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Dxing in Houston Area

H

Huesby

Greetings Everybody:
I´ve just joined this forum seeing that you talk about radio in the Houston area, you see, I´m located across the sea ... in front of you, exactly in Veracruz, Mexico and on this side of the beach I hear at night very, very strong AM signals coming from the Houston area, they are heard here so strong here, like locals stations, even in the downtown area stations like 740, 820, 1200 1560 Khz. I know some of them are from Houston, some from Dallas and some from ...I don´t really know. As I think radio wave transmissions are a 2 way road, I wonder if you listen to our AM station from this side of the sea with the same strengh at night, do you ? Which ones ?
 
The most common mexican station around the Houston area and most of Texas is XEG-AM 1050 Khz out of Monterrey, NL. After that, 1570 XERF-AM out of Ciudad Acuna (A genuine border blaster).

I'm not really familiar with the AM side of the dial. I know 540 out of San Luis Potosi used to be common, but for the past several years it has become harder to listen to. 990 (Monterrey), 900 (Cd. Mexico), and 730 (Cd. Mexico, even with KTRH interference) are some other stations that I know that reach Houston, but aren't strong enough to be dominant like XEG or XERF. There are many other countless Mexican AM stations that come in at night, but I have never taken the time nor interest to sit down and identify them.

On the FM side, I have been able to listen to 107.1 and 93.1 from Reynosa all over Central Texas (San Marcos, Bryan, and Giddings, TX), but not Houston. In Houston, the only Mexican FM station I have ever been able to pull in is 97.7 from Tampico, Tamaulipas (this was way before IBOC)
 
Easily receivable in Houston during the day:

XEMU 580 Piedras Negras, Mexico
XEFD 590 Rio Bravo, Mexico (when you null KLBJ Austin)
XEGH 620 Rio Bravo, Mexico
XESFT 780 San Fernando, Mexico
XERI 810 Reynosa, Mexico

I don't speak Spanish, so I cannot absolutely confirm these, but I have verified a couple by web streams, the others are the only possible candidate / widely reported by Spanish speaking DX'ers. There are faint signals on 640, but I haven't been able to ID them - only to verify they are in Spanish.
 
College Station & Beaumont stations are easy to pick up if your on the right side on town
 
None of those AM station you mentioned are from around here, you should have heard in the past because they are off air now (due to FM migration) the followings:

XEU 930 10,000 Watts
XELL 1430 10,000 Watts
XEWB 900 50,000 Watts (This is a repeater of the one with the same frequency located in Mexico city named XEWA)

Nowaday you should hear:

XHAR 660 khz 12500 Watts (LA MEXICANA) Located in Tampico, Tam
XEAVR 720 Khz 10,000 Watts Radio Formula Located in Veracruz suburbs
XEQT 800 Khz 1000 Watts La Poderosa Located in Veracruz city
XEWB 900 Khz 50,000 changed format recently formerly was XEWA repeater located in Mexico city now they call themselves "Los 40 principales" Located in Veracruz city.
XEFM 1010 Khz 5 000 Watts Veracruz City

Due to the AM migrations plan to FM that it´s actually being implemented in Mexico there are not many AM stations like we used to have but now we can DX easier than before !

By the way We can hear pretty good also 1600 College Station and 1680 KRJO from Monroe Louisiana and of course KVNS 1700, KGBT 1530 "La Tremenda" Arlington Tex. those 2 latter ones deserve mention apart because they are heard ALL DAY !!!! almost 800 miles !!! without any special antenna.
 
I have crappy equipment, but out of curiosity I tried all the frequencies mentioned:

540: Static, no trace of anything here.
580: High pitched whurring noise. Sounds like something you might hear in a sci-fi movie. Nothing here.
590: Static, but Spanish music (XEFD?) battles it out with some talk (KLBJ?) faintly in the background. Neither station is remotely listenable.
620: KILT overpowers, but there seems to be interference from another station.
660: Static, but unidentifiable music and talk battle it out faintly in the background.
720: Two Spanish stations battle it out. A music station is barely listenable over a faint talk station.
780: KBME overpowers heavily. No indication at all of anything else here.
800: KBME again, also with no indication of anything else here.
810: Static, and KBME is extremely faint in the background
1050: XEG comes in! It's a bit weak, but definitely listenable!
1570: XERF booms in! I'm really impressed by this station's signal; it sounds almost like a local station, even with KGOW right next door!

Don't bother with 900 or 1010; there are local Houston stations on those frequencies.
 
someperson said:
I have crappy equipment, but out of curiosity I tried all the frequencies mentioned:

540: Static, no trace of anything here.
580: High pitched whurring noise. Sounds like something you might hear in a sci-fi movie. Nothing here.
590: Static, but Spanish music (XEFD?) battles it out with some talk (KLBJ?) faintly in the background. Neither station is remotely listenable.
620: KILT overpowers, but there seems to be interference from another station.
660: Static, but unidentifiable music and talk battle it out faintly in the background.
720: Two Spanish stations battle it out. A music station is barely listenable over a faint talk station.
780: KBME overpowers heavily. No indication at all of anything else here.
800: KBME again, also with no indication of anything else here.
810: Static, and KBME is extremely faint in the background
1050: XEG comes in! It's a bit weak, but definitely listenable!
1570: XERF booms in! I'm really impressed by this station's signal; it sounds almost like a local station, even with KGOW right next door!

Don't bother with 900 or 1010; there are local Houston stations on those frequencies.
Click to expand...

Since the original poster was talking about stations from Mexico, I did not mention English speaking stations you can DX in the Houston area, nor Spanish language stations from US sources. I'll add my observations to the list above, though.

540 - I can get a very weak KDFT Dallas, fighting it out with an English language language station I have yet to ID.
660 - your talk station is most likely KSKY Dallas. It is very strong from my Cypress location. I do not hear any music on the frequency, I will have to try nulling KSKY to see if anything is there.
720 - The Spanish language station is most likely KSAH San Antonio. Very strong in Cypress

KMIC has put its IBOC buzz saws back on, so I have never been able to ID the RCI outlet on 1580. I can null KMIC and still hear the RCI outlet somewhat, but I don't know if I can hear it clearly enough to get an ID.
 
Could it be the 540 Khz Spanish station heard, is the XEW repeater from SAN LUIS POTOSÍ XEWA “W Radio” which has 150,000/150,000** Day/night Watts ? That station is heard in most Central Mexico at night besides there´s a small repeater in Monterrey of 1000 Watts. The main station is located in Mexico city but they have many repeaters in many parts of Mexico which transmit at various frequencies.
More info http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/XEW-AM

I´m thinking that your stations direct their signal to the sea while ours don´t, and for that reason We heard your stations like locals here and you don´t hear anything from our coastal cities in the gulf of mexico like Tampico, Veracruz, Villahermosa, Campeche.

Does anybody knows how can the signals be directed at such low frequencies ?
 
Huesby said:
I´m thinking that your stations direct their signal to the sea while ours don´t, and for that reason We heard your stations like locals here and you don´t hear anything from our coastal cities in the gulf of mexico like Tampico, Veracruz, Villahermosa, Campeche.

Does anybody knows how can the signals be directed at such low frequencies ?
Click to expand...

US stations do not necessarily send their signals towards the ocean, although stations on the coast... whether in the East, Pacific or Gulf coasts... often are directional to protect stations not on the coast from interference.

Just as is the case with many Mexico City AM's which increased power over recent decades, many US stations use two or more towers to send more signal in one direction than in another. Think of it like those high school magnetism experiments, where several magnets would push against each other; it is similar with multiple towers in that the signal can be made to push one way and pull back in another.

Stations like XEN (La 69) that used to be 20 kw day and 5 kw night way back in the 60's was able to increase to 100 kw using a directional antenna. About half the AM stations in Mexico City are theoretically directional to protect either other stations in Mexico or even US stations under the various treaties.

Thanks for mentioning the migration of AM stations to FM. I was talking to a member of the CIRT board a month ago, and he told me only about 140 AM stations will remain in Mexico after the migration is finished, with nearly 600 moving to new FM allocations and closing the AM permanently.

Many of the AMs from Mexico that were heard in the US are gone or about to shut down. Only on the border, in Puebla, the DF and Monterrey and GDL will most AMs still be on the air, as there are not enough FM channels to allow migration. Some states will have no AMs at all, and others just two or three.

By the way, KGBT is in Harlingen, near McAllen (and across from Reynosa) and not in Arlington, which is part of the DFW Metroplex.
 
That's pretty interesting that the OP can hear KVNS and KGBT during the day down in Veracruz, roughly 500 miles. Huesby, you should post something on the DX and Reception board, there are some folks over there that are very interested in daytime reception across the Gulf of Mexico.

I would imagine 870 WWL New Orleans should be pretty strong at your location at night. It's local-strength in Houston at night, and can be heard during the day in Galveston. I've heard reports of DX'ers in the Tampa Florida area hearing WWL, KTRH, and KCTA Corpus Christi during the day. Corpus is ~900 miles from Tampa. Amazing what a saltwater path will do for you.
 
Huesby said:
I´m thinking that your stations direct their signal to the sea while ours don´t, and for that reason We heard your stations like locals here and you don´t hear anything from our coastal cities in the gulf of mexico like Tampico, Veracruz, Villahermosa, Campeche.

Does anybody knows how can the signals be directed at such low frequencies ?
Click to expand...

At night, many USA stations indeed direct their signals away from other U.S. stations on the same frequencies. Often, that does indeed mean their signals are directed out to sea, and in the direction of Mexico. (or Canada, for stations in the northern USA)

Multiple towers are used to direct these signals. You could say the station intentionally interferes with itself -- the power transmitted from one tower cancels out the power transmitted from another tower in certain directions. (it also reinforces the transmitted power in other directions)
 
I was able to pull in 560 KLVI -- Beaumont, Texas while in Negril, Jamaica. At first, that annoyed me, because I was trying to listen to signals from Jamaica and elsewhere in the Caribbean that I can't listen to at home in Houston (where KLVI is often heard) but then I realized it was interesting how far the signal travelled to Jamaica.
 
HoustonListener said:
I was able to pull in 560 KLVI -- Beaumont, Texas while in Negril, Jamaica. At first, that annoyed me, because I was trying to listen to signals from Jamaica and elsewhere in the Caribbean that I can't listen to at home in Houston (where KLVI is often heard) but then I realized it was interesting how far the signal travelled to Jamaica.
Click to expand...

I don't know when you were in Negril, but I believe that Jamaica has ceased all AM now. Anyone to confirm?

cd
 
cd637299 said:
I don't know when you were in Negril, but I believe that Jamaica has ceased all AM now. Anyone to confirm?
Click to expand...

Yes... everything indicates that AM is gone in Jamaica.

Quite a few of the Windward Islands that had AMs now only have FM.
 
wildthangjim said:
That's pretty interesting that the OP can hear KVNS and KGBT during the day down in Veracruz, roughly 500 miles. Huesby, you should post something on the DX and Reception board, there are some folks over there that are very interested in daytime reception across the Gulf of Mexico.

I would imagine 870 WWL New Orleans should be pretty strong at your location at night. It's local-strength in Houston at night, and can be heard during the day in Galveston. I've heard reports of DX'ers in the Tampa Florida area hearing WWL, KTRH, and KCTA Corpus Christi during the day. Corpus is ~900 miles from Tampa. Amazing what a saltwater path will do for you.
Click to expand...

WWL does null over the Gulf though. Never have read reports from in those nulls, though (from travelers or otherwise).
 
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