Mount Evelyn DX Report

EARLY MORNING DX Although still recovering from my shock reception of Radio Candip, Bunia, Dem. Rep. of Congo earlier in the week ( click here for the R. Candip post ), I put in another early morning listening session today. There's plenty to hear on the shortwave bands at the moment! 7237.1v   UNIDENTIFIED. Believed to be R. Ethiopia - Geja Jewe. Hoping to hear the English service when first tuned in around 1635, but coped an almighty het on this freq from CRI's English service on 7235. Using the USB mode, I noted fragments of piano music around 1640, but it was too hard, especially with the added interference from RA-Shepp and Riyadh also on 7240. Came back to it at 1656 after CRI had s/off, but needed to retune down to 7236.9 - it seemed to have moved 20 Hz in 20 min - impressive! Definitely something there by retuning in LSB mode but still too hard with the 7240 kHz QRM spoiling the fun. Plenty of carrier but the audio was just not making it through the hash consistentl...

Further to my post of January, here are some further Indian frequencies in the 60 metre band, plus the new 25 mb frequency for Eastern Europe. 4800   INDIA & CHINA.  AIR - Hyderbad & CNR 1 - Geermu. Indian songs in the Southern Service and Chinese instrumental music blended together at equal strength at 1722 (both at a fair level). English news from India at 1730 on Jan 21. 4810   INDIA.  AIR - Bhopal. Lovely classical Indian instrumental music at 1710. A strong signal on a relatively quiet night noise-wise. Very pleasing listening on Jan 21. 4860   INDIA.  AIR - Shimla. The Northern Service noted at 1655 with Hindi talks, then songs from 1700. It was a very strong carrier but the audio quality was way down and barely audible at times, Jan 21. 11620   INDIA. AIR - Txer site unknown (probably Delhi). Russian service to EEu noted at 1645 with a talk which mentioned Pakistan on many occasions. At 1701, there was a long Indian ...

RARE RECEPTION RADIO TÉLÉ CANDIP, BUNIA Democratic Republic of the Congo An exciting opportunity arose this early morning when Radio Télé Candip popped up on the radio dial. Rarely heard in this part of the world, it was pleasing to catch this station, for the first time in a long time. Below are the details from my logbook, plus some background information: 5066.33   CONGO, DEM REP.  R. Télé Candip, Bunia. Finally heard a weak signal from this one on Jan 21 after monitoring the frequency closely for several months, and following an encouraging report of reception by Victor Goonetilleke a week or so earlier. First checked in around 1745 to hear French anncts and occasional African songs. Some sort of ID noted at 1801 but too weak at that moment to really decipher the details. Then into a short talk for several minutes before it went back into the music program. Although the signal was weak, it actually began to improve marginally around 1805. The remainder ...

VOICE OF RUSSIA'S SAMARA SITE DISMANTLED Previously known as Kuybyshev until 1991, the city of Samara is situated in the south eastern part of European Russia, where the Volga and the Samara Rivers meet. It is the sixth largest city (by population) in Russia.  Samara is one of a number of Russian cities listed to host the 2018 FIFA World Cup. President Putin has found the perfect site to build a 45,000 seat world class stadium.....right where the Voice of Russia's Samara transmitter site once stood. The site is now closed and the dismantling of the huge antennas is well underway. The following link is in Russian, but pop it into Google Translate and you have the story of the stadium plans, PLUS a video link (in Russian) showing one of the transmitters "descending" back to Earth!! http://www.kp.ru/daily/26159.4/3046922/ My thanks to the Shortwave Sites group for the link. 73,  Rob VK3BVW

"HOT" DX! The weather here at Mount Evelyn has been woeful. The summer heatwave has lasted all week with temperatures ranging between 40 and 44 degrees C (104-112 F) every day. On one day, the Australian Open Tennis Championships here in Melbourne had to be postponed in the afternoon because on-court temperatures on the "outside courts" (not in the main stadium) had reached just under 50 degrees! My radio shack is exactly that - a shack away from the main house. The poor little air conditioner in that room just couldn't keep the shack cool enough for me to work there, so I've had to stay away from the radios for much of the week. This MIGHT have something to do with the fact that the air-con proudly displays the "MADE IN THE U.S.S.R." label on the front control panel. That's how old it is!! And there probably aren't too many places in Russia where it gets this hot. Even though it's summer here, this is quite abnormal weather...

Unrest in South Sudan Silences Ham Operators CQ Newsroom: Unrest in South Sudan Silences Ham Operators : Flag of South Sudan (CIA World Factbook) The two licensed amateurs in South Sudan both report that they have taken their stations off t... Such a disappointing and sad situation for a new country that promises so much for its citizens. Let's hope that this peace returns quickly to this young nation. 73 Rob VK3BVW

16 METRE BANDSCAN 0930 - 1100 UTC Below is a short bandscan as noted on January 10. This represents 8:30 to 11:00 pm local daylight time. Reception on the higher frequencies above 15mHz has been very good over recent days. In amongst all the China  outlets were some other interesting finds such as Deutsche Welle via South Africa, KSDA Guam, Radio Thailand and others. 17490   CHINA. CRI Kashi. English to Eu. Fair to poor. 17500   IRAN. VOIRI - Kamalabad. Arabic s/on 1020 to NAf. Poor. 17510   INDIA.  AIR - Khampur. Indonesian to s/off 0945. Strong. Then s/on 1000 English to Oc, still strong but with audio hum. 17520   GUAM. KSDA - Agat. Chinese s/on 1000, fair. 17540   GERMANY. Bible Voice - Nauen. Arabic to NAf on Fridays to s/off 1000. 17540   GUAM. KSDA/AWR - Agat. S/on 1030 to Philippines in possibly Ilocano (but certainly not Filipino) to s/off 1100. Good. 17550   CHINA. CNR 1- Beijing to s/off 103...

ESAT, Al-Shorouq and Africans A few loggings from very early this morning....there have to be SOME benefits for being a poor sleeper!!  ;-) 3965   IRAN.  VOIRI - Kamalabad. Russian service at 1735, strong signal and busting through RFI's DRM service very nicely co-channel on Jan 6. 4780   DJIBOUTI.  RTV Djibouti. Somali programming with long talks from 1740 and a solid signal despite utility QRM, Jan 6. 4880   SOUTH AFRICA.  SW R. Africa - Meyerton. Nice signal at 1750 with English propaganda programming, Jan 6. 4976   UGANDA.  R. Uganda - Kampala. Plenty of carrier but disappointingly weak audio with English programming at 1755, Jan 6. 5010.25  MADAGASCAR.  R. Madagasikara - Ambohidrano. The f requency du jour with the usual wobble but not quite as bad as in recent times. Strong signal at 1758 in Malagasy, and with a series of songs from 1800, Jan 6. 5129.95   UNIDENTIFIED.  Possibly R. Sedaye Zindag...

NEW BROADCAST:  OROMO VOICE RADIO Scheduled to commence operating on January 1, but not heard until today here in Melbourne was Oromo Voice Radio. Noted at Mount Evelyn this morning local time - for the first time. Here's my notes from the logbook: 17850   FRANCE.  Oromo Voice Radio - Believed to be transmitting from Issoudun .  New station aimed at Horn of Africa states. Some great East African music noted at 1620, then a rattlingly fast ID and talk in the Afaan Oromo language from 1626 until suddenly off mid-sentence at 1629. No English heard on this occasion (although the website indicates that the station will broadcast in both Oromo and English).  A fair and respectable signal on Monday, Jan 6. The 16 meter band can be somewhat unpredictable at 1600 UTC here in south eastern Australia - it is often closed to propagation - although we have a somewhat better chance in our summer months. So it was pleasing to grab this one at 3:20 am local time. A...

Great Reception - Rewarding DX Logs Welcome to 2014! Here's hoping it's a wonderful year for DXing! Best of listening luck to everyone!! 7255   UNID.  At 2040, I believe this may be Voice of Nigeria (Ikorodu) in French under CRI's Russian service, but weak and no ID observed. Faded by 2050 on Jan 1. 7280   VIETNAM.  VoV - Son Tay. English to Eu at 2050, in the clear and fair to good signal on Jan 1. 7365   IRAN.  VOIRI - Sirjan. S/on with usual piano music 2045, then the ID "ceremony" - goes on forever - at 2050 for the Japanese service. Strong signal but very tinny audio quality, like it was being re-broadcast through a small transistor radio, quite unusual sound on Jan 1. 7375   TAJIKISTAN.  Voice of Wilderness - Dushanbe. Long Korean talks at 1930, fairly poor signal with QRM from an RTTY signal smack on the frequency plus some sort of low-level bubble jammer. Religious ballad noted at 1946. S/off at 1959 on Jan 1. 74...