Nice video :) It reminds me of when I was a kid. We had vacation in our car basically, a big car we could sleep in. We drove up to mountains called "Haukelifjell". I had a portable radio with me with AM. With no mobile phones, no internet, it was so magical to tune in to AM radio signal and hear radio from other countries. Especially when I was in mountains, and felt hidden away from the rest of the world, but receiving signals from so far away. I made my own antennas to try to get more signals. My dad tried to tell me the antenna had to be a certain length to be optimal for a certain frequency, but I wouldn't listen. I made all kinds of weird antennas and experimented.
Holy smokes. I actually went to Unique thrift store in Union, New Jersey on Saturday (11/16) and I saw this EXACT receiver. All I did was test to see if the radio tuner worked, which it did, but I didn't buy because I didn't need it, and it was too big. But now it looks as if I should've gotten it! Great video as always!
I live in Northern California, and in the mid 80's I was listening to 890 WLS in Northern California (about 1800 miles away). I actually called the station at 2AM California time and they mentioned me on the air, I still have the cassette recording of it somewhere. I was using the GE Super Radio II (digital tuning).
This brings back memories of my childhood, slowly going through the AM dial trying to see how far away I could pick up stations. It was a long shot but was checking to see if you could pick up WBAP 820 from Dallas/Fort Worth, lol! Sounded like a garbled mix of stations around that frequency for you.
I used to listen to 660 The Fan for wrestling news late Saturday or Sunday nights back in the day. I lived in NC and thought it was amazing getting a station from so far away.
Your Fisher (Sanyo) tuner has amazing adjacent-channel selectivity, allowing it to minimize "splatter" from very strong adjacent frequency stations. Many of the AM tuners offered on receivers during the 1970s tended to have relatively decent reception, albeit few of them offered extended high-frequency response. Like you, I occasionally like to surf the AM dial at night to find distant stations, typically using a portable battery-powered radio or a walkman. Although I don't have one, I understand that a series of U.S.-made Philips "High Fidelity Laboratories" receivers and tuners manufactured from 1976 to 78 featured advanced AM tuners and specifically extended frequency response up to 10 khz. Thanks for bringing back memories about DX'ing, something not well-known to some younger listeners who have little exposure to AM radio.
My radio that I designed is based on the MK484, and with a little regeneration, it can pick-up, at night, AM bcb stations that are several hundred miles away. It has no external antenna
Heck, most of the younger crowd is likely to get annoyed by the static and distortion of DX'ing. Those of us who grew up scanning the dials have fond memories (and are amazed by a good catch)
@@Devo_gx I was going to say I still like the sound of tuning. But at almost 30, Kids Today have let it be known in no uncertain terms they consider me An Old now! So perhaps I need to let go of the idea I know anything about what younger folks like anymore 😅
Probably not from Poland. Only worldwide AM station broadcasting from Poland is Program 1 at 225 kHz and this receiver lower limit is about 400 kHz. There are a few low range local AM stations but i doubt this radio would pick them up. I guess it's Polish station in USA.
@@doctorrzepa I used to receive a real Polish radio station on 225 KHz LW via an online SDR receiver in Rockport, Maine a few years back. It's Polskie Radio Jedynka if I'm not mistaken. Yesterday I checked the local central NJ online KiwiSDR receiver and I was able to receive one European VLF, two African LW stations, two European LW stations and one Middle Eastern MW in the USA; 77.4 KHz DCF Mainflingen Germany, 171 KHz Medi 1 Morocco, 225 KHz Polskie Radio Jedynka and 252 KHz Chaine 1 Algeria with interference from 252 KHz RTE Radio 1 (transmitting from the former transmitters of Atlantic 252) - and the power house signal (1 MW!!) of SBC Radio Riyadh, Duba Medina, Saudi Arabia on 1521 KHz, with interference from 1520 WWKB Buffalo NY. I have to null the latter to get at least an audible signal from 1521.
