Worst places to DX

[rbrucecarter5]

Motels/hotels are generally noisy places but the Stratosphere took the cake...

Sounds like neon interference - the WORST. Give Vegas a few years - it will all be LED. Brighter, more reliable, and less power.

 

[wxman76]

Big Bend National Park TX-you can pick up a lot of static, several Mexican stations and that's IT!

Big Bend National Park is quite possibly the biggest radio wasteland in the lower 48. There are literally 5 stations within a 100 mile radius of the park, and most of those are low wattage.

During the day on AM, about the only two listenable stations are 550 KCRS out of Midland and 1570 out of Ciudad Acuna. At night, you can pick up some of the American clearchannels that are within a 1000 miles (such as WBAP, WAOI, WWL and KOA), but not much more than that on a regular basis besides Mexican stations.

On FM, the only station you can usually pick up is from Ojinaga, Mexico. If you are parked up high on an overlook in the park, you can pick up a few rather weak signals from Alpine, Marfa, Fort Stockton and Pecos areas. If you are really high, you can pick out some even fainter signals from some of the C1s from Midland/Odessa and Carlsbad, NM and Chihuahua, Mexico. Even up high, most of the frequencies are nothing but static.

 

[OKCRadioGuy]

How about places where there is a large deposit of iron orr? There's a place between OKC and Tulsa on highway 66 where AM radio pretty much goes totally away...

 

[orange434]

Big Bend National Park TX-you can pick up a lot of static, several Mexican stations and that's IT!

Big Bend National Park is quite possibly the biggest radio wasteland in the lower 48. There are literally 5 stations within a 100 mile radius of the park, and most of those are low wattage.

During the day on AM, about the only two listenable stations are 550 KCRS out of Midland and 1570 out of Ciudad Acuna. At night, you can pick up some of the American clearchannels that are within a 1000 miles (such as WBAP, WAOI, WWL and KOA), but not much more than that on a regular basis besides Mexican stations.

On FM, the only station you can usually pick up is from Ojinaga, Mexico. If you are parked up high on an overlook in the park, you can pick up a few rather weak signals from Alpine, Marfa, Fort Stockton and Pecos areas. If you are really high, you can pick out some even fainter signals from some of the C1s from Midland/Odessa and Carlsbad, NM and Chihuahua, Mexico. Even up high, most of the frequencies are nothing but static.

but again for fm dxers it's absolutely the complete opposite...having an empty local dial is a great thing when it comes to dxing e-skip. if your timing is right and you catch an e-skip opening there during the e-skip season, big bend is in an ideal location to get openings from places like san francisco, los angeles, salt lake city, minneapolis, st. louis, chicago, nashville, indianapolis, atlanta, and tampa among many other locations in a general 800-1400 mile range from there. not to mention openings down into the southern part of mexico too.

 

[BobOnTheJob]

Big Bend National Park TX-you can pick up a lot of static, several Mexican stations and that's IT!

Big Bend National Park is quite possibly the biggest radio wasteland in the lower 48. There are literally 5 stations within a 100 mile radius of the park, and most of those are low wattage.

During the day on AM, about the only two listenable stations are 550 KCRS out of Midland and 1570 out of Ciudad Acuna. At night, you can pick up some of the American clearchannels that are within a 1000 miles (such as WBAP, WAOI, WWL and KOA), but not much more than that on a regular basis besides Mexican stations.

On FM, the only station you can usually pick up is from Ojinaga, Mexico. If you are parked up high on an overlook in the park, you can pick up a few rather weak signals from Alpine, Marfa, Fort Stockton and Pecos areas. If you are really high, you can pick out some even fainter signals from some of the C1s from Midland/Odessa and Carlsbad, NM and Chihuahua, Mexico. Even up high, most of the frequencies are nothing but static.

but again for fm dxers it's absolutely the complete opposite...having an empty local dial is a great thing when it comes to dxing e-skip. if your timing is right and you catch an e-skip opening there during the e-skip season, big bend is in an ideal location to get openings from places like san francisco, los angeles, salt lake city, minneapolis, st. louis, chicago, nashville, indianapolis, atlanta, and tampa among many other locations in a general 800-1400 mile range from there. not to mention openings down into the southern part of mexico too.

