10 kHz AM Frequency of the Week - 1700 kHz

[Buckeyes2001]

What can you get on 1700 kHz?

Here in Vermilion, OH I get nothing during the day. Around sunset I have logged KKLF/Richardson, TX and later at night I get KBGG/Des Moines, IA although it sounds like its drowning in hash, perhaps from a 1690. Does WVON 1690 in Chicago use IBOC at night?

 

[cd637299]

Locally, only WJCC Miami Springs day & night.

However, KVNS Brownsville TX has quite the reach in other places I have gone....heard it in Cape San Blas, south of Tallahassee, in the daytime!

cd

 

[crainbebo]

Here in Bellevue, I usually get nothing in the daytime. Go a few miles SE and I can start getting a TIS from Issaquah on 1700.

Nights it's usually XEPE Tijuana, BCN. Sometimes KVNS Brownsville, TX at 2000 miles comes in with their oldies [hard to believe it's *880w*], and sometimes I can faintly get the Issaquah TIS I was mentioning.

-crainbebo

 

[audioguy]

Yes, WVON uses IBOC on 1690 day and night. What a waste! Can you imagine that they have ANY listeners in IBOC? Just creates more interference with no discernible benefit.

 

[pianoplayer88key]

XEPE is a 24/7 local for me. I'm 15.6 miles and 9.5° from their transmitter. I do get some occasional skywave/groundwave fading at night. Hold the PL-398mp and a Select-A-Tenna (tuned to 1700) up to a utility pole around the corner from my house, and it will start to overload the radio.

Thankfully I have nothing close enough to wipe out my reception of 1700 with IBOC. Digital radio in its current form on AM is definitely NOT how I expected digital to behave when I was first hearing about it, before IBOC was being tested. Just as a few criteria, I was expecting..
* better spectral efficiency (per the table here, 3.9G cell supposedly has 16.32 bits/Hz efficiency; also I'd expect the skirts to be sharp enough so a crystal set could DX right next (proximity and frequency) to a strong digital signal without interference, just as well as a SDR could if the local digital signal wasn't even there)
* better weak signal performance (full decode on all portable / consumer radios including Coby-quality, even when an equivalent-field-strength analog signal is barely detectable (and too weak to ID even with PSK31 or QRSS CW) in an underground screen room using a military-grade receiver hooked up to an array of beverage antennas, several-hundred-foot air-core loops, several-foot ferrite sleeve loop antennas, etc.)
* doesn't interfere with signals using different modes (or same modes, different ID codes) on the same frequency, even at different strengths (jacking a 500 kW transmitter sending one ID code directly into the antenna input of a receiver would make no difference, compared to the strong TX being off the air, in that receiver's ability to fully receive another signal that (if it was QRSS CW or PSK31) would be right at the noise floor in a screen room)

As for other things I've gotten on 1700 .... not much. I would expect to have heard Brownsville, but even when XEPE has been off the air one time almost a year ago IIRC (when SoCal had a regional blackout for half a day), I don't remember if I bagged KVNS then or not. Considering how far away some of you are from KVNS and still receive it fairly strong ..... or should I not quite be expecting their unmodulated carrier to completely wipe out my reception of XEPE at midday in summer at solar maximum?

 

[cd637299]

^ Well, I can tell you I heard KVNS on that one Atlantic (UK) GlobalTuner, which has unfortunately been offline for months. I also heard Miami's WIOD 610 (my local) & possibly my WJCC on 1700.

True, it's not winter, but I sure miss that node, and I know I'm not alone.

cd

 

[crainbebo]

XEPE is a 24/7 local for me. I'm 15.6 miles and 9.5° from their transmitter. I do get some occasional skywave/groundwave fading at night. Hold the PL-398mp and a Select-A-Tenna (tuned to 1700) up to a utility pole around the corner from my house, and it will start to overload the radio.

Thankfully I have nothing close enough to wipe out my reception of 1700 with IBOC. Digital radio in its current form on AM is definitely NOT how I expected digital to behave when I was first hearing about it, before IBOC was being tested. Just as a few criteria, I was expecting..
* better spectral efficiency (per the table here, 3.9G cell supposedly has 16.32 bits/Hz efficiency; also I'd expect the skirts to be sharp enough so a crystal set could DX right next (proximity and frequency) to a strong digital signal without interference, just as well as a SDR could if the local digital signal wasn't even there)
* better weak signal performance (full decode on all portable / consumer radios including Coby-quality, even when an equivalent-field-strength analog signal is barely detectable (and too weak to ID even with PSK31 or QRSS CW) in an underground screen room using a military-grade receiver hooked up to an array of beverage antennas, several-hundred-foot air-core loops, several-foot ferrite sleeve loop antennas, etc.)
* doesn't interfere with signals using different modes (or same modes, different ID codes) on the same frequency, even at different strengths (jacking a 500 kW transmitter sending one ID code directly into the antenna input of a receiver would make no difference, compared to the strong TX being off the air, in that receiver's ability to fully receive another signal that (if it was QRSS CW or PSK31) would be right at the noise floor in a screen room)

As for other things I've gotten on 1700 .... not much. I would expect to have heard Brownsville, but even when XEPE has been off the air one time almost a year ago IIRC (when SoCal had a regional blackout for half a day), I don't remember if I bagged KVNS then or not. Considering how far away some of you are from KVNS and still receive it fairly strong ..... or should I not quite be expecting their unmodulated carrier to completely wipe out my reception of XEPE at midday in summer at solar maximum?

I think I remember you had '70s music on 1700 the night when XEPE was off due to the blackout. So you bagged KVNS. I had a thread called "West Coast DX Opportunity!" that night, when I had KVNS and another talker mixing, likely KKLF-TX before the comedy format took place.

