DX'ing Ontario in Edmonton tonight

[jon]

CKDO-1580 in Oshawa, Ontario, may have 10KW, but they still came in fairly decently here in Edmonton, as of a few minutes ago. Playing Oldies, it was CanCon that got me really interested, as there are 50KW stations in Arizona and California on the same frequency.

Seems like a pretty good evening for DX from the East, especially when you consider that my fairly selective car radio was giving me co-channel interference ("slop") on 1580 from 1570-CKMW in Winkler, Manitoba!

Great signal from KCNN-1590 in East Grand Forks, Minnesota, too. And they are only 1000 watts night, though their pattern certainly favours my direction.

[MIKE FM]

You should try FM,
had bursts of The Eagle 94.1 from Swift Current tonight.


http://www.dxinfocentre.com/tropo_wam.html

[Anotherwpgguy]

Jon:

What receiver and antenna were you using for the CKDO catch?

I'm sorry I missed the most recent meteor shower to do some FM DXing.

73 de
Anotherwpgguy

[jon]

I was just in the car using the factory-installed "lowest end" 2003 Chrysler car radio and antenna in a PT Cruiser.

All that said, the AM radio is really quite decent, and the antenna is the full-size "whip", not one of those puny ones that really hurts reception on AM.

[jon]

Just got a positive ID from CKDO-1580 Oshawa on my way home this evening, just around 5:00 p.m. Edmonton time. They had been coming in mostly poorly with occasional minutes of strength since just after 4:30.

Nice funky selection of great old Christmas songs, including James Brown.

Last Sunday evening was also very nice, as CFRW-1290 Winnipeg was playing Casey Kasem's Christmas Classics countdown.

[jon]

CKDO-1580 Oshawa is back tonight. Not as strong as previously, but certainly easy to ID.

[Saul Chernos]

How about DXing Edmonton from Ontario! A few nights ago at Burnt River Ontario I nabbed a bunch of Alberta stations:

1010 CBR Calgary (running in synch with 540 CBC in Watrous/Regina) (heard when I was a teenager in Toronto too many years ago - CFRB Toronto was off for maintenance work)
930 CJCA "AM 930 The Light" IDs, religious music (never heard, never thought I'd get this one)
910 CKDQ Drumheller Q91, country music (new catch, on my most-wanted list)
660 CFFR Calgary 660 News, Same reporter as 680 News in Toronto (prev heard)
960 CFAC Calgary The Famn 960, ESPN sports yakety yak (prev heard)

I've had others previously, but not this particular night: 1060 in calgary, 1140 in High River (and the former 1140 in Calgary many years ago), 880 in Edmonton, 740 Edmonton.

Also heard this paraticular evening: 690 CBU Vancouver and 690 KTSM El Paso Texas - 690 is in the clear now thanks to Corus shutting down in Montreal; and several from Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

Burnt River is a two-hour drive northeast of Toronto. It's fairly quiet there, and I stretched out 300 feet of antenna wire atop the ice on a frozen lake to the west.

Saul Chernos

[jon]

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.

[Saul Chernos]

KFI is the reason I'm in this hobby; heard it as a teenager in the 70s from Toronto on a clock radio. 640 was open at that time, there. Decided I'd keep a list of what i could hear, and that turned into a hobby.

The tech is incredible these days - computerized radios (Perseus, SDR IQ...) where a DXer can record an entire band at the same time, for later review. I was at a coastal DXpedition in Newfoundland last November with a DXer who had a Persus. When he got home, he checked his recordings at the specific time an AM radio network from India signed on. He nabbed a good one or two dozen from India that way, whereas scrambling around from channel to channel on a conventional receiver (AOR 7030+) I heard maybe 6-8 of them.

Had a great time there, heard AM as far away as Japan, China, Mozambique...it's easier from there than it might seem...lots of salt water between receiver and transmitters.

One thing I do like to catch is a station going off air for maintenance - if anyone knows of work pending, even on short notice, I always welcome an email at schernos AT sympatico.ca. I would gladly pass word along, if this was welcomed.

Likewise, I'm on the DX Test committee of two DX clubs - if any of you are at a station and want to run a DX test in the overnight hours, I'd let my fellow DXers know with as much advance warning as you can provide. We can even supply weird sound effects and morse code IDs, etc. If you ever want to know how far your station can carry on a cold winter night...

Saul Chernos