Mount Evelyn DX Report

  RADIO NACIONAL DE EL SALVADOR 1973 Recording Radio Nacional de El Salvador was a government-owned station that operated from the capital, San Salvador. And it was sometimes heard with a fair signal into Melbourne, Australia, during the early 1970s.  Over the decades, it had a somewhat intermittent operation on shortwave and was not always easy to verify with a QSL card. At one time, it went missing for around five years before returning to the shortwave bands! The official call sign was YSS, which later changed to YSSS. In his book, Broadcasting on the Shortwaves - 1945 to Today,  Jerome Berg recalls that during the 1960s, the station maintained a program called "Reportes del Mundo". On Tuesdays and Sundays, the station would read out and respond to letters from foreign listeners. In those days, the frequencies used were 9555 and 6010 kHz. Later, the station changed to 5980 kHz, and it is on this frequency, the audio recording below was made on March 18, 1973, at 1233 U...

  13mb MINI SURVEY AND OTHER DX NEWS The HF bands have truly come alive in the past few days. A quick look at what is being heard on the 13-metre band (21450 to 21850 kHz) shows that there is plenty to hear in this A23 transmission season. In addition, there are two new frequencies up on the 11mb - BBC on 25800 kHz at 1400 UTC in Hausa to West Africa and 25900 kHz at 1200 UTC in French to Central Africa. It is wonderful to see the 11mb being brought into use as we observe the rise in the sunspot cycle. Depending on where you are located on the globe and the time of day, you may have a good chance of hearing these two 25 MHz outlets. And....don't forget to watch out for WWV on 25.000 MHz. Below is a quick list of some of the stations I am hearing at Mount Evelyn, Vic, Australia. The rigs are the Yaesu FTDX3000 transceiver and the old Kenwood R-5000 receiver. The antenna is a 5/8th λ centre-fed vertical designed especially for both these shortwave bands. 21470   OMAN. BBC - Al S...

What's going on at Dhabayya? For some time now, the persistent hum on transmissions coming out of the Dhabayya (U.A.E.) site makes me wonder what is happening there. Clearly, there is some technical issue that they are struggling to fix.  Take, for example, two scheduled transmissions today (April 15) at 0500 UTC. The BBC broadcast in the Kinyarwanda language to East Africa, a weekend-only service on 21660 kHz, saw repeated on/off switching of the carrier with a low-level transmitter hum and no audio content. The broadcast finally fired up at 0506 UTC, partway through the scheduled programming. At the same time, the daily English World Service broadcast to East Africa at 0500 on 21560 kHz suffered similar symptoms of on/off carrier, a hummy transmitter and no audio content. I sat on this frequency for the scheduled full hour, listening to the carrier kicking in and out while I when about other business in the radio shack. The service never appeared during that whole hour. When the ...

  A23 TRANSMISSION SEASON 150+ NEW FREQUENCIES MONITORED The new A23 transmission season began last weekend. I have been scanning the international shortwave bands, checking out what has changed since the start of this new season. Below is a record of some early observations made during the first five days since the changeover. Where possible, for each item, I have tried to identify the former frequency used in the B22 season. But this is sometimes quite hard because schedules can be complex or drastically changed by the broadcaster, making it difficult to arrive at direct comparisons. There are 150+   frequency change s listed below. So if you are missing your favourite station, it could be listed here!  NOTE: It is not possible in this list to cover every frequency change in five days of monitoring. There are many more frequencies for you to chase down, and I encourage you to do so! It's fun to play "detective"! Some additional points to note: The list is in frequency...