Considering all the road updates you've given us over the years I think we can overlook the error
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- Thread starter CADXER
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Considering all the road updates you've given us over the years I think we can overlook the error
Down in Galveston on the beach for the weekend, WQNO has a decent signal right now (1:37pm). Can’t hear anything on 690 during the day at home in Houston due to KSEV slop.
Nice water enhanced groundwave.
Not really DX but an observation:
Yesterday morning I was driving from Virginia to Georgia and was impressed with the strength of the WPHT 1210 signal from Philadelphia. Even after 9am in the summer I was able to listen to this station all the way into northern North Carolina before losing the program. I can hear WPHT at night in western Georgia so I know their signal favors a north south direction. I couldn't hear any other northeastern stations on the dial while WPHT was coming in strong.
Yesterday morning I was driving from Virginia to Georgia and was impressed with the strength of the WPHT 1210 signal from Philadelphia. Even after 9am in the summer I was able to listen to this station all the way into northern North Carolina before losing the program. I can hear WPHT at night in western Georgia so I know their signal favors a north south direction. I couldn't hear any other northeastern stations on the dial while WPHT was coming in strong.
That's interesting since WPHT operates with a ND antenna and it doesn't appear you were near the ocean.
Not the season for it, but maybe a little daytime skywave helping out with that. It does happen. One summer day about fifteen years ago, I was driving between Toronto and London, Ontario at around 11am EDT and listening to severe weather warnings on WBBM.
What we continually find out, is that radio signals do strange things.
My most amazing daytime skywave was briefly finding 1450 from Winsocket, RI, dominating the frequency at Cleveland, OH. My nearest normally listenable 1450 was WLEC in Sandusky, OH, so the channel was clear of a dominant local or semi-local.
Hiking at Ancient Lakes a few years ago (west of Quincy WA), noise level was very low on AM but KSTE 650 Rancho Cordova CA was weak yet listenable at 11am. In April.
That's a description of my experience with daytime skywave. My Ohio noontime reception of 4VEH in Haiti has a weak, slightly noisy signal coming in very steadily with no fading or audio artifacts.
Back in the 50's and 60's when some channels were "empty" except for one clear channel station, it was fairly common to have episodes of KFI being heard in parts of the Midwest or WSM and WSB heard in Minnesota or New England.
(By common, I mean one or two DXers would catch something like this perhaps every year... not more common because how many people DX at noon?). I had two daytime skywave catches in 5 years of Cleveland DXing.
What time of the year was that? My best daytime skywave "adventure" was when we'd expect it. In December in the 70s I heard many of the big east coast stations around noon in the Chicago area. The NYC ND's along with WBZ, WCAU, WGY and others were all coming into the midwest.
IIRC, February. Very clear sermon in Kreyol, then a religious show in English which I presume was for Jamaica and, perhaps, Turks and Caicos and the Caymans.
With the right combination of lower midday sun angle, "unobstructed" path, a good radio, and plenty of time to DX, daytime skywave can be not as rare than one might expect.
During the years that I was going to Canada every two or three months, I looked forward to doing the four hour drive between Toronto and Ottawa during winter for two main reasons: gorgeous scenery and great DX. On almost every occasion the upper end of the dial produced WBZ, WTIC, WBBR, WTOP/WFED, and WQEW. Sometimes also WBAL I'd even get lucky with one or more of those on a couple of occasions during summer. One time in northwest Minnesota on a warm, sunny June day, I was more than a little surprised to catch WMAQ.
Then this past winter came the biggest mid-day surprise yet. I was on the Saint Paul Alberta SDR when I heard 1kw KQDE from Evergreen, Montana....on 1340! Fair signal but solid and steady with almost zero fading. According to a websitye for measuring point to point distance, that was a hop of 418 miles. An example not only of daytime skywave, but also what a graveyard channel can be in an area where there's nothing occupying it for hundreds of miles in any direction.
You reminded me of something I had forgotten. I have instances of extreme daytime reception of Canadian station during the several CONELRAD tests I skipped school to catch.
All US stations were off and only rotating use on 640 and 1240 was allowed.
I heard stations such as Winnipeg, Manitoba, a brand new station on 1470 with 5,000 watts. I can't remember all of them, but reception included some from Quebec to the north of Montreal, a number of normally inaudible Ontario stations, including some on the old Class IV channels.
On both tests that I could DX I got about 7 or 8 new Canadians in the half hour. Some were normal ground waves that were usually blocked by US stations. But several were daytime skywave, quite obviously.
Wow--good catch! I've heard WMAQ during the day just past the Twin Cities, but never in Northern Minnesota during summer days. I guess daytime skywave is not confined just to the winter months.
I would have played hooky for that myself! I never got experience one of those.
Life as a 1470 in Winnipeg must have been tough. By the time travel to Winnipeg was added to my assignment in the early 90s, that station was gone, and the 5kw 1470 from Sioux City (KWSL) came roaring in on a nightly basis. (It's now 26 watts at night).
@ Radioman... The day WMAQ flipped to WSCR on 670, I was in Minneapolis. As was/is typical, I was able to catch bits of it in open, noise free areas between appointments on the car radio. 670 generally ceases to be comfortably listenable about 60 minutes east of the Twin Cities. (Pretty much the same for WGN).
I think that was August 1, 2000. I remember that day. From trips to the Twin Cities I had made in the past I remember hearing WMAQ and WBBM around the airport. Otherwise like you said the reception of both improved as you got east of the Twin Cities near the Wisconsin border.
I didn't have much time for the radio while I was in Galveston, but noticed a couple of things. First, daytime reception from Louisiana was much better than at my house (Houston, ~50 miles from the coast). In addition to WQNO, 870 and 940 were very strong (I can sometimes hear WWL in the daytime at home during the winter, but could be daytime skywave). I also had weak traces of signals on 1280 and 1350. New Orleans is 300 miles from the house I was staying in, as noted mostly over seawater and swamps. I also had a decent signal from 1000 watt KROF 960 in Abbeville, LA.
At 10:45pm last night on 1540 I heard classic rock songs (including the Doors' "Love Street", not usually heard on the radio), with ID in SS as 88.1 el Clasico, XESTN in Monterrey. I've never heard this one from Houston, supposed to be 500 watts at night.
It was also amazing how much stronger the Cubans are there. Cubans were on top of 710 and 890 and equal to Chicago on 670. At home, I hear the Cubans but 710 is usually a jumble with KEEL mostly on top, and 890 is usually solidly WLS.