Anyone listen to "distant" AM stations at night?

[mitaux8030]

I've been developing an interest in AM broadcast band DX'ing over the last year or so.
Luckily here we don't have any AM-HD broadcasting, but I do have a 10kW station only 1km from my home, which does make life a little difficult +/- 100kHz of its spot on the dial.
I've got three main receivers: AOR AR5000, Kenwood TS2000 (AM BCB mod done) and probably the best of the bunch is a TS430s (AM BCB mod done) with all the optional filters.
Nothing more than a longwire at this stage, my efforts to build a varactor remote-tuned hula-hoop loop antenna didn't pay off, for some reason it was both deaf and completely non-directional ! I'll have to 'take two' on that little project some time.

So far my only catches of note have been (from Australia where I am)
1035 2ZB New Zealand
1580 ???? think its in Ohio? only very weakly heard it, but considering my noisy long-wire, a pleasing effort.

My first ever comms receiver was an old 'glow in the dark, keep the cat warm at night' valve/tube Trio 9R-59DS. I've still got the old girl too, and would love to fire her up on the AM broadcast band with a loop, but she's just not selective enough to do the job properly. Maybe I can find a pair of Collins mechanical filters to spice her up in that department a bit?

 

[Zaratsu]

I recall reading a post from someone who said they'd been stationed in Germany during the '60s, working the radio room at night. He said he would regularly listen to KABC from Los Angeles. They're only a 5kW station. Before there were thousands of stations running 24/7, before CFLs, cell phones, microwave ovens, six TVs in every house and cable TV systems polluting every neighborhood, it was fairly common to hear comparatively low power stations at great distances. The 50kW stations like WSM were probably heard around the world with great regularity.

My current records are a 40W non-directional beacon at about 2100 miles and a Navtex station (nor sure on transmitter power) at just over 2500 miles. Both are longwave stations.

yeah, that and the radios were designed with AM in mind rather than an afterthought.

Occasionally I will read Dxing.com Dxpeditions pages to wonder what its like with a proper reciever in pristine RF conditions. Some of their best contributers are a couple of guys in South Afica that will trek out to the coast or some dry highveld field, set up in a cottege or land rover, stake out a longwire beverage antanna and log east coast USA stations that I can't get! Then proceed to pick up the carribeian and even beyond the expanse of western australia. Seems like the perfect fuddy-duddy stuff to do when I'm 50 years older lol :lol:

 

[Patch42]

yeah, that and the radios were designed with AM in mind rather than an afterthought.

There are still a few radios that treat MW (and LW) with proper respect. They tend to be a bit pricey though. Definitely more than the two pocket Sonys we were discussing.

Occasionally I will read Dxing.com Dxpeditions pages to wonder what its like with a proper reciever in pristine RF conditions. Some of their best contributers are a couple of guys in South Afica that will trek out to the coast or some dry highveld field, set up in a cottege or land rover, stake out a longwire beverage antanna and log east coast USA stations that I can't get! Then proceed to pick up the carribeian and even beyond the expanse of western australia. Seems like the perfect fuddy-duddy stuff to do when I'm 50 years older lol :lol:

I exchange email on a regular basis with one of those guys. They just returned from another trip to the coast. Beautiful place to DX from. Sadly, this trip was not very productive from a DX standpoint. I imagine they'll be posting another trip report very soon.

 

[Aa3rt]

Well over 40 years ago...

I grew up in a small town in rural northwestern Pennsylvania. My father was self-employed as an electronics repairman (TV's, radios, etc.) and somehow I came into possession of an old floor model Zenith AM/Shortwave radio that had to have been manufactured before World War II. The radio still performed beautifully and I got my start in DXing by tuning the dial listening to baseball games (another of my passions). Of course, thunderstorms and static crashes always interfered. Wintertime listening was a different matter and I'd spend hours tuning through the dial listening to AM and shortwave stations. One of my favorites, back in the mid-1960's, was WCFL in Chicago when "Top-40" radio was the rage.

The shortwave bands fascinated me as well. Unfortunately I didn't know any hams back then so had no one to "Elmer" me. Things like RTTY and the ubiquitous "Russian Woodpecker", the over the horizon radar that played havoc in the shortwave bands, would remain a mystery to me for years.

I had no idea that AM DXing was any type of organized hobby at the time or that you could send reception reports for QSL cards.

Fast forward to 2008-I now hold an extra class amateur license and a GROL and have had a number of radios over the years (still regret selling my Sony ICF-6500W) but still regularly scan (or "surf" in today's computer parlance) the AM bands and still find it fascinating.

I will echo KB2VXA's sentiments though-I miss the good old days when radio stations were required by the FCC to ID by giving callsign, city and state every hour and half-hour (+/- 2 minutes).

In addition to my other radios, I still keep a cheap little Bell & Howell AM/FM/shortwave radio (with surprising sensitivity) on the nightstand next to the bed. At times when I wake up in the middle of the night, I can just put on my earphones and scan through the bands until I'm lulled back to sleep.

I hope I never lose my fascination...

 

[Banquet]

For someone like me just beginning to appreciate the lure of DX radio, that was a lovely post, Aa3rt. Thank you

 

[ridgescan]

I have a '59 Zenith Transoceanic (naturally, on the nitetable by the bed) that has awsome pullpower with that "wavemagnet" on top of the case. I love tuning in Portland, L.A., Texas, even Salt Lake City comes in real good at bedtime. There's a neat little low power station in Santa Cruz too. The coolest thing about dx on AM is it takes you out of your area's familiar flavor of radio and sort of gives you the ambience of that particular town..coupled with the faded softness of its distance and the warm glow of the diallites--man it'll put ya right out every time! Oh and the shortwave side is always a fun time too

 

[kb2vxa]

If I keep adding my 2c worth I'm gonna go broke! That Transoceanic's Wave Magnet was typical of it's day, a tuned air wound loop antenna comes in mighty handy for separating co-channel stations being you can null them out off the sides. The bigger the better, you guys should try building a classic "spider web" sometime.

Oh Ridge, when we say real radios glow in the dark we're not talking about dial lights, we're talking radios that keep the shack warm on cold winter nights. Somebody around here says real radios can kill you so don't go sticking your fingers in there when the fire is in the bottles.

 

[Taloniilm]

I'm sooo jealous !!! I'm dieing to own a "TO". My dad had one, there's just something about the glow of those tubes...

 

[ridgescan]

Yeah Warren I got ya'-also have a '54 Hallicrafters SX88 in the closet that I have to retube/recap I SO miss..20 tubes total! It was 10 degrees warmer anywhere within 5 feet of that thing (lol)......................hey Talon--mines from 1959 but it's tubeless..keep an eye on e-bay-they come up now and again. I hope you get one they are a neat piece of radio Americana

 

[ridgescan]

Aa3rt-forgive my latent comment-but I have to agree with Banquet..that was a good read!

 

[Dorpmuller]

Good topic! Been BCB DX'er since the late 60's.

I restore solid state Cold War era radios as a hobby, and some radios from the 70's-80's. I buy only radios that I know to be good AMDX performers. Here is my list of the best I found so far:

Tops: Panasonic RF-2200 and RF-1150. No comparison... can't touch them at screwbay prices though. I was lucky and picked up a tech special that I fixed.

Close second: Zenith Royal 790 Navigator-very sensitive/selective. Also Zenith Royal 755 and Zenith Royal 2000.

Excellent: GE P780 portable. Redsun RP-2100 (new) Both of these are about the same, but not up to the panasonics.

Caveat: Any of the Zeniths and the GE's are from the 60's and should have the electrolytics replaced and the radio realigned. It's worth it and you get that nice rush when you get it playing again!

Also: The true measure of an AM receiver is not at night, but how far it can receive groundwave during the day. I am in central Pa. and use WABC and WAEB (Allentown) for references. Weak but copyable on a good radio without loops or any external antenna.

I didn't include Trans-Oceanics, even though I have several solid state ones. I love 'em and while they are good, BCB performance doesn't measure up to the above units. However, I use my TO's to listen at night 'cause the fidelity is excellent. They are perfectly capable.

I used to listen to Coast to Coast but too many ads drive me nuts. I'll still listen when there's a guest that hasn't gone off their meds! :roll: Otherwise it's AM740 Toronto or CHML (900) with their old radio shows between 11P-2A.

Rich

 

[ridgescan]

Great knowledge Dorpmuller! I guess I hit it lucky with my 3000-1 (picture) because, and please tell me if this counts-L.A. and Portland and once in awhile KSL in Utah come in during the day. I have another tabletop radio that kicks ass on AM- the Sony ICF9650W. It has a quieter AM spectrum than the Zenith and performs great. I would love to hear any ideas you have on external AM antennas. I know you can't really mess with the AM ferrite as it is a closed circuit (right?) but me being mr. tinker around here I gotta up it a notch--

 

[Taloniilm]

I agree, Coast to Coast isn't as good as it once was. I still listen, but like Dorpmuller said... "too many ads". Not enough "Bigfoot and UFO stuff" anymore !!!

 

[Patch42]

I would love to hear any ideas you have on external AM antennas. I know you can't really mess with the AM ferrite as it is a closed circuit (right?) but me being mr. tinker around here I gotta up it a notch--

You can inductively couple most small loops (and big ones too) to a radio with a ferrite MW antenna. Sometimes it's just a matter of placing the two close to each other, as with the Select-A-Tenna. This is nothing more than a small tuned loop packed inside a tortilla warmer. You can build something rather similar for about $20 in parts, tortilla warmer included.

You can also use a pickup loop on the loop antenna and either wire it direct or inductively couple it using a small piece of ferrite with some wire looped around it.

The C.Crane AM Antenna is a tuned, amplified ferrite MW antenna. It does a pretty good job and will provide a better signal on most portable radios. The only one where I've seen little to no improvement is my early model GE SR3.

There are any number of external antennas you can buy or build, though you run the risk of overloading the front end of most portables. EWE antennas are very popular, as are K9AY antennas. The EWE is pretty simple to build and install. The K9AY is considerably more complicated. You should be able to find countless articles about both these antennas.

Most of the Wellbrook amplified loops do quite well on MW. Most people would consider them rather pricey, but if you have the money it's a very nice antenna.

Hope this gives you some ideas.

 

[ridgescan]

It certainly does and thanks! I have a C.Crane catalog. Gees they want as much for one of those select-a-tennas as you pay for a good base scanner antenna! The cheapskate comes forth in me at that point and usually wins. I'm going to google that K9YA and EWE- new to me. Thanks again.

 

[kb2vxa]

Still a good read, I haven't seen this much enthusiasm in MW DXing in years! Quite right, using daytime ground wave as a performance indicator was one of my techniques in addition to just plain looking for distant stations. It was pretty good before the FCC reallocated secondary profiles to other stations adding to the already cluttered band and IBOC hiss only made matters worse.

WABC does pretty well with that half wave tower and a swamp makes for a pretty good ground plane too. One interesting note is now at the solar minimum daytime propagation is better than at maximum when the D layer is more highly charged and absorbs more signal. Summer static is on the rise and soon you'll hear lightning crashes that'll tear your ears off so get it while you can or wait 'till next year.

Oh Ray, the tubes in the older Transoceanics and other portables didn't glow. They used 1V filaments and the audio output had a 3V all in series powered by a 7.5V A battery while B+ came from a 90V B battery or two 67.5V batteries in series. Late production models were solid state and transistors only glow when you try to run them off the AC mains. (;->)

Speaking of taco warmers, has anyone cooked hot dogs directly with electricity? I did by sticking a nail in each end and connecting them to a line cord with a carbon rod from an old battery in series as a ballast. It was a pretty cool way to amaze my friends at least until Ron Popiel caught wind of it and sold the most dangerous cooking appliance in history. Ronco, the name that shocked America into buying junk appliances and made a high pressure salesman rich.

 

[derrek_lee_25]

i got a station in from new york once and i live in iowa i also get stations from detroit

 

[57Bill]

Daytime groundwave - You can catch some relatively close by stations that run really low power that you could never hear at night. Some don't even transmit at night. These flea powered stations can be used for performance comparison as mentioned above. And like Ridgescan wrote, these small out of town stations give you the ambience of their town, even if only a tank full of gas away.

 

[57Bill]

Now wait a minute, Warren! Next, you'll be writing how you came up with the "pocket fisherman" first?

 

[Zaratsu]

I agree, Coast to Coast isn't as good as it once was. I still listen, but like Dorpmuller said... "too many ads". Not enough "Bigfoot and UFO stuff" anymore !!!

Well, I think it has more to do with George Snoory. He just doesnt have that aire of pushing the limit on discussing the dark that Bell has. They have a few extra weekend hosts that are not terrible, but one just keeps going on and on during the early part of his show (the part I can actually stay awake to hear) about the DB Cooper case. ENOUGH ALREADY! And the other is starting to get into garbage mafioso stuff. C'mon! UFOs/bigfoots/ghosts/govt conspiracy! Not crime!



anyways, while I've been talking up these silly little sony radios. I have been pecking away at the MW band with some halfway decent equipment. In addition to the 7600GR, I've had free reign over a boston acoustics receptor for a few weeks now.

Although it is more focused on the FM Dx crowd, it does a great job on MW. (no headphone jack! ) stunning sound on the speaker though. THIS is the radio that I think would really blast-off with a tuned loop and it has the proper inputs!

I should add in my latest hamfest "$10 bargain" box. Old lafayette somethin-or-other. Does an ok job I think, and has two BIG ferrite bar loops inside of it. It looks like it used to have a direction finder on it too. Who knows. It pulls signals, but has images galore and overload. It was an absolute monster at the shore last weekend. Daytime reception was beefy! (just a ton of drift and TV station images) Very little MW background noise.

Here is a picture of it next to my rat shack tivoli clone / wanna-be. (great sound! Ok FM reception, AM is so so) But at $25 it makes a good room-filling sound and speaker for my scanners.