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Daytimer on at night - 890

Heard WBAJ all night long out of Lexington, SC. running religion. They're supposed to be a daytimer with 8.5KW in critical hours. Seems to me that if I were illegally on the air, I wouldn't run any ID's.
 
Theyve apparently been doing this for about a week.. i found the owner and her fcc attorney's contact info and dropped them a line that they might wanna check into the station's overnight operational status
 
I went to check the Dixon, IL SDR two nights ago (2/28) but it is now offline. Hopefully it will return, it was a very good receiver. So....I took my "review" of 890 to the closest SDR location, which is also a very good rig. No trace of Kansas City, but I was hearing Spanish underneath. Not only clearly audible, but it also at one point rose to the top.

Revisiting the Peoria SDR again this evening, and the Spanish is overall even stronger, although it hasn't risen to the top. I presume, I'm hearing R. Progreso, but haven't positively ID it. Again, no trace of the Kansas City Catholic station.m I also checked 890 this morning about an hour before sunrise with the C. Crane skywave barefoot. Whether nulled or not, WLS was alone on the channel.
 
WBAJ was not on last night. WLS was remarkably clear with some Progresso underneath.
WBAJ and WLS run the same power.
I've heard WJTP (local here) running unauthorized nightime operation, in the past. BUT, they are now dark.
I think there are more stations out there who are running manual power control, than you might think.
Probably old rigs that don't interface with a computer very well.
 
kf4rca said:
I think there are more stations out there who are running manual power control, than you might think.
Probably old rigs that don't interface with a computer very well.
Click to expand...
Good point. I'm actually a little surprised I've never heard WBAJ around here. But the fact is, I think of 890 as a local and not a DX destination. So I don't spend a lot of time there. I'm also not exactly a talk show fan, so I guess it all adds up to my perhaps overlooking the channel as a DX opportunity.
 
kf4rca said:
WBAJ was not on last night. WLS was remarkably clear with some Progresso underneath.
WBAJ and WLS run the same power.
I've heard WJTP (local here) running unauthorized nightime operation, in the past. BUT, they are now dark.
I think there are more stations out there who are running manual power control, than you might think.
Probably old rigs that don't interface with a computer very well.
Click to expand...

No.. what it is is.. every time I've seen it... the remote control that switches automatically went stupid doing even the most momentary power outages.

I doubt WBAJ or WJYP are running old rigs.... would be horribly expensive to do so
 
SomeRadioGuy said:
WBAJ was not on last night. WLS was remarkably clear with some Progresso underneath.
WBAJ and WLS run the same power.
I've heard WJTP (local here) running unauthorized nightime operation, in the past. BUT, they are now dark.
I think there are more stations out there who are running manual power control, than you might think.
Probably old rigs that don't interface with a computer very well.
Click to expand...
Not much of a computer needed to shut the TX down at a prescribed time, lower power, or change patterns. Some older remote controls could lose their clock, but it's up to the station to make sure the remote control is functioning properly.
 
DXBob said:
At 6:45am this morning here in Overland Park, Kansas I tuned in 890 kHz on my car radio on the way to a client meeting. This is before local KMVG on this frequency signs on. To my surprise, WLS was totally missing which is highly unusual at this time of day. The only signal was some Spanish music programming that I did not have time to ID since I had a 7:00am meeting. I quickly checked the other Chicago 50 kW frequencies and all were missing. Skip conditions were not good anywhere on the AM band here early this morning between 6:30-7:00am. Most unusual since local sunrise is now 6:57am.

Bob
Click to expand...
Hi Bob - new here! I can't help but wonder if this was due to sunrise in Chicago being at 6:29 on the date in question - at 6:45, the sun would have been up for 16 minutes - would this be enough to kill the skywave?
 
roadwonk said:
Hi Bob - new here! I can't help but wonder if this was due to sunrise in Chicago being at 6:29 on the date in question - at 6:45, the sun would have been up for 16 minutes - would this be enough to kill the skywave?
Click to expand...
No, because even when there is daylight at the transmitter, the key to skywave is in the ionosphere, so low angle skip may be reflected hundreds of miles away.

When doing AM DX from both Ohio and from Puerto Rico, I had many instances of hearing European and North African stations at over an hour after local sunrise. In PR, I'd frequently get several northern African stations as early as 3 PM even on a car radio, and the sunset in PR was more than 2 1/2 hours away. The skips were occurring over the Atlantic where it was still night.
 
DavidEduardo said:
No, because even when there is daylight at the transmitter, the key to skywave is in the ionosphere, so low angle skip may be reflected hundreds of miles away.

When doing AM DX from both Ohio and from Puerto Rico, I had many instances of hearing European and North African stations at over an hour after local sunrise. In PR, I'd frequently get several northern African stations as early as 3 PM even on a car radio, and the sunset in PR was more than 2 1/2 hours away. The skips were occurring over the Atlantic where it was still night.
Click to expand...
Good point. Now that you mention it, two instances in which I was able to DX an AM station while the sun was up come to mind...

In January 1978, I was a sophomore in high school in Golden, CO. Sunrise was around 7:20 AM, and I had gotten to school before then. I was able to catch KOB from Albuquerque for maybe another 15 minutes after sunrise on my GE Power Sound boombox

Then a few days before Christmas of 2006, I was on I-10 about 30 miles east of El Paso, and it was still about 15 minutes before sunset. I started hitting the "seek" button on the factory receiver in my 2000 Toyota 4Runner, and surprisingly, KOA came in loud and clear - caught the news reports about the epic blizzard that shut down DIA!
 
I lived in Lafayette, Indiana in the 90s, where WLS was the closest of the Chicago clears, and was the only one of them to stop the scan. (Per Radio-Locator, WLS is 94 air miles away; WGN is 125). The signal blasts in enough for regular listening, but as of the 90s I can remember getting Cuba (at the time Radio Taino, with some English language tourism programming, later Progreso), and it was sometimes enough to seriously interfere with the WLS signal. In addition, in the morning after Mississippi sunrise, WHJA (may have had different calls in the 90s), which also had a news talk format, would come in if WLS was nulled.
 
KYWN 890 Meridian ID hasn't run the 250 watts directional night since around 2010. Also haven't had the 50 kW transmitter on since 2011. They've been running a kilowatt non-directional day/night.
Starting 3 weeks ago KYWN programming stopped. It's been a carrier only since then.
 
deleted... decided to start new thread on topic
 
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