Venezuela once had a vibrant shortwave scene, and both of those were widely heard.
Radio Rumbos was one of the last SW stations to go when that platform died out in Venezuela in the 1990s. Ecos del Torbes was another that hung on to the end.
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Classical on 530am Location?
- Thread starter jras20
- Start date
Radio Rumbos was one of the last SW stations to go when that platform died out in Venezuela in the 1990s. Ecos del Torbes was another that hung on to the end.
I remember RVC in Turks & Caicos.... it was on 2 different splits, 535 and 532 before moving to 530. It hasnt been on in years and if its on, its not at full power. IT wasnt even authorized for as m,uch power as they ran, but they did... 40kw into a 5/8th wave tower.. i remember how clear that was in NYC one night back when i was 19!
RVC was regularly heard in Texas on 530.
I don’t think it has been on the air for the past dozen years or so. There have been plans in recent years to reactivate the station but nothing has happened yet.
It appears RVC is planning for 100kw on 530, plus a second transmitter on 1570 with 1kw.
CArribean radio expert Jerry Keifer tells me the 1570 with lower power is what theyre really authorized for.........
I know Bonaire isnt a signatory to any international frequency arrangerments and i dunno if turks and caicos is either.
With 100kw on 530, id be able to hear it up here!
How would that actually work? T&CI is a British Overseas Territory, while Bonaire is a “Special Municipality” of The Netherlands.
Cue David Eduardo to remind us that 100kw on 530 gives you the same groundwave coverage as 5000kw on 1600.😱🤯🤣🤣
You have to take into account the behavior of groundwave propagation versus skywave.
100kw on 530 will provide fantastic groundwave coverage, especially over salt water. But for skywave coverage with 100kw the high end of the AM band would be far superior.
That being said, 100kw on 530 still provides a huge reception area at night.
Theres some international treaties, kinda like the HFCC. Bonaire 800 used to interfere with CKLW and WLAD.
due in large part to nothing else on the channel of any consequence. Toronto and cuba wouldnt hold a candle to 100kw into a 5/8 wave tower
100 kw on 530 would be no more effective than the long-running Bogotá Radio Nacional station on 570, also with 100 kw. That station covers the east central area of Colombia in the daytime, and has pretty good national coverage at night. But I owned a lower power station in Ecuador on 570 and had no trouble with the Bogotá station.
Daytime, 100 kw on 530 would have daytime coverage approximately 25% better than the 540 station in the Orlando market. Savannah to Miami daytime, but fading rapidly as one moves inland.
Nights favor the high AM channels, and 100 kw on 530 might be usable much of the time in the SE United states as well as the Greater Antilles. It's too far from South America to have any impact there, and would not be listenable in Central America for the same reasons; Costa Rica is over 1200 miles from Grand Caicos for example. .
All this time I've known about Radio Encyclopedia on 530 which had a good daytime signal in Tampa and I've heard here in Hawaii at night, I never knew they were just 10 kw.
I assumed they had to be at least 50 kw to get out as far as they do so well.
On a clear frequency that is not unusual. My best from Ohio was New Zealand on 1000 kHz with 10 kw or KIKI 830 in Honolulu with 250 watts. Or 50 watt AFRS 780 Ramey AFB Puerto Rico.
My own HCFV in Quito on 805 got reception reports… many of them… from Europe, Scandinavia, North Americ@, Australia and more We were running 1kw.
Never heard your 1 kw outlet but do remember relatively easy nightly reception of Radio Belize at 834. Had to fend off WHAS more than WCCO, as I recall.
Belize was running 20 kw and is vey close to the U.S. gulf coast. Was the easiest Central American except for the brief tests of the million watts on 625 from Costa Rica.
I LOVE Radio Enciclopedia...there's just something wonderful and magical about hearing music at night on AM radio these days.
Was 530 khz the small-c clear channel transmitter used to broadcast the clandestine Radio Free Dixie? The Wikipedia article says that it "reached the entire continental United States using 50,000 watts at 690 kHz AM" but it doesn't seem possible that any in-band 50 kw transmitter could reach the "entire continent" let alone the South even in the 1960s with WVOK-Birmingham and WAPE-Jacksonville on the same channel.
530 might have been able to cover the South unimpeded with whatever message the Castros wanted to send out.
Was 530 khz the small-c clear channel transmitter used to broadcast the clandestine Radio Free Dixie? The Wikipedia article says that it "reached the entire continental United States using 50,000 watts at 690 kHz AM" but it doesn't seem possible that any in-band 50 kw transmitter could reach the "entire continent" let alone the South even in the 1960s with WVOK-Birmingham and WAPE-Jacksonville on the same channel.
530 might have been able to cover the South unimpeded with whatever message the Castros wanted to send out.
No. 530 wasn’t used by Cuba until decades later.
The “entire United States” claim is hyperbole. AIUI the RFD signal was audible in the southern U.S. if you were able to null out the domestic stations on 690. This was slightly before my serious DXing days, so I have no firsthand experience hearing RFD.
Belize on 834 was a regular into Texas many years ago. Also had a shortwave outlet in the 90 meter band.
When were those megawatt Costa Rican tests on 625? I have heard of them but they might have been before my serious listening days. I do remember other “split frequency” Costa Ricans being audible in Texas, along with 655 in El Salvador.
WAPE and WVOK were daytimers. 690 is a Mexican and Canadian clear channel, and, except for a few like KGGF in Coffeyville, KS, and the like, there is nothing "big" on 690 at night in the US.
Still, 50 kw on a crowded channel and at night might barely have covered the Southeastern USA at night.
I am fuzzy on when 625 was bought by American interests... it had been La Voz de la Víctor with 10 kw well into the 60's. I believe that the high power operation was at about the same time that McLendon (the one from the Urban stations in the Southeast) bought a group of local Costa Rican stations in the early 70's.
The station operated for a short time, but was forced off due to the load it put on the local power grid as well as interference to local stations.
It sounds like anyone north of Miami interested in hearing Robert Williams' program had some DXing to do! In Western Pennsylvania the only Caribbean station I could regularly hear with stock gear was the Caribbean Beacon from Anguilla and Cuban stations like Radio Reloj when they were filling the band with jammers in the late 1980s.
So when did Enciclopedia take the 530 channel and by what authorization? Wiki seems accurate that the few Canadian stations that operated on 530 - of which, CHLO seems to be the only survivor - moved there in the early 1990s when it was otherwise only occupied by TIS stations, beacons, and the occasional pirate. Around the same time as the AM band expansion to 1700 khz.
Was there some sort of international agreement that opened 530 to broadcasters that the USA chose not to participate in? Because if the Castros wanted to get their message pumped out into the USA during the Cold War, 530 would have seemed like an ideal channel for that.
Living in Austin in the 1960s I would hear either KGGF or what was then WTIX in New Orleans on 690, along with some Mexican stations using careful nulling on a good portable radio.