DX QUICK TIPS
Guest Contributor: Ron Howard

My thanks to Ron Howard for his monitoring observations, which he sent a few days ago. Unfortunately, I got tied up with a few other things and so there was a delay in publishing these notes. However, Ron's observations are well worth noting - perhaps you will hear them from your own DX location! (Rob)

Ron Howard

LOCATION: Asilomar State Beach, Calif., USA

RIG: CR1

ANTENNAS: 30m long wire

All times in UTC, all frequencies in kHz

// = The same broadcast simultaneously on another frequency i.e. in parallel.

AUSTRALIA. 5055, Radio 4KZ, 0800+, on Jan 31. "National News"; items about "lockdown quarantine"; weather; spot about history of sports in Australia; pop songs (Peter Frampton - "Baby, I Love Your Way," etc.), commercial announcements.

CHINA. 6145 // 9630, CNR17, 1703, Feb 2 (Tuesday). Thanks very to Dr Hansjoerg Biener (Germany) for his valuable feedback about the // 6145, that I had not heard before; the usual long "Radio" jingle/song; 1720, weekday language lesson in Russian, along with Kazakh; multi-language intro ("Hi, Hello. Nǐ hǎo [Chinese for "Hello"], How are you?," etc.); repeating words and phrases in Russian; 9630 slightly stronger than 6145. Jan 29 (Friday), language lesson was in English.

ERITREA. 7140, Voice of the Broad Masses of Eritrea (VOBME) 1, 1448-1507, Feb 2. HOA music and chanting, via long path; better than usual reception; also heard 7180, VOBME 2 (clearly not //) and both about equal strength.

KOREA REP. 5995, Echo of Hope - VOH, 0738, Jan 31 (Sunday). The weekend reading of the "Harry Potter" story in English and Korean; this station plays a four hour program loop, so this program was in fact heard again at 1138.

KOREA REP. Voice of Freedom - Hwaseong. Back to alternate frequency 6045, 1437 UT, Jan 29. (Ex 5920); now mixing with the N. Korean super jamming here and an UNID station. Perhaps moved to get away from Vatican Radio via Philippines? [See PHILIPPINES]
BTW - Jan 29, found that the super jamming from N. Korea has returned yet again to 6135.

MADAGASCAR. 6135, Radio Madagasikara, at 1350, Feb 2. The N. Korea super jamming that had recently been here for a few days is now gone yet again; RM in the clear with pop songs.

MADAGASCAR. 5009.94, Radio Madagasikara, 1506-1516 UT, Jan 29. Program of religious music; still decent reception at 1540; long path.

PAPUA NEW GUINEA. 3260, NBC Madang, 1109, Jan 31. Better reception today; can clearly tell the audio is still badly muffled (unreadable). On Feb 1, noted off the air from 1118+, so still broadcasting
erratically.

PHILIPPINES. 9925, R. Pilipinas, 1737, Feb 2. Excellent reception (a rating I rarely use); in Filipino/Tagalog; // 12120 was also heard, but with pulsating noise and prominent het; as usual no carrier at all on 15190.

PHILIPPINES. 5920, Vatican Radio - Tinang, with a super strong signal at 1437 UT, on Jan 29; in Hindi. Voice of Freedom (Korea) has moved from 5920 and is now on 6045.

TIBET. 6200, Xizang PBS, via Lhasa, 1604, Feb 2. "Holy Tibet"; still fairly readable; items about the
upcoming Chinese lunar New Year's Spring Festival, the biggest holiday in China and Tibet, also gives improved income figures for the people in Tibet.

VANUATU. 7260, Radio Vanuatu, 0645-0659* UT, Feb 4. At tune in, was surprised to find RV still here, as they had consistently been heard with ex 0559*; nice music program (brief audio attached) and many IDs ("Radio Vanuatu, Vois Blong Yumi"); suddenly cut off. *0659 (ex: *0559), heard on 3945 (poor), 2nd harmonic 7890 (best reception) and 3rd harmonic 11835 (poor); 0703-0727, with news/sports in Bislama (600 people quarantined in Australia, before the start of the Australian Open Tennis Tournament, etc.).

ZAMBIA. 5915, R. One/ZNBC1, 1641, Feb 2. One good thing about them moving away from ex 5995, is that I can now clearly hear them via long path, as 5995 was always jammed by N. Korea, making reception impossible; today with repetitive African pop music; almost fair reception.

Thanks again to Ron for his excellent shortwave loggings.

73 and have a great weekend everyone,

Rob Wagner VK3BVW