WIBW is in Topeka....which makes for an even tighter squeeze. It's been quite a few years since I've made the Wichita-Topeka run on the Kansas Turnpike, but I want to say it's probably about 130 miles. Two hour drive. That would have definitely been a more "comfortable" spacing.
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AM Frequency of the week: 590
- Thread starter cyberdad
- Start date
WIBW is in Topeka....which makes for an even tighter squeeze. It's been quite a few years since I've made the Wichita-Topeka run on the Kansas Turnpike, but I want to say it's probably about 130 miles. Two hour drive. That would have definitely been a more "comfortable" spacing.
From Alabama. I get a weak, but consistent signal playing classical music with the announcing in Spanish. Would that be XEFD?
Ooops, typing too fast...of course that's Topeka, what was I thinking?
R
rbrucecarter5
Guest
I don't hear classical on them, most of the time it is talk and Mexican music. Doesn't mean they don't do a classical block sometimes, but it would not fit their usual format.
Hats off to those engineers, they have taken that 5k signal and really made it get out. They must have a heck of a grounding system, and good towers. Too bad for their listeners they are chunking a monster signal for FM.
More likely Cuba from your location.
There is nothing special about the installation... it is just at the southern extreme of the area of good conductivity that runs all the way up to the prairie provinces of Canada.
The Mexican congress declared AM to no longer be viable and decreed that a "swap" of AM for FM should be created for as many AM stations as possible. This has allowed 80% of all Mexican AMs to migrate to FM. Now they are discussing reducing channel separation in their FM rules to 400 kHz to allow many of the roughly 150 remaining AMs to also move.
Otherwise, the remaining AMs will all be in the 4 largest cities of Mexico and on the US border. A few will remain in rural areas to serve indigenous populations, mostly in languages other than Spanish (México has over 120 recognized languages and dialects).
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I'd say it's definitely R. Nacional from Cuba. I've heard them dozens of times at night at various locations in Alabama and Georgia. I think I saw somewhere that they're running 10kw. That would seem to be correct, but with Cuban AM stations, it's usually all but impossible to know for sure.
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KLBJ-590 AM first signed on in Austin in 1939 as KTBC under the ownership of Lyndon B. Johnson (former President) and his wife Claudia (Ladybird.) The call sign was changed to KLBJ in the mid-1970's and was under Johnson family ownership for many years after that before selling it to Emmis. Not sure if it, or XEFD at 590, signed on first, but at night in west Austin, you can faintly hear what must be XEFD underneath KLBJ's programming.
Hi. New guy here from NW San Antonio in Bexar County.
In the daytime, KLBJ is almost local-like on the car radio with just a tiny bit of interference from XEFD. On a portable I can null out XEFD, and I can also null KLBJ enough that XEFD is listenable though noisy and a bit fluttery.
At night it's a mix of KLBJ and XEPH - Sabrosita - in Mexico D.F., with XEFD sometimes breaking through. XEPH often dominates, although KLBJ is never totally gone. Sometimes when pointing the antenna SE, I can get R. Nacional Musical in Cuba, but it's never very strong.
Looking forward to the discussions and reports here.
Thanks for jumping in, Jim, and welcome to the board. Looking forward to having you joining the party here anytime. Don't be shy!
Surprised to hear about XEPH under KLBJ...not so much about R. Nacional. My experience in and around San Antonio is somewhat limited. I traveled in my work for more than 30 years...and still get on the road a few times a year. But most of my Texas trips have been Dallas, Austin, and to a lesser extent Houston. Anyway, when I've been in San Antonio, I'm staying downtown near the Riverwalk. Lovely and great fun, but lousy as a DX spot!
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I grew up in Austin in the 1960's and early 1970's, and extensively DX'ed the AM band. XEFD was then listed in the World Radio TV Handbook as running 5kw daytime, but I never heard any daytime trace of it under (then) KTBC. Perhaps XEFD was using a less efficient antenna at the time? At night the big pest was a high power station in Havana (supposedly 150kw) that could be heard underneath KTBC. In those days KTBC was off the air between 1 and 5am, allowing the Cuban to be clearly heard. If the Cuban was off at night I would hear either WOW in Omaha (5kw onmi) or WPLO Atlanta.
KTBC signed on in 1939, but IIRC was initially on 1120, which became 1150 after the NARBA treaty. Around 1944, with some FCC arm-twisting by the LBJ family, the frequency was changed to 590, with the solid 5kw onmi during the day and a 1kw directional at night. Apparently there was some objection from WOW to allowing the move.
There is one LBJ biography I read some years back (can't recall which one though) that has very good sections dealing with LBJ's broadcasting shenanigans in both radio and television and some of the strong-armed tactics he used to stifle competition in the Austin market.
