Great Reception - Rewarding DX Logs

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.

7470   UZBEKISTAN.  Open Radio for North Korea - Tashkent. S/on 2000 with IDs and into South Korean pop songs. Quite a few momentary crackles and breaks in transmission around 2005-2009, sounded like someone was fiddling with a faulty lead!! Otherwise, a good signal on Jan 1.

7580   SRI LANKA.  R. Farda - Iranawila. Farsi songs at 2025 and running // 7520 (from Ban Dung, Thailand). Virtually no difference noted here in signal strength between the two freqs - both quite strong and in the clear. Jan 1.

9500   AUSTRALIA versus CHINA versus SWAZILAND.  Interesting! Here at Mount Evelyn, RA-Shepparton in English but was well underneath a booming CNR with music programming at 1754. China s/off at 1805, allowing RA to shine through……with just a hint of TWR-Manzini in English after they s/on 1800. However, a check of the Twente remote during all of this indicated a good RA signal into Europe (which incidentally is targeted to West Oceania) at 1755 with no sign of CNR at all. Then at 1800, TWR swamps RA with it's service to EAf. Jan 3.

9505   SUDAN.  VoAfrica - Al-Aitahab. Nice bright African music at 1807, then an ID in English at 1814 as "This is the Voice of Africa from Sudan Radio". A long pause of around 2 minutes before the next music program began. Fair signal on Jan 3.

9545   SOLOMON ISLANDS. SIBS - Honiara. At 0900 in English here now, ex 6080 to avoid RA-Shepparton, fairly good signal and in the clear on Jan 2 with a mix of electronically tinged island pops, bad country & western songs and old Aussie rock ballads. ID at 0907 which in part was "…keep the radio on, ….you're listening to Radio Happy Isles, the Voice of the Nation….". Religious program at 0916. The carrier or audio has slight hum on it, but nothing too much to worry about….yet!!

The Technical Director of Sawtu Linjiila

9800   FRANCE.  Sawtu Linjiila (Voice of the Gospel) - Issoudun. Caught the last five minutes of this broadcast at 1854 in the Fulfulde language (with a sprinkling of French words thrown in for good measure!), with religious talks and several IDs before s/off at 1859. Quite a respectable signal on Jan 1. Radio Sawtu Linjiila is an operation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Cameroon. Offices are located at the Christian Media Centre located in Ngaoundere, Cameroon. It opened on July 15, 1966 and aired its first broadcast November 6, in the same year. The website listed in the WRTH currently appears to not work and there is also a little-used Facebook page. Some people call this a clandestine station, which it is not! The latest HFCC registrations lists the language as Hausa, which is definitely not the case!! The target audience is West Africa and its programs are relayed over several local FM stations throughout the region.

11560   BULGARIA.  Dimtse Radio Erena - Kostinbrod. First noted at 1716 with talks in Tigrinya or similar language, then one long music selection from 1720 right throughout to 1729 when there was a brief ID for "Radio Erena" and then off. Fair to poor signal on Jan 3.

15235   SOUTH AFRICA.  Channel Africa - Meyerton. "Democracy Radio" program in English at 1735. ID at 1739 as "Hello, this is Channel Africa broadcasting from Southern Africa…..". Then into a series of detailed anncts in various languages including Swahili, French, Portuguese and Lozi. Back into English at 1743 into an African regional news program, focusing on political problems in the Central African Republic and Nigeria. Weak signal on Jan 3.

And finally, one of my daughters is currently in Manhattan, New York on holiday and is getting a whole new experience of winter snow storms in that great city!! For an Australian girl, it's quite an insight!! (This is one of her photos below). But for all the locals, it's probably a real nuisance and making life very difficult. To all our readers in north east USA - stay warm and stay safe!

Manhattan street yesterday….and -10 Celsius.

73's everyone and have a great weekend.

Rob VK3BVW