TIS Station "DX"

[rfry]

Below is a link to a short audio recording of the daytime, groundwave signal from a 530 kHz TIS station located about 35 miles away from me.

If this TIS station exactly meets its spec for a 2 mV/m field at a 1.5 km radius from their transmit antenna, then for the 15 mS/m Earth conductivity existing for this path they would have a field of about 37 µV/m at my receive location.

The receiver used was a battery-powered Sangean PR-D15 with an internal loopstick antenna about 8" in length, operating in the back yard of my home.

Not much fun to listen to, but does show about the extreme limit for receiving and identifying a weak, daytime groundwave signal in the medium wave band.

nofile.io/f/9bOB9qTh5G6/Mark+Twain+Lake+TIS.mp3

 

[Steve Green NEPA]

Good DX there, rfry!
There doesn't seem to be many receivable TIS stations here at the NE PA den. But an October or so back, we drove in a rental car to the Catskills (NY) to retrieve a car and get it home. With us was the one we call 'The Intern', who would drive our new car back ; the wife doesn't drive.

Along the way UP to the Catskills on I-81, we tuned in a few of those HAR and TIS things. One station, around near Scranton, was giving the overnight temperatures.
From the night before. Binghamton, Clark's Summit, Carbondale, etc.

So we decided that a format called Solid Gold Weather might be a marketable format. In July (with jingles, of course) the station would run forecasts from February to make listeners more comfortable. And vice versa. We'd get someone from Australia to announce conditions and memories from the other side of the planet, where the climate is 180° off.

For some reason, the concept never caught hold.

Once more, RFry -- great DX! I've not heard an HAR or TIS station here yet. The closest I came on the X-band to a new catch was a talking house in Pottsville.

 

[boombox4]

Here in the PNW some DXers like myself hear the TIS's from 100-200 miles away or so. I know a guy in BC Canada (just over the border from us) has DXed some TIS's in WA and OR, and Crainbebo has logged a few good ones (their night catches are the only ones that I know about).

I've heard a few of them, mostly at night (there are several local ones that are audible during the day, depending on the location), and the best catches are ones from the Oregon Coast. But there are actually several of them, so you never know exactly which one you are hearing. They relay the NOAA weather broadcasts. The one I hear the most crops up behind (or on top of) KBRE 1660 The Bear, the rock station out of Merced, California. I hear the NOAA TIS's on 1650 sometimes also.

 

[DXingRadio]

If conditions are good New Jersey has a TIS network on AM 1710, an easier catch on the clear frequency.

 

[Tim from Springfield IL]

There used to be a TIS station at 530 in the St. Louis area (IIRC the tower was on the Illinois side). It could still actually be heard as far north as here in the Springfield area (fair to poor on a good car radio, but still very perceptible). That station has gone off the air sometime in the past 5 years, most likely budget cuts.