AM Frequency of the Week - 900 kHz

[davideduardo]

XEW used to be a regular in the Midwest. I wonder if they still run 250 KW?

David, if you're out there following this thread and you know something, perhaps you can help us out with this one.

Thanks.

I think they are running less, perhaps 100 kw, as there is no advantage to bigger coverage for stations in the larger Mexican markets. We know they ran 100 kw during the time before Grupo PRISA took over the Televisa Radio properties, mostly because the station was losing so much money. There is also a weakening of the signal because the site is now surrounded by residential and industrial buildings and the site itself has a sports complex for the pro soccer teams Televisa owns.

Were I to guess, the station is running 100 kw and the degredation of the ground system and site makes it behave poorly.

From recent pics, such as the google streets app, it appears that the old 1/2 wave tower has been replaced by a quarter wave one, too.

 

[pianoplayer88key]

If they're only running 100 kW, and only have a 1/4-wave tower (305 mV/m @ 1 km for 1 kW efficiency vs 381 mV/m @ 1 km for 1 kW with a 1/2-wave tower, which still isn't up to my preferred efficiency standard of ~510-512 or higher mV/m @ 1 km for 1 kW), then wouldn't I expect to not be able to hear them at all in El Cajon, or even detect a trace of their carrier? Yet, there they are at night alone on 900 kHz from my house a couple miles south of El Cajon, CA. Yes, they're weak, but I have heard the "W Radio" ID in Spanish in there, and they're pretty much alone on the frequency, with little if any splatter from 910 KECR (as long as they're nulled) on my Tecsuns. (I thought I had a recording of it, but its current location escapes my memory.)

Also speaking of 900, one time when KECR was off the air (I'm 9 miles S of their TX), using the PL-606 and Select-A-Tenna around 1pm I thought I could just *barely* hear a trace of what sounded like audio / voice / speech pattern.
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?hx8waxkbb079x4r (good sound-isolating headphones and a quiet listening environment probably required to detect any trace of anything)
I notice that KALI's 500 watts has a deep null toward me, but there seems to be nothing else on 900 that would be close enough or powerful enough to make it toward me. Any idea what I might have heard, IF there was a station way down under the noise there? David, is it possible that KALI might have made it down here, or is it likely something else? (possibly even another frequency like 1130 starting to overload the front end? 1170 would be more likely if it was front-end overload, except it too was off at the time - it shares a site with 910.)

 

[cyberdad]

Thanks for the quick reply David. Mystery unraveled.

As I alluded to in my earlier post, the channel becoming more crowded at night along with higher noise levels are undoubtedly contributing to XEW becoming a tougher catch....at least in the midwest and northeast.

Reminds me a little of the situation with XERF, which also has been degraded since its border-blaster days. From my travel experiences, they still have a pretty decent nighttime signal in Texas and adjacent areas. But they've gone from regular to rare here in the midwest. XEG also comes to mind off the top of my head as another example.

 

[BigDave]

about 1-1.5 mi south of El Cajon, CA...

Day:
910 KECR splatter
when KECR is off (which seems to be more often than pretty much any other station in the San Diego area, and it often takes co-located KCBQ down with it), using a Tecsun PL-380, PL-606 or PL-398mp with the Select-A-Tenna, I *think* I can just barely make out what sounds like it could be a voice buried in the static. (Or at least it sounds to me to have the inflections / sound pattern of a human voice, maybe.) http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?hx8waxkbb079x4r I have a hunch it could be KALI from West Covina, CA, but I'm not sure. I haven't been able to use the fence or utility pole trick (holding the radio & SAT up to those) due in part to static (especially at the util pole, although right by my house isn't all that terrible) and overloading/blocking/desensing from other strong local stations at different frequencies. Looking at KALI's pattern, they have a deep null toward me (and only run 500 watts anyway). KBIF in Fresno is omnidirectional 1 kW, but is considerably farther away. Which station might be more likely? There's also a 5 kW omnidirectional in Cd.Cuauhtemoc, Chihuahua, but it's about 670 miles east of me (about 240 miles south of El Paso) and I seriously doubt it would make it all the way to Southern California.

Night:
More 910 KECR splatter. (They run 5 kW day and night, but with a slightly different antenna pattern at night that sends a few dB more juice my way.)
In KECR's null: weak, but readable XEW from Mexico City.

I've heard XEW on a few locations. I was shocked when I caught it

 

[EmBee]

In the Albany, NY area, it's local WUAM Watervliet, broadcasting the audio of cable all-news channel YNN.

Interesting format, do they resell the commercials on the radio or do you get the audio of the TV ads?

I've only ever heard the audio of the TV ads.

A couple notes:
- WUAM added a translator on 106.1 in April of last year. It was the first -- and so far only -- AM-on-FM translator in the Albany market.
- WUAM was sold a couple months ago (see the thread on the Albany board) along with all of the other stations in Ernie Anastos' Albany cluster. No word yet on any possible change in format.