DX LISTENING DIGEST 7-016, February 6, 2007 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 2007 contents archive see http://www.worldofradio.com/dxldmid.html For restrixions and searchable 2006 contents archive see http://www.worldofradio.com/dxldmid6.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 FIRST SHORTWAVE AIRINGS OF WORLD OF RADIO 1346 Wed 2300 on WBCQ 7415 Thu 0000 on WBCQ 18910-CLSB [can anyone hear this?] Thu 1430 on WRMI 7385 Fri 1130 on KAIJ 5755 [NEW] Fri 2000 on KAIJ 9480 [NEW] Fri 2130 on WWCR 7465 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 DX/SWL/MEDIA PROGRAMS Feb 6: http://www.worldofradio.com/dxpgms.html ** ALGERIA. 153 kHz, Béchar (presumed) 0405, Feb 5, Islamic chant. Signal peaked at fair level. There were quite a few European high powered LW signals heard here, but nothing exceptional. These broadcast signals have been coming through fairly regularly recently (David Hodgson, TN, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Hi to everybody, Very good TA DX conditions this week-end from late afternoon. Here some of my logs. 153, ALGERIA, RTA 1, Béchar, it appears that the modulation has been increased, man and woman in Arabic (maybe newscast) good to excellent (02/03/2007 22:11 UT) (Sylvain Naud, Portneuf (Near Quebec City), Quebec, Canada, ICOM IC-R75, 600 foot directional beverage towards Africa, 300 foot bidirectional beverage NE-SW, Homebrew K9AY with vactrol, T2FD cut for 90m band, RPA-1 HF preamplifier, MFJ-1026 phaser with mods, MWDXYG via DXLD) ** ANTARCTICA. It`s been four months since the last report of LRA36. Has anybody heard it since, or lately? Nominal schedule is/was 18-21 UT M-F on 15475.9v, with the first hour blocked by Gabon. Altho WRTH 2007 says ``daily``, I don`t think they have been active on weekends in recent years. Have they taken the entire summer off so far? As I recall, they usually rotate personnel around January causing breaks in transmission. Please look for their weak signal this week. It had been reported a lot more from Europe than from North or even South America. Here`s the last previous report, from DXLD 6-150 Oct 8, 2006: ``ANTARTIDA, 15476, LRA 36 Radio Nacional Arcángel San Gabriel, 1950- 2035, 06-10 [Friday], locutora, comentario partido de fútbol a jugar el domingo día 8, entre Boca Juniors y River Plate, historia de este clásico del fútbol argentino. A las 1953: "Hacemos una pausa musical y luego volvemos". "Continuamos desde Base Esperanza", canciones argentinas, canciones andinas, música de flauta. A partir de las 2035 prácticamente inaudible. Seńal débil y con desvanecimiento. Se escucha mejor en USB. 24322 variando a 14211 (Manuel Méndez, Lugo, Spain, Escuchas realizadas en Friol, 27 Km. W. de Lugo, Grundig Satellit 500 y Sony ICF SW 7600 G, Antena de cable, 10 metros, orientada WSW, DX LISTENING DIGEST)`` O well, there are always hams --- (Glenn Hauser, Feb 5, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ANTARCTICA [and non]. ANTARCTIC ACTIVITY WEEK NEWS --- PLEASE REMEMBER - Stations That Are Active May NOT Be In The Antarctic! Just a reminder that the Worldwide Antarctic Program's (WAP) 4th Antarctic Activity Week (AAW) will take place between 0000z, February 19th and 2400z, February 25th. The AAW is an unique world-wide event where Hams are "celebrating and working to improve Worldwide interest around the Antarctic Continent and its related matters, to understand and share what the Nations and Organizations are doing to study and protect this still non contaminated corner of the world and share from there, a message of peace." Also, AAW is celebrated every year during the last week of February, and it coincides with Argentine's celebration of their Antarctica Day. See http://www.marambio.aq on February 22nd. Visit the WAP's Web page at: http://www.ddxc.net/wap Look for the special callsign II1MNA (WAP-060) to be activated for the first time during the 4th Antarctic Week from the National Antarctic Museum (MNA - Museo Nazionale dell'Antartide) in Genoa, Italy. During this activation, activity will count towards the Italian Castle Award (DCI). Listen for the reference number. Paolo, IK2QPR, will be active as IU2ANT (WAP-52) during the 4th AAW (February 19-25th). QSL via IK2QPR. Francesco, IZ7AUH, has been issued the special callsign IR7ANT (WAP- 74) from the Italian Ministry of Communication Dept. Members of the SRT Group of Puglia and Taranto HF Team will use this callsign during the 4th AAW (February 19-25th). However, Francesco will be using IR7ANT/n starting February 11th (where /n will indicate the days before the 2007 AAW 2007 event). QSL via IZ7AUH, by the Bureau or direct to: Francesco Giacoia, Casella Postale 2224/TA05, 74100 Taranto, Italy. More info and details are available at: http://ir7ant.iz7auh.net (KB8NW/OPDX/BARF80 Feb 5 via Dave Raycroft, ODXA via DXLD) ** AUSTRALIA. What's happening with their VL8A-T-K stations? Every time I manage to receive at least one, there's also at least one that's not audible. 2310, VL8A, Alice Springs NT, 2031-2038, 03 Feb, English, ABC newscast; 25331. 2485, VL8K, Katherine NT, 2025-2039, 03 Feb, English, music, "Oz" country music, ABC news 2030; 45332 (Carlos Gonçalves, Portugal, DX LISTENING DIGEST) OTOH: ** AUSTRALIA. 2310, VL8A Alice Springs, 1026-1038, 1/29/07. Pop vocal followed by a woman announcer with ID for ABC News. The news followed until 1035 when it was back to pop vocals. Poor but // 2325 was poor to fair. 2325, AUSTRALIA. VL8T Tennant Creek, 1026-1041, 1/28/07. Pop vocal followed by a woman announcer with ID for ABC News. The news followed until 1035 when it was back to pop vocals. Poor to fair but no sign of VL8K Katherine (Rich D`Angelo, French Creek State Park, Berks County, PA.: DXpedition No. 27, Ten-Tec RX-340 and an Etón E1, 500-foot wire essentially north and 250-foot wire south for the RX-340 and a 40-foot wire essentially northeast for the E1, NASWA Flashsheet via DXLD) ** AUSTRALIA. RA with discussion of the letters ``gh`` in English words (my favorites) and their wide variety of pronunciations, Tue Feb 6 at 1350-1357 on 6020. Turned out this was the conclusion of Australian Express; apparently segment lifted from Lingua Franca, tho nothing about that mentioned in outro by Roger Broadbent (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** BANGLADESH. 4750, Bangladesh Betar, 0057-0115 1/30/07, in Bengali. Flute music to top of the hour 3+1 time pips followed by ID and news. Woman announcer at 0108 with a talk. Poor with CODAR QRM (Rich D`Angelo, French Creek State Park, Berks County, PA.: DXpedition No. 27, Ten-Tec RX-340 and an Etón E1, 500-foot wire essentially north and 250-foot wire south for the RX-340 and a 40-foot wire essentially northeast for the E1, NASWA Flashsheet via DXLD) 4750, Bangladesh Betar, Shavar, 1629-1641, 04 Feb, Bengali, local songs, few talks; 34433 (Carlos Gonçalves, Portugal, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** BENIN. 5025, ORTB, Parakou, during daytime again, 1531-..., 03 Feb, Vernacular, talks; 35342 (!). (Carlos Gonçalves, Portugal, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** BOLIVIA. 4865, Radio Logos (Tentative), 2350-0109+, 1/29/07, in Spanish. Long talk by a woman. Long vocal selection by a man from 0001. Brief talks with music selections followed. None of this appeared of a religious nature and one possible ID at 0051 when a meter band was mentioned as signal deteriorated. Interesting but tentative at best without ID and programming didnąt seem to fit. If not them, who? Fair signal at tune in but fading down from around 0040 (Rich D`Angelo, French Creek State Park, Berks County, PA.: DXpedition No. 27, Ten-Tec RX-340 and an Etón E1, 500-foot wire essentially north and 250-foot wire south for the RX-340 and a 40-foot wire essentially northeast for the E1, NASWA Flashsheet via DXLD) ** BRAZIL. Hello Glenn: Here's a listing for a 1937 card from PRF5, from the National Department of Propaganda, the United States of Brazil. Perhaps the word "propaganda" didn't have the same negative slant then as now: http://cgi.ebay.com/QSL-PRF5-Natl-Dept-of-Propaganda-Brazil-1937_W0QQitemZ150087058244QQihZ005QQcategoryZ38031QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem Take care, (Eric Loy, Champaign IL, Feb 5, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CANADA. Harold Sellers of the Ontario DX Association advises me that CFRX 6070 has been off the air for several months due to a transmitter fault and a damaged antenna. It will be springtime, at least, before they are back on. They are having trouble fixing the transmitter and need to replace the antenna feedline, and possibly the antenna itself (Saul Chernos, Ont., Feb 4, amfmtvdx at qth.net via DXLD) ** CANADA. As Toronto's 1050 CHUM gets ready for its fiftieth anniversary May 27, it's launched a new anniversary web page http://www.1050chum.com/microsites/50thAnniversary/index.asp and special programming, including a daily hour (11 AM-noon) of the 1973 "History of Rock and Roll" series (Scott Fybush, NE Radio Watch Feb 5 via DXLD) 1600-1700 UT ** CUBA. Re 7-015: ``I don`t recall Arnie ever acknowledging that RHC can be heard on spurious mixing products or harmonics, or any transmitter or studio malfunxion, for that matter. Prove me wrong! (Glenn Hauser, DXLD)`` Some people keep poor records, have a bad memory or .... Dear amigos: Once again it's my duty to clarify things posted from ... Looking at my scripts in the archive, and doing a search about RHC problems. Here are just a few of which I have dealt with on Dxers Unlimited. Example 1: When we were using 9505 kHz with an old Snieg Soviet 100 kW transmitter that had a problem with the third harmonic trap and output filter, and could be heard (when the solar cycle was near its peak) on the 28515 kHz frequency of the 10 meter amateur band. Example 2: We started to use Pulse Step Modulation technology and had the typical problems involved with that system, I discussed a lot about the distortion that was present on 6000 kHz and how we were trying to solve it. Example 3: In one Dxers Unlimited program devoted to "harmonic hunting" I mentioned 15230 X2 or 30260 kHz as heard in South America, again during periods of peak solar activity, and how an additional filter cell was added to put the harmonic of the 250 kW transmitter to -50 dB below the full carrier. As regards to the recent reports of a 6300 kiloHertz mixing product heard, this came to my knowledge several weeks after we replaced 9820 kHz with 6180 kHz. As both 6060 and 6180 kHz are on the air at the same time, the 120 kHz difference between the two, added to 6180 is apparently generating this mixing product, and at least in theory, there should be another one 120 kHz down from 6060. This is not a rare thing to happen when high power transmitters are operated at the same site and the antennas are close to each other, something that the BBC engineers found out when they started to use powers above 50 kiloWatts... (they named what was happening "transmitter trough" and described it as radiofrequency from one transmitter getting into the resonant tank circuit of the other because of close coupling between the antennas, and it usually requires a lot of analysis to solve the problem, as conventional output filters will not help. So, in the next few days I will continue to work on this mixing product problem, and try to measure the field strength at a location near to the transmitters site, in order to compare it with the field strength of 6060 and 6180 at the same place and then calculate how many dB/uV difference exists between the three signals, and also I will be looking to the possible signals + and - 120 kiloHertz to each side of both 6180 and 6060. 73 and DX (Arnie Coro, CO2KK, Host of Dxers Unlimited, Feb 4, ODXA via DXLD) ** CUBA [and non]. 