I'll second that motion...the goal is to have almost zero locals & semi-locals. Imagine a location where you could use an "FM Scanner" that sprang to life only when DX popped in? How cool would that be? I'd be happy just to not have same channel class A's battling each other on my clock radio...the above mentioned location is probably a fair description of what heaven will be like for DXers...

 

[Bongwater]

FM

BEST: The plateaus near Vantage, WA. Once picked up WBBM-FM Chicago up there. You can often just move your antenna around and find several different stations from several different areas from Lloydminister, Alberta (CKLM) down to Salt Lake City (KUUU)

WORST: NW Washington State. Once a FM DX'ers paradise with hills you can set up antennae and clearly recieve signals as far off as Yakima, Winnipeg and KAHM in Prescott, AZ. Today, Canadian stations occupy most of the FM band here.

AM/LW:

BEST: North Puget Sound is the best place, with Canadian AMs fleeing to FM, it's not unusual to hear WCCO and KSTP, Minneapolis and for a while, WOAI San Antonio before a Vancouver station picked up the 1200 kHz frequency. Most Seattle area AM stations here have very directional signals and most just miss this area.

On Long Wave, it's not uncommon to catch the BBC Longwave service and stations in Germany and Morocco as well as pirates and experimenters from the East Coast

WORST: The East Coast. With so many stations, the AM dial is almost wall to wall bedlam. Many stations with very low nighttime power levels (27 watts or so) just opt for daytime operation because the interference from other stations kills them within less than a mile of their transmitters.

SW

BEST: On a mountaintop far away from civilization.

WORST: ANYWHERE in a city because you're likely near other people with TVs, computers, power transformers, etc....

 

[charlestondxman]

FM

Best: Daytona Beach, FL. Anywhere on the bridges going to Daytona Beach, or even up in your hotel room, with your walkman, you can pick up FMs clear from Miami (100.7) all the way to Charleston (102.5, with probably 3-4 others during good DX). All of Jacksonville's FM's were clear, along with St. Augustine's. With Daytona Beach only having like 8 or 9 FM's, all of the signals from Orlando and the Brevard County area were pretty clear, too.

Even Tampa and most of Savannah's big FMs came in well, meaning almost every frequency had a station on it (middle of summer)

Worst: Isle of Palms, SC. Since it is only about 2-3 miles from most of Charleston's FM transmitters, there is intermod on almost all of the frequencies that you could DX, and even on the local stations that are not from that transmitter site.

AM

Best: Tie between Eastern Shore of VA and most of the Jersey Shore. On the Eastern Shore of VA, due to only 1 local AM station (1330), you can pick up the AMs from Washington and Baltimore as clear as you could in Annapolis, all of the New York clears, and Norfolk's stations. Through most of the Jersey Shore, you can pick up WBZ in Boston, several of the AMs in Providence (like 790 and 630), and many stations from Long Island and Atlantic City come in up and down the shore.

Worst: Many places around the Upstate of SC. Even though WBT in Charlotte and WSB in Atlanta are only a 100 or so miles away, their signals are weak at best in most of the area. Most of the AMs in that area are lucky to cover 15 miles, due to the bad ground conductivity.

TV

Best: Daytona Beach and Clinton, SC. There, on a walkman in Clinton, I picked up all of the Upstate stations (4, 7, 13), WIS, Columbia, Channel 3 and 9 from Charlotte, Channels 2 and 8 from the Triad, WSB and WXIA, I believe, from Atlanta, and even WRAL from Raleigh, and even Augusta. Not bad to get all those markets from a small town in SC.

At Daytona Beach, on a good night, you can easily pick up Savannah's TV stations, along with Jacksonville, Orlando, Tampa, even West Palm Beach.

