HCJB on 9820 KHz

[HC7AW]

Hi all,

HCJB, The Voice of the Andes, is doing some new DRM test transmissions to North America for the next couple of weeks. We will start on 15140 KHz from 1200 to 2400 each day and then move to 9820 KHz from 0000 to 0800 UTC.

Let us know how you receive 9820 KHz on this thread. Our heading will start on the east coast of the USA and then shift toward the middle of the country at 0630 UTC. I know that is pretty late for most of you, but we are broadcasting to a shortwave listeners convention in the USA and we expect them to be up and listening to us. :-)

Doug
HCJB, The Voice of the Andes
Quito, Ecuador

[Brendan1]

Coming into Tucson tonight at only 12db or so, too weak to get any good decoding right now. No adjacent interference now, but from 0000 to 0200 UTC there was what sounded like Radio Havana on 9825 wiping out everything very nicely. My Spanish is not very good at all, but hearing mention of Cuba several times during a quite active talk show was my only clue to work with, as I never did hear an ID.

Not sure about 0200 to 0430 UTC, but I was busy doing something else...

At 20.96 kbps, I think that might be too high a datarate for these late hours. Maybe dropping down a bit, to around 17.xx?

[Alan Johnson]

Happened to be up late (hey, all I have to do tomorrow is get on a plane and fly to a shortwave listener's convention :D ) and saw the announcement about this transmission. I listened to "Habitations" then ID at 0700 UTC and then into "Musica del Ecuador", which does sound better in DRM than what I remember from analog 19 mtr shortwave. Great to hear English language programming from Quito again! I do agree with Brendan that 20.9 kbps parametric stereo may be overly ambitious. The big dip around 0650 is from switching antennas. It's interesting that the S meter was showing S3 to S5 during the entire time I listened. I hope I can listen more from Kulpsville, PA over the next few days. I switched over to RNZI on 9890 kHz at 0719 to see how they were doing.

[HC7AW]

Alan and Brendan,

Thanks for the reports. Actually you are both pretty far west for this transmission. We are pointed at 5 degrees from Quito (east coast) until 0630 UTC when we swing over to 351 degrees. But 351 degrees is still pointed at Chicago, not to mention the fact that we are only using a 4KW (DRM power) transmitter.

We will be be adjusting the parameters on the transmission periodically so you might get better reception at different times of day.

Alan, you should look up Allen Graham at the SWL Fest. He is our Frequency Manager and host of our DXPartyLine program.

Keep the reports coming....

Doug

[Owdjim]

Hi

Faint traces of DRM noted on 9820 kHz here in Wellington last night. I'm suprised any signal gets here considering the power and target area.

Cheers, Chris

[Sixten]

Hi all.

Short log from 9820 , I start my recicer too late and AM start on 9815Khz 0700UTC.

[Digger]

Whoops, another late-starter here! Just before 07 UTC I shot some screen dumps, but I forgot to press the logging function in Dream. RTP started 5 kHz down at 0659 UTC and blocked everything. Grrr.

[Brendan1]

Well, not too successful last night. You can see things do get better when the azimuth was shifted at 0630, but by then I was asleep!

[Digger]

The richest man in the world started this unattended log at 0404 UTC this morning. The 100 minutes between 0505-0649 UTC were the best. The signal strength was around S1-3 with Fading during the last 15 minutes of the log. This corresponds to an RF signal of 3 - 12 dBuV, which is not enough to get any audio. At 0758 UTC RTP ruined everything with a very strong AM 5 kHz down.

[Sixten]

Hi all.

Not so good condition today from HCJB.

[HC7AW]

Hi all,

We are changing frequencies tonight... We will be moving to 9595 KHz to try and avoid some of the other adjacent channel signals we have on 9820 KHz. We are also dropping the bit rate, so hopefully you will have a little better reception tonight.

Thanks,

Doug