Mount Evelyn DX Report

4800 INDIA. AIR - Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh. Appeared to be on very late. Is  this normal? First noted at 1835 and continuing past 1850 with music but no  anncts. 1900 anncts in Hindi, big pauses, then more local music. 1930 talk with  pauses between many sentences, then back into music at 1936. Big signal  throughout. Interference from China's s/on at 1955, and both stations noted to  past 2045. AIR doing an all-nighter"? Rob VK3BVW Mount Evelyn VIC

4880 SOUTH AFRICA. SW Radio Africa. Beautiful ID as "You're listening to Short  Wave Radio Africa" at 1843, then a continuation of the Newsreel program with  news items on Zimbabwe. Frequent IDs throughout the broadcast. Fair level and in  the clear. S/off at 1906 quite suddenly without fanfare - right in the middle of  a sentence! Rob VK3BVW Mount Evelyn, VIC

21590 VOA-Tinang, Mandarin 0900-1100 with jamming. Good sig and seems to be new  for this season. Rob

15220 ROMANIA. RRI, English to SEA now here at 0430, good level. // 17870 also  heard but not quite as strong. Rob VK3BVW Mount Evelyn VIC

A bit of morning listening today: 3955 ENGLAND. KBS - Skelton, German at 2020, weak and fading. 5830 KUWAIT. R. Farda, Persian 2035 5915 ZAMBIA. NBC Radio 1, Lusaka. Nice gentle songs (ideal for a Sunday  morning!) and occasional anncts in a native language. ID at 2100 and into news.  Fair to poor with fading at 2045. 5950 FRANCE. KBS - Issoudun. French service at 2055 at fair level. 5964.7 MALAYSIA. RTM - Kajang at 2105 with a fair to poor signal. This is  listed in the WRTH as 24hr news, information and "Malay oldies". Sounded more  like morning Islamic religious chants (which would make sense given that they  probably have 5am local time prayers). Then into what seemed like a news  bulletin at 2110. Faded by 2115 as the band begins to close here for the  morning. Rob VK3BVW Mount Evelyn VIC

Noted yesterday: 17845 INDIA. AIR - Khampur, Arabic service at 0450, fair with deep fades. 17895 SAUDI ARABIA. Riyadh, Arabic songs 0455, fair level Rob VK3BVW Mount Evelyn VIC

Sorry to hear news of the imminent closure of BBC-Cyprus. It made a useful contribution to  relaying transmissions around the globe over many decades However, apparently not all bad news! According to this Radio World article, AWR  is INCREASING their shortwave time in 2013. http://www.radioworld.com/article/awr-increases-broadcast-time/216115 Finally, I have often wondered what would happen if a world war broke out again.  Could Internet services be potentially interrupted causing global havoc in  communications of ANY sort? Would our 1st and 2nd world countries begin  scrambling back to shortwave radio....or is there something else technological  waiting in the wings? Rob VK3BVW Mount Evelyn VIC

7225 AUSTRIA. TWR - Moosbrunn, Polish 0545, full ID at 0558 at s/off , fair to  poor. 7295 FRANCE. R. Algerienne - Issoudun. Qur'an for Friday prayers, 0555, s/off  0559. 7335 TUNISIA. RTV Tunisia - Sfax, s/on 0600 Arabic service, good. // 7275 but  much weaker there. 7405 USA. R. Marti - Greenville. Spanish 0605, fair level but with TVI. 7555 USA. WEWN - Vandiver. Some pretty terrible out-of-tune solo singing made  doubly worse when the duet part came in…..enough to make Chopper Read repent for  his and everyone else's sins!! Spanish 0610, the great signal was wasted! Rob VK3BVW Mount Evelyn VIC

Time Period: 0400 - 0445 9420 GREECE. VOG - Avlis, Greek 9470 RWANDA. DW - Kigali, English 9505 AUSTRIA. AWR - Moosbrunn, Persian 9535 SPAIN. REE - Noblejas, Spanish 9610 IRAN. VOIRI - Kamalabad, Arabic 9645 VATICAN - S.M. di Galeria, Arabic s/off 0430 9715 IRAN. VOIRI - Sirjan s/on 0430 9770 ROMANIA. RRI - Galbeni, Romanian 9790 CUBA.. CRI - Havana, Chinese 9810 CUBA. RHC, Spanish 9915 ENGLAND. BBC - Woofferton, Arabic Rob VK3BVW Mount Evelyn VIC

4755.4 MICRONESIA. The Cross Radio, 0910 in English with religious program -  talks and occasional religious pop songs. Fair level in the clear except for  TVI. Became stronger as the transmission continued. Program announcement at 1025  as "Grace to You on The Cross Radio, every day Monday to Friday". Suddenly off air in the middle of a song at 1027 and never returned. Normally reported as  s/off around 1100, so a bit early on this evening. Gee, they could have at least  said "Good Night All" or something…… :-) Rob VK3BVW Mount Evelyn VIC

Got home from work early today. Easing myself into the workplace this week after  having been off for such a long time......don't want to rush these things, do  we?? Turned on the receiver for some aimless surfing of the radio dial (makes a  change from aimless surfing of the Internet!) 9330 USA. WBCQ-Monticello, monitored from 0545 to past 0625 with continuous  music for most of the time, with the exception of anncts around 0600 that were  difficult to decipher due to low audio quality. Not strong at first but mostly  in the clear and improved to a very respectable level past 0640. 9565 BRAZIL. Super R. Deus e Amor, Curitiba. Fair level at 0645 with excited  Portuguese talks and laid-back instrumental music. ID at 0650. // 11765 with is  slightly better signal. 9595 JAPAN. R. Nikkei 1 - Chiba. Nice ID at 0700 followed by topical chat. Good  level and in the clear. 9645 VATICAN. VR - S.M. di Galeria. Monster signal at 0702 in Arabic with ID...

SOUTH KOREA 4740 MND Radio. Listened here for a long time to a program of talk in Korean,  first noted at 1110, to eventual s/off around 1140. Fair to poor level. 4925 MND Radio. S/on 1200 with female pop song, annct at 1203 and another long  talk program in Korean with male announcer. Poor level at first but strengthened  later. The parallel 6760kHz was stronger but with ute interference. Both  frequencies improved to solid levels by 1230. Don't know much about this station. I believe MND stands for "Ministry of  National Defence". Some people seem to regard this as a clandestine operation,  but is that really correct if it is indeed a Government operation??? Anyone have  more background information on the nature of its operations? Rob VK3BVW Mount Evelyn

Lovely signals on 13mb at armchair copy last night! Anything that was transmitting from around 1045 to past 1230 Z seemed to be heard here last night. Big difference to a few days ago when the geo storm was on! Here's what was heard: 21470  SEYCHELLES. BBC - Mahe. WS 21500  IRAN.  VOIRI - Sirjan. Chinese 21505 SAUDI ARABIA. Riyadh, Arabic, s/on 1157 21540  SPAIN. REE 21590  IRAN. VOIRI - Kamalabad, English 21610  SPAIN. REE, Spanish s/on 1100 21640  IRAN. VOIRI - Kamalabad, English // 21590 21650  IRAN. VOIRI - Kamalabad, Chinese s/on 1200 21660  THAILAND. BBC - Nakhon Sawan, WS, s/off 1100 21670  SAUDI ARABIA. Riyadh, Indonesian, s/off 1156 21675  VATICAN. VR in Italian at 1200 21690  FRANCE. RFI - Issoudun, s/on 1200 French 21695  PHILIPPINES. VOA - Tinang, Mandarin with China programming jamming 21780  RWANDA. DW-Kigali in French s/on 1200 21840  UN...

