DX LISTENING DIGEST 5-010, January 16, 2005 Incorporating REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTING0 edited by Glenn Hauser, http://www.worldofradio.com Items from DXLD may be reproduced and re-reproduced only if full credit be maintained at all stages and we be provided exchange copies. DXLD may not be reposted in its entirety without permission. Materials taken from Arctic or originating from Olle Alm and not having a commercial copyright are exempt from all restrictions of noncommercial, noncopyrighted reusage except for full credits For restrixions and searchable 2005 contents archive see http://www.worldofradio.com/dxldmid.html NOTE: If you are a regular reader of DXLD, and a source of DX news but have not been sending it directly to us, please consider yourself obligated to do so. Thanks, Glenn NEXT AIRINGS OF WORLD OF RADIO EXTRA 53: Sun 2030 WOR WWCR 12160 Mon 0330 WOR WRMI 6870 Mon 0400 WOR WBCQ 9330-CLSB Mon 0530 WOR WBCQ 7415 Mon 1700 WOR WBCQ after hours Tue 1000 WOR WRMI 9955 Tue 1700 WOR WBCQ after hours Wed 1030 WOR WWCR 9985 Wed 1700 WOR WBCQ after hours WORLD OF RADIO Extra 53 in the true shortwave sound of Alex`s mp3: keep checking http://www.piratearchive.com/dxprograms.htm OUR ONDEMAND AUDIO [also for CONTINENT OF MEDIA, MUNDO RADIAL]: WORLD OF RADIO Extra 53 (high version): (stream) http://www.w4uvh.net/worx53h.ram (download) http://www.w4uvh.net/worx53h.rm [WOR Extra 53 is the same as Continent of Media 04-08] WORLD OF RADIO 1259 (low version without WOR opening): (stream) http://www.w4uvh.net/com0408.ram (download) http://www.w4uvh.net/com0408.rm (summary) http://www.worldofradio.com/com0408.html NEXT AIRINGS OF WORLD OF RADIO 1259: Sun 2000 WOR Studio X, Momigno, Italy 1584 87.35 96.55 105.55 Sun 2100 WOR RNI Mon 0430 WOR WSUI Iowa City IA 910 Mon 0900 WOR R. Lavalamp Mon 1700 WOR WBCQ after hours Tue 0700 WOR WPKN Bridgeport CT 89.5 [new time] MORE info including audio links: http://worldofradio.com/radioskd.html WORLD OF RADIO 1259 in the true shortwave sound of 7415: (stream) http://www.piratearchive.com/media/worldofradio_01-05-05.m3u (d`load) http://www.piratearchive.com/media/worldofradio_01-05-05.mp3 WOR 1259 also available via phone feed to WBCQ`s stream via http://www.radio4all.net/proginfo.php?id=10770 (Larry Will, Jan 5, DX LISTENING DIGEST) WRN ONDEMAND: http://new.wrn.org/listeners/stations/station.php?StationID=24 OUR ONDEMAND AUDIO [also for CONTINENT OF MEDIA, MUNDO RADIAL]: WORLD OF RADIO 1259 (high version): (stream) http://www.w4uvh.net/wor1259h.ram (download) http://www.w4uvh.net/wor1259h.rm WORLD OF RADIO 1259 (low version): (stream) http://www.w4uvh.net/wor1259.ram (download) http://www.w4uvh.net/wor1259.rm (summary) http://www.worldofradio.com/wor1259.html CONTINENT OF MEDIA 05-01 available from January 11: (stream) http://www.dxing.com/com/com0501.ram (download) http://www.dxing.com/com/com0501.rm (summary) http://www.worldofradio.com/com0501.html [soon] DXLD YAHOOGROUP: Why wait for DXLD? A lot more info, not all of it appearing in DXLD later, is posted at our yg. Here`s where to sign up http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dxld/ ** CANADA. CKUT 3rd annual Homelessness Marathon, Feb. 14, 5 p.m. until 7 a.m. [EST] next morning [2200 UT Feb 14 to 1200 UT Feb 15], repeated on many other Canadian radio stations http://www.ckut.ca/homeless.html (CKUT International Radio Report Jan 16, notes by Ricky Leong, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CANADA. CBC digital woes --- Channel 2, CBUT in Vancouver tonight broadcasting an unwatchable garbled mess; I'm guessing the snow is affecting their reception of their own satellite feed. Of course in the past when it was ANALOG it would have shown up as little black sparklies and no one would have even noticed --- but of course now it's digital and it's an unwatchable mess. Actually as I am sending this the picture is alternating between frozen frames and a totally black picture. Oh the wonders of digital technology! (Steven Durocher, BC, UT Jan 16, WTFDA via DXLD) ** CUBA. 942, Radio Progreso, unknown location; 0024-0027 15 Jan., still off-frequency, good and parallel 640, et. al. 950, Radio Reloj, Pastora, Ciudad de la Habana; 1140/1330+ 16 Jan., appears to be the source of the tight, rapid warbling. Noted at 1140+, and still there well after sunrise. Audio otherwise clear. On another note: despite a recent report elsewhere claiming Reloj runs chimes in place of the Morse "R-R" on Sundays, this is not always the case. Occasionally (such as today), they choose not to, or forget to flip to chimes --- or do so later in the day as per the presumed direction of El Jefe de Campanillas. This has been the case forever (Terry L. Krueger, Clearwater FL, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** EQUATORIAL GUINEA. 5004 KHz, Radio Bata en español, 16-01-05, 0600 UTC, Las 7 en punto en Radio Bata, 44433 (José Bueno - Córdoba - España, Noticias DX via DXLD) 5005, R. Nacional, DS, Bata, 50k, Guinée Équat, 0601, 322, espagnol, infos, Jan 16, 05 (Michel Lacroix au nord de Paris, HCDX via DXLD) Must be quite irregular; not many reports of it since reactivation in early Dec. Some say 5005, some say 5004; is it really somewhere in between? How about a decimal measurement (Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** FALKLAND ISLANDS. Re 5-009 http://www.w2s.co.uk/timo/bfbs/freq.html lists BFBS as: Falkland Islands 88.0 MHz [BFBS 1] Campito (shared) 102.0 MHz [BFBS 1] Goose Green (shared) 90.0 MHz (2 kW) [BFBS 1] March Ridge (shared) 88.0 MHz (0.3 kW) [BFBS 1] Mount Alice (shared) 90.0 MHz (0.3 kW) [BFBS 1] Mount Byron (shared) 105.0 MHz [BFBS 1] Mount Kent (shared) 103.4 MHz (2 kW) [BFBS 1] Mount Maria ? (shared) 98.5 MHz (0.01 kW)[BFBS 1] MPA 96.5 MHz (2 kW) [BFBS 1] Port Stanley (shared) 550 kHz (10 kW) [BFBS 2] Bush Rincon Does that (shared) mean they are sharing the transmitter with FIBS? (Jari Savolainen, Kuusankoski, Finland, Jan 16, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** GOA. AIR PANAJI SW REQUESTS REPORTS Dear Friends, AIR Panaji is looking for reports on their of 2 x 250 kW SW transmitters used by External Services. Mr. S. Jayaraman is the new Suptdg. Engineer there now. He was the Station Engineer of 6 x 500 kW SW transmitters of Bangalore till recently. Address for reports is: Mr S. Jayaraman, Superintending Engineer High Power Transmitter, All India Radio, P. O. Goa University Goa-403 206, India Email: airtrgoa @ sancharnet.in Their schedule is: 7115 1615-1730 Persian, 1730-1830 Malayalam (W. Asia) 7250 0130-0230 Nepali (Nepal) 9705 2245-0045 English (E SE Asia) 9810 0130-0230 Nepali (Nepal) 9820 1300-1500 Sinhala (Sri Lanka), 1530-1545 HS 11740 2300-2400 Hindi, 0000-0045 Tamil (SE Asia), 0045-0115 Sinhala, (Sri Lanka), 1530-1545 English 11715 2045-2230 English (Australia/ NZ) 11775 1215-1330 Tibetan (Tibet), 1330-1430 Nepali 11840 0315-0415 Hindi (West Asia) 12025 1615-1730 Hindi, 1730-1830 Malayalam (W. Asia ) 15235 1115-1200 Thai (SE Asia) 17810 1115-1215 Tamil, 1215-1245 Telegu (SE Asia) Good Luck! (Jose Jacob, dx_india Jan 16 via DXLD) ** GOA. INDIA, 7250.0, AIR Panaji, Jan 16, transmitter turned on at 0127, into AIR IS, sub-continental music, news and talking and more sub-continental music. DXAsia lists this as Panaji, in Nepali language, external service directed to South Asia. Fair-poor, some ham/QRM (Ron Howard, Monterey, CA, NRD545, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** GUAM. Hello Glenn, Here is another interesting tip for 2005: 6045, AWR Guam - Agat, Jan 15 1959-2002, SINPO 23343. Introduction of educational program in English. Sign on with AWR jingle, full ID in English and Korean. 73's and good 2005 DX! (Nino Marabello, Treviso, Italy, RX: SONY SW7600G Ant: VHF outdoor at 250 degrees, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** GUYANA. 3291.12, GBC, 0900 to 0935, Hotel California "You can check out but you can never leave" 13 January, inspirational message by OM 0958, time pips at 1000, 15 January (Robert Wilkner, Pómpano Beach, Flórida, NRD 535D and Icom R 75 modified, via Dario Monferini, playdx via DXLD) ** INDIA. 9425, AIR National Channel, Bangalore India, 34433 Hindi/English. OM announcer in Hindi with Indian music. OM giving what was obviously frequencies as he mentioned "KHz" several times. Time pips. 1830, OM in English read the news. Talking about an attack. Mention of an agreement with congress. Some hum on the signal. Several mentions of an agreement with Bangladesh. 1834 end of the news, YL announcer in presumed Hindi. 1840, A variety of Indian music with brief announcements. Perhaps this is their equivalent of the "Top 40" as it had a "pop" sound. 1818 UTC 1/15/2005 PA (Phil Atchley, Merced CA, swl at qth.net via DXLD) ** INDIA. Dear friends, AIR is noted for about 2 weeks now on 11585 continuously during day local time (approx 0030-1730 approx). Program consists of FM Rainbow programs. Must be some tests. ===== 73 (Jose Jacob, VU2JOS, Jan 16, dx_india via DXLD) See also GOA ** INDONESIA. 9524.88, Voice of Indonesia, Cimanggis, Jawa; 1310-1400* 16 Jan., very good with Indo M&W between Indo pop vocals, "Radio Republik Indonesia" ID 1357 by same W over music bed, then orchestral song (anthem?) to 1400 and plug pulled. 11785 and 15150 channels untraced (Terry L. Krueger, Clearwater FL, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** INTERNATIONAL VACUUM [and non]. DELPHI REVEALS XM SIGNAL REPEATER SYSTEM --- HOMES, OFFICES RECEIVE TRANSMITTED PROGRAMMING Delphi Corp. said it's expanding its satellite radio product line-up with the introduction of the Delphi XM Signal Repeater - a system that wirelessly rebroadcasts the XM satellite signal throughout most homes and small offices. The repeater system includes both a transmitter and receive module. The transmitter down-converts the XM signal through the XM home or audio system antenna and rebroadcasts it through interior walls and floors at an expected distance between 75 and 100 feet. While in range, one or more receive modules can acquire and up-convert the signal back to the natural XM frequency - passing it through just like a typical XM antenna. The end result is continuous XM programming wirelessly throughout an indoor environment. The Delphi XM Signal Repeater will debut this spring, at an expected retail price of $169 for the complete system and $69 for each additional receive module. For more information on XM, visit http://www.xmradio.com. The Delphi plan for an XM signal repeater (described above) is interesting. Something I have not seen mentioned anywhere is that there already exists an alternate delivery mechanism for XM Radio. In addition to the satellite signal, there is a terrestrial signal. The XM receiver can select whichever source is delivering the currently best data. I think this is available only in major metro areas and intended primarily to deal with building obstructions. I imagine the signal I receive is intended for either the Palm Beach or Fort Lauderdale areas, where taller buildings abound. Since my satellite antenna is aimed at a fairly high angle - near the equator as I am - the problem of buildings in the line of sight is less here anyway, were there any. In fact, my XM PCR reports three different signal strengths, east and west satellite, and terrestrial. Most of the time, the terrestrial signal is the strongest at my location, but only by a little over the east coast satellite. The terrestrial signal seems to have the widest level swings of the two. Not surprisingly, the west coast satellite signal is substantially the weakest. I have no idea where the terrestrial signal originates in my area, nor do I know if all XM radios can receive the signal. Interestingly, following our rash of hurricanes this past season, the terrestrial signal all but disappeared for a while, even beyond the week long power outage we experienced here. It has dropped out briefly at other times too, but the satellite just keeps on chugging. Does anyone else have experience with or knowledge of these XM Radio terrestrial signal sources? (W. Curt Deegan, Boca Raton, Florida, NRC- AM via DXLD) I have had no trouble at all with mine. Even looking out a WNW window. Or with the mobile antenna looking out the windshield. Except when I pull into the garage, hi (BILL Hale, TX, ibid.) I've never had any loss of signal either, though I have no way of knowing which signal my receiver is picking from, satellite or terrestrial. The satellite signal strength is near the top of the scale, and that's with the deck-of-cards sized antenna sitting in the corner of my living room atop the cable box, looking up through the ceiling and roof. That location does avoid any air ducts, wiring, and plumbing. The only tuning I did - turning and tilting the antenna on its stand - was just due to my need to get the strongest satellite signal reading that I could on the receiver to satisfy my hobbyist urges (Curt, ibid.) Your PCR has three signal meters? There's only two on mine. Would be interested to know what software version you're using. I just got the new Skybox over Christmas and plan to deactivate the PCR as I'm pretty happy with the sound from the boombox. Don't know if I can part with selling it, though - it was my first XM(sigh)! (Mark Erdman Herington/Salina KS, ibid.) TimeTrax has three virtual meters. Aftermarket recording program for the XMPCR. Great program, BTW (Craig Healy, Providence, RI, ibid.) Mark, I'm using TimeTrax - http://www.timetraxtech.com/default.asp - which works with XM and Sirius. You might want to take a look at it before you give up your XM PCR. It does everything the XM Radio software does plus it works like a VCR with scheduled recordings. What I really like is its ability to camp on a channel and automatically pick off the individual cuts along with tag info and create MP3 files. Each time the tag info changes, a new file recording is started with that info. Duplicate tags have a sequence number appended to the file name. This is great for music but even better for the old time dramas I like. Would work well for talk shows too. You can set an ignore limit which will skip short passages like ads. A typical drama comes in two parts with three or four ads/announcements in the middle and between shows. With TimeTrax I end up with just the program content, in two parts which can be listened to as is or joined together with an audio editor. With music you might catch some ads, but they'll be in their own file and easily dispensed with. I'm lusting for a MyFi, but haven't quite built up the rationalization yet. With MLB looming in the spring, it's a foregone conclusion though (Curt, ibid.) Hi Curt: The terrestrial repeater system in New York City is beyond robust. I can walk through the tall skyscrapers of Manhattan and even under buildings through passageways and never lose XM. In the building where I work, I can receive XM in a first floor office behind a brick wall. The signals are very strong. The system covers NYC out to about 20 miles north of the city. I can even resolve the signal while riding in a commuter train. I also experienced terrestrial repeaters in Detroit, Michigan. The system did not seem to be quite as complex and seamless as NYC. Again, I was in a old brick and steel house just outside the city line. I had a hard time NOT getting the signal. I could see both satellites and terrestrial repeaters no matter where I put my postage stamp antenna. Walking around with the MyFi worked well too. The folks at XM put a lot of effort into this system. According to xm411.com, there are about two dozen or more cities that have XM terrestrial repeaters (Karl Zuk, N2KZ, ibid.) Russ, I found a list of cities with XM Terrestrial repeaters in the XM411.com forums. I've extracted it below. The entry had some other links that might be of interest, it is here: http://www.xm411.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=616 I cannot vouch for the accuracy of this list; perhaps Karl has better information (W. Curt Deegan Boca Raton, Florida, ibid.) The major metropolitan areas that definitely have them are below: Akron Albany Albuquerque Atlanta Austin Birmingham Boston Buffalo Charlotte Chicago Cincinnati Cleveland Columbus Dayton Denver Detroit Dallas/Ft. Worth Greensboro Greenville, SC Harrisburg Hartford Houston Indianapolis Jacksonville Kansas City Knoxville Los Angeles Louisville Las Vegas Memphis Miami Milwaukee Minneapolis Monterey Nashville Norfolk New Orleans New York City Oklahoma City Orlando Philadelphia/Wilmington Phoenix/Tucson Pittsburgh Portland Providence Raleigh Richmond Rochester Sacramento San Antonio San Diego Seattle San Francisco Salt Lake City Springfield, MA St. Louis Syracuse Tampa Toledo Washington DC/Baltimore (via Deegan, ibid.) ** LAOS. 6130.0, Lao National R., Jan 16, 1148-1218, Southeast Asia music, ToH gong/bell rung slowly seven times, music (anthem?), news and talking. Poor-fair (Ron Howard, Monterey, CA, NRD545, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** MEXICO. 6045.00, XEXQ, R. Universidad, San Luís Potosí, 1320 classical music, 1330 no ID on the half hour. Amazing signal ~ strongest I have ever heard from this station, 12 January (Robert Wilkner, Pómpano Beach, Flórida, NRD 535D and Icom R 75 modified, via Dario Monferini, playdx via DXLD) 6045, XEXQ, Radio Universidad, San Luis Potosí, 1320+ 16 Jan., good in local hash with nonstop classical orchestration, no announcements. Presumed the one as per B. Wilkner log. Been a long time since I've heard this one (Terry L. Krueger, Clearwater FL, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** NICARAGUA. 1400, YNRG, Radio María, Managua; ID & Spanish religious "pops", F/G, 0747-0820 14/1. You can hear the YNRG ID at:- (BTW play it twice for continuity) http://www.geocities.com/barry.davies25@btopenworld.com/mypage.html 73's (Barry Davies, UK, MWC via DXLD) ** PETER I. 3Y0X DX-PEDITION DELAYED --- The 3Y0X team members were scheduled to depart Punta Arenas on 14 January, and the activity from Peter I Island was expected to take place between 21 January and 4 February. The latest official reports indicate that there will be at least a two and one-half to three-week delay, because problems have arisen with completing the renovation and re-registration of the ship on schedule. One of the team members is in Chile gathering information and a second team member will arrive on 17 January. They will travel to the shipyard and personally inspect the vessel. Updates are expected in due course (TNX K0IR and K4UEE, 425 DX News Jan 15 via Dave Raycroft, ODXA via DXLD) ** TAIWAN. According to Asia broadcasting Institute, Radio Taiwan International will close Korean, Arabic, Burmese services on January 31. One possible reason is to raise the funds for their domestic foreign language services (Takahito Akabayashi, Tokyo, Japan, Jan 16, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** TRINIDAD & TOBAGO. STATE-OWNED TV, RADIO NETWORK IN TRINIDAD CLOSES DOWN AMID CONTROVERSY | Text of report by Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC) news agency on 14 January Port of Spain, Trinidad: The state-owned National Broadcasting Network (NBN) is closing its doors on Friday [14 January] amid much controversy and interference that plagued its operations over the past 48 years. The Patrick Manning administration has mandated that NBN, which includes two television and four radio stations, cease broadcasting at midnight, paving the way for the Caribbean New Media Group that is expected to start operations within the next six months. But even as the network was closing its doors, the government has been forced to deny opposition allegations that it had agreed to lease the facilities of NBN to Citadel Limited, whose chairman, Louis Lee Sing, a staunch supporter of the ruling Peoples National Movement (PNM), is also chairman of the National Lottery Control Board (NLCB). Lee Sing has categorically denied this statement by the United National Congress (UNC) and Information Minister Dr Lenny Saith said that Cabinet had approved a request by the National Carnival Commission (NCC) for use of the facilities to broadcast the 2005 Carnival events. "So the Cabinet agreed that NBN should enter into a memorandum of understanding with the National Carnival Commission for the leasing to the NCC of Channels 4 and 16 for a period of three months to facilitate the broadcast of all the events of Carnival," Dr Saith said. He told reporters at the end of the Cabinet meeting on Thursday that the NCC had to determine who would broadcast the events. "All we are doing is providing them with facilities." Dealing with the broadcast of the NLCB games that had been broadcast on NBN since its inception, Dr Saith said that the Cabinet had not discussed the matter. He said it was up to the NLCB board to determine where the games are to be broadcast insisting that there should be not Government involvement in that matter. The Caribbean Communications Network (CCN) said that the NLCB had unilaterally withdrawn from an agreement it had with the network to televise the games. Meanwhile, some of the 252 NBN workers, who stand to receive millions of dollars in severance and other benefits, reportedly broke down in tears at today's closure of the company. The workers, who were first informed that the company would go off the air in April 2004, had been critical over the manner in which the Manning administration had dealt with the impending closure over the past few months. A Voluntary Separation Package has been offered to all workers, but Anthony Garcia, former president of Electronic Media Union of Trinidad and Tobago (EMUTT) was concerned that not all workers would be receiving the payout on Friday. He said that some workers still had to get their "tax returns in order to submit to the Board of Inland Revenue". Source: Caribbean Media Corporation news agency, Bridgetown, in English 1629 gmt 14 Jan 05 (via BBCM via DXLD) ** U K. George Campbell RIP Speaking out, By Paul Donovan, The Sunday Times, January 16, 2005 http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,14934-1440433,00.html On the day the waves rose up in the Indian Ocean, there appeared the first of only two obituaries on a modest man from the Highlands who had deep knowledge of the languages spoken by those swept away - Thai, Sinhala, Indonesian and English. His name was George Campbell, and he could apparently speak and write in 44 languages. Once listed in the Guinness Book of Records as "the world's greatest linguist", he worked for the BBC World Service for 40 years, retiring as head of the Romanian section. Campbell, who was 92 when he died, appears never to have been written about in his lifetime, and the World Service has not even mentioned his passing in its own output. Yet his gifts were extraordinary. When he was a child, a dog attacked him, leaving him with a stammer. His teachers thought he was slow and sat him at the back of the class. There, from books he found at Inverness fish market, he taught himself the basics of Spanish, Portuguese and Danish, as well as the French and German on the syllabus. His natural bent became his life's work. In retirement, for fun, he taught himself Basque. Some may dismiss that as arcane and obsessive, the product of a vanished era of the gifted amateur. Does English not now dominate the globe? Has it not marginalised foreign tongues? Campbell lived long enough to see that such arguments were misplaced. "Other lan- guages are actually growing in importance," argues Chris Westcott, director of BBC Monitoring, which (with some help from the Americans) listens to the world's news agencies and radio and television output in 100 languages, including highly sensitive ones such as Korean and Uighur, which is spoken by a Muslim minority in western China. "This is because the web has given a global footprint to languages once confined to a relatively small area." The World Service itself broadcasts in 43 languages (including English, though not Korean or Uighur). What is less well known is that each of them can be listened to on, and has a section of, the BBC World Service website - an array of strange scripts and fonts. Politics, as well as the web, gives buoyancy to languages. The war of words rarely calls a ceasefire. For all international broadcasters, of which the BBC is only one, Arabic has become vastly more important as a result of 9/11 and the Iraq war. (It was the first of the BBC's foreign-language services, launched in 1938 at the behest of the Foreign Office to counter Mussolini's Arabic broadcasts denouncing "British imperialism".) The break-up of both the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia has led to the emergence of new republics with a renewed nationalistic impulse, expressed in languages such as Kazakh, Kyrgyz and Macedonian. So, even if there are no George Campbells any more, what he stood for - a respect for languages - is still of vital importance in the radio world. "I don't think we have anyone here at Caversham who can speak 44 languages, but quite a few have mastered six or seven," says Westcott. "Being barely literate in one, I'm rather in awe of them. I think sometimes we're in danger of under- estimating the linguistic abilities of the British." (via Mike Terry, dxldyg via DXLD) ** U S A. 10000, NEW MEXICO "Yosemite Sam" 1235+ 16 Jan. As per D. Crawford tip, noted weak and apparently truncated (all I could hear was "Varmint!") also spaced far apart, weak under WWV. No trace of 5 or 20 MHz at this time, where it is also reported to have reactivated at new frequencies. Seems like a suicidal set of channels to select. 