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daytime dxing

I love the directional pattern of 710. Right over water. (how brilliant)

They should have made it non directional since I don't think there are any other 710's in the area.

-Rob
 
robfwb said:
I love the directional pattern of 710. Right over water. (how brilliant)
They should have made it non directional since I don't think there are any other 710's in the area.

Are you ready for this? They really are non-directional. On a coverage map it appears that they send a lot of power out into the Gulf. That's because of the high conductivity of salt water which makes the signal produce a "spur" over the water when the pattern otherwise would be circular. Also worth noting in the case of WNTM: the land area around their tower has very poor ground conductivity.
 
In the Eighties, some of your pebble-in-shoe 'closest AM unheards' can surprise you by coming in at the exact midday, far from the SRS and SSS conditions.

It's often a (female canine-American) to accomplish, but if you can minimize the interefering signal or signals, the desired station's pure groundwave just might poke through. There have been instances when LONG unheard stations that people KNEW existed, between 30 and 50 miles away with no nominal signal toward the radio, were heard this way.

In such instances of station stubbornness, you may want to avoid the SSS or SRS hours looking for a fluke, and instead try -- what would it be called? -- the clean room approach?
 
At high noon yesterday, WSM-Nashville was coming in strongly enough to defeat my engine static... all the way down US 14 between Richland Center and Viroqua, Wisconsin! A later check of Google Earth revealed Viroqua to be 565 airline miles from the transmitter. I believe their CE posts here... nice work, Watt!!
 
I heard WDIC 1430 from Clinchco, VA at 11:00 AM on Wednesday. This was in Coldwater, MI, about 360 air miles away. There has been some awesome daytime DX lately!
 
I've heard WSCR and WBBM from Chicago in Ottawa Canada during the daytime for the past 2 weeks. No fadeout.
 
mimo said:
I've heard WSCR and WBBM from Chicago in Ottawa Canada during the daytime for the past 2 weeks. No fadeout.

Funny you should mention that because I was listening to those two at high noon when I was on Highway 17 from Petawawa. Weak, but listenable without fading. Also pulled in WCBS 880 (but no other New Yorkers). Who was missing? Why WLS, of course. Nary a peep from them, thus providing a little more evidence that their signal is inferior to the other 50 kilowatters in Chicago.

Must be the low sun angle that does it.
 
robfwb said:
Just some notes, while driving on 98 going to FWB, I hear the infamous RR during the day. Surprised 570 out of Tampa doesn't come in out here. (i can hear the CW)


The Cuban "tick tock" station on 570 was a daily catch on my car and C. Crane radios when I lived in Ocean Springs, MS (just across the bay from Biloxi.) No trace of Tampa from there, either.

On the other hand, 620 from St. Pete *boomed* in there. Easily outpowered the co-channel Jackson station. You could barely hear Jackson underneath, despite St. Pete being about 4X further away. Gotta love that salt water!

Three other Florida AMs also made it to Ocean Springs: 540/Pine Hills, 720/Hernado, and 970/Tampa. No sign of 820/Largo which I'm guessing was due to the required null towards Fort Worth (?)
 
1380 and 1040 from Tampa are/were audible regularly on the MS/AL gulf coast (1380 if you were far enough away from the local 1390). Cubans also audible on 670 and 690 (with WTIX/WIST nulled). Not daytime DX skip...just saltwater conductivity.
 
About 1 hr before local sunset I've picked up KVCE from the Ft. Worth TX metro area at least 3X in the last week. That's about 1000 mi from my Englewood FL location. of course there's the Gulf and a strong lobe in my direction but it's a new catch.
 
vibe said:
About 1 hr before local sunset I've picked up KVCE from the Ft. Worth TX metro area at least 3X in the last week.

It helps that they're running 35,000 watts in your direction with a very tight pattern but I'd still consider it a fairly good catch. KVCE 1160 ("The Voice") is licensed to Highland Park, an upscale "island" community just north of downtown Dallas, but their daytime antenna array is located over 50 miles to the northwest of their COL. At night they use a site located a few miles NW of Dallas, running just 1,000 watts and a mainly SSE and NE pattern with a null toward Florida, right in your direction. BTW, this month the pattern switch occurs at 5:45 Central; in June and July you may be able to catch them until 9:45 EDT!
 
