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THE Greatest DXing I ever had happened today!

W

wild949austin

Okay guys... I have to brag... may God strike me down if im lying.

So right now I am in Marble Falls for the holiday weekend. At 11am this morning I pulled in to a Shell gas station on a hill off US 281. The hill was sloping down west. I was listening to 102.3 The River with heavy static. Then my car got under the gas station awning, 102.3 The River faded away, then I immediately turned off the car and filled up my tank.

When I turn back on the car, I was looking for something in my back seat, so I was parked there for a couple of minutes. 102.3 was playing some Alicia Keys song, but then I heard "102.3 KJLH" followed by another song. I didn't know where KJLH was coming from so I looked on my Blackberry. Keep in mind I did not move my car, I was still parked under the gas station awning. I was SHOCKED to find KJLH is a radio station from Los Angeles.

For the hell of it, I tuned to 104.3 to try to hear MY FM from Los Angeles also (a Hot AC station) ... 104.3 was playing Taylor Swift's You Belong With Me, with extremely heavy static. I wish I could have stayed longer to hear the station identification for 104.3, but I had to go. I tuned back to 102.3 and some Busta Rhymes song was playing.... When I drove off from under the awning, 102.3 went back to The River.....*sigh*

Has this EVER happened to ANYone on here? When you DX a station from as far away as Los Angeles, for example?
 
You sir are a fellow radio nerd after my own heart.
 
wild949austin said:
Okay guys... I have to brag... may God strike me down if im lying.

So right now I am in Marble Falls for the holiday weekend. At 11am this morning I pulled in to a Shell gas station on a hill off US 281. The hill was sloping down west. I was listening to 102.3 The River with heavy static. Then my car got under the gas station awning, 102.3 The River faded away, then I immediately turned off the car and filled up my tank.

When I turn back on the car, I was looking for something in my back seat, so I was parked there for a couple of minutes. 102.3 was playing some Alicia Keys song, but then I heard "102.3 KJLH" followed by another song. I didn't know where KJLH was coming from so I looked on my Blackberry. Keep in mind I did not move my car, I was still parked under the gas station awning. I was SHOCKED to find KJLH is a radio station from Los Angeles.

For the hell of it, I tuned to 104.3 to try to hear MY FM from Los Angeles also (a Hot AC station) ... 104.3 was playing Taylor Swift's You Belong With Me, with extremely heavy static. I wish I could have stayed longer to hear the station identification for 104.3, but I had to go. I tuned back to 102.3 and some Busta Rhymes song was playing.... When I drove off from under the awning, 102.3 went back to The River.....*sigh*

Has this EVER happened to ANYone on here? When you DX a station from as far away as Los Angeles, for example?
Click to expand...

DLF said he picked up 91X (Tijuana/San Diego) in Canyon Lake, which isn't real close to Marble Falls, but pretty close.

I'm happy for you, Wild949, and jealous of you, all at the same time. My greatest DX? In 1998, I picked up Houston's 107-5 The Buzz (before it became 94-5 The Buzz) in my old hometown of Walker, LA, about 275 miles away.
 
wild949austin said:
Okay guys... I have to brag... may God strike me down if im lying.
...
When I turn back on the car, I was looking for something in my back seat, so I was parked there for a couple of minutes. 102.3 was playing some Alicia Keys song, but then I heard "102.3 KJLH" followed by another song. I didn't know where KJLH was coming from so I looked on my Blackberry. Keep in mind I did not move my car, I was still parked under the gas station awning. I was SHOCKED to find KJLH is a radio station from Los Angeles.
Click to expand...

It's the right time of year for sporadic-E; 11am is about the right time; and Austin<=>L.A. is about the right distance. I think you probably did hear exactly what you think you heard. Keep an ear open, mid-late mornings and again mid-late afternoons. (~10am-noon and ~3-6pm) Check any blank frequencies. Start from the bottom of the dial and tune up from there. (sporadic-E always starts on lower frequencies and moves up)

There's a minimum distance for sporadic-E, of about 700 miles for FM; the maximum is around 1,400 miles.* Sporadic-E signals are very strong, but with rapid and deep fading. If an interesting signal fades out, don't tune away -- there's a very good chance that if you wait a few seconds, it will fade right back in.

If you have a TV with traditional antenna available, you can look for sporadic-E signals on that as well. Start on channel 2 and work up from there. (don't waste time on channel 5. It looks empty but KCWX's digital signal is there and will swamp any DX.) There are no full-power analog stations left in the U.S., but they're still on in Canada, Mexico, Cuba, and Central America. And for that matter, there are still *low-power* analog stations in the U.S.. WDVZ channel 3 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama and WUVF channel 2 in Fort Myers are two that are potentially within range and have been reported by DXers. And don't rule out the possibility of receiving *digital* stations via sporadic-E. I've received the North Platte, Nebraska station here in Nashville. There are a number of possible targets from Austin.

* on RARE occasions, two or more "hops" will link to allow much greater distances. I've been DXing for 30 years & have observed it precisely *once*, receiving KYXY 96.5 San Diego here in Nashville.
 
I don't FM DX very often, but in the summer of '94....mid day...I was picking up stations from the gulf coast on my car radio just outside of Thunder Bay, Ontario. I was on high ground about two miles from the bluffs overlooking Lake Superior. Probably my best FM catches ever.

I also was "on the other end" once. In the early '70s, I was working at WHBF-TV (Channel 4, Rock Island, IL) one morning before dawn when I got a call from a guy who said he was picking us up...with a moderately clear picture and good color...in Utah.
 
wild949austin said:
Has this EVER happened to ANYone on here? When you DX a station from as far away as Los Angeles, for example?
Click to expand...

I remember in about '89 when I had just put up a new antenna so I could listen to KISR 93.7 from Ft. Smith, AR in Tulsa, OK. One morning, I was listening, and the song on KISR faded out being replaced by a commercial for a business I didn't recognize. Coming on right afterward was, "Here Comes Another 30 Minutes of Non-Stop Rock on 93.7 WCGY!" I was getting the station that's now Boston's WMKK in Tulsa, OK. A few years later, I got WZFX 99.1 from Fayetteville, NC and WRNS-FM 95.1 from Kinston, NC in Tulsa.

I never got too much DX in Texas, though. I got a lot of stations from 100-150 miles away quite frequently, but it was always the same stations over and over and never really anything that shocked me.
 
wild949austin said:
Okay guys... I have to brag... may God strike me down if im lying.

So right now I am in Marble Falls for the holiday weekend. At 11am this morning I pulled in to a Shell gas station on a hill off US 281. The hill was sloping down west. I was listening to 102.3 The River with heavy static. Then my car got under the gas station awning, 102.3 The River faded away, then I immediately turned off the car and filled up my tank.

When I turn back on the car, I was looking for something in my back seat, so I was parked there for a couple of minutes. 102.3 was playing some Alicia Keys song, but then I heard "102.3 KJLH" followed by another song. I didn't know where KJLH was coming from so I looked on my Blackberry. Keep in mind I did not move my car, I was still parked under the gas station awning. I was SHOCKED to find KJLH is a radio station from Los Angeles.

For the hell of it, I tuned to 104.3 to try to hear MY FM from Los Angeles also (a Hot AC station) ... 104.3 was playing Taylor Swift's You Belong With Me, with extremely heavy static. I wish I could have stayed longer to hear the station identification for 104.3, but I had to go. I tuned back to 102.3 and some Busta Rhymes song was playing.... When I drove off from under the awning, 102.3 went back to The River.....*sigh*

Has this EVER happened to ANYone on here? When you DX a station from as far away as Los Angeles, for example?
Click to expand...

I have NO doubt that you were able to hear Stevie Wonder's KJLH (102.3) from LA. Considering the distance to LA from your location in Texas (about 1200-1500 miles away), I have full confidence of your reception. I've had similar receptions here in the Northeast (near Boston, MA). Some of my best catches included .......

KRGI-FM (96.5) in Grand Island, Nebraska (1413 miles as the crow flies!)
KRAV (97.5) Tulsa, Oklahoma (1397 miles)
and CITI (92.1) Winnipeg, Manitoba. Canada (1350 miles)

On the video side of things, once back in '73, I got a strong full quieting picture from CBWFT (Channel 3 in Winnipeg), CBC French station (Radio-Canada) during their running a test-pattern. It was eerily weird, watching an old-school "Radio-Canada" test-pattern with no audio on the carrier at 5:00AM (our local time). Wish I had a camera back then to capture the signal. Anybody seen this station back in the day? The funny thing was that no other e-skip stations were propagating to my area that early morning. All the locals (except for WCVB-TV, Channel 5) were off the air for maintenance. Weird.
 
I know you probably won't believe me, but....

Back when I lived in Tucson, AZ (Can't remember the exact date but it was in the summer of 1989), I distinctly remember picking up stations from GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN. 8)
 
I have a few. The first was just south of Kerrville I got 97.3 CHEZ from Toronto. Over powered KJ97 on a fine hot summer day. ID'd them during a spot break. 1440 miles.

Also was listening to 101x Austin from San Antonio on 1604 when WRAL 101.5 took over from Raleigh Durham. They were doing a radiothon for St Jude's at the time.
Both were mid afternoon and about a year apart 10-12 years ago.

After the WRAL thing it was either later that week or a few weeks after I was trying to watch KBEJ but pesky KCBS kept interrupting with weather reports for Los Angeles. Also had a ch3 from somewhere in South Dakota? KOTA maybe?
 
I'm only 18 but I've always had a passion for radio and as a child I would always play with my radio and see if I could get stations in Killeen from Houston or Dallas and would (those are close) but I remember one morning (in San Antonio) I got 94.1 from Baton Rouge L.A.

It gives me goosebumps when it happens I may try to this more often now lol

I'm a radio nerd as well I guess haha
 
I'm originally from Baton Rouge, so I'm familiar with Max 94-1. I used to love that station when I was your age. What year did you pull it in?

This morning, I pulled in 98.7 Jack-FM from....Victoria. I was so pissed, I thought I was listening to the 98.7 Jack-FM from Amarillo.

Something that was interesting, though, was 93.3 KITE out of Victoria was fighting with KGSR here in Austin this morning.
 
93-3TheSurge said:
I'm originally from Baton Rouge, so I'm familiar with Max 94-1. I used to love that station when I was your age. What year did you pull it in?

This morning, I pulled in 98.7 Jack-FM from....Victoria. I was so pissed, I thought I was listening to the 98.7 Jack-FM from Amarillo.

Something that was interesting, though, was 93.3 KITE out of Victoria was fighting with KGSR here in Austin this morning.
Click to expand...

It was about 5 years ago, it was when KTFM was Jammin 94.1, and I don't know if they're transmiter was down or something, because Max was coming it strong! It was pretty awesome and yea 93.3 is so interesting I loved Hot933 an whenever the translator in SA would go out after a storm I'd always get it! But every now and then that dang oldies station from Victoria would come in, and when Party 933 was on in Houston, I'd always get Hot933 around the Montgomery area! lol And I also heard KIOC from Beaumont in New Braunfels a few weeks back as well, pretty interesting
 
What kind of radio were you using when you picked up Max (home, car, portable)?
 
In 1998 on my way to Roosevelt High School during my senior year around 7:30 ish AM. I was able to DX 104 KRBE Houston, Texas and B-104 Brownsville, Texas crosstalking each other at I-35 and Walzem. I was able to pick up a AM oldies station back in 2001 out of Oklahoma City in Houston. Back in June 1999 when Mix 96.1 KXXM San Antonio had technical difficulites a station from in Northern Mexico starting playing and then the dj came on and said "mix 96.1 is going tejano" after 20 minutes of so Mix 96.1 came back on. Too bad I didn't record those. I wish I did. Oh not to forget the crossmix between Kiss 98.5 KHYS in Port Arthur blended with Polka 98.5 in Columbus Texas. (I hated that polka station because I liked to listen and record Kiss 98.5 back in the day and that stupid station would interfere sometimes with a country station) back in 1997.
 
willdav713 said:
In 1998 on my way to Roosevelt High School during my senior year around 7:30 ish AM. I was able to DX 104 KRBE Houston, Texas and B-104 Brownsville, Texas crosstalking each other at I-35 and Walzem. I was able to pick up a AM oldies station back in 2001 out of Oklahoma City in Houston. Back in June 1999 when Mix 96.1 KXXM San Antonio had technical difficulites a station from in Northern Mexico starting playing and then the dj came on and said "mix 96.1 is going tejano" after 20 minutes of so Mix 96.1 came back on. Too bad I didn't record those. I wish I did. Oh not to forget the crossmix between Kiss 98.5 KHYS in Port Arthur blended with Polka 98.5 in Columbus Texas. (I hated that polka station because I liked to listen and record Kiss 98.5 back in the day and that stupid station would interfere sometimes with a country station) back in 1997.
Click to expand...

The AM oldies station out of Oklahoma City was KOMA 1520. Not really an unusual catch in this day and age, though it may not be overly common either. Dad often used to talk about listening to KOMA in Albuquerque and Tucson as it has a much better directional pattern to the west of Oklahoma City.

I actually found myself listening to Mix 96.1 on Fourth of July weekend 2004 when driving between St. Louis and Louisville, KY. I was at about Mt. Vernon, IL when my seek stopped at 96.1, and I was absolutely floored when I heard Mix 96.1. I was expecting WSTO from Owensboro/Evansville! I was able to hold onto Mix 96.1 until almost the Indiana state line. The Mt. Carmel, IL exit off of I-64 was when Hot 96.1 finally overpowered Mix.
 
The best radio catch I've gotten was WNOE/New Orleans in Tuscaloosa, Alabama-made more impressive that it occupies the same channel as WYDE/Cullman, Alabama, which is on the north end of the Tuscaloosa-Birmingham-Anniston market.

The best TV DX I ever had was receiving KAKE/Wichita in Mobile, Alabama. I'm not sure how KAKE wound up on Channel 2 given that its analog channel number was 10, unless if it had something to do with the military testing out in the Gulf of Mexico that was going on at the time.
 
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