After a year or two's respite (just firing it up every month or so to ensure it still works), I decided to DX with it nightly again.... got to.
Lately the weather has been feeling like Spring, even if it doesn't always look like Spring. Spring time isn't always considered a time for MW DXing, at least not like Winter is thought to be. But a lot of times you can get a lot of decent long distance MW reception during the Spring months.
And this Spring, unlike the last 5-6 of them, actually feels and looks like Spring than the previous three or four Springs did. The trees are actually starting to bud on time -- or mostly on time. Usually, in normal years, the hills look light green by April 5th or 6th. Last year the trees were a full month late. It doesn't appear that it will be that way this year, thankfully.
As I write this, it is very early, Easter morning -- meaning, it is still night out. I'm eating some homemade navy bean / potato / rutabaga / carrot / parsnip / celery / onion soup. When I went out to check on my outdoor cat, Tigger, I noticed it wasn't really cold. Maybe 45F or so. And, more importantly, it's not freezing outside. Awesome. Last year, it probably would have been, or close to it.
So, things are getting better.
As I have done for ages, I generally listen to MW nightly.
MY GE SUPERADIO III FLIES AGAIN!
Earlier last week I fired up one of my two working GE Superadio III's, the one I got for my mother -- in late 1995 or early 1996 -- for her to use where she worked. When I fired it up, the radio worked fine.
It was then that remembered my own GE SRIII, which I got a few months earlier, probably some time in late 1995 or during 1996. Both of these SRIII's are good ones. Deciding to fire up my own GE SRIII, I first had to find the thing. I had to hunt around for it. I finally found the GE SRIII on the floor in my den, leaning against a stack of books.
I dusted it off, and sprayed some DeOxit down the side of the volume control shaft (to keep the control lubed -- it's probably good to do this to a Superadio's volume control once or twice a year, depending on use). Then I switched on the radio. It worked perfectly. I decided to make it my main DX and listening radio for a while. After all, like guitars, radios are meant to be PLAYED.
If you want your older radio to last longer, switch it on at least once a month or once every other month, and run it though the band. Let it run a while. Most electrolytic capacitors (a part that is common inside every radio) last longer if they see a fresh charge every now and then.
I'll repeat here: Radios were meant to be played.
So, anyway, my trusty, 1995 GE SRIII is -- once again -- sitting in its hallowed place, in my main DX room (which yes, it happens to be my bedroom, as it's the most RFI free room in the house). I've DXed with the Superadio III for about a week now, and it is like listening to an old friend. On my Sony headphones it sounds terrific (and although the SRIII is mono, the headphone jack is stereo compatible -- no adaptor needed!). I've been running the radio on AC, as I need to get enough D cells for it and for my Sangean PR-D4W.
As I DXed over the next few nights with my GE SRIII, comparisons to the PR-D4W were inevitable. The two seem to perform equally, with the PR-D4W's DSP seeming to have another stage of amplification / filtering included in its firmware. Overall, whatever the PR-D4W picks up, the GE SRIII picks up equally, and vice versa.
This is my Sony XDR-S10HDiP boombox a couple days after I got it, during the Summer of 2016. I ran a loop of wire from the two MW terminals on the back of the radio, and heard KBRE 1660, Merced, California -- about 900-1000 miles south of me -- coming in after 4:30 p.m. local time one afternoon. And yes -- the Sony XDR's run the AM band off just a simple loop of wire, and FM will work off of just a 3-4 ft or so hank of stiff wire as well.
Another radio that needed to be played was my HD Sony boombox -- my Sony XDR-S10HDiP. It's a remarkable DXer. When I fired it up, thankfully it worked perfectly. It had only been maybe 3-4 years since the last time I used it. The first night I had it tuned to 1330 CJYM and 1660 KBRE. The second night, I tuned it to 1570 kHz and heard some political and religious talk in English -- KBCV, Hollister, Missouri. It's a rare catch on the channel, which usually has a weak, weak XERF and a stronger KCVR Lodi California, which plays Punjabi and Sikh music at night.
The Sony XDR is a remarkable radio. It's great on both FM and AM. On FM it will work off a length of wire, and on AM/MW it works off of a 3-4 foot loop of wire (that's a little more than a meter, for the rest of the world). I had one reader who said that his XDR would bring in MW even in Europe -- or it at least sounded like he was using it to hear EU MW stations. Another reader in India bought an XDR, used, and was dismayed to find out that the XDR only has 10 kHz steps on MW. He asked if there was any way to switch the XDR to 9 kHz steps. I looked, and could find no way for it to be switched to 9 kHz steps.
