[HCDX]: DX Listening Digest 00-27 Feb 19

[Glenn Hauser <wghauser@xxxxxxxxx>]

	DX LISTENING DIGEST 00-27, February 19, 2000
		edited by Glenn Hauser

WORLD OF RADIO ON WWCR: Hello GH, 9475 World of Radio via WWCR 
suffers from new V. of Russia Spanish service to SWEu/Spain on 
superpower 9480, S=9+60 dB. 9475 only S=2 here in EUR. Tried to hear 
WoR opening Thursday at 2130, but gave up. Even my best Collins 2.3 
kHz filter is powerless. So let`s hope for the scheduled freq change 
from 9475 to 15685 on March 2nd (Wolfgang Bueschel, Germany, Feb 17) 

MUNDO RADIAL ON THE WEB. Hi Glenn, Just a note to let you know that 
I've uploaded the last three Mundos Radiales to your site on 
freespeech. Funny thing tho, you must use the address 
http://www.freespeech.org/hauser/index.html to get the updated index 
page. If you don't use the "slash index.html," you get an old version 
of the page without the new links. Very strange! (Joe Bernard, RFPI, 
Feb 19)

** AFGHANISTAN. Radio Kabul have changed frequency from 7002 to 7073  
and its programmes too, heard 14.35 and was still on the air at 
17.50. No English and Urdu program has been heard at that time but it 
would be interesting to note that there was less religious talk and 
songs; instead there was talk on Islamic Conference and  half an hour 
talk on Kashmir. Time pips every half hour then ID as Afghanistan 
.......  Kabul just before news bulletin in its different programmes 
and at no moment the word Shariah has been mentioned; also from time 
to time the station has been jammed (by whom ?) 19 February 2000
(Mahendra Vaghjee, Mauritius, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** AFGHANISTAN. May be it`s obvious for most of us, but the recent 
move of Kabul based Voice of Sharia to v7002 kHz might be connected 
to the activities of opposition voice Radio Takhar on v7000 kHz. So, 
take care when trying to identify which of the Afghan voices you 
actually hear ;-) As it seems, Kabul authorities take Radio Takhar 
quite serious. vy73 (Harald Kuhl, Germany, Feb 19, hard-core-dx via 
DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** AUSTRALIA. The draft legislation setting up a licensing regime for 
international broadcasters to transmit from Australia (and designed 
primarily for the Darwin site) has been referred to a Senate 
committee for further scrutiny. The Broadcasting Services Amendment 
Bill (No.4) 1999 will be studied by the Senate's Foreign Affairs, 
Defence and Trade Legislation Committee. The committee will present 
its final report by 4 April 2000. The committee's inquiry will focus 
on the powers conferred on the Minister for Foreign Affairs under the 
Bill. (Basically, the Bill gives the Minister to approve or decline 
international broadcasting licenses on national interest grounds.) 
Submissions can be made to the Committee by 6 March 2000. Public 
hearings may be held as part of the inquiry. For more information, 
contact the Secretary, Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade 
Legislation Committee, Parliament House, Canberra, ACT 2600. Phone 
(02) 6277 3535. Fax (02) 6277 5818. Email fadt.sen@xxxxxxxxxx (Matt 
Francis, Australia, Feb 19, via Tim Gaynor, swl@xxxxxxx via DX 
LISTENING DIGEST) 

