Last Saturday night I had the chance to drive from my
brother’s house near Oneonta, NY to my home in Lansdale, PA. Much to my wife’s chagrin, I spent most
of trip DXing the two frequencies that most interest me right now – 560 and
990. I stopped listening near Allentown when signals from my own stations
(WFIL 560 and WNTP 990) began to override everything else. The route taken was I-88 to I-81 to the
PA Tpk NE Extension (I-476). I had
never really had a chance to see what’s dxable along
that route at night before, so I thought this would be a good
opportunity. The DXing was done
using my Alpine car radio with a standard 31 inch whip – nothing esoteric
here.
What I found on 560 was interesting. The dominant station on the frequency
throughout the trip turned out to be CFOS in Owen Sound, ON, Canada. A first-time catch
for me. I was quite surprised,
since their night pattern shows only a small lobe towards eastern NY and PA. Could they have been cheating
(accidentally or otherwise) on their day pattern and 7.5 KW day power? No way of knowing, but their signal was
much stronger than I would have expected from a 1KW DA whose main lobe is in
the opposite direction!
Other stations heard on 560 were WGAN in Portland, ME. Another first time catch. Their signal was in and out for a while,
once in a while topping over CFOS.
It would stay up for a couple of minutes and then fade back down into
the hash. Same
for WHYN in Springfield, MA and WFIL in
Philly. All would fight periodically for
dominance against CFOS, but the latter would eventually win out. Once I got down to Lehighton on the PA
Tpk NE Extension, it was pretty much WFIL the rest of the, as might be
expected.
On 990, good old “Legends 990” WLGZ in Rochester was dominant for the most
part. Once in a while I would hear
CBW come up, as well as WNTP. Also heard a Spanish station in the hash which I was unable to
identify. I assume it was
either WXCT in Southington, CT or WALE in RI. There were two surprises for
me: my first copy of what I think
was “WNML” in Knoxville since they changed calls. I didn’t even realize that they
weren’t WNOX anymore until I got home and began trying to figure out what
WNML was! Even more surprising was
pulling in WNTW in Somerset, PA for a few minutes while I was
around Binghamton – not bad for 100 watts.
Fortunately for my wife, she fell asleep
early in the trip show she missed the almost 2 and a half hours of skywave
noise J.
73,
Rene’
Rene' F. Tetro,
Salem Communications - Philadelphia
Voice: 610-941-9560
Extension 41