1280 Mystery

[KR1S]

Just now at local sunset in SE Arizona, on 1280 I was hearing an English-lang religious program. Can't find anything similar on MWList. The religious station in Minnesota is Catholic, and the speaker was recommending a new Bible translation. It faded in a couple of minutes and all I hear now is a fluttery Mexican station. Any thoughts? Thanks.

Jim

P.S. Didn't look hard enough. KXEG, all the way up in Phoenix.

 

[kf4rca]

KXEG Phoenix?
Its my experience that reception at sundown is usually limited to one or two states adjacent to you.

 

[KR1S]

KXEG Phoenix?
Its my experience that reception at sundown is usually limited to one or two states adjacent to you.

I'm in AZ, about 180 miles from Phoenix.

 

[davideduardo]

KXEG Phoenix?
Its my experience that reception at sundown is usually limited to one or two states adjacent to you.

"Sunset skip", as MW DXers call it, can extend to about half of the continent depending on one's location.

When I DXed from Cleveland, OH, the period around sunset until a couple of hours after could bring in stations as far away as New Mexico and the eastern Rocky Mountain zone.

My bellwether stations for the Southwest were KGGF-690 in Coffeyville, KS, and KGLC-910 in Miami, OK. If I got those, I knew that I could try for west Texas (El Paso), New Mexico (Las Cruces, Roswell, etc.) and even eastern CO (Lamar, etc.). The pickings were either daytimers just before sign-off or stations with much better day facilities than night ones. Two good catches were Phoenix and Colorado Springs on 1580 just prior to sign-off.

Otherwise, there were more narrow opportunities in about the first hour after sunset, where my bellwether station was Blytheville, Arkansas on 910. That would mean stations in TN, AL, LA, TX, AR, MO were possible. Because of the unusual sunset skip propagation, stations in those areas might override semi-locals on occasion.

From my location, sunset skip did not generally favor the upper Midwest, but stations like Vermillion, SD, on 690 and Worthington, MN, on 730 were the kind of things occasionally logged. Best was probably KSJB in Jamestown, ND, just before pattern change on 600 and Shelby, Montana on 1480.

 

[Steve Green NEPA]

Those SSS conditions indeed can be pretty neat.
I'm sure I was the only one driving in Sunbury PA (which has an all-news-some-of-the-time station itself in WKOK) one SSS who was looking for all-news WCBS 880. Sure enough, there it was -- all news. Yay! Lemme hear what's happening in my old digs.
Thing was, the station turned out to be WRFD Columbus Ohio. 330 miles away. No WCBS at all.

Ditto one bright morning on 1060, off the bedroom night table Zenith. Okay, KYW. Give me the weather.
Of course, it wasn't KYW. There was no KYW. I was getting that thing from Boston, which ran some sort of news block at that hour.

* * * * * * *

Re specifically 1280, albeit a little off-topic: I was just futzing around with the GE Superadio 2 one night, barefoot, about 9:00. Even the radio was barefoot. And there was some high school football game atop the channel (which means it was overriding the usual nighttime 1280 station WADO from NYC).
The HS FB station turned out to be WFYC from Alma Michigan. They're an omni 1000-watt former daytimer, subsequently granted the license to deliver 56 watts at night to serve Greater Metro Alma.
Since they are 450 miles from here ... and since HS FB games on such facilities are known to exhibit questionable clock management (especially on Friday evenings), I'm fairly certain that WFYC was running a few more watts than 56. Maybe just 944 extra watts.
Stations such as that -- particularly their sales departments and the sponsors -- have to love the revenue. 'Tis the season. TGIF !

 

[davideduardo]

KXEG Phoenix?
Its my experience that reception at sundown is usually limited to one or two states adjacent to you.

And I forgot my two most interesting sunset skip receptions:

Repeatedly, in the late 70's, at around 3 PM local time in San Juan, PR, I would get Tripoli, Libya, on 1251 on my car radio. Generally, the reception coincided with the annual "dust storms" from Northern Africa that would hit parts of the eastern Caribbean.

Then, heard only once, at about 8 PM AST, also in my car in San Juan, KHEY 690 from El Paso just before cutting back to directional operation and running 10 kw non-directional. That is about 2,700 miles.

 

[kf4rca]

Might be more of a geographic thing. Since the Eastern coast is relatively densely populated, you can count on a station occupying every frequency within one or two states of you.
In any event, you should write the station and let them know you heard them. This is especially appreciated by the CE. Many engineering departments are on the excrement list as anything engineering related is generally high dollar. These reports let the GM know that the CE is doing his job.
I've heard stories that GMs wince when they see the CE heading for their office as it usually involves big buck$.
Most stations have a contact button on their website.

 

[crainbebo]

Sunset skip can be interesting here too, especially dead of winter. I've heard Colorado Springs 1530 and Evansville WY 1580 among many other things, around their sunset. However, the sun*rise* skip is much more interesting here. If conditions are excellent, I can hear KCJB-910 Minot, loudly, at 6:15-6:30AM PT around this time of year. And the conditions have been tremendous lately. I'll be trying for WZFG and KPRM the next few mornings before I flip to the Asian propagation. I've never heard 1100 Fargo and 870 Park Rapids, and they are both 50KW day. I also wouldn't mind KZOT on 1180 which is 25KW daytime.

 

[PTBoardOp94]

Might be more of a geographic thing. Since the Eastern coast is relatively densely populated, you can count on a station occupying every frequency within one or two states of you.
In any event, you should write the station and let them know you heard them. This is especially appreciated by the CE. Many engineering departments are on the excrement list as anything engineering related is generally high dollar. These reports let the GM know that the CE is doing his job.

It couldn't hurt ... but I can't think of any bean counter I've worked for who would have been impressed with his Iowa station being heard in Georgia.

 

[davideduardo]

Sunset skip can be interesting here too, especially dead of winter. I've heard Colorado Springs 1530 and Evansville WY 1580 among many other things, around their sunset. However, the sun*rise* skip is much more interesting here. If conditions are excellent, I can hear KCJB-910 Minot, loudly, at 6:15-6:30AM PT around this time of year. And the conditions have been tremendous lately. I'll be trying for WZFG and KPRM the next few mornings before I flip to the Asian propagation. I've never heard 1100 Fargo and 870 Park Rapids, and they are both 50KW day. I also wouldn't mind KZOT on 1180 which is 25KW daytime.

You are right about sunrise skip. When most of your continent's land mass is to the east of you, hearing daytime facilities or daytimers far to the east is very possible as our location is still under darkness.

When I was in Ecuador, I'd often get the Brazilian stations as well as Argentina and Uruguay as they did 6 AM sign-ons when it was still one or two hours earlier in my location.

 

[kf4rca]

The ground conductivity is so bad here the GMs walk by the transmitter and say,"Is this thing on?"
Many are tickled to get correspondence from ANYBODY.
Two AMs have gone dark here so far this year. WAZX and WMLB. But I admit the owners didn't know what they were doing.

 

[ftballfan]

The ground conductivity is so bad here the GMs walk by the transmitter and say,"Is this thing on?"
Many are tickled to get correspondence from ANYBODY.
Two AMs have gone dark here so far this year. WAZX and WMLB. But I admit the owners didn't know what they were doing.

I think WMLB's owner even admitted he didn't know what he was doing