1070 Update

At 0000 UTC Saturday (Friday night EST), the chatter that I heard on 1070 earlier in the week was building in strength and peaked for about ten minutes around 0010 UTC when I was able to hear pre-game hockey talk from CHOK. Although CHOK is ready in the log, it is still nice to hear something on 1070 other than WTIC 1080! Anyway, I think I will give 1070 a rest and move on to other AM kilocycles.

(Radio used was the new C.Crane's CC Skywave AM-FM-SW-WX-Air portable receiver.)

Dwelling on 1070

I recently logged three new stations on a frequency (1070 kc) that was previously unusable due to the proximity of a 50,000 watt station (WTIC), that is, its  proximity of operating frequency (1080) and proximity of distance between it and my location (12 miles).

My success on 1070 is due to a new radio: C.Crane's new CC Skywave AM-FM-SW-WX-Air portable receiver that my sister gifted to me on Christmas. I have been so impressed with its capabilities on AM that I have not spent much time on its other bands, but I have noticed that it's sensitivity and selectivity on the FM band is top-notch and probably the best receiver I own in that regard.

Getting back to 1070... during the past week or so, I have concentrated on that frequency trying to catch another new entry for the log (so far I logged CHOK, WINA and WKOK, 488, 384 and 208 miles away, respectively ). I can still hear some WTIC on 1070, but I can null it out by positioning the CC Skywave 90° away from their transmitter site. That position puts WINA in the null (gray on the map) along with WTIC, while CHOK and WKOK fall somewhere in between the null and the sweet spot (green on the map).

By the way, I have the CC Skywave's bandwidth set to 2 kc for AM band DXing, which I find works well for extracting intelligence from weak signals with this radio (bandwidths from 1 to 6 kc in 1 kc steps are selectable).

The last two nights at around 0000 UTC, I heard voices and music occasionally pop up through the noise, but the signal(s) were not strong enough nor long enough to extract any intelligence.

I will keep on trying and keep you posted.

Another 1070 Catch: WKOK

Late this afternoon (2250 UTC), I logged a second station on the previously dead-to-me* 1070 kHz courtesy of the new C.Crane Skywave receiver (again barefoot using its internal antenna). The new logging was WKOK in Sunbury, Pennsylvania, transmitting sports talk with 10 kW 208 miles to my west-southwest with an S-1 to S-3 signal.

* dead-to-me due to 50,000 watts of WTIC on 1080 kHz 12 miles away