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Skywave on Cold Weather Mornings

G

Gregg.

I find it interesting how skywave continues into the early morning hours, even when I'm looking at the sun in November at 8:30 a.m. I would guess an hour or two later, many of these distant stations would not be heard.

I was in Whitehall NY, halfway between Glens Falls and Rutland VT, about 200 miles north of NYC. I was surprised at what I could hear, including several stations from Toronto and Montreal.

540 WLIE Islip LI (weak)
550 WDEV Waterbury VT (strong)
560 WHYN Springfield MA (OK)
570 WSYR Syracuse NY (fairly good - surprised it wasn't WMCA NYC)
580 WTAG Worcester MA (OK)
590 WROW Albany NY (OK)
620 WVMT Burlington VT (strong)
640 WWNZ Westfield MA (strong)
660 WFAN NYC (strong)
680 WRKO Boston (OK)
690 CKGM Montreal (fair)
710 WOR NYC (strong)
730 CKAC Montreal (I was surprised it was not there)
740 CFZM Toronto (fair)
760 WVNE Leicester MA (fair)
770 WABC NYC (strong)
790 Someone was carrying Fox News, maybe Watertown NY? (weak)
800 CJAD Montreal (OK)
810 WGY Schenectady NY (strong)
830 WCRN Worcester MA (OK)
860 CJBC Toronto (OK)
880 WCBS NYC (strong)
950 Religion station (fair)
960 WEAV Plattsburgh NY (strong)
990 Religion station (fair)
1010 WCNL Newport NH (fair, and no interference from WINS or CFRB)
1030 WBZ Boston (strong)
1050 CHUM Toronto (fair)

I also got 1130 WBBR NYC strong and 1580 CKDO Oshawa, Ont. fair.
 
Skywave will continue all day around this time of year. I have had 800-900 mi. AM DX at 1:00PM in December/January.
 
crainbebo said:
Skywave will continue all day around this time of year. I have had 800-900 mi. AM DX at 1:00PM in December/January.
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That is a bit exaggerated.

First, there can be enhanced groundwave in winter due to much lower noise levels. The expression "summer static" that inhibits good DX in the May to August period has a counterpoint in the winter. With low noise and a good receiver / antenna combo, much greater groundwave is possible.

I recall one of the CONELRAD tests where all US stations were off or on 640 and 1240. From NE Ohio, I got a Winnipeg station on groundwave at, IIRC, 11 AM EST.

In the same era, I experienced occasional daytime skywave, the best being 4VEH from Cap Hatien, Haiti. This was never repeated, despite trying. I did get a few instances of obvious skywave an hour to 90 minutes after sunrise or the same time before sunset. In the case of post sunrise DX, it gradually faded until being totally gone in 60 to no more than 90 minutes..

My best pre-sunset was Algeria on 1251 (if I remember right) in my car in San Juan, PR, for 4300 miles at around 3:30 PM AST. Second best was a catch just after local sunset (6 PM almost every day of the year in PR) of KHEY 690 in El Paso, TX, about 2300 miles or 2.5 time zones away; totally readable for about 30 minutes.

In that period, 1958 to 1963, I was a truly serious DXer with over 2,400 verifications and about 60 countries. I was also a founder and on the board of the IRCA, so I followed DX closely.
 
DavidEduardo said:
That is a bit exaggerated.

First, there can be enhanced groundwave in winter due to much lower noise levels. The expression "summer static" that inhibits good DX in the May to August period has a counterpoint in the winter. With low noise and a good receiver / antenna combo, much greater groundwave is possible.
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I always thought it was skywave. I have never heard CBK-540 in spring, summer, or early/mid fall during the daytime. But they are often heard in the winter, at 750 miles. Stations often have fades similar to skywave. KDFD-760 Denver (as KKZN) is another example of extreme winter daytime DX. 900 miles. Ground conductivity isn't THAT amazing here compared to ND/SD/NE. Often at 1-2PM in winter, I'll get a weak graveyard mix on 1340 and 1400 instead of usual weak signals from KJOX-1340 Tri Cities and KRSC-1400 Othello.
 
