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AM Frequency of the week - 1710 kHz

B

Buckeyes2001

Noticed that my car's AM radio goes up to 1710. Curious to see if anyone has ever heard any pirates or anything else coming in on 1710 AM. I haven't as of yet aside from some slop at night from stations on 1700.
 
In northern VA,

Usually nothing though I sometimes hear a very, vwry weak station on 1710. But I don't know if it the Antioch station as I hadn't ID the station. The Google research showed that the Antioch is somewhere between Chicago and Milwaukee.
 
Schenectady, NY: yet to hear anything on 1710 AM, but there might be a pirate somewhere that I haven't heard yet... is 1710 allowed for TIS stations btw?
 
Nope, I don't remember actually hearing anything on 1710, except for a neighbour kid about my age playing with a little battery-powered mediumwave transmitter once. And that was about 15 years ago....

[size=8pt]And what he did was get hold of a Part-68 device (essentially this lets you connect a tape recorder to your telephone line) and connected it to the transmitter, effectively broadcasting his parents' fone conversations and sister's juicy high-school gossip over the radio for the whole neighbourhood to hear. Incidentally, this was during the same time his parents were in the process of divorcing (dad was shagging some other girl 20 years his contemporary, taking mom to the cleaners, the usual stuff) and tempers were pretty high 'round there, which made it all the more hilarious in a sick sort of way. Certainly it made for interesting conversation amongst the ladies when the local biddy patrol met to play Bridge at my Mum's house down the road!

Last I heard, kid ended up taking a job with Centuryqwest at the local CO (ORCHWA01DS0).
 
Same here. Never heard a thing on 1710 here in Ohio, as opposed to 1700, where in Texas it was easy to listen to KVNS.
 
With the big antennas, I can pull in audio most nights during the winter from Radio Soleil Int'l. (Haitian Creole) from Brockton, MA. as well as the one in the Bronx - Radio Celestial (Spanish religious). Both are regulars here and they broadcast full time (as of last winter at least - haven't checked lately).

A more interesting "true pirate" that operates very sporadically is a station going by the name "The Big Q" that occasionally pops up on 1710 khz during the early morning hours with a strong signal that gets out well. This is a very pro sounding nostalgia station playing old top 40 music and compares itself to the way AM radio used to sound. Anyway it's a fun one to listen to and worth checking 1710 if you're up early in the morning (I caught the station on the car radio early one morning too).

Here's a list worth bookmarking that documents other oddball stations above 1600 khz, though some of this is probably out of date:

http://www.angelfire.com/mb/exband/miscunid.html
 
danikayser84 said:
Schenectady, NY: yet to hear anything on 1710 AM, but there might be a pirate somewhere that I haven't heard yet... is 1710 allowed for TIS stations btw?
Click to expand...

1710 has been authorized only for the TIS station group WQFG689 (Hudson County, NJ). According to Wiki, that's the only entity that's licensed for 1710. There are various pirates that use this frequency such as this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLjqdgpu5c8 (courtesy: Kilokat7)

Sounds like an interesting frequency to keep an ear on :) (pun intended)
 
In Bothell, 1710 used to have a VERY weak SS pirate, likely religious. Found out on the IRCA forum it came from the Mill Creek area. Haven't heard anything in Bellevue or Yakima.

Re: Anitoch 1710: It's an online-only station, am I right?

-crainbebo
 
From Central Mass-10+ mi S of Worcester, I get a VERY faint foreign (sounds Spanish) station on my bedside Bose Radio. Really too weak to listen to and don't posess the foreign language skills to ID. Always wondered what was it.
 
crainbebo said:
In Bothell, 1710 used to have a VERY weak SS pirate, likely religious. Found out on the IRCA forum it came from the Mill Creek area. Haven't heard anything in Bellevue or Yakima.

Re: Anitoch 1710: It's an online-only station, am I right?

-crainbebo
Click to expand...

The operators of 1710 AM/Antioch do have a micro-power part 15 transmitter set up. The following provides more detail about their transmitter equipment and programming:

http://radio.macinmind.com/info.php
 
As noted earlier 1710 isn't available for Part 15 operation: http://law.justia.com/cfr/title47/47-1.0.1.1.12.3.236.13.html

There's another station reportedly operating on 1710 from Edison NJ and it's called "Senior Radio." There was a discussion about it on the New Jersey board a while back: http://boards.radio-info.com/smf/index.php?topic=190581.msg1679452#msg1679452

http://seniorradio1710.com/ is a pretty good looking site, but it would appear that their coverage claims at the top of the page are, well, over the top.
 
Legal, unlicensed operation on 1710 kHz is authorized by FCC Rules in § 15.223, which state:

Operation in the band 1.705–10 MHz.

(a) The field strength of any emission within the band 1.705–10.0 MHz shall not exceed 100 microvolts/meter at a distance of 30 meters. However, if the bandwidth of the emission is less than 10% of the center frequency, the field strength shall not exceed 15 microvolts/meter or (the bandwidth of the device in kHz) divided by (the center frequency of the device in MHz) microvolts/meter at a distance of 30 meters, whichever is the higher level. For the purposes of this section, bandwidth is determined at the points 6 dB down from the modulated carrier. The emission limits in this paragraph are based on measurement instrumentation employing an average detector. The provisions in §15.35(b) for limiting peak emissions apply.

(b) The field strength of emissions outside of the band 1.705–10.0 MHz shall not exceed the general radiated emission limits in §15.209.

The legal field strengths permitted by this paragraph would not provide a coverage area useful for "broadcast" purposes, regardless of the transmitter and/or antenna system in use.
//
 
I stand corrected. But I still doubt the claims about their coverage area.
 
jd said:
I stand corrected. But I still doubt the claims about their coverage area.
Click to expand...

Such claims of useful coverage area could be true if an operation on 1710 kHz is greatly non-compliant with FCC §15.223.

Given the ambient r-f noise level these days due to SCR light dimmers, switching power supplies, wall-warts, arcing insulators on nearby utility poles etc, an average, indoor AM radio receiver needs an arriving MW field strength of at least 150 µV/m in order to provide marginally useful reception.

This field strength is greater than legally permitted by FCC §15.223 for unlicensed stations on 1710 kHz at distances of 30 meters (and more) from the transmit antenna.

Probably for most situations, not very many AM broadcast receivers are in use by the general public in a circular area having less than a 30 meter (98.4 foot) radius.

Please note that I have no concern about the practices of unlicensed operators. What they do is up to them. But possibly this information might be of use in such decisions.
//
 
ddsparxx said:
In northern VA,

Usually nothing though I sometimes hear a very, vwry weak station on 1710. But I don't know if it the Antioch station as I hadn't ID the station. The Google research showed that the Antioch is somewhere between Chicago and Milwaukee.
Click to expand...

I can confirm that. When I was in high school, we used to regularly beat the Antioch Sequoits in football and basketball. Oh wait....it was actually the other way around! ;D
 
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