"HOT" DX!

"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 for this region. It never used to get this hot so early in January, and so continuously. Local records have been broken this week. With the recent record big-freeze (vortex!) in north eastern USA and record highs here in Australia, I guess we can safely say that there is no such thing as climate change…..'cos FOX News told me so!  So…..it MUST be true (cough, cough!!)

The temperature dropped sufficiently last night at 3am to venture out to the shack. And, my little friend from the USSR was able to cope quite well. So here is a quick scan of the bands on January 16, plus  a few notes from earlier in the week.

4880   SOUTH AFRICA & INDIA.  SW Radio Africa - Meyerton & AIR - Lucknow. SWRA was the stronger of the two stations here at 1725 with its English current affairs program, while Lucknow featured female vocals in the Hindi service. Jan 16.

4920   INDIA & CHINA.  AIR - Chennai & PBS Xizang - Lhasa. About equal strength from these two stations, both with music programs at 1728. AIR went to English news at 1730, Hindi news at 1735, s/off annct at 1740, leaving China in the clear on Jan 16.

5040   INDIA. AIR - Jeypore. English news at 1730 in // 4920, then into Hindi news 1735. No s/off annct at the end of the news, the broadcast just stops! Good signal on Jan 16.

6275   TAJIKISTAN. R. Free North Korea - Dushanbe. Heavily jammed (as usual) but peeps through occasionally with Korean talks at 1610, Jan 16.

7240   SAUDI ARABIA. BSKSA - Riyadh. Qur'an  readings in the Farsi service at 1635 with a strong signal, and which must be causing considerable consternation to R. Australia's Oceania service via Shepparton on the same freq, Jan 16.

9780   TAIWAN. Furusato no Kaze - Paochung. Just managed to tune in when the station's melodic chimes played at 1618 followed by a Japanese ID, then a sad-sounding ballad. Excellent signal on Jan 16.

13800   MADAGASCAR. R. Dabanga - Talata Volonondry. Long Arabic talk with many mentions of Sudan at 1550, ID and station jingle at 1602, then into Sudanese songs. Lovely signal and runs // 15535 (via SM Galeria) which also has a good signal but suffers considerable splash on that freq from Kuwait's s/on at 1600 on 15540, Jan 16.

15105  SWAZILAND. TWR - Manzini. Weekday service to EAf at 1623 with a pleasant song, then the station ID 1626, another minute of music, then silence, then a music box-style interval signal at 1628, then off. Good signal on Jan 16.

15370   BULGARIA.  ESAT Radio - Kostinbrod. Here on Thursdays from 1700 in Amharic, but heavily jammed right from the beginning of the broadcast on Jan 16.

17655   USA.  VOA - Greenville. Portuguese to WAf with the ID and address at 1715, then African music, fair signal on Jan 16.

17670   INDIA. AIR - Hindi service with pleasant Indian pop music (perhaps old-style Bollywood?) programming at 1712, good signal on Jan 16.

17800   RWANDA.  DW - Kigali. French service to WAf with the news at 1710, fair to poor on Jan 16.

17830   ASCENSION IS.  BBC - Ascension. English programming 1706, weak and variable signal, Jan 16.

21510   IRAN. VOIRI - Kamalabad. English news to SAs at 1035 with a rather raspy old audio quality, running // 21640 (also Kamalabad and also to SAs) which had much clearer audio. Both freqs were strong signals, Jan 12.

21560   VATICAN. VR- -SM Galeria. Beautiful booming signal with the Sunday service in Italian at s/on 1050, starting with long frequency anncts in a variety of languages inc. English. Then the Angelus with Pope Francis began from 1100. Also runs // 15595 - fair to poor there, and 11740 to Eu - but very much underneath CNR 2 (Lingshi) on Jan 12.

21580   KUWAIT. R. Kuwait, with a nice signal in Filipino (and with a liberal sprinkling of English words in there as well) at 1047, Jan 12.

21600   IRAN. VOIRI - Sirjan. News in the Russian service to CAs at 0455 with a good signal. Runs // 11825 (Kamalabad) which faded in around 0515 (4:15 EDST) on Jan 14.

21610   SPAIN.  REE - Noblejas. Jazz organ music in a magazine style program at 1640, lovely signal on Jan 16

21630   USA. WHRI - Cypress Creek, SC. Usual religious programming in English at 1650, weak and variable signal on Jan 16.

21740   VATICAN. VR - site unknown. Special broadcast from the Sistine Chapel of Mass with Baptisms, led by Pope Francis and first noted at 0930, in Latin with English commentary. Also noted on 21760 with Portuguese commentary, and 17830 with French commentary! All freqs aimed towards Africa, although 21760 appeared to be somewhat better than 21740 which leads me to believe that there might have been different sites involved in the transmission….not sure though. The service concluded at 1015 and then followed uninterrupted classical music till 1024. At 1025, 21760 kHz was the first to leave, then 17830 went off a minute later, while mysteriously 21740 carried on till 1030 with dialogue in Italian between two announcers until that txer was also switched off. Jan 12.

21770   PHILIPPINES. VOA - Tinang. S/on 0500 for the Tuesday Tibetan service WITHOUT jamming! Good clear signal until 0504 CNR 1 came on at equal strength. Seemed to be // 21570 also with CNR 1 jamming as well, but at a weaker level there, Jan 14

Have a great weekend everyone!

Rob VK3BVW