DX LISTENING DIGEST 6-157, October 22, 2006 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 2006 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 SHORTWAVE AIRINGS OF WORLD OF RADIO Extra 72: Mon 0415 WBCQ 7415 [time varies] Wed 0930 WWCR1 9985 Latest edition of this schedule version, including AM, FM, satellite and webcasts with hotlinks to station sites and audio, is at: http://www.worldofradio.com/radioskd.html For updates see our Anomaly Alert page: http://www.worldofradio.com/anomaly.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 or http://wor.worldofradio.org WORLD OF RADIO PODCASTS: www.obriensweb.com/wor.xml ** AFGHANISTAN. US Radio Ramshackle wins over Afghan locals Christina Lamb, Naray, Afghanistan The Sunday Times October 22, 2006 ``ASSALAMU alaikum Nuristan`` may not have quite the same ring as ``Good morning, Vietnam``, but American troops stationed at the remotest base in Afghanistan are finding a makeshift radio station to be their most potent weapon in the war against Al-Qaeda-led militants. . . http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2415611,00.html (via Media Network blog via DXLD) WTFK??? Real name of the station, buried in the story, is Voice of the People; how original (gh) ** ARGENTINA. Hoy estaba escuchando en la mañana el Informe DX de Glenn Hauser por WRMI [domingo 1030 en 9955] y me di cuenta que no tocamos en este foro el caso de la señal que se viene recepcionando en distintas partes del mundo en los 13363 kHz. Sale en banda lateral. La han reportado por las noches pero se escuchaba hoy, por ejemplo, en la mañana local. Algunos dicen que es un feeder argentino y tal vez lo sea. Yo probé en LSB y USB y, si bien me quedo con la primera modalidad, no la puedo "trabajar" con mi Icom ICR75 para modularla con claridad y poder identificarla. No es, casi seguro, LS5 Radio Rivadavia. Prueben (Arnaldo Slaen, Argentina, Oct 22, condig list via DXLD) Yo sé cuál es (Enrique A. Wembagher, ibid.) Creo que \"sé\" no lleva acento, Enrique... (Ruben Guillermo Margenet, ibid.) Sure it does; to distinguish ``I know`` from the reflexive pronoun (gh, DXLD) Muy bien Aldito, yo la recepcioné desde Córdoba mientras tomaba un té de peperina. Llamálo a Enrique que tiene la posta. Saludos a todos (Gerardo Choren, ibid.) 12 OCT, 2330 UT, 13361 KHZ USB, Radio Continental, Buenos Aires. Castellano. Partido de fútbol "River", con "Paranaense". Anuncio comercial: "Rafa. El alimento para perros y gatos. Es balanceado". Buena Calidad (Adan Mur, Ñemby, Paraguay, Conexión Digital Oct 22 via DXLD) ** ARGENTINA. 13 OCT 0047 UTC 2380 KHZ (1190 x 2). LRA15, Radio Nacional San Miguel Tucumán. Partido de fútbol "River" - "Paranaense". Buena Calidad (Adan Mur, Ñemby, Paraguay, Conexión Digital Oct 22 via DXLD) ** AUSTRALIA. Re 11825: I should probably have written Sat/Sun rather than 'weekend'. It's Sunday and this frequency is carrying Chinese at 1330 in // 11660 & 9475. Please forget what I wrote. Obviously more monitoring is necessary on my part (Noel R. Green (NW England), dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) RA in Chinese 1300-1430 UT: in B-06: on 13750 Darwin instead. http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/mand/aboutus/ right column A-06 Website mentions 11825 (and 11780!), text unfortunately in Chinese letters !!!!! We need a Chinese national translation. But on http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/mand/hearus/ you will see 11825, 11760!, 11660, 9475 11760 instead of 11780??? Singapore relay 12010 1300-1430 43E,44 SNG 100 13 ceased already (Wolfgang Büschel, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** BENIN [and non]. COMMUNITY RADIO --- INSIDE WEST AFRICA’S SOCIAL LABORATORY http://www.xs4all.nl/~jmarks/CDNewsletter9.pdf Seriously. There is a lot of rubbish written about community radio. It is not about giving a radio station to a community so they can fill the airwaves with programmes. It is far more about examining how a community communicates with itself and asking whether radio would help to improve the current situation. The answer may be no – in which the case if a station is given anyway, it quickly turns into a jukebox, just turning out disc-jockeys who leave for the big cities to pursue a career in broadcasting. Too many western NGO`s give a gift of a radio station in the hope that 3 years down the road it will not only be sustainable, but is also somehow ``empowering the community``. On a trip to West Africa in July, I confirmed my suspicion that this approach is Mission Impossible. With over 2000 languages, and even more cultural groups, the reach of TV and newspapers is limited to the cities and to only the ``major`` languages. Traveling some 1400 kilometres into Northern Benin, I visited radio stations that are playing a vital role in keeping ethnic groups together – and financing their activities in very creative ways. One station in Parakou has become an African triple-play operation – a newspaper owner has started a radio station, but also runs a mobile phone company. If you phone the station, or send an SMS, using that mobile phone company, you have the chance of winning €1000 worth of mobile phone calls. The income from the SMS`s amounts to around €2500 a month. This is a huge income when many of these stations are running on an operating budget of between 15 and 20,000 Euros a year. That kind of solutions works in cities – in more rural Benin I saw stations becoming the communications centre for the village, offering market prices for local crops, fax and Internet services, even offering to make wedding photos and videos for the public. In short, they had found ways to pay the bills. Traveling in Northern Benin was amazing. I`d expected jungle, but wasn`t prepared for what they call the ``Benin Gap``. It was more like Yorkshire, gently rolling hills and green all the way in mid July after the rainy season. Great country for FM transmissions – they travel for hundreds of kilometres if the antenna is high enough. In this part you could hear stations from Togo and Nigeria booming in on the car radio. The challenge for international broadcasters in this region of Africa is that most local stations make their money using local African languages at the morning/evening peak times, so many of the local relays of stations like Radio France Internationale and BBC World Service are moving to nonpeak hours. The other challenge is that each international broadcaster arrives with its own proprietary system of delivering audio streams to the partner stations. Station managers complained to me that that they do not use many feeds because they have no way of storing feeds for later transmission - ``do you see a technician?`` What they want is a data delivery system via satellite that would put audio files and texts into a dedicated folder on their station PC. Income from announcements (marriages, deaths, music requests) and ads from local business is priced 5-6 times higher in local languages than in French or English. Many other stations like South Africa`s Channel Africa, Voice of Nigeria and particularly Voice of America, appear to have only a shadow of their former influence in West Africa. That`s because they have not really pursued a policy of working with local stations, rather than competing with them for listeners` attention. Shortwave radios were available in the commercial centres I visited, but clearly marketed at aid workers, expats – stands in the countryside had only AM and FM radios. Many cars imported second-hand from Europe and Asia have only the FM waveband on the car audio system. No local community station would survive by using AM since most listeners find the station by accident – the AM dial for most people is dead, or using languages they don`t understand (Jonathan Marks, Oct Critical Distance Gossip E-zine, illustrated, via DXLD) ** BOLIVIA. 4937.14v - 4937.04, Radio San Miguel, Riberalta, 2245- 2359, Oct. 21, Spanish, Soccer match, program "La Semana, Pop Music, Comments by man, tc "seis de la tarde con cincuenta y seis minutos" "...en Radio San Miguel" better in LSB, 24242 (Nicolás Eramo, Lat: 34º34'49S, Long: 58º32'26W, Villa Lynch, Prov. Buenos Aires, Argentina, Receivers: Icom IC-R75, Kenwood R-2000, Sony ICF 2010; Antennas: T2FD with balun 3.1, V Inverted 15 mts with balun 1.1, V Inverted 11 mts with balun 1.1, Longwire 15 metros, MFJ-959B Receiver Antenna Tuner/Preamplifier, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** BRAZIL. Recently on the radioescutas list there was another complaint of RNA being on the `same` frequency as R. Guaíba. Perto, but no charuto; Oct 22 at 2202 I measured RNA with its usual excellent signal on about 11783.2, and no trace of Guaíba here, nominal 11785. A few weeks ago RNA was also varying in the 11783 area from its nominal and usual 11780 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Amigos, Vou passar mais uma vez o recado para o setor técnico da rádio. Parece que os transmissores da Radio Nacional da Amazônia estão sucateados desde a época em que o Ernesto Geisel inaugurou a rádio (Lucio Haeser, Brasília, Oct 22, radioescutas via DXLD) ** CANADA. Writer Releases "I'm Not Wearing Pants - True Tales From Canadian Radio Gals" --- Calgary AB from Kelsi Jordan http://groups.yahoo.com/group/radioinmontreal/message/12728?l=1 October is Breast Cancer Awareness month and here's a great way to show your support. Pick up the hilarious new book, "I'M NOT WEARING PANTS, True Tales from Canadian Radio Gals". A portion of the proceeds go directly to the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation. I'M NOT WEARING PANTS is full of embarrassing, silly and touching stories from almost 50 female announcers across Canada. The book is a behind-the-scenes peek at the world of radio, and the gals have shared some hilarious stories (think underwear, swearing, stalkers and sex in a tent!) There are also emotional stories from two of the radio ladies who have been diagnosed with breast cancer, and one gal who lost her mom to the disease. Announcers that have generously shared their time include: [. . .] I'M NOT WEARING PANTS is $23 including GST and shipping to your door - it's available at http://www.theradiogirl.com October is Breast Cancer month - if you know of anyone who may be interested in "I'M NOT WEARING PANTS", please give them a heads-up and help raise some cash for a great cause! (via Sheldon Harvey, radioinmontreal yg via DXLD) ** CANADA. Early radio history: see end of RADIO EQUIPMENT FORUM ** CHILE. Here`s another harmonic to look for on the 19 MHz band besides Gabon 19160: CVC on 19270, 2 x 9635. Adan Mur says it was booming into Paraguay; 9635 is currently scheduled 13-22 UT and from B-06 is to expand to 12-24, in Spanish on 30 degree beam (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Viz.: 21 SET 1854 UT, 19270 KHZ, CVC Voz Cristiana, Chile. Castellano. Música moderna evangélica. Calidad Superlativa (Adan Mur, Ñemby, Paraguay, Conexión Digital Oct 22 via DXLD) ** CHINA. Firedrake logs: 7495 22/10 Firedrake Jamming, 15:19, SINPO 33443 10450 22/10 Firedarke Jamming, 11:24, SINPO 24332 11520 22/10 Firedrake Jamming, 14:37, SINPO 44444 11560 22/10 Firedrake Jamming, 11:38, SINPO 34433 12085 22/10 Firedrake Jamming, 16:21, SINPO 44444 14700 22/10 Firedrake Jamming, 14:42, SINPO 32342 17565 22/10 Firedrake Jamming, 11:22, SINPO 45544 (José Miguel Romero, Spain, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CUBA [and non]. Oct 22 at 2148 found almost-open carrier on 9515 leading up to R. Martí opening at hourtop on its new frequency. Almost open, because I could already hear some weak RM modulation on 9515, // 9565 which was heavily jammed, but no jamming yet on 9515. At 2149 a tone test briefly overrode the weak audio on 9515. I am hearing those rapid clicks as previously reported on 6081 and elsewhere, in the vicinity of dentroCuban jamming against R. Martí, so I think they are spurs from the jamming. Oct 22 at 2151 on 9630 approx., hard to pinpoint with no carrier, which is 65 kHz above 9565; and also around 11981-11982 at 2204, which is 51-52 kHz above 11930. There was nothing in particular on 9630 or 11980 which would be a target of deliberate jamming (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ECUADOR. 8 OCT 0840 UTC 3810 KHZ, HD210A, Guayaquil, Ecuador. Instituto Oceanográfico de la Armada Ecuatoriana. Hora Exacta. Calidad Variable (Adan Mur, Ñemby, Paraguay, Conexión Digital Oct 22 via DXLD) Axually it`s HD2IOA, as I have to point out repeatedly. The IOA letters, not numbers, match the name of the agency (gh) ** EGYPT. R. Cairo and WYFR didn`t learn their lesson last winter; once again they are destined to collide on 11885 during R. Cairo`s North American service in English at 2300-2430, as per tentative B-06 schedule in DXLD 6-156. (Cairo has been in the clear on 11950 during the A-season.) WYFR will be scheduled: 11885 2300-0145 140 13 100 That is, aimed at Brazil, but we know this puts plenty of signal off the back toward us, effectively blocking Cairo in much of NAm. I assume Cairo still isn`t participating in HFCC, allowing everyone else to assume it is not on the frequencies it is on (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** GABON. 19160 África Nº 1, armónico de 9580, 11:44-11:50, escuchada el 22 de Octubre en francés a locutor con boletín de noticias en paralelo por 17630, sin embargo no consigo captar nada en 9580, SINPO 24332 (José Miguel Romero, Spain, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ANO harmonic, 19160 = 2 X 9580, Oct 22 audible when first checked at 1351 with hilife music. Still audible, much later than before when next checked at 2208 in French talk, deep fades between S7 and about 5 over S9; and still there at 2224-2240 with hilife music. This is getting close to local midnite in Gabon. Perhaps some T-E propagation primarily observed on VHF is in play for part of this path (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) See also CHILE ** INDONESIA. RRI, 9525 was back on, Sunday Oct 22 at 1348 with music and Indo announcements. I was not listening closely after that, but I heard no Suara Indonesia ID, NA at 1358 as is usual. Instead, mostly music continued and modulation ended around 1400 but carrier stayed on well past 1400 causing a rippling SAH against China in Russian. Therefore I suspect some other RRI service was on the frequency this date. Maybe it was // 11860 as I see in next log (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 11860, RRI Jakarta, 1355-1408, escuchada el 22 de Octubre en indonesio a locutor con ID, emisión musical y cuña sobre el ramadán, SINPO 44444 (José Miguel Romero, Spain, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ISRAEL. Israel Radio B06 / 2006-2007 shortwave schedule --- I just received the full Israel Radio schedule from Moshe Oren. Here are the English and Hebrew schedules in Israel Standard Time. Israel is UTC +2. I am not converting the times right now, to make sure that I do not introduce any errors. The schedule is valid from October 29, 2006 until March 31, 2007. The complete schedule should be posted on http://www.iba.org.il/reception/index.asp?classto=Shortwaves http://www.iba.org.il/doc/shortwaves.pdf and http://israelradio.org/sw.htm within the next few days. Actually, at least until next week, the B06 schedule URL on israelradio.org is: http://israelradio.org/winter06.htm [GH HAS CONVERTED TO UT --- THOSE PROVINCIAL ISRAELIS! And removed all the unnecessary clutter of colons and commas in the numbers; periods] English 0430-0445 N America/W Europe @6280 9345 N America/W Europe 7545 Central America/Australia 17600 1030-1045 N America/W Europe 15760 N America/W Europe 17535 1830-1845 N America/W Europe 9345 N America/W Europe 7545 N America/W Europe 6985 2000-2025 N America/W Europe @6280 9345 N America/W Europe 7545 South Africa 15640 @ = Valid from 15 12 06 to 28 2 07 Hebrew 0500-0600 N America/W Europe 7545 0600-1030 N America/W Europe 15760 1130-1300 N America/W Europe 15760 1300-1500 N America/W Europe 13630 1900-2000* N America/W Europe 7545 2100-0430 N America/W Europe 7545 2100-2215 S America/Spain 11585 *1900-2000 is Mabat TV (Hebrew) news (via Doni Rosenzweig, DXLD) ** JAPAN. EDITORIAL/NHK under state orders --- 10/19/2006 http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200610190132.html Japan Broadcasting Corp. (NHK) is an independent media organization, not a propaganda tool for the government. So why is Yoshihide Suga, the minister of internal affairs and communications, oblivious to this obvious fact? Last week, Suga told reporters he would consider ordering NHK to give heavier coverage to the issue of North Korea's abductions of Japanese citizens in its international shortwave radio service. Nobody would dispute the urgent need to resolve this long-standing problem. It is also clear that all means available must be mobilized to stop North Korea's reckless and dangerous behavior, which has escalated to seriously threatening acts like test-firings of ballistic missiles and a nuclear test. But freedom of expression and freedom of the press are both foundations of democracy. As the head of the ministry supervising broadcasting media, Suga should be very sensitive to this issue. The broadcasting law guarantees editorial freedom of broadcasters, stipulating they should not be subject to intervention or discipline by anybody. The law, however, allows the communications minister to issue orders to NHK with regard to the content of programs for its international services. This is the obligation imposed on NHK for receiving about 2 billion yen of annual government subsidies. Suga's move is based on this arrangement. Yet the government's financial support only covers 20 to 30 percent of NHK's budget for international shortwave radio service, with the rest financed by fees paid by viewers. It is impossible to distinguish the parts of international programs created independently from those that reflect government orders. And NHK has covered the abduction issue as the occasion may demand. Therefore, previous governments have respected its independence. All that the government has demanded abstractly so far is that the public broadcaster should provide programs on "current events" and "the government's important policies." It is not surprising that Toranosuke Katayama, a former communications minister, has voiced skepticism about Suga's proposal. "It is necessary to communicate accurate information about the abduction problem to overseas audiences, but I doubt the wisdom of trying to do so through government orders. It is not the right way," he said. In handing the minister's order in March to NHK, senior ministry officials apparently referred to some specific topics as appropriate for the broadcaster's international programs, including the abduction issue. But citing specific topics in the minister's order is quite different from oral requests from senior officials. Suga's action, a radical break with the tradition, raises suspicions that he is in a rush to do something to help his boss, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who boosted his political reputation by taking a hard-line stance toward Pyongyang over the abduction dispute. The broadcaster needs to clearly show its determination to refuse any intervention in its editorial decisions, like this case. If it fails to do so, viewers would believe that NHK hangs on the government's sleeves and would turn their backs on the broadcaster. If the government starts demanding greater say on NHK's programs in return for its subsidies, the broadcaster should give serious consideration to declining the government's money to free itself from the obligation. Viewers' trust in NHK would support its mission as a news organization. From this point of view, NHK's plan to turn to the courts to deal with viewers who don't pay the fees for its services cannot be described as a wise strategy. We understand that NHK must respond to the feelings of unfairness among viewers who pay the fees. Legal action would probably prod many fee dodgers into paying their dues. But such a step would be nothing more than a band-aid solution to the problems. The government and the Liberal Democratic Party are even discussing penalties for nonpayment of the NHK fees. Is this an attempt by the government to make NHK toe its line by offering help for the broadcaster's struggling efforts to collect fees? This seems a good guess given what Suga is trying to do. Dancing to the government's tune would be suicidal for NHK. To survive as a public broadcaster, NHK must maintain its independence and create quality programs through dialogue with viewers. -- The Asahi Shimbun, Oct. 18 (IHT/Asahi: October 19, 2006) (via Mike Cooper, DXLD) ** KOREA NORTH [non]. See JAPAN ** LATVIA. 9290, Radio Marabu via Ulbroka. Full data 'Marabu Bird' QSL card, with sticker, information / application form sheet, in nine days, after sending a 2nd follow-up (e-mail ) for a total of 9 months. v/s: illegible (Edward Kusalik, Alberta, CANADA, Oct 22, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** MALAYSIA. 7295, Traxx FM, Oct. 21. 06, 1417-1502. Noted with a variety program which featured everything from hip-hop to rap music by groups. One selection called 'Love on the Run'. Also noted a time check for 'half past ten at the BoH). Noted ID's such as: Traxx FM, the show of shows (at 1419); FM 98.7 on your dial, Traxx FM (at 1455). Noted 2 - time notes (ToH), then 'from the News Center in Kuala Lumpur'. Newscast in English followed. Signal peaking after local sunrise at 8:12 AM [MDT]. With a solid signal of S5 or better. One of the best receptions of this station to date. Tnx to Ron Howard on keeping us posted on these stations (Edward Kusalik, Alberta, CANADA, Oct 22, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Re 6-155, two stations on 6050: Hi Glenn, After Oct 25, will again check this to see if the het might be Sibu and end at 1500. On Oct 22, noted Suara Islam program (RTM) on 6049.65, from 1451 to 1507, with dominant signal against the het, which did not end at 1500 (Ron Howard, Monterey, CA, RX340 + T2FD antenna, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) My typo; start date is Oct 29, like all B-06 skeds (gh, DXLD) ** MONGOLIA. 2 OCT, 1022 UT, 12085 KHZ, Voice of Mongolia. Inglés. Lectura de cartas de los oyentes. Identificación a las 1029, con la lectura del horario y de las frecuencias. Buena Calidad (Adan Mur, Ñemby, Paraguay, Conexión Digital Oct 22 via DXLD) 12085, Voice of Mongolia, 1020-1032, escuchada el 21 de Octubre en inglés a locutora con comentarios, emisión de música pop local, sintonía, ID, SINPO 24332 (José Miguel Romero, Spain, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** MYANMAR. 