20000, NEW MEXICO "Yosemite Sam" 1447-1645+ 16 Jan., even better here – very strong under WWV with the brief data burst followed by "Varmint!" every 40-ish seconds cycle (Terry L. Krueger, Clearwater FL, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. Would like to hear View From Europe Hi! I listen to WWCR fairly often, during late weeknights and especially to the DX Block on Saturday evenings (and the programs following that, which really should be considered as part of the DX Block). There is one program on WWCR I would really like to hear, but the times you air it and the frequencies at those times make it just about impossible for me to listen to it here in St. Louis, Missouri. That program is "View From Europe", the little 5-minute essay by Harvey Thomas. When I can hear it, I always find it interesting. But the only airings are far too early on weekend mornings (in the 5 AM and 6 AM Central US time periods) and one of these is on a frequency that just is not yet propagating from your site to my location at that time (15825 kHz); all I hear if I am awake then is a fragment of words here and there amidst the noise. Please broadcast an additional airing of that 5-minute program at a more-listenable time. But when could you fit in such a 5-minute segment? I have a suggestion: Replace the 5-minute "News" segment from USA News that precedes Cyberline at 0500 UT Sundays! There is no real need for you to air any newscasts; we have plenty of other sources for news from many other stations or local media. Also, since that newscast is actually an anomaly for you, since you air newscasts so seldom during the broadcast day, there's no particular need for it. The people listening to the DX Block programming and Cyberline would find "View From Europe" far more interesting and worthwhile than that brief spurt of ordinary domestic-US radio news. Please give this serious consideration. Thank you (William Martin, St. Louis, MO, Jan 15, to askwwcr, cc to DX LISTENING DIGEST) Hear2 (gh) ** U S A. Shades of the old days of SW listening! WWRB has formed a "Listeners' Club" and is offering a "beautiful membership certificate suitable for framing" (or words to that effect)! Remember when all the SW broadcasters did this? They have been making on-air announcements about this; hope this isn't old news to all of you. Anyway, getting a certificate is easy; just send them a letter with comments about your reception, impression of any of the programming, or basically anything related to WWRB. Send to: WWRB, Box 7, Manchester, TN 37349 Probably wouldn't hurt to mention "WWRB Listeners' Club" on the envelope (Will Martin, MO, Jan 15, dxldyg via DXLD) ** U S A [non]. Adventist World Radio has revised its procedure for issuing QSL cards, moving from one central contact address in England to several regional addresses. Effective immediately, the new contacts are as follows. Listeners in the Asia/Pacific region: AWR Asia/ Pacific, 798 Thomson Road, Singapore 298186, Republic of Singapore. Listeners in the Europe region: AWR Europe, Whitegates, St. Mark's Road, Binfield, Berkshire, RG42 4AT, England Listeners in the Africa region: AWR Africa, P.O. Box 2522, Cramerview, 2060, Johannesburg, South Africa. Listeners in North/Central/South America: Dr. Adrian Peterson, 903 Tanninger Drive, Indianapolis, IN 46239, USA (AWR press release via Adrian Peterson via BC-DX #697, 2004 Dec 29 via WWDXC via DXLD) ** U S A. WHFS 99.1 DC Format change to Latin/Carribean "El Zol" It's all about the demography. Houston's 26% Hispanic, San Francisco's 19% (and San José 23%), and even DC is 9%. Boston's only 6% Hispanic, and rather profoundly lacking in the sort of small suburban or rimshot signals that have successfully found a niche as the lone Spanish FM in places like Atlanta (7%, where WWVA-FM 105.3 Bowdon GA is racking up record ratings after flipping). Under other circumstances or other owners, it's not impossible to imagine signals like the 99.5, 101.7 or 97.7 making such a flip, but I just don't see it happening with any of those under their current ownership - and certainly not with any of the big full-market Bs, at least not in the near future. As for DC, it bears noting that a pair of extreme-rimshot class A FMs (94.3 Warrenton VA/92.7 Prince Frederick MD) that were, until now, the only Spanish-speaking FMs in the market were actually drawing better ratings than WHFS in its final English-language incarnation, even though their signals missed most of the heavily Hispanic areas of the market. There are 21 signals (or simulcast pairs) that regularly place above a 1 share in the DC ratings. If 9% of the market is Hispanic, it seems pretty close to proportionate to have two of those signals broadcasting in Spanish. I don't expect to see a second Spanish- language FM in a market like DC or Atlanta (or a first in a market like Pittsburgh or Minneapolis) any time soon. Another interesting side note here: there's lots of research (and anecdotal experience) to suggest that Spanish-speaking listeners prefer FM to AM for music even more strongly than do English-speaking listeners. The growth of Spanish FM signals in NYC and Los Angeles all but drove the formerly-dominant Spanish AMs out of the business (remember WJIT 1480 in NYC?), and there's every reason to expect that signals like the little suburban Washington AMs that previously had the Spanish-speaking audience to themselves will now have to pursue other niches. There's already at least one AM down there speaking Korean. Philly's only 5% Hispanic. That's gotta be right on the line of viability for an AM station (there's only one, WEMG 1310 Camden NJ), never mind an expensive FM facility. Mega tried for a while on the 104.9 Egg Harbor City NJ, but that was too far away to really penetrate the city. s (Scott Fybush, NY, Jan 15, WTFDA via DXLD) ** U S A. Re 5-009, COM 05-01: KYW-3 being pre-empted: Phillies games on broadcast TV air on Viacom-owned WPSG-57, which is UPN affiliated (Richard Cuff / Allentown, PA, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. RADIO STATIONS SHIFT AFTER INTERFERENCE WITH BARKSDALE PLANES --- January 13, 2005 By Cristina Rodríguez http://www.shreveporttimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050113/NEWS/50113004 An unexplained interference with Barksdale Air Force Base planes has prompted the Cumulus Group to switch over its most popular radio station, Magic 107.9, to the Mix 102.9 frequency, putting 102.9 programming off the air for a few days until a new frequency can be started, a manager said. ``The reason was that Magic, in four months, became the No. 1 radio station,`` C.J. Jones, Cumulus market general manager, said of the classic soul station. ``It`s the No. 1 ranked station according to Arbitrends in all demographics.`` The radio group, which owns four FM stations and one AM station in the market, will launch major campaigns to advertise the station switches. Mix, a rock station, should be broadcasting on a new frequency in three or four days, Jones said. Officials with the radio stations, Barksdale and the regulatory agencies couldn`t figure out what was causing the interference with the planes` instrument landing system frequency. At certain altitudes, 107.9 and an East Texas urban station not owned by Cumulus, 106.9, interfered with the Barksdale frequency. ``When aircraft can`t land with instrument landings, that`s a real problem, and we`ve had just terrible weather which exacerbated it, but regardless it was still an issue,`` he said. ``The Air Force and the FAA and the FCC looked at it for weeks, attempting to resolve the problem.`` The 107.9 frequency was in full compliance with federal guidelines, Jones said. ``It should not have been there, and nobody could quite figure out how to get the problem corrected,`` Jones said. ``We ran out of time.`` (©The Shreveport Times January 13, 2005 via Brock Whaley, DXLD) A bit of research in FM Atlas and 100000watts.com shows that the 106.9 station in E Texas would be KAZE, Ore City. 107.9 was sucked into Shreveport from Magnolia AR last June. Now both 107.9 and 102.9 transmit from exactly the same coördinates. It`s hard to see how KAZE could be mixing with KVMA (still its old AR call, apparently), from such a distant apart. WTFK?? I mean the ILS frequency? Presumably a bit above 108. If I were too close to 108.0, of course, the broadcaster on 107.9 could simply be bleeding over the edge of the band, and this would not have been a problem at Barksdale AFB until the facility was moved in from Arkansas. More likely would be a mixing product between 102.9 and 107.9 on 112.9. You don`t just come up with a new FM frequency on a few days notice, so presumably another domino will fall, i.e. the previous 102.9 format will knock something else off. Cumulus owns two other FMs in the market, KMJJ on 99.7 and KRMD on 101.1 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) It is hard to tell if this might have been a mixing product of the two stations or two separate problems. Of course the frequencies used at Barksdale AFB wouldn't have been mentioned for security reasons. Nor do I know (although others might) whether there were any technical changes on the 107.9 facility prior to the problem although one would think that's where Cumulus would have looked first (Russ Edmunds. Blue Bell, PA, WTFDA via DXLD) The 107.9 facility is basically a completely new station. It moved some 40 miles from Magnolia, Arkansas, changing the city of license to Oil City, Louisiana and decreasing power from 100 to 24.5 kW from a site a few miles east of Shreveport. Barksdale is on the near east side of Shreveport, so the KVMA tower is probably only a few miles (5-10) from the base. The license-to-cover has not yet been issued (and probably won't be as long as this situation remains unresolved). Two applications that have been superceded would have had KVMA's tower roughly 25 miles further north - and considerably further from Barksdale AFB. One called for 50 kw/150 m (full C2 facilities), the other for 44 kW/416 m which would restore it to class C1. The article seems to suggest it's a simple matter of a quick database search to find a new frequency so the former 102.9 format can be returned to the air. I'm sure Cumulus realizes it's nowhere near that easy - that the chances of finding another frequency for a Class C2 station within 15 miles of a large city are pretty much nil. My guess is their fix will be to revert to one of the superceded applications, moving the tower further from the base. If the C1 app can be granted it would probably provide pretty good coverage of Shreveport. The C2, from a site more than 25 miles from Shreveport, would probably not have a competitive signal. Unless maybe combined with a low-powered booster in downtown Shreveport. I don't think the problem is directly related to the fact