The time now is 4:45

Driving to work this morning listening to a Tower of Babble on graveyard frequency 1400 kc, I heard, "The time now is 4:45," but nothing more. Considering that it was 6:45 when I heard that time check, it would have been a very good catch if I identified the source two Time Zones to my west (a minimum of 1400 miles away), but I did not.

C'est la vie.

I started listening to 1400 on the way to work Monday morning. I don't know why they call 1400 and the other graveyard frequencies "graveyard" frequencies because they sure are alive. 1400 sounds more like a beehive than a graveyard.

I continued listening to 1400 when I returned home after work and was rewarded with a clear station identification at the top of the hour (0300 UTC): WICK in Scranton, Pennsylvania, transmitting 1 kW, 140 miles to my west. Heard that on the Elecraft KX3 and the Terk Advantage antenna. By the way, I think I heard WICK briefly on the car radio this morning, too.

Sunday evening (2200 UTC), tuning around, I stopped briefly on 700 kc to listen to somebodies whining about their constitutional rights on WLW (Cincinnati). Listening closely, I could hear a weak Spanish station under WLW, so I nulled out WLW as best I could with the C.Crane CC twin coil ferrite antenna and managed to identify WDMV transmitting 5 kW from Walkersville, Maryland, 275 miles to my southwest.

WDMV was a nice catch ― only the second station logged on 700, which is usually dominated by WLW in my neck of the woods.

No news is bad news

I have been listening, but I have not heard anything new in over a week. With Daily Savings Time kicking in over the weekend, I am now driving to work at dusk, so I expect that there will be many opportunities for DX on the way to work.

For example, Cincinnati’s WLW has been loud and clear on 700 kc each morning and I reheard WSJP out of Wisconsin on 1640 kc this morning. It’s hard to believe they are running only 1 kW!

At home, I am still working out with the C.Crane CC Skywave, but nothing new was heard at home either. But we’ll keep on listenin’.