DX LISTENING DIGEST 5-079, May 10, 2005 Incorporating REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTING edited by Glenn Hauser, http://www.worldofradio.com Items from DXLD may be reproduced and re-reproduced only if full credit be maintained at all stages and we be provided exchange copies. DXLD may not be reposted in its entirety without permission. Materials taken from Arctic or originating from Olle Alm and not having a commercial copyright are exempt from all restrictions of noncommercial, noncopyrighted reusage except for full credits For restrixions and searchable 2005 contents archive see http://www.worldofradio.com/dxldmid.html NOTE: If you are a regular reader of DXLD, and a source of DX news but have not been sending it directly to us, please consider yourself obligated to do so. Thanks, Glenn NEXT AIRINGS OF WORLD OF RADIO 1273: Wed 0930 WOR WWCR 9985 Wed 1600 WOR WBCQ after hours Mon 0330 WOR WSUI Iowa City IA 910 MORE info including audio links: http://worldofradio.com/radioskd.html WRN ON DEMAND: http://new.wrn.org/listeners/stations/station.php?StationID=24 OUR ONDEMAND AUDIO [also for CONTINENT OF MEDIA, MUNDO RADIAL] WORLD OF RADIO 1273 (high version): (stream) http://www.w4uvh.net/wor1273h.ram (download) http://www.w4uvh.net/wor1273h.rm WORLD OF RADIO 1273 (low version): (stream) http://www.w4uvh.net/wor1273.ram (download) http://www.w4uvh.net/wor1273.rm (summary) http://www.worldofradio.com/wor1273.html WORLD OF RADIO 1273 in true shortwave sound of Alex`s mp3: (stream) http://www.dxprograms.net/worldofradio_05-04-05.m3u (download) http://www.dxprograms.net/worldofradio_05-04-05.mp3 ** ANGOLA. 4950, R. Nacional, 0250-0305, May 10, Portuguese, Discussion/banter between several announcers. Music bridge with full "Radio Nacional-Angola" ID in passing at 0258. Pips/ID at 0300 into presumed news headlines. "Zinger' ID at 0304 into ballads. Poor/fair at best (Scott R, Barbour, Jr., Intervale, NH, R75, 200' Beverage antennas, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** AUSTRALIA. Radio Australia`s next education series: Sustainable Cities – Challenges for the Asia Pacific I mentioned last month that Smart Societies was wrapping up; as of April 27th, the next education series is a six-part series exploring some of the major issues for cities in the region towards becoming more livable and sustainable. These issues range from urban sprawl to waste management, pollution to poverty, to strategies that deal with transport and limited resources like water. The series includes four case studies, Singapore, Bangkok, Melbourne and Beijing, and finishes with post-graduate students from the University of Melbourne`s Faculty of Architecture discussing some of the issues addressed in the six programs. Programs 1 and 2 broadly canvass the challenges across the region; the subsequent programs deal with Singapore, Bangkok, Melbourne and Beijing. The series is produced and presented by Barry Clarke; a companion website is at http://www.abc.net.au/ra/cities/ On-demand audio will be made available there as the programs are completed. Shortwave air times include Sun 0930, Wed 0400 and 1100, and Thursday 1330 and 1700 [after newscasts on hour, presumably --- gh] The education series on Radio Australia are normally very well researched and produced, and I highly recommend them. Thanks to Roger Broadbent for providing the background information (Richard Cuff, Easy Listening, May NASWA Journal via DXLD) ** AUSTRALIA. DIGITAL RADIO REVOLUTION FORECAST Jennifer Dudley, technology reporter 10may05 http://www.couriermail.news.com.au/printpage/0,5942,15234675,00.html RADIO that also features news tickers, song titles, sports statistics and slide shows, as well as a choice of two broadcasts for each radio station, should be available in Brisbane by 2007, according to a Federal Government issues paper submission by Commercial Radio Australia. The group, which represents commercial radio stations, told the Government digital radio was an important addition to the Australian media market. It would allow radio to compete against technology like multimedia mobile phones, MP3 players and Internet radio stations. "Digital radio represents a natural evolution for commercial radio, just as digital televisions replacing analogue television and digital mobile phones have replaced analogue mobile phones," the submission said. Commercial Radio Australia proposed digital radio broadcasts using Eureka 147 technology, be used to replace the AM and FM spectrum and allow stations to broadcast two channels simultaneously. For example, listeners could choose whether to listen to the station's regular broadcast or a broadcast of a mini-concert, highlights package, comedy segment, promotion or traffic report on the same station. The technology is being trialled in 90 Sydney households and is expected in, but Commercial Radio Australia plans to expand digital radio broadcasts to all Australian metropolitan cities by 2007. The Federal Government is expected to release its digital radio policy by the end of the year. © Queensland Newspapers (Brisbane Courier Mail May 10 via DXLD) To REPLACE AM & FM! (gh) ** BELGIUM [non]. GERMANY: New schedule for Maeva 6015 via DTK T- Systems: 1100-1200 6015 JUL 100 kW / non-dir Sat to WeEu Music AM, ex 1100-1300 1200-1400 6015 JUL 040 kW / non-dir Sat to WeEu DRM mode, ex 1300-1400 (Observer, Bulgaria, May 10 via DXLD) ** BOLIVIA. 4409.8, (Presumed) R. Ecos, 0020-0121, May 10, Spanish, OM with talks at tune-in, presumed ID at 0025 though too much echo effects for a positive ID; only copied "onda corta". Programming from this point until 0121 tune-out consisted of very nice S. American music and ballads with the OM announcer, briefly, every 3-4 songs. Booming signal! S-5 on the R75. Still going at 0240 re-check with same format though much more static. Gone at 0256 re-check. Thanks Björn Malm tip (Scott R, Barbour, Jr., Intervale, NH, R75, 200' Beverage antennas, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Or just Radio Eco? (gh) ** BOLIVIA. Radio Estambul is used alongside with recorded ID announcements where they say Radioemisoras Estambul. On the clips I have heard so far, I am not convinced that there is any example of "Radiodifusoras Estambul". The recorded ID emphasizes the station name in an unusual way, and so it sounds like "Radioemisoras ES - TAM - BUL". A few of the slogans noticed: Radioemisoras Estambul, la más amena Radioemisoras Estambul, la frecuencia que gana en preferencia Radio Estambul, la frecuencia amiga Radioemisoras Estambul, [cual] mensajera de la cordialidad y de la frontera I am also hearing a mention of Radiocomunicaciones Yamal (Henrik Klemetz, Sweden, May 10, dxing.info via DXLD) ** BRAZIL. BRASIL: NEW INTERNATIONAL TV SERVICE BROADCASTS LIVE COVERAGE OF SUMMIT | Text of report by Erica Santana: "Stations in Argentina, Colombia and Venezuela receive TV Brasil signal" published by Brazilian news agency Agencia Brasil web site Brasilia: Channel 9 in Argentina, Caracol TV in Colombia and VTV [state run channel] in Venezuela are some of the channels that have already received the TV Brasil signal and are rebroadcasting coverage of the South America-Arab Nations Summit which began today in Brasilia. The satellite transmission will last for 12 hours and has the capacity to reach South, Central and North American countries and Europe. This is the second transmission by TV Brasil-International Public Channel, which was set up with the aim of boosting the process of South American integration. As well as live broadcasts in Spanish, viewers will be able to see interviews, documentaries, special reports, debates and a daily news bulletin. Internet surfers will also be able to watch TV Brasil broadcasts live and in real time on the Agencia Brasil site at http://www.radiobras.gov.br by clicking on the "South America-Arab Nations Summit" link at the top of the page. Source: Agencia Brasil web site, Brasilia, in Portuguese 1548 gmt 9 May 05 (via BBCM via DXLD) ** BULGARIA. 7400, R. Varna, 0128-0146, May 9, Bulgarian/English, BG and EG pop music, banter between OM and YL at 0136. Back to music at 0140. Cover of Blondie's "The Tide is High" in English. Poor, noisy (Scott R, Barbour, Jr., Intervale, NH, R75, 200' Beverage antennas, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CANADA [non]. Surprised to hear something on 11965 about ``language skills,`` mention of RCI and off abruptly at 1944*. Per EiBi this is the Arabic service via Skelton, UK: 11965 1915-1944 CAN Radio Canada Int. A ME /G-s (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CHINA [and non]. China Radio International changes: 0500-0657 on 9590 in Arabic, ex in English 0500-0657 on 11710 in English, ex in Arabic 0900-1057 on 17670 in Chinese, ex in English 1400-1557 on 15220 in Chinese, ex in English [Sackville] 1930-1957 Romanian NF 7200, ex 7110 (Observer, Bulgaria, May 10 via DXLD) ** ECUADOR. DEATH THREATS FORCE HEAD OF LA LUNA RADIO TO FLEE ECUADOR Director of La Luna radio, Paco Velasco, fled Ecuador on 3 May, fearing for his own and his family's lives after receiving repeated threats, according to the website Ecuadorinmediato. Velasco said he took the decision because he felt his safety could not be guaranteed. The Quito-based radio played an active part in bringing about the downfall of the former president Lucio Gutiérrez, on 20 April. The station was the target of two acts of sabotage and one bombing during days of rioting that preceded the removal of the former head of state. Chilean photographer Julio Augusto García died in the turmoil. Velasco blamed the threats made against him on the armed group "Los Contraforajidos" that supports the ousted president. (Source: Reporters Without Borders) # posted by Andy @ 13:37 UT May 10 (Media Network blog via DXLD) ** ECUADOR. Frequency changes for HCJB in Spanish from May 9: 2100-2300 NF 12000 QUI 100 kW / 150 deg to SoAm, ex 11710 2300-0100 NF 11720 QUI 100 kW / 330 deg to NoAm, ex 11710 (Observer, Bulgaria, May 10 via DXLD) Like I said ** ETHIOPIA [non]. Hi, Martin, Here’s a reception report response I just received. Ethiopia: QSLs (acknowlegement): Tensae-Ethiopia Voice of Unity Today, 7 hours after I sent an e-mail report of reception of Tensae- Ethiopia Voice of Unity on 15660, I received the following brief e- mail acknowledgement: ``This is an acknowledgement of receipt of your message. Thank you for your interest.