• 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

Your Best daytime-skywave AM DX Catch ?

Steve Green NEPA

Steve Green NEPA

It was a February afternoon about 1:30 back in Queens NY . I'm moving BACK to Massachusetts where I'd originally bought the main radio -- a Zenith barbershop job -- when me and (and more importantly the radio) went crashing and tumbling down the icy back steps. Heartbroken over the radio, I plugged it in to see if it was okay. I wound up on 1300, listening for anything. Here's 1300 in the day, thx to nf8M:

I wasn't getting more proximate New Haven, nor Rockland County's WRRC (now dark) nor Trenton, nor Baltimore, nor Hazleton PA, nor splash from 1310's WJLK and WCAM. For about a half hour straight, playing AC type music, unfading, was WKCY Harrisonburg VA. At the time they were 5000 omni. They were also 499 miles away, as the cow flies.
Several times back in Queens I'd experienced some of that stuff from the SW that seemingly followed the Appalachians up to me as if the range was some sort of express viaduct. But a clear WKCY was ridiculous.

How 'bout you folks? Breaker one-nine: how 'boutcha good buddies ? Come on back ...... hi
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Seattles 1590 KLFE from Laramie, WY at 1030am Mountain
 
From East Tennessee probably WCNW, Fairfield Ohio. It's come in a few times. Oddly enough, I'm in the Smoky Mountains and they are running a commercial for Smoky Mountain vacations. Back home in Ohio, WBZ at high noon
 
From south Overland Park, Kansas:

Daytime skywave has been only a wintertime phenomenon at my location. I only count a "log" as daytime skywave during the winter months if reception occurs between the hours of 10:00am-2:00pm. This being said, here is the list of stations I have received during these hours via skywave: WSCR, WGN, WBBM, WMVP, WCCO, KSTP, KMOX, WLW, KOA, KXEL, WBAP and KRLD. Please note, I have not received WLS via daytime skywave due a local daytimer on 890 kHz.

Bob
 
I may have to amend mine to mention WKNR, Cleveland, OH on 850 which has stayed in all day, especially noticeable the year WKVL was off the air. There's also WTAM. During a very good all-day opening when I had to be in Nashville I had WHIO and WING from Dayton.at 2pm Central.
 
I don't think it can happen now, but in the 80's there were times I could catch WLS in West TN at Noon in the Fall and Winter on my car radio.
 
1060 in my neck of the woods would be KYW Philadelphia if it was anything, but at 12:45PM on a sunny winter day in February of 2019, 1060 was playing music. It was 5kW WHFB Benton Harbor-Saint Jo, Michigan, 501 miles away. I listened for a half hour or so - clear as a local. Never heard it before or since; I'd never even heard of daytime skywave prior to that.
 
A couple of years ago I heard CJRB 1220 Boissevain, MB at over 1,000 miles on daytime skywave, around 2 in the afternoon on or around the winter solstice. Blew me away!
 
I've mentioned this before but... Early 60's in Cleveland, Ohio 4VEH, Cap Haitiene, Haiti, on 1035 at around noon with perfect readability. About 1600 miles.

Second best: Winipeg, Manitoba 990 AM during a CONELRAD test.
 
We recently discussed this on another thread, but in the early 70s in mid December the entire east coast opened up into the Chicago area around noon. I listened to WBZ with a steady signal, over 800 miles.
 
In Chicago by the lakeshore, daytime skywave from across the Great Lakes is actually quite common during the winter months. Routinely you can hear Toronto stations on the upper end of the spectrum which are about 400-450 miles away. Another common city is Cleveland, around 300 miles away. When I started doing this a few years ago, I remember being surprised to hear WHKW 1220 in the middle of the day. (I was also unfamiliar with modern radio formats at the time, and was disturbed to hear a commercial containing blatant political lies while asking for money.) I *think* I've heard KDKA during the daytime also.

I'm not sure what is the absolute farthest I've heard in the daytime. It might just be the Toronto stations. Nothing further comes to mind.
 
WLW with a good steady signal on Clearwater Beach on a cold cloudy winter day just after 1 pm.

It was present the whole time I was over there but was gone once I crossed the bay over to the Tampa side.
 
gar hi said:
WLW with a good steady signal on Clearwater Beach on a cold cloudy winter day just after 1 pm.

It was present the whole time I was over there but was gone once I crossed the bay over to the Tampa side.
Click to expand...
That is a regular phenomenon where there is salt water between all or part of locations that may be 500 to as much as 800 miles apart.

From the SW coast of Puerto Rico, dozens of 10 kw or less Venezuelan stations along the coast can be heard as long as there is not a nearby Puerto Rican station. Caracas, Maracaibo, Barcelona, Cumaná, Valencia, Punto Fijo, etc. all are easily heard at around 550 to 600 miles. Even Barranquilla and Santa Marta, Colombia can be heard on open channels at over 700 miles.
 
My daytime akip indicator is WCKY but WLW doesn’t come up at the same time and keeps it’s “barely there” status. I also have a pipeline to NE Ohio
 
DavidEduardo said:
I've mentioned this before but... Early 60's in Cleveland, Ohio 4VEH, Cap Haitiene, Haiti, on 1035 at around noon with perfect readability. About 1600 miles.

Second best: Winipeg, Manitoba 990 AM during a CONELRAD test.
Click to expand...
What is a CONELRAD test?

Anyways, today would be a decent example as I'm still hearing bits and pieces of KUTR, KRVN, KLMR, KNZZ, KSL, KZNS, and possibly KFBK. KNZZ and KZNS in particular has often stuck around until 10 or 11 am in the winter. There was once that WBBM started coming in around 3pm in the afternoon.
Hey, didn't we already do this thread like three weeks ago?
 
DXBob said:
Today, this is known as a test of the "emergency broadcast system." CONELRAD was an earlier version of this test that was prevalent during the Cold War the U.S. and the USSR.

Bob
Click to expand...
The CONELRAD test consisted of:
Killing the RF carrier for 5 seconds, bringing the RF carrier back up for 5 seconds, killing the RF carrier for another 5 seconds, bringing the RF carrier back up with a 1000Hz tone for 30 seconds.
The test could be hard on a transmitter. Off, on, off, on, followed by a fully modulated tone has been known to kill a few modulation transformers.
 
frankberry said:
The CONELRAD test consisted of:
Killing the RF carrier for 5 seconds, bringing the RF carrier back up for 5 seconds, killing the RF carrier for another 5 seconds, bringing the RF carrier back up with a 1000Hz tone for 30 seconds.
The test could be hard on a transmitter. Off, on, off, on, followed by a fully modulated tone has been known to kill a few modulation transformers.
Click to expand...
And, from around 1956 to 1961 there were, I recall, either four or five national tests of the CONELRAD system where every station in the US went off the air for 30 minutes and the designated CONELRAD stations went to 1240 or 640 and did the alternating transmitter system for that time.

No single transmitter in every area of the country was on either 640 or 1240. The local participants in each area alternated at random intervals so that no station could be used to home in on individually. The broadcasts were at very low power, as moving a transmitter off frequency and connecting it to a tower not tuned to that frequency would make for horrible mismatches. There were plenty of comments on how the final tubes would glow bright yellow-red even at 10% of power due to the mis-tuning.

The tests themselves (I heard two of them) were mostly verbal explanations and statements that the test was just that and not a Soviet attack.

During the CONELRAD tests, there was nothing on any other frequency in the US, making it possible anywhere near the Canadian or Mexican border to hear lots of normally blocked stations as the other nations nearby did not have this system.

Tests were during mid-day hours.
 
WGTO had their 10kW transmitter equipped for 640kHz. I believe they operated in non directional mode when on 640.
 
DavidEduardo said:
And, from around 1956 to 1961 there were, I recall, either four or five national tests of the CONELRAD system where every station in the US went off the air for 30 minutes and the designated CONELRAD stations went to 1240 or 640 and did the alternating transmitter system for that time.

No single transmitter in every area of the country was on either 640 or 1240. The local participants in each area alternated at random intervals so that no station could be used to home in on individually. The broadcasts were at very low power, as moving a transmitter off frequency and connecting it to a tower not tuned to that frequency would make for horrible mismatches. There were plenty of comments on how the final tubes would glow bright yellow-red even at 10% of power due to the mis-tuning.

The tests themselves (I heard two of them) were mostly verbal explanations and statements that the test was just that and not a Soviet attack.

During the CONELRAD tests, there was nothing on any other frequency in the US, making it possible anywhere near the Canadian or Mexican border to hear lots of normally blocked stations as the other nations nearby did not have this system.

Tests were during mid-day hours.
Click to expand...
I remember the carrier cut, return, cut again and return with tone from the pre-two tone EBS, but I wasn't around the business during Conelrad.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom