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.]

4XZ 4594 kHz

Heard on shortwave: station transmitting in Morse code, sending "V V V de 4XZ 4XZ BT". Time: 0150-0156 UTC. Frequency: 4594 kHz. Signal: Poor. 4XZ is an Israeli navy station, located in Haifa. This is my first time hearing it. "V V V" is what's called a V-marker, which a station that isn't currently handling traffic transmits to mark its frequency. "BT" is a prosign (the letters B and T sent together with no space, which is also the = character in Morse code). Literally it is supposed to mean "space down two lines" but in radio traffic it is often used to mean "break" or "pause".

DXing location: Hotel room at the Haven Inn, St. Anthony, NL.

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.

CFNN-FM 97.9 MHz and XLW299 162.4 MHz

Today I am in St. Anthony, the largest town on Newfoundland's northern peninsula. It's near the northern tip of the peninsula, on the east side on the Atlantic Ocean. (Rocky Harbour, where I was the past four days, is on the west side of Newfoundland on the Gulf of St. Lawrence.).

I'm staying at the Haven Inn. As a place to stay it's nice enough, with a decent restaurant attached. But from inside my room there's a high level of electrical noise across most of the AM band. DXing mediumwave from here isn't going to be possible. Tomorrow I'll try to find an alternate location from which to listen.

Only two loggings for today, both local stations. Both are new to the log:

• CFNN-FM, 97.9 MHz, St. Anthony, NL, at 0022-0032 UTC. English, with excellent signal. ID for "VOCM-CFCB Radio Network" and also ID with CFNN's callsign and frequency. Call-in show: "Nightline". Ads for businesses in Corner Brook and Deer Lake. The only station audible on the entire FM band from here.
• XLW299, 162.4 MHz, St. Anthony, NL, at 2210-2223 UTC. French with good to excellent signal. Environment Canada weather radio with weather conditions. I also heard this in English at a later time. 

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.

YHR 276 kHz

Little time for radio today; only one logging to report:

• YHR, 276 kHz, Chevery-Harrington Harbour, Quebec, at 0130-0139 UTC with fair signal. Non-directional aeronautical beacon, repeating ID in Morse code. Received at Rocky Harbour, NL. New to log.

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.

VOBB 95.9 MHz Norris Point, NL

I logged one new FM station today while in Norris Point, NL (a town 8 km from Rocky Harbour): a community radio station located in Norris Point called VOBB (for the Voice of Bonne Bay) on 95.9 MHz. Time: 1828-1845 UTC. Signal was excellent in Norris Point but degraded as I drove back to Rocky Harbour. This was received on the stock car radio in the 2012 Mazda 3 I was driving (a rental). The station was playing Newfoundland music with some talk and identified as the Voice of Bonne Bay. A couple of hours later I also heard a VOBB ID.

I'm not certain what the callsign of this station actually is. I found some online sources (Wikipedia) that give the callsign as CHBB, but the station itself was identifying as VOBB. That could just be an acronym from their Voice of Bonne Bay slogan, but there are a few stations in Newfoundland that do have "VO" callsigns (VOCM in St. John's for example), so I suppose it's possible that the CRTC decided to let this station have a VO callsign.

Two days later: I happened to run into a man who is a volunteer at this station and he told me the station's output power is 30 watts.

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.

DF 350 khz

Listening location: Rocky Harbour, NL, in Gros Morne National Park.
Receiver: Kaito KA-1103.

• DF, 350 kHz, Deer Lake, NL at 0204 UTC with good signal. Morse code aeronautical non-directional beacon from Deer Lake airport. This is about 40 km from Rocky Harbour. Relog - logged from eastern Newfoundland in 2007.

Listening in Newfoundland

I'm going to Newfoundland and Labrador for two weeks on vacation, from Sun. Aug. 5 to Sat. Aug 18. I'm taking two radios with me and hope to do some DXing while there. Last time I was in Newfoundland, in 2007, I was impressed by all the transatlantic mediumwave stations I could hear, and by the European longwave broadcast stations I logged. I was in eastern Newfoundland that time; this time I'm going to the western side of the island. It'll be interesting to see what I can catch this time.

The main receiver will be the old trusty Kaito KA-1103, which covers AM/FM/LW/SW. I'm also taking the Sangean DT-400W AM/FM ultralight as a backup in case the Kaito quits on me. The DT-400W also covers the VHF weather channels.

WJNY 90.9 and WRVO 89.9

Heard on the FM band today, thanks to tropospheric propagation:

• WJNY, 90.9 MHz, Watertown, NY at 1129-1138 UTC (0729-0738 local time). Poor signal. Classical music. ID on half hour as WCNY Syracuse and as Classic FM. This is a new addition to the Toronto log, and is in fact the first station I've logged on 90.9 from Toronto. However, this is not a new catch for me - in my former home town of Kingston, Ontario, this is a semi-local station. This is station 161 in the Toronto FM log.
• WRVO, 89.9 MHz, Oswego, NY, at 1138 UTC. Poor signal. NPR. ID heard. Relog.

Some Neighbor on FM

Is this worth logging? It's not a "real" station, but it was on FM. Received tonight on 88.3 MHz at 0000-0100 UTC with a good signal. Television audio. For the first 45 minutes it was the audio from TV Ontario (a show about Queen Victoria's Britain), and then the audio started jumping around, as if someone were changing channels. It then settled on CBC television, (show "This Hour Has 22 Minutes") for the rest of the hour. I think this was probably a neighbor who plugged one of those tiny FM transmitters designed to work with wireless headphones into his television. It was only audible on my indoor FM dipole; on the outdoor FM antenna WCOU was coming in and there was no sign of the television audio.

OK, I'm adding it to the log. It's an FM transmission and I received it so it counts. This is station #160 received in Toronto.

Heard on FM Near Georgian Bay

I spent the day near Georgian Bay and found a few minutes to tune around the FM band. This yielded two new stations plus a third interesting logging:

• CFRH-FM, Penetanguishene, Ontario, 88.1 MHz, at 1800-1810 UTC with fair signal. In French. "Vague FM". Country music. Received on Airport Rd. near the Simcoe/Dufferin county boundary, not far from Creemore. The station was still audible when I stopped in Creemore. New.  8.6 kW.
• CISO-FM, Orillia, Ontario, 89.1 MHz at 2205-2215 UTC with excellent signal. "Sunshine 89.1". Real estate talk show. Received in Collingwood, when parked on the shore of Georgian Bay. New. 2.1 kW.
• Unidentified station that sounded like Espace Musique (Radio-Canada, French language CBC) on 90.9 MHz at 2215 UTC. French talk, classical music. Received in Collingwood when parked at the harbour; signal was fair but station disappeared in the noise after I drove away from the shore. No ID but the only Espace Musique station in Ontario on 90.9 is CBBX in Sudbury (which I've logged already). That seems like quite a good catch, although maybe it's not unusual (the path between Sudbury and Collingwood would be mostly over water).

Unidentifieds on 88.1 MHz

Heard on the car radio today on 88.1 MHz while I was in Whitby, Ontario: a couple of stations battling for the frequency. Neither sounded like any of the semi-regular ones that come in on this frequency. Perhaps there was some tropo or e-skip in action. No IDs heard. First was a CBC Radio outlet with a program of acoustic music. English, but not parallel to either of the local CBC stations. This was mixing with a station playing country music. Both disappeared before any identifying material was heard. 1820-1831 UTC.