`` My report was sent to, and the e-mail was received from, ethio @ unitedethiopia.org. Not a QSL, of course, but at least it shows that the address is active (Wendel Craighead, Kansas, USA, via Martin Schöch, QIP, via CRW via DXLD) ** EUROPE. ANALYSIS: EUROPEAN PUBLIC BROADCASTERS UNDER FINANCIAL, POLITICAL PRESSURE | Text of editorial analysis by Steve Metcalf of BBC Monitoring Media Services on 10 May At the start of this year, the European Federation of Journalists issued a warning about threats facing the European model of public service broadcasting. It said that public broadcasters in almost every country were under attack from political and corporate interests. The federation said that trade liberalization, and increasing pressure on public finances, were having a negative impact on media right across Europe. The various funding models for public service broadcasters have to negotiate a difficult path: ensuring that they are not susceptible to political manipulation, while avoiding accusations of deriving an unfair competitive advantage. Following an investigation, the European Commission announced in April that France, Italy and Spain had agreed to make changes to their funding systems. The commission had been concerned that the three countries were using their funding regimes to subsidize activities not directly related to public service broadcasting. Meanwhile, Germany, Ireland and the Netherlands have been told that their funding contravenes EU rules on state aid. And in the UK, the BBC - whose charter is up for renewal next year - is in the process of shedding some 3,000 jobs in a bid to show that it is delivering value for money. Changes in Slovenia As well as having to survive on tighter budgets in a competitive market, public broadcasters have to be seen to maintain their political and editorial independence. The EFJ's January statement also warned that the enlargement of the EU had weakened the public service model. It said that none of the new members of the union had successfully made the transition from state- controlled media to a genuinely public system. In April, the federation expressed alarm over proposed changes to the public broadcasting law in Slovenia. The government introduced a bill which envisages new supervisory bodies for Slovene Radio and Television. Most of the members of these bodies would be appointed by parliament. In addition, the role of the director-general, (himself a political appointee), was to be expanded to include making senior editorial appointments. The proposed changes were strongly opposed by the opposition, journalistic bodies and trades unions. They accused the government of wanting to re-nationalize the media, of introducing the bill without prior consultation and of attempting to fast-track it through parliament without proper debate. The EFJ also issued a protest, saying that the new law would replace one that had been regarded as a model for other post-Communist countries. It said the government was trying to rush through "vague and dangerous" proposals that opened the door to more political influence over the public broadcaster. Although the government has amended or withdrawn parts of the bill, and allowed time for parliamentary debate, it is likely to become law soon. The Caucasus: plus ça change... Further east, some former Soviet countries, for example Georgia and Azerbaijan, are having difficulty establishing acceptable systems of public service broadcasting. One of the conditions of their admittance to the Council of Europe - a body that promotes the development of democracy and human rights - was to make a commitment to the "maintenance and development of a strong and independent public broadcasting system". In Georgia this was managed by the expedient of closing down state TV for one week last December. When it resumed broadcasting it had new programmes, new studio sets and a new web site and was calling itself a public broadcaster. Opposition parties condemned the changes as cosmetic, saying there was still no proper coverage of their activities. Media observers said that the amount of serious political discussion and analysis was, if anything, in decline. In Azerbaijan, the Council of Europe had expressed its wish to see both state TV channels become "genuinely independent" public broadcasters, and for the long-delayed new set-up to be in place in time for elections in November 2005. However, the government chose to pass a law under which only Channel 2 becomes a public broadcaster. It is keeping Channel 1 under state control, with an annual budget of 14m dollars. And although European rules permit direct government funding from the national budget for a transitional period, the new public TV has been given a budget of just 1m dollars. In April the director of the new enterprise, due to go on air in August, was named as Ismayil Omarov. A pro-government MP and TV journalist known as the "detective presenter", Omarov promptly announced that the staff of the new station would start every day by singing the national anthem and swearing an oath of allegiance. Not surprisingly, the channel was dismissed as a sham by journalistic groups and media watchdogs. Critics pointed out the pro-government and non-professional background of the members of the TV's Broadcasting Council. When Omarov's appointment was announced, they described it as the end of any hope for a genuinely independent service. The Confederation of Azerbaijani Journalists called Omarov "a notorious propagandist for the government" and said that by choosing the government's preferred candidate the Broadcasting Council had lost its authority for ever and destroyed the idea of public broadcasting in Azerbaijan. As for the government, the CAJ said that it had shown disrespect for its commitments to international organizations. The CAJ warned that influential organizations, such as the Council of Europe and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, "will not remain indifferent to this outrage". Source: BBC Monitoring research 10 May 05 (via DXLD) ** GAMBIA [non]. Hi, Yesterday I got the following reply from STGDP @ sunugambia.com regarding "Save the Gambia Democracy Project": ``Björn, Sorry for the late reply but this is due to the fact that we have been overwhelmed with emails after the test run program and we are just getting to your email. Thank you so much for letting us know you have received our signal because that will help us to gauge our coverage area. Our programs will start on June 4th 2005 and will be a weekly program (every Saturday) at the same time you heard it in your area.`` 73 from (Björn Fransson, DX-ing on the island of Gotland, Sweden, May 10, DX LISTENING DIGEST) So 2000 UT, and on same frequency via Jülich, 9430? Is supposed to become a semihour instead of a quarterhour (gh, DXLD) Hallo Martin! After 11 days I got the following answer by e-mail from the Save The Gambia Democracy Project STGDP @ sunugambia.com for an e- mail report about their test transmission on 9430 kHz: Patrick, Sorry for the late reply but this is due to the fact that we have been overwhelmed with emails after the test run program and we are just getting to your email. Thank you so much for letting us know you have received our signal because that will help us to gauge our coverage area. If you need for us to send you an actual letter in paper form let us know and we will put that together and send it as soon as possible. If you also want know more about our organization our website address: is http://sunugambia.com Again, thank you so much. Take care. Banka (via Patrick Robic, Austria, via Martin Schöch, QIP via CRW via DXLD) ** GERMANY [and non]. Frequency changes for Deutsche Welle: 0300-0400 Swahili NF 9495 NAU 500 kW / 170 deg, ex 9535 to avoid REE Spanish 1300-1350 Chinese NF 15425 SNG 100 kW / 013 deg, ex 15445 (Observer, Bulgaria, May 10 via DXLD) ** GERMANY. Pan American Broadcasting (PAB) via DTK T-Systems from May 9: 1430-1445 on 15650 JUL 100 kW / 090 deg Mon to SoAs in Bengali, cancelled. New transmission for BVBN via DTK T-Systems from May 2: 1600-1630 on 13800 WER 500 kW / 090 deg Mon-Fri to SoAs in Hindi (Observer, Bulgaria, May 10 via DXLD) ** GREECE [non]. John Babbis has gone thru HFCC A-05 and found a bunch of unused registrations for ERA via Greenville and Delano, presumably room for future expansion, or frequency changes if needed during the season. Some of the frequencies have actually been used in other seasons. For example at 1200-1500 (or 1600) presently on 9775, Delano could also be on 9690, 9730, 11730, 15455. At 1800-2200, Greenville, 164 degrees, perpetually on 17565 at 2000- 2200 only, could be on: 9775, 11730, 15400, 15650 (at 1500-1900, presently used direct from Greece), 17785, 21465, 21610 or 21680. Mid-day Delano relay presently 1600-2200 on 17705, 75 degrees, 250 kW, could instead be: 1800-2200 11730, or 15175; 1600-2200 15485 or 17590. To Pacific, 0600-0800 from Delano 296 or 272 degrees: 9755, 11900, 15170, 15190, 15400, 17705. Also, Greenville could be on then at 32 degrees on 15325. And there are several other fantasy-frequency-usages (Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** INDIA. GOVERNMENT BANS THREE ADULT CHANNELS | Text of report by Indian broadcast industry web site Indiantelevision.com on 9 May Mumbai: Now you see them now you don't. The game of hide and seek that has been going on the last few years between adult channels trying to get around existing restrictions and the authorities has come to the fore again. The government has just clamped down on three erotic channels beaming off Asiasat 3 over Indian skies. Three adult channels Blue Kiss (free preview), Blue Kiss and Rainbow have come under the government scanner in this regard. The ban that came into effect late last week has been put in place as the government anticipates that these channels can be viewed by the Indian public after buying smart cards from abroad. Though these channels are not freely available in India at the moment, the fact that they are being downlinked off Asiasat 3 means that anyone who accesses the smart card can get to view the content. These channels air programming which are adult and explicit in nature, according to information and broadcasting ministry sources. The programming of these channels breach the specified codes set by the government for channels beaming into India, irrespective of the fact whether they are uplinked from here or not. Concerned with the possibility of increasing sleaze that could be available to India viewers through satellite channels, the Indian government had cancelled the uplinking permission for Cine World, an English movie channel, in the recent past for a month. By and large, the Indian government has been fairly liberal as far as television channels are concerned. One of the rare cases of a clamp down related to PTV during the Kargil war, but the ban was for a limited period. Source: Indiantelevision.com web site, Mumbai, in English 2359 gmt 9 May 05 (via BBCM via DXLD) ** INDONESIA. Open-carrier-itis is spreading at VOI. On 9525, May 10, not only after 1400 but also in the hour before it, when they had been on the air in Indonesian. Could it be the feed from Jak to the transmitter site gets lost and nobody notices? Cimanggis not prepared to play some programming from there in an emergency? Noticed 9525 again around 1950 UT with music, so checked again at 2000, sure enough, VOI opening in English and mentioning 15150, into news. If it were not for an extraordinarily high local noise level, it would have been quite listenable (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** INTERNATIONAL. Hello all, I've recently made a Yahoo Group for the International Lighthouse & Lightships Weekend, which is held annually in August. If anyone would like to join, I'd be most grateful! At the moment it's just me - so please join and help make the group active. Will have lists up of active lighthouses/lightships etc very soon! If anyone would like to help run the group please let me know... http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ILLW 73 (Tammie M3ENF :) May 10, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** INTERNATIONAL [non?]