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Two new logs to kick off the MW season, finally - Labor Day 2014

C

crainbebo

Been since April that I got something new on AM. Band opened up a little to the south and got two that I really needed!

710 - KSPN Los Angeles, CA; floating under KIRO with SportsCenter All Night about 10-15 seconds behind Seattle, local ad break mentioned Southern California, limo service, ID "ESPN LA, 710" after KIRO's ID at 2230 PT 9/01. NEW #606, 10.5KW, 875 miles. Been waiting for years to get this one! KFIA has popped up a few times after dark, ditto Rebelde, and then KXMR at sunrise...but never Los Angeles.

860 - XEMO Tijuana, BCN; under KTRB with Mexican music, ID "La Poderosa" (which sounded like Rockola, ala XECL, at first), at around 2245 PT 9/01. NEW #607, 5KW, 991 miles. Been in the mix a few times, but never strong enough to ID.

I also heard an unid 990 with Coast to Coast. That was likely KTMS Santa Barbara, also needed here. Tried at 2258 but after hearing a couple PSAs, it faded before the ID. Then came back up with Fox News, then faded back out again, then back as if a light-switch was turned on, with fair-good Coast to Coast. Will try again tonight.
1090 KMXA Denver, 600 KOGO, 1210 KGYN Guymon, OK w/ good "US-1210" ID and 1180 Radio Rebelde Cuba also noted.

-crainbebo
 
KFIA has popped up a few times after dark, ditto Rebelde, and then KXMR at sunrise...but never Los Angeles.

Crainbebo, how often do you pick up Radio Rebelde 1180 out in Central Washington? It, along with Radio Reloj on 580 and Enciclopedia on 540 were weak, but nightly catches the Southeastern US. Once caught RR on FM in South Carolina...e-skip with a full RDS decode to boot!

Out here in N. Seattle, I have a tough time picking up CBU 690 (or much of anything AM that's not in Puget Sound) on my HDR-F1HD with the supplied loop...much less stations from the other side of the continent! How many hundreds of feet of wire do you have for your AM antenna??? :cool:

Radio-X
 
Rebelde is probably hundreds of kilowatts. They are trying to jam Radio Marti, after all. Comes in sometimes very weakly barefoot.
My "good" antenna is a 3-foot box loop with eight turns of wire. Built it myself. Have received so many low power and graveyard stations on that huge loop including ones like KBRF 1250 Fergus Falls MN and KCKM 1330 Monahans TX (when they had their DX test).

An XDR-F1HD is not going to do you good for AM DX. Try something like my Grundig G5 or a better tabletop with loads of wire. Icoms do well and they are one of the most common tabletop radio companies for ham radio DX as well with their LSB/USB/CW capability.

-crainbebo
 
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I caught Radio Reloj on FM Eskip as well a couple of years ago. About 15 seconds on 98.1. I got the Caymans during the same opening
 
Radio-X said:
KFIA has popped up a few times after dark, ditto Rebelde, and then KXMR at sunrise...but never Los Angeles.

Crainbebo, how often do you pick up Radio Rebelde 1180 out in Central Washington? It, along with Radio Reloj on 580 and Enciclopedia on 540 were weak, but nightly catches the Southeastern US. Once caught RR on FM in South Carolina...e-skip with a full RDS decode to boot!

Out here in N. Seattle, I have a tough time picking up CBU 690 (or much of anything AM that's not in Puget Sound) on my HDR-F1HD with the supplied loop...much less stations from the other side of the continent! How many hundreds of feet of wire do you have for your AM antenna??? :cool:

Radio-X
Click to expand...

I hate to say it, but perhaps you should get a radio with better AM reception. A $20 Sony SRF-59 will bring in plenty of non Puget Sound area stations. And that radio will bring in even more if you use a Grundig external loop with it (sit it next to the radio and tune it until the signals peak), or use a Select-A-Tenna.

I live in the greater Seattle metro area and hear plenty of stations from all over the west on a barefoot Superadio, and even my Panasonic clock radio picks up CBU, KGO, KFBK, CBR, CKMX, KSL, KEX, etc. etc.

My SRF-59 also pulls in those stations with no external antenna help. I was even able to just barely hear Rebelde on it on 1180 -- just once -- without help from an external antenna (conditions were very, very good that night).

I don't know much about the HDR radio you have. My search shows a Sony XDR FM radio (maybe the newer version) that is supposed to be good on FM. In the open top photo of the XDR radio I can't even see an AM loop antenna. So any antenna it has for AM is possibly smaller than the one on the Sony SRF-59 headset radio you can get at Fred Meyer for $20 or less. And the SRF-59 is designed to pull in stations, even with its small antenna. It has a hot IF chip that has a lot of gain, both on AM and FM. The FM side sounds good, but I've found it a bit difficult to DX with because of the muting (no muting whatsoever on AM). From reading what I can of your radio, I think it was designed more for FM only listening.

As for Rebelde, I've heard it on 1180 numerous times, usually in Fall, Winter and Spring, and it's underneath KOFI Kalispell. I've also heard it barefoot (meaning no help from an external loop antenna), on several radios. Usually it's the music or Spanish you'll hear behind KOFI & KLAY at night, and it can be IDed easily if you have a shortwave radio and tune to 5025 khz, where Rebelde comes in fairly well year round.

Maybe get an SRF-59 and try it out, or go online and try one of the radios others often recommend. The C Crane AM radio, the Sangean PRD5 (??) series of radios, and the other ones Crainbebo mentioned have been used by AM DXers.
 
I have a Grundig G5, unfortunately it has been discontinued. There was a merchant on eBay selling them for $45 a piece and now they are all gone now. The replacement G5 I have is from that seller, because my radio died after 7 years of service.

-crainbebo
 
crainbebo said:
I have a Grundig G5, unfortunately it has been discontinued. There was a merchant on eBay selling them for $45 a piece and now they are all gone now. The replacement G5 I have is from that seller, because my radio died after 7 years of service.

-crainbebo
Click to expand...

The G5 is a nice little radio, especially when traveling. When I was in Hawaii it pulled in a lot of stations for me.
 
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