** COSTA RICA. After several weeks off, RFPI Mailbag returned Feb 18, 
with James Latham and Joe Bernard. VISTA is in preparation and 
expected to be in FORFPI mailboxes as close to March 1 as possible. 
With James Latham back, Global Community Forum resumes Feb 24, new 
season with guests, call-ins, Far-Right Radio Reviews (the live time 
is UT Fridays 0200-0300), and Millennium Dreams will also return. 
http://www.rfpi.org is again being updated daily, including 
Progressive News Network. RFPI streaming via SW pickup in Maryland is 
best at night when 6975 is on. By April, hope to have digital line 
installed to feed studio quality RFPI audio direct to Charlie 
Wilkinson (notes by Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** EQUATORIAL GUINEA. A technical delegation from PR China visited 
this country to advise the government on improving transmissions of 
R. Nacional de Guinea Ecuatorial (4926 and 5005v from Bata with 50 
kW, and 6250v 10 kW from Malabo), as well as on their studios and 
links between the capital Bata and Malabo, the second most important 
city. Also a new transmitting centre of 400 [sic] square meters will 
be built to improve quality of low and high frequency transmissions. 
Source: newscast on R. Bata, Estacion Continental, 5003.5, at 0600 UT 
Feb 7 (Santiago San Gil, Venezuela, Banda Tropical, Club Diexistas de 
la Amistad translated by gh for DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** ISRAEL. Sharansky increases daylight saving time
By Haim Shapiro and Nina Gilbert

JERUSALEM (February 17) - In a move which could arouse the opposition 
of the religious public, Interior Minister Natan Sharansky yesterday 
announced that daylight saving time this year is to last a record 191 
days. But in an apparent effort to deflect religious opposition, 
Sharansky said he based his decision on a supreme Jewish religious 
principle, pikuah nefesh, the saving of life. 

In addition, he linked the dates to the religious calendar, with 
daylight saving time to start on the first day of Pessah, when Jews 
stop saying the prayer for rain and begin saying the prayer for dew, 
and to end on Shmini Atzeret, when the prayer for rain is resumed. 
In fact, daylight saving time is to begin on Thursday night, April 
14, almost a week before Pessah, but that is because the date was 
fixed in advance and the interior minister by law must set the date 
at least six months in advance. However, it is to end on Sunday, 
October 22, Shmini Atzeret... (Jersualem Post Feb 17 via Bill 
Westenhaver) 

This of course, always has a bearing on SW broadcasts from Israel 
shifting one UT hour earlier (DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** LIBERIA. Glenn, On Feb 19th I did hear ELWA Liberia on 4760 with a 
solid ID. Sign on was right at 0600 UT. Signal was fair (better at 
times, it faded up and down), but the modulation seemed weak ?? Yes, 
more of that same "old" programming . Regards, (David Zantow, 
Janesville, WI, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** MEXICO. Radio Educación, 6185 KHz tiene un programa llamado ENTRE 
MEDIOS, donde leen los informes de recepción de oyentes de diferentes 
paises y también tiene un segmento dx denominado ESPACIO - DIEXISTA. 
Captado el Sabado 12/02/00 a las 08:40 - UTC con una entrevista desde 
Coahuila con el diexista Leopoldo Lemus. Ofrecen una linea telefónica 
para llamadas al programa al numero: 5-575177. ¡Confirman con QSL y 
envian un banderin!. (Jorge Garcia Rangel, Banda Tropical, Club 
Diexistas de la Amistad, Venezuela via DX LISTENING DIGEST) 