The call change from KTBC to KLBJ happened in 1973 when KTBC-TV was sold to Times-Mirror, while the AM and FM stations were retained by the LBJ family (this was a few months after his death.) In an unusual move at the time, the spun-off TV station kept the original KTBC call while the radio stations changed to KLBJ. Usually the spun-off property would be the one to change call.
Thanks for jumping in, Jim, and welcome to the board. Looking forward to having you joining the party here anytime. Don't be shy!
Surprised to hear about XEPH under KLBJ...not so much about R. Nacional. My experience in and around San Antonio is somewhat limited. I traveled in my work for more than 30 years...and still get on the road a few times a year. But most of my Texas trips have been Dallas, Austin, and to a lesser extent Houston. Anyway, when I've been in San Antonio, I'm staying downtown near the Riverwalk. Lovely and great fun, but lousy as a DX spot!
Thanks for the welcome, cyberdad! I returned to DXing about a year ago after having been away from it since the early '80s (for several reasons). Once my interest was sparked again, I read about ultralights and realized that I'd bought a Sony SRF-49 years ago as a yard work radio. Ever since that first night I used it for AM DXing, I've been hooked again and have been seriously making up for lost time (sometimes to the detriment of my sleep). I've purchased several portables (as well as a Terk loop antenna) for AM/FM/LW and Weather Band DXing, and I'm starting to look into outdoor antenna ideas.
The S.A. Riverwalk is definitely a beautiful place but, yes, unfortunately full of RFI. DXing with the car radio downtown is hopeless. My Texas travels take me to Houston, Jasper, and the Corpus Christi area occasionally, and I always try to work in some DXing whenever I'm on the road.
If you're in a good location with a good radio, try nulling KXSP and see if you can snag either R. Nacional or WVLK. Neither will be easy, but patience and persistance sometimes pays off. R. Nacional is easy to pick out of the slop. If you hear classical music, you've got it.
I thought I'd bump up this thread after a session early this afternoon on the backyard patio with the Superadio II.
Tuning around the low end of the AM dial I landed on 590 and no audible signal from WKZO. As of late, WKZO's signal has been weaker than in the past, but still audible on a good radio. What I heard today was a carrier "fluttering" with something else, but I couldn't make out any audio. Everything else on that part of the dial was "business as usual". WMT on 600 produces a very listenable signal on the "Supe" as does KTRS (550..albeit not quite as clear as WMT). On top of that, nulling WAUK on 540 brings in a listenable KWMT...from 300 miles away.
So what I'm wondering is with everything else in the neighborhood getting out well, what....if anything...might be up with WKZO? As I noted last month when I was in southwest Michigan, WKZO seemed weaker than it should have been. STA? Night pattern for some reason? Anyone have any idea?
Tuning around the low end of the AM dial I landed on 590 and no audible signal from WKZO. As of late, WKZO's signal has been weaker than in the past, but still audible on a good radio. What I heard today was a carrier "fluttering" with something else, but I couldn't make out any audio. Everything else on that part of the dial was "business as usual". WMT on 600 produces a very listenable signal on the "Supe" as does KTRS (550..albeit not quite as clear as WMT). On top of that, nulling WAUK on 540 brings in a listenable KWMT...from 300 miles away.
So what I'm wondering is with everything else in the neighborhood getting out well, what....if anything...might be up with WKZO? As I noted last month when I was in southwest Michigan, WKZO seemed weaker than it should have been. STA? Night pattern for some reason? Anyone have any idea?
Since the tower went down in the storm, I can't figure out what is happening. Even if it was the day tower that went down, I don't know why they couldn't run full power day from one of the other towers, and 1250 watts night. Unless they are rebuilding right now. I have noticed that since some stations have gotten FM stations or translators in the same market, there seems to be little motivation to fix things quickly on the AM facility beyond an STA, or perhaps no budget to do it.
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A fallen tower would certainly explain why WKZO is absent around here. Also why they sounded weak to me while I was in southwest Michigan last month.
I don't see where they have a translator, but I noticed that they're owned by Midwest Media. If they're the same Midwest Media that operates out of Wisconsin, I believe they have a reputation of not spending any extra money that they feel they don't absolutely have to. (Polite way of saying "tightwads"). So it could be correct that there's no budget for fixing a downed tower if the incident wasn't covered by insurance. And it's also possible that they're perfectly content with whatever coverage they're still getting.
I don't see where they have a translator, but I noticed that they're owned by Midwest Media. If they're the same Midwest Media that operates out of Wisconsin, I believe they have a reputation of not spending any extra money that they feel they don't absolutely have to. (Polite way of saying "tightwads"). So it could be correct that there's no budget for fixing a downed tower if the incident wasn't covered by insurance. And it's also possible that they're perfectly content with whatever coverage they're still getting.
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