Barksdale is a military base - I suspect there would be similar issues if it was a busy civilian airport. Shreveport's civilian airport is on the other side of town, 6-8 miles further from the 107.9 tower. A similar issue here in Nashville is responsible for WNPL 106.7's city of license being Belle Meade. The frequency was originally allotted to Mount Juliet, and the station was originally built there. However, while doing proof-of-performance measurements prior to applying for the license, the station received complaints of severe aeronautical interference. Mt. Juliet is pretty close to the airport. They eventually found there was no place they could build a tower that would provide a city grade signal across Mt. Juliet without having interference problems -- that the Mt. Juliet frequency allotment could never be used. So they got the FCC to break precedent, moving the allotment to Belle Meade on the other side of town and much further from the airport. I think the 106.9 station is KAZE Ore City, Texas, a Class C3 (8.2 kW/153 m) station. They've got a license-to-cover for their increase from Class A, and judging from the application ID they've had it for very roughly two years (Doug Smith W9WI, Pleasant View (Nashville), TN EM66, WTFDA via DXLD) Maybe I'm just being cynical here (who? me?!?!), but I suspect that Cumulus already had plans to move the "Magic" format (which has been very successful) from 107.9 to the Shreveport 102.9 frequency, and that this is in part a way to get attention for the move that it would never get any other way... s (Scott Fybush, ibid.) Radio has certainly been known to do more cynical things, but... how then does Cumulus reoccupy 107.9? Surely they're not going to abandon the move and send it back to Magnolia? If they put it back on the air from the same site & on the same frequency, how do they explain the AFB issue? (or are they going to leave it silent until they can get the C1 upgrade approved?) (I note the 102.9 and 107.9 facilities are on the same tower, but 102.9 is more powerful, 42kw vs. 24.5. They're either using the same antenna or two antennas at the same height.) – (Doug Smith W9WI, ibid.) My interpretation was that Cumulus was going to pull another switch, and eliminate at least temporarily, one of their four formats in the market, thus 'reusing' an existing frequency. Might be interesting to check newpaper articles in that [Ore City TX] market although that might still be metro Shreveport (Russ Edmunds, PA, ibid.) I doubt Cumulus wants to consider that a viable permanent solution - I don't think they're willing to permanently give up the 107.9 signal and the pre-swap 102.9 format if they can possibly avoid it. Whether there is a way to avoid giving up that signal is a good question. I wonder if it's even possible for Cumulus to move the station back to Magnolia? Is the city-of-license change effective upon grant of the change in the Table of Allocations -- upon grant of a construction permit -- or only upon grant of a license-to-cover? (the latter being the only event in this change that hasn't happened yet) Magnolia must have at least one other station, or the FCC wouldn't have allowed the city-of-license change in the first place. 107.9 is the only channel allotted to Oil City. Moving KVMA back to Magnolia would delete Oil City's only channel while adding a channel to a city that already has a radio station. (admittedly AM) I think that's [106.9] probably operated as a Longview, Texas station. Don't know where the transmitter is but it's probably not powerful enough to provide useful coverage of Shreveport. – (Doug Smith W9WI, Pleasant View (Nashville), TN EM66, ibid.) ** U S A. STATEMENT ABOUT STAPLES MEDIA BUYING AND SINCLAIR BROADCAST GROUP January 06, 2005 05:26 PM US Eastern Timezone http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20050106005984&newsLang=en FRAMINGHAM, Mass. -- (BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 6, 2005 – To clarify that Staples does not have a policy against advertising on Sinclair Broadcast Group news, Staples has the following statement: Our media buying process with Sinclair Broadcast Group stations has recently been misrepresented by an organization with no affiliation to Staples. Staples regularly drops and adds specific programs from our media buying schedule, as we evaluate and adjust how to best reach our customers. We do not let political agendas drive our media buying decisions. Staples does not support any political party. We advertise with a variety of media outlets, but do not necessarily share the same views of these organizations or what they report. As we have done for a number of years, Staples will continue to advertise on Sinclair Broadcast Group stations. http://sinclairaction.com/press_release_4.html ************************************************* David Brock's letter to Staples, Inc. on Sinclair For Immediate Release Contact: Melissa Salmanowitz (202) 756-4109 Msalmanowitz @ mediamatters.org January 7, 2005 Mr. Ron Sargent Chief Executive Officer Staples, Inc. 500 Staples Drive Framingham, MA 01702 Dear Mr. Sargent: It has come to my attention from press reports today that Staples, Inc. contends that Media Matters for America misrepresented Staples' decision not to renew advertising on local news programming on Sinclair Broadcast Group stations as of January 10, 2005. As you may know, Staples, Inc. officials reviewed, edited, and approved the Media Matters press release of January 4, 2005, in both draft and final form. That release stated that Staples was not renewing advertising on Sinclair local news programming due in part to concerns registered by visitors to the SinclairAction.com website, which was launched December 14, 2004, to protest the conservative slant of Sinclair's news programming, in particular a nightly conservative commentary called "The Point." Visitors to the SinclairAction.com site who contacted Staples, Inc. received email replies from the company informing them that as of January 10, 2005, Staples, Inc. would no longer advertise on Sinclair local news programming. On January 4, 2005, Staples, Inc. confirmed these facts both to Media Matters and to reporters. For example, on January 5, 2005, Staples, Inc. spokesman Owen Davis was quoted as telling the Chicago Tribune: "In general, we don't explain decisions regarding our media buys. But we did consider the concerns expressed by our customers with some political partisan programming, specifically 'The Point.'" And also on January 5, 2005, The Washington Post quoted Mr. Davis as saying that "Staples did consider among other factors the concerns expressed by our customers" regarding the content on Sinclair news programs. Despite Staples' issuance of a "clarification" yesterday, January 6, 2005, an article in The Baltimore Sun today, January 7, 2005, noted that Staples spokesman Paul Capelli "still acknowledg[ed] e-mail complaints in part caused it to stop advertising on Sinclair's local programs." So, to summarize, Media Matters stated the following in our press release of January 4, 2005: 1) Staples won't be advertising on local news programming on Sinclair stations as of January 10, 2005; and 2) that decision was based in part on the activism generated by SinclairAction.com. Nothing in Staples' "clarification" negates or contradicts either of these two statements. Thank you. Sincerely, David Brock President and Chief Executive Officer Media Matters for America cc: Mr. Paul Capelli, Vice President of Public Relations, Staples, Inc. Mr. Owen Davis, Public Relations Manager, Staples, Inc. Ms. Marci Grebstein, Vice President of Media and Marketing Communications, Staples, Inc. # # # (via Michael Givel, progchat_action yg via Clara Listensprechen, DXLD) ** U S A. It has been mentioned here that Clear Channel announced they would reduce the amount of advertising on their stations. Monday, at the beginning of his program, Rush Limbaugh discussed the new "broadcast clock" for the show. He said the longest "spot breaks" would reduce from 4-1/2 to 3-1/2 minutes. So it seems that for now at least, CC was serious. An interesting affect of this locally is that WIOD - which had been severely compressing program content - was back broadcasting with no compression. I switched from WIOD to WJNO because the compression had gotten so bad it was difficult to follow the content. Now the two signals are in perfect sync. I had written WIOD to complain about their compression and told them and WJNO I was switching stations. WJNO was gracious in welcoming me aboard. My complaint drew an acknowledgment from the WIOD program director, but no change. Thanks to CC's new policy, at least for now there is the expected reduction in ad minutes as well as the elimination of compression to stuff in even more. Obviously this could change at any moment, but for now it's nice (W. Curt Deegan, Boca Raton, Florida, Jan 11, NRC-AM via DXLD) ?? Fewer ads but more Limbaugh?? I`ll take the ads. Better yet: neither, as usual (gh) ** U S A. AIR AMERICA LAUNCHES IN D.C., DETROIT & CINCINNATI Air America Radio has announced today that it will start broadcasting in Washington, D.C., Cincinnati, and Detroit on Monday, January 17, 2005. Since the network's launch on March 31, 2004, listeners have had access to Air America Radio's programming via live Internet streaming, on XM Satellite Radio, and 45 other markets across the country. The stations include WXDX Radio Detroit, WCKY Cincinnati and Progressive Talk 1260AM Washington, D.C. All of the stations are owned by Clear Channel. "We are excited about entering these major markets," said Jon Sinton, president of Air America Radio. "These cities now have an opportunity to voice their local and national concerns. In other parts of the country we have found that a strong loyalty to Air America Radio was quickly established. We have a successful track record with our partners at Clear Channel that we are confident will be extended to D.C., Cincinnati and Detroit." (Press Release via Pete Kemp, NRC-AM via DXLD) WXDX is the old "Keener 13" in Dearborn Michigan. They must be dropping their sports format (Paul Smith, Sarasota, FL, ibid.) I think Air America is available in 70 markets I have heard now. KPOJ-620-Portland does pretty well in the ratings with them. 73s, (Patrick Martin, Seaside OR, ibid.) It's confirmed --- the order of the universe will now be set right in Cincinnati come Monday, with the WSAI calls returning to their rightful home on 1360 and WCKY to 1530. This fixes things for Cincy's "big 4" after about a 12-year jumble --- first 550 dropped its historic WKRC calls in 1993 to become WLWA ("550 WLW, A Cincinnati Radio Station"), then a year later to become WCKY, with 1530 losing the WCKY calls in favor of WSAI. The WSAI calls vanished from 1360, which went through phases as WAOZ and WAZU for the next few years. The WKRC calls returned to 550 in 1997, but WCKY didn't go back to 1530 - it went to 1360! (Only WLW, among Cincinnati's heritage AMs, kept its calls intact through all this mess.) Now WSAI will be back on 1360, WCKY on 1530, WKRC on 550 and WLW on 700. That's a good thing for us history buffs! (Scott Fybush, NRC-AM via DXLD) There was a multi-way call/frequency trade a few years ago, and the CC AM lineup in DC now looks like this: 570 WTNT Bethesda - talk 980 WTEM Washington - sports 1260 WWRC Washington - to be Air America/progressive talk (Scott Fybush, NY, ibid.) ** U S A. Ratings for Air America on WLIB have been dropping since they began, but the bottom fell out in the last month. They are now below what the station was getting with its Caribbean format. The Air America defenders always say that all that matters is the 25-54 numbers. So let's go with that: They have now had 3 books and they have gone from 1.7 to 1.6 to 1.2 in the new fall book. In the last month, December, the bottom fell out and they got a 0.6. The 12+ numbers for the talk stations in the fall book are: WABC 4.5 WOR 2.2 WLIB 1.2 WLIB's drop to 1.2 in 12+, puts them now below what the station had with it's Caribbean format. (repost from Dan in NYRB via Pete Kemp, NRC-AM via DXLD) Are the results similar in other markets? How