DX questions

[eyg2181]

how do you know when to do it? or do you just have to be at the radio at the right time.

the only DX i ever had was hearing 103.7 the shark from atlantic city NJ at my moms house in Pottsville PA.

i only knew where the shark came from because i listen to it sometimes at my dads in Levittown PA, and its very weak there, this is an additional 105 miles

 

[700WLW]

how do you know when to do it? or do you just have to be at the radio at the right time.

the only DX i ever had was hearing 103.7 the shark from atlantic city NJ at my moms house in Pottsville PA.

i only knew where the shark came from because i listen to it sometimes at my dads in Levittown PA, and its very weak there, this is an additional 105 miles

If you are interested in the AM band, which is best for DXing, try listening at nighttime, and you can pick from this list:

http://www.northpine.com/broadcast/50kwam.html

Most any decent AM/FM radio will do, but I use this one, because I love pocket-radios, and this one is excellent:

http://www.radiointel.com/review-sonys10mk2.htm

Got mine off J&R Music, but also on SonyStyle.com and Amazon.com.

If you want to be able to punch in specific frequencies, versus an analog-tuned radio, you will need a PLL digital radio, but they tend to be noisier.

 

[vibe]

At this time a year, you get a lot of stations not normally received in the summer in the last hour or so before sunset, sometimes even 2 or 3. I caught a 10kw 1650 AM station from Fort Smith AK from Englewood FL just before sunset, distance approx 1000 mi.

 

[w9wi]

how do you know when to do it? or do you just have to be at the radio at the right time.

For FM, you have to be there at the right time.

Shorter-haul (75-500mi.) tropospheric propagation is better when a stagnant warm high-pressure area is about to be pushed off by an approaching cold front. Sometimes shorter-haul DX (75-150mi.) can be very good right after a thunderstorm. Tropospheric DX is rare (but not impossible!) during cold weather. It's usually good at night and best right around sunrise.

Longer-haul (700-1400mi.) sporadic-E is (probably) independent of weather. There are two "Es seasons", one running from late May through early August and the other for a couple of weeks around New Year's. Es *can* happen at any time of year but it's a lot more common during these seasons. It's also most likely in late morning (10am-noon local time) and evening. (5-8pm local time) It can be helpful to have a TV with rabbit ears, tuned to an unused TV channel between 2 and 6 inclusive. If a TV station shows up on a channel not normally occupied by a local station, it's likely because of sporadic-E.

For AM, for raw distance, DX is best at night. (here in the Nashville area, I frequently hear KNBR-680, San Francisco, even on cheap portable radios, in the middle of the night.)

However, a lot of interesting DX can be heard around sunrise and around sunset.

Most AM stations are required to reduce power and/or switch to a directional antenna and/or switch to a more restrictive directional pattern at sunset. Many are required to go off the air altogether. But the long-haul DX doesn't "snap" on at sunset. You can often catch a DX station operating on its higher daytime power while the long-haul propagation has begun but before "official" sunset when the station reduces power. Many of these stations are impossible to hear in the middle of the night because of their lower power. (or again, because they may be off the air altogether!) The same thing happens around sunrise.

In the winter, occasionally there will even be DX during the day. (I've heard KRLD/Dallas quite well here at high noon on rare occasions. Also, one day while driving in western Kansas, all the Chicago 50kw stations were blasting in at 2:00 in the afternoon)

 

[Grrrradio]

If you're looking to become an AM DXer, definitely get yourself access to a Delco car radio, at least in a model manufactured prior to about 2001. My parents have a Chevy Blazer that, just yesterday, rendered a copyable signal from WLW-Cincinnati... at NOON... in Minneapolis! (It'll definitely help cut the noise if you DX with the engine off.)

 

[eyg2181]

dxing seems fun, would a roof antenna help at all?

has anybody heard anything from the levittown/philly/trenton ares? is it possible to have pick up something from like, california? or nebraska? from there

 

[BRNout]

dxing seems fun, would a roof antenna help at all?

has anybody heard anything from the levittown/philly/trenton ares? is it possible to have pick up something from like, california? or nebraska? from there

I picked up 850 KOA from Denver the other night from the Main Line area, but that was a pretty lucky catch. Good atmospherics that night - but you probably would have gotten pretty much the same thing in the Lower Bucks area too. Normally, the furthest catches at night from the Philly area would be from Des Moines, IA (WHO 1040), St. Louis (KMOX 1120), New Orleans (WWL 870), and Cuba (numerous weak frequencies - particularly 570 and under WOR at 710). I've also gotten South Americans on 750 and 760.

