by jon » Sat Mar 20, 2010 3:41 pm
Very impressive! In the last half of the '60s, I spoke at length with some DX'ers in the U.S. NorthEast. And KFI-640 Los Angeles was about all they'd hear from the West.
Unlike now, most stations were off the air from midnight to 5 or 6am on Sunday nights, for preventative transmitter maintenance. That gave NE DX'ers their only opportunity to hear other (than KFI) stations from the West, because the AM band was just so crowded in the U.S. NorthEast. It was kind of a wave effect: midnight Eastern time saw stations in the Eastern time zone sign off, then 1 a.m. those in the Central time zone, 2 a.m. those in the Mountain time zone, and 3 a.m. those in the Pacific time zone. That still left you with stations in Alaska and Hawaii. Plus, some stations, including daytimers, did transmitters testing in that time period. And there were the really weird situations like KGBS-1020 Los Angeles, a daytimer with a license that allowed them on the air when KDKA Pittsburgh was off the air for weekly transmitter maintenance, from midnight to 5 a.m. Eastern, which was 9pm-2am Pacific. Recently retired KFWB Newsman Mike Lundy did that as his only airshift on KGBS for quite a while.
Today, we have more Canadian stations in the West with 50KW on former U.S. Clear Channels. But most of them have night patterns that send next to no signal to the U.S. NorthEast because they have to completely protect the original Clear Channel station's still-protected coverage area.
Worst of all, stations don't signoff on Sunday night at midnight anymore.
Best of all, DX'ers have access to technology that allows them to eliminate the dominant station on a frequency, which is how a DX'er not that far from WCBS-880 in New York City, to hear CHQT-880 Edmonton, on night pattern, with WCBS on the air. I've heard the tape. It is quite amazing.