1330 kHz Overnight Recording for KCKM DX Test

KCKM 1330 kHz, Monahans, Texas, held a DX test on March 22, 2014. I recorded that frequency overnight in hopes of catching the DX test. I've now uploaded the recording of that session to archive.org.

Apart from some possible fragmentary Morse code IDs heard very faintly around the 01:16 mark, nothing of KCKM is audible in this recording. However what is audible are several different stations producing a jumble of noise, with various stations occasionally being heard well enough to identify. It's a good example of what a crowded AM band channel sounds like at night when no one station is strong enough to dominate.

The stations audible at various times during this recording are:
WFNN, Erie PA, Fox Sports Radio, with sports talk.
WRCA, Watertown MA, with programming in Portuguese.
WWRV, New York NY, with religious programming in Spanish.
WSPQ, Springville NY, with oldies music.
WEBO, Oswego NY with news and talk.
WHBL, Sheboygan WI, Fox News Radio 1330.
WTRE, Greensburg IN, with country music.

For me, most of these stations are relogs. WSPQ is the closest one to me. WWRV, whose ID I heard at 0700 UTC, is a relog but its callsign has changed since the last time I heard it. WTRE is new, heard at 1100 UTC with ID (that sounded like WTRA) and country music. WHBL in Sheboygan, WI is a relog but I think this is the first time I've caught it in Toronto. And KCKM itself I am going to add to my log as a tentative, possible logging. I never got a clear ID but around 0524 UTC I did hear some very faint fragmentary Morse code IDs, the pieces of which sounded like KCKM. Not quite enough to be certain, but enough to consider it likely.

Mediumwave DXing from Saskatchewan

From August 3 to 11, 2013 I travelled around Saskatchewan. In the evenings I spent some time DXing the AM and FM bands. One of my goals was to try to hear as many of Saskatchewan's AM stations as I could. I came very close to receiving all of them. In fact, I only missed one, CJBW on 1330 kHz in Jans Bay. I was listening from Regina, Moose Jaw, Saskatoon, and Lake Waskesiu in Prince Albert National Park. There is another station on 1330 that's sort of in the middle of all that, CJYM in Rosetown, which dominated the frequency.

CFGN 1230 kHz

Here's a logging I was excited about until I checked my records later. I was in Barachois Pond Provincial Park (about 20 km east of Stephenville) for a hike (in the rain). After returning to my car I spent about half an hour listening to a faint almost unintelligible station on 1230 kHz waiting for an ID. Finally I heard the VOCM ID I was expecting, which meant this was CFGN in Port aux Basques NL (which is part of the VOCM network). It was exciting because CFGN was one of the few mediumwave stations in the province that I hadn't yet logged. At least that's what I thought. Checking my logbook later I discovered I'd actually logged this station back in 2007, and from a much farther distance (Twillingate NL). To top it off, I forgot to note the time of today's reception, so all I can say is that it was in the early afternoon local time.

Other Catches in York Harbour

I also caught the following while in York Harbour, NL. All are relogs:

• JT, 390 kHz, Stephenville NL, at 0027 UTC with good signal. Non-directional aeronautical beacon with Morse code ID. This is one of the only longwave stations from Newfoundland that I've heard from Ontario.
• BBC Radio 5 Live, 693 kHz, from the United Kingdom. 0241-0300 UTC. Fair to poor signal (weak but relatively little interference, some fading, but good enough to follow the programming). English with British accents. Talk about the early days of Apple Computer. ID on hour. BBC Radio 5 Live transmits from several locations on this frequency, including Droitwich (150 kW), Stagshaw and Start Point (both 50 kW) and Burghead (25 kW). I don't know which this is. Relog - I caught the BBC on 693 in 2007 from Twillingate, NL.

BSKSA 1521 kHz

This is an exciting catch: the most distant mediumwave station I've ever heard, and the first Asian one too. Station: BSKSA (Broadcasting Service of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) from Duba, Saudi Arabia on 1521 kHz at 0236 UTC. Signal was fair to poor: fairly strong but some fading and co-channel interference from WWKB 1520 (Bufallo, NY). Programming was talk in Arabic and some singing.

I'm classifying this one as tentative-but-probable. No ID was heard, but as far as I can tell there are no Arabic language stations on 1520 in North America, esp. at night; this was also definitely on 1521; and there are no other Arabic stations listed in Europe, Africa, or Asia, BSKSA on 1521 transmits at an incredible 2 MW of power (2000 kW) making it 40 times more powerful than the most powerful stations in North America, and it is a regular catch by DXers along the east coast of North America.

Today's listening location: a bed-and-breakfast in York Harbour, NL (on the Bay of Islands west of Corner Brook). The first place I've stayed in since Rocky Harbour where there was no electrical interference on AM (at least after everyone went to bed).

Listening in Deer Lake

I stayed the night at Deer Lake, NL and spent a bit of time tuning the radio bands. Here's what I heard.

Mediumwave:

• WUNR, 1600  kHz, Brookline MA, 0050-0100 UTC. Poor signal. Religious programming in Spanish. ID on hour in English, then into a religious program in English. Relog.
• Unidentified station in Spanish at 0105 on 1485 kHz, which means it is probably from Europe. Very weak with only a few brief fragments of talk heard.

Longwave:

• FK, 335 kHz, Deer Lake Junction NL, 0904-0908 UTC. Good signal. Non-directional aeronautical beacon with Morse code ID. New.

FM:

• Unidentified station on 107.75 Mhz (slightly off the 107.7 channel frequency) at 0920-0930 UTC with excellent (local quality) signal in English. Audio from CPAC (Canadian Parliamentary Access Channel), a cable TV station. My guess is that this is someone's personal FM transmitter, like those used with wireless headphones, and is located close to the place I was staying in Deer Lake. New.
• CKXX-FM, 103.9 MHz, Corner Brook NL, 0930-0934 UTC. Good signal. English. News, sports, weather. ID with callsign and slogan "109.9 K-Rock". 40 kW. New.
• Unidentified station on 103.5 MHz at 0935-0937 UTC. Very weak and unintelligible. There is a station in Grand Falls-Windsor on this frequency; my guess is that this is it.
• VOAR-5-FM, 102.1 MHz, Deer Lake NL at 0938-0940 UTC. Excellent signal in English. ID at "Listener-supported VOAR". 50 W. New.
• CFDL-FM, 97.9 MHz, Deer Lake NL, at 0944-0946 UTC. Excellent. Campaign for school supply donations. ID as CFCBradio.com. (CFDL is parallel to CFCB). Only 16 watts. New.
• CBDT-FM, 96.3 MHz, Deer Lake NL, at 0946-0949 UTC. CBC Radio One. Excellent signal. 670 W. New.
• CKMY-FM, 95.9 MHz, Grand Falls-Windsor NL, at 0950-0958 UTC. Fair signal. OZ FM with hot adult contemporary dance music. 50 kW. New.
• CBNR-FM, 95.5 MHz, Ramea-Burgeo NL. 1000-1002 UTC. Fair signal. CBC Radio One with news. 780 W. New.
• CBN-FM-3, 90.5 MHz, Deer Lake NL, 1003-1005 UTC, with excellent signal. CBC Radio Two news. 980 W. New.
• CBN-FM-2, 91.1 MHz, Corner Brool NL, at 1005-1007. Fair signal. CBC Radio Two. 3 kW. New.

BBC Radio 5 Live 909 kHz and XLW295 162.55 MHz

Just two things to report for my final night in Labrador. Location: L'Anse au Clair.

• Tentative: BBC Radio 5 Live, 909 kHz, from somewhere in the UK, at 0020-0035 UTC. English, with poor signal. Received on Kaito KA-1103 using its internal ferrite bar antenna. Talk about the London Olympic games, the closing ceremonies of which had just ended an hour or so earlier. Call-in show with all callers from various locations in the UK. All accents British. No ID, so it is tentative, but the station was clealy from the UK and BBC Radio 5 Live is the only UK station on this frequency. Location unknown, as it transmits from numerous locations on 909 kHz. Also, this is a relog for me. I heard BBC Radio 5 on this frequency in 2007 when I was in Twillingate, NL.
• XLW295, 162.55 MHz, Mount St. Margaret NL, at 0905 UTC with good signal. Environment Canada weather radio, but something was wrong because the only thing it was transmitting was its ID announcements in English and French. No weather.

Listening from Labrador

Today I am in Labrador, staying in a little town called L'Anse au Clair. Labrador is part of the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, but is on the mainland separate from the island of Newfoundland. I had hoped to do some DXing from here in a truly RF-quiet environment, but unfortunately there is an annoying electrical buzz across much of the AM band in my lodgings. This is coming from outside - I can hear it on the car radio while driving through much of the town. However it is possible to null it out by reorienting the radio and it isn't audible outside of town so there may be DXing possibilities here.

For today, I have two loggings of AM stations which I heard on the car radio, a longwave logging, and a bunch of FM stations logged from inside my room.

Mediumwave:

• WLAM, 1470 kHz, Lewiston ME, at 0010-0020 UTC with fair signal in English. Oldies, IDs, and mentions of Lewiston. Relog.
• WNYY, 1470 kHz, Ithaca NY at 0015 UTC. Poor signal. English. Mixing with WLAM, ID heard. Relog.

Longwave:

• YMH, 250 kHz, Mary's Harbour NL, at 0053 UTC. Very weak but very little interference so no problem understanding ID. Morse code beacon. New to log.

FM:

• CBSI-FM-21, 107.1 MHz, Blanc Sablon QC, at 0220-0224 UTC with excellent signal (as expected, as Blanc Sablon is only a few km from L'Anse au Clair). French, SRC Premiere Chaine network. Talk, music. 78 watts. New to log.
• CBMS-FM, 102.7 MHz, Blanc Sablon QC, at 0225-0227 UTC. Excellent signal. English. CBC Rado One with show "Saturday Evening Blues". 78 watts. New to log.
• CBYM, 98.7 MHz, Mount St. Margaret NL, at 0227-0230 UTC. Excellent signal. English. CBC Radio One. 10 kW. New to log.
• CBTB, 97.1 MHz, Baie Verte NL, at 0230-0233 UTC. Poor signal. CBC Radio One in English. New to log. 24.2 kW.
• CBTR-FM, 92.9 MHz, Roddickton NL, at 0233-0236 UTC. Fair signal. CBC Radio One in English. New to log. 2 kW.
• CBNJ, 90.5 MHz, Port Saunders NL, at 0236-0238 UTC. Good signal. English. CBC Radio One. 260w. New to log.

All these CBC Radio One outlets were carrying the same programming. I didn't bother to wait for IDs - CBC stations seldom identify with their callsigns. Anyway, all of them are either semi-local or are the only plausible candidates.

Northern Newfoundland Loggings

I left St. Anthony today and drove west across the tip of Newfoundland's northern peninsula to St. Barbe on the Gulf of St. Lawrence, with a detour up to Cook's Harbour (named after Captain James Cook, who visited here during his voyages to chart the coasts of Newfoundland). During the drive I caught the following stations on the car radio:

• CKIM, 1240 kHz, Baie Verte NL, at 1615-1745 UTC with a fair to poor signal. English. Country music and IDs for VOCM (part of their network). Received from near St. Anthony to Cook's Harbour. Relog.
• CBG, 1400 kHz, Gander NL, at 1730-1740 UTC. English, fair signal. CBC Radio One with show "Definitely Not The Opera". Received near Cook's Harbour, NL. Relog.
• CBN-FM-6, 95.5 MHz, Baie Verte NL at 1753-1830. English, fair signal. CBC Radio Two with an opera by Gluck. Received beginning at the intersection of highways 430 and 435 and heard most of the way to the Gulf of St. Lawrence coast. New to log.
• CJVA, 810 kHz, Caraquet NB, at 1840-1850 kHz, with fair signal. French, with oldies/variety music and talk. Received at Eddie's Cove, NL. Relog.

CBNA 600 kHz Harmonics

A radio transmitter that is tuned to transmit at one frequency will also naturally emit signals at multiples of that frequency. This is because the basic transmitter circuit is an oscillator and oscillators naturally oscillate at multiples of the frequency they're tuned to oscillate at. This base frequency is called the fundamental and the multiples thereof are called harmonics (although the fundamental frequency is also called the first harmonic, so if the fundamental is 100 kHz then 200 kHz is the second harmonic, not the first). This phenomenum is similar to resonance in musical instruments, except that it's happening with radio waves, not sound.

