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I’m camping on the coastline of Washington State for a few days. Are there any Asian MW radio stations I should try to catch?

F

fordranger797

Hi!

I’m camping out on the coastline of the Pacific Northwest yet again with my trusty grundig radio. This is one of my favourite places to scan through the nighttime AM dial. One thing I’ve never been able to do is catch a transpacific DX.

I’ve been told by other people that they’ve picked up Australian radio stations on a cheap boombox out here before, but I’m not sure how true that is. Are there any specific stations that might be possible to catch?
 
Wake up at 5:30-6AM PT each morning, that's your best bet right now. 1230-1300 UTC. Sunrise is usually around 1400 this time of year (7AM), so TP DX is best between 5:30 and 7AM. Best bets for Australia are:

612 4QR Brisbane (ABC)
1548 4QD Emerald (also ABC)
Both should be easy catches.

I'd also check 1575, the VOA airs various languages on that channel from Thailand, and often airs 'Yankee Doodle Dandy' I think at the bottom of the hour.

Of course, the easy NHKs and Japanese AMs are at 693, 747, 774, 828 and 594. NHK 2 on 693, 747, 774, 828, and NHK 1 on 594 (JOAK Tokyo). Listen for orchestral and strange music on 657 boasting the greatness of Kim Jong Un, in Korean of course. Pyongyang Broadcasting.

Best Chinese suspects are 981, 945, and 756 (all are CNR1). You can // to 6.175khz if CNR1 is still using that 49m frequency in the early mornings.

South Korea - 1566 HLAZ, 972 HLCA and possibly 711 HLKA are the best bets. HLAZ can be extremely strong well inland, as I have heard myself.

ALSO...check for Alaska and Hawaii if possible! Best bets: 750 KFQD, 850 KICY, and SE AK on 930 KTKN/800 KINY. You may be able to get KYUK-640 in Bethel too, if KFI fades out and NPR is notable.
The best target for Hawaii is 1500 KHKA Honolulu, honestly. Nothing but KSJX is in the way, and CBS Sports Radio is what they air at night. If it's ESPN, it's KSTP MN (1450 mi east). If it's CBS Sports, it's from HI.

If conditions are outright awesome, there is a challenge for Japan. Try 1440. Yes, I know, domestic channel. But JOWF Sapporo gets out really well and often is heard right on the coast mixed with KYVL/KODL/CKJR.
 
Last edited:
crainbebo said:
Wake up at 5:30-6AM PT each morning, that's your best bet right now. 1230-1300 UTC. Sunrise is usually around 1400 this time of year (7AM), so TP DX is best between 5:30 and 7AM. Best bets for Australia are:

612 4QR Brisbane (ABC)
1548 4QD Emerald (also ABC)
Both should be easy catches.

I'd also check 1575, the VOA airs various languages on that channel from Thailand, and often airs 'Yankee Doodle Dandy' I think at the bottom of the hour.

Of course, the easy NHKs and Japanese AMs are at 693, 747, 774, 828 and 594. NHK 2 on 693, 747, 774, 828, and NHK 1 on 594 (JOAK Tokyo). Listen for orchestral and strange music on 657 boasting the greatness of Kim Jong Un, in Korean of course. Pyongyang Broadcasting.

Best Chinese suspects are 981, 945, and 756 (all are CNR1). You can // to 6.175khz if CNR1 is still using that 49m frequency in the early mornings.

South Korea - 1566 HLAZ, 972 HLCA and possibly 711 HLKA are the best bets. HLAZ can be extremely strong well inland, as I have heard myself.

ALSO...check for Alaska and Hawaii if possible! Best bets: 750 KFQD, 850 KICY, and SE AK on 930 KTKN/800 KINY. You may be able to get KYUK-640 in Bethel too, if KFI fades out and NPR is notable.
The best target for Hawaii is 1500 KHKA Honolulu, honestly. Nothing but KSJX is in the way, and CBS Sports Radio is what they air at night. If it's ESPN, it's KSTP MN (1450 mi east). If it's CBS Sports, it's from HI.

If conditions are outright awesome, there is a challenge for Japan. Try 1440. Yes, I know, domestic channel. But JOWF Sapporo gets out really well and often is heard right on the coast mixed with KYVL/KODL/CKJR.
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Thank you so much for providing this list! I gave it a shot, but came back empty handed (unfortunately). I still have a few more days out here, so I haven’t given up yet. Also, I’ll be planning some other camping trips in the future (which should give me some better opportunities to make my first trans pacific catch).

The main issues I ran into this time where:

1. Electrical noise. I was able to position the radio in some good spots, but electric noise is a bear. It doesn’t help that there is a communications antenna located close by.

2. It really seemed like my radio wanted to pull in US and Canadian stations more than anything in between. I assume you suggested an early morning dx session to prevent too much dx activity from AMs in North America. I still couldn’t null these stations out, but I won’t give up.

Now that I know what I look for, I’m also tempted to look out for these stations when I’m messing around with the radio at home too. I live near the coastline of Metro Vancouver, BC, so perhaps that isn’t a the worst location in the world to keep trying? Not sure I can overcome the electrical noise generated from my building though. Not to mention, my area is full of AM towers.
 
Get on the beach itself! Probably your best bet. If it's not raining and pouring buckets.
 
Narrow your radios audio filter to 1khz, it makes it pretty low quality audio, but sometimes thats what it takes

Sunrise is 719am, which makes it 1419UTC... and Crainbebo is about right with primetime being 1230-1300, i would suggest checking till about 1330-1345 or so.

Some of these may be tough catches, solely because theyre near, frequency wise, us signals.

Set your radio to 9khz tuning, narrow the audio filter then start at the end of the AM band (1700) and start tuning.. repeat that process until the sign noticeably begins to rise.
 
Kelly A said:
So are you camping in the parking lot? Or did you set up a pup tent in the offices?
Click to expand...

I wasnt the one who created this post, @Kelly A .. i was offering advice based on past personal expierience to the guy who started the post
 
SomeRadioGuy said:
I wasnt the one who created this post, @Kelly A .. i was offering advice based on past personal expierience to the guy who started the post
Click to expand...
Ah whew, what a relief! I can't imagine what would happen to the mighty KSKO if you weren't at the helm. Moose stampede? Militant Polar bears taking over the airwaves? Nobody to warn the listener of incoming missiles from N. Korea?
 
A year ago this week I was visiting my father in law, who lives on the cliff overlooking the Pacific in northern California. Once I found a spot away from the RFI and just on the cliff, I had some good luck w/TP's using a barefoot radio. I DXed starting ~1 1/2 hour before my local sunrise. I did hear 612 from Brisbane as mentioned by crainbebo, but most of my catches were from Japan, South Korea and China. Most notably 693, 747, and 774 from Japan and 972 and 1566 from South Korea were sometimes as strong or stronger than the domestic offsets.

One thing to think about - the Asian signals are coming from a direction farther north than I expected (until I looked at the direct route in Google Maps). Good luck with it. It was a great experience sitting in California listening to Korean pop from the source!
 
wildthangjim said:
A year ago this week I was visiting my father in law, who lives on the cliff overlooking the Pacific in northern California. Once I found a spot away from the RFI and just on the cliff, I had some good luck w/TP's using a barefoot radio. I DXed starting ~1 1/2 hour before my local sunrise. I did hear 612 from Brisbane as mentioned by crainbebo, but most of my catches were from Japan, South Korea and China. Most notably 693, 747, and 774 from Japan and 972 and 1566 from South Korea were sometimes as strong or stronger than the domestic offsets.

One thing to think about - the Asian signals are coming from a direction farther north than I expected (until I looked at the direct route in Google Maps). Good luck with it. It was a great experience sitting in California listening to Korean pop from the source!
Click to expand...

1566 is the strongest most consistent here... 6 towers with 250kw pointed relatively in my direction! someone once suggested i try to light a bulb with the signal lol
 
Some great advice here! What a cool experience it would be to pick up something from across the pacific. I’m glad that I have some solid frequencies to look out for now. Nulling out local stations is still difficult though.

I’ll keep working on this lol. Just wanted to let you guys know that I do appreciate the advice!
 
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