radio Vaticana (Cantonese?) 1229Z 28-03-16

[Chanter]

A day off work means morning DX!  Darn but I'm cold.  Next time I run outside with the portable, I'm taking a jacket.  ... Anyway!  Caught this as I was heading down the hill toward home, and wow!  I heard the shrill long tone while bouncing around the lower end of 31M and went... is this just interference, or is somebody going to sign on?  I waited about thirty seconds and ooooops!  Ni hao, Vatican Radio.  I might just have to QSL this one.  Here's my log as I wrote it down once I got back indoors. 

9560, Radio Vaticana, 1229-1236.  Long shrill tone at 1229, to brief open carrier and into an orchestral version of the Vatican Radio interval signal.  Brief announcements in a female voice, then into programming of long talks and religious music, including one probable hymn.  Signal weaker but audible, SINPO 32233. 

This did not, for the record, sound entirely like Mandarin.  HFCC says Chinese, and I'd hazard a guess at Cantonese from the tone; there are similarities between Cantonese and languages like Vietnamese or Khmer that Mandarin does not share.  Then again, it *was* a comparatively weak signal. 


I've never heard an orchestral version of the Vatican Radio interval signal before!  Is that specific to their Asia-beamed services, does anyone know?