5985.8, Myanma Radio, Oct 22, 1508-1555, in English; pop song (``Only The Good Die Young``), 1515 marching music, ``. . Myanmar time``, news (lists activities of the various military members of the State Peace and Development Council, UN & N. Korea, figures regarding the increase in Internet activity, etc.), weather for Myanmar and Myanmar waters, slogans/pep talk (law & order, state constitution and the development of the economy), 1530 program of EZ listening non-stop instrumental music (``Sealed With A Kiss``, ``I`ll Be There``, etc.), poor-fair. By 1555 the splatter from 5990 was heavy (Ron Howard, Monterey, CA, RX340 + T2FD antenna, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** NETHERLANDS [non]. Oct 22 at 2158 I noticed an open carrier on 11730 but kept tuning. When I came back shortly after 2200 I heard R. Nederland in Spanish opening the program Ciencia y Salud. Wait a minute; altho 11730 is an old RN frequency I remember from my earliest monitoring of Lopik, RN has no Spanish broadcast scheduled at 2200 on this or any other frequency! And 11730 is not on the current RN schedule at http://www.radionetherlands.nl/features/media/schedule060326.html nor is it on the B-06 Spanish schedule we already have, in DXLD 6-155. However, RN does plan to use 11730 in B-06, from Bonaire, in Dutch during this same hour to NWAf. I can only assume this was a test in advance of that. RN Spanish programming feed is available 24 hours on satellite, and Ciencia y Salud appears with many repeats on Sundays, perhaps currently at 2200 but not then in the B-06 program schedule (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 11730, R N de Venezuela, 2236-2258, escuchada el 21 de Octubre en español, a locutora con comentarios sobre las elecciones en Ecuador, programa ``Ronda Informativa Latinoamericana``, manifestación de protesta estudiantil en Chile para la mejora en la educación, SINPO 33433 (José Miguel Romero, Spain, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) I don`t think this was Venezuela; was it // 11670? The next day we had R. Nederland programming during that hour on 11730, see our Oct 22 log and discussion; and I see in the B-06 RN Spanish program schedule a title like that: Ronda Informativa ALER --- Minutos: 30 La Asociación Latinoamericana de Educación Radiofónica presenta desde Quito, Ecuador, un programa de noticias y análisis con la participación de 14 países del continente y del Caribe. Sábado 22.28 Ronda Info. ALER 30’ (repetición del viernes) Altho with 14 stations involved it may well be carried on other outlets. Did you get an ID on 11730 as RNV? (Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** NEW ZEALAND. RNZI Analog Alive and Well --- Glenn, I refer to your question regarding RNZI analog operations in the Hard-Core DX mailing list. At least some times and frequencies continue as normal. Listening as I write this at 0610 UT on 22 Oct to RNZI on 13730. They are putting a good to excellent signal into the Central Philippines this afternoon (local time). Regards, (T. C. Patterson, Cebu, Philippines, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Yes, Glenn, I listened to RNZI last night, October 21st, on 13730 analog for about forty five minutes, starting around 0210 UT [10/22]. The audio was a relay of several short stories or plays from the National Radio feed. The signal seemed weaker than in the past, only around S1 to no indication at all, but since the frequency is without interference the signal was quite listenable. I just checked tonight at 0214 and they're again on the frequency but still weak. I attributed the weaker signal to tropospheric changes related to the onset of our winter season in the northern hemisphere; the signal showed only small slow variations in strength and was without polar flutter. I checked again at 0230 and found the signal stronger, S1 to S2 (Richard Howard, Burnsville, NC, DX-440, 150' long wire oriented northwest/southeast, DX LISTENING DIGEST) I might have thought 7145 was too weak to hear, except 6095 was plenty strong in DRM during the 1300 hour (gh, DXLD) ** OKLAHOMA. I've always wanted to apply for a license on 105.7 and 106.3, first from midnight-5 am here in OKC, be denied, of course, then put a pirate up on OU's channels after they sign off and challenge the FCC to come give me grief over it. Since they aren't utilizing the spectrum allocated to them, I think it would be a fun challenge to their stupidity in court. I mean, if you're using type- certified equipment transmitting within normal halo of coverage, and on when they AREN'T, how can the government say you're causing harmful interference to licensed stations? Effectively they are hoarding the channels and only using them for their convenience. With that being said, it's perfectly legal for them to do that, but it SHOULD be perfectly legal for anyone who first sees fit to ask to use them when they won't (OKCRadioGuy, Oct 14, radio-info.com Oklahoma board via DXLD) There is still a pirate at 107.1 in NW/NC Oklahoma City. It is airing an internet stream for some tin-foil hat wearing type of group out of Texas (Milton77, ibid.) R. Free Austin relaying Republic (gh, DXLD) ** PERU. 4990.93, R. Ancash, 0914-0940, 21 Oct, Nice campesino music, 0921 M and W in Aymara in slight echo, then very long canned ad block 0923-0929. One ad mentioned Huaraz, and another ``Huaraz, Ancash``, Marañón, and phone numbers. 0929-0933 live M returned over music with presumed comunicados with people`s names and phone numbers, and mentioned María, Amazonas, Huaraz, oficina. Back to music at 0933. 0936 M song announcements and ID sounding like ``Radio Anc`` (dropping the ``ash``). Next song by Antonio ?? Another quick ID and mention of Ancash at 0939, mention of Perú, and very nice clearer animated ID. Glad to see this one is still on or returned since other stations have been going dark. Had to use USB to avoid QRM from Surinam 4990 (Dave Valko, Dunlo PA, HCDX via DXLD) ** PERU. 5024.94, Radio Quillabamba, Quillabamba, 2236-2241, Oct 21, Spanish, Comunicados, Ads, Musical Program "Andean Music", ID "Radio Quillabamba.....", 24432 (Nicolás Eramo, Lat: 34º34'49S, Long: 58º32'26W, Villa Lynch, Prov. Buenos Aires, Argentina, Receivers: Icom IC-R75, Kenwood R-2000, Sony ICF 2010; Antennas: T2FD with balun 3.1, V Inverted 15 mts with balun 1.1, V Inverted 11 mts with balun 1.1, Longwire 15 metros, MFJ-959B Receiver Antenna Tuner/Preamplifier, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** PERU. 1110 kHz, Radio Antarki (anteriormente utilizaba su nombre Radio Sonora). Sobre la información irradiada en el programa Monitor DX via WRMI 9955 khz del colega Daniel Camporini, el día sábado 7 de octubre a las 2350 UT aproximado. Agrego esta información para posibles conclusiones. Radio Antarki no es una nueva estación del espectro radioeléctrico limeño. Su nombre que usaba anteriormente era "Radio Sonora 1110 kHz" (Referencias CXND,s del año 2004, 2005 junio). Encontrarán que en las tardes y noches se hacía llamar "Radio Antarki". Una vez escuché decir emisora del Grupo Antarki. Revisando archivos de un recorte que tenía del año 1991, mes de marzo, específicamente la revista Oiga, encuentro que figura como "Radio Antarki". Así en la lista que confeccioné entre el 18 al 28 de octubre del año 1996 se hace llamar Radio Antarki. Varios años despues se haría llamar "Radio Sonora 1110 kHz". Este nombre parece ser que lo han usado hasta ciertos meses de este año 2006. Realizando escuchas más continuas, de lo que "era" Radio Sonora, ahora Radio Antarki, he notado que ha variado su programación e inclusive, como se informa en el programa Monitor DX, tiene su Website http://www.radioantarkiperu.com/ Le agrego este link : http://web.radioant arkiperu.com/index.php e-mail: radioantarki @ terra.com.pe telf. 537-3204 Lima Direccion: Av. Gerardo Unger 6347, San Martín de Porres, Lima, Perú. Aparte se hace alusión en sus identificaciones a: "Antarki, una Emisora Joven", esto crea cierta confusión, ya que uno supondría que en efecto es una nueva emisora en el espacio radioeléctrico de Lima. IDs "Antarki, una emisora joven con identidad nacional" ID 2, "Usted sintoniza, Antarki, una emisora joven, que promueve la integración nacional, 1110 kilohertz, amplitud modulada" 9 de octubre: relog, OM "cu, cu, cu / ésta es la hora en Radio Antarki, 10 de la noche, son las 10 en punto" ID "Radio Antarki, una emisora joven con identidad nacional, 1110 kilohertz amplitud modulada, estudios Avenida Gerardo Unger ?347, Lima, Perú. (la última ID es referida vía programa Monitor DX + audio del día 7 de octubre). La estación se identifica bastante en sus transmisiones, irradia algunas noticias, principalmente programas de música vernacular, entre otros. Noté también que la estación tiene señal débil (R. Antarki 1110, R. Comas 1300, RI 1550, señales débiles en Lima); ya ni se menciona a Radio Sonora; cada lapso de tiempo hacen click para poner en el aire el sonido de "Reloj cu, cu" y dar la hora (Héctor Álvaro Gutiérrez, Lima, Perú, Conexión Digital Oct 22 via DXLD) ** POLAND. I was not aware of a behaviour by the Leszczynka station to run open carriers for extended periods so far, but today I found 5965 on already at 1015, a quarter hour before the Polish broadcast at 1030 was to start. Well, it was sort of open carrier, since it had lots of the well-known noises on it. Found // 7285 at 1026, no idea when it came on. Audio started at 1029, but on 5965 it got almost buried under the noises. Polish program finished at 1055, 5965 went off at about 1056 and after consulting the schedules I found 6180, the next frequency for Russian, already on at 1058 tune-in. 7285 stayed on during the five minute break between Polish and Russian. Next transmission was German from 1130 on 5965 and 9525 which both came on within seconds of each other (or even simultaneously) at 1128. 5965 was of the same poorish quality than after 1015, but 9525 -- surprise, surprise! -- had no obvious noises and almost stronger modulation (although it still left something to be deserved). So 9525 was apparently not the same transmitter than either 6180 or 7285 before. I understand that four transmitters are still usable at Leszczynka, so probably no transmitter retuning at all takes place before 1200 (Kai Ludwig, Germany, Oct 22, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ROMANIA. RRI's special Sunday magazine in Romanian noted around 1030 on 11830 and 15250, with a constant crackling on the latter frequency. HFCC file shows Galbeni as site for both (Kai Ludwig, Germany, Oct 22, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** RUSSIA. ANNA POLITKOVSKAYA REMEMBERED PROMINENT JOURNALIST, KREMLIN CRITIC, SHOT DEAD IN MOSCOW Anna Politkovskaya, a prominent Russian journalist known for her critical coverage of the war in Chechnya, was shot dead in her apartment building in Moscow on October 7. Prosecutors have opened an investigation into the shooting, which they say could have been a "premeditated murder." Press watchdogs and rights activists have condemned the killing. . . http://www.rferl.org/reports/mm/2006/10/15-121006.asp (RFE/RL via DXLD) ** RUSSIA. Re 5940 ``Let`s seek out another opinion: PWBR `2006` says 5940 at this hour in summer is Magadan Radio, via Yakutsk. The two are 20 degrees of longitude apart, Yakutskbeing roughly 1 megameter inland to the west, and the next city of any consequence (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)`` Since writing my reply to you I have noted via another source (Passport) 'Magadan Radio via Yakutsk'. I have to hold up my hand and say that this is news to me, and I had overlooked the HFCC registrations. If it is correct, then it means that all four 100 kW transmitters at Arman (if that's where they were) have been closed down. Latterly, two were on air via 5940 (or 5935) and 7320. The others used to operate on two 9 MHz frequencies but have been off air for some time. Unfortunately I can't verify what I briefly hear on 5940 due to DTK splatter x 5945 and 7320 is blocked by BBC DRM around 0700 - the best time to hear these at my location. Below I have extracted IAK frequencies registered with the HFCC in A- 06 (all that I can find). Note the azimuth on 5940 & 7320. But at one time TDP showed only one 100 kW transmitter at IAK - I have nothing more up to date. Agreed - Yakutsk and Magadan are about 1200 km apart, and the IAK site should be able to cover the Magadan region, but why Magadan Radio when SW only relays Rossii? Has this changed? Maybe there is someone out there who can update us on this matter. Noel R. Green (NW England) [all: 1234567 260306 291006] 5940 1700 1300 24-26 IAK 50 40 0 103 D RUS RRS GFC 1563 6060 1900 1500 23,33,34 IAK 20 0 0 925 D RUS RRS GFC 1577 7140 1900 1500 23 IAK 5 0 0 925 D RUS RRS GFC 1607 7200 1900 1500 23,24 IAK 20 0 0 925 D RUS RRS GFC 1618 7320 1700 1300 24-26 IAK 100 45 0 148 D RUS RRS GFC 1648 7345 1900 1500 23 IAK 100 310 0 902 D RUS RRS GFC 1660 (Noel Green, dxldyg via DXLD) Where is Arman, relative to Magadan and Yakutsk? It`s not in the index of my Times Atlas -- but then its mapping of that worldpart is deficient. O, I see you originally referred to Magadan (Arman) so I guess it is a suburb of Magadan (Glenn, ibid.) On page 93 of the current WRTH Arman is marked on the map where Magadan appears in my Atlas. But maybe those with Google Earth can locate exactly where it is? I only put Arman in brackets as that is the location usually given for the Magadan station. Possibly it is a similar situation to Murmansk where the transmitter is actually located at Monchegorsk, some way to the south. And by the way, the two 9 mHz channels formerly used were 9600 (went off first) and 9530. Both were audible here on winter time mornings. My first encounter with the station though was in the local evening when signing on using a oob frequency in the 122XX range long ago (Noel R. Green, ibid.) Magadan - Arman' - Raduzhnyi in low resolution, 59 42 27N, 150 10 27E (Victor Rutkovsky, ibid.) i.e. with Google Earth (gh) Thanks Victor - that places it not too far from Magadan itself I think (Noel Green, ibid.) Kind of a suburb; it's on the shore 35 km west of Magadan. There are not only four shortwave transmitters but also a 1000 kW for longwave 234 kHz. Were 5940 and 7320 kHz really moved to transmitters at Yakutsk? The HFCC filings are notoriously inaccurate for Russian transmitters, rather a bureaucratic procedure than something related to real-world operations, so I'm a bit sceptical here. A complete closure of the Arman station would concern the longwave transmitter as well. What goes now out on 5940 and 7320 in fact? A few years ago there were reports about the Arman shortwave transmitters no longer carrying GTRK Magadan programming (// 234) but instead a plain feed of Radio Rossii now. But I think there were not too long ago some hints about Magadan programming being heard on these frequencies again. And I think that 6075 was another frequency used in recent years from Arman (Kai Ludwig, Germany, ibid.) ** RUSSIA. Special EDXC conference broadcast by Radio Gardarika 1000-1100 via the Krasny Bor / Popovka transmitters came in with good tho not superstrong signals on both 12010 and 15640, with at times one and at other times the other frequency being the stronger one. Long interviews, first in English, then in Russian, hard to follow due to muffled audio. The short music interludes sounded better, so it appears that this problem was at least partly caused by the studio set-up (Kai Ludwig, Germany, Oct 22, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) SPBRC, Radio Gardarika, EDXC 2006 --- Came in late today, switched on the radio set late around 1045 UT. 12010 S=9+10 dB muffled audio. 15640 S=9+50 dB superb, and much better audio quality. 1045-1057 discussion in Russian language, most likely Valentina Krasnopolskaya and male editor of Radio Gardarika? Discussed radio matters, like radio program format, DRM-digital radio, culture, radiostantsiya matter. Jazz music at 1057 til 1100:03 UT. 15460 at St. Petersburg-Popovka site switched off at 1100:34 (Wolfgang df5sx Büschel, Stuttgart, Germany, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Not too strong signals here in Finland at my QTH. Had some TV receiver QRM. 12010 was weakish, 15640 better but not even near S9 here. Yep, audio not very sharp and sounded like undermodulated. Any change in QSL policy after some complaints recently in the DX-press :-)? (Jari Savolainen, Kuusankoski, Finland, HCDX via DXLD) R. Gardarika, 12010 at 1000 + crashstart at 0959 with talks, then with presenter Alexander ??? talking to Anker Petersen about the EDXC conference. Nice to hear Anker! He made a mention of several countries of W and E Europe - possibly other conferences of EDXC. Music at 1009; at 1010 Kibor Shvrutin talks from R Gardarika. At 1026 program changed to Russian language. Signals: 12010 with 44334 S10 and 15640 with 45444 S10 (Zacharias Liangas, Greece, DX LISTENING DIGEST) The English part was on from 1000 thru 1023 UT. Here in Munich on 12010 bad/unusable, on 15640 OK. - AJK (Dr. Anton J. Kuchelmeister, HCDX via DXLD) ** RUSSIA [and non]. Utility logs from Russia: 11 September 4712 / 17.50 / RUS / SSB / avia / Miniralnyy Vody. Stavropol. 6528 / 16.10 / UKR / SSB / naval / Kherson-2 13 September 6516 / 17.30 / UKR / SSB / naval / Sevastopol-3 6522 / 17.40 / RUS / SSB / naval / Astrakhan-1. 4712 / 18.00 / RUS / SSB / avia / Vorkuta, Koltsovo, Ufa, Penza, Volgograd.... 19 September 5195 / 16.30 / SSB / UKR / avia / "Kipazh", "Tisina" ..... 5025 / 17.40 / SSB / RUS / avia / "Melodiya-2". 5568 / 17.45 / SSB / RUS / avia / "Tal"" Tosna"< Avropa" ..... 21 September 5586 / 14.00 / SSB / RUS / avia / Orenburg, Kirov, Penza..... 4408 / 16.00 / SSB / RUS / naval / Astrakhan-1 // 4116 2869 / 17.20 / SSB / RUS / meteo / Samara-meteo. 22 September 6501 / 06.40 / SSB / UKR / naval / Odessa-136 // 6501, 8707, 12371 kHz 6513 / 06.45 / SSB / UKR / naval / Izmail radio 25 September 3865 / 05.00 / SSB / RUS / avia / "Auropa", "Kaktus"..... 4696 / 08.40 / SSB / RUS / ? / Tyurik. Weather Report 8805 / 09.10 / SSB / RUS / naval / Astrakhan-1 // 8282 27 September 11279 / 08.50 / SSB / UZB / meteo / Tashkent meteo. Weather Report 28 September 8713 / 08.40 / SSB / UKR / naval / Kiev radio 6405 / 08.57 / SSB / RUS / ? / "Redok"/ "Lopotok"..... (Nikolay Ozerov, Shebekino, Belgorodskaya oblast, Rus-DX via DXLD) ** SLOVAKIA. Slovakia on SW from Oct 29 for two months --- Radio Slovakia International programming will be definitely carried on shortwave again from next Sunday. For the time being this arrangement will be in force for two months. This according to today's mailbag show of the German service (Markus Weidner via A-DX mailing list) [Original message includes a schedule for German which is apparently in accordance with the already posted one. The 0800 transmission will be another repeat of the previous day's broadcast, first airing at 1430.] -----Original Message----- Date: Sun, 22 Oct 2006 16:20:01 +0200 Subject: [A-DX] Radio Slowakei International ab kommenden Sonntag wieder auf Kurzwelle From: "Markus Weidner" Radio Slowakei International kehrt ab kommenden Sonntag, 29. Oktober, definitiv wieder auf Kurzwelle zurück. Zunächst wird für zwei Monate wieder auf Kurzwelle gesendet. Das wird in der heutigen Hörerpostsendung angekündigt, die über WRN und online auf www.rsi.sk zu hören ist. Hier der Sendeplan für das deutsche Programm auf Kurzwelle ab kommenden Sonnntag: 14.30-15.00 Uhr UTC 6055 und 7345 kHz 17.00-17.30 Uhr UTC 5915 und 6055 kHz 19.00-19.30 Uhr UTC 5915 und 7345 kHz 08.00-08.30 Uhr UTC 5915 und 6055 kHz ---------- Markus Weidner, Im Ziegelacker 20 - D-63599 Biebergemünd (via Kai Ludwig, dxldyg via DXLD) ** SOUTH CAROLINA [non]. 27 SET, 1730 UT, 17810 KHZ, UN Radio, vía Ascension. Inglés. Noticiero, destacando las actividades de la ONU en el desarrollo internacional. Interferida por una transmisión del "Overcomer Ministry, Brother Stair" (Adan Mur, Ñemby, Paraguay, Conexión Digital Oct 22 via DXLD) Which was not supposed to be on at that hour (gh) ** TURKEY. Audio of Voice of Turkey in Turkish on 11955 and 15350, observed around 1030, is about a half second apart although both frequencies are listed as Çakirlar. No modulation problems on either transmitter. 11955 suffered from co-channel interference with a rather nasty het. Who could be the culprit, C-something Voice via Darwin? Final observation: Shortwave reception in a reinforced building sucks (Kai Ludwig, Germany, Oct 22, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U K [non]. I have enjoyed catching the chimes of Big Ben at New Year's on 5975 kHz at 0000 GMT on the BBC for the past couple of years. With the BBC's current nonsense, will I be able to catch this event this year via shortwave? (Any alternate frequencies ? ? ?) I am not able to listen via the internet. Also, can I catch Top of the Pops via the East Asia shortwave transmission here in TEXAS (no luck doing so in June)? THANKS. A loyal listener in Texas (Brad Stephens, Oct 22, DX LISTENING DIGEST) From the BBCWS B-06 schedule in DXLD 6-154, these are the SW frequencies still in use during that time period. It would be unwise to depend on any of those ending or starting at 0000, so that leaves: 11945, 9740, 6195, the first two of which might make it to TX if you are quite lucky: English 2100-2400 FE 5965ns 2200-0100 seAS 9740sn 6195sn 2300-0030 seAS 3915sn 2300-0030 FE 11945ya 2300-2400 FE 5985ns 6170km(2330-) 2300-2400 seAS 11955ns 0000-0030 FE 17615ns 0000-0100 sAS 5970om 0000-0200 sAS 9605om 11955ns 0000-0300 FE 15285ns 0000-0300 seAS 15360sn ns = Thailand; sn = Singapore; ya = Japan; km = Korea South; om = Oman As for Top of the Pops, per http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/programmes/programme_times/t_v.shtml unlike most shows, this one is ONLY broadcast to AuAs and EAs: Top of the Pops Australasia: Sat 0006 East Asia: Sat 0206 rpt Sun 0606 The East Asia schedule at http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/schedules/internet/800/radio_frequencies_east_asia.shtml shows 15280 in use at 0200; 17760 and 21660 at 0600, all unlikely to be heard in TX except under very unusual conditions, and this info tho undated is presumably for the A-06 season with only one more week to run after which there could be changes. There are no SW frequencies for Australia, if that is the same as `Australasia`` (Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** UNITED KINGDOM. 15495, Leading the Way, via Rampisham. Full data QSL card with transmitter site for Russian broadcast. Reply in ten days for a e-mail report to: qsl @ leadingtheway.org v/s: illegible (Edward Kusalik, Alberta, CANADA, Oct 22, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A [non]. As for your question about "Word to Russia" (DXLD 6- 156) I must admit that KFBS Saipan (under FEBC) carries this project for many years. These programs are also rebroadcasted via numerous medium-wave stations in Russia (e.g. 1089 St. Petersburg, 1134 Moscow, 1188 Khabarovsk, 1269 Ussuriysk, 1503 Vladivostok). And their short wave programming also consists of Ukrainian, Tatar, Uzbek, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Mari, Udmurt, Chuvash and Ossetic language programs (produced at local studios in Russia, Ukraine etc.). Postal address in USA is P. O. Box 418478, Sacramento, CA 95841 A-06 schedule (B-06 is the same): 0900-1100 and 1130-1330 UT on 11650 kHz, 1400-1600 UT on 9465 kHz (Aleksandr Diadischev, Dneprorudnyi, Ukraine, Oct 22, DX LISTENING DIGEST) So FEBC = gay-bashing (gh) ** U S A. 9 OCT, 2342 UT, 25950 KHZ FM, KOA, Denver, Colorado, EE.UU. Inglés. Programa deportivo, con comentarios sobre las actividades de varios equipos. Calidad Variable (Adan Mur, Ñemby, Paraguay, Conexión Digital Oct 22 via DXLD) ¿Pipeline Denver-Ñemby? ** U S A. DGS again heard on 9895, Oct 22 a 2152, must be KAIJ testing again, only fair signal here in the skip-or-not zone. Also hearing DGS // on 10475, at 2153, usual weak signal from unknown source, probably not KAIJ (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. I think the class A and Class B citizens bands came into being in the late 40s around the end of World War II. They were in the 460 to 470 MHz UHF band. I believe class A eventually evolved into what we now know as GMRS and class B evolved into what we now know as FRS. Class C was for business use. The 27 MHz class D citizens band came into being in the late 50s. The 27 MHz band was formally a government band used mostly by the military and the Forest Service. It was also the 11 meter amateur band on a secondary basis. The original class D call letters were issued as 1 or 2 numeric characters followed by an alpha character and then 4 more numerics such as 2A1402, 7C2155, 16Q2399, or 20F3309. The beginning numerics indicated the call district of the licensee. I believe there were 24 call districts. I lived in northern Illinois which was in the 18th call district. The ham radio operator