One gentleman in southwest Scotland said that he can hear some UK and EU MW on the Sony XDR's 10 kHz channels, because the 9 kHz channels in question are pretty close to the 10 kHz channels on the radio.
He also says the XDR is poor on MW, but he's dead wrong on that one! In the summer of 2016 -- before the conditions went into the toilet during the next year, in late 2017-- I heard KBRE 1660 come in during the afternoon, on my porch, and it was just off the 3-4 foot loop of wire I rigged for it. So a Sony XDR definitely DX's the MW/AM band well.
Here is a link to the guy's article on the XDR series of radios. He apparently got the XDR without the speakers, the more popular one than my XDR S10HDiP.:
The fact that the XDR never had a 9 kHz function is pretty sad, because there are quite a few XDR's floating around out there, and they're great on MW. Why Sony didn't implement a 9 kHz function is hard to figure. Who knows -- they could have sold more XDR's that way. I would bet that all it would have taken was a slight reprogramming of the firmware in the chip.
But it is what it is.
One of the first stations I checked on with my Superatio III was KBRE, 1660. I always check out 1660, and 1660, naturally, is KBRE The Bear, a hard rock station out of Merced, California. There are a few other stations that I tune to, to see if they're coming in over the ionosphere. But the Bear is remarkable, in that they have a better mix of current rock than the local rockers. Plus -- hey, it's coming out of CALIFORNIA.
Here's a link to the Bear's website. I believe that they don't geo-fence. At least, I've heard their stream more than once, and I'm 900 miles north of them. They play a really good mix of modern hard rock, with some metal shows at night on the weekends.
All this said, I listen to radio nightly, and probably much more to the MW/AM band than the Shortwave bands. On FM I only tune into AAA / Alt station KPNW-FM, a relatively new station out of Seattle that gets low ratings but plays a lot of interesting rock music. A lot of their songs, strangely enough, are in mono.
KKOV dumped their "Sunny 1550" format a couple years before the Pandemic hit, and they went to Viet and brokered Asian programming. The Pandemic economy apparently ended that. They are off the air, possibly permanently, and have been silent for a year or more. 1550 is now KRPI Ferndale WA (Punjabi and Sikh) and San Francisco's KZDG (Punjabi).
The GE SRIII, like the other Superadios before it, has 4 IF transformers ('filters') in the signal chain, making it not only fairly selective, but also pleasant to listen to. The PR-D4W's "filtering" is all done via software in the DSP chip.
A SHORT MEDIUMWAVE DX LISTING
Anyway, prompted by my DXing with my GE SRIII, I thought I'd post a listing here of what I've been hearing here in my small section of the Seattle-Tacoma metro on MW at night, since October or so. I'll try to keep it brief. It will be a sort of rundown of the usual channels I tune to when I scan the MW band, and what I hear on them, vs. what I used to hear on them. There is a difference. :-)
540 kHz: This channel is one I check out frequently. If DX conditions are good, CBK, Watrous, Saskatchewan (a small town in the middle of the province, not far from Manitou Lake) will be in around S3-S4 signals or so. If DX conditions are really good, I'll also hear XESURF, Tijuana, Baja California, too. I've only heard two other stations on this channel historically -- a station out of Redding, California (KVIP, which has religious preaching) just once, and XEWA San Luis Potosi, Mexico -- which I logged just once a long, long time ago (using my boombox and a 3.5 ft spiral loop antenna). Lately CBK has been touch and go. XESURF has appeared maybe half the nights I've tuned the channel.
550 kHz: This channel is almost always KOAC Corvallis, OR and a religious station out of Bellingham, WA (KARI). I like listening to KOAC at night because it's BBC World Service. Corvallis is famous for the Oregon State University (with its Linus Pauling research center) and -- more recently -- porn star Kendra Sutherland, who made a name for herself around 2014 when posing, partially clad, in the OSU library, calling herself the "Library Girl." Understandably, her postings became viral.
650 kHz: Usually at night it's KSTE Sacramento with talk, often mixed with CISL's sports talk from Vancouver, BC Canada. The last few nights KSTE has come in with stronger signals than usual.
670 kHz: This channel is usually wall-to-wall KBOI Boise, but I like to find the signal's weak spot and try to hear KMZQ Las Vegas, because -- well -- I like hearing Las Vegas. Mostly it's fadey and barely audible, and unreadable, but at least one night in mid-March I heard KMZQ loud and clear. I think it was during some semi-Auroral DX conditions we had then.
