DX LISTENING DIGEST 5-173, October 2, 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 Extra 61: Sun 1730 WOR WRN1 to North America (including Sirius Satellite Radio channel 140 ex-115) Sun 1900 WOR RNI Mon 0300 WOR WBCQ 9330-CLSB Mon 0330 WOR WSUI Iowa City IA 910 Mon 0415 WOR WBCQ 7415 [usually closer to 0418-] Mon 1600 WOR WBCQ after hours Mon 1800 WOR RFPI [repeated 4-hourly thru 1400 Tue] Tue 1600 WOR WBCQ after hours Tue 2330 WOR WBCQ 7415 [usually but temporary] Wed 0000 WOR CJOY INTERNET RADIO plug-in required [ex Sat 1600] Wed 0930 WOR WWCR 9985 Wed 1600 WOR WBCQ after hours Latest edition of this schedule version, with hotlinks to station sites and audio, is at: http://www.worldofradio.com/radioskd.html WRN ON DEMAND: http://new.wrn.org/listeners/stations/station.php?StationID=24 OUR ONDEMAND AUDIO [also CONTINENT OF MEDIA, MUNDO RADIAL]: http://www.worldofradio.com/audiomid.html or http://wor.worldofradio.org WORLD OF RADIO Extra 61 (high version): (stream) http://www.w4uvh.net/worx61h.ram (download) http://www.w4uvh.net/worx61h.rm [Extra 61 is same as COM 05-07; high version adds WOR opening] WORLD OF RADIO Extra 61 (low version): (stream) http://www.w4uvh.net/com0507.ram (download) http://www.w4uvh.net/com0507.rm (summary) http://www.worldofradio.com/com0507.html WORLD OF RADIO Extra 61 in true SW sound of Alex`s mp3 (stream) http://www.dxprograms.net/worldofradio_09-28-05.m3u (download) http://www.dxprograms.net/worldofradio_09-28-05.mp3 WORLD OF RADIO Extra 61 downloads in studio-quality mp3: (high) http://www.obriensweb.com/worx61h.mp3 (low) http://www.obriensweb.com/worx61.mp3 ORLD OF RADIO PODCAST: www.obriensweb.com/wor.xml (currently: 1284, Extra 60, 1285, 1286, 1287, 1288, Extra 61) CONTINENT OF MEDIA 05-09: (stream) http://www.w4uvh.net/com0509.ram (download) http://www.w4uvh.net/com0509.rm (summary) http://www.worldofradio.com/com0509.html [pending] ** AUSTRALIA. So, the sports final test transmission on 7875 usb towards Australian soldiers serving in Asia seems over now. But here are the remaining frequencies for northern Australia / Dili ute services: 6685 6709 6727 6730 6760 7735 7875 8977 8974 8989 9023 9025 11143 11187 11195 11199 11205 11235 11238 11271 13206 13861 15016 15061 15085 18003 18018 18430 18735 23203 kHz. 73 wb (Wolfgang Büschel, Germany, Oct 2, DX LISTENING DIGEST) You mean all these are listed for Exmouth/NWC? (gh) ** BOLIVIA. RADIO ILLIMANI http://www.comunica.gov.bo/illimani/indice.html Radio Illimani emite su señal desde la ciudad de La Paz en la República de Bolivia con una programación educativa que tiene el objetivo de promover el desarrollo integral de la sociedad boliviana, integrando al país y proyectando una imagen internacional. Es la emisora del estado Boliviano que busca brindar un servicio público para las más alejadas regiones, mostrando nuestros valores culturales, defendiendo nuestra soberanía nacional en el mundo. Estamos en AM 1020, Onda Corta de 6020 [sic] (banda de 49 metros), FM 94.1 en La Paz - Cobija - Chapare - Achacachi - Yungas Radio Illimani en Internet Radio Illimani transmite ahora sus emisiones en Internet y para acceder a nuestra programación utilice, cualquier reproductor de audio que acepte el popular formato MP3, con calidad de audio CD. Nuestra dirección es: http://audio.comunica.gov.bo:8000/illimani Para mayor información escríbanos a nuestro correo electrónico: illimani @ comunica.gov.bo Nuestros teléfonos: 2200473 - 2200390 - 2200282 Nuestra dirección: Av. Camacho # 1485 6to Piso La Paz, Bolivia (via José Miguel Romero, Burjasot (Valencia), España, dxldyg via DXLD) ?? They don`t even know their own SW frequency? Always listed on 6025, not 6020, and last reported in DXLD 5-118, July 14 on 6025. Several minutes after going to their webpage their audio jingle launched interrupting something else I was listening to; beware! ¿No saben su propia frecuencia de OC, que siempre es: 6025! O se habrá cambiado? A averiguar (Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Their site has a different frequency. Has for a while! :-) (Robert Wilkner, FL, HCDX via DXLD) Hi Glenn, Last week I listened to Radio Illimani through 6025 here in São Bernardo do Campo, southeast of Brazil, not 6020. 73, (Rudolf Grimm São Bernardo, SP BRASIL, ibid.) ** CANADA. PRESSURE BUILDING AMONG LIBERALS TO END CBC LOCKOUT By MICHAEL DEN TANDT and GUY DIXON Saturday, October 1, 2005 Page A7 OTTAWA, TORONTO -- The Liberal government is facing a groundswell of pressure from within its own ranks to force an immediate end to the CBC lockout. Growing numbers of MPs are demanding back-to-work legislation, and others are asking pointed questions about CBC president Robert Rabinovitch's future. Negotiators for the broadcaster's management and union have been virtually locked in a room for days, watched by Labour Minister Joe Fontana, and under intense pressure to reach an agreement this weekend. Yesterday, both sides agreed to a 48-hour news blackout. In the past two days, a growing number of Liberal backbenchers have publicly called on the government to end the lockout by whatever means necessary if no agreement is struck soon. "If they don't have anything after the blackout, I want back-to-work legislation," Quebec MP Denis Coderre said yesterday. Mr. Coderre said a majority of the Quebec caucus wants the government to intervene because "it's a lockout, it's not a strike." In addition to Mr. Coderre, Ontario MPs Sarmite Bulte and Don Boudria as well as PEI MP Wayne Easter want the government to intervene immediately. "In rural and remote areas, the CBC is it," Mr. Easter said. "We're not living up to the standards of the 1991 Broadcast Act." Other Liberal MPs, while slightly more circumspect, have signalled growing impatience with CBC management. Gatineau MP Françoise Boivin, a labour lawyer on the management side before she entered public life, said she thought the lockout was difficult to justify, given that CBC employees had not been engaged in any work to rule or other job action beforehand. "I'd strongly advise Mr. Rabinovitch not to test the government's patience," she said. One Ontario MP, who asked to remain anonymous, said the Liberal caucus is angry with Mr. Rabinovitch and other senior CBC brass for initiating the lockout. "Who is the brain surgeon who thought this was worth it?" the MP asked. Mr. Coderre and other MPs noted that, outside Quebec, the CBC is, in many cases, the only source of French-language programming. "The CBC is supposed to represent what Canada is all about," he said. The Commons heritage committee has passed motions demanding that Mr. Rabinovitch appear before it when the lockout is over to explain himself, one Ontario MP noted.Although caucus unrest over the lockout is strongest in Quebec, it extends across the country. Yukon MP Larry Bagnell said yesterday that for many northerners, the CBC is a necessity, not a frill. "It's sort of their lifeline to critical things for work or safety, such as weather reports," he said A spokesman for Mr. Fontana declined comment yesterday, citing the news blackout. Heritage Minister Liza Frulla, while declining to comment on the negotiations, said pressure is intense on both sides to reach a deal. "If they're intelligent, they'll prove that they're intelligent and they'll come to an agreement," she said. She played down the likelihood of back-to-work legislation. "It has to be a long-term agreement . . . if it's not dealt with right, it's going to have implications for next year," she said, referring to pending labour talks at Radio-Canada. NDP heritage critic Charlie Angus blasted Ms. Frulla for her handling of the file. "I think they are trying to defer until some kind of patchwork settlement comes together and attention goes elsewhere, and we will be back to business as usual, which is an adrift, visionless CBC limping along with weakened funds." The CBC's cost-saving strategy of hiring contract employees is a key issue (source? via Ricky Leong, DXLD) ** CANADA. MPS URGING CBC PRESIDENT ROBERT RABINOVITCH TO END LOCKOUT Chris Cobb, CanWest News Service, Saturday, October 01, 2005 http://www.canada.com/search/story.html?id=586c9ff9-46a1-414d-ba75-fca4cf3226ba CBC president Robert Rabinovitch could be headed for a major defeat as management and union negotiators close in this weekend on a deal to end a six-week lockout of 5,500 employees. Mr. Rabinovitch's high-stakes labour strategy suffered a major blow this week when public pressure brought federal Labour Minister Joe Fontana into the fray. Mr. Fontana urged the two sides to resume negotiations and, significantly, signalled that he supported the union stance: "We want long-term, permanent jobs for all our citizens," he said. As well Mr. Rabinovitch, who has also been acting as chairman of the CBC board since the resignation last March of Carole Taylor, was apparently given an unexpectedly rough ride over his handling of the lockout when he met with board members last week in Montreal. Although CBC board meetings are secret, insiders at the public broadcaster say several board members were unusually critical of the strategy being pursued by Mr. Rabinovitch and his senior vice- president of human resources, George Smith. Management ordered the lockout on Aug. 15 after the Canadian Media Guild refused to sign a contract that would have increased the number of CBC contract workers at the expense of full-time jobs. The lockout, which has disrupted CBC radio and TV programming, was at a stalemate until this week when disgruntled MPs returned to Ottawa and demanded an end to the dispute. MPs of all parties, and especially those from rural ridings, have been inundated by complaints from their constituents since the lockout began. Unlike city-dwelling Canadians, many rural and small-town residents rely on the CBC for all their regional news and information. "I've had a dozen calls a week from people who say they miss CBC radio," said Jim Abbott, the Conservative MP for Kootenay-Columbia in British Columbia. "In my riding it's usually a choice between the CBC and one commercial station. CBC radio has a high value for Canadians and keeps the country connected." Mr. Abbott said he had received no complaints about the absence of regular CBC television programming. Todd Russell, the Liberal MP for Labrador, said CBC radio is vital to his constituents. "Without CBC it has been much more difficult communicating about important issues. People are feeling cut off from each other. They're telling me they don't know what the hell is going on. We want the CBC back." Nova Scotia Liberal Michael Savage echoed the view of many MPs when he urged CBC management to "act in good faith" to end the lockout. "Many of us now believe the public has a right to know what is really going on," he said. "The CBC that Canadians trust is in danger of slowly disappearing. The CBC is not just another corporation, not just another service to the public, but a symbol of our country, indeed a value that we need to sustain." "Mr Rabinovitch is personally wearing this lockout," said Ian Morrison, a spokesman for the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting. "He has hit an immovable object in a well-organized, well-financed union locked out in a minority government situation. He has made a major error by not being sensitive to the environment around him and he'll pay the price." But Mr. Morrison said his organization would vigorously oppose any attempt by the government to remove Mr. Rabinovitch, who has two years left in his term as CBC president. "If they try to muscle him out," Mr. Morrison said, "we will be the first to complain. That would be too close to treating the CBC like a state broadcaster. But the lockout will leave him with a lot less freedom of action for the remainder of his term." The two sides returned to the bargaining table on Thursday. © National Post 2005 (via Ricky