RadioWest.ca

I was listening to CKWX this afternoon, from my listening post here in the eastern valley - I was using a "Grundig G8".
At about 4:35 PM until about 4:40 PM I heard a second signal over WX dominating the frequency for those five minutes. The signal carried music that sounded like Russian or Ukrainian ballads. In the time the station was heard, there was no station ID... So any thoughts about this station?

That would be this station:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KQRR

Here is their 25KW day pattern:

Thanks Jon; The timing was some where about sun set .... I just checked just before posting this and WX is the only station heard on 1130 AM. DXing in the eastern Fraser valley should be interesting through out the winter months. The challenge is the QRM from all the electronics in an apartment building.

Here is a link to the station in question KQRR 1130 AM
http://worldradiomap.com/us-or/play/kqrr_live

TS - if you heard KQRR at 4:35 - 4:40pm they would have still been on day power. January sign-off for Oregon stns at their latitude is 5pm & I can confirm that time from listening/DXing to OR stns

Thanks SkyValeyRadio; I found the link shown above from this site ...(World Radio Mao dot com )
http://worldradiomap.com/
The site looks interesting and from what I can tell, fairly up-to-date... It's well laied out and easy to follow.

They don't seem to interfere with CKWX like they did when they first signed on, but they do batter them at sunrise and sunset out in the valley.

This becomes an issue in the Fraser Valley when CKWX is on night pattern and Oregon is on day pattern and power.

Compare the WX day and night patterns:

(above is the day pattern)

(above is the night pattern)

Note how few of their 50,000 watts are going to the East on Night Pattern.

As indicated, official sunset for Vancouver for the month of January is a lot earlier than official sunset for Portland.

jon wrote:
As indicated, official sunset for Vancouver for the month of January is a lot earlier than official sunset for Portland.

Yep - a whole 11 minutes today.

The interference from Oregon isn't totally a day/night pattern issue. I've been on Highway 1 travelling towards Hope (and beyond) mid morning or early afternoon and these guys obliterate News 1130. A few years ago I read somewhere that their tower height was the issue. They are using short towers. If they were using standard sized towers, the signal that's getting dumped on the Lower Mainland would actually end up in the Cariboo or somewhere other than CKWX';s primary coverage area.

Here in Saskatoon is the same story as the Fraser Valley. Oregon is interference with CKWX but there is a lot of drift from time to time. Usually News 1130 is very very stong like a .05 local up here, but lately I'm listening to Oregon fade in and out providing annoying background to WX. This year seems to be real bad and I don't know why?

As I was listening again last night to the broadcast band I noticed that a couple of stations in Idaho came in loud and clear - almost as strong as Vancouver stations. This begs the question ... How far will a radio signal skip before it is heard outside the primary listening area... I couldn't find anything online to answer this question, but I am sure the "Radio West Brain Trust" will be able to educate me.

Howaboutthat wrote:Yep - a whole 11 minutes today.

Good point. It is a smaller window of time than I expected.

In fact, the official (FCC and Industry Canada) Pattern Change time for a given month is the closest quarter hour to Sunset on the 15th of the month. Which translates, for January, into 5:00 p.m. in Mount Angel, Oregon and 4:45 p.m. in Vancouver.

I'm still surprised that WX wouldn't have a better signal into the Fraser Valley on day pattern. Then again, part of it is the format. Listeners in Vancouver found XETRA annoying during CBU's talk programming in the '60s, and Wolfman Jack on XERB often bothered KING's classical music listeners in Vancouver.

Tape Splicer wrote:As I was listening again last night to the broadcast band I noticed that a couple of stations in Idaho came in loud and clear - almost as strong as Vancouver stations. This begs the question ... How far will a radio signal skip before it is heard outside the primary listening area... I couldn't find anything online to answer this question, but I am sure the "Radio West Brain Trust" will be able to educate me.

No easy answer to that one, in my DX experience. KOL Seattle was usually a problem in Burnaby at night for me back when they were 5000 watts, but they also had a really lousy night pattern. Lan Roberts once told me that he got complaints from listeners that they could not even hear the station in Downtown Seattle at Night.

All that said, KOL was one of those stations where you could hear the ground wave and sky wave phase in and out with each other. So, Seattle is definitely far enough away from Vancouver to get skip.

Tape Splicer wrote:As I was listening again last night to the broadcast band I noticed that a couple of stations in Idaho came in loud and clear - almost as strong as Vancouver stations. This begs the question ... How far will a radio signal skip before it is heard outside the primary listening area... I couldn't find anything online to answer this question, but I am sure the "Radio West Brain Trust" will be able to educate me.

During the winter months KFBK 1530 Sacramento is totally listenable in Greater Vancouver from 3:00 - 3:30PM onwards. Likewise with KGO 810, KBOI 670 in Boise and KKOH 780 Reno to name a few.

Tape Splicer wrote:How far will a radio signal skip before it is heard outside the primary listening area...

This probably doesn't help as it doesn't have much in the way of numbers but it may be a starting point.