advantage, we get an even deeper pitch from DGS. It's no better on RHC's only other frequency to Europe, 13660 USB, which is STILL clashing with Switzerland, as we pointed out weeks ago (Glenn Hauser, OK) And also clash on 13750: 2100 RHC ahead, but Scott Cahuita-CTR on odd 13749.81 and til 2030 AIR Bangalore IND too. (Wolfgang Bueschel, Germany, Nov 20) ** CUBA. On DXers Unlimited Nov 20, Arnie Coro took a swipe obviously at yours truly (tho not by name - out of professional courtesy or blacklisting??), provoked by my comment in 99-53 which reached him somehow (I have not said this on the air). I did not claim to have discovered or invented harmonic DXing, or been first to do it, but to have ``pioneered promotion of this DX angle sesquidecades ago.'' Said his elmer in Cuba, Oscar in 1955 had shown him on an SP-600 how the 54th harmonic of an Argentine 900 kHz station could be heard on 48600 kHz by trans-equatorial propagation as a pilot for 6 meter openings. Although it is conceivable, even I find this hard to believe, because 48-50 MHz was an old broadcasting band, and in fact Chilean fundamentals in that area have been reported only recently. But that was a long time ago and I wasn’t there in free Cuba. I don't remember the exact dates, but for a few months I wrote a column in NASWA FRENDX, called ``Hunting Harmonics with Hauser'' so I have an informal claim to the expression ``Hunting Harmonics..'' which Arnie has been using lately. The little one-page column was soon cancelled for no good reason by club management at the time, whose names I will withhold now out of professional courtesy. In those days, it was difficult to convince some DX editors in that club and elsewhere that DXing harmonics was not: 1) imaginary, 2) illegal, 3) immoral, 4) irrelevant, or 5) godforbid, non-SWBC even when the fundamentals were broadcasters! If Arnie did any promotion of DXing harmonics as early as that in organized DX circles, I'd like to hear about it. Anyhow, Arnie is about to do his harmonics special this week, not clear whether Tuesday or Saturday. He should start with RHC on 12000, 2 x 6000 which several have reported lately. I applaud anyone, including Arnie, promoting harmonic DXing, and his particular emphasis on keeping track of propagation on the higher frequencies! Yes, you heard me right. I just said something nice about Arnie (Glenn Hauser) ** CYPRUS [non]. Don't expect anything Middle Eastern from Radio Middle East except the name! Nary an oud nor a muezzin was to be heard during this program floating on WBCQ 7415 Sat Nov 20 from 2136 tune in until cut off at 2200 for TimTron Worldwide. We did enjoy the classic rock and pop tunes and the professional style of Nathan Morley, who might as well be doing this from London, but announced P O Box 30582, Ayanapa, Cyprus, and fulfilled a number of requests, including a ``live'' phone interview with Edward in Lethbridge, Alberta, where it ``is'' 35 degrees C. Somehow I think this was a while ago. Edward's last name was never mentioned, but I think it must be Kusalik in nearby Coaldale. Isn’t it great that the active SWL community is so small that we can guess identities like this? (Answer: no) (Glenn Hauser, OK) ** GREECE [non]. The VOG/VOA saga continues. On Sat Nov 20 at 1830 check, we found 17565 back on, //17705 and this time both are precisely in synch - so that must mean they are both via Delano at the moment. However, no mixing products at 17425 and 17845 were detectable. With all this Delano RF raining down upon me, that’ll be the cause of a brain tumor someday, as I never use a walkie-talkie (a.k.a. cell phone). Would I have a case since VOA is prohibited from broadcasting within the USA, but does so anyway? Except during loud music, cross-talk from another ERT program was audible, but not as bad as yesterday. Another surprise came at 1900 when an English program started, ``Hellenics Around the World'', for the Greek diaspora (come to think of it, that is a Greek word meaning scattering, or for that matter, broadcasting, not a Hebrew word at all though originally applied to the Jews!). So not only on Sunday but on Saturday there is English at 1900. This lasted until 1943, hosted by Katrina ---, with technician Ol'ga ---. Katrina has a way of speaking as if she is reading a script all the time. She gave an URL starting with http: backslash backslash. For newbies and anyone else who does not actually use a computer keyboard but has no choice but to speak computerese now and then: this is not the first time I have heard someone on the air pronounce an URL with the words ``backslash'' to show they are savvy? This backfires, since that character \ NEVER appears in URLs, but only in offline computer commands. Since URL slashes are always forward, it is never necessary to modify the word slash with forward OR back. Furthermore, since ``slash'' is so harsh-sounding, violent, I prefer and urge everyone to use the word ``slant'' instead, which is just as valid for the / symbol, long used by amateurs in expressing their remote or mobile suffixes, later prefixes. Other astounding errors I have heard elsewhen: speaking only one slash after http: or omitting a dot after www. This is not nit-picking, as anyone will soon discover if they try to get anywhere on the net without everything precisely correct. The show began after some music with a long phone interview from 1907 in English with Nicholas ---, of the Hellenic Studies Program, Princeton, until 1935 music break; 1940 a brief report on the Convention of the American Hellenic Institute in Cyprus and Athens Nov. 13-16. No sensational coverage of the anti-American riots Clinton's visit provoked here, as one might have expected or even wanted from the Greek point of view (Glenn Hauser, OK) ** INDIA. Despite its transpolarity, AIR GOS on 13749.9 is managing to override TIDGS around 1840. Nov 20 it was even audible on the relatively insensitive DC-777 with some nice Indian classical music as I was driving around Enid, USA provoking a sense of culture shock. We don't even have an Indian restaurant (Glenn Hauser, OK) ** ISRAEL. New for IBA English at 0500 is 21715, well heard here (Chris Hambly, Australia, Nov 21) ** PAPUA NEW GUINEA. Regarding the ``correxion'' to Chris Hambly's report about RWNB 3235 having come back after a year: Chris tells me he checked very frequently for it and had not been hearing it. (The one year silence was just a guess off the cuff when I asked him for how long.) Possibly the Grayland DXpedition in July with beverage could hear it when nearby Chris could not, but it certainly had been inaudible for some time. BTW, I have seen another recent report that 3235 had just been reactivated, without specifying after how long (Glenn Hauser) ** TUVALU. In reporting on the .tv domain affair, Kim Elliott on this week's Communications World remarks that I have a pet peeve against the word ``tiny'' being applied to places like Lithuania which are not really tiny, but surely even I would approve of Tiny Tuvalu. Well, yes, the land area is 10 sq mi, less than half of Manhattan NY, but even that tiny amount is spread out over 9 islands stretching in a 360-mile chain, says the World Almanac (Hauser) CIRAF ZONES. Dear Glenn, A map with CIRAF-zones can be found at http://www.air-time.org . The correct URL for Tom's list with CIRAF- zones is http://www.trsc.com/ciraf_zones.html (with an 's' at the end). Kind regards, (Ludo Maes, Belgium) ###