who sparked my interest in radio in the mid 60s held the CB call 18B2922 in addition to his amateur radio call which was K9YOD. The FCC got into hot water with the ITU over this series of CB calls since the format did not comply with the ITU requirement that US calls start with A, N, K, or W. The FCC thought that since the service was not designed for international use it did not need to comply with the ITU. The ITU didn't agree. The system was then converted to the 3 alpha 4 numeric format that most people are familiar with such as KLK5459 (my old call). If your QSLs are from the early class A or class B UHF service they are probably very rare. But I don't know of any groups that collect them. If the QSLs are from the class D citizens band service they are probably of little value. Huge boxes of these are seen regularly on e-Bay selling for just a few dollars. The shipping usually costs more than the cards themselves (Patrick Griffith, Westminster CO, IRCA via DXLD) ** U S A. (X-band) 1670, Clear Channel Radio / WMWR (now WVVM), Dry Branch Georgia. A 'thank you for your reception report' paper card, with station & transmitter information. Reply in 3.5 months for initial report. v/s: illegible (Edward Kusalik, Alberta, CANADA, Oct 22, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. Kook radio on medium wave Posted at 11:53AM on Thursday, October 19, 2006 in broadcast media. http://www.rfma.net/archives/000843.html I was awfully surprised to hear programming from the Genesis Communications Network on the AM dial here yesterday, as I always associated GCN with the type of fringe programming more suitable to the shortwave band. But, clear and strong on Gaithersburg's WMET 1160 [Maryland] appeared a discussion with an author of a new book on how to impeach President Bush, and some typical GCN paranoid conspiracy theory snake oil commercials. Further digging reveals that this show is called Culture Shocks which is indeed on CGN's schedule. WMET is running all brokered programming now, which explains how fringe GCN programming has appeared on the schedule. It's not all Bizarro Radio, though; we have the Greaseman show weekdays from 6 to 10am eastern time, and Best of the Greasemen Saturday from 6 to 8pm eastern time. The station does have a webcast, as well as podcasts for some of the shows (RFMA via DXLD) ** U S A. Air America may owe Arthur Liu and Robert Glasser lots of money but it didn't stop the founders of Air America from doing another start up. Again please note these folks don't get radio and what you need to make it happen. You can't win when you are on bad coverage AMs. Look at the stations that James Crystal Radio buys, they all have great signals. You could put polka music on these stations and get ratings numbers. Not on any of the Air America or Nova M http://www.novamradio.com/ radio stations tho, they go nowhere day and night and quite frankly that's the problem with progressive talk. It's on retrograde facilities (posted by lou josephs at 9:15 PM Oct 18, medianetwork blog via DXLD) ** U S A. Free radio in danger --- by Greg Hafer The broadcasting juggernaut known as Clear Channel Communications is fighting to expand its already vast empire. This sly corporation is filing a formal petition with the Federal Communications Commission to allow it and other massive communication companies to control even more radio stations in the largest U.S. markets. The petition would raise the cap on the number of stations Clear Channel can own, causing the few local radio stations that do exist to be destroyed by corporate radio's large marketing budget, expensive lawyers, and lobbying power. According to the website TheDeal.com, a Clear Channel spokeswoman said, "Certainly, seeing that satellite radio has 150 unregulated stations in every market and free radio is limited to just eight shows the apparent disparity." However, the number of commercial radio stations in a particular market does not change with more relaxed regulations. The only reason Clear Channel is upset is because they don't own those stations, because they don't have a monopoly on the free radio market. Clear Channel is also upset because of competing industries like satellite radio and online music services. However, since Clear Channel is more concerned about profit and less about quality, of course they are going to lose listeners. "I'm not saying get rid of Clear Channel," said Kutztown University Radio manager Mike Regensburger, "But have live people in the studio instead of automated systems, pay those people real wages, and play music that people actually want to listen to." Like most corporations, profit is the bottom-line, but cutting corners by eliminating local news and traffic reports, not hiring live DJs, and limiting a station's playlist to a few hundred songs that "tested well" is corporate suicide. Not only should this petition be stopped, but regulations must be passed to stop these clueless capitalists from destroying commercial radio forever. Greg Hafer is a sophomore Secondary Education major and a member of KUR (source unknown, via Zacharias Liangas, DXLD) ** U S A. KPBS` Verbivore Retires Thursday, October 19, 2006 RICHARD LEDERER ANNOUNCES RETIREMENT --- CREATED A WAY WITH WORDS http://kpbs.org/media/assets/TOUTS/Joanna/staff-rlederer.jpg SAN DIEGO - Richard Lederer, the founding co-host of KPBS-FM`s popular weekly language program ``A Way with Words,`` is retiring at the end of October. Lederer, who announced his retirement during ``Morning Edition`` today, has been a part of the program since its inception in 1998. ``After eight wonderful years with `A Way with Words,` I have decided to retire as co-host,`` said Lederer. ``My involvement since the start of the show in 1998 has been one of the best things I have ever done in my life. I am grateful beyond words to the KPBS family for its unstinting support of `A Way with Words` and to our San Diego, Wisconsin, and podcast audiences for their enthusiastic response to our word-happy hour.`` While Lederer is stepping down from the day-to-day duties of hosting the weekly radio program, he will not be completely absent from ``A Way with Words.`` Lederer has been appointed ``verbivore emeritus`` and will appear on the program with Martha Barnette from time to time. ``I plan to focus my life more on my writing and public appearances and look forward to a continued involvement as `verbivore emeritus` with `A Way with Words,``` Lederer continued. ``I am confident that the talented and dedicated team that remains with the program will take `A Way with Words` to new heights.`` In addition, Lederer will remain an integral part of the KPBS family, appearing at events, writing for On Air magazine and helping the public broadcasting station during membership campaigns. The first new ``A Way with Words`` program featuring Martha Barnette will air November 18. Martha joined Lederer as the co-host in the fall of 2004 (via SDRadio.net via DXLD) Might have mentioned his longtime co-host Charles Harrington Elster who preceded Barnette, and who departed in a contract dispute (gh) ** VENEZUELA. Desde hace varios días recibo una señal espúrea desde 4918-4930 casi inteligible; causa mucho ruido pero por momentos se entiende algo y sospecho que es la Radio Amazonas (Rafael Rodríguez R., desde Bogota, Colombia, Conexión Digital Oct 22 via DXLD) ** VENEZUELA [non]. See NETHERLANDS [non] ** VIETNAM. 22 SET, 2130 UT, 7220 KHZ, Voice of Vietnam, Son Tay. Inglés. Inicio de la transmisión. Identificación. Noticiero. Buena Calidad (Adan Mur, Ñemby, Paraguay, Conexión Digital Oct 22 via DXLD) UNIDENTIFIED. Pedido de ayuda --- Hola gente!!!! ¿Cuál es la emisora que abre transmisiones a las 0003 UT en los 4750 kHz con el canto del Cor`an, himno y transmisión en árabe???? Llega con mucho ruido a Buenos Aires pero no es usual (en mi caso es la primera vez) escucharla. ¿Será Bangladesh? Los otros días escuché un clip de audio de esta estación que me mandó Miguel Castellino, desde Mendoza. A Uds. ¿qué les parece? Desde ya gracias!!! 73 (Arnaldo Slaen, Argentina, Oct 22, condig list via DXLD) Could be Bangladesh, but certainly no Arabic after the Qur`an (gh, DXLD) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ UNSOLICITED TESTIMONIALS ++++++++++++++++++++++++ Thanks for posting your logs! Glenn -- Long-time reading, first-time writer here. Thanks for posting your logs to the hard-core-dx list! Very useful stuff, written in an enjoyable style, and far more useful to me than much of what's there. And it's most like "just enough" info (again, at least for me) when compared to the DX Listening Digest. Not that I don't look at that when one of the posted countries/topics catches my eye (Bob KC9RG Cromwell) THE TINY TRAP ++++++++++++ In the CBS Sunday Morning cover story, Oct 22, ``Pill Nation``, originally broadcast at 1312 UT, Susan Spencer (of 48 Hours), referred to New Zealand as ``tiny``. You know the drill --- There is a selexion of videos from CBSSM at http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/i_video/main500251.shtml?channel=/sect ions/sunday/videoplayer3445.shtml and this one will probably be added. Unfortunately, you can`t watch a single sesquihour show online, as it was pre-empted in OKC for local campaign debates. This best show on CBS don`t get no respect; meanwhile, you can watch the entire CBS Evening [sic] News online, plus several stupid primetime shows. At the Sunday Morning page http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/1998/07/09/sunday/main13562.shtml you can get a rundown of the Oct 22 and other shows, which you will need since the video clips are not labeled by date. And try to ignore the 1998 date in this URL (Glenn Hauser, Enid, DX LISTENING DIGEST) LANGUAGE LESSONS ++++++++++++++++ SENDERISMO Re #6-156, In Spain, "senderismo" means "trekking" (Henrik Klemetz, Suecia, DX LISTENING DIGEST) That`s more like it (gh) http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senderismo (Horacio Nigro, Montevideo, Uruguay, ibid.) DIGITAL BROADCASTING ++++++++++++++++++++ DRM SUI 26 MHZ Ciao a tutti, oggi inaspettata apertura pomeridiana dei 10 metri, intorno alle 14.00 ora locale [1200 UT] si ricevevamo molto bene le seguenti emittenti DRM 26000 Campus Radio Fh Nuernberg - 18.44 Kbps (Germania) 25795 Radio Luxemburg - 20.96 Kbps (Lussemburgo) 25695 Deusche Welle - 36.48 Kbps (da Londra) Tutte e tre trasmettono con circa 100 watt di potenza. saluti, Andrea IW0HK -- (Andrea Borgnino IW0HK http://www.mediasuk.org/iw0hk http://www.mediasuk.org/archive http://www.biciurbana.org bclnews.it via DXLD) DRM: see also NEW ZEALAND; RUSSIA RADIO EQUIPMENT FORUM +++++++++++++++++++++ LF NDB INFORMATION Non-directional beacons (NDBs) can be found in the 198-530 kHz frequency range, in North America. In Europe, there are beacons extending up into the MW frequencies, where they don’t have a broadcast band on those frequencies. There are also some NDBs in the 1600-1740 kHz range, but in North America these beacons are covered by the X-band AMBC stations except above 1710 kHz. The overseas LWBC band also extends into the bottom of the NDB band, to 279 kHz. NDBs were primarily designed as navigation aids for aircraft and ships. They are beacons with a very slow Morse code two or three-letter identifier, sent over and over. Most Canadian beacons have a long dash after the identifier. In North America, almost all the marine beacons have been decommissioned; now, beacons are associated most often with airports. A beacon’s actual transmitter location may not be very close to the associated airport, but many beacons are located near or at their associated airport. NDBs were not designed to have long distance coverage, but just within their associated location. But DXers discovered that at night many beacons can be heard for long distances, especially in the quieter fall-spring months. Stronger beacons can be copied in AM mode with any receiver that can be tuned down to the LF range. Another way is to switch to CW mode and select a narrow IF filter --- this allows hearing weaker beacons. As a beacon consists of a carrier and a separate modulated sideband, one can use even narrower audio filters and tune the radio just to the sideband with the desired identifier. This allows receiving even weaker beacons. In recent years, commercial DSP audio filters such as MFJ 784B and Timewave 599zx have added very narrow CW audio filters. Use of this equipment, or with homebrew very narrow audio filters, allows hearing very weak beacons that are inaudible otherwise. For most LF DXers, local AC noise is a big factor to hearing weak beacons, as well as having room to have an efficient LF antenna. If local noise allows, a good active whip antenna can offer very good LF sensitivity as well as MW and HF. But overload from strong nearby transmitters is always a concern for any antenna using active electronics circuitry, used in a high-signal location. In North America there are several high-powered NDBs that are often widely heard across the country. 198 DIW, NC; 216 CLB, NC; 206 GLS, TX can often be heard if you’re within 500 miles of these, especially at night. During quieter winter months, with less static, they can be heard coast to coast. All three run 1-2kW power. (Ordinary beacons run 25-100 watts.) There’s a popular international email list devoted to beacon listening - ndblist. There’s also longstanding Longwave Club of America which offers a monthly newsletter and has an associated webpage http://www.lwca.org. In the past several years, another type of signal can be found in a middle of the LF NDB range, called DGPS—Differential GPS. This is used for very accurate GPS positioning. It’s a digitally encoded signal which sounds like a constant RTTY (radio teletype) signal with a very fast baud rate, if tuned in using SSB or CW mode. (In AM mode, DGPS won’t produce audio output.) DGPS can be decoded using various software programs, which allows the DXer to figure out what station he’s receiving. At the top of the NDB band, 518 kHz, is another type of digital signal, an aid to navigation, NAVTEX. Stations around the world send regular weather broadcasts and aids to mariners using NAVTEX --- it’s primarily aimed at ships using unmanned decoders. As with DGPS, software resources can be purchased by the DXer to decode these broadcasts. Decoding DGPS and especially NAVTEX have become popular interests for hobbyists. A computer with a soundcard is needed to decode these signals, using the appropriate software, with the audio output taken from the receiver to the computer. A few beacons also have a voice automated weather broadcast --- these are mostly aimed at marine users. Known as TWEBs --- Transcribed Weather Broadcasts --- these can be received in AM mode, and use a beacon that transmits the voice broadcast along with the CW identifier, with the ident at reduced output. There are various on-line resources: http://www.classaxe.com/dx/ndb/rna is kept fairly up-to-date by Canadian Martin Frances for beacons ``Received in North America``. There’s a corresponding REU (Received in Europe) database. The database can also be saved to the computer as an Excel file, and used anytime, not requiring one to be on-line. http://www.dxinfocentre.com/ is Bill Hepburn’s TWEB database, and there’s also other databases for LWBC, NDBs, DGPS. http://www.ve3gop.com/ is Canadian Alex Wiecek’s webpage where he has a useful WorldWide Search Utility (WWSU) software program that allows you to enter a beacon ident and see a list of all beacons in the world with that ident, and hopefully identify the one you heard. It also allows you to put in your location and see a map with distance to the beacon. It’s a very inexpensive program to purchase, and highly recommended. http://www.dxsoft.com/ Download the SeaTTY program to decode NAVTEX broadcasts. http://www.skysweep.com/download.htm Download Skysweep to decode DGPS signals --- it’s probably the most useful DGPS decoder, though not so inexpensive (Steve Ratzlaff AA7U, Elgin, OR (NE Oregon), steveratz @ eoni.com, updated 9/2006, IRCA DX Monitor Oct 21 via DXLD) EARLY RADIO HISTORY OF THE US AND CANADA Dxer`s Notebook --- Shared Tips, Topics, And Internet Info Robert Ruggley Every once in awhile an e-mail message comes across my desk that grabs my attention and makes me think. A few days ago Doug Smith wanted to know how far back Canada`s use of 540 went and, Ben Dangerfield, replied and wrote, ``I checked a 1929 Radex and there was no one on 540, but in the Dec. 1930 issue CKX, Brandon, Man. appears. And later a written-in note by my older sister listing CKOK Detroit-Windsor. I recall hearing CKOK two years later when I began to DX. Don`t know when CKX changed frequencies but Doug is right. 540 was not used by the U.S. until after WW2. During the 30`s and `40s it was used by Canada and the Bahamas. An early Canadian station there was CKOK Windsor which later became CKLW. In the `40s CBK Watrous began on 540. U.S.A. began using 1530 and 1550 in the late `30s and in 1941 moved up to 1600.`` Ben Dangerfield, Wallingford, Pa. On Sun, 2006-10-01 at 20:24, Russ Edmunds wrote: ``In the earliest days, there were only the two frequencies. In 1927, the first expansion/realignment occurred, but the full band up to 1600 wasn`t used until a later re-alignment. I believe that 1250 was about the top of the band for several years.`` There are probably as many reasons we listen to the medium wave radio frequencies as there are listeners. My personal experience with radio broadcasting dates back to 1940 when I was just six years old and in the first grade. I remember well how I used to run home after school, grab a glass of milk, and then turn on the little table model radio mom had in the kitchen and tuned the radio to my favorite station and after a short wait I would hear the opening bars of the William Tell Overture and a deep voice saying ``A fiery horse with the speed of light! A cloud of dust and a hearty `Hi-Yo, Silver!` The Lone Ranger!`` Ah, those were the days. Then, imagine my surprise when in 1941 I turned on the radio and when the program started, instead of the usual opening, the announcer came on and said that the Lone Ranger would not be heard until further notice – he had died in a car crash on the way to the studio. It took mom several days to explain to me what the Lone Ranger was doing in an automobile instead of being on his faithful horse. But, just how did commercial broadcasting become a reality? Well, here are the results of several different searches into radio history. The following excerpts were taken from ``Early Radio History of the United States`` and is reprinted here along with the references to additional detailed information. Everyone was *supposed* to be on 360 meters but an awful lot of stations were actually somewhere else... http://earlyradiohistory.us/buildbcb.htm is EXCELLENT reading on this subject. In late 1899, British Marconi announced one of its first commercial efforts — an ambitious plan to build radiotelegraph stations on five of the U.S. Hawaiian Islands, to provide inter-island communication. Marconi Hawaiian Installations: 1899-1902. One of Marconi`s most important discoveries was of ``groundwave`` radio signals, which resulted from adding a ground connection to the transmitter, and led to greatly increased transmission ranges. One reason this occurred was because ``earthing`` the transmitter antenna resulted in the radio signals using the ground as a waveguide, meaning the signals followed the earth`s plane, and thus spread out in only two dimensions, unlike a free-space transmission like light, which dispersed in three dimensions. This in turn meant that groundwave signal strength tended to drop inversely with the distance covered, instead of the square of the distance, which was the case for free-space signals. However, it was a few years before groundwave radio signals were fully understood. At the 1904 International Electrical Congress in Saint Louis, Missouri, gifted mathematician John Stone Stone presented a paper designed to provide a rigorous mathematical foundation describing radio transmissions. However, he made one significant error, by stating that signal strength tended to fall off with the square of the distance traveled. In the discussion of the paper, Lee DeForest, who had worked extensively with commercial systems, tentatively noted that in his experience signals did not weaken that quickly, although his own lack of precise measurements still left the issue somewhat in doubt — ``The Theory of Wireless Telegraphy`` (groundwave extract). Another person whose early adventures would be reviewed in detail by Frank Fayant`s exposé was Lee DeForest. DeForest`s entry into the radio field was announced by ``A New System of Space Telegraphy`` from the July 27, 1901 Western Electrician. He later joined forces with promoter Abraham White, and the formation of the American DeForest Wireless Telegraph Company was announced in the Financial Intelligence section of the February 7, 1903 Electrical World and Engineer. This company was actually more adept at selling stock than at providing commercial radio services, and it excelled with promotional schemes, with one of its most famous exploits being its ``Wireless Automobiles``, which acted as mobile transmitters for publicity purposes. This innovation merited two reviews in the Electrical World and Engineer — Wireless Stock Quotations from the February 14, 1903 issue, and two weeks later, ``A Perambulating Wireless Telegraph Plant``, which included a photograph of Wireless Auto No. 1 in action at the Wall Street stock market district. In February, 1904, Syntonic Aerography, by Lee DeForest, whose official title was Scientific Director, appeared in The Electrical Age, and among other things featured photographs of the company`s Block Island station in Rhode Island. In September, 1904 the same magazine reviewed Wireless Telegraphy at the St. Louis Exposition, which included an extensive and somewhat generous look at American DeForest`s activities at the international fair. In the July, 1904 issue of The Electrical Age, Wireless Telegraphy for the Navy included company president Abraham White`s proud announcement of a contract signed with the U.S. Navy to build five high-powered radiotelegraph stations in the Caribbean, although, as usual, his press release also included a number of inflated claims. In 1924 and 1925, a three article series by Frank E. Butler appeared in Radio Broadcast magazine, covering American DeForest`s activities from the 1904 Saint Louis Exposition through the 1906 completion of a U.S. Navy station in Guantánamo, Cuba: Making Wireless History With De Forest, Pioneering With De Forest in Florida, and How Wireless Came to Cuba. American DeForest`s successor company, United Wireless, which would be the dominant radio company in the United States from its late 1906 formation until its bankruptcy in 1912, was often characterized as ``that company selling worthless stock to widows and orphans``. Still, United did operate many important shore stations from coast-to-coast, and also staffed hundreds of ship stations, so it wasn`t completely inaccurate to also describe it as ``a great commercial company with its powerful land stations and great fleet``, as Frank Doig does in his review of activity in the Pacific Northwest and beyond, Struggling for the Air, from the August, 1909 Technical World Magazine. Manufacturing Wireless Telegraph Apparatus from the May, 1909 issue of Wireless, issued by The New York Selling Agency, proclaimed that ``The manufacture of wireless telegraph instruments, in America, is embraced in three factories owned and controlled by the United Wireless Telegraph Company, two of which are located in Jersey City, N. J., and one at Seattle, Washington. In these factories everything which enters into the transmission and receiving of wireless telegraph messages, except motor generators, is produced.