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!

Shortwave logs from Euless, TX for 11/18 to 11/24/12

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.


[IRAN] 11-18-12, 2345, 7325 -- Weak, SINPO 23222.
Seemingly Voice of Iran in Chinese. Ballad-type music with
male singing.

[CANADA] 11-20-12, 0255, 3300 -- CHU, a time signal
station transmitting from near Ottawa. Automated time tones
and male voice reading time in French and English. Pretty
weak, SINPO 23222. Also heard modem/data-like noises. I
guess I still get a chance to QSL a Canadian station even
with RCI gone.

[FRENCH GUYANA/FRANCE] 11-23-12, 1955, 21690--
Per Aoki, this is Radio France International, transmitting from
Montsinery, French Guyana, on 500 kw. Two males talking in
French, abruptly off at 1959, with the broadcast scheduled off
at 2000.  SINPO 34233.

[USA] 11-23-12, 2000, 15225 -- Voice of America in French
from Greenville, SC. Excited male DJ introduces music,
mostly Latin-sounding, thought I heard "Shakira" mentioned.

[SOUTH AFRICA/ DRC] 11-24-12, 0405, 11690 -- Per Aoki,
this is Radio Okapi, transmitting from Meyerton, SA, at 250 kw.
Apparently this station was set up by the UN and NGOs to
broadcast news and information across the Democratic Republic
of Congo, mostly on FM. Language is supposed to be Lingala/
French, and I did hear a lot which sounded like French. Male
and female seem to read news headlines, made out words like
"Goma" (city in the DRC) and "Hutu". SINPO 34333, surprisingly
clear.

[EGYPT] 11-24-12, 0422, 9965 -- Radio Cairo, very weak and
noisy, SINPO 23222. Chanting by male with Islamic-sounding
music in background.

QSL cards from Croatia, Germany and Cuba

Back in July, I heard Voice of Croatia on 9925 khz, and sent
them a reception report by email (several times and to several
addresses over several weeks, as it turned out), but they finally
responded with an e-QSL on September 13th. This was followed
a couple of weeks later by the same QSL letter that I received by
email, but this time by postal mail from Croatia. Wasn't expecting
that! But then, even more unexpectedly, a couple of weeks after
that, I received a Voice of Croatia QSL card by mail! It is
pictured below (top). Damn, VOC, you really came through in
the end. Huzzah!

In other QSL news,  I heard Germany's Deutsche Welle, trans-
mitted from Kigali, Rwanda, in East Africa, on October 21st
(as logged here). I sent them a reception report by email to
info@dw-world.de, and about 3 weeks later I received a QSL
card (pictured below, under the V. of Croatia card), mailed
from DW Customer Service in Bonn, Germany. The back of
the card can be seen in the second picture.

 

Finally, on September 15, I heard Cuba's Radio Rebelde on 5025
khz, and I sent them a reception report to web@radiorebelde.icrt.cu
two days later,  including an mp3 recording of my reception (they
apparently require this for QSL requests). On November 8th, I
received an email from Radio Rebelde with an e-QSL ( :-/ )
attached. It is displayed below. A big thanks to these three
shortwave broadcasters who took the time to acknowledge my
reports!

Voice of Russia B12 Schedule

Straight from Voice of Russia, here is their B12 shortwave schedule,
good from October 28, 2012 to March 30, 2013. Download from
the link below, document is in Word format (.doc).


VOR B12 SCHEDULE