** CUBA [and non]. Like the day before, RHC 17705 again with serious technical
problems, during Portuguese March 5 at 2225, both modulation and carrier levels
jumping up and down, but not cutting off completely, such as a bad connexion,
antenna wires shorting out, blowing in the wind, or the like.
The 9.8+ MHz area is a hot bed of dentro- and fuera-Cubans. In most cases RHC
and R. Martí manage to stay further apart, but at 0018 March 6, 9825 had RM
over jamming, while RHC`s Mesa Redonda service was causing adjacent
interference from 9820. Those in Latin America with modest receivers should
have trouble separating them. Then on 9810 another batch of jamming, but no
trace of R. República along with it, which started recently in the 23-04 UT
period, surely via Sackville. I wonder if it is still there, since RCI English
was a big signal on 9755, much stronger on the meter than the jamming on 9810
(Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** FRANCE [non]. 17630, RFI via Guiana French, March 5 at *2058:50 and into
prélude music vamp, not the expected Marseillaise-like IS which I guess is
long-abandoned --- no, WRTH 2009 says they still use it; 2100, 4-second-late
timesignal, time check as 10 pm in París, and opening in Spanish with news
headlines concerning Cuba, Raúl blowing off Fidel loyalists such as Pérez Roque
who has confessed the error of his ways(?!); Venezuela; Wáshington. Still going
with normal talk programming later in the semi-hour, altho Dragan Lekic, Serbia
had observed earlier in the day that RFI was running music fill because of
another strike. 17630 had heavy interference from the dirty, distorted KVOH
spur on 17631: much more about that under U S A (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING
DIGEST)
** GERMANY [non]. Despite DW`s best efforts to dispense with its SW audience N
America, we still hear them in unexpected ways. UT March 6 at 0026 I came upon
quite a good signal on 15595, with DW ID and jingle, quiz aimed at S Asian
listeners, 0027 DW Asian news. Eveyone had a S Asian accent! Has DW banned
American- and British-accented announcers from this service? It`s another
service via the ubiquitous Petropavlovsk/Kamchatka site in FE Russia, 250 kW at
247 degrees toward CIRAF zones 44 and 45, which are eastern China and Japan,
not S Asia at all! What a mess. If DW is customizing per target zone, they
should be using people with Chinese and Japanese accents (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX
LISTENING DIGEST)
** GREECE [non]. Once again March 5 like the day before, on 9420 could only
hear CVC Zambia, at 2053 with gospel rap, and neither of them at 2220 recheck,
tho Greece was OK on 7450, and weaker 7475. What has become of the VOG 9420
transmission, which had been colliding with CVC for months, and reported as
such every single day to Athens by monitor John Babbis in Maryland? VOG
traditionally registers a number of ``wooden`` frequencies they don`t really
use (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** SYRIA. Following several reports of R. Damascus reactivated on 12085, I was
hearing something there March 9 at 2103, a fair signal but heavy flutter and,
of course, very low modulation. Could make out a woman talking, I think,
alternating with a bit of music at 2104. If modulation had been decent, should
have been readable nonetheless. The other frequency, 9330 was completely
inaudible at this time, when English is scheduled, not even a carrier despite
the absence of WBCQ (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A. I was glad to confirm at 2011 UT Thursday March 5 on 7415 that WBCQ
was playing the newest WORLD OF RADIO, 1450; fair reception over all-daylight
path. Hope they also played it 24 hours earlier as it was ready by then, as the
only later broadcast on 7415 has been reduced to Mondays at 2200, the UT Friday
0030 having been canceled. And from next week the M-F strip of WORs will be in
even brighter sunlight at 1900-1930. Should be good for areas close-in to
Monticello who find 7415 fading out after sunset. 7415 signal had improved
somewhat at 2052 during anti-Semitic show --- oops, only anti-Zionist, as
Herald of Truth claims while railing against the Jews.
The show replacing the UT Friday 0030 airing of WOR on 7415 is ``Altogether
Now``. I listened to the first few minutes March 6. It`s a guy whose name I
could not catch, but who identifies himself as a former human rights judge and
lawyer who will be interviewing people, but this time was monologuing about how
easy it still is to travel to Europe, frugally, starting with London. Evidently
he conceives his audience on this international SW station to be Americans.