long will this "network" last? (Pete Kemp, Jan 12, NRC-AM via DXLD) As long as there are rich people willing to put money into it to have their message heard. Although, they have been getting better stations. If the WSAI deal is for real, that is one barn burner of a station (Paul Smith Sarasota, FL, ibid.) ** U S A. LENGTHY IBOC, ETC., THREAD FROM NRC-AM LIST [some of this is not in the original order posted, as gh strives to make the threads flow better] What I want to know is, what makes anyone think they'll turn off IBOC on 1530 just because they're reverting to talk? Most of the stations that have tested IBOC have been talk stations! Format (music vs. talk) seems to have nothing whatsoever to do with it (Randy Stewart, Springfield MO, ibid.) Well, there is a precedent: WIND 560 Chicago shut off their IBOC when they went from Spanish to Newstalk. However, that happened in conjunction with an ownership change, and if I understand it correctly the new owners are not as convinced as the old as to the usefulness of IBOC. I agree with you, Randy. I would be very surprised if 1530 turns off IBOC. The station has already gone through the expense of converting (Bill Dvorak, Madison WI, ibid.) WIND dumped the IBOC because it was purchased by I think, Salem, which also has a station somewhere in WI, that was being heavily interfered with by WIND (Paul Smith, Sarasota, FL, ibid.) I think they also own the 540 in Jackson (Milwaukee). (BILL Hale, TX, ibid.) Exactly. It matters not what the format is at this point, since nobody has IBOC receivers anyway. There is zero chance that they will turn IBOC off when the format changes. This is a numbers game. If there are only a few receivers available and they all cost $500-$1000 (as is currently the case), then IBOC has no hope. They need cheaper receivers and heavy marketing on the consumer side. Cheap receivers (plus factory-equipped receivers in cars) means large quantities and a big commitment on the part of receiver and car manufacturers. To gain credibility with them, you have to show a big investment on the transmission side, with lots of transmitters on the air. As I've said before, there is only one thing that can get IBOC turned off, and that's interference complaints, and plenty of 'em. At least we've had a reprieve on nighttime AM IBOC. It was predicted by some that the FCC would do a quick turnaround on last year's IBOC NPRM, and we would see nighttime AM IBOC by last Fall. Didn't happen. There are strong hints that the FCC was caught by surprise by the comments on this docket, and they are taking much longer than expected to issue the final rules on IBOC operation through a Report and Order. It now looks like the R&O may not come out until the summer, a full year after the close of the comment period. This is a great window of opportunity to get those interference complaints flowing, particularly in the winter months, when we get a get a good pre-SR and post-SS taste of the havoc that IBOC can wreak at night (Barry McLarnon VE3JF Ottawa, ON, ibid.) This is the only point on which I will disagree with Barry. Poor receiver sales will also eventually result in IBOC being turned off. Unfortunately, that method will take a LOT longer. But it *will* happen. Compare & contrast (actually there isn't much contrast...) with AM Stereo. Managers thought going stereo would solve AM's audio quality problems, make them competitive with FM. They installed the equipment -- and nobody bought the radios. Today, find me an AM stereo station. Indeed, AM stereo had two economic advantages over IBOC. First, the early AM stereo radios weren't ridiculously expensive. Less than $100 would buy you an AM stereo set. You won't touch an IBOC set for less than 5-10 times that. Second, AM stereo stations didn't face royalty payments. Once they paid for the exciter, their financial obligation was complete. Not true for IBOC. Interference complaints are the only way to get IBOC turned off quickly. Without them, it will still happen - but it will take 5-10 years (Doug Smith W9WI, Pleasant View (Nashville), TN EM66, ibid.) I guess it was wishful thinking on my part (Lawrence Stoler, ibid.) I don't think it will go beyond 5 years if the current total lack of interest by consumers continues. There's nothing there -- no reason for anyone but a less-than-well-informed audio fanatic or someone with a vested interest in the process to buy one. The big guys can deploy it all they want - they have the funds and as capital investment it's a write-off. Some of the larger Public radio outlets may be able to convince enough of their members (or attract enough new ones) to support expanison to two program streams, but I have to wonder how many of those folks realize at this point that they'll have to buy new receivers ??? (Russ Edmunds?) Well, no disagreement there. :-) Of course, I'm mainly considering this from the point of view of an AM DXer, to whom the only acceptable outcome would be to nip IBOC in the bud. I do think, however, that you (and Russ) may be underestimating the staying power of IBOC, in spite of an indifferent marketplace. ``Today, find me an AM stereo station`` There are still a fair number on the air - just ask Kevin T. :-) Inertia is a powerful thing... I don't completely buy the AM stereo analogy. AM stereo was an attractive add-on, but it was not a "do or die". Many broadcasters have been convinced that they *must* go digital in order to survive. Methinks they are confusing the medium with the message, but the need for digital remains an unshakable belief. I give it much more than 5-10 years. Look how long Eureka DAB has been limping along. There are few DAB transmitters being turned off, despite almost total consumer disinterest outside of the UK. IBOC receivers will be a hard sell, but there is far more money and effort behind IBOC than there ever was behind AM stereo. Look how long it took FM to catch on. IBOC will likely get *just* enough response in the marketplace to fan the hopes of the broadcasters, and thus it will keep going, and going, and going (Barry McLarnon VE3JF Ottawa, ON, ibid.) What Kahn/C-Quam stereo did for the industry was to force a lot of stations to clean up their air chains. I know personally of 3 stations that when they installed the AM Stereo equipment, they immediately replaced everything from the STL back to the audio board. Had they did just the replacement, they would have sounded better. Part of that would be the Capital investment scheme. In most large companies there are budgets which allow for equipment purchases which are then tax deductible, so while wasting their money on a hiss-box, they are actually saving beans to count later. And if IBOC goes belly up before the amortization is over, then they can write off the loss. In many large corporations and groups, the purchasing does not always parallel the need. Sometime the purchase is for attraction of a tax loss, or to place assets on the books to inflate the company worth. I agree. I can't get excited about IBOC when the receiver is going to cost too damn much, the program quality will be mediocre, and the content of the programming will be the same as 100 other stations are doing that I'm not listening to (Fred Vobbe, OH, ibid.) Today's audience isn't going to buy in unless they perceive a benefit. Back when, people knew what Stereo meant, and how it differed from mono because Stereo had been around on records and tapes for years. The first hurdle for consumers is 'what's digital got to do with radio?'. Then will come 'what's the benefit?'. At that point, today there is no really salable answer for commercial stations. For some public stations, there's the two-program stream idea, but that requires large coverage area, and big subscribership (and don't anybody tell them about reduced coverage areas until after they pay). Then there's the equipment cost, which circles right back around to 'and just what am I getting for this?'. For many, the answer will be the same as Fred's (Russ Edmunds, Blue Bell, PA, ibid.) I'm not so sure that's the case anymore...for one thing they're a lot savvier and they read the Blogs and industry opinion. For another thing they're a bit more savvy technically and many realize it can actually be a coverage detraction, depending on their situation. YMMV, but if this thing gains popular acceptance on AM, it'll be because the "follow the leader" syndrome kicked in --- or because the FCC in its infinite wisdom, will announce a sunset date for MW analog AM. And before you say "oh no, they'd never do that; AM service is too important," remember what they did to the AM band when they broke up the Clears and added night-time authorization on former daytime channels (Mark Durenberger, CO, ibid.) My opinion is that the receivers will not be popular. By the time there is a sufficient receiver base, 3G streaming audio will be available on everything from iPods to PDA and cell phones. At that point AM and even FM transmitters (and IBOC) will become irrelevant. Right now one of my clients is negotiating with a company that puts content on portable devices. Give it three years or so, and it'll be far bigger than the moribund IBOC/HD Radio scheme. Pains me as a broadcaster to say it, but the days are numbered for radio as we know it (Craig Healy, Providence, RI, ibid.) Yeah, you could be right. If streaming audio becomes that popular, it will give people a much wider choice of things to listen to. I have to wonder what will happen to the notion of broadcasters. Because just about anyone can do it will it be so diluted that there will be a lot of junk out there? Or will the number of "broadcasters" be limited somehow. If there are a lot of choices won't it be hard to discriminate between good stuff and junk (Bill Harms, MD, ibid.) You're right; the iPod culture and the sort of thing you're doing may cause receiver manufacturers to decide it isn't worth the risk (Mark Durenberger, CO, ibid.) Hi Craig and Group, The only problem with your statements regarding 3G cellular is as the technology exists now one internet stream must be served up for every listener. In my opinion the only way that your proposed scenario will work is if a multicasting backbone approach can be implemented. This would be where many listeners could get the same content from a single stream. If that were to happen than you're talking about a total paradigm shift for radio as we know it (Dave Marthouse, VA, ibid.) The future of broadcasting belongs to satellites, and the net with stations being broadcast through nodes over the air or at hotspots. This and your cell phone will be your radio, TV, phone, internet and everything. I can see iPods downloading 8 hours of programming from the net or out of a hotspot in seconds. How will IBOC compete with that? Heck, I can see the same thing for a TIVO like belt wearable device with a LCD screen for TV soon enough. People already have digital radio in their cars and homes. It`s called XM and Sirius. The programming is exceptionally good. IBOC is a little late to the game. The war for digital radio is over and IBOC never got out of the blocks. Don't know where that leaves regular terrestrial broadcast radio. All I can see is narrowcasting and very local coverage. There will always be some kind of terrestrial radio, but when it comes to broadcasts, Its going to be WAY different than the model we use today. Don't know that IBOC will make any difference either way, but I suspect that it will not survive at all in the form we see it now. Digital has a place, but it needed to be brought out about 1985 to be relevant. Whatever happens, it will be quite a story to teach in business schools at the State University in about 40 years. None of us can even imagine how it will all turn out. Probably will be a case of not the best but good enough, just like always (Kevin Redding, AZ, ibid.) Bill, If your scenario comes to pass there would be probably lots of "junk" out there. Where the money comes into play would be delivering a service to the on-line listening community that will "filter" the wheat from the chaff. It would be a matter of content filtering in a world of incredible