Latest propagation and logs

Propagation over the last couple of weeks doesn’t seem to be particularly good. Maximum MUF during the day seems around about 12 Mhz. During the evening, the lower bands don’t appear to be performing too well either. My ability to copy either Radio Sonder Grense on 3320 or ABC Alice Springs on 4835 have been patchy to say the least. I am assuming these so-so conditions are what we can expect from this equinox part of the year. As the days here in the Northern Hemisphere become shorter, and the period of darkness is longer, then the lower bands will start to dominate. I would like to be able to get some of the rarer S American stations in the log, but in reality, this may be impossible living in a suburb with high levels of RF ‘mush’. An ‘dxpedition’ to the Lincolnshire Wolds may pay dividends here. I also keep promising myself to improve my antenna arrangements here, but other jobs around the house always seem to get priority! Maybe, just maybe, before the winter weather gets here it may happen!

And so to the logs. Mainly the usual ‘Big Guns’, but one or two other interesting ones.

15090 Khz Kuwait R Azadi 13:45 UTC Pashto. Discussions. Some deep QSB. ID at 13:49 SINPO: 33333 2016-09-26

15320 Khz Australia Reach Beyond Australia 13:55 UTC English. Religious broadcasts. ‘Insight for Living’ at 14:00 SINPO: 43333 2016-09-26

15360 Khz Swaziland TWR 14:04 UTC Urdu. SINPO: 32222 2016-09-26

11585 Khz Guam KTWR 14:20 UTC Hindi SINPO: 21122 2016-09-26

11695 Khz Phillipines VOA 14:23 UTC Khmer. Magazine program, with ID at 14:24 SINPO: 33333 2016-09-26

11795 Khz Singapore BBCWS 14:27 UTC Hindi. News reports. ID at 14:28 SINPO: 43344 2016-09-26

11870 Khz Phillipines R Veritas Asia 14:30 UTC ID at 14:30 in Hindi SINPO: 43444 2016-09-26

11890 Khz Singapore BBCWS 14:31 UTC English. News followed by ‘The Why Factor’ program. SINPO: 43444 2016-09-26

12055 Khz Armenia TWR 14:49 UTC Sinhalese. Male announcer SINPO: 43333 2016-09-26

12065 Khz Uzbekistan TWR 14:52 UTC Hindi. Male announcer SINPO: 43333 2016-09-26

9390 Khz Thailand R Thailand 20:45 UTC Thai. News. SINPO: 54455 2016-09-26

9445 Khz India AIR 20:47 UTC English. Program about security and military matters in India SINPO: 54455 2016-09-26

Voice of Hope

At the HFCC Broadcasting Conference in Miami, The Voice of Hope made a presentation. This is interesting to those of us who are SWL’s, as it gives the background to the station, along with the frequencies used, power, and future plans. I haven’t been able to log the KVOH transmitter, it being only 50 KW, but the details given show they operate a transmitter out of Lusaka, Zambia. So that will be one worth monitoring.

For the full details of the presentation, see: http://www.hfcc.org/doc/HFCC_REP_2016-005-B16-presentation_Voice_of_Hope.pdf

As an aside, the HFCC site has a wealth of information available for free on it’s public pages. I usually start monitoring updates at this time of the year and in March, to see when the new schedules will be available. ‘A’ schedules run from April – October, and ‘B’ schedules running from November – March. Therefore B16 schedules should be starting to be published very soon.

Radio Argentina Exterior has a new name

SWLing Blog has the following info on RAE:

RAE- RADIODIFUSION ARGENTINA AL EXTERIOR becomes RAE- ARGENTINA TO THE WORLD

A new stage begins in the history of RAE, that will transform from RAE-RADIODIFUSION ARGENTINA AL EXTERIOR to RAE- ARGENTINA TO THE WORLD, updating the identity of our international signal.

 

Among the news to share, there’s the decision to maintain presence on the shortwave frequencies of 15345 and 11710 KHZ, which are broadcast from the transmission plant located in General Pacheco. Currently, we’re facing some technical problems with regard to modulation, but we’ll face the challenge of fixing this and increase our presence on the shortwaves.

We’ll keep on transmitting in eight languages, now with a homogenous programming, that will be coherent with regard to contents, with the specific contribution of each language considering particular characteristics. RAE’s new stage will feature programs Mondays through Mondays.

Each language will have a daily 55-minute broadcast on the shortwaves, with one daily re-run.