In a radio transmitter these harmonics are undesirable. If your station is authorized to operate on 1000 kHz, you don't want it also transmitting on 2000 kHz, 3000 kHz, etc., frequencies that you're not authorized to use. So radio transmitters include circuitry to suppress the harmonics, to prevent them from being radiated.

Sometimes, however, these measures fail and then you can start to hear harmonics on the air, sometimes at a considerable distance from the station. That's where the subject becomes interesting for DXers, some of whom find harmonics to be an interesting target to seek.

While I was checking out the mediumwave band from my hotel room here in St. Anthony, NL, I came across a fairly strong station carrying CBC Radio One (English) on 1200 kHz. There are no CBC stations on 1200 kHz anywhere in eastern Canada. I immediately checked 600 kHz, where local CBNA is located, and found that it was the same programming. So this must be CBNA's second harmonic. I was only a couple of kilometres from their transmitter site so I wasn't surprised to pick up the second harmonic - even a properly tuned station can still emit very weak harmonics that are audible close to the transmitter site. But this one was very strong.

Next I decided to see if CBNA was audible on any other of its harmonics. The results were surprising: I heard the station on almost every one of its harmonic frequencies up to 10200 kHz - the 17th harmonic. Specifically it was audible with a fairly strong signal (clear on some frequencies, distorted on others) on 1200, 1800, 2400, 3000, 3600, 4200, 4800, 5400, and 6600. Only on 6000 was it missing, and that's probably because Radio Havana was dominating that frequency. It was also audible with a much weaker, fragmentary signal on 7200, 8400, 9000, and 10200 kHz.  Time: 0202-0220 UTC.

I have no idea how far away these harmonics can be heard. But since even weak signals can propagate long distances on shortwave, this might give DXers a chance to hear Newfoundland on shortwave.

[Next day: I heard the second harmonic on 1200 kHz with a good solid signal on the car's radio as I was driving out of town. I was already on the highway a bit outside of St. Anthony, However, it wasn't audible when I was a few dozen km from St. Anthony.]

DXing at Fishing Point, St. Anthony NL

Yesterday I said I would look for an alternate location from which to DX. I decided to try DXing from Fishing Point, a scenic spot overlooking the ocean on the edge of St. Anthony. This was shortly after sunset. First I tried listening on the Kaito KA-1103 while sitting on a bench, but this didn't work. I had no light with me and couldn't see the radio. So I retreated to the car and tuned around the AM band using the car radio. This unfortunately precluded the option of catching most transatlantic stations, since the car radio only tuned the North American 10 kHz frequencies. Only a handful of things to report, but at least one is a new station for the overall log:

• 1610 kHz, 0120 UTC. Fair signal. Pastor Melissa Scott preaching. Same programming as can be heard on all of the "University Network" stations on shortwave. From past experience I know that those stations almost never ID, so I didn't bother waiting for an ID. Most likely this station is the 30 kW Caribbean Beacon in The Valley, Anguilla. That station is part of the University Network. Relog.
• WBAE, 1490 kHz, Portland ME, at 0122-0126 UTC with fair signal. 1 kW. New York Yankees baseball on the Yankees Radio Network. Ad for MJ Storey (?) Landscaping. "ID" consisting of station's URL "am1400and1490.com", from which I was able to determine what the station is. New (although I did log this station way, way back in 1978 when it was WPOR).
• 1510 kHz at 0127 UTC. Poor signal. Spanish language station with sports. No ID. Pretty sure it was a U.S. station.
• 1520 kHz at 0127-0133 UTC. Fair signal. Station with talk in Arabic.

Final Day in Rocky Harbour

For the final DX session in Rocky Harbour, NL, I have loggings of two longwave stations, two mediumwave stations from Ontario, and two FM stations from the local area:

• JT, 390 kHz, Stephenville, NL, at 0025-0030 UTC. Fair to good signal. Non-directional aeronautical beacon. Relog.
• AY, 356 kHz, St. Anthony, NL, at 0035-0036 UTC. Fair signal. Non-directional aeronautical beacon. Relog.
• CFRA, 580 kHz, Ottawa, ON. 0044-0047 UTC. English, fair to good signal. News/talk, phone-in show. ID. Ads for AlarmForce, BMR Builders, etc. Relog.
• CFZM, 740 kHz, Toronto, ON, at 0100-0108 UTC. Good solid signal, dominating the frequency. English. "AM 740" with oldies. Relog, obviously.
• CBNF-FM, 89.1 MHz, Bonne Bay, NL. 0140-0143 UTC. English, excellent signal. CBC Radio One, show "Q" with end of an interview with Daniel Radcliffe. New.
• CKOZ-FM, 92.3 MHz, Corner Brook, NL, at 0147-0252 UTC. Poor signal. English. "OZ FM". ID for sister stations in Argentia and St. John's. Ads. Hot adult contemporary music. New.

Absolute Radio 1215 kHz; BX 220 kHz

Just two stations logged today. Reception location: Rocky Harbour, NL. Receiver: Kaito KA-1103.

• Absolute Radio, 1215 kHz, United Kingdom, at 0220-0236 UTC with poor signal. Pop music, including song by Lionel Ritchie. Absolute Radio ID. This is a relog, but the last time I logged it, in Newfoundland in 2007, the station was still calling itself Virgin Radio.
• BX, 220 kHz, Lourdes-de-Blanc-Sablon, QC, at 0240-0244 UTC with fair to good signal. Aeronautical non-directional beacon with repeated Morse code ID. Relog.

One cool feature of DXing in Newfoundland is that transatlantic reception of mediumwave stations is not difficult there. I got Absolute Radio using the KA-1103's built-in ferrite bar antenna. The saltwater path plus the fact that Newfoundland is much closer to Europe than is Ontario are the main factors. But another important factor is that Newfoundland is so much farther east than the United States and the rest of Canada. This means that for a period of time after sunset, there's nighttime propagation to Europe while most of the rest of North America is still in daylight. So the transatlantic signals are coming in while North American DX stations are not yet competing with them.

Southern Ontario AM Stations

Whenever I start DXing the mediumwave band from a new location, I begin on the frequencies occupied by local stations in Toronto, especially by 50 kW powerhouses. I reckon that the best chance to pick up something new will be on the frequencies that I can't DX at home. I tried doing this tonight here in Rocky Harbour, NL, but was greatly surprised to find that most of the Toronto stations were coming in quite well, dominating their frequencies. It's a surprise because I don't think I've ever been able to receive stations from Newfoundland in Toronto. Well, maybe it shouldn't be a surprise because there are no 50 kW clear channel stations from western Newfoundland to receive in Toronto. The strongest station in western Newfoundland is  CBY on 990 in Corner Brook. It's 10 kW but in Toronto the frequency is dominated by CKGM from Montreal.

Here are the stations I logged:

• CFTR, 680 kHz, Toronto, ON, at 0207-0211 UTC. Fair to poor signal. English. "680 News" with Toronto traffic, weather, and news.
• CHUM, 1050 kHz, Toronto, ON, at 0212-0213 UTC. Fair to poor signal with lots of co-channel interference. "TSN 1050 Toronto" ID. Sports talk.
• CFRB, 1010 kHz, Toronto, ON, at 0214-0215 UTC. Fair to poor signal with co-channel interference from New York. English. "Newstalk 1010" ID, ads for Toronto businesses, and talk.
• CKOC, 1150 kHz, Hamilton, ON, at 0216-0219 UTC. Fair signal, little interference. English. "Oldies 1150 CKOC" ID and oldies music. This station is Canada's oldest radio station now, being on the air for 90 years. 
• CKDO, 1580 kHz, Oshawa, ON, at 0900 UTC. Fair to good signal. English. Oldies music, and CKDO ID. One of the strongest DX signals on the mediumwave band.

I also heard other Toronto stations in passing after 0220 UTC, like CHIN on 1540, but didn't log them as it was late and the point had already been made.

KRPI 1550 DX Test

I added two stations to the mediumwave log today, thanks to a DX test. One of these is my first reception of a station from Washington state here in Toronto. Station KRPI in Ferndale, WA, 1550 kHz, held a half hour DX test from 0900-0930 UTC (that's 4 a.m. local time here). I set up things to record that frequency overnight and then reviewed the recording later to see if KRPI showed up. I got two new stations:

• WDLR, Delaware, OH, with a poor signal. Spanish talk, and "la que buena" slogan IDs. No legal ID, but the slogan is enough to identify it with reasonable certainty. This station is 500 watts daytime, and supposedly only 29 watts at night. Sounded suspiciously strong for 29 watts.
• KRPI (tentative), Ferndale, WA with very very poor signal under WDLR.  All I heard were some fragments of Morse code at 0900, 0904, 0913, and 0928 UTC. No ID but at 0900 I heard “PI”. This DX test was widely heard across North America, including here in Ontario by several DXers using ultralights. Since there would be no reason to hear Morse code on 1550 except for a DX test, I think I got it but can't be certain. So it gets counted but as a tentative logging.

This brings the count of mediumwave stations logged in Toronto to 388, and the overall count (logged from anywhere but mostly from Kingston, Ontario) to 970.

ZIZ 555 kHz and WRKO 680 kHz

Some mediumwave loggings to finish up the day's reports. All logged in Harrowsmith, Ontario on the Kaito KA-1103 with its built-in ferrite bar antenna:

• ZIZ (tentative), 555 kHz, St. Kitts and Nevis, at 0441-0508 UTC in English with poor signal. BBC programming. No ID heard, so identification is tentative, but there's not much doubt about it. ZIZ is the only station in the Americas that operates on 555 kHz, and it does carry BBC programming overnight. This is a relog but it has been many years since I last heard ZIZ. It's impossible to hear at my location in Toronto because of the noise level, and because of semi-local WGR on 550.
• WNNZ, 640 kHz, Westfield, MA, USA, at 1325-1333 UTC with fair signal. New England Public Radio. Relog.
• WRKO, 680 kHz, Boston, MA, USA at 1335-1337 UTC with fair to poor signal. Talk about U.S. presidential race. New to overall log. 680 is blocked in Toronto because of local CFTR, and even in Kingston CFTR is normally dominant. But this morning WRKO was beating it down..

Mediumwave Loggings, Including a Pirate Station

I'm still up in Harrowsmith for the Labour Day weekend. I logged three mediumwave stations today, two of them new and one of them a radio pirate. Receiver: Kaito KA-1103.

• WCKL, 560 kHz, Catskill NY, at 0357 UTC (11:57 p.m. EDT Sept 4) with fair signal. "Family 560" playing nostalgia music. This station is 1 kW daytime, 43 watts at night. If it really was at the night power, then this is a good catch. Relog - logged once before in Toronto.
• WLIE, 540 kHz, Islip NY, at 0359-0402 UTC with poor signal. ID on hour, also with slogan "South Asian Radio". 2.5 kW day, 220 W night. New to overall log.
• Pirate, 1710 kHz, 0405-0410 UTC. Talk in Haitian-accented French and Caribbean music. Signal coming from south east. Very weak but strengthened at times to listenable levels. This is likely to be one of the French language pirate stations known to transmit from Boston, MA and operated by people in the Haitian population there. New to overall log, and only the second pirate ever logged on 1710.
  

This brings the overall mediumwave count to 967 (counting the pirate).

WKVQ 1540 kHz Eatonton, GA

Very early this morning the nice folks at WKVQ 1540 in Eatonton, Georgia, put on a special DX test broadcast to give DXers a chance to log them. I did not expect to hear this station because Georgia is a long way from Toronto, and because we have a 50 kW local station (CHIN) on 1540 here. WKVQ is 10 kW day, 1.6 at night. I don't know which power they used for the test but even a 10 kW station is a tough catch on a crowded frequency at that distance. Nevertheless, I knew that the station would be broadcasting Morse code IDs and that Morse code has a real ability to punch through the noise. I figured that if CHIN had a program of talk, not music, that there might be the occasional gap through which WKVQ might creep. I've logged other stations this way, by hearing IDs during brief silent pauses on the dominant station. So I set things up to record 1540 overnight so I could review the recording later.

The DX test was scheduled to run from 06:00 to 06:30 and from 07:00 to 08:00 UTC. That's 1:00 to 1:30 and 2:00 to 3:00 a.m. local time. CHIN was playing music, but there was an announcer between songs. At 06:29 I thought I heard a Morse code ID underneath CHIN during a momentary pause in the announcer's speech. Very, very faint. I had to listen to the recording over and over, fiddling with the equalizer settings in Winamp to boost certain audio frequencies and to suppress others. Eventually I was able to improve it enough to verify that I was hearing "WKV?" with the final letter being four elements long - it was partly wiped out by the announcer on CHIN. Since "Q" is a four element character in Morse code, and since no AM station is going to broadcast its ID in Morse code except in a DX test, and since there are no other stations on this frequency whose callsign starts with WKV, this was enough to convince me it was WKVQ. Cool!