When i was a teenager i had in my room the Fisher MC-4037, great AM-FM tuner and cassette player, very similar to this one except it had additionally two channel level indicator, an 8 track cassette deck and an automatic turntable. It worked great and never broken down since I received it (second-hand from my uncle) in 1987 to 2005 when i finally bought a modern equipment. Those were the good old days when technology had soul. Thanks for the memories and another great video Mr. VWestlife.
1:42 this is actually a station in Polish! It talks about people donating money to something, 200 and 360 dollars, not really sure for what or why, but eh, interesting stuff
I had a Kenwood AM/FM Tuner manufactured around 1977 that I bought from a restoration shop located a bit north of Albany NY in the hamlet of Halfmoon. I connected a longwire and ground wire to the tuner and picked up Hanoi Vietnam one night. I wish I had recorded the event but I certainly remember it.
That used to boom in when I lived on the Gulf Coast. I once took a handheld radio on a Caribbean cruise, and sat on the top deck at night. I heard stations from the Midwest to Honduras. Oddly, WSM 650 in Nashville came in fairly clear even down to Jamaica.
Long , very long...on long wave in the sixties...i received radio Canberra... In the Netherlands! In the evening starting with An Australian bird call..the cookaberra...
G'day, VWestlife! Right-on! Excellent! (I will agree, brings back memories!!) Another, marvelous video, showing what a "good AM radio tuner, easily able to pick up virtually every clear-channel station within a 1000-mile radius via skywave at night, using only its built-in antenna." By the way... I would drive all the way, out to the Lake! Just to hear Dale Sommers, better known as "The Truckin' Bozo', whose overnight truckers' show aired throughout much of the nation on 50,000 watt AM clear channel frequency on '700 WLW-Cincinnati'. Sommers worked in radio in several markets, including Evansville, Charleston, West Virginia, Kansas City, Miami and San Diego before, returning to Cincinnati in 1984, and launching the overnight show. His son Steve Sommers, later took over the WLW overnight, known as the "America's Trucking Network". When he retired; closed a 45-year career in radio. For the past 20 years, 'Bruce Dale Sommers', who was born in Tennessee, and moved to Cincinnati at age 13, started working at WAEF-AM radio in 1959. He entertained truckers nightly from midnight to 5 a.m. on WLW. The station's strong signal, with a network of about a dozen stations established through Clear Channel radio, and including, satellite radio allowed him to build (quite) a national fan base. (bit.ly/2KHsAVb ) Enjoy! :-) Long-haulers loved listening to Sommers in the wee hours. Remembering... Before the days of cell phones, they would call him from rest areas, and truck stops. Sometimes, just to offer a hello, sometimes, in need of help. Sommers has even, helped solve several crimes. In 1986, he was chatting off-air with a regular caller known as "Mississippi Lady," who was at a 24-hour convenience store near Camilla, Ga. Sommers heard her tell someone, "You can't come back here!!" The woman then hung up. Sommers called Camilla police, who knew a 'store clerk with that nickname'. Within minutes, the robber was caught. Before becoming the Truckin' Bozo, Sommers worked for several local radio stations, and elsewhere nationally, including Kansas City, Evansville, IN. and Indianapolis. Sommers' nickname reportedly came from his former boss at WLW, Randy Michaels. During a station remodeling, Michael saw Sommers kick a wall whose supports had been removed. The panel crashed across a desk. "Lord, you're a bozo," Michaels said... The name stuck. Sommers was a Kentucky Colonel, enjoyed photography, and was an amateur ham radio operator. Thank you very much! Cheers! 😊✌🏼📻❤️
My dad told me about this ages ago, I should get out my TecSun and see if I can get a similar thing going. Your videos are very satisfying to watch. Good job learning all of this tech stuff.
Ahh, the good old days in the 1980s, in my family's old lake house in the Adirondacks, WRTH in hand, slowly scanning the AM band, trying to check off additional stations in my "DXing" hobby...
