Weirdest DX You've Ever Received

[radioman148]

One of my best catches, but fits in the weird category, was WRFD-880, when I lived about 15 miles from WCBS's transmitter. In fact, RFD was coming in with a good signal most afternoons over about a 2-month period that winter. I IDed them during their sign-off several times, so I know it them for sure. They were 5,000 watts at the time.

That's a helluva catch being so close to WCBS.

 

[Bongwater]

I picked up WCCO 830 AM and KSTP 1500 in Seattle once. After Victoria, BC station CKXM 1200 went FM in 1999, I could pick up WOAI in Seattle

 

[AckDX]

Picking up WWLI 105.1 from Providence in Yarmouth,NS. Also while in NS hearing WRZE and CJLS 1 duke it out.

 

[JeeperOne]

My weirdest DX catch is one of the TV kind.

I was at home (Living with my parents at home here in Denver at the time) watching a show on KRDO 13 in Colorado Springs. I forget what it was now, but it was an ABC show which then-ABC affiliate KUSA 9 refused to clear. But then all of a sudden, KRDO disappeared & almost WITHOUT WARNING along comes PBS affiliate KTNE 13 from Alliance, NE.

I distinctly recall what I saw too. It was a promo for an episode of NOVA.

My setup - A 5 inch color TV with (If memory serves me right) the built-in collapseable whip.

It only lasted for a a second or two, but it REALLY got my juices flowing.

Too bad I had no way of recording the event. That would've made for a GREAT YouTube video.

Cheers

 

[JeeperOne]

KBCO 97.3 in Boulder, CO heard in Rome, GA. Sounded like a local station.

Ahh.....A shining example of our mountain tops in action. We're PROUD of them. They beat those lil MOLEHLLS every time. ;D

Cheers

 

[JeeperOne]

The spookiest for me was picking up WBAP 820 early in the fall of 1963. This was a station I knew about as it was joined with WFAA, but could never get in Pittsburgh. I got it only once and we know what happened in Dallas that Nov. Still freaks me out.

Ahh.....But did you get it at THAT FATEFUL DAY & TIME though???

Cheers

 

[JeeperOne]

After Victoria, BC station CKXM 1200 went FM in 1999, I could pick up WOAI in Seattle

Umm.....FYI.....WOAI-AM 1200 is in San Antonio, TX. But still, nice catch.

Cheers

 

[Brother]

After Victoria, BC station CKXM 1200 went FM in 1999, I could pick up WOAI in Seattle

Umm.....FYI.....WOAI-AM 1200 is in San Antonio, TX. But still, nice catch.

Cheers

I'm reasonably certain Bongwater meant he received WOAI on a radio in Seattle.

On topic, receiving several of the European longwave stations over the past few weeks is definitely a weird occurrence for me, especially in St. Louis.

 

[Tincap]

On topic, receiving several of the European longwave stations over the past few weeks is definitely a weird occurrence for me, especially in St. Louis.

Not sure if that would qualify as 'weird', I'd say that was rather exhilarating (getting the LWs here in eastern Ontario, too).

Having Syria's Radio 1 come booming through on 783, over Germany's MDR Info, was a rather unexpected surprise...

~BG

 

[Radio-X]

In terms of FM:

I was working for my high school in VA as a janitor (why they gave kids that age a master key and a golf cart is beyond me). Well, I was sitting in my GMC Sonoma with the 90's style Delco AM/FM radio during lunch tuning in the local rock station on 101.3. That station had just been a victim of a tower collapse, so it was running 6kW on a 25' TV antenna mast...range was maybe 10 miles at best. Anyhow, I happened to hear a pretty old non-rock tune that would never get played on 101.3. Figuring the format got flipped I listened through the decidedly non-hip song. Then I heard "Tilsonburg's Easy 101FM". I knew I had a pretty impressive DX on my hands...figured from Ohio or something. I did some research that evening and found that Tilsonburg is in Ontario and I had picked up CKOT-FM! Mind you, I used to see the tower for our local 101.3 which was only five miles away from the very same parking lot I picked up CKOT-FM

That afternoon/evening turned out to be a huge DX fest on the FM. Regional stations from Richmond and Charlottesville (only 40 miles away) were replaced with stations from QC, ON, Nova Scotia, NE, TX, OK, and KS! I got my money's worth out of the second-hand Magnum-Dynalab tuner I had just purchased in about 4 hours!

Radio-X

 

[gar hi]

Here's one from a couple nights ago.

Being raised a Phillies fan, I still am and have been watching them in the NL playoffs.

The thing is, I got rid of my cable some time ago in favor of HD TV right off the air, so I couldn't watch the NLDS or NLCS at home, so I've been going to a friend's house a couple miles away.

The other night, she wasn't home and I ended up listening to the game on our local ESPN radio affiliate WHBO 1040.

Where I am in Tampa, their signal is kind of weak at night and sometimes has to compete with some distant stations making it hard to hear at times.

During one of these times, I decided to see how 1210 WPHT, the Philadelphia station that carries Phillies broadcasts, was coming in.

For a while, they had a better signal than WHBO and they are more than 1000 miles away.

 

[sox fan matt]

Before I moved home to Dallas/Ft Worth, I could get WBAP pretty much every night in Chicago. It was pretty strong. A few weeks ago, while sitting in my living room, I got WGN AM 720, which was a hell of a catch cause it usually never came in. Too much interference.

 

[boppinvinnieb]

As a ham I hear lots of interesting DX and have talked to just about every corner of the world. But as far as broadcast radio, my weirdest DX wasn't what I heard, but where I was heard!

Back in the mid '90s I worked for a family owned group of stations in East Tennessee. One station was WCLE-AM on 1570, 5kW daytime and a whopping 84 watts at night! One day a package from Finland showed up at the station with a cassette tape and a letter. There was a group of SWLs who would travel to the city of Espoo, Finland, every winter to do some MW and SW DXing. Being north of the Arctic circle and well away from a lot of electrical noise, Espoo is apparently an excellent location for radio listening. Anyway, this group had heard WCLE one Friday afternoon just before power down (we were doing a HS football pregame show), recorded several minutes of their reception and sent us a copy. And my voice was on several of the spots heard during the recording. Wow, that was mind blowing! You better believe I made a copy of that tape!

 

[BRNout]

Here's one from a couple nights ago.

Being raised a Phillies fan, I still am and have been watching them in the NL playoffs.

The thing is, I got rid of my cable some time ago in favor of HD TV right off the air, so I couldn't watch the NLDS or NLCS at home, so I've been going to a friend's house a couple miles away.

The other night, she wasn't home and I ended up listening to the game on our local ESPN radio affiliate WHBO 1040.

Where I am in Tampa, their signal is kind of weak at night and sometimes has to compete with some distant stations making it hard to hear at times.

During one of these times, I decided to see how 1210 WPHT, the Philadelphia station that carries Phillies broadcasts, was coming in.

For a while, they had a better signal than WHBO and they are more than 1000 miles away.

WPHT is a strange one to me because it didn't come in all that well where I lived for about a year and a half in Chester County, PA. Sure, you could listen to it - but it was never strong there and was subject to some light interference now and then. To provide perspective, KYW was twice as strong at my former location. Yet, I would travel and heard it clearly from places like Nashville and eastern Iowa at night....sometimes with as good a signal as I got at home.

Seemed to do poorly with its groundwave signal, yet it's a monster when it comes to skywave.

 

[evolve991]

Alot of Chester county has some deep valleys and steep hills. When I lived in Nottingham we had a hard time getting most PA radio/tv stations and NO hope of any Baltimore stations.

 

[gar hi]

Where I grew up in New Jersey was only a couple miles from 1210's stick.

I remember hearing the old WCAU through my record player and it didn't even have a radio receiver as part of it.

 

[BRNout]

Alot of Chester county has some deep valleys and steep hills. When I lived in Nottingham we had a hard time getting most PA radio/tv stations and NO hope of any Baltimore stations.

We lived near Malvern, on a low hill from which you could see the Roxborough Towers off in the distance. KYW and several other local MW stations sent a better signal to our location than WPHT did. Which I always found to be odd.

 

[AckDX]

Picking up both WBLM and WHOM in Nova Scotia. I picked WHOM up on Brier Island. WBLM was a bit harder to receive, but it can be done. The thing is, you have WCRQ out of Dennysville, and that is nulled off to the west. I was picking up both signals on the Cat, and eventually, towards Cape Forchu, WCRQ took over, but then I drove southward out of Yarmouth towards Cape Sable, and WBLM came in just fine, which amazed me, since the Pubnico area is WELL outside of 'BLM's coverage.

 

[gbranch]

My weirdest DX catch is one of the TV kind.

I was at home (Living with my parents at home here in Denver at the time) watching a show on KRDO 13 in Colorado Springs. I forget what it was now, but it was an ABC show which then-ABC affiliate KUSA 9 refused to clear. But then all of a sudden, KRDO disappeared & almost WITHOUT WARNING along comes PBS affiliate KTNE 13 from Alliance, NE.

I distinctly recall what I saw too. It was a promo for an episode of NOVA.

My setup - A 5 inch color TV with (If memory serves me right) the built-in collapseable whip.

It only lasted for a a second or two, but it REALLY got my juices flowing.

Too bad I had no way of recording the event. That would've made for a GREAT YouTube video.

Cheers

That sounds like Meteor Scatter Propagation to me. A meteor entered the atmosphere somewhere between Denver and Alliance, and for a second the ionized trail of the metor created a reflection point for the signal. Consider yourself lucky - it is very rare to catch meteor scatter dx because of it's unpredictability and short duration.

Sometimes, meteor scatter dx can occur during the yearly Pleiades and Leonids meteor showers.

 

[TANKSBACK]

Boppinvinnieb, I can relate! Late 70's I was doing all-nights on WING, Dayton, Ohio, 5 kw at 1410 a.m.. I got a reel tape from a dx'er in Finland with several minutes of my show coming in pretty clear with minimum noise. I was pumped, covering the globe! ;D