During the winter EST months, I start hearing WLW 700 Cincinnati here in Columbia SC around 4:00 pm, with whispers of it even before then. It's one of my car presets.
 
crainbebo said:
I always thought it was skywave. I have never heard CBK-540 in spring, summer, or early/mid fall during the daytime. But they are often heard in the winter, at 750 miles. Stations often have fades similar to skywave. KDFD-760 Denver (as KKZN) is another example of extreme winter daytime DX. 900 miles. Ground conductivity isn't THAT amazing here compared to ND/SD/NE. Often at 1-2PM in winter, I'll get a weak graveyard mix on 1340 and 1400 instead of usual weak signals from KJOX-1340 Tri Cities and KRSC-1400 Othello.
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You've got many km of the best ground conductivity in the hemisphere across Manitoba, a bit of ND, much of Montana and even some of Idaho before it hits WA... the same thing I experienced decades ago during the CONELRAD test when I got a different, and lower powered AM, from Winnipeg in NE Ohio.

If you can get the station often in the daytime, it's likely ground wave. Daytime skywave outside of the critical hours is very erratic as my examples illustrate... one day near-perfect signal, next day nothing, following day just a hint of it.

The best example of daytime ground wave was Bermuda on 1235, also decades ago. It was quite easily heard in select shoreline locations from Maine and Cape Cod down to the barrier islands in North Carolina on quiet days.... meaning winter... in what is obviously groundwave over salt water.

But in 65 years in the NRC, I don't recall anything except rare and occasional non-critical hour daytime skywave, and that was almost always around noon.
 
IM42A said:
During the winter EST months, I start hearing WLW 700 Cincinnati here in Columbia SC around 4:00 pm, with whispers of it even before then. It's one of my car presets.
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Yep. That is why some stations have to reduce daytime power to "Critical Hour" levels in the period right after sunrise and right before sunset.
 
As others have said, its not so much the cold weather.. its mostly what comes along with those colder mornings.

My best "daytime" log was 1590 Seattle 900 miles away in Laramie, WY at 1030am mountain
 
Few Weeks ago when my sister in law dropped off me around 7am in Carson City, I didn't hear KNX. When I'm down again, I check again
 
In the 80s, when my Dad had a place 2 blocks from the beach in Carmel, CA, I used to get 830/KIKI in Honolulu from about 12 Midnight until about 8 or 8:30 AM in the Winter. Once we drove a mile or two from the beach, we'd lose it completely on the car radio - that was a distance of about 2,400 miles. Otherwise my best Winter daytime catches were in the 90s and early 2000s, when I would regularly get KFBK/Sacramento here in the San Diego area, shooting a signal right down I-5 at a distance of close to 500 miles, heard throughout most of the day.
 
powers said:
In the 80s, when my Dad had a place 2 blocks from the beach in Carmel, CA, I used to get 830/KIKI in Honolulu from about 12 Midnight until about 8 or 8:30 AM in the Winter. Once we drove a mile or two from the beach, we'd lose it completely on the car radio - that was a distance of about 2,400 miles. Otherwise my best Winter daytime catches were in the 90s and early 2000s, when I would regularly get KFBK/Sacramento here in the San Diego area, shooting a signal right down I-5 at a distance of close to 500 miles, heard throughout most of the day.
Click to expand...

You should hear how KFBK sounds up here with the equivalent ERP of 125KW 2500 miles away in western Alaska.

Take a listen:

KFBK 1530 Sacramento, CA 640pm Thu Oct 19, 2023.MP3

drive.google.com drive.google.com
 
powers said:
In the 80s, when my Dad had a place 2 blocks from the beach in Carmel, CA, I used to get 830/KIKI in Honolulu from about 12 Midnight until about 8 or 8:30 AM in the Winter. Once we drove a mile or two from the beach, we'd lose it completely on the car radio - that was a distance of about 2,400 miles. Otherwise my best Winter daytime catches were in the 90s and early 2000s, when I would regularly get KFBK/Sacramento here in the San Diego area, shooting a signal right down I-5 at a distance of close to 500 miles, heard throughout most of the day.
Click to expand...
Is it possible to get AM radio stations from California in Hawaii?
 
Easy peasy at night. KNX, KFI, KFAX, KFBK, even the 1KW X-Banders are easy at night. But KGO is weak. Their pattern shoots N-S, not towards Hawaii.
 
My best winter daytime reception was WSM 650 at noon over 15 years ago. Likely skywave into the southwest suburbs of Chicago. Just a few minutes, but with ID and noon news.
 
Cold weather has nothing to do with it. I've had daytime skywave and critical hours skip on a 50 degree January day in Tennessee. My first indicator is WCKY on 1530. The now0defunct WCNW-1560 would make it a few times a year around noon. Sometimes skip it can hang around all day.
 
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