I’ve never had a blog before.
I have decided to start one.
It will just be a journal of
interesting receptions from
my receiving shack.
This is mostly on antique or minimal
I’ve never had a blog before.
I have decided to start one.
It will just be a journal of
interesting receptions from
my receiving shack.
This is mostly on antique or minimal
radios, but every once in a while,
I will pull out
a real communications receiver.
There will be entries now and then,
when I hear some interesting DX.
If I am listening on a crystal radio,
or a regen, whatever I hear is DX anyway
unless it’s a local.
So the entries will trickle in.
I wish I had been doing this for
a while. There have been some
cool odds and ends over
the years.
So – let’s see what happens. Don’t
expect too much at once.
If YOU have any interesting receptions,
on any frequency on any radio, with
any antenna, you can send it here if
you want.
DOGGRADIO Monitoring Station WPE1POI
WPE1POI (This is from when
Popular Electronics was sending
out certificates with “callsigns”
on them so people’s receiving
stations would be “registered.”)
It was fun. I’m gonna do it again.
From the Midwaste
In the so-called “middle” of America, halfway up and down the Missississippi River, there is rarely anything unusual to receive. I have prayed, “Please give me a pirate or at least a part 15er so I can receive like those in the east.” But these prayers have gone unanswered.
But today two familiar signals have disappeared. The 13.560mHz signal from KDX SW is gone, as is the 670kHz signal from KDX CC. Where did they go?
13.560mHz was shut down for upgrading. The indoor dipole will be dismantled, the circuit cards will finally be installed in a proper cabinet, an outdoor end-fed dipole will be mounted, and KDX SW will return with a one piece band ceremony.
The LPB CC transmitter will undergo surgery in which the output LPF (low pass filter) will be removed, and preparation made for the arrival of parts for permanent operation at 970kHz carrier current.
The lesson here is, if there is nothing to listen to, start some stations, listen to them.
Hey Carl!
Y’know there is a very small chance
I could hear your 13.560 carrier
here someday.
Good luck on the CC upgrade!
Bruce, WPE1POI
Actually, Carl, you’re not missing much.
In response to your wishes, I have
a few comments.
I have received a zillion pirate stations
over my 40 odd years of radio listening.
It’s not as exciting as you may think.
Although, from a technical standpoint,
I guess picking up a new transmitter
from somewhere will always be
interesting.
Anyway, there are three kinds of pirates.
Ahem.
1) There are the dudes that throw something
together and have a good time. Trust me,
you will get bored really fast listening
to those kinds of pirate stations. It used
to be just bad announcing with drunk station operators.
Now its “nuclear powered swear word music.” Usually on
local FM.
2) Pirate stations that sound JUST LIKE commercial
stations. These guys pick a channel, get a studio,
get a transmitter and antenna and just go on the air.
In Hartford, these stations come and go. Some of
these stations have an agenda. And some
are foreign language operations. And a lot of them
sell time to their neighborhoods. It’s LOCAL RADIO.
It’s also usually in another language around here.
So for me, since I only know the English language
(which is extremely unfortunate but I have learning
disabilities – trust me) yes it’s interesting, but
if you don’t know what they are saying it gets
old pretty quick.
3) In between. (Well that make sense.) These are
the guys that love radio like we do. But they don’t
do Part 15. They just go on because they like music,
electronics and radio. They run 10 watts (or 500 watts)
somewhere, and do what we do. Those are the
interesting operations.
Radio folk lore says, “If you want to hear pirates,
go to the interesting world around 6925 kHz.”
It is around here that the shortwave pirates
hang out. They are on AM and SSB. (I wonder
what “In A GoddaDovida”(?) by Iron Butterfly sounds
like on SSB tuned slightly wrong.) I have not
listened there. But I can. Maybe I will try.
OH YEAH, and as for Part 15 stations, I have
not heard one in years. Not a real one, anyway.
Cheers.
Bruce, WPE1POI
Isn’t?
Isn’t “InAGoddaDaVida” by Iron Butterfly just a long drum piece?
I worked for a 1969 FM that played that, it was a whole side, and at 3 AM it was a chance to doze off for a bit.
Not too many drum solos have become hits.
I’ll check 6925kHz right now… don’t go away….nope. Nothing. But it’s 6:45 PM with the sun still up….
You’re right… it would get boring fast. But the way it is now, it’s not even boring.
Well, yeah you’re right.
These stations around 6925 are
weak.
But When you get the KDX 13.560
transmitting antenna up outside,
it will be AN AWSOME receiving
antenna, if you are inclined to do
that.
Another thing about these pirates,
they tend to operate on weekends
and holidays when the FCC is “not around.”
Yup, the Iron Butterfly song was long.
7 minutes. The “I left my cake out in
the rain song” was about 7 minutes.
And from the same era, there was
something called “Time.” I can’t
remember who did it, but it was
11 minutes.
Back when I DXed then, I would listen
thru the whole song waiting for an ID.
When the song ended, the station
would fade out.
Cheers!
Bruce, WPE1POI
Nappy Memories
At 4 AM it would be time for Alice’s Restaurant, another whole nap.
The biggest nap of all was working for the elevator music station. Gawd I hated that music. It made all my extremities go asleep for a total coma.
I’m just fitting all the circuit cards into the cabinet for Big Talker and figuring out where to drill holes. No wonder I avoided this task.
4:AM is a weird time for radio
Oh yeah, Alice’s Restaurant.
I forgot about that one.
Ah The elevator music stations.
That’s one format I really don’t miss.
I have a DXer friend who referred
to that as “Tinkle Music.” I have no
idea what that means.
Can you put some pictures of the
“Big Talker,” up on your website?
(You have to, you have to.)
After all, it is the FIRST ONE. The
SECOND ONE will be made by me.
DX Listening, Less Tars, More Taste,
and it refreshes!
Bruce, Monitoring Station WPE1POI
Think I Know
I think I understand “tinkle music”……
While hearing elevator music, any excuse to leave the room.
NOW here is a great coincidence. I was thinking how the fully completed Big Talker would make good pictures. Absolutely.
And I just thought of a poor man’s solution to a 50-foot antenna for long wave….. code name “Deep Voice.”
Try this
http://www.star-h.com
Wow, these Star-H dudes are serious, aren’t they?
I really like the Egg Beater Antenna.
Hams have used those for various
applications.
The NVIS stuff is cool, too.
SOON.
I WILL HAVE ACTUAL RECEPTION REPORTS
Hopefully, you can get those pictures of
the Big Talker out soon.
Bruce, Mon. Stn. WPE1POI,
A Part Of Doggradio Industries
Times Past
Iron Butterfly’s song was actually over 21 minutes long, album version.
The song “Time” was done by Chambers Brothers, timed in at 11 minutes.
Other long famous tunes:
Grand Funk Railroad – I’m Your Captain – 9:53
Boston – Foreplay Long Time – 7:48
Nazereth – Please Don’t Judas Me – 9:38
The Clash – Armagideon Time/Justice Tonight/Kick It Over – 10:41
Led Zepplin – Achilles Last Stand – 10:20
Black Sabbath – War Pigs – 7:58
Sammy Hagar (HSAS) Animation – 9:46
Overnight FM radio back in the day was the place to find these long play songs. Gave the DJ’s time for that smoke break!
RFB
Reception Odds and Ends: From CT, East Coast 5/10/12
All shortwave listeners miss
the BBC.
They ARE still out there.
BBC (pos id) 6005 kHz sig: fair
qrm from Havana, Cuba 6000
However, this 6005 BBC signal is not
targeting the U.S.
This is a transmission to Africa
in English.
Receiver: Tecsun PL-380 dsp set to 1 kHz
selectivity (whatever that means)
Ant: internal whip, outside. Connection
of external 100 foot wire made very little
difference. It just made 6000 sig stronger
Time 0430 UTC/ 0030 EDT
Occasional receiving reports will dribble
in here and there.
Best Wishes,
Bruce, WPE1POI/DRS2
Fantastic RFB!
The Chambers Brothers! 11 min!
How did I forget that?
I had to acknowledge the coolness
of your message.
I’ll be back. I have an interesting piece
of AM BCB DX to add to this little blog,
that I got the other night.
It’s around here somewhere!
Bruce
DOGGRADIO STUDIO (moving)
WOW! Here It Is. Another Doggradio Listening Post Reception!
Let’s see…
Heard in West Hartford, CT.
1700 kHz KVNS Brownsville, TX
8800 watts day 880 watts night, omni
both day and night
Time heard: 00:20 Local, 0420 UTC
for about 20 minutes.
May 14, 2012, early morning
Heard on Kaito KA-1103 portable. I
could have heard it on just about ANY
radio – it was so strong on peaks. The
Kaito was next to where I was sleeping
(almost.)
Lots of pos iDs Playing oldies.
I have never ever heard oldies on 1700
before. But this was over all of the
clutter and CRUD. (OOps, there’s that
word again.) Sometimes very very strong.
More to follow?
Uh, YES!
Distance between DRS2LP (West Hartford, CT,) and
KVNS, Brownsville, TX: 1,782 miles.
looking at the big DOG RADIO MAP, Brownsville,
TX is just a stone’s throw south of Corpus Cristi
on the right coast of Texas.
Bruce, DRS2LP (Listening Post) But I’ll probably
come up with some other name for it, next time.
The infamous KVNS
KVNS Brownsville is likely the MOST DXed X-Bander in the world. That little station has been heard regularly in Europe since it signed on, 80% of the time its the only station on 1700 they get up there.
My DX For the weekend,
Logged Saturday May 19th ~4pm
WHAK-FM 99.9 From Rogers City, MI.
Was listening to my station when they blasted in (perfect timing my song had just ended) with their ID “Super Hits of Rock & Roll 99.9 The Wave”.
Crazy that another Classic Hits station over powers MY Classic Hits station on 99.9, when there are only a handful (of Classic Hitters) on 99.9 in the US.
thats 1,080 Miles E-Skip.
That was the first station I ever DXed via E-Skip.
Late and Early
Nothing like the very early hours for quiet and concentration.
A tour of the AM dial so far found two interesting finds.
On one distant station the Neil Boortz Show was coming in, with former presidential candidate Herman Cain sitting in for Neil. That was 3:30 AM on an unknown station in the 800 – 900 kHz range/
Found a signal as loud as local at 990kHz, it was CBC-1 from Canada carrying BBC News. Their 4 AM break did not contain a distinct ID, but a visit to Radio-locator.com indicates it was most likely CBW-AM Winnipeg, Manitoba, 46kW nighttime power, just above the state of Minnesota. Now they are sending news from Radio Australia (4:18 AM)
To Mr. Crow and to Carl!
YIKES!
Thank you Mr. Crow for the info on
KVNS! I had no idea it was heard over
such a wide area! Wow! And it’s nice
to hear about your E-skip reception!
Funny how it came over your Part 15 transmission.
The same thing happened to me a few years ago.
My 90.9 FM transmission was covered up by
something 1,000 miles away from E-skip.
Checking other blogs, as far as I can tell, U.S.
E-skip for this year was reported first on May 19th,
two days before your reception. But I understand
that last week in Europe, there was E-skip occurring
up to the 144 MHz ham band!
E-skip is such a “dramatic” propagation mode.
In the days of NTSC TV – watching TV channels
via E-skip was a real hoot. There is a lot of that
on YouTube, by the way.
Thank you Mr. Crow, for the info!
And Carl, I envy you, because I love to listen to the
CBC, and all of the AM transmitters in Canada that
I could hear in Connecticut – 740, 940, 1070, 1140,
and 1550 – have been turned off or sold to other
broadcast entities. 690 – CBC in French – was turned
off, too. I still hear the CBC on 860 in French, and I
like to listen to it, despite the language barrier.
I doubt I could ever hear CBW on 990. And all of my life
I have wanted to log CBK on 540. (I can’t remember where
they are off hand, but I think it’s very west in British Columbia.
No, I don’t think that’s right. I’ll have to look it up.
Thanks you guys!
Bruce, At the DRS2 Monitoring Post
Correction on CBK, 540 kHz.
CBK, 540 kHz.
Watrous, SK -50,000 watts omni, same day and night.
Man, I wish I could log that one here.
Bruce, DRS2 Monitoring Post
And Yet Another Weird Reception At The DRS2 Monitoring Station
I’ve been listening to the AM band
at night, but that is just a phase
I’m going through right now. I
listen all over.
(Have you ever heard the expression,
“I listen from DC To Daylight?”)
So here’s this station on my Kaito KA-1103.
This radio is not in my listening shack,
but it is the radio next to the bed, and
I just happen to have been using it lately
when I’m awake at night.
And lo, and behold, at 2:45 AM local EDT,
I’m hearing old jazz/ blues/”pop” hits from
the 1930s.
Freq. 1330 kHz
And Get This Callsign! WRCA! I never knew there
was a WRCA anywhere, and it’s dominating the channel
sometimes – battling with a Spanish language station.
I was very confused when I looked it up. Radio Locator.COM
had the WRCA format listed as Spanish.
But then the old guy that was playing the tunes from
the 1920s,30s, and 40s specifically said the station
was WRCA. Do they run Spanish during the day, and
run brokered programs at night? Looks like the other
station running Spanish language programming was just
that – another station running Spanish programming.
The WRCA transmitter is 91 miles from me,
in Watertown, Mass. Only 91 miles away,
and I had never heard it? I thought I had
gotten everything there was to hear around
here in the last 40 years. Apparently not.
Very interesting thing.
WRCA runs 25,000 day – end fire – shooting
from Watertown, through Boston (Hopefully)
and then out into the Atlantic ocean. At
night the pattern is roughly the same, except
it’s listed as 17,000 watts, again BLASTING east.
Looking at the antenna pattern, it seems like
the is NO transmit power coming toward me AT ALL,
day or night.
Still, it was there. I’m going to try for it
again tonight. Unless you’re into extreme political
shows, sports, or shows about ghosts, UFOs,
and guys in black
suits all driving 1965 Ford Falcons, there isn’t
always that much to hear on AM.
This cool obscure signal
in the night is an exception to that, as far as
I’m concerned. And the fading of the signal made
it all the more mysterious.
From the Dog Radio Studio 2 Monitoring Post, this is:
Morgan Ford OOOps wrong name
Uh, Bruce, the monitoring guy, DRS2
DRS2 DX Listening: FM Tropo And Delayed AM Aurora Report
First FM tropo here that we noticed.
We have a local FM on 106.9 that is so
strong, I picked it up on an AUDIO MIXER
once! How can this be???
Anyway, this 106.9 is in the Hartford area.
At the DRS2 receiving post – I am using
a Radiosophy
HD-100 and a large portable FM dipole that
is in the shape of the letter “T” in pipes
from the hardware store.
So this 106.9 is about as strong as an FM station
can get. However, stations on 106.7 and 107.1
were heard without any problems here, and the
antenna is inside. If anybody is interested in
what the stations are that were heard, let me
know. The main point is that this is the first
FM tropo we’ve seen here. (My friends and I.)
There may be UHF TV tropo also, but I am not
equipped to deal with that right now, perhaps
soon. I’ll have to check on the distances
involved with the 106.7 and the 107.1. They
are roughly 100 miles out, which isn’t bad because
I’m right at the bottom of a valley.
Delayed AM BCB aurora report.
540 kHz is usually an big nothing here at night.
Just a jumble. However, the week before last
there was some auroral activity, and aurora can
do some strange things to the AM BCB, (as well
as the VHF world.)
I’ll have to tack down the date, but in the
beginning of last week one night, WWSC, 540,
Fox Sports Radio, was dominant on 540 for most of
late night. It’s near Washington, DC, I think.
I’ll have to get a clarification on that. Although
I never got a positive ID, Radio-Locator.Com showed
WWSC to be sports, and the WWSC website agreed with
what I heard. There doesn’t appear to be any other
Fox Sports stations on 540 anywhere else in the U.S.
The main point here is what aurora can do to the
AM BCB. I have not heard anything that loud or
stable on 540 kHz since that night. And certainly
no more of WWSC. It’s just plain gone.
I will try to get back to my records, and get some
more specific info on these stations.
Best Wishes,
Bruce, DRS2 Monitoring Post
Local Radio in the News
This is indirectly about DXing, because any radio listening is a DXing experience.
I think it was on the Low Power Hour where I noted a station here at 1490 owned by a guy who owns three local area stations. Well, he was the subject of a Riverfront Times article in the Aug. 2 – 8, 2012 Edition which you can find at
http://riverfronttimes.com
The item is titled “Romanik’s Interlude”, page 11
I thought it was a typographic error to read that he had a CP (construction permit) to upgrade 1430 AM from 5kW full time to 50kW daytime only. But I looked it up at radio-locator.com and sure enough.
1430 AM was big in the early 60s when owned by Balaban under the old calls WIL. It’s a very old station, originally started as WEB in the 1920s and used for police communications. The signal it puts into the immediate area is great.
The 50kW will be directional, and it’s unusual they are not going to have any nighttime service. You’d think they could use their longtime 5kW authority at night.
It turns out he owns 4 local stations.
Wasn’t Trying
At 7:50 AM CDT I turned on the Panasonic radio in the Upper Management Lounge in anticipation of starting my AM service, and heard a station that has never been there before…
They gave their call letters right then… KXEO Mexico, Missouri… Radio Locator says they have 960 Watts over in central Missouri, 1340 kHz.
I did some searches and found a dramatic KXEO story
http://www.oldradio.com/archives/warstories/KXEO.htm