. Crossing the boundaries: Think Global public radio collaboration With each passing month it is getting increasingly difficult to separate out international broadcasters` shortwave programming strategies from other programming initiatives. Shortwave programming enthusiasts often find broadcasters working in collaboration and providing programs airing on multiple stations at diverse times. An interesting example to be featured in May is the third annual Public Radio Collaboration series. Prior editions were Understanding America after 9/11 and Whose Democracy Is It?, which aired, respectively, in 2002 and 2003. This series is designed and promoted to public radio stations as a ``power week`` of programming designed to broadly engage listeners in a single topic of interest to all Americans, according to the Think Global website, http://www.thinkglobal2005.org/ I`m highlighting this initiative for several reasons: 1) There appears to be quite an inventory of documentary and feature programming that is being prepared for the series; seven documentaries, 18 shorter features (4 to 15 minutes in length), two 5-segment feature series, 16 editions of regular public radio programs with ``Think Global``-themed content, and a two-hour global call-in; 2) International broadcasters, including the BBC World Service, Radio Netherlands, and Canada`s CBC, are involved in production of the programming; 3) I hypothesize this is part of an interesting trend as US public radio becomes more focused on spoken-word audio: In many ways, US public radio stations are taking over some of the programming subjects that used to be the realm of international broadcasters. Consider the fact that, in the heyday of shortwave – the 1960s through the 1980s – National Public Radio, specifically, and spoken-word public radio, generally, were much smaller in capabilities than they are today. I make point #3 because I can`t find any listings of where you can hear this Think Global 2005 series programming on the radio --- either shortwave or US public radio --- even though the series is scheduled to air from May 16th through the 22nd. The BBC`s website, which shows schedules through May 20th, has no relevant listings. It seems a shame that, at least as of late April, there are no shortwave airings shown for the series; I confirmed this with the organizer of the Public Radio Collaboration organization overseeing these programs. Even Radio Netherlands, which arguably maintains the best balance of web-based and shortwave content of any English language international broadcaster, doesn`t show any entries from the Think Global series in its advance programming information (Richard Cuff, Easy Listening, May NASWA Journal via DXLD) ** INTERNATIONAL VACUUM [and non]. Altho the Space Shuttle launch has now been postponed until July, if you would like to be all set to monitor communications surrounding it, especially VHF and UHF, but also HF, you would be well advised to pick up a copy of the May issue of MONITORING TIMES on better newsstands while it is still available, a theme issue ``The Shuttle Returns to Flight`` with several articles and frequency lists (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** IRAN. Frequency changes for VOIROI in Italian: 1930-1957 NF 7320 and NF 9610, ex 7295 and 9615 (Observer, Bulgaria, May 10 via DXLD) ** ITALY. Frequency changes for RAI International from April 22: 0625-1300 Italian NF 6195, ex 9670 1330-1355 Arabic NF 11795, ex 11900 \\ 9670 11915 1700-1800 Italian NF 5985, ex 11890 \\ 7175 9675 11970 15320 15385 (Observer, Bulgaria, May 10 via DXLD) ** ITALY. Radio Mi Amigo in English via IRRS from April 23: 0700-1400 Sat on 15725, ex 0800-1500 on same to avoid RL in Uzbek 1400-1500 (Observer, Bulgaria, May 10 via DXLD) ** KENYA. VOA`s FM relay in Nairobi may be endangered; contact with the contractor has been lost, and it may go off by November (Aaron Zawitzky, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** KOREA NORTH [and non]. 11710.07, V. of Korea, *1300-1311, May 9, English, IS/ID loop, "This is the V. of Korea". Usual news re U.S. aggression against Korea; Korean unification. Fair with 11715-KJES slop. I'm all for worshipping how one sees fit, but KJES was creepier to listen too than VOK! (Scott R, Barbour, Jr., Intervale, NH, R75, 200' Beverage antennas, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) You mean Voice of Career (gh) ** KUWAIT. Installation of the fourth IBB SW transmitter here continues, to be used on tropical band for Afghanistan; expected on the air by August (Aaron Zawitzky, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** MOROCCO. 15335, RTV Marocaine, 1316-1336, May. 9, Arabic, Nothing special; interview followed by Arabic music but this was // 15340 while listed // 15345 was silent. Punch-up error? Poor, weak signal while // 15340-fair. Even though they are two different streams, one to Europe the other N. Africa, I do find it odd that they would be 5- 10 kHz apart (Scott R, Barbour, Jr., Intervale, NH, R75, 200' Beverage antennas, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** NETHERLANDS [non]. Frequency change for Radio Netherlands in Spanish from May 1: 0000-0157 NF 5995 ASC 250 kW / 245 deg, co-ch RL Kyrghyz, ex 11900\\9895, 15315 (Observer, Bulgaria, May 10 via DXLD) Well, we should hope RL will not be a problem for RN in SAm (gh) ** NEW ZEALAND. New Zealand - chorus to keep birdcalls on National Radio --- 10 May 2005 http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3275655a1860,00.html It would be a foolhardy National Radio executive who gave the chop to Morning Report's trademark birdcalls, judging by the reaction of listeners. Almost 1700 emails saying "keep the birds" had poured in to the state broadcaster's office by 5 pm yesterday after Morning Report asked listeners if the twitterings should stay or go in a review of programming. Spokesman John Barr said hardly anyone wanted to shoot the birds, which sound just before the 7 and 9 am news each weekday and have been a feature since starting on Waitangi Day in the mid-70s. Asked if the email flood meant the birds were safe, Mr Barr said: "You would think so," though an executive decision was not yet made. Presenter Sean Plunket had to urge listeners to stop clogging the Morning Report phone lines yesterday and send emails instead after he mentioned just after 7 am that audience opinions on the fate of the birds was being sought. The birdcall began in 1948 with a recorded tui on shortwave broadcasts of what is now Radio New Zealand International (via Mike Terry, dxldyg via DXLD) ** PAKISTAN. Some frequency changes for Radio Pakistan: 1630-1700 Turkish NF 11550, ex 11565 \\ 15725v 1715-1800 Persian NF 9320v ex 9325 \\ 11550 1800-1900 Urdu NF 9320v ex 9325 Islamabad program (Observer, Bulgaria, May 10 via DXLD) ** RUSSIA. 12065, Radiostantsiya Tikhy Okean, 0852-0900 May 10. Noted Russian comments by both a man and woman until 0857 when a brief segment of music presented. At 0859 possible ID by a man and then off the air. Signal was poor with noise (Chuck Bolland, Clewiston, Florida USA, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Radio Station Pacific Ocean, in addition to being on 12065 kHz shortwave, is carried in parallel on Primorye Radio [a.k.a. "Radio 810"] on 810 kHz in Vladivostok. This service can be heard streamed live in stereo from the web site of Primorye TV & Radio at http://www.ptr-vlad.ru/tv&radio/listen/ There are five links to the audio stream on the page, however I find that only the 4th one in the list actually works. If you'd like to listen to a clip of RSPO signing-on at 0835 gmt go to Interval Signals Online at http://www.intervalsignalsonline.com --- click on "What's New" and follow the link to the Russia page - in a very clear recording you can hear the subtleties of sound you've maybe not noticed when listening to it on shortwave, such as the sound of the sea lapping on the shore! Further down the page, there's a "vintage" clip of RSPO recorded round about 1998. Regards, (Dave Kernick, May 10, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** SOUTH CAROLINA [non]. GERMANY: New schedule of Brother Stair in English via DTK T-Systems from May 4 1100-1200 on 6110 JUL 100 kW / non-dir 2nd Sun to WeEu 1500-1600 on 6110 JUL 100 kW / non-dir Daily to WeEu ex 1400-1600 1500-1600 on 13810 JUL 100 kW / 115 deg Daily to ME ex 1400-1600 1600-1800 on 9845 WER 500 kW / non-dir Daily to WeEu addit txion 2000-2100 on 9430 JUL 100 kW / 160 deg Daily to SoAf addit txion 0000-0300 on 9430 JUL 100 kW / 305 deg Daily to NoAm addit txion (Observer, Bulgaria, May 10 via DXLD) ** SWEDEN. Radio Sweden`s New Schedule --- The new schedule has been on the air for a few months, but I haven`t mentioned it here yet. Programming variety has greatly increased, with many features airing just once per month. Thankfully many of the programs are archived for on-demand listening, though this is not consistent across the website. Here`s a list of the programming that has been identified by day, sorted by day of the week; the 1230 and 1330 shortwave editions correspond to the days shown below, with the 0130 and 0230 shortwave editions airing the previous day`s program (e.g. UT 0130 Saturday airs the program shown for Friday). Radio Sweden is also available on WRN`s North American service, airing on Sirius satellite radio’s channel 115, at 0130, 0630 and 1430 daily, plus 1900 weekdays. You`ll have to double-check those times, as they are shown as one hour earlier in the WRN schedule provided by Radio Sweden. Sunday – Network Europe, the jointly-produced program from Deutsche Welle, Radio Sweden, Radio Netherlands, Radio France International and Radio Prague Monday – Spectrum (1st and 3rd weeks) – Sweden’s cultural scene Tuesday – GreenScan (1st week) – environmental awareness and concerns; HeartBeat (2nd week) – Swedish health and medical developments; S- Files (3rd week) – Swedish history and geography; Edge (4th week) – Swedish science Wednesday – Sportscan (1st week) – Swedish and Scandinavian sports; Nordic Lights (3rd week) – cultural perspectives, the arts, and social issues; EuropeFile (4th week) – the major European Union issues of the month, with Sweden`s perspective Thursday – Cooking With J & J (1st week) – featuring classics of Swedish cuisine; Close Up (2nd week) – profiles personalities, both well-known and not-so-well-known; The Greatest (4th week) – profiles of Sweden’s most eminent figures through time Friday – No special programming listed Saturday – Headset (1st week) – Swedish music, hosted by Gaby Katz; Sweden Today (2nd week) – monthly current affairs roundup; Destination (3rd week) – travel and leisure; Studio 49 (4th week) – interviews covering the ideas, values and trends shaping today’s Sweden. Another new monthly program is Business Brief, but I couldn’t figure out which day it airs on (Rich Cuff, Easy Listening, May NASWA Journal via DXLD) ** TAIWAN. Frequency changes for R. Taiwan International from May 1: 1800-1900 German NF 9955, ex 9565 1900-2000 Chinese NF 9955, ex 9565 2000-2100 French NF 9955, ex 9635 (Observer, Bulgaria, May 10 via DXLD) ** TAJIKISTAN. Installation of IBB MW transmitter at Orzu is taking longer than expected due to such problems as a leaky roof, lack of needed tools and equipment, and lack of motivation by the local installation crew (Aaron Zawitzky, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U K. BALLOT RESULT ON BBC STRIKE ACTION EXPECTED LONDON, May 10 (Reuters) - The outcome of a vote by BBC staff on whether to go on strike over management plans to cut about 20 percent of the workforce, will be published on Wednesday. Over the next three years, the BBC plans to axe around 4,000 jobs from a workforce of 21,000 to save about 355 million pounds. "Apart from 4,000 people losing their livelihoods, the job cuts will have a damaging impact on quality and standards at the BBC," said Jeremy Dear, General Secretary of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ). "Those staff that stay will either have to cut corners or work 20 percent harder," he told Reuters. The result was expected at 2 p.m. (1400 GMT). [sic: 2 pm BST is 1300 UT = GMT. Somebody tell Reuters about this! --- gh] Union sources said they expect an overwhelming vote for industrial action which could knock programmes off the air. The BBC has refused to comment on whether any strike action would affect output. Unions BECTU, Amicus and the NUJ had several meeting with BBC executives but failed to agree over why the redundancies were needed or how they would be implemented. Under industrial relations legislation, which requires unions to give advance notice of any action, the earliest date for action would be May 19th (RTw 05/10 1245 via Mike Cooper, DXLD) ** U K. BBC RADIO 2 HAS BEEN NAMED UK STATION OF THE YEAR at the annual Sony radio awards ceremony in London. . . http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4528687.stm (via Mike Terry, dxldyg via DXLD) Radio 2 wins Station of the Year prize as BBC beats rivals http://news.scotsman.com/entertainment.cfm?id=504012005 (The Scotsman, Mon, 09 May 2005 4:55 PM PDT via Sheldon Harvey, DXLD) ** U K. BBC World Service highlights Heart and Soul: Beauty and the Spirit: In most faiths and religious cultures there is a strong desire to express God’s beauty through the creation of outward beauty, such as painting, music, poetry, and architecture. Michael Ford explores how perceptions of beauty