Middle East (?) station(s) on AM 860 near Tacoma, Wa.

[Tom_]

3AM PST

MON 5 DEC 2005

NEAR TACOMA, WA.

860KHZ

Competing with KPAM-AM 860/Portland,Wa. I heard what appeared to be one or maybe even two Middle East Stations:

station #1) Middle East music in the background. There is a distinctive harmonic scale used in the Middle East. Please enlighten me as to what the scale is as I do not want to offend and indeed I would like to learn more about Middle East music. And indeed it could have been from India.

station #1 again) or perhaps station #2) News from announcers with possible Middle East accents (I'm not sure). The two announcers were giving stock reports. The female announcer kept saying Egypt over and over in a variety of contexts, so perhaps the station was an Egyptian station broadcasting in English (both announcers had accents).

Are there any WEB SITES with audio of foreigh accents for DX-ers? I can recognize French, Spanish, German, and Polish accents to some extent, but I would VERY MUCH love to find a site dedicated to foreign accents with audio.

 

[clichemoth]

> 3AM PST
>
> MON 5 DEC 2005
>
> NEAR TACOMA, WA.
>
> 860KHZ
>
> Competing with KPAM-AM 860/Portland,Wa. I heard what
> appeared to be one or maybe even two Middle East Stations:
>
> station #1) Middle East music in the background. There is a
> distinctive harmonic scale used in the Middle East. Please
> enlighten me as to what the scale is as I do not want to
> offend and indeed I would like to learn more about Middle
> East music. And indeed it could have been from India.
>
> station #1 again) or perhaps station #2) News from
> announcers with possible Middle East accents (I'm not sure).
> The two announcers were giving stock reports. The female
> announcer kept saying Egypt over and over in a variety of
> contexts, so perhaps the station was an Egyptian station
> broadcasting in English (both announcers had accents).
>
> Are there any WEB SITES with audio of foreigh accents for
> DX-ers? I can recognize French, Spanish, German, and Polish
> accents to some extent, but I would VERY MUCH love to find a
> site dedicated to foreign accents with audio.
>

<a href = "http://www.sfusd.k12.ca.us/schwww/sch618/Music/Islam_Music_&_Dance.html"> A simple explanation of the differences between Middle Eastern and Western music.</a> If I had tried to describe it, I would have cocked it all up.

There is a 500kw Egyptian station on 864 (R. Al-Qahira), but the listings I've found show it with religious programming in Arabic, not English news, although it makes way too much sense as there aren't any ethnic/brokered 860s in the US/Canada anyway.

<a href = "http://accent.gmu.edu/"> The George Mason University Speech Accent Archive </a> That should be quite helpful, it's helped me with recognizing stuff on SW.

 

[Ai4i]

Yes, an American station would be on 860, but anything on the "other side" of lines running north-south through the Atlantic and Pacific oceans would be on 855 or 864. For stations in those areas, all the digits must add up to nine or the digits they add up to (18 or 27 in the single case of 999) must add up to nine.<P ID="signature">______________
<a target="_blank" href=http://www.xstreamer.net/xinfo/v2/xstreamer.8.DC0000.ai4i.png>Proud 2 B a pioneering satellite radio subs¢riber
Ai4i is always on the trailing edge of technology</a>
</P>

 

[smorris]

> Yes, an American station would be on 860, but anything on
> the "other side" of lines running north-south through the
> Atlantic and Pacific oceans would be on 855 or 864. For
> stations in those areas, all the digits must add up to nine
> or the digits they add up to (18 or 27 in the single case of
> 999) must add up to nine.

Or to put it slightly more simply, all European, African and Asian AM frequencies are on multiples of 9kHz.

There are a few exceptions, but mostly due to African and Asian countries being occasionally unable to afford to fix broken equipment. I'd have thought Egypt was unlikely to be among those, though - it's one of the relatively prosperous corners of Africa.

 

[Grrradio]

There's a French station on 860 in (I think) Montreal. It's a fairly easy pickup here in St. Paul after semi-local KNUJ-New Ulm powers down at sunset, but I haven't listened to it for any extended period of time -- so, for all I know, they may well carry some brokered programming.

Now that would be one hell of a catch in Tacoma!

 

[clichemoth]

> There's a French station on 860 in (I think) Montreal. It's
> a fairly easy pickup here in St. Paul after semi-local
> KNUJ-New Ulm powers down at sunset, but I haven't listened
> to it for any extended period of time -- so, for all I know,
> they may well carry some brokered programming.
>
> Now that would be one hell of a catch in Tacoma!
>

It's in Toronto and it's a Radio-Canada(French-language CBC) O&O. Fairly sure 100% of their programming is in French.

 

[Tom_]

> > There's a French station on 860 in (I think) Montreal.
> It's
> > a fairly easy pickup here in St. Paul after semi-local
> > KNUJ-New Ulm powers down at sunset, but I haven't listened
>
> > to it for any extended period of time -- so, for all I
> know,
> > they may well carry some brokered programming.
> >
> > Now that would be one hell of a catch in Tacoma!
> >
>
> It's in Toronto and it's a Radio-Canada(French-language CBC)
> O&O. Fairly sure 100% of their programming is in French.
>

There were two stations on 860 on that night. One had music that sounded like it may have been Middle Eastern music. The other had news reporters in English with heavy accents, they could have been French accents.

Definitely a frequency that I go back to from time to time but so far nothing confirmed yet. The competition from KPAM-AM 860 Troutdale/Portland is usually a problem even though they are directional at night and down to 5kW.

Right now there is Classical music in the background. There are several Canadian stations on 860 in several provinces. If I have the time I'll stream them soemtime to figure it out.

Thanks to all for the stations and web sites and I'll report back if I confirm anything on 860 or 864.

860 from Craig Healy:

http://www.am-dx.com/lists/860sort.htm