Shortwave Logs for January, 2013

Country in brackets is the transmitter site and not
necessarily the country of origin, unless specified.
If two countries are in brackets, first one is
transmitter site. After that, the date, time and
frequency in kHz is listed. All times in UTC and
all stations heard on TECSUN PL-380 portable in
Euless, Texas, USA, with 25 foot reel wire antenna,
on a second floor, unless otherwise noted.

[MOLDOVA] 01-10-13, 0035, 7290 -- Voice of
Russia in English from Kishinev-Grigoriopol  at
500 kw, per Aoki. Male announcer, technology and
business news. SINPO 44233, lots of ambient noise.

[GREEECE] 01-12-13, 2220, 9420 -- Voice of
Greece is sometimes barely audible on this frequency,
but reception was slightly better this night. Music and
greek talk by two males. SINPO 34333. Great station
for music when it comes in decently.

[USA] 01-12-13, 2225, 15440 -- Radio Taiwan Inter-
national in English, from Okechobee, Florida. Female
interviews male (about food?), followed by the segment
"Classic Shorts". SINPO 54555, excellent reception.

[CUBA] 01-27-13, 0730, 9330 -- Cuba's "Atencion"
spy numbers station, this time on a frequency which I
don't recall hearing it on before. Aoki lists nothing here
at this time. Female voice reads strings of numbers,
interspersed with data/modem type sounds. SINPO
32333. Listened until 0738. Would've made a recording,
but I'm laaaaazy.

[BRAZIL] 01-28-13, 0037, 11780 -- Radio Nacional
de Amazonia in Portuguese. Caught the end of the song
"Black Sabbath" by the band of the same name, followed
by male announcer saying "memorias musicales", then more
music, not rock this time. SINPO 33233.


COMMENTS: Not a very active month for logging stations
for me, mostly due to me doing most of my DXing outside
and not being a huge fan of the cold. Nothing new or
terribly interesting this month, no new or weird stations.
I'm still hearing Canada's CHU time station on 3330 khz
regularly, although very weak. Radio Habana Cuba still
strong all over, still listening to them almost daily on
5040, 6165 and 11760 khz.

Radio Habana Cuba QSL card

Way back in July 2012, I sent Radio Habana Cuba a QSL request by
email to radiohc@enet.cu, for shortwave reception on 11750 khz. For
some reason, that doesn't sound quite right at the moment. Buuut, I'm
too lazy to check my logs. And let's face it, what frequency doesn't RHC
broadcast in? Does it even matter?

Several months later (early January  2013) I received a QSL package
from Cuba in the mail. The envelope was badly torn, basically open;
this happens to my correspondence from Iran as well, so no real surprise
there. Free countries (unlike Cuba?)  routinely open and check their
citizens' mail, right? Aaaanyway...Pictures of the QSL (back and front)
are below, along with a postcard and Jose Marti pocket calendar .
Thanks, RHC!

CVC La Voz Responds Regarding QSLs

Back on August 18th, 2012, religious broadcaster CVC La Voz
transmitted on shortwave from Chile for the last time. I, and many
others, immediately sent them QSL requests. Nothing had been
heard from CVC since then, at least as far as I knew.

Finally, today, I received a mass email explaining the delay, as well
as a spreadsheet showing who had been sent a QSL already (with
full names and postal addresses on it. Yikes!!). Unfortunately/
fortunately, I wasn't on the list, and it seems not everyone who
wrote will receive a QSL, although a picture of a blank QSL card
was attached to the email (pictured at the end of this post). The
body of the email is pasted below, in English and Spanish.


Dear listeners and friends,


First of all I would like to thank you for your reports of the last week of
transmission of CVC La Voz in shortwave. We closed transmissions few
months ago and we have been dismantling the site during these months so
we will be finishing probably this month. I’m sorry for the delay in this
response, but we have been in a complicated process from the technical,
administrative and personal point of view, and because we have
experimented a reduction in personnel as well, we have been late in
sending the QSL requested. But, during this month we have been sending
a lot of QSL , and due the quantity of requests and reports we received,
it will be difficult to send responses to everybody. All of the messages
and reports showed us that they were lot of people listening to our signal
and this satisfied us a lot. By now, an in the case you don’t receive the
QSL physically, I’m attaching a scan of it.Also I’m attaching a list of
QSL sent already.Personally speaking, I’ll stop working for CVC
soon, so this email address will stop working soon. Thanks again for
all your messages and reports! Kind regards,



Estimados radio escuchas y amigos,Quiero primero saludarlos y
agradecerles por sus reportes de sintonía de la última semana de
transmisión de CVC La Voz por onda corta. Ya hace varios meses
cerramos las transmisiones y hemos estado en proceso de
desmantelamiento de la planta la cual está finalizando este mes. Quiero
también disculparme por la demora en esta respuesta, pero hemos estado
pasando por un proceso complicado desde el punto de vista técnico,
administrativo y personal producto de este cierre, y debido a esto y a la
reducción drástica de personal que hemos experimentado, es que hemos
tardado en enviar las QSL respectivas. Sin embargo, durante este mes
estamos enviando una gran cantidad de ellas, pero temo que, debido
a la demanda que tuvimos de esta QSL final, quizás no sea posible el
enviársela a todos y cada uno. Hemos recibido demasiadas cartas y
mensajes tanto vía email como por correo postal, lo que nos demuestra
la gran cantidad de gente que nos escuchaba, lo cual nos deja muy
satisfechos. Por ahora estoy adjuntando una copia escaneada de esta
QSL y esperamos que dentro de este mes podamos hacérsela llegar a
la mayor cantidad de ustedes.Adjunto también la lista de las tarjetas
QSL ya enviadas.En lo personal, ya prontamente dejaré de trabajar
para CVC, por lo que esta dirección de correo dejará de funcionar
próximamente.Me despido agradeciendo nuevamente sus mensajes
y reportes.


Un saludo cordial!
Antonio Reyes Barriga
Gerente General
Sitio de Onda Corta
CVC La Voz

Voice of Croatia To End SW Transmissions On Jan. 1

Per Horacio Nigro, posting in Glenn Hauser's DXLD Yahoo! group,
the Voice of Croatia will terminate its shortwave broadcasts on
January 1st, 2013, just a few days from now. So, another SW broad-
caster bites the dust :(  Apparently, they will continue to broadcast on
midwave for Europe, and on the internet.

Per Mr. Nigro, you can hear the final VOC broadcasts in Spanish
on 7375 khz, at 2330 and 0330 UTC. No specifics on broadcasts
in other languages. Mr. Nigro's source, in Spanish:

QSL cards from CHU (Canada) & Radio Okapi (S. Africa)

On 11/20/12, I was surprised to hear Canada's time station 'CHU' on 3330
khz. It was pretty weak and faded often, but I could hear tones like those on
WWV, and the time being read by robo-voices in English and French. I emailed
them shortly thereafter at radio.chu@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca, and received an email
reply by the next day. A week or so later, I received a QSL card in the mail
(mailed from Buffalo, NY, interestingly enough). The front and back are pictured
below. The Aoki B12 schedule, as well as the station's QSL card, have CHU
listed on this frequency with a transmitter power of only 3 kw (!!!)

Then, on 11/24, I heard Radio Okapi on 11690 khz. This is a station
that broadcasts into the troubled Democratic Republic of Congo, in
this instance apparently from Meyerton, South Africa. Radio Okapi
is run by the humanitarian organization Fondation Hirondelle (out of
Switzerland) and the UN. I sent them a reception report to the email
address contact@radiookapi.net, and a less than two weeks later, I
received a QSL letter. Not a card, as it was printed on regular printer
paper, which I don't mind. After all, if the folks that run this important
service want to save some money by sending these out instead of printing
QSL cards, I'm more than okay with that. Very nice of them to respond
in the first place.

That's all for now...I probably won't be posting again until the new
year (unless I log some really interesting stuff, or get my Cuba QSL
package before then). Thanks for reading, and happy holidays!