CHHA Toronto heard last night

[Toomas Losin]

I noticed voice on 1610 last night but it was English, not Spanish, and was religious. Near the top of the midnight PST hour I heard "you're watching [yes, watching] the University Network" followed by their 1-800-338-3030 phone number. This was followed by a known CHHA sting and a garbled top of the hour ID shortly followed by an intelligible phone number for CHHA, 782-2953.

There was no TOH ID at 01:00 or I missed it due to noise or fading but the female preacher was a fairly consistent murmur at that time suggesting there was no TOH program break like there had been at midnight. After the 01:00 non-ID it would only fade up as murmurs, ending the fun.

At first I thought the preaching might be from the Caribbean Beacon but I'm pretty sure it was all CHHA.

The only other thing of interest heard on 1610 was a weather report which was probably from one of the Coast Guard stations in Washington. This only faded up once and not long enough for the ID.

[jon]

1000 watts at that distance is indeed something to be proud of.

Back in the late 1960s, when 1580 was pretty much a Mexican clear channel, with KDAY Santa Monica pretty much dumping all of their 50,000 watts into the ocean, KBGO Waco, Texas and KLOU St. Charles, Louisiana were always of interest from Vancouver because they were 1000 watts (KBGO was 500 watts at night). Normally, both were only caught at Monday morning signon, but KBGO did show up before sunset in the winter from time to time, with virtually no trace of KDAY's groundwave.

I can't think of any other stations at those kinds of distances that I heard with 1000 watts or less back then.

[Eldon-Mr.CFAY]

Greetings Everyone,
Toomas congratulations on hearing CHHA Toronto on 1610. I have heard them here at night but not that strong! In Toronto I heard their station ID with what sounded like garbled audio back in September 2012 or August. The music and other programming was fine but the station ID in the afternoon sounded a bit garbled. May be their audio equipment for it or whatever. At night they come in here so I will listen for that religious show about Midnight and see if its a regular scheduled show. Will let you know what I get. Have you heard CHTO 1690 out there??? I got them in Langley about 3 AM a year or two ago. Heard them a couple of early wee morning hours.

My best dx catch here in Ontario where I still am has to be 750 Radio Caracas which was drowning out WSB for at least an hour on Christmas Day night around dinner time. Coming in well on my new Grundig 450 AM/FM/Shortwave Portable which seems to work very well here. I was not using an external antenna and it even came in strong upstairs in the noisy appliance kitchen area. First time I had heard South America on the AM Band since I started seriously dxing in January 1967!!! I was pleased to say the least. Most of my AM dxing has been done in Greater Vancouver (north surrey and Langley) and Mission in the Fraser Valley. I had done quite a bit in the Calgary, Alberta area when I lived there from 1983 to 1990 and beyond but never heard South America there. I do remember getting some Mexican stations quite well in Southern Alberta including XERF 1570. I have done dxing in Southern Ontario on numerous visits including this one since 1975 or so. Have heard some great dx catches from the Cobourg area and not bad from Toronto back in the early 80s or late 70s visits too. However Radio Caracas 750 is my best one here so far. The other one I like a lot is WIRJ 740 Humboldt, Tennessee which I heard back in the spring of 2001 before CHWO 740 came on. CBC Toronto had signed off 740 and it was empty in this area. Several all-nights back then I heard WIRJ with real low power, maybe 50 watts at night, their daytime power is only 250 watts too so its a small station. Used to be daytime only till they got night power in the late 80s or early 90s. Programming seemed automated old R and B and Rock Oldies with local stations IDs, weather and the odd commercial. Anyhow I just found cassette airchecks of that dx and did not remember I had taped them back in 2001. So even though they did not verify my written report at least I have an aircheck of the dx here. I consider that a good catch and possibly my second best dx heard on the AM Band from the Cobourg area to date. I was using a GE Superadio Two without a loop antenna to hear them, with the loop it boosted the signal overnight to about S-7 or just above average. Wish they had verified my report back in 2001. Have not heard them since since CFMZ 740 Toronto comes in quite strong at night in the Cobourg area. You can null them out with a loop but requires real careful tuning. They are probably one of the strongest AM stations I can get day and night here from Toronto which is 60 miles west approx...

Anyway congratulations on hearing CHHA 1610 Toomas and I will check to see if that religious program near Midnight is a regular one or just one or two nights a week. Most of the time CHHA programs latin music.

Take care, best of dx in 2013 to you all! Yes Jon interesting to hear of your dx catches with lower power too, those were good as well!!!!

73s Eldon

[Dan Sys]

Jon.....I believe CHHA is now operating with 6,250 watts fulltime. They received approval for technical amendments back in July 2011, so I would imagine the changes have been initiated by now:
http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2011/2011-428.htm

[Toomas Losin]

CHHA pops up every couple of months. I first heard them May 31 2012. I was surprised when I heard English last night as I don't remember hearing anything but Spanish before. That caught my attention. The top of the hour stuff was in Spanish though. At times there were a few Spanish words spoken over the English preaching but I couldn't tell if it was from a second station or an interpreter who wasn't doing much interpretation. The joys of propagation.

The garbled ID I heard had meaningless sounds where I expected to hear call letters. The sounds were "[very garbled word] sea sea sea diez y seis diez A.M. [silence, then unintellibible words]" (pronounce the "sea" in Spanish, not English). The letters do not sound like a garbled "ce hache hache a". I wish I could attach an audio clip of it.

Eldon, I haven't heard CHTO. The only one I've heard on 1690 is KFSG in California. It wasn't very strong so CHTO has a chance of fading up while KFSG has faded out. I'm assuming the two preachers I heard on 1610 were Gene and Melissa Scott. The "University Network" web site shows the program is aired on the Caribbean Beacon but doesn't mention CHHA. That got my hopes up as I haven't heard the Beacon yet. I first tuned in around 2330 PST Friday evening.

[Toomas Losin]

The garbled ID I heard had meaningless sounds where I expected to hear call letters. The sounds were "[very garbled word] sea sea sea diez y seis diez A.M. [silence, then unintellibible words]" (pronounce the "sea" in Spanish, not English). The letters do not sound like a garbled "ce hache hache a".

To follow up.

Last night I heard CHHA better than I have ever heard it before. The above phonetic sounds were actually a CHHA ID, just weak and distorted beyond intelligibility. I heard the same ID again; it's "Estamos escuchando CHHA 1610 AM. Ahora, con diez mil Watts de potencia! [unintelligible] mejor sintonía! Es su radio, es mi radio, es la radio de todo! CHHA 1610 AM. La Voz... La Voz... de la Comunidad." It's fascinating how distortion made the call letters totally not sound like themselves that other night.

I checked the Industry Canada Spectrum Direct web site and it does list a 10 kW entry in addition to 6.3 and 1 kW entries for CHHA. Maybe it actually is 10 kW, not just marketing rounding up 6.3".

[Eldon-Mr.CFAY]

Greetings Everyone,
Toomas glad to hear you got a definite on hearing CHHA 1610 Toronto. Good going on that one!!! That is nice dx catch. Regarding that religious show you mentioned that you thought might be on CHHA late at night. I did check it and did not hear it during one evening this past week. You also mentioned thinking it was the Carribean Beacon and I agree with you I think it was them. I have heard the Carribean Beacon on 1610 out in Surrey and Langley while dxing over the years and not too long ago out in Langley! Of course with KVRI on 1600 in the past few years its a bit more difficult at night but not too hard late at night. KVRI 1600 doesn't have too big a splashover effect on 1610 late at night in the Langley City area.

Toomas do you dx Shortwave at all???? If you do you might try for WBCQ on 5110 khz. at night and this is the time of year to hear it out there. I usually have heard their 7490 khz. transmitter 50kw. signal out there in parks and even at our Langley City apartment location. However 5110 came in a few times too. WBCQ is out of Monticello, Maine and owned by former pirate broadcaster Allan Weiner. On 5110 khz. Shortwave they program some very eclectic shows, a lot of pirate radio productions like the Lumpy Gravy Radio Show and a lot of off the wall rock music programs as well as Glen Hauser's World of Radio which deals with dxing on the shortwave bands, Am and FM. Its been carried by a few stations for years. Glen publishes a dx column in Popular Communications magazine each month I think. Anyway its worth trying for. Allan will send you a real nice QSL Card if you send them a dx report. Yes they are a licensed 50 kw. station and relatively new to the shortwave bands having been licensed in 1998. The other frequency 7490 (used to be 7415 khz) is heard more frequently out there but has more of a mixed bag programming wise with more paid religious programs and preachers. Area 51 as it is nicknamed or 5110 khz. WBCQ is the most interesting and creative to listen to with chief engineer TimTron doing a funny rock show on Saturday nights from 6 PM to 8 PM. By the way Toomas since you dx AM heres a challenge for you: 780 khz. Monticello, Maine, Allan owns and has way before he got WBCQ licensed on shortwave an AM station there. It used to be WREM 710 khz. and a 5 KW Daytimer for years but he moved it to 780 a few years ago and they now operate with lower power at night, I think its around a few hundred watts but daytime power is 5 KW. still. I am trying to remember the call letters which I have heard many times but just can't think of them at the moment. Oh its WXME and its worse than I thought, only about 60 watts night power unless they forgot to crank down the day power which is 5 KW which is possible knowing Allan and his former Pirate activities!!!!! Anyhow you probably would be getting WBBM 780 Chicago but you just never know, it might just come skipping in some sunrise skip morning etc.. Remember Maine is on Eastern Time so it would be at least 3 hours ahead of Pacific Time. Anyway on the AM band I will throw that out as dx challenge to you. Have you heard any AM stations Toomas from the New England States, like WBZ 1030 Boston which of course is 50 KW and Local Talk Shows all the time even all-night!!! They had fantastic coverage of the snowstorm all night last night, In fact I could not stop listening for about 5 hours till 5:30 AM it was so interesting! WBZ is gangbusters at night here in Southern Ontario on 1030, I actually have heard them a few times out in Greater Vancouver too especially in the 1970s! The other one you might try for is WTIC 1080 Hartford, Connecticut which is also high power and on all night. They seem to get out well to the west too although I have not heard them from British Columbia yet.

Well take care and best of dxing to you. Glad you got a definite on CHHA 1610 Toronto, congratulations on that one!

73s Eldon

[Toomas Losin]

I'm very happy with that CHHA catch, thanks.

My guess is that the Caribbean Beacon turned up its power a wee bit for a few days. At that distance I wouldn't expect to hear even a 50 kW station as continuously as I did; I'm guessing 200 kW, unless the ionosphere did something really special. I heard the Beacon again very faintly yesterday for half a minute before tuning elsewhere. It was unintelligible but the sounds were parallel with what was on 6090 kHz.

I used to be an active SWLer. Now I'm just an SWLer who remembers the good old days of international broadcasting. I wasn't much into shortwave DX; I remember my initial fascination with mediumwave when I discovered that I could hear stations further away than Seattle. That discovery was KFBK. Shortwave followed a couple of years later when I wanted to hear the world but I knew that coverage was worldwide, so it didn't have the same DX fascination for me. Even back then I wanted to hear Australia on mediumwave while at the same time I was listening to Radio Australia on shortwave with no difficulty.

No, I didn't do much DX on shortwave. I did look for time signal stations like YVTO, JJY, VNG, and BPM. In fact, I heard BPM under WWV back in December, but these days I don't listen much on shortwave.

I do hear WBCQ on 15420 right now with the R71a but not the G8. Very interesting from a technical point of view: It's not AM, it's USB with enough carrier so that an AM radio will still work. I read about that a couple of years ago: A more efficient mode which is backwards compatible with existing radios, it's like TV's vestigial sideband mode. It does make DXing harder if there's noise that takes out that sideband.

In fact, I need to use USB mode to listen on 1610 because there's local noise that takes out the lower sideband. I use the same technique with the Trans-Pacific stations because there's often a pest on the closest North American frequency. KRPI on 1550 is a good example. It makes it hard to listen for Australia on 1548 even on the lower sideband. I expect that'll be impossible once KRPI fires up the new 50 kW site in Point Roberts.

I have tried to hear WBZ a few times. I have to finish poring over a recording from a few days ago when eastern conditions seemed good. It's harder than normal because I can hear KTWO, KMAS, and a talk station that I haven't identified yet, all trading places as the dominant signal. Still, the reward is worth it if WBZ can poke through it all. Its antenna pattern is pointing this way.

I doubt very much that I could hear WXME on 780, not at 60 W. KKOH is the dominant one on 780 but WBBM has made it through a few times. I've tried to hear KNOM in Nome but haven't despite hearing KICY at the time.

The farthest East I've heard in the US is WJR 760 Detroit, for Canada it's CKDO 1580 Oshawa. It's one of my dreams to hear an east coast station, which is why I've tried for WBZ a few times. Toronto was a goal for years; New York is still a dream; WBZ Boston could happen as the antenna pattern points this way but it's gruelling work due to the pileup on 1030.

WTIC 1080 is much less likely as there's KFXX Portland, KVNI Coeur d'Alene, KSCO Santa Cruz, and KRLD Dallas, all making their presence known. WTIC has a night pattern that points away from here; one would need to catch them when they switch back to day pattern.

What I find enjoyable about Trans-Pacific DX is that many of the frequencies are mostly clear (despite needing single sideband on some). If the ionosphere isn't cooperating then all I hear is noise instead of pests. That's what's nice about 1575, 1566, 1116, 828, or 1098. 1287 has some interference from 1290 but it's minimal. 774 is good when Japan is in but does have interference from 770 that makes AM mode difficult unless 774 is strong.