Reception Report for Cody, WY and beyond

[ZantennaG1]

I was recently out of town, and Now that I'm back in Cheyenne, I would like to share my findings.
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Cody AM Daytime:

The two local stations are 1400 KODI and 1260 KPOW (16 miles away). I was less than a mile from KODI, and I do have a picture of their tower. 1260, at 5kw, covers more ground than KODI, but can be prone to RFI noise, even more than KZMQ.
Cody has a TIS on 1610, which seems to be strongest Southeast of town, and is not to be confused with the Yellowstone TIS that I'll mention later.
550 seems to be the remnants of either KRAI Craig or KBOW Butte.
If I was outside the hotel, in a noise free area, I could hear a very weak carrier on 590 and 610, but no audio. Now, 610 KVNU has a construction permit for a more directional signal and higher power, so I would want to return to NW Wyoming to see if the CP allows me to catch the station.
The Billings stations (about 90 miles away) were all recieveable in Cody, with 730 KYYA (K-Bear) 790 KGHL, and 970 KBUL being armchair listenable. 910 and 1240 were hard to pull in.
It was relatively easy to listen to 1140 KZMQ, which is about 59 miles away from Cody. I intend to make another thread about their format choice.
Casper's two largest stations, 830 KUYO and 1030 KTWO, were weak, but listenable on my portable.
Finally, you have the far fringe stations: 930 KROE Sheridan, 1340 KWOR Worland, and 770 KATL Miles City. The latter genuinely shocks me, as KATL is 10kw at over 200 miles. But, I always seem to manage one "exotic" catch every time I scan the AM band.
One more thing: KODI was so strong that it left a spurious image at 1490 AM, and the 2800 harmonic frequency was strong with a wire.
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Inside Yellowstone National Park, I was able to follow 730, 1140, 1260 ,and 1400 to the East Entrance, with 1140 lasting the longest. Between Cody and the entrance, the stations would fade out in narrow corners, and then come back for minutes at a time. By the time I had reached Yellowstone Lake (just west of the Entrance), all the stations had disappeared. There was one TIS station (on 1610 AM) right at the gate that listed for a slight while. It seemed to be specialized in helping visitors get acclimated to the park.

Parts 2 and counting will be below!

 

[ZantennaG1]

Here's the stick of 1400 KODI in Cody as taken by me.

 

[ZantennaG1]

Here's the 1140 KZMQ tower (top photo) and the 830 KUYO/1030 KTWO towers (lower photo) as shot by me.

 

[ZantennaG1]

This one's extremely poor quality, but I do have the tower of 1340 KWOR Worland.

 

[ZantennaG1]

Part 2: Cody AM at Night.
Sadly, I don't have any recorded bandscans here, but I remember hearing:
560 KLZ Denver (heard call-letters)
570 KNRS Salt Lake City
580 KUBC Montrose (clear format)
600 KSJB Jamestown often on top with others.
640 KFI Los Angeles
650 KGAB Orchard Valley in moderate (Ben Shapiro show match, plus branding) as well as some Country music. Can't tell whether I had KMTI or WSM.
660 KTNN Navajo Nation, Arizona was in strong at times.
700 KALL North Salt Lake City in well with ESPN format.
750 CKJH was weak, but identifiable.
760 KDFD made itself known.
770 KKOB Albuquerque (expected) and KATL (suprising!)
820 KUTR Salt Lake City was winning a close battle with WBAP Fort Worth.
830 WCCO Minneapolis (most likely)
850 KOA Denver, one of my stronger preformers.
880 KRVN Lexington was freakishly powerful.
960 some trace of Sportsnet Calgary.
1000 unID talking.
1030 KTWO Casper (probably my strongest skywave)
1040 WHO Des Moines in nicely
1070 KNX Los Angeles (weak but listenable)
1100 KNZZ Grand Junction, often local in quality
1110 KFAB Omaha, also quite strong at times
1120 KANN Roy before they signed off, with a decent signal, otherwise KMOX.
1160 KSL Salt Lake City also proved to be a good signal in Cody.
1180 unID News/Talk. I wonder if KOFI Kalispell changed formats.
1200 WOAI San Antonio, at the fringe.
1210 a mix of KHAT and KGYN
1450 some religious station, I'll elaborate on this in a later post.
1500 KSTP Minneapolis and 1540 KXEL Waterloo comes in very good.
1630 KVAM was quiet, but decent signal and listenable.

 

[ZantennaG1]

Part 3: FM in Cody

A good radio is required to recieve anything from the Powell area, such as 90.1, 103.3, and 107.1.
The big three from the west (92.1, 97.9, and 104.1) were hyper strong, given that I was only 5 miles away, and there's no obstruction. KODI's 96.7 translator, plus NPR's 88.5 translator were armchair copies without my antenna.

In my truck, all the locals came in fine, and 100.3 KZMQ (60 miles) was easy enough to pick up. In addition, 105.7 out of Worland was able to be picked up weakly.

If I get away from the hotel and drive, some Billings stations (90 miles) pop up nicely, such as 92.5, 93.3, and 94.1.

Finally, I had a station on 102.9, which I suspect it's from West Yellowstone. I tried and failed for 99.3 Red Lodge.


In Yellowstone itself (at Old Faithful), 96.1 from Worland and 106.7 were very weak. Otherwise, an empty band.

 

[ZantennaG1]

Other notes:
The AM band was largely empty at Old Faithful, but KZMQ seemed to survive the longest. Weirdly, I found no trace of 920 AM.

Skywave in Yellowstone itself was good, since the signal bounces off the ionosphere and into the mountains. It led to this weird unID on 1450 AM;

In addition, the East Entrance had a TIS station.

Unusually, I managed to snag 730 KYYA Billings, 650 KGAB Orchard Valley, and even 1210 KHAT Laramie from Waltman rest area.

I noticed that 1230 KVOC Casper was having signal problems when I passed through When I came back, they was completely off the air.



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Overall though, it was an exceptional trip!

 

[radioman148]

Thanks for the tower pics and the DX reports.