[IRCA] Low Noon MW bandscan from N Oklahoma

[Glenn Hauser <wghauser@xxxxxxxxx>]

MW bandscan from a quiet rural location several km N of Enid OK, a dead-end E of US 81 into the Quail Meadows addition, Nov 29, shortly after local mean noon which is 1832 UT, on Nissan caradio, nondirexional antenna, uncovered a few interesting things. 

This is about a week before our latest sunrise and another month before our earliest sunset. How much skywave will make it, and what are the limits of groundwave in this high-ground-conductivity area? Distances are approximate.

660, weak signal under KSKY Dallas, 1910 with talk mentioning Omaha; makes SAH of slightly under 2 Hz, counted at 116/minute. This frequency has been difficult because of WWLS-640 IBOC always QRMing KSKY, yes, on second-adjacent. Omaha NE is now KCRO 1 kW, vs 20 kW from somewhat closer KSKY.

670, at 1853, mix of two stations, no doubt KLTT Denver, 700 km, and WSCR Chicago 1100 km. KLTT is a regular weak signal here yearound in daytime. The other one was going thru some slow selective fading. At 1902 obviously KLTT with religion, WSCR with sports talk.

720, WGN at 1852, Saturday Noon Show with the immediately recognizable Orion Samuelson. Quite steady signal, so is it ground or skywave at 1100 km? At 1901, music in Spanish was overtaking WGN, 1.5 Hz SAH, no doubt KSAH Universal City (San Antonio) TX, 800 km, same station which messes up our WGN reception at night. 1918, WGN dominating again, now in Your Money call-in show. 

Nothing much happening on the X-band, e.g. 1690 Chicago? Just a trace of something; so do we have a low-band-only noontime skywave opening, or is this all groundwave? Per the NRC Pattern Book 2006, KSAH has different antenna patterns day and night but both have a null toward Chicago. Unfortunately, we are somewhat off that direct line and KSAH may also be out of whack.

840, at 1909, local weather by YL, Monday`s high 40; more info at http://www.kticam.com and ``840 Country KTIC`` ID. Website gives slogan instead as Rural Radio. This is West Point NE near Omaha, the closest 840 to here, 600 km, about half the distance to WHAS. Probably groundwave; see 660. KFAB-1110 is also audible any day.

850, at 1908 KOA ID in passing over music from TX station. Less than KLTT-670, KOA Denver CO barely makes it here in daytime by groundwave.

1100, hoping for WZFG Fargo if they are back to 50 kW fullpower, but instead had usual fringe daytime dominator, KKLL Joplin MO, 350 km; after instrumental excerpt from America The Beautiful, outro for program named Radio Liberty? At 1859 string of maybe a dozen legal IDs for stations in AR, MO and IL at least, with KKLL somewhere in the middle of the list. However, at 1915 there was a fast SAH, maybe sports talk under country/gospel music? Most likely KDRY Alamo Heights (San Antonio) TX, judging from 1200 definite, 720. Is the 50 kW 1100 in Louisiana on the air yet? I still have hopes for pulling WZFG by daytime skywave if not groundwave, by latching onto a N/S defacto fence Beverage around here, but that may also bring up KDRY instead.

1200, at 1858 fast SAH between two very weak signals, but at 1907 WOAI ID in passing, just barely audible, and fading. Fortunately, not strong enough to carry any significant IBOC with it, and I could still hear KGYN 1210, and TX/KS on 1190.

1540, at 1856 car talk show over a weaker signal. 1904 in ABC News, ID ``Talk Radio 1540, KNGL, McPherson`` (Kansas), local weather. I was looking for KXEL Waterloo IA, heard a few days earlier but a sesquihour later, dominating 1540 by skywave, and this faked me out with the same slogan.

Other notes: IBOC from OK stations ruined the following: 630, 650, 990, 1010, 1160, 1180, 1290, 1310. A pair of deer loped by at 1914.

This was a MW mini-DXpedition, but on the way back I tuned around FM, and confirmed that 99.7 is still vacant, awaiting the Mustang OK station to come on, having been hijacked from Enid/Alva as KZLS. BTW, KZLS has modified CP to be 39 kW/154 m rather than 25 kW/100 m, but still a lot less than the original station KXLS near Helena halfway between Enid and Alva, later renamed KNID, which was 100 kW ERP at 256 meters AAT.

99.7 was so vacant that I heard a couple of nice meteor bursts at 1924 and 1927 plus several weaker ones in a 5-minute period. Welcome, Geminids? (Glenn Hauser, Enid OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)


      
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