Also noted WBCQ on 15420 with the anapestic preacher from Fence Lake NM, at
2055. Much better signal here on reduced carrier + USB, but LSB not completely
suppressed, and carrier was a smidgin off frequency, so close that I couldn`t
decide whether it was high or low (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)
** U S A [and non]. Another afternoon of KVOH providing us eight frequencies
for the price of one! Possibly assisted by sporadic E, but which did not reach
VHF, 17775 was inbooming at 2035 March 5, S9+20. Except I first ran across it
on 17487 in an upward bandscan, as that`s normally where I start monitoring the
16m band, 17485 being the lowest intentional frequency.
In the next few minutes I tuned around to many other multiples of 144 kHz away
from the fundamental and found KVOH on most of them, not necessarily in the
order reached, using the FRG-7 and E-W longwire:
17055 (-5 x 144): not audible
17199 (-4 x 144): S9
17343 (-3 x 144): S9+10
17487 (-2 x 144): S9+10
17631 (-1 x 144): S9+15
17919 (+1 x 144): S9+15
18063 (+2 x 144): S9+ 5 peaks
18207 (+3 x 144): barely audible
18351 (+4 x 144): not audible
These are all approximately the centers of the big filthy distorted FMy blobs,
worst when KVOH was playing peppy Mexican music with a heavy beat, which was
most of the time, apparently with a live DJ, with a local L.A. timecheck at
2039, ID as La Voz de Restauración [no la], even giving phone number,
apparently for requests.
I was sorely tempted to phone and tell him about his seven extra frequencies,
but figured I would be taken as a kook, or he would simply not understand what
I was talking about. Nor would it do any good to try to reach their chief
engineer, since they obviously do not have one, at least one who is competent,
since these spurs have been heard repeatedly here for years and duly reported
in DXLD. The transmitter is surely a piece of crap, which ought to be
overhauled or dumped. Now which other gospel huxter did the original owner,
High Adventure, get it from? Was it HCJB?
I knew the major victim of this would be R. France Internationale, which has a
Spanish semihour at 2100 on 17630 --- see FRANCE [non]. So I was standing by
when at *2058:50 the French Guiana carrier cut on. It`s a big signal too, 250
kW at 295 degrees, targeting CIRAF zones 7S,8S,10,11S,12N, i.e. the southern
half of the eastern 2/3 of the conterminous USA, including Enid; Mexico,
Central America, Caribbean, and NW S America, while KVOH`s official targets on
their 100 degree beam with 50 kW are all of zones 10, 11 and 12, i.e. Mexico,
Central America, Caribbean and more of NW S America.
But RFI 17630 was not big enough to blot out the KVOH spur centered only 1 kHz
away; it was still bothering when I side-tuned as far down as I could on the
DX-398`s bandwidth and still hear RFI, 17627.
Why hasn`t RFI raised hell about this with KVOH, FCC, ITU, HFCC? Why hasn`t FCC
fined them on its own initiative? Why haven`t aeronautical interests on 17921
complained, where the spur could be a threat to safety? Ditto maritime
interests impacted by 17199 and 17343? Possibly because no one gives a damn
about this but yours truly. Why haven`t hams done so about 18063? Answer to the
latter: because it`s 5 kHz away from the edge of the so-called 17-meter band
starting at 18068! And who cares what happens below there? Anyone who knows how
to reach relevant powers that be is free to forward my observations.
Searching my DXLD archive on 17919, 17921, 17629, 17631, for the spur
frequencies have varied slightly over time, I get hits on the following issues:
5-014, 5-078, 7-020, 7-024, 7-064, 8-063, 8-114, 8-118, 8-123.
At 2124 recheck on 17921, the DJ claimed to be broadcasting on only one
frequency, ``17.775``. When I rerechecked an hour later at 2225, none of these
were heard, as 17775 itself had apparently closed down in the meantime, altho
authorized to run until 0100, silencing its phalanx of spurs. Until next time
(Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ###
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