amounts of program material (Dave Marthouse, ibid.) What will happen is ASCAP, BMI and other organizations will proclaim private streams subject to their license requirements. Nothing like a good bureaucracy to stifle progress. The RIAA no doubt will toss its litigious hat into the ring as well. So, all the good streams will originate in places where there are no licenses. It'll be ugly. Y'know, there's not a lot of fun in seeing just how far away you can receive a stream. Nor in writing for a verie. Bah (Craig Healy, Providence, RI, ibid.) Digital radio will probably work. A lot of it depends on the final ruling from the FCC. AM nitetime is only a small part of it. It's possible that digital broadcasters can have 3 or more audio streams available. If they can put separate programming on the analog than what`s on the digital that really gives them space. NPR is really promoting that now. They have many programming streams available already, so it`s easy for them. Think of your favorite talk station. They could put up several streams. They can even have a left or right channel. Even though audio quality is being touted now, in my opinion, it has never been about audio quality. It's more like give em barely acceptable audio, and let us have more audio streams. Public TV is already using their extra video channels in most places on digital TV. There again you have content. Here in Tampa, the independents and network affiliates are way behind PBS on using the extra capacity they have on digital TV. And also remember, it's not HDTV. Only special programming will be in HDTV because it uses much more bandwidth (Paul Smith, Sarasota, FL, ibid.) A big, big part of the problem with most AM stations is --- they simply don't advertise to inform the mass public that they exist --- other than run on-air promos on their own radio stations (which is kind of idiotic, don't you think, since their own listeners are ALREADY LISTENING?). A new radio station, especially on the AM band that typically reaches less than 25% of total radio listening, is not unlike any new business: you have to spend money and place mass media advertising to let consumers (/listeners) know you exist. For radio, that's billboards, direct mail, broadcast and cable, and newspaper advertising. I think a lot of AM radio's problems are because most stations fail to invest in the promotion of their own product. How on earth do they think 75% of the population (who listens to FM) will even know about them? Ridiculous. So, when they don't promote themselves to the masses, that means smaller audiences, and ads that run on their stations reach a tiny audience and yield poor results for the few paying advertisers they have. But, let's not forget, most radio advertising sales' staffs are dominated by people under age 50. And, most people under age 50 who like music formats are core FM listeners, who don't even know what AM is! So, AM radio, especially music formats on AM who seek an audience under age 65, have a ton of built-in challenges (Tim Davisson, ibid.) Good points. Change the average staff age # from 50 to 30 and you'll be even closer (Mark Durenberger, ibid.) ** U S A. IBOC STATION LIST By popular demand (well, one or two people asked for it anyway), here's a list I put together of stations currently running AM IBOC. This list is definitely not definitive, but neither are any of the other sources of info out there. There are a number of stations that the iBiquity website claims are on the air, but the FCC database doesn't indicate that they have done the required notification of IBOC operation, so I've left them off the list. The FCC, of course, is known to be not quite infallible :-). Anyway, corrections and additions for the list are solicited. I'll put the list up on a web page shortly. BTW, the list uses tabs, so if it looks messy, your mail program is probably ignoring them. The web page won't have the formatting problems. You'll note that the majority of the stations have talk formats --- go figure! 560 WQAM FL Miami Sports 610 KOJM MT Havre Talk/AC 620 WTMJ WI Milwaukee News/Talk 640 KFI CA Los Angeles Talk 710 WOR NY New York City Talk 730 WKDL VA Alexandria Reg. Mex. 740 KCBS CA San Francisco News 740 WSBR FL Boca Raton Bus. News 750 WSB GA Atlanta News/Talk 760 KKZN CO Thornton Talk 810 WGY NY Schenectady News/Talk 830 KMXE CA Orange Spanish Talk 850 KFUO MO Clayton Religion 850 KOA CO Denver News/Talk 910 KPOF CO Denver Gospel 950 WWJ MI Detroit News 950 WXGI VA Richmond Sports 980 WHSR FL Pompano Beach Haitian 1030 WBZ MA Boston News/Talk 1020 KTNQ CA Los Angeles Spanish Talk 1180 WHAM NY Rochester News/Talk 1200 WCHB MI Taylor Talk/Black Gospel 1260 WNDE IN Indianapolis Sports 1260 WMKI MA Boston Disney 1270 WXYT MI Detroit Sports 1400 WJLD AL Fairfield Blues/Talk 1450 KMRY IA Cedar Rapids Adult Standards 1470 WWNN FL Pompano Beach Talk 1490 WOLF NY Syracuse Disney 1510 WLAC TN Nashville News/Talk 1530 WSAI OH Cincinnati Oldies (soon to be Talk) 1670 WD2XXM MD Frederick Test station (Barry McLarnon VE3JF Ottawa, ON, Jan 11, NRC-AM via DXLD) Hi, Barry! WTMJ 620 ran IBOC for about a month last summer, then shut it off. They currently are not using it. 73 (Bill Dvorak, Madison WI, ibid.) [NOT – see further down] 750 WSB GA Atlanta News/Talk: The gear is there, and it's been tested, but per a visit to the tx site in November, it's not currently turned on. The same is true of WMLB-1160 across town. s (Scott Fybush, ibid.) Barry: I'm betting there are less than 10 stations on that list that are really, truly running IBOC as a day in / day out thing. None are in my area (or anywhere near it) and only one is easily receivable here, so I can't offer personal guesses. But remembering reports from others, I think only WSAI, WBZ, KFUO, WOR, KCBS (on and off) and KTNQ have recently been reported with IBOC. Maybe a few others have escaped my attention (Chuck Hutton, ibid.) The nearest station on AM that is running IBOC is KCBS-740 and yes, in the mornings and afternoons their IBOC noise does cause noise to KXL- 750 and at times 730 Medford is not heard. There are no AMs in the NW as yet. KIXI-880 tested IBOC during the NAB convention in the Fall of 2002, but that was it. I guess there are several FMs in Seattle that use it, but I don't know of any Portland FMers using IBOC as yet, although I have heard KGON might. 73s, (Patrick Martin, Seaside OR, ibid.) Chuck, which one is "easily receivable here?" There are times when I think KIXI and KHHO use it (Pete Taylor, Tacomal, ibid.) Pete: I suppose I could hear either one on my dental fillings, but they're only playing with IBOC occasionally unless they changed recently. I was trying to make a list of those using IBOC on a day in / day out basis (Chuck, ibid.) I recently checked the Ibiquity site for their list, contacted a few of my customers, and came up with my IBOC list It is posted at http://www.geocities.com/amlogbook/amlog.htm I will take the list posted here and do some comparing and adjusting. I asked Jeff Dinsmore at WIBC if he knew of a more accurate list. He confirmed that the Ibiquity list may not be up to date. I will have to check with Tom Ray at WOR and Tom Koza at KTNQ as well. For those who want some tech info on the WOR install, go to: http://www.wor710.com/Engineering/iboc/hdindex.htm 73's to the group (Lee Freshwater, FL, ibid.) WLAC does use IBOC regularly (over the last few weeks, *every* time I've checked during the day). (Doug Smith W9WI, Pleasant View (Nashville), TN EM66, ibid.) Lee, You can add KMXE-830-Orange as active. When I was in So Cal in November, their QRM was terrible in the Palm Springs area during the day wiping out 820-Mexicali. Also Robert Wien had reported it earlier as active. KTNQ has been IBOC for some time now. Also KCBS is back using it every day. It really QRMs KXL-750-Portland up here on the Oregon coast in the afternoons this time of year (Patrick Martin, Seaside OR, ibid.) WSBR 740, Money/Talk, Boca Raton, Florida, would appear to be broadcasting with IBOC. This is the first time I listened for IBOC, so I'll have to check back to see if it is a full time operation or occasional. This assessment is based on the description and detection tips provided by Barry McLarnon in an earlier post. Having not heard a confirmed IBOC signal for comparison, I could be mistaken but there was definitely strong hiss on adjacent channels. Also, the difference in signal level and pitch of the hiss between USB and LSB on the adjacent channels, using a narrow IF bandwidth filter setting, were as Barry described (W. Curt Deegan, Boca Raton, (South East) Florida, [JRC NRD-535D, LF Engineering H-800 & M-601, Quantum Phaser, ANC-4 noise canceler, GAP DSP], ibid.) In Denver Add KHOW 630, KCFR 1340 Denver, KCFC 1490 Boulder. For a total of 6 on the AM band here. As verified on my Kenwood IBOC receiver. Also 1340, WIZE in Springfield, Ohio. And the 1230 In Columbus, Ohio is another (Paul Jellison, CO, ibid.) If you are in Boca, WQAM 560 is using IBOC; tune either side of them and you will hear that familiar hiss. I can hear it clear up here in Sarasota (Paul Smith, Sarasota, FL, ibid.) Following Paul Smith's suggestion, I tuned in WQAM 560, Miami, to hear a certified IBOC signal, then went back to WSBR. No doubt about it, IBOC. And it's definitely local, it was still hissing away with the antennas turned off. A few minutes after 2100 ET the noise on 730 and 750 ended, consistent with the no IBOC after dark rule, I guess, sort of (W. Curt Deegan, FL, ibid.) As far as I know WSB *IS NOT* running IBOC. I don't hear anything on the sidebands, and my friends in Atlanta would have howled. They are IBOC haters. It's not WMLB anymore and they turned it off after many complaints. And one night it was left on all night [WLAC 1510 IBOC]. HAH! That gives WSAI some of their own treatment. ]:) (Powell E. Way III, SC, ibid.) Huh?!?!? I still have it as WMLB on 100000watts.com, and the FCC still thinks it's WMLB, too. What do you think it's changed to, and when? And the word from the engineer there - while standing with him in the transmitter building - is that it'll be back on once they complete their work to modify their daytime DA, which was built in a hurry to beat an expiring CP and is now being tweaked to better serve downtown Atlanta (Scott Fybush, ibid.) I thought they had changed calls when it was sold. On second thought the 1190 changed calls when they were sold. Before they turned the IBOC on, you could barely hear it up in Dawsonville and the Tryon NC station came in. After they turned the IBOC on the first time they came in TOO well that way and totally obliterated the adjacents. It killed the 1150 in Chattanooga until you got fairly close in to Chattanooga. There were LOTS of complaints about interference to the 1190. And the exciter blew up twice. And with the new pattern we'll see if it trashes 1190 worse than before (Powell E. Way, ibid.) You can also add WPEN-950 in Philly. It's been on every time I've checked during the day for a while, including this afternoon (Dave Braun, Wyoming, DE, ibid.) Yup, WPEN has been almost completely steady over the past several months. Fortunately, because their signal is so putrid to begin with, they don't cause a lot of problems here (Russ Edmunds, Blue Bell, PA (15 mi NNW Philadelphia), ibid.) Definitely WGY, WHAM and WMKI are also running it, and some others have been reported here on the list today. I thought I'd heard that WPEN had turned off their IBOC, but no such luck, apparently. Thanks for the updates, folks, and keep 'em coming! (Barry McLarnon VE3JF, Ottawa, ON, ibid.) My location is about 7 miles south of WPEN-950 which is strong here and the IBOC is bad but goes off at sunset. However I recently read in the Inquirer that WPEN is hoping to move to a new transmitter site in Montgomery County that would be several miles to the north of their present site which is in West Philadelphia just the other side of the Delaware County line (Ben Dangerfield, Wallingford, PA [SE cor Pa], ibid.) Looks as if I missed that one. And it sounds like they're moving up to the Lafayette Hill area -- just what I need, another one in close. (Russ Edmunds, Blue