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Any predictions on DX with Sandy on the way?

N

nocomradio

Guest
With Sandy heading up to the East Coast/Mid Atlantic region, anybody have any predictions of how it may affect DX for MW or FM? I recall a few other hurricanes causing some tropo in the past, but never seem to have found any patterns.

What do you think?
 
I'd think it would erase any tropo conditions.

The best tropo conditions come from high pressure and a dry stable atmosphere.
 
I was thinking of Hurricane Irene in August of last year. It stayed mostly off the coast of Virginia, grazing the Outer Banks of NC and brought some rather interesting tropo as it passed by on its way North. I was hearing lots of FM stations from New Jersey, New York (mostly the City and Long Island) and many stations from the Delmarva area too. AM wasn't quite as spectacular, but I did get a couple of catches.
 
Right now there is great tropo up and down the east coast. I don't think it has to do with Sandy though, its probably from the warm weather we had the last few days leaving.
 
It will be interesting to see if some stations get knocked off the air from Sandy, especially the big ones like WCBS or KYW, etc. That would make for some interesting DX but then scary knowing how extensive the power outages are if that happens.
 
The power outages are the chief concern here too, Buckeye, as well as in other places. We're pretty near Hazleton PA, which is high up, so the 'snow' part also has us stocking up the larder. A few times here in town, stores were without electricity either, and couldn't -- wouldn't -- run up the register even on exact change. This is almost like preparing for a scheduled blackout.

Since there is no work scheduled for this retiree Monday or Tuesday (and it would have been ROOF work!) I may flit around the AM and FM dials on wall current then.

That evacuation plan map from the mayor of NYC looks creepy. I used to live in two of those orange zones and worked in one of the red ones. There wasn't too much time or ambition to DX back then. Perhaps there'll be some more elbow room 160 miles east of JFK airport, but only as long as the lights stay on.
 
I'm listening to New Jersey 101.5 online and they are saying that there's already storm surge starting along the shore and the traffic report mentioned a couple of roads that had to be closed because they are already flooded out from the surge.

And the center of the storm is still 400 miles away!

If the storm stays on the track it's on now, New York will be a disaster area from the storm surge which could be as high as 11 feet. That means even parts of Manhattan will be under water.

Jeez, this is something you'd be expecting us here in Florida to be dealing with, not you guys up there. And I was almost going to visit home in New Jersey from around the 20th to Nov 5th as I used to, especially to see the fall colors.

Am I ever glad I decided not to go and that was well before this tropical system came to be.

Take care and take this storm very seriously.
 
'West' of JFK is what I meant, of course. Here and there are on pretty much the same latitude.

We're pretty well battery'd and candle'd. Also were filling up a half dozen or so jugs with water. Dad, his countenance grim in the candlelight, told us to do that back in the '65 blackout. 'Fill everything! Fill pots! Fill the tub!'

In 12 days that event will have occured 47 years ago.

Good DX, folks !
 
Good luck to you folks up North and be very careful and prepared. Here in VA they are forecasting 35-45 MPH sustained winds with gusts to 65 MPH. The rain is already starting in light bands and the wind is up to around 10 MPH with occasional higher gusts. This could be a helluva ride. Generator is fueled and ready along with lots of extra food and water, so we're set. Reminds me of Fran in '95 and Isabel in '03. Both tore us up bad.

I did a quick bandscan a few minutes ago around 10:30 PM EST and found a very crowded dial on MW. I wonder if some of the AM stations will be on daytime power all night? That is what it sounded like when I heard WHVR on 1280 from Hanover PA, amongst others. Is there any special authorization in situations like this for full power during an emergency?

I also wondered what things may sound like if there is a major power outage, although I really would rather that everyone keep their electricity instead.
 
Stations can operate with full power / antenna at night under emergency conditions to serve the public. Not supposed to air commercials. Notify FCC afterwards. Also need to document it in station logs. Might be some interesting DX opportunities this week.
 
N4GBK said:
Stations can operate with full power / antenna at night under emergency conditions to serve the public.  Not supposed to air commercials.  Notify FCC afterwards.  Also need to document it in station logs.  Might be some interesting DX opportunities this week.
Click to expand...

I was wondering ... I don't think they're really in the path of Sandy (except maybe the extreme fringe as it dissipates inland), and I'm not sure if it's in operable condition or if they even still have it ... but if WLW wanted to fire up their 500 kW transmitter in an emergency, would the FCC frown on that?

Or, would it be at all possible, in the case of a particularly nasty emergency that knocks out local communications, for an out-of-area low-on-the-dial AM station to crank up to a couple megawatts (if they had a transmitter - I know they do exist) transmitter power output and use a directional antenna (like 1190 KFXR Dallas' night pattern, although in the case of a wide-area disaster maybe a 3 or 4 or maybe 6 tower array would be preferred) aimed to serve the affected community during the crisis?  (This assumes the transmitters and antennas are already in place.)
For example, considering the ground conductivity of saltwater, if there was a station on 540 kHz on the northern coast of South America or the western coast of Africa running a 12-tower array (what KFXR uses, duplicating their pattern) with each tower having an efficiency of 510 mV/m @ 1 km for 1 kW and a dedicated 2-megawatt transmitter feeding each tower, might it be possible to hear the station in the middle of the day in places like NYC, Philadelphia, DC, Richmond, etc?
 
Just some thoughts here, Player ......

Back when WGLI 1290 existed on Long Island, they ran 'merely' three towers. Their main lobe, the daytime one, incinerated downtown Babylon and was heard well in Bermuda. They were 5000 watts day. The water path did the trick, of course ; point is (reiterating) it took just 5000 watts and three towers ......

During Hugo in 1989, WOKV 690 Jacksonville left their 50,000 watt omni day pattern on overnight as the hurricane menaced the nearby coast. I was listening in Philadelphia to them, this station formerly known as 'The Big Ape' in their Top 40 days.
Now that was nighttime and skip, not daytime groundwave or water path. The thought here is that a WRVA waiver to go omni, or a WBT waiver to go omni at those times would do the job of guarding the coast very nicely. The best currently-licensed bet, though, for the northeast, would be to allow WTOP/WFED the juice for that 100,000 watts (or at go omni), I would think .....

For the daytime waterpath reception (even to 'relatively' inland places such as Philly and Richmond) I'd think an emergency two-tower setup at Wanchese NC would cover the entire east coast. The pattern would be loose, and would look like the reciprocal of WTIC 1080's nighttime signal.
Or if you will, consider it a two-tower pattern like WWL or WBZ. Send the bulk of the power inland and still leave plenty for the water path places. The engineering folks here would be able to balance what kind of wattage would be needed, or what the ideal frequency would be ......

All of this assumes that anyone other than DXers would be tuned to such a beacon on an AM radio for ANY kind of information nowadays, lol .....
 
Seriously : A similar situation might be consideration for a station to prep in covering the San Andreas Fault.

Less seriously : One morbid thing we did while putting together some nine hours of a phony radio station -- just for the heck of it -- was imaging it as 'Your friendly neighborhood Shoreham Nuclear Disaster evacuation station'.

Ah, yeah. Nothing like a little whistling in the graveyard this Halloween.
 
I doubt that one station, regardless of frequency, power or antenna array could cover the entire East Coast day/night 24/7. Propogation changes so much. Long wave running Megawatts might do it but who could hear them? What about lightning static?
 
N4GBK said:
I doubt that one station, regardless of frequency, power or antenna array could cover the entire East Coast day/night 24/7. Propogation changes so much. Long wave running Megawatts might do it but who could hear them? What about lightning static?
Click to expand...

Some of the Cubans do a pretty good job of it......... ;D At night anyway.
 
If we're talking about covering an "entire coast".....WWL covers at least more than half of the U.S. Gulf Coast. Daytime.
 
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