German member Stefan Schliphacke has been in Uganda and made a lot of DX-ing Jan 04-10 in his new house 20 km. SW of Kampala. Read the full and extraordinary story in the next SWN. Several items are found below and here are some of his observations about the general reception conditions particularly on MW:
"Local sun set in Uganda is at 1915 local / 1615 UTC respectively and fade in of stations starts around UTC 1430. Having electricity in place, it turned out however, that the power was at very low level in the whole area and voltage for my AOR was just not enough from around 1915 until 2315 local time due to local power consumption from neighbouring houses. Consequently I had to interrupt my listening activities and start again later. Generally the band looks less crowded compared to Europe. The main pest are the Arabs. Being in Uganda I realised what a huge amount of transmitters broadcast from these countries, most of them being on 24hours schedules nowadays unfortunately. While north-west Africans did not cause so many problems, stations from Sudan and Egypt are very strong even those having 5 or less kilowatts of power. Also Saudi-Arabia gets through very well and almost of these stations are being heard. After the sign off of the stations from Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda at 2100 / 2110 UTC, I started to go after West and South Africa but with limited results unfortunately. After 2300 only few Africans remain and stations from the Middle East show up on lots of frequencies.
"Local sun set in Uganda is at 1915 local / 1615 UTC respectively and fade in of stations starts around UTC 1430. Having electricity in place, it turned out however, that the power was at very low level in the whole area and voltage for my AOR was just not enough from around 1915 until 2315 local time due to local power consumption from neighbouring houses. Consequently I had to interrupt my listening activities and start again later. Generally the band looks less crowded compared to Europe. The main pest are the Arabs. Being in Uganda I realised what a huge amount of transmitters broadcast from these countries, most of them being on 24hours schedules nowadays unfortunately. While north-west Africans did not cause so many problems, stations from Sudan and Egypt are very strong even those having 5 or less kilowatts of power. Also Saudi-Arabia gets through very well and almost of these stations are being heard. After the sign off of the stations from Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda at 2100 / 2110 UTC, I started to go after West and South Africa but with limited results unfortunately. After 2300 only few Africans remain and stations from the Middle East show up on lots of frequencies.
I was surprised that Pakistan and India had not been heard but this might have resulted from conditions and the relatively short aerials. From late evening and through the night Europe was audible astonishingly good. I logged some of them only. Especially Spain and France showed up with most of there frequencies and had stable and strong signals. I mentioned a couple of these stations in the log section. I would wish the opposite way when in Europe would look the same, hihi. During the night lots of stations from South America showed up on about 30 channels, mostly weak, some quite strong, but I did not pay attention to it. Local sunrise takes place at 0615 / 0315 UTC respectively and propagation lasted until around 0830 / 0530 UTC."
Djibouti
Since the agreement made with the US government concerning the R Sawa braodcasts from this little country, the usage of 1170 MW was stopped – a good decision because 1170 is blocked from the Sawa station in Al-Dhabbiya / UAE all day long anyway nowadays. The broadcasts are aired in Arabic on 1116 MW in // to 4780. When signing on at 0300 there is Quran in // with 1539MW which afterwards has Afar programme. I cannot say anything in regard of the programme during the day, but in the afternoon both channels have Arabic until 1600 when 1539MW goes into Afar again and 1116MW remains with Arabic. I did not make out any trace of the French programme listed, but this might be on the air later on, because due to local power supply shortage, I was not able to listen at 1615-2100. (Schliephacke)
Eritrea
837 and 945 MW. These are both active. The schedule is slightly different however, because the morning sign off is at 0400 instead of the 0330 listed in EMWG and WRTH. This makes it even harder to catch these stations in Europe due to propagation. (Schliephacke)
Kenya
All frequencies checked when in Uganda. Programmes, times and usage of frequencies a listed in the WRTH and in EMWG. The one and only exception is the General Service in English from the city of Garissa on 639 kHz which is off the air at present. During the whole period of time by the beginning of January 2008 the programme format seemed not to be effected from the actual crisis in this country. It was only once on a Sunday morning when a discussion programme in English with youngster participants was aired for 60 minutes around midday talking about the political situation. (Schliephacke). Can I suppose that 4915 also was heard ? (Ed)
Mozambique
When I was in Uganda I could make record of three stations only: R Mocambique Manica, via Chimoio (1026 MW? Ed) presumed only (50kW), R Mocambique Zambezia, via Quelimane on 1179 MW (50 kW) and R Mocambique Niassa, via Lichinga on 1260 MW (50 kW). I never heard these stations ID-ing as “emissora provincial”, but “Radio Mocambique” + State / Department instead i.e. “Radio Mocambique Niassa”. I wondered why the other stations did not show up. The Niassa station just by the way radiates a very powerful signal and they were audible until 0430 UTC =0730 local time, what is perfect daylight in Uganda already. (Schliephacke)
Nigeria
Most of the time available by the beginning of January I invested to check the MW frequencies from Nigeria. I scanned the channels between 2115 (after sign off from Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda) until 2330 and again in the morning at their listed sign on time 0430. The result was very poor – only one station came through: Borno State Broadcasting on 756 MW at around 2245 until sign off at 2300, quality was fair. Afterwards the other station listed from Niger State (to sign off at 2330) was not there. The time to check frequencies when in Uganda was limited to one week, to short to have evidence, but I am still of the opinion, that a number of these stations are either silent or work on very much reduced powers and not on their nominals 25/50/100 kW. This might also explain, why a investment plan for re-organizing the MW usage along with a Japanese company was decided from the Nigerian government recently as reported in MWN. (Schliephacke)
Sudan
From my listening post next to Kampala, I checked the frequencies of the Sudanese Radio as well. Reception in Kampala is of course “local-like” and I did not pay to much attention to these stations. The EMWG is accurate, I found all stations active, sometimes being a bit “off channel”. Worth mentioning: R Peace in Arabic on 963 MW from Khartoum with a 100 kW, I checked if there is a English Programme as it was on SW (no longer active there) in the 1800-1900 time span, but only Arabic programmes aired. Southern Sudan R is a station from Juba. They broadcast in local African languages, not Arabic or Sudanese Arabic at least at the time I listened. They have English news along with messages to NGO people etc. aired 1430-1445, the English sounds a little bit “Pidgin”-like though. (Schliephacke)
Tanzania
The situation regarding the usage of the MW seems to be quite stable, transmitters from almost every site are active like listed in WRTH and EMWG. Only exception is the FS frequency 1035 MW which is not in use. I doubt that there is any FS any longer at all. The Radio One channels 1440 MW in English and 1323 MW in Swaheli are also there and both very powerful even just radiating 10 kW. (Schliephacke)
Uganda
Being in Kampala I checked the Ugandan MW frequencies of the Uganda Broadcasting Corporation. While almost all of the neighbouring countries Kenya and Tanzania’s station are active, the situation in Uganda is totally different. From the listed transmitters only two are active which are as follows: Butebo 729 MW Blue network (listed as Red network 100 kW), but irregularly, and Kampala Red Network as listed (20kW) (909 MW ?. Ed) in // with 7195 (daylight) and 4976 (evening and mornings). This might explain that there is a investment plan existing with a Japanese company to reorganize the usage of the MW and invest in new transmitters as reported in MWN recently. (Schliephacke)
(Source: DX Window #342 via Anker Petersen DSWC Intl)