• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

1620 AM WDHP in the Virgin Islands

M

MichaelTheZ

I just wanted to mention that the last three nights I've been picking up WDHP "The Reef" in the US Virgin Islands on 1620 AM. All three days I was listening around 10PM local time in Chicago. Yesterday night it was coming in especially well. This was the farthest station I've ever received (2100 miles or so away). I'm guessing from the signal strength that they are broadcasting on their daytime power of 10KW.

I was not using anything fancy (just a portable radio which I brought to a location to block KOZN Omaha which is the dominant station where I am), and I think I was also hearing it on the Pennsylvania websdr behind a Spanish-language station. Anyhow, I thought I'd mention it since it seems like a rare catch that should be easy for others to pick up (assuming they don't decide to switch back to the correct 1KW nighttime power or there are other changes that prevent it.)
 
MichaelTheZ said:
I just wanted to mention that the last three nights I've been picking up WDHP "The Reef" in the US Virgin Islands on 1620 AM. All three days I was listening around 10PM local time in Chicago. Yesterday night it was coming in especially well. This was the farthest station I've ever received (2100 miles or so away). I'm guessing from the signal strength that they are broadcasting on their daytime power of 10KW.

I was not using anything fancy (just a portable radio which I brought to a location to block KOZN Omaha which is the dominant station where I am), and I think I was also hearing it on the Pennsylvania websdr behind a Spanish-language station. Anyhow, I thought I'd mention it since it seems like a rare catch that should be easy for others to pick up (assuming they don't decide to switch back to the correct 1KW nighttime power or there are other changes that prevent it.)
Click to expand...

1kw on what is "almost" a short-wave frequency is fully capable of sounding nice and clear in your location.

A good example was back in the 60's when early on Monday mornings there was no North American station on the air on 1370. That was in the era when most AMs signed off at midnight on Sunday for maintenance, not returning until 5 AM or 6 AM local time. But at 4 AM EST WIVV, a 1 kw station on Vieques Island, Puerto Rico, signed on. DXers as far as the west coast routinely heard the station well.

In fact, how well WIVV was at sign on was an indication of the potential for DXing harder catches. I found 50 watt AFRTS-Ramey from Puerto Rico on several mornings on 780, 100% readable. 500 watt WITA in San Juan also had an early sign on, and was well heard. Many others from Puerto Rico in the 250 watt to 1 kw range were heard well then, and that was because the frequencies were so clear.

So I really doubt that the station in the VI is overpowered. Actually, given the economy there, I'd be more suspicious of them running lower power in the daytime... they have some of the most expensive electricity in the US there. And the island can be covered well with 1 kw.
 
David is right about the higher part of the AM band. In the 90s when they started using the X-band I was shocked how well KDIA from Northern California was coming into the midwest. I was DXing in the 60s but I was unaware then of all the DX I could've logged had I spent more time on the higher part of the band.
 
First time I heard WDHP here in the Chicago area was back in 2002 when they first signed on 1620 kHz. Reception was tough at my location as there is a local TIS (WNWZ910, Bennsenville, IL) on 1620, but I was able to null them and the South Bend station to hear them. Later on the same year I even heard them on my car radio driving around Lincolnshire, IL.

The Spanish station you were hearing on the websdr was most likely Radio Rebelde, Cuba.

And yes when the expanded band first opened up all those California stations were quite easily heard in Chicago. It's much tougher these days.
 
...and the tropical bands:
120 meters = 2.3-2.49 Mhz
_90 meters = 3.3-3.5 Mhz
_60 meters = below and slightly above 5 Mhz
_75 meters = honorable mention:
(not tropical and not in this region)
 
ai4i said:
...and the tropical bands:
120 meters = 2.3-2.49 Mhz
_90 meters = 3.3-3.5 Mhz
_60 meters = below and slightly above 5 Mhz
_75 meters = honorable mention:
(not tropical and not in this region)
Click to expand...

60 meters was a hoot! Loaded with local stations from various locations in Latin America and LOTS of interesting music.
 
radioman148 said:
David is right about the higher part of the AM band. In the 90s when they started using the X-band I was shocked how well KDIA from Northern California was coming into the midwest. I was DXing in the 60s but I was unaware then of all the DX I could've logged had I spent more time on the higher part of the band.
Click to expand...

Just before the US began using the X-Band, Argentina began using it. At one time, driving a rental car at night in Miami I picked up one of the 1 kw Buenos Aires suburban X-Band operations. Those frequencies are really strong for skywave.
 
cyberdad said:
60 meters was a hoot! Loaded with local stations from various locations in Latin America and LOTS of interesting music.
Click to expand...

I briefly owned a 90 meter band commercial shortwave station, HCSP1. From seeing the files of the station when I bought it (packed dirt floors but a nice metal file cabinet), they had more listeners in Europe than in Ecuador.

I moved the station into the big city where we had nice tile and parquet floors and the roof did not leak.
 
Last edited:
cyberdad said:
60 meters was a hoot! Loaded with local stations from various locations in Latin America and LOTS of interesting music.
Click to expand...

That's something I liked about WDHP, the peppy Caribbean music. I have to say, AM radio in the US has changed so much since I used to try DXing as a teenager back in the 80s. I pretty much didn't listen to AM radio from about 1992 until when I started up again last fall, and the changes were pretty enormous. I was struck by the sheer number of stations carrying syndicated political talk shows and sports shows, as well as how the greatly reduced number of music-playing stations were generally playing music from the 70s or earlier. WDHP was quite different... modern Caribbean music is very different from what you typically hear on AM nowadays.
 
1630 KCJJ in Iowa was heard coast to coast at night (with 1 kW) when they were the only station on the frequency. And there were some airport TISes on 1640 and 1680 kHz in Dallas (?) that had similarly broad DX reception even with only 50 watts of power.
 
DavidEduardo said:


Many of the X-Band stations have been widely heard in Australia and New Zealand as well.
Click to expand...

The reverse is also true. Several Aussie X-banders have been heard on the US/Canada west coast. The Aussies are all, I believe, limited to 400w.
 
kevtronics said:
1630 KCJJ in Iowa was heard coast to coast at night (with 1 kW) when they were the only station on the frequency. And there were some airport TISes on 1640 and 1680 kHz in Dallas (?) that had similarly broad DX reception even with only 50 watts of power.
Click to expand...

Last winter I regularly heard KCJJ on the arctic SDR.
 
radioman148 said:
Last winter I regularly heard KCJJ on the arctic SDR.
Click to expand...

I heard them a couple of times on that SDR myself. "Captain Steve" goes global. In fact, since they moved from 1560 to 1630 there aren't many places in my U.S. Canada travels where I haven't heard them at least once. I also heard them one day last week in the car via daytime skywave.

Back to the tropical band and David's post about his 90 meters station. I read an atricle back in the '90s about these stations. There were pictures of a couple of them in what looked like the back room or second floor of slum buildings. Complete with makeshift studios with homebrew equipment! My personal favorite listen was...4770khz IIRC, and I don't even remember where from....played continuous marimba music and had a very listenable night signal here. Especially in winter.
 
cyberdad said:
I heard them a couple of times on that SDR myself. "Captain Steve" goes global. In fact, since they moved from 1560 to 1630 there aren't many places in my U.S. Canada travels where I haven't heard them at least once. I also heard them one day last week in the car via daytime skywave.

Back to the tropical band and David's post about his 90 meters station. I read an atricle back in the '90s about these stations. There were pictures of a couple of them in what looked like the back room or second floor of slum buildings. Complete with makeshift studios with homebrew equipment! My personal favorite listen was...4770khz IIRC, and I don't even remember where from....played continuous marimba music and had a very listenable night signal here. Especially in winter.
Click to expand...

Google "Don Moore DXer" hes been to several south american countries, visited their various local SW stations and posted pictures
 
The Virgin Islands and Bermuda are two places I'd love for there to be SDRs, just to hear what comes in across the salt water and what makes it there at night.
 
cyberdad said:
Back to the tropical band and David's post about his 90 meters station. I read an atricle back in the '90s about these stations. There were pictures of a couple of them in what looked like the back room or second floor of slum buildings. Complete with makeshift studios with homebrew equipment!
Click to expand...

The station I bought was in Amaguaña, Ecuador, about an hour or so drive on cobblestone roads just SE of the city of Quito, but down closer to about 8500 feet altitude.

The town had maybe 8,000 inhabitants. The station, HCSP1, had 595 AM and a shortwave frequency I just do not remember around 3.3 MHz. They had two 25 watt transmitters, using 810's or 813's in the final and modulation stages. The transmitters were locally built by radio technicians, not a real factory. They both sat on wooden beams laid on the dirt floor, and had no panels on the cabinets so they could be naturally ventilated.

The antennas were longwires hung between tall living eucalyptus trees, maybe 15 to 20 meters high. The ground was a buried car chassis and a couple of car radiators soldered together. The console was actually a public address mixer which had a high level output which drove the transmitters. The turntables were Gerrard changers mounted on a desk.

The main business of the station was not advertising... it was relaying messages around the Cantón (the equivalent of a county). Local people would go to the station to send messages to people living on farms and haciendas where there were no phones; the whole town had only a couple of phones, in fact. A fee would be charged. And also they sold musical dedications on people's saints day, celebrated more than actual birthdays. Those were so popular that people might line up to buy them when the bigger saints days occurred.... Maria, Pedro, Pablo, José, etc.

The station owner had become sick, and the family did not want the station. I think the whole thing cost less than $2,500. All I wanted was the license; the AM hopped to Quito and moved to 590 with a rather nice transmitter site south of Quito in land so moist your feet sunk in while walking on it. I did not have a use for the SW, so it was cancelled at my request. But we programmed a format that appealed to the indigenous population, and mostly made money with those messages and dedications, putting a desk with a lockbox on the sidewalk every workday to take the messages and the dedications. An a good day, it could take in S/. 10,000 in cash, mostly in S/. 5, 10 and 20 bills which was a pretty good bag full.

https://www.pichinchauniversal.com.ec/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/AMAGUANA.jpg is a picture of the town the station was in, taken recently.

For pics of stations big and small in Latin America in 1963, see my collection at https://www.americanradiohistory.com/Radio-Station-Photos-1963.htm These are all shots I made while traveling the area from Mexico to Colombia the year before I built my first station in Ecuador. The stations range from really nice world class facilities to ones you wonder about how they stay on the air.
 
@David and @SomeRadioGuy.....

Great Stuff! I'll Google Don Moore's site, and I really loved the pics on David's site. I had actually seen some of those on a previous visit. I especially liked the shot of the station built in the ravine behind the football stadium. You build 'em where you can. In the case of our carrier current campus station (KOED-570khz) we were situated in a space about the size of walk-in closet between the men's and ladies' bathrooms in the student union. Hence our unofficial slogan "Broadcasting from between the johns".

Speaking of which....one year, the administration attempted to shut us down. They "didn't like rock and roll", so we moved to a dorm room used to store matresses next to where the transmitter was housed. Got 25 feet of speaker wire hooked up a PA amp which contained mixers and a turntable and we were in business! So I definitely learned what it's like to work with just a one-table PA amp. Changing records while simultaneously speaking into a microphone was true multi-tasking! Actually, the resultant audio was better than what we had been getting from the board in the studio.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom