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Can't hear a radio station 20 miles away from me, but I sure can hear a station 1,000+ miles away

F

fordranger797

I know this situation comes up all of the time for most people who are interested in radio and dxing, but this example in particular stood out to be as being out of the norm. I pulled out my battery powered radio last night and thought I would check out the AM dial from my apartment in Vancouver BC. Supposedly, I am supposed to hear CFAX 1070 (based in Victoria BC) from my location. I can usually pick up a very weak CFAX during the day, and at night the signal starts to get choppy and unlistenable. Last night, I was greeted to a crystal clear KNX 1070. I couldn't believe it! I've heard KNX from the US side of the border a few times (as CFAX has a pattern that sends all of their power north and west from their transmitter site), but this is my first time hearing it from a location where I'm probably not supposed to be able to hear it (given the contour pattern, power output, etc).

The other notable time this happened to me is when I tried to tune into 1090am from Maple Valley (southeast of Seattle) at night. I couldn't hear the local 50kw 1090, but I definitely could hear 1090 from Baja California.
 
Surprises are the best fun part of DXing. The essence, I suppose.

That kind of circumstance hasn't happened to me often, but I have heard WBAP on 820 from Fort Worth, Texas at night within 15 miles or less of my local WVSG (ex-WOSU, as I like to point out) on the same frequency here in Columbus, Ohio. WVSG pulls in its night signal to the southwest big-time from its tower farm near Grove City, so much so that if you're in the heart of the null even a few miles from their towers, it's almost impossible to hear. Get a few miles beyond that and WBAP makes an appearance, albeit with some co-channel flutter until you get outside the urban sprawl of Columbus. Then it owns the frequency.

This situation also lets WVSG get out nicely for roughly an hour after sunset, when it's still omnidirectional. WVSG doesn't have to go to its night pattern until Dallas sunset.
 
The addicting thing about 'closest unheard' stations is it being cyclical and self-inflicted. When you finally knock down that elusive SOB station, in a blaze of triumph, you realize that the next closest unheard becomes the new one.
Am reminded of a neighbour at a Long Island canal with a small boat. He looked and sounded like a profane Fonz, heard clanking and cursing and crashing around this tub he was trying to ready for whatever leisure delights he envisioned. One day I asked if he needed help. He just glared, then laughed, then said no, that 'what the **** kind of hobby is it if it doesn't drive you nuts?'
 
Fordranger, the latter part of last week, Thurs/Fri/Sat, were unusually warm for this time of year in California. Here in the SFBA, we had temps in the mid-to-upper 70s, and in SoCal they had numbers into the 80s and 90s, depending on the specific location. That's the kind of aberration that produced e-skip and/or tropo ducting. (In the most recent thread in the San Francisco board, we were discussing how a local station was mixing with a station in Chico on my GE Superradio, creating a weird echo effect in a program [Fresh Air] that both stations were airing simultaneously, and then the two stations stomping on each other's network hourly newscasts. That lasted for two hours in the late morning on Thursday.) I do not know for certain what was going on for you in Vancouver, but don't rule out e-skip as the culprit.
 
Somewhere on the web there's a recording of NYC's 570 WMCA going off the air for maintenance, and on their own air monitor at the transmitter site they were able to pick up Radio Reloj from Cuba, about 1300 miles away.
 
kevtronics said:
Somewhere on the web there's a recording of NYC's 570 WMCA going off the air for maintenance, and on their own air monitor at the transmitter site they were able to pick up Radio Reloj from Cuba, about 1300 miles away.
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I actually heard that happen once upon a time, on some random Sunday overnight, back in my NYC youth. However, not being able to understand Spanish, it was just some random 570 co-channel station from far away.
 
Weiserguy said:
I actually heard that happen once upon a time, on some random Sunday overnight, back in my NYC youth. However, not being able to understand Spanish, it was just some random 570 co-channel station from far away.
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People at WAAM 1600 were frequently able to hear WWRL 1600 on the off air monitor before they signed on in the morning. The Day Pattern had a lobe in that direction. For a while, they had the Studio at the transmitter site, and heard it during impedance measurements.

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Regarding CFAX, when I attended a family wedding in South Lake Tahoe, CA, in June of 2010, I heard CFAX challenging KNX every night of my week long stay. For a signal that was supposed to be nulled towards the U.S., I'd say that was quite interesting to hear. And, at that time, the programming was (mostly) soft ac oldies which was also pleasant to hear.
 
'MM's -- DXese for the overnight periods when many full-time AM stations signed off around midnight Sunday evenings for 6 hours to give the xmtr tubes and treadmill hamsters a rest -- were absolute platinum stretches of life for the best DX of the week.
Many the veterans aboard this and other kindred forums were schooolkids then, and could fill up a few terrabytes and clouds with wildly unlikely and impossible catches caught in those days.
NYC's 20 major AM frequencies mostly played along with these MM silent periods. 830 and 1190 were not 24 hours. Among the most stubborn, though, were WNEW 1130 and the afirementioned WMCA. Those two, pretty much dichotomous in format, were so resolute in staying on the air that it was said that NYC-area DXers who didn't even talk civilly with others got on the old rotary-phone to sound the alert on the blue moon when one or the other was a gaping void.
Even *WABC* went off regularly; I believe one MM each month or thereabouts was their routine. QXR, WINS, 'RL, CBS 88, WOR, a couple of share time frequencies, and eight 5K regional directionals considerably tamed that full NYC dial. Not WMCA, though.

'Might' be cool some day to start a thread, dealing with one or maybe two lightning-bolt catches .............

🎹 Boy, the way Glenn Miller played ..... those were the days....🎹
 
At night, most of the Honolulu stations come in a lot stronger than our local Hilo stations and they are all 10,000 watts or less.
 
I don't recall CFAX having soft AC/oldies during my childhood. Are you sure you weren't hearing the former KRAM-1070 West Klamath OR? Went defunct not too long after your reunion in Lake Tahoe. KRAM had a standards/nostalgia format.
1070 here is always KNX/CFAX. I can't pull anything else underneath at night. A handful of times I heard KATQ Plentywood MT (near ND) in the pre-sunrise hour, PT. KATQ is a country station.
 
crainbebo said:
I don't recall CFAX having soft AC/oldies during my childhood. Are you sure you weren't hearing the former KRAM-1070 West Klamath OR? Went defunct not too long after your reunion in Lake Tahoe. KRAM had a standards/nostalgia format.
1070 here is always KNX/CFAX. I can't pull anything else underneath at night. A handful of times I heard KATQ Plentywood MT (near ND) in the pre-sunrise hour, PT. KATQ is a country station.
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I wonder if it was either 600am (CKBD - Adult Standards) or 650 (CISL - soft oldies). CFAX, as far as I know, hasn’t been a music station in ages.
 
Three responses:

1) I verified the frequency at the time because KNX was always audible beneath it.
2) KRAM left the air permanently in 2006 so that wasn't an option, either.
3) That said, both of you are correct that CFAX had been a news/talk outlet since 1975. While I heard the callsign used over the air, I cannot otherwise verify that it was CFAX I heard.
 
schmave said:
Surprises are the best fun part of DXing. The essence, I suppose.

That kind of circumstance hasn't happened to me often, but I have heard WBAP on 820 from Fort Worth, Texas at night within 15 miles or less of my local WVSG (ex-WOSU, as I like to point out) on the same frequency here in Columbus, Ohio. WVSG pulls in its night signal to the southwest big-time from its tower farm near Grove City, so much so that if you're in the heart of the null even a few miles from their towers, it's almost impossible to hear. Get a few miles beyond that and WBAP makes an appearance, albeit with some co-channel flutter until you get outside the urban sprawl of Columbus. Then it owns the frequency.

This situation also lets WVSG get out nicely for roughly an hour after sunset, when it's still omnidirectional. WVSG doesn't have to go to its night pattern until Dallas sunset.
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Back when WAIT 820 Chicago added night hours, you could drive by their four-tower array in suburban Elmhurst and still hear 50 Kw WBAP clearly under WAIT.
 
ted chittenden said:
Three responses:

1) I verified the frequency at the time because KNX was always audible beneath it.
2) KRAM left the air permanently in 2006 so that wasn't an option, either.
3) That said, both of you are correct that CFAX had been a news/talk outlet since 1975. While I heard the callsign used over the air, I cannot otherwise verify that it was CFAX I heard.
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I’m not an expert expert on Canadian talk radio, but it wouldn’t really surprise me if a talk station played a few musical tracks from time to time as well (particular in the evening hours). CBC radio does this all of the time. And some of the other talk radio stations seem to do this from time to time as well. So it’s possible there was a (likely syndicated) show that decided to play some music.
 
tvnut said:
Back when WAIT 820 Chicago added night hours, you could drive by their four-tower array in suburban Elmhurst and still hear 50 Kw WBAP clearly under WAIT.
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Wow. That's pretty impressive. I haven't managed that in this case, but for the oft-discussed nulls of another Columbus local, WTVN (Radio Free Canada) on 610, I would argue WVSG does every bit as good a job with its null aimed at WBAP. For WBAP to be there without co-channel interference to within less than 15 miles of WVSG's towers means the engineers did their job very well.
 
ted chittenden said:
Three responses:

1) I verified the frequency at the time because KNX was always audible beneath it.
2) KRAM left the air permanently in 2006 so that wasn't an option, either.
3) That said, both of you are correct that CFAX had been a news/talk outlet since 1975. While I heard the callsign used over the air, I cannot otherwise verify that it was CFAX I heard.
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CFAX does or did play a few hours of music on saturday or sunday night, i forget which..... heard it all the time in Alaska
 
fordranger797 said:
Is CFAX a more common station for you to pick up or does KNX still come through more often?
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in Alaska it was both CFAX and KNX mixing.. KNX might lead or win or be mostly alone, but nto often and it was often mixing with CFAX, but CFAX never won/lead/was alone. 125 miles NE of McGrath back in 2016, it was all KNX.

HEre in WY? It's all KNX, in the winter, sometimes yu can detect KNX all day. it may be a carrier and not muich more from about 1030am to 3pm in the dead of winter, but its there.. and its audible every night.
 


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