Leong, DXLD) ** CANADA. I have a suspicion that CBC Northern Service due to outlock is not using its regular transmitter on 9625. Since this all began some six weeks ago, 9625 has been booming from 0000 till 0500, causing splatter even to REE 9620, exactly the other way that happened recently. Really, it sounds as if they have change their azimuth towards South just to maintain on the air with mostly some different but interesting pop music, while I am missing the Saturday Night Blues Special. What will be when the outlock ends? Will have to wait and see (Raúl Saavedra, Costa Rica, Oct 2, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) I have also noted better signals on 9625 at times in the evening, but since propagation is so variable hesitate to conclude something else be responsible (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CANADA. On 6030, probably CFVP, Sunday Oct 2 at 1227, apparently nutrition infomercial giving 800-548-4576 several times, mixing with a FE station, which at 1230 was VOA introducing Lao, and then dominating (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** COLOMBIA. Glenn, concerning Radio Líder, it has been present every day since Sep 29, local quality at my site (Oct 01). Today Oct. 02: Radio Líder barely audible at 1030, but like local at 1046 (Fernando Viloria, Guacara - Carabobo State - Venezuela, Rx: Icom IC-720 transceiver, Antenna: 1/4 wave sloper, Antenna tuner: MFJ - 956 (passive), DX LISTENING DIGEST) En DXLD (DX Listening Digest) #5-172, del 1o. de octubre, Adán González, de Catia del Mar, Venezuela, constata que Radio Líder, 6140 kHz, según parece, se está aprovechando de la buena fe de los oyentes internacionales. Piden informes y prometen "sorpresas" a los que envíen sus informes. Hasta ahora, a nadie le ha tocado nada, ni siquiera un acuse de recibo. Un caso similar aconteció hace unos 45 años, y lo protagonizó HJLB, La Voz del Tolima, de Ibagué, 6040 kHz. Con un nuevo transmisor de 10 kW tenían una señal que arrasaba por doquier. Muchos oyentes europeos y de Australia y Nueva Zelanda dieron cuenta de ello a la emisora, tantos que, a las 0300 UT, el domingo por la mañana si no recuerdo mal, emitían un programa titulado "Salud, oyentes del mundo!", en donde, entre tandas de bambucos y pasillos, acusaban recibo de los informes recibidos, prometiendo a cada uno de los oyentes el envío de una QSL, un banderin y una postal. Al parecer, y tal vez por problemas del idioma, casi nadie se había fijado en el contenido de este programa. Como a nadie le había llegado nada de lo prometido, decidí confeccionar una lista conteniendo unos cuantos de los nombres mencionados, no sin antes cotejar con cada uno de ellos, si habían recibido contestación, y se la envié a la emisora. Con la presentación de estas "pruebas", la emisora reaccionó en forma inmediata, pues confeccionaron una tarjeta QSL y un pequeño banderín que fueron enviados, a partir de entonces, a cientos de oyentes en todas partes del mundo (Henrik Klemetz, Sweden, DX LISTENING DIGEST) So maybe that`s just what Líder needs; volunteers? (gh, DXLD) ** COSTA RICA. Re 5-172, TIFC: Hi Glenn, I have noticed just lately, cause I am not a regular listener, that TIFC has separated FM transmission from the rest for transmitting pop gospel music in Spanish on 97.1. The AM broadcastings are basically to follow the purpose the station was created some 66 years ago. They have kept 1080 that used to sign off around 0400 just to stay on FM. But since their shift for more pop gospel on FM, they stay on the air for 24 hours on the BC band. 5055 has been running irregular transmissions. It is not clear when they are exactly on the air. At least last night (even this Sunday morning) they were off at a time I was told by engineer Salvador López they would be on the air after test transmissions ended, which I assume is by now, as they are QRT in the daytime. Have anybody noticed they have increased audio gain? And no Glenn, they don´t have any culture program. I think they did many years ago as far as I know with some classical music and alike. The only news you could hear is at 1300, VOA news in Spanish (Raúl Saavedra, Costa Rica, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CUBA. Surprised to find R. Rebelde on a new split frequency, 11682.5, Oct 2 at 1035, with considerable hum, and // 5025 which had not quite faded out. 1308 TC for 9:08, and a Cuban geographical quiz. 11682.5 was off already by 1358 recheck, transmitter needed for Alo Presidente service; see VENEZUELA [non] (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** GUYANA. Voice of Guyana now live on the internet, and moving house Two radio services from Guyanese public broadcaster National Communications Network (NCN) are now available streamed live online from the Homeview Guyana web site at http://www.homeviewguyana.com Online listening of Voice of Guyana and Hot FM requires a subscription of 6 US dollars a month, however it's not clear if that is for both stations or just one. A free 10-minute "sampler" of either stream is offered on provision of an e-mail address (which they assure will not be passed on to a third party). I went for this and after a 30-second wait received a good-quality 8-minute feed of Voice of Guyana at 32 Kbps mono, with no buffering or other interruptions. The web site is in English and also includes a programme schedule, a history of NCN and its forerunners, and full contact details. In the past week Voice of Guyana has been observed most days commencing their own programming at a time varying between 0805 and 0830 UTC, following on from the overnight relay of BBC World Service. This was monitored with fair to poor reception on 3291.2 kHz via a DX Tuners.Com receiver situated near Caracas, Venezuela. In a Voice of Guyana broadcast monitored on Sunday 2 October the announcer mentioned that by the following Sunday they would "probably" be broadcasting from new studios in another part of town, rather than "the old broadcasting house on High Street". The history section of the web site alludes to this, stating that there are plans underway to have NCN's radio and TV services in the same building. Voice of Guyana has no connection with the UK-based web radio Voice of Guyana International (Dave Kernick, Oct 2, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** HONDURAS. 4820, La Voz Evangélica de Honduras, Tegucigalpa, 02/10, 322, 1011 MA in Spanish with religious comments, ID: "Somos HRVC, La Voz Evangélica de Honduras", Programa religioso "Campiña del Señor", "...Nos escuchan via Internet en HRVC.org..." (Fernando Viloria, Guacara - Carabobo State - Venezuela, Rx: Icom IC-720 transceiver, Antenna: 1/4 wave sloper, Antenna tuner: MFJ - 956 (passive), DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** HUNGARY [and non]. Harald Süss reports that according to Radio Budapest, the 100 kW transmitters at Jászberény, moved from the Székesfehérvár site after it had been closed a year ago, will still not be available yet for the B05 season. Hence Radio Budapest will still have some transmissions from Rimavská Sobota in Slovakia (Kai Ludwig, Germany, Oct 2, DX LISTENING DIGEST) The remove work of the two 100 kW transmitter units from Diosd to Jászberény site has not been finished yet. So, some of the Radio Budapest transmissions in B05 will again be handled via Rimavska Sobota site in southern Slovak Republic. That's why this excel file is obsolete in total? 73 (Wolfgang Büschel, DX LISTENING DIGEST) Well, the transmitters to be moved were from the Székesfehérvár site between Budapest and the Balaton lake. Antena Hungária closed this site by the end of A04. Back then it had been reported that the Székesfehérvár transmitters will be moved to Jászberény and resume operations there for A05, i.e. the use of Rimavská Sobota by Radio Budapest was supposed to be a temorary matter for B04 only. But instead it continued for A05, and now Mr. Banky told Harald Süss that the moved transmitters will still not be available for B05 and herewith the transmissions via Rimavská Sobota continue. It is my impression that the right column in question shows some kind of spare registrations. Note that they include Ukrainian, Slovak, Romanian and Serbian, languages Radio Budapest had to abandon a few years ago due to budget constraints. Concerning Diósd: They have not used this site in the outskirts of Budapest for a couple of years now. Today there is a museum at Diósd, located "in the former broadcasting room", cf. http://www.postamuzeum.hu/english/muzeum/diosd.html But I think Diósd was still on air after 1995, I think until 1999 or so. So I assume that this does not refer to the room with the two Brown Boveri shortwave transmitters. So what's the current status of this (former?) site? All the best, (Kai Ludwig, Germany, Oct 2, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** INDONESIA. Let`s hope the Kang Guru Radio English folx, based in Bali, were not among the victims of the latest terrorist bombing (gh) ** INTERNATIONAL! VOA MAPS A WORLD OF TRICKY PRONUNCIATIONS http://names.voa.gov/ By Lee Gimpel Special to The Washington Post Friday, September 30, 2005; A17 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/29/AR2005092901959_pf.html When dark-horse candidate Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won Iran's presidency in June, it raised many questions. But preceding any discussion of the foreign policy implications of the election, the first question on many lips was more basic: how to say the new leader's name. The answer often comes from the Voice of America's online pronunciation guide. Although originally intended solely as an internal tool for VOA's broadcasters, the publicly accessible Web site has found a broader audience. In addition to news bureaus in the United States and abroad, it has won a following at think tanks, at corporations and in higher learning. Average citizens who are curious about the proper pronunciation of names such as al Qaeda and Karol Wojtyla -- Pope John Paul II's given name -- are frequent visitors. Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the database has assumed an important role as Americans try to keep up with the cavalcade of foreign names that have come to dominate the news. "People all around the world use it thousands and thousands of times a day," said Jim Tedder, the broadcaster responsible for the guide. He noted that usage spikes around major world events. The guide is the high-tech successor to a set of handwritten notecards, created in the 1950s, that used the runic symbols of the International Phonetic Alphabet. "You've got a story that's got to get on the air in five minutes. It's being broadcast around the world, it's usually pretty heavy stuff -- it's geopolitical in nature -- and you've got this name that's got 30 letters in it and you haven't a clue how to say it," Tedder said about the need for a reliable guide. The notecards were lifesavers in the broadcast booth, but they were easily lost or misfiled, cumbersome to update, and difficult to share among the network's bureaus and correspondents. An entrepreneurial spark in the slow-moving federal government, Tedder decided to digitize the well-worn cards in 2000, doing the initial work on his own time and coaxing his wife to type some entries. From the start, he wanted the guide to be accessible to the public -- not just VOA broadcasters. To make it easier to use, he traded the phonetic alphabet's cryptic characters, understood by very few people, for a simple phonetic system that uses only standard letters. Tedder also added two-second spoken audio files that are popular with visitors. "You don't have to just read it, you can actually listen to it, so that's convenient," said Kee Malesky, a reference librarian at National Public Radio. "I can play that little bit of audio for our reporters or newscasters if it's not