DX LISTENING DIGEST 5-131, August 6, 2005 Incorporating REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTING 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 1283: Sun 0230 WOR WWCR 5070 Sun 0300 WOR WBCQ 9330-CLSB Sun 0330 WOR WRMI 7385 Sun 0630 WOR WWCR 3210 Sun 0730 WOR World FM, Tawa, Wellington, New Zealand 88.2 Sun 0830 WOR WRN to North America, also WLIO-TV Lima OH SAP (including Sirius Satellite Radio channel 115) Sun 0830 WOR KSFC Spokane WA 91.9 Sun 0830 WOR WXPR Rhinelander WI 91.7 91.9 100.9 Sun 0830 WOR WDWN Auburn NY 89.1 [unconfirmed] Sun 0830 WOR KTRU Houston TX 91.7 [occasional] Sun 1200 WOR WRMI 7385 Sun 1300 WOR KRFP-LP Moscow ID 92.5 Sun 1730 WOR WRMI 7385 [from WRN] Sun 1730 WOR WRN1 to North America (including Sirius Satellite Radio channel 115) Sun 1900 WOR RNI Mon 0230 WOR WRMI 7385 Mon 0300 WOR WBCQ 9330-CLSB Mon 0330 WOR WSUI Iowa City IA 910 Mon 0415 WOR WBCQ 7415 [usually closer to 0418-] Mon 1600 WOR WBCQ after hours [stream has been down] Mon 1800 WOR RFPI [repeated 4-hourly thru 1400 Tue] Tue 1600 WOR WBCQ after hours [stream has been down] Tue 2330 WOR WBCQ 7415 [unscheduled, but several weeks lately] Wed 0930 WOR WWCR 9985 Wed 1600 WOR WBCQ after hours [stream has been down] Latest edition of this schedule version, with hotlinks to station sites and audio, is at: http://www.worldofradio.com/radioskd.html WRN ON DEMAND: http://new.wrn.org/listeners/stations/station.php?StationID=24 OUR ONDEMAND AUDIO [also CONTINENT OF MEDIA, MUNDO RADIAL]: http://www.worldofradio.com/audiomid.html WORLD OF RADIO 1283 (high version): (stream) http://www.w4uvh.net/wor1283h.ram (download) http://www.w4uvh.net/wor1283h.rm WORLD OF RADIO 1283 (low version): (stream) http://www.w4uvh.net/wor1283.ram (download) http://www.w4uvh.net/wor1283.rm (summary) http://www.worldofradio.com/wor1283.html WORLD OF RADIO 1283 in true SW sound of Alex`s mp3: (stream) http://www.dxprograms.net/worldofradio_08-03-05.m3u (download) http://www.dxprograms.net/worldofradio_08-03-05.mp3 WORLD OF RADIO 1283 downloads in studio-quality mp3: (high) http://www.obriensweb.com/wor1283h.mp3 (low) http://www.obriensweb.com/wor1283.mp3 WORLD OF RADIO PODCAST: www.obriensweb.com/wor.xml (currently 1277, Extra 57, 1278, 1279, 1280, Extra 58, 1281, 1282, 1283) CONTINENT OF MEDIA 05-07 SUMMARY: http://www.worldofradio.com/com0507.html 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/ ** ALAND ISLANDS. Finland: 603 AM off again --- "Pirate" Radio 603 AM is currently silent again. License owner Roy Sandgren (Sweden) in the anoraknation forum: "The transmitter of 603 kHz is gone somewhere with [Mike] Spenser. The [m/v] St. paul is still for sale. [...] I didn't know until 2 days later that the station was off-air. The station went off-air last Sunday and I did get some e-mails about it 2 days later. We are back on air with in 3 months." (via Bernd Trutenau, Lithuania, mwdx yg via DXLD) ** ANDAMAN & NICOBAR ISLANDS. ANDAMAN AND NICOBAR ISLANDS ---> The following is an abstract of a special bulletin and other information published by The Daily DX. Government officials who - along with Bharathi, VU2RBI and NIAR representatives - attended Hamvention 2005 (Dayton) and Hamradio 2005 (Friedrichshafen) have made favorable proposals to the Government of India to further promote amateur radio activity in that country, which include permission to foreign amateurs to operate from VU4 and VU7. Now the officials wish to know from NIAR as to how many amateurs will be seriously attending a Hamfest, if it is organized in these Islands also with a special permission granted to them to operate their amateur radio stations during Hamfest and also thereafter. NIAR has proposed to conduct a 3-day Hamfest in Portblair, Andaman Islands between 25 December 2005 and 10 January 2006. NIAR asks amateurs interested in attending the Hamfest to e-mail Prof. Ram Kapse, Lieutenant Governor, Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Port Blair, India lg @ and.nic.in ramkapse @ and.nic.in copy to NIAR vu2nro @ gmail.com for follow up and further action. NIAR says that "all requests to operate from the Andamans and Nicobar that are sent to the Lieutenant Governor of A&N should very clearly express the wish to operate from A&N as an important motive to visit A&N for the Port Blair hamfest. A permit to operate from there as a foreign will depend on the number of requests the Lieutenant Governor receives". (425 DX News Aug 6 via Dave Raycroft, ODXA via DXLD) ** BELARUS [and non]. BELARUSIAN LANGUAGE ADVOCATES BLAST EU RADIO PROJECT | Excerpt from report in English by Belarusian news agency Belapan Minsk, 5 August: Opposition figures campaigning for the wider use of the Belarusian language have lashed out at the European Commission's decision to award to Deutsche Welle a contract for the launch of a daily radio programme for Belarus, which is to be broadcast in Russian. "The Belarusians and Belarusian-speaking persons have the right to listen to news in their own language. Minsk infringes on this right every day and has in fact removed Belarusian from state television and radio broadcasting. Today the EU has joined this policy," said Vintsuk Vyachorka, the leader of the Belarusian People's Front [BPF-Revival Party], and political analyst Vital Silitski in a joint statement. The German international broadcaster will make the 30-minute programme as part of the European Union's efforts to create alternative and accessible information sources for Belarus, which are specified in its draft action plan for promoting democracy in the country. "Such an approach is the result of complete misunderstanding of processes that are taking place in Belarus regarding the revival of the Belarusian democratic nation," Vyachorka and Silitski said. "Following the official propaganda of the [President Alyaksandr] Lukashenka regime, European officials are trying to knock into people's heads the idea that the Belarusian language has no prospects and that there is in fact no demand for it among the Belarusian citizens." Vyachorka and Silitski noted that the Commission has ignored examples of successful Belarusian-language projects, such as Radio 101.2 and the newspaper Svaboda, which were suppressed by the Belarusian authorities, and that more than three-fourths of the population regard Belarusian as their native language, according to the country's 1999 general census. They expressed particular concern that the Belarus programme will be made by journalists of Deutsche Welle's Russian service, for whom they said it would be a side job and who hardly have profound knowledge and understanding of what is going on in Belarus. "The recovery of national identity is a key factor in the democratization of any nation. Incomprehension of this fact only fosters trends that help the dictatorship in Belarus gain more ground," Vyachorka and Silitski stressed. [Passage omitted: Other Belarusian language campaigners and opposition activists express contrary opinions in an interview with the Radio Liberty Belarusian service.] Deutsche Welle is expected to launch the programme in September. The Commission plans to annually provide 138,000 euros for this project. Source: Belapan news agency, Minsk, in English 1330 gmt 5 Aug 05 (via BBCM via DXLD) ** CANADA. "Does she get to keep her CBC job? G.G. is ceremonial. Illustrations of her at source, plus audio and video (gh, DXLD)" Probably not. As of today, I saw a promo on Radio Canada TV for Michaëlle Jean's weekly interview program, which airs on Sunday. It's probably a summer repeat. But I think, as with current GG Adriènne Clarkson (also a former CBC personality), Jean won't be making any new programs (Ricky Leong, Calgary, Alta., Aug 5, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Hello Glenn, Thanks to DXLD 5130, this was my first source to get the news on the appointment of the new Governor General of Canada. To complement your message: As we all would like to see a photo of that charming Haitian lady who has been appointed Governor General of Canada: please follow the link to Wikipedia (this is the Open Source encyclopedia) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michaëlle_Jean (Dr. Anton J. Kuchelmeister, Germany, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Her portrait was on one of the previous linx too. I had to restrain myself from mentioning how attracive she is. This gives a pronouncer that the ch is hard, and of course the ë indicates a separate syllable from the vowel preceding it (gh, DXLD) {a satire about this opens the Current segment linked under INTERNATIONAL VACUUM - TeleSur} ** CANADA. Hi all, Tnx to Glen[n] Hauser for the "heads up." Winnipeg's 99 watt special events station CJML-580 returned to the air today for two weeks of broadcasting commemorating Victory in Japan and the end of World War 2. Has anyone heard this outside the Winnipeg area? 580 CJML MB Winnipeg 8-6 0957 CDT good mentioning support from Kiwanis Château, nostalgic music, phone # (204)-895-2565 and ID (Morris Sorensen, Winnipeg MB, Drake R8 with Quantum QX pro loop, WTFDA-AM via DXLD) If I recall, this is 99 watts into a mediocre, at best, transmitting antenna. I couldn't get a trace last time. 73 KAZ (Neil Kazaross, Barrington IL, with Beverages, phasing, NRC-AM via DXLD) ** CANADA. ``CFCY, CHTN and CKEC will be on FM in another year or so and then virtually the entire AM band would be up for DX grabs.`` *May* be on FM. They're only at the application stage right now, and the CFCY and CHTN apps are competing with at least four other applicants, one of which is for the same frequency CHTN wants. The public hearing isn't till October, and the CRTC likely won't make a decision for a few months after that. We shall see... s (Scott Fybush, ABDX via DXLD) I can't recall a single denial for an AM to FM flip in Atlantic Canada. The Astral bid rings hollow, as Astral's two Truro FMers CKTO [Big Dog]and CKTY [Kat Kountry] pound into PEI. The Coastal bid looks soft to me, a Magic 93 clone, we don't need two "Lite Rock" stations in a city of 34,000. CKEC's back is against the wall with FM outtuning from Truro, Antigonish and Charlottetown. But these are just my opinions Scott! LOL. BTW, CFCY's transmitter plant [3 towers] is very old - early 60s [new Nautel but the towers are old and the ground radials pretty much gone]. The land is right in the heart of the Town of Cornwall, and with some drainage work is prime residential land in a province where there is an insatiable demand for new moderately upscale housing. CHTN's plant is newer, but the location also has a lot of development potential with as the real estate agents say: water view!!! Scott, watch the New Glasgow one - its a hoot - with Astral and Atlantic Broadcasters Limited [a.k.a. CJFX] trying to supplement their intrusion into the New Glasgow market by offering a put-put 6 KW or so with limited height application. Nuisance applications, if you ask me. CJFX and CKEC don't like each other much now that CJFX stomps into New Glasgow after having abandoned part of Cape Breton. CKEC with its FM would stomp into Antigonish, where CIGO already stomps in. The terrain around New Glasgow is, well, interesting. A grouping of Towns which all but one [Pictou] bump into each other, then surrounded by hills. Gotta have some height there. It will be fun to watch. But yes, on the timing - October hearing, likely spring decision, my guess for an on air date [if they scramble] is Dec 2006. But yes, we shall see! Personally, I kind of wish the CRTC would approve NewCap's CHTN FM sister station but say that CHTN would have to stay at 720 given their killer signal. But, I would like to be able to pick up WGN... As for CFCY, their signal has lost quite a bit of its former glory, but they do have a sweet pattern! New 90 degree towers and new ground radials and they would be a 10KW screamer with our red oxide mud! (Phil Rafuse, PEI Canada, ibid.) ** CANADA [and non]. Re: Does anyone know if any PAXtv ( now i ) station is on any Canadian cable system, e.g. Channel 31 Detroit? Aside from WWBI's carriage in Montreal, I know of none. 31 Ann Arbor has never been carried in Windsor in any of its incarnations, and 51 Batavia/Buffalo has never been carried in Niagara or Toronto. Dave would know better than I whether 33 Seattle has ever been carried in BC. The CRTC has generally been extremely leery of letting Canadian systems carry any US stations other than the "4+1" (ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, PBS) outlets, plus a handful of designated "superstations" (WSBK, WPIX, WGN, WTBS, KTLA). Buffalo's WNYO-TV (WB) and WNLO (UPN) have had to fight long and hard to get even digital-tier carriage in southern Ontario. s (Scott Fybush, NY, WTFDA via DXLD) WPXD's transmitter is near Dexter, MI --- about as far away from Windsor/ Essex County as any Toledo station. Cogeco -- or whoever serves Windsor --- could pick up WPXD's translator (W48AV Detroit) if permitted. CBET-9, however, partly due to its strong signal (325 kW ERP?), is carried on Buckeye cable in Toledo. A PAX programme or two has been picked up by Canadian TV in the past ("Twice in a Lifetime" on CTV, for example). Kind-of unfair when you think about it. WSBK-38 is UPN. WPIX-11 and KTLA-5 are both WB. WGN-9 is also WB but does not carry it anymore on the Superstation. Except for WGN and WTBS-17, none of the above superstations have "nationwide" coverage here as they apparently do in Canada. Actually, neither of the other WB superstations is really necessary in the USA even in markets without WB, as that network has its own cable channel (complete with a morning news/feature show yet). KKS (Keith K. Smith, Lansing, Michigan, ibid.) I think WTBS-17 programming is quite different from TBS cable channel (gh, DXLD) ** CHINA. JAMMERS (DE1103) 11665 29/7 15.56 CNR1x2txs -> CBS Taiwan (QRM DW) 11705 29/7 15.52 CNR1/Chinese music -> RFA Tibetan 11765 29/7 15.49 CNR1 -> RFA Chinese 11795 29/7 15.48 CNR1 -> RFA Tibetan 11895 27/7 09.10 CNR1 -> VOA Chinese 13675 29/7 15.31 CNR1x2txs -> RFA Chinese 13725 29/7 15.29 CNR1 -> RFA Chinese 13825 29/7 15.27 Chinese music -> RFA Tibetan 15285 29/7 13.54 CNR1x2txs/Chinese music -> BBC Chinese 15495 29/7 15.16 CNR1 -> RFA Chinese 15510 29/7 13.49 CNR1 -> RFA Tibetan (QRM VoR) 15685 29/7 06.33 CNR1 -> VOA Chinese 17525 29/7 13.42 Chinese music -> Voice of Tibet 17855 29/7 13.26 CNR1 -> RFA Tibetan (Luca Botto Fiora, Italy, Japan Premium Aug 5 via DXLD) i.a. ** COLOMBIA. QSL RECIBIDAS --- 01.-RADIO LA VOZ DE TU CONCIENCIA – 6010 Khz. Muy bonita TARJETA QSL con los datos completos, sticker, del 16 de Julio del 2005 a las 0030 UT. Recibida el 5 de agosto de 2005 VRS/ Martín Stendal QTH: Calle 44 No 16-37, Bogota DC, Colombia 02.-RADIO MARFIL STEREO – 5910 KHZ. Bonita TARJETA QSL con los datos completos, sticker, del 16 de Julio del 2005 a las 0040 UT. Recibida el 5 de agosto del 2005. VRS/ Martín Stendal QTH: Calle 44 No 16-37, Bogota DC, Colombia (CESAR PEREZ DIOSES, CHIMBOTE – PERU, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** GERMANY. Entire TV shut-down (!) in Brandenburg The "analogue switch-off" is a popular buzzword, but has it ever been discussed to shut down a TV transmitter network entirely, without replacing analogue outlets by digital ones? This is going to happen in Brandenburg: Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg (RBB) intends to close down the analogue TV transmitters there not later than by the end of 2007. This will save 8 millions Euro and is the most important measure in a plan to cut costs of altogether 35 millions Euro until 2008 (which will be done without closing down a radio program, as had been feared for some time). At the same time it is not intended to expand the area covered by the Berlin DVB-T service. Consequently no TV transmitters will be on air in Brandenburg anymore after 2007 (unless ZDF continues via Booßen- Treplin and Calau as lone TV station on these main FM sites, but I think this is rather unlikely). Instead the affected viewers will be referred to satellite reception. According to RBB this concerns a mere 15,000 homes. This figure may appear unbelievable, but it is plausible; terrestrial TV is almost dead in rural areas of Germany. The then Ostdeutscher Rundfunk Brandenburg was already back in the nineties forced to put its TV program on Astra in order to still reach the audience in its very service area while people were going to scrap their antennas after installing a satellite dish. Until now the public broadcasters were required to maintain a terrestrial TV service, but this obligation has now been lifted. It is a common view that a continued operation of the expensive TV transmitter networks can be hardly justified anymore when the number of homes who rely on them has dropped well below 5 percent (in some areas to as low as 0.2 percent). So DVB-T is seen as the only way to still have a use for these facilities at all. By the way, in northern Hesse and the Leipzig/Halle/Erfurt regions only the programs of the public broadcasters will be available via DVB-T. All attempts to get the commercial stations into the boat were unsuccessful. They are happy with satellite and cable and see no need for anything else. Here is an original report about the TV shut-down in Brandenburg: 15.6.2005 • RBB will Analogantenne Ende 2007 ganz abschalten Als erste ARD-Anstalt will der RBB in den Randzonen seines Empfangsgebietes komplett aus der Antennenversorgung aussteigen. Nach Angaben von Pressesprecher Ulrich Anschütz soll „spätestens Ende 2007“ die analog-terrestrische Ausstrahlung für die nicht mit DVB-T versorgten Randgebiete Brandenburgs beendet werden. Ein weiterer Ausbau von DVB-T durch den RBB ist jedoch nicht vorgesehen. Betroffen sind etwa 15.000 Haushalte. Wo die DVB-T-Inseln Mittel- und Norddeutschlands nach Brandenburg hineinstrahlen, können sie das RBB-Fernsehen mit den Bouquets von NDR bzw. MDR empfangen. Damit wären 90 Prozent der Brandenburger über DVB-T versorgt. Wo das nicht der Fall ist, verweist Anschütz auf den digitalen Satelliten als alternativen TV-Empfangsweg für das RBB-Fernsehen. Durch die Abschaltung der analogen Restversorgung sollen 8 Millionen Euro gespart werden. Es ist die gewichtigste Einzelmassnahme eines Sparpakets, durch das der RBB bis Ende 2008 seine Ausgaben um 35 Millionen Euro reduzieren will. Der Rundfunkstaatsvertrag, gesetzliche Grundlage für ARD und ZDF, gestattet seit dem 1. April 2005 den Ausstieg aus der terrestrischen Versorgung. Presseinfo des RBB vom 8.6.2005. / Telefoninterview. http://www.dehnmedia.de/?page=update&subpage=0506 (Kai Ludwig, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** GRENADA. 535 has a carrier consistent to path of darkness between the station and south east Florida, but no audio since the recent hurricane (Robert Wilkner, FL, Japan Premium Aug 5 via DXLD) ** GUYANA. 3291.04, GBC, 0900-0940 with OM announcer and pop music 'Listen the the Music of the Falling Rain', IDs, 0940 sermon based on an interpretation of the Book of Job, recognize voice of announcer. 29 July; Not noted since, with rechecks 0100 and 0800 30 July (Robert Wilkner, FL, Japan Premium via DXLD) ** INDIA. Scanning India in the 60 mb --- I just made a very quick bandscan on All India Radio stations in the 60 meter band. Heard 14 frequencies of 20 listed around 1615 UT. All 20 will be heard later in the autumn and winter. Days are still too long for serious Asian DX- ing here in 60 degrees North. Situation will be different in September. Noted AIR Shillong 4970 kHz closing down with announcements both English and Hindi 1630. Reception was good with signal strength S 6-7. Also heard bubble jamming on the frequency of AIR Delhi 4860 kHz. 73 and good DX! (Jouko Huuskonen, Turku FINLAND, Rx: AOR 7030+, Ant: 95 m lw to E. Aug 5, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** INDIA. Directory of Indian Stations --- Dear friends, Please visit this interesting site on Indian Broadcasting. http://www.asiawaves.net/india/index.htm (Jose Jacob, dx_india via DXLD) Alan Davies` site, also covering other S and SE Asian countries (gh, DXLD) ** INTERNATIONAL. World Ham Population Ratios Pop Out. The ratio of hams to the number of people in France is 2,495 people for every one ham radio operator. In the USA, that ratio is a lot better at 434:1. What a huge difference. But this USA number is not close to that of Japan at 94:1. Math here is 127,333,000 population versus 1,350,120 hams. Germany has a ratio of 1,044:1, while the UK is lower at 954:1. Spain is at 662:1 while Italy is almost three times this at 1,889:1. Brazil is 5,744:1 while Argentina is at 1,140:1. Canada has a ratio of 696:1, while Australia is at 825:1. Two big numbers really stood out in digging these numbers up on the Internet. Russia is at 3783:1 India is at 70,000:1, with about 15,000 ham operators with a population of 1,080,264,000 (source? R. Bulgaria DX Program Aug 5 via John Norfolk, dxldyg via DXLD) An overview of countries that have dropped the CW test requirement can be found at http://home.planet.nl/~pa3ebt/IARU-R1/25_5.htm (425 DX News Aug 6 via Dave Raycroft, ODXA via DXLD) ** INTERNATIONAL VACUUM. Another source for NASA-TV, auto launch: http://www.smeter.net/nasa/tv.php (via Ulysses A. Galletti, Noticias DX via DXLD) Queridos colegas diexistas, de nuevo hago llegar esta excelente dirección enviada por el colega Ulyses Galletti. Se trata de la página de NASA TV donde podemos ver con toda claridad las imágenes que llegan a la tierra desde el Transbordador Discovery y la ISS. Esta página resultará extraordinaria para los colegas que disfrutan todo lo relacionado con los viajes espaciales. De nuevo gracias al colega Galletti por esta dirección. Atte: (José Elías, Venezuela, ibid.) ** INTERNATIONAL VACUUM. Telesur on CBC Radio 1`s The Current --- At the beginning of the Eastern Daylight Time feed of CBC The Current, [Friday August 5]. I notice that the lead story is the fight between the U.S. and the Venezuela et alia supported Telesur. This is available on Windows Media at about 8:37 A.M. CDT, CST/MDT (Regina = CST), and PDT at http://www.cbc.ca/listen/index.html (as well as ADT and EDT which have already taken place. Newfoundland feeds are on the same absolute time as ADT - a half hour later locally.) (Joel Rubin, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Last original airing chance, then, [was] at 1537 UT from CBC Vancouver, Victoria, Whitehorse. Later the individual segments will be availablized at: http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/2005/200508/20050805.html 20-minute interview by Lyse Doucet with Steven Johnson of Heritage Foundation (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) {but first with Ahram Aharonian, director of TeleSur, and briefly from Alberto Ravel who owns Globovision and Danny Glover, The Hollywood actor, director, and activist who sits on the advisory board of Telesur when he's not making movies.} COLOMBIA EN CONTRA DE TELESUR: Extraído del programa Radio enlace transmitido esta semana por Radio Netherland: http://www.rnw.nl/sp/toolbar/radioenlace.html La Comisión Nacional de Televisión de Colombia (CNTV), bloqueó el acceso al satélite de Telecapital, un canal público de la capital colombiana que retransmite a Telesur, el sistema informativo regional impulsado por Venezuela. Al impedir el acceso al satélite del canal de Bogotá, se impide que los programas de Telesur puedan ser vistos en la mayor parte de Colombia. Canal TRO --- Por otra parte, la CNTV sí autorizó subir al satélite la señal de otro pequeño canal, el TRO, que cubre los departamentos de Santander del Norte y del Sur en el oriente del país, en la zona fronteriza con Venezuela. Además de Telecapital, el canal regional Telepacífico, del departamento del Valle, retransmite para la ciudad de Cali y el suroeste de Colombia la programación de Telesur. Además de Venezuela, socio mayoritario con el 51%, Telesur tiene un capital aportado por Argentina (20%), Cuba (19%) y Uruguay (10%). En el Consejo Asesor de TELESUR participan 3 importantes figuras colombianas, el escritor y periodista Alfredo Molano, el sociólogo Edgar Rey, actual gerente de Telecaribe, canal público que cubre la zona norte de Colombia y el ex ministro de Cultura Ramiro Osorio. Durante una visita a Colombia el 28 de julio, el subsecretario estadounidense de Estado para Asuntos Políticos, Nicholas Burns, dijo que las imágenes de guerrilleros colombianos mostradas por Telesur, constituían una "provocación". "Telesur mostró fotos de líderes de las FARC, eso es una provocación --- ¿para qué una prensa libre y democrática quiere favorecer y dar vitrina a terroristas?" El renombrado periodista colombiano Jorge Enrique Botero, director de información de Telesur manifiesta al respecto en la revista colombiana Semana: Marulanda, alias Tirofijo "hace parte de nuestra realidad. De hecho, es una de las personas que más influyen sobre nuestra realidad. Quien quiera ignorarlo está en todo su derecho, pero -si es periodista-, debería cambiar de profesión. Así que Tirofijo sí estará en Telesur, como -me imagino- seguirá estando en SEMANA, en El Tiempo, en RCN, Caracol, la CNN, la BBC y cientos de medios de comunicación del mundo entero". (via Alexis Castillo, Noticias DX via DXLD) Was it physically blocked in Bogotá, as by jamming, or just by decree? (gh, DXLD) ** INTERNATIONAL VACUUM. WorldSpace Climbs in Trading Debut Worldspace owners might be interested to know that the company's shares have started trading on the NASDAQ today and have risen from $21 to $23.33. They have raised over $200 million dollars in financing from the share offer --- http://tinyurl.com/bjonl [LA Times] A 2 page article on the company is here http://www.smartmoney.com/Techsmart/index.cfm?story=20050803 including details of their financial losses over the years, subscriber numbers, alleged links of their original Saudi investors to terrorism and how they now have former US Republican vice presidential candidate Jack Kemp and former US Republican Senator Charles Mathias on their Board of Directors (Mike Barraclough, BDXC-UK via DXLD) SATELLITE RADIO IPO CARRIES A DISCLOSURE WORLDSPACE TRIES TO DEFUSE CONCERN OVER SAUDI BACKERS By David S. Hilzenrath, Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, August 5, 2005; D01 WorldSpace Inc., which was created to beam satellite radio to the poor of the developing world and helped spawn XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. to serve the U.S. market, yesterday sold stock to the public in an initial offering that valued founder Noah A. Samara's holdings at more than $100 million. In addition to allowing Samara to cash in millions of dollars of shares yesterday, the company said in a regulatory filing that the IPO would trigger stock awards for Washington insiders who serve on WorldSpace's board -- Jack Kemp, a former congressman, cabinet secretary and vice presidential candidate; Charles McC. Mathias Jr., a former U.S. senator from Maryland; and William Schneider Jr., a former undersecretary of state who heads a scientific advisory board at the Pentagon. The cash infusion also could improve potential returns for the company's longtime backers, a group of Saudis that includes Salah Idris, the owner of a plant in Sudan that the United States bombed in 1998 alleging it had ties to Osama bin Laden, and Khalid Bin Mahfouz, a banker who settled allegations in the BCCI bank scandal in the early 1990s and has since been accused in a lawsuit of backing bin Laden financially. This prompted WorldSpace to make an unusual disclosure to the Securities and Exchange Commission: "Allegations of ties between certain of our investors and terrorism could negatively affect our reputation and stock price." The investors "have repeatedly denied all such allegations," the company said, adding that they no longer have any "voting control rights." A company spokeswoman declined to comment, saying securities regulations prevent Samara and others from talking about the company during the so-called quiet period around the offering. . . [MORE] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/04/AR2005080401969_pf.html (via Tom McNiff, Mike Cooper, DXLD) ** INTERNATIONAL VACUUM. Well, I may be backsliding. My days off-air may soon be ending. If I can fit it in my schedule, I may soon be on- air on Elvis Radio on Sirius Satellite a shift or so a week. While national, the channel originates here in Memphis at Graceland. Was on earlier this week; after 7 years since my last air shift, it didn't seem as odd as I expected. It might be fun to be back on-air. And, for radio, it pays well. But, that is A LOT of Elvis (Peter Baskind, J.D., LL.M., N4LI, Germantown, TN/EM55, 901-624-5295, WTFDA via DXLD) Peter, congratulations on your Elvis radio gig! That sounds very exciting, especially after being off the air for 7 years. I guess it's like riding a bike. You can always remember how to do it. Good luck to you and have a "hunk-a" fun! The format sounds like "All Elvis, All The Time." (Steve Rich, Indianapolis, IN, ibid.) That's exactly what it is. And, yes... it came right back when I was on Monday afternoon. The only difference was that my last on-air gig was at FM100 here in Memphis, and back then, it was fully-live. Elvis Radio is fully-digital. If the jock makes no changes, all there is to do is roll the mic gain up when it's time to talk. I am sure I can adapt easily, though. Oh, and I have to think in terms of time zones. You're on in -- what -- half a dozen or so zones? Oh, and almost complete creative freedom. Fun. It's also kinda cool working in a studio with LITERALLY the best of everything. Heck, they even spent $ 3000 each for 3 blue suede chairs -- I kid you not. Working in a fish bowl, though, will take a bit of getting used to. So, it might be fun. Kind of a hobby one gets paid for. Now, if I do this (and I probably will), I need to go buy some new headphones. My old pair, which I use for hamming now, is looking a bit shabby, although I think they still work fine. Sony V600s... love 'em. (Peter Baskind, J.D., LL.M., N4LI, Germantown, TN/EM55, ibid.) ** JAPAN. 60TH ANNIVERSARY OF ATOMIC BOMBINGS OF HIROSHIMA AND NAGASAKI To commemorate the 60th anniversary of the atomic bombings of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August 1945, Japan’s public broadcaster NHK is opening its `peace archives` and making available three of its programmes free of charge to overseas broadcasters. English information is available at http://www.nhk.or.jp/peace/english/index.html In addition, NHK is to broadcast live two "concerts for Peace 2005" from Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August. The concerts will also be available live via the Internet. For details click here: http://www.nhk.or.jp/peacecon/english/index.html (Source: European Broadcasting Union) # posted by Andy @ 10:17 UT August 5 (Media Network blog via DXLD) I also caught CNN International promoting live coverage from Hiroshima starting UT Fri Aug 5 at 2300. Don`t suppose we will see it on CNN domestic (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) No: Anderson Cooper HIROSHIMA ARCHIVE http://www.lclark.edu/~history/HIROSHIMA/index.html Inspired by the photographic work "Hiroshima" by Japanese artist Hiromi Tsuchida, The Hiroshima Archive was originally set up to join the on-line effort made by many people all over the world to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the atomic bombing. The archive is intended to serve as a research and educational guide to those who want to gain and expand their knowledge of the atomic bombing. PHOTOS OF HIROSHIMA http://www.benoa.net/japan/hiroshima/index.html Sadly famous for what happened on the morning of the 6th of August 1945, Hiroshima has overcome and recovered from the tragedy to become one of Japan's most dynamic cities. Browse through a list of the photos and pictures taken in Hiroshima, including some before and after photos, the Atomic Bomb Dome, Peace Memorial Park, Sadako statue, Memorial Cenotaph, Peace Memorial Museum and more. THE HIROSHIMA PEACE SITE http://www.pcf.city.hiroshima.jp/top_e.html This is the official home page of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. THE ENOLA GAY http://www.theenolagay.com/ This is the official site of Brigadier General Paul W. Tibbets, pilot of the Enola Gay, including a bio of Tibbets, specifications of the Enola Gay B-29, an overview of the event of Aug. 6, 1945, and more (Sheldon Harvey, Radio HF Internet Newsletter, Aug, via DXLD) ** JAPAN. OVER ONE MILLION NHK SUBSCRIBERS REFUSE TO PAY FEES (05 August 05) More than one million subscribers to Japan’s public broadcaster, NHK, have refused to pay their monthly fees this year, The Asahi Shimbun has reported. NHK had announced that there were 1.171 million non- paying subscribers as of the end of July. The number of subscribers refusing to pay fees had steadily increased from 397,000 at the end of January to 970,000 at the end of May. NHK officials said if the 1.171 million subscribers do not renew their contracts and begin paying the fees, the annual budget for the broadcaster would suffer a shortfall of between US$53.9 million (six billion yen) to US$89.8 million (10 billion yen). (ABU Website) Best regards, (via MD. AZIZUL ALAM AL- AMIN, BANGLADESH, DXLD) ** JORDAN. Re TURKEY, 5-130 envelope corner cutting --- All Radio Jordan envelopes that I have ever received were cut on all 4 corners. I very much doubt the cutting took place in the country of origin. 73 (Mick Delmage, Sherwood Park, AB, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** KENYA. During my annual exercise to update the WRTH entry for Kenya (to assist Mauno Ritola, who does such a good job on the African entries) I confirmed that KBC has dropped its morning (0300-0700) transmission on 4915 (the only SW frequency still active from Kenya) and is now on air on that channel only at 0900-1900 (Monday-Friday only). Total output on 4915 is unchanged at 10 hours a day, but this dropping of the morning period significantly cuts the opportunity for it to be heard in Europe (Chris Greenway, Aug 5, BDXC-UK via DXLD) And even more so in North America! West coasters might get it by longpath in morning. Sunset in Kenya would be circa 1500 UT yearound (gh, DXLD) ** KOREA NORTH. P5 - David Borenstein, KA2HTV [425DXN 743] has received written permission from the North Korean government to operate as P5/KA2HTV during his stay in Pyongyang. He will arrive on 9 August and depart on the 23rd: radio operating is not the primary reason for his visit, but he hopes to be able to operate 1-2 hours a day and will stay an additional three days devoted entirely to radio operation. For security reasons, he will only operate SSB and primarily 20 metres. QSL via KK5DO. The ARRL has reviewed Dr. Borenstein's plan and if and when P5/KA2HTV occurs, it will likely count. Operation from P5 is at the pleasure of the host country so the DX community should keep their collective fingers crossed that all goes well and they do not change their minds. David notes that while his operating time will be limited, the success of this operation will lead to further P5 operations in the near future. Much of the equipment being taken will remain there, pre- positioned for subsequent operations. The Lone Star DX Association is the sponsoring DX organization for this operation. [TNX NA5U] (425 DX News Aug 6 via Dave Raycroft, ODXA via DXLD) ** KURDISTAN [non]. IRAK. 11530, Dengue Mesopotamia, escuchada el 31 de Julio, 1200-1210, en kurdo, locutor con comentarios, ID y dirección web, música pop local y folklórica, SINPO 34322. 11530, Dengue Mesopotamia, escuchada el 4 de Agosto, 1402-1410, en Kurdo, locutor con comentarios y referencias a la democracia, cuña de identificación "Dengue Mesopotamia" con música, programa de música pop local, SINPO 44433 (José Miguel Romero, Sacañet (Castellón), España, SANGEAN ATS 909, Antena hilo de siete metros, Noticias DX via DXLD) I check for this one frequently around 1400 and am beginning to hear traces of it; should build up as winter approaches. So is this backed by terrorists or not? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** LATVIA. QSLs for 9290: R. Six Internatioinal, Riga-Ulbroka 9290 kHz, QSL card and schedule in 26 days. RP: 1$. QTH: P. O. Box 600 - Glasgow G41 5SH - Scotland (United Kingdom). V/s: Tony Currie. A report sent by e-mail got no reply. R. Tatras International, Riga-Ulbroka 9290 kHz, E-QSL in 1 day. E- report sent to: tesug @ parks.lv V/s: Raimonds Kreicbergs, KREBS TV Director. The report sent by e-mail to R. Tatras Int. got no reply. Tnx info Jari Savolainen (Luca Botto Fiora - Italy, BDXC-UK via DXLD) ** MEXICO [and non]. HIGH STAKES POKER ACROSS THE BORDER --- THESE UNAUTHORIZED FACILITIES ARE CAUSING INTERFERENCE TO STATION KXRS. media bytes for friday, aug 5, 2005 | A shot of Morning Expresso (lightly roasted) | XHBCE-FM La Pantera is a new station to the San Diego/Tijuana market. At 105.7 FM, the station brings Spanish-language programming to both sides of the border. There's a slight problem, according to the owners of KXRS-FM in Hemet. They too, bring Spanish-language programming to the Hemet and Temecula Valley at 105.7 FM -- and there's the rub. (Larger map here http://sdradio.net/graphics/cerrobolla.png ) The stations step on each other in the Riverside locations -- and also in the Escondido/Vista/Oceanside corridor. The map shows the coverage as demonstrated by Lazer Broadcasting, the owners of the Hemet station. (SDRadio placed town locations for clarification.) In filings with the Federal Communications Commission, XHBCE-FM is cited for illegal operations "because BCA (Broadcast Company of the Americas) wants to maximize its coverage of heavily-populated areas of southern California." The filing also cites that the station "as well as other Mexican stations programmed by BCA affiliates are operating illegally." The pleading further claimed that "BCA has made false and misleading statements to the Commission." Lazer cited statements in the new antenna system at the Class C1 site and the location and antenna characteristics of the Class B facilites. Lazer and joint filer, Emmis Broadcasting, want the government's radio arm to "recognize the cross-border lawlessness that is going on under the direction of BCA and its affiliates." Why all the filings? The Mexico-based stations need "Section 325(c) permits for cross-border programming. These permits are needed for any station with studios in the U.S. and transmitter in Mexico. The permits are up for renewal this month after some delay in Washington as the Feds shift through the mountain of paperwork. BCA had defended their position before, and are expected to defend it again. John Lynch told SDRadio in May on some of the initial filings: "Despite the fact that the petition raises allegations dealing almost exclusively with the lawfulness of the technical operations at the transmitter sites of the four stations, all of which are located in Mexico, the petition has no impact upon operations in Mexico. "It is now clear to me that this petition is nothing more than an attempt to restrain trade and to keep competition to existing stations at a minimum." As the filings play out at the FCC, expect the high stakes poker match to continue. Read the briefs: BCA Opposition (PDF), and Photos. Stay Tuned. (http://sdradio.net/today.shtml SDRadio.net Aug 5 via DXLD) AFAIK, there is no archive at this site, and this will probably be gone by Monday. Best to check on a weekend before a new week starts (gh) ** MONGOLIA. Were it not for static noise, Ulan Bator would have arrived with good signal for the first time --- that's in my case --- opening at 1000 on 12085, QRM from Radio Australia on 12080. Despite this occurring in the mid SW bands, it's a fact we can get good reception on the lower bands this time of the year due to too much T- storms, curiously with the only exception of the 31 mb (Raúl Saavedra, Costa Rica, Aug 6, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** RUSSIA. 7325 kHz, Adygenskoye Radio via Krasnodar. Aug. 1 at 1700- 1735. SINPO 34433. IS of V. of Russia was heard until 1700, then opening music and ID in Adygen(?) "..faata Adygenskoye Radio aki..." Talk by a man and woman with folk music breaks (Iwao Nagatani, Japan Premium via DXLD) ** RUSSIA. RFE/RL COULD SUFFER CONSEQUENCES OF RUSSIA'S ABC BAN The Russian government's decision to ban US television network ABC from operating in the country could have repercussions for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. The interview with Russia's most wanted terrorist, Shamil Basayev, that so angered the Russian authorities was conducted by Andrei Babitsky, a Radio Liberty journalist. Now, a source at the Russian Foreign Ministry says the affair has given it an opportunity to resolve a "problem" with Radio Liberty. The Ministry accredits a limited number of foreign correspondents, says a spokesman, while many of RFE/RL's freelance correspondents are working without accreditation, using loopholes in Russian media legislation. The Ministry is now considering whether to close the loopholes, which would severely restrict Radio Liberty's ability to report from all parts of Russia. # posted by Andy @ 13:50 UT August 6 (Media Network blog via DXLD) But he vacationed -- ** RUSSIA. JOURNALIST DEFENDS INTERVIEWING CHECHEN REBEL LEADER | Text of report by Russian Gazeta.ru website on 4 August On Thursday [4 August] the General Prosecutor's Office may reveal its attitude to Shamil Basayev's scandalous interview for the ABC television channel, which he granted to the journalist Andrey Babitskiy. Gazeta.ru was told this by the department's press service. Staffers of the public relations administration found it hard to say whether a specific charge will be brought against Babitskiy or whether he will be summoned for questioning as a witness in order to ascertain where the terrorist Shamil Basayev is hiding. However, the General Prosecutor's Office public relations administration did elaborate that "the General Prosecutor's Office has not yet made any statements relating to the Babitskiy affair, and it is not known whether they will be made in the very near future". The previous day the Russian Foreign Ministry had put its own complaints to the Radio Liberty journalist. The Foreign Ministry disseminated a statement in which it accused Babitskiy of violating the rules of accreditation. "To work as a journalist on the territory of Russia, it is necessary to have accreditation with the Russian Foreign Ministry," the information and press department of the Russian foreign policy department told Gazeta.ru. "In addition, Russian MVD [Internal Affairs Ministry] accreditation is needed to cover measures in the zone where the counter-terrorist operation is being conducted." According to the diplomats, "Babitskiy has neither the former nor the latter." At the present time, according to the Foreign Ministry statement, the Russian authorities are demanding that the leaders of Radio Liberty explain how the journalist's interview with the Chechen gunmen's leader was organized. The authorities are primarily interested in the technical aspect of the matter - namely, how Babitskiy contrived, with no particular difficulty, to meet with Basayev, for whom the best forces of the Federal Security Service, the MVD, the Defence Ministry and the Chechen police have been looking hopelessly for many years now. "At the end of the investigation the decision will be made as to which sanctions will be introduced against Babitskiy himself and Radio Liberty as a whole," the Russian Foreign Ministry told Gazeta.ru. The previous day Radio Liberty had disseminated a statement explaining that Babitskiy had been on vacation at the time of getting the interview. Thus, the radio station's journalists redirected the diplomats' complaints to the ABC TV channel which, however, has already been stripped of accreditation in Russia for the next year. Gazeta.ru contacted Babitskiy, who is presently in Germany. He confirmed that he got the interview while on vacation. "The interview took place 23 June, during my vacation," Babitskiy said. "I had travelled to Chechnya to interview Doku Umarov, one of the commanders of the Chechen armed underground. When I was there, however, I was put into a car in an Ingush village and was taken to where I met with Shamil Basayev. The meeting was completely unexpected. But that, in fact, is all: I recorded the interview and drove away. No one checked anything on me and I travelled calmly by car," Babitskiy told Gazeta.ru. The journalist explained that he has not yet received any threats from the Russian authorities, but he admitted that some charges may be brought against him. "I have to wait for charges against me," the Radio Liberty correspondent said. "I believe that they will all be groundless and I will endeavour to refute them in one way or another. But I want first, all the same, to find out what these charges are and what to do about them." Babitskiy confirmed that he really did not have accreditation for work in Chechnya, but he is not fazed by this. "You know, this is not my problem but a problem for the Russian authorities which did not grant it to me," the journalist surmised. "I travelled there, proceeding from human rights and the law on the mass media, which give not only a journalist but also anyone the right to gather information." According to him, he himself offered the interview to the ABC channel specially for the Nightline programme, because this is, in his opinion, "the most serious analytical programme on American television". As for Radio Liberty, according to him it did not interfere from the outset in the fate of this material. "Radio Liberty defined its attitude to it as my private property, which I own and control myself," the journalist said. "Russia's reaction strikes me as totally inappropriate," Babitskiy pointed out. "The position outlined in Nightline in respect of Basayev coincides, in general, with the official Russian position on terrorism." Source: Gazeta.ru website, Moscow, in Russian 4 Aug 05 (via BBCM via DXLD) ** SAUDI ARABIA. Re the "Summer A05" schedule of BSKSA in Observer #374 which begins ::: 1st Main program in Arabic 0600-0855 on 9675 17730 17740 0900-1155 on 9675 17805 21705 1200-1455 on 9675 21505 21640 Since reading this new sched I have been trying to clarify the listing of 9675. This frequency was without doubt carrying the 2nd Programme and heard in parallel with v11855. However, due to adverse propagation, I am having difficulty hearing either frequency regularly of clearly, and the Brazilian station is causing problems on 9675. But today Aug. 5 I could hear three distinct versions of the Kor`an - one on 17730 // 17740 (the Main Arabic program), another on 15380 // 17895 The Holy Qur`an (9715 has WYFR) and a third on 9675 (11855 was inaudible). This suggests to me that 9675 is still carrying the 2nd Programme as previously. And 9675 was known to go off air c0900 and despite many attempts, has never been heard after that time. Can anyone closer to the target area clarify this? 73s (Noel R. Green, UK, Aug 5, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Dear Noel, Greetings from Egypt. Re your inquiry concerning 9675 kHz, I got to tell you that even here in my QTH - Cairo, Egypt - it's not audible at all. Furthermore the reception of the 2nd program is always very weak around here. Especially around that time : 2nd program in Arabic 0600-1655 on 11855 All the best my friend. 73's (Tarek Zeidan, Cairo, Egypt, Aug 6, ibid.) ** SOMALIA [non]. USA/Somalia: Radio Waaberi observed on HF Radio Waaberi was observed signing on at 1330 gmt on 5 August on 17550 kHz. The opening announcement was: "This is Radio Miami International, the following programme is in Somali...". There then followed various programmes in Somali. The station was observed signing off at 1400 gmt. Source: BBC Monitoring research 5 Aug 05 (via DXLD) Quite a weak signal here, presumably this, on 17550, Fri Aug 5 at 1355 with two or more people talking, presumably, Somali; a couple notes of music and cut off at 1359:30, not 1400. BBC Arabic on (new?) 17585 was much stronger (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** SRI LANKA. Re 5-130, I wondered about the actual Great Circle path between Sri Lanka and Costa Rica. So consulting my NGS globe with geometer, which is so much more enlightening than using some computer program, I find that the short path peaks in latitude at the English channel, while the only slightly longer long path dips to just south of New Zealand. Either way, that avoids the worst of the polar auroral zones (Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** SUDAN. 4750, Radio Peace, Received a partial/detail e-mail QSL from Peter Stover in about 6 hours for my follow-up e-mail report to him. This was for my reception of Radio Peace in March, 2004. In his e-mail (copied below) Pete requested that DXers no longer send him e-mail audio attachments as it consumes too much hard drive space. He also clarified which organizations were supporting Radio Peace (George Maroti, NY, Aug 5, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Viz.: George, Thanks for the information. Please consider your monitoring report verified. One thing you can do to help us is to report that we are not looking for audio MP3 files to verify reception reports. We are keeping records of the emails that we receive from the DX community but we don't want and won't keep those that send MP3s because of the disk space this consumes. As in the "old days" we will trust the DXer's word and their written report to verify reception of RP. As for the station, there has been misinformation reported about those involved in RP. The lead organizations are: non-profit Educational Media Corporation (EMC, that's ours) and Persecution Project Foundation. Also, involved in various operational and programming aspects are: WODRANS, a Southern Sudan NGO headed by Rebecca Garang [SEE BELOW]; ACROSS, a Christian program producer located in the region; MERF, Middle East Radio Fellowship based in Kenya; and African Leadership, based in Kenya. It has been falsely reported that BFO (Blessings for Obedience) is/was involved in RP. This is totally inaccurate. We don't know BFO. You would have to ask them concerning any involvement in Sudan. You are correct, RP on 4750 and now also operating on 5895 daily is broadcasting at low power as domestic SW facilities. 4750 is 1 kw focused on Southern Sudan. 5895 is 2.5 kw focused on Nuba and the North. I hope this helps. All the best! Peter Stover, EMC (via George Maroti, NY, DX LISTENING DIGEST) SUDAN RADIO BEHAVIOUR: REPEATED PRAISE SHOWERED ON GARANG'S WIDOW Sudan radio, in its special programming this morning, aired a poem in praise of Garang's widow, Rebecca, after each of the early morning bulletins at 0400 gmt and 0600 gmt. Prior to the poem an unidentified woman from the south was interviewed on Rebecca Garang's life history. The profile and poem lasted 10 minutes. After the poem, the station ran Rebecca's statement calling for peace. She spoke in a mix of Arabic and a southern dialect. The poem commends her for her courageous statements that called for calm and self- restraint following her husband's death. The following are excerpts from the poem in Arabic read by someone other than the presenter: "Rebecca Garang - a gallant woman of noble origin, who disregarded tribal limitations and became a national symbol...and moved us into higher levels, into the exalted clouds of the Sudanese fragrance, which she strived for on her own, embodied with the values of tribe and its merits, presented her soul to sacrifice for the country...believing in God's predestination, announcing the certainty that unto God belongs what he offers and what he takes. In that way the country was revived and Sudan rekindled." "That is the personality of a woman leader who shuns calamity, ascends with the country, discards unrest by uttering one single word that balances against all that had been poured down by the war, in all its brutality." "Rebecca Garang, this is the name which will never, ever disappear from the map of modern history, as she tried to change the overriding grief into a block of love and peace, through one sentence, which is never uttered except by the strongest people...and here we begin to say: Rebecca Garang, the stateswoman and national symbol." Source: as listed (BBC Monitoring Aug 5 via DXLD) ** SUDAN [non]. 12060, Aug. 6, 0430: They [R. Nile] had just begun their transmission, but what I'm hearing is Arabic (?) on 12060, not English, as Liz Cameron reported from Aug. 2 [5-128]. Besides there is this waterfall jamming on that frequency. SINPO 32232, good signal after all, considering it is Madagascar (Raúl Saavedra, Costa Rica, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** SYRIA. Aug. 6 they are heard back on 9330 kHz (ex 13610) in // with 12085 kHz in the UT evening. PS: The Iraq/English clip on the Yahoo Group seems not to work. 73, (Erik Køie, Copenhagen, Aug 6, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Works for me; just tried it again. A bit loud, tho (gh, DXLD) ** U K. BBCWS in Arabic, 17585, Aug 5 at 1352 with good signal, Arabic music, and ``Huna London`` ID. I don`t recall hearing this one before in frequent 16m scans around this hour, but it is in HFCC A-05: 17585 1100 1630 37,38W SKN 300 150 1234567 270305 301005 D G BBC MER (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U K. Recommended Play on RealAudio rtsp://rmv8.bbc.net.uk/bbc7/1000_fri.ra (Available for a week, also 2100_fri.ra, 0200_sat.ra) Probably a rerun of a play from Radio4 some years ago From: http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbc7/listenagain/friday The Summer of a Dormouse --- John Mortimer's comedy of missed opportunities stars Paul Scofield, Alex Jennings, Imelda Staunton and Gemma Jones (Joel Rubin, NY, Aug 5, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U K. BEFORE WWII, YOU COULDN'T JOKE ABOUT HITLER ON THE BEEB From http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbc7/listenagain/friday/ 12:30-1300 Radio Fun: The Story of Radio Comedy --- A new series exploring classic radio comedy. A look at the origins of radio comedy with acts such as Doris and Elsie and Will Fyfe. Episode 3 of 12. [Rptd today 7.30 pm] On this program, they mentioned that you couldn't make jokes about Hitler on BBC comedy shows before September, 1939. Presumably this was because PM Neville Chamberlain was busy trying to make Appeasement in Our Time. Of course, the reputation that the Beeb obtained as a tower of truth in a sea of lies began during WWII when the Beeb told the world all about British defeats and disasters - thus gaining credibility when it began to report victories (Joel Rubin, NY, Swprograms mailing list via DXLD) ** U S A. VOA`s Music Time in Africa, excellent signal until 0500* UT Sat Aug 6 on 9575. This is Greenville, 250 kW at 94 degrees, but almost directly off the back here. At closing, Rita Rochelle didn`t know this would be played back in the morning, as she said to stay tuned for Nightline Africa, the primary airtimes of MTIA being 1730 and 1930 on Sundays (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. WA2XMN will be testing today, 6 August 2005, starting at 12 noon [1600 UT]. WA2XMN has been granted a full, 5-year, experimental license. The intentions stated in the FCC application include recreating Armstrong's original Yankee Network relay system. The goal of the 6 August test is to evaluate the path between Alpine and the Paxton, MA tower site, located on Asnebumskit Hill. The original network had an intervening relay at Meriden, CT. QSL to wa2xmn @ ar88.net Regards, (Al Klase - N3FRQ, WA2XMN I.T. Department, http://www.wa2xmn.ar88.net/ skywaves @ webex.net (via Ken Kopp, in advance, dxldyg via DXLD) WTFK? 42.8 MHz ** U S A. Re DXLD item on Cardinals and KMOX --- Hello! In response to Kevin Redding's submission about the Cardinals and KMOX: The fact is KMOX's signal isn't what it used to be, and the Cardinals have one of the most extensive networks in baseball. This includes our station in Champaign, WDWS. The network is in so many places it would be tough NOT to be able to tune in a station in the Midwest area. Along with AM affiliates, there are also many well-powered FM stations carrying the games. So don't cry too much over a station that no longer cared enough about the Cardinals to engineer the broadcasts properly, or a station that once was a proud sports beacon that has reduced itself to a skeleton crew. The Cardinals now will have more direct control over their broadcasts, and plan to force more clearance of their games over network stations. The fans lose virtually nothing here, and in fact may get more games with a better, local signal, engineered better. Thank you! (Eric Loy, WDWS, Champaign, IL, Aug 5, DX LISTENING DIGEST) As a KMOX listener since 1973, who cut his DX teeth listening to the Cardinals, Blues, football Cardinals, and Mizzou Tigers games, all I can say about this move is DUMB...DUMB...DUMB!! Notwithstanding KRTS- 550 low frequency would cover almost as much as KMOX on daytime groundwave -- but that's no comfort to anyone who listens to KMOX after dark. Even if you're willing to pay for MLB.com, and have the broadband connection necessary to listen, have you ever seen anyone take the PC (or even a laptop) outside on the back porch to listen to a ball game on a summer night? Does anyone listen to XM or Sirius when not in their almighty car? Satellite radio still exists only on paper in Canada. And when the Canadian version of XM finally does become available, I believe only the Blue Jays broadcasts will be offered. 73 (Mike Brooker, Toronto, ON, NRC-AM via DXLD) Mike, Not to take issue with your basic point, with that I agree. However... A broadband connection is only needed to watch MLB.com TV, not to listen to the radio streaming of baseball game play-by-play. I often listen with my dial-up connection when my team's announcers are not the ones being carried on XM. Actually, I use either a long audio cable or a remote headphone transmitter to send my PC stream of MLB.com baseball out into the yard on nice evenings and listen with my Tivoli PAL as amplifier, speaker. And yes, I listen to baseball on XM as I walk the dog and am out of range of PC streamed audio. When XM is carrying my team's announcers I listen to it rather than MLB.com because it is more reliable and doesn't tie up my PC, plus I can take it into the yard without the added paraphernalia. Currently XM carries all MLB games, from one or the other of the two competing teams' flag ship station. I would not expect XM to cripple this in Canada, but that is no doubt the call of the politicians there, so who knows. They have been known to do some strange things under the banner of sovereignty. All that having been said, I was just as upset when Braves baseball switched from WSB Atlanta. The new station has been very ill prepared to deliver their broadcasts to either MLB.com or XM, with many incidents of bad audio or lost connections which were not a problem with WSB. While I no longer depended on WSB for over the air listening from down here in Florida, I did enjoy the challenge from time to time. In years past though, before MLB.com and XM, I huddled next to my receiver to hear the signal when it faded up. No way I could do that now with the new station. And directly to your point, I remember growing up in the mid west some half century ago -- just when KMOX first began coverage -- and my parents in the kitchen where radio reception was best, listening to the Cardinals games after I had been sent to bed. An unfortunate passage of an era (W. Curt Deegan, Boca Ratón, Florida, ibid.) Unfortunately, radio broadcasts of pro sports just doesn`t draw the listeners like they used to. Most of today`s games are on cable TV or regular broadcast TV. In fact a trend has been for the teams to bring the broadcast rights in-house and just buy time in radio stations any more. They have graduated to pay for play like a lot of other entities have. This has recently happened here with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays (Paul Smith, W4KNX, Sarasota, FL, ibid.) As someone who lives smack in the middle of "Cardinal Nation" (Springfield's new double-A team -- our first in more than 50 years -- is wholly owned by the Cardinals), let me offer my take on this. For any radio enthusiast (or indeed baseball fan) with a sense of history, it's a sad turn of events. Considering all those years that the Cards were the western-most major league team in the country, all you have to do to understand the importance of KMOX's huge signal in popularizing the Cardinals is watch or listen to the Cardinals' ROAD games to places like L.A. or Denver or Miami. Sometimes the fan support in those ballparks is nearly 50/50 for St. Louis! Sorry, Braves -- for years the REAL "America's team" in baseball was the Cardinals! And that was due almost entirely to KMOX's clear-channel blanketing of North America. Few teams have more of a sense of their own history than the Cardinals, and I'm sure they're aware of this. And I have no doubt that the loss of this service will have a negative impact on Cards fans in those far-flung regions. However --- I see the situation as analogous to the current AM radio situation: the devastation of clear-channel AM service in general, the blasé or even antagonistic attitude of station personnel to DX listeners, etc., etc. Folks in La-La Land or South Florida are simply NOT part of the Cardinals' "core audience" and are thus expendable. The "core" Cards fan base is taken VERY good care of by that monstrous 110-station radio network throughout the central states, and by the fact that in many markets (like Springfield), nearly EVERY Cards game is available on TV: virtually every weekday on Fox Sports Net on cable, and on weekends (every Sunday anyway) on local stations fed by KPLR Ch. 11 in St. Louis. That massive 50 kW blowtorch AM signal is simply no longer all that necessary as far as the Cardinals are concerned --- and as Infinity Broadcasting was evidently trying to lowball the Cardinals organization by some $2 million on their radio- compensation deal for '06, KMOX is no longer considered a viable revenue stream for the team. (And you can damn well bet Infinity didn't offer 'em 50% ownership of KMOX!!) So it's sad, but certainly not unexpected. (And as an aside, I have to say that since Jack Buck's death and his son Joe's migration to TV, the Cards' radio coverage isn't all that much fun to listen to any more, as Mike Shannon is just as goofy as ever, and Wayne Hagin is pleasant but DULL!) (Randy Stewart, Springfield MO, NRC-AM via DXLD) ** U S A. I mourn the death of radio as we once knew it. While I'm a big advocate of self-employment and small business, I'm no fan of large business because large businesses, by their very nature, suppress innovation and risk-taking. When Clear Channel and Infinity wind up owning the majority of stations in various markets, the result is bland, institutional, imagination-free radio --- it's like McDonalds for the ears (Harry Helms W5HLH, Wimberley, TX EM00, http://futureofradio.typepad.com/ ABDX via DXLD) As a Clear Channel employee, I beg to differ!!! In our market (Milwaukee) we have some of the most LOCAL programming in the market. No one at corporate shoves what format we use down our throat. They need to be informed on format changes. Creativity is ENCOURAGED! As a matter of fact there are groups within the company that help creativity for stations, particularly stations in smaller markets --- markets that could have no creativity and probably would be run off of satellite if Clear Channel did not own it. Imagination is STRONGLY encouraged! Risk takers are rewarded! That may not happen in every Clear Channel market, but that is up to the* local General Manager*. You have a beef with those managers. How many mom and pop stations are running much else other than bird fed programming?? As far as an engineering aspect, CC puts the best in, and invests to ensure quality broadcasts. We are also allowed to come up with creative solutions. We also have a great sounding board for engineering troubles, and let me tell you we have some of the best engineers around! In addition, we have a task force to do community work. We have people assigned in each cluster where they are in charge of finding local community projects that Clear Channel can help with. Also our stations raise a lot of money for charities. Suffice it to say that I get tired of the Clear Channel bashing, as I see it unwarranted (Kent Winrich, K9EZ, Clear Channel - Milwaukee, ibid.) I'll ease up on that. I know there's some leeway given under certain regional managers for engineers to run their plants with their own insight or to program their station more for their own audience's preferences - granted it is worse in some markets and better in others. Guys, we do have CCU people on our list. Kent has a good point (Darwin Long, Thousand Oaks, CA, ibid.) Kent, There may be things I don`t like about Clear Channel, but the one thing I can`t complain about with CCU is the engineering. The stations sound good for the most part. Another thing I like is that a lot of CCU FM stations actually use RDS and that is an incredible tool. Great for the station, great for DXers. With CCU putting RDS on a lot of stations, DXers should be happy. It makes life a lot easier for us. Some of the programming bites big time at some of the stations, but the engineering is generally good (Kevin Redding, AZ, ibid.) Kent, THANK YOU for providing us a LOT of insight into ClearChannel. I know in MANY ways and MANY times since you've been with us I've said to myself "hmmm....looks like again maybe they're not such a 'big bad wolf' like I thought they were." Heck ESPECIALLY in your case, Kent. You've got the ONLY ClearChannel station running C-Quam AM Stereo. That was one of my BIGGEST quams (no pun intended) with ClearChannel and Jacor over the years....was that they were "AM Stereo haters" and every time I emailed a ClearChannel engineer about it, I always got the same response about how "well AM Stereo decreases our coverage" and all the usual song and dance. Being an AM Stereo crusader, I have the UTMOST respect for you and your plant over there in Milwaukee. I really wish I lived closer to Wisconsin so I could get the grand tour. I think you've proven to all of us that it's not fair to "generalize", especially with ClearChannel. It really looks like it varies from market to market and different CCU stations do different things. Your stations are actively involved in the community. Other ClearChannel stations might do nothing for their communities. Some, like yours, may have the best-sounding signals in the market, and in other markets, the CCU stations might have to worst LOUD, OVERPROCESSED signals known to man. Thanks again for being with us here on the list. I consider it a privilege having you here (Michael n WYO Richard, ibid.) ** U S A. FORMAT IN TALK RADIO --- ``With all due respect, just because you aren't into politics doesn't mean it isn't interesting programming for someone else. Obviously it is or it wouldn't be all over the dial.`` It might be all over the dial because broadcasters, like any company, want to CREATE A MARKET by forcing a more cost-effective (though less desirable) product out there in front of people to become accustomed to and to accept as normal. It might be interesting for others, but we were MADE to BECOME interested in it by all of the AM broadcasters nearly simultaneously yanking full-service, news, and music in the mid-80's and shoving just talk onto that band to make it a cheap and a major radio format and to set a precedent. We were MADE to be interested in it because that was suddenly all that was available to choose from on the dial. Look at KABL 960 --- the #1 TOP-RATED, award-winning station (AM or FM) two years ago in San Francisco. It is now AA. There were probably tenfold MORE interested people listening to KABL full-service format than to the KQKE junk now. The ratings are not even registering for that frequency in that market now. That's a LONG downfall in ratings, and does not show any real interest. Stations don't care if you're interested. Listeners didn't call in to CCU and say "hey, we WANT 960 to have a liberal talk format, we're interested"... the execs at CCU FORCED it to happen and said "we're gonna do this no matter what any listeners think - it's OUR INVESTMENT and OUR RISK". They wanted a cheap "puppet-station" that required little or no staff to run. Nearly all AM are now that way - the precedent was created. The talk hosts get paid less per hour than I make most of the time (avian research and keying medical claims). Plus, it seems no matter what kind of talk program it is, what network it is on, etc, they all are run the EXACT SAME WAY - the music cutting off the hosts instead of waiting until there's an intelligent break to take a commercial break --- you can barely get into the topic. The double call-in's fighting with each other. The use of REAL SONGS for bumper music instead of customized music for each host's use (which is really annoying --- you begin to "get into" a song you like and are stopped after 30-seconds. I think using the same guitar licks and rhythms from popular songs stitched together over and over for a host's bumper music is really lame. If the show can't afford to pay Production Garden or Killer Tracks a grand or two for 20-30 custom bumper tracks and themes unique to their show, it does not set them far apart from rap artists ripping clips out of songs to sample over and over ("hey look what we can do with this song... huh huh huh... sounds catchy") - insults the intelligence of listeners like myself having a good background in music and know what songs they are. And what is it with these talk stations using such low bit rates for the audio nowadays?? Hell, I get better quality streaming through my home PC on a dialup than these multimillion dollar 50 KW talkers run for their master program stream - that "clear-your-throat already" raspiness - no excuse if you have the bucks to install one lousy DSL line to your studio and transmitter. Today's talk radio is NOTHING like it used to be in the 60's, 70's and even 80's. I just get more and more disgusted with it as the months go by, and listen less and less, not so much because of what they lack, but because how they all sound the same (Darwin Long, CA, Aug 5, ABDX via DXLD) Darwin is correct. I am into politics, but not propaganda. Today's talk show programs are just "preaching to the choir". Rather than attempt to appeal to a large diverse audience, which requires a higher level of talent and commitment, they have decided to settle on a narrow but highly fanatic and loyal partisan audience. The talk show host and the audience members can sit and agree with each other all program long. It's called a "warm, fuzzy feeling" (Dick W., ibid.) I think the problem is more one of perception. One man's political view is another man's propaganda. Certainly there are some shows that do little more than preach to the choir, but there are others that take a critical, if somewhat slanted, look at the issues. Dennis Prager, for instance, is unabashedly conservative, but he actually discusses political issues and explains WHY he takes a particular view on an issue. He's also willing -- happy even -- to debate the issues with those of opposing views. One may not personally agree with his position, but you can be assured he has not taken that position without considerable, logical thought. I would submit the shows you allude to exist not because of laziness or lack of talent, but because those shows have a large audience that advertisers find attractive. Radio is, with the exception of NPR, a commercial medium. Those who attract the audience the advertisers want stay on the air, those who don't get cancelled. If there are lots of "warm, fuzzy" shows on the air, it's because the audience likes to feel warm and fuzzy. There seems to be an undercurrent here of "the man" not providing what the people really want because it's somehow cheaper or just plain easier to provide warm, fuzzy programming. "The man" will provide whatever the people, or, in this case, the advertisers, are willing to pay for. You don't find variety shows on radio for the same reason you don't find them on TV -- people aren't sufficiently interested (Jay Heyl, ibid.) ** U S A. Just listening to the local NOAA/NWS weather station. The robot woman's voice kept talking about strong winds -- and pronouncing it as if she were talking about winding a clock. Obviously they don't even have a human listen to what they produce -- nor do they have the thing properly programmed in the first place. Our tax dollars at work! (Russ Edmunds, Blue Bell, PA ( 360' ASL ), Aug 5, WTFDA via DXLD) ** U S A. WAND/WICS-WICD network swap set for Sept. 5 --- They've finally announced the date for the network swap in Central Illinois. The story can be found at http://www.sj-r.com/sections/news/stories/62835.asp (The State Journal-Register via Curtis Sadowski, WTFDA via DXLD) ** VATICAN [and non]. ITALY: 4005, Vatican Radio; 0326-0350+, 22-July; M in FF & W in --- sounds like Portuguese. Bells IS at 0340 and W continued in French. SIO=422+/ute clatter -- SSB no help. '05 Passport shows them switching from the Santa Maria di Galeria transmitter to the Vatican transmitter at 0345. No change detected if the switch was made, except that a tone appeared about 0346 which LSB eliminated (Harold Frodge, MI, MARE Tipsheet via DXLD) Well, the tone could be a heterodyne as the two carriers overlapped on slightly different frequencies (gh, DXLD) ** VENEZUELA [non]. CUBA: 11760, Radio Nacional de Venezuela; 2351- 2355*, 27-July; M in Spanish with commentary over guitar music. S20 signal but picket-fencing. // 13680 covered by strong China Radio International in English with S30 sig. S20 OC on 9820 but no audio. Chávez ought to get his money back. CRI via Canada or Cuba? [Canada -- - gh] CRI went off abruptly at 2359 and nothing back on 2400. Radio Habana came up on 9820 in Spanish after 2400, // 11760 & 9600 (Harold Frodge, MI, MARE Tipsheet via DXLD) 13680 another collision that has been going on season after season. Commies vs commies! (gh, DXLD) ** WESTERN SAHARA [non]. MARRUECOS. 7460, R. N. Saharaui, escuchada el 31 Jul, 2045-2050, en árabe, locutor con comentarios en referencias al pueblo Saharaui, SINPO 54433. 7460, R. N. Saharaui, escuchada el 3 de Agosto, 1823-1835, en árabe, locutora con comentarios, música pop local, representación teatral, SINPO 54444 (José Miguel Romero, Sacañet (Castellón), España, Noticias DX via DXLD) Not sure why he puts this in Morocco; it transmits from Algeria just over the border from Western Sahara (gh, DXLD) ** ZIMBABWE. ZBC, 6612 at 0420 with faint hint of audio on 25 July. Better at 0343 on 27 July. 3306 x 2 (Liz Cameron, MI, MARE Tipsheet via DXLD) UNIDENTIFIED. 610, JUL 23, 0850 - Poor; Caribbean soca music through R. Rebelde Cuba and domestics. Trinidad back on the air? (Bruce Conti, ME, NRC IDXD via DXLD) UNIDENTIFIED. 5054.6V, Faro del Caribe?? Today 4th August, I received Un-id station on 5054.6V kHz around 1000-1200 UT. With a misfortune, receiving state was not so good because of some QRM and very slight modulation. So I was able to check some Spanish words only. Is it Faro del Caribe? Aren't someone known? 73! (Kenji Takasaki in Mie, JAPAN with NRD-545/535D/525/515, HCDX via DXLD) UNIDENTIFIED. 8743, NO ID, escuchada el 3 de Agosto, 2138-2142, locutor en inglés con comentarios, segmento de música, SINPO 24221 (José Miguel Romero, Sacañet (Castellón), España, Noticias DX via DXLD) BLS/USB? What else on this unique frequency but Bangkok Meteorological Radio? See DXLD 5-006 (gh, DXLD) UNIDENTIFIED. Hola Glen[n], hace algunos días, el 7 julio, capté en VHF emisiones de Colombia de los canales TVN, y Nuestra Tele con muy bajo nivel de señal pero visible, además del canal 2 de Miami, y una transmisión en CW que decía algo así como "sw, Miami internacional". ¿Sabes si alguna estación en Miami transmite en CW a la 3-3:30 UT? Saludos. Se despide (desde Guatemala, su eterno oyente, Francisco López deseándoles muchos 73 y esperando ancioso sus prontas noticias, August 3, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Hola Francisco, más detalles, por favor. ¿En qué canales cada televisora, y especialmente en qué frecuencia CW desde Miami? Saludos, (Glenn to Francisco, via DXLD) TVN (ch 2), y Nuestra Tele (ch 3). Mi radio es analógica y no puedo darte con precisión las frecuencias, pero ésta la capté entre los 10 y 12 MHz; también he captado mas CW en los 8 MHz, y 7200 kHz (2-2:30, 23-23:30 UT). Sé que estas frecuencias no son muy exactas pero mi radio es analogico. Tengo una antena logarímica periódica, externa y mi receptor es un Panasonic RX 4872; espero estas frecuencias sean de alguna utilidad para ti (Francisco López, August 5, DX LISTENING DIGEST) That`s not much to go on, but does anyone know of something IDing in CW as ``SW Miami International`` around 10-12 MHz? Not sure if he means the other CW he hears on 8 MHz IDs the same. Odd that someone would have an LP antenna but only an uncalibrated analog receiver (gh, DXLD) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ UNSOLICITED TESTIMONIALS ++++++++++++++++++++++++ Re DXLD 5-130, ``PERU. 6020.31v, R. Victoria, ... Voz da Libertação / Voz de la Liberación, in Portuñol, Spanish with heavy Brazilian accent (gh)`` Hi Glenn, Thank you for the additional information. I must confess that I can only take so much of this preacher`s strange voice and therefore have never listened very long and have not even had much of an interest in sticking with it till a program ID was given. So thanks to you, I have been painlessly provided with the ID. Always appreciate your depth of DXing experience. You do increase me listening pleasure! (Ron Howard, Monterey, CA) LANGUAGE LESSONS ++++++++++++++++ THAT'S, LIKE, TOTALLY BAD RUSSIAN By Michele A. Berdy Friday, August 5, 2005. Issue 3224. Page 8. ?????????: (as a parasite word), helluva, for sure, really good Russian has a number of filler words that Russians call ?????- ????????, literally "parasite words." Sometimes they are used as intensifiers, but more often they just seem to appear in your speech all by themselves. Nasty little parasites that they are, you don't notice them until they have taken over half your utterances. And then ridding your speech of them is virtually impossible. . . http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/08/05/008.html (Moscow Times, via Gerald T. Pollard, NC, DXLD) Very amusing; if you have Russian text support (gh, DXLD) CONVENTIONS & CONFERENCES +++++++++++++++++++++++++ MADISON-MILWAUKEE GTG, SATURDAY, AUGUST 20 The 12th annual Madison-Milwaukee Get-together for DXers and Radio Enthusiasts will be held on Saturday, August 20, 2005, beginning at 1 PM CDT. This year's event will take place at Burrows Park, Madison WI, on the shores of beautiful Lake Mendota. This year's hosts are Bill and Nina Dvorak. For more information, please e-mail Bill at dxerak @ aol.com write Bill and Nina at 501 Algoma Street Madison WI 53704- 4812, or phone 608-244-5497 (via Tim Noonan, IRCA Soft DX Monitor Aug 6 via DXLD) 2005 IRCA/DECALCOMANIA CONVENTION, ANAHEIM, AUGUST 25-27 will be held on Thu. Aug. 25 through Sat. Aug 27, 2005 at the Days Inn, 1111 S. Harbor Blvd. Anaheim CA 92805 (1 block North of Disneyland) http://www.the.daysinn.com/anaheim04986 Phone number for reservations is 714-533-8830 (request the special $59 room rate.) Registration fee (not including banquet) is $25 payable to Mike Sanburn, PO Box 1256, Bellflower CA 90707-1256 - mikesanburn @ hotmail.com Activities will include station tours, business meeting, auction, and banquet --- view menu at http://www.jagerhaus.net Should have lots of stickers and airchecks. Looking forward to seeing everybody (IRCA Soft DX Monitor Aug 6 via DXLD) Greetings. This will serve as the final invitation to attend the 2005 IRCA Convention in Anaheim, CA Aug. 25-27. We're going to have an interesting group of folks participating so come join us and make your presence known. Once again we'll be on the northwest corner of Harbor and Ball Roads. We're officially welcoming Phil Bytheway's club DecalcoMania to our convention. He's now offering online memberships/subscriptions for $5 a year. Excellent! (Mike Sanburn, KG6LJU. P. O. Box 1256, Bellflow4r, California 907074- 1256, ibid.) NATIONAL RADIO CLUB/DX AUDIO SERVICE - KULPSVILLE 2005 Labor Day wknd Location: Best Western "The Inn at Towamencin", 1750 Sumneytown Pike, Kulpsville, PA 19443 (Lansdale), Phone: 215 368 3800, 800 277 3615 (reservations only). Rooms: $75 per night (mention the National Radio Club for this rate) Room sharing is limited to FOUR per room. Registration: $45 for convention and banquet/ $35 for wives, $20 for convention only, (no banquet)/ $10 for wives. Activities Friday -- Registration starting at 9 AM. Friday Evening -- An illustrated tour of AM Radio in Tampa Bay including an explanation of just what "Tampa Bay" means! Saturday morning -- Tour of Philadelphia stations WFIL-560 and WNTP-990; car pools will be arranged. Saturday afternoon -- Display of radio newspapers and magazines from the 1920s and 1930s. Complete lists of radio stations from the early 20s up to the present for your review. Saturday evening -- Annual NRC/DXAS Meeting and auction of valued treasures. Sunday morning -- Wakeup quiz (you can win all sorts of candies for yelling out correct answers to important radio station trivia). Dress Rehearsal for the October DX Audio Service Travellog featuring stations operating at 930 on the AM dial. Annual official NRC Examination with a free one-year membership going to the winner. Sunday afternoon -- Dave Marthouse will entertain with his stories of how a small AM station in a small market can not only exist, but can thrive! Sunday evening -- Annual Banquet right in the meeting hotel Guest speaker is Dave McCrork, operator of Internet Station WNAR-AM along with a Part 15 station in nearby Lansdale. Monday - Departure with a promise to re-assemble next year! PLEASE NOTE: A special program for the ladies is in the works and will be announced as soon as possible. Additional program activities are always added a week or two before each convention so watch this space as the time draws closer. Auction Items for the auction can be mailed to: Dave Schmidt, PO Box 3111, Scranton, PA 18505-0111 via regular mail. Our guest speaker will be Dave McCrork, who operates internet station WNAR-AM http://www.wnar- am.com along with a part 15 operation in Lansdale. The Best Western has a good restaurant on site but lots of others in the area. That's the info for now! Dave Schmidt, nrcmusings @ aol.com (IRCA Soft DX Monitor Aug 6 via DXLD) DIGITAL BROADCASTING ++++++++++++++++++++ Re: RTL starts DRM test transmissions to the UK on 7145 kHz, 5-130: Surely no one can dispute this is 'Ham' country, or do large broadcasting companies ignore such conventions, whilst from experience Amateurs work is mainly up to 7140 on 40 metres the usual DRM buzz is, if it covers the range as RTL expects, going to mess things up with SSB, even at 'low power' somewhat. Hasn't the time come for Broadcast authorities - if they take DRM at all seriously - to at least restrict testing to a certain band. That way, at least until DRM is proved practical (including availability of receivers as low priced as present AM radios) - and it`s nowhere near that stage if it ever will be - AM, SSB, other modes and DRM can live side by side, as AM, FM and DAB do without conflict (Rog Parsons (BDXC 782) Hinckley, Leics., Aug 4, BDXC-UK via DXLD) I am not sure what you mean by "Ham country" or that amateurs work is mainly up to 7140? The allocated amateur radio band in Region 2 (the Americas) is 7000-7300. In the other regions it is 7000-7100. However as ARRLweb reports: Effective January 2005, WRC-03 allocated the band 7100-7200 kHz to the Amateur Service in Regions 1 and 3 on a co-primary basis with broadcasting. After March 29, 2009, 7100-7200 kHz will be allocated to the Amateur Service on an exclusive basis throughout the world, except in some Region 1 and Region 3 countries. "As such, Amateur Service use of this 100 kilohertz will be on a de facto secondary basis in Regions 1 and 3 until the broadcasting service vacates the band 7100-7200 kHz at the conclusion of Schedule B in 2009," the FCC noted. "This means that amateur stations in Regions 1 and 3 will shortly be permitted to transmit in the band 7100-7200 kHz, if they can find a frequency that is not being used by an international broadcast station." There is a move by the radio amateurs to get a worldwide allocation of 7000-7300 but there are doubts whether this will be achieved, see http://www.rac.ca/~darf/40metre.htm Not all administrations have amended the licence conditions to allow amateur radio operation on 7100-7200, the UK was one of the first. But international radio stations have a perfect right to use 7100-7200. If you check the HFCC listings you will see that in most cases if a DRM test is on say 5995 there are no AM other transmissions to the region it is beaming to on 5990, 5995 or 6000, if there are that administration should put in a complaint. It certainly would be better public relations if RTL DRM could find a frequency outside of the 7100-7200 range as radio amateurs are likely to be early adopters of the technology though it must be said if you tune 7100-7200 between 1000 to 1600 it is fairly empty. It would also be better if DRM tests could take place in sub sections of the broadcast bands. The problem with that is that it would take international agreement, not all international broadcasters are thinking of DRM and they would not wish to move from their traditional frequencies where they have been for years and where they are known to be by their listeners (Mike Barraclough, ibid.) Re: TEST REPORT ON A KENWOOD IBOC/HD RECEIVER: http://www.rwonline.com/reference-room/iboc/02_rw_hd_alexander.shtml Another interesting nugget includes: "One station sounds truly great, a local independent Christian station on 910 kHz. There is no artifacting, and especially during music segments, the station sounds outstanding." I think this article is a discussion of what stations need to do to ensure a good digital signal. We have gotten lazy about the number of A-D and D-A conversions as analog didn`t seem to care, whereas digital does (go figure). With my HD Radio, the FMs (if processed PROPERLY) sound very close to CD (with a little compression for vehicular listening). They key is PROCESSING --- too much is usually the problem. There are some PDs out there that will insist on "being the loudest". To them that means MORE COMPRESSION!!!! Well, with digital you can be louder than analog without a lot of compression. My AM IBOC listening, our local Radio Disney sounds great. No consumer will be able to tell if there are any digital artifacts. On WBBM however, they have work to do as I DO hear digital artifacts. I have listened to IBOC FM from Chicago and Milwaukee. I can tell that the engineers are learning very quickly about what works and what doesn`t. I have listened to stations running two HD Radio streams (though I can only listen to the main HD signal) and there is still good audio coming out. The key is the high end and the low end. It is much improved over analog, and that is what the consumer will notice. Is the difference between HD and analog FM night and day? Well, it depends on how well the stations are processed and what the program material is. I will look forward to hearing a classical or jazz station running HD, as the nuances will come out I am sure (Kent Winrich, WI, ABDX via DXLD) WTOP IBOC INTERFERENCE TO NEIGHBORS Dear Radio Friends: First of all, I am a regular listener of WTOP and find their programming to be highly informative, particularly when I am driving around. That said, I am registering a complaint about WTOP producing a large amount of interference from its IBOC. I just drove to Germantown from here (Elkridge, Maryland) and back. The route going took us along I-70 and down MD-27. On the way back, we drove on I-270 to I-495 and then to I-95. On most of the trip, we listened to WTRI 1520 to see how much interference there was from WTOP. We noticed WTOP producing a hissing sound on 1520 just a few miles west of Baltimore and it grew worse the closer we got to Germantown. A large portion of this route took us through WTRI's primary coverage area. WTRI, of course was absolutely unlistenable in the Silver Spring area, the vicinity in which WTOP's transmitter is located. Furthermore, WTOP itself, had a hissing sound in Montgomery County, between Germantown, past Silver Spring and towards home. Imagine, a station interfering with itself. Finally, WTOP was wiping out 1490 and 1510 through most of the trip. I did not listen to 1480 for more than a few seconds, but assume it also suffers from the IBOC interference hiss. The receiver was a standard stock radio which came with my 2002 Dodge Stratus, so it is impossible to blame the radio. The noise on WTRI sounded like a high pitched hiss. My son said it sounded like the 17- year cicadas which invaded the east coast last year. I realize my reception report is not scientific in that I measured field strengths, etc., and for some it might be easy to dismiss, but I was listening in real life and found the interference to be annoying. IMO, IBOC is fatally flawed. No matter how much someone may say it sounds wonderful, no matter how much someone may say that the interference is tolerable, no matter how much someone may say that the system is wonderful for broadcasting digital signal, it is flawed. Saying that IBOC on AM is not flawed is being intellectually dishonest. I will challenge anyone who states otherwise. And, I have not even addressed issues such as nighttime skip interference or the possibility that implementing may be against international treaties (or at the very least show that we (the USA) are not good neighbors. For the record, I have no financial interest in any radio station, radio network, or radio equipment manufacturer. I am a pure listener of the radio bands (Bill Harms, Elkridge, Maryland, August 6, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Bill: Good for you. I have corresponded with WBJC/91.5 in Baltimore, alerting them to what may happen when WETA/90.9 cranks up IBOC. And here's another thing: interference with low-powered TIS-style public emergency information stations, which is looming on the horizon. As ARES EC here in Arlington, I kicked up that idea with my Citizens Corps Committee. They bit and we got a Special Temporary Authorization for one at 1700 AM. Coverage checks disclosed that even five 10 watt sites would not adequately cover the county, so we applied for a single-station version and a power waiver to go to 100 watts, which will most likely be granted. Fortunately, there are no stations here on 1680-90 which might go IBOCking. Again, Arlington is a very small county, 26 sq. miles, so we should have no problems. The other interesting thing at the low power level is that even distant commercial stations can clobber a TIS at night (Alan Bosch, IRCA via DXLD) NATIONAL RESPONSE PLAN [Re 5-130] It would be like forcing the stations that got those free FEMA gensets to have to pay back the public by providing some public service. My first comments in 99-325 indicated the NE power outage and the fact that most people's only information came from the class A AM's who for the most part had the equipment, and more importantly the staff to operate during a power outage. WJR in Detroit, WTAM in Cleveland, the NY class A's all provided info to the entire outage area during that time. TV was useless. Other stations that managed to stay on the air with gensets, had no news staff to do any reporting and had to find something to retransmit if they did anything. Nice job, Bob. Nothing better to stall things than to get another government agency involved... LOL (Paul Smith, W4KNX Sarasota, FL, NRC-AM via DXLD) Most of the stations that I've visited that got the FEMA gensets aren't using them, having instead installed working ones :-) s (Scott Fybush, ibid.) You are so right, Scott. In every case, at stations I worked for that had GI (government issue) gensets, they were usually either in extremely bad shape or unworking. In most cases, when I arrived they had already largely been abandoned in favor of newer self-contained CATs or other units. Many others I ripped out and replaced. The worst was on top of Cheyenne Mountain at the KSPZ TX site -- what a dog. It was almost dead when I go there, and finally went to its final reward about a year later. We went without because the company wouldn't spend the money on a new one. The one exception was at WPTR in Albany. Jim Cruise, the CE at time I arrived in 1977, was extremely competent with engines and had the thing tweaked nicely. It never gave us a day's problem. (I wonder how it is now, 28 years down the road; or if it has since been replaced). On the other hand, our genset here is a 47-year- old Onan that was installed back by Storer Broadcasting (remember them?) in WIBG's heyday in the late 50s. It's received pretty good maintenance over the years, and is still going strong. I'll have to show you guys who come for the tour during the NRC convention. 73, (Rene' Tetro, WFIL, etc., ibid.) TV DXING: DTV STATION SOLICITS QSL REQUESTS Message received from WSYT TV: Greetings all, Last Thursday, we upped the ERP on WSYT-DT to 621 kW, and added HD to the signal. Oddly enough, one of the beams of the antenna pattern heads towards Rochester, NY. We're interested in the coverage of the new and improved WSYT-DT. I am willing to offer QSL cards in exchange for reception reports. For those who don't know what a QSL is, it is a card that verifies your reception of WSYT-DT. Please send me an e-mail, engineering (at) wsyt68.com (address fixed to prevent harvesting). Include the date, time and program viewed, as well as signal strengths and antenna setup used. We will return a PDF QSL card to you suitable for printing. Your friends at WSYT (via Andy O`Brien, Fredonia, Aug 5, dxldyg via DXLD) DTV DX OVERRIDING LOCAL ANALOGS Here's an example that really gave me hope for DXing DTV at my location. On a couple of rare occasions, I've been able to receive (fully decoded) WBNS-DT 21, Columbus, OH at 164 miles through my local WFYI-DT 21 just 5 miles away. I NEVER thought I would see this. I have a few more success stories relating to receiving DTV signals through local/semi-local stations, like DTV signals through semi-local WTTK- 29. When I bought my first DTV receiver (RCA DTC100) 4 years ago this month, I never thought I'd be able to DX digital stations and I even became quite frustrated when I began trying it. Then the more I experimented with it, the easier it got and the more success I had. These days I enjoy DXing digital more than analog. And with PSIP it's much easier IDing the stations (Steve Rich, Indianapolis, IN, WTFDA via DXLD) PROPAGATION +++++++++++ PERSEID METEOR SHOWER PEAKS AUGUST 12 Just a reminder for TV and FM DXers. Also amateur radio operators and amateur astronomers. Subject: Countdown to the Perseids Space Weather News for 5 August 2005 http://spaceweather.com PERSEID METEORS: Don't forget, the Perseid meteor shower peaks on Friday morning, August 12th. No matter where you live, the best time to look will be during the hours before local dawn when the constellation Perseus is high in the sky. While August 12th is best, the nights before and after the 12th can be good, too. Even now, sky watchers are seeing occasional bright Perseids before dawn. Also, you can listen to the shower. Meteor radars are monitoring the skies above the USA; when a Perseid flies overhead, they record an audible "ping." Visit SpaceWeather.com for live audio, plus more information about the Perseids (via Willis Monk, TN, NRC-AM; and Mike Terry, dxldyg via DXLD) TIPS FOR RATIONAL LIVING ++++++++++++++++++++++++ CULTWATCH This page from the Institute for the Study of American Religion looks at various cults in the United States. [incl.: CS, LDS...] http://www.americanreligion.org/cultwtch/index.html (via Sheldon Harvey, Greenfield Park, Quebec, HF Radio Internet Newsletter, Aug, via DXLD) c. 1997 ###