Spring 2011 DX Notes - Denver To Rochester

Better get the trip caught up so we can move on. We are continuing on across country to New York from Denver. The majority of the reception reports below are daytime loggings, as usual. Local times are noted. Radio is a 2006 Ford Ranger truck radio with extended antenna.

Let me explain. One of the things I did in Denver was to check into the local hobby shop and buy a 36 inch piece of flexible, stainless steel music wire. This I attached to the truck whip antenna, extending it some 30 inches. It improves reception enough to make a difference in marginal situations.

Monday April 18

So, Monday morning about 8:30AM I start out of Denver headed east to New York. The route is I-70. Approaching Kansas, I begin to wonder if I will have a repeat of last year's fantastic daytime DXing experience crossing the high plains of Kansas and Missouri over to the Mississippi River. In that story, you may recall that I logged my best daytime distance record of 827 miles, that being the reception of KKZN-760 (50KW) Denver, Colorado in Pocahontas, Illinois in mid-afternoon, some 36 miles east of the Mississippi River. KGAB-650 (at only 8.5KW!!) Cheyenne, Wyoming was perhaps the better catch that day, logged just as I crossed the Mississippi River at 791 miles.

At 1158L passing mile marker 14 in western Kansas, I log a weak KGNC-710 (10KW) out of Amarillo, TX, at a distance of 241 miles. A weaker station is underneath, perhaps KCMO-710 (10KW) Kansas City, MO at 393 miles, or KNUS-710 (5KW) Denver, CO at 177 miles. Interesting reception, as Amarillo's KGNC's pattern is pointed almost due south and away from me. I am in the exact null of Denver's KNUS and off the side of Kansas City's KCMO.

Somewhere in the next few miles, I pass into Central Daylight Savings Time, crossing the time zone.

At 1323L and mile marker 35, sports station WWLS-640 (5KW), Moore, OK becomes apparent. She is weak, but readable, at a distance of 332 miles.

Five miles further along at mile marker 40, I tune to 690 KHz and catch little Pueblo, CO station KWRP-690 (250W) at 1328L and 193 miles distant. KWRP operates with a single tower, so we have no extra help from pattern gain here. A great catch for this low power and distance.

KXXX-790 (5KW), Colby, KS, just down the road, booms in. It has a good selection of country music.

At 1450L, approaching Wakeeney, KS, near mile marker 125, sports station WHB-810 (50KW) out of Kansas City presents a good signal. This, at a distance of 284 miles to the east.

At Hays, KS, I stop for the night. Like last year, Denver's KHOW-630 (5KW) at 306 miles, KOA-850 (50KW) at 298 miles, and KKZN-760 (50KW) at 310 miles all present excellent signals into Hays. Tomorrow we shall see how far their signals continue on during the daylight hours.

Tuesday April 19

Up early and on the road, as is my custom. It is only 5AM. When on the road in the heartland of the US during pre-dawn early morning hours I always try to make a game out of hearing stations "coast-to-coast", that is, from all four sides of the country. I am not disappointed this morning. Between 0505L and 0548L I log the quad four: KFI-640, Los Angeles, CA, WCCO-830, Minneapolis, MN, WWL-870, New Orleans, LA, and WSB-750, Atlanta, GA. They are all 50KW powerhouse stations with varying signals this time of the morning. KFI-640 out of Los Angeles is the last to be heard at 0548L. She is weak.

At 0558L and still dark, I catch CBC-540 (CBK, Saskatchewan) with some nice Radio Australia programming. 961 miles, but easy nighttime reception. I am passing through Salina.

The sun is up, it is cold, and winter has made another spring appearance today. At 0649L I hear KWMT-540 (5KW), Ft. Dodge, IA at 299 miles. It is snowing, with several inches of snow on the ground already. The local conditions where I am are rain to misting rain. And a cold rain I might add.

Denver's KHOW-630, KOA-850, and KKZN-760 are nowhere to be found now that the sun is up. They will not be heard from again during daylight hours. Conditions are different this year.

Coming into Abilene, KS at 0705L, I log WJAG-780 (1KW) out of Norfolk, NE, at 214 miles. I've never come across this station before. Add another odd "W" in the log west of the Mississippi.

At 0715L, east of Abilene and parked on 790 KHz, I hear mention of "west Texas" from a very weak station. Could this be KFYO-790, Lubbock, TX (5KW)? It does not appear to be Colby, Kansas KXXX-790. Unknown. 462 miles if so. This would be excellent DX.

Forty miles west of St. Louis I stop for the night. Severe weather is about, in the form of hail and tornadoes. The tornado sirens have gone off to a packed Busch stadium, hosting some 40,000 fans to watch a St. Louis Cardinals game.

Wednesday April 20

Another cold, drizzly day. I am hearing WMT-600 (5KW) Cedar Rapids, IA all the way into St. Louis, across the Mississippi, and through southern Illinois and Indiana into Indianapolis nearing mid-day (319 miles). It fades east of Indianapolis.

Spent the night in Mansfield, Ohio, about 50 miles south of Cleveland.

Thursday, April 21

A quick six hour trip home.

Curious station placement in this part of the country is WYNE-1530 (1KW), North East, PA, and Buffalo, NY powerhouse station WWKB-1520 (50KW). Not only are they only 10 KHz apart in frequency, but they are also a scant 65 miles apart in distance along the I-90 corridor connecting Erie, PA and Buffalo. Cruising across I-90 through the northern tip of Pennsylvania, WNYE's 1KW signal is received very strongly. Parked on 1520 KHz trying to receive WWKB, at first I thought I had an IBOC station next door, with all the sideband splatter. I discovered WYNE runs AM stereo. I wondered if WYNE's close proximity to 1520 was the reason I couldn't hear blockbuster WWKB this close to Buffalo.

It wasn't until I got home to Rochester that I discovered why. Buffalo's WWKB-1520 puts almost zero signal into this part of northern Pennsylvania towards the towns of North East and Erie. The entire I-90 corridor running southwest out of Buffalo is in the deepest notch of WWKB's tower pattern. This notch is so good, that WWKB doesn't really even show up on the radio until you get within about 30 miles of Buffalo. Nice antenna work!

WYNE is operated by Mercyhurst North East College. The station is one of those rare stations authorized to operate during daylight hours only.

WYNE is also used as a teaching facility for Mercyhurst North East’s liberal arts/radio broadcasting associate degree program. Students learn everything from on-air broadcasting of news, sports and weather, to how to operate radio equipment, to advertising sales.

Arrived home early afternoon. Back to DXing from the east coast! More to come.

Spring 2011 DX Notes - Phoenix To Denver

A trip across the country is always an enjoyable experience for a mediumwave radio DXer if he has a radio along. While on the road, traveling coast-to-coast presents many different DXing situations and opportunities to observe interesting propagation conditions.

Never being much of a nighttime driver, about 95% of my traveling is during daylight hours. This works out well for me since my particular radio passion is long distance daytime DXing. Cruising along at 70mph in a 2006 Ford Ranger pickup, radio on, tuning up and down the dial searching for weak stations at the lower end of the broadcast band where signals seem to propagate better - life is good.

I stewed about what route to take. Early April weather can be unpredictable and nasty in the high Rockies of Colorado. A trip through this area at this time of year can be tricky. This year I elected to avoid the possibility of extreme weather and travel the I-10 corridor from southwestern Arizona to Denver by way of Phoenix, Tucson, skirt along the Mexican border to Deming and Las Cruces, New Mexico, then parallel the front range of the Rockies northward by following I-25 via Albuquerque and Las Vegas, NM on in to Denver. This leg of the trip back to New York will cover some 1100 miles.

Wednesday April 6

Phoenix is a curious mediumwave city for its size. An unknown fact to many people, Phoenix is currently the 6th largest city in terms of population across the United States. In recent years it has regularly traded places with Philadelphia for positions five and six. As big as it is, both in population and physical area (a huge 517 square miles, 60+ miles across), Phoenix has only two 50,000 watt AM stations within a 25 mile radius of its center, and these are not even in Phoenix proper but in suburban Glendale and Tempe.

So, heading south on I-10 out of Phoenix, the lower powered Phoenix stations fade quickly. Tempe's 50KW powerhouse KMIK-1580 Radio Disney outlet seems to hold in there the longest. Approaching the north side of Tucson, some 100 miles distant, I start to hear some competition from another station on channel. They are broadcasting the Rush Limbaugh program. Confused I am, as my guide shows no other station on 1580 KHz near enough to cause interference. At the top of the noon hour when I hear the ID, the station turns out to be Tucson's conservative voice KNST-790 (5KW), being received strongly on its second harmonic of 1580 KHz! KNST's harmonic hangs in there all the way to the southern extent of Tucson, 20 miles from the transmitter site. I press onward towards the New Mexico border via Benson (north of Tombstone) and Willcox, through the lands of Cochise and the old Chiricahua Nation.

KFI-640 (50KW), Los Angeles is a mainstay of mine in southwestern Arizona during the winter. It is usually on at home or in the truck if I'm out running around. At 217 miles distant, it cannot be considered a local. But its signal is always there, and at good strength. I once heard KFI in mid-afternoon on this same truck radio from the Utah ghost town of Cisco, not far from Grand Junction, Colorado, some 594 miles distant! KFI gets out. Now at 1330L, cruising along I-10 in eastern Arizona and just east of Benson at mile marker 316, I tune for KFI. There it is, still in there but very weak. This, at a distance of 477 miles. KFI fades by mile marker 345, some 506 miles at this point, just past Willcox and only 50 miles shy of the New Mexico border. KFI transmits an omnidirectional signal with a single tower.

Perhaps the most remarkable station to put a daytime signal into southwestern Arizona during my winter stay is North Salt Lake City's sports-talk KALL-700 (50KW). It is receivable on this same truck radio during daytime hours with a weak to medium strength signal all day long. We are talking about a distance of 517 miles here, consistently. Between Benson and Willcox at 1334L, at mile marker 321 I tune for KALL. There it is at 617 miles, though very weak. I am only some 20 degrees off its four tower main lobe of 190 degrees. Understand, at this point, I am perhaps 40 miles north of the Mexican border hearing KALL's Salt Lake City, Utah signal. And during mid-day! KALL fades as I enter the western reaches of New Mexico.

At mile marker 352, ESPN's El Paso, TX station KROD-600 (5KW) is heard at 1405L with a respectable signal. This at a distance of 194 miles.

Crossing the border into New Mexico at 1445L, I tune to 850 KHz looking for powerhouse KOA (50KW) out of Denver. There it is, extremely weak and barely copyable. I have heard Denver radio twice during the daylight hours in southwestern Arizona in the form of KKZN-760 and KLTT-670 at extreme distances of nearly 700 miles, but never KOA. KOA makes the grade here at 554 miles.

Spent the night in Deming, NM, 30 miles north of the Mexican border. Tiny Columbus, NM, right on the border and just south of here, is the site of the famous Pancho Villa raid on the United States in 1916. Excepting the 9-11 attack, it is the only time the continental U.S. has been invaded by a foreign power.

Thursday April 7

Out of Deming the next morning I elect to take the shortcut around Las Cruces. State highway 26 juts off to the northeast, bringing me out to Hatch, NM, and I-25 about 40 miles north of Las Cruces. I am now heading northbound. Approaching Truth or Consequences, the only town named for a TV game show, I hear XEJUA-640, Milenio Radio, Juarez, Mexico, advertized at 500 watts and with a good signal. Juarez is just across the border from El Paso, TX, and due south of me right now at a distance of about 105 miles.

Albuquerque flies by with hardly a blink. Notable and famous in this part of the country is The Talk Monster, KKOB-770 (50KW). With a passive loop assist, it is weakly receivable in southwestern Arizona at 446 miles. For some reason, during daylight hours it seems to propagate better to the west than other directions, as this station basically disappears off the dial in Denver and points north and east. It seems odd that an omnidirectional tower would propagate differently in different directions. KKOB does run two towers at night, with its main lobe to the southwest at 248 degrees. Interestingly, KKOB is one of those rare stations running a synchronized repeater station for signal "fill in". The repeater, also using call letters KKOB, is in Santa Fe, NM, the next fair-sized town just north of Albuquerque. However, the distance between the repeater station up in Santa Fe and KKOB-Albuquerque is only 48.9 miles. Odd, it seems to me, that they need a repeater to fill in at such a close distance, considering KKOB's 50,000 watt signal blankets such a wide area around Albuquerque. I cannot detect KKOB's 230 watt repeater signal as I go by Santa Fe. As far as I know, I am still locked on to the main signal out of Albuquerque.

Proceeding north, at 1429L and 40 miles south of Las Vegas, NM, I find Denver's KHOW-630 (5KW) with weak signal strength at 304 miles. I am only about 12 degrees off of KHOW's main lobe at 200 degrees.

All the way from Deming, through Albuquerque, right up to Las Vegas I have been following El Paso's KTSM-690 (10KW) with good signal strength. At 1501L, arriving at Las Vegas, KTSM's strength at 258 miles is starting to fade. No matter, Las Vegas's own KNMX-540 (5KW) is overloading my radio. The station sits just east of I-25 with a two tower array. The main lobe pushes the power towards 341 degrees, across I-25 and over the north part of the town. Time to rest for the night.

Friday April 8

KNMX-540's overload lessens as I leave Las Vegas, and KTSM-690, El Paso, TX fades out totally a few more miles north, giving way to an unidentified oldies station which grows stronger as I near the Colorado state line at Raton, NM. This undoubtedly is Pueblo, Colorado station KWRP-690 which does run the oldies format. A remarkable signal for a distance of 190 miles, KWRP runs only 250 watts during the daytime. KHOW-630 still at 299 miles and KOA-850 at 272 miles continue to improve as I approach Denver.

The southwest is a wonderful place to DX on the radio. Wide, open spaces with few stations assure excellent long distance DX, even in the daytime. If you're ever crossing the country at some time, give it a try. There is no special equipment needed but an in-car radio.

Eastward Bound Once Again

It's that time of year again. Winter is over and it's time to vacate Arizona's deserts and head back to New York for the summer. The projected route is Phoenix-Tucson-Deming-Las Cruces-Albuquerque-Denver - then points east - probably via I-70 or I-80. Will try to do some DXing along the way. No, of course I will do some DXing!

I apologize that a solid month has elapsed without an article. Life and work sometimes get in the way. Though no posts, I have been busy with radio endeavors. In my spare time I've been working on the Radio Data MW program some. Several articles are in various stages of completion and will be published soon. More in the Signal Patterns series are coming. An article on loop inductance calculations is in the works. I'm also working on an article on how multi-towered antenna array signal patterns are computed. Stay tuned.

Happy DXing!

The Vertically-Challenged Ferrite Loopstick

As we saw in a previous article, An Unassuming Antenna, The Ferrite Loopstick, the groundwave signal decreases in strength when tilting the radio (and thus the ferrite antenna) towards vertical. This effects not just the station tuned to, but all signals across the mediumwave band because the pickup of the magnetic component is lessened when the ferrite rod or bar is rotated away from horizontal. During reception of nighttime, skywave signals, the effect is often less pronounced depending on atmospheric bending of the wave. So, how much is a signal reduced?

I decided to perform a static test. At mid-day I tuned my Sony 2010 to station KBLU-560 (1KW, omnidirectional) out of Yuma, AZ, 69.6 miles distant on a bearing of 200 degrees. KBLU is not a powerhouse here at this distance, but does present a lower-medium strength signal to a sensitive receiver. KBLU was arriving with a respectable 6-7 leds lit (out of 10) on the Sony. Rotating the 2010 to vertical reduced the signal to barely 2 leds. It was weak, but still copyable.

Next I fired up the Tecsun PL-380. Now, the PL-380 is an interesting receiver because it has a direct signal strength readout. KBLU, not as strong on this ULR, peaked at a strength of 25,07 (25 dBµV, 7 dB signal to noise ratio) during normal reception. Rotating the PL-380 to vertical reduced the signal to below the noise level at 15,00. There was no trace of KBLU in the headphones.

Another local, somewhat stronger station is KLPZ-1380 (2.5KW, omnidirectional) out of Parker, AZ, 33.5 miles distant on a bearing of 354 degrees. It registers 31,25 (31 dBµV, 25 dB signal to noise ratio) on the PL-380 during normal, peaked reception. Rotating the PL-380 to vertical reduced KLPZ's signal to a level of 16,06. It was still copyable, though very weak and just above the noise level.

On the Sony 2010, KLPZ registered a solid 7 leds when peaked in the normal horizontal position. However, when tilted vertically, the signal reduced to only a strong 2-3 leds. It was easily copyable. Overall, the Sony 2010 does not seem to do as good a nulling job as the PL-380 in the vertical position.

Similar results were had for the Sony SRF-M37V and Tecsun PL-600.

It was interesting to note that while in a vertical attitude, each radio could be spun about the vertical axis to a certain position causing a marginal improvement in the station's signal strength. This, proving some possible interaction with the radio's circuitry and the ferrite loopstick, or imbalance in the ferrite loopstick itself, causing some pattern skewing.

That the radio receives any signal at all while in the vertical position is interesting. At 90 degrees to the magnetic component there should be no magnetic component to receive on a local, groundwave signal! Again, skewing of the ferrite's receiving pattern might cause this, or perhaps a little magnetic component sneaking through due to path shift of the signal. Or perhaps the cause may be a curious effect usually attributed to open loop antennas known as "antenna effect", where the loop, if unbalanced, does in fact respond to and receive a small amount of the transmitted signal's electrical, or vertical component.

Nighttime reception using this technique is a mixed bag. Although mediumwave DXers routinely use tilting of a radio from horizontal towards vertical to help null distant pest stations at night, using the vertical technique to generally reduce the strength of all signals works erratically at best. Example: powerhouse KOA-850, Denver, CO was actually equal strength at times the other night in both the horizontal and vertical positions, at the same time! With skywave signals booming in from all directions and at many different angles due to atmospheric distortion of the wave polarization, you have your answer as to why.

Could this odd way of nulling signals be used to the benefit of the mediumwave DXer? Maybe at least during the daytime for those of us who are daytime DXers, when conditions are stable?

I set to wondering if it would be possible to nullify the radio loopstick's direct reception of signals while at the same time coupling a passive, external antenna device to the radio - all without tearing into the radio. This sounds counter-intuitive. Why would we want to reduce signal pickup of a radio's ferrite loopstick?

Passive antenna devices like loops and QStick-like devices are routinely used by mediumwave DXers to enhance signal pickup. The problem, and what bothers me the most about using these devices, is that the radio's own ferrite loopstick is still receiving contrary signals of its own at the same time, degrading the effect of the passive device. Further degradation may come from the radio's loopstick having poor nulling ability or an overly wide broadside peak, also compromising the purity of the passive antenna. The radio also might be positioned somewhat differently than the passive device, causing unwanted signals to interfere with the natural peak and null of the passive device.

So, the question remains: What if it were possible for the radio to only see the passive device as its antenna, and largely ignore directly-received signals from its own ferrite loop antenna? The vertically-held radio with its corresponding vertically-oriented ferrite loopstick seems to fill this bill. But how do we couple to it in this position?

This creates coupling problems in several respects. In the case of the external tunable ferrite loopstick or QStick device, it must be placed parallel to or off the end of the radio's own ferrite loopstick in order for it to work. That means it would be vertical too, and it wouldn't receive much signal itself, since when vertical it is 90 degrees to the magnetic component of the received wave just like the radio.

The usual passive loop, with its coil wound in a solenoid fashion on a square frame (sometimes called "depth-wound"), won't couple much signal at all to a radio held in the vertical position due to its loop being 90 degrees in relation to the radio's ferrite coil winding. If we rotate the passive loop to a horizontal position we have good inductive coupling to the radio, but then the passive loop is 90 degrees to the wave's magnetic component and signal pickup is reduced to nil. Perhaps a spiral-wound loop?

And another possibility becomes evident. Why not put the radio inside a Faraday cage, eliminating all outside signals? But then, how do we couple the passive device to it, and still not tear into the radio? All food for thought. Perhaps more in a future post.

Hope you have enjoyed this series on a most interesting device, the ferrite loopstick.