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Cbk 540

How far east is CBK 540 being heard? I've tried numerous times in south central Indiana but so far haven't heard it. I've witnessed the daytime coverage...leaves a guy speechless. But getting it into Indiana has been a challenge. By comparison, KOA 850 is in here most nights...sometimes rather strong. If Fort Dodge,IA and Clarksville,TN weren't there, I might hear it here during the day!
 
Used to hear them all the time at night, but reception has been nearly impossible ever since Milwaukee went to nighttime operation. I can hear them in SW Michigan sometimes, though.
 
Bob.

I don't know about hearing them during the day, but I've heard them twice, both times at sunrise in Cincinnati. The last time was on January 08, 2010 at 7:30 AM, and I was using my Sangean PR-D5.

Clarksville is a recent pest, and they were not a factor when I last heard CBK.

I am not a frequent DX'er, so I can't tell you how often they make an appearance.
 
Bob

I've heard CBK several times in Lexington, KY, but usually not very well considering its low frequency. As Icangelp says, I've had better luck hearing it in the hours just prior to sunrise. I have noticed that the AMers on very low frequencies, generally below 600, generally don't seem to "skip" as well as the higher frequency stations do at night, however. During the daylight hours, however, these lower frequency stations seem to "go on forever". I've heard KWMT-540 from Fort Dodge, Iowa on I-70 at the Colorado/Kansas border!!! WNAX-570 also makes it clearly into Western Kansas at mid-day...
 
Clarksville seems to propagate especially well on Friday nights during football season... Hmmm...
 
Driving east listening to CBK, the only thing that stopped it was KWMT. There's no telling how far it would have carried otherwise. There was a time when Milwaukee's few hundred watts owned 540 (albeit weakly) here 30 miles south of Indy in the daytime but Clarksville,TN now puts in far more signal than Milwaukee ever did. I'll have to try 540 before sunrise and see if I have better luck.
 
CBK is fairly regular here in northwest suburban Chicago. Sometimes you have to null WAUK, sometimes it trashes WAUK, and sometimes WAUK is all alone. I think I'm probably right about at the eastern edge of where CBK has a somewhat reliable nighttime signal.

I know Tincap had been trying seemingly forever to snag CBK....without success....where he is about an hour south of Ottawa on the border with upstate New York. Given all his impressive catches, I'm surprised he hasn't heard it yet. But he may be just too far east.
 
Before CBEF 540, CBK was pretty much the only thing I heard on 540. Now numerous stations are operating at night on 540, so even without CBEF, it's not like the good old days.
 
Even though the FCC calculates skywave equally across the band at night, variations are recognized in critical hours at different frequencies. Logic would dictate that when you have stations operating at as much as three times the frequency, they will penetrate the ionosphere further and return further away, more like shortwave frequencies.
 
Bob.

Hope you're up this morning.

I am listening to CBK as I type. Excellent signal. Nothing else on the frequency.

Started listening about 7:50 AM, and still going strong with news at 8:00. By 8:05, signal mixed with other stations and nearly inaudible.
 
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I drove 500 miles today from Iowa City to North Platte (Nebraska). I had KWMT most of the way, but once I got west of Grand Island, something unidentifiable was underneath. I'm guessing it was CBK.

KWMT is impressive in it's own right. At home, northwest of Chicago, I can null WAUK and hear it. And then today , it was audible half way across Nebraska.
 
I drove 500 miles today from Iowa City to North Platte (Nebraska). I had KWMT most of the way, but once I got west of Grand Island, something unidentifiable was underneath. I'm guessing it was CBK.

KWMT is impressive in it's own right. At home, northwest of Chicago, I can null WAUK and hear it. And then today , it was audible half way across Nebraska.

I used to hear KWMT during the day way back before WAUK signed on, but now at my location in the near north Chicago burbs it's all WAUK.
 
Cyberdad - where are you going? You haven't told us yet your destination...California?

CBK 540 is audible on most evenings - but during aurora and southern nights 540 is about blank. Sometimes a real weak XESURF...

-crainbebo
 
Cyberdad - where are you going? You haven't told us yet your destination...California?

-crainbebo

I'm in Denver for a couple of days. Downtown hotel, lots of noise, so I probably won't be able to do any DXing. However, last night in North Platte, I was able to do some listening. I'm posting a few highlights.
 
Bob.

Hope you're up this morning.

I am listening to CBK as I type. Excellent signal. Nothing else on the frequency.

Started listening about 7:50 AM, and still going strong with news at 8:00. By 8:05, signal mixed with other stations and nearly inaudible.
I wasn't up that morning but was out and about on Monday morning at stayed parked on 540. All I heard was ESPN (Wisconsin) then at 7:30 EDT, almost like a switch was flipped, I heard CBC radio news and the current temperatures for Regina & Saskatoon! That's good enough for me. And it was on my car radio with the 8" rubber antenna.
 
I've been chasing CBK for years and it just can't seem to snag it, here in eastern Ontario. Whether at home, or during the (now) pre-dawn drives up to Ottawa, no luck yet. I usually get a couple of dueling ESPN stations (from TN & WI), while SRC's (in French...it used to duel with the Windsor ON) NB outlet can be quite strong, though all of the above are usually dominated by the (rather unfortunately call signed) Spanish language religious broadcaster WLIE.

~BG
 
... though all of the above are usually dominated by the (rather unfortunately call signed) Spanish language religious broadcaster WLIE.

I think the station was named in honor of the "real" LIE... the Long Island Expressway and not to recognize that quality found inside the Beltway and among infomercial pitchmen. :cool:
 


I think the station was named in honor of the "real" LIE... the Long Island Expressway and not to recognize that quality found inside the Beltway and among infomercial pitchmen. :cool:

Never a trace of it in Houston.
 
So is it possible, maybe in the right area and with the right setup, to have CBK and XEWA both coming in at midday in June?

For example, if you're in western Wyoming, Colorado, Nebraska or Kansas (dodging KYAH, KNMX, KDFT and KWMT), bonus points for doing it next to KRAI's transmitter,
and maybe rbrucecarter is using his Superradio, 10-foot loop (or whatever is the largest he has) and an inductively-coupled Beverage antenna,

Could you have reception several dB-decades stronger than this? (that's 1390 XEKT & KLTX at Pacific Beach, CA, on a SRF-59's internal ferrite one early afternoon.)

Or what about hearing 800 XEROK and CKLW in Kansas City? Or could there be another place/frequency to regularly hear a Canadian and Mexican station simultaneously, each strong enough to stop a scan, when the sun is high in the sky? :) (and no cheating with tropo/skip/etc :p )
 
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