Worst: Athens, GA. You're lucky to get the Atlanta signals, from 65 miles away, and it is too far usually for the Augusta stations to reach. Channel 4 and 13 from Greenville do come in, but its tough due to the long distance involved.

 

[cyberdad]

As far as AM radio goes, probably any hotel room on the Las Vegas strip. At night, I could only hear KDWN and KXNT. The rest of the stations were nothing but a very heavy buzzing sound.

Of course, once you get on 1-15 and leave the city limits, some excellent DXing is available right on your car radio!

 

[Rob]

BEST: macomb, il
WORST: washington, DC or va!! (The FM band is crowded!))

and yes, i know a ham there that has logged several tv and FM stations from macomb, il. a lot of D TVs too.

http://www.oldtvguides.com/DXPhotos/

-Rob

 

[RADIO TRUTH]

I will tell you one of the best dxing stories. I used to sit in the old Madison Square Garden in New York City and dx CBL 740, Toronto, and CBM 940, Montreal, and listen to the play by play of the visiting announcers.....Foster Hewitt for the Toronto Mapleleafs and Danny Gallivan for the Montreal Canadiens while I was actually at the game they were broadcasting as the visiting team. I could see them in the press box as they were doing the play by play and watch their mouths move. It was no problem getting out of town 50000 watt stations at the old Madison Square Garden.

 

[dxer2_2000]

I've been told that Hobart Tasmania is shocking. The overload is sooooo bad you have trouble sorting out the main FM frequencies from the overload! I haven't been there myself.

IMD overload is also a real problem in Canberra. This I have experienced myself - on a High end tuner too!

dxer2_2000

 

[mimo]

The north side of Calgary in the 80's was just as bad. There were only 8 stations then, and a HUGE gap between 95.9 and 102.1. All the stations walked all over each other up and down the entire dial, and not a single one was listenable. The dial is all filled in now, and I can't even imagine how bad it is today.

 

[kc0ltv]

For AM, it's going to be noisy locations, or places with a lot of local AM broadcasters running IBOC. A big city doesn't necessarily mean no AM DX, however. When I was in Spain, I mostly stayed in very dense city centers and still was able to hear something on most every frequency. When I was in Meknes, Morocco (or was it Marrakesh?), the band was very DX'able save for what seemed to be the hotel's blinking neon light. Whenever it'd blink, there'd be noise.

Noise from electronic devices or BPL can really kill shortwave reception. Again, I stayed at a hostel on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in 2007, and I was able to hear shortwave stations from inside the hostel with what seemed like better quality than from inside my house.

Bad locations for FM and TV tropo DX are going to be those with 1) lots of nearby stations, and/or 2) depressed terrain. The West Duluth neighborhood of Duluth, where I work, is really bad - lots of nearby stations, and low terrain (630 feet elevation, vs. 1300 feet at my house). At home, in the car radio, I usually (more or less) can hear stations out as far as Minneapolis, 124 miles to the south; definitely at least Iron Range stations. Well, I've only heard Minneapolis a few times in West Duluth (it seems like a miracle), and I can't hear the Iron Range stations 60 miles away, and WKLK, Cloquet, about 10 miles to the west, just barely comes in. However, low terrain is less of an issue with E-Skip.

Areas without many nearby stations are great for FM. A 100 kW Class C FM signal can easily travel 200 - 300 miles if no other stations are on the frequency. While up on the North Shore of Minnesota in what seemed like low tropo conditions (when I got back), I was able to hear Minneapolis, St. Cloud, and Green Bay stations from 230 - 260 miles away on my car radio - sometimes even at low elevations. There are very few stations in that region.

Also, many of here have listed areas with virtually no local stations - that can be a good thing! No locals on FM can mean the band is wide open for E-Skip. No locals on AM, and poor groundwave conductivity, should mean that distant skywave stations will be all that come in at night.

Speaking of that, one of the most

 

[cyberdad]

A big city doesn't necessarily mean no AM DX, however.  When I was in Spain, I mostly stayed in very dense city centers and still was able to hear something on most every frequency. 

This is also the case at the Grosvenor Square Marriott in Central London.  Good DX here day and night (as long as you're not in a room facing the inner courtyard). France, Belgium, and The Netherlands all clearly audible during the day.  Pretty much the entire continent is represented at night.  I've spent more than a few evenings after dinner in the pub listening to NFL or NCAA hoops playoffs on U.S. armed forces radio on 873khz from Germany....a very easy nighttime catch.

 

[crainbebo]

FM:
Best: Anywhere between Hyak and Thorp, WA. There I could pick up Seattle, Yakima and even a bit of Tri-Cities!
Worst: Anywhere in Seattle. The transmitters are so close to you, that you will see overpowering on every DX channel, even 107.9!
AM:
Best: The cascades. Anywhere when you are on top of a big hill or mountain, you can get AM better than on the ground. Like, when we were driving over the pass, KHHO 850 was clear.
Worst: Yakima, WA: In Union Gap, all you can pick up is the Yakimas, a couple Pasco's, KTBI, and that's it, other than overpowering skip, even with a good radio.

-crainbebo

 

[kenglish]

Worst places to DX? Anywhere near a shopping mall, or power lines that belong to Rocky Mountain Power.

Best places to DX: Probably adjacent to an FCC Monitoring Station, since they like to keep things clean. Also, the National Radio Observatory. ;D

 

[tomservo]

Worst places to DX? Anywhere near a shopping mall, or power lines that belong to Rocky Mountain Power.

Best places to DX: Probably adjacent to an FCC Monitoring Station, since they like to keep things clean. Also, the National Radio Observatory. ;D

Sitting under the stick of a 50 kW clear channel AM is also not a good place for MW DX.

BTW, I think you'd get in trouble at the NRO or near Sugar-whatever-it's-called, where the ECHELON program is active... Your radio generates its own RF.

 

[fortmill]

Actually, the radio waves around the NRAO in Sugar Grove WV are not as quiet as you might expect. There is a 5kw AM station (daytime only, 1370kc) about ten miles away in the big city of Frost WV which booms in, and WSVA 550 from Harrisonburg VA is recievable daytime At night, all the usual clear channel AMs usually recieved in the mid-Atlantic come in, as you would expect. I often drove by the NRAO when I lived in the area and always was able to recieve FMs from Roanoke VA and Bluefield WV right at the front gate. Though virtually everyone in the area now has cable or satelite, many of the homes in the area still have large TV antennas on the roof, so obviously there are some TV signals in the air. OTOH, don't expect to get any cell-phone service there--the NRAO will not allow it. They are particularly concerned with microwave signals which are not allowed in any form. Yes, they most certainly will hunt down leaky microwave OVENS within about a five mile radius of the site---they replace the offending ovens with models with no leakage, at no cost to the homeowner....

 

[SML]

Heck, if your tractor has a bad spark plug wire and you are running it anywhere within 15 miles, the NRAO staff will hunt you down and fix it for free.

 

[kc0ltv]

The more central neighborhoods of Duluth, MN are an absolute FM DX hell, especially the lower neighborhoods (at 600' ASL, in relation to the surrounding elevation of 1,200 - 1,400 ft ASL). Something about several class-C1 blowtorches being 2 miles away and seemingly thousands of feet up in relation to you makes for a terrible intermod situation on the FM dial, with 94.9 coming in at 92.5 and 88.7 and 98.9 coming in at 101.0 and 103.9, etc.

Away from the city (in either direction) is much better, but even at 9 miles from the transmitters at an elevated location weak intermod can still be heard on all but the best tuners. Heck, even at 20 miles from the transmitters I managed to have intermod on my DX-398. Loud intermod from my local FM stations could also be heard 9 miles away on empty shortwave frequencies.

For AM, it's not so bad if you can get away from the noise, which is surprisingly easy to do due to the many undeveloped areas of the city.