Getting 990 CBW tonight

[radioman148]

I'm back in the Pensacola area for our usual summer beach getaway. I haven't totally unpacked, but I took out the SRF 37 Walkman last night night and tried 990. What I found was a fantastic north-south path to the Carribbean. Lousy path to Mexico and most of North America. Virtually no atmospheric noise due to an absence of the usual summer thunderstorms.

Anyway, what I was getting was a very good signal on a music and call-in program in Spanish. Unfortunately, it faded right at the time for a TOH ID. Didn't seem to be Cuban....at least it certainly wasn't R. Progresso or R. Rebelde. There was something else in Spanish in the background, along with one other station that seemed to be in English and might have been CBW, but it I doubt it.

The reason I doubt it is because the "1-A" clears from the Midwest were almost totally absent...including the usually robust WLW. KMOX was in, but very weak. Meanwhile, the usual Cubans and other Carribeans were blasting in. Curiously, however, Mexico was pretty much absent. XEEP was in on 1060, but getting trashed by WLNO.

I'll bring out the "heavy artillery" later in the week and post if I do manage to snag CBW.

This post made me miss DXing ... haven't done much of it the past few months, and usually don't at home until September or so when the temps cool.
Are you behind WMVP's pattern when you're home? I know 1000 gets a lot weaker at night in the western suburbs, even as close to their towers as Naperville. I ought to try for 990 here in Ohio some night; WMVP is a blaster every night here.

I'm in the Chicago area and I'm 30 miles north of MVP's sticks. Although they come in strong, I can usually get CBW pretty well.

 

[mimo]

I'm just north of where Tincap lives and I do get CBW nightly. They fight it out with CKGM in Montreal. The funny thing for me, instead of hearing it with the radio facing east/west, I get it facing north/south.

 

[cyberdad]

Are you behind WMVP's pattern when you're home? I know 1000 gets a lot weaker at night in the western suburbs, even as close to their towers as Naperville. I ought to try for 990 here in Ohio some night; WMVP is a blaster every night here.

I'm about 30 miles NNW of the WMVP, stick and slightly-moderately behind their pattern. Nighttime signal at my home is still pretty good, but CBW splatter is common. You can also every so often hear XEOY beneath it. Go 10-15 miles west of me, and WMVP is noticeably weaker. Go 10-15 miles east, and WMVP is every bit as strong as the "1-A" Chicago blowtorches.....no CBW splatter and no XEOY.

 

[radioman148]

Are you behind WMVP's pattern when you're home? I know 1000 gets a lot weaker at night in the western suburbs, even as close to their towers as Naperville. I ought to try for 990 here in Ohio some night; WMVP is a blaster every night here.

I'm about 30 miles NNW of the WMVP, stick and slightly-moderately behind their pattern. Nighttime signal at my home is still pretty good, but CBW splatter is common. You can also every so often hear XEOY beneath it. Go 10-15 miles west of me, and WMVP is noticeably weaker. Go 10-15 miles east, and WMVP is every bit as strong as the "1-A" Chicago blowtorches.....no CBW splatter and no XEOY.

If you go west of Aurora MVP really drops off. 40 years ago I went to college in De Kalb. AM 1000, then WCFL could barely be heard at night.

 

[Steve_Green]

@ Cyberdad's post re CJBC :

Can't be sure, as we only listen to them once a year ( it's a tradition ; Joyeux Noel, : -) , but is it possible that CJBC doesn't run their audio cranked past, say, 1972 levels? Or even past 1962 levels?

The station draws mildew for ratings in Toronto, which has prohibitively few French-speaking people. It's in the wrong province for that by a wide margin. I often wonder what it's doing there in 2011 instead of being on 690 or 940 in Montreal.

It could be that the station is there just by habit, or like some shoehorned modern Disney or ESPN foot in the door in a big market. Such being the case, they may not have exactly given the audio the WPLJ or CKLW treatment. Such negligence, if there is any, might account for the lousy reception.

ZNS 1540 seems to be another big signal with very little processing. I had a lot of trouble making out anything the jock said from as near to the station as Leesburg FL the last two times I was there.

 

[cyberdad]

I stand to be corrected by Tincap, Mimo, or someone else who knows more about this stuff than me, but I think CJBC exists because of a mandate that the CBC/SRC provide primary Canada-Wide French language service.

In the case of Toronto, with a low Francophone population (on a percentage basis), it would seem to make more sense to accomplish this on an existing big signal AM, than to use scarce spectrum space on the FM band.

Montreal is a different situation. French is the majority language there. Spoken by 71% of the population, last I heard. The remaining 29% that speaks English (mostly) represents a much higher potential audience (percentage-wise) than would be the case for Toronto Francophones. So if one accepts the premise that FM spectrum space has greater value than AM, then it's logical for the CBC/SRC to broadcast in both languages on FM.

This is also what's going on in Ottawa, where I believe the split in the metro is about 60-40 English-French, with the Francophone City of Hull, QC just across the Ottawa River.

What about the big CBW stick in Winnipeg? A different dynamic there entirely. This is fairly large city plopped in the midst of a vast rural region. CBW has it's monster signal in an area of fabulous ground conductivity, which beams CBC programming to a broad area where it may be (or at least may have been until very recently) impractical to cover adequately via FM. So for this instance, the French/SRC have a big Winnipeg AM stick of their own on 1050.

Again, I stand to be corrected on any of this. I'm merely speaking from my experience as a frequent business traveler to Canada....and to a far lesser extent from my own Canadian family background.

 

[Tincap]

I stand to be corrected by Tincap, Mimo, or someone else who knows more about this stuff than me, but I think CJBC exists because of a mandate that the CBC/SRC provide primary Canada-Wide French language service.

Very true.

The GTA FM band is probably too crowded to wedge another Class A signal (needed for proper coverage, in light of the mandate) in there, without causing interference issues.

Over in Windsor, CBC's CBEW has to continue operating on 1550, because of the co-channel issues with their move to FM. SRC's CBEF remains on 540, although they were allowed to operate a lower powered FM repeater for Windor's downtown core, on 105.5...unless that repeater causes interference to a station from...Toledo OH.

~BG

 

[mimo]

In it's present form, you are right, Cyber. CJBC was ONCE an english language radio station, but was sold I believe in the 1940's and became one of the flagship stations for SRC. Until the mid 1990's AM was valuable in Canada. Even as recently as 1992 in most cities, AM had just over half of all listening...and keep in mind most of theses stations played music. The 860 frequencies in Toronto, Saskatchewan and 1050 Frequency in Manitoba cover a large area that would be to0 costly to cover with FM. Espace Musique (which is the French equivalet to CBC radio 2) has an FM in Toronto at 90.3. The only vacant frequency in the city is 88.1 as CKLN is no longer on air. Toronto's AM dial is almost completely full and so is it's FM. Despite CJBC's low ratings, it probably has a huge audience in it's target language. The French population is small, but I'm pretty sure almost all of it listens to 860 at some point in the day.

 

[cyberdad]

Didn't CFRB have 860 originally? Then in the late 30s/early 40s or thereabouts cut a deal with the CBC and/or CRTC to move to 1010 (and get a power increase while they were at it)?

 

[jd]

They started on 1030, followed by 690 and then 860. It took several years to accomplish, but CFRB swapped frequencies with CJBC September 1st, 1948. A history of the station from the Canadian Communications Foundation can be found at: http://www.broadcasting-history.ca/index3.html (several clicks are needed, since "deep links" aren't available on the site.)

 

[fybush]

The history in a nutshell: the CBC's main station in Toronto (originally CNRT and then CBL starting in 1937) was on 840 until the NARBA realignment of 1941 opened up the 740 clear channel for Canada. But the CBC had a second English-language service, too, which evolved into the commercial Dominion Network by the mid-40s. Its Toronto flagship was CBY, changing calls to CJBC when the Dominion Network became a mostly commercial service, and it was on 1420 pre-NARBA and 1010 thereafter. In 1948, the CBC (which was then both the state broadcaster and the broadcast regulator) big-footed commercial CFRB from 860. (CJBC had been on 690 pre-NARBA, but the CBC declared that all of Canada's I-A clear channels under NARBA should be used by the CBC itself.)

CJBC on 860 remained a commercial English-language service operated by the CBC until the Dominion Network folded in 1962, after which French programming slowly expanded to take over all of CJBC's airtime by 1964. That was purely a political move - this coincided with the rise of Quebecois political power and bilingualism, and there was strong political pressure to make French-language Radio-Canada programming available across the country. (In fairness, this movement also brought more English-language CBC radio and TV service to Francophone Quebec.)

The CBC remains under a mandate to provide two radio networks in English and two in French to as much of populated Canada as possible, and while it's looked at ways to get CJBC off AM, it's never found a viable FM channel that can replace 860's big reach...even if nobody's listening and it's not very loudly modulated.

 

[cyberdad]

Thanks, jd and Scott for connecting all those dots. The history is pretty much what I had thought....complete with the "political intrigue".....but it's nice to get the details, complete with the various twists and turns. As for the here and now, it more or less confirms to me that having the French programming on 860 is the best option from a list of less-than-ideal alternatives.

Back to the original topic... I've still not been able to snag CBW this week here in the Pensacola area despite my admittedly limited attempts. We've had a steady stream of visitors, which makes for great fun, but not a lot of time for DXing. This will be winding down during the latter part of the week, so I'll be able make a more concerted effort over these next few days.

I've got the Eaton E-10 with me. A good radio (but certainly not a great one). So far what I've been getting on 990 is still a dominant strong Spanish signal, but I'm pretty sure it's not Cuba. It's certainly not one of the major Cuban networks, which all come in just fine here nightly on several frequencies.

 

[cyberdad]

Update: I've tried 990 each of the last two nights on the E-10. No identifiable CBW. Two nights ago it was the strong Spanish signal I'd been getting previously. Not sure what this is. Radio-locator and FM scan offer conflicting info regarding whether XET is still on 990 from Monterrey (sp?). If it is, that would be my guess....especially at 50kw. Otherwise the 150kw blowtorch from Columbia becomes a likely suspect. Perhaps David or someone else familiar with the landscape can shed some light on this.

Then last night, 990 was simply a mess. Nothing really on top to any degree. I was hearing English sports talk in the mix, which I presume was WNML, Knoxville...which has a nighttime aimed at me, and has been a frequent visitor in the past. I'll give it one more shot here from the Pensacola area here tonight, but then I'm off to New Orleans....and a local 990.

 

[Tincap]

I'll give it one more shot here from the Pensacola area here tonight, but then I'm off to New Orleans....and a local 990.

I don't know about Winnipeg, Cyber, but when just leaving from New Orleans (road trip!) a couple of years ago, during those pre-dawn hours on that August morning, your Chicago locals lit up the radio dial like a Christmas tree!

~BG

 

[N4GBK]

Not heard here in NE NC. WNML Knoxville and WNTP Philadelphia depending on antenna rotation. Tried at 6 AM, semi local daytimer already on full power. Will try again this winter. -Bill

 

[jd]

Radio-locator and FM scan offer conflicting info regarding whether XET is still on 990 from Monterrey (sp?). If it is, that would be my guess....especially at 50kw.

Yes, XET is still there, from what I've been hearing and also according to the NL section of Fred Cantu's site: http://www.mexicoradiotv.com/nuevoleon/index.htm

Live streaming is at http://www.mmradio.com/player/49

 

[cyberdad]

Thanks, all.

As I said, I may take a stab at CBW again tonight and I'll report if I can positively identify it. But I agree that snagging this is probably a "winter thing." I expect to be back in the Pensacola area after the first of the year, and I'll try again then.

Thanks also, jd, for the update and additional info on XET. That's probably what I was hearing earlier this week. (I actually had been thinking about checking Fred Cantu's list).

Finally New Orleans.... The hotel where I stay is near the local 990 stick, so even at low nighttime power, no chance for trying for anything on that channel. I used to get into N'Awlins a lot more often than I do now, but yes, Tincap, the Chicago blowtorches indeed were indeed capable of lighting up the dial at night...Just like WWL puts a good nighttime signal into Chicago.

Last night here, it was the Mexicans and Cubans lighting up the dial (which makes the apparent absence of XET a little puzzling). R. Reloj on 790 especially was roaring in like a local...as were XEQ, XEOY, XEEP, and XEB. (940, 1000, 1060, and 1220 respectively)

 

[radioman148]

Back in the 70s & 80s WLS used to blast into New Orleans like a local at night. Don't know if that's still possible with all the clutter.

 

[cyberdad]

Back in the 70s & 80s WLS used to blast into New Orleans like a local at night. Don't know if that's still possible with all the clutter.

Being in a highrise hotel (New Orleans Marriott), there's no chance For any significant DX....although a number of signals do manage to penetrate. Strongest local here is 990, which takes care of CBW and, for that matter WMVP. As stated previously, the local 990 stick (WGSO) is right here in the neighborhood. Even at 400 watts (ND) nighttime, it's potent enough. Meanwhile, WWL here has enough splatter to eliminate WLS. I doubt that the other Chicago blowtorches could penetrate the building and ambient noise. Especially given the rather high level of thunderstorm activity.

 

[radioman148]

Back in the 70s & 80s WLS used to blast into New Orleans like a local at night. Don't know if that's still possible with all the clutter.

Being in a highrise hotel (New Orleans Marriott), there's no chance For any significant DX....although a number of signals do manage to penetrate. Strongest local here is 990, which takes care of CBW and, for that matter WMVP. As stated previously, the local 990 stick (WGSO) is right here in the neighborhood. Even at 400 watts (ND) nighttime, it's potent enough. Meanwhile, WWL here has enough splatter to eliminate WLS. I doubt that the other Chicago blowtorches could penetrate the building and ambient noise. Especially given the rather high level of thunderstorm activity.

That's too bad. I used to get all the Chicago clears very well in New Orleans. WLS always came in the best when I was there in the 60s thru the 80s.