Midday C.Crane Shoot-Out

It rained here Sunday morning, which postponed my plans to move leaves. Plan B was to play radio and that's what I did.

I now own five models of C.Crane receivers and after FARMERIK published a comparison of Sony receivers he owned on the Ultralight DX list, I decided to compare my C.Cranes in a similar manner using the radio's stock AM antennas.

I parked each radio in the same spot on my radio desk and in turn tuned across the AM band counting the number of stations heard. I did this between 1550 and 1655 UTC (1050 to 1155 local time/EST). My location is in Wolcott, Connecticut (41° 37' 48" N, 72° 56' 43" W) at 912 feet ASL. Radio conditions were flat.

Here are the results:

CC Radio 2E Enhanced: 60
CC Skywave: 60
CC SW Pocket: 53
CC Radio SW: 50
CC Pocket: 45

The CC Skywave and CC Radio 2E heard the same 60 stations with two exceptions: the Skywave heard a station on 850 kHz that the 2E did not and the 2E heard a station on 920 kHz that the Skywave did not.

Comparing the Skywave and the 2E, their sensitivity is similar on the AM band in my opinion, but the Skywave is more selective. 1070 kHz is a problem area at my location because the 50 kW of WTIC on 1080 kHz blasts through here 24/7. Until I added the Skywave (and an Elecraft KX3) to my radio shack, I never heard anything but QRM from WTIC on 1070 kHz. With the Skywave, I’ve logged four stations on 1070.

On the other hand, the 2E sounds much better than the Skywave. Of course, size matters and you would expect the 2E to sound better than its pint-sized cousin. The 2E is the best sounding AM radio I have ever owned.

WHIC

1630Z on Sunday, I logged WHIC on 1460 kHz from Rochester, New York, transmitting 3.7 kW 260 miles to my west-northwest. Broadcasting a live Mass, I heard WHIC on both my C.Crane CC SW Pocket radio and C.Crane CCRadio 2E Enhanced radio using the Terk Advantage loop antenna.

Getting 1620 in the log

Two US AM radio channels had no entries in my log: 1070 and 1620 kHz.

1070 is difficult because 50-kW WTIC is 13 miles away on the opposite side of the valley and so far, I have not been able to hear anything on 1070 due to interference from WTIC on 1080. On the other hand (or other side of 1080), I have no problem hearing WBAL on 1090, so go figure.

1620 is difficult because there are only eight stations on 1620 in all the USA and none are local.

I made up my mind to tackle 1620 first. My plan was to tune all my radios to 1620 and listen to nothing until some anomaly in propagation sent a signal my way.

I did not have to listen long and heard a very weak signal way down in the mud: a Spanish station playing Latin music interspersed with current NOAA weather broadcasts in English.

My high school Spanish is not good enough to pick up enough intelligence from the spoken, broken-by-static Spanish to determine the source of the signal. But I was able to get enough intelligence from the weather broadcasts to determine that their source was a NOAA weather station in southern New England or southeastern New York.

But there are no AM radio stations on 1620 in all of New England or New York!

Google is my friend, so I Googled "1620 AM" to see what it came up with.  The second item that Google found was a link to listen online to Restauracion 1620 - AM 1620 - New Britain, CT. New Britain is about 8 miles away, so I went to the webpage and when I listened online, voila! The radio signal on 1620 matched what I was hearing online with a slight delay.

The full name of the station is La Nueva 1620 AM Restauracion (The New Radio AM 1620 Restoration) and it has a website (http://www.restauracion1620.com/), but I have not been able to determine the legal status of the operation. Nevertheless, I entered La Nueva 1620 AM Restauracion in the log and plan to tackle 1070 next.

CHHA

My wife had surgery and I have been busy taking care of her since she came home two weeks ago. As a result, my radio activity has been near zero, but last night, after she went to bed, I got in a little radio time and worked a new station at 0330Z: CHHA on 1610 kc transmitting 6.2 kW out of Toronto about 350 miles to the west-northwest. The signal varied between S1 and S4, while I listened to a man and woman speaking in Spanglish.

Equipment used was a C.Crane CC SW Pocket AM/FM/SW radio and a Terk AM Advantage indoor loop antenna.

WTEM

I did not have much time for radio this week, but I did nab a new one Thursday evening: number 184 in the AM radio log, WTEM on 980 kHz running 50 kW from Hyattsville, Maryland, 280 miles southwest (see Bing Maps image above) with studios located in Washington, D.C. Signal varied from S-ø to S-2 with competition from WILK in Wilkes-Barre, PA.

Equipment used was a C.Crane CC SW Pocket AM/FM/SW radio and and C. Crane CC Twin Coil Ferrite antenna.

AM Update

Thursday night, I added two new stations to my AM radio log:

WIP on 610 kHz running 5 kW from Philadelphia, with an S0 to S2 signal 270 miles to the southwest.

WKFN on 540 kHz running 55 watts from Clarksville, Tennessee, with an S1 to S2 signal 850 miles to the west-southwest.

Equipment used was a C.Crane CC SW Pocket AM/FM/SW radio and a Terk AM Advantage indoor loop antenna.

I was surprised to hear WKFN since it was transmitting only 55 watts 850 miles away. It is one of my better AM radio loggings. And I heard it again on Friday night at about the same time (0430Z).

Long Distance Loggings

After logging a long list of AM radio stations that were a distance of 300 miles or less (much less) from the WA1LOU monitoring posts during the past few months, I logged some long distance last night when I added three new stations to the log:

KBGG transmitting 10 kW on 1700 kHz from Des Moines, IA - 1100 miles west, S0-3

KCJJ transmitting 10 kW on 1630 kHz from Iowa City, IA - 950 miles west, S0-2

WTNI transmitting 10 kW on 1640 kHz from Biloxi, MS - 1200 miles southwest, S0-3

Equipment used was a C.Crane CC SW Pocket AM/FM/SW radio and a Terk AM Advantage indoor loop antenna.

Thank you "Paul S. in CT" from the Ultralight DX Yahoo! group for the heads-up about KCJJ and thank you Google Maps for the image above.

WNSW

At 0030Z today, I added number 160 in my AM radio station log: WNSW, “The Voice of Russia,” on 1430 kHz located in Newark, NJ, 84 miles southwest running 10 kW. The station’s signal swung from one extreme to another over a half-hour period; most of the time it was about an S-3, but at times it was so far down in the mud that it was inaudible and on one occasion it built up to an S-7. My receiving equipment: C.Crane CC SW Pocket receiver and CC twin coil ferrite antenna.

The photo above is a screen capture of Google Maps Street View of WNSW’s impressive antenna farm on South Broad Street, one block west of the Garden State Parkway. WPAT AM (930 kHz; number 58 in my AM log) and WPAT FM (93.1 MHz) also transmit from this site.

WJIP

On Sunday, August 3 at 0000Z, I logged AM radio station number 159: WJIP on 1370 kHz in Ellenville, NY, 75 miles west running 5 kW. The station format was 24/7 comedy and the signal was good enough (S7) that the broadcast actually made me laugh!

My receiving equipment: C.Crane CC SW Pocket receiver and Terk Advantage antenna. That is the WJIP antenna in the screen capture above (source: Bing Maps).

Stats

Lately, I have been chasing DX on the AM and FM broadcast bands and the LW mixed-use band. I have been concentrating on AM and LW and visit FM when the band is open.

Here are my stats for the three bands:

LW - 56 stations logged - best DX: BBC4, London, UK, 3375 miles
FM - 13 stations logged - best DX: WOMR, Provincetown, MA, 147 miles
AM - 152 stations logged - best DX: WWL, New Orleans, LA, 1256 miles

Here is my radio equipment for the three bands:

Receivers:
   2007 Subaru Outback Sport standard radio (for AM, FM)
   Crane CCRadio-SW  (for AM, FM)
   Crane CC SW Pocket (for AM, FM) (see photo)
   Kenwood TS-440S (for LW, AM)

Antennas:
   40-meter inverted Vee  (for LW, AM)
   Built-in whip antennas on the Crane radios (for FM)
   Built-in ferrite antennas on the Crane radios (for AM)
   Built-in antenna on 2007 Subaru Outback Sport (for AM, FM)
   Crane CC Twin Coil Ferrite (for AM)
   Terk Advantage (for AM) (see photo)

AM DX Log

2013-03-10   0411Z   WKCW   1420 kHz    60 W   Warrenton, VA   320 m SW   station id (1)
2013-03-12   2300Z   WENE   1430 kHz   5 kW   Endicott, NY   160 m W   station id (1)
2013-03-17   2317Z   WINY   1350 kHz   5 kW   Putnam, CT   58 m ENE   station id (2)

My receiving equipment: C.Crane CC SW Pocket and built in whip antenna (1) or CC twin coil ferrite antenna (2).