** NETHERLANDS [non]. Why the hell is there a bubble jammer on 9790 
in the 0900-1100 UT timeframe? I never noticed this before Feb 17, 
when I awoke in the middle of the night and tried to listen to RN. I 
realize this is not targeted to here, but it often has a good signal 
(at least listenable) for the 0930-1030 hour at least and I normally 
listen then to the first airing of Media Network or other RN programs 
on other days. But today, especially annoying because the RN signal 
was strong and otherwise clear, this damn bubble jammer was 
dominating the frequency. Surely no jamming nation cares about RN in 
English! Did some other broadcast suddenly begin on 9790 somewhere 
else in the world, something that has inspired this jamming, which 
then has the side effect of screwing up RN? God, I hope this is a 
one-time frequency punch-up error or something like that on the part 
of the jammer. If it is not, and continues, I hope that RN will have 
the sense to change off 9790 to some other 9 MHz frequency for this 
broadcast right away, and not wait for the next seasonal change. 
After all, 9790 is not listed in the printed ``On Target`` anyway, 
having been a change from the original 9820, so there is no real 
reason for RN not to shift to avoid the jammer. I wonder what the 
jamming effect is in the target area; I hope that it is bad enough 
that it forces RN to change frequencies right away (if it continues). 
(Will Martin, St Louis MO, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** NETHERLANDS. On this week`s Media Network, Jonathan Marks remarked 
that for the new A-00 schedule, starting last Sunday in March, 
Newsline would become a half-hour programme. This would seem to imply 
that all the features including Media Network would become less than 
half an hour, unless the 55-minute blocks are being changed as well 
(Glenn Hauser, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** OKLAHOMA. Public radio KOSU-FM, 91.7, Stillwater, has a new less 
neglected website, http://www.kosu.org which according to station 
news therein was opened Jan 1. The previous site was at an URL I 
could never remember involving ``okstate`` since Ohio State got to 
``osu`` first. Now even offers streaming via Media Player and 
RealPlauer. Check the program schedule in case KOSU offers anything 
otherwise unavailable to you or at a more convenient time. BTW, 
classical KCSC-FM 90.1 Edmond/OKC has now started RP streaming as 
well; see http://www.kcscfm.com (Glenn Hauser, Enid, DX LISTENING 
DIGEST)

** U K O G B A N I. I also heard the edition of "Write On" that Tim 
Hendel referred to. If I am not mistaken, the person to whom he 
refers is Penny Turek, who is the Head of the English Network for the 
World Service. I agree with Tim that what she said was rather hard to 
understand. But I *think* that the gist of it is as follows. BBCWS is 
dropping "The Farming World" because it wants to incorporate farming 
stories into the "One Planet" programme. This in turn is due to the 
fact that management wants to broaden the listenership of the 
programme, and thinks that this can best be done by putting it under 
the "umbrella" of a more general interest programme. My 
interpretation of that? BBCWS wants to broaden and increase its 
listenership, and thus is reducing and eliminate some speciality/ 
niche programmes (e.g. "The Farming World", "Anything Goes", etc.). 
The thinking is that a series of general interest, broadly based 
programmes will attract listeners more than a series of discrete, 
specialised programmes. The CBC has taken the same approach to radio 
programmes here in Canada. 73, (Peter Bowen, Toronto, Canada 
swprograms via DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U K O G B A N I. From the March edition of BBC On-Air:

"April will see the final step in a three year project to organise 
BBCWS programmes to suit the local time in most parts of the world 
and end the six monthly programme changes that listeners find so 
confusing. The process started with the introduction of "The World 
Today" as a breakfast time news programme for Europe, Africa and 
Asia. [In April] the rest of the news programmes will be arranged so 
that wherever you are listening you can get a comprehensive briefing 
in the early morning, at lunchtime and in the evening.

"Science, features, music and all the other programmes that make up 
the full BBCWS menu will also be easier to find. They will be grouped 
in two or three hour blocks in the mornings, afternoons and evenings
scheduled consistently so that, for instance, the arts programmes are
always at the same times across the week. There will be some 
newcomers and some programmes dealing with similar topics will be 
amalgamated to cover a broader range. Overall the aim is to make sure 
that the maximum number of people get the chance to hear everything 
the BBCWS has to offer at the right time of day."

Details will be available in the April "On-Air" which will be mailed 
to subscribers on March 8. (John Figliozzi, swprograms)

** U S A. WBCQ`s new pair of Saturday night music shows are 
apparently an hour later than given in DXLD 00-25, according to the 
TimTron substituting for Allan Weiner Worldwide UT Sat Feb 19 at 
0100. At 10-11 pm EST (UT Sun 0300-0400), Doctor X with Hear Now; at 
11 pm-midnight (UT Sun 0400-0500) Bitter Sweet with Le Bon Bon Club. 
Both are supposed to feature ``independent music, and interviews``, 
on WBCQ-1 7415. Also said the the 5 pm to 2 am block (weeknights 
only? 2200-0700 UT) MAY have been sold on WBCQ-2 which still plans to 
start 9340-CUSB Feb 21 at 1300, for M-F 1300-2200 religious 
broadcasts. Allan and Elayne are on vacation near Melbourne, Florida, 
escaping the minus 20 temps at WBCQ (notes by Glenn Hauser, DX 
LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A [and non]. The Voice of America is trying to cope with the 
coming loss of 51 broadcasting jobs, the result of a review of VOA 
language services by the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the highest 
authority of U.S. international broadcasting. The scheduled 
broadcasts of nine VOA European language services will be eliminated 
or reduced on March 26th, the weekend Europe changes to summer time. 
Some of the VOA European services will become multimedia Internet and 
affiliate feed services. I hope to have some details about that next 
week.

Reductions and changes to VOA East Asian language services will take 
place April second, the weekend of our change to daylight savings, or 
summer, time here in the United States. I will list all of the East 
Asia and European language service changes in the script for today's 
program at the Communications World web site. [See below.]

To give you an idea of how severe these cuts are, of the 59 
broadcasting positions in the VOA Czech, Hungarian, Latvian, 
Lithuanian, Polish, and Slovene services, only fifteen will remain in 
a new, combined, multimedia unit. VOA Polish will be reduced from 
fifteen to three staff members, VOA Hungarian from fourteen to three. 
Mind you, Radio Free Europe already closed its Polish and Hungarian 
services, so the entirety of U.S. international broadcasting in the 
two languages will be three broadcasters each.

The Broadcasting Board's language review was guided largely by 
audience research data. As the domestic media in a target country 
become freer and more diverse, the incentive to tune to foreign 
broadcasts is much reduced, and audience numbers plummet. This, 
apparently, is what has happened in six formerly communist countries 
of Europe.

[Some affected VOA employees have set up a web site protesting the 
reductions: http://members.aol.com/savevoa/index.htm]

Amid these cuts, one VOA language service is expanding. VOA Uzbek, 
which was 1500-1530 daily and 1530-1545 Saturday and Sunday only, 
changes to 15 to 1545 daily as of Monday. The frequencies are 9745 
via Kavala and 11740 and 11850 via Morocco. Democracy and press 
freedom have not flourished in Uzbekistan. U.S. State Department 
spokesman James Rubin described the January ninth presidential 
elections in Uzbekistan as "neither free nor fair." U.S. funded Radio 
Free Europe/Radio Liberty, based in Prague, continues broadcasting 
four hours per day in Uzbek. All U.S. broadcasts in the language are 
transmitted on shortwave as rebroadcasting opportunities to not 
presently exist in Uzbekistan.

RFE/RL is also required by the Broadcasting Board of Governors to 
reduce some of its services as a result of BBG language review. 
RFE/RL has not yet made a statement about cuts, but a memo 
distributed last week to VOA employees about the reductions included 
the information that RFE/RL will reduce its output in Bulgarian, 
Romanian, and Serbo-Croatian, convert its Estonian from a feed 
service to an Internet service, and end its medium wave service in 
Slovakia. Indeed the Slovak newspaper Sme, via BBC Monitoring, 
reported that the RFE medium wave frequency in Slovakia, 1287 
kilohertz, will be available in June.

At RFE/RL, attention continues to be focused on the fate of that 
station's correspondent Andrei Babitsky. Mr. Babitsky, a Russian 
citizen, reported on the war in Chechnya until he disappeared on 
January 15th. On January 28th, Russia said he was traded to the 
Chechen rebels for three Russian prisoners of war. Since then, he has 
not been in contact with his wife or colleagues at RFE/RL. On 
Tuesday, RFE/RL president Thomas Dine said he will support efforts of 
Mr. Babitsky's wife to press the Russian government to provide 
information about the reporter's whereabouts. And this via BBC 
Monitoring: On Thursday, an aide to Russian acting president Valdimir 
Putin, interviewed in a Russian newpaper, said that RFE/RL has been 
exploiting the Babitsky case to raise the station's profile. [See the 
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty web site for updates on the Babitsky 
story.]

The following VOA language cuts are to be effective with the European 
Time Change Sunday, March 26, 2000, Daily u.o.s.:

CANCEL Polish 0500-0545 UTC 
CANCEL Polish 2200-2300 UTC 
CANCEL Hungarian 1400-1415 UTC 
CANCEL Hungarian 1500-1515 UTC 
CANCEL Hungarian 1600-1615 UTC 
CANCEL Hungarian 2000-2030 UTC 
CANCEL Czech 2000-2030 UTC 
CANCEL Czech 0430-0500 UTC 
CANCEL Latvian 1530-1545 UTC M-F
CANCEL Latvian 0445-0500 UTC M-F 
CANCEL Lithuanian 0400-0415 UTC M-F 
CANCEL Slovene 1730-1745 UTC M-F
CANCEL Albanian 1400-1415 UTC
CANCEL Croatian 1830-1900 UTC
CANCEL Serbian 0430-0500 UTC 

The following program changes are to be effective with the Eastern 
Time Change Sunday, April 2, 2000:

CANCEL Khmer 1430-1500 UTC Daily
CANCEL Lao 1300-1330 UTC Daily
CANCEL Burmese 1200-1230 UTC Daily
CANCEL Vietnamese 1230-1300 UTC Daily
INSERT Burmese 1430-1500 UTC Daily

INSERT Bangkok MW for Vietnamese 1300-1330 UTC Daily (cancelled from 
Lao 1300-1330 UTC above)

INSERT Bangkok MW for Burmese 1430-1500 UTC Daily (cancelled from 
Khmer 1430-1500 UTC above) (Kim Elliott, VOA COMMUNICATIONS WORLD Feb 
19 via John Norfolk, OKCOK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. Answering my question about Sunday 1200-1400 on AFN: Tom 
Joyner: ABC syndicated radio show.. urban.. real feed also.. 
goradio.com has all the abc stations and shows in Real Audio. Was the 
fly jock.. did mornings in Dallas.. flew to Chicago did afternoons.. 
several years back.. mainly located in Dallas. (Lou Josephs, DX 
LISTENING DIGEST)

** VENEZUELA: Esta es la lista de emisoras venezolanas que operan en 
onda corta para el mes de Febrero del 2000 según frecuencias y 
horarios UTC: 

4830 Khz Radio Táchira, San Cristóbal, Edo. TáChira. (10 Kws.). 10:00 
a 14:00 UTC y 21:00 a - 04:00 UTC. Confirma con QSL. 

4940 KHz Radio Valera, Valera, Edo. Trujillo. - (1 Kw.) Emite 
irregularmente. 

4940 KHz Radio Amazonas, Puerto Ayacucho, Edo. Amazonas. (1 Kw.). 
09:00 a 04:00 UTC. 

4980 KHz Radio Ecos del Torbes, San Cristobal, - Edo. Tachira. (10 
Kws.) 09:00 a 04:00 UTC. Confirma con QSL. 

5000 KHz Estación YVTO Observatorio Naval Cagigal, Caracas. Estación 
Utilitaria: Hora Legal de Venezuela. (1 Kw.) Confirma con QSL. 

9540 KHz Radio Nacional de Venezuela, Antena Internacional, Caracas. 
(50 Kws.) Emisiones de una - 1 hora en español en el siguiente 
esquema: 11:00; 14:00; 18:00; 21:00; 00:00 y 03:00 UTC. Confirma - 
con QSL. 

9640 KHz Radio Ecos del Torbes. 12:00 hasta las 22:00 UTC para evitar 
interferencias de emisoras - internacionales. (10 Kws.). (Banda 
Tropical, Club Diexistas de la Amistad, Venezuela, via DX LISTENING 
DIGEST)                                                        ###


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