BCB DX – Two New States

With the recent quieting of the geomagnetic field, resulting in K values of 0's and 1's, along with a positive-going DST value, the broadcast band on Wednesday and Thursday night was much more vibrant than it has been in several weeks.

Being located on the eastern shoreline of Mayne Island, the direction towards all of the U.S.A. is over many miles of saltwater, so my main interest is in domestic / U.S.A. DX.

Wednesday evening netted two new states on the BCB ... Kansas and Indiana, for states #27 and #28 respectively, both heard on the Perseus SDR and my 10' x 20' amplified loop.

KWOD, on 1660KHz, identifying as "The Business Channel", was logged during a short top-of-the-hour fade-up at 0600z (10PM local time). Their night power is listed as 1,000 watts while their day power is 10,000 watts.

KWOD - Kansas courtesy: https://www.google.ca/maps

KWOD Towers courtesy https://www.google.ca/maps

The transmitter site is located in the middle of a quiet residential district of older homes ... on all four sides.

I shudder to think what RFI problems those living in the adjacent homes must suffer when they are on daytime power!


WSLM - Indiana courtesy :https://www.google.ca/maps


WSLM, on 1220KHz, was also logged at 0600z, during a two-minute fade-up and in the middle of the local weather report.



Interestingly, the station's night-power is listed as "82 watts", which, judging by the readability of their signal, was not the case. Perhaps the engineer just 'forgot' to switch from their daylight power of 5,000 watts!

Their phased antenna array puts their main lobes, due east and west, so evidently I was catching the northern edge of their pattern.

courtesy: https://www.google.ca/maps

See what you can hear their during the short recording made of  the "Country WSLM" weather report





I have yet to check last night's recordings to see if conditions have held-up for two night's running ... more later if so.
Steve McDonald, VE7SL, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from British Columbia, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

2 Responses to “BCB DX – Two New States”

  • peter kg5wy:

    Very good.

  • Ray, W5XE:

    I can appreciate the concerns of those near the KWOD transmitter site.
    It must have been there abd the housing built up afterward. I live
    about 100 meters from KROD transmitter (600 Khz) with no rfi problems
    at this time. That was not always the case. I used to assist the
    engineer and finally got the rfi problem under control with new radial
    systems and a new transmitter replacing the old 20W1 that was some 20-25
    yearsold. The station has a 4 tower array with the nighttime pattern
    at some 230 degrees to protect some other station in Nebraska. When
    the pattern switches it does raise havoc with one 2 meter repeater on
    147.32/92 No resolution to that problem to date.

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