Nebraska's 2 most powerful stations: KFAB 1110 and KRVN 880 are on frequencies that are already spoken for in the eastern half of the country (WBT Charlotte and WCBS NY, respectively). So, not much hope there because they are directional away from us. Nor is it likely that you could pick anything else up from any of the other plains states for the same reason. Even Texas is difficult because of the shared frequencies with 50 kw stations in the east. I've tried for WBAP 820, but I get a station from Washington DC instead.

Many folks here will tell you to try for WCCO Minneapolis, but 830 in our area is home to WEEU Reading - which puts a reasonably strong signal over the Philly area. Unless you have the patience to listen for WCCO under the audio of WEEU, that option isn't very good.

KOA is the best shot from that part of the country - but a station from Cleveland usually dominates 850. And, it often fights with WEEI Boston. But, I heard it so it can be done.

California would be nearly impossible - coast to coast dx is an extremely rare thing. Especially now with such a crowded dial. Not even sure if anyone has done it lately.

 

[Grrrradio]

BRNOut, I have to concur on the coast-to-coast thing. Even halfway across in Minnesota, I've only gotten two New Mexico stations (KKOB and KNMX) and one California (still un-IDed -- I only know it's from CA because I Googled the name of a car dealership whose ad I heard and found out that they had multiple location statewide.) This is in over a dozen years of casual DXing.

Oddly, however, two of these are unbelievable in retrospect. The KNMX log was around eight years ago, and the database I used at the time to verify my catch didn't list power levels. Checking it on Radio-Locator just a few moments ago to see the pattern, I found out it's TWENTY WATTS at night. In retrospect, I don't know how on earth that catch was possible... although it helps that they're way down on 540 and send a huge amount of their nighttime signal to the northeast. (Have they perhaps lowered their nighttime power in the intervening years?) And the California log was on a regional channel -- 1360. Just proves that nighttime AM really does have an element of chance, and that's half of what makes it so fun.

 

[700WLW]

dxing seems fun, would a roof antenna help at all?

has anybody heard anything from the levittown/philly/trenton ares? is it possible to have pick up something from like, california? or nebraska? from there

I picked up 850 KOA from Denver the other night from the Main Line area, but that was a pretty lucky catch. Good atmospherics that night - but you probably would have gotten pretty much the same thing in the Lower Bucks area too. Normally, the furthest catches at night from the Philly area would be from Des Moines, IA (WHO 1040), St. Louis (KMOX 1120), New Orleans (WWL 870), and Cuba (numerous weak frequencies - particularly 570 and under WOR at 710). I've also gotten South Americans on 750 and 760.

Nebraska's 2 most powerful stations: KFAB 1110 and KRVN 880 are on frequencies that are already spoken for in the eastern half of the country (WBT Charlotte and WCBS NY, respectively). So, not much hope there because they are directional away from us. Nor is it likely that you could pick anything else up from any of the other plains states for the same reason. Even Texas is difficult because of the shared frequencies with 50 kw stations in the east. I've tried for WBAP 820, but I get a station from Washington DC instead.

Many folks here will tell you to try for WCCO Minneapolis, but 830 in our area is home to WEEU Reading - which puts a reasonably strong signal over the Philly area. Unless you have the patience to listen for WCCO under the audio of WEEU, that option isn't very good.

KOA is the best shot from that part of the country - but a station from Cleveland usually dominates 850. And, it often fights with WEEI Boston. But, I heard it so it can be done.

California would be nearly impossible - coast to coast dx is an extremely rare thing. Especially now with such a crowded dial. Not even sure if anyone has done it lately.

I have tried to get KOA, from Maryland, but I think a LPAM interferes with it. The past few nights, I was able to get WCCO, rather clearly; otherwise, the best I have done is West to WHO and KMOX, South to WWL, South West to KRLD for just a minute, and North to various Canadian, with the hand-held Sony ICF-S10MK2.

 

[Grrrradio]

More daytime DX

700 WLW was *clear* on that car radio in Minneapolis at 2:45 today, and in my ultimate DX shock of all time, around the same time of day I pulled in KKGM-Fort Worth!!!! (Granted, they're on the X-band, so I suppose that helps...) Are others experiencing good daytime MW DX conditions right now, or is this just a freakishly good radio... or maybe some weird accident where I was parked on top of some aspect of the city water system that made a really good ground?

 

[MN Maniac]

If you're looking to become an AM DXer, definitely get yourself access to a Delco car radio, at least in a model manufactured prior to about 2001.

Agreed. My 2001 Grand Am's Delco unit is extremely sensitive on both AM and FM. The only thing I've ever found to equal it was the Philco Ford unit in my first car, a 1972 Mercury Comet. These are the OLD Philco AM-only units with the " 5 7 9 11 13 15" dial and 3-section antenna that extends to 5 feet in length. (The following year, they went to the short "fixed mast" models which didn't do nearly as well on AM.)

Also, if you're going to use a car radio for DX'ing, make sure it has a fixed mast antenna. The windshield wire versions don't work nearly as well.

 

[BRNout]

Although the nation's breadbasket (where many of you seem to be) is great for dxing, nothing beats salt water! This afternoon, had to do some business along the coast of New Jersey from Atlantic City to Brick Township. Easily picked up WTIC 1080 Hartford, WCBM 680 Baltimore (with WRKO in the background), and WBAL 1090 Baltimore from south of AC. WBZ was blotted out by a local on 1040. That means that WTIC was carrying for hundreds of miles across the water. And, it really came in clearly. Pretty cool.

By the time I got to Brick Twp. (60 miles north), WBZ 1030 Boston was coming in listenably well. Within 3 miles of the coast, that is. That's something like 200 miles of signal travel! And, it had to pass through RI and eastern CT before shooting across the water at me. Great signal. Oh, by the way, it was between 12:30 and 2:30 pm. Midday, so skywave help was unlikely. Besides, none of the aforementioned signals ever faded. They were steady.

Daytime dx is great! The only spoilers are those am stations that are spewing the IBOC hash. There's some business radio/brokered format station near Philly at 860 who's signal starts chewing up WCBS just south of Trenton, NJ. Why anyone would want to listen to that crap in HD is beyond me, but it is a menace - that's for sure!

Oh yeah, and the analog signals of such stations sound crappy too. I know, I hijacked the thread....

 

[700WLW]

BRNout,

No problem... at least, you are one of the few, that have figured out the IBOC menace. If you don't already know, AM IBOC is probably dead, and still has not been authorized by the FCC (Senator Sununu, may help put an end to IBOC, anyway) - there are only a few AMs running IBOC, and many have turned it off:

"RW Opinion: Rethinking AM’s future"

"Only 175 or so AM stations have even licensed AM-HD. For a number of reasons, quite a few have tried it and taken it off the air, or so the anecdotal evidence suggests. (Ibiquity no longer reports in its public summaries whether a station is on the air.)"

http://www.rwonline.com/pages/s.0044/t.557.html

Canada is looking at IBOC, but will not put up with its interference, on nighttime AM - at least, Canada will be there to DX, and probably the US, too, for many years.

 

[davideduardo]

BRNout,

No problem... at least, you are one of the few, that have figured out the IBOC menace. If you don't already know, AM IBOC is probably dead, and still has not been authorized by the FCC (Senator Sununu, may help put an end to IBOC, anyway) - there are only a few AMs running IBOC, and many have turned it off:

"RW Opinion: Rethinking AM’s future"

"Only 175 or so AM stations have even licensed AM-HD. For a number of reasons, quite a few have tried it and taken it off the air, or so the anecdotal evidence suggests. (Ibiquity no longer reports in its public summaries whether a station is on the air.)"

http://www.rwonline.com/pages/s.0044/t.557.html

Canada is looking at IBOC, but will not put up with its interference, on nighttime AM - at least, Canada will be there to DX, and probably the US, too, for many years.

Mexico has been testing HD on 100 kw XEN-690, and Brazil has about 50 AM HD staitons, many in the 50 to 100 kw range.

 

[Tom Wells]

Something is "better" than average in the recent cold air, as I normally expect one or two 50kw AMs from Chicago to come in here in Des Moines, but all the big ones are coming in strong daytime from Chicago at noon, 670,720,780,890, 1000, a lot better than expected.
I have heard 640 KFI from LA in Chicago (home), but this was 1978
Someone mentioned WBAP 820, and the Washington DC station. DANG that station, with its weak country format..no comparison at all to
WBAP which used to have Bill Mack and his truckin' show.
A good example of how weakening the "clear channel" concept has been detrimental to AM.
The new one in DC can't evn be picked up well 100 miles away, while WBAP covered 50% of the US.

 

[700WLW]

BRNout,

No problem... at least, you are one of the few, that have figured out the IBOC menace. If you don't already know, AM IBOC is probably dead, and still has not been authorized by the FCC (Senator Sununu, may help put an end to IBOC, anyway) - there are only a few AMs running IBOC, and many have turned it off:

"RW Opinion: Rethinking AM’s future"

"Only 175 or so AM stations have even licensed AM-HD. For a number of reasons, quite a few have tried it and taken it off the air, or so the anecdotal evidence suggests. (Ibiquity no longer reports in its public summaries whether a station is on the air.)"

http://www.rwonline.com/pages/s.0044/t.557.html

Canada is looking at IBOC, but will not put up with its interference, on nighttime AM - at least, Canada will be there to DX, and probably the US, too, for many years.

Mexico has been testing HD on 100 kw XEN-690, and Brazil has about 50 AM HD staitons, many in the 50 to 100 kw range.

Well David, it is the same situation, as in the US - stations are broadcasting, but no one is listening:

http://www.google.com/trends?q="hd+...ast,+"internet+radio"&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all

Who cares about Brazil and Mexico - they will eventually turn off AM IBOC, too. We should get off IBOC, because this thread is going to get killed.

 

[700WLW]

Something is "better" than average in the recent cold air, as I normally expect one or two 50kw AMs from Chicago to come in here in Des Moines, but all the big ones are coming in strong daytime from Chicago at noon, 670,720,780,890, 1000, a lot better than expected.
I have heard 640 KFI from LA in Chicago (home), but this was 1978
Someone mentioned WBAP 820, and the Washington DC station. DANG that station, with its weak country format..no comparison at all to
WBAP which used to have Bill Mack and his truckin' show.
A good example of how weakening the "clear channel" concept has been detrimental to AM.
The new one in DC can't evn be picked up well 100 miles away, while WBAP covered 50% of the US.

I am in Maryland, and read a post on the Web, that it was not unusual to pick up KSL SLC from here - the best I can do nighttime is West to WHO and KMOX and South to WWL. Still, not to shabby, but it is a shame...

 

[Mike Walker]

I've been getting great AM dx lately even on my Accurian HD radio. And contrary to what some may claim, it ain't no dx machine (on AM). Actually am analog reception is somewhat mediocre, but conditions have been so good lately I'm getting lots of stuff on it.

With a "real" dx radio...one with some "oomph"...like say a tabletop communications receiver with an outdoor random-length longwire (200 feet is great if you've got the room), or indoors with a good table radio or portable and something like the Terk AM Advantage, or the famous Select-a-tenna, and by-gosh...thar' be stations out there!

 

[700WLW]

I've been getting great AM dx lately even on my Accurian HD radio. And contrary to what some may claim, it ain't no dx machine (on AM). Actually am analog reception is somewhat mediocre, but conditions have been so good lately I'm getting lots of stuff on it.

With a "real" dx radio...one with some "oomph"...like say a tabletop communications receiver with an outdoor random-length longwire (200 feet is great if you've got the room), or indoors with a good table radio or portable and something like the Terk AM Advantage, or the famous Select-a-tenna, and by-gosh...thar' be stations out there!

With IBOC, being transmitted at only 1/100th the power of the main analog channel, physics states that IBOC will never carry, as far as, analog. I have no problems DXing, especially WSB and WBBM, which most nights, come in as locals to Maryland; this is done with a $10 Sony ICF-S10MK2 - no need for expensive HD radios.

 

[BRNout]

With IBOC, being transmitted at only 1/100th the power of the main analog channel, physics states that IBOC will never carry, as far as, analog. I have no problems DXing, especially WSB and WBBM, which most nights, come in as locals to Maryland; this is done with a $10 Sony ICF-S10MK2 - no need for expensive HD radios.

Remember, there's no IBOC issue at night. At least, not yet.

Despite the idea that it's at less power than the main signal, the IBOC hash carries pretty far. Let's put it this way: if a given station (with IBOC) has a reasonably strong signal (that you can listen to) where you are, then they are going to be dominating the 10 kHz on either side of their freq with hash. On many radios (even fairly good ones), it extends 20 kHz on either side. And it carries far enough that it interferes in places where, without the hash, you'd be getting good adjacent frequency reception (no het, no beat). It may not carry as far (theoretically) as the analog signal - but it carries far enough to be a real menace. An example is that WOR's hash carries for at least 85 miles.

So, for daytime dxing - such as I was doing on the Jersey shore - the IBOC factor definitely cut down on the number of stations available to listen to. By a lot.

One other thing on the subject, has anyone noticed how poor the analog audio sounds on many IBOC stations? WBZ Boston is an example of a station that sounds great with the hash machine off, but like my radio consists of two tin cans and a string when its on. Other local AMs sound like FM stereo by comparison.