Tag Archives: Mediumwave DXing

Clear Channel Stations: Dan’s gateway into the world of DXing

Many thanks to Dan Greenall, one of our dedicated Shortwave Radio Audio Archive contributors, who shares the following guest post:


Clear channel BCB stations – My Introduction to the world of DXing

by Dan Greenall

Sometime in the mid 1960’s, I acquired a Japanese made AM only transistor radio similar to the one pictured.

I was entering my teenage years and living in southern Ontario, Canada in relative proximity to the U.S. border, and was immediately fascinated that I could receive American stations from places such as Buffalo and Rochester NY as well as Detroit MI with amazing clarity.

Before long, I discovered that signals from much further afield would begin to come through at dusk and throughout the night time hours. Although I was unaware at the time, many of these would be from so-called “clear channel” stations, those operating on frequencies with the highest level of protection from interference from other stations.

In addition, many of these stations ran a full 50 kw of power.  Signals from the Atlantic seaboard to the Midwest could often be heard at near local strength if I turned my radio to just the right angle.  At this point, I was beginning to learn about the directional properties of the built-in ferrite rod antenna.  It gave me great pleasure to be able to listen to their local ads, newscasts, or a far away sporting event from the comfort of my home.

I recall listening regularly to WOWO in Fort Wayne IN on 1190 for their play by play announcements of the Fort Wayne Komets hockey games.  Then there was a station identifying as WFAA in Dallas.  That was back when they shared 820 kHz with WBAP whose famous cowbell you can hear in one of the audio clips below.

By the end of 1969, a friend of mine had encouraged me to try shortwave, and I “borrowed” my parents Philips kitchen radio for a few months, but that is another story. I wonder how many others got “hooked” in this manner?

A few brief recordings of clear channel stations that I made in the early 1970’s are presented here. Many, but not all, of the stations heard in the last two links are from clear channel stations. Reception for these recordings was made using a Realistic DX150A or a Hallicrafters S-52 receiver hooked up to an outdoor long wire antenna.

KFI Circa 1971:

WOAI Circa 1973

KSTP Circa 1970s:

Vintage AM Radio Airchecks 1973:

Vintage AM Radio Airchecks 1973 Part 2:

As a sidebar, the National Radio Club has put out a number of books showing the daytime/nighttime directional antenna patterns of AM broadcasting stations in the USA and Canada.

I gave up my copy from 1973 a number of years ago, but you can find this one and others online. I found this very useful.

For example, it is easy to see why I was more likely to hear WBT Charlotte NC on 1110 kHz from my listening post in southern Ontario, Canada, rather than KFAB Omaha, NE.

The links below will take you to the 1973, 1975 and 2018 versions of these books.

https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-Radio-Logbooks/NRC_Logs/NRC-Pattern-Book-First-1973.pdf

https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-Radio-Logbooks/NRC_Logs/NRC-Night-Pattern-Mapbook-2nd-1975.pdf

https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-Radio-Logbooks/NRC_Logs/NRC-Pattern-Book-8th-2018.pdf

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Mediumwave DXer logs KFIZ from Arctic Finland

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Ulis Fleming, who shares the following article from KFIZ via Twitter. I love these articles where a mediumwave DXer blows the minds of a small AM radio station’s staff!

Finnish man hears KFIZ radio transmission on radio in Artic Circle

A man from Finland contacted KFIZ recently to let us know he was listening to our station IN Finland earlier this month. And while it doesn’t sound like such a big deal since we do announce you can listen around the world on the “Tune In” app, this person actually heard us on the AM spectrum of frequencies.

Jari is a self described AM radio enthusiast in Finland that says he is passionate about listening to and identifying AM stations from around the world.

In early December, Jari travelled about 750 miles from his home in southern Finland, by train and car, to an isolated area in Northern Finland, well into the Artic Circle, where he has a base station set up designed to pull in AM radio signals from around the world. Jari says conditions are ideal there because there is ample space for long antennas and little to no man-made electrical noise or interference.

On December 4th at 6:00 Universal time, which would have been midnight local Fond du Lac time, Jari recorded a transmission on his receiver. Its very faint but it’s our station’s radio ID that we play often throughout the day that says “News Talk 1450, KFIZ Fond Du Lac – a Mountain Dog Media Station.”

Given how hard it is to hear, you can respect the fact that Jari now has transmissions confirmed from over 800 stations from North America.

While generally AM radio waves only travel at most 100 miles from the transmitting antennas, with the right conditions, usually during the nighttime hours, AM radio waves can reflect off the ionosphere and propagate past the curvature of the earth, a phenomenon called “skywave” propagation.

So from all of us here at KFIZ, if you are listening locally, on the tune in App, or isolated deep within the Artic Circle, we want to say thanks for listening.

Click here to read at KFIZ. 

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Follow-up to The Great Medium Wave Daylight DX Challenge

By Jock Elliott, KB2GOM

If the folks who participated in The Great Medium Wave Daylight DX Challenge were on trial for “having fun,” they would be found guilty and sentenced to . . . more DXing challenges!

Results

As nearly as I can tell, 13 people participated, and many had something positive to say about the experience, including they would like to do it again.

I say “as nearly as I can tell” with regard to the number of participants because some people posted the same thing multiple times . . . and there is a simple reason why. When someone posts a comment for the first time, or posts a comment for the first time with a new email address (which is one of the required fields when you post a comment), that comment is sent to moderation for approval before it is posted . . . which causes a delay. Thinking it didn’t work the first time, the commenter reposts again (and perhaps again and again) and after a while, all the posts appear, which confuses the counting process.

A variety of equipment was used: 4 GE Superadios, 2 Belka radios, a Yaesu FT950, an AirSpy SDR, a single-transistor regenerative radio, and a Sangean ATS 909-X2. Some ran barefoot (using internal antennas), some employed loops, dipoles, and even an AFA-200 from Icom.

In terms of station count, Tom Laskowski, in a neighborhood park in South Bend, Indiana, absolutely killed it with a GE Superadio, logging 69 stations with lots of colorful detail. Clearly he was enjoying himself. The total mileage of his top five stations was 1230 miles. He qualified for Chuck Rippel’s generous offer of a Superadio refurb.

13dka “informally reported” his results in miles, furlongs, and attoparsecs. From a dike at the German North Sea Coast (Riddle of the Sands?), his farthest station was 677 miles away and his top five total was 2748 miles . . . that’s 21,968.5 furlongs in case you were wondering. He used a Belka 2022 in combination with an AFA-200 active ferrite antenna (his ultra portable MW rig).

David Mappin in Filey, UK, managed to hear a station in Solt, Hungary, at a distance of 987 miles. His top five total mileage was 1965 miles. He used a Sangean ATS 909X2 with a Cross Country Wireless (CCW) Loop Antenna Amplifier with a one-meter loop made out of coax.

Everyone seemed to have a good time, even those to whom “life happened,” and could only get on for a few minutes.

So, therefore, you are all sentenced to more DX challenges in the future!

My operatives (the upstate irregulars) deep in the underground bunker at El Rancho Elliott tell me that some of the names of future challenges might include “The Midnight Ramble” and “The Grayline Sprint” . . . but these sources are unreliable.

In the meantime, thanks to all for participating, and I am glad you had fun.

PS – Some have suggested that taking station transmit power into account when figuring out scoring might be a thing to do. If you have practical ideas for doing this, post them, with examples in the comments section below. Bear in mind that any calculation of “difficulty factor” will fall on the folks recording their logs.

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The Great Medium Wave Daylight DX Challenge

By Jock Elliott, KB2GOM

First a word of acknowledgement and thanks: it was Chuck Rippel who said (in part) — in response to this post — “We could make this interesting by restricting listening to the period 10AM – 2PM maybe 3PM.” And that got me to thinking that maybe a daylight DXing challenge might be fun.

It was Bill Hemphill, who said, responding to the same blog post:

Every year the New Jersey Antique Radio Club has a BCB DX contest for its club members. The main purpose is to encourage the members to put into operation some of the many old am radios that they own. This year’s contest was just completed this past Sunday. For any 24 hour period, using the same radio, you attempt to log the most distant stations. The contest score is the total mileage of the ten stations that are most distant.”

Reading that, I rather liked the idea of using mileage as one way to keep score.

Combining the two ideas, the result is The Great Medium Wave Daylight DX Challenge.

Here are the rules:

  1. Frequency rang is the medium wave band: 520-1710 kHz
  2. 10 am to 2 pm your local time on the Saturday after the post appears (Saturday, March 11, 2023).
  3. Any radio with any antenna, but must be the radio at your location (no using remote internet radios)
  4. The listener must hear the signal in real time
  5. The stations must be ID’ed by listening to the signal.
  6. Your report should include:
    • Your name (or Internet handle)
    • Your receiver and antenna (stay with the same setup from beginning to end; if you use multiple setups, provide a separate report for each).
    • Your location
    • The time, the frequency, and the ID of each station heard
    • The total mileage of your top five most distant stations.

A final point: this is not a contest; it is a challenge. The reward for every participant will be fun and fellowship.

UPDATE: Chuck Rippel did sweeten the pot, though! Check out his generous offer here.

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Video: BBC Global News Podcast features Aihkiniemi DXing cabin in Lapland, northern Finland

Absolutely brilliant to see Mika Mäkeläinen giving a tour of the Aihkiniemi DXing cabin in Lapland this morning via the BBC World Service website:

(Source: BBC World Service)

The radio man listening to the world from the Arctic

Mika Mäkeläinen is a radio enthusiast who listens to stations from around the world in a remote corner of Lapland, 400km north of the Arctic Circle.

He and a group of fellow hobbyists have set up 14 wire antennas in the forest to capture weak signals from low-power stations, thousands of kilometres away. Mika explains why Lapland is a perfect place for listening to distant radio stations and how his hobby continues to inspire him 40 years after first discovering it as a child.

Video by Erika Benke

Click here to view on the BBC website.

If you’d like to see a proper detailed tour of the cabin (with DXers in mind), check out this video Mika made a couple years ago.

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Guest Post: Mediumwave DXing in Botswana

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Peter Wilson, who shares the following guest post and recordings from his listening post in Botswana:


Peter’s receiver is a Airspy HF+ Discovery SDR using SDR Console V3

MWDX from Australia and the USA received in Botswana

by Peter Wilson

Hello Thomas.

I moved my 16.2 metre random wire slightly farther away from the house, and installed a binocular balun and connected 20m of RG58 at the far end, not the “house end”.

Peter’s random wire antenna with binocular balun

Reception examples:

1500 USA WFED Washington DC 12790km

1152 AUS 6PB
ABC NewsRadio Busselton 8469km with ABC News ID

1600 B Radio Nove de Julho ID 7234km
Sao Paulo. Brazil. ID,
Web Address and jingle. Rinsed and repeated.
Portuguese: Radio Nove de Julho [English: Radio 9th July]

1026 kHz MOZ Emissor Provincial de Manica Chimoio 1057km.
A bit parochial but features the radio Mozambique song.

850 USA WTAR Norfolk, Virginia Fox Sports Radio ID 12700km

1296 6RN ABC Radio National. Wagin, Australia 10kW 8644km

558 AUS 6WA ABC Great Southern WA Wagin 8644km


Impressive reception from your home in Botswana! Thank you so much for sharing these recordings, Peter. You’ve certainly made the most of your random wire antenna!

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Paul’s thoughts about Mediumwave DXing in Alaska

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Paul Walker, who has kindly allowed me to published some notes he recently shared among MW DXers about DXing in McGrath, Alaska, USA:
During a Zoom hang out with a bunch of Pacific NW DXers, one of the things that come up was why my DXing in Alaska is beyond amazing, and we’ve come to a few conclusions.

The extended darkness. Sunrise in the middle of winter here is 3+ hours later than the west coast, so once their Skywave burns off, I’m left with darkness over the pole and to my west.

There’re no operating AM stations within just under 200 miles from me which is a big help. I have heard distant signals on the same channel as “semi locals” such as 780 and 1080.
And I’m pretty sure there’s something to the fact I’m close to the North Pole. Still far, but closer than most.

Interesting to note though: pre sunset DX isn’t a thing there. What I’ve unscientifically discovered is it seems to be that the entire Pacific has to be dark for DX  to be worthwhile for me in the evening … despite my evening DX being Canada and the lower 48 US States.
What most everyone else hears at night, such as the transpacific signals from Japan, China, Australia etc…, I hear in the morning. Hearing anything from Asia or the Pacific at night is EXTREMELY rare.

[Since I’m DXing outdoors in extremely cold conditions] I’m getting extra batteries, extra audio cables (to go between the recorder and the radio), another radio, and another recorder. Oh and some hot hands hand warmers. Also have some extra gloves and hats ordered too.. getting prepped for winter DXing well ahead of time!

The hand warmers are as much for my gloves as they are for my digital recorder… AA batteries don’t last long during continuous use in extreme cold.

i also have a portable battery and extra cable so I can use it for my phone. Those lithium ion batteries hate cold even more than aa alkaline batteries–they will shut off in the cold. In fact, you have to not only warm it up but charge it. The cold causes it to think tis dead…. and even warming it up won’t work.

Here’s a video link to my FSL antenna designed and built by Gary DeBock:

DXIng is one of the reasons I moved back up here to Alaska and it’s entirely fascinating. I learn something new every “DX season”.

Lower 48 theory and ideas just don’t hold a bunch of weight up here … I’ve had ideas and suggestions from some really smart people that just didn’t work out.

Until you’ve DXed in Alaska, it’s hard to explain and understand.

Thank you for sharing your notes, Paul! Having never done DX in those latitudes, I can only imagine how different conditions might be–especially in those long, dark winters!

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