Right before sunset the last couple days, in central NC, we've been getting CHWO-AM740 and CFRB-1010 both out of Toronto-area, Canada pretty clear.
I have seen them mentioned on here before, but never heard either one, until the last few days. Usually if there's anything on 1010 it's WINS New York City.
 
quadraphonic said:
Right before sunset the last couple days, in central NC, we've been getting CHWO-AM740 and CFRB-1010 both out of Toronto-area, Canada pretty clear.
I have seen them mentioned on here before, but never heard either one, until the last few days. Usually if there's anything on 1010 it's WINS New York City.

How about "10-50 CHUMmmm" from Toronto? Can you get them too? You'll know, as their format is oldies.
 
BRNout said:
quadraphonic said:
Right before sunset the last couple days, in central NC, we've been getting CHWO-AM740 and CFRB-1010 both out of Toronto-area, Canada pretty clear.
I have seen them mentioned on here before, but never heard either one, until the last few days. Usually if there's anything on 1010 it's WINS New York City.

How about "10-50 CHUMmmm" from Toronto? Can you get them too? You'll know, as their format is oldies.

I have heard them before, but not the other day, at least that I could notice.
 
In NE Georgia, WLW "The Nation's Station" is frequently heard all day during January and early February. Also audible here during the day is WBBM, Chicago, WMPV, Chicago, WCKY, Cincinnati, WLAC Nashville and WSM Nashville. By mid-February the sun angle is a good bit higher and these stations are once again heard only for a while after sunrise and for an hour or so before sunset as well as of course, at night.
 
One time during the day i believe it was january first i had WSB Atlanta at around noon strong as day carrying a georgia Bulldogs Football Bowl Game. and im in central indiana. Depending on the radio i can get WSM during the day all year around here in central indiana
 
Re: 1050 CHUM....

They don't throw much of their signal south of the US-Canada border during the day (and even less at night). Most of the juice goes north-northeast. In my location, northwest of Chicago, they'll occasionally show up on a few nights, but nowhere near as often as in the past or as frequently as CHWO, CKOC (regularly), or CFRB and CHML (occasionally).

As for daytime DX. I've come across CHWO a couple of times midwinter days here.
 
7:45 AM today outside a barbershop in my town. Just for a lark I hit the scan button on the AM side of my car radio. It stopped at 660 (local), 710 (local), 770 (local), 820 (quasi-local), 880 (quasi-local), 1010 (quasi-local), 1040 (local), 1070 (quasi-local), then 1110. Might be the daytimer in Norristown PA or Providence RI. Waited for an ID and got it: Newstalk 1110, WBT. That's a good ~500 miles or so from my town to Charlotte.
 
chuckydoll said:
7:45 AM today outside a barbershop in my town. Just for a lark I hit the scan button on the AM side of my car radio. It stopped at 660 (local), 710 (local), 770 (local), 820 (quasi-local), 880 (quasi-local), 1010 (quasi-local), 1040 (local), 1070 (quasi-local), then 1110. Might be the daytimer in Norristown PA or Providence RI. Waited for an ID and got it: Newstalk 1110, WBT. That's a good ~500 miles or so from my town to Charlotte.

This is the best time of the year for daytime DX'ing. Two hours before local sunset is the time when the skywave starts to kick in. Before the breakdown of the clears in the early 1980's, I've gotten some fantastic daytime DX catches in my various shacks in Massachusetts. In the late 70's, all I used was a 60' long-wire, a Realistic DX-160 (which I still have!) and a good knowledge of the stations and frequencies. In February, 1978, I picked up "The Big 89!", WLS/Chicago at noon local-time. (Totally usable, I may add!). I also got WHAM/1180 Rochester, a mix of WKOX (now on 1200)/WOWO and WLIB on 1190. One big catch for me happened in December, 1972 around 3:30 PM local-time when while I was trying to listen to WLS using a 1965 vintage GE portable radio (a very good unit) I notched out WLS and.... lo-and-behold it was the 1000 watt WHNC/890, a Top-40 station from Hendersonville, North Carolina. They sounded really good and actually used the same jingle package WLS used!

Of course, the clears are long gone. BUT, there's still plenty "gray-line" DX'ing out there. You'd be amazed on what little equipment, you may have, can really pull in some big surprises, even today! Good luck fellow DX'ers!

Peter Q. George (K1XRB)
Whitman, Massachusetts
 
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