Traving to Santa Clarita, CA

[MarioMania]

We stopped at Buttonwillow for thwe night..I was checkig the radio

KCBS 740 San Francisco 7 am...Is the normal in the day times??

My breother was going though the Grapevine on I-5..I got this, I don't know if it goes as a E-skip or not

KIFM 98.1 San Diego , It was playing Smooth Jazz..I had to get the Calls on RL

But that's all most of the FM Band is just static because all the hills

 

[fybush]

I stayed at a hotel in Santa Clarita in April, and my experience on FM was similar to yours - I was just out of the pattern of most of the on-channel boosters in the valley, so there wasn't much listenable on FM from LA. But terrain does weird things there, and I was getting some of the San Diego FMs, too. That's not e-skip (at maybe 150 miles, it's WAY too close for even the most remarkably close e-skip) or even tropo ducting, just knife-edge diffraction from signals bouncing from hilltop to hilltop.

KCBS on 740 was probably just late-morning skywave...did you hear local KBRT at all? That should be the dominant 740 there during daylight hours.

 

[MarioMania]

No signs of KBRT only KCBS..I couldn't listen for long, I had too get in the Van

and then it was static on 740

 

[pianoplayer88key]

Yeah, I get a lot of the San Diego FMs at the top of the mountain pass on I-5 there, too. I've even gotten some of the AMs that otherwise don't make it into the L.A. basin, as well, in the daytime.

And, yes, I think KCBS may be possible to receive somewhere up that way, although in the daytime it should at best be fighting with KBRT. I've noticed that there's a zone where both KCBS and KBRT both can be heard on the same frequency... and, if I remember correctly, if I used the Select-A-Tenna with my PL-380, when I was at the Tulare County Fairgrounds this past May, I was hearing KBRT in the background of KCBS.

I would think that it was probably KCBS's groundwave you were getting, though. I made a couple recordings at around 3pm on 3-17-2010 near El Cajon, CA (approximately 32°45'40"N 116°56'50"W), of my reception of KNBR 680 and KGO 810 in the early afternoon.
KNBR 680 (broadcasting Giants game, no mention of call but re-intro to game at around 0:58): http://cid-6bdd1917662288cb.office....680 AM PL-380 ^M SAT ^5could it be KNBR^6.mp3
KGO 810 (I heard semi-ID at 1:32): http://cid-6bdd1917662288cb.office....0810 AM PL-380 ^M SAT ^5could it be KGO^6.mp3

 

[gar hi]

I would agree too that KCBS being heard at 7 am in Buttonwillow should be a groundwave. I looked on the map and it's roughly 270 or so miles from SF.

Considering the directional signal and the ground conductivity, it would make sense.

I remember the one time I took a trip from the Bay Area to southern California where we took 101 to Gilroy and then crossed over to interstate 5 in the central valley. As soon as we got on 5 to drive south, KFI had a weak but listenable signal. That was during the sunmmer of 77 and it was late morning to almost noon.

The strange thing is, that's about as far north as the Santa Cruz area over on the coast and I've never heard KFI at all there during the day.

 

[gar hi]

I made a couple recordings at around 3pm on 3-17-2010 near El Cajon, CA (approximately 32°45'40"N 116°56'50"W), of my reception of KNBR 680 and KGO 810 in the early afternoon.

Wow! That's more than a 400 mile catch. I would say they have to be KNBR and KGO by the process of elimination. Also, it looks like there's a tiny area of ocean the signals travel on too which could have helped.

Thanks for those clips. I've always had a special interest in daytime AM DXing and your catches remind me of some catches I've gotten where you you can just barely hear a signal and have to draw a conclusion of what you got based on ruling out any other possible stations on a given frequency which in this case, there are none on 680 and 810 you could have heard there from any place else so it has to be from San Francisco.

 

[pianoplayer88key]

I made a couple recordings at around 3pm on 3-17-2010 near El Cajon, CA (approximately 32°45'40"N 116°56'50"W), of my reception of KNBR 680 and KGO 810 in the early afternoon.

Wow! That's more than a 400 mile catch. I would say they have to be KNBR and KGO by the process of elimination. Also, it looks like there's a tiny area of ocean the signals travel on too which could have helped.

Thanks for those clips. I've always had a special interest in daytime AM DXing and your catches remind me of some catches I've gotten where you you can just barely hear a signal and have to draw a conclusion of what you got based on ruling out any other possible stations on a given frequency which in this case, there are none on 680 and 810 you could have heard there from any place else so it has to be from San Francisco.

Yeah. I think I may have done better than 400 miles in a couple other cases, possibly...

660 (??--KTNN Window Rock, AZ, 494.887mi, 61.9°--??) recorded early afternoon in mid March: http://cid-6bdd1917662288cb.office....660 AM PL-380 ^M SAT ^5could it be KTNN^6.mp3

700 (??--KALL North Salt Lake City, AZ, 625.881mi, 24.76°--??)) recorded around 3pm on 3-8-2010: http://cid-6bdd1917662288cb.office..../maybe 700 KALL - PL-380 - 2010-03-08 3pm.mp3

As for that catch on 700... I have a local on 690 - XEWW Rosarito/Tijuana, 77kW, 32.355mi, 188.75°, but fortunately was able to use the Select-A-Tenna and my PL-380 to help mitigate the interference somewhat. Now... if only I had a way to pull in that station with a better signal on a pocket radio using only its built-in loopstick... :|

 

[gar hi]

The one on 660 sounds like a foreign language and I thought I heard a couple Spanish words in there.

700 is real interesting because you'd have to rule out the station from Soledad, Ca only because they are in Spanish though their signal could possibly make it into your area with the good equipment you have. But again, I'd rule them out because they are Spanish and I even listened to their online stream to make sure.

Then I was thinking 625 miles is kind of a long haul for a groundwave and that time of year at that time of the afternoon, I'd think only the upper frequencies could get skywave.

Then what convinced me it has to be the KALL is when I looked at the ground conductivity map. There's a huge long swath of ground running from Salt Lake City to the SW in your direction that's a "15".

http://filebay1.home.comcast.net/~filebay1/ground.jpg

I listened to the entire recording twice and with headphones and the volume turned up and thought I heard "Utah" mentioned about 1/4 the way into the recording but that's a tough call to say for sure. If it weren't for the adjacent station on the next frequency, it would be an easy ID.
I have the Terk AM loop which is about as good as the Select A Tenna and it's picked up stations I couldn't hear otherwise in the day.

I was thinking that if you went right out to the ocean in San Deigo, the two San Francisco stations you got whoud be noticeably stronger too and you may discover more stations from up that way.

Thanks again for the audio clips.

 

[pianoplayer88key]

Yeah... I'm thinking now that the one on 660 wasn't KTNN after all (which does sometimes broadcast in Navajo Indian language when it isn't playing country music). I went outside this afternoon, and heard spanish on 660. It turned out to be a spur of a local on 540, XESURF.

But.. yeah... KALL was a fun catch... and so far I think it takes the record for my farthest daytime catch. Speaking of daytime skywave, in wintertime at noon, KFBK 1530 Sacramento, CA, and KMIK 1580 Tempe, AZ, often make an appearance here. KMIK is sometimes even strong enough to overpower co-channel 50kW KBLA Santa Monica, CA, which would otherwise be the dominant station on the frequency. At night, though, KMIK is usually the strongest nighttime station I hear, except for a few locals that are stronger, with KFBK being a close second.

 

[pianoplayer88key]

(blah... past edit time... )

I too have a special interest in daytime AM DX'ing. I remember someone on here, rbrucecarter5, was able to get some daytime DX from about 1000 miles away using 4-foot loop antennas. I haven't heard from him in quite some time, though.
I would be happy if I had a setup on which I could get a casually listenable signal on every single channel from 530 to 1700 at noon from almost anywhere on the planet. (I probably would be dreaming a bit too much, though, if I would be hoping to make the clear channels sound during the day like the graveyard channels are at night. ) One of these days I'd like to build a good antenna for outdoor use. I don't have room for a proper beverage, though, as I would only have an absolute max of 90 feet north/south (probably more realistically restricted to about 60 feet or less) by about 120 feet east/west (although if I went over the house to the front of the street, I might have about 245 feet, but there's a powerline there). Also, the property has some slope to it - going south is basically going downhill. The somewhat flat area in the back yard is probably about 24 feet north to south or so.
Also, I live about 8 miles east/northeast of 5kW 600 KOGO-HD, 32 miles north of 77kW (50kW night) 690 XEWW, 7 miles southeast of 5kW (50kW night) 760 KFMB, 9 miles south of 5kW 910 KECR and 50kW (2.9kW night) 1170 KCBQ, 6 miles south of 10kW 1130 KSDO, and 8 miles east/northeast of 5kW (1kW night) 1360 KLSD, all of which max out my PL-380's RSSI display at 63dBu in the daytime (although sometimes 910 may only indicate 61 or 62 in the house). I would need a good narrowband to combat that adjacent-channel interference. Also, having a directional antenna would be nice, for nulling the local stations in order to pick up distant stations on the same frequency. For example, it would be nice to be able to catch the 690 from southwest Canada, 760 from near Denver, CO, 910 from Phoenix, AZ, or Hesperia, CA, 1170 from Tulsa, OK, San Jose, CA, or maybe North Pole, AK, for example.

 

[gar hi]

I think where you live, you're in a unique area for picking up AM daytime signals at much greater distances than most of the rest of the country because of the ground conductivity and also the saltwater influence to help pull in stations from northern California.

625 miles has to be the best catch for an AM signal that goes completely on land. I've heard reports of 1000 mile daytime catches on nothing but land but from judging from the time of day and year, it seems a skywave had to come into play.

Like I said, if you go to the beach in your area and set up your radio with the Select A Tenna, I'd imagine you'd get a bonanza of stations from well up the coast, many of which would disappear when you got back to where you are located inland.

Aside from the great reception over at the Gulf coast about 20 miles west of where I am in Tampa, my similar experiences to the distant reception you've posted in those audio clips was when I was at Daytona Beach with my Sangean PR-D5 (which is a great AM receiver) and the Terk AM loop attempting to hear stations from New York in the daytime.
WCBS and WFAN would be the only possible ones because their sticks are both located out on Long Island in Queens on High Island, whereas all the other NYC 50kw stations are located inland in north Jersey.

WCBS and WFAN have to travel over the coastal land section of New Jersey and from there through North Carolina, it passes over a mix of land and a lot of saltwater intrusion in the form of bays or estuaries. The rest of the 900 mile path after coastal NC to Daytona Beach is all saltwater.

Here's what I was able to hear daytime in the mid afternoon last April.

On 880, WZAB from South Florida has a very weak signal but another very weak station can also be heard here too. The station on 880 from Cuba is located in the western part of the island and only a trace of it can be heard here in Tampa during the day and it would have to go over 200 miles of land to make it to Daytona. That's why I think WCBS could be the only other station I heard.
The Terk loop antenna helped too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmW58TRF7J8

Here's 660 AM. WORL from near Orlando still has a fairly good signal but using the loop, I was able to hear a very faint station in the distant background that I couldn't detect without it.

The Cuban station on 660 is also from the western part of Cuba and just like 880 from Cuba, has a very faint daytime signal here in Tampa that's not even listenable. Add 200 miles of land to Daytona Beach and I think it would be impossible to get.
If you listen very closely in the background of 660 WORL, there's another barely detectable station that can best be heard around about 40 seconds into the video. I don't see what else it could be but WFAN.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A714aCnDDXU

I'd be interested to hear any other daytime AM catches you have, as the ones you posted were very impressive.

 

[ddsparxx]

Daytime DX on AM...that's also what I like. Last winter or early spring I heard WSM 650 in Nashville in northern VA about 550 miles away and the ground conductivity in much of the East is poor and a bit better in central TN, according to what I saw on the ground conductivity map, and the time was around 10 to 11 AM and early afternoon, but virtually none at noon. The signal was barely listenable, weaker than the signals I heard on tfwings's audio clips though I could hear WSM's country music. I am thinking maybe a little bit of skywave, as I can't get WSM at all during the middle of the day during summer. This was with not with any portable radio, but with a Palstar R30A receiver (a hot MW/SW DX receiver) with an external indoor amplified loop antenna.

 

[pianoplayer88key]

As requested... here's some more daytime DX recordings....

http://cid-6bdd1917662288cb.office.live.com/browse.aspx/AM radio files/2010-07-20
http://cid-6bdd1917662288cb.office.live.com/browse.aspx/AM radio files/PL-380 March 2010 ^52^6
http://cid-6bdd1917662288cb.office.live.com/browse.aspx/AM radio files/PL-380 March 2010 ^51^6

Also, this is how my PL-380 (and another radio I have, the Panasonic RQ-SW20) behaves when faced with very strong signals...

http://cid-6bdd1917662288cb.office.live.com/browse.aspx/AM radio files/1170 KCBQ - 2010-04-16
With the amplification I was getting from the combination of the SAT and the power pole, I was actually overloading my PL-380 from 15km away! To get the same level of signal barefoot required me to travel to about 150 meters from the transmitter site!

http://cid-6bdd1917662288cb.office....Q-SW20 comparisons/near KFSD 1450 transmitter
that is a comparison of my PL-380 with my RQ-SW20, about 20 meters from 1kW 1450 KFSD's transmitter site. In spite of the PL-380's excellent DSP selectivity, apparently the front-end selectivity sucks on it, as I was able to hear several stations on the hangar-door-wide RQ-SW20 that were at best almost non-existent on the PL-380.

On the other hand, when not faced with strong signals that are desensitizing it, the PL-380 is considerably more sensitive than the RQ-SW20, as in these examples recorded inside a car at home (which significantly attenuated the signals, bringing the strong ones down to where they didn't desensitize the radio, except for a couple on 1130 and 1170 which still did somewhat)...
http://cid-6bdd1917662288cb.office....nside vehicle ^5to attenuate strong signals^6


And... last, but not least...

http://cid-6bdd1917662288cb.office....2010-07-20/103^J3 KVYB Santa Barbara^J CA.mp3

So am I the only person who can reliably (almost round-the-clock-and-calendar) hear an FM station over 200 miles away? Also would that be e-skip, tropo, or something else? On a good day I've even heard that station trip the stereo decoder, and if I go to the top of a couple hills at less than 500-1000 feet higher elevation and less than 3/4 mile away (one to the north/northwest and another to the southwest), it pretty much just about ALWAYS comes in strong enough to be in stereo.

 

[vibe]

I remember travelling to the Grand Canyon while attending NMSU in the mid 1970's. The car had only an AM radio but was a good un. I distinctly heard the LA blowtorches at midday near the Pertified Forest NP (100 mi E of Flagstaff and at least 500 mi from LA) But it was late Nov (T giving w/e) and I now think it was skywave. I still got those stations at the Grand Canyon the next day. I remember the weather as cool/cloudy as we had a major snowstorm in N.M 2 days later.