-crainbebo

 

[radioman148]

^ Well, I can tell you I heard KVNS on that one Atlantic (UK) GlobalTuner, which has unfortunately been offline for months. I also heard Miami's WIOD 610 (my local) & possibly my WJCC on 1700.

True, it's not winter, but I sure miss that node, and I know I'm not alone.

cd

I love the "Atlantic DX" Global tuner. I sure hope it will be back up this fall. I also heard WIOD, plus the Chicago blowtorches and even WWL.
Hope to get back at it this fall.

 

[crainbebo]

On that receiver, I think the farthest west I got was WHBY Kimberly, WI on 1150 kHz. Also have gotten several of the East Coast blowtorches, and some NF stations like CBNA 600.

-crainbebo

 

[schmave]

When I lived in and around Houston, it was pretty much KVNS or nothing at night. Sometimes KKLF would pop in, but I don't remember it ever overtaking KVNS.
I have tried many times here in Ohio to get KVNS and never have. It's either been KKLF or Des Moines.

 

[tomservo]

From Baldwin County, I've heard KVNS a time or two near the beach, but 14 miles inland where I live there's nothing during the day. At night I think the most common thing is WJCC Miami Springs.

 

[pianoplayer88key]

As for other things I've gotten on 1700 .... not much. I would expect to have heard Brownsville, but even when XEPE has been off the air one time almost a year ago IIRC (when SoCal had a regional blackout for half a day), I don't remember if I bagged KVNS then or not. Considering how far away some of you are from KVNS and still receive it fairly strong ..... or should I not quite be expecting their unmodulated carrier to completely wipe out my reception of XEPE at midday in summer at solar maximum?

I think I remember you had '70s music on 1700 the night when XEPE was off due to the blackout. So you bagged KVNS. I had a thread called "West Coast DX Opportunity!" that night, when I had KVNS and another talker mixing, likely KKLF-TX before the comedy format took place.

-crainbebo

Now that you mention it, I think I do remember some music on 1700. I know for sure the frequency wasn't empty - virtually every day of every year at my location there's something on every single 10 kHz spaced frequency, even on just the built-in ferrite in my filter-modded SRF-M37W.
As for a blackout ... I wonder if I'm the only one who would like to have a larger-scale repeated event? I'm thinking one that would take *ALL!* electrical interference devices (Plasmas, CFLs, power lines, etc) offline (including backups) that put a signal strength higher than the noise floor in a screen room, ANYWHERE within 20,000 km of southern California, and also takes the stronger radio signals off line - well at least the ones with more than a 25 µV/m groundwave field or 10 µV/m-10% skywave field at my house. I wonder what DX would be like then? Think there's a possibility that with the noise floor so low and no strong stations to "overload" the front end, even a crystal set that only has a cheap 1-gang capacitor (something like in one of the RS hobby kits) could, with a sufficient broadband longwire antenna, get local-grade (what DavidEduardo considers local grade) skywave signals on every single 10 kHz (or 9 kHz) spaced frequency, with NO splatter on adjacents whatsoever?

 

[ddsparxx]

Northern VA,

I get nothing on days. At night, it's WEUP Huntsville, AL, and last winter (didn't remember when exactly), I heard KVNS over WUEP for a few seconds. KVNS is 1462 miles away from me.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

Now that you mention it, I think I do remember some music on 1700. I know for sure the frequency wasn't empty - virtually every day of every year at my location there's something on every single 10 kHz spaced frequency, even on just the built-in ferrite in my filter-modded SRF-M37W.

That SRF-M37W is an amazing DX machine - what is really astonishing is the selectivity you can get with its 50 kHz IF on AM and three pole (equivalent of three ceramic filter) 150 kHz IF on FM. I'm going to re-package one with a truly good ferrite bar on AM and impedance match an external FM antenna to see just how good the amazing little device can be.

If you hear oldies on 1700, you are probably getting KVNS.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

I can confirm, in Houston daytime it is KVNS dominant over KKLF - signal strength varies according to time of the year. Nighttime is a battle between KVNS and KKLF, with KVNS usually winning.

 

[cyberdad]

Far northwest suburbs of Chicago....

Days: Nothing. I'm 47 miles from WVON's 1690 stick, so neither "regular" splatter nor IBOC hash is an issue.

Night: Des Moines usually fair but steady. I've heard music underneath a couple of times, so I assume KVNS. Before Des Moines came on, I heard Miami a few times, but not enough to call it a regular.

 

[BigDave]

KVNS Brownsville,Texas

 

[radioman148]

Near north Chicago suburbs its nothing during the day & Des Moines at night. I also have heard Miami before Des Moines came on.
I've never caught KVNS here, but did hear it in Puerto Rico a few years ago. Also caught it last fall in Southern California under XEPE.

 

[cd637299]

Near north Chicago suburbs its nothing during the day & Des Moines at night. I also have heard Miami before Des Moines came on.
I've never caught KVNS here, but did hear it in Puerto Rico a few years ago. Also caught it last fall in Southern California under XEPE.

In 1997, Miami was all there was! I once got an e-mail (now that I think of it, maybe it was a phone call) from the CE at 1210 here, telling me that 1700 would debut "tomorrow" (cannot remember the date of the e-mail/call), and I alerted DXers I knew. WCMQ, as it was called then, was reported all around the world. Then came tha later 1700's, and Miami wasn't as easy anymore!

cd

 

[Icangelp]

When I lived in and around Houston, it was pretty much KVNS or nothing at night. Sometimes KKLF would pop in, but I don't remember it ever overtaking KVNS.
I have tried many times here in Ohio to get KVNS and never have. It's either been KKLF or Des Moines.

Don't give up.

These days I am by no means a frequent MW DX'er but I did manager to log KVNS last winter here in Cincinnati.