1710 Mystery Solved!

This morning (4:15 AM EDST), I dropped a relative off at the airport (BDL).

On the trip home, I was solo, so I did some DXing with the car radio in my 2007 Subaru Outback Sport. I tuned to 1700 kHz and found WJCC in Miami Springs, Florida fading in and out. Nice catch on a car radio!

As I entered Hartford from the north on I-91, a station on an adjacent frequency was splattering onto 1700, so I tuned up and down and found a very strong signal on 1710 transmitting Spanish music and Spanish announcements. The signal was very strong as I passed through downtown Hartford. Heading west on I-84, the signal faded out about 5 miles west of downtown Hartford.

I mentioned hearing a mystery Spanish station on 1710 in the recent past (here and here). The format of the station I heard this morning matches up with what I heard in the past, so I think that solves the mystery.

Power Down, DX Up

AWS in Fort Mitchell, Alabama

We lost power mid-afternoon on Friday. After I phoned in the outage, I got on the radio to take advantage of the lack of noise in the neighborhood.

Conveniently for power outages, the ELAD FDM-S2 SDR receiver gets its power from my laptop. So I don't need to be on the grid for some serious monitoring. The only problem yesterday was that I had been using my laptop for hours and the battery was down to about 40% capacity.

During the day under normal noisy conditions, I may hear one local navigational beacon (JWE), but yesterday, I could hear many more and I logged six new ones. Five were located nearby in Massachusetts and Eastern New York, but one was 925 miles away in Fort Mitchell, Alabama (AWS on 335 kHz).

When the laptop battery ran out, I switched the C.Crane CCRadio 2E Enhanced receiver, which was loaded with fresh batteries and connected to the outdoor antenna switch.

When I turned on the radio, it was tuned to 1710 kHz and I was very surprised to hear an old friend that I normally only hear at dusk, the unidentified mystery station playing Spanish music. Occasionally, the mystery station had competition from the Hudson County (NJ) TIS (WQFG689), which I only heard at night in the past.

After monitoring 1710 for about ten minutes hoping to hear a voice ID from the Spanish station, power was restored and the stations on 1710 disappeared into the noise.

1710 Mystery Station

Mike, KA3JAW, asked, "Do you hear a multicultural station on AM 1710 that also comes in during the day time at about  the same signal strength?"

I replied, "I have never heard it during the day. I do hear it occasionally at night (maybe once every two or three weeks). I thought it might be a pirate. If you are hearing it during the day, it is probably a lot closer to you than me."

That exchange started a weeklong quest to figure out what we were hearing. 

The only other stations I hear on 1710 are the Springfield (MA) Armory TIS and WQFG689, the Hudson County (NJ) TIS. I usually hear one or both each night, but the mystery station is a little rarer.

For about one week, I monitored 1710 whenever I had the radio on at home and in the Subaru. This is what I discovered:

When the station shows up, it is usually around sunset for 15 to 30 minute appearances. One time, I also heard it very briefly on the car radio at sunrise.

One evening, I was able to receive it very weakly on the directional antenna (a C.Crane Twin Coil Ferrite on a turntable). The signal peaked to the southeast/northwest, approximately 135/315 degrees. There is not much to the southeast... just some small towns in southeastern Connecticut, the eastern tip of Long Island and then the Atlantic Ocean. The northwest is more likely the source... Albany, Syracuse, Rochester and Buffalo, NY and Toronto and Hamilton, ON.

Mike mentioned that he thought he heard Canada mentioned a few times, so perhaps it is a Canadian station.

The station remains a mystery... maybe a little less mysterious, but still a mystery.