6180 BRAZIL / CUBA. Radio Nacional da Amazônia (Brasília) / Radio Habana Cuba, 1/28-29/07, 2241 ­ 0005 in Portuguese / Spanish. R. Nacional da Amazônia (RNdA) with programming and IDs (including full ID and network ID sequence at 2300), ballads and Brazilian pop. 2345 sudden appearance of Cuban carrier with M announcement including mention of ``Radio Unión``, then open carrier over RNdA. 2358, Cuban carrier had announcement for Radio Nacional de Venezuela by W, and start of a Venezuelan ballad, for about 30 seconds, then back to open carrier. Another RNdA ID at 0000. 0000:30 Cuban NA in progress, RHC ID, noticias. RHC then buried RNdA. RNdA good until CUB carrier came on, poor thereafter, unreadable after RHC started. RHC good. 32433 / 43433 (Mark Taylor, Madison, WI. Equipment: R-75, Sat 800, Sangean 909; 110' random wire, Eavesdropper, NASWA Flashsheet via DXLD) So they put the RNV program feed on 6180 that was supposed to be on 15250 until 2400. RHC using 6180 has been a disaster for Brasília and México, and their would-be listeners (Glenn Hauser, DXLD) ** CUBA. 5025, R. Rebelde, 1128 (!)-f/out 1210, 04 Feb, Spanish, soft songs and pops; 25432 (Carlos Gonçalves, Portugal, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** DENMARK. 243 kHz, Danmarks R, Kalundborg, 2238-2252, talks, including some interview; 53453, adjacent utility QRM (this seems to be local, possibly from one of those digital signals applied to coastal ndb's). Anker, we're simply supposed to count the days until this transmitter is turned off for good or what? Is it really so, i.e. far too little a number of Danish listeners tuning to their own LW?! (Carlos Gonçalves, Portugal, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ECUADOR. 4815, HCJB, 0201, 2/4/07, in Spanish. Looking for Perú, heard OMs in a very long-winded talk, solid ID for HCJB 'Desde Quito' at 0201; heavily splattered on both sides (Mike Agner, Glen Burnie MD, Equipment: TenTec RX320, Carpet Loop, various homebrew antennas, NASWA Flashsheet via DXLD) Solid, maybe, but it was really R. Buen Pastor, which WRTH 2007 notes relays HCJB at times (Glenn Hauser, DXLD) ** EQUATORIAL GUINEA ECUATORIAL. 15190, Radio East África, 0755-0810, escuchada el 4 de febrero en inglés a locutor con comentarios, segmento de música, probablemente cánticos religiosos, a pesar de llegar con buena seńal se aprecia un nivel de audio muy bajo, locutor y locutora con público, aplausos y comentarios, desde las 0803 mejora el nivel de audio, es mas fuerte, SINPO 45333 (José Miguel Romero, Spain, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ERITREA. As reported by BBC Monitoring in DX Listening Digest, Radio Bana on 5100 now has the English program from around 1600 until sign-off at 1630. Prior to that programs in local language(s) can be heard. Monitored here both 5 and 6 Feb with decent signal, altho heavy ute-QRM (Jari Savolainen, Kuusankoski, Finland, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) I wonder what their full transmission schedule is now; still at 0400 too? (gh, DXLD) ** ETHIOPIA. 9704.2v, Radio Ethiopia, 1926-1952 , 1/29/07, in Amharic language. Nice Horn of Africa vocal selection hosted by a man talking. Discussion by a man and woman at 1950. Poor to fair with // 7110 very poor (Rich D`Angelo, French Creek State Park, Berks County, PA DXpedition No. 27, Ten-Tec RX-340 and an Etón E1, 500-foot wire essentially north and 250-foot wire south for the RX-340 and a 40-foot wire essentially northeast for the E1, NASWA Flashsheet via DXLD) 9704.2, ETHIOPIA. Radio Ethiopia, 1951-2001*, 2/3/07, in Amharic language. Horn of Africa instrumental music hosted by a woman announcer with talk. A man at 1957 gave ID and closing announcements followed by choral National Anthem. Poor (Rich D'Angelo, Wyomissing, PA Ten-Tec RX-340, Drake R-8B, Eton E1, Lowe HF-150, Alpha Delta DX Sloper, RF Systems Mini-Windom, Datong FL3, JPS ANC-4, ibid.) ** EUROPE. EUROPirates --- 3271.3, UNID Greek, 0032-..., 03 Feb, Greek, Greek songs & little talking; 45343 but this is actually a harmonic of fundamental 1635.65, which was only one among the many Greek MW pirate stations noted 1600~1700+ kHz (Carlos Gonçalves, Portugal, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** FINLAND. SWR, 11720 at 1126 Feb 3, talks by man in Finnish about pirate stations: Radio International Orient Radio, Weekend Music Radio, this is Northpole Radio from NL and song 'It`s a Sin'; start then again with new series of pirate station mentions. IS 'SWR' and at 1137 with a hot disco song, 1155 'Girls Wanna Have Fun". Signal: S5 max on 2x16m only (on H [?] nothing!) 22432 better is on narrowband. 1305 again with S5 and pop songs and giving email at 1315 (Zacharias Liangas. Retziki THS, Greece, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** GABON. Afropop music distraxion, Feb 5 at 1513 check was on 17625, squeezed between ANU 17630 and RFI on 17620. Feb 6 at 1500, Afropop was on 17635, again only 5 kHz from ANU but on the other side (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** GERMANY [non]. Germany/UK - DW English 6140 kHz gone? Edwin Southwell mentioned at the Reading DX Meeting on Saturday that he had not been able to hear Deutsche Welle's English service to Europe on 6140 kHz since 31st January. Until then reception was fine. Since 1st February, nothing. I have done some spot checks for the past couple of days between 1300- 1600 UT and have also been unable to hear any trace of DW English on 6140 kHz. According to the schedule on DW`s web site, 6140 is still scheduled in English via Woofferton at 0600-1000 and 1300-1600 UT. More cutbacks, strange propagation, or a mistake by VT Communications? (Dave Kenny, Caversham, AOR7030+ 80ft LW, Feb 5, BDXC-UK via DXLD) Good morning, it has been discussed in the BDXC that 6140, the only shortwave frequency for DW English to Europe, could no longer heard in the UK since Feb 1st. Indeed there was no trace of a signal on 6140 this morning around 0630 while 6075 and also 6195 came in at good levels. I'm not sure about the site usage on 6075 and 6195 (no web access here in the office), but I think it is quite unlikely that a 49 metres signal from the UK would be entirely inaudible at the same time. Now, after 0800, 6075 certainly goes out via Skelton only, and it is there here at Dresden as well but again nothing on 6140. So there is not much doubt left that DW indeed cancelled 6140 as of Feb 1st, thus eliminating all shortwave transmissions of DW English for Europe (taken aside the anyway unheard DRM mix which reportedly contains some English). Apparently this happened at the same time than the already reported/discussed modifications in the 6075 operations, whatever the exact relation between these two matters may be. All the best, (Kai Ludwig, Germany, Feb 6, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 'Stinginess is cool' - says a German commercial slogan. Thanks to a tip of Edwin Southwell via Dave Kenny-UK -- DWL seemingly ceased English SW outlet to EUR on 6140 kHz, nothing heard this morning. Former 0600-1000 and 1300-1600 UT outlets via Woofferton England 300 kW 90 degrees in direction of Brussels, Frankfurt, Prague, Moldova. That transmission covered about 20 European countries and their English speaking audience. Usage of SW transmitter site DTK T-systems Nauen near Berlin by DWL will end April 30th, 2007y. From May 1st, 2007y predominant usage of SW transmitter units of British VT Communications (VTC) by DWL. Former Nauen schedule will be switched to facilities in Ascension Isl, Al Dhabbaya-UAE, mostly to Rampisham 18 x 500 kW, Skelton and Woofferton in England, as well as DWL sites in Sines-POR and Kigali-RRW. DWL DRM programmes carried then by a new 100 kW unit at VTC Woofferton from March 25, 2007y. Other DWL DRM transmissions via facilities in Moosbrunn-AUT (ORS), Moscow-RUS, Sackville-CAN, and Sines-POR. 73 wb (Wolfgang Büschel, Germany, Feb 6, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) No trace of this again this morning. Wolfgang Bueschel also confirms from Germany that it appears to have ceased. It looks as though all 7 hours per day of Deutsche Welle's English service to to Europe has gone, apparently without any announcement (Dave Kenny, Feb. 6, BDXC-UK via DXLD) Just got this reply from DW about 6140: From: Margot.Forbes @ dw-world.de To: Erik Koie Sent: Tuesday, February 06, 2007 3:03 PM Subject: Antwort: 6140 gone??!! Hello Erik, many thanks for your e-mail. I am afraid the 6140 frequency is not available any longer. As you are aware, we do have the various DRM transmissions on offer as well as internet. Should we reinstate the shortwave frequency, I will let you know. The matter is being looked into. Regards, Margot Forbes, English Service, DEUTSCHE WELLE RADIO, DW-WORLD:DE 73, (Erik Křie, Copenhagen, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** GERMANY. DTK T-Systems B-06. Part two. Non-daily transmissions. Updated: Feb. 05 with kW / degrees or ND = non-direxional Trans World Radio (TWR): 0630-0645 6130 JUL 100 / 085 Mon-Fri CeEu Slovak 0930-0945 6105 JUL 100 / 120 Tue-Sat CeEu Hungarian 0930-0945 7210 JUL 100 / 085 Tue-Sat CeEu Hungarian 1130-1200 6130 JUL 100 / 085 Sat CeEu Slovak 1130-1200 7225 JUL 100 / 120 Sat CeEu Slovak Hamburg Local Radio from Jan. 7 till Feb.25 1000-1100 6045 JUL 100 / ND Sun CeEu German Christian Science Monitor: 1000-1100 6055 JUL 100 / 115 Sun CeEu German 1900-2000 9890 JUL 100 / 115 Sat EaEu Russian Evangelische Missions Gemeiden: 1130-1200 6055 WER 125 / ND Sat/Sun CeEu German 1200-1230 11840 WER 250 / 030 Sat FE Russian 1600-1630 6000 NAU 250 / 070 Sat EaEu Russian Missionswerke Arche 1200-1215 6055 WER 250 / ND Sun CeEu German Free People's Mission Krefeld Inc: 1200-1230 5945 WER 500 / ND Sat CeEu German 1630-1700 9490 WER 250 / 090 Sat ME English Mecklenburg Verpommern Baltic Radio: 1300-1400 5965 JUL 100 / ND 1st Sun CeEu German Radio Waaberi, cancelled from Feb. 2 1330-1400 17550 JUL 100 / 160 Fri EaAf Somali Radio Traumland: 1400-1530 5965 JUL 100 / ND Sun CeEu German Bible Christian Association/BCA/: 1630-1650 6015 JUL 100 / 115 Sun SoEaEu Bulgarian 1650-1700 6015 JUL 100 / 115 Sun SoEaEu Turkish Radio Huriyo: 1630-1700 9820 JUL 100 / 140 Tue/Fri EaAf Somali Voice of Oromiya Independence: 1700-1730 9820 JUL 100 / 160 Sat EaAf Oromo/Amharic Voice of Democratic Eritrea 1700-1800 9820 NAU 100 / 140 Thu EaAf Tigrinya/English Radio Reveil Paroles de Vie: 1830-1845 11840 JUL 100 / 160 Tue/Thu SoAf French Voice of Democratic Path of Ethiopian Unity: 1900-2000 9620 JUL 100 / 130 Tue/Thu/Sun EaAf Amharic, ex We/Fr/Su Pan American Broadcasting (PAB): 2000-2030 5850 WER 250 / 120 Fri NoAf English 1930-2030 5850 WER 250 / 120 Sat NoAf English 1930-2015 5850 WER 250 / 120 Sun NoAf English 0030-0045 6165 WER 125 / 060 Sun SoAs English 1400-1415 13645 WER 250 / 060 Sat SoAs English 1400-1445 13645 WER 250 / 060 Sun SoAs English 1600-1630 13820 JUL 100 / 090 Thu ME Persian 1430-1445 13820 JUL 100 / 090 Sun ME English 1545-1630 13820 JUL 100 / 090 Sun ME English Radio República: 2300-0400 5970 NAU 100 / 285 Mon-Fri CeAm Spanish Bible Voice Broadcasting Network (BVBN): 0800-0900 5945 JUL 100 / 290 Fri WeEu English 0900-0915 5945 JUL 100 / 290 Fri WeEu Urdu 0800-0915 5945 JUL 100 / 290 Sat WeEu English 0915-0945 5945 WER 040 / 330 Sat WeEu English: DRM from Feb. 3 0800-0945 5945 JUL 100 / 290 Sun WeEu English 1900-1915 6015 JUL 100 / 060 Tue/Fri EaEu Russian 1915-1930 6015 JUL 100 / 060 Mon-Fri EaEu Russian 1930-1945 6015 JUL 100 / 060 Thu EaEu Russian 1900-1945 6015 JUL 100 / 060 Sat EaEu English 1900-2000 6015 JUL 100 / 060 Sun EaEu English/Russian 2000-2030 6015 JUL 100 / 060 Sun EaEu English 1800-1830 7205 JUL 100 / 220 Sun SoEu Spanish 1900-2000 7260 WER 125 / 210 Sat WeAf English 1915-2000 7260 JUL 100 / 140 Sun CeAf English 2000-2030 9565 WER 250 / 120 Thu NoAf Arabic 2000-2015 9565 WER 250 / 120 Sun NoAf Arabic 0900-1015 17545 JUL 100 / 115 Fri NoAf Arabic 0430-0530 9615 WER 100 / 120 Sat EaAf Amharic 0430-0500 9615 WER 100 / 120 Sun EaAf Amharic 1600-1700 11780 JUL 100 / 115 Wed EaAf Amharic 1630-1700 11780 JUL 100 / 115 Thu-Tue EaAf Amharic 1700-1800 11780 JUL 100 / 115 Daily EaAf Tigrinya/Amharic 1800-1900 11780 JUL 100 / 115 Fri/Sun EaAf Somali 1800-1830 11780 JUL 100 / 115 Sat EaAf Somali 1530-1600 13720 JUL 100 / 160 Wed EaAf Tigrinya 2300-0100 5980 WER 100 / 085 Thu ME English 1800-1830 7210 JUL 100 / 090 Wed-Fri ME Persian 1800-1815 7210 JUL 100 / 090 Sat ME English 1815-1900 7210 JUL 100 / 090 Sat ME Persian 1800-1900 7210 JUL 100 / 090 Sun ME Persian 1730-1800 9435 WER 250 / 120 Mon-Fri ME Persian from Feb. 5 1640-1715 9460 WER 100 / 150 Mon-Fri ME English 1715-1730 9460 WER 100 / 150 Tue ME Hebrew 1730-1745 9460 WER 100 / 150 Tue ME Tagalog 1745-1800 9460 WER 100 / 150 Tue ME English 1800-1815 9460 WER 100 / 150 Tue ME Russian 1815-1900 9460 WER 100 / 150 Tue ME Hebrew 1715-1730 9460 WER 100 / 150 Thu ME Hebrew 1730-1745 9460 WER 100 / 150 Thu ME English 1830-1900 9460 WER 100 / 150 Fri ME English 1645-1830 9460 WER 100 / 150 Sat ME English 1830-1845 9460 WER 100 / 150 Sat ME Tagalog 1845-1900 9460 WER 100 / 150 Sat ME Hebrew 1900-1930 9460 WER 100 / 150 Sat ME English 1630-1830 9460 WER 100 / 150 Sun ME English 1900-2000 9470 WER 250 / 090 Fri/Sun ME English 1930-2000 9470 WER 250 / 090 Sat ME English 1715-1835 9730 WER 100 / 120 Mon/Wed/Fri ME Arabic 1800-1835 9730 WER 100 / 120 Tue/Thu ME Arabic 1800-1900 9730 WER 100 / 120 Sat ME English 1730-1900 9730 WER 100 / 120 Sun ME English 1630-1715 11645 WER 250 / 090 Tue ME Arabic 1630-1730 11645 WER 250 / 090 Mon/Wed-Fri ME Arabic 2245-2330 7285 WER 250 / 060 Fri FE Vietnamese 2300-2330 7285 WER 250 / 060 Sat FE Vietnamese 1500-1545 9895 WER 250 / 060 Sun SoAs Bengali 1500-1600 9895 WER 250 / 060 Mon/Fri SoAs Bengali 1515-1600 9895 WER 250 / 060 Tue-Thu SoAs Hindi 1400-1500 11695 WER 250 / 090 Sat/Sun SoAs English 1530-1600 12035 JUL 100 / 090 Mon/Thu SoAs English 1500-1600 12035 JUL 100 / 090 Tue SoAs Urdu 1530-1600 12035 JUL 100 / 090 Wed SoAs Urdu/English 1545-1600 12035 JUL 100 / 090 Fri SoAs Punjabi 1515-1600 12035 JUL 100 / 090 Sat SoAs English 1530-1600 12035 JUL 100 / 090 Sun SoAs Urdu DTK T-Systems B-06, daily transmissions. Corrections: Radio Liberty (RL): 0600-0700 15560 WER 250 / 090 to WeAs Persian Radio Farda, additional frequency WYFR (Family Radio): 2000-2100 9670 WER 125 / 210 to NoWeAf French, not 9465 (DX Mix News, Bulgaria, Feb 6 via DXLD) ** GREECE. Re: ``Announcers screaming in Greek, presumably inspired by spor, Sunday Feb 4 at 1445 on 9420, which had not been audible 24 hours earlier; this time, nothing heard on 15630 or 17525 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)`` Yes Glenn - I think it was football! I tuned in at around the same time and could hear this transmission on 9420, 9935 and 17525 all at excellent 9+20dB strength on the meter. And 15630 was also in use but heard at VERY variable strength from virtually nothing to S9 - with an average around S5 on the meter. I assume this is the new fourth transmitter. It would be interesting to know what they use for an antenna and which way they are sending the signal. I'm not surprised that you didn't hear it. There was a fourth transmitter on air via 11645 around 0900 today (Feb. 5) with a fair signal and slightly less fading than yesterday, but very troubled by audio breaks and transmission "dropouts". There was sidesplash from a stronger KFBS in Russian on 11650. 15630 (Spanish at 0900) and 9420 were at their usual strength while 12105 was poor - it always is on the beam they use between 0700 and 1000 (Noel R. Green, (NW England), dxldyg via DX LISSTENING DIGEST) Last night I checked 5865 a couple of times between 2100 and 2400 for the other announced test outlet, but I could not detect any trace of a signal. Yes, Radiofonikos Stathmos Makedonias on 9935/7450 is at present accompanied by a constant hum. Last night I blamed the source, but now it turns out that it is always there. It is not uncommon for ERA 5 to carry the same sports coverage than Radiofonikos Stathmos Makedonias, resulting in 9935/7450 being // to the ERA 5 frequencies (Kai Ludwig, Germany, Feb 5, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Dear Friend Babis: At 1500 UT Monday, 15630/? azimuth and 17525/105 azimuth were equal SINPO 24332 with the same news program "Ya sas apo tin Athena." Regards (John Babbis, Silver Spring, MD, USA, DX LISTENING DIGEST) VOG, Feb 5 at 1520 with Greek music was much stronger on 9420 than 15630, which was stronger than 17525; nothing on 12105, but did not check other possible frequencies (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ERA 5 AVLIS GREECE WITH 4TH TRANSMITTER TESTING Mail to Noel Green: RRA 5 - Avlis - soooo, I missed something over the weekend... The Greek friends at Avlis FINALLY set up the other 250 kW unit, formerly on IBB RFE Gloria site until 31 May 1996 year !!! - and given as gift to the Greek's ERT then. "Good things come to those who wait." But I guess, the LACKING of adequate amount of 295 to 330 degrees azimuth antennas, to Western Europe and North America is not solved yet. History: Dionysios Angelogiannis, Freq Manager of VoG replies to my query about the RFE-RL 250 kW txs that were dismantled at the Gloria Lisbon-POR site and donated to the Greek govt: "We have not received yet the new txs. We hope to receive them around July [1998]." (John Babbis, MD, Apr 17, 1998 REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTING via Glenn Hauser, via Wolfgang Büschel, Feb 6, 2007, DXLD) How do you know it is at Avlis? ERA person said it was NOT (gh, DXLD) 11645, ERA 5 test transmission. Instead of 15630 kHz at 1100-1200 UT another outlet, carrying some Greek [regional?] radio program at 1100 to close-down at 1146 UT noted today Feb 6th. Only S=4-5 level, like old 35 kW Collins transmitter at Thessaloniki Peraia site in former VOA relay era. From 1200 UT ERA 5 heard with fine signal strength on 9420, 15630, and 17525 kHz. Earlier: 5865, ERA 5 Tests after 2200-0700 UT. 15630 1100-1530 UT. Yes, I logged the 4th transmitter this morning in progress at 0510 UT. 5865, 0510 UT Signal S=5 weak in CeEUR. 292 degrees. S=6 at 0610 and 0638 UT. Closed at 0700 UT. 7475 0515-[0550?] UT S=9+5dB, 285 degr. 9420 0518 UT S=9+5dB. 323 degr. S=9+30dB at 0610 and 0640 UT. 12105 0520 UT not propagating to WeEUR. 226 degr to Ce/WeAF. 0600 UT S=9+20dB. 0643 UT S=9+10dB. 15630 0600-1000 UT. STRANGE 285 degr. 0600 UT S=0-1 under threshold. Fade-in around 0624-0627 UT, only fragments noted, also at 0645 S=1-2. But really Albanian on air, as scheduled 6-7 UT. Tuesday at 0900-1130 approx., is maintenance day at ERT Avlis site each week (Wolfgang Büschel, Stuttgart, Germany, Feb 6, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** GUIANA FRENCH. Apparently the latest series of DRM transmissions to NAm on 17870-17875-17880 are M-F only, as nothing was heard around 1500 Sat or Sun Feb 3 or 4, but were back on Feb 5 and 6. Did not see anything in the original notice about their being weekdays only. To state the obvious, more listeners would be available during the daytime on weekends (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** GUINEA. 7125 is still inaudible, so most probably silent (Carlos Gonçalves, Portugal, Feb 5, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** HUNGARY. Dear Sir, I am Tibor Gaal, a Hungarian DXer. I'd like to submit one material to DX Listening Digest about frequency change at Hungarian Radio. Hungarian Radio have discontinued its OIRT FM (66-73 MHz) broadcast. OIRT FM was used in the former Soviet bloc for radiobroadcasting. Hopingly you can use this file. Wishing you all the best, Your faithful listener, Tibor --- Viz.: "Announcement 27th of January, 2007 by the Hungarian Public Radio (it is called in Hungarian: Magyar Rádió) On 1st of February, 2007, the first channel of the Hungarian Radio called Kossuth Rádió will cease its broadcast on OIRT FM band (66-73 MHz; popularly known as Eastern FM). At the same time a new radioprogramme, called MR-4 (the abbreviation stands for: Magyar Radio programme 4; but the Hungarian name of the radio is Nemzetiségek Rádiója {literary translation in English is: Radioprogramme for minorities}, because the program broadcasts in minority language), will start between 08.00-20.00 Central European Time (CET), which is 07.00-19.00 UTC in winter, on the Medium Wave band. At the same time we start two new programme in digital mode on satellite: one channel will broadcasts MR-4, the second will transmit Parliamentary Sessions live. Mediumwave Frequencies and Transmitters of Mr-4 as follows: - 1188 KHz Marcali - 1188 KHz Szolnok - 873 KHz Lakihegy - 873 KHz Pécs MR-4 on satellite: Hot Bird 3 - 13 degrees east; - transponder: 72; - frequency: 12,14944 GHz; - polarisation: Vertical; - dual Mono, CH1 (L) - Nemzetiségek Rádiója Parliamentary sessions: Hot Bird 3 - 13 degrees east; - transponder: 72; - frequency: 12,14944 GHz; - polarisation: Vertical; - dual Mono, CH2 (R) - Parlamenti közvetítés (Parliamentary session) On the 1st of February, 2007, all transmitters will cease their operations (broadcasting of Kossuth Rádió) on OIRT FM band at 0.00 hours Central European Time (which is 23.00 hours UTC in winter) . These transmitter locations and frequencies are the followings: - Budapest 67,40 MHz - Kabhegy 72,98 MHz - Kékes 71,21 MHz - Komádi 66,14 MHz - Miskolc 66,80 MHz - Nagykanizsa 71,03 MHz - Pécs 71,81 MHz - Sopron 72,86 MHz - Szentes 66,29 MHz - Tokaj 71,33 MHz. The (Magyar Rádió) Hungarian Radio's frequencies are as follows from 1st of February, 2007: Kossuth Rádió mediumwave transmitters: broadcasting time: 04.30-0.10 CET Monday to Saturday; 06.00-0.10 CET on Sundays. Transmitter location and frequencies: Solt, 540 KHz (broadcasts the same program as the Kossuth Rádió's programme on CCIR FM (87-108 MHz) Miskolc, 1116 kHz (broadcasts Kossuth Rádió programme and regional programme of the Hungarian Radio called Miskolci Stúdió (in english: Studio Miskolc)) Nyíregyháza, 1251 kHz (broadcasts Kossuth Rádió programme and regional programme of the Hungarian Radio called Nyíregyházi Stúdió (in english: Studio Nyíregyháza)) Szombathely, 1251 kHz. (broadcasts Kossuth Rádió programme and regional programme of the Hungarian Radio's Nyugat-Dunántúli Régió Rádió (in English: Régió Rádió, Western Danube Region)) Kossuth Rádió on CCIR FM: Broadcasting time: 24 hours a day At night the Kossuth Rádió and the Petőfi Rádió (Petőfi Rádió is the 2nd programme of the Hungarian Radio) beams the Hungarian Radio's night programme called "Magyar Rádió éjszakai műsora". During the operation of the Mediumwave transmitter on 540 KHz at Solt, the Kossuth Rádió broadcasts the same programme both on its CCIR FM transmitters and the Mediumwave transmitter on 540 KHz at Solt. CCIR FM transmitters of the Kossuth Rádió as follows: - Aggtelek 94,6 MHz - Bácsalmás 95.0 MHz - Battonya 105,4 MHz - Békéscsaba 97,3 MHz - Budapest 107,8 MHz - Cegléd 93 MHz - Debrecen 99,7 MHz - Dunaújváros 91,3 MHz - Eger 96,2 MHz - Fehérgyarmat 105,9 MHz - Gerecse 105,6 MHz - Győr 106,4 MHz - Kabhegy 102,3 MHz - Kaposvár 96,7 MHz - Karcag 97,9 MHz - Kazincbarcika 97,7 MHz - Kecskemét 104,9 MHz - Kékes 99,8 MHz - Kiskunhalas 102.7 MHz - Komádi 89,9 MHz - Miskolc 103,8 MHz - Mosonmagyaróvár 95 MHz - Nagykanizsa 106,7 MHz - Ózd 105,0 MHz - Paks 92,00 MHz - Pápa 96,4 MHz - Pécs 104,6 MHz - Rábaszentandrás 105,2 MHz - Salgótarján 89,9 MHz - Sárvár 96,0 MHz - Szeged 101,9 MHz - Székesfehérvár 92,3 MHz - Szekszárd 99.0 MHz - Szentes 91,6 MHz - Szolnok 94,3 MHz - Szombathely 93,00 MHz - Tiszakécske 106,4 MHz - Tokaj 88,3 MHz - Vasvár 103,6 MHz - Zalaegerszeg 102,6 MHz. Kossuth Rádió Shortwave: programming time: 06.00-18.00 CET Monday to Saturday; 06.00-14.00 CET on Sundays. Frequency: 6025 KHz. Kossuth Rádió on satellite: Satellite: Hot Bird 6; cover area: Europe; Position: 13 Degrees East; transponder: 115; frequency: 10,81508 GHz; polarisation: Horizontal; audio subcarrier: 7,38 MHz (in mono); note: this is one of the audio subcarriers of Duna TV satellite: Hot Bird 3; cover area: Europe; position: 13 degrees East; transponder: 72; frequency: 12,149 GHz; polarisation: Vertical; note: digital Satellite: Intelsat Americas 5; cover area: North-America; position: 97 degrees West; transponder: 7; frequency: 11,867 GHz; polarisation: Vertical; note: next to Duna TV, digital, coded transmission satellite: Optus B3 cover area: Australia/New Zealand; position: 152 degrees East; transponder: 7; frequency: 12,658 GHz; polarisation: Vertical; note: next to Duna TV, digital, coded transmission Petőfi Rádió (2nd Channel of the Hungarian Radio): transmitting time: 24 hours a day CCIR FM transmitter locations and frequencies: - Budapest 94,80 MHz - Csávoly 89,40 MHz - Debrecen 89,00 MHz - Győr 93,10 MHz - Kabhegy 93,90 MHz - Kékes 102,70 MHz - Kiskőrös 95,10 MHz - Komádi 96,70 MHz - Miskolc 102,30 MHz - Nagykanizsa 94,30 MHz - Pécs 103,7 MHz - Sopron 99,50 MHz - Szeged 104,60 MHz - Szentes 98,80 MHz - Tokaj 92,70 MHz - Uzd 90,30 MHz - Vasvár 98,20 MHz. satellite: Hot Bird 6 cover area: Europe; position: 13 degrees East; transponder: 115; frequency: 10,81508 GHz; polarisation: Horisontal; audio subcarrier: 7,74 MHz (in mono); note: this is one of the audio subcarriers of Duna TV satellite: Hot Bird 3; cover area: Europe; position: 13 degrees East; transponder: 72; frequency: 12,149 GHz; polarisation: Vertical; note: digital Bartók Rádió (the 3rd programme of the Hungarian Radio) program time: 24 hours a day CCIR transmitter locations and FM frequencies: - Budapest 105,30 MHz - Debrecen 106,60 MHz - Győr 106,80 MHz - Kabhegy 105,00 MHz - Kékes 90,70 MHz - Kiskőrös 105,90 MHz - Komádi 105,10 MHz - Miskolc 107,50 MHz - Nagykanizsa 104,70 MHz - Pécs 107,60 MHz - Sopron 107,90 MHz - Szeged 105,70 MHz - Szentes 107,30 MHz - Tokaj 105,50 MHz - Uzd 106,90 MHz - Vasvár 106,90 MHz. Bartók Rádió on satellite: Műhold: Hot Bird 3 cover area: Europe; position: 13 degrees East; transponder: 71; frequency: 12,13026 GHz; polarisation: Horisontal; audio subcarrier: 7,74/7,92 MHz (in stereo); note: on the audio subcarrier of the M2 television Regional studios of the Hungarian Radio: They broadcast the Kossuth Rádió programmes except when they broadcast their own regional programmes. Regional Studio in Debrecen (Debreceni Regionális Stúdió) - Debrecen, 91,40 MHz (FM) Regional Studio in Győr (Győri Regionális Stúdió) - Mosonmagyaróvár, 1116 kHz - Győr, 1350 kHz - Szombathely, 1251 kHz Regional and minority programmes studio in Miskolc (Miskolci Regionális és Nemzetiségi Stúdió) - Miskolc, 1116 kHz Regional Studio in Nyíregyháza (Nyíregyházi Regionális Stúdió) - Nyíregyháza, 1251 kHz Regional and minority programmes studio in Pécs (Pécsi Regionális és Nemzetiségi Stúdió) - Pécs, 101,7 MHz (FM) Regional and minority programmes studio in Szeged (Szegedi Regionális és Nemzetiségi Stúdió) - Szeged, 93,1 MHz (FM) Regional and minority programmes studio in Szolnok (Szolnoki Regionális és Nemzetiségi Stúdió) - Szolnok 101,2 MHz (FM) MR-4 (Nemzetiségek Rádiója) program time: 08.00-20.00 CET everyday transmitter location and frequencies on Mediumwave: - Marcali 1188 KHz - Szolnok 1188 KHz - Lakihegy 873 KHz - Pécs 873 KHz Mr-4 (Nemzetiségek Rádiója) on satellite program time: 08.00-20.00 CET everyday; from 20.00-08.00 hours CET, repeating programmes broadcasted 36 hours earlier. Satellite: Hot Bird 3 cover area: Europe; position: 13 degrees East; transponder: 72; frequency: 12,14944 GHz; polarisation: Vertical; note: dual Mono, CH1 (L), digital Parliamentary session (live broadcast) program time: live parliamentary sessions; in parliamentary breaks it broadcasts Kossuth Rádió. satellite: Hot Bird 6 cover area: Europe; position: 13 degrees East; transponder: 115; frequency: 10,81508 GHz; polarisation: Horisontal; audio subcarrier: 7,92 MHz; note: audio subcarrier on the transponder of the Duna TV Satellite: Hot Bird 3 cover area: Europe; position: 13 degrees East; transponder: 72; frequency: 12,14944 GHz; polarisation: Vertical; note: dual Mono, CH2 (R), digital" Contrary to the announcement, according to my personal observation, the OIRT FM transmitters of Kossuth Rádió had ended their broadcast at 00.10 CET on 1st of February, 2007. Now, OIRT FM is silent in Hungary. This band was introduced during mid1960s by Soviet initiation. The former socialist countries of Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Mongolia and the Soviet Union used this band for radiobroadcasting. I don't know whether East Germany (DDR) and Albania whether or not used OIRT FM. The former socialist country of Yugoslavia had never used this band for radiobroadcasting. OIRT FM users hadn't used CCIR FM (87-108 MHZ) band for radiobroadcasting. One or two TV channels were located on CCIR FM band at that time, but this band was empty in Budapest at that time (Tibor Gaal, Feb 5, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Tnx, Tibor. Language notes: Hungarian has some accents that are hard to find on non-Hungarian fonts. They all have to do with vowel length, not stress, which is always on first syllable. For example there are short-and-long umlauts (pardon my Nemet terminology again). Which is I think why in the above we see Győr with a tilde over the o instead and műsora with a circumflex over the u, not to my knowledge real Hungarian accents. Also, the above frequency list is inconsistent with periods vs commas for decimal points, so have left it as is, tho in DXLD style they should always be periods (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** INDIA. I often find it convenient to listen to Faithfully Yours, the AIR mailbag, Mondays at 1430 on 9690. Feb 5 the ongoing theme by the M&W presenters was that they wished people would comment more on the programming, and send reports covering longer listening periods. I suspect they are dealing mainly with QSL-hunters who aren`t really interested in programming or listening any longer than absolutely necessary (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) see also KASHMIR ** INTERNATIONAL. Re 7-006, 6010 kHz offsets: You can view my results of monitoring 6010 kHz offsets using Spectrum Lab from 0240 to 1300 UT on 6 Feb 06 here: *http://tinyurl.com/2gpvak* (Brandon Jordan, TN, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) VG visual display! (gh) ** ITALY. Re: ``26000, 3/2, 1710, R. Maria - Erba IT MX sacra suff (Roberto Pavanello, Vercelli - Italia, bclnews.it yg via DXLD) I suppose by groundwave in which case it is always interesting to know the distance.`` 60-70 Km ``I also suppose it was analog AM, STILL not having started DRM which was supposedly the reason for going on 26 MHz in the first place (gh, DXLD)`` I confirm (Roberto Scaglione, Sicily, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** ITALY. Rai International changes name to Rai Italia At a press conference last week, the managing director of Rai International, Piero Badaloni, announced that Italy’s international TV service, Rai International, is changing its name to Rai Italia, and is adopting Rai’s butterfly logo. From March util 21 June there will be a new schedule, with a lot of new programmes, some produced specially for an overseas audience. After 21 June, the channel will stop using GMT (UTC) as its time standard. From the beginning of March, there will be a new newshour at 06, 12, 18 & 24 hrs UTC, specially produced for Rai Italia in collaboration with the various domestic news programmes. Currently, Rai International broadcasts 3 different programming schedules: Rai International 1 reaches North America and Latin America, Rai International 2 goes to Australia, Rai International 3 to Asia and Africa. Making the new Rai Italia available in Western Europe is under consideration, but not plans have so far been formulated. Currently, RAI’s three domestic TV networks are available across the region on satellite. At the press conference, nothing was said about the international radio services. (Source: RAI via David de Jong) February 5th, 2007 - 9:47 UTC by Andy (Media Network blog via DXLD) ** KASHMIR. 4830, INDIA (Kashmir). All India Radio (Jammu), 0206-0240, 1/29/07. Hindi talk by a man announcer followed by Hindi vocals with flutes and sitar music. ID and news at 0230 followed by more music. Not noted earlier so the Indian opening was much later than usual. Poor to fair with some CODAR QRM (Rich D`Angelo, French Creek State Park, Berks County, PA.: DXpedition No. 27, Ten-Tec RX-340 and an Etón E1, 500-foot wire essentially north and 250-foot wire south for the RX-340 and a 40-foot wire essentially northeast for the E1, NASWA Flashsheet via DXLD) ** KOREA NORTH. 6250.1, PBS Pyongyang 0925-0940, 1/29/07. Program of Asian vocals. Fair. // 6398.74 poor under ute (Fred Kohlbrenner, French Creek State Park, Berks County, PA, Drake R8, 150' LW, NASWA Flashsheet via DXLD) ** LAOS [non]. QSL's - LAOS --- Hmong Lao Radio HMONG LAO RADIO via KWHR, NAALEHU, HAWAII, on 11785. Full-data (except program name) KWHR globe, Hawaii map, & satellite card in 5 months for a report to World Harvest Radio (W. Craighead, KS, Dec 13, 2006 for CRW Dec 15, just posted Feb 6, 2007, via DXLD) This is NONSENSE. The transmission on 11785, Sat/Sun 14-15 UT (DST: 13-14) is and always has been obviously via WHRI in South Carolina, not really for Laos but for Hminnesota and elsewhere in the conterminous US where Hmong immigrants reside. Does WHR not even know which transmitter site they should verify, or did Wendel assume it was KWHR and convince WHR of that too? (Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Don`t be too angry about the target of Hmong R; it was my decision to put it under Laos and not under USA as Wendel did (Martin Schöch, CRW, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Not angry, just exasperated. As you see, I also put it under LAOS but [non]; the issue is the transmitter site used (gh) ** LIBERIA. 5470, R. Veritas, 2000-2031, 1/28/07 in English. Program, ID and opening announcements, African vocals. Poor (Fred Kohlbrenner, French Creek State Park, Berks County, PA, Drake R8, 150' LW, NASWA Flashsheet via DXLD) 5470, Radio Veritas, 2030-2102* 1/28/07, in English. Man announcer with ID and frequency announcements followed by talks by man hosting a music program. Talk at 2042 about Second Bank of Liberia and banking in Liberia. Fair (Rich D`Angelo, French Creek State Park, Berks County, PA DXpedition No. 27, Ten-Tec RX-340 and an Etón E1, 500-foot wire essentially north and 250-foot wire south for the RX-340 and a 40-foot wire essentially northeast for the E1, NASWA Flashsheet via DXLD) ** LITHUANIA. 6250, Voice of Islamic Republic of Iran via Sitkunai, Spanish language program with talk by a woman and Iranian vocals. End of program at 2125 followed by a man announcer with ID and news summary. Closing instrumental music until carrier cut. Fair (Rich D'Angelo, Wyomissing, PA Ten-Tec RX-340, Drake R-8B, Eton E1, Lowe HF- 150, Alpha Delta DX Sloper, RF Systems Mini-Windom, Datong FL3, JPS ANC-4, NASWA Flashsheet via DXLD) Yes, 5 kHz difference correct: 6255, LITHUANIA. VOIRI (Sitkunai), 2014-2028* 1/28/07, in English. Program with a woman hosting a feature program which was followed by an ID and a man hosting the news. Closedown ID and announcements followed by instrumental music until carrier was cut. Fair (Rich D`Angelo, French Creek State Park, Berks County, PA DXpedition No. 27, Ten-Tec RX-340 and an Etón E1, 500-foot wire essentially north and 250-foot wire south for the RX-340 and a 40-foot wire essentially northeast for the E1, NASWA Flashsheet via DXLD) ** LITHUANIA. 6255, KBC via Sitkunai, 2214-2259*, 2/3/07, in English. Program hosted by a man announcer with frequent IDs, postal and e-mail addresses requesting reception reports playing rock music. Fair (Rich D'Angelo, Wyomissing, PA Ten-Tec RX-340, Drake R-8B, Eton E1, Lowe HF- 150, Alpha Delta DX Sloper, RF Systems Mini-Windom, Datong FL3, JPS ANC-4, NASWA Flashsheet via DXLD) 6255, KBC Radio, Holland via Sitkunai, *2200, 2/3/07. Back again with similar program as last week and equally good signal. Pop music with English DJ between songs, greeting listeners, acknowledging reports, ads for their radio sales division. They've changed their email address since last week; it's now kbc@planet.nl Tom de Wit says they have received reports from Europe, USA, Brasil, Costa Rica, and Colombia (John Herkimer, Caledonia, NY, NRD-535D (Kiwa), Etón E1-XM, 100 ft longwire, NASWA Flashsheet via DXLD)) 6255, KBC start 2157 Feb 3 with open carrier. 2200 starting program with numerous IS and IDs as `mighty KBC' with mainly hot pop and rock songs. I could identify the songs , 'Wings of Change' by Scorpions at 2216, 'I Think We Are Alone Now' (Tiffany) at 2235. Also song-insert IS's. Signal at start was 45544 to 45523 at 2245 (Zacharias Liangas, Thessaloniki, Greece, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Saturdays only ** MEXICO. After having heard XEPPM, 6185, in the daytime after 1500 on two consecutive Mondays in January, I missed checking Jan 29, and almost missed Feb 5, but at 1521 it was not to be heard (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** MEXICO. 9599.2, Radio Universidad, 2240-2301, 1/29/07. Program of continuous classical piano music with a woman announcer at 2258 with an ID ending the program. Another announcer began talking introducing next program. Fair (Rich D`Angelo, French Creek State Park, Berks County, PA.: DXpedition No. 27, Ten-Tec RX-340 and an Etón E1, 500- foot wire essentially north and 250-foot wire south for the RX-340 and a 40-foot wire essentially northeast for the E1, NASWA Flashsheet via DXLD) 9599.23, XEYU, 2109, 1/29/07 in SP. Talk, piano instrumentals, "R. Unam" ID's. Poor (Fred Kohlbrenner, French Creek State Park, Berks County, PA, Drake R8, 150' LW, ibid.) 9599.25, R. UNAM, 2245, 1/30/07. Classical music program at tune-in, woman briefly with announcements then back to music. Annoying het; fair otherwise (John Herkimer, Caledonia, NY, NRD-535D (Kiwa), Etón E1-XM, 100 ft longwire, ibid.) 9599.5, R. UNAM , 1450, 1/30/07, in Spanish. Poor with talk by man; considerable fading; many mentions of Mexico; gone by 1515 (Jim Ronda, Tulsa, OK, NRD-545, R-75, E-1 + Eavesdropper (and occasionally an E-5, ibid.) 9599.9, Radio UNAM, 2120, 2/1/07. 101st try for them in their current era but only CRI-Urumqi. Pretty strong het in there, though. (tentative), 0517, 2/4/07. Seemed a long, classical-like selection with slight het. Last "official" log of this was March, 1990 (Gerry Dexter, Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, NRD 515, NRD 545, Eton E-1, ibid.) 9599.25, 04/02 2235, Radio UNAM, music and interviews, Spanish, poor/fair. Rx: CiaoRadio H101 ant: T2FD 73 (Giampiero Bernardini, Milano, Italy, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Hola Colegas, Estas líneas para reportar la escucha de la seńal de la Radio UNAM en onda corta a través de los 9599.3 kHz, realizada ayer a las 1945 UT cuando presentaban música de Wolfang Amadeus Mozart; antes de las 2000 con un poema de Rebeca Ochoa. Luego vino la fuerte seńal de CRI en 9600 kHz en ingles para Europa que la tapó por completo y luego de la 2200 escuchada nuevamente con música de Franz Schubert. "...Buenas tardes, sintoniza usted con Radio UNAM desde la capital de la República Mexicana a través de XEUN 860 kHz amplitud modulada; XEYU 9600 kHz onda corta, banda internacional de 31 metros, e internet..." Luego de las 2300 tapada otra vez ahora por Radio Habana. Escuchada gracias a los monitoreos del colega Glen[n] Hauser, informaciones de Julián Santiago Diez de B. y al audio de Renato Bruni en la lista Play DX (Rafael Rodríguez R, Colombia, Feb 4, condig list via DXLD) ** MEXICO. Re 7-014, Radio AMLO --- Hi Glenn, I've just downloaded my emails and now I'm reading the DXLD 7-014 and I saw you wrote this at the end of my message I sent you a few days ago: "[..] (XE1/F-14314 op. Thierry Vignaud, Mexico City, SAT, SW & BC Listener, Jan 30, DX LISTENING DIGEST) " Well, let me tell you that "Vignaud" is not my last name! I remember reading a "Thierry Vignaud" in your DXLD but "we" are not the same person. My Last name is : FRICOT ;-) (Thierry --- XE1/F-14314 op. Thierry, QTH: Mexico City, SAT, SW & BC Listener, Feb 6, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Thierry, Sorry about that. If you put your surname somewhere on your correspondence this would not be a problem. I always like to give full names of contributors and should not have to try to remember them. 73, (Glenn (Hauser), via DXLD) ** MOROCCO. I can confirm your tip, RTM transmit two different programs at least 14-15 UT, puzzles, needs further check. RTM different program content, thanks Noel for the information: really, 15335 RTM Briech had Qur`an prayer-singer 1445-1500 UT close-down. And next RTM Nador 15340 had Arabic sports report, like Saturday LIVE football coverage reports from UNID stadium. vy 73 de wolfy (Wolfgang Büschel, Feb 6, to Noel Green, via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** NIGERIA. 4770, again at an odd time, 1147-1230, 04 Feb, Vernacular (tentatively), talks, African music; 15341. I wanted to check their other regional outlet, 7275, but no signal, just V of Nigeria 7255 loud & clear at midday: rated 35443 at 1309 on 03 Feb (Carlos Gonçalves, Portugal, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** OKLAHOMA. Someone reported logging KGYN with the slogan "50 years of service..." That suggests KGYN first signed on in 1957. But I thought KGYN was a new station when it signed on on 1210 as one of the first Class IIAs. If memory serves, there were no IIAs until sometime in the 60s -- could even have been as late as 1967. The "50 years of service..." slogan suggests that either (a) I am wrong about when 13 IA channels were broken down (including 1210, but NOT including 770, on which KOB began operating in 1941, and also not including 760, on which KFMB began operating in the early 1950s), that (b) KGYN was on some other frequency with some class other than IIA before it moved to 1210, or that (c) someone at KGYN can't subtract correctly. Can someone please resolve this confusion for me? Thanks. (Dan Strassberg, fax AC 707, NRC-AM via DXLD) KGYN was originally on 1220 as a daytimer, I remember (Glenn Hauser, Enid, DX LISTENING DIGEST) KGYN is listed as a 1000 watt daytimer on 1220 in the Fall 1960 White's Radio Log, and as the same in the Spring 1963 issue. Feb 1968 still is on 1220 with 1000 watts day only so they must have moved to 1210 sometime after that. your option (b) is correct:) 73, (Deane McIntyre, VE6BPO, NRC-AM via DXLD) ** SAIPAN. KFBS Saipan Russian program extension? Starts now at 0730 UT [11650] instead at 0900 UT as scheduled (Wolfgang Büschel to kfbsprog @ febc.org via DXLD) Dear Mr Bueshcel, Hafa Adai from Saipan! Yes, we are starting 1 1/2 hours earlier, but this is just a temporary situation as we are upgrading our transmitters. We hope to be back to the old schedule by April 1, 2007. Trust this answers your enquiry? Regards, (Irene Gabbie, FEBC Programming, E-mail: kfbsprog @ febc.org PO Box 500209 Saipan MP 96950 1 (670) 322-9088 (via Büschel, DXLD) ** SOMALIA [non]. Radio Waaberi, cancelled from Feb. 2: 1330-1400 17550 JUL 100 / 160 Fri EaAf Somali (DX Mix News Bulgaria, Feb 6 via DXLD) Gone for good? Was brokered by R. Miami Int`l (gh) Glenn: Waaberi says they hope to return soon (Jeff White, RMI, Feb 6, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** SPAIN. 2370, UNID private station (not RNE) ending up on this frequency possibly due to some external mixing spur or... some pirate experiment (?), 2033-..., 03 Feb, football; 25342. 73, (Carlos Gonçalves, Portugal, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** SUDAN. 4750, Radio Peace, 0416-0436, 1/29/07. Surprised to find this with African vocals, talk in Arabic by a man followed by a canned English ID by a man: ``This is Radio Peace broadcasting on 4750 kHz in the 60 meter band. Thank you for listening.`` After a brief segment of instrumental music another ID: ``This is Radio Peace.`` A brief segment of instrumental music was followed by a man talking in Arabic. Poor to fair with CODAR splatter (Rich D`Angelo, French Creek State Park, Berks County, PA DXpedition No. 27, Ten-Tec RX-340 and an Etón E1, 500-foot wire essentially north and 250-foot wire south for the RX-340 and a 40-foot wire essentially northeast for the E1, NASWA Flashsheet via DXLD) ** TIBET. 5240, CHINA (Tibet). Xizang People`s Broadcasting Station- Lhasa, 2220-2325, 1/28/07, in Tibetan. Local coals [?] with drums followed by talks by a man and woman. Bells at 2320 followed by news program. Fair. // 4920 (fair), 4905 (poor to fair), and 7385 (poor). (Rich D`Angelo, French Creek State Park, Berks County, PA DXpedition No. 27, Ten-Tec RX-340 and an Etón E1, 500-foot wire essentially north and 250-foot wire south for the RX-340 and a 40-foot wire essentially northeast for the E1, NASWA Flashsheet via DXLD) ** U S S R [and non]. KKS wrote: Interesting that they mentioned Radio Moscow...was there a Radio Free Moscow as well? In a way there was - Radio Liberty. That was set up in the fifties to function in that role. It's still around, and is pretty much serving the same function. Radio Free Europe did the same things for the Eastern Block countries outside of the Soviet Union. You really have missed out on some interesting radio listening, being as young as you are. During the height of the Cold War the shortwave bands were packed every evening with broadcasts going forth from one side to the other. Radio Moscow's North American service was even relayed on 600 KHz medium wave from Cuba. You can hardly believe how that felt, that the Soviets were close enough that you could get them in on a cheap transistor radio. A lot of the Radio Moscow staff is still around on the air from their current incarnation, the Voice of Russia World Service, but the flavor of the thing is different, no more long talks about the New Soviet Man or the warmonger Reagan. Their British service was always a hoot back in the day, just as they had American sounding people on the North American service, they had British sounding people on that one. Anyway, VOR can be heard nightly on 7125 kHz at 8 P.M. Eastern (the last time I checked). [No, currently that`s RIR in Russian at 00-03 UT per EiBi B-06] The world as it was when I was 18: TIME - The Propaganda Sweepstakes -- Monday, Mar. 09, 1981 http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,921000,00.html (Curtis Sadowski, Paxton, Illinois, WTFDA-AM via DXLD) ** U S A [non]. VOA Talk to America, Tue Feb 6 again featured Kim Andrew Elliott. I listened to most of it on 9760 via Philippines, despite Chinese QRM in background, since this had a much better signal on this date than 11655 via Germany. Started with recording of a DC station that just ran nature sounds during Superbowl, and then onto the big news of the day, BBG`s unaltered plans to slash English and several other languages. As usual, Kim did not overtly criticize this but tried to explain it. He did mention that VOA News Now would be gone, including this very program. Recommended listening, anyway, ondemand at the usual website (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Re Kim on Talk to America again Feb 6: Also you can paste this URL into Itunes or Juice and maybe Doppler and listen on your MP3 Player! http://www.voanews.com/english/customcf/podcastxml.cfm?id=1308 While it's great that Kim appears again to be a regular guest on TTA, do you think the host or a caller will ask him a tough question? (Larry Nebron, CA, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Not really ** U S A. What Follows... ...can only be described with a common barnyard epithet. Another sad day for the VOA in particular and U.S. international broadcasting in general. Read on... (John Figliozzi, Halfmoon, NY, Feb 5, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) From: IBB Notices Administration notices @ IBB.GOV Monday, February 05, 2007 10:22:13 AM MESSAGE FROM THE BOARD OF GOVERNORS ON THE BUDGET REQUEST FOR FY 2008 Today, the President’s budget request for fiscal year 2008 will be sent to the Congress. This budget request continues to reflect pressures on the discretionary budget, including requirements for the Iraq conflict. In addition, the yearlong continuing resolution (CR) currently pending with Congress indicates that the agency will continue operations at its FY 2006 level. In spite of this difficult budget environment, the Administration’s FY 2008 request for the BBG of $668.2 million is a 3.8 percent increase for the BBG over anticipated FY 2007 levels. This increase indicates the Administration’s support for BBG broadcasts as part of its national security strategy, and includes broadcast initiatives to critical audiences around the world, including North Korea, the Middle East, Somalia, and Cuba. The budget fully funds initiatives begun in FY 2006 to critical Muslim audiences. These include the expansion of VOA television to Iran to a 12-hour stream, VOA Pashto programming to the Afghanistan/Pakistan border region, television programs to Afghanistan and Pakistan, and Alhurra Europe. In addition, the request proposes several initiatives originally proposed in our FY 2007 request. These include VOA Spanish television programming to Venezuela, enhanced employee training and awards programs, expanded affiliate and audience development efforts, as well as improved transmission for RFE/RL and RFA, and an enhanced news coverage capability for Alhurra and Radio Sawa. To fund these increases in support of the Administration’s effort to provide essential access to news and information for the most critical audiences, we will be facing significant reductions in other areas. The FY 2008 budget includes the elimination of VOA and RFA broadcasts in Cantonese as well as VOA Uzbek; and reductions to Ukrainian broadcasts by VOA and RFE/RL, Tibetan broadcasts by VOA and RFA, VOA Portuguese to Africa, and broadcasts by RFE/RL Romanian, South Slavic and Kazakh. Other savings will come from reductions in support and administrative services and the transmission network. Several of the reductions that were proposed for FY 2007 are included in the FY 2008 request. These include eliminating VOA broadcasts in Croatian, Greek, Georgian and Thai as well as RFE/RL broadcasts in Macedonian. The request includes pursuing a television strategy for VOA in Serbian, Albanian, Bosnian, Macedonian, Hindi and Russian. The proposal also calls for discontinuing 14 hours a day of VOA NewsNow English broadcasts while maintaining VOA’s English to Africa and Special English services and continuing to strengthen VOA English on the Internet. The proposed reductions are a reflection of very difficult decisions within a constrained budgetary environment, and are not a reflection on the quality of the programming of these services. We must position U.S. international broadcasting for the future by continuing to enhance impact and efficiency. The current budget climate requires that we utilize our funds to effectively adapt to changing viewing habits and new technology, and respond to the nation’s most immediate and vital national security challenges. We recognize that this budget will be difficult for the agency because it includes a loss of positions in parts of the agency, and gains in others. As in the past, to address some of the hardship for these realignments, we will try to implement personnel reductions by voluntary means as much as possible. The agency has the authority to offer early out and buyout opportunities to its federal employees, and is offering these in FY 2007 to try to soften the impact on affected employees. The submission of the President’s budget request to the Congress is the beginning of the process for determining the agency’s programs in FY 2008. None of the proposed reductions may be implemented until the Congress has approved them (via John Figliozzi, dxldyg via DXLD) As others have stated elsewhere, the idea that the US will no longer have a radio broadcast presence in English of any consequence is well nigh of unbelievable. Barn yard epithets don't do it justice (Rob de Santos, Columbus, OH, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) This administration sucks! They're going to stop broadcasting to ??% {there has to be a billion people speaking Cantonese} of the World to save less than two weeks worth of what Iraq is costing us? For that matter I was always taught "actions speak louder than words" so it's my honest opinion that whatever we're investing in Arabic & Persian Services is akin to pissing in the wind! (Jim Strader, MA, swprograms via DXLD) Not quite; World Almanac 2002 showed only 71 megapeople, at least with Yue (Cantonese) as first language, altho spoken in 20 countries by such people, compared with 874 mega in only 16 countries for Mandarin. Since so many immigrants to North America in the XIX and XX centuries spoke Cantonese, we tend to think of it as more important than it really is compared to Mandarin. Still, it is an important language and should not be dropped. Perhaps another factor in the decision was how many first-language Cantonese speakers could also understand Mandarin? (Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Time to channel that invective towards your/our elected representatives in Washington. Keep in mind this is a negotiation process, with the memo considered part of the opening salvo; it appears (perhaps others can elaborate) that some of what's proposed here is a repeat of what was proposed (BUT NOT IMPLEMENTED) in FY07. I personally believe the Iraq vs. IBB/VOA spending levels is a very stark comparison, and a visually effective one (Richard Cuff / Allentown, PA, swprograms via DXLD) Here`s the PR version of the above info: BROADCASTING BUDGET STRENGTHENS TARGETED PROGRAMMING Washington, D.C., February 05, 2007— http://www.bbg.gov/_bbg_news.cfm?articleID=142&mode=general The proposed fiscal year 2008 budget for U.S. international broadcasting calls for an overall increase of 3.8% from the anticipated fiscal year 2007 level that strengthens targeted programming to provide essential access to news and information to critical audiences. The budget proposal is also aimed at increasing overall audience reach around the world by utilizing the latest technology and strengthening transmission capability. Of the Broadcasting Board of Governors’ (BBG) $668.2 million request, $142.4 million is allocated for programming to the Near East, South, Central Asia and Eurasia, $116 million for Arabic language programming, $67.2 million for East Asia, $45 million for Latin America and $13.6 million for Africa. The proposal includes enhancements the agency believes are pivotal to promoting freedom and democracy and enhancing understanding in key regions. They include: • Establishing a 10-hour coordinated stream of Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Asia (RFA) daily programming to North Korea. • Launching a daily three-hour live Alhurra television program produced and broadcast from the Middle East. • Continuing VOA’s Somali Service’s 30 minute daily radio broadcast scheduled to launch February 12, 2007, to the millions of Somali speakers in Somalia, Djibouti and the greater Horn of Africa. • Improving Radio and TV Martí’s reach into Cuba through additional transmission capability and enhancing the production of the programming. VOA programming to Cuba would be increased to 7 days a week. The budget also fully funds initiatives begun in FY 2006 to critical Muslim audiences. These include the expansion of VOA television to Iran to a 12 hour stream, VOA Pashto radio programming to the Afghanistan/Pakistan border region, television programs to Afghanistan and Pakistan and Alhurra Europe, the 24/7 service to Arabic speakers in Europe. To fund these initiatives and mandatory cost increases, the request proposes the following savings: elimination of VOA and RFA broadcasts in Cantonese as well as VOA Uzbek. Reductions to the following: Ukrainian broadcasts by both VOA and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL); Tibetan broadcasts by VOA and RFA; VOA Portuguese to Africa; and broadcasts in Romanian, South Slavic and Kazakh by RFE/RL. Other savings will come from reductions in support services. The FY 2008 request also includes several enhancements and reductions requested in FY 2007. These include funds to increase Alhurra’s live news capacity to 24 hours a day; expansion of VOA Spanish language programming to Venezuela; additional transmission capabilities for RFE/RL Russian and RFA Korean broadcasts and increased funding for employee training and award programs. Proposed reductions for FY 2007 included in the FY 2008 request include eliminating VOA broadcasts in Croatian, Greek, Georgian and Thai as well as RFE/RL broadcasts in Macedonian. The request includes eliminating VOA radio broadcasts but continuing television programming in the following languages: Serbian, Albanian, Bosnian, Macedonian, Hindi and Russian. The proposal also calls for discontinuing 14 hours a day of VOA NewsNow English broadcasts while maintaining VOA’s English to Africa and Special English services and continuing to strengthen VOA English on the Internet (BBG Press release Feb 5 via DXLD) ** U S A. Re WARW GOES GREEN, 7-015: Ah yes, environmental consciousness is now a marketing hook! No doubt this was the brainchild of a well-compensated radio consultant! Anybody on the list gotta barf bag? I feel the need for one right about now (Harry Helms, W5HLH, Smithville TX, EL19, http://topsecrettourism.com ABDX via DXLD) Harry, sounds like something Herb Tarlick from "WKRP in Cincinnati" would come up with. Goes right along with throwing a turkey out of an airplane (Paul LaFreniere, Grand Marais, MN, ibid.) Meanwhile, the Media Network comments on this go on and on, starting with: Andy Says: February 4th, 2007 at 20:01 e OK. Glenn. But that’s really a side issue [ERP vs transmitter power] for more that 99% of the people who will see the press release or listen to the station. What concerns me more is the coment by John England which implies that Americans won’t be convinced about the seriousness of the issue until it lands on their own doorstep. And by then it will be too late for a large part of the planet. Further comments, not so much about the radio station any more: http://blogs.rnw.nl/medianetwork/?p=7204#comments (Media Network blog via DXLD) ** U S A. TORNADO TOPPLES TOWER IN DAYTONA BEACH Feb 2, 2007 5:00 PM by Steve Fluker [illustrated] http://beradio.com/news/wcfb_tower_toppled/ Daytona Beach, FL - Feb 2, 2007 - In the early morning hours of Feb. 2, severe storms associated with a passing cold front produced powerful tornados that swept across Central Florida killing at least 20 people and injuring many more. More than 1,000 homes were damaged or destroyed in a line that crossed through Sumpter, Lake, and Volusia counties. At about 3:45 a.m. an F3 or F4 tornado hit Northern Lake County which is the location for the WCFB transmitter site and tower. It's obvious from the path and downed trees that this tornado passed directly over the 1,500 foot tower, twisting it and bringing it down on top of the building. Engineers could not get to the site until about 7 a.m. because of the dangers from downed power lines and trees. Cox Radio engineers Dennis Sloatman and Steve Fluker were the first to arrive at the scene. WCFB (Star 94.5 FM) is the only broadcaster on this tower, however, the tower was also used as a repeater site for the Lake County Fire and Sheriff emergency radios. This caused additional headaches as this lost communication was needed in the disaster relief that followed. An ENG repeater for local TV station WOFL CH 35 was also on the tower. The tower and transmitter building are a total loss. Sections of the tower crushed the building and all of the transmitters and equipment inside. Work began immediately to move WCFB to the tower and antenna system of sister stations WHTQ and WWKA (K92 FM). Cox Tampa engineer Roz Clark brought in a low-power transmitter, RF lines and adaptors to install on the wide-band port of this combined antenna system. An emergency STL was also put in place to this tower while Cox attorneys contacted the FCC for an emergency STA. At 2:37 p.m. on that same day, WCFB returned to the air broadcasting at a reduced power, but still covering the Central Florida market. Dielectric and ERI have shipped new antennas, and Harris is shipping a new Z16HD+ transmitter immediately so that we can move the station to yet another Cox radio tower site. This move will allow for a substantial power increase. We expect to be online at this tower in about a week. From there we have already begun the planning stages to rebuild to get the radio station back on the air at its full 100kW. On a side note, by Saturday morning February 3rd, Lake County Fire and Sheriff had already erected a temporary tower on the property to get some of their emergency communications links restored (via Artie Bigley, DXLD) ** U S A. WQYB206, 1700, Arlington VA, f/d very beautiful 8.5 x 11 inch certificate for framing in one month. 7 watts. Address: Office of Emergency Management, 1400 North Uhle St, Suite 300, Arlington VA 22201. This station is audible nearly every morning. The QSL is worth it (Sam Barto, Thomaston CT, QSL Report, Feb NASWA Journal via DXLD) ** U S A. I've also been listening to 1700. Prior to their switch to all-Spanish, KVNS's signal strength was equal to KKLF and both were easily separable here with a loop. Now KVNS is notably stronger and it's impossible to null it enough to get clear copy of KKLF. Thus, I have a feeling KVNS is now running their 10 KW at night. I wonder how many AM stations ignore their night power/pattern restrictions and run day power/[attern at night. Hundreds? Thousands??? (Harry Helms, W5HLH, Smithville, TX EL19, ABDX via DXLD) They (KVNS) have been suspiciously strong in the past. They were on top of the channel on my Alaska cruise in 2003 (Tim Hall, CA, ibid.) ** U S A. UT Feb 6 AT 0354 I had another look at http://www.kxtr.com and find the website now has some stuff in it, including this perplexing announcement: KXTR will soon start broadcasting in high definition FM stereo. Get ready by purchasing a Boston Acoustincs [sic] High Definition radio from Primus Audio Pleasure today. Click here http://www.primusaudiopleasure.com/ to find out more. To learn more about High Definition radio, visit Primus Audio http://www.primusaudiopleasure.com/hdradio/index.htm Primus being a local store in Kansas City, apparently. It will be a neat trick to broadcast in ``high definition FM stereo`` on 1660 kHz! Or could they be hinting about a return to the 92-108 MHz band? Or, just as they don`t know that HD does not mean high definition when applied to radio, perhaps they don`t know the difference between MF and VHF? Or, maybe it will only be an HD channel on some other FM transmitter? And the calls? Referred to as KXTR all over the place, except in the program schedule for one entry: THURSDAY AT 8:35: WDAF ARTS PREVIEW PROGRAM WITH TIMOTHY MCDONALD No program schedule info outside the M-F 6-10 am Morning Show block! Has anyone ever heard them give a legal ID as WDAF? If so, any more? Will they really mention WDAF Thursday at 1435 UT? Stay tuned, to the webcast at least (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Nearly all IDs are now just "Classical 1660" rather the old "Classical 1660 KXTR." (Tim Kridel, Kansas City, Feb 6, IRCA via DXLD) Glenn, a week ago Sunday (Feb. 4) I heard a clear "KXTR" legal ID close to the top of the hour. However, a split second earlier I heard some kind of "mumble" almost totally inaudible which could have been anything. I'll keep listening. I predict, however, that KXTR will return to the FM band (making my mother very happy!) and WDAF-AM will remain on 1660. I haven't heard a legal ID for 106.5, but then I've been too busy to DX at all. I'll try to listen and report as I hear changes -pls (Paul Swearingen, Topeka KS, Feb 6, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. LACK OF LOCAL AD SUPPORT KILLS ‘AIR AMERICA’ http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/articles/index.cfm?id=34863§ion=News&freebie_check&CFID=18849821&CFTOKEN=76362611&jsessionid=8830138281444b55567f ``Air America`` went off the air in Duluth on Thursday. KQDS-AM 1490 pulled the network because of inadequate advertising support, said Shawn Skramstad, general manager of Red Rock Radio, which owns KQDS. ``We`ve had some calls claiming we did this for political reasons,`` Skramstad said. ``There was no political motive. This was strictly a business decision. We didn’t see the advertising dollars we need.`` Skramstad said Red Rock received ``a fair number of calls`` from listeners disappointed with the decision to pull the network. KQDS has carried Air America for about 1˝ years. Al Franken, one of the network’s stars, announced this week that he will leave Air America on Feb. 14. Some speculate he is planning to run for U.S. Senate in Minnesota (Duluth News Tribune, Feb 2, via Artie Bigley, DXLD) ** U S A. Goodbye! Thanks to each and every one of you for being such loyal on-air/on-line listeners to the VOICE Progressive Talk Radio 1300 http://theVOICE1300.com Effective Monday, February 5th, 2007, WAVZ-AM's program format will switch to sports as ESPN Radio 1300 http://espnradio1300.com You're also invited to tune in to News/Talk960WELI http://960WELI.com for Local New Haven News, Traffic, Weather, & Sports... plus local information & coverage of events in your community on the News/Talk960WELI Morning Show with Jerry Kristafer, weekdays from 5:30-9 a.m. Again thank you for your support of the VOICE Progressive Talk Radio 1300." (from http://www.wavz.com/ via Artie Bigley, DXLD) ** U S A. FCC LETS PIRATE STAY ON AIR --- ALLOWS PIRATE TO KEEP BROADCASTING The PAHRUMP VALLEY TIMES reports that the FCC, with pressure from Senate Majority Leader HARRY REID (D-NV), is allowing a pirate station in GOLDFIELD, NV to operate with Special Temporary Authority until it can apply for an LPFM license in the next filing window. A JANUARY 29 letter from the Commission to RADIO GOLDFIELD BROADCAST INC. owner ROD MOSES allows MOSES' pirate station to operate, moving from 100.3 to 106.3 FM, at 100 watts. His operation had been raided and shut down by the FCC on JUNE 9, 2006. In the letter, the Commission cites Sec. 309(f) of the Communications Act of 1934 to allow STAs in "extraordinary circumstances requiring temporary authorizations in the public interest." The Commission's actions followed lobbying by Sen. REID, who wrote the FCC in support of the station's programming (allaccess.com via Brock Whaley, GA, DXLD) Viz.: REID HELPS RESURRECT CLOSED GOLDFIELD RADIO STATION BY MARK WAITE PVT Feb. 02, 2007 GOLDFIELD -- Chalk one up for the little guy in a battle against the federal bureaucracy. Rod Moses, owner of Radio Goldfield Broadcast Inc., was given special temporary authority to go back on the air with his low-power radio station in a Jan. 29 letter from the Federal Communications Commission. Moses said it may be a couple of weeks yet before he hoists the 90- foot radio tower which will permit him to broadcast at 100 watts, enough to penetrate parts of Tonopah and maybe as far south as Lida Junction. The frequency this time, however, will be 106.3 FM instead of the former 100.3 FM. Moses credited Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., with pressuring the FCC. FCC enforcement agents came to Moses' trailer, which also houses his radio station, June 9, 2006, and shut him down for operating without a license. They based the action on a complaint filed with the agency. Moses had been running Radio Goldfield since March 2005, broadcasting community news as well as oldies from an MP3 player. However, he was informed by the FCC that the period to apply for a low-wattage FM radio station license had expired. [more] http://www.pahrumpvalleytimes.com/2007/Feb-02-Fri-2007/news/12344648.html . . .Another low-power radio station operates out of Tonopah at 92.7 FM with no commercial interruptions, not even station identification, but a limited music selection (via Brock Whaley, DXLD) ** U S A. FCC NIXES USE OF "TIS" STATIONS FOR POWER REDUCTION MESSAGES FCC: We have before us a request for a waiver...filed by the State of California, Department of Transportation, which seeks to use its statewide license, Call Sign KNEC996, and all associated Travelers Information Stations to broadcast messages encouraging the public to reduce power consumption during power emergencies. For the reasons stated herein, we deny the Waiver Request.... http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-07-439A1.doc (CGC Communicator Feb 5 via Kevin Redding, ABDX via DXLD) ** U S A. 505.7 kHz, WD2XSH/20 amateur experimental beacon, Cottage Grove, OR, 0740 Feb 5, These CW beacons are limited to 20 watts or less ERP. Fair copy. The signal was on the same frequency as the WD2XSH/15 beacon from Little Rock, AR. Interesting what you can hear on mediumwave without 50 different stations on one frequency! (David Hodgson, TN, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A [non]. A couple of interesting observations about radio coverage of the Superbowl. It still sounds strange to hear an American sports event described by somebody with an English accent, as happened with David Croft on Radio 5 Live, although he did have an American co- commentator in Greg Brady, from Detroit. When the BBC first aired the Superbowl in the mid-90s they used Todd Ant and Alton Bird. However, since reviving coverage of this event in 2004 they have always used English commentators, with American summarisers. I noted also that Sirius 155 and NFL.com were carrying the BBC coverage, rather than the Westwood 1 coverage, which was being carried on AFN. I presume this was a one-off return to sports for AFN since they were supposed to have abandoned sports in September 2006. The BBC's coverage of the event commenced a full hour and a half before game time, i.e. at 2200 UT (PAUL DAVID, Wembley Park, United Kingdom, Feb 5, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) I did not watch one minute of the SB, I am proud to say. I did click on CBS sometime around halftime but they were in commercials, of course, so forget it. Was the halftime show in any way memorable? Here`s where to watch 52 Superbowl XLI commercials, and vote on them if so moved: http://sports.espn.go.com/chat/sportsnation/story?page=sbXLcommercials07 I haven`t watched any of them yet, but I heard one review of the first one, American Heart Association, that it was awful and counterproductive. My question is, what is the AHA doing spending megabux on what should be a free-time PSA? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** VATICAN. Feb 6 at 0648, on 7360, discussion on treatment of women, with heavy African accent; VR scheduled in `English` at 0630. Meanwhile, Church Latin was reigning on 7250 with a much better signal (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** VATICAN. NEWS IN LATIN --- The German service of Vatican Radio has a project since 2004 to produce news in Latin. The Dutch-German priest Gero Pius Weishaupt translates weekly some of the most important news into the official church language. On the website one may find also a link to the German translation, if one`s vocabulary is lacking. This will serve to advance the Latin language. http://www.radiovatikan.de (Radio-News, Radio Journal 12/06, translated from German by gh for DX LISTENING DIGEST) Does this mean only in text on the website? Well, I had a hard time finding anything about it on the German service homepage which morphs into http://www.oecumene.radiovaticana.org/ted/index.asp ted being short for tedesco, meaning German in Italian. Internal search box can`t even find anything for Lateinisch or Latino or Latin on the VR website! Tho there are inevitably a few Latin terms on the page itself. O there it is on the left margin, ``News auf Latein``; I couldn`t see it for that intrusive English word at first; leads to: http://www.radiovaticana.org/tedesco/nuntii_latini.htm All the current stories concern church matters, not news of the real world, unlike the late lamented Nuntii Latini of YLE Radio Finland, so never mind. Apparently no audio (Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** VIETNAM [non]. QSLs - VIETNAM --- Radio Hoa Mai RADIO HOA MAI via WHRI, CYPRESS CREEK, SOUTH CAROLINA, USA, on 12130. Full-data (except program name) WHRI world map card in 5 months for a report to World Harvest Radio (W. Craighead, KS-USA Dec 13, 2006 for CRW Dec 15, just posted Feb 6, 2007, via DXLD) This is NONSENSE! This transmission was via KWHR, as in EiBi A-06: 12130 1200-1400 HWA KWHR World Harvest R. 3 E FE It was really for Vietnam, unlike Hmong Lao Radio QSL, cf. LAOS [non] (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** WESTERN SAHARA [non]. 6300, CLANDESTINE. Radio Nacional de la República Árabe Saharaui Democrática, 2130-2334, 1/28/07. Arabic language program with long talks and regional vocals. Into Spanish program around 2305 with ID. More long talks. Good reception on yet another change of frequency for this station (Rich D`Angelo, French Creek State Park, Berks County, PA DXpedition No. 27, Ten-Tec RX-340 and an Etón E1, 500-foot wire essentially north and 250-foot wire south for the RX-340 and a 40-foot wire essentially northeast for the E1, NASWA Flashsheet via DXLD) 6300, CLANDESTINE. Radio Nacional de la República Árabe Saharaui Democrática, 2240-2250, 2/1/07, in Arabic. Noted with talk and ID by a man announcer. Fair (Rich D'Angelo, Wyomissing, PA Ten-Tec RX-340, Drake R-8B, Eton E1, Lowe HF-150, Alpha Delta DX Sloper, RF Systems Mini-Windom, Datong FL3, JPS ANC-4, ibid.) 6300, CLANDESTINE (W. Sahara). R. Nacional de la República Árabe Saharaui Democrática, 2345, 2/2/07, in Spanish. Fair with string of local songs with a pop twist, then cut in mid-song at 2359 with closing announcements over piano music. Ended with rough marching band version of the RASD anthem, "Yabaniy Es-Sahara." Carrier stayed on until 0005 (John Herkimer, Caledonia, NY, NRD-535D (Kiwa), Etón E1-XM, 100 ft longwire, ibid.) 6300, CLANDESTINE to WESTERN SAHARA. Radio Nacional de la República Árabe Saharaui Democrática via Algeria, 2345-2359, 2/3/07. S/off fair, sometimes peaking to good with modern Arabic music; man speaking in Spanish with many mentions of Polisario at 2356; presumed anthem at 2358; off at 2359 (Jim Ronda, Tulsa, OK, NRD-545, R-75, E-1 + Eavesdropper (and occasionally an E-5, ibid.) CLANDESTINE, 6300 (new) Polisario Front, Tindouf (?), ALG, 2300-..., Spanish, music & songs; 55544; // 1550 better. They were still there on 04 Feb (Carlos Gonçalves, Portugal, DX LISTENING DIGEST) UNIDENTIFIED. 6958.7 USB, UNID/pirate? Fake Numbers Station? 2207, 2/2/07. Melody on a toy whistle or recorder rotating with man repeating 05(9?)881 until 2209 when into English five number groups. Melody returned at 2246. Off at 2247. Not the normally heard numbers routine so maybe something else? (Gerry Dexter, Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, NRD 515, NRD 545, Eton E-1, ibid.) UNIDENTIFIED. WTEV-47 Jacksonville does numbers stations story Amusing example of television journalism at its finest; I'm still trying to find a definition for "corillating": (Harry Helms W5HLH, Smithville, TX EL19 http://topsecrettourism.com DX LISTENING DIGEST) NUMBER STATIONS: EERIE RADIO HOBBY, OR SPY COMMUNICATIONS? Last Update: Feb 6, 2007 7:59 AM Posted By: Brandon Westerman --- Watch This Video Most of us listen to the radio daily, either to get the news and sports of the day, or just for entertainment. It's one of the oldest forms of communication. But what if we told you that there are some who use the radio airwaves to commit crimes? There are scratchy recordings that some describe as eerie -- even hair raising -- yet attention grabbing, that can be heard on short wave radio frequencies. The broadcast is simply a list of numbers, but the numbers repeat and repeat. It’s called a number station, and the repeating numbers can last only a few minutes or up to hours. . . http://www.cbs47.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=7dcdc2c6-fcca-47ca-b755-96571e5f6f97&rss=1 (via Harry Helms, DXLD) Also linx to 6 number station recordings (gh) UNIDENTIFIED. Big carrier on 15390, with tone tests off and on, Feb 5 from 1458 till 1511* As before, I suspect this is Greenville tuning up for a broadcast a few hours later (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ UNSOLICITED TESTIMONIALS ++++++++++++++++++++++++ Heard in the latest WOR [1345] that gh will cut back on WOR. Does this mean gh will eventually leave SW? Or, will gh move to DRM or web only broadcasts? Maybe gh will leave SW, but then return will reduced output? Before all this happens will I be able to QSL WOR? Maybe gh will, one day a year, have a special WOR for a WOR DXpedition. Maybe from St. Helena, Falkland Islands or some other exotic location. Of course, above only meant as a joke! Glenn, thanks for all the hard work over the years. You deserve a break. I still don't know how you manage to do all you do. 73, (Kraig, KG4LAC, Krist, VA) Certainly Glenn, guess Kraig is right! Maybe we'll have to thank you again and again for your great efforts in maintaining this hobby to a level of a passion, and passion is all we need for whatever we are truly involved in. After listening your programs throughout all these years, a sabbatical is not a bad idea. Question is, how long can you (same goes for each one of us) stand away from a receiver? That was what I pointed out recently, with all those SW hosts that quit, you are kind of Lone Ranger of the Airwaves. So Kraig, you are not joking at all: a DXpedition ŕ la WOR!!! Surely, some exotic place (like Cahuita or Samoa) would be marvelous, but costs are the point. Meanwhile Glenn, go and get some rest, you deserve it, while all of us keep that dream awaken. That doesn't cost much. 73s (Raúl Saavedra, Costa Rica, Jan 31, dxldyg via DXLD) Dear Glenn, I can sure understand your scaling back your SW activities most of which probably don't bring in much income. I have enjoyed your efforts over the years and just last Dec. sent you a few dollars via Paypal (for the first time.) Thanks for all you have done for the shortwave listeners of the world. Best wishes, (Martin Gallas, Jacksonville, IL, Feb 4, DX LISTENING DIGEST) DIGITAL BROADCASTING ++++++++++++++++++++ DRM: SNAKE OIL [see also: GERMAN +non, GUIANA FRENCH, ITALY] FWIW, your editor thinks DRM is pure folly, a failed technology, with no significant user base and no future. A revolution in press release only, DRM exists not to serve listeners or broadcasters, but to boost the fortunes of the for-profit DRM consortium that`s promoting it. Wideband DRM signals are a pox on the shortwave broadcast bands, and I sincerely wish the technology a swift demise. It is disappointing to see yet another hopeful broadcaster [AIR] buying the snake oil (Al Quaglieri, NY, Listeners Notebook, Feb NASWA Journal via DXLD) WHAT-A BECOMES FIRST STATION TO BROADCAST ALT MUSIC IN HD RADIO Alternative Format Officially On WHAT/Philadelphia MARCONI BROADCASTING's WHAT-A/PHILADELPHIA is now broadcasting "SKIN RADIO, a mixture of Alternative, Hip-Hop, and local bands in HD RADIO on AM 1340 and online at http://www.skinradio.com MARCONI flipped the station to the new music format (NET NEWS 1/19) developed by KELLY MUSIC RESEARCH on JANUARY 19th after acquiring the station from INNER CITY BROADCASTING. The station is currently automated with prerecorded voice tracks on promos and ``song tags`` announcing title and artist after every song played. WHAT-A is the first radio station in the country to broadcast the Alternative music format in HD RADIO on the AM band. Traditional analog radios will still be able to receive the station`s analog simulcast. To help educate the market about HD RADIO, the station will welcome listeners to visit the studios for live demonstrations of the improved audio quality. WHAT-A will also be demonstrating the new audio technology at locations around PHILADELPHIA. Currently, the FCC allows AM stations to broadcast in HD from sunrise to sunset. The FCC plans to permit HD broadcasts 24 hours a day soon. According to station owner and GM TOM KELLY, "Listeners are very impressed with the audio quality of AM on HD RADIO. And we are proud to put PHILADELPHIA in the spotlight with this revolutionary new technology on 'SKIN RADIO.' The young adult Alternative music audience in PHILADELPHIA has been starving for this music and now they have a reason to buy HD RADIO receivers." (allaccess.com via Brock Whaley, GA, Feb 5, DXLD) They must be delusional. The vast majority of the audience which is interested in the type of music they're broadcasting doesn't even know AM exists! (Russ Edmunds, Blue Bell, PA ( 360' ASL ), NRC-AM via DXLD) TWICE - HD RADIO AWARENESS UP, BUT SURVEY SAYS INTEREST LOW It seems to me that all digital radio purveyors -- including HD -- have forgotten one prime tenet about radio that makes it so damn compelling -- its PORTABILITY! The power demands of digital radio work directly at crosspurposes to this. Another drawback? Price. $100 is simply too much. Read the full article at: http://www.twice.com/article/CA6413421.html?nid=2402 (John Figliozzi, swprograms via DXLD) HD: see also USA: KXTR/WDAF RADIO EQUIPMENT FORUM +++++++++++++++++++++ WEATHER RADIOS With the tornadoes that hit not too far from here, I'm thinking I should pick up a weather radio. About a year ago I bought one of the First Alert models. From the list of features this seemed to be the best of the bunch. I especially liked the ability to turn individual alert codes off. If you don't want to be woken up in the middle of the night because a severe thunderstorm is moving through, you can set it up so that alert won't turn on the alarm. But it was DOA. Well, actually, more like zombie time. It wouldn't come on when there were alerts, but the thing would also never shut off. Based on a lot of the reviews on Amazon, it would seem First Alert has a huge quality problem. Some people love them, but a LOT of people got ones that were either DOA or died within a few weeks. So, if anybody has a recommendation for something other than a First Alert I'd like to hear it. I'm particularly interested in why you think your recommended model is better than others. Whatever I get must deal with SAME codes. Individually selectable alerts would be a huge plus (Jay Heyl, FL, Feb 5, ABDX via DXLD) Jay, I recommend the Midland WR-100. It has SAME, a very loud alert, 9V battery backup, and a RCA jack for an external antenna. We have ours next to the bed in the master bedroom - it can be heard throughout the house. We've had ours for 18 months - no problems. It's also very easy to program. Here's a link to the Universal Radio website that describes the WR- 100: http://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/wx/1456.html Several of the local HEB grocery stores here in Houston were selling these for around $35 this past year. 73, (Steve N5WBI Ponder, Houston TX, ibid.) ###