Power Outage DX - A Silver Lining in a Cloud of Smoke

[NoMoreLurking]

Reacting to Northern California wildfires and the possibility of more, PG&E shut down power to many customers this past weekend. It hit me that an AM DXer could make lemonade out of this lemony situation, so I grabbed my trusty Tecsun for the first time in ages. The dial was free of the whistles, buzzes, and whines that chased me from MW DXing years ago. But as refreshing as that was, I failed to log any new stations. Old familiar ones were remarkably clear, including some powerful performances from KRVN-880, WHO-1040, and KSTP-1500, big signals that still must work extra hard to be heard through the usual din here on the West Coast.

A couple of oddities I noticed: I hadn't DXed 1510 since the demise of the Piedmont, CA station for whom KGA fell on its sword a few years back. But Google verified that my 1510 unID branded as "Sports and hip-hop, 103-5 The Game" was in fact KGA's neutered nighttime signal. What a dysfunctional format! And on a once flamethrowing 50kw station, now reduced to being IDed by its flea-power translator frequency. Sad!

Another jolt was hearing XEPRS in Baja playing music and IDing as "Ultra 104.9." I'm sure there's a story here, but I'm not sure I want to hear exactly how a McAllen-Brownsville, TX entity ended up simulcasting on the former "Mighty 1090." Again, sad!

Power (and noise) back on now, so...maybe we'll catch up after the next outage.

 

[SomeRadioGuy]

Reacting to Northern California wildfires and the possibility of more, PG&E shut down power to many customers this past weekend. It hit me that an AM DXer could make lemonade out of this lemony situation, so I grabbed my trusty Tecsun for the first time in ages. The dial was free of the whistles, buzzes, and whines that chased me from MW DXing years ago. But as refreshing as that was, I failed to log any new stations. Old familiar ones were remarkably clear, including some powerful performances from KRVN-880, WHO-1040, and KSTP-1500, big signals that still must work extra hard to be heard through the usual din here on the West Coast.

A couple of oddities I noticed: I hadn't DXed 1510 since the demise of the Piedmont, CA station for whom KGA fell on its sword a few years back. But Google verified that my 1510 unID branded as "Sports and hip-hop, 103-5 The Game" was in fact KGA's neutered nighttime signal. What a dysfunctional format! And on a once flamethrowing 50kw station, now reduced to being IDed by its flea-power translator frequency. Sad!

Another jolt was hearing XEPRS in Baja playing music and IDing as "Ultra 104.9." I'm sure there's a story here, but I'm not sure I want to hear exactly how a McAllen-Brownsville, TX entity ended up simulcasting on the former "Mighty 1090." Again, sad!

Power (and noise) back on now, so...maybe we'll catch up after the next outage.

Bi Media LLC is the licensee of KJAV Ultra 104.9. That company is controlled by the Bichara family, which is who owns XEPRS. BCA who had been leasing xEPRS stopped.. well their lease was terminated because they were so far behind on the lease payments.. reportedly, the lease costs for 1090 XEPRS is $100-$150K a month and no ones taking them up on that cost, so theyre keepifn the filaments warm with their own programming

 

[crainbebo]

Yup, KGA is 'Sports and Hip Hop'. They air Gonzaga basketball, Spokane Indians baseball and I think Chiefs hockey. Otherwise it's rap music day and night. It really is sad to see KGA like this, but alas it's 2019. I still remember when they were The Big Talker. Of course before that they were a flamethrowing country station.

 

[kenglish]

"Power (and noise) back on now, so...maybe we'll catch up after the next outage."
Any update?

 

[Steve Green NEPA]

It must've been 2-3 months ago when my buddy and his wife got away from the Boston moil for a weekend to some place on Cape Cod ; Hyannis, maybe? Down that way, anyway. Naturally, they were immediately greeted with a traditional tourist hospitality -- a power outage.
It was nowhere near as dire as the Cailfornia situation, of course. And it lasted maybe :45 minutes. But the effect -- the absence of that appalling white noise -- must've been as much like a waterfall stopping on the East Coast as it no doubt was on the West Coast.

Vinny, ever-prepared, had brought along a portable AM radio. Batteries were included. He marveled at how quiet the AM band was. 'Like it was maybe back in 1963,' he said.
And, as NoMoreLurking lamented, nothing new got added to the logbook. But Vinny was in awe of the ease by which he could do things with aplomb, like nulling WGAN 560 from Maine and bringing in WHYN 560 from Springfield Mass.

He didn't get to record any of the session, though. I think it'd be real cool to hear some dial-scan audio (preferably from the exact midday) of such occasions of recent times.

 

[kenglish]

During the seasons of moderate weather (don't want anyone to freeze to death), I often end my bedtime prayers with "...and can we please have a nice power outage".?
Unfortunately, a lot of the noise is from gadgets on the customer side of things. When the city-owned power company in Bountiful made a scheduled outage overnight a few years ago, everybody's generators and ups came on and continued the noise production. Photos of the town showed almost everything still lit up except streetlights.
I hate to think of all those CFL and LED lights still buzzing away.