GLENN HAUSER'S SHORTWAVE/DX REPORT 99-81, Dec 27, 1999 {Items from this and all our reports may be reproduced and re- reproduced only providing full credit be maintained at all stages. This means appending the line above if excerpting} WORLD OF RADIO ON WWCR: John Norfolk notes that the Sun 0730 broadcast on 5070 was replaced by something else Dec 26. Adam Lock tells us this was an Xmas special, and WOR should be back there next week. The January WWCR program schedule should be available on Dec 31 or Jan 1. ** BRAZIL. Glenn, completing the info about Radio RGS in 99-80: Manager's E-mail is pauloru@zaz.com.br and E-mail of the station is rgs1300@zaz.com.br (Celio Romais, RGS) ** CHECHNYA [non]. Radiostantsiya Chechnya Svobodnaya continues to provide incongruous 1930s American film tunes, as heard again Monday Dec 27 on 11635 in the 1311-1330 period, such as In Some Secluded Rendezvous (sung in English), Tea for Two, some instrumentals I could not name, and Jealousy. After 1331 into Humoresque and Black Eyes. Fair with dual-path echo (Glenn Hauser, OK) ** EGYPT. Radio Cairo now broadcasting in Portuguese at 2300 UT to 2330 and in Arabic starting 2330 on 9900 kHz. Why the switch from English starting last week? Was this planned or... did it have something to do with flight 9900---I mean flight 990? Ramadan perhaps? English to Europe 2115 to 2245 on 9990 kHz still coming in gangbusters in Florida (S9+20-30) with excellent broadcast audio. SO... where/when is the E North Am broadcast? (M Caldera, swprograms) Indeed, 9900 was still in Arabic at 2335 check Dec 27. Maybe English is on whatever frequency had been scheduled for the Port/Arab SAm service. At 2445 9900 went into Spanish, now //9475 which was announced; I am not sure what other frequency was mentioned, but I do not think it was 9900. These services used to be on 15 and/or 17 MHz and may still be (Hauser) ** ETHIOPIA. R. Ethiopia schedule: National Service on 9705, 7110, 5990 in Amharic, Oromo, Tigre, Somali, Afar-[something], Agunik(?), Naer(?); and ENGLISH M-F at 1030-1100. External Service on 11800, 9560, 7165, in English, Arabic, French; and National Service Somali and Afar are also on the ES. English programs, as well as news at 1630: DAY First Half Second Half Mon Kaleidoscope Ethiopia Today Tue Press Review Africa in Focus Wed Guest of the Week Women's Forum Thu Ethiopian Music Spotlight Fri Press Review Introducing Ethiopia Sat Contact Ethiopia This Week Sun Listeners Choice Listeners Choice Address is Box 654, Addis Ababa (Not completely legible undated black on dark blue jpg via Andy Schmid, Dec 27) ** ETHIOPIA. Radio Fana schedule on 6210, 6940, MW 1080: Weekdays: Amharic 0330-0430, 0900-1000, 1500-1700; Oromiffa 0430- 0530, 1000-1100, 1800-2000. Weekends: Oromiffa 0330-0530, 1200-1500; Amharic 0530-0730, 1500-1800 (Clearly legible undated jpg via Andy Schmid, Dec 27) ** NAMIBIA. 3290 0255-0307 Dec 25 Xmas mx, ID for National Public Radio's All Things Considered Program (?!), then anmts, time pips, & into nx by British-accented man. Poor & // 3270. Some QRM from a Spanish language ute. (Don Moore, near Bellefonte PA) NBC just started carrying World Radio Network overnight, tho I am not sure of the exact hours. DXers may thus expect to hear surprising programming on NBC frequencies from a variety of international broadcasters, a la CKZU and CKZN (never, it seems, the esoteric World of Radio, however) (Glenn Hauser) ** NEW ZEALAND. We thought 9700 would be a good compromise between eastward and westward coverage for RNZI's NYE special around 1100 UT Dec 31, but instead they have decided to bring up 6105 an hour earlier than its usual occasional scheduling, at 1005. This would be in time for any Pseudo-Millennium Arrival in the Chatham Islands with their weird timezone at 1015. John Figliozzi has an hour-by-hour schedule of 24 hours of RNZI NY specials which start UT Dec 31 at 0500 on 17675. This is posted at http://www.topica.com in the swprograms archive (Glenn Hauser, OK) ** U S A. Altho automatically updated, or rather re-dated, it seems, daily at 0430 or so, the IBB frequency schedule at http://www.ibb.gov is NOT really reflecting reality, but what is SUPPOSED to be happening. We have already established that the V. of Greece relays at 1800-2200 are temporarily both from Delano while the Greenville transmitter in question is down for repairs. I compare 17565 and 17705 every day or two, including Dec 27, and they have always been synchronized, indicating the same site (Delano). Nevertheless the IBB schedule continues to give us false info: Frequency Schedule Report -- Mon Dec 27 04:30:04 GMT 1999 17565 1800 2200 ERT ERA5 VAR GA 08 164 10/31/1999 03/25/2000 17705 1800 2200 ERT ERA5 VAR DL 01 075 10/31/1999 03/25/2000 One can only wonder how much other info in this public schedule purporting to be updated at least daily reflects nominal rather than actual operations. However, this version does show the change from 17735 to 17740 as of Dec 23 from Philippines which Kim Elliott mentioned on this week’s Communications World. This is due to Pyongyang’s takeover of 17735 from before 0000 until 0300: 17735 2100 0 VOA P ENGL PHT 08 150 10/31/1999 03/25/2000 17735 0 30 VOA P ENGL PHT 07 150 11/18/1999 12/22/1999 17735 30 100 VOA C ENGL PHT 07 150 11/18/1999 12/22/1999 17740 0 30 VOA P ENGL PHT 07 150 12/23/1999 03/25/2000 17740 30 100 VOA C ENGL PHT 07 150 12/23/1999 03/25/2000 17740 100 300 VOA P ENGL PHT 07 283 11/18/1999 03/25/2000 (Glenn Hauser, OK) ** U S A. One very odd reception phenomenon: I have been getting a splattery signal on about 26470 from WJFP in Florida. It is a non- commercial black-oriented station with several translators, presumably FM ones. It is quite powerful and seems more like sideband than narrow-band FM relays such as WFLA. It could be a real fooler, since on Sunday afternoons they have a program in Creole intended for a local audience (Max Swanson, MN, Dec 23) ** UNIDENTIFIED. On 18120 around 1410 Dec 22, distorted music, talk, unknown language, no carrier, stable, with hum, spreads plus/minus 10 kHz, bearing 30 degrees plus or minus 5 (George McClintock, Nashville TN) If harmonic, would be 3 x 6040. Sounds like Romanian behaviour on 17 MHz band, tho the spurs I hear are mostly on the lower side. 30 degrees is on Helsinki and much of Russia (Moscow about 28 degrees), while Bucharest is about 42 degrees (Hauser) ###