Mount Evelyn DX Report

4820   INDIA.  AIR - Kolkata. At about equal strength to the channel-sharing PBS Xizang at 1310 with softly spoken Hindi talks and occasional brief music interludes. 4840   INDIA.  AIR - Mumbai. Heard after the WWCR s/off at 1300 with Hindi talks and occasionally brief musical moments. Fair strength and best heard using USB to reduce the impact of ABC Alice Springs 4835. 7295   MALAYSIA.  RTVMalaysia - Kajang. This is usually a tough one for me to hear due to the two powerful and rather noisy China outlets on 7290. However, I dug it out of the mush at 1115. This is the Traxx FM Service in English with pop songs and announcements. At 1129 there was a time check as "29 minutes past 7". Malaysian and world news at 1200. Pleased to log this one. 7295   FRANCE.  R. Algerienne - Issoudon.  Arabic service into Central Africa at 0540, weak signal with Arabic songs. S/off 0557. 7295   FRANCE.  RFI - Issoudon.  S/on 060...

There are several reports floating around of Zimbabwe's Zanu PF Party banning shortwave radios because they may pick up broadcasts that are unfavourable to Mugabe's ruling regime. The government line is that listening to these broadcasts is illegal. Rumours have it that the police are planning to go around households and gather up all radios capable of receiving broadcasts outside its borders - i.e. shortwave radios.  There may be some credence to these reports and I wouldn't put it past Mugabe to try on something like this......after all, he's tried just about everything else in order to hang onto power over the years.  However, the attempt to ban radios is bound to prove futile. He has only to look to North Korea where we know that people regularly tune into international broadcasts, even when the penalties for engaging in this practice are quite severe. The same goes for China, who still insist on jamming certain broadcasts aimed at their country. Indeed, th...

Well, reception conditions between the African continent and Australia have certainly held up well over the past few days since my last post nearly a week ago. Seven countries are represented in this list below. Although signals are mostly not strong, the fact that they are appearing at this time of year is a great sign for potentially a very good winter DX season ahead. 3320   SOUTH AFRICA.  R. Sonder Grense - Meyerton. Afrikaans programming with talk and short bursts of music in between at 1910. A poor signal, but not bad for mid summer! 4880   SOUTH AFRICA.  SW Radio Africa - Meyerton.  Fair signal at 1845 with a program in a local Zimbabwean language. Into a "Township" style song at 1852, finally a piece of orchestral music to s/off 1902. 5950   ETHIOPIA. Voice of Tigray Revolution, Addis Ababa. Beautiful signal at 1745 with talks in a local language. Frequent mentions for Addis Ababa. No ID at 1800 but into traditional music at 1801. ...

Apparently, a number of people were interested in my last post relating to reception in the 22mb. One of those was Bob Padula, who wrote a response to my MEDXR blog in his World Shortwave Forum: The 22 mb was originally conceived as a multi-use band for daytime and night-time operations for regional broadcasting in Europe. The 22 mb was opened up for international broadcasting in 1986, and initial usage was sparse, due to older transmitters with limited frequency agility moving in to it. Yesterday afternoon (local time) I logged a number of other stations on the same band. Here's a summary: 13580   GERMANY.  Mashaal Radio - Nauen. 0605 in Pashto to Afghanistan, fair to poor signal. 13645   CHINA.  CRI - Xian. S/on 0600 for the English service to SE Asia, right through to 0800 s/off. Signal starts at a fair level but quickly becomes a dominant strength for the remainder of the broadcast. 13650   KOREA.  VoK - Kujang.  English s...

The 22 metres is often the forgotten band by DXers. So.....I wonder if regular shortwave program listeners also forget about this band, too. It hasn't got a huge number of stations in it, and there are quite a few Chinese outlets. BUT, there can be some interesting DX at various times of the day. In my local morning (8am), the band is mildly active with a good propagation path to the US and Pacific: Aside from Radio Australia - Shepparton with it's English service on 13630 at 2100 s/on, the only other stations noted were from US transmitter sites….plus a US station in Guam!! All stations below were heard at 2130: 13362 USB   GUAM.  AFN - Barrigada. Good strength.    13570   USA.  WINB - Red Lion.  Very weak at 2145 with religious programming.  Never an easy one to hear at Mount Evelyn! 13820   USA. R. Marti - Greenville B.  Spanish, good level. 13830   USA.  WEWN - Vandiver.  Spanish, fair strength 1...

Like many places in the world, summertime DXing on the lower frequencies can be a challenge with increased thunderstorm activity and tropical band stations not at the signal strength heard during the winter months. But.....reception of African stations here at Mount Evelyn has been good over the past few days. Here's a summary of some stations noted during the past weekend: 3200   SWAZILAND.  TWR - Manzini. English religious programming at 1845. Weak signal and thunderstorm noise made listening more difficult. 4780   DJIBOUTI.  R. Djibouti.  French service with an information program at 1910, moving into fast Afro pops at 1913. Fair signal but local electrical noise degraded reception somewhat - but was reduced by the MFJ-1026 noise cancelling unit. 4940   SAO TOME & PRINCIPE.  VOA - Pinheira.  Out of the two VOA African stations operating in this band at this time (the other being 4930 - VOA Botswana), this one is always the weake...

2368.5   AUSTRALIA. Radio Symban. F/in 0645, very weak at first but rapidly become stronger. I'm trying to get a handle on the operating schedule for this one. Hoping to have a more complete schedule soon. 3310   BOLIVIA. R. Mosoj Chaski, Cochabamba. First noted at 1010 on Feb 7 and very surprised to hear this weak signal in our mid-summer non-Latin season. Being on a clear channel helps! Program appeared to be largely talk and then it was gone by 1025. 5925   VIETNAM.  Voice of Vietnam - Xuan Mai. Domestic service - Network 2 - at 0935 with Vietnamese talks, fair level and noted before China's CNR 5 network signs on at 1000. 6070   BRAZIL. R. Capital (presumed) - Rio De Janeiro. Noted with earnest Portuguese talks at 0956 in the four minute gap of silence between programs of the Voice of Korea - Kanggye.  Once Korea fired up again at 1000, there was no hope of hearing R. Capital. Believed to be relaying Super Radio Deus e Amor program at this ...

4450   KOREA.   Voice of the People, Goyang. Fair level with Korean talks and making it through the jamming without too much problem. 4750   INDONESIA.  RRI - Makassar. Early f/in at 0858, ID at 0900 then news program. 4774.9   PERU.  R. Tarma, Tarma, Junin. First noted at 1005 with talk and a music program of ballads and moderate tempo songs. Fair level and quite good considering this is the mid-summer non-Latin season. Some CODAR and other ute interference. 4835   AUSTRALIA.  ABC - Alice Springs. First noted off the air at 1018, allowing easy reception of WWCR on 4840. Then ABC suddenly returned in the middle of a cricket match broadcast at 1027. Unusual to hear this station off air with a technical difficulty!Feb 3. 4955   PERU. R. Cultural Amauta, Huanta. Presumed to be this one at 1035 with songs and announcements. Pretty noisy conditions and a weak signal made it difficult for an ID. Should improve in strength over ...