What a Catch!!!!

[Radio-X]

I'm seeing the parents back in Farmville today and fired up my tuner to do some dial scanning, and I was catching some serious stations today!

- WVHL 92.9 was off the air, and I was pulling in WVBW and...holy mess, later on...WEGX/Dillon
- WRCQ 103.5/Fayetteville
- WDLV-LP!!!! 105.1 Simpson/Greenville NC

Anybody else getting some crazy DXing around these days?

Radio-X

 

[mleach]

Havent done any DX'ing lately myself but a number of years back I did manage to pick up Houston's Mix 96.5 on I-81 just a few miles north of Harrisonburg just before a summertime thunderstorm.

On top of that ( but not nearly so far away ) about a week later I mananged to pick up a number of Hampton Roads and Richmond stations around Winchester such as WGH-FM, Z104, WTVR-FM and WRXL. For a while they came in real good but just as suddenly with the exception of WRXL, they were gone.

 

[dxho]

Yeah, FM conditions in general have been a little more open lately. During some meteor skip in late May, I pulled in KBUZ Topeka, at a thousand miles. Normal conditions is about a hundred mile limit here. When tropo skip is happening, it's about 250 miles. This cool weather really opened up AM for a few days, too.

 

[VARTV]

Havent done any DX'ing lately myself but a number of years back I did manage to pick up Houston's Mix 96.5 on I-81 just a few miles north of Harrisonburg just before a summertime thunderstorm.

I think I caught them the other day... Not sure. I have a Boston Ascoutics HD Radio and left it on 96.5 to see if I could pick WKLR's new HD signal. I just happened to look up at the display and it said "MIX96.5"

 

[Folderol]

I'm seeing the parents back in Farmville today and fired up my tuner to do some dial scanning, and I was catching some serious stations today!

- WVHL 92.9 was off the air, and I was pulling in WVBW and...holy mess, later on...WEGX/Dillon

Wow! As PD of WEGX, I knew we had a big signal - you can hear it on a good day almost to VA up 95 - but I'm guessing this was a good bit further.

Fun to know we could be heard in my old stomping grounds!

Regards,

Randy Wilcox
OM/PD, Qantum Communications
WEGX Florence (Dillon), SC

 

[shadough]

WEGX, isnt that the old Calls for Eagle106 Philly? I've not heard of your station but I still have fond memories of WZNS Z93.

As for DX'ing, from my home in N. VA once I picked up a cluster of stations from Omaha, NB & Souix Falls, SD. Some of stations I recall were Star104.5, KTUF 93 and Z92.

Another time while traveling in the South, around Tallahasee, I picked up a station from home (sort of): WKMZ Martinsburg WV, but also heard WPXY Rochester. and then the opposite happened later while traveling in New Hampshire, heard most of Memphis's radio stations.

I think I managed to get all these on tape somewhere.

 

[VARTV]

WEGX, isnt that the old Calls for Eagle106 Philly?

Yep! That station was hot in the late 80s!

 

[bk77]

Another time while traveling in the South, around Tallahasee, I picked up a station from home (sort of): WKMZ Martinsburg WV,
I think I managed to get all these on tape somewhere.

Back in the mid 1990's a buddy of mine managed to pick up both Winchester's WUSQ-FM ( Q102 ) and Martinsburg's WKMZ
in Speedway, Indiana ( a western suberb of Indianapolis ). He too had them on tape and it was amazing at how clear they came in way over there. Almost as if WUSQ and WKMZ were local Indiana stations.

Just as interesting was the comments I got from both WUSQ and WKMZ about this. My parents at the time bought a new car in Front Royal, VA and at the same time WUSQ was there doing a remote. The jock from Q102 was telling me that over the years they have had reports from quite a few places hundreds of miles of Winchester from those who picked up WUSQ in such places as Atlantic City, Columbus ( Ohio ), and Jackson, Tennessee. He even said once they received a letter from a listener in Fort Collins, Colorado who claimed they too picked up WUSQ but he said that would be totally impossible. Anyway he said it was cool that their signal could reach so far, even if only for a few minutes anyway.

Meanwhile as far as WKMZ goes, when I went to a Martinsburg-Jefferson High School Football game that WEPM ( WKMZ's sister station ) was doing I told their two announcers about the fact that I knew someone who picked up WKMZ in Indianapolis and even has it on tape. Response? They told me that one goes to hell when they lie.

 

[The Beav]

It's been amazing the dx'ing happening these days. I do mornings now in Middle TN, but being from VA I live in hope of catching some stations from "back home". About a month and a half ago we had WNOX 100.3 from Knoxville TN, bleeding all over our 100,000 powerhouse with our studios being only about 25 air-miles from the stick. That same day we had a call from a man living in Pikeville, KY who told us he reported us to the FCC because he quote "knew we were running illegally". He stated we were drowning out his favorite station, WNOX.

Does anyone remember in the early 90's a country station in Richmond called "The Bear"? I want to say the city of license was actually Crewe VA. It seemed like that signal would travel forever some days. More than once I could pick that station up when I was driving home from work in Tazewell, and Buchanan counties. I heard that station is Urban A/C or something now? I never could pick up any other Richmond area radio stations except for that one. WOW, the memories. I need to go to radio-locator and see what's up with all these stations. I have a tape somewhere from my college days. We had a thing going on at the Jefferson-Sheraton hotel in Richmond and after the days functions were over, everyone else went to party, I went to my room and ran tape on all those stations. I have K95, Power99, Billy Surf on WRVQ. Some really cool stuff.

I remember when I was starting in radio back in the late 80's early 90's some of the best skips I ever caught were from Texas. One day I was tooling around Richlands, VA (Southwest VA) and was hearing WACO, KIKK, KPLX, and a host of others. Also while in Wytheville one time and I was picking up K-TEX and KAKJ like they were local.

Since I've been here though I haven't really picked up any true VA stations. I've managed to catch Electric 94.9 once or twice. There studios are in Bristol, VA, but there transmitter is actually in Greenville, TN. The only thing I can pick up constantly is of course WRVA. So that's part of my morning routine, listening to Jimmy Barrett as I make my way to work.

I'm glad I hit the VA board this evening. Thanks for putting up with me recalling some cool memories.

 

[shadough]

A country station from RIchmond thats now Urban? Whats the freq? ANd 'Power99'? Did you mean Power93? Power93 moved down the dial and became Power92 in 1996. The only 99 I remember was the old Magic99, not sure what they are today. That was a unique station, w/ 2 transmitters in 2 very different cities. You could take that station w/ you from basically Fairfax county all the way to the Carolina border. They sold their Spotsylvania (Fredericksburg area) signal some years ago, which became a cool lil CHR for a lil while but is now some sort of rock station.

WOW heres an interesting factoid I didnt know (after reading answers.com). WCDX, Power92/Power93, originally started as a CHR in 1985 (well that I remember, I have a vauge recollection of lazer93) & none other than Kid Kelly was 1 of their djs.

 

[Radio-X]

Does anyone remember in the early 90's a country station in Richmond called "The Bear"? I want to say the city of license was actually Crewe VA. It seemed like that signal would travel forever some days. More than once I could pick that station up when I was driving home from work in Tazewell, and Buchanan counties. I heard that station is Urban A/C or something now?

Well, to relive my Richmond radio memories...

104.7 upped its power in like 1985 to cover Richmond. Before that, it was on WSVS-AM's tower in Crewe as a Southside VA station. They put the 1000' tower in NE Nottoway County...and it's a crazy flamethrower. K-95 in Richmond bought 104.7 in 1991 and put the "classic" country there as the Bear and turned K-95 to hot country.

In '95, seeing that Richmond had no hard rock station and that The Bear was really not doing well billing wise, so they flipped it to the Buzz. Then to Oldies...then in '98 it became KISS 104.7. They moved the gospel signal to 104.7 and put KISS on 99.3 and 105.7.

But the signal is pretty sweet. I picked it up very easy on 81 in Pulaski like a local. and down in Raleigh no problem.

Radio-X

 

[The Beav]

Now that you mentioned it it may have been Magic99 not Power99. Like I said I have the tape somewhere, I have not listened to it for a LONG while. I haven't been back in that area since the mid 90's. That 104.7 signal was a monster.

 

[CRadioVO]

Hey guys... long time lurker - new poster. And a fellow radio geek here - and I work in radio - lucky me! I love DX-ing stories! So here's mine...

Somebody mentioned that they got The Buzz from Wichita a couple weeks ago. I got just about the entire FM dial from that city one night about two months ago. While sitting in my garage in Greensboro no less. I was driving home and scanning the dial when it stopped on 105.3. Usually it stops on 105.1 (G105). They were in a stopset and some mattress commercial came on... "Wichita's Number One for Mattresses"... I almost drove off the road. I got home and sat in my garage and The Buzz stayed strong. Then I started flipping around. Spanish language KYQQ (1065) blew over The End from Charlotte - Oldies KEYN (1037) blew past WSOC - AC KRBB (979) came in crystal clear, and KZCH (963) fought with ROV - and I caught the tail end of the Rocker KICT (951) as the "window" closed. It was amazing!

Growing up in Fairfax County, I remember getting WNOR over WMZQ a couple summer mornings. Pulling in the old 93DLX from Washington, NC over WFLS in Fredricksburg. WAFX from Suffolk would come in clear a lot (of course you could pull that in north of Fredricksburg just about any day). And one morning I was driving to a summer job stocking shelves at local Safeways and Giants... and I am listening to 99.1 HFS. All of a sudden... hash... fuzz... and then hip-hop. Turns out it was WZFX/Foxy 99.1 from Fayetteville, NC. After about 15 minutes of this the morning guy comes on and mentions that WHFS is coming in loud and clear in Fayetteville, and that they were getting calls down there from the Alterna-freaks in DC complaining about the music! "So to all you HFS listeners... uhhhhh.... here's LL Cool J" Too funny! And one day I do remember getting some stations from New Orleans... I was very young when this happened, but I do remember a jingle to effect of "The Crescent Citys Best Music".

One more story... my wife and I were moving to Omaha, NE in July of 1995. Travelling northbound on I-29 in Southwestern Iowa, my radio stops on 101.3. Some Led Zeppeling song blasting. And then "(bang) Corpus Christi's Rock Station C-101"... keep in mind that I had been driving for two days straight in a Ryder truck that wouldn't go faster than 65. I was pissed, tired and delirious. I thought I was dreaming.

Keep the DX stories coming!! Cheers... cr