clear to them or a particularly difficult name." Beyond reporting accuracy, getting pronunciations correct assumes additional weight for VOA because it represents the U.S. government to an estimated weekly, worldwide audience of more than 100 million people. "I've always felt that it's important -- particularly for VOA announcers -- to make an attempt to pronounce these names correctly," Tedder said. "Subliminally, you say to the listener, 'One, I've done my homework. Two, I care enough about you to try my best to pronounce the name correctly.' " Tedder's passion belies his roots: The 56-year-old grew up in a time and a place -- Lynchburg, Va. – where "no emphasis was put on pronouncing foreign names at all," he said. Now a guardian of proper pronunciation, Tedder officially splits his time between broadcasting duties and tending the guide, which includes more than 5,300 names of people and places and grows by a few dozen entries a week. Every day, Tedder uses home-grown software to scour news wires for new terms. He then researches a name and records the pronunciation in his third-floor cubicle in VOA's Washington headquarters. Recent entries span the globe, cover peacemakers and terrorists alike, and include such hard-to-say names as Lakshman Kadirgamar, the recently assassinated Sri Lankan foreign minister; Pierre Nkurunziza, the new president of Burundi; and Ahmed Qureia, the Palestinian prime minister. Pronunciation is not a science, which helps explain the various versions of the same name -- from a newscaster, a co-worker or the president. Among its disclaimers, the VOA site notes that while the Pashto language is spoken throughout Afghanistan, pronunciation differs between the north and the south, as is the case with American speech. For people, VOA prefers to say the name as the person says it. Absent the opportunity to ask someone directly, VOA relies on that person's colleagues, speakers of the local language, the country's embassy, the United Nations or outside experts. For place names, VOA relies on geographic dictionaries and other experts. The guide does not try to imitate sounds that English speakers do not use, such as the alternating pitch found in many Asian languages. VOA's guide is unique among pronunciation resources because it is codified, it is public and it includes spoken samples. Many broadcast news organizations, including ABC and CBS, do not have a written guide and rely on frequent, redundant checks with regional or language experts. This is also the case with official communication departments such as the offices of the White House press secretary and the U.N. secretary general. In contrast, the British Broadcasting Corp. and the Associated Press have guides that are much more expansive than VOA's list. The BBC maintains a database of more than 100,000 names. A voice synthesizer can speak listings according to phonetic input. But the resource is available only to the BBC staff. AP distributes written pronunciations to its subscribers but does not make them available to the public and does not provide a searchable database of its thousands of entries. Merriam-Webster's online dictionary provides audio clips for many famous names but does not cover lesser-known people and places. The Internet has given the 63-year-old VOA, which is barred from broadcasting on television or radio in the United States, rare stateside exposure. Americans can visit the network's Web site just as people in Africa or the Middle East can -- and the pronunciation guide gives them one more reason to. "When I first put in on the Web, if we had gotten very little response outside of the house, then probably we would have just kept it as an in-house vehicle and not allowed it to be disseminated in the public," Tedder said. "But it got to be a hit, and if you got a hit, you go ahead and run with it." (c) 2005 The Washington Post Company (via Mike Cooper, DXLD) ** INTERNATIONAL WATERS. "Coalition Maritime", 6125, R. Maklumati, 1620, talks seemingly in Farsi followed by Hindic style Afghan song followed by Arabic at 1630. About S5, 32442 . Thanks to tips in BCDX 729 (Zacharias Liangas, Thessaloniki, Greece, logs in a powerline free day (for 1-10) due to power shortage till 1100 but later QRN was back stopped for one hour and back again..... huh :( using 1103 and PL550 (new), DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** KOREA SOUTH [non]. Some really nasty Korean rap at 1253 Oct 2 on 9650 via Canada, then at 1255 KBS World Radio with much more pleasant musical background, quiz on football (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** KURE ATOLL. Now there are 5 pages of photos of the K7C DXpedition: http://www.cordell.org/htdocs/KURE/KURE_pages/KURE_PICTURES.htm (via 425 DX News via Dave Raycroft, ODXA via DXLD) ** LUXEMBOURG. RADIO LUXEMBOURG ENGLISH SERVICE RE-LAUNCHES The relaunch of the Radio Luxembourg English service took place on the 12th September. It is transmitting in DRM 1000-1800 on 7145 and has a website at http://www.radioluxembourg.co.uk which includes a 32 kbps and a 128 kbps web stream. The launch was announced at IFA by Dan D'Aversa RTL's Vice President of Radio Strategies. The format is classic rock music with The Legend is Back jingles and disc jockeys include Benny Brown and Dave Christian who have worked for the Radio Luxembourg English service before. G8JXA reported in the drmrx.org forums that there was some discussion of Luxembourg's DRM transmission in the September RadCom, the RSGB magazine. In essence - measurements of the "spectrum mask" of the DRM transmission by Amateur operators has shown it to be out of ITU specification and this has been acknowledged by T-Systems in Germany who operate the transmitter. T-Systems has committed to fix the problem, judging by the various recent on air comments by 40M operators T-Systems still has to deliver on their commitment. He continued: "Traditional AM transmitters either use "plate mod" of the final stage or have a linear output stage with "low level" modulation. Personally have always thought that plate modulated transmitters sounded better with less "muddy" audio. So what has this to do with Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM)? Luxembourg is running DRM mode B which is 205 OFDM carriers. DRM OFDM modulation is "low level" modulation with a linear output stage. Any non-linearity in the output stage with show up as "hash" and "phantom" carriers outside of the 10 kHz channel. Filtering will be difficult as you need a flat frequency response across the 10 kHz channel. As amateurs are secondary users of this band it is difficult to complain, however using the band may discourage the broadcasters adopting this band as a "DRM band". Personally like Luxembourg and actually listen to them quiet often, good to see some decent programming on DRM." A further problem in the use of 7145 has been unreliable propagation between the transmitter site at Juelich and the intended reception area of the UK. Reception reports on the drmrx.org forums show that in Kent and St. Albans reception has proved unreliable whereas better results have been obtained in Derbyshire, Lincolnshire and Scotland. Of course just because a signal is digital does not mean that it is immune from periods of poor propagation. Sudden Ionespheric Disturbances particularly affect the low frequency short wave bands and did so for several days in September making reception of Radio Luxembourg DRM in the UK virtually non existent. The DRM mode Luxembourg has been using is 10 kHz bandwidth with parametric stereo, in other words not the full stereo effect. The AAC coding has to use spectral band replication because of the low bandwidth, removing the high frequencies and then recreating them from harmonics of the remaining sound. Some listeners feel this gives an artificial sound with some distortion on high pitched voices and instruments such as violins. The web streams have also had problems, the 32 kbps mono one has been transmitting left channel stereo only making many tracks sound strange and the 128 kbps one has been at times operating with one channel only or with one channel louder than the other. Statistics for the web streams show few listeners, a check on the evening of the 29th showed a total of 18 users but only 3 unique. Comments on the various radio forums show around 75% of listeners are unhappy with the programme format and standard of some of the presenters, it is believed much of the output is voicetracked. Emails to the address on the website get this standard response: "Thank you for the interest you are showing in the re-launch of Radio Luxembourg, we love to get feedback. We are currently using the DRM technology for the re-launch but it is a test phase and a soft launch at the moment. The next big step for us is to help and support the consumer launch of the multimode digital receivers (DRM/DAB/AM/FM) which is scheduled for Christmas 2005 and to continue developing the station in order to go "live" towards the end of 2006. So for the moment we are keeping it low profile. If you should need more info, feel free to contact our station manager; Dan d'Aversa; who is currently abroad but will be back in Luxembourg the first week of October. Best regards, Ruth Skinner" In these days of the Internet it is more difficult to do low profile soft launches of radio stations and technologies; the relaunch of the service was picked up, following the press conference, by the BBC in an article published on their news website, one of the UK's most popular. I will email Mr. D'Aversa and ask whether they intend to add other platforms, such as Sky Digital, when they fully launch. Considering how much impact Radio Luxembourg has had historically on the development of European radio it is to be hoped that the reception problems will be solved and the programming made to be more widely appealing (Mike Barraclough, Oct World DX Club Contact via DXLD) ** MEXICO. 6010, Radio Mil, Mexico City, 01/10, 322, 1128 ranchera music with Rocío Durcal, MA in Spanish with TC + ID: "6 de la mañana con 31 minutos en la capital Mejicana, estan con Radio Mil", more music (Fernando Viloria, Guacara - Carabobo State - Venezuela, Rx: Icom IC-720 transceiver, Antenna: 1/4 wave sloper, Antenna tuner: MFJ - 956 (passive), DX LISTENING DIGEST) Good here around 1230 (gh, DXLD) ** PERU. 3235, Radio Luz y Sonido, Húanuco, 02/10, 322, 0943 MA in Spanish with high speed talks, greetings to listeners, Ad: Comercializadora Súper Económica, TC + ID: "4 de la mañana con 55 minutos; escuchan Radio Luz y Sonido". 4775, Radio Tarma, Tarma, Perú, 01/10, 322, 1016, Andean music, MA in Spanish with announcements, ID: "Radio Tarma AM, La Primerísima", then tropical dancing music (Fernando Viloria, Guacara - Carabobo State - Venezuela, Rx: Icom IC-720 transceiver, Antenna: 1/4 wave sloper, Antenna tuner: MFJ - 956 (passive), DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** PERU. Radio La Voz de la Selva --- Ficha informativa general Nombre: Radio La Voz de la Selva. Iquitos. Perú. Frecuencia: 770 KCls - 5 Kw Onda Media 4825 KCls - 10 Kw Onda Tropical 93.9 Mhz - 500 W FM. Propietarios: Instituto de Promoción Social Amazónica, IPSA, auspiciada por la Iglesia Católica. Fundación: Abril 1972. Objetivos: Ser instrumento para que el pueblo ejerza derecho a expresarse libremente por los medios de comunicación masiva. Dar oportunidad al pueblo de informar y ser informado para ser sujeto crítico y activo. Apoyar al pueblo en sus manifestaciones en una perspectiva de educación popular. Acompañar y apoyar como miembro activo a la Pastoral de Conjunto de la Iglesia Amazónica. Acompañar y apoyar la organización popular. Proporcionar entretenimiento no alienante. Alcance: 500 Km Potencia: O.C. 10 Kw y O.M. 5 Kw Zonas: Casi toda la región de Loreto, varias provincias y localidades como Iquitos, Nauta. Población: 480.000 personas de la Amazonía Horario: Lunes a viernes: 04h50 a 22h10 [+5 = UT: 0950-0310] Sábado: 05h00 a 22h00 [1000-0300 UT] Domingo: 06h00 a 12h00 [1100-1700 UT] (via José Miguel Romero, Burjasot (Valencia), España, dxldyg via DXLD) ** TURKEY. TURKISH PAPER SAYS SECT CONTROLS STATE RELIGIOUS BROADCASTING | Excerpt from column by Yalcin Bayer, "TRT's religious programming controlled by sect", published by report by Turkish daily Hurriyet website on 1 October; subheadings as published We received a letter from a group of clerics with the heading, "What is going on at TRT?" Afterwards, we spoke with some of them. They stated that some odd things started happening with Senol Demiroz' appointment to TRT, and that they continued after he left. They cited some examples: "Last Ramadan broadcasts were made from Istanbul aboard a city ferryboat. Yet in previous years the programmes were presented for public enjoyment from Ankara after qualified people were called in and the programmes prepared beautifully. "It was Adem Ozkan who turned this business into a money spinner. Consequently, all the programming fell into the hands of people known as Nurists. Furthermore, it was a leading figure from the Nurist sect, medical doctor Senai Hodja [religious teacher or mentor], who set up this business. It started out under his instruction and continues in accordance with his orders. You can see the best examples of this on the dates of religious festivals. "In order to understand what is going on better; as you know on these religious festival dates it is TRT's civic duty as a State organization to invite good readers, good choirs and good professional prayer reader. By inviting the choir known as Mehmet Kemiksiz, known by everybody to be associated with the Nurist sect, for almost every religious festival TRT has effectively erased other groups known as moderns and republican and that have been fondly watched for many years in Turkey." All the religious festive dates have effectively been awarded to these people whose only qualification is to be a member of the Nurist sect. In much the same way prayer readers from the same sect are being employed and people who have memorized the Koran are made to recite it." What is going on at TRT? Who is Adem Ozkan? Adem Ozkan is in charge of Religious and Moral Programming at TRT. The second previous person in this post was Asaf Demirbas, a known supporter of Ataturk and a Republican. About 15 years ago he transferred Ozkan to a different department because he did not like his approach to the programme. Once Demirbas retired he was replaced by the "intellectual" Nurallah Karakas. However, when the Justice and Development Party [AKP] came to power Adem Ozkan was given the post of Director of Religious and Moral Programming by fellow townsman (from Kirikkale) State Minister Besir Atalay. Today Ozkan is trying to make the Nurist sect way of thinking the dominant one at a State institution. Senai Hodja was sent to Mecca over the last Hajj with TRT money. The Breakfast prayer in Turkish abolished We read this in Hurriyet. The prayer to break fast in the evenings will no longer be read in Turkish. Instead, the 99 names of Allah will be recited from the Risale-i Nur [Nurist prayerbook] (compiled by Sinai Hodja). How can the Directorate of Religious Affairs turn a blind eye to the scrapping of the "Break Fast Prayer", which Nur Subasi recited free of charge and which was listened to joyfully by all Muslims outside the Arab countries? Is not such a change another blow to the secular republic? Tie and collarless shirts are in The outfits worn by the choir and readers have also been scrapped. Tie and collarless shirts, considered sacred by the Nurists, have been made and have begun to challenge the traditional republic attire. With the absence of any Director General at TRT it is a case of when the cat is away the mice will play. It is a pity that the Directorate of Religious Affairs is for some reason doing nothing about this even though it is aware of it. Prayer in Afyon We do not need to say that TRT religious broadcasts staged a prayer recital in Afyon, the President's home town "so as to win his favour" but that arguments started there, and that earlier on at a prayer recital in Ulucami [Grand Mosque] in Bursa the Nurist clerics turned up in non-regulation attire and recited incomplete prayers, at which the congregation left the mosque. Bardakoglu's home town It is worthy of note that the last religious festival programme took place in the district of Tosya (Kastamonu), which is where Religious Affairs Director Ali Bardakoglu was born, so as to win his heart. Why was this small district chosen when we have so many large and, from the perspective of promoting Turkey, exemplary provinces in Turkey? The answer is easy: In order to stop the Directorate from intervening in the religious unpleasantness, especially with the religious festive programmes, at TRT. Seeds of venom and hatred How is it that TRT, which addresses all elements of society, suddenly fell under the yoke of a religious sect or cult, or how was it that this element of society put down roots in this organization? Being a State institution, TRT must pursue a policy of non-discrimination in religious broadcasting. Discrimination will lead in the future to seeds of "venom and hatred" being sown. The harvest from that will be grave indeed. Source: Hurriyet website, Istanbul, in Turkish 1 Oct 05 (via BBCM via DXLD) ** U S A. Monitoring URBONO on WWL 870, one of the callers (from Illinois) mentioned listening via shortwave. Sure enough, I checked and found WHRI running their WWL relay on 5835. I wish they'd get an accurate schedule for this posted somewhere. The last time I checked, the WWL website only has the 25 and 19 Meter band transmissions listed during the week, nothing on the weekends (Curtis Sadowski, 0816 UT Oct 2, WTFDA via DXLD) Yes, I again noted it after 0500 Oct 2 on 5835 (gh, DXLD) ** U S A. At 6 am I let the dog out and he bolted across the road, so I had to put on clothes to go get him. Now, fully awake, I checked the e-mail and got a tip about WINU 870 being on. Not sure if I heard an ID, but around 6:30 [1030 UT] the DJ, announcing a St. Louis address, had one of the most high-pressured over-the-top $ appeals ever heard by me. Don't worry about sending us (me?) $100, God will supply your need. Since this is a DX list I will stop my theological rant here. But if the station gets some QSL request letters I imagine they will only include 37 cents! (Rev. Jim Renfrew, Byron NY, Oct 1, WTFDA-AM via DXLD) Hi Jim, You had them, they sometimes run an announcement like that. I found something that may help you confirm your reception; here is the website of the organization running WINU: http://www.newlifeevangelisticcenter.org There's no mention of the radio station, but I figured it may be of some help (Curtis Sadowski, Paxton IL, ibid.) Well, now everyone can get a second chance at logging this, it's on again tonight. I believe that it's on accidentally, this station is highly automated outside of regular office hours. Regular sign-offs and sign-ons appear to be set on a timer, which is adjusted at the beginning of each month for local sunsets and sunrises. What I think happened was that the engineer took the timer system off Friday to reset it for October, then once reset forgot to switch it back on. Perhaps he went out of town for the weekend or something. Anyway, it's on and there for the logging. Currently as of 12:55 AM CDT it's running preaching. About one minute to TOH, they go silent, with a station ID at TOH followed by SRN News. Typical program fare consists of contemporary Christian music, which covers everything from country to (would you believe it?) hip-hop. Several IDs of "WINU Shelbyville" are given every hour (Curtis Sadowski, Paxton, Illinois, UT Oct 2, ibid.) If they really cared about being legal, there would be some fail-safe measure to prevent it from broadcasting at night. This one is of more interest than usual, since it interferes with URBONO/WWL (gh, DXLD) ** U S A. Re 5-172, experimental calls: ``Back in the early 90s there was a station in Columbia County FL, near Lake City, with calls KA2XXZ on 107.9 --- they were giving info on everything Disney World for tourists on their way south. Basically it was a 10 to 15-minute loop. The station became WLGD and moved to 107.5 years later, I believe with much the same info. However, I drove thru Lake City a month ago. I think they are off for good now. cd (Christopher S. Dunne, WTFDA via DXLD)`` The full details are included below. I'm surprised Chris didn't mention the one that once was in his own back yard, also included below and of course all archived on my page. 107.5 MHz (TIS) WLGD "Disney Radio", Columbia City; inactive on checks in June, 2001, and does not seem to be listed in the FCC dB any more. Was active since at least early 1993, "Florida's In-car Welcoming Station" with an approximately 15 minute loop promoting the theme park and syndicated weather. Location given as Columbia, Florida (actually Columbia City). Full stereo, signal range was 35-40 miles. Formerly listed with experimental calls KA2XXZ, 250 watts directional. Moved from 107.9 MHz mid-1997 with the activation of WLQH, Chiefland on 107.9 MHz. Used Yagi antenna on 130-foot tower, beaming the signal up the north approach of I-75 from near the I-10/I-75 interchange. Was licensed to Ranch & Grove Holding Corporation. There were other experimental license calls in Florida as well, all now silent: 102.3 MHZ (TIS) WAEM, Miami (downtown); inactive and no longer appears in the FCC license database. Stereo, low-powered, vertically-polarized outlet that began in late 1993. Covered virtually all of Miami-Dade County. Loop in six languages (German, Spanish, English, Kreyol, French and Portuguese) with anti-car attack tips and "Welcome to Greater Miami and the beaches. A message in your language is coming up." Originally used experimental callsign 930513NA. Licensed to the State (of Florida) Department of Management. 106.1 MHz (LPR) WA2XNY, Tampa; stereo. Has gone silent since January, 1999, after previous downtime, format and staffing changes. Will they return before the license expires? When active, covers Hillsborough and most of Pinellas County. Noted by the editor from November 25, 1998 with a format change to nonstop techno noise. According to the October 15-21, 1998 "Creative Loafing" the station ("Rayo 106.1" slogan quoted) is running at 57 watts (licensed for 100 watts) with a 100-foot tower near Ybor City. Programming is driven from a PC, or alternatively, a five-CD changer. Most of the programming work (was) via Alex Torres ("the unofficial General Manager"), "Speedy González" (of WMNF fame) and his son, "Speedy Jr.," that is, prior to the switch to techno music. Initially thought to be an unlicensed operation, this is an experimental broadcaster (airing digital and analog signals), owned by Veltek Industries, Inc. All-Spanish format, with sporadic recorded English identifications first noted in early December, 1997 giving the Experimental class WA2XNY calls and referencing a two-year license (identifications initially were as "WAXNY" only), issued on September 22, 1997. The automated, modern tropicales, merengue, salsa and Latin hot hits format briefly switched to live programming with personalities and promotions -- then with "106.1 FM" or "La Baila" slogans --- until the FCC issued a cease-and-desist order, prohibiting the station from airing commercials and live programming (as per Experimental regulations). (Note: an unidentified station was briefly heard in April, 1997 by the editor with a Spanish format of Latin Miami "techno" music and some tejano ballads, sporadic canned DJ song intro's, though possibly no relation to this entry.) (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 DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** VATICAN [and non]. Sins Of Transmission? By: Alexander Hellemans http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/oct05/1866 VATICAN RADIO'S HIGH-POWER ANTENNAS STAND ACCUSED OF CAUSING CANCER The view is impressive, if strange. A forest of about two dozen huge towers supports an intricate web of antenna wires that together pump many hundreds of kilowatts into the atmosphere from a site 25 kilometers north of Rome. The antennas are the Vatican's portal to the world: signals from two medium-wave transmitters reach all of Italy at all times, while those from 27 shortwave antennas are beamed at selected parts of the world in different languages at varying times. (Only two of the shortwave antennas transmit at any given time.) Thus, papal speeches, news programs, and religious events are dispatched in 40 languages to all the corners of the world, making this complex as important to the Vatican as the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe were to the United States at the height of the Cold War. But to the inhabitants of Cesano and neighboring communities, the antennas, some transmitting at an effective 600 kilowatts, represent not only a blight on the landscape and something of a nuisance-hearing the Pope's voice picked up by your front-door intercom is not always appreciated-but also a possible health threat [see photo, "Radio Spikes"]. When the antennas were erected in 1951 on a 3.9-square-kilometer plot, the surrounding area, known as Santa Maria di Galeria, was still largely rural. But during the last few decades the area has been built up, and now an estimated 60 000 people live within a radius of 10 km of the transmitters. In 2000, a small number of cases of childhood leukemia, first reported by a local physician, were blamed by residents on the strong radio- frequency fields generated by the Vatican antennas. On the one hand, leukemia incidence was higher close to radio towers; on the other hand, the difference was Statistically Insignificant This past May, an Italian court imposed suspended 10-day prison sentences on two Vatican officials responsible for operating the transmitters, a cardinal and a priest, for the "dangerous showering of objects" --- meaning the antennas' electromagnetic waves. (The term "electromagnetic radiation" has not made it yet into Italy's legal vocabulary.) In addition, environmental groups and committees representing the local population will be awarded damages in a separate civil action, though the figures have yet to be determined. Local residents and environmentalists have sought to have the Vatican close down the complex since 2000. Several years ago, an Italian environmental minister, Willer Bordon, organized field strength measurements and found that the Vatican's radio transmitters violated Italy's radiation standards, which are much stricter than those in other parts of the world. He threatened to cut off electric power to the site; in response, Vatican Radio reduced the time it was on the air and transferred some radio transmission to other sites. The Vatican's situation improved in 2002, when courts ruled that the Italian government had no jurisdiction over the transmitters because of the Vatican's status as an independent state. But in 2003, Italy's Supreme Court overturned those rulings, which resulted in the two Vatican officials' having to stand trial [see photo, "Divine Right of Way?"] What does science say? While the complaints against Vatican Radio were bouncing back and forth in the Italian courts, the regional government commissioned an epidemiological study of leukemia incidence in the area around the disputed antennas. A team of researchers led by Paola Michelozzi of the Local Health Authority, in Rome, reported in 2002 that the incidence of childhood leukemia from 1987 to 1998 was twice the expected rate, but the actual numbers were very small. The results, published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, indicated that instead of the expected 3.7 cases in the population of 60 000, there had been eight. Because of the small number, Michelozzi considers the result statistically insignificant. But a somewhat more disconcerting finding in her study made a stronger impression on critics of the Vatican, members of the press, and even some experts. Michelozzi's survey determined that if leukemia incidence was measured in concentric circles around the radio complex, rates dropped off with increasing distance from the transmitters. Based on that finding, a court-appointed expert science panel in the legal proceeding against the Vatican concluded, questionably, that "the weight of evidence ... is much more in favor of the existence of a [cancer] risk" and that it "is in favor of a causal relationship." That assessment, together with the Vatican's violation of Italian power limits, is what prompted the guilty verdict last May against the Vatican officials. Similar studies of populations around radio and television transmitters have been conducted during the past two decades in several countries, including the United States, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and New Zealand. But all these studies are crippled by the very low normal incidence of leukemia, the need to study very large populations, and the technical difficulty of accurately determining actual exposure levels. "The situation has not changed that much. If you look at the string of recent epidemiological studies, they are still equivocal," says Keith Florig, a specialist in risk analysis and radiation protection at Carnegie Mellon University, in Pittsburgh. Florig expressed surprise at the court's ruling in the Vatican case. Others agree that the ruling was premature. "I'm quite concerned about a rush to judgment based on a less-than-adequate understanding of the scientific issues," says Wayne Overbeck, a specialist in the legal aspects of communications at California State University, in Fullerton. (Overbeck, a ham radio operator, takes precautions to avoid exposing himself and other people to excess RF radiation.) Local inhabitants, on the other hand, reacted to the Italian court's finding with jubilation. "We are satisfied; we had to suffer the arrogance of the Vatican for years," one resident told the press. Representatives of Vatican Radio, maintaining that the radiation levels are safe, said that they found the judgment unjust and plan to appeal it. The case of Vatican Radio is but the latest episode in a half-century- long scientific controversy. Last December, a panel of the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP), headquartered in Oberschleissheim, Germany, published a global review of epidemiological studies dealing with the impact on health of electromagnetic waves. The report covered a range of RF sources, including cellphones and communication towers, and one section reviewed eight epidemiological studies of residents living around radio and television transmitters, including Michelozzi's study. The panel found the results inconclusive. "For these studies to be informative, there have to be better exposure assessments, and the numbers [of people in the samples] should be larger," says Anders Ahlbom of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, who led the study. "Even taken together, they don't really suggest any health risks," he says. RF radiation is nonionizing --- that is, it cannot break the bonds in molecules --- and no plausible biophysical mechanism has been proposed that would predict biological effects from low-level fields, except as related to heating. Therefore, many scientists in the field have viewed research on the biological effects of radio waves with some skepticism. Radio frequencies do, however, induce currents in parts of the human body, which can resonate as a half-wave antenna: there is a maximum in the fraction of incident energy that is absorbed in the whole body at 100 megahertz and at 800 MHz in the head --- the latter is close to the 850 and 900 MHz frequencies used for mobile phones in the United States and Europe. Exposure limits, such as those recommended by the IEEE, take that effect into account. In addition to epidemiological studies, researchers are looking at what happens to cultures of human cells (and also of other organisms) when they are exposed to radio waves of intensities that do not produce any significant heating in the material in which the radiation is absorbed. Most useful for risk assessment are standardized animal studies, which are being undertaken in a number of labs around the world. But some researchers are pursuing other areas of investigation, some of which are scientifically controversial. At CNR-IREA, the Italian National Research Council's Institute for Electromagnetic Sensing of the Environment, in Naples, researchers place petri dishes with cell cultures in beams of radio waves and then compare the cells with control samples that have not been irradiated. DNA damage, cell division, oxidative stresses, and the induction of apoptosis (cell death) are some of the effects the small Naples group investigates. So far, however, such studies "do not produce a coherent picture," says Maria Rosaria Scarfi, a researcher at CNR-IREA. Fundamentally, the absence of theoretical models explaining the interaction between electromagnetic fields and biological systems complicates the research, she says. Despite the lack of compelling results, whether the focus is on cellular changes or statistical anomalies found in connection with radio transmitters, high-power lines, or mobile telephony, Ahlbom thinks that research should continue, because RF radiation is so ubiquitous. "So many people are exposed. I think it makes sense to try to investigate as much as possible whether there might be any risks, although the likelihood is against [there being any] risks." In the meantime, the inhabitants of Cesano can, in principle, rest assured that they are in no great danger. "The exposure from the [Vatican] transmitters is much lower than what you receive from ordinary cellphones --- several orders of magnitude lower," says Ahlbom. This does not mean, however, that Cesano residents actually are relaxing or giving up their struggle to close down the Vatican complex altogether. Italy's stricter limits on RF energy exposure, ironically, seem to be have made the public more ill at ease rather than more confident. Though they were intended to provide an extra measure of safety, the limits "actually increased public fears and controversies," concludes Paolo Vecchia of Italy's National Institute of Health, in Rome, and Kenneth R. Foster, a professor of biophysical engineering at the University of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia. Vecchia and Foster believe this is because the public took the stricter Italian limits to be an admission that RF fields really are dangerous in the long run. For this very reason, Vecchia and Foster note in an article they wrote about the Vatican controversy for IEEE Technology and Society in winter 2002, the World Health Organization in Geneva has advised against adoption of overly cautious exposure limits. The organization warns that the credibility of exposure standards is undermined if limits are lowered to levels "that bear no relationship to the established hazards or have inappropriate arbitrary adjustments." --- Alexander Hellemans (via Alokesh Gupta, dxldyg via DXLD) ** VENEZUELA. Radio Amazonas absent at 1031 & 1046 Oct 2, both nominal and "new" frequencies [4940v & 5034v] (Fernando Viloria, Guacara - Carabobo State - Venezuela, Rx: Icom IC-720 transceiver, Antenna: 1/4 wave sloper, Antenna tuner: MFJ - 956 (passive), DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** VENEZUELA [non]. Checking for ``Aló, Presidente`` via Cuba on Sunday Oct 2: at 1400, 13680 signed on with the Cuban national anthem, while