are shaped by religious traditions but also, how beauty can get in the way of some forms of spiritual insight in this new four-part series. Begins Wednesday, May 4th; Best shortwave times include Fridays 1945 (Europe-12095), Fridays 2245 (Africa-15400). Slavery Today -- There’s another chance to hear BBC reporter Gerry Northam`s landmark examination of slavery in the modern world. In the series Northam visits four continents to examine the extent of the problem and talk to former slaves whose personal reflections reveal the human suffering behind the worldwide trade. The series was originally presented in four weekly installments but is now being aired over two weeks, occupying two time slots. An additional discussion program will air in the third week of the series. Begins May 11th; Wednesdays 1806 (Europe-12095 kHz), Thursdays 0006 (Americas), Sundays 1006 (Americas). These times are tentative; I’ll include an update in the NASWA Flashsheet during the month [see BELOW] The Music Feature: Don’t Touch that Dial: Back for a fifth year, this series brings the hottest most exciting music from different countries. This year, DJs from countries including The Netherlands, Estonia and Mexico will be selecting the music. This six-part series invites DJs from around the world to play a personal selection of music from their region. As long as it’s good and popular, the presenters are given free rein. Begins Sunday, May 15th. Best hortwave times: Mondays 1832 (Europe-12095 kHz), Tuesdays 0032 (Americas). Discovery: Memory -- During our lives our brains store and archive huge numbers of faces, sights, sounds and smells and the emotions that accompany them. Memories define who we are and even though the molecules that make up our brains are replaced many times in a lifetime, our memories and sense of self are stored, sometimes for as long as 80 years. Pamela Rutherford talks to the scientists who explain how the memory works, what happens when it goes wrong and whether drugs or implants will be able to give it an artificial helping hand in the future in a new four-part series Discovery: Memory from Wednesday May 18th. Best shortwave times: Wednesdays 1606 (Africa-15400), Wednesdays 1906 (Europe-12095 kHz), Wednesdays 2206 (Africa-15400). Nothing to the Americas on shortwave, unfortunately. Brazil: The Gentle Giant is a two-part documentary series beginning on May 23rd. Twenty-first Century Brazil is marching on to the world stage, and not just with its music and football. After a long period of introspection and withdrawal from world affairs, Brazil has gained confidence under the leadership of its first working class president, Lula, and is finally taking on the leadership role long expected from this giant of Latin America. Sue Branford examines the new, self- confident role that Brazil is playing in regional and international affairs in its bid to become the local superpower in this two-part series. Best shortwave airtimes: Mondays 1806 (Europe-12095 kHz), Tuesdays 0006 (Americas), Sundays 2306 (Americas). Masterpiece: Music of the Orange Revolution -- In the week after Ukraine hosts the 50th Eurovision Song Contest from Kiev, Jonathan Walton looks back at how music helped bring about change in a country where Europe meets Russia. ``The Orange Revolution was impelled by digital technology: text messages on mobile phones got Ukrainians out onto the streets, and much of the music they listened to was in the audio `mash-up` style, using famous Western songs with audio cut-ups and splices of politicians` speeches that made them seem criminal or idiotic,`` says producer Nick Rankin. Begins Tuesday, May 24th. Best shortwave times: Tuesdays, 1806 (Europe-12095), Wednesdays 0006 (Americas). Sports International – Walking the Streets of Dreams: Muhammad Ali once spoke of ``a little room where alligators roam``. The legendary Panamanian, Roberto Durán, said boxers are taken to ``dark places no- one else inhabits``; and Archie Moore, the American light-heavyweight who recorded more knockouts than any fighter in history, described being on the wrong end of a concussive blow as "like walking the street of dreams``. They were all referring to the effects of taking a powerful punch on the chin. Presenter Mike Costello says ``there is no single act in sport more dramatic, more spell-binding or more exciting than the knockout punch``. [nor more BARBARIC --- gh] A single edition, beginning Thursday, May 12th; Best shortwave times: Thursdays and Sundays, 1932 (12095-Europe), Thursdays and Sundays, 2232 (15400- West Africa). Until next month, 73 DE Richard Cuff, Easy Listening, May NASWA Journal via DXLD) NASWA Members saw a mention of the BBCWS documentary series "Slavery Today" in the May Easy Listening column in the Journal now hitting snail mail. [as above] In my column I mentioned that the air times and sequences for Slavery Today weren't exactly clear from the advance information I had received, because this documentary, which had previously aired in four parts, was now being scheduled over two weeks' time, not four weeks' time. I received information today from Bush House that provides more detail. In case you're keeping score at home, here's when you can hear the four installments of "Slavery Today". First, via shortwave likely audible in North America: Wednesdays, 1806, 12095 to Europe: May 11th, Program #2; May 18th, Program #4 Thursdays, 0006, 5975 to the Americas: May 12th, Program #2; May 19th, Program #4 Second, via live Americas webcast and XM satellite radio: http://playlist.yahoo.com/makeplaylist.dll?id=57024 Wednesday, 1406: May 11th, Program #1; May 18th, Program #3 Wednesday, 1906: May 11th, Program #2; May 18th, Program #4 Thursdays, 0006: As above Thursdays, 0506: May 12th, Program #1, May 19th, Program #3 Third, via live Europe webcast: http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/ram/live_infent.ram Wednesdays, 0806: May 11th, Program #1; May 18th, Program #3 Wednesdays, 1206: May 11th, Program #2; May 18th, Program #4 Wednesdays, 1806: As above Thursdays, 0006: As above Fourth, via live Europe Radio 4 webcast: http://www.publicradiofan.com/cgi-bin/wrap.pl?s=rtsp://rmlivev8.bbc.net.uk/farm/*/ev7/live24/radio4/live/r4_dsat_g2.ra or http://tinyurl.com/cgxtn Thursdays, 0106: May 12th, Program #2; May 19th, Program #4 Fifth, via on-demand listening: All four programs in the series are already available for online listening at URL http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/specials/1357_slavery_today/index.shtml or http://tinyurl.com/d4uyw (Richard Cuff / Allentown, PA, May 10, swprograms via DXLD) ** U K. New BBC Schedule Web Page --- Hello to the BBC Worldservice! I see that there is a new BBC Worldservice programme-schedule webpage, at http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/programmes/programme_times/a_d.shtml This is a very handy supplement to your previous assortment of schedule information. But there is an aspect of this that is sadly lacking. For those of us who wish to print this out for use as a reference next to our radios, we need something added: The current page format only allows the user to select individual sub- pages with alphabetic headings, breaking the data up by chunks of the alphabet. We need one more option -- a complete listing, with all the data combined into one web page. And, on that one comprehensive web page, we need the "Printable" option for us to click on (the way the weekly schedule grids have one), so we get a plain text-only version of that entire program list that we can print out on the minimum number of printed pages. Would you please pass this request on to the website maintainers so that they can add this enhancement? Thank you! (William Martin, Saint Louis, Missouri USA, to BBC writeon, cc to DXLD) ** U S A [non non]. Relocation of the Radio Sawa and Radio Farda studios, from the Cohen building in downtown DC, to Springfield VA near the Middle East Television Network, is expected to be completed by May 15 (Aaron Zawitzky, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A [non]. CZECH REP.(non): Frequency changes for RFE/RL: 0000-0100 Kazakh NF 9815, ex 9660 0300-0400 Kazakh NF 11990, ex 11725 1100-1300 Russian NF 11705, ex 11660 1400-1500 Russian NF 15195, ex 15205 1400-1600 Kyrghyz NF 12115, ex 11780 1500-1600 Kazakh NF 9815, ex 9680 1500-1600 Russian NF 15130, ex 15205 1500-1600 Tatar NF 15415, ex 15130 1600-1700 Serbian NF 6055, ex 7115 1600-1700 Serbian NF 9840, ex 9680 1700-1800 CeAs langs*NF 12045, ex 11815 1800-1900 Serbian NF 15320, ex 15120 *Avari 1700-1720; Chechen 1720-1740; Cherkassi 1740-1800 (Observer, Bulgaria, May 10 via DXLD) ** U S A [and non]. Car Talk and Marketplace on shortwave? Yep – thank the AFRTS While the American Forces Radio & TV service (AFRTS) isn`t exactly ``rocking chair`` quality reception much of the time --- you need a single-sideband-capable receiver to hear the services --- it can be a way to hear programming on shortwave that is generally only available on local AM/FM radio. Glenn Hauser recently posted a query in DX Listening Digest with a link to the AFRTS schedule on the Web: it`s http://myafn.net/radio/afn/schedule.asp Times posted at the website are PDT – currently UT -7. Best frequencies to check include 5446.5 kHz and 7812.5 kHz, both USB. As I type this at 0130, 7812.5 kHz is coming in well here in Eastern Pennsylvania --- strong enough that my 2010`s synchronous detector is able to render the signal without the SSB artifact one would expect. Admittedly it`s not as easy to get AFRTS nowadays as when they broadcast on 15330 during the afternoon and 6030 in the evenings using VOA transmitters, but for those who want the thrill of hearing public radio via shortwave, this is your best option. Here`s a sampling of public radio programming aired on AFRTS: A Chef`s Table: Sun 0005 All Things Considered: Weekdays 2100-2230 Car Talk: Wed 0705, Sun 0905 51%: Sat 1435, Sat 1905 It`s Only A Game: Sat 1105 Marketplace: Tue-Sat 0130, Weekdays 2230 Marketplace Morning Report: Weekdays 1250 Morning Edition: Weekdays 1000-1200 Sound Money: Thu 0705, Sat 2205 To The Best of our Knowledge: Sun 0135, Sat 0435 Weekend Edition: Sat & Sun, 1200-1400 Keep in mind that live sports programming may interrupt this schedule, especially weekend afternoons and weekday evenings (local North America times). (Richard Cuff, Easy Listening, May NASWA Journal via DXLD) ** U S A [non]. CHILE: Frequency change for CVC Voz Cristiana in Spanish to NoSoAm from May 9: 0800-1200 NF 5960 SGO 100 kW / non-dir, ex 5995 (Observer, Bulgaria, May 10 via DXLD) ** U S A. Re Radio formats, 5-078: You had mused over "Gospel" vs. "Religion". These are two of the four (give or take) "religious" formats one generally finds on US commercial radio. Gospel is mostly, as you correctly surmise, music -- though I am sure many Gospel stations air brokered preaching ministries ("talk") during their broadcast day. Gospel music has its roots in African-American music stylings. Religion is mostly, as you again correctly surmise, "talk" -- I'd wager most programs are brokered preaching ministries. Again, many "religion" stations air Christian music of various stylings over significant portions of their broadcast day. Contemporary Christian is primarily music (but not necessarily exclusively) and probably considers twenty-somethings and thirty- somethings as its target demographic. A good example is WBYO http://www.wordfm.org Music stylings are closer to today's pop / rock / urban music. Praise & Worship is also primarily music (again, not necessarily exclusively) with stylings closer to "pop" music, often featuring contemporary arrangements of typical church hymns (Richard Cuff / Allentown, PA, May 9, DX LISTENING DIGEST) I'm not certain about the original source of my data, but I'm fairly sure it's from M Street. It's supposed to be current as of January 2005, and it covers a total of 4937 active stations. Since the FCC says there were 4774 AM stations in the US on Dec 31, 2004, I assume that the data also includes some Canadian and Mexican stations. My 2.6% was inflated by the inclusion of business news format, and also by any news/something else combo formats other than news/talk. The data actually shows a total of 53 stations with a pure "news" format, or a shade over 1% of the total (Barry McLarnon VE3JF, Ottawa, ON, NRC-AM via DXLD) ** U S A. WNSH JUICING UP TO 50,000 WATTS http://business.bostonherald.com/businessNews/view.bg?articleid=82427 A small Beverly radio station that broadcasts oldies on the AM dial has received approval from federal regulators to increase its daytime transmission power to 50,000 watts from its current 500 watts. The stronger signal will boost WNSH-AM (1570)'s coverage area to a much wider swath of the North Shore, and potentially as far north as Southern New Hampshire. The station, owned by Keating Willcox and his Willow Farm Inc., will not have a Boston signal. But the increased wattage will cost a small Taunton station its frequency. Malta, N.Y.-based Anastos Media Group Inc., which owns WPEP-AM (1570), has agreed to surrender its license under a deal with Willow Farm. WPEP Station Manager Jeff Gamache pledges that the 55-year-old Taunton community-oriented station, with a news and talk format, will find a new frequency on which to broadcast. WNSH's signal can be heard from Salem to the southern edge of Ipswich to Magnolia and Route 1 in Topsfield. The station is loosely affiliated with Endicott College. In the late 1980s and early 1990s the station operated under the unfortunate call letters WBVD. Willcox has owned the station since 1996 and runs an oldies format that relies on a lot of automated programming, with some live shows on the weekends. Less clear is Willcox's long-term plan for the station once the technical switches are made to provide the more powerful signal. Wilcox declined comment. Its power increase is for daytime only, so its night-time signal will revert to a weak 85 watts, which is barely audible (via Andy Sennitt, dxldyg via DXLD) ** U S A [and non]. Re KUTR 820 Utah: Nothing but Spanish on 820 here, presumably Mexicali. If so, they're stronger than they've been in recent memory. Maybe they're turning up the burners now that they have more competition on the channel (Brian Leyton, Valley Village, CA, ABDX via DXLD) Ditto here. XEMVS has been really weak the past 2 years; suddenly they're back to having a fairly decent signal again. 73, (Tim Hall Chula Vista, CA, ibid.) I messed up; they're 50 KW ND days. The 2.5 KW nights and 50 KW critical hours are different patterns; that's why they're listed as DA-2. I didn't notice daytime only uses one tower. I didn't find about them until after their local sunset so I missed out on the ND. I think they'll be an easy catch in So. California. Their night pattern puts almost nothing this direction. Big surprise (Dennis Gibson, CA, ibid.) It will be interesting to see IF the new KUTR 820 cuts into WBAP 820 Fort Worth-Dallas's signal coverage. Here in Nebraska, I doubt it will be a factor, BUT in states like Wyoming, Colorado could be a different story (oldphones, Omaha, ABDX via DXLD) I am totally bamboozled by the reasoning employed to justify grants for stations like this. They're NOT necessary --- they WILL interfere with existing signals, and they'll do nothing but contribute to the overall downward spiral of the industry if for no other reason than the fact that we're over-saturated with stations in all commercial bands. We were a helluva lot better off before the breakup of the Class 1-A Clear Channel AM frequencies (not to mention even worse overcrowding almost everywhere else in the spectrum). (Tom Bryant / Nashville, TN, ABDX via DXLD) ** U S A. The Tampa Bay Board of Radio-Info.com recently had a string regarding the old WDAE 620 kHz twin Blaw-Knox towers located on the Gandy causeway between St. Petersburg and Tampa. I still think of them as the "WSUN towers" from days past living in this area through the 1960's, before returning in the early '80's. Anyway, supposedly the towers are coming down as early as this fall, true radio history to be lost if so, due to fatigue and salt corrosion. I will have to get out on the rocks and photograph these for my own records in the coming weeks. This excerpt specific to the 620 towers is at: http://members.aol.com/jeff99500/wfla.html NEW TRANSMITTER DEDICATED BY DON MCNEILL WSUN continued transmitter operation at Bayview until the move was made to the new transmitter installation near the end of the land-fill leading to Gandy Bridge which extends nearly three miles into Tampa Bay. The official dedication of the new installation was made January 22, 1952, by Don McNeill on the "Breakfast Club," an ABC network program which originated in St. Petersburg that day. TRANSMITTER BUILDING PLANNED FOR TV The two 500-foot Blaw-Knox towers straddle the highway leading across Gandy Bridge -- midway between St. Petersburg and Tampa. The transmitter building is about 100 feet from the highway. It is 44 by 58 feet, with height above floor level about 17 feet. Rooms have 10- foot ceilings. The floors and flat roof are of reinforced concrete slab construction. The walls are concrete block, with four-foot attic and five-foot basement. All wiring between equipment and lighting circuits is run in galvanized conduit under the floor and through the attic. All conduit connections in and out of boxes use special ground lugs to insure solid ground back to the power panel, which in turn is connected through a copper bus to station ground. All reinforcing rods and structural steel are welded together and tied into the station ground. Metal plaster lath on all interior walls is also welded together and tied into the station ground. In addition, the studio at the transmitter is double shielded with copper screen. This was done in anticipation of the installation of television equipment in the same building with AM equipment -- and the probable use of TV cameras in the studio. Behind the BTA-5F is a room eight feet wide, which acts to some extent as a plenum chamber. In this room are the modulation and plate transformers, as well as the dehydrator for the co-ax line. The door to this room is not interlocked. The high voltage bus behind the transmitter is protected by an expanded metal guard -- with both transformers behind an interlocked fence. Louvres are provided in the outer wall for air intake, drawn through spun-glass filters. Transformers are so arranged that air is drawn across both. With the door not interlocked, and high voltage equipment behind fence, inspection is easily accomplished at all times. Installation includes a BTA-5F 5-KW and a BTA-1L 1-KW transmitter as auxiliary. Audio amplifiers, modulation and frequency monitors and other equipment are mounted in four racks. A special custom-built audio console and two 70-D turntables are provided for the studios. Microphones and cue speaker in studio are relay-controlled by a small announcer's console in studio. This same system is carried through in the main WSUN studios on the Municipal Pier in St. Petersburg. The entire transmitter building foundation rests on 28-foot 12-inch wooden pilings driven on 10-foot centers. Foundation footings are re-enforced-steel concrete and tied into these pilings. Transmitter installation includes a 50-KW auxiliary power generator. The 50-KW auxiliary generator rests on a separate foundation which is isolated from adjacent floor by a 4-inch cork vibration isolation strip. With this power plant, plus the 1-KW transmitter, duplicate telephone lines from the studio to transmitter in different cables, and with duplicate audio equipment -- the chances for time "off-air" are reduced to the barest minimum. The BTA-5F incorporates a provision for automatically reducing power to 1 kW should any transmitter fault continue. When this occurs the 1- KW auxiliary transmitter starts automatically. Both the studio and transmitter control room are acoustically treated. The phasing cabinet is mounted to the left and in line with the front of the BTA-5F. In addition to the usual tuning controls on the front panel, there also are mounted the push-buttons for relay switching to day or night pattern, as well as switching from main to auxiliary transmitters. Push-button switching is provided to permit alternate use of duplicate transmission lines to south tower. A dummy load is provided and the transmitter switching is so arranged that with one transmitter connected to the antenna, the other is automatically connected to the dummy load. The Antenna System The new antenna system's two 500-foot Blaw-Knox self-supporting towers are spaced 565 feet apart. As noted in the accompanying photograph, both towers are set in the water -- one on each side of the highway leading across Gandy Bridge. The actual location being about one and a quarter miles out in the open waters of Tampa Bay, permits an ideal ground system. This, of course, was an important reason for choosing this site. The southeast tower alone is used for daytime operation with the northwest tower floating. The northwest tower is cut in at night to form a directional pattern. The northwest tower, located near the transmitter building, will also support a TV antenna. The top section is so fabricated that the elements of a Super Gain TV antenna for channels 7 through 13 may be attached, with orientation such that a directional pattern may be obtained. A special platform is built on the northwest tower at a 300-foot level for mounting a "dish" antenna for studio-transmitter microwave TV relay. Both towers are fed with a 1 5/8-inch coax line. A walkway on piling leading from the transmitter building supports the coax feed line to the northwest tower. The coax line to the southeast tower is in duplicate, with line switching provisions located in the phasing cabinets. Lines to the southeast tower are led through a 30 x 30-inch concrete trough provided with a removable metal cover. Lines continue under the roadway through 8-inch cast iron pipes and into another concrete trough on the other side of the road. On the other side of the roadway the lines are enclosed by a high steel fence and supported on rollers on galvanized pip set in concrete. As the lines leave the concrete trough they are gradually raised five feet to reach the ground screen beneath the tower. This bend is quite gradual, along a total length of 127 feet. Only one 90 degree bend is used in the entire line; located below the transmitter building. The northwest line has only one 45 degree bend in its entire length. The tuning houses at both towers are ample in size -- 10' x 10' x 7' high. Line terminating units are of the open panel type mounting, located near center of tuning houses. Tower feed leaves through a bowl insulator in the roof center. Half inch copper tubing was used to feed all four tower legs. Sampling loops for phase and night remote antenna current reading are located on towers about 100 feet above insulators. Isolation coils are installed in the tuning houses of each tower, behind the antenna tuning panels. DC arc protection is provided to kill the transmitter on heavy lightning hits. Towers and Tides The foundation for the tower legs are tied together by a grid of reinforced concrete beams, which in turn support the tuning houses. This grid of concrete beams also supports a transverse grid of 3" x 12" creosoted timbers on 3-foot centers upon which the ground screen is laid. The ground system under the towers is about 10 feet above mean sea level. (Refer to front cover for view of tower base and ground system.) This height was selected after extensive research on tides in Tampa Bay. Extra precautions were necessary because of the exposed location, and the possibility of high tides during stormy weather. It will be noted in Fig. 13 that an extensive outrigger was built around each tower. This was designed to stabilize the ground, since the rise and fall of tides might affect the antenna system. The outrigger consists of piling set on 20-foot centers, 35 feet