I spent some time recently DXing on the beach in Laguna. Is it troop/seasonal, or are the San Diego stations the only ones one usually hears on, say, a Walkman? I couldn't pick up any Los Angeles stations, but did pick up some Inland Empire stations.
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FM DXing from Laguna Beach
- Thread starter ScottBurns
- Start date
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rbrucecarter5
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Both LA and SD stations were in pretty rugged shape in Laguna on a car radio. But LA tended to be better.
Does tropo impact reception there? Are the L.A. stations more audible in the winter, with the San Diego stations more audible in the summer?
The only LA stations with any regular difficulty in Laguna Beach would be the Class A stations licensed in LA County or the B's that are not on Mt Wilson, like KROQ and KYSR. The lower powered Wilson signals, like KOST and KISS are right at the edge of the useful coverage as that location is really in the far southern part of the market. And the San Diego stations are mostly located right around the city of San Diego, and many even have real issues in North County within their own market.
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rbrucecarter5
Guest
You know me - I have a Pioneer Supertuner 3D in the car, full 31 inch whip. Pretty much the best case scenario for car reception. Laguna is virtually behind a mountain, blocking the Mt. Wilson signals. Go back over that mountain, they are back with a vengeance. Go up highway 1 just a few miles, you are out of the shadow of the mountain. Driving along Laguna beach, dropout after dropout, weak signals. It doesn't surprise me, you are probably 40% of the way to San Diego at Laguna. What did surprise me was getting San Diego stations - until I looked at the map and saw that a lot of the signal path is over water, not behind mountains.
I'm not sure about right in Laguna Beach town, but I remember along the 5 freeway near Dana Point and up through Mission Viejo the SD stations were almost always local-strength (91X was always much stronger than KROQ, which was what my concern was in those days).
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rbrucecarter5
Guest
As I recall, reception varied by decades of signal strength, sometimes block to block, which leads me to believe there was some sort of boundary condition - maybe the towers were just clearing and getting blocked by the mountain. We spent the whole day there on the beach, shopping, ate dinner. Drove up and down a bit. FM was a mess with different stations coming and going. My daughter, of course, wanted KIIS FM, which came and went sometimes within a few dozen feet. It took us a while to find the SD equivalent, it hung in there much better. The Radio-Locator map is a joke. Coming into town from Santa Barbara along 101, we had an entirely different 102.7 until we got very close to the mountain. Then it swapped quickly as the mountain came into view. There was also a first adjacent somewhere.
I stayed at the Marriott Laguna Cliffs this past February. FM reception with the SRF37 was somewhat problematic. I only did a quick bandscan, but with the Sangean ATS-505 the results were considerably better. Most (but not all) of the full signal San Diego and Los Angeles FMs were a little "touchy" but still very listenable in full stereo with little, if any, hiss with the proper rotation of the whip antenna. I zeroed in on KRTH (101.1), which is a Mount Wilson stick. No problem with that one whatsoever. I suspect it might have been a different story at the bottom of the cliff and about a quarter mile away.
That is a good point. In markets with uneven terrain there can be areas of shadowing no matter what the power. Many of the Mt Wilson signals just can't get a reliable signal into locations like parts of Malibu because of that reason. The same is true in the Santa Clarita / Newhall zone of the metro, as well as in many of the canyons that are populated.
KIIS FM is a relatively low power station (which is why I mentioned it) and has trouble in lower Orange County as well as lacking penetration into Ventura County and the High Desert areas of the LA market.
The radio locator maps are not useful except to get a general idea of a signal. First, the red contour is the only useful one as adjacents and even co-channels affect anything beyond that. And then it is not adjusted for specific terrain, for which a Longley Rice map is needed.
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No chance under normal conditions of it interfering along the 101 from Santa Barbara to the border of LA County due to huge natural terrain blockage. Fresno is "hidden" in the central valley area.
Much more likely is adjacent channel from KLQV 102.9 in San Diego, which is known under inversion conditions to lay down quite a signal up to around Ventura.
Keep in mind all the Mt Wilson FMs are grandfathered with higher-than-class facilities, but only protected to the extent of their conforming class B equivalents.
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rbrucecarter5
Guest
That far - interesting. Of course that was years ago now - 2010 I think. Who knows what pirate might have been taking advantage of the shadow behind Mt. Wilson. I remember the signal being pretty steady for about 5 miles, then swapped to KIIS rather abruptly. We might have been passing over I-5 which might have a window of reception to the North. I know the Supertuner 3D with a 31 inch whip can do 200 mile reception without a problem if the path is unobstructed and the station isn't doing beam tilt. The first adjacent was probably KXLM Oxnard, given we were coming down the coastal highway - three day break in filming so we went to SF for a day - decided to take the scenic route back. The dust bowl beside I-5 was too depressing.
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rbrucecarter5
Guest
NO radios of any time were allowed on the set at Santa Clarita - too much danger of extraneous noise. All that production equipment put out a lot of interference anyway. Someone told me there were other TV shows in production there as well so the RF background was bad. I was able to do some DX up the hill from the outdoor set at night - it was a heat wave and frankly that circular parking lot converted into a set was like being in a wok. Other shows had shut down for the night so interference was less. A lot of cast parents went up the hill to sit in their cars and actually get a less - hot breeze. I was concentrating on AM. but I remember the Mt. Wilson stations were problematic at best as we drove into Mann Medical park, really not worth listening to due to dropouts. But they were better at the cast parent parking lot up the hill.
Much of the Santa Clarita / Valencia / Newhall area is shadowed by the western peaks of the San Gabriel Mountains, including some that are higher than Mt Wilson itself. Quite a few stations that are on Wilson have installed boosters to serve the area, which is part of the LA radio market.
(A booster is an on-channel solution fed from a station's own signal. The classic booster has a receiving antenna on one side of a hill or mountain, and this feeds a transmitting antenna on the other side of the crest, aimed, very directionally, at the shadowed area.)
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