Man, AM DXing is so fascinating. Just recently, on a whim one night as I was out doing Uber and Lyft driving in my area (Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN), I wanted to relieve some memories I had just a few months ago when I was in Nashville with my now-fiancé when we went to the Grand Ole Opry during the weekend of the 94th birthday. So I flipped over to the AM dial to tune into 650 WSM to catch some of the Friday Night Opry show, and lo and behold if I was in the right spot without too much impeding the path of my car's antenna it comes in clear as day! It's no wonder they call themselves the Air Castle of the South!
Longest distance I could consistently receive was Top 40 / CHR , Atlantic 252, which broadcast with 1.2 million watts on 252 kHz Long Wave from Ireland to all of the UK and western Europe. In the early 1990s, I could receive Atlantic 252 in northern Ontario with a Grundig Satellit 6001 connected to a long wire antenna strung from the apartment window to a tree. They played excellent music, better than any of the local stations for sure!!
Oh, I miss Atlantic 252. The soundtrack to my teens. Yes, RTE now use the huge transmitters that were built for Atlantic 252 in 1989, albeit on much reduced power.
@@rich_edwards79 still it can be received in North America during winter. I personally received them through the Rockford ME online KiwiSDR last year, albeit with strong CCI from Algeria.
Tour video of the amazing 1.2 megawatt transmitter site for Atlantic 252. Final output drive supply 30,000 Volts. Antenna feedline safety fence signs : "Extreme Danger - Death On Contact" Energy is sufficient for metal fencing to resonate and play the music being broadcast. A true mega-station which played excellent music! th-cam.com/video/BdeFTOjkpzY/w-d-xo.html
If it's music you heard on 1190 then most likely it's WLIB as WOWO in Fort Wayne, Indiana is all news & talk. But scanning the band has always been a fun pastime for me since I was young. Fisher made some great tuners too back in the day!
That's pretty awesome! When I was driving to college from Vancouver, Washington to Pullman, Washington, I could easily pick up Los Angeles stations in my car at night. It was kind of neat to listen to LA traffic reports when flying through the Palouse, not seeing another car for miles.
Interesting to hear the Canadian radio station talking about vaccines in late 2019, few of us knew that vaccines would soon become a very big and prominent topic for everyone.
This has been one of my favorite hobbies since i was a kid! Just a few moths ago I listened to a Cardinals baseball game broadcast from St. Louis all the way home to Dallas. Came in perfectly with only a few dropouts through Oklahoma. Edit: The station I was listening to was 1120 AM KMOX! TH-cam needs something more than just a like button!
KMOX in StL, I used to listen to Cardinal baseball on that station and on WSM when you hovered over it was the one and only Eddie Stubbs. WSM stands for "We Shield Millions" from WSM's former owner National Life & Accident Insurance Company. WSM has been around since 1925.
Some of these older stereos had great radio tuners in them. Back in the mid 1980s, I had a Pioneer stereo receiver from the 70s that was handed down to me from an older brother. Using its built in antenna, I was able to hear RJR Galina, Jamaica on 580khz using just the built in antenna from my then home of Lake Charles, LA. From the same QTH, I also heard TWR Bonaire on 800khz using a Zenith clock radio with its built in antenna. Have QSL cards for both. Fun days.
Memories from when I was a kid and had my dad's old Zenith Transoceanic in my bedroom. I would spend all night going up and down the AM dial. On a side note, 620 WHEN is a tough get once you get 50 miles or so out of Syracuse. The farthest I've been able to get it was northern Pa.
I think I had one of those also, got to use it after my dad died when I was young. Just Googled it - found a You Tube video on it. It was a Zenith H500 Super Trans-Oceanic portable radio (AC only). Thank for mentioning it! Let it go at the estate auction 27 years ago. While I have a photo of it seeing one on video is awesome!
In 1969 I was on Kiwai Island at the mouth of the Fly River in Papua New Guinea, and picked up a Vancouver AM station loud and clear. It was toward the upper end of the band but I don't remember the frequency or station ID. Using just a cheap portable radio. Terrific skip!
I was unaware of the clear-channel station concept, thanks for the link to the Wikipedia page; very informative! And now I learned that the small town of Watrous, Saskatchewan where my aunt and uncle lived, has a clear-channel transmitter for CBC Radio, which was meant to serve all the prairie provinces.
I love doing this stuff. I have an old early 60s portable transistor radio that picks up signals like crazy. When I’m bored at night I’d just pick up the little radio and see what signals I can get.
I have so much respect for the scientific knowledge in which you impart onto your viewers. I always learn something new from this channel, and appreciate that I can come here for content that relates to my favourite hobbies. Thank you!
After midnight, they broaden their format, and sometimes throw in the odd hip hop / dance song along with Anne Murray and Gordon Lightfoot. I was surprised, considering their target audience is 60 plus. Many times I put this on at night just because they have better music variety than just about any other station I can receive on AM or FM.
One of my favorite things to do when going for drives is to see all the different random AM stations still on the air, but with this thing, I could do it from home!
I used to hear CKMX in Alberta, Canada via skywave from my Eton radio in my home of Forks, WA. By the way, thanks for preserving the dying breath of WPLJ. Even though I didn't listen to it over live streaming, it was really touching and emotional to hear.
That was my station growing up as a kid, and eventually started listening again when they had gone to the classic country format in the 2000s. Now it's a comedy station
I'm in Washington State, and I loved listening to CKMX when they had a country format. It always came in crystal clear at night. It's just not the same anymore, unfortunately.
I remember installing a Pioneer CD player with Supertuner in my first truck, back in 1992. Instantly I was picking up stations from all over the western US, including AZ and NM. Considering I was in northern Alberta and my old radio could barely get Edmonton stations, I was completely impressed. It was only the next day I realized that was not normal. Only on certain nights, could I replicate the results. Still I could pick up Edmonton stations regularly, So I was happy, since the Grande Prairie stations were, and still are, crap.
We're lucky to still have MW broadcasting in the US. Many countries in Europe are shutting down MW, and it's now completely gone in Germany, Netherlands, and several other countries.
@Lassi Kinnunen As far as I know, 963 kHz and 558 kHz were shut down in as late as 2006 and 2007, though they were not intended for domestic use but for people in other countries interested in Finland, and Finns living abroad. In domestic use FM superseded AM in 1960's. I remember playing around with a radio when I was a kid in 80's-90's, and at least 963 and 6120 kHz sound familiar frequencies. Here's a clip of the early years of radio in Finland: areena.yle.fi/1-50159664
Well Asian MW stations are storming the band nearly every night and it will also occupy the band every Winter morning too.. One example is 1242 KHz Voice of Vietnam and 1566 KHz FEBC Jeju South Korea.. Receivable in Europe every night as long as there's good propagation..
MW broadcasting is not closed in the Netherlands. Only the high power transmissions have been shut down. Currently there are small low power regional AM radio stations left. Unfortunately it's pretty low power so it will be easily flooded with more high power transmissions coming from the south and east European areas. There is still a lot of activity on the MW band in Europe.
I was just watching this and I am in Duncan Ok and on one station a lady was reading the news and said , "Police in Duncan Oklahoma said two men ...", I google it and Nov 18,2019 was when 2 men and 1 women were shot in the Walmart parking lot over a "Lover's triangle". I think 1 man shot his wife and her boyfriend and then himself. I remember that day I was working at KFC and it was the middle of the day and we heard there was a shooting at Walmart. By that "Cassiever" was a good find.
One time I was driving on the freeway at night between Wayne County, Michigan and East Lansing and I was stuck in a traffic jam in the Fowlerville area. I wanted to get a traffic report, but the AM station I normally get traffic reports from (950 WWJ-AM) has poor reception out there, so I started scanning the AM dial to try to find another station that would give a traffic report. I was surprised to discover that I was receiving stations as far away as Boston and Missouri, and with better reception than my local station. I accidentally DX'd with the radio in my Toyota. XD
Yeah being from Ypsilanti. I used to get the grand ole Opryland from Nashville 650 . Yeah I live in Knoxville tn and we get wjr at night , used to have the wings on
Wow, this takes me back to my crystal radio set days. I had a series of books by the author Alfred E Morgan. Built my first simple Crystal AM radio. Way Back in 1970.
For AM DX, other than the classic Panasonic RF2200 if you can find one, I'll recommend, flimsy as it is, the XData 808 (also known as Sihuadon D808), which has an oversized loop antenna in it. I was able to tune out KYW at 1060 (470 miles northeast, clear channel) and instead tune in WQMV in Waverly Tennessee, 320 miles west, using *four watts* of power. With the Panasonic I've received KOA Denver here in western North Carolina, and a station in Michigan running ten watts. Also interesting to tune is the upper band 1610-1710. Even though almost all of them are limited to 1kW at night there's not much competition and you can still get hundreds of miles. Back in the 1930s when there was less energy on the band my Dad picked up KFI in Los Angeles, from his home in Philadelphia, so a lot depends on what else is out there competing.
1360am is MY favorite channel it's called the KAT and located in Galax, Va !!!! (Gay-Lax) I edited this to let you know the call sign is WCGX Keep forgetting that "the kat" is just the "name". Daytime power - 5000 watts Nighttime - 31 watts
Hi from France (Paris) : what a childhood remembering ! But I’m so sad to say today there is no more AM stations mostly in western Europe, broadcasting centers have been shut down. Still receive some Spanish, North Africa, Italian and Eastern Europe + Russian broadcast with still some parts in French. We have still 3 AM station on LW band : Europe 1, RTL and RMC. Even the national radio France Inter is closed , still get the signal but no more modulation on it, just for a clocking system... stupid decision of technocrats.
Je suis d'accord, il n'y a plus ce côté merveilleux à recevoir une station lointaine avec un simple poste de radio. En AM, quand j'étais petit, on recevait facilement pas mal de chose, et en ondes courtes c'était fantastique ! Dire qu'une technologie vieille d'un siècle pouvait traverser le monde... Et en cas de conflit, la radio était irremplaçable. Aujourd'hui, tout serait plus compliqué...
This is what shortwave was all about. I remember being in the car and picking up distant stations. WHAM was a good one when you could get it in. There was also a station we could get Dr. Demento on occasionally. Of course a good, well placed antenna helps as well.
That's really neat. I remember picking up Quebec on my clock radio it was an older type. My mom I remember told me in her 1964 AMC rambler classic she would pick up stations all over the place. I thought wbz was on 1610am home to Arnie woo woo Ginsburg Night train show. They must have changed frequency.
The country song that was playing on 920 was All my Exes live in Texas by George Strait. amazing song! It's crazy how many AM stations are able to be picked up!
I can receive get French, Spanish and Italian on AM on mine, I'm in the north west UK, but on top of a hill right next to a large transmitter (transmitter is to bounce signal over this big hill). Listening to AM reminds me of David Cronenberg, who when he was younger, used to tune into stations after the terrestrial channels went off the air and would pick up weird things, which went onto inspire 'Videodrome'
back when I had a 1988 Ford F-150 with the factory radio, I could listen to stations from Canada at night, and it was even winter! I live at Kansas and AM radio and its capabilities are endless!
Factory analog tuning AM radios from the 1960s - 1980s often have _incredible_ sensitivity, selectivity and audio quality. This was really the pinnacle of AM radio receiver build quality, when it was 'the' source of entertainment when on long road trips, or daily commute.
My cousin Jim has a Realistic casseiver early 80's model that put out 16W/ch, I once had to replace a 1uF E cap that went open on the preamp board in that, one time Jim got home drunk and put on his phones and forgot to turn off the speakers, then aunty Helen came in his room and gave him a slap around for the blast of music coming from the tower speakers (2 10" woofers each)
At 25:11 he ends with a Toronto station on 740. The DