Good Asian conditions last night

[Toomas Losin]

It began with me listening to some domestic DX last night. At 21:40 PDT WCCO 830 was loud'n'clear for a few minutes (but faded before the top of the hour). On 890 I hoped to hear WLS but instead, beneath a quiet song on CJDC, I heard a weather report that mentioned Kachemak Bay which was certainly from KBBI in Homer; strong but faded out after two minutes. Later, during another moment of quiet on CJDC I heard a WLS call (yay!). KBBI is a daily occurance on 890 recently but I haven't hung around on 830 or 890 long enough to log WCCO or WLS in a couple of years.

Later in the night, being awake around 00:30 PDT, I tuned to 870 to try for WWL. What happened is one of those moments that only a DXer could love. I was away from the radio for a few minutes and when I got back I was annoyed by some new QRM; that annoyance turned to excitement when I realized that the QRM was a strong 3 kHz het from 873. That was probably from JOGB in Japan, as a few hours later in the morning I heard the NHK pips at 13:00 UTC and audio that was parallel to 828 (an eikaiwa program - I love those!).

Interestingly, while listening live to 873 I heard the NHK pips at 13:00 UTC but I did NOT hear some faint pips from China National Radio a second later which were revealed when I reviewed the recording later with audacity. The pips were seen visually on the spectroscope display and were then found to be faintly audible on playback. Ten minutes later I could hear audio from two stations; the stronger was Japanese but the weaker was unintelligible but likely was the CNR station producing some audio. So both Japan and China on 873 made it to the Lower Mainland this morning.

[jon]

I was only using the car radio, but North American conditions to the South and East were excellent here in Edmonton last night when I spent some time just before 11pm MDT and around 2am. Most DX frequencies had two or more stations, and they were not mixing products from the nearby 50KW transmitters along my route.

Here are the dominant ones I am virtually certain of:
1570 XERF, in Spanish, of course; no Wolfman reruns, unfortunately
1580 Oshawa, with Oldies
1590 WAKR Akron, with Oldies
1700 Des Moines, running CBS Sports

In retrospect, that is an interesting list, as all are different powers: 100KW, 10KW, 5KW and 1KW, respectively. Great to hear XERF and WAKR again, regulars from my '60s DX days in Burnaby.

Cruising around 680, I was surprised that, at night, CHFA ever adequately served Lac La Biche and other areas cited in the CRTC application by the CBC. KNBR San Francisco is just so strong whenever I check. Not as strong as KBOI-670 in Boise, but close.

Not really DX, but interesting that KFBK-1530 came in loud and clear with no audible IBOC splatter from 1520 Snohomish despite their huge signal into here.

[Eldon-Mr.CFAY]

Greetings Everyone,
Well it appears that Wednesday night, October 23rd, 2013 was a good night for dx for a lot of people. As I previously went into detail under the FM DX thread I had great results with hearing Radio Caracas 750 khz. from Caracas , Venezuela for only the second time in my life. I first started dxing in Jan. 1967 and am mainly a domestic (USA and Canada) AM dxer but South American stations on AM have always interested me for Foreign dx targets. Well within the past 11 months here I have heard one South American AM station twice, Radio Caracas. Last night I was ready and taped 90 minutes of it. As a nice bonus I also heard KERR 750 Polson, Montana during a 10 minute fadeout about 11:30 PM Eastern Time last night. First time I have heard any AM station in Toronto or here in the Cobourg area on any of my many visits and dxing in the past 35 years to Southern Ontario from the State of Montana. I have heard KERR 750 several times out in Surrey and Langley BC though, usually with at least average signal strength. Also for the first time I think I got CKJH 750 Melfort, Sask. fading in with oldies rock once or twice but no definite Id or local spot so its just tentative. WSB 750 Atlanta and Radio Caracas (RCR) 750 Venezuela were the dominant stations on 750 with WSB nulled completely to hear Caracas. They had a baseball game in spanish with many Venezuela and Pepsi commercials. Also on 990 CBW Winnipeg was stronger than usual last night. I was reading some info. on the NRC Facebook page about a dxer in Prince Edward Island hearing CKWX 1130 Vancouver overnight quite strong too and several other Western Canadian stations like CJGX 940 Yorkton too. So it appears over the last several nights conditions have been good for the Am Broadcast Band.

Enjoyed reading what you and Toomas have been receiving Jon. I used to get some Montana stations on AM quite well in Calgary in the1980s including KOFI and I think KERR 750 came in quite well. I know in the daytime KOJM 610 was regular there as was KMON 560 Great Falls. Do you get any of them up in Edmonton Jon?

Anyway keep posting any DX results, great stuff, nice results Toomas on your Japanese dx too!!!

73s Eldon

[jon]

Haven't paid much attention to Montana stations, other than using KOFI-1180 to test radios for sensitivity and noise reduction during the daytime in the winter, as they deliver a pretty consistent groundwave.

I would be very interested in hearing Kalispell's KGEZ-600 during Afternoon Drive as Robin Mitchell has been back on the air there for several years now. But CJWW in Saskatoon dominates the frequency here with their 25,000 watt daytime power. Nights are worse. Even though CJWW drops to 8000 watts at night, KGEZ drops from 5000 to 1000 watts at sunset. About the only way to work that would be to catch CJWW on night power and KGEZ on day power, which is possible given Saskatoon's much earlier sunset around December. After CKUA vacates 580.