there was no signal on 11875, and open carriers on 11670, 13750. At 1402 made nasty remark about Venezuela`s petroleum resources being used for the people of America, not the imperialists (then why is CITGO offering discounts for certain U.S. customers?). At 1403, 13750 was // 13680 as RHC announcer was introducing show, Chávez to be along later, but in the meantime this morning, there would be some RHC programs, such as Mundo Siete, También Somos Jóvenes, and Amigos de Cuba. By 1407, 11670 was modulating but underneath WYFR, still nothing on 11875, and 13750 was // 13680 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) UNIDENTIFIED. On 11566, 5-digit Spanish numbers by YL, at 1312 Oct 2 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ RADIO EQUIPMENT FORUM ++++++++++++++++++++++++ ELECTROSMOG FROM THE VATICAN: q.v. DIGITAL BROADCASTING ++++++++++++++++++++ DRM: See LUXEMBOURG I have NO aversion to digital at all. None. I have DTV and enjoy it a lot. Anyone with eyes can tell you why. I also can say that DTV is not causing interference to other TV stations. I have no doubt that digital does or will sound better than AM analog. I wish they would have implemented digital like FM was in the 40s. A separate band could have been made for it and let stations migrate and have 3 years to keep the digital frequency or the analog AM frequency. Don't tell me it couldn't be done. It could. ``By the time the transition is complete and AM is fully digital - say 10 to 15 years from now - the band will have largely been abandoned by listeners`` Rene, this is the biggest question I have. How can station owners be so shortsighted not to understand that people listen to radio in their cars and that`s about it? If people can't hear much but white noise while in their cars, they are going to flee to XM, Sirius, CDs MP3s or anything else to get away from their stations! I think the manufacturers know this is a massive loser and they are not out to take a huge loss on radios no one wants nor needs. No manufacturer is really pushing this, hell, the stations and iBiquity aren't pushing it. This seems like no one, even iBiquity cares whether or not this succeeds. Business majors in colleges, years from now, will use radio as an example of how NOT to market product when it comes to AM stereo and IBOC, one a failure and the other destined to become a destructive failure. What radio needed was to program things that people like and cover local news and events a lot better. Sounds simple, its kind of expensive to do, but its not so expensive when you think about losing all your audience (Kevin Redding, AZ, Sept 26, ABDX via DXLD) You're right. Of course when FM stereo came along about 1959, it too was not compatible with the equipment that was already out there. BUT --- and this is the big BUT --- FM stereo technology did not degrade FM Mono performance. FM stereo performance did, however, require higher signal strength to maintain the same amount of SINAD (quietness). With HDTV, the HDTV stations are operating on entirely different channels from the old analog TV. So, no problem there. So, why in the name of Marconi did they develop an AM system that would entirely screw up the band and drive listeners away who are listening to analog? It's one of the dumbest concepts I've ever seen in this business. If they wanted current AM stations to have a shot at digital, they should have opened up a new band in the VHF-UHF range, as other countries have done, and given AM's first shot at the new band? It makes more sense. Firstly, it does not interfere with present operations; secondly it eliminates all the daytimer issues, and most importantly, it eliminates skywave issues. Companies could then own AM, FM, and DM (digital modulation) in each market on a scale similar to what is currently in place. Everybody wins: broadcasters, listeners, manufacturers. Even Ibiquity would win by adopting immediately the ultimately planned all digital HD Radio scheme. The problem isn't digital, per se. It's the manner in which this particular digital format was conceived, designed, and is being implemented (Rene` Tetro, PA, ibid.) Another reason why receiver manufacturers are reluctant to join in is because they must license Ibiquity's patents to make IBOC/HD receivers (you can't even homebrew an IBOC/HD receiver without infringing on Ibiquity's patents). Receiver manufacturers aren't going to pay Ibiquity a licensing fee advance until they see whether IBOC/HD is going to make it, and IBOC/HD won't succeed until there are plenty of low-cost receivers available. But Ibiquity can't reduce or waive the patent licensing fees since they are supposed to be the biggest component of Ibiquity's revenue stream (Ibiquity had planned to go the IPO route, don't forget). The technical term for this state of affairs is "being royally screwed." Regarding Ibiquity's "marketing strategy" for IBOC/HD, I've been commenting on that in caustic terms on my "Future of Radio" blog. Ibiquity has essentially told receiver manufacturers and broadcasters that it's up to them to promote/sell IBOC/HD radio to the public; it's not inaccurate to say Ibiquity just doesn't have any marketing strategy for IBOC/HD. It's the classic "our product is virtuous" mistake a lot of engineers, artists, and other creative types often make --- the assumption that, if a product is "excellent," there is no need to market it and customers will find you by themselves. If IBOC/HD is going to have any chance, Ibiquity's investors need to totally shake up its management --- and they need to do so very quickly (Harry Helms W5HLH, Smithville, TX EL19, http://futureofradio.typepad.com/ ibid.) Two words: money and pressure! Firstly, Ibiquity (and its compatriots) has sunk a fortune into this technology. We wouldn't want to see them take a hit, now would we? Hmmm? And maybe hurt broadcast stocks? Dreadful! Secondly, the NAB and our duly elected representatives are pressuring the commission to adopt it. Do you know how big the broadcast lobby is? Lord knows we don't want to offend them! And even worse, we don't want our congressmen and senators to lose all of those campaign contributions from the broadcast lobby, do we? I mean, you don't REALLY believe that the public owns the airwaves anymore, and that licensees are merely caretakers in the public interest? As is always the case - and I hate to sound this cynical, but - FOLLOW THE MONEY! Nudge, Nudge. Wink, Wink. :-) (Rene' Tetro, IRCA via DXLD) Well put, Rene'. I think the real Sinister Plan is to shake out the broadcast industry (to help it compete better with satellite) by forcing consumers to buy expensive new receivers and broadcasters to accept smaller coverage areas. IBOC is a misguided attempt to deal with this medium's decline and ultimate demise. When's the last time anyone got a telegram? Yeah, I do believe that the public rightfully owns the airwaves. The First Amendment applies and anybody should be allowed access to the airwaves as a low-power broadcaster. Our current licensing scheme is like saying that I can't photocopy a hundred fliers because the daily newspaper here has primary coverage. Low power community broadcasting might save radio. It's clearly not viable commercially in the long run (Dave, Highland Park, NJ, Hochfelder, ABDX vi DXLD) I just wish, since AM digital sounds better, that stations would USE it to the fullest benefit it provides. The problem again, is that AM stations are changing to digital, but the talk programming and audio source material and STL delivery is NOT changing. AM stations are shutting off their analog stereo without a second thought, and actually going out of their way to convert their airchains or STLs back to mono --- but then they go out and buy iBOC equipment. iBOC is a stereo digital audio transmission system. Therefore, both technically and programmingwise, AM digital stations are shooting themselves in the foot twice. Once per foot, that is. Again, as a listener, I don't want to spend BuKu bucks for an HD radio receiver to listen to monaural-audio talk radio AM that has a smaller coverage area. It's just not worth it. HD TV *IS* taking off rapidly right now because BOTH the programming AND the technological standards of the source material are being maintained or improved. Prime-time shows and movies are mainly HD now. But HD Radio on AM is *not* analogous to the HDTV scene --- the material being fed into the AM iBOC systems of most stations so equipped is of LOWER quality (overcompressed, narrowband monaural) than what COULD be fed into it. You can't sell a customer on something that is of lower quality than you claim- that's lying. You don't see AM stations getting higher-bitrate satellite feed --- most talkshows sound like the host has phlegm in his/her throat. This is uncalled for, in this day and age where I can get better digital streaming on my home AOL dialup connection (Darwin Long, Thousand Oaks, CA, ABDX via DXLD) IBOC IS LOW-DEFINITION RADIO! St. Louis just lost two more FM DX channels: 90.5 and 90.9. The owners of the IBOC stations are misleading the public, as many corporate broadcasters have done over the last nine years. The claim of "high definition" radio is just the latest misleading statement. We're lucky that St. Louis has only one AM IBOC signal, but we said goodbye to five good DX channels: 820, 830, 840, 860 and 870, even at sunset, back in 2002. On FM, we've lost 92.1, 92.5, 93.5, 93.9, 100.9 and 101.3 to IBOC. It just shows that most corporate radio engineers are having delusions of grandeur with their wasteful IBOC setups. 73, (Eric (N0UIH) Bueneman, Sept 26, IRCA via DXLD) They're the Free Capitalism Club --- they only seem to care about letting the marketplace decide a broadcast standard (like they wrongly did with AM stereo) --- probably because they don't want to be burdened with the decision or regulation associated. They're too busy censoring broadcast content and auctioning spectrum space rather than conducting sound technical policy-making to give the U.S. good audio and video broadcast technologies available to all. Problem is, we U.S. citizens don't have the privilege of voting for who gets into office at the FCC. They're a bunch of politicians who know next to nothing about radio engineering anymore (Darwin, Thousand Oaks, CA, Long, ABDX via DXLD) IBOC's name is fake. On channel? All over them. Fidelity? Unremarkable. Range? Limited. Ruins analog range too. More lies: "We've no right to listen to 'out of contour' stations". Ibiquity claims half AM stations could go dark, unnoticed. Which? Those not paying high HD fees? Sound like a racket? It is, literally and figuratively. HD stations air 'multiple streams'', yellow no doubt. Wasn't problem too many stations? How will knocking analogs off air while adding HD streams fix it? When have consumers been kept in the dark about a good product? Why do H/Doots make stations buy this kluge but not tell the public of its supposed wonders? Because they must first jam the spectrum into ruin, leaving no choice but to buy HD. Millions rely on stations near and far. They aren't DX'ers, don't know the term. They'll lose as will we if HD prevails. Even Radio World can't keep this third-hand colostomy bag of lies from busting open. Write. Forget flaming. Shills love seeing hobbyists fight one another. Divide and conquer. Everyone loses with IBOC except monopolist greedy- guts and posters burping out HD hymns while taunting radio lovers with phony DX brags from decades past. Will undersigned be banned? Who cares. If so, point's been missed. DX'ers will have marginalized themselves to delight of those demonstrating their contempt for radio with voice-tracking, talent layoffs, and digital pseudo-solutions to analog non-problems. 'Our inevitable digital future'? Here's what three/five hundred dollars buys after "Team Icroquity" renders your radios worthless. Sit down. Breathe deeply. Pop a Digitalis. Hot new idea from 'top format expert': "Innovative gutsy approach. Play a Pepsi ad? Flash 'Pepsi on sale' on HD radio screen". Whew! Boy! Wow oh woo! Al Capone would love it. Spare him the bother of burning down the competition. =Z.= (Paul Vincent Zecchino, Manasoso Key, FL BT Sept 27, IRCA via DXLD) Business and technology monthly Business 2.0 reports about HD radio in its latest issue, in an article devoted to "Seven technologies that change everything", by Om Malik et al. See: http://www.business2.com/b2/web/articles/0,17863,1107751,00.html Mr. Om Malik's own Weblog, Gigaom, wonders if "Can HD rescue radio?" See: http://gigaom.com/?s=hd+radio&submit=search 73s (Andy, Milan, Italy, Lawendel, ibid.) Word on the street here in Philly is that KYW, 1060, 50 kW, will be going IBOC within the next couple of weeks. The story is that their shut down last weekend was to make necessary changes at the transmitter site in preparation for the turn on (Rene' F. Tetro, Chief Engineer, Salem Communications - Philadelphia, WNTP-AM/WFIL-AM, Sept 27, IRCA via DXLD Tom Ray, WOR, answers some previous questions from Doug Smith: How big of a problem is "azimuth bandwidth"? . . . Is this a common problem with DAs? [Tom Ray] This is a very common problem either in extremely tight arrays, arrays that were engineered 'just enough' to get the RF pattern in and no more, or older arrays that didn't have the advantage of computer modeling to work these things out. - How critical are the relative levels of the various data carriers, and their levels relative to the analog carrier? (is the analog carrier used at all in the demodulation of the digital signal?) [Tom Ray] WOR has a unique brand of azimuth bandwidth, where, going north on Route 17 in New Jersey, in the null, WOR's upper sideband all but disappears starting just north of Paramus, NJ. [Tom Ray] HD for AM has 2 basic modes of operation. The first mode requires the station to reduce audio bandwidth to 5 kHz (to prevent interference with the data carriers), and the radio has the option of demodulating the upper OR lower sideband, whichever is better at the time. In the second mode of operation, the audio is limited to 8 kHz, but the HD radio must decode both sidebands at all times. This obviously would make the data carrier a bit more fragile. [Tom Ray] In WOR's case, we don't have a problem with HD coverage in the null because the radio can choose one sideband. WE have tried the second mode....our HD coverage goes to hell north of Paramus because of the dual sideband requirement. [Tom Ray] My guess is that, since the radio can receive either sideband for HD detection, it will be an issue but not too much of an issue on a tight array like you describe. The distortion you receive listening in analog is caused by the say the RF vectors add up in the radio, causing audio distortion. The HD signal should be able to overcome this somewhat. [Tom Ray] Yes, there are stations that will need to work on their antennas. But, when AM stereo came along in the '80's, many stations had to work on their antennas to get that to perform, too. A previous post mentioned some stations that can only pass 5-6kHz. Those stations must be hurting puppies, and frankly, their antennas should have been gone through a long time ago. They must sound like hell, and I bet they're not modulating to their full potential due to the VSWR presented to the transmitter, in addition to the IM products being generated by such a narrow bandwidth. TR (NRC-AM via DXLD) Aren't the powers that be, working to change the rules to NTSC 5? I have heard that will work on an average, so it won`t matter if you QRM a station 40 kHz away as long as your averages are right. Know anything about this? NTSC 5 also will allow the IBOC signal to go nights. 73, (Patrick Martin, Seaside OR, ibid.) I have glanced through the NRSC-5 standards, but have yet to study them fully. On my surface reading I don't think this is necessarily the case. The IBOC signal should essentially stop at 15 kHz from the carrier. The mask outside of that is fairly similar to the current NRSC-2 mask, in so far as maximum levels are concerned, and in actuality more restrictive. I just looked at the NRSC-5 Standard for Hybrid Analog-Digital and it looks like this: KHZ From Carrier Max DB below carrier 5-10 -37 (aprox) 10-16 -28 (aprox) 16-25 -65 25-30 -65 (@25k) to -72 (@30k) 30-75 -72 (@30k) to -85 (@75k) Beyond 75 -85 The current NRSC-2 is as follows: KHZ from Carrier Max DB below carrier 10-20 -25 20-30 -35 30-60 -35 (@30k) to -65 (@60k) 60-75 -65 Beyond 75 -80 So you can see that once you get beyond 30 kHz from the carrier it is much more restrictive; while closer to the carrier there are allowances for the digital components. But, here again, the levels are still more restrictive than the current standards. The problem is that, of course, the modulation of the digital component out to 15 kHz is much more dense than is the current analog high frequency splatter, especially above 10khz where NRSC-2 audio stops. If they must adopt the NRSC-5 let's just hope that it is adopted as is, without the idea of leniency you mentioned. And, as you say, the NRSC-5 standard will be the same for day or night operation (Rene' Tetro, ibid.) I would think that there is an additional level of complexity here that was not mentioned. I agree with everything that Rene said about the nulls in the signal being created by the phase difference, causing partial cancellation, when the receiver hears the signal from all towers at once. The position and spacing of the towers, and the way that power (amplitude and phase) is fed to each of the towers, determine how the nulls behave, and the pattern shape. In an ideal system, this would be frequency independent, so that the nulls would lie along the same radial bearings below, on, or above the stations carrier frequency. In such an ideal case the station signal would null completely, in terms of audio response at the receiver, for all transmitted audio bandwidth. In a real system, the antenna's tuning parameters will shift slightly as the input RF frequency is changed. This means that the nulls for sideband energy will vary slightly, compared to the null for the RF carrier. You might drive to a monitoring point, where the carrier is in a deep null, but the null for the sidebands is a couple of degrees of azimuth different, and hear the not-fully-nulled sideband in the same MP. I would imagine that a good way to explain "azimuth bandwidth" would be to say that the antenna's nulls will ideally lie along the same bearing lines for all frequencies, lower SB, carrier and upper SB, if that value is high (flat).. I would think this is only really noticeable on complex, tricky DA's. I know that when I drive down Linebaugh Ave at night I pass through two deep WFLA nulls aimed north (one to Louisville) and the signal turns to complete distortion very briefly, but never disappears. This road is about 2 miles north of the WFLA site. (Anyone know where the other null points? I have to confess, I don't) It would certainly be interesting to make that run with a night HD signal and see how it behaves on a HD radio. A related problem is that the antenna common point might be 50 +j0 at the carrier frequency but becomes reactive as you go up and/or down in frequency and even worse, lose symmetry so that the upper SB behaves differently than the lower sideband does, at the same freq. distance from the carrier. This may be what I have heard called phase bandwidth. To run HD radio, on AM, the station needs to have the antenna bandwidh response made good enough so that the upper and lower carrier pair remain similar in response, and in the hybrid mode, this has to hold true over a somewhat greater frequency range than was needed for analog AM modulation. Another problem is re-radiation from nearby structures which distort the pattern, water towers are a notable offender, and these structures have to be detuned. It sounds like the old WTDY problem was caused by being close to a null where the carrier was way down but the sidebands were not being nulled all that much, probably becoming similar to a double-sideband signal. Sometimes night skywave selective fading will give a very similar effect, when the ionosphere is disturbed. At least that is how I understand it. Comments or corrections appreciated (Bob Foxworth, Tampa, FL, 2205 edt Sept 26, ibid.) I find part of Tom's response instructive, in which he says one IBOC- AM mode doesn't depend on reception of both sidebands - either one will do. In this mode I guess it *wouldn't* be important for the antenna response on the upper and lower carrier sets to be identical. (though I suppose asymmetrical response here would cause problems for the intentional phase cancellation of the digital sidebands in analog receivers) ``It sounds like the old WTDY problem was caused by being close to a null where the carrier was way down but the sidebands were not being nulled all that much, probably becoming similar to a double-sideband signal.`` Yep. And my apartment was on the azimuth to the Austin, Minn. 1480 station, (KAUS) which beat WISM to the air by four months. The stations do protect each other at night. ``Sometimes night skywave selective fading will give a very similar effect, when the ionosphere is disturbed.`` Absolutely. As a kid I used to call it the "Chicago effect". (Chicago stations, notably WLS, were very popular in Milwaukee in the late 1960s. Actually, WGN and WBBM still occasionally show up in the Milwaukee 12+ book. The 90-mile distance between the cities is just about perfect for selective fading...) – (Doug Smith W9WI, Pleasant View (Nashville), TN EM66, http://www.w9wi.com ibid.) Replies to Tom Ray`s post: This was certainly a tight array, protecting KAUS Austin, Minn. Roughly 200 miles away. It was also built at a time when almost nobody lived that far west, so decent coverage of that area was not important. I don't recall any towers being changed with the array upgrade, but they did rebuild the phasing networks from the ground up and I'm sure computer modeling was used. I've seen your pattern, it certainly *is* unusual! This is valuable information. It's long been unclear whether both digital sidebands are necessary for IBOC-AM to work. If they were both necessary, I can assure you WOR wouldn't be the only station to have problems! Being able to use one or the other certainly helps. -- (Doug Smith W9WI, Pleasant View (Nashville), TN EM66, http://www.w9wi.com ibid.) WNEW was enchanting on R-390. Audio tapped at diode feeds '60 Ampex studio pre-amp and couple Knights. Friends assumed FM if not CD. Same today with some Cubans, friends think it's CD, not R. Progreso. Isn't it shameful, listening to 'out of contour' stations? Such forbidden pleasure! La Cosa IBOC will fix that. Bless them. As you say, about money but prior to loving, caring 90's it was held in perspective. Analog's failing? It's clean. HD Jams. Jam competitors into ruin. Straight broadcasters realize it and are speaking out. What will monopolists do once they've wrecked AM? Pronounce it dead? Sell spectrum to a taxi service? Not unprecedented. Honest guys with good products first sell the public. They don't hide from them while coercing distributors. Inevitably greed supersedes good judgement. They take Greedy-gut's fatal overstep and tumble into history's cloaca. As you say, HD can be shut off anytime. Saves on license fees. Greedhogs think of all the angles miss what citizens clearly see. =Z.