Now a days the AM Dial is so packed you can't pic up anything really far..
Why diod they call it Kilocycle back in the day??
Why diod they call it Kilocycle back in the day??
DavidEduardo said:
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Why is KDON So Strong?
- Thread starter travisl5678
- Start date
MarioMania said:
The original term was "cycle" as in kilocycle, megacycle, etc. To honor Heinrich Hertz, an early scientist in the field of electromagnetism, any periodic phenomenon is measured in cycles per second. A station whose signal is at an interval of 570,000 cycles per second is said to be on 570 kilocycles, and with the renaming, on 570 kiloHertz or kHz. The US usage of kilocycles and megacycles changed to kiloHertz and megaHertz in the 70's.
As I noted on the Sacramento board here, Mr. Eduardo's California QSL collection is an amazing and wonderful treasure. As with DK, I did most of my DXing in the Eastbay (and the majority of that in Union City) and had hardly the luck that DFG had in Cleveland!
My bests were WGN/Chicago and KDKA/Pittsburgh, plus one Honolulu station whose call letters escape me now.
Used to love getting WWL/New Orleans, KTWO, Casper WY, KRVN/Lexington NE and KOMA/Oklahoma City on a regular basis -- stations that gave you the real feel of their respective cities.
My bests were WGN/Chicago and KDKA/Pittsburgh, plus one Honolulu station whose call letters escape me now.
Used to love getting WWL/New Orleans, KTWO, Casper WY, KRVN/Lexington NE and KOMA/Oklahoma City on a regular basis -- stations that gave you the real feel of their respective cities.
BossRadioDJ said:
Based on what was heard east of the Mississippi, the Honolulu stations were
650 KORL Once WSM went off Sunday night, easiest by far. Had several later sets of calls.
870 KAIM second easiest.
760 KGU Not as easy, but when WJR was off occasionally appeared.
830 KIKI despite its 250 watts, this at one time was an empty channel after WCCO went off on Monday morning, at least until Salta, Argentina signed on at about 4 AM.
1270 KNDI For a high regional channel, 1270 could be empty and KNDI was DXable.
690 KULA, 1380 KPOI, 1040 KHVH. Rare, even on empty channels. 940 KAHU and other calls was suspected, once, but never fully IDed.
I've always been facinated by how some people can seperate a station from the clutter that was everything between 1240 and 1490 just about everywhere in the USA at night decades ago. With PSAs and all the old daytimers now able to operate at night it is twice as bad today--as are the receivers!
Is it the antenna, the selectivity of the receiver, do you have some kind of filtering device?
I'd love to know...
Is it the antenna, the selectivity of the receiver, do you have some kind of filtering device?
I'd love to know...
Back in the day (says The World's Youngest Old Fart) it was a matter of patience, stupidity and nothing better to do, coupled with a great Radio Shack TRF radio and a longwire antenna, plus a decided lack of RF interference where I lived.
Most of my very best catches were in the wee small hours of the morning, listening intently at the top of the hour for a solid signal (please don't fade, please don't fade) in time for the station ID. Was there anything better than tracking a station for an hour, then getting a fade right at the TOH ID?
No, I didn't go out on a lot of dates in high school. How exactly did you know that?
Most of my very best catches were in the wee small hours of the morning, listening intently at the top of the hour for a solid signal (please don't fade, please don't fade) in time for the station ID. Was there anything better than tracking a station for an hour, then getting a fade right at the TOH ID?
No, I didn't go out on a lot of dates in high school. How exactly did you know that?
And you people did all this DXing as Kids/Teens? I'd be surprised if a kid today could name two AM Stations, not to mention a distant AM.Of course with the exception of me.(check my peofile if you're confused)
Dusty Dale Brooks said:
For my AM DX I used any of 3 radios: (1) a Philco 41-290 built in 1940 and looking like a jukebox. Here's a URL to a photo of that model: http://www.tuberadioland.com/philco41-290_main.html It had a movable loop around the 15-inch speaker. You could rotate the loop about 75 degrees. It also had a trimmer for the loop and an external antenna connection. The loop was actually better than using an external because the loop didn't pick up ignition noise and arcing from power lines, etc.
(2) was a Silvertone AM-FM & phono console radio with the FM detector tube removed. The dial cord was missing and I tuned it from the back by rotating the varicap by hand. Because I knew AM DX so well I didn't need to see the frequencies; I knew them by heart -- 1050, 1060, 1070, 1080, 1090, etc -- from the sound of each station. I pulled in KTWO in Casper WY within the first day or two of its nighttime authorization because it suddenly appeared where I hadn't heard much of anything before. I also heard WBZ on that radio. My antenna for the Silvertone consisted of a badly tuned rhombic wire antenna. The theory of the rhombic antenna is that it focuses 4 lobes to increase signal strength dramatically -- and it does if the wire is long enough. But on AM? Are you kidding? A true AM rhombic would have been huge! Here's a photo of the rhombic antenna in theory: http://www.tpub.com/neets/book10/42o.htm The forward gain is huge (at the right frequency) because of the multiplying factor. But I build mine for the 41-49 meter SW band, not for AM, and its results on AM, while impressive, weren't anything like they could have been had I been able to construct the whole thing at the proper wavelength (which would have required the use of the back yards of two neighbors.
(3) was a Philco AM car radio circa 1955 -- a tube model that ran on 6 volts with a, what did they call it, a vibrator, an oscillator -- that buzzing thing that created AC for the power supply. Anyhow, I put a vertical wire up the side of the house and into a nearby tree (the Bay Area doesn't have lightning, so I wasn't worried). Those old car radios gave stupendous reception with their really hefty front-ends and precise antenna trimming (that paralleled the tuning). I used the Philco car radio to tune in CKLW in Windsor, and once even PJB in Bonaire when CKLW was off for maintenance.
All three radios were already decades old when I used them, and tubes were difficult to come by. I can't say that I've had a radio since that was as good as any of the 3, except maybe the Radio Shack DX-440 (aka the Sangean 803a).
Oh, and I once had a navy surplus longwave radio which pulled in a bunch of beacons and some 540-600khz broadcasters, too. Never did get England or anything, but then I didn't know much about building longwave antennas in those days. Heck, I was only, what, 15 years old...
Dusty Dale Brooks said:
My first DX grade receiver was a Zenith trans.oceanic. That was quickly replaced by a Hallicrafters SX 99, a medium entry level communications receiver. By about 1960 I had obtained a Hammarlund HQ180, an 18 tube monster with a pretty well calibrated dial and excellent selectivity and sensitivity. I added a Heathkit Q Multiplier for added selectivity. I used a 30" altazimuth loop antenna under the highest part of the roof, rotated by a TV antenna rotor and tilted and tuned by servos. I was in one of the inner suburbs of Cleveland, but the noise level of the early 60s was not high and I built up to about 2,400 verifications in around 4 years.
Icangelp said:
Texas and MS are on the site. The rest are in a file in a basement 1800 miles from here.
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