This is station number 965 in my overall mediumwave log, and number 386 in the Toronto log.

WCXN 1170 kHz Claremont, NC

I logged a new mediumwave station today, Feb. 12, 2011: WCXN, 1170 kHz, in Claremont, NC. I heard a Spanish language station on 1170 under WWVA, so I left the radio on overnight, using the Sony MP3 recorder to record it. The station was present all night, making the time of this logging 0340 to 1000 UTC.

The station was usually under WWVA, but sometimes dominated the frequency. Mexican music format with several “La que buena“ IDs. No callsign heard - not sure the station ever gave one. But “La que buena“ is WCXN’s slogan. Also while WCXN is a daytime only station, it has been reported widely on the DX reflectors as frequently staying on all night. Since there are no other plausible candidates, I concluded this must be WCXN.

There was also a second Spanish station heard with talk under WXCN a few times. But it was very weak with no identifying material heard.

This is the 385th station in my Toronto mediumwave log, and the 964th in the overall log.

Loggings on Highway 7

I drove back to Toronto today from Ottawa and DXed the AM band while I drove. Car DXing is simple enough - leave the car radio on some frequency while one drives. If something worth logging pops up, pull over, then note down the details. The pulling over and stopping isn't necessary if one uses a voice recorder to make notes, but I don't.

Conditions on the AM band were great today. Occasionally, around the time of the winter solstice, some amount of skywave propagation can remain in effect all day. Normally there is no skywave propagation on mediumwave frequencies during daylight hours because of the ionizing effect of the sun on the D layer of the ionosphere. This layer absorbs signals at these frequencies, preventing them from propagating further. At night, the D layer disippates, which allows signals at mediumwave frequencies to pass through it to the higher F layer, which reflects them back to earth. This is the reason for long distance propagation on the AM band at night. However, around the time of the winter solstice the days are the shortest of the year, and the sun is at the lowest elevation in the sky. So the D layer does not get as strongly ionized and skywave propagation on mediumwave doesn't entirely disappear during the daylight hours. I would expect this phenomenon would be stronger, more frequent, and occur over a longer period of time at more northerly latitudes. Here in southern Ontario I've only ever seen it happen within a couple of weeks of the winter solstice. And it was happening today.

I logged the following stations. I heard more stations than this, but as I was driving I didn't think it was worth stopping to log stations I knew I'd heard before. Four of them turned out to be new catches, which is a fantastic haul. Combined with the three new ones I caught in Ottawa earlier, I got seven new stations on mediumwave today. I can't remember the last time I got so many new ones. This brings the overall mediumwave log count to 963.

• WPNI, 1430, Amherst MA at 1810 UTC (2:10 p.m. local time) with fair signal. 5 kW. Playing folk music. ID as WUMB. WUMB is the University of Boston FM station on 91.9, WPNI is carrying its programming at the present time. First time logging. Received in Ottawa, ON.
• WENE, 1430, Endicott NY at 1815 UTC with fair signal. Sports. ID as "The Team" and gave location as Binghampton. Received in Ottawa. Relog.
• WEOK, 1390, Poughkeepsie NY at 1835 UTC, poor signal. 5 kW. Heard ID and frequency. Received in Carleton Place, ON. First time logging.
• WNIO, 1390, Youngstown OH at 1858 UTC. Fair-poor signal. 9.5 kW. Sports talk, ID as "The Sports Animal". ESPN. Callsign ID on the hour. Received in Carleton Place. Relog.
• WROW, 590, Albany NY at 2015 UTC. Poor signal. Christmas music, ID as "Magic 590". Relog.
• WHBL, 1330, Sheboygan WI at 2100 UTC, around sunset local time. Poor signal. 5 kW. News with items about local events in Wisconsin. Mentions of Sheboygan. Received on Highway 7 in central Ontario. First time logging.
• WIGN, 1550, Briston TN at 2130 UTC with poor signal. 35 kW. Religious. Several IDs and location heard. Received in Havelock, ON. First time logging.