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 Seela. 1037 Dari to AFG. Radio play. Into Pashto at 1100 until s/off 1130. Good signal, Apr 13.

21470   VATICAN. BBC - SM Galeria. S/on 0700 English WS to CAf, fair to good signal but with some deep fades until s/off 0800, Apr 14.

21490   CHINA. CNR 1 - Site unknown.  1052 Mandarin jamming of Sound of Hope which was inaudible. //  21530 and 21800 for the same reason. All are strong signals. Apr 13.

21550   ALGERIA. R. Algerienne - Bechar. S/on 1100 Arabic to CAf, good signal. Sudden unscheduled disappearance at 1143. Later, I noted its reappearance when I checked again at 1305.  Apr 15.

21550   ROMANIA. RRI - Tiganesti. S/on 0500 French to CAf. 0530 English to AUS, good signal, Apr 15. 

21560   MADAGASCAR. BBC - Talata Volonondry. S/on 0700 English WS to EAf, a beautiful booming signal to s/off 0800, Apr 14.

21565   NTH MARIANA IS. R. Free Asia - Tinian. 1030 in Tibetan to EAs, (schedule says Thurs only), good signal with CNR 1 jamming at equal strength. Apr 13.

21580   FRANCE. R. France Int'l - Issoudun. S/on 0800 French to NAf/CAf, good signal but with deep fades at times, Apr 14.

21594.97   U.A.E. Radio Ergo - Dhabayya. 1210 Somali to EAf. Fair signal but with transmitter hum, Apr 13.

21600   PHILIPPINES. VoA - Tinang. S/on 0500 Tibetan to EAs (Sats only), good signal, Apr 15.

21630   MADAGASCAR. BBC - Talata Volonondry. S/on 0700 English to SAf, very good signal to s/off 0800, Apr 14.

21660   U.A.E. BBC - Dhabayya. 0500 Kinyarwanda to EAf. Repeated on/off carrier, transmitter hum and no audio through until 0506, when it finally arced up! Good signal once it got going. On the other hand, over at 21560 kHz, the BBC World Service via Dhabayya at exactly the same time had similar repeated on/off carriers, transmitter hum and no audio for the entire hour schedule - they just couldn't get it happening on this day! Apr 15.

21670   SAUDI ARABIA. Saudi Radio Int'l - Riyadh. 1042 Indonesian to SEAs. Commentary. Good signal, Apr 13.

21690   FRANCE. R. France Int'l - Issoudun. S/on 1200 French to CAf, news, fair signal, Apr 13.

21690   NTH MARIANA IS. R. Free Asia - Tinian. *0500 Mandarin to EAs, 0600 Tibetan. Good signal, no jamming! Apr 15.

21695   PHILIPPINES. VoA - Tinang.  1045 Mandarin to EAs. At equal strength to CNR 1 jamming. Apr 13.

21710.13   U.A.E. Mizzima R - Dhabayya. 1205 Burmese to SEAs, news and commentaries. Fair signal, NF (ex 17730), Apr 13.

21745.13   U.A.E.  Al-Arabiya FM - Dhabayya. S/on 1100 to 1200 s/off Arabic to ME. Opened with news and then commentaries and interviews. Many mentions of Al-Arabayya. Fair to poor signal, Apr 13.

25800   VATICAN. BBC - SM Galeria. 1400-1430 Hausa to WAf. Very weak signal, as propagation on the 11mb is almost closed at this time. Scheduled as weekdays only. Apr 14

25900   MADAGASCAR. BBC - Talata Volonondry. 1200 French to CAf, a weak and variable signal until s/off 1230, Apr 15.

And in other news....

COLOMBIA

In recent days, there have been surprising reactivations of two Colombian stations. Here are the details of my monitoring:

5909.95   COLOMBIA. Alcaraván Radio. - Puerto Lleras. 1040 in Spanish with secular dance music and anncts. A clear channel at this time but only a fair to poor signal and no definite ID heard during the monitoring period. Several mentions of Colombia in canned anncts. Appears to have been reactivated, which is great to see! Apr 12. And again at 1015 on Apr 13, very poor signal (worse than the previous day) with a prayer in Spanish, then songs. 

6010   COLOMBIA. La Voz de tu Conciencia - Puerto Lleras. 1045 in Spanish. A reactivation with religious programming and music (different to 5910 Alcaraván). Poor signal and required listening in  LSB due to side splash from Korean jamming on 6015. Apr 12. And again at 1020 on Apr 13 with preaching. Poor signal.

MORE DX TIPS!

4750   INDONESIA. VoIndonesia - Cimanggis. 2105 English with news and sports news, then choral music. ID at 2110. Poor signal and faded into the morning light by 2115, Apr 13.

4905   TIBET. PBS Xizang - Lhasa. 2117 Tibetan with songs and canned anncts. // 4920 and both heard at a fair strength, Apr 13.

5830   UZBEKISTAN. R. Iran Int'l - Tashkent. 2124 Farsi to Iran with an interview. Fair signal from the humming transmitter, Apr 13.

7395   USA. KNLS - Anchor Point, AK. 1300 Korean to EAs, new service for A23, good signal, Apr 15.

7600   ARMENIA. R. Afghanistan Int'l - Gavar. 2130 Pashto to AFG. Current affairs reports, strong signal, Apr 13.

12040   GERMANY. AWR - Nauen. 2130-2200 in Twi to WAf. Station ID and info at 2150. Lovely signal. Twi is one of three dialects of Akan, a member of the Kwa sub-group of Niger-Congo languages. There are around 7 million Twi speakers in Ghana, but you can also find speakers in Cote d'Ivoire and Togo. Apr 13.

17460   UZBEKISTAN. R. Dengê Welat - Tashkent. At 0645 in Kurdish to ME. Presumed to be this with talks, but unable to decipher an ID. A fair signal but well under the much stronger Turkish music jammer.  Apr 13.

That's it for now. 73 and good DX to you all!

Rob Wagner VK3BVW