Bell, PA (15 mi NNW Philadelphia), ibid.) Seems to me that WPEN recently applied for 50 kW - which you also need! (Pete Taylor, Tacoma, ibid.) WPEN has an application in with the FCC to move the transmitter site out to West Norriton Township at the WWDB site. The application has them boosting day power to 50,000 watts and night power to 21,000 watts. If it happens, then I'll be the one seven miles away from them! Curse their lousy IBOC (René F. Tetro, PA, ibid.) I was just looking at their proposed nighttime coverage map. It appears that they have pretty tight nulls to the NE and SW, and not much of a signal off the back of the array to the NW. I can email the application as an attachment if anyone likes. Or you can find it on the FCC website http://www.fcc.gov/mb/audio/ and find the CDBS Public Access Link. Under applications type in WPEN where it asks for call letters. I still haven't been able to locate their day pattern, but I'm working on it. I may see if I can get our consulting engineers to get me a copy (René F. Tetro, Chief Engineer, WNTP - 990 kHz / WFIL - 560 kHz, ibid.) I was just able to download the WPEN daytime array parameters and fed it through my pattern plotter. It looks like the an slightly misformed egg with the main lobe going SE and a bit of a bulge E. The major null appears to be SW and W. Signal to the north will be about 25% of that in the main lobe. The day array consists of six towers configured in a rather "random" configuration -- in other words, it's not inline or parallelogram; more of a combination of two three-tower doglegs. The night array will consist of four towers, apparently inline. By comparison, this looks like the WWDB arrays parameters, so my guess is that the day pattern will be diplexed with WWDB's four towers, and the night array will be either six new towers at the sight, or several new towers with one or two or the WWDB towers diplexed. Should be interesting. By the way, Russ, it looks like you're in the main lobe of both patterns. My home QTH will be in the main lobe of the day pattern, but directly in the null of the night pattern, so at least I luck out after dark! (René F. Tetro, Chief Engineer, WNTP - 990 kHz / WFIL - 560 kHz, ibid.) Wonder when the WPEN modification was submitted? Last summer and fall the WWDB daytime signal was continuously very strong for three or four months here in Harrisburg. Could they have been doing some work on the WWDB antenna system in preparation for the WPEN move? Since about October the WWDB signal is back to what it had been, way under WBGR Baltimore (Tom Dimeo K3DOL, ibid.) I did some further investigation and found that I was mistaken about the location of their six-tower day antenna location. It will not be located at the WWDB site, as I thought (I was looking at the wrong data), but a couple of miles west of there in Lower Providence township, nearer to Collegeville. The four-tower night array will indeed be diplexed with WWDB's towers. So WPEN will have separate day and night sites. Regarding WWDB's signal in Harrisburg and other areas; a few months ago one of WWDB's towers collapsed, forcing them to run non- directional for several weeks at reduced power. From what I was told they were running 2-3 kilowatts during that period. Since then the new tower has been erected and they are back to normal operation. It is believed the tower collapsed due to vandalism (René F. Tetro, ibid.) I know this has been posted before, but I guess it bears repeating - not all of us have pattern plotting software available :-). Anytime you're looking for information relating to FCC records, http://www.fccinfo.com/ is a great resource. For the most part it's just a nice interface into the CDBS, but it's got a nice pattern plotter in there too. It's a great companion to 100000watts.com. http://www.radio-locator.com is also a nice resource. It has pattern plots overlaid on area maps, and I believe that it takes terrain and ground conductivity into account when plotting coverage maps. But I don't think it covers apps & CPs, just licensed operations (Brian Leyton, Valley Village, CA, ibid.) You've got that right ! To some extent it depends which way they aim it - I'd have to think their only option is ENE thru ESE which would at least be away from me - presuming it's even approved (Russ Edmunds, Blue Bell, PA (15 mi NNW Philadelphia), ibid.) Is WWDB daytime only? If so, guess WWDB will go off the air and then WPEN will come on. Thanks Rene for the information on the tower collapse at WWDB. That resolves a question I've been wondering about. (Tom Dimeo, ibid.) Yes, WWDB is daytime only (Rene Tetro, ibid.) KFI in Los Angeles has apparently turned off IBOC since they lost their main tower. If Brian and I are lucky, it will be a long time until they get the tower rebuilt (Jay Heyl, Orange, CA, ibid.) Right after the disaster, I checked on my car radio on the way home (the one that's got a fried front-end, and is practically deaf), and KFI was still there, to my surprise. Recently, I've noticed that they're much worse - not at all listenable. So either my radio has gotten worse, or KFI's signal into my area has. They still sound OK on the other radios, though at night there's some definite fading. 630 & 650 are much better now, though they became listenable before the tower collapse, when KFI went to 5 kHz bandwidth (Brian Leyton, Valley Village, CA, DX-398 / RS Loop / 18" Box Loop, ibid.) Here's 1520 WKBW with IBOC noise courtesy of 1530 WSAI (with the phaser on/off several times to show the difference): http://users.adelphia.net/~bdsaylor/sounds/1520kHz_0150UTC_5-2- 04_with_and_without_phaser.mp3 (Brett Saylor, Central PA, R8 w/ E-W EWE antenna, ibid.) Thanks to Russ and Brett for their audio clips of IBOC based interference. Said clips can be found at: http://www.21centimeter.com/IBOC.html I welcome additional IBOC related audio clips as well as recordings of any other medium wave audible phenomena, human generated or otherwise. Clips demonstrating the effects of jamming are particularly sought. Thanks in advance! (Pete Jernakoff, DuPont Titanium Technologies, Wilmington, Delaware, NRC-AM via DXLD) A couple of days ago, I responded to the IBOC list that Barry McLarnon's posted by saying that WTMJ 620 Milwaukee was not currently broadcasting in IBOC. I said that they had installed it, used it for about a month last summer, and then shut it down. Since then, I have noticed that WTMJ is again broadcasting in IBOC. I do not know when this (re)started, but I do believe that it is very recent. In Tim Cuprisin's column in today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, there is a mention of WTMJ IBOC: "WTMJ-AM (620) and WKTI-FM (94.5) are the first Wisconsin stations offering regular broadcasts in the new Ibiquity high-definition technology, if you have the right equipment." No mention is given as to when either station began regular broadcasts in IBOC. 73 (Bill Dvorak, Madison WI, ibid.) ** URUGUAY [and non]. UN PROGRAMA URUGUAYO DESDE ARGENTINA AL MUNDO Escuchando el Sábado 15 de Enero, Radio Nacional Buenos Aires, Argentina en los 6060 kHz con un QRK 5, me encuentro con la gratísima sorpresa de que a las 22 UT (19 horas LU), comenzaba el programa "Tímpano" de Daniel Viglietti. Excelente canta autor y persona que ha nacido en Uruguay donde se irradia este mismo programa por la emisora CX 14 El Espectador 810 AM los Sábados con repetición el Domingo. Mayor información y escucha on line en http://www.espectador.com.uy El programa emitido se titulaba a manera de interrogante "La Justicia Tarda pero Llega", en referencia a lo que puede ser el esclarecimiento del asesinato de Víctor Jara en 1973, en el Estadio Nacional de Chile tras el Golpe de Estado ocurrido el 11 de Setiembre de 1973. La calidad testimonial de cada uno de los programas además de la calidez de Viglietti, hacen que sea un programa recomendable. En materia de música se escuchó varias veces en versiones fragmentadas, canciones de y por Víctor Jara como "Te Recuerdo Amanda", "Angelita Guenuman" y "Mi Manifiesto". También a Víctor como miembro en su juventud del Grupo Cuncumen en una tonada campesina. Depues Inti Illimani con el guitarrista australiano John Williams, en un pasaje de "Fragmentos de un Sueño". Finalmente Isabel Parra en "Hay Canto que Mal me Sales", título tentativo del poema póstumo escrito por Víctor en el Estadio de Chile. En materia de palabras un intenso testimonio de Johan Tarner Jara grabado en Santiago de Chile en el Galpón Víctor Jara, que así llamó Johan al local que lo recuerda, que testimonia con un guiño, la relación fraterna de Víctor con El Teatro El Galpón de Uruguay, en particular con el Maestro Atahualpa del Chioppo quien lo designó por cierto como asistente suyo durante una dirección que realizó (Gabriel Gómez, Montevideo, Uruguay, Jan 16, http://www.geocities.com/archivoradio/gabrielgomez.html Noticias DX via DXLD) ** VENEZUELA [non]. As expected from last week`s news, ``Aló, Presidente`` is indeed back on the Cuban relay. Checked around 1515 UT Sunday Jan 16, and found it on only three frequencies after tuning thru all the bands from 6 to 21 MHz (not that RHC would ever use 7 or 21): 11875, 13750 and poor on 17750, as Pres. Chávez was in a lengthy monolog. The show presumably runs from around 1400 to around 1830 as before (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Glenn, I got him only on 13750 here in Clewiston. He's probably skipping over me on the other frequencies (Chuck Bolland, FL, 1619 UT Jan 16, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** WALES [non]. Wales Radio International. Checked again this Friday, Jan. 14 on 7110 at 2130 UT. Strong carrier on but no audio. Austrian domestic service heard at this time on the previous two Fridays. Weak signal from unknown station under the strong carrier. Good signal on parallel 3955 with normal programming. Closing announcements blocked by hams. At 0300 Saturday, Jan.15 WRI heard on 6005 (missing last week) but competing with BBCWS to Southern Africa. Difficult to follow either broadcast with equally strong signals (Bernie O'Shea, Ottawa, Ontario, DX LISTENING DIGEST) UNIDENTIFIED. 1190, 1208-1220 15 Jan., continuous classical piano solo, not parallel Musical Nacional on 590, or anything audible on 1200, 1210, 1220 or 1230 from Cuba. Good at first, then faded down with XECT taking over mostly (Terry L. Krueger, Clearwater FL, DX LISTENING DIGEST) UNIDENTIFIED. 1560, 1203-1215 16 Jan., nonstop Muzak marimbas. Not Enciclopedia [Cuban network] (which I'm not tracing on any listed channels of late), as the tracks were nonstop, i.e., no female announcer between as is the practice with Enciclopedia. Carrier on at 1210 atop the marimbas, followed by WAGL sign-on at 1215, effectively killing any more listening. Seemed to be a weak XE in the mix as well with norteñas (Terry L. Krueger, Clearwater FL, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ RADIO EQUIPMENT FORUM +++++++++++++++++++++ USA: NEW ANTENNA FOR IN-MOTION DIGITAL TV AND INTERNET INTRODUCED Text of press release by RaySatTM, Inc., on 11 January Las Vegas, 6 January 2005: Announcing a breakthrough in mobile computing and communications, RaySat, Inc., a developer of mobile video receiving systems, today [11 January] introduced the world's first vehicle-based satellite antenna providing in-motion, high-speed internet access to motorists, including emergency personnel, riding in cars, trucks, or motor homes. The new SpeedRay 3000 is based on an enclosed low profile, roof-mounted antenna, which turns any vehicle into a rolling "hot spot," enabling internet access to laptops, PDAs, or other devices equipped with Wi-Fi wireless networking technology. The innovative system provides internet download speeds up to 2 mbps and upload speeds up to 128 kbps, shared among users in the vehicle. In addition, using technology also developed by RaySat, the SpeedRay 3000 provides moving vehicles with strong reception of digital satellite TV and music channels. Since it communicates solely via satellite, the antenna can be used effectively in remote areas where cellular and land-line connections are not available. "With our latest breakthrough technology, we're moving from being purely an in-vehicle entertainment company to being a communications solution provider in moving vehicles," said RaySat President and CEO Samer Salameh. "We came out of the gate swinging late last year with an array of products that are completely revolutionizing the industry. Partner and customer response has been great, due to our combination of great performance and leading technology." The SpeedRay 3000 is compact, easy to install and employs a five-inch high dish antenna housed in a low profile, roof-mounted, impact- resistant case. Designed for use by consumers as well as emergency "first responders," the new antenna provides a highly reliable alternative to terrestrial based communications systems, which may fail in emergencies or not provide sufficient range in remote areas. To provide continuous signal feeds, the SpeedRay 3000 uses a phased- array antenna that rotates (inside its housing). Its panels constantly move up and down and back and forth, to track and maintain the satellite signal regardless of the vehicle's position relative to the satellite with which it is in communication. For convenience and reliability, the system's Wi-Fi transceiver, which supports the most widely used wireless networking standards (IEEE 802.11b and 802.11g), is built into the dish antenna housing and so requires no separate installation or connections. Salameh said the RaySat is scheduled for availability in the third quarter of 2005 and will retail for 3,495 dollars. Installation and subscriptions to TV and Internet service are additional. Company Information: In business since 1997, RaySatTM, Inc. is a leading supplier of in-motion, low profile, phased-array satellite antennas. With the company's TorpedoRayTM product already enabling broadband internet access on high-speed trains in Europe, RaySat has positioned itself as a leader in the rear-seat automotive entertainment industry with the launch of its consumer antennas in the U.S. and Canada. Staffed by over 120 professionals, RaySat is headquartered in Vienna, Virginia, with Research and Development and sales facilities in Europe and representative offices in Japan. Source: RaySatTM, Inc., press release, Las Vegas, in English 11 Jan 05 (via BBCM via DXLD) THE BEST DTV SET TOP BOX AND COMPUTER CARD The set top boxes are definitely hard to find around here (Topeka/ Kansas City area). Stores with HD monitors for sale don't even have them. Some even suggest you buy the monitor from them and the STB from someplace like Best Buy which in Topeka at least doesn't have them either. They appear to be a thing of the past, but if the "transition" ever takes place there should be some demand. We will have to buy at least two of them (sure hope the price comes down) and even more if we want to continue to use our small portable sets. Sure can't pay $200- $300 for each one. I have been using the Win TV-D for 5 years now. Overall, I'm fairly pleased with it and find it "DX-friendly." We also have a Samsung 26" HDTV set that I have captured some DX on, but it really gets confusing when it maps a DTV channel back to their analog channel number. Some channels are blocked when the thing remembers a station and won't decode another station on the same channel during an opening. Very frustrating. However, it appears to be as sensitive as the Win TV-D. I have tried a couple of other STBs -- a Samsung and the LG 3100A. The 3100A was better than the Samsung, but on one occasion I was able to receive a DTV station through the WIN TV-D and not the LP. I sold the LP and am waiting for an ideal STV box. For non-DX viewing I really like the Samsung set. My nine-year-old daughter has it mastered and really enjoys some the the PBS Kids programming on local KTWU-DT 23 multicast. My wife has to ask me or our daughter for help if she wants to watch a program on the DTV set. We don't have cable or satellite and visitors can't believe how good the signal looks. Of course, most of them are comparing it to the cable signal they are getting at home which is usually somewhat lacking in quality. My most distant reception has been on the Win TV-D with Houston, TX at over 600 miles. I like the way a signal is frozen with PSIP if the signal decodes at least once. Several IDs have been "captrured" overnight that way while I slept or was at work before I retired (Dave Pomeroy, Topeka, Kansas, Jan 15, WTFDA via DXLD) OPB (Oregon Public Broadcasting). Bend is the only full-power OPB station yet to have a DTV service. SOPtv is the "other" PBS in Oregon. The SOPtv DTV site has some cool transmitter/tower shots, and lots of interesting technical info, about their DTV efforts http://www.soptv.org/local/HD%20on%20SOPTv.html (David Williams, Jan 16, WTFDA via DXLD) PROPAGATION +++++++++++ 16 Jan 2005, AURORA ALERT: Two coronal mass ejections are heading toward Earth and they could spark strong auroras when they arrive on January 16th and 17th. These clouds were blasted into space by M8- and X2-class explosions above giant sunspot 720 on Jan. 15th. http://spaceweather.com/ (via Mike Terry, dxldyg via DXLD) Sunspot 720 is huge--about as wide as the planet Jupiter--and it's growing (Mark Hattam, MWC via DXLD) NW7US PROPAGATION UPDATE BULLETIN 16-I-2005 0430 UTC At the time of this bulletin, we've just witnessed another long- duration flare. This is the strongest of the flares so far unleashed by active sunspot region 720 (NOAA 10720). This flare was a major X2.6-class event that peaked at 2302 UTC 15-I-2005. A Type II radio burst was detected, and a proton event is currently underway, as well. A very fast coronal mass ejection was associated with this X2.6 flare. It looks like the majority of the plasma mass will just miss the Earth, yet we expect at least a glancing blow. We expect this to occur sometime on 17 or 18 January 2005, riding on the heels of the CME from the M-class long-duration flare from earlier (refer to my last bulletin). This will cause the geomagnetic storm to be prolonged. The storm will begin at any time in the next 24 hours, and last well past 17 January 2005. We expect minor storm levels on 16 January, severe storm levels on 17 and 18 January. The solar activity has significantly risen as a result of the active solar regions. The 10.7-cm Flux has reach 145, and is expected to increase to perhaps 150 by 17 and 18 January 2005. This has opened up paths on frequencies as high as 10 meters. This translates to disrupted HF conditions caused by shortwave fadeouts for the next three days due to active solar region 720 (and possibly from flares from 718). When the CME clouds arrive and impact our environment we expect the Maximum Usable Frequencies on most signal paths to become very depressed in coming days. HF communication may become very difficult if this active solar region continues to flare, while at the same time we have the storm conditions in the geomagnetic field around the Earth. Look for active visual Aurora starting tonight and through the next few days (even in mid- to low-latitude regions). Energetic pulses will occur. Aurora-E / Aurora-mode propagation is likely. Active region 720 unleashed a total of 20 flares during 15 January 2005. These are: Event Begin/Max/End Level Reg# ------------------------------- 2690 + 0022 0043 0102 X1.2 0720 2740 + 0234 0239 0244 C2.9 0720 2750 + 0316 0340 0357 C4.2 0720 2760 + 0409 0416 0422 M1.3 0720 2770 + 0426 0431 0436 M8.4 0720 2780 + 0554 0638 0717 M8.6 0720 2820 + 1141 1148 1150 M1.2 0720 2830 + 1227 1231 1234 C7.4 0720 2890 + 1352 1357 1359 C5.5 0720 2900 + 1408 1423 1439 M3.2 0718 2940 + 1650 1657 1702 C8.0 0720 3000 + 1703 1707 1709 C7.2 0720 2960 + 1749 1816 1824 C4.2 0720 3010 1757 1802 1805 C2.9 0720 2970 1812 1815 1818 C4.4 ? 3020 + 1842 1853 1901 C8.8 0720 3040 + 1944 1949 1954 C3.5 0720 3050 + 2008 2022 2027 C5.4 0720 3080 + 2201 2208 2216 M1.0 0720 3090 + 2225 2302 2331 X2.6 0720 Updates will be posted if and when warrented. 73 de Tomas, NW7US (AAR0JA/AAA0WA) : Propagation Editor for CQ, CQ VHF, Popular Communications : : Creator; live propagation center http://prop.hfradio.org/ : : Associate Member of Propagation Studies Committee of RSGB : (via swl at qth.net via DXLD) KN4LF DAILY LF/MF/HF RADIO PROPAGATION OUTLOOK UPDATE #2005-003B Issued Sunday 01/16/2005 at 1700 UTC Very large and geoeffective (Earth facing) sunspot group #10720 at N13W03, with it's "delta" twisted magnetic signature continues to be a very prolific producer of solar flares. On Thursday-Saturday 01/13- 15/2005 it produced 54 C class, 12 M class and 2 X class solar flares. So far at least two of the solar flares produced high velocity (1000- 1300 km/s) geoeffective coronal mass ejections (CME's). CME #1 should arrive sometime today UTC and trigger strong (Kp-7) to severe (Kp-8) geomagnetic storming. Extreme (Kp-9) geomagnetic storming is also very possible. CME #2 should arrive on UTC Monday 01/17/05 and extend the length of the expected storm. Barring further geoeffective coronal mass ejections, propagation conditions should return to unsettled to active (kp-3-4) by UTC Wednesday 01/19/2005. The geomagnetic storming will create greatly reduced MUF's and potentially impact HF frequencies down to as low as 14 mc, as well as aurora absorption of signals at high and probably also "some" mid latitude propagation paths. Also per my outlook update of #2005-003A, an excessive energetic protons >10 Mev (10+0) storm has also commenced and this will act to produce polar cap absorption on high and probably also "some" mid latitude propagation paths. Last but not least we will have to contend with continued solar flare induced day light side radio blackouts starting with the MF AM broadcast band and working up in frequency to as high as 10 mc. Bottom line is that this one, two, three punch may completely knock out MF/HF propagation for short periods of time. We also have to keep a close eye on sunspot group # 10718 located at S07W21 with a "beta- gamma-delta" twisted magnetic signature capable of producing large M class and huge X class solar flares (http://www.kn4lf.com/kn4lf6.htm via DXLD) TIPS FOR RATIONAL LIVING ++++++++++++++++++++++++ *** NOT ONE DAMN DIME DAY - JANUARY 20, 2005 *** Since our religious leaders will not speak out against the war in Iraq, since our political leaders don't have the moral courage to oppose it, Inauguration Day, Thursday, January 20th, 2005 is "Not One Damn Dime Day" in America. On "Not One Damn Dime Day" those who oppose what is happening in our name in Iraq can speak up with a 24-hour national boycott of all forms of consumer spending. During "Not One Damn Dime Day" please don't spend money. Not one damn dime for gasoline. Not one damn dime for necessities or for impulse purchases. Not one damn dime for anything for 24 hours. On "Not One Damn Dime Day," please boycott Wal-Mart, Kmart, Target --- Please don't go to the mall or the local convenience store. Please don't buy any fast food (or any groceries at all for that matter). For 24 hours, please do what you can to shut the retail economy down. The object is simple. Remind the people in power that the war in Iraq is immoral and illegal; that they are responsible for starting it and that it is their responsibility to stop it. "Not One Damn Dime Day" is to remind them, too, that they work for the people of the United States of America, not for the international corporations and K Street lobbyists who represent the corporations and funnel cash into American politics. "Not One Damn Dime Day" is about supporting the troops. Now 1,200 brave young Americans and an estimated 100,000 Iraqis have died. The politicians owe our troops a plan - a way to come home. There's no rally to attend. No marching to do. No left or right wing agenda to rant about. On "Not One Damn Dime Day" you take action by doing nothing. You open your mouth by keeping your wallet closed. For 24 hours, nothing gets spent, not one damn dime, to remind our religious leaders and our politicians of their moral responsibility to end the war in Iraq and give America back to the people. Please share this with as many people as possible (via Cal Corbin, via Clara Listensprechen, DXLD) ###