690 kHz: 690 is an unusual channel, because you can simultaneously hear Canada and Mexico on it (both 'BC's -- British Columbia and Baja California), and often you're hearing three languages: English, Spanish and French. CBU Vancouver comes in OK at night, although not as well as they did before they cut their power in half about 6 years ago. XEWW Rosarito, Baja California (which, long ago, was the "Mighty 690") is sometimes audible with their Spanish language talk -- other times not so audible. And the French language station is CBKF-1 Gravelbourg, Saskatchewan. CBKF-1 serves the Fransaskois community in SW Saskatchewan. Although most French-speaking Saskatchewanians live in Saskatoon, Regina and Prince Albert, there is a considerable number of French speaking farmers in SW Sask.
760 kHz: This channel is difficult, as there is a local station on 770 (KTTH) that clobbers it from one side, and KXTG Portland (750) also clobbers it from the other side. But if there are decent DX conditions to the south, I can sometimes hear KGB-AM (the former KFMB) out of San Diego, and at least a couple times I heard the station readably over the past couple weeks, which is actually kind of rare. I like hearing KGB-AM because I like hearing San Diego, as I have a few fond memories of the place from the one time I spent some time there. It's a wonderful place, with perfect weather. I always thought it would be a great place to live... I mean, who wouldn't want to live there? I suppose, better put: who can afford to live there? But you could say the same thing about Seattle anymore, I guess....
840 kHz: KMAX, Colfax WA (a talk station in Eastern WA) usually dominates this channel, along with CFCW, Camrose Alberta, which plays country. I usually tune this frequency to see if either KSWB Seaside OR is there (they play classic hits, and I used to hear them nightly in the early 2010's -- I haven't heard a peep from them since probably 2015 or so), or KXNT Las Vegas. Las Vegas seems to come in readably about once or twice a month maybe. KSWB has been completely MIA since around 2014-2015.
870 kHz: In the early to mid 2010's, I used to hear WWL New Orleans peeking through the 880 kHz spillover, and sometimes it was readable behind KFLD 870 Pasco WA's talk. I haven't heard WWL in 8 years or so. This is one reason that when I read online about the new Solar Cycle being awesome, I call bullshit on that. Still, I keep tuning the channel, and I'll listen to see if anything outside of KFLD's weak signal is there. Aside from a variable KFLD, it's crickets, basically. So, where's WWL? It's still on the air. It's a 50KW station with antennas in the water near New Orleans. There is very little on 870 kHz to get in the way of at least hearing it. The answer is obvious: the Solar Cycle isn't living up to the hype.
1010 kHz: CBR Calgary often comes in strong enough to splash on the local station, KNWN (the former KOMO) on 1000. I like CBR's programming. Ironically, even though CBR is 400+ miles away, it's much clearer than CBU Vancouver, which is only 140 air miles away.
1200 kHz: I used to tune this frequency at least once every other night or so, to see if WOAI San Antonio, TX was peeking through, because, well, it's coming out of sunny Texas. Usually this channel is wall-to-wall CJRJ Vancouver's South Asian programming coming in at S3-S4, but sometimes WOAI is readable behind it. But aside from one or two times I heard them a year ago, WOAI has been MIA. And it was MIA for maybe 5 years before the last time I heard it. And that trend has held over the past couple months.
1220 kHz: Sometimes I get a station out of Salem, Oregon here. They used to be KPJC, the "Hebrew Nation" religious station with Hebrew Nation preachers and music. They usually came in pretty weak, but often they were fairly readable. Then they went political talk. But most nights I hear an intermod image from local 1620 KYIZ's R&B programming. A long time ago I heard KHTS Santa Clarita, Calif. (Canyon Country, CA, actually), with pop and AC music, but I haven't heard them since 2015 or maybe 2016. Most times anymore I tune past this channel.
1260 kHz: CFRN Edmonton, which was ESPN and sports, used to be a regular on this channel, always with a really good signal. Then the owners (Bell Media) yanked the plug -- and also pulled the plug on 6-7 other AM stations -- taking them, and CFRN off the air, even though CFRN had decent ratings. The other main station on this channel, KLYC McMinnville Oregon, played Classic Hits and oldies. A month or two ago they switched to Hot AC (Hot adult pop hits), and I think they got a translator. I have logged one NEW station on 1260 over the past month: KMZT, Los Angeles, a classical music station on the AM band! KMZT is owned by a guy who has a fair amount of money, and likes to do his own thing with his radio stations (he also has an FM in the L.A. area). I've heard KMZT mainly in the early mornings, when they boost power. The classical music makes them easy to ID.
1270 kHz: I usually tune here because its a mix of classic hits, Catholic programming, and AC music, depending on which station is coming in. KTFI Twin Falls, Idaho is Catholic, and I've mentioned them before on my blog, in my posting on New Year's. But KAJO Grants Pass, Oregon often comes in during the early morning hours with Classic Hits; KMYI Tulare comes in with AC, and sometimes KXBX Lakeport, Calif. makes its appearance with Classic hits. It's always cool to hear Southern Oregon, and California.
1280 / 1290 kHz: these two channels are usually covered by George Noory's C2C program at night, with KIT Yakima on 1280 and KUMA Pendleton, Oregon dominating on 1290. KGVO Missoula on 1290 often also has C2C. I'll tune in and listen to C2C for a while, and I like hearing Pendleton because when I was a kid we went to Eastern Oregon a lot on our camping vacations.
1330 kHz: Most nights, thankfully, I hear CJYM, Rosetown, Saskatchewan coming in, usually with a considerable amount of fading, but generally with S2-S3 signal levels, and they play a wide variety of Classic Hits -- with a LOT OF Can-Con (Canadian content). So you can hear Honeymoon Suite's tracks that never got played in the US, a lot of Corey Hart, Chilliwack, April Wine, Nick Gilder, Sweeney Todd, etc. There used to be a station out of Portland, KKPZ, which had a praying preacher guy I used to listen to from time to time, but he went off KKPZ and then KKPZ went off the air 2 years ago or so (a victim of the Pandemic), so CJYM has the channel all to themselves, until local (Auburn, WA), alt rock college station KGRG-1 starts fading in during the late mornings.
1460 kHz: ESPN Yakima (KUTI) used to be here perennially. Then last year they yanked it off the air. Now it's a rough mix of ranchero/Exitos from KRRS Santa Rosa and recently KION, Salinas, California has been showing up on this channel with news-talk and Coast To Coast AM overnights. I used to hear KION when I was a kid and just starting to DX the AM band. A couple times on this channel I have heard news-talker KCNR, Shasta Lake, California playing Gordon Deal's early morning news show, and Redding area commercials. Obviously, this channel is a grab bag channel -- you never know what is going to be there.
1480 kHz: This channel is half KBMS Portland (old school R&B) and KEJB Eureka, California (Oldies). The two stations often trade off dominating the channel, and on weekend nights you can hear all sorts of old school music emanating from these two stations, from the Spinners and the Brothers Johnson (KBMS) to Jan & Dean and Strawberry Alarm Clock (KEJB) -- often at the same time. Take your pick. It's like a radio time machine. I'm fine with that. :-)
1570 kHz: this channel is one of the few 'quiet' channels on the AM band here. Aside from some splash hitting the frequency from each side, it's usually pretty faint, and often just weak static with barely a trace of audio on it. I used to hear XERF, out of Ciudad Acuña (across the Rio Grande from Del Rio, TX) nightly, at S2 signal levels most times, with their sedate announcements and old-school ranchero music. Since 2017 XERF is mostly MIA -- you can just barely pick it out of the static -- IF it's there, that is. KCVR Lodi, California used to be Romantica in the 2010's, but then went South Asian, and their Punjabi pop and movie music is easy to pick out of the airwaves... And KCVR has been audible more than it used to be. Whether this is because of the shitty overall DX conditions keeping XERF from interfering, or something they did at their transmitter, I don't know. On very rare occasions I can hear KBCV, Hollister, Missouri with their preaching and religious talk. Before 2017 I heard KBCV maybe 10-15 times total. Since the Solar Cycle picked up I've only heard them once. But hey, maybe that will change as the cycle progresses.
1600 kHz: Usually KVRI Blaine, WA is here with Punjabi and other South Asian programming, and overnights they play Sikh prayer chants and singing. In the mid to late 2010's I had my radio tuned to them nightly while doing fiction writing. Since the last Solar Cycle downturn, although KVRI are still regulars on 1600, they haven't been coming in as strongly overnights as they used to. In the mid to late 2010's I would sometimes I'd hear them as late as 9 a.m.. Not anymore. Underneath KVRI I sometimes hear KOPB, Eugene Oregon (NPR & Oregon Public Radio), and KOHI St. Helens, Oregon, which is definitely a local-oriented, small town talk and information station. After 5-6 years of not hearing them I've started hearing them again underneath KVRI, on my Superadio III. Other incidental stations are the classic hits / oldies station out of Yuba City, California, KUBA (heard maybe 3-4 times total), and a Spanish language station out of Utah (KTUB, Centerville), and KEPN, Denver which -- last time I heard it -- was ESPN sports.
1630 kHz: Although this channel is generally clobbered by nearby local 1620 KYIZ, I used to hear a station out of Cheyenne, Wyoming -- KRND -- playing ranchero (haven't heard them in years), and on rare occasions XEUT, Tijuana, Mexico would play experimental music (they are a college station). I haven't heard XEUT in ages, either -- not since 2016.
1650 kHz: This usually is KBJD Denver, a religious Spanish language station that often comes in pretty strongly. On very rare occasions, I've heard the Korean language station out of Los Angeles, KFOX. That's rare, though. I used to hear a couple NOAA TIS stations, one of them out of the Central Oregon coast; and there are a few more local TIS's that have shown up now and then also. KCNZ, Cedar Falls, Iowa (a sports station) made an appearance on my Superadio III last night -- that was pretty cool to hear. In 2012 or 2013 I heard KSVE El Paso -- just once (they were ESPN Deportes -- a network that was yanked off the air 5-6 years ago), and once heard a station out of Ft. Smith, Arkansas (KYHN) with Red Eye Radio. That was in 2013. Not a peep out of it since then. The Solar Cycle strikes again!
I've already covered 1660, and 1700 is XEPE Tecate BCN Mexico, at varying levels.
To sum it all up -- basically, the AM band here is nothing like it was in the early 2010's, with all the current DX no-shows, and even regional no-shows (like KSWB 840, KSHO 920, etc.). There were a lot of stations I used to hear more or less nightly that have just seemed to have disappeared -- and yet, they are still apparently on the air. I'm just not hearing them -- regardless of equipment.
This is why I think the Solar Cycle we are in right now is more or less a dud.
And I have been working on an article about that, which I hope to post before Summer.
This is Floppy Bunny, a completely unexpected, surprise gift I got in an Easter basket on Easter 2009, from my late, ex-GF Sheryl Phillips. I used Floppy Bunny in a kid's story that I never finished. It was to be a sequel to my kid's Christmas book Woody The Woodchuck Saves Christmas -- a book inspired by these stuffed animals and puppets I had hanging around the house -- which I had thought I would make useful, by turning them into characters in a children's book -- a la A.A. Milne's Winnie The Pooh.
Well, the Christmas story took long enough to write and illustrate. It was a LOT of work. Fun, but painstaking, especially with the illustrations. And then I got two -- count 'em, two -- sales.
So the Easter story / sequel, which would have had the bunny in it, never got written. Floppy Bunny was going to be a goofy Easter Bunny who broke the eggs, hid them in strange places, etc. And Woody the Woodchuck was going to set Floppy Bunny right, and save Easter, but Easter is doing fine by itself. I lost the will to write a book like that, illustrate it, and then put it out on Amazon just so it would get zero sales. Sorry Floppy Bunny, your chance at stardom came and went.
Well, right now I need to go for a nighttime bike ride. Got to do something for Easter morning, right? Easter, like most other holidays, is a time when the memories flood back, memories from back when my father and mother were still alive, when the holidays had a little bit of 'zing' to them -- something that simply is hard to feel anymore -- religious holiday or otherwise.
I'm glad I still have my health, food, my cat is OK, and I've got a roof over my head.
Really, there isn't much more to need, right? So far, I have indeed had one pleasant surprise this Easter (a friend contacted me from Austria after a few months not hearing from her), but the rest of it shall remain low kay.
I'll end this with a vid. I mentioned Can-Con music previously. Here are a couple tracks from Honeymoon Suite, a Canadian hard rock band that had one hit here on FM Rock stations in the 1980's, New Girl Now. It was pretty catchy. I always cranked it up on my boombox, before it got stolen.:
Here is a track I heard on CJYM that I'd never heard before. It was another track by Honeymoon Suite, and it's actually very good. It has more of an 80's feel to it, though -- but that stands to reason, being that it was recorded and released in the 1980's. Here it is, everybody: Wave Babies. It made it to #59 on the Canadian charts. Should have gone higher. But in the 80's there was a lot of good music, a lot of competition.:
And with that, I shall close this article. For those who celebrate, I wish a Happy Easter, Glad Påsk, Frohliche Ostern, Xristos Voscress (XPISTOC BOCKPESS), etc.
Peace.
C.C. Easter, 2024.
April 1st, 2024: After actually looking at the date codes in both of my GE Superadio III's, they both were made in 1995, not 1996. I might have bought them in '96, though.
Date codes for Superadios (and many other GE radios) are in the battery compartment. There will be a small label with the serial number, and another small label that says "Date Code". The second numeral is the last numeral of the year in which the radio was manufactured.
April 23rd, 2024. I edited a couple typos and added a small bit about KMZT, Los Angeles, a new logging I had on 1260 kHz a month or so ago.
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