In addition, the daily show will be available on the new website of RAE, where the program will be on streaming 24 hours a day.

Specific applications for RAE will be developed for mobile devices and on a second stage, podcasts and RAE content broadcast by local stations in other countries. The most recent shows will also be available to download on demand.

Another innovation are the six channels of Argentine music available on RAE’s website, organized by genre: Tango, Folk, Rock, Pop, Jazz and Classical, that will play music 24 hours, with playlist in constant expansion and a radio sound, that’s to say, with a presentation of songs, that will provide additional data about the tunes.

This way, listeners will be able to enjoy at any time of the day the best works by artists such as Charly Garcia, Yupanqui, Piazzolla, Sandro, Malosetti, La Camerata Bariloche, announced in various languages, with a radio format. This is part of the new design of what we call DIGITAL RAE.

The daily programs of RAE cover various topics developed jointly by the new production team of RAE as well as the language teams. After the news bulletin, with the inclusion of music and bite-sized features about various topics.

In addition, we’ll now have a new interval ID signal.

The schedule for our station in all languages now will be:

MONDAY: Our Football/Argentine Tango

TUESDAY: Argentines Without Borders / La Folklórica

WEDNESDAY: The Conversation/Argentine Roads

THURSDAYS: Welcome/Science and Technology

FRIDAYS: Multi-Sports Center/Histories in Common

On Saturdays, a SUMMARY OF THE WEEK will be broadcast, followed by ACTUALIDAD DX.COM.AR, the new segment dedicated to DXing, radio, media and information technology.

This program will be produced and presented in Spanish by ARNALDO SLAEN and RAE’S director, LUIS MARIA BARASSI, featuring news about radio and technologies applied to communication, plus audio files, interviews, etcetera. The program will have an average duration of 25-30 minutes.

This format will be broadcast also on various languages and will not only be available on RAE’s website, but also in the spaces dedicated to DX-related content on the web.

Finally, Sundays will be the day of program THE BRIDGE, a weekly space focused on the contact with listeners, music and interviews. The show will also pay homage to classics of international broadcasting such as the STATION OF JOY and similar programs that left their mark in the history of international radio.

 

The support of all DXing colleagues, radio ham enthusiasts and fans of the Short Waves is paramount, in order to spread their messages, emphasize the importance of the shortwaves as well as the need to increase the presence on various bands, complementing digital content.

A new stage begins for RAE, ARGENTINA TO THE WORLD, with many ideas and challenges ahead, a phase in which the participation of all sectors linked to our field will be key for our growth and for the steps that will follow.

It’s important to underline that after many years of being practically ignored by various administrations, the new stage of Radio Nacional, under director Ana Gerschenson, and Deputy Director Pablo Ciarliero, includes a project for RAE, with the participation of the excellent and historic professionals of RAE, plus the arrival of experts in digital content and with the incorporation of Adrián Korol, who, beyond his renown for his work in Radio and TV, is a passionate DXer and Radio Ham fan.

Over the next few days, we’ll release the definitive schedule, with timetables, frequencies and targeted zones for all languages.

The launch of this new phase will be next October 5 at 7PM, at the Auditorium of Radio Nacional Buenos Aires. We let you know, as well, that next week a definitive timetable will be released. It’s clear that all ideas, proposals and specially the dissemination to this news will be greatly appreciated.

73 & DX

RAE ARGENTINA TO THE WORLD

Luis Maria Barassi – Director

Adrian Korol – Executive Advisor

A few recent logs

Due to various reasons, my listening time this month has been seriously curtailed. However, I did manage to log SOH Xi Wang Zhi Sheng on the 15th July. This is a station I have tried to copy for a long time, but it is usually obscured by a CRI jammer. It is also a very low power station (quoted as 100W, but I don’t think it is this low) so usually very difficult to pull out of the noise at this urban location. However, though very much down in the noise (SINPO 21122), I could copy Chinese music and talking. This was also confirmed by a Facebook contact. I listened past the top of the hour and there was no ID etc, which would have been the case if it were CRI jammer masquerading as SOH Xi Wang Zhi Sheng. So even without a positive ID, I have logged it as being correct.

My next listening session was on the 28th, where I ‘cantered’ around bands for an hour, just seeing what was there. A highlight of this was R Sonder Grense which was a much better signal than normal. Usually it is copyable, but still well down in the noise. All the other logs are run-of-the-mill stuff which one can hear any night.