outside and parallel to each of the four sides of the towers. A 3/8- inch copper wire run through eye-bolts on these pilings level with the timber grid is outer support of 120 radial wires connected to a bonding strip around each tuning house. Under each tower the ground screen was laid on these radials --- silver brazed to the radials on 18-inch centers. All connections in the ground system are silver brazed. Radials run down each outrigger piling from the 3/8-inch outrigger wire and extend in a circle to a full 400 feet where possible. Along each side of the roadway passing between the two towers, the radials were cut off and silver brazed to 4-foot lengths of 5/8-inch copper ground rods driven 12 inches beneath the surface. With the complete new installation of transmitter equipment and towers, plus the salt-water ground in the new site -- field measurements prove WSUN has extended its .5 mv line by an average of 30 per cent to give 50 per cent better coverage of the thickly populated central area of Florida --- one of the nation's fastest- growing retail market areas. Also, see WLW http://www.hawkins.pair.com/wlw.shtml and specifics on Blaw-Knox at: http://www.hawkins.pair.com/blaw-knox.html (via Terry L Krueger, Clearwater, Florida, USA, 27.55.83 N, 82.46.08 W Visit my "Florida Low Power Radio Stations" at: http://home.earthlink.net/~tocobagadx/flortis.html May 10, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. The new channel 6 LPTV in New York City is on the air with bars and tone. 930 pm Monday night. Just OK signal about 50 miles north of ESB. First heard on 87.75 FM. Nice solid audio on kid's transistor portable. A new challenge for e-skip season. Now, only channel 3 is relatively clear to the south and west here. The FCC will allow anything these days (Karl Zuk, N2KZ, Katonah, NY May 9, WTFDA via DXLD) Yep, that's the one. There's supposed to be another one on channel 3, 750 watts, licensed to Brooklyn but the transmitter is on Manhattan not too horribly far from the Empire State Building (Doug Smith W9WI, DX LISTENING DIGEST) RE: COLOR BARS/TEST TONE ON CHANNEL 6 IN NYC I knew of the Channel 6 sign on about two months in advance. I believe it replaces, although it wasn't supposed to, a channel 49 which operated for about 3 weeks and was removed around a month ago. LP Channel 49 was causing interference to the "B" contour of Connecticut Public TV Network station WEDH in Bridgeport. LP Channel 6 was supposed to serve Eastern Queens, but I was never informed as to where it was to transmit from, perhaps directional from its current location. I'm told it's the Citicorp building at Court Square in the Long Island City area of Queens, NY, which is adjacent to the Astoria section where the original report was from. I have to get more information and names, but Channel 6, WNYZ-LP, is one of a number of LP TV stations with similar call signs, (WNYX-LP, WXNY-LP, WNYY-LP), that are owned by the same person who owns WTHE 1520 in Mineola, NY, not Rupert Murdoch's FOX-TV Stations Inc., even though the sequence of the call letters seem to inply that. His first LPTV station was W44AI off the WTHE tower, with a translator on Channel 54 in Brooklyn. Ironically that channel is now assigned to FOX as WNYW-DT, which according to their website, http://www.fox5-ny.com operates both the HD service of Channel 5, WNYW, and a 2nd DTV service of Fox owned reruns. Channel 54 is also gone, and may also be in HD service for another station. The other LPTV channels owned by WTHE are 26, 32, 35 and 39. With the exception of 32 which is leased to Home Shopping Network, all the others are LMA'ed by Jim Chaldek under the WNYT company name. In turn channels 35 and 39 are leased to Spanish language networks. Channel 26 runs local programming, as do 35 and 39 during overnight and during certain periods on weekends. Another LPTV station on channel 60 is owned by HSN and relays their Network 4. Channel 6 will also be operated by Jim but I'm unaware of the planned programming having lost contact with him years ago. I'll have more to come later (Steve Coletti, NY, May 10, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** U S A. PUBLIC TV AND RADIO TO RECEIVE BIG GRANTS By LORNE MANLY and ELIZABETH JENSEN May 10, 2005, NY Times http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/10/arts/television/10publ.html?pagewanted=print http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/10/arts/television/10publ.html?ex=1116388800&en=622584910f1385cb&ei=5070 The Ford Foundation, the main financial backer of public broadcasting in its formative days, is undertaking its largest initiative to support nonprofit media in more than 25 years, officials said yesterday. The initiative will funnel $50 million over five years to a baker's dozen of public television, radio and other media organizations. A major focus of the effort will be to spur the creation and distribution of public affairs programming, particularly programs dealing with international affairs. The Public Broadcasting Service and National Public Radio will receive the largest grants, $10 million and $7.5 million respectively. But less well-known entities will also share in the wealth, including Link TV, a television network devoted to explaining the rest of the world to the United States; the Sundance Documentary Fund, which supports documentaries about human rights issues; and New California Media, a consortium of more than 600 print, television, radio and Internet outlets devoted to ethnic news. The official announcement of the initiative, which is expected today, comes as public broadcasting is being whipsawed by a leveling off of corporate underwriting, a decline in state government support and growing political pressure to correct what many conservatives view as a liberal bias. While Ford Foundation officials say those developments are not the impetus for their initiative, they say it arrives at a critical time. "The media in general is [sic] at a crossroads in our country," said Susan V. Berresford, the foundation's president, pointing to declining newspaper circulation, a drop over the last decade in coverage of international affairs, and continuing market pressures that demand ratings successes while eating into news-gathering budgets. The Ford Foundation's involvement with noncommercial broadcasting dates to the middle of the last century. Ford grants paved the way for quintessential public broadcasting programs like "Sesame Street" and documentaries like "Eyes on the Prize," as well as technological advancements like closed captioning. "Without the Ford Foundation in those days, there would be no public television," said Lawrence K. Grossman, a former president of PBS. From 1951 to 1996, Ford gave more than $400 million to public media, and since then its financing has averaged about $3 million a year, according to the foundation. (It gave more than $475 million altogether last year.) But just as today's public broadcasters face battles over the political and cultural leanings of Bill Moyers and Buster the rabbit, controversy was never far from Ford's largess. In the 1950's, some on the right took issue with the foundation's bent, viewing its plans to promote international cooperation and reduce poverty as thinly veiled support for Communist regimes or organizations. Later, the Nixon administration tried to weaken the influence of what it viewed as the liberalism of the Ford Foundation and its mainly Democratic leaders. "No doubt this will be seen by conservatives as an ideological initiative," said Tim Graham, the director of media analysis at the Media Research Center, a conservative watchdog group. The Ford Foundation's grants for global issues are not just aimed at fighting poverty, he said; the solutions advanced are left wing, and the money for media organizations goes to liberal-leaning entities like Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. "It seems to be taking public broadcasting and tilting it away from the viewpoint of a lot of taxpayers," he said. A spokeswoman for the Ford Foundation said that it guards against factual inaccuracy and blatant unfairness in everything it supports. The $50 million fund may not represent much money in a broadcasting world where a season of one prime-time network show can cost that much. But to the recipients of Ford's money, the grants are most welcome. Link TV operates on an annual budget of about $5 million, according to Kim Spencer, its president. It will receive $4.5 million over five years from the Ford Foundation and plans to use that money to broaden its reach beyond satellite systems and to bolster its programming and marketing efforts. The Independent Television Service, which supports independent producers in the public television system, plans to use its $5 million of Ford money to support projects by international producers, so it can bring more diverse voices to American airwaves. It now supports only the work of American producers. The grant to PBS will support a new fund that will allow it, for the first time, to test new ideas; currently, the system relies on its stations and independent producers to develop programming. Ford support will also help pay the operating expenses of the new PBS Foundation, set up to capture the donations of wealthy individuals - much as NPR did with a bequest of more than $236 million from Joan A. Kroc, the widow of Ray A. Kroc, the founder of McDonald's. "We operate on such a razor's edge here, we wouldn't have been able to launch the foundation in such a timely manner," said Pat Mitchell, PBS's president. "We'd still be out fund-raising." Had the foundation been operating several years ago, PBS might have been able to share in the bounty from Ms. Kroc. Dick Starmann, a former adviser to Ms. Kroc who helped direct her charitable giving, said he called both NPR and PBS in either late 2002 or early 2003 at Ms. Kroc's request. At PBS, "I got into the electronic queue and I never got through to anyone live," he said. He said he left one message, perhaps two. No one responded. Ms. Mitchell of PBS said, "I can assure you that if the call came in today, it would go to the PBS Foundation." Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company (via Mike Cooper, Ricky Leong, DXLD) ** U S A. FANS OF AL FRANKEN'S RADIO SHOW WELCOME HIM TO THE LEFT SIDE OF COUNTRY (5/10/2005) Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Tue, 10 May 2005 0:22 AM PDT [illustrated] For many liberals, before The Al Franken Show and Air America, radio was an alien landscape lacking their point of view. So, when Franken's year-old talk radio show came to Seattle yesterday for its first live broadcast here, much of the audience could relate to one of the station's slogans -- "Finally, a view from the left." . . . http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/tv/223533_franken10.html?source=rss (via Sheldon Harvey, DXLD) ** VATICAN [and non]. Re 5-078: Hi Glenn, "Unfortunately" no jail for the Vatican Radio people. 10 days of jail has been suspended but Vatican Radio must pay the 10.000 euro total fine SOON. Naturally this is for the problems BEFORE 2000 year. There are 2 more debates pending. So if next judgement will be again against Vatican Radio, this time will be possible the Vatican Radio people will go to the jail. The Pope Benedetto XVI (alias Hannibal XVI) is really furent. Ha ha ha (Dario Monferini, Italy, May 10, DX LISTENING DIGEST) VATICAN RADIO TO APPEAL AGAINST JAIL SENTENCES Vatican Radio has announced it will appeal against the suspended jail sentences handed down by an Italian judge on two senior priests for causing high levels of electromagnetic pollution in a suburb north of Rome. The matter has been the subject of legal wrangling since 2001, when the residents of the Santa Maria di Galeria area - where the radio's powerful transmitters are based - complained with the Italians authorities about what they described as unusually high cancer rates in the area. A separate manslaughter inquiry is reportedly under way over the deaths of a number of children who died of leukaemia. Vatican Radio broadcasts all over the world from Rome in some 40 languages. The following is the text of a report by Vatican Radio on 10 May: [Presenter] The Rome Tribunal handed down yesterday a verdict against Vatican Radio for allegedly causing electromagnetic pollution. Judge Luisa Martone sentenced both Director-General Fr Pasquale Borgomeo and the chairman of the radio's managing committee, Cardinal Roberto Tucci, to 10 days in jail and to the payment of the trial expenses. The deputy technical director, Engineer Costantino Pacifici, was acquitted. The compensation for the plaintiffs will be established at a later moment. Here is a comment by our programming editor, Fr Federico Lombardi: [Lombardi] While postponing a more detailed assessment to when the full verdict is published - within 90 days - the radio's management expresses its regret for the fact that its positions were not endorsed and accepted by the tribunal. Even though there is appreciation for the acquittal of one of the defendants, the management intends to appeal against a verdict which is clearly unjustified both from the legal and the factual points of view. However, we reiterate - as we have often done in these years and the defence also repeated during the trial - that the Vatican Radio has always carried out its activity within the framework of the international agreements in place with Italy when dealing with the broadcasting centre of Santa Maria di Galeria [near Rome]. The radio has always met international electromagnetic-emission standards even before there were any specific Italian laws. Since 2001, following a deal with the Italian government, it is carefully respecting the new Italian laws, as proven by the measurements carried out on the orders of the bilateral [Italian- Vatican] commission by the most competent and equipped Italian public bodies. Since such laws are very restrictive, there is no justified reason for the population to have any concern. So, we trust that the Italian justice will eventually acknowledge in the appeals trials that the behaviour of the radio's management was appropriate, thus contributing to clear the clouds which have damaged the radio's reputation for too long and have contributed to encourage unfounded fears in the population. Source: Vatican Radio, Vatican City, in Italian 0600 gmt 10 May 05 (via BBCM via DXLD) ** VIETNAM [non]. UZBEKISTAN: Radio Que Me in Vietnamese now on air: 1200-1230 Sat on 15385 TAC 100 kW / 131 deg (Observer, Bulgaria, May 10 via DXLD) ** WESTERN SAHARA [non]. ITALY: Radio for Peace in English/ Arabic/ Spanish via IRRS from April 30: 0600-0700 Sat on 15725, ex 1100-1200 Fri on 15665 (Observer, Bulgaria, May 10 via DXLD) UNIDENTIFIED. 8886 USB, 8/5. NO ID, 2111-2115, francés, locutor, música rap, entrevista con invitada sobre la fundación centroafricana, SINPO 54433 (José Miguel Romero, Burjasot (Valencia), España, SANGEAN ATS 909, Antena hilo de siete metros, BRIGMTON [sic] BT-310, Antena Telescópica ALINCO DJ-X3, Noticias DX via DXLD) He was also getting some images from 31m band, but since this was in USB, maybe this was not one of them (gh, DXLD) UNIDENTIFIED. Hi, I live in Oregon. In the PM I am able to tune a "ping" at 9120 kHz. I've looked all over the net for an ID, but have had no success. Do you know what this signal is? Thanks, (David Cuddeback, DX LISTENING DIGEST) No idea, and not sure what you mean by ping; could you describe it further? (gh, DXLD) It's a short pulse that ticks about twice/second. Seems to repeat continually with no perceptible change. I got a messy wav file just now. 9120 kHz SSB. Here it is (Cuddeback, ibid.) I count roughly 3 beeps per second. Searching the WUN club archives comes up with a huge number of hits for 9120: http://www.wunclub.com/cgi-bin/wunarchsrch.cgi?sstring=9120 Maybe you can sort out from that what you are hearing? (gh, DXLD) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ PUBLICATIONS ++++++++++++ Re: NEW ILG DATABASE --- If you can ever GET the new password. I "applied" for one about two months ago and never heard anything back. Bloody annoying since I have an old laptop, which can run one piece of shortwave related software, and it absolutely HAS to have that database. Very angry with that setup. Be nice if they actually responded. (I think this is the third time it's been unanswered for me in about two years.) What is so special about their database? Just wonder if they're passwording it for good reason, or if they're just jerks. Ironic. I need it and can't get it. You have it and can do without it. What a ridiculous setup they have. Maybe I'm missing something, but nobody else seems to make you jump through these hoops. If he'd actually given me my reward for jumping through his hoops, I'd have absolutely no problem. If I had a better laptop that could run Windows software, I wouldn't even want the file. Sadly, it's mandatory for the (currently useless) DOS software I have sitting here (Steve, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) Fellas, I think it's time to step back and take a breath. This is a free service to us DXers, and as one can imagine, a huge task, and absolutely first rate when it finally comes on-line. The owner of the site (and I suspect it's only a single person, or a small handful) has been quite ticked off in the past with people plagiarising his information, and so I understand his desire for a few hoops. Look, if we had to pay for the service, then the criticisms are justified. Otherwise, I suggest that it is not justified. In my opinion, the database is the best one out there, and I eagerly await its arrival to use with my ERGO4 computer control software (Walt Salminiw, BC, May 9, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Well, maybe I spoke too soon. This is what I received this morning: ``On 7 Jan 2005 at 22:30, Walter (Volodya) Salmaniw wrote: No luck using my user name and password on the premium ILG (I try and support your work with updated information as much as possible!). Thanks! Walter Salmaniw, Victoria, Canada.`` ``We will not give you a password: - no complete name and / or complete address - fake address - copyright violence [sic] according to our research - you are a professional user according to our research - no password after such a kind of correspondence - we boycott all freemail providers (they support SPAM) Remarks: All ILGRadio passwords were replaced from 1.January 2005. Do not ask sveral times for a password. Password for ILGRadio PREMIUM is NOT available for all. Do not ask when ILGRadio will be available. We cannot help if you are not able to download ILGRadio. If you have problems with password request check browser. --------------------------------------------------------- All rights reserved. World Copyright by Bernd Friedewald ILGRadio and ILG names are registered Trademark by ILG Software & BFM Internet-Vertriebs GmbH (HRB 10120) P. O. Box 1112, (Hessenweg 2), D - 34576 Homberg, Germany`` I hope that Bernd reads this ASAP, or my email to him. Of course, none of the comments are true. Not sure what got him thinking that I was a professional user, etc. PS: PLEASE, Bernd, can I get a useable password??? (Walt Salmaniw, via DXLD) Perhaps only ONE of the above violations includes you out (gh, DXLD) Hi, Glenn, Sorry to bother you with minutiae, but is it me or do these people have a bad attitude? Those of us who are (ahem) currently between engagements can't AFFORD anything but freemail! Guess I'll (sniff) have to limp thru the day without their precious database (EiBi's would be hard to beat anyway). Belated birthday wishes and many thanks for helping make sense of all the chaos! 73 de (Anne Fanelli in Elma NY, who received the same rejection notice as Volodya, DX LISTENING DIGEST) I'm certainly glad that I stopped using and supporting ILG after Bernd stiffed me on my subscription years ago (Steve Lare, MI [not the Steve above], DX LISTENING DIGEST) In case anyone has not made the connexion, Bernd Friedewald is the same person who requires that all the frequencies he has been involved in coördinating (notably Radio Australia), be eliminated from the public HFCC files. His company is abbreviated BFM. Presumably this is to make ILG more desirable, including such ``proprietary`` info. We really don`t need people dedicated to RESTRICTING rather than SPREADING SW info (Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST) RADIO EQUIPMENT FORUM +++++++++++++++++++++ RADIO SHACK SAGA The US operation intends to expand into Canada! Maybe, for a change, we'll be able to buy something besides toys and telephones at the local Shack (Ken, VE3FIT, Grant, May 9, ODXA via DXLD) Viz.: FUTURE OF RADIO SHACK STORE NAME IN DISPUTE IN CANADA U.S. RETAILERS DUKE IT OUT OVER LEGAL RIGHT TO USE NAME Name-use ban doesn't free up rights: InterTan DANA FLAVELLE, BUSINESS REPORTER http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&call_pageid=971358637177&c=Article&cid=1115416215311&DPL=IvsNDS%2f7ChAX&tacodalogin=yes The future of the Radio Shack name in Canada and a third of the retailers that bear it is up in the air as two U.S. consumer electronics giants battle it out for a stake in the Canadian marketplace. InterTan Inc. of Barrie shot the latest volley yesterday saying it has the exclusive right to the Radio Shack name in Canada until 2009 even though a Texas court ruled in March that InterTan can no longer use it. The court gave InterTan until June 30 to stop using the Radio Shack name on its more than 900 stores across Canada. InterTan responded by announcing the stores would change their name to The Source by Circuit City. No sooner had InterTan abandoned the name than its former parent company, RadioShack Corp., of Fort Worth, Tex., announced it planned to open its own chain of Canadian stores under the Radio Shack banner. Radio Shack is two words on Canadian while the U.S. company and its stores spell it one word. RadioShack Corp. said it would open the first 20 to 30 corporate owned stores before the end of this year, most in the Greater Toronto Area. Yesterday, InterTan said Radio-Shack U.S. can't do that. Even though InterTan can't use the RadioShack name after June 30, InterTan said neither can any one else until its licensing agreement with RadioShack Corp. expires in 2009. RadioShack in the United States disagrees. InterTan said it plans to defend its right in court, though a specific strategy has yet to be worked out. In the meantime, RadioShack Corp. has begun courting the 360 independent retailers that use the RadioShack name under contract with InterTan hoping to persuade them to switch allegiances so they can keep the well-known name over the stores. The stores, mainly in smaller markets, would be in addition to the corporate owned stores in the larger centres, RadioShack Corp. said. InterTan is fighting back by vowing to double its advertising budget this year to raise awareness of the Circuit City name. It opened the first of the renamed stores in downtown Toronto's Eaton Centre two weeks ago to showcase the new design and format. The stores will carry more digital products and benefit from Circuit City's greater buying power, Levy noted. The cross-border dispute began after Circuit City Corp., America's second largest consumer electronics chain, gained a foothold in Canada last year through the purchase of InterTan. InterTan used to be owned by RadioShack Corp., America's third-largest chain, and still had a licensing agreement with the company giving it the right to use the name in Canada (via Ken Grant, ODXA via DXLD) All this talk about AM and FM and TV mandates reminded me that Radio Shack used to sell two kinds of tuner cleaner. Remember having to get off your butt to change the channel? They had black and white tuner cleaner at one price and then they also had color tuner cleaner which was much more expensive. It was the exact same stuff (Paul Smith, Sarasota, FL, NRC-AM via DXLD) A NICE "SWL" SCREENSAVER Today I was playing around with the screensaver settings in my computer and discovered a "feature" of Win XP that I don't think earlier Windows had (though there may be some "aftermarket" software that will do the same thing). I think I'd seen it before, but never paid any attention to it. That is, the ability to use the pictures in the "My Pictures" folder as a screensaver, with variable timing of how often the picture changes and the transition effects. Anyway, to make a long story short, (always hard for me) I loaded all the QSL card scans that I scanned for my "QSL Gallery" into the "My Pictures" folder (well over 300 of them), any anytime my computer is setting idle, it displays all my QSL cards in random order! Another use for all those cards I collected over the years |grin|. It makes for a very colorful display. 73 de (Phil, KO6BB Atchley, swl at qth.net via DXLD) Amusing to watch, yes. Practical, not hardly. It is a huge waste of drive space and memory! You will not want this running in the background when many applications try to run. You want memory issues, you will get them, Phil (Duane B. Fischer, ibid.) I think that the screen saver only runs when the CPU is not otherwise engaged, to save the screen from being burned, yes? And the HD space used, even for all 300 QSLs, is not so large as to be a problem, no? So, not running in the back- ground, not using too much HD, it is huge FB! Enjoy. 73, (George Maurer, ibid.) Actually, it isn't all that bad. The 348 scanned QSL cards were residing in a dedicated folder anyway, moving them to the "My Pictures" folder didn't consume any additional hard drive space. And, even if they did, the entire group of images takes all of 16 MB of drive space, a drop in the bucket (just my SWL radio log alone, without the logging program, takes 25 MB). On the other hand, the screen saver only runs when the computer isn't being used, if windows needs memory for it, it'll just move any inactive programs to the "Virtual memory" on the hard drive. The way I have it set up, the screen saver comes on after the machine is idle for 10 minutes, if the machine is idle for 45 minutes the monitor and hard drives are turned off. While it's a dinosaur by today's standards (600 MHz Pentium III), this machine still has plenty of "horsepower" to handle all that I can throw at it (or at least it has so far). For example, while doing this email I also have 3 beacon Excel databases open, my beacon logging program, Geoclock grayline program and Internet Explorer all running at the same time. Whichever "window" I open takes "priority". The only thing that really seems to slow the machine down any is if I ask the Virus Scanner to run a 'full' scan while I'm doing other tasks, that because it thinks it has "priority" over other programs. 73 de (Phil, KO6BB, ibid.) MORSE CODE STILL BEATS SMS Submitted by Mike Grenville on Thu, 05 May 2005 23:01 http://www.160characters.org/news.php?action=view&nid=1541 It seems that morse code is still faster at sending text messages than using txt speak. Even when the morse code sender is 93 years old and the SMS challengers were teenagers! According to The Times, an Australian museum staged a contest that pitted the oldest type of electronic text messages with the newest. Devised by Samuel Morse in 1832, the simple combination of dots and dashes was the mainstay of maritime communication up until 1997. Not only was the technology a battle of ages, but so were the contestants. Tapping out the winning morse code message was 93-year- old telegraph operator Gordon Hill, who learnt to use the technique in 1927 when he joined the Australian Post Office. He easily defeated his 13-year-old rival, Brittany Devlin, who was armed with a mobile phone and a rich vocabulary of text message shorthand. Mr Hill, whose messages were transcribed by another telegraph veteran, Jack Gibson, 82, then repeated the feat against three other children and teenagers with mobile phones. In the competition, at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, Mr Hill and his rivals were asked to transmit a line selected at random from an advertisement in a teenage magazine. It read: ``Hey, girlfriend, you can text all your best pals to tell them where you are going and what you are wearing.`` While the telegraphist tapped out the line in full, to be deciphered by Mr Gibson, Miss Devlin employed text slang to save time. She keyed: ``hey gf u can txt ur best pals 2 tel them wot u r doing, where ur going and wot u r wearing.`` Just 90 seconds after Mr Hill began transmitting, Mr Gibson announced that he had the message received and written down correctly. It took another 18 seconds for Miss Devlin’s message to reach the mobile phone belonging to her friend. Mr Hill said that he was impressed by modern technology, even though his clunky telegraph machine emerged on top in three further contests. Want to brush up your Morse Code skills? This site claims to be able to teach you in just a minute!: http://www.learnmorsecode.com (via Bill Bergadano, KA2EMZ, swprograms via DXLD) RDS CODES MESSED UP AT CLEAR CHANNEL STATIONS Can you tell me why your radio engineers at many of the Clear Channel fm radio stations are programming the radio data system (RDS) encoder software with the INCORRECT PI codes??? It completely defeats the purpose of the system. If I use this tool...... http://www.audemat-aztec.com/products/Encoding/FMB10%20RDS%20Encoder/# to enter call letters, it tells me the correct code the RDS decoder should read. Many of your fm stations are no longer following the system. WHY??? To the average radio listener, it doesn't make any difference. I'm in a radio group that pays attention to such details. Your radio corporation is the only one to-date that is doing such a thing. I would really appreciate an answer (Jim Thomas, Milliken CO, on Clear Channel Public Relations Contact Us Form, via WTFDA via DXLD) RE: Use of RDS with your fm radio stations Hi Jim - Clear Channel is implementing RDS-TMC on several of our radio stations. http://www.tmcforum.com/ This standard allows broadcast of real time traffic incident data to RDS-TMC enabled receivers. The standard is widely used and accepted in Europe, but Clear Channel is the first company to use it in the United States. The issue with implementing RDS-TMC in the US is the incompatibility between RDS and RBDS. As you know, RBDS uses a calculated PI code, however, RDS uses an assigned PI code, with the first digit indicating the country of origin. All RDS-TMC enabled systems are built for the RDS standard, not the RBDS standard. as a result, they are looking for a single Country Code in order to engage the system. In this case, the country code is "1". You will notice that on all of the stations where our PI is not correct that the "wrong PI code" starts with a 1. that is why. I know this doesn't correct your problem, but at least you know why. (Jeff Littlejohn, Executive Vice President - Distribution Development Clear Channel Radio, Cincinnati OH, via Thomas, ibid.) FCC BROADCAST FLAGS Manufacturers can legally sell their existing inventory of non-flag DTV receivers even if the proposed regulations become law. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has more details on the subject: http://www.eff.org/broadcastflag/ (Bob Timmerman, May 9, WTFDA via DXLD) THE IMPACT OF THE "DIGITAL FLAG" DECISION ON IBOC/HD RADIO While the recent court ruling about "digital flags" involved digital television, the Recording Industry Association of American (RIAA) has been concerned about the potential for "record piracy" via digital radio. They apparently want to ban any sort of automated recording capability for digital radio hardware. If you were around in the 1970s, this will sound familiar. Back then, the RIAA blamed home recording of music from FM stations for a drop in record sales and was pushing Congress for a tax on cassette tapes and cassette recorders, with the proceeds from that tax distributed to --- -- you guessed it! ---- record companies. It doesn't seem the RIAA has learned much since the Carter presidency, as demonstrated by their desire to restrict digital radio recording to "manually pressing a button to start and stop recording a song." Uh, have they ever heard of something like "Super MP3 Recorder Pro" or other PC-based recording tools??? Apparently not. It's 2005, not 1975; try getting up to speed on technology, RIAA. And, BTW, treating your customer base as your enemy isn't a smart business strategy. Posted on May 10, 2005 | Permalink: http://futureofradio.typepad.com/the_future_of_radio/2005/05/the_impact_of_t.html TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/2429934 (via DXLD) Re DXLD 5-078, AM/FM Radios & the FCC Hi, Glenn! Regarding that note at the end of DXLD 5-078 about FCC regulations *requiring* both AM & FM coverage: As I recall, this was an FCC *proposal* that never made it into an actual regulation. I do believe that it was a proposed reg to have all radios that tuned the AM BCB to also tune the FM band, in the same manner as the regulation for TV sets to tune UHF and VHF instead of just VHF. It was meant to increase the market penetration of FM stations the same way as the TV reg was to support the UHF TV industry & broadcasters. Of course, this sounds silly NOW, since FM has in so many ways supplanted AM broadcasting, but this was back when FM was just becoming a viable money-making operation. I don't recall the exact year; I DO recall being on the phone to McKay/ Dymek at the time, warning them that the regulation would make their AM tuner product (their main product at the time) no longer marketable. Of course, it all faded away, and now we have many FM-only radios as was noted in the DXLD comment. I would think that many SWLs of our age would recall this, since it would have impacted the SW receiver manufacturers, forcing them to add an FM band to any SW receiver that also tuned the AM BCB. (I would think that only the ham-band-only models would have been exempt.) 73, (Will Martin, MO, May 10, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Seems to me there were and are plenty of SW table model / communications receivers which still don`t have FMBC band (gh, DXLD) DRM +++ FCC ADOPTS DRM STANDARD FOR US HF BROADCASTING The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has adopted the Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM) standard for US HF Broadcasting Service (HFBC) digital transmission. Adoption of the DRM standard was among several actions the FCC took in a wide-ranging Report and Order (R&O) in response to World Radiocommunication Conference 2003 (WRC-03)--ET Docket 04-139. The FCC authorized both digital audio broadcasting and datacasting. It said channels using digitally modulated emissions may share the same spectrum or be interleaved with analog emissions in the same HFBC band, provided the protection afforded to the analog emissions is at least as great as that currently in place for analogue-to-analogue protection. The Commission authorized double-sideband (DSB), single-sideband (SSB), and digital transmissions in HF bands between 5900 and 26,100 kHz, and it set minimum HFBC power levels of 50 kW PEP for SSB. In the same proceeding the FCC also reallocated the 7100-7200 kHz band to the Amateur Service on a co-primary basis and reallocated the 7350-7400 kHz band to the HFBC Service on a co-primary basis with the fixed service until March 29, 2009, after which it will be allocated exclusively for broadcasting. (Source: ARRL) # posted by Andy @ 15:19 UT May 10 (Media Network blog via DXLD) PROPAGATION +++++++++++ SPORADIC E SEASON HAS BEGUN At presstime, 2127 UT May 10, the MUF is up to 60 MHz at least, with some Mexican TV stations duking it out on channel 2, with color, and usual loud audio, e.g. Kim Possible dubbed. It`s almost time for this week`s SEC info, but I am not going to wait for it to come up: http://www.sec.noaa.gov/ftpdir/weekly/WKHF.txt http://www.sec.noaa.gov/ftpdir/weekly/27DO.txt (Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ###