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Fair editing of DX info
"Radio Mañantial on 5773.7 kHz. Radio Mañantial, broadcasting from Jaén
in
Cajamarca, is a new Peruvian station heard on 5773.7 kHz. The station
carries Christian religious
programs. It has been heard on February 4, at 1115, by American DXer Jay
Novello. He reports this ID: "Desde la villa acogedora de la ... de
Jaén, tierra de los bravos Pachamuros, región nororiental del Marañon,
surge una voz valiente y detenida al servicio del ministerio
evangelístico, la patria y la cultura. Es Radio Mañantial, la voz del
nororiente peruano, en su frecuencia de los 5.700.7 MHz, en onda corta,
en la banda internacional de los 49 metros. Transmite Radio Mañantial,
llegando a todos los pueblos más lejanos de nuestro territorio patrio.
... interdenominacionales, música cristiana, reportajes, mensajes
musicales, Radio Mañantial, la voz
del nororiente peruano". Novello adds in his report to DX Window
newsletter, which can be found at this web site: -- I heard the station
with very strong signal this morning, as well as other Latin American
stations."
The preceding text comes from the Nordicdx web site,
http://www.nordicdx.com, and is a good example of the kind of editing
you will find there. Comparing the quotation to the original (see
below), one finds that the editor gives me no credit as the original
reporter does, and also that he thinks he has come up with an error in
the logging as he tries to"improve" the station name leaving it as
"Mañantial", i.e. with a tilde. (Please refer to a dictionary for the
exact meaning of the word "Manantial"). Finally, he considers that the
tentative QTH should be labeled as definite.
The item was originally reported as follows by Novello:
"PERU. 5773.72, R. Manantial, Jaen, Cajamarca (tent. location), 1035,
Feb 4, new stn with Christian religious format. Local songs with
"Jesucristo" and "Aleluya" lyrics, long religious discussion between
M&W, occasional echoey male DJ. ID at 1116: "Desde la villa acogedora
de la .. . de Jaen, tierra de los bravos pachamuros, Region Nororiental
del Maranon, surge una voz valiente y detenida al servicio del
ministerio evangelistico, la patria y la cultura. Es R. Manantial, la
Voz del Nororiente Peruano, en su frecuencia de los 5770.7 MHz, en onda
corta, en la banda internacional de los 49 metros. Transmite R.
Manantial, llegando a todos los pueblos mas lejanos de nuestro
territorio patrio. . . .interdenominacionales, musica cristiana,
reportajes, mensajes musicales, R. Manantial, la Voz del Nororiente
Peruano." I managed to get about 2/3 of that, and many tnx to Henrik
Klemetz for repairing my phonetic transcription and filling in the gaps
(including the stn name itself). Very strong signal this morning."
Nordicdx Web Editor has made it a point to tamper with loggings,
especially of orginated by myself. That is actually what he has been
doing for quite some time now, extracting info from NU and other
intermediate sources without giving me due credit. Earlier he had been
using my info (always without due permission) for his country listings
on the Nordic web page, sometimes managing to create a real pele mele of
items already to be found in other bulletins or on the "Dateline Bogotá"
website, http://algonet.se/~ahk/dateline.html, created and managed by
Anders Hultqvist, former editor of Sweden´s Shortwave Bulletin.
In an e-mail to Hermod I told him that I´d rather see my info dropped
from his fqy listings rather than receiving unfair treatment. I also
told him that I might stop reporting altogether to any source, should he
persist in his particular way of editing of my info. That was in Aug or
Sept of last year. No answer has been forthcoming up till now, when
Hermod Pedersen, joining Don Moore, says that there can be no such thing
as a copyright.
I would agree that there is no such thing as objective info, but there
are lots of incomplete and erroneous info about, some of which
eventually gets solved. Such contributions to the enlightenment of the
DXing community, whether submitted by myself or someone else, should be
credited fairly without too much editing. If an info is labeled
"copyright" you can generally use it if you ask the original source for
permission. Most bulletins publishing my info have accepted not to
reedit my entries. This has been working fine in most instances, except
in the case of two electronic news media, one of them being the Nordicdx
web page.
Sometimes it pays to look behind the scene to see how the whole thing
started. This is what
happened in the Manantial case.
On Feb. 4, Jay Novello sent me the following e-mail:
"Greetings Henrik,
If by chance you're around, please have a listen to this clip of a
Peruvian on 5773.72, noted the last two evenings and the last two
mornings. Here's what I can get from the ID: Desde la ... region
oriental de Maranon... al servicio del ministerio...patria y la
cultura.... es Radio Panancial, la punta ... nororiente Peruano. En la
frecuencia de cinco mil setesientos punto siete megahertz ... en la
banda internacional de los 49 metros. Transmite Radio Panancial.
Llegando a todos pueblos mas pecano de nuestro territorio patrio
....internacionales, musica Cristiana, reportajes, ....musicales. Radio
Panancial, la voz nororiente Peruno.
The name of the station doesn't make any sense to me -- I've printed it
as is sounds phonetically to me. I sampled this directly off the air at
1116. I have about 45 minutes of its programming on tape to review.
Thanks in advance for your time and insight. 73, Jay"
I listened to the tape, identified the new station, and sent a corrected
transcription (see above) of the ID for Jay to publish. This he did,
including due credit. True, I did not discover the station - I haven´t
even logged it - but I did come up with a definite ID even if I was
using nothing more than a RealAudio clip on Internet. And so this info
subsequently hit the first page on the Nordicdx web page, hypercorrected
and all.
You often notice similarly biased reports in printed bulletins and on
the air (Glenn Hauser´s "World of Radio" is an exception). Sometimes
someone (and I am of course not talking only of myself) will get the
credit for some totally wrong info, especially if two or more reports
are joined together in and edited version. I could discuss many such
example, but I don´t think it´s worth the while. Why argue with a
professional journalist who makes a mess of a single name when copying
it from a written source? The error is no typo: you don´t change n into
ñ unless you firmly believe it must be that way. And why argue with a
language teacher, acclaimed as an LA Specialist, when he asserts having
heard ads and station identifications from a Brazilian station, also a
three-syllable word as with the Peruvian, and then goes on to pronounce
it in a most irrecognizable way? Such things do not precisely work out
for the benefit of the DXing community.
Henrik Klemetz
DXer, occasional teacher and journalist
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