Noted several days ago. 6080 KUWAIT. R. Kuwait - Sulaibiyah. Local songs in the Arabic service, time pips at 2100 and then suddenly off the air without announcement. 7465 ALBANIA. R. Tirana s/off at 2031 in English service. Rob VK3BVW

This article from the Borneo Post Online today: http://www.theborneopost.com/2012/10/13/dap-to-use-short-wave-radios-for-campaign/ In case you are wondering, a "Longhouse" is exactly that! From Wikipedia: Many of the inhabitants of the Southeast Asian island of Borneo (now Kalimantan,  Indonesia and States of Sarawak and Sabah, Malaysia), the Dayak, live traditionally in buildings known as a longhouse, Rumah panjang / Rumah Betang in Indonesian, rumah panjai in Iban. Common to most of these is that they are built raised off the ground on stilts and are divided into a more or less public area along one side and a row of private living quarters lined along the other side. This seems to have been the way of building best accustomed to life in the  jungle in the past. Radio Free Sarawak is on 15420 at 1000-1200 UTC in the Iban language. Rob VK3BVW

This weekend, you may like to check out KB6IBB's SWL Logger program which he is developing especially for SWBC. It's still in it's early stages of development but coming along quite well. There are both versions for Apple (the one I use)and Windoze 7. I have been working with the developer, Jeff KB6IBB, on sorting out a few bugs. It's a simple program and still has some way to go. But it's FREE!! The link is: http://kb6ibb.ham-radio-op.net/SWLLogger/Welcome.html Jeff also has a Facebook page too: https://www.facebook.com/groups/292477460849384/ Not sure how far Jeff wants to go with it, as it is not something he is intending to sell at present, so it is very much a spare time pursuit for him. But nevertheless, its good to see someone thinking about SWBC DXers. Cheers, Rob VK3BVW Mount Evelyn, VIC

Hi Everyone, Conditions are lowly starting to improve after the geo storm several days ago.  Hopeful for some better conditions over the weekend. Only two items noted in the  mid-afternoon today: 9305 EGYPT. R. Cairo - Abis, very weak in Arabic with talks at 0515. Still  there (barely) at 0545 with occasional glimpses of music. 9420 GREECE. Voice of Greece - Avlis. Program of traditional songs and instrumental  numbers with Greek anncts at f/in 0510 with a fair level, improving to strong by  0610. Rob VK3BVW Mount Evelyn VIC

6155 AUSTRIA. ORF Moosbrunn. Just caught the end of the German service to Europe before s/off at 0615. Weak level. Geomagnetic storm conditions gradually improving this afternoon, but still a problem on 21mHz and 17mHz where signals were quite degraded here in Mount Evelyn and accompanied by the usual "rushing" noise of solar abnormalities. At 0600, Solar Flux 106, A-Index 42, K-Index 2. Forecasts indicate a gradual return to quieter conditions around Oct 12-14, then become unsettled to active on Oct 15-17. (Via NOAA Space Weather Prediction Centre) Rob VK3BVW

6130 LAOS. Lao Nat.R. - Vientiane. First noted 1037 with gentle Laotian instrumental string music, ID and a talk/report in Lao at 1040. Fair to good level, another ID at 1100 and more national music, slightly more pop style. Monitored to past 1115 and no sign of China's Tibetan service tonight. Rob VK3BVW

As Schultz would have said on Hogans Heroes! The current geomagnetic storm has knocked out 21 and 17 mHz tonight when checked at 0930. None of the usuals were heard and only six weak stations on 15 mHz. 11 mHz was a little better. LF channels were average. At 0900, Solar Flux was 103, A-Index was 35 and K-Index was 5. Poor HF conditions expected to continue for the next 24 hours. Rob VK3BVW

Noted this afternoon. 5995 MALI. R. Mali, Bamako. Weak but there at 0635. Faded shortly after. 6045 CANADA. KBS World Radio - Sackville with the Spanish service at 0645, pop songs, chat and ID at a fair level. 7275 TUNISIA. RTV Tunisia - Sfax. Arabic service at 0615, noted in that half hour overlap with parallel frequency of 7335kHz before it's s/off at 0630. 7335 seems to always be heard here in Melbourne much better with its 265 degrees to Nth Africa in comparison to 7275's heading of 340 degrees towards Europe. Noted with lively local vocals, flute-like instruments and toe-tapping drums. 7275 went off the air at 0628 without announcement while 7335 went on strongly to past 0715. Rob VK3BVW Mount Evelyn

Mid-afternoon reception, and p leased to hear a couple of 7mHz stations in there: 7350 ROMANIA. RRI in Romanian and // 9770 at f/in 0420. Weak but there! 7570 USA. R. Taiwan Int. Spanish service f/in 0415 9420 UNIDENTIFIED. At 0335 to past 0420. Some sort of religious chanting? Strange! Any ideas? 9535 SPAIN. REE at 0340 with music and chat program. Fair level. 9770 ROMANIA. RRI, Romanian news at 0405, Strong. 9810 CUBA. RHC in Spanish 0410 9825 USA. WHRI Cyprus Creek, English 0410 Rob VK3BVW Mount Evelyn, VIC

3915 PNG. R. Fly, Tabubil. Pidgin show with laid-back music and talk at 1120. Has anyone heard them on their 5960 outlet recently? Rob VK3BVW Mount Evelyn VIC

7110 MYANMAR. Kachin Radio Service. Beautiful relaxing Burmese music, very occasional anncts from 1130 to 1200. Then changed to more modern but very uninspiring pop style from 1200 onwards. Good level and in the clear. 7345 MYANMAR. Rakhine Radio Service. noted at 1150 with pleasant music and no anncts. Flattened by China at 1200. Rob VK3BVW Mount Evelyn

5745 WTWW noted here in English at 0845 to past 0910 with ID on the hour and quoting this frequency. However, the Nagoya list and the station's own website lists 5755 kHz. Not being a regular watcher of this station/frequency, is this something new or what?? Incidentally, check out the YouTube videos they have on their website. Gives a good tour of the transmitters - and I mean right INSIDE the transmitters! Of course, you are invited to donate to their upkeep should you feel so inclined. :-) Here is the link to the page: http://wtww.us/pages/transmitters.php Rob Wagner VK3BVW Melbourne

5909.94 COLOMBIA On now, 0805 UTC, is Alcaravan Radio, Puerto Lleras. First noted at 0745 when it was barely audible, but getting a bit stronger now. Nice local vocals and IDs. The signal is not shooting out the lights but it's sort of OK! Not sure how long it will last tonight. Hearing it best on USB with both the MFJ-1026 signal enhancer and the BHI DSP module operating in order to kill TVI and general hash. Not bad for a 20m long wire string around the room. Having been away from DXing for ages, this is the first time I'm hearing the station. Rob Wagner VK3BVW Melbourne

Hi Everyone, Gradually getting the radio gear sorted out and set up here. Still using an indoor antenna. 21mhz was not so good this afternoon at this location. However, 17mhz was quite busy from 6pm local time. Here is a list of some stations noted - I have excluded the numerous China (CRI, CNR-1, CNR-2) outlets. 17550 IRAN. VOIRI - Kamalabad. Arabic chants at 0845 under China 17610 IRAN, VOIRI - Kamalabad. German at 0805 17620 FRANCE, RFI, French at 0810, bad QRM China 17625 17640 SEYCHELLES, BBC - Mahe, English at 0815, but weak at this time. 17650 PALAU. T8WH. English at 0915 on Tuesdays, weak level. 17670 KUWAIT. R. Azadi, barely audible in presumed Pashto, 0820 and // 17690 which proved to be a little stronger. Both freqs with a sudden sign off at 0830 17685 THAILAND. R. Azadi - Udon Thani. Dari service s/on 0830 with very little fanfare. Whatever happened to nice interval signals before a broadcast?? :-) 17695 THAILAND. R. Azadi - Udon Thani. Persian service s/o...

Hi everyone, Just a quick note on some observations here after breakfast.....well, morning tea actually!! 17700 PHILIPPINES, R. Pilipinas, clear English ID at 0204 into news. Fair level. 17705 CUBA, R. Havana, Spanish 0135 17710 PAKISTAN, R. Pakistan - Islamabad 0145. Very weak in Urdu but definitely this with local music/chants and talks. 17770 PHILIPPINES, VOA-Tinang, 0150 Burmese 17880 GUAM, KSDA 0152 in Mandarin to s/off 0200 with closing English annct. Cheers, Rob Wagner VK3BVW Melbourne