Re: DX question

[Dan Strassberg <dan.strassberg@worldnet.att.net>]

At 11:52 PM 5/29/99 -0400, you wrote:
>Driving home from Concord,NH about 9:15 pm, I hit the scan button on my
>AM car radio, and up came 1210 WPHT (if I heard correctly) in Philly.
>What was surprising is it came in like a local-no noise,full
>quieting,the whole 9 yards for my entire 22 mile trip up route 93. Can
>anyone explain how that type of reception is possible? Even the local
>AM's didn't come in that well, and WBZ was fading also. Thanks
>
Good AM DX like that does happen, more in the winter than at this time of
year and more at the low end of the AM band than at the upper end, but it
still isn't that rare an occurrence. I think the optimal distance is about
the distance from Philadelphia to Concord NH (a bit over 300 airline miles),
but the range of distances over which you get that kind of DX is fairly
broad. WBZ comes in relatively fade-free in Ohio. Even eastern Ohio is
farther from Hull than Concord NH is from Philadelphia.

When I was a kid in the Bronx, WKBW (now WWKB) used to come in every night
like a local, and I don't mean just any local; it was generally stronger
than all but a few of the New York stations. And it was just about fade fee,
(Of course, the vacuum-tube radios of that day had better AGC than
practically any modern solid-state AM radio has.) I think the straight-line
distance from New York City to Buffalo is about 350 miles. I also used to
pick up WOWO quite regularly. In those days, WOWO was 10 kW-U ND-U, not the
50 kW DA-N station that it was until recently. Fort Wayne must be 500 air
miles from New York.

And speaking of WPHT, when I was in college in Troy NY in the '50s and the
1210 calls were WCAU, I remember picking it up clear as a bell for hours on
end at midday in the winter. This wasn't a regular occurrence, however.

- -------------------------------
Dan Strassberg (Note: Address is CASE SENSITIVE!)
ALL _LOWER_ CASE!!!--> dan.strassberg@worldnet.att.net
(617) 558-4205; Fax (617) 928-4205

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