1080 kHz DXing

[mwaters@mail.wesleyan.edu (Martin J. Waters)]

        For those of us up here in the Northeast, at least, they ought to
get WBAL to coordinate on off-air time with them next time they do this
:)). Huge splash trouble. No surprise of course. I'm 25 miles from WTIC and
WBAL is so strong I get a little infrequent, interrmittent splash from it
on a regular basis anyhow.

        When WTIC signed off just after 0130 EST today, the last thing was
an announcement by the CE about the maintenance being combined with a
simultaneous off-air by KRLD, and he said it had been arranged in
cooperation with the National Radio Club.

        From then until KRLD came back on at around 2, here in Conn., I got
two Spanish signals. At around 0142-0146, one was a male voice and the
other was music. I think there was a female announcer on the one with
music. I never got any IDs, although I presume one was WVCG, Coral Gables.
These signals were weak, especially with WBAL getting in the way. Does
anyone know what programming WVCG was or would have been running?

        My best guess for the second Spanish is Cuba. The FCC database
lists CMMQ, Baracoa and CMAM, Guane, both as 10 kW fulltime, non-DA.
Although the info. on Cuba is notoriously unreliable, my experience is
they're never running less than the listed power. Those signals certainly
could make it in here. I wonder if Coral Gables is one of the stations Cuba
jams with a co-channel station. If so, that Cuban well could be running
higher power. My $0.02 on that.

        At around 0202, KRLD showed up,  a little stronger than the others
had been and masking them. Just after the local news was off at around 0207
and they had Bruce Williams on, the signal seemed to go way down. I'm
wondering if they were running non-DA for a few minutes only? After that it
was very intermittently audible with severe fading and at least one of the
Spanish was sometimes audible behind it.


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 Have you patronized the skywave signal of an AM Class A station today?

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