SWLing Post contributor, Chris Smolinski, would like your help to ID a Spanish language station. Chris notes:
“I record the 6800-7000 kHz band every night with my SDR, looking for pirates, but sometimes I also stumble on other interesting transmissions. The other night (UTC March 8) I picked up a curious station on 6974.5 kHz AM, starting at 0119 UTC, off at 0137. It was a mix of music and possible IDs by an OM in Spanish. There is what sounds like a four character call sign as part of the ID, and mentions of what could be the Dominican Republic. My guess right now is this was some sort of a relay of a domestic MW or FM station.
I have two recordings here, perhaps someone can pick out the callsign or other parts of the ID? Not the best audio quality, but you know how that goes:”
Please comment!
My wife is Dominican. This morning she put on the headphones.
She can hear them saying Distrito Nacional. Nacional District. This refers to Santo Domingo and environs. Normally a Dominican in Santo Domingo proper would just say “Santo Domingo” so this may indicate the station is in a community on the outskirts of the capital. She also hears “noventa y ocho” “98” — possibly an FM frequency they are repeating?
She hears the word “Saludando” (“saluting” or “greeting”.) She also detects a possibly foreign accent, but not Haitian. To her it might be Venezuelan or Central American. Lots of people in the DR from these countries. As for the callsign or station ID , she can’t make it out but does hear “AM”.
I can barely hear it. But I have a lot of experience in the Dominican Republic and while he is saying “Republica Dominicana” the accent doesn’t sound Dominican to me. Foreign missionaries? Haitians? If someone could clean it up with Audacity’s noise removal feature and send it to me, we can try again here. Send it to [email protected]
At 0:22 on the second clip, I seem to hear ‘La República Dominicana’ or something similar. The noise makes it hard, though I can almost make out some words.
What sounds like a call sign at the beginning of clip 1, at least appears to end on 7A7 or 7A6.
I am gonna see if I can clean up the sound on Audacity and make out some more. Will post more comments if I get something.
Clip 1 has something like a call sign repeating twice at the begining, then goes ‘Saludando a todos los oyentes’, and that’s about all I can make out. Further into the clip, I hear ‘A la altura’, but it’s about all I can make out from that.
My thought is that it is someone doing a pirate test. I hear a lot more of those usually after 04:00UTC, but someone could have just fired up a TX with MOD audio, and tune and test an antenna with no really ID, or interest of what’s even being broadcast. On http://www.frn.net they seem to make up the bulk of UNID = Stations that don’t ID. This is, of course, my guess since this station wasn’t on for long. If a pirate doesn’t actually have a show made up, or they don’t have the means to actually announce live, that’s why you might hear whatever audio that they’ll grab to just test.