Even several hours before sunset I get interference from the Washington DC station in NC ten miles north of another station at 1580.
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Saving AM Radio
- Thread starter BruceB
- Start date
I've mentioned this before, but on a winter day in Cleveland, Ohio, in the early 60's I had 4VEH from Cap Haitien, Haiti around noon on 1035 kcs on AM. Because the station was on a "split" frequency, it was not blocked by anything closer and the programming was fairly intelligible for over an hour.
Lucky you. No way I'd be hearing it across Massachusetts Bay from that little 1030 signal from Hull. 4VEH was an easy catch on 25 meters SW, though -- one of my first QSLs.
My more unusual twilight skip incidents were on my car radio in Puerto Rico.
Several times I had two of the high power Algerian stations that were on the 9 kcs separation standard come in around 3 PM AST. I can not remember the frequencies, but both were above 1200.
And once about an hour after local sunset in the eastern Caribbean, I had a very clear signal from KHEY 690 in El Paso, TX. I had been scanning the dial in the car, and stopped on that frequency when I heard country music, not at all common to hear on any station that got to the island.
The interesting thing about KHEY and the Algerian stations is that normally "pure" east-west DX was not common at that latitude so those receptions were very unusual.
I do remember, and heard, the shortwave frequency.
The Washington DC station (WPGC or whatever it is this week) is usually the. first station that comes in in crotical hours and last Eastern station to leave.
After I got home from my Seattle trip in January 1980, I noted KNBR a few times during daylight hours on 680 using the Panasonic RF-2600. I also occasionally heard the 760 signal out of Denver (before Tuba City, AZ, moved there) with oldies. In Phoenix, the upper end of the AM band was (and still is) completely crowded during daylight hours (only 1540 kHz has permanently retired thus far), making it literally impossible to receive daytime DX on the frequencies between 1150 and 1600 kHz.
Are Mexican stations part of the 1150-1600 AM clutter in Phoenix? I took a radio along on a Tucson visit about 20 years ago and there was definitely south of the border activity on AM there.
I was able to receive the 760 and the 1130 kHz signals from Nogales, SO using that receiver as well as what is now XESU (at 790) from Mexicali and what was then XETRA (690) from Tijuana (transmitter is, I believe, located in Rosarito). I could hear all of these year-round during daylight hours. However, I was unable to hear Nogales' 1240, 1270, and 1300 signals precisely because they were right next door to strong locals on 1230, 1280 and 1310 kHz respectively. (And, of course, the 1240 signal would have to compete with a closer signal transmitting from Globe which I could occasionally receive when I nulled the 1230 local.)
While a lot of AMs survive along the border due to the limitations in treaties and agreement with the U.S., nearly all AMs outside that region are gone. About 80% in fact.
Mexico relaxed the second adjacent FM channel limits, allowing a station every two channels.
Using the Radio Station World website (and again, I don't know how accurate its information is), it looks like outside of the areas near the U.S. border, only Mexicos capital (U.S. citizens call it Mexico City but I believe it is officially designated Mexico DF [an acronym] by the Mexican government) has many AM stations left in it.
It should also be noted that outside of its largest cities (Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, and a few others), the vast majority of Canadian Am stations have either moved to FM or have stopped programming completely.
I looked it up, and it is properly spelled out as México, D.F. (the acronym, by the way, stands for distrito federal).
In 2016, however, the official name was changed to simply Mexico City (Ciudad de México):
Link to relevant section of Mexico City's Wikipedia page, for what it's worth.
And now you all know more than you ever wanted to about this particular thing...
c
In the 1970s, there were 30 AM stations licensed to Mexico City but I saw no FMs listed! They were as close as 20KHz apart!
Both Mexico and Canada were late (compared to the U.S.) in adding radio stations to the FM band. The result was that when AM went in to decline in both countries, there were a lot more available FM frequencies than in the U.S. on which to transfer AM outlets.
En Nogales, Sonora, sólo XENY-AM 760 (5 kW) está operando durante el día, mientras que XECG-AM 1240 (AM) y XEHN-AM 1130 (ambos de 1 kW) están operando sólo con la portadora encendida, sin audio y a baja potencia "para cumplir" porque esas frecuencias tienen su canal FM después de la migración.
En Agua Prieta, XESOS-AM 730 (5 kW) se encuentra al aire a plena potencia, luego de una multa del IFT por operar sólo en FM durante varios años.
En Hermosillo y el resto del estado siguen operando centrales de 1 kW, XEHEEP 650, XEXN-AM 1010 Ures, XEETCH-AM 700, XEGL-AM 1270 navojoa (esta última está en silencio, porque perdió el terreno y están instalando desde una nueva ubicación) XEEB-AM 760 Obregón (sólo opera una vez al mes) XEFX-AM 630 Guaymas, misma situación, operación ocasional.
Sorry my Spanish is very limited. This post could give us a view from someone who most likely listens to this market. Maybe someone could give us a "Readrs Digest" translation.
Even in the later 60's there were a few independent FMs in Mexico City, several being supported by subscriptions to their SCA music services for storecasting. And many of the AMs had FMs with lower power that were used as STLs to the transmitter site.
I was offered the PD position in 1970 to take the Organización Radio Centro FMs to independent formats with a new transmitter site on top of the Torre Latinoamericana. I chose to go to Puerto Rico instead.
All through Latin America there are local AMs with 20 kHz separation. In the 60's I owned both 570 and 590 in Quito, Ecuador, and there were stations on 550 and 610 as well... the same up the dial with the others either 20 kHz or 30 kHz apart:
550.670,590,610,640,670,700,720,740,760,785,805,835,860,880,900,920,940,960,990,1020,1070,1090,1111,1040,1060,1080,1210,1245,1280,1310,1330,1360,1380,1410,1430,1460,1490,1520,1550,1570. 41 local AMs in one market.
Similar situations were seen in nearly every other country, from Guatemala to Perú. Only Chile, Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay seemed to be closer to the NARBA standard as they were coordinated by a similar pact.
Actually, there was a lot of FM in Mexico even in the 60's but most were studio transmitter links. As FM developed commercially, stations with those links found themselves with brand new full radio stations just by buying a higher power transmitter and relocating the antenna to a higher location.
In the larger cities, principally Puebla, Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey the FM band was already quite full when the legislature of Mexico declared that AM was "dead" and prepared methods for as many stations as possible (and which wanted to) could migrate to FM.
Along the border with the U.S., the requirements for second adjacent spacing could not be altered due to agreements between the nations, so most AMs in that zone could not migrate. There are even whole states in Mexico with no AM station, although a number of non-commercial rural indigenous language services on AM have been granted.