Interesting time of year

[Toomas Losin]

As sunrise becomes later and later and the sun angle changes, the mornings become more intersting. Two mornings in a row I've woken up, turned off the recorder, and then turned up the volume on the radio and found Asian DX still happening. On both days 1566 and 1575 had voice and the Japanese NHK stations on 747, 774, and 828 only had carrier. This would be around 07:30 PDT.

It's amusing that the other day I didn't hear North Dakota on 970 (instead it was Oregon that was in the splatter from CKNW) but I did easily hear HBC Radio from Sapporo on 1287 with many "HBC Radio" English IDs. Yes, Japan was easier than North Dakota! In fact, voice on 1287 has happened more often than on 774 recently. Surprising, as 1287 is allegedly 50 kW compared to 774's 500 kW; maybe they're directional this way?

[jon]

And your quest for the Dakotas brought up an amusing coincidence here. Just after 9pm Mountain Daylight on Thursday night, I was checking out 1200 on the car radio, and there was KFNW from Fargo with a very solid signal. Not sure how recent it is, but they had a big power increase with a new four tower directional array. Edmonton seems to be on the edge of the Northern lobe, as their 13KW night power sounded like much more.

The pattern, to protect WOAI San Antonio, is shown here:
http://www.fccinfo.com/CMDProEngine.php?sCurrentService=AM&tabSearchType=Appl&sAppIDNumber=1316214&sHours=N

This could be quite new, and I reported it to the IRCA's DX Monitor, since there is no report of reception of them by anyone so far this DX season.

[Eldon-Mr.CFAY]

Hi Everyone,
Hope you are having a good weekend! We are having a rainy one but its going to get worse between Monday night and Wednesday as the tail end of that Hurricane hits New York City and reaches Southern Ontario with a lot of rain and some wind! Some reports were calling it the perfect storm since another storm from the west was to combine with it but todays reports are not as dramatic!!! Personally I think there will just be heavy rain at times with some strong wind gusts certainly not Hurricane Force Winds in Toronto or Southern Ontario though. New York City is calling for stronger winds etc. so be interesting to see if any AM stations are reporting it all or knocked off the air from the NYC. area. Will keep you posted on that when I monitor WCBS etc on 880 Monday night to Wednesday.

As far as DX goes we were too busy survey trading and checking out coverage maps etc. to do any serious dxing Thursday night here. Did get one station underneath 1170 AM WWVA from Wheeling , W.V> but could not identify it!!! WWVA was just blasting in stronger than usual with some Black Gospel music and preaching show about 8 PM Eastern Time Thursday night. Their regular format is NewsTalk but they have some paid religious shows at night. My Ohio radio friend was telling me WWVA still has their longtime country live jamboree show on weekend nights though, I think Saturday night. Anyway underneath it seemed like some talk or spanish talk station on 1180. Sorry I got my frequency mixed, it was underneath WHAM 1180 Rochester which is 50,000 watts and usually strong day and night here. However on Thursday night after 7 PM they were not as strong and there was this unid. talk or spanish talk station on 1180 which we could not identify. Not sure where it was coming from, it was from the south. We both tried listening for over half an hour and it would fade up creating interference to WHAM but no station Id., in the meantime WHAM 1180 seemed to have a weaker signal on Thursday night. Earlier in the afternoon they were full strength as usual with local newstalk format. WHAM 1180 and WWVA 1170 are both 50 KW.. WWVA was coming in much stronger than WHAM on Thursday night practically all night with very little fading at all!!!!

Thats great Toomas on hearing Japan while trying for North Dakota. Great DX. You might try for KEYZ 660 Williston, N. Dakota although the pattern may not be that good at night towards Vancouver. They do get out well with their local country music format, lots os local commercials and station Ids etc.. Congratulations Jon on hearing KFNW 1200 North Dakota in Edmonton. Thats a good catch and I have never heard them on their old frequency either. Thanks for letting us know they moved to 1200 and the technical data too. Its amazing that no one had yet reported it in IRCA but I am glad you did!!!!! Wonder if Bruce Portzer or Pat Martin can hear it out on the west coast of the USA???? Again coverage pattern may not be good in that direction!

Anyway will keep you posted on any radio station coverage out here of Hurricane Sandy hitting the USA East Coast. Hopefully it won't create much damage around the New York City area or New England. There have been some flood warnings posted for this already! No snow is predicated in Toronto or Southern Ontario from it although the temperatures have dropped some from the really nice past week.

Take care everyone and continued good dxing this fall to you!!! Hope you are enjoying the nice fall colors!

73s Eldon

[Toomas Losin]

Sigh, the Lower Mainland would barely get any of KFNW's signal, being in the null between the main and side lobes; plus, we have CJRJ on 1200.

I looked at the patterns for North Dakota stations and decided that the three most likely ones here are KXMR 710, KVOX 740, and WDAY 970. WDAY's night pattern is poor but serviceable here but I didn't hear them even after they should have switched to day pattern. KIRO in Seattle on 710 can be nulled with a loop but KXMR would need to be on its day pattern. KVOX could be lost in splatter from CHMJ 730; their normal traffic-talk doesn't splatter but the music bits do. I haven't tried listening for KXMR or KVOX yet.