My two best catches occurred in 1982 from South Bend, IN. In late April of that year, I happened upon 1kw CKRW Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, Canada on the Delco radio in my Olds Cutlass from 1:15-1:55AM. Interestingly, I was due for a quad wisdom tooth extraction later that morning. I couldn’t sleep, so I went for a walk thru may apartment complex in the dead of night – ended up in my car in the parking lot “tuning around” – and found rock music [“Barracuda” – Heart] playing on 610kHz [OBVIOUSLY NOT WTVN]! It was a local CBC station for that community in “The Great White North” – I sent a detailed log of my reception, but received NO RESPONSE... That was surprising to me!
The second was the current KXZZ Lake Charles, LA on 1580kHz – received on a GE SuperRadio-1 within my apartment for about an hour beginning at 12:30AM in October of that year. At the time, 1580 was in daytime-only use in South Bend. The Lake Charles station had a music format, and the reception was SO CLEAR that I was able to hear the seagulls in Otis Redding’s “Sittin’ By The Dock Of The Bay” This skip might otherwise been a “no-brainer” EXCEPT that 1580 [being a Canadian “clear”] mandated that the signal in Lake Charles provide very-little radiation toward Canada. It was a three-lobed “cloverleaf” with the deepest null at 35-degrees toward the former 10kw CBC service in Chicoutimi, Quebec. South Bend is on nearly the same axis. VERY-LITTLE radiation was occurring toward my location. A QSL request yielded a quick response with a verification card, info on the station and Lake Charles, AND a “Thanks” from the CE!
Like the typical “GREAT DX” – I only heard both - ONCE!
I frequently-receive the typical targets in the X-Band, but have never heard 640 KFI [aside from visits to LA]. Stations I’d LOVE to hear... And have tried for years on my cadre of AM radios - including a classic 1987 I-Com R71a... 'Even assisted by an impressive AM receive array in metro Kansas City during an official “International DX event” with code transmission, yet UNSUCCESSFUL – 780 KNOM Nome, AK and 720 KOTZ Kotzebue, AK [at an easily-nulled 90-degree orientation to the Chicago co-channels]... NO LUCK. I hope I can hear them over-the-air sometime before AM dies thanks to IBOC!
The second was the current KXZZ Lake Charles, LA on 1580kHz – received on a GE SuperRadio-1 within my apartment for about an hour beginning at 12:30AM in October of that year. At the time, 1580 was in daytime-only use in South Bend. The Lake Charles station had a music format, and the reception was SO CLEAR that I was able to hear the seagulls in Otis Redding’s “Sittin’ By The Dock Of The Bay” This skip might otherwise been a “no-brainer” EXCEPT that 1580 [being a Canadian “clear”] mandated that the signal in Lake Charles provide very-little radiation toward Canada. It was a three-lobed “cloverleaf” with the deepest null at 35-degrees toward the former 10kw CBC service in Chicoutimi, Quebec. South Bend is on nearly the same axis. VERY-LITTLE radiation was occurring toward my location. A QSL request yielded a quick response with a verification card, info on the station and Lake Charles, AND a “Thanks” from the CE!
Like the typical “GREAT DX” – I only heard both - ONCE!
I frequently-receive the typical targets in the X-Band, but have never heard 640 KFI [aside from visits to LA]. Stations I’d LOVE to hear... And have tried for years on my cadre of AM radios - including a classic 1987 I-Com R71a... 'Even assisted by an impressive AM receive array in metro Kansas City during an official “International DX event” with code transmission, yet UNSUCCESSFUL – 780 KNOM Nome, AK and 720 KOTZ Kotzebue, AK [at an easily-nulled 90-degree orientation to the Chicago co-channels]... NO LUCK. I hope I can hear them over-the-air sometime before AM dies thanks to IBOC!
Well, he told me that you needed to be at the beach to pick up stations on that band. I wonder if that meant that he had actually pulled something in on his radio? It was certainly implied, but we never got to test that. I know that, aside from radio beacons, I have not done so from North America. 