Do Ponds & Lakes Create better Dxing conditions?

[Carltheradioguy]

I've noticed that every time I am on a pond, Reception (Mostly FM) is all over the place. Locals come in like garbage while signals from 100+ miles away sneak in. This is not just once in a great while, this is almost every time. I've always heard about Saltwater propagating but it feels like pond water does as well( at least in my experiences)

 

[cyberdad]

I'll take a stab at this one....

One reason lakes and ponds may provide improved reception is because they offer an opportunity to get away from ambient noise sources typically encountered on land. Where their may be significant enhancement is sometimes on larger lakes, where the composition of the lake bottom may result in ground conductivity better than surrounding terrain. Southern Lake Michigan is an example. The Michigan shore is comprised of sand dunes with very poor conductivity. But the lake bottom is more like the better conductivity of adjacent Illinois and Wisconsin. Another example is Lake Ponchartrain north of New Orleans. There, the brackish water improves the already good conductivity of the land (and swamps) surrounding it.

 

[Carltheradioguy]

That might be the case! I was on a small pond in Eastern Connecticut and The locals weren't coming in well(Except the very close Rhode Island signals) yet, I receive some of the higher powered Maine and New Hampshire stations.

 

[crainbebo]

There's always tropo enhancement on Lake Michigan...most cases, drive inland a few miles and they go away.

 

[radioman148]

Well I have noticed when I've been on the Western shore of Lake Michigan that weaker AM stations from Michigan or Northern Indiana do come in better.

 

[boombox4]

I would think -- at least on FM -- it would depend on the size of the pond. AFAIK, water can reflect FM and VHF signals to a certain extent. So, theoretically, the water you are sitting on (presumably in a boat, or right on the shoreline) would aid reception in some small way, reflecting whatever signals towards your antenna. If the pond is large, the obstructions (trees, houses, etc.) would also be farther away from the antenna.

Also, lakes can offer a long line of sight clear of obstructions. I know alongside Puget Sound (an arm of the ocean -- a fjord, basically) is a great place to hear FM signals from BC Canada and a few other areas that inland Seattle finds difficult to receive. I can't see how it would be much different on large lakes. Of course, it goes without saying, YMMV.

 

[Carltheradioguy]

I would think -- at least on FM -- it would depend on the size of the pond. AFAIK, water can reflect FM and VHF signals to a certain extent. So, theoretically, the water you are sitting on (presumably in a boat, or right on the shoreline) would aid reception in some small way, reflecting whatever signals towards your antenna. If the pond is large, the obstructions (trees, houses, etc.) would also be farther away from the antenna.

Also, lakes can offer a long line of sight clear of obstructions. I know alongside Puget Sound (an arm of the ocean -- a fjord, basically) is a great place to hear FM signals from BC Canada and a few other areas that inland Seattle finds difficult to receive. I can't see how it would be much different on large lakes. Of course, it goes without saying, YMMV.

That's what I was thinking. But then again at this pond, there are lots of trees surrounding. It was a pond used for the old textile mills way back when so it's in kind of an odd spot. But what I find interesting is that a lot of the local signals struggle yet I pull in some signals 60+ miles away crystal clear. I also pull in Maine and NH signals that are over 120 miles away on almost a daily basis.

 

[cyberdad]

I'm spending a week with family at a vacation house in New Buffalo, Michigan. Basically directly across Lake Michigan, 46 miles due east of downtown Chicago. Our place is about two blocks from the lake. Suffice to say, the enhancement of groundwave and FM signals is greater than what I had originally thought

Mix in the horrid ground conductivity of the sand that passes for topsoil around here and the result is an especially interesting scenario for AM.

On FM, the big Chicago signals are stronger than they are at my home, which is actually a few miles closer than the distance to here. No fiddling with my SRF-37 Walkman's headphones to get a hiss-free signal.

AM is definitely more dramatic. Case in point, in daytime, The Chicago 950 is 1kw ND and trips the scan button on the car radio. Meanwhile, 5kw ND WSBT in South Bend on 960 does not....despite being only 30 miles away. If I tune manually, Chicago is almost like a local with a good signal. WSBT is weak with Chicago splattering all over it.

Another example is the local 1400 from St. Joseph, MI. About 16 miles away. Signal here is fair-good. But null it, and you get a perfectly listenable (as opposed to just "audible") WRJN from across the lake in Racine, WI.

If I get a chance during these next few days, I'll see if I can post a mini bandscan with more.

 

[Carltheradioguy]

I'm spending a week with family at a vacation house in New Buffalo, Michigan. Basically directly across Lake Michigan, 46 miles due east of downtown Chicago. Our place is about two blocks from the lake. Suffice to say, the enhancement of groundwave and FM signals is greater than what I had originally thought

Mix in the horrid ground conductivity of the sand that passes for topsoil around here and the result is an especially interesting scenario for AM.

On FM, the big Chicago signals are stronger than they are at my home, which is actually a few miles closer than the distance to here. No fiddling with my SRF-37 Walkman's headphones to get a hiss-free signal.

AM is definitely more dramatic. Case in point, in daytime, The Chicago 950 is 1kw ND and trips the scan button on the car radio. Meanwhile, 5kw ND WSBT in South Bend on 960 does not....despite being only 30 miles away. If I tune manually, Chicago is almost like a local with a good signal. WSBT is weak with Chicago splattering all over it.

Another example is the local 1400 from St. Joseph, MI. About 16 miles away. Signal here is fair-good. But null it, and you get a perfectly listenable (as opposed to just "audible") WRJN from across the lake in Racine, WI.

If I get a chance during these next few days, I'll see if I can post a mini bandscan with more.

That would be a great read! (the bandscan) Interesting, for me the FM was a lot more dramatic as locals were getting swallowed up and distants were coming in like Tropo and Tropo doesn't happen to that extent every day. That's very odd about the 950 960 1400 saga. I feel your pain on that. Luckily for me, that only really happens for me at night where I have to Null frequencies due to adjacent frequencies. On the pond for me, some are highly highly directional like WTIC 1080 out of Avon/Hartford CT (45ish miles NW) It's crystal clear one way and the other way it's not even a 1 on my scale. It's weird. I'm heading back tomorrow so i'll see if anything is different

 

[boombox4]

That's what I was thinking. But then again at this pond, there are lots of trees surrounding. It was a pond used for the old textile mills way back when so it's in kind of an odd spot. But what I find interesting is that a lot of the local signals struggle yet I pull in some signals 60+ miles away crystal clear. I also pull in Maine and NH signals that are over 120 miles away on almost a daily basis.

Maybe it just happens to be in a great location -- a dead enough spot for locals to pipe in the DX and fringe stations. FM is a band I haven't DXed much, but one thing I've noticed is that even a quarter mile away (especially if you're in rolling or hilly terrain) can make a ton of difference. Certain hillsides will block out locals and a few fringe stations will pipe in. I haven't noticed it over water, as I haven't DXed FM over water. But you just might have chances upon a magic spot that allows the distant stations to come in.

Either way, sounds like a cool place to have your radio with you!

 

[Carltheradioguy]

Maybe it just happens to be in a great location -- a dead enough spot for locals to pipe in the DX and fringe stations. FM is a band I haven't DXed much, but one thing I've noticed is that even a quarter mile away (especially if you're in rolling or hilly terrain) can make a ton of difference. Certain hillsides will block out locals and a few fringe stations will pipe in. I haven't noticed it over water, as I haven't DXed FM over water. But you just might have chances upon a magic spot that allows the distant stations to come in.

Either way, sounds like a cool place to have your radio with you!

Very true! and Salt water or on an island is crazy for dxing. The Magic Spot is all over. Especially when you're off the coast of Massachusetts in Stellwagan Bank, you get signals from like 6 different markets and the dial is wild. I'm not an ocean person but i'd love to live in a house in the middle of the ocean just for a few days to see what I get on AM and FM. I'm sure the Great Lakes are similar as previous posters have commented except without the salt water.

 

[davideduardo]

Very true! and Salt water or on an island is crazy for dxing. The Magic Spot is all over. Especially when you're off the coast of Massachusetts in Stellwagan Bank, you get signals from like 6 different markets and the dial is wild. I'm not an ocean person but i'd love to live in a house in the middle of the ocean just for a few days to see what I get on AM and FM. I'm sure the Great Lakes are similar as previous posters have commented except without the salt water.

The advantage of being on one of the Great Lakes is that on one side, for 180°, there are no stations for as nearly a hundred miles. That opens up the dial a lot.

I've DXed from a bigger island, Puerto Rico. Daytime DX is incredible, with the Dominican Republic, upper Windward Islands and Venezuela on all the open frequencies. But there are 71 AM stations in PR, so at any place on the Island, there are locals and semi-locals on all but 36 frequencies. But many are not listenable outside of their local area on the Island and are as if they did not exist.

But there are vast areas of the Caribbean with just water, so station density does not pick up for 600 to 1000 miles. 1 kw stations from Spain, deep southern African stations, many Mediterranean area stations and, of course incredible South American DX such as 100 watt Brazilians and 1 kw Argentine stations are to be had... although in all those area AM stations are closing. Many US stations in the East are directional out to the Atlantic, so lots of interesting catches from the mainland, too.

 

[cyberdad]

sounds like a cool place to have your radio with you!

Very true. It's not unlike our usual getaway place on the gulf near Pensacola. Poor conductivity land adjacent to a body of water with good conductivity. (This summer, we decided to skip the long drive, and just head for the other side of Lake Michigan). The only problem here is that there's quite a lot of noise in the wooden frame house where we're staying. Welcome to AM DXing in the 21st century!

I'll try to get a mini AM bandscan up with some FM notes within the next day or two, if not sooner.

 

[cyberdad]

Okay, here's the mini AM bandscan (daytime).......

540: WAUK, very weak
560: WIND, good, All of the Chicago big signals are good here 24/7. That goes for 670, 720, 780, 890, and 1000. Even 820, and to a lesser extent 1160
580: WILL, very weak. In suburban Chicago, the signal ranges from fair to good. But at this location the signal hits the sandy soil and doesn't benefit from the lake path.
590: WKZO, very weak. This was a shocker, despite the sandy soil path. It's stronger at my home. Wondering if they're not running full power or if I'm in a dead spot.
600: WMT, barely audible, but I was able to positively ID it. Benefits from the lake.
620: WTMJ, good
640: WMFN good. "The new kid in town" or more correctly "the kid who moved away from town" does better here than I had been expecting
760: WJR, missing. missing on three different radios, including the Supe-2
850: WCPT, weak. No trace of WMUS from Muskegon
860: WNOV, weak but listenable. 250 watts from Milwaukee
920: WOKY, weak, but a little stronger than WNOV
950/960: I talked about this earlier. The 1kw signal from Chicago on 950 does better here than the less distant 5kw 960 from South Bend. (I earlier reported WSBT as non-directional during the day. It is not. But I think the conductivity has more to do with the signal than the pattern)
1030: WNVR, weak
1050: WLIP: weak
1060: WHFB: weak Not really any stronger than 250-watt WLIP despite being 5kw from about 22 miles away
1110: WMBI: fair-good. 4200 watts from a stick about 20 miles west-northwest of downtown Chicago.
1130: WISN: fair Despite pattern designed to protect WDFN
1180: WSQR: barely audible, but positively IDed. Mild surprise. 900 watts from about 55 miles west-northwest of Chicago
1200: WRTO: another good Chicago signal
1220: WKRS: fair. 1kw pattern pretty much straight north. But here I am to the southeast
1230: WJOB: fair at best
1240: WSBC: fair. farther away than WJOB, but a better signal
1300: WRDZ: weak. I'm in the null that protects WOOD. WOOD is closer and runs more power (20kw), but I didn't hear any trace of it.
1330: WKTA: good. As discussed yesterday.
1370: WLTH: weak, half the distance from here as WKTA
1390: WGRB: very weak. pattern sends most of the juice north along the other side of the lake.
1400: WSJM from 20 miles away or WRJN from 60 miles away depending on how you turn uyour radio. WSJM is stronger, but not by all that much
1420: WIMS fair at best from ten miles away. 5kw, no less. Nice little station, however.
1450: WRLL Chicago graveyarder with a fair-weak signal. 1490 WPNA is similar, but slightly weaker.
1690: WVON fair-good

Not all that much to add from the FM side. I've been listening for tropo, but haven't heard any. The downtown Chicago stations are all good, except WRME, which is a Franken FM on 87.7. It's audible and reliable, but weak and too much his for comfortable listening. If tropo (or e-skip) sets up, I'll report.

 

[radioman148]

Surprising results for WKZO & WJR. I wouldn't not have expected that.

 

[radioman148]

During the weekend I was in Indianapolis, In for a wedding. I did not have as much time as I wanted to check out the AM band--just a quickie scan of Chicago area stations & a few others all during the day.
Here is a short summary of what I heard:

550: WKRC weak (much weaker than I expected)
560: WIND good signal (one of the best from Chicago
580: WILL good signal
610: WTVN very weak
640: WMFN very weak
670: WSCR good
700: WLW Excellent-practically local grade
720: WGN: good
780:WBBM fair--not as good as WIND, WGN, WSCR or WLS.
810: WSYW local
840:WHAS good
860: WMRI weak
890: WLS good
920: WBAA weak
950: WXLW local
1000: WMVP weak
1010:WCSI fair
1070:WFNI local
1160:WYLL quite weak
1190:WOWO fair-weaker than I expected
1260: WNDE local
1310:WTLC local
1430:WXNT local
1500:WBRI local
1540:WMYJ fair
1590:WNTS local

Radio was a grundig G5. All reception daytime groundwave.
I was surprised by what I didn't hear. As strong as WLW was there was no trace of WCKY. I wasn't expecting a strong signal, but there was no trace of it.

 

[Carltheradioguy]

The advantage of being on one of the Great Lakes is that on one side, for 180°, there are no stations for as nearly a hundred miles. That opens up the dial a lot.

I've DXed from a bigger island, Puerto Rico. Daytime DX is incredible, with the Dominican Republic, upper Windward Islands and Venezuela on all the open frequencies. But there are 71 AM stations in PR, so at any place on the Island, there are locals and semi-locals on all but 36 frequencies. But many are not listenable outside of their local area on the Island and are as if they did not exist.

But there are vast areas of the Caribbean with just water, so station density does not pick up for 600 to 1000 miles. 1 kw stations from Spain, deep southern African stations, many Mediterranean area stations and, of course incredible South American DX such as 100 watt Brazilians and 1 kw Argentine stations are to be had... although in all those area AM stations are closing. Many US stations in the East are directional out to the Atlantic, so lots of interesting catches from the mainland, too.

That's awesome! too bad PR is a mess right now or i'd check it out

 

[Carltheradioguy]

Very true. It's not unlike our usual getaway place on the gulf near Pensacola. Poor conductivity land adjacent to a body of water with good conductivity. (This summer, we decided to skip the long drive, and just head for the other side of Lake Michigan). The only problem here is that there's quite a lot of noise in the wooden frame house where we're staying. Welcome to AM DXing in the 21st century!

I'll try to get a mini AM bandscan up with some FM notes within the next day or two, if not sooner.

Ugh, That's like 95% of houses now are filled with interference.

 

[Carltheradioguy]

Okay, here's the mini AM bandscan (daytime).......

540: WAUK, very weak
560: WIND, good, All of the Chicago big signals are good here 24/7. That goes for 670, 720, 780, 890, and 1000. Even 820, and to a lesser extent 1160
580: WILL, very weak. In suburban Chicago, the signal ranges from fair to good. But at this location the signal hits the sandy soil and doesn't benefit from the lake path.
590: WKZO, very weak. This was a shocker, despite the sandy soil path. It's stronger at my home. Wondering if they're not running full power or if I'm in a dead spot.
600: WMT, barely audible, but I was able to positively ID it. Benefits from the lake.
620: WTMJ, good
640: WMFN good. "The new kid in town" or more correctly "the kid who moved away from town" does better here than I had been expecting
760: WJR, missing. missing on three different radios, including the Supe-2
850: WCPT, weak. No trace of WMUS from Muskegon
860: WNOV, weak but listenable. 250 watts from Milwaukee
920: WOKY, weak, but a little stronger than WNOV
950/960: I talked about this earlier. The 1kw signal from Chicago on 950 does better here than the less distant 5kw 960 from South Bend. (I earlier reported WSBT as non-directional during the day. It is not. But I think the conductivity has more to do with the signal than the pattern)
1030: WNVR, weak
1050: WLIP: weak
1060: WHFB: weak Not really any stronger than 250-watt WLIP despite being 5kw from about 22 miles away
1110: WMBI: fair-good. 4200 watts from a stick about 20 miles west-northwest of downtown Chicago.
1130: WISN: fair Despite pattern designed to protect WDFN
1180: WSQR: barely audible, but positively IDed. Mild surprise. 900 watts from about 55 miles west-northwest of Chicago
1200: WRTO: another good Chicago signal
1220: WKRS: fair. 1kw pattern pretty much straight north. But here I am to the southeast
1230: WJOB: fair at best
1240: WSBC: fair. farther away than WJOB, but a better signal
1300: WRDZ: weak. I'm in the null that protects WOOD. WOOD is closer and runs more power (20kw), but I didn't hear any trace of it.
1330: WKTA: good. As discussed yesterday.
1370: WLTH: weak, half the distance from here as WKTA
1390: WGRB: very weak. pattern sends most of the juice north along the other side of the lake.
1400: WSJM from 20 miles away or WRJN from 60 miles away depending on how you turn uyour radio. WSJM is stronger, but not by all that much
1420: WIMS fair at best from ten miles away. 5kw, no less. Nice little station, however.
1450: WRLL Chicago graveyarder with a fair-weak signal. 1490 WPNA is similar, but slightly weaker.
1690: WVON fair-good

Not all that much to add from the FM side. I've been listening for tropo, but haven't heard any. The downtown Chicago stations are all good, except WRME, which is a Franken FM on 87.7. It's audible and reliable, but weak and too much his for comfortable listening. If tropo (or e-skip) sets up, I'll report.

Great scan! I second what Radioman said about WKZO & WJR. Think they would blow right in there( or at least be audible) but oh well. Nice to see y'all have an X Band signal as well. Doesn't shock me about the 950 and 960 going head to head either.

 

[Carltheradioguy]

During the weekend I was in Indianapolis, In for a wedding. I did not have as much time as I wanted to check out the AM band--just a quickie scan of Chicago area stations & a few others all during the day.
Here is a short summary of what I heard:

550: WKRC weak (much weaker than I expected)
560: WIND good signal (one of the best from Chicago
580: WILL good signal
610: WTVN very weak
640: WMFN very weak
670: WSCR good
700: WLW Excellent-practically local grade
720: WGN: good
780:WBBM fair--not as good as WIND, WGN, WSCR or WLS.
810: WSYW local
840:WHAS good
860: WMRI weak
890: WLS good
920: WBAA weak
950: WXLW local
1000: WMVP weak
1010:WCSI fair
1070:WFNI local
1160:WYLL quite weak
1190:WOWO fair-weaker than I expected
1260: WNDE local
1310:WTLC local
1430:WXNT local
1500:WBRI local
1540:WMYJ fair
1590:WNTS local

Radio was a grundig G5. All reception daytime groundwave.
I was surprised by what I didn't hear. As strong as WLW was there was no trace of WCKY. I wasn't expecting a strong signal, but there was no trace of it.

Great scan! Somedays, signals just don't come in. I feel like you have okay ground conductivity out there where you can get the big boys in there. Confused why wCKY isn't in there(as you said) According to Radio Locator, you should be in the fringe range of receiving.