= (Paul Vincent Zecchino, Manasouno'CD Key, FL BT, IRCA via DXLD) La Cosa IBOC is disappointed re delay in going to 'our inevitable digital future'. Old strategy, works until detected. A citizenry alerted ensures its failure. To make villagers drink only from one's own well, one must first poison theirs. To be caught poisoning is unthinkable. HD noise poisons our spectrum. Does La Cosa IBOC expect us to believe it's necessary to wreck 60 KHz of spectrum for little/no improvement? Admitting the obvious - jamming - is as unthinkable to La Cosa IBOC the way admitting poisoning is to the water thug. Strategy has several names, among them Gaming the system, circumventing the market, cheating. It's doomed inevitably to failure. Citizens know a fourflusher when they smell it. =Z.= (Paul Vincent Zecchino, Manasodawell Key, FL BT, ibid.) Distance reception is no unintended side effect. FCC protects clear channel stations' ability to disseminate information over vast areas. Radio is about distance, original acronym: 'RADIate Out". Why otherwise do they make radios with good sensitivity? For goodness' sake, it's bad enough when shills from La Cosa IBOC come 'round blatting out their lies. Understandable, they either do so or get fired. But why integrate and repeat them? La Cosa IBOC's backdoor tactics are a study in disinformation and lies. Some criminologists are having a field day studying them. Don't know what to do? Tell neighbors and friends about the source of the obnoxious inexcusable noise that is wrecking reception of their favorite stations. If you don't, who will? La Cosa IBOC? Many normal broadcasters say if they radiated IBOC's interference, they'd be cited. Why does La Cosa IBOC get to break the rules? Who greased whom? People depend upon distance reception and care not one whit about DX'ng. They will care when a small claque of monopolycasters uses sneaky tactics and overblown lies to steal free unlimited access radio out from under them. Alert them. It starts with us. Sick of IBOC now? Stay silent. Wait. The fun has yet to begin. Plenty of time to cry later. =Z.= (PVZ MNSVT KY, FL BT, ibid.) Folks, If so many of you are interested in discussing IBOC, here's a list of IBOC discussion groups that was posted here not long ago... Most of them have public archives; you might want to browse them... ------ I took a look at yahoo groups and find these discussion groups about IBOC or digital radio for those who want to continue the discussion ... Mary Anne -------------------------------- drm_iboc_hdradio 5 Members, Archives: Public This group is for discussion on HD Radio, DRM, and other modes of digital broadcasts that are sweeping international broadcasting around the world. Also this group is about discussing technicai aspects of it, and also receivers and broadcasting, and also how to prepare for HD Radio, and DRM broadcast reception. Also how it affects your DXing and what would it do to improve your DX reception capabilities. HD Radio can be a great addition to DXing this summer, but the problem is that its expensive and only in cars. And DRM can be difficult to obtain cause certain receiver can get it and others can't reducing listenership in both worlds. Join us if you have concerns and questions, or need info on this new technology. Founded: Jun 7, 2005 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/drm_iboc_hdradio/ 3 HD-Radio-Engineering 29 Members, Archives: Membership required Forum for radio broadcasters, equipment manufacturers and anybody else dealing with the design and implementation of HD Radio - The technology formerly known as IBOC... - - - - - - HD Radio and the graphical depiction of HD Radio are trademarks of iBiquity Digital Corporation. Founded: Feb 3, 2003 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HD-Radio-Engineering/ 4 no2iboc 14 Members, Archives: Public Is IBOC hash destroying your AM & FM radio listening pleasure? Are you fearful of what IBOC will do to the radio you already listen to, especially local radio? Then you found the right place! We are here to "Just Say `NO' To IBOC!", and to bring radio back to its rightful place as a public resource. Join us now to just say "NO!" to IBOC digital radio! Founded: Feb 14, 2003 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/no2iboc/ 6 amstereoonly 14 Members, Archives: Membership required This group is only for the discussion of AM Stereo, its superiority over digital radio, and it's advantages over AM mono. We DO NOT ALLOW pro-IBOC engineers on this site, as we are very anti-IBOC. Founded: Mar 19, 2004 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/amstereoonly/ 7 sapscafmdxers 5 Members, Archives: Public Welcome to a group for SCA-FM experimentation and secondary audio programming on TV and VCR's and DVD's. Also we discuss proper legal SCA listening techniques and also show awareness of SCA-FM radio signals. Also, this group is for serious radio listeners only and FM DXers to talk about this medium and also learn more about FM radio at its best and what would subcarriers do in the IBOC broadcast sections. Radio Experimenters are welcome. Also we have discussions about RDS (Radio Data System and its capabilities) We welcome everyone here who is interested. Founded: Apr 29, 2005 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sapscafmdxers/ ------ (via Lynn Hollerman, Lafayette, LA, IRCA list moderator via DXLD) This discussion isn't about that 4-letter word starting with "I", it's about noise --- yeah, that's the ticket. :-) I agree with Bob and Chuck. The digital signal is practically indistinguishable from broadband noise. It has a flat spectrum, and no temporal characteristics (such as a pulse-type waveform) that could be used for a noise blanker kind of approach. The best bet is antenna nulling, but if lots of stations have digital sidebands, there's way too much to null --- it's like your noise floor went way up, and it's game over. (Barry McLarnon, VE3JF Ottawa, ON, IRCA via DXLD) I can't conceive of a filter that would work on IBOC (on adjacent channels). Since the passband of the IBOC information is 8-15khz removed from the carrier, there is really no way that I know of to filter out IBOC data on, say, 620 from an IBOC station on 610. I've tried it on several receivers like my Watkins-Johnson HF-1000 whose DSP is capable of some pretty narrow bandwidths; same on my TS2000 and IC781 with their RIT and notching (Rene Tetro, ibid.) Indeed, write your sworn representatives. Entreat such of family, friends, neighbors, total strangers met in places which we can not discuss. But in the long run, IBOC is already dead, its head, called cash flow, removed prematurely by the mindless horde of ill kept consumers, unappreciative -- indeed, unaware -- of the doubtless though not apparent advantages. It will just take a while for the hissing viper of a radio like thing to know of its own demise, but soon enough it will succumb... And besides, activism is an American thing, except possibly for those too tired to care, who forget how they came to be so comfortable (W. Curt Deegan Boca Raton, (Southeast) Florida, IRCA via DXLD) PROPAGATION +++++++++++ ARNIE CORO'S DXERS UNLIMITED HF PROPAGATION UPDATE AND FORECAST I am Arnie Coro, radio amateur CO2KK giving you a warm welcome to the weekend edition of Dxers Unlimited that is reaching you as our good friend the SUN, 93 million miles away from us seems to be taking a break from the recent period of high activity. The optical sunspot count is now way down, less than fifteen, and for all practical purposes observers describe today's solar disk as practically blank. But nowadays scientists are able to watch what's happening on the farside of the Sun, and there, thanks to the sophisticated heliosysmic techniques, they are watching an old friend, sunspot active region 798, that generated lots of aurora borealis activity and geomagnetic disturbances during the months of August and September. So, based on these observations, I can tell you that Long Wave, AM Medium wave and the Tropical Broadcast bands will be under almost ideal propagation conditions, with very little ionospheric absorption. For radio amateurs this very low solar activity and the non presence of high speed solar wind gusts means that the 160 and 80 meter bands will be an ideal playground for working DX from local sunset to local sunrise. And now as always at the end of the show, when I am here in Havana, please get ready to copy Arnie Coro's Dxers Unlimited HF propagation update and forecast, including the special Low Band VHF report too. SOLAR ACTIVITY is at a very low level. The number of sunspots below 15, and the 2800 megaHertz solar flux is almost exactly at baseline reference level; the last reading I had access to was 72 units. No geomagnetic disturbances are expected, so, the combination of very low solar activity, the equinoctial period and low speed solar wind add up for the best propagation conditions for Long Wave, Medium Wave and Tropical Band Dxing. For amateur radio operators, transequatorial propagation on the 6 meter band is now in full swing, and those living in the Caribbean may even see two meter band openings to South America during the next several days (Dxers Unlimited's weekend edition 1-2 October 2005 by Arnie Coro radio amateur CO2KK, ODXA via DXLD) SOLAR ECLIPSE OCT. 3 FOR EUROPE, ASIA, AFRICA (Could be some unusual propagation effects) By Joe Rao, SPACE.com Skywatching Columnist, 30 September 2005 If you plan to be anywhere in Europe, Africa or parts of western and southern Asia on Monday, Oct. 3, you will be treated to a solar eclipse. This will be an annular or ring eclipse of the Sun, so called because the Moon's disk will appear too small to completely cover the Sun's disk. This circumstance is due to the fact that the Moon will be a bit farther from Earth than average; in essence, this is really nothing more than a fancy partial eclipse. The panoply of striking phenomena seen during a total eclipse such as the solar corona and prominences and the dramatic darkening of the sky accompanied by the appearance of some of the brighter stars and planets, will not be seen. Rather, at maximum, sky watchers will see a "penny atop a nickel" effect, with the Sun mimicking a blazing ring of light rimming the dark silhouette of the Moon (creating the so-called "annulus" or ring effect). The path of annularity averages 118 miles/189 kilometers in width. After touching down in the open waters of the north Atlantic roughly a thousand miles east of Newfoundland, the path will head in an east- southeast direction, making landfall in northwestern Iberia, near to the border shared by Portugal and Spain. The citizens of Vigo, Spain and Braga, Portugal will be among the first to see the ringed Sun, while Porto, Portugal finds itself just outside the southern limit of the path. Keep in mind however, that in Portugal, maximum eclipse comes at around 9:53 a.m. WEST (Western European Summer Time). Spain, however, follows CEST (Central European Summer Time), which runs an hour later, so clocks there will read 10:53 a.m. [0853 UT] Vacationers in Madrid on this day, will have the track of the so- called "negative shadow" or "anti-umbra" of the Moon passing directly over this metropolis of nearly four million resulting in the Sun mimicking a spectacular "ring of fire" for 4 minutes 11 seconds beginning at 10:56 a.m. CEST. Valencia, also within the track, will be treated to 3 minutes 38 seconds of annularity beginning just after 11:00 a.m. CEST. The path then crosses the Mediterranean Sea, passing over Ibiza, the southwesternmost of the three Balearic Islands, and then sweeps south and east across northern and eastern Africa, affecting parts of Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Chad, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia. The path will come to an end over the central Indian Ocean. It is over central Sudan that the annular eclipse reaches its maximum: the apparent diameter of the Moon's disk appearing just 4.2 percent smaller than that of the Sun. Here, the duration of annularity will last 4 minutes 31.6 seconds. http://www.space.com/spacewatch/050930_solar_eclipse.html (via Mike Terry, dxldyg via DXLD) ###