The logs:

15140 Khz Oman R Sultanate of Oman 17:50 UTC Arabic. Music followed by ID and schedule information. SINPO: 54444 2016-07-01

15235 Khz South Africa Channel Africa 17:56 UTC African pop music. ID at 18:00. Unknown language. SINPO: 43344 2016-07-01

15400 Khz Ascension Island BBCWS 18:14 UTC English. News about the referendum. SINPO: 43333 2016-07-01

11600 Khz Bulgaria Denge Kurdistan 18:55 UTC Indig. music and chat SINPO: 43344 2016-07-05

11635 Khz North Korea V Korea 18:58 UTC French. Music followed by news at 19:00. Heavily over-modulated SINPO: 43344 2016-07-05

11700 Khz Bulgaria R Biafra 19:04 UTC English. Music followed by ID at 19:05 and schedule and contact details SINPO: 43333 2016-07-05

11735 Khz Zanzibar ZBC 19:10 UTC Swahili. Arabic-sounding music. ID at 19:14. Deep QSB at times SINPO: 43333 2016-07-05

11945 Khz Madagascar World Christian Broadcasting 19:20 UTC Arabic. Male announcer with chat. SINPO: 43333 2016-07-05

11540 Khz Thailand VOA R Ashna 17:04 UTC Pashto. Discussion program. SINPO: 43333 2016-07-09

11630 Khz China CNR17 17:12 UTC Kazakh. OM with talk SINPO: 43333 2016-07-09

11830 Khz Northern Marianas RFA 18:30 UTC Korean. Discussion. SINPO: 43333 2016-07-09

15105 Khz Ascension Island BBCWS 18:24 UTC French. Discussions. SINPO: 43344 2016-07-10

9540 Khz Taiwan SOH Xi Wang Zhi Sheng 20:40 UTC Chinese. YL announcer. SINPO: 21122 2016-07-15

9610 Khz China CNR8 21:26 UTC Mongolian. Some ACI from CRI on 9600 SINPO: 32222 2016-07-15

15345 Khz Argentina R National Argentina 19:29 UTC Spanish. YL announcer. SINPO: 32222 2016-07-28

15370 Khz Cuba R Habana 21:34 UTC Spanish. YL & OM announcers SINPO: 32222 2016-07-28

15580 Khz Botswana VOA 21:37 UTC English. Pop music SINPO: 44444 2016-07-28

13670 Khz USA VOA 21:46 UTC Bambara. Discussion. SINPO: 54444 2016-07-28

11615 Khz Madagascar Madagascar World Voice 21:51 UTC Chinese. Music and chat. SINPO: 54444 2016-07-28

11860 Khz Saudi Arabia R Sana 22:01 UTC Arabic. Female announcer. SINPO: 43333 2016-07-28

11985 Khz Ascension Island HCJB 22:07 UTC Pulaar. Music and chat. SINPO: 54455 2016-07-28

3320 Khz South Africa R Sonder Grense 22:14 UTC Afrikaans. Chat. SINPO: 33333 2016-07-28

3915 Khz Singapore BBCWS 22:18 UTC English. Discussion about Pokemon SINPO: 32233 2016-07-28

3985 Khz Germany R Belarus 22:21 UTC German. Female announcer SINPO: 44444 2016-07-28

4820 Khz Tibet PBS Xizang 22:26 UTC Chinese. Music SINPO: 32233 2016-07-28

Michelle Guthrie begins managing direction at the ABC

The ABC’s new managing director has taken the reins with a focus on substance and a return to international broadcasting.

Interesting piece from The Saturday Paper detailing the new MD of ABC, Michelle Guthrie. Amongst other things, she seems to be very keen to roll-back the cuts to international broadcasting that has occurred over the last 5 years.

To read the full article see: The Saturday Paper

Recent Logs and Japanese abductees.

It’s always nice to have some time off from the day job, and at the moment, due to my partners work schedule, having a holiday away from home is not possible. So I make the most of these times, along with catching up with garden/house chores, of getting some listening in. It means I get to listen to stations that I would not normally hear during my usual listening times in the evenings. Today was a case in point. Doing as I usually do when starting a listening session, I started at the higher bands, 19m, and worked my way down. Conditions just lately haven’t been exactly hot, so a number of stations on 19m which are usually a good signal have been quite noisy. So I slowly worked my way down to 31m. Now, conditions have to be very poor for 31m not to give something and today was no different. On 9560, I picked up Furusato no Kaze, a Japanese government station from Taiwan. I also logged Nippon no Kaze on 9975 after 15:00 UTC. The first transmission, from Taiwan, was in Japanese, the second, from Palau, in Korean. I have found out that both these stations are set up to transmit information for Japanese nationals who have been abducted by N Korea. I can’t quite work out from the website: http://www.rachi.go.jp/en/index.html, which particular nationals have been abducted, whether Japanese government agents or ordinary people. And of course, the transmissions would presuppose that the abductee’s have access to a radio. This, of course, will be extremely difficult in N Korea. But it certainly put an interesting twist on this afternoons listening.

The following logs also include some logs from yesterday (13/06/2016) including R Japans Burmese output from Singapore.

11740 Khz Singapore R Japan 14:43 UTC Burmese. Music and chat SINPO: 22222 2016-06-13

9310 Khz Thailand VOA Deewa Radio 16:49 UTC Pashto. ID at 16:50. OM & YL announcers with schedules SINPO: 33333 2016-06-13

9390 Khz Thailand RFE 16:51 UTC Uzbeck. Discussion about Manhattan and New York SINPO: 43333 2016-06-13

9410 Khz Oman BBCWS 16:54 UTC English. Discussion about the Florida bombings. SINPO: 43333 2016-06-13

12075 Khz UNID UNID 13:35 UTC Mention of Bangladesh a number of times. Went to dead air at 14:00 with no ID SINPO: 32233 2016-06-14

15245 Khz North Korea V O Korea 14:01 UTC English. Music plus usual propaganda SINPO: 33333 2016-06-14

9345 Khz Phillipines FEBC 14:48 UTC Mandarin. OM with chat and music. SINPO: 33333 2016-06-14

9560 Khz Taiwan Furusato no Kaze 14:54 UTC Japanese. YL announcer. SINPO: 32233 2016-06-14

9975 Khz Palau Nippon no Kaze 15:09 UTC Korean. YL announcer SINPO: 22222 2016-06-14

VOA Georgian Marks 65 Years on the Air

From Radioactivity:

WASHINGTON D.C., May 27, 2016 — The Georgian Service of the Voice of America celebrated its 65th anniversary on Thursday.

At a ceremony at VOA headquarters in Washington, Georgia’s ambassador to the United States, Archil Gegeshidze, said his country’s independence from the Soviet Union “was largely due to the positive influence of programs from broadcasters like the Voice of America.”

VOA Georgian first aired on May 26, 1951. “During the Cold War, you played a critical role in helping Georgians understand the world beyond the Iron Curtain,” added U.S. Ambassador to Georgia Ian Kelly. In a video message from the Georgian capital Tbilisi, Kelly said that “since Georgia’s independence, VOA Georgian has helped build the foundation for a strong U.S.-Georgia relationship that we continue to enjoy today.”

Other U.S. and Georgian diplomats as well as human rights experts, representatives of the Georgian-American community and past members of the Georgian Service joined VOA Director Amanda Bennett in honoring the service.

“VOA Georgian was an alternative voice speaking to and for Georgians during the Cold War, and it remains so today,” said Bennett. “VOA is needed today more than ever. VOA is one of the few media outlets in the region that provide accurate and credible news and information as well as objective, free and fresh voices and perspectives.”

VOA Georgian reaches 7.7 percent of adults in Georgia each week. In addition to radio programming distributed nationwide on FM via Georgia’s Public Broadcasting Corporation, the service produces a weekly television magazine program, Washington Today, that is carried on Georgian Public TV. The show focuses on developments in the United States, American perspectives on major developments in the region, the Georgian diaspora, social issues, medicine, science, technology and culture.

“VOA Georgian audiences can always expect us to provide exclusive, reliable news and information,” said VOA Georgian Chief Anna Kalandadze, adding that she is “honored to work with the service’s dedicated journalists who continue to positively influence Georgia’s traditional and new media environments.”

The service also maintains a dynamic website, providing video reports on its YouTube channel and engaging the audiences through Facebook and other social media.

VOA reaches a global weekly audience of more than 187 million people in over 40 languages. VOA programs are delivered on satellite, cable, shortwave, FM, medium wave, streaming audio and video and more than 2,350 media outlets worldwide. It is funded by the U.S. Congress through the Broadcasting Board of Governors.

(VOA Press Release)