Oak Island NC Daytime Bandscan Highlights May 2016

[cyberdad]

Oak Island is about an hour's drive up the coast from Myrtle Beach, SC. If you look on a map, the coast actually faces south in the center of a crescent-shape stretch of land. We arrived Sunday evening and are staying at a house about two blocks from the beach. (Owned by a friend of our daughter who offered her and her husband the use of the place, and she invited Mrs. Cyberdad and I to join her, along with our middle son and his family).

Anyway, I haven't had a chance to go "in depth" with my limited time with the radio. But here are the highlights so far (between the Superadio-II and the ATS 505). First of all no New York, and apparently no Miami. Probably just a little too far west and a little too much ground path. Otherwise....

550: Jacksonville, FL. The religious station that used to be WAYR. Fair signal.
600: WBOB. Another Jacksonville signal, but with a slightly better signal than 550
630: WMFD. A semi-local from Wilmington, NC. fair-good signal. I can hear something faint and unidentifiable in the background if I null it. Assume Savannah.
670: A couple of weak, unidentifiable signals mixing One of which seems to be in Spanish. Miami?
680: R-L indicates that WPTF shoud be here. Indeed it is. But extremely weak and only barely audible. 160 or so miles away. Pretty much says all you need to know about the ground conductivity around here.
690: WOKV. Best Jacksonville signal. Good, and actually one of the best signals on the dial
710: Similar to 670. A coupole of very weak signals mixing. WOR? WAQI? I'm inclined to doubt either.
810: Very weak signal with music. Bahamas?
1100: WGCA. Brunswick Georgia area with a fair-good signal. I hadn't been expecting this one. 10kw-ND
1110: Thought I might find WBT here. Nope!
1250: WTMA. Charleston, SC, Good.
1340: WLSG. A semi-local from Wimington, NC. A couple of other stations underneath when I nulled it. Hopefully I'll get the chance to check this out further. Same goes for the other GYs...all of which appear to have multiple signals.
1390: Another good signal fro Charleston (WCSC back in the day). Not quite as good as WTMA but solid, alone, and listenable
1570: WVOJ. Fernandina Beach FL. Nearly 300 miles with a fair signal. Shows what you can do high on the dial with 10kw and a saltwater path.

 

[gr8oldies]

Great info.
I used to hear WAYR in Dayton, Ohio when they'd "forget" to power down. It would be easily identifiable with soft Christian music under WKRC.
If I were a betting man, which I'm not, I'd call 670 and 710 as Cuba....that high powered Cuban chorus just might make the trip

 

[radioman148]

I'm guessing that you're getting a mixture of Cuba & Miami on 670. I've heard about the terrible ground conductivity there. Your experience confirms it.

 

[davideduardo]

710: Similar to 670. A coupole of very weak signals mixing. WOR? WAQI? I'm inclined to doubt either.

WAQI is not very good to the north, but many of the multiple 710 transmitters from Cuba have much more of a saltwater path. The same with 670, btw.

 

[charlestondxman]

In Charleston, almost all of the Jacksonville signals are listenable daytime. Even 5kws on 1050/1320 and the very directional 1010. The only one that isn't listenable is 1400 because of 1390 and a 1400 in Savannah and Georgetown, SC.

The other 1340s you probably heard were Charleston (talk) and Daytona Beach (standards). You should try for 910 AM (sports) from Charleston. Only 500 watts, but has a great signal for that power.

I get 570 from Cuba (Radio Reloj) every day as well. I can also get Tampa/Columbia mixing on 620 and Tampa on 820.

 

[Steve Green NEPA]

From the atlas here, Cyberdad, it appears that you were DXing not too far from a place in NC where, supposedly, Jimmy Durante's tour troupe once met a convivial waitress at a diner. And he named her 'Mrs. Calabash'. That might be a rural-myth story, but anyway .....

I was living on Long Island's south shore for a while (Lindenhurst, Suffolk County) when local WTHE 1520 was off the air one early morning. WTHE used to do that a lot. 'Ah, let's go have breakfast first, then decide if we wanna sign on.'
Well, WTGR Myrtle Beach was coming in, instead. 'Tiger Radio'. Nice-sounding Top 40 station!
That thing on 1530 also would be there -- all day -- WOBR Wanchese 'Outer Banks Radio'. So would the 1550 station from Virginia Beach be there (at the time, WBOF). And the WBOF 1550 reception was off a CLOCK radio from West Babylon, right next to WQXR 1560.

No WBZ, though, Cyber? Lol.

Thanks much for the summer-ish/top-down DX. Your report might be enough to get me off my biscuit and spin some dial soon. Do you have some of this largesse 'on tape', as it were?

 

[cyberdad]

@radioman and David. 670 is very weak. And I apparenty misspoke earlier. 710 is significantly stronger. Especially down on the beach itself where I was this morning. There, 710 is still pretty much unidentifiable, but the apparent distorted audio makes me suspect the "Cuban chorus".

And @Steve, WBZ has a really good night signal here. I haven't noticed them in the daytime, but I'll check again and I'll also try to post some nightime stuff as well. I can tel you guys this much. All the big NYC signals do pretty well here at night. Except WINS and 1560. As for Chicago, WSCR is buried by Cuba, but WGN, WBBM, WLS, and WMVP are solid. I was aso mildly surprised....and maybe I shoulldn't be...that CFZM and CJBC are at minimum fair here and pretty much alone.

 

[gar hi]

I always like seeing your reception reports, cyberdad. Thanks.

I wouldn't expect to hear any New York stations either because you have a big land path right from the get go.

But I'm wondering if any of WQAM could be heard if WGAI isn't too strong.

WIOD's directional signal isn't aimed in that exact area but still in the general direction. Not sure how much WFNZ would interfere.

Please keep us posted if you get anything new!

 

[radioman148]

Thanks for your report Cyberdad.

 

[cyberdad]

I always like seeing your reception reports, cyberdad. Thanks.

I wouldn't expect to hear any New York stations either because you have a big land path right from the get go.

But I'm wondering if any of WQAM could be heard if WGAI isn't too strong.

WIOD's directional signal isn't aimed in that exact area but still in the general direction. Not sure how much WFNZ would interfere.

Please keep us posted if you get anything new!

Thanks, Gar....

I decided to get serious and break out the 33-year old Supe-II and take another crack at it this afternoon while everyone else was at the beach or otherwise engaged.

First stop was 560, where WQAM was clearly audible despite some WAYR splatter. WIOD was also there, but weaker with splatter from WBOB. No trace of WGAI or WFNZ respectively. And speaking of "no trace", there was no apparent trace of anything from NYC (or WBZ). R.Reloj was present on 570. Weak, but very identifiabe with the time pips. 640 and 670 were both problematic. I could hear "fluttering" on both channels, but couldn't identify anything. I also couldn't readily identify what I was hearing on 710. But I strongy suspect the R. Rebelde "chorus" with something else underneath. I had a problem with most of the space between 700 and 900 due to some sort of local noise source. But I did hear sports on 910 with a weak signal. I'll try to confirm that it was Charleston before I leave here.

Finally, with only two evenings to go and lots of family visiting going on, I'm coming to the realization that I may not be able finish off my intended amount of nighttime DX activity. So I'll post whatever I end up with. "Incomplete" or otherwise.

 

[gar hi]

Thanks!

Using a good radio makes all the difference in the world.

 

[dtvdxer]

From the atlas here, Cyberdad, it appears that you were DXing not too far from a place in NC where, supposedly, Jimmy Durante's tour troupe once met a convivial waitress at a diner. And he named her 'Mrs. Calabash'. That might be a rural-myth story, but anyway .....

I was living on Long Island's south shore for a while
That thing on 1530 also would be there -- all day -- WOBR Wanchese 'Outer Banks Radio'. So would the 1550 station from Virginia Beach be there (at the time, WBOF). And the WBOF 1550 reception was off a CLOCK radio from West Babylon, right next to WQXR 1560.

?

