Flag courtesy of Wikipedia, flag illustrated by Richard H. Geoghegan
Last weekend -- Saturday a.m. to be precise -- I awoke early., around 7:30 a.m. I couldn't get back to sleep, so I did the next best thing -- I switched on my Radio Shack 200629 AM-FM-SW-LW radio, clipped my indoor wire antenna to the whip, and tuned around the Shortwave bands to see if there was anything on, while I sipped some tea.
I started by checking out the 20 Meter ham band, and heard a few contacts, both on Sideband and CW (Morse Code), including a couple hams from California (N6PF calling CQ CW, and K6MRC talking to some guy in New Zealand I couldn't hear).
Then I tuned to the 25 Meter SW Broadcast band, and heard North Korea in English on 11710 kHz, and NHK Japan broadcasting to South Asia in Hindi on 11655 -- NHK was a weak, semi-readable signal. The language was muddled up by the fading that I wasn't sure what it was, and I had to look it up.
The North Korean broadcast was fairly loud, with no distortion at the transmitter. They must have fixed it, as it was a good clean signal. Once again, the North Korean music was unique. Every time I hear North Korea I listen to the bass guitar player, because he's really good. I have no idea what bass he's playing -- it sounds like a Fender Precision, but I don't know if they have those in North Korea. I also am not sure if it's one particular bass player I hear in the music played on the Voice Of Korea, or if it's several.
And, of course, there isn't any info available on North Korean musicians on the internet, aside from the Wiki article, which does name some of them, but one is never sure if the list is current or not. And there definitely is no information on the type of equipment the players use.
The bass guitar is pretty prominent in the mix on nearly every pop-style track that is played on the Voice of Korea. I think it's mainly one particular bassist, because there apparently are only one or two official radio music ensembles in the country.
I call the guy the James Jamerson of North Korea.
After listening to that a while, I tuned my Radio Shack 200629 further up the band, and heard NHK Japan broadcasting to SE Asia in Japanese on 11815, and some Korean language on 11985, which was probably Radio Free Asia being transmitted from the island of Tinian, in the Marianas.
I switched radios to my XHDATA D-328 (+wire antenna) for a bit and heard China Radio International broadcasting to Europe in Turkish, from Kashgar, on 13710 kHz in the 21 Meter Band (around 1605 UTC). I heard Russian language (including the Russian words "radist'" and "pobachiti") on 13650 (around 1555 UTC), which apparently was NHK World Radio Japan broadcasting to European Russia from a transmitter in the United Arab Emirates.
STRANGE SPEECH IN THE 21 METER BAND
I switched back to my 200629 radio and then tuned in to a fairly strong signal on 13670 kHz. I couldn't tell what language woman announcer was speaking. By now it was just after 1700 UTC. The signal was S4-S5 overall, but the fades were deep enough to make the unidentified language appear murky sounding and mysterious. In the background, some Chinese sounding, easy listening instrumental music was playing, so I figured it had to be China Radio International -- but what was this unusual language I was hearing?
It sounded a lot like some sort of accented Spanish.... And sometimes it sounded almost like Lithuanian, too, because of the word endings on many of the words.
For a while I thought it was indeed heavily accented Spanish. But if it was CRI, the language probably wouldn't be accented, as most of CRI's announcers are very close to native speakers in accent.
Some of the words seemed to fit Spanish.... But there were other words and pronunciations that were nothing like Spanish, and nothing like Italian or Romanian, either. There were some odd sounds, and bizarre sounding word endings (many with the endings "-yi" and "-oyi", along with words that didn't seem to fit any language I either was acquainted with or had heard much. Some of the consonants sounded Portuguese or Italian.
I finally had to look up the information on the broadcast on my EiBi text file, which lists SW broadcasts by frequency, station, time in UTC, target area, and language.
It was China Radio International, all right. Broadcasting to Europe, from Beijing.... In Esperanto!
Now, I've heard of Esperanto before. It's a language that was put together by an enterprising guy who wanted to create an easy-to-learn secondary language that he hoped would be a language of international commerce, and also bring people together around Europe -- and the greater world.
I knew very little about Esperanto, although I was introduced to the concept when I was a kid. I had gotten a science fiction pulp magazine that always featured stories by different authors, and this edition of the magazine had international writers in it -- Soviet, German, French, and even Esperanto writers. I don't remember much about the Esperanto author's story, but there was a little bit of dialogue in Esperanto -- the space people in the tale apparently spoke the language. Cu vi Esperanton? said one character to another in the story ("do you speak Esperanto?"). Apparently, the space people (or time travellers?) in the story were able to speak it.
It's all I remember of the story, and until recently it was all I knew about Esperanto.
But I'd never actually heard Esperanto -- until last weekend. It's an interesting language.
SO, WHAT EXACTLY IS ESPERANTO, ANYWAY?
It turns out that the man who developed Esperanto -- a Jewish opthamologist named L.L. Zamenhof -- knew several languages, as he lived in Poland -- when it was still a part of Czarist Russia. The city he lived in -- Bialystok -- had four main ethnic and language groups -- Poles, Jews, Germans and Russians -- and the four groups apparently didn't get along. Mr. Zamenhof thought that a common, neutral language would help groups like the four peoples in his region get along.
So he created Esperanto out of Spanish, French, Italian, German, Yiddish, Greek, Polish and Russian, and bits and pieces of other languages, trying to make one that would have at least some commonality with the languages that most groups in Europe would be acquainted with. The language gained interest, although it apparently had a connection with leftist politics, so some countries frowned on Esperanto's use in the early 20th Century. Most Esperanto speakers are in the northern and central EU, parts of Brazil and Uruguay, the Far East, and the Eastern US. The number of Esperanto speakers seems to vary according to studied estimate, ranging somewhere in the tens of thousands worldwide.
Here is the Wiki on the Esperanto language. The story is fascinating, really.:
Here is the Esperanto Wikipedia, should you want to read some Esperanto.:
As mentioned, there is a lot of information on Esperanto in the Wiki on Wikipedia. But if you want to actually hear it, and you have a Shortwave radio, you may be able to hear it on China Radio International on 13670 kHz between 1700-1800 UTC, when they beam the program to the EU. If I can hear it here in the PNW US on my limited radio equipment (it came in well on my XHDATA D-328 and 25 ft. indoor antenna), radio listeners in the EU, the Eastern US and Canada, and other parts of the world should be able to pick it up.
CRI also has other broadcasts in Esperanto, on 7265 (1930 UTC), 7300 (2200 UTC), 9440 (1300 UTC), 9745 (1930 UTC), 9880 (2200 UTC), 11635 (1100 UTC), 11650 (1300 & 1700 UTC), and 15110 (1100 UTC) along with the broadcast I heard on 13670 at 1700 UTC.
Of course, many of these broadcasts may be aimed at different parts of the world. Most seem to be aimed in the direction of the EU, with one broadcast possibly aimed at Siberia or North America. Radio Habana Cuba also has Esperanto broadcasts on 6000 kHz (0700 UTC), 11760 (1500 UTC) and 15140 kHz at 1500 UTC. I have not heard any of those broadcasts yet, though.
You can see the schedules by using the drop downs on the handy Shortwave schedule website, Short-wave.info.:
I've been able to pick up the CRI broadcasts in Esperanto on 13670 on my Tecsun PL-398 just off the whip, so the signal definitely gets out from Kashgar. If you're in the EU or North America it's definitely worth trying.
For just $15 USD, the XHDATA D-328 is a little marvel. And lately, because I'm short on AA batteries, the rechargeable BL-5C battery in the XHDATA has become a very handy feature. :-) The BL-5C lasts maybe a month with daily use. When it gets weak, the D-328's reception weakens, the tuning may not 'latch onto' very weak signals adequately, and the volume also noticeably decreases. It recharges in maybe 2.5 hours, using the radio's charging system.
As for the analog dial, I've been able to ID most SW stations just using this radio and my EiBi text file, being that the SW bands are not super crowded, and a lot of the stronger stations are fairly easy to ID as I've heard them previously. The past few mornings I've heard a lot of stations beaming to and from Asia on this radio. I'm quite impressed.
....AND ESPERANTO MUSIC
While I was listening to their Esperanto program, and taking in the language, CRI played two pop songs -- one of them sounding like a Brazilian jazz-pop piece, and the other one sounding like a 1970's or 1980's pop track, and I think at least one of them was sung in Esperanto.
I'm certain there can't be a ton of Esperanto singing musicians in the world, so hearing those songs is probably a rarity.
It's just another one of those fascinating Shortwave adventures. Like I've said before on this blog -- you never know exactly what you will hear when you tune the SW radio bands.
Since that first reception of CRI in Esperanto on 13670, I've heard the program two more times, and the last time -- Tuesday a.m., June 4th -- it came in SIO445, with just a little fading. This time the woman was talking in Esperanto about Chinese languages and dialects (or at least it seemed she was talking about that, from the few words I understood, including "Chiniyo" and "lingvo" -- 'China' and 'language' in Esperanto), and she was talking over a soft piano solo piece. Then CRI played three pop and folk/pop songs, presumably sung in Esperanto, followed by a couple announcements in Esperanto by a man and a woman. The man finished the broadcast by saying "Dankon", which is apparently "thank you" in Esperanto.
It was cool to hear.
THE 21 METER BAND AND 19 METER BAND WERE DELIVERING
Nearby, on 13760 kHz were two separate broadcasts to the EU in English after 1800 UTC -- North Korea and China Radio International were both battling it out. It's surprising that both of these stations would choose the same frequency, target area, and time slot for their English broadcasts. On 13810 CRI was broadcasting a lot of soft music towards the EU, especially Germany, after 1800 UTC. I've only heard music broadcast by CRI in this time slot, never any talk in German. The music is generally easy listening instrumentals, sometimes with vocals, too.
The 21 Meter Band has been fairly hopping the past couple weeks during the mornings here, after a few years where I didn't hear much on it. Most of what I heard is Asia, along with a very weak Radio Marti low in the band.
The 19 Meter band has been delivering broadcasts to and from Asia during the mornings lately also. although Tuesday a.m. I also heard three religious stations broadcasting to India from Madagascar and the Philippines, and from China to the EU and Mideast.
MIZORAM STATE, ONCE AGAIN!
Around 1523 UTC, on 15605 kHz, I heard Adventist World Radio broadcasting (from Madagascar) to Mizoram State, India, in the Mizo language, which has around 700,000 speakers. I wrote an article previously about Reach Beyond Australia broadcasting to Mizoram State's 40K~ speakers of Nga La. Here was another case of a religious broadcaster reaching out to a small language group -- in this case, a language spoken by just 700K people in a fairly remote area of India. For the first few minutes I heard a man talking in a language I definitely didn't understand, and then there was a pop-like hymn performed by a few singers and a small band, followed by a woman talking, and then another music piece.
I obviously had to look up the schedule to see which station and language I was actually listening to. I used EiBi, which I keep as a text file on my tablet computer.
EiBi's Shortwave schedules can be found here. I use the frequency listing text file.:
Earlier, around 1440 UTC, I heard Trans World Radio broadcasting to Northern India and Pakistan in the Urdu language on 15440 kHz. They played a couple different musical pieces sung by a man and a woman, in South Asian music scales, and the music included tablas and accordions, along with a sitar and some unison string ensembles. TWR's transmitters were in Madagascar. The signals were fairly readable, SIO 252 on both my Radio Shack 200629 and XHDATA D-328 (I switched between the two to save the AA batteries on my 200629 -- the XHDATA has a rechargeable BL-5C battery). The XHDATA, with its DSP, also sometimes brought in the signal a little more readably.
In the same hour, Radio Vaticana broadcast to India on 15490 kHz in Hindustani, Tamil, and Malayam (and possibly the Kannada language also), the signal making its way to my radios from the transmitter in the Philippines, signal strength SIO 353. They also played some South Asian music that sounded similar to 'movie music'. The Tamil language was interesting to hear, as the broadcast was fairly clear in reception. Tamil sounds slightly like the other South Asian languages to the American ear, although you don't hear the word "hai" (= "be" or "is" in English). The vowel sounds are similar to Hindustani languages, though. During some of the talks, I heard the announcers mention "Francis" a lot (Pope Francis, most probably).
On 15250, around 1550 UTC, I heard a strong broadcast in English, with two men speaking in US accents discussing China's economy, and issues that China has with the US, as well as what the commentators called the gradual "de-dollarization" of the World economy. This was China Radio International's broadcast to the EU in English, from Kashgar. The program cut off abruptly, mid-sentence, at 1557 UTC. Then it immediately continued on CRI's English service to the Middle East, that transmission originating in Urumchi. I heard all this on my Tecsun PL-398 and XHDATA D-328 with my indoor wire antenna.
On 15550 kHz, from 1505 UTC onwards, I heard Radio Tamazuj broadcasting in Sudanese Arabic to the Sudan, from Madagascar. The signal strength was SIO 252. It sounded like a newscast by two people. Later on, there was a lot of talk mentioning "Sudan" and "Khartoum." I heard this mostly on my XHDATA D-328 with the indoor wire antenna.
These were just a few of the stations I heard in just a couple hours drinking some tea and coffee and tuning around on three of my radios. I used the XHDATA a lot because it's fun to see what it will pull in -- and also, I am short on AA's, so I don't want to use the ones up in my Radio Shack 200629, Tecsun, and Panasonic more quickly than necessary.
I never used to be a fan of rechargeable batteries. But I guess I'm slowly coming around. The BL-5C's are decent batteries. They seem to last a while in my XHDATA D-328 and Grundig G2.
LAST BUT NOT LEAST, RTTY ON 14001-14002 kHz -- an INTRUDER?
Over the past several weeks I've noticed a fairly strong RTTY (or other FSK / Frequency Shift Keying) station on 14001, or very close to that (two of the BFO/SSB/CW radios I use most often do not show frequencies less than 1 kHz increments -- my most accurate one has dead batteries right now).
From what I understand, RTTY isn't part of any country's 20 Meter Ham band plan in this part of the 20 Meter band. Yet this station seems to be there most mornings, sometimes at S4 or S5 signals, and the signal propagates, indicating that it is hundreds of miles away.
I heard it on the 26th of May at 0811 UTC; the 28th of May at 0914 UTC and afterwards; May 31st at 1113 UTC (14001 or 14002 kHz on my Radio Shack 200629; the station was very weak that a.m.); June 1st at 1506 UTC (14002~ kHz); June 2nd at 1858 UTC (signal was S2 that morning); on June 3rd it was MIA; and June 4th I heard it at 14002~ kHz at S3, at 1632 UTC. Earlier in the week the signals were more like S4 and S5. Earlier today it was MIA, as was most activity on the 20 Meter Band this a.m.
I'm guessing this station might be a military station somewhere in the Pacific region, or maybe Asia somewhere -- this is because of the propagation pattern, which seems to favor the Asia-Pacific region between 0800-1800 UTC at my location.
Internet searches on this mysterious transmission come up with nothing. Looking at some of the IARU intrusion reports I can't see an RTTY station reported being that low in the 20 Meter ham band. An Irish ham who monitors the 20 Meter band for intruders (for the IARU) noticed RTTY / FSK transmissions on 14005 kHz, at least once during the same time of the day I've heard them (1200 UTC on March 11th of this year, and "other days as well"; he called the signals "strong and persistent"), but he's in Ireland, and I'm in the NW US hearing something similar at least 3 kHz lower -- I'm certain I'm hearing it around 14001-14002 kHz.
It's just another one of those Shortwave mysteries, I guess.
Courtesy the HFUnderground 'High Frequency Beacon" Wiki
A MYSTERIOUS, 'WHOOPING' SOUND ON SHORTWAVE --
possibly the 'DESERT WHOOPER'!
In one of my last articles -- the one on the Indonesian, chanting "Lima Pirates" -- I mentioned some of the mysteries on SW that can be heard -- one of them being unlicensed 'beacons'. These stations are small operations, usually placed in remote locations (like the SW US desert), and they are solar powered. At night they transmit various noises on the SW band -- some of these beacons transmit an Identifier in Morse Code, and some others can transmit strange, pitch shifting sounds. One of them transmits what can only be called "whoop" noises.
This "whooping", low-power beacon transmitter -- apparently located in the SW US desert somewhere -- is known as the Desert Whooper.
I heard this 'whooping' last night, on 4096 kHz, using the SSB/BFO on my Radio Shack 200629 (+ 25 ft. wire), just after midnight, local time (0740-0745 UTC). After a few minutes it seemed to put out a "W" and a few other letters or characters in Morse Code, but the fading made it impossible to read the other characters. The signal overall was very weak (less than S1 on a scale of S1-S5), but the whooping was quite audible. It sounded pretty cool. There may have been another beacon in there somewhere, but I only heard the 'whooping' noises and the "W".
Apparently there are a few similar, low power beacons located around 4096 kHz, most of them putting out Morse Code 'dits' or 'dashes'. The beacon chasers give them nicknames. The HF Underground website has an article on them here.:
Here is a YouTube vid posted in 2020 of the Desert Whooper. When I heard it, it sounded a bit similar, although my reception was much, much weaker. This was recorded from California, a lot closer to the location where this small, low power Beacon is located.:
Like I've said, the HF/SW spectrum has a lot of mysterious sounds. You never know what you will hear!
HEARING THE WORLD, JUST FROM YOUR CHAIR
For those of you readers who aren't into radio distance listening, I hope this article gives you an idea of what's out there, bouncing off the ionosphere, from places like Kashgar, Urumchi, Beijing, Shaanxi province, other provinces in China, Madagascar, the Philippines, North Korea, Botswana (VOA broadcasts to Africa from there), Japan, Taiwan, and other places in the world. It's like travelling all over the planet and not leaving your chair. And hearing the signals bounce off the ionosphere is really cool. You can literally hear the distance.
IN CLOSING, SOME ESPERANTO MUSIC...
I'll close this with three tracks I found in Esperanto, as examples of the language. I hadn't heard of any of these artists, nor had I heard them on CRI -- I just did a search for music in Esperanto and they came up. The first one seems to have an anti-war message, the second one sounds Brazilian -- the third one, maybe Brazilian also? As I mentioned, there are Esperanto speakers in Brazil and Uruguay, so a Brazilian sounding Esperanto artist would be plausible.
This track is more Brazilian sounding, a song that seems to be about peace? It's by a singer named Daniel Haddad.:
This track has flutes, acoustic guitars, and various percussion. No idea what it's about. The words are printed onscreen, though.... I think the singer and musicians are Brazilian.:
This next track is also Brazilian, associated with the Brazilian Esperanto league. The singer is Merlin. It's an electronic pop track. Lyrics are there to read -- although, if you're like me, you have little, if any idea, what they are saying.:
It seems that a lot of Esperanto enthusiasts are in the Southern states of Brazil.
Anyway, with this, I'm going to sign off for right now.
I have a couple other articles I'm still working on, which I will probably post later in the month.
Until next time, my friends, 'dankon' (Esperanto for 'thank you'), and
Peace.
C.C., June 5th, 2024
Edited the title & article on June 6th, as I had misread the schedule and thought the CRI Esperanto broadcast was from Kashgar -- it actually is from Beijing transmitters.
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