`` Commercial Wireless Telegraph Operations Begun on the Great Lakes, from the May 1, 1909 Electrical Review and Western Electrician, reported on United Wireless` expansion into the midwest. The 1909 meeting of the New York Electrical Society was held at the Waldorf- Astoria Hotel in New York City, which was the site of a major United Wireless facility. The get-together included a tour of the rooftop station, plus a presentation by a United employee, Cloyd Marshall, who reported that the company was now operating 70 shore and 163 shipboard installations, with a new station being added daily, according to The Commercial Development of Wireless Telegraphy from the July 3, 1909 Electrical Review and Western Electrician. (Photographs of United Wireless` Waldorf-Astoria station appeared in the September, 1909 Modern Electrics, in Station at the Waldorf-Astoria.) In the September 6, 1909 issue of the San Francisco Chronicle, the newspaper proudly announced that a United Wireless station had been installed on the roof of its headquarters building, in ``Chronicle`` First Paper on Coast to Install Wireless Apparatus. The U.S. Navy quickly recognized radio`s potential. Following successful tests by Great Britain and Italy, the Navy Department`s 1899 annual report noted that Marconi equipment would soon be evaluated, ``in order to determine its usefulness under service conditions``. These tests quickly convinced the Navy of the value of radio, and three years later R.B. Bradford, Chief of the Bureau of Equipment, reported that ``There is no navy, so far as the Bureau is aware, which has not given especial attention to this subject``. The U.S. Navy began to equip its entire fleet with transmitters, and also set up an extensive chain of coastal stations. Radio was also employed as an aid to civilian and military navigation, beginning with time signals broadcast beginning in 1905: U.S. Navy Department Annual Report Extracts: 1899-1908. The Navy`s impact on U.S. radio communications would continue to expand. In 1913, numerous shore stations started to handle commercial traffic in areas where there were no private stations, meanwhile, naval leaders lobbied for a government monopoly of radio transmitters. Finally, in April, 1917, with the entrance of the U.S. into World War One, the government, led by the Navy, took over control of all radio communications for the duration of the conflict: U.S. Navy Department Annual Report Extracts: 1909-1918. (A book published in 1963, ``History of Communications-Electronics in the United States Navy`` by Captain Linwood S. Howeth, USN (Retired), is a comprehensive history of activities in the U.S. Navy through 1945). The United States Department of Agriculture also rapidly foresaw radio`s possibilities. Beginning in 1900, the department financed some of Reginald Fessenden`s early research, until the two sides had a falling-out. But the department continued to work, at times haltingly, to develop radio applications, at first for gathering reports, and then for distributing them over a broad area. The Agriculture Department was responsible for some of the earliest radio broadcasts, including weather reports in 1912, although the first transmissions were in telegraphic code: U.S. Agriculture Department Annual Report Extracts: 1898-1927. One of the first U.S. firms to sell radio equipment was the United States Electrical Supply Company, located in New York City — in the December 29, 1897 Electrical Review, Commercial Wireless Telegraphy quoted the company`s general manager, W. J. Clarke, as saying the company was now selling apparatus capable of transmitting signals for 10 miles (16 kilometers). The April 2, 1898 Scientific American, in Wireless Telegraphy, featured a favorable review of Clarke`s offerings, claiming that, in spite of Marconi`s advances, ``It has been left, however, for the American inventor to design apparatus suitable to the requirements of wireless telegraphy in this country``. Actually, Clarke`s equipment had a decided similarity to Marconi`s, although it apparently did not work as well. In a public demonstration that actually showed more showmanship than technical prowess, New Way to Fire Mines in the May 7, 1898 New York Times reviewed how Clarke`s apparatus had been employed to ring bells and blow up model ships over short distances, and (very optimistically) suggested that the equipment had progressed to the point that ``he is now prepared to send messages between New York and Chicago``. In the May 24, 1898 edition of the same paper, Accident in the Garden reported that an unsuccessful test had managed to blow up a desk being used by Thomas Edison, Jr., son of the famous inventor, who was working with Clarke. A year later, the May 27, 1899 Scientific American, reported in Wireless Telegraphy that Army Signal Corps tests in Washington, D.C. had produced only limited success, and the Corps were planning further tests in New York, using Clarke equipment. After this the firm would have only a very small role in early radio development, although years later, Application of Wireless Telegraphy for Domestic Purposes in the February 25, 1905 Electrical Review reported that the author was using a small transmitter ``built for me by Mr. W.J. Clarke of the United States Electrical Company, of Mt. Vernon, N.Y.`` Alternator-Transmitter Development (1891-1920) - Radio signals were originally produced by spark transmitters, which were noisy and inefficient. So experimenters worked to develop ``continuous-wave`` — also known as ``undamped`` — transmitters, whose signals went out on a single frequency, and which could also transmit full-audio signals. One approach used to generate continuous-wave signals was high-speed electrical alternators. By 1919, international control of the Alexanderson alternatortransmitter was considered so important that it triggered the formation of the Radio Corporation of America. Audion and Vacuum-tube Receiver Development (1907-1916) - Lee DeForest invented a three-element vacuum-tube detector which he called an Audion, but initially it was so crude and unreliable that it was little more than a curiosity. After a lull of a few years, more capable scientists and engineers, led by AT&T`s Dr. Harold Arnold, improved vacuum-tubes into robust and powerful amplifiers, which would revolutionize radio reception. Pioneering Amateurs (1900-1917) - Radio captured the imagination of thousands of ordinary persons who wanted to experiment with this amazing new technology. Until late 1912 there was no licencing or regulation of radio transmitters in the United States, so amateurs — known informally as ``hams`` — were free to set up stations wherever they wished. But with the adoption of licensing, amateur operators faced a crisis, as most were now restricted to transmitting on a wavelength of 200 meters (1500 kilohertz), which had a limited sending range. They successfully organized to overcome this limitation, only to face a second hurdle in April, 1917, when the U.S. government shut down all amateur stations, as the country entered World War One. Amateur Radio After World War One (1919-1924) - Although there was concern that amateur radio stations would not be allowed to return to the airwaves after the war, in 1919 the wartime restrictions were ended. And the next few years would see tremendous strides, as amateurs adopted vacuum-tube technology and began to explore transmitting on shortwave frequencies, which resulted in significant increases in range and reliability. Big Business and Radio (1915-1922) - Once the radio industry finally became profitable, major corporations — including the American Telephone & Telegraph Company, General Electric, and Westinghouse — moved into the field. Meanwhile, in 1919, due to pressure from the U.S. government, American Marconi`s assets were sold to General Electric, which used them to form the Radio Corporation of America. Although RCA was initially envisioned as an international communications company, it also quickly moved into the developing broadcasting field. RCA made its broadcast debut on July 2, 1921 with a heavyweight boxing championship, as Jack Dempsey defeated Georges Carpentier. The bout took place in Hoboken, New Jersey, and was broadcast by a temporary longwave station, WJY, with a transcript of the fight commentary telegraphed to KDKA in Pittsburgh, for rebroadcast by that station. Because of the lack of radio receivers, a majority of the listeners were in halls, where volunteer amateurs set up radio receivers, charging admission for the sponsoring charities. For the first few days the East Pittsburgh broadcasts went out under the Special Amateur callsign of 8ZZ, after which it switched to KDKA. The new station began daily broadcasts of varied offerings which proved increasingly popular, and in the June 4, 1921 Scientific American, company engineer Leo H. Rosenberg reviewed broadcasting`s accomplishments and bright future in A New Era In Wireless, with the prediction that ``in a few years we will wonder that we were ever able to exist without enjoying its many benefits``. After KDKA had been in operation for close to a year, Westinghouse set up three additional broadcasting stations, WJZ, Newark, New Jersey, WBZ, Springfield, Massachusetts, and KYW Chicago, Illinois, predicting that ``this service will prove of expanding value and distinctive interest to mankind`` in Westinghouse to Cover Country With Radio Entertainment, from the December 10, 1921 Electrical Review. A more extensive history of Westinghouse`s broadcasting efforts though mid-1922, Development of Radiophone Broadcasting by L. R. Krumm, appeared in the July/August, 1922 Radio Age. The Westinghouse stations quickly became some of the most popular in the country. No review of early radio broadcasting was complete without a recap of their extensive pioneering work, for example, How Radio-Phone Broadcasting Came About from Austin C. Lescarboura`s 1922 book, Radio For Everybody. Broadcasting Becomes Widespread (1922-1923) - Led by Westinghouse`s 1920 and 1921 establishment of four well-financed stations — located in or near Pittsburgh, Boston, Chicago and New York City — there was a growing sense of excitement as broadcasting activities became more organized. In December, 1921, the Department of Commerce issued regulations formally establishing a broadcast service. Then, in early 1922, a ``broadcasting boom`` occurred, as a sometimes chaotic mix of stations, sponsored by a wide range of businesses, organizations and individuals, sprang up, numbering over 500 by the end of the year. With enforcement of the new regulations, the number of private U.S. stations permitted to make broadcasts intended for the general public dropped to 67 as of the March 10, 1922 list of broadcast stations, which appeared in the March 1, 1922 issue of the Commerce Department`s Radio Service Bulletin. However, even with the restrictions broadcasting continued to grow explosively, and at the end of the year there would be over 500 broadcast stations, located in every state, their growth chronicled by the monthly broadcast station reports appearing in Radio News. WHAS in Louisville went on the air in July, 1922 as the first broadcasting station in Kentucky, 45th of the then- 48 states to get a station. Credo Fitch Harris, a multi-talented journalist who incidentally knew virtually nothing about radio, was appointed station manager. In 1937, Harris recorded his experiences being assigned the job of starting up operations during ``the horse and buggy days of radio`` in the opening sections of Microphone Memoirs (operations extracts)—a task he poetically likened to being ``led into the garden of Parizade and placed beneath her Singing Tree whose leaves dripped harmonies``. According to the aforementioned site, the 360/485m plan lasted until April 1922 when 400m (750 KHz) was added for general use. A year later, the band 550-1350 KHz was assigned for broadcasting. (and 1360- 1500 KHz became a ham band for about 18 months) In November 1924 the top of the band was expanded to 1500 KHz. Some experimental hi-fi stations operated on 20 KHz channels (1530, 1550, 1570, 1590) in the 1930s; I believe 1510-1600 was opened for general operation with the big realignment in early 1941. I believe 540 KHz was established as a valid channel at this time as well, but was not used in the U.S. until after WWII. (I`ve seen it suggested my local WDXN-540 Clarksville, Tenn. was the first U.S. station on 540) Of course, it took another 40 years for the 1610-1700 expansion. -Doug Smith W9WI WLIB - 1190 AM, New York. The origins of this station go all the way back to November 2, 1926 when WBKN signed on, owned by engineer Arthur Faske and his brother Dr. Leo Faske, on a frequency of 1030 AM. Studios were located at 1525 Pitkin Ave. in Brooklyn. However, the Faske brothers soon found themselves under orders from the newly authorized FRC (Federal Radio Commission) to move WBKN off of 1030 (which was assigned to Canada at the time) and move to 1210 AM, which they did in early 1927 and began sharing time with four other stations in the process: WWRL, WIBI, WBMS and WJBI (see Page 6 for profiles on WWRL and WIBI; for WBMS, see NJ AM Page 7). Then, the FRC told WBKN, along with WWRL, WIBI and WBMS, to move up to 1500 AM, effective December 1, 1927. All the stations protested, contending that older radios would not be able to tune that far up the dial and called the frequency a ``graveyard.