[IRCA] Domestic MW DX to Enid OK, February 22-28, 2013

[Glenn Hauser <wghauser@xxxxxxxxx>]

All times and dates strictly UT. Rx: mostly DX-398 with internal antenna only; or Sony SRF-59 as specified; Nissan stock caradio as specified; FRG-7 as specified

These logs are excerpts from my daily all-band reports, mainly SWBC, also VHF/UHF, sometimes, utility, ham, which may be found in several archives without much delay, such as
http://www.hard-core-dx.com/index.php?topic=Hauser

And compiled weekly along with extensive news from many other individuals and publications in DX LISTENING DIGEST:
http://www.worldofradio.com/dxldmid.html

These logs are in four sexions, Canada [if any], Oklahoma, rest of USA, unidentified, separated by ======= Within each, they are in frequency order

Note: my observations on power outage in Enid include FM stations, deleted from these reports, but in full in DX Listening Digest, Hard-Core DX, et al.

** OKLAHOMA [and non]. All my UT Feb 26 logs were during 10+hour power outage from 0411 to 1419 UT due to blizzard, ice on lines, etc., so noise level is much lower, using FRG-7`s 8 x D cell battery pack or in mostly MW cases, the usual DX-398 on its 4 X AA cells. 

The main longwire for the FRG-7 had been replaced a few months ago, so did not break despite icing about an inch in diameter. There were some strange weak birdies on the FRG-7, however, perhaps due to battery getting weak, not having been replenished for years. {Or, uncovered by abnormally low background noise level.}

Altho we have a good stock of batteries, and no telling how long the outage would last (hopefully less than a few weeks like a few years ago!), figured it was time to dust off the Baygen Freeplay and wind it up. Initially OK, then it makes huge noise louder than any audio it can play: seems like the spring broke. Now what? Good thing we are not depending on it. It does have a jack for DC.

More breakage: the ice load on our main TV antenna broke most of the VHF elements, altho the smaller and much sturdier UHF part seems to be OK; other TV antennas were further damaged. Snow total here was roughly 10 inches, and winds were quite high at times, at one point causing sparx along our powerline altho didn`t go off quite yet.

We were lucky to get power back after only 10 hours, as 3 hours after that at 17 UT, OG&E map still showed 20K out in Enid, from a peak of 22K. It was down to only 10K a couple hours later, then bumped upto 11K. Some reports said at worst, 90% of the city of Enid was dark, as well as most of the little towns around it (Glenn Hauser, Enid, Feb 26, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** OKLAHOMA. Shortly after power around Enid goes off, circa 0430 UT Feb 26, checking to see which stations are on or not:

Of the major secular stations:
 530, `K530AM` Vance AFB off [don`t they have 10 watts of aux power?]
 960, KGWA on
1390, KCRC off
1640, KOAG open carrier [and still thus by sunrise]

Another survey Feb 27 at 1516+ UT finds:
 960, KGWA on
1390, KCRC still off
1640, KOAG open carrier; last night it was completely off
(Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

530, ``K-530-AM``, 0330 UT Feb 27, Vance AFB is back on and finally serving a useful purpose, as amid the extremely stale Ad Council PSAs, such as FEMA info, Amber Alerts, the robovoice now informs us that deliveries are to be delayed, as the base is *closed* for all but ``mission-essential personnel needed to return it to operational status``. You`d think a major AFB would have its own backup generator power, but they could not even come up with 10 watts to keep this TIS on the air during the worst of it.

BTW, drastic cuts are feared at Vance as well as commercial airport Woodring in Enid with The Sequester. Even worse at Vance, a major SNAFU about health insurance deduxions caused drastic cuts in paychex of unionized civilians at Vance starting in January. Local charities are giving such families food! There are several stories about this at http://www.enidnews.com --- but never heard anything about it on 530.
In the base newspaper The Scoop, also published by Enid News, not so much either, and its website http://thescooponline.net goes nowhere with or without www.

** OKLAHOMA. 960, Feb 26 at 0600-0605 UT, KGWA produces another Fox-hole of dead air, having managed to keep power at studio and transmitter during power outage affecting ``all`` of Enid according to some reports. Just the usual stuff audible underneath, but no hum this time, which must be significant. Maybe they are on generators instead of usual OG&E power, somehow not hummy.

Frequent chex of KGWA, however, find it only in automated national programming, not a word about the local situation, including not before 7 am, 1300 UT when ``J. Curtis Huckleberry`` usual morning man comes on and fills us in; along with Alan Klepper, his counterpart at KOFM, who has nothing to do since 103.1 is still off the air.

Thus KGWA was our only local source of info about this emergency, altho it took them some 7 hours to get around to it (Glenn Hauser, Enid, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

Since KGWA 960 was always on when checked during and after the storm, figured it would stay, but to my surprise, UT Feb 27 at 0322, it`s off. Now I can DX the frequency at some time other than 0600-0605 UT when they usually cut modulation but keep carrier. 

But KGWA cuts back on at *0350:40 with ad during Clark Howard show in progress. For what I got meanwhile (not much), see USA. Also on 1390 and 1400 without KCRC, and 1640 without KOAG. While KGWA was off, so was KOFM 103.1 from same studios, also same remote transmitter site. 

** OKLAHOMA [and non]. 960, Feb 28 at 0107 UT, KGWA is on the air, and back to abnormal with 0600-0605 Fox-hole of no modulation during which ABC news from KMA IA is audible (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** OKLAHOMA. 1340, Feb 24 at 1346 UT, NBC Sports Radio update as it`s late enough for KGHM Midwest City to reclaim the graveyard on groundwave; 1350 ad for something in Norman at http://www.jdmc.org i.e. the J. D. McCarty Center for children with developmental disabilities; non-ID as 1340-The-Ghame, back to sports talk referencing fox.com --- so with the proliferation of silly sports networks, KGHM has added NBC to its main network, Fox Sports Radio (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** OKLAHOMA. Long after the rest of Enid appears to be back to normal with power restored, but still a lot of ice to melt, something remains drastically wrong at Chisholm Trail Broadcasting. Its stations are still missing the morning of February 27. Perhaps there is a pocket of power outage around the CTB building on Willow, north side of Enid, which is next to the three KCRC 1390 towers; all their other stations have remote sites.

Silent 1390 is no loss, just another ESPN clone with no full service; this also removes harmonix and mixing products with KGWA, such as 3310 (2 x 960 + 1390), which always blox R. Mosoj Chaski from me, but I`ll have to be up very early for a chance at it. If Bolivia be on at 0104 Feb 27, nothing audible then. Guess not: WRTH shows 09-13 & 21-01. There is also a MARS net in the mornings near 3310.

** OKLAHOMA. 1390, Feb 28 at 0107 UT, KCRC Enid is *still* off the air, 45 hours after we lost power and 35 hours after we got it back. Next check at 0558 UT Feb 28, 1390 is finally back on, so our fun is over.
(Glenn Hauser, Enid, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** OKLAHOMA. 1640, Feb 28 at 0107 UT, KOAG is on again but open carrier/dead air only, allowing us to hear WTNI and WKSH Disney music under it easily. KOAG too has resumed modulation at 0558 (Glenn Hauser, Enid, DX LISTENING DIGEST) 

** OKLAHOMA. 1650, Feb 26 at 0540 UT, KYHN is *still* running program promo reel rather than programming, Geraldo Rivera at the moment.
And Feb 26 at 1249 UT, Clark Howard promo (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** OKLAHOMA. 1650, Feb 21 at 1303 UT, KYHN still on with promo reel only, at the moment for Mike Huckaby, who will be at 11 am-2 pm. Means launch is approaching? Most of the promos are not specific about times; then for own Morning Show, and for Clark Howard (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** OKLAHOMA. 1650, Feb 22 at 1326 UT, KYHN still promoting, not axually programming, now with Michael Smerconish again talking about Larry David (Glenn Hauser, Enid, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** OKLAHOMA. 1650, Feb 23 at 0054 UT check, KYHN still running promos only; it`s Smerconish again talking about Larry David. Some Spanish CCI which could be El Paso or DF, but far more likely Denver (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

======================

** U S A. 790, Feb 26 at 1226, KNST is dominant, with promo. Tucson AZ station is 5/0.5 kW, so should be on night power; Feb sunrise is not until 1415; March 1330 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 910, Feb 25 at 1316 UT, level-headed report about gay marriage which does not condemn the idea! On AM radio! O, it`s `Morning Edition`, as at 1318 ID for IPR, Iowa Public Radio, i.e. WSUI Iowa City, where NPR has this strange concept of objectivity (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 960, Feb 27 at 0332 while local KGWA is off, think I hear Jim Bohannon in the pileup with Mex mx mix, peaking NE/SW. Is he on KMA in Iowa? NOT according to http://www.jimbotalk.net/stationfinder which on 960 only has KGWA itself! Which dropped him years ago (list shows him not on KGWA Enid but on ``KGWA Oklahoma City``!). So much for the validity of that program`s station finder.

So I go to KMA`s own program schedule:
http://www.kmaland.com/schedule.asp
After very detailed minute-by-minute listings earlier in the day, who cares about TV prime time when no one is listening to AM radio? Just this for M-F: ``6:30 variety of programs: local sports, Royals Baseball, Cardinal Baseball, Daily Wrap, Jim Bohannon, Dave Ramsey`` (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 990, Feb 25 at 1306 UT, CBS World News Roundup with report from Larry Miller in London; 1308 ID as AM 990, a bit of music and then Memphis TN traffic, 1310 weather from WREG-TV, expecting to escape the snowstorm further west in OK et al. AM-990 is really KWAM, 10 kW day power. CBS WNR did not formally close and I had the feeling AM-990 cut away from it; network newscasts are far too cooperative in allowing affiliates to do that. Enough, already of news from the world beyond US (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 1200, Feb 24 at 1353 UT, single signal with promo for something Sunday at 2 pm ``on Faith 1200, KFNW``, then an Aleluya song. Must have been in a WOAI fade, as it`s soon coming back with a SAH of about 6 Hz. KFNW is 50/13 kW U4 from West Fargo ND. Day power starts at 1330 UT in Feb, 1245 in March (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 1280, Feb 24 at 1336 UT, in KSOK Kansas null, YL in Spanish with local weather somewhere, ``a través de Qué Bueno``, on to music. That slogan clinches it as KBNO in Denver CO, 5/5 kW, in NRC AM Log as ``La Cadena Nueva Qué Bueno``. Note the masculine bueno, instead of the usual buena in station slogans. But what does it refer to as masculine? Maybe it`s only to match the callsign, someone else having KBNA (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 1280, Feb 24 at 1356 UT, encounter a station axually playing our national anthem, but it can`t be a sign-on, from KSOK Arkansas City KS. It`s a country version by an OM soloist --- but boo! Faded down before finished at 1358, outro as a ``country classic``, and then a CBS News Update. ``Country Classics`` is the slogan of KSOK, and NRC AM Log showed it affiliated only with ABC. 

If I owned a radio station, especially a SW one, I would play the ``Star Spangled Banner`` at least twice a day, whether signing on/off or not, and in a different version from one time to the next. There must be scores of them recorded (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 1320, Feb 24 at 1338 UT, Spanish balada music, and signal growing, roughly east-west; and at 1342 in its null, a different Spanish music station, roughly north-south; by 1344, the E/W station is being overtaken by the Oklahoman, KCLI Clinton, which is the off-frequency one causing a LAH --- yes reconfirmed at 1800 UT noon, KCLI is on the lo side. 

Consulting the NRC AM Log, the only two SS around here do fit this pattern:
KRDD Roswell NM, 1000/188 watts, non-direxional day and night 
(oh oh, official February sunrise is not until 1345 UT; 1315 in March)
KXYZ Houston TX, 5000/5000 watts, non-direxional days, but also ETHnic, and I think usually heard in Chinese (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 1330, Feb 24 at 1339 UT, ``The 12 thousand watt west Texas powerhouse, 1330 KCKM``, Monahans (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 1390, Feb 26 at 1243 UT, at least one definite ID while local KCRC is iced off: jingle for KNCK, i.e. Concordia, Kansas, presumably on PSRA of 500 watts instead of 54 watts night (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 1400, also sat here a while enjoying the absence of KCRC 1390 splatter, with a chance for some graveyarders to peak out of the pileup: all I get is at 0458 UT Feb 27, is partial ID for K?YL, with bathroom radio positioned to favor N/S. Bingo! The only fit is KEYL, Long Prairie MN, more than a megameter away in west-central Minnesota (Glenn Hauser, OK, WORLD OF RADIO 1658, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 1640, local KOAG remains off the air [see OKLAHOMA], so what else can be heard? Feb 27 at 0552, music and R. Disney ID, presumably WKSH Sussex WI rather than the other Disney, KDZR in Lake Oswego OR (an echo would be nice to bag both at once!). 

This is mixing with sports talk, and at 0603 ID as ``sports radio 93.7, ESPN``, but must have misheard it since the FM of WTNI Biloxi MS is on 96.7 per NRC AM Log. These were both on the FRG-7 with longwire, so no DFing.

KOAG is normally weak enough at night that by nulling it on the DX-398 I can often hear WTNI and/or Spanish from KBJA Utah (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 1800-2000 kHz, Feb 24 at 0702 UT, tuning across the 160m band, it`s crammed with SSB hams, unlike usual here and there. They are in a contest, exchanging signal reports from one state to another. If there were any foreign stations, they would be hard to find. Logged only one without noting the frequency, WW8OH, which ARRL/FCC lookup shows:
CENTRAL OHIO OPERATORS KLUB EXTRA - NOVICE, WW8OH (Club), PO Box: 4,
THORNVILLE, OH 43076 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

=======================

UNIDENTIFIED. 1390, Feb 26 at 1240 UT with local KCRC Enid off due to power outage, it`s time to DX anything else on 1390 --- but it`s generally frustrating with a graveyard-like pileup of equally weak signals. At this point I do hear a promo mentioning 107.5, seems to be east/west. No sure match in the NRC AM Log; Googling leads to a relationship between WGRB Chicago IL and 107.5, such as in a crossover person: http://www.inspiration1390.com/pages/drea.html
but that`s a bit too tenuous to base an ID on (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

UNIDENTIFIED. 1390, Feb 26 at 1241 UT in the absence of local KCRC Enid, something(s) from Arkansas: ``serving the heart of Arkansas for 100 years``. But neither of the two 1390 AR stations is anywhere near the `heart` i.e. Little Rock --- KFFK Rogers in the NW corner, and KDQN DeQueen in the SW corner. Googling on that phrase is inconclusive, maybe applying to United Way or a children`s hospital, not necessarily as of 2013y.

At 1242 UT, Arkansas Federal Credit Union offers free app; and 433-1010 is the traffic number at The Buzz Radio Network.

OK, that number for traffic center (not clear if it means road reports, or booking commercial time!) traces to 
http://www.point941.com/contact/default.aspx
so this AM station must be related to that FM station in Little Rock.

This site http://www.buzzradionetwork.com/
merely lists a series of callsigns which don`t go anywhere, ``KAGL | KDRS | KFFA | KGPQ | KNAS | KNWA | KREB | KSAR | KTLO | KTTG | KXJK``
not including KDQN or KFFK, but does include KFFA --- could that be related to KFFK? Not geographically: KFFA is FM 103.1 way over on the Mississippi River in Helena. KNWA is 1600 in Harrison/Bellefonte, not too far from Rogers but not the same market, apparently unrelated.

Another little problem with the 1390 Arkansawyers is that both are Spanish per the NRC AM Log and all this was in English. KDQN-FM is English, AM is Spanish. Can`t find a real website for KFFK.

I give up trying to sort this out and decide which station(s) I really heard. Perhaps someone with an intimate knowledge of Arkansas radio can unravel it, at least confirm which 1390(s) be in Spanish and which in English, or both (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

Glenn, about your 1390 mystery: KDQN 92.1 FM and KDQN 1390 AM from DeQueen are both listed online as being in the Arkansas Razorbacks Radio Network, so even though the AM station is usually in Spanish, perhaps you caught a coaches' show or sports replay in English, which would explain a source from the "Heart of Arkansas." (Thomas Horton, dxldyg via DX LISTENING DIGEST)

UNIDENTIFIED. 1390, Feb 27 as local KCRC is still down, what else can I hear? Mostly a pileup with nothing intelligible, except occasionally: at 0346 UT a gospel huxter peaking E/W; at 0412 a calmer more composed one citing Jeremiah 9, from E/W, or NW/SE? Depends on where in the house I rotate the DX-398, reminding us of how approximate such findings can be. 

In near/adjacent states, there aren`t many REL or GOS 1390s in the NRC AM Log, in fact only WMER Meridian MS, 5000/101 watts, and beyond that, WHMA Anniston AL, 5000/1000. And then there`s WGRB in Chicago which I suspected the night before (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

UNIDENTIFIED. 3400, Feb 24 at 0102, JBA carrier; could it be some 1700, 850, or 680 station harmonicizing? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

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