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My how MW DX has changed. National Radio Club logs from 1950's
- Thread starter Icangelp
- Start date
C
cd637299
Guest
@gar:
I am almost positive that the CA stations were on their night power, because I may have been on my work shift otherwise.
Actually I think I caught 3, because I believe I caught KXBT Vallejo on both their 1630 and 1640 frequencies. Also was the 1650 in Costa Mesa. I do not have audio.
Couldn't get the two around Seattle though. Woulda loved to have caught them.
Of course, this was before Miami/Ft Lauderdale added TIS's on almost all frequencies. Not worth the trouble now.
My first good catch in X-band was 1660 in UT when they were oldies. And, I think I caught it at our sunrise in FL.
cd
I am almost positive that the CA stations were on their night power, because I may have been on my work shift otherwise.
Actually I think I caught 3, because I believe I caught KXBT Vallejo on both their 1630 and 1640 frequencies. Also was the 1650 in Costa Mesa. I do not have audio.
Couldn't get the two around Seattle though. Woulda loved to have caught them.
Of course, this was before Miami/Ft Lauderdale added TIS's on almost all frequencies. Not worth the trouble now.
My first good catch in X-band was 1660 in UT when they were oldies. And, I think I caught it at our sunrise in FL.
cd
cd637299 said:
One of my first good x-band catches as well. Also right around local sunrise. South surburban Chicago. This one used to come hammering in every night all over the West Coast from Seattle to San Diego. Your catching it in Florida means it was definitely coast to coast....if not truly nationwide..,.before the X band was populated.
I heard a California X-Band station doing "all traffic all the time" around 5AM EST in winter when there were almost no stations on the x-band. Seems it was on 1650 & was almost certainly near a major city judging from the traffic info.
C
cd637299
Guest
That musta been the Costa Mesa station. They may have been doing music when I caught it.
cd
cd
Speaking of X-band signals, 10 kw XEKTT (1700) Tijuana has been coming into Salt Lake City as early as 8 pm MDT with a ton-of-bricks signal that lasts almost all night. Just an amazingly solid signal up here; several times stronger than 50 kw XETRA 690. By the way, XEKTT seems to simply repeat the programming of 1090 XEPRS - this week featuring an evening Padres game every night.
BRNout said:
690 is so, so directional. Even the NE part of the San Diego market can not get them at night... in the Palm Springs area it is non-existant at night on a car radio... of course, 690 is the wrong part of the dial for skywave and 1700 is nearly Tropical Band Shortwave!
Also, I heard but have not confirmed that the rebuild of the 690 site a number of years ago (when they went to 77 kw daytime) was intended to supress skywave, because with the desire to serve the LA area they were getting cancellation at night previously. That may also explain whey in SLC it is not a big signal.
I was born in 1981, so obviously I don't remember the awesome DX that some of you have heard - especially those of you who personally remember the night KDKA first signed on. 
However, I have gotten little glimpses of it, occasionally...
Before the X-band got crowded, I could hear the DFW stations here near San Diego, CA.
I can fairly regularly hear the LAX TIS on 530 in the daytime, although recently it's been clobbered by a local caltrans TIS.
I've heard Albuquerque's 1240 Radio Disney once under my local 1240 KSON's unmodulated carrier, and I'm close enough to KSON so that when they do have programming on, I don't hear other stations in the background, or if they are there I don't notice it.
Also I've gotten daytime signals from 680 KNBR, 700 KALL, 810 KGO, 1530 KFBK and 1580 KMIK on more than one occasion.
As for 690 being so, so directional.... maybe they are, but I seem to not quite be in their null. XETRA (or is it XEWW now?) is 24.63 miles away at a heading of 199.64°, but puts in a good signal here - typically 63dBu on my Tecsun PL-380 in the daytime, and about 59-60dBu at night. XEPRS 1090 is typically about 47-49dBu here 24/7, though, and I sometimes get skywave/groundwave cancellation here, which leads me to believe they run their directional pattern fulltime. XEPRS is 26.11 mi away, heading 198.19°. When I've been in central california - Tulare/Visalia area (off Hwy 99 between Bakersfield and Fresno), the signal at night there on 1090 is usually considerably stronger than it is here at home. As for 1700 XEPE, they're a couple dBu stronger than 1090 on my PL-380, but the audible SNR is usually much better. XEPE is 15.62 mi away, heading 189.48°.
Besides all the stations that are authorized now, another thing that I think may be killing AM DXing, if it hasn't already, is all the QRN form man-made noise. I really wish the rules were tighter for things like that (while still allowing part-15 broadcasters and the like), but alas, it's not in my power to change it.
So has the static and man-made noise levels significantly increased since the 1930s, 1960s, etc? I've heard David say it requires a 10mV/m signal for a station to be heard in metro L.A. area. That sounds awfully high to me, as I have routinely been able to pull groundwave from stations for which I'm well outside Radio-Locator's predicted 0.15mV/m signal.... or am I the only one willing to listen to a signal with a negative signal-to-noise ratio? Or, is suburban San Diego not quite as plagued with noise as L.A.? (The way I've heard the noise described in L.A. almost seems as if you'd be able to sit right next to a 50kW stick near downtown L.A. and not even hear their IBOC hiss. (didn't say "in" as I don't believe there are any 50kW IBOC stations IN "downtown L.A."))
Even if we didn't have man-made noise, though, there is still atmospheric noise, which I understand is produced by lightning storms. Ok, so I don't want to get into a religious discussion here, but I understand that before Noah's flood, and in the Garden of Eden, there were NO lightning storms anywhere. I wonder what listening to the radio below 30 MHz would have been like then? I wonder if it would have been possible for a 50kW groundwave signal on 540kHz to have global coverage?
However, I have gotten little glimpses of it, occasionally...
Before the X-band got crowded, I could hear the DFW stations here near San Diego, CA.
I can fairly regularly hear the LAX TIS on 530 in the daytime, although recently it's been clobbered by a local caltrans TIS.
I've heard Albuquerque's 1240 Radio Disney once under my local 1240 KSON's unmodulated carrier, and I'm close enough to KSON so that when they do have programming on, I don't hear other stations in the background, or if they are there I don't notice it.
Also I've gotten daytime signals from 680 KNBR, 700 KALL, 810 KGO, 1530 KFBK and 1580 KMIK on more than one occasion.
As for 690 being so, so directional.... maybe they are, but I seem to not quite be in their null. XETRA (or is it XEWW now?) is 24.63 miles away at a heading of 199.64°, but puts in a good signal here - typically 63dBu on my Tecsun PL-380 in the daytime, and about 59-60dBu at night. XEPRS 1090 is typically about 47-49dBu here 24/7, though, and I sometimes get skywave/groundwave cancellation here, which leads me to believe they run their directional pattern fulltime. XEPRS is 26.11 mi away, heading 198.19°. When I've been in central california - Tulare/Visalia area (off Hwy 99 between Bakersfield and Fresno), the signal at night there on 1090 is usually considerably stronger than it is here at home. As for 1700 XEPE, they're a couple dBu stronger than 1090 on my PL-380, but the audible SNR is usually much better. XEPE is 15.62 mi away, heading 189.48°.
Besides all the stations that are authorized now, another thing that I think may be killing AM DXing, if it hasn't already, is all the QRN form man-made noise. I really wish the rules were tighter for things like that (while still allowing part-15 broadcasters and the like), but alas, it's not in my power to change it.
So has the static and man-made noise levels significantly increased since the 1930s, 1960s, etc? I've heard David say it requires a 10mV/m signal for a station to be heard in metro L.A. area. That sounds awfully high to me, as I have routinely been able to pull groundwave from stations for which I'm well outside Radio-Locator's predicted 0.15mV/m signal.... or am I the only one willing to listen to a signal with a negative signal-to-noise ratio?
Or, is suburban San Diego not quite as plagued with noise as L.A.? (The way I've heard the noise described in L.A. almost seems as if you'd be able to sit right next to a 50kW stick near downtown L.A. and not even hear their IBOC hiss. (didn't say "in" as I don't believe there are any 50kW IBOC stations IN "downtown L.A."))Even if we didn't have man-made noise, though, there is still atmospheric noise, which I understand is produced by lightning storms. Ok, so I don't want to get into a religious discussion here, but I understand that before Noah's flood, and in the Garden of Eden, there were NO lightning storms anywhere. I wonder what listening to the radio below 30 MHz would have been like then? I wonder if it would have been possible for a 50kW groundwave signal on 540kHz to have global coverage?
90% of my interference is man-made for sure. We had a bad lightning storm the other day and when the electricity went out I enjoyed 3 hours of beautiful AM and SW reception just using the built in antennas on my portable. It was amazing how much crap there is now to interfere with reception. I'm not saying I want to go without electric but just making a point, of course.
C
cd637299
Guest
Sometimes when we have a power outage, I grab my Superadio II and DX away on the AM. It's my only chance, sometimes!
cd
cd
I would do the same thing with the GE SRII, Sangean PR-D5 or even the Tecsun PL-310. The lightning static crashes appeared to be not as loud on the 310 as they are on the bigger radios, as I had some thunder and lightning in my area yesterday. (I don't know yet if the 310's DSP reduces such noise or not)
David-thanks for all the effort/time in the previously mentioned web site. The old broadcasting magazines are a real gas. In one ad (i beleive the 7/11/60 issue, Ch 4 Dallas stated they reach 53 counties in TX and 5 in OK. And the articles are real cool too. A lot of work and a big thanks.
vibe said:
You are most welcome! I am adding anywhere from 25 to 150 additional issues a week, so check back. Go into the late 40's, now nearly complete, for the ads for stations like WSM with "mailbag" results from 46 states, etc.
If you find a broken link to any issue, please let me know. I do HTML about as well as I type and spell on these boards so I know some don't work... there is an email link right on the magazine page.
Actually, yes, they do get in the way with loud lightning noise, possibly depending on what radio is used (loud on GE Superadios). In the situation when a winter storm or a hurricane that produces little or no lightning, I would grab a radio with a big ferrite bar antenna. When Hurricane Isabel when through my area in 2003, it was extremely dark at night. I didn't DX while driving home from work at that time because I was worried about being able to make it home at that time at night. Even though I made it home, it was midnight at that time and the remnants of the hurricane was leaving the area. I was doing much more of FM DX at the time than AM DX. No property damage though. I did listened to AM on SRIII but not much, went to sleep. A power outage on the Oregon coast once allowed me to listen in on a GE SRII but this was during the day time when one of those, frequent, often lightning-free, Pacific coast winter (always rain) storms come though with very high winds. I was in a noisy house with lots of electrical wiring in it (broadband, alarm system, etc).
Hi gang,
This might be of interest to some of you. Earlier this evening, I was going through my file cabinet and ran across a notebook
where my dad had written down all the stations he had heard from 1929 to 1953. We moved from Syracuse, NY to Corning, NY
in 1953, so this was his way of adding up what he had heard upstate.
I scanned the 22 pages and put them up on my homemade radios website. Here is the link: Old Time Logs
Several years ago I scanned some of his qsl cards and placed them here: Old Time Logs
Enjoy
Dave
This might be of interest to some of you. Earlier this evening, I was going through my file cabinet and ran across a notebook
where my dad had written down all the stations he had heard from 1929 to 1953. We moved from Syracuse, NY to Corning, NY
in 1953, so this was his way of adding up what he had heard upstate.
I scanned the 22 pages and put them up on my homemade radios website. Here is the link: Old Time Logs
Several years ago I scanned some of his qsl cards and placed them here: Old Time Logs
Enjoy
Dave
In reading some of D.G"s earlier broadcast magazines, i thought that stations were really exxagerating their areas of coverage but the early days had fewer stations, less interference and much better radio receivers and AM antenna setps. Those people were really serious about AM dx ing (no TV, either read a book, DX or chase the wife around. The last logs posted were really impressive. A labor of love.; lots of 100W catches from thousands of miles away.
Again a lot of work was put into D.G's website showing the old broadcasting type magazines.A lot of interesting stuff. I'm enjoying it a lot. Again, thanks.
Again a lot of work was put into D.G's website showing the old broadcasting type magazines.A lot of interesting stuff. I'm enjoying it a lot. Again, thanks.
C
cd637299
Guest
I forge tthe title of the short, but there was one where Laurel & Hardy were trying to put up an "aerial" (being from the 1930s, it could only mean for AM, and they took their job seriously....of course there was the usual bungling, typical of any L&H short).
If only everybody took reception that seriously today....
cd
If only everybody took reception that seriously today....
cd
Having clearer frequencies in "days of old" made all the difference. Ham radio operators still make many, low power, two-way contacts just above the AM Band between 1800-2000 KHZ (160 meter band). From Central Kentucky, I have personally had two way contacts with all 50 states and 40 foreign countries on the 160 meter band using no more than 500 watts PEP Single Side Band from a slopping wire antenna from my 48 ft tower.
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