`` But, they eventually followed the orders and managed to survive. The published schedules of WBKN reveal a varied and lively program service. The station even aired a regular ``Midnight Jamboree.`` On April 11, 1928, Arthur Faske moved WBKN out to Long Beach, Long Island and operated under calls WCLB. The Faske brothers built studios in the Ocean Crest Hotel on the boardwalk at Laurelton Blvd. and the transmitter was 1[?] miles away at Reynolds Cove. They solicited the cooperation of the Long Island and Long Beach Chamber Of Commerce as well as the US Coast Guard. Away from the crowds of Brooklyn, WCLB was alone in its community and seemed to enjoy the support of local business, calling itself ``the Municipal Broadcasting Station Of Long Beach. ``Programming was informal; schedules would sometimes list merely a ``two-hour varied program. ``WCLB`s license expired on July 31, 1929 and the Faske brothers didn`t apply for an immediate renewal, but early in 1930, they went before the FRC to protest that their reapplication had been dismissed without cause. KDKA was assigned 360 meters, and apparently the Commerce Department (which regulated radio at the time) decided that would be *the* wavelength for broadcasting. They assigned everyone else to that frequency as well. (do the math, and it works out to 833 KHz) Stations could apply for permission to use 485 meters for agricultural broadcasts only. (crop prices and weather forecasts) Some stations that broadcast *only* that material may have operated only on 485, while stations (apparently like KOP) that broadcast ag information along with other material might be licensed for both wavelengths. They had to change frequency when the ag broadcast was complete. Given the fairly poor frequency calibration and stability of early transmitters, I`m not so sure that assigning everyone to the same frequency caused quite as much interference as you might think. Everyone was *supposed* to be on 360 meters but an awful lot of stations were actually somewhere else... http://earlyradiohistory.us/buildbcb.htm is EXCELLENT reading on this subject. The following came from http://www.otr.com/march.html which is a good site on early radio broadcasting. Early radio news was usually nothing more than dramatized documentary of events. Live recordings were unheard of and technologically difficult if not impossible. Rather than simply report events, radio producers felt dramatizing the events would bring the news home more effectively. By 1928, Roy Edward Larsen was the General Manager of Time Magazine. It was Larsen who, as Circulation Manager, increased sales of the magazine from 25,000 to 200,000 in a few short years. Media theorist, Marshall McLuhan, referred to Larsen as an ``electric man,`` sensitive to the latest modes of communication and its impact on society. Larsen involved Time in radio as early as 1924 with a sustaining program called Pop Question. Then in 1928 in cooperation with radio executive, Fred Smith, he began issuing throughout the country over 33 stations daily releases of ten-minute news briefs that Larsen called NewsCasts. The following year they supplemented these NewsCasts with electrical transcription dramas, ten minutes in length, called NewsActing which featured professional actors and sound effects of current news. The two were combined into a fifteen-minute show (read releases and acted news)in 1929 and offered free of charge to radio stations in exchange for advertising for Time Magazine. Though successful, the Smith/Larsen team proposed to Henry Luce a more robust program financed by Time. Larsen was aware of new competition on NBC in the form of the Lowell Thomas vehicle sponsored by Literary Digest. For their new production, Larsen and Smith pulled their title and theme music from the Harold Arlen song, ``The March of Time.`` One of the earliest of this type of drama, the Newsacting became the March of Time with narrator and dramatized news events produced by Roy Larsen, who later became president of Time, Inc. First heard on CBS on March 6, 1931, the show was broadcast on Friday nights and sounded very much like the movie newsreels. Like the newsreels, the show was built around a narrator who lead listeners into the dramatized events. Of narrators, there were three during the shows run: Ted Husing, Harry Von Zell and one of the longest ``voice of Time`` was Westbrook Van Voorhis. Because the events were dramatized, an attempt was made to use actors imitating the actual voices. Many listeners thought the actual voices were being heard. During those early years, we heard ``Adolph Hitler`` ``Edward VIII`` and ``Bruno Hauptmann`` among others. The actors were chosen for these roles based on their ability to closely duplicate the actual person. Sometimes an actor was required to listen from a library of records with 30-second soundbites of the actual personality, or view the March of Time`s newsreels and listen to the voice. Many of the actors went on to other fame including Agnes Moorhead, Nancy Kelly, Jeannette Nolan, Art Carney, Orson Welles, Peter Donald, Edwin Jerome, Maurice Tarplin, Kenny Delmar, John McIntire and many more. To prepare each show required 1,000 man-hours of labor, 33 hours for each minute of broadcast time; 500 hours for news research, writing, and re-writing by Editor Willam D. Geer and his seven assistants; 40 hours of clerical work; 60 hours for music rehearsal; 400 hours for rehearsal of cast and sound crew. The musical director was at different times, Howard Barlow and Donald Voorhees; Ora Nichols provided the sound effects. Even historical accuracy and pronunciation was checked by Harry Levin. The program was brought together by director Arthur Pryor, Jr. (and also Don Stouffer). By 1939 the show was still not making money. In fact it was sustained partially with the help of William Paley`s Columbia Broadcasting System. Because of the loss of money, Luce decided to suspend the series. But in 1941 it returned with a new format (you can hear the new format in the Pearl Harbor clip), one that sounded much more like the newsreels that were popular with movie fans. This was how radio listeners got their news at the time. The idea of simply broadcasting the news was too new, and for many, boring. Following the development of this series one gets a sense of the changes taking place in radio news at the time. By 1940, the dramatized versions were being phased out and news actualities broadcast from other countries were beginning to be heard. The ``news reporter`` was more and more becoming prominent. Partly due to the change in technology, the events of the time, and the idea that an eyewitness could best tell listeners what was happening, radio news was forming itself into the media broadcasting with which we are all familiar. And, here is the history of Canadian Broadcasting as given on the ``Old Radio`` website and restored here for your information. The following material was taken from http://www.oldradio.com/archives/stations_c/canada.html The first station to broadcast in Canada was XWA in Montreal (later called VE9AM, CFCF, then CIQC)). •First Broadcast: May 20, 1920. •XWA was owned by the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company. •The first experimental transmissions were in late 1919, according to Canadian historian Professor Mary Vipond, who wrote a book on early Canadian broadcasting called ``Listening In``. •The first thing broadcast was a concert by a female vocalist, Dorothy Lutton. The second station appears to have been CJCE, Vancouver, BC, opened March 14, 1922. Other early stations include: •CJNC, Winnipeg MB - April 20, 1922 •CJCA, Edmonton AB - May 1, 1922 •CJCG Winnipeg MB - May 7, 1922 •CJBC, Montreal PQ - May 19, 1922; perhaps the first French radio station in the world. •CKAC, Montreal PQ - September 20, 1922; it has been on 730 kHz since February 21, 1925. By 1929, there were over 60 stations in operation in Canada. Few were high power or gave full service. One major owner of stations was Canadian National Railways (CN), which experimented in using the wireless to send transmissions to moving trains. CN first opened CKCH in Ottawa on February 27, 1924. In July, CN began ``renting`` the CNxx prefix from Morocco, so its stations could be CNRO, CNRA, etc. (NRC E- DX News Oct 23 via DXLD) PROPAGATION +++++++++++ SOLAR CYCLE 24 Read in the November issue of Sky & Telescope magazine that solar cycle 24 has just started. Seems the Synoptic Optical Long-term Investigations of the Sun (SOLIS) facility found that magnetic eruptions near the Suns poles have reversed polarity indicating the start of the next cycle. Equatorial activity for cycle 23 is presently waning and is predicted to reach minimum near February. 73 Dave Valko, PA, HCDX via DXLD) ### TIPS FOR RATIONAL LIVING ++++++++++++++++++++++++ BITTER & ANGRY And now I am in a very sizable majority who have finally come to grips with reality and unmasked this band of thieves, cheats, and liars. We own them NO loyalty. They have done this country a terrible disservice during their watch. I am very proud to be BITTER AND ANGRY --- and I'll stay that was as long as our leadership --- regardless of party - -- continues to destroy us from within. What got me on this bandwagon was a two-month editorial that just came to my attention today. It's good reading, and I hope you'll check it out (Tom Bryant / Nashville, WTFDA Soundoff via DXLD) Viz.: VAST MAJORITY OF US NOW OFFICIALLY 'BITTER AND ANGRY' By Beth Quinn Times Herald-Record August 28, 2006 Who are these 35 percent of Americans who still approve of Bush's job performance? And why do they accuse us Bush critics of being "bitter and angry," as though our lack of complacency is some sort of character flaw? Their implication is that being bitter and angry is just so "¦ so "¦ unladylike. Do they imagine we're all at some 19th-century lawn party? That perhaps we're throwing an unseemly fit because a croquet ball went off in the wrong direction? Of course we're bitter and angry. The majority of Americans are. And if you're not, I can only ask, what planet are you living on? In fact, if you aren't bitter and angry at this dumb, smug president who's wrecking the country, well, then you're just not paying attention... http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060828/NEWS/608280322/-1/NEWS0206 (via Bryant, ibid.) ###