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AM DXers in Alaska

PAJake said:
On very rare occasions here in Anchorage I've picked up what seems to be an Asian language station on 774, which would correspond to an NHK affiliate in Akita, Japan. However, since I don't speak Japanese I can't confirm what I'm hearing.

I think that is what you're hearing because when I was in Hawaii I picked up the same thing on that frequency.
Of course I couldn't confirm it either.
 
Are any of you far enough from the transmitter to hear KNLS on Shortwave. That should be a local for some of you in Alaska.

And soon there will be some experimental shortwave broadcasting using Digital Radio Mondial on the shortwave bands using OTH radar transmitters. I am wondering whether any of you have heard about these transmissions coming soon. It is somewhere around the interior of Alaska.
 
richllewis said:
Are any of you far enough from the transmitter to hear KNLS on Shortwave. That should be a local for some of you in Alaska.

And soon there will be some experimental shortwave broadcasting using Digital Radio Mondial on the shortwave bands using OTH radar transmitters. I am wondering whether any of you have heard about these transmissions coming soon. It is somewhere around the interior of Alaska.

I have not heard about this. Please elaborate. Thanks.
 
There is a company in the Delta Junction area that will be experimenting with something called Digital Radio Mondial. They will be using a communications set up using old Over the Horizon Radar Transmitters. They want to find out if this type of set up will give the optimal communications setup for Alaska. They already have the experimental license and the CP. To hear their transmissions you are going to need a special receiver on Shortwave in order to pick them up. Digital Radio Mondial is the system that they use in Europe for some digital AM and on Shortwave what Radio Canada International uses on some of their Shortwave transmissions to Europe and to the lower 48. This is not here yet, but by the time they get it up and running the Radio Receivers should be on the market.
 
This is from the National Association of Shortwave Broadcasters newsletter. This was May 2009. This should give you some further information:
Don Messer gave a report on “Tests of Digital Radio Broadcasting (DRM) to Cover Alaska.” The goal is to see if all of Alaska can receive DRM shortwave broadcasts throughout the state at anytime and any day. They had to get an FCC experimental license to conduct these tests. Some of the questions that had to be addressed included: What frequency bands should be used? How much power will be needed? The tests are being done in central Alaska. They are using 10 to 20 kHz channels with various error correction and constellation options. They are putting in place a receiver network of around 18 sites. Then, they will conduct field tests. They plan to report the results to the FCC after a 2 year interval. Three 100kW transmitters are being used. The technical specifications: DRM at 10 or 20 kHz wide; 4, 16 & 64 QAM; Coding rate of 0.5 & 0.6 (50% voice or 60% voice), 3 crossed half-wave length dipole antennas (5, 7, and 9 MHz). The key is using ionospheric propagation. DRM for long range has been effectively tested and is working well. Here, however, using high latitude (near vertical incidence) “bounce back” propagation will require careful experimentation. Modeling shows success up to 10 MHz, but it will require “real world” testing. Power levels of 10 kW to 100 kW will be used in the tests. They can probably use 3 antennas below 10 MHz. Testing should begin by the end of the year. Up to 4 speech programs can be used in a 20 kHz channel, full stereo in a 20 kHz channel, or quasi-stereo in a 10 kHz channel. The FCC does not permit broadcasting via shortwave from the US to the US. In order to conduct regular broadcasts, this policy would have to be modified, or an exception would have to be granted.
 
Most of the NHK AM transmitters can be heard quite well in the lower 48.
They dominate those frequencies. Last time I bothered to listen NHK was running English language lessons.
 
I once got a QSL from KFBK Sacramento and was stunned one new years' eve to pick up WWL in New Orleans, but could not get enough programming info to get a QSL. This was the mid '60's.
 
774 booms into Boise. They used to run English language lessons over night.
Long time ago I did hear one Russian here. Don’t think they run it anymore.
 
misha said:
I once got a QSL from KFBK Sacramento and was stunned one new years' eve to pick up WWL in New Orleans, but could not get enough programming info to get a QSL. This was the mid '60's.

Where in Alaska did you pick up WWL?
 
I do not know what this frequency is in Russia is but their is a station in Russia that has coverage near the border with Alaska that the Russians call GTRK Kamchatka which is the local/regional programming
of “Radio Rossii Kamchatka", which a DXer in California heard last week from 0810 to
0900 UT. I wonder whether these stations are heard in some parts of Alaska or Alutians this time of year. This may be on Shortwave,medium wave(AM) or longwave since Russia has a lot of longwave stations. By the way, Russia has been messing with their time zones lately so you figure which time zone is closer to Moscow. (from DXld forum on Yahoo) The story about Russia is at http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62R0DS20100328 from Reuters.
 
No wonder you people in Alaska can't get any Russian stations on AM. It seems that the station in Russia is on Shortwave on 5920 instead of AM(medium wave).If you are wondering what radio in the Russian Far East is like this is where you turn.
 
I'm new to the board, but I lived in AK 1978-80, just prior to the Superadio coming out. My best radio was the Delco in my Chevy. I also had the old Realistic "AM only" $30 radio that the Shack sold then.

Not being fluent in other languages, I could not verify everything overseas that I heard....but I did get a QSL card from JOKR 954 Tokyo, and there were 4 NHK stations I must've heard, as there was an English show in the overnight (no mention of NHK tho').

I may have received the Philippine 1143 as well.

My fave catches included KIKI 830 (wish I taped it) & KAHU 940 in Hawaii....I did hear WOAI & even WWL once on the car radio. I tried to catch WCBS, but it just didn't have enough to make it. I do think I had heard KRVN 880, and they were off that one night.

cd
 
When I lived in Nome in the winter of 1982-83, I tried DX-ing AM signals from other countries on the Panasonic RF-2200 that I still use in the kitchen. There were lots of shortwave signals from what was then Radio Moscow, and the Russian language service was actually very enoyable - mostly music, favoring Russian folk ballads and light classical, with a five minute newscast on the hour in Russian. I understand the service went under after communism fell in the early 1990s.

There was only one time I caught a Russian station on AM, and that one night it came in quite nicely on either AM1000 or pretty darn close (analog dial, so not sure what the 9khZ equivalent would have been). Must have been from Anadyr or somewhere down the Kamchatka Peninsula. I tried many nights after that, but it never came in again. And those were long, cold nights, with little else on the dial. We were lucky to pick up KOTZ from Kotzebue without having to drive a half hour outside of Nome-- their signal dropped off just outside of Nome most of the time, and their nighttime skywave didn't usually get into Nome. Of course, everybody signed off overnights back then, except during the summer when people were up during the midnight sun at fish camps, etc.

Early mornings, however, sometimes brought in more signals until daylight from Anchorage and California. Same thing when I lived in Anchorage. Couldn't get much of a nighttime signal from the two Nome stations, but they came in loud and clear in the pre-dawn winter.

In Nome, we used to get regular correspondence from DXers in the far north of Scandinavia who confirmed reception of the 10kw station I was at. But I never heard of anyone pulling in a European signal in Alaska. Don't think there were any powerful AM transmitters in the far north of Europe or Russia-- electricity is still very expensive there.
Of course, no one I knew had a radio with longwave frequencies. That might have worked.

Nome had a low power on AM530 that rebroadcast the national weather service, and the same two AM stations it has today, but they each had 10kw, nondirectional fulltime then. Pretty much like all of the rest of the bush Alaska AM stations in Kotzebue, Barrow, Bethel, McGrath, and Dillingham.

One night the chief engineer took me to the transmitter site when he was doing routine maintenance, and hooked up a cheap radio to the AM tower. AM signals blasted in from all over Asia, Mexico and Hawaii, and the 9khz spacing caused some hefty heterodyne whining when it collided with the North American signals. There was a big one in Seoul just 1 khz away from our own frequency, so that must have made Dxing us difficult south of the Bering Sea.
 
PAJake said:
Left York PA and settled in Anchorage. I've lived in a small town (York) and a big city (Boston). Anch is a nice middle of the road, for now anyway.

Jake,

York, PA! No wonder you're happy to be in Alaska. I worked in York some years ago and headed west and am still in awe of the nature and beauty I was missing and happy to far away from PA.
 
I live in Southeast Alaska and have never heard anything other than west-coast 10Kw and 50Kw nighttimers, and other more regional stations from Southeast. Granted, my antenna setup isn't idea either.

I'm moving to Fairbanks though next year and am curious to DX there.
 
So far, I haven't had much luck in Fairbanks besides a few big-power locals. Probably too much electrical noise and aurora interference. Anyone else ever live in Fairbanks proper and have good luck Dxing lower 48's?
 
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