Steve, where I lived on the Connecticut shore (Fairfield) WOBR-1530 would be the most distant regular daytimer.. with 250 watts! Eventually WDJZ came on the air in Bridgeport and usurped that wide-open frequency. The WBOF-1550 became my most distant regular daytimer.

Cyberdad... There been really strong FM (and TV) tropo reported the past couple of days throughout the coastal Carolinas all the way down through Florida. Have you been hearing anything. The tropical storm has pretty much ended it.

 

[boombox4]

Thanks for the reports.

I'm curious to hear what you log from the south... if you hear any Latin American or Caribbean stations at night. SR2 should pull something in.

 

[cyberdad]

Thanks for the reports.

I'm curious to hear what you log from the south... if you hear any Latin American or Caribbean stations at night. SR2 should pull something in.

As a matter of fact, I did hear something. Sunday night/Monday morning before the entire gang had arrive, On 820 I heard Spanish talk (more like a monologue) followed by what sounded like a national anthem. I didn't catch an ID. The signal was really good, blowing out WBAP. I'll post more after I get back home tomorrow.

And dtvdxer.... I was mostly using the SR2 as an wireless speaker on the deck for music on my computer with a Whole House FM modulator. 106.9. One night....earlier in the week...when I turned off the modulator, a garden variety classic rocker from Florida came blasting in. I wasn't able to hang around long enough to catch an ID, but every other time I turned off the modulator, the channel was blank. Earlier, I had also established that the modulator had a range of about 3-4 blocks. But on this one occasion, there was something messing with the modulator signal in my bedroom, which was less than 30 feet away. At home, the modulator in the house can override any signal on the dial! (And it normally doesn't get any farther than the end of my block). I assumed there was tropo going on. It certainly was the time and place for it, but with a houseful of people in a party mood, I never go the chance to investigate.

 

[MarioMania]

I'm guessing no one does Band Scans on YouTube no more

 

[gr8oldies]

I've seen several, including a couple of years ago.

 

[cyberdad]

Here are highlights of what turned up in the couple of very brief sessions at night. Sorry it isn't more complete....

530: Two nights it was R. Enciclopedia. One night Rebelde. Go Figure
540: WFLF weak. I also heard it once during the daytime with the SR2. Very weak.
570: R. Rebelde. Fair and nearly alone
590: R. Nacional. Fair, but comfortably on top.
610: WFNZ. Good and all alone. Couldn't make it on 5kw daytime. But 1kw aimed right at me at night did the trick!
640: R. Progreso. Good
650: WSM. Weak....surprisingly so each night I was able to check
660: WFAN. Fair (at best)
670: R. Rebelde. Good. Completely buried WSCR
680: WPTF. Puny weakling daytime. Monster all alone at night
700: WLW. Weak
710: Rebelde "chorus". Good
720: WGN. Fair
740: CFZM, Fair-Good, and alone
750: WSB was getting trashed by an unid. Spanish language station. Not Cuba.
770: WABC. Fair-good
780: WBBM. Weak
810: Music. I presume Bahamas, but it was in and out and couldn't identify. No trace of WGY
820: The strong Spanish signal I described previously on one night. Otherwise a fair signal from WBAP
840: WHAS. Good
860: CJBC. Fair, but with multiple signals underneath
870: WWL. Fair with Reloj usually underneath, but occasionly rising to the top
880: WCBS. Fair
890: WLS. Holding its own with R. Progreso
950: A complete unidentifiable mess, but the R. Reloj pips were easily and clearly audible
1000: WMVP. Fair-Good
1030: WBZ. Good
1110: WBT. Fair-Good
1130: WBBR. Good. I was a little surprised by this one
1180: Rebelde. Good. No trace of WHAM

 

[radioman148]

Thanks for the DX reports Cyberdad.

 

[MarioMania]

Nice Catches Cyberdad

Didnt't realize it was you posting

 

[jim-satx]

Thanks for the bandscans, Cyberdad. I have relatives in SC and my nephew used to live in NC, but I've never DXed in either state. Great to learn what you were able to hear out there.