• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

Ever Pick Up A Station That Didn''t Have W, K, C or X Call Letters?

G

Gregg.

I suppose most of us have heard stations with call signs that begin with a W or K (U.S.), an XE or XH (Mexico) or a CB, CF, CH, CI, CJ or CK (Canada). Maybe you've heard stations from Cuba, which had used CM at the beginning of its call signs in pre-Castro days. But have you heard others while on U.S. soil? I can think of three I picked up over the years...

1. While in Florida, I could hear 1540 ZNS-1 in Nassau, Bahamas. Nassau is about 200 miles from the Florida Coast.

2. At night, I could sometimes get 800 Radio Bonaire from the Netherland Antilles, near Venezuela. That was a 500,000 watt religious station, often clashing with 800 CKLW Windsor, but it has apparently reduced its power. I'm not sure if it had call letters and didn't use them or only sometimes used them.

3. 1180 Radio Martí in Marathon, Florida. It is not under the jurisdiction of the FCC so it has no call sign.

I was hoping someday to pick up a V station. There are only a few in Newfoundland, holding onto call signs dating back from when that island was independent and not part of Canada. But they don't run with much power, so even on the coast of Maine, you're not likely to hear any. A few years ago, I spent a week in Puerto Rico, so it's possible I heard stations from Caribbean countries such as the Dominican Republic. But I didn't spend the time to try identifying them.
 
How about 'JO' and 'HL'? The big Japanese and South Korean blasters are common here especially during fall and winter. I have heard seven Japanese MW stations here, all NHK affiliates. Latest additions have been JOIK-567 in Sapporo, and JOGB-873 in Kumamoto. The two South Korean's heard here are the big blasters HLCA-972 and HLAZ-1566 (religion). I have also heard Pyongyang Broadcasting Station on 657khz out of North Korea (and they play a lot of military marches and wacky music saluting the Great Leader overall...easy to cut out of the noise).
I don't think the Caribbean Beacon has a callsign but it's been years since I've heard them on 1610 khz.
 
Gregg. said:
I suppose most of us have heard stations with call signs that begin with a W or K (U.S.), an XE or XH (Mexico) or a CB, CF, CH, CI, CJ or CK (Canada). Maybe you've heard stations from Cuba, which had used CM at the beginning of its call signs in pre-Castro days. But have you heard others while on U.S. soil? I can think of three I picked up over the years...

1. While in Florida, I could hear 1540 ZNS-1 in Nassau, Bahamas. Nassau is about 200 miles from the Florida Coast.

2. At night, I could sometimes get 800 Radio Bonaire from the Netherland Antilles, near Venezuela. That was a 500,000 watt religious station, often clashing with 800 CKLW Windsor, but it has apparently reduced its power. I'm not sure if it had call letters and didn't use them or only sometimes used them.

3. 1180 Radio Martí in Marathon, Florida. It is not under the jurisdiction of the FCC so it has no call sign.

I was hoping someday to pick up a V station. There are only a few in Newfoundland, holding onto call signs dating back from when that island was independent and not part of Canada. But they don't run with much power, so even on the coast of Maine, you're not likely to hear any. A few years ago, I spent a week in Puerto Rico, so it's possible I heard stations from Caribbean countries such as the Dominican Republic. But I didn't spend the time to try identifying them.
Click to expand...

From Cleveland, Ohio in the 60's:
Bermuda (Z)
Bahamas (Z)
British VI (Z)
Haiti (4V)
Dominican Rep (HI)
Cuba (CM)
Jamaica (Calls not used)
Venezuela (YV)
Colombia (HJ)
Ecuador (HC)
Peru (OA)
Chile (CB)
Uruguay (CX)
Brasil (PR, PS, ZY etc.)
Paraguay (ZP)
Bolivia (CP)
Panamá (HO)
Costa Rica (TI)
Nicaragua (YN)
Honduras (HR)
Guatemala (TG)
El Salvador (YS)
Australia (Start with a number indicating location)
New Zealand (Also have number)
Spain (EA)
Trinidad (VP)
Portugal (CS)
Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao (PJ),
Argentina (LR, LS, LT, etc.)
No calls used on air: France, England, Wales, Netherlands, Belgium, Albania, Italy, Vatican, Switzerland, Norway, Luxembourg, MonteCarlo, Austria, Germany, Poland, Yugoslavia, Egypt, Morocco, Libya, Tunisia, Ivory Coast, St Pierr et Miquelon, Montserrat, Guadeloupe, Antigua, St. Lucia, Barbados, Grenada, Suriname, British Guyana, Jamaica, Swan Island, British Honduras, and a couple I seem to have forgotten, mostly in the Lesser Antilles.

Bonaire is PJB, but it dropped to 100 kw for many years; it is now back at 440 kw with a new Nautel transmitter aimed at Cuba in the daytime and at Brazil at night /early morning.
 
Last edited:
Here's my pathetic little list compared to the last two. :)

At home here in Northern Illinois...

ZNS Bahamas (1540)
PJB Bonaire (800)
Numerous Cubans. Most commonly during the early days of the Castro regime it was 570, 600 (which for a time relayed Radio Moscow in English), 640, and 690.

During my winter in Hawaii....

DZRH: Manilla then on 710 IIRC

Expanding to my 1 or 2 annual trips to England 1999-2011. Most common DX catches....

Daytime: Germany 549. Ireland 567. Belgium 621 and 927, Netherlands 675 and 747,

Night: Spain 657, Scotland 810, Germany AFRTS 873 (my go-to for live U.S. sports) , Algeria 891, and my best catch Russia (R. Moscow in English) on 1323. This was in Broadway, England, about 90 miles north-northeast of London.

(Many, if not most, of these are now no longer broadcasting on MW)
 
Let's see....obviously tons of Cubans (few who use those pre-revolution calls), ZNS-3 Bahamas on 810, The Belize station in 834 in the 70s (forget if it had any calls), assorted Colombians and Venezuelans (including once, YVOD Ecos Del Torbes in Ohio under WBBM..simulcast on YVOC 4980 60 meter tropical band. On the FM side, 98.1, the Classical station in the Bahamas (don't know the calls), Hot 94.1, Cayman Islands, ZFKH-FM, and one Radio Reloj, also on 98.1 I had for 15 seconds.
 
My favorite one was 4BC from Brisbane, Australia which I heard when I was in Hawaii about 9 years ago. I think they run only 6.3KW and most amazing is that I wasn't even trying for it. I picked it up on a little grundig radio with no external antenna. Just goes to prove you never know what you might hear when you're DXing.
 
yup when I was in Canada picked up the 4 Newfoundland stations that pre-date when it was part of Canada

VOAR 1210
VOCM 590
VOWR 800
VOCM-FM 97.5
 
1540 Canada

I always wanted to pick up the Bahamas ZNS and you would think it might be easy from here in Atlanta. BUT, the dominant station here on 1540 is CHIN radio out of Toronto with their "Go With The Flow" format.
 
Perhaps my best-ever DX catch, DXing near JFK Airport, was one HJAS from Colombia. And it was on graveyard 1400! That was some Aurora that morning. I was getting Spanish on every GY channel.

On another occasion, I was getting what I thought was Spanish one overnight on 1600 in the late 70's (local WWRL was off the air, of course :- )
A fellow at work from Puerto Rico did a Spanish-hours show at our sister station. I played back for him the tape I'd made, and he listened for a bit. Then he played it back once or twice. Despite the fading and audio quality, he shook his head. 'No, Steve. That's not Spanish. That's, I think, Portuguese.'

Logic would say 'Brazil'. But the handbook had several stations in Brazil on 1600 back then. We couldn't identify any call letters or cities.
In any case, what do stations from that country use as the first letter of their calls?
 
My foreign logs in the Chicago area (call & no calls):

Algeria (531)
Anguilla (1610)
Antigua (1580)
Bahamas (810, 1540)
Belize (835)
Brazil (1220)
Cayman Islands (1205, 1555)
Colombia (600, 690, 760, 770, 810, 870, 890, 970, 1000, 1040, 1070, 1080, 1090, 1100, 1130, 1170, 1190, 1210, 1220, 1310, 1360, 1520, 1550)
Costa Rica (525, 530, 575, 590, 730, 970, 980)
Croatia (1134)
Cuba (all over the place)
Dominica (595)
Dominican Republic (860, 1040)
El Salvador (655, 770, 860, 1520)
England (1215)
Grenada (535)
Guadeloupe (640)
Guatemala (640, 700)
Honduras (610, 630, 650, 660, 750)
International Waters (1620)
Ireland (567)
Mexico (numerous)
Netherlands Antilles (800)
Nicaragua (540, 660, 750)
Norway (1314)
Spain (585)
St. Kitts 7 Nevis (825)
Turks & Caicos (530, 535, 1020, 1570)
US Virgin Islands (1620)
Venezuela (580, 720, 740, 750, 780, 910, 1020, 1080, 1110, 1130, 1150, 1200, 1210)
 
For me, just the 750 out of Caracas whenever it would override WSB, and also once about 15 years ago down in Panama City Beach when it usually was beating out WSB every time I checked.
I don't think I've personally ever caught Marti. I'm pretty sure I've heard the station jamming it but never Marti itself.
 
I've picked up a few JO and HL stations from near San Diego, CA, maybe a couple others from east Asia.

I think my best (in spite of challenging conditions) was the Japanese 594, from about 8 miles east of San Diego's IBOC-upchucking 600, on an ultralight with a ~12" loop.
 
When I lived on the east coast of FL used to keep a preset on my car radio to ZNS-3 810 in Freeport. Sounded like a local or at least a Grade B signal. However I was quite surprised when the Orlando station (now WRSO) went on the air, and how they made it work using a directional antenna. Could still hear ZNS-3 by nulling the Orlando signal but not listenable in the car after that time.
 
A friend of mine, an avid WABeatleC listener back in the 1960s, reported hearing Dakar, Senegal on 764 (probably now on 765) many times.
 
Speaking of Miami Beach,
We forgot to mention that many years ago, 4VE(C, F, or H, it was part of a religeous network)
from Cap Haïtien, Haitie was a daytime regular on 1035.
All three ZNS's on 1240, 1540, and then, later on 810 were equally regulars.
We worked at a first adjacent channel Miami station that had a deep null toward all of the Bahamas.
 
Last edited:
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom