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I think I received 850 KOA last night

D

Dxer1105

This was 9:20 To 9:40 Eastern Time... In Pennsauken NJ

I heard mentions of: Boulder, Colorado state university and something about a shopping center on I-25. I heard a political talk show during that time too. I am 80% sure this is KOA

If this is confirmed. This would be my furthest MW DX catch of my young dxing career.
 
My reciever is a Sony XDR-S10HDiP. i only used the supplied am loop.

The Distance of the catch would be 1,581 miles
 
I used to live only a couple of miles from Pennsauken and I had a tough time hearing KOA. That was back in the 70s.

There was always some closer station in the way on that frequency. When I started hearing Denver Nuggets games now and then, I had to assume it was them and then I got an ID.

It's not a bad signal from where you are when it comes in but that other station stomping on it makes it appear weaker than it is. I imagine there are more stations to contend with now too.

Good job on getting KOA. I'm almost 100% certain that's what you heard.

KOA is a semi-regular down here in Tampa at night.

BTW, I remember hearing 1210 WPHT (then WCAU) on my record player because it was so close to where I lived.


If it weren't for that station that's now on 640 from South Jersey, you'd have a shot at KFI too. After listening for weeks night after night, I got it once in the winter of 77/78.

One interesting catch you could also look for is 690 WOKV from Jacksonville before the power down and switch directions around dusk.

I used to hear them a lot up there back when they were "The Big Ape". Once they change to nighttime pattern, the signal will vanish.



Another station I heard up there during critical hours was WRBQ 1380 from St. Pete (Now WWMI).

WWMI plays radio Disney and they should be easy to identify. They are 5 kw non directional with their daytime pattern until they switch to directional at night, so there's a small window of opportunity to hear them at dusk too.

Good luck to you in your DXing.
 
Dxer1105,
I agree with others, that was KOA. I heard that same station in VA at night last year. But hearing a 50 kW over 1500 miles after 9 AM is something I've never heard of. That is a great catch. The AM DX season getting closer. I just heard Cincinnati's WLW 700 today here in VA at 2:30 PM though the signal was barely listenable.
 
KOA is usually a visitor here every night, but in some parts of my area it gets pretty weak.

Nice job getting KOA, it's probably possible to get KFI or KNX in your area.
 
KOA-850 has been particularly strong and "in the clear" here in Lexington, KY overnights for the last few weeks. Even with WHAS-840's 50 KW blowtorch only about 55-60 miles away, I can get a very clean signal of KOA. One the other hand, another station "out that way" which I rarely hear anymore, KSL-1160 from Salt Lake City, has NOT been plucked out of the muck this DX season because of the night-time mess on 1160 in this part of the country.
 
I consider KOA confirmed now. They just need to shut off radio disney 640 so i can get a more impressive catch ( KFI )

ddsparx: it was 9pm

gar fla: 1210 is a overly strong pain in the ass signal at my location anywhere from 1190 to at least 1240 is unlistenable because of sidebands. I also get WEEI-AM on 850.
 
Since you're new to DXing and live in the same area I used to, you should consider a trip down to the shore to hear all the stations you can get on AM during the daytime.

My parents had a rental house in Beach Haven and we would often go down there for the weekend in between renters and especially in the off season when the water was still warm.

The big New York stations come in much stronger even though it's the same 80 mile distance because of the saltwater.

660 WFAN and 880 WCBS sound like locals down there. 1030 WBZ from Boston has a good signal in the daytime there too.

The interesting thing is that when you are going back home, WBZ disappears as soon as you cross the RT 72 causeway and get on the mainland.

In the daytime, you should be able to hear many AM stations from Massachusetts to North Carolina. I never tried to listen for any stations at greater distances back then because I didn't know the full potential of how far saltwater can carry an AM signal during the day as I now have discovered.

I now wonder if there's any possibility of hearing WQAM 560 from Miami during the day there on a good enough receiver if WFIL is nulled out.


Even if not, it's real fun to see the AM band so crowded with distant stations in the middle of the day, something you can't hear just a ways inland.
 
OK, I somewhat mis-read the first post--after 9 in the evening.

Here in VA the usual pests are a Spanish-language 640 (perhaps "Radio Progreso" in Havanna?) and the Radio Disney 640, which is often overpowered by the Spanish 640 at night so any chance of me getting KFI may be impossible.
 
gar fla, that sounds fun. i would like to see what am stations I can get on the beach day and night. one of these days i would like to go down to ocean city with a portable shortwave while the tides are passing me. i can imagine the abundance of coastal signals i would be able to get. WQAM sounds like a challenge because of the distance, co channel and the way the coastline is.

ddsparx: at night 640 is a weakened signal that can be nulled out. i can hear voices under it, i have heard the spanish language one a few times, one of those voices probably was KFI at one point
 
I've had a lot of fun doing daytime DXing right on the Gulf here on the west coast of Florida and on the east coast at Dayton Beach.

Over here, right out on the Gulf, WWL and WLNO from New Orleans come in loud and clear all day at almost 500 miles away.

My most distant daytime AM catch with a confirmed ID is KTRH from Houston at 775 miles from the beach in Dunedin, Florida.

The louder station on 740 is WYGM from Orlando but at the 12 second point in the video, you can hear the KTRH ID.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WcH0JN1irg

The reason I mention WQAM is because it's at the low end of the AM dial where stations go greater distances on the land/sea path than do the stations on the upper end. Also, their transmitter is located on Biscayne bay according to Radio Locator which gives the station a clear advantage for saltwater propagation.

There's also nothing but ocean between there and the Jersey Shore beaches. If the radio is facing Miami, it should be just about in the perfect null of WFIL.
It's a long shot, I admit but it also doesn't seem out of the question.

There's another person here who has done daytime AM DXing from Bermuda with amazing results, getting many stations from the US east coast. I've heard many of the audio clips too.
 
Hey Gar, you've had some amazing catches in FL. I live on the west coast and have never tried to DX on the east coast (at least not seriously); do you find that you've had more success catching west coast stations in FL than when you were up in Jersey? I just wonder how much the salt water of the gulf helps with DXing down there as opposed to the eastern seaboard.
 
That's a good question.

As far as KFI goes, it seemed to take just as much time and effort to hear it here as it did in Jersey back in the 70s.

KNX is hard to compare because I couldn't listen for that up there with the splatter of KYW 1060 and that was long before IBOC noise.

It wasn't long after I started to listen for KNX here in Tampa that I finally heard it and I then noticed how it showed up many times after that too which I can't say the same for KFI. It took a long time to finally hear KFI the first time here in early 2009 and I didn't hear it since until just recently even though I listened so much in between the two times.

I do think saltwater makes for better nighttime skip though because the big New York stations like WFAN, WABC, and WCBS come in loud and clear over on the east coast of Florida at night, whereas here on the west coast, they aren't nearly as good and most of the time they are smothered by the Cuban stations. WCBS has the strongest nighttime signal here in Tampa but it's nothing like on Florida's east coast and it often gets dominated by the Cubans as well here.

Between here and California though, I don't know if the 800 miles of Gulf makes a significant difference with the 2152 mile distance to LA which is mostly land.
 
If nothing else, all of that IBOC splatter in the 1000 to 1100 kHz zone probably makes KNX impossible to catch in the Northeast Corridor. Not to mention all of the other 1070s that must be overcome. KFI is VERY tough too - for much the same reasons. I haven't caught KFI yet from the Chicago area, though Radioman's early morning catch has me wishing I could try for it in the early AM (that time of day is busy for me - unfortunately). But, catching West Coast signals from Chicago - tough as it may be - is still a lot easier than doing so from the northeast.

As for KOA, I received it more than once from the suburbs west of Philly and it's a great catch from NJ! Congrats! Challenging to get past WKNR from Ohio and other 850's that broadcast in the region. But, with good atmospherics, it's clearly possible.

That's as far west as I ever got from PA. Thanks to co-channel interference, KSL would be tough, but it's the next most likely signal from the west to the Atlantic Coast. Theoretically, under the right conditions, it's possible for it to cover that 1900 miles.
 
gar fla said:
Since you're new to DXing and live in the same area I used to, you should consider a trip down to the shore to hear all the stations you can get on AM during the daytime.
Click to expand...

The Outer Banks of North Carolina is great for AM Dxing. New York City stations come in clear during the day, as well as ones all the way up and down the east coast.

Back to the topic, 850 is more like a graveyard channel where I am in Upstate NY. Ive logged WKNR, WKGE and WEEI. No matter what the conditions are, one or more of those 3 is always on 850.
 
I've gotten KOA as far east as Spartanburg, SC on my Walkman radio, but down here in the Lowcountry, Gainesville and Birmingham dominate the frequency. West Palm Beach and a mix of Spanish stations also come in. KOA comes in often around Metro Atlanta, and once you get to Nashville, you can hear it all the way throughout most of the country pretty clear.
 
Here in Tampa at night, KOA often has a better signal than some of the weaker sounding signals from a couple of the big New York and Chicago stations.

It would sound even better if it weren't for the splatter of our local on 860.
 
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