KMTA 1050 kHz - my second verified AM from Miles City, Montana

When I noticed oldies songs like Bob Seger's Old Time Rock'n Roll on 1050 kHz on ENOX western antenna on March 18th in the morning I got interested and began to track the signal. Right after the song a DJ gave a clear ID for KMTA. The signal faded in and out with CKSB and KBLE being the strongest one on 1050 for a while.

KMTA is my MT #31 and the second one from Miles City. It was back in 1996 in January when I managed to capture and verify KATL on 770 kHz.

KMTA station manager verified my report in 24 hours and told that they were broadcasting on 330 watts at the time. He also promised to send me a cooler "to cool our beverages"!

KPTQ Spokane WA 1280 - operated only at 125 watts!

KPTQ from Spokane Washington was audible on ENOX15 on March 18 this year with a decent signal. KPTQ has Progressive Talk -format and it verified with an interesting email last night. The v/s wrote:

"I can verify the recording you sent was aired by 1280 KPTQ-AM.
You are the first DX report this station has ever received. It was recently modified to allow an increased power level during night operation. It now operates at 125 watts during night pattern. Previously it was only 33 watts. As you can tell, the increase made a difference.
KPTQ is directional both day and night. Daytime operation allows about 5000 watts. It uses two towers to create the patterns used to protect other stations on the same frequency. The transmitter for this station is manufactured in Canada by Nautel. It has been in service for six years.
I am very impressed you heard this station. Congratulations on being our first DX report!"

Actually the station has been heard a couple of times before in Finland and at least one, maybe more, QSL has arrived in Finland before mine. However this was a nice add to my WA -collection that consists of 76 stations at the moment.

WGIV Pineville NC 1370

1370 kHz has been quite interesting frequency lately. Although it has its dominants like WDEA, KSUM, KXTL, CFOK and KDTH many rarer stations faded in and out every now and then during this season as well. One of them was WGIV Pineville that I picked up on ENOX10 last October.
WGIV verified shortly today with an email message. My NC #8.

KWBG Boone IA 1590 - a cozy station in Iowa.

KWBG on 1590 kHz has been heard in Scandinavia every now and then. I myself heard this one for the first time way back in 1996 but the reception was so faint at the time that I never sent a reception report to the station. But this time last October during ENOX10 the signal was loud and clear and it was easy to make an audiofile and send it to KWBG.

KWBG's news director verified my report. Along the verification he also sent me some pictures of the Boone's new railroad bridge.

Nice reply and my Iowa #27.

King´s Village DX-Station of February 2009: DWSS 1494

For me local Philippino AM-stations has always been an atractive DX-target in Southern Finland. Nowadays it seems only less than a dozen stations are "easy" catches in Southern part of Finland without special antennas. Of course also then you have to be at right time, usually during a local sunset at the QTH. In winter times that means listening at around 13-14 utc. Sometimes stations are audible during local sunrise (that´s around 20 utc), but the European QRM is big. One thing with these stations is their language Tagalog which is easy to recognize. They mix also some English and often announce the call letters & frequencies in English (and Tagalog - numbers of Spanish origin).

In February 16 DWSS Manila 1494 was again audible - of course with heavy interference from Moldova and Xinjiang. Fortunately this winter St Petersburg is silent until evening making this channel better open to the East. Sometimes from Japan we can get also JOYR on the channel.
Note that DWSS is slightly above the nominal, on 1494.017 kHz which makes it easy to see even before the audio. The video below shows the recorded spectrum with the station ID.

From the web we can read:
DWSS (pronounced as DW-Double-S) (1494 kHz Metro Manila) is a blocktimer AM station of Supreme Broadcasting Systems in the Philippines. The station's studio is located at EDSA, Mandaluyong City.Like DWWW 774, DWSS brings some Religious Shows & mostly non-stop Music with program schedules in between songs. It has taglines such as Love songs at its best, Yesterday's hits, Today's classic, Nothing but the best mix of music & Songs that inspires you. Since it has no proper programming, It broadcasts from 5:30am - 10:00pm.

Slogans:Let your heart speak! (Music)- Para sa Diyos, Para sa Bayan! Entertainment Radio!

WHB Kansas City MO 810 - an old-fashioned QSL card

WHB verified with a fine old-fashioned QSL -card in four months. This surprised me a lot since it is a long time ago when I received my latest "real" QSL -card. I can't even remember when it happened.

WHB became my MO #19. Actually I already have WHB verification from back in 1996. However, it is a different station that operated on 710 kHz at the time.

ENOX15 - some new stations with loud and clear signals!

Some SA during the night and early morning. Actually many SA -stations came in very well across the all AM -band. NA became audible after Enontekiö's sunrise in the morning and many stations from the West and down in California came in surprisingly loud and clear. Around 09.00-10.00 UTC stations faded out little by little.
Some catches from today's logbook: KBLE-1050, KPTQ-1280, KSUB-590, KYNS-1340, KRLC-1350, KTIK-1350...

This was my last report from Enontekiö this season and ENOX15 will sign off tomorrow. Thank You all for sharing the season's ENOX -reports. The ENOX -crew will be back again in next season around September/October with new loggings and stories. Have a great springtime!

TuA

KART Jerome ID 1400

"Real Country Cart 1400 AM" is probably one of the easiest US GY-station to catch. Getting a verification has been a very challenging task - at least for me! Yesterday evening, after 24 years of trying, I got a prompt e-mail reply from Lamont Summers confirming my LEM266 report. Many thanks to JHU for the v/s info!!

ENOX15 and KDMO Carthage, MO-1490

I arrived in Enontekiö some hours ago and set up my equipment for two nights listening session. This will be my last ENOX -expedition this season - hopefully I'll be lucky with the conditions. Unfortunately the solar weather does not seem very promising but let's see what happens during the next 36 hours...

I checked the ENOX10 recordings last week and I found a couple of new ones for me. One of them was KDMO on 1490 kHz. Please, take a look at the attached QSL -text I received last night along the email.

March 17, 2009

Dear Tuomo,

Thank you for the Email regarding KDMO and your hobby. It must be an exciting to pick up a Radio Station half way around the world!
I listened to your MP3 and verify that you did indeed pick up 1490 KDMO and the written details of what you heard are correct.
Spring is coming on strong here in Southwest Missouri with the temperature being 80 degrees today and the air conditioner is on here at the station today. We didn’t receive a lot of snow this year and thank goodness very little ice. After the past few winters we are sick of the ice storms that bring down power lines and cause havoc in running our business.
Good luck to you with your hobby.

Sincerely,

Ron Petersen, Sr. President & General Manager

TuA

ENOX14: 17-22.2. (JVA,TUA)

Very poor conditions. However some nice loggings 20.2. Full and final loggings.

KXOL Brigham City UT 1660 - La Favorita!

KXOL is a very usual catch on 1660 kHz. It has a Spanish Mexican format and it can be heard almost daily during the season in the Arctic with a proper antenna.

I have tried to get this one verified for many, many years but for some reason it does not seem to care DXers reports and audios from overseas. However, this time I was lucky and got a kind email verification from La Favorita's Office Manager.

KXOL is my UT #22 and the last one on 1660 kHz.

KOZE Lewiston ID 950 under the KJR's carrier

Hearing an Idaho -station on the same frequency with KJR Seattle booming in at the same time is not an easy job. But if you are lucky enough it can be possible. When I heard KOZE in November 2007 during ENOX3 it was middle of the night in Idaho meaning that KOZE was running only 1000 watts. At the same time KJR was using 50000 watts! However just on the top of the hour KJR took a few seconds break and on right this moment KOZE gave its legal ID under the KJR's carrier.

KOZE verified last night with a kind email after two earlier attempts back in 2007 and 2008.

WKLJ Sparta WI 1290

WKLJ is an ESPN affiliate in Sparta, Wisconsin. It's not an easy catch at all but however, it has been captured every now and then in Scandinavia in recent years. It was heard during last October on ENOX10 as well with TOH call -ID and later on with ESPN programming. WKLJ verified last night with an email and it became my second WI -station on 1290 kHz.

Radio Disney on 1190 kHz - KPHN Kansas City MO

Another interesting station fading in and out on October 26, 2008 during ENOX10 was KPHN Kansas City MO on 1190 kHz. 1190 kHz has not been very interesting frequency for me since before KPHN I have picked up only those usual WOWO, WLIB, KEX and CFSL. It needs always somehow special conditions if you want to hear anything else on this frequency. In addition to those stations I mentioned at least five more US AMs have been heard in Scandinavia: WBIS, WBDY, KFXR, KVSV and KNUV.

KPHN verified with an e-mail yesterday.

PUDXK WINTER MEETING AT OULU&MUHOS 27-28 FEB

It was nice to meet again with the hard-core-dxers TUA, JVA, JSN & JPR at Oulu and Muhos (JPRs super QTH). Once again our Sun celebrated our meeting with a rapid rise of solar wind on Feb 27 causing a sudden decline of mw-propagation!
This has occured every time at our meetings during several years - so that was not a surprise!
We started the meeting at Oulu with nice meal at an old storehouse on an island "Pikisaari" near the city center - at "Sokeri Jussi Inn" with nice beefs and some wine and beer. Indeed the Inn´s recommended Red Wine of Spier, South Africa (Stellenbosch region) was very good.
Maybe we should have taken a wine of the Western World to enhance Trans Atlantic reception after all!
This session ended with beautifull view of the Moon and Venus right above us (nice conjunction although some clouds).

Afterwards the session at night was devoted to "Lessons 1-3 of Perseus receiver" at JPRs QTH. We examined, tested and made some test recordings of TA-signals using the antenna farm with no more than about a dozen long bevarages towards the Western Hemisphere. Unfortunatly the conditions were not that good. By the way, once again a projector and a big screen (of about 100 inches) was nice for older dxers (at the picture the attendances are looking at the big projected screen of the Perseus window of a PC).

Exploring the otherwise great Perseus receiver we made a short wish list of Hard-Core-MW-DX:
1)as we always measure the exact frequency down to at least 1 Hz and while we listen usb or lsb we want to see simultaneously the exact carriers using the zoom knob: however that was not possible but we had to switch the mode to AM to see the center frequency and all the carriers around it! So a button to change the window to center frequency also on SSB is almost a must for serious DX - what´s more a list of peak carriers automatically should be fine (like on SpectraVue-software)
2)the timeline has no time stamp, which makes it hard to know where you are, so the label should be a usefull addition here when checking the recorded file
3)the tiny timeline is hard to "hit" using the mouse, maybe a bit thicker timeline will make things easier.
4)also a stamp of the file (automatic putting the day&time to the file´s name) should be very nice.
We liked of course the good sensitivity and all the tools handling the selectivity with Perseus, not forgotting to mention it´s capability to record the whole MW-band to a hard disk!
73 TK

KBLL Helena MT 1240

I heard KBLL on the 2nd of November, 2008 during LEM266. Right after the ABC News they broadcast their local weather forecast presented by forecaster Erin Yost.

I send an email to Erin, who works at KTVH in Helena, and to the station. Last Friday night, during our PUDXK-meeting in Muhos, I got a nice reply from Erin. Here's one of Erin's comments: "That is INSANE! Ha ha! I've taken a couple radio classes in college over in Missoula, Montana (University of Montana) and have heard of signals going further than expected and whatnot... that is unbelievable! Wow! It's a small world :)"

Yesterday evening I also got a reply from Chief Engineer Jared Dickert. Thank you very much Erin and Jared!

What comes to QSLing, last Friday was a very nice day. Two other email-qsls found their way to my mailbox:

Joseph Rizza from Davidson Media Group verified my report of WPYR Baton Rouge LA 1380. I picked it up on the 5th of November, 2008 during LEM266. It was the first time WPYR was heard in Finland. Since then it has been picked up by several Finnish DXers. Thank you Joe for your confirmation!

Jeff McMurray, PD verified my follow-up report of Sports 1140 - KHTK Sacramento CA. Heard it in January 2007 during LEM241. Came in quite well during their local break at 11:45 UTC. Thank you Jeff!

WBGX Harvey IL 1570 verified - finally!

It was way back in 2003 when I picked up WBGX for the first time. The reception wasn't very good at the time and I never succeeded in QSLing the station back then. But on February 20 this year during ENOX14 the reception was much better and I managed to capture a clear and a loud TOH ID "AM1570 WBGX Harvey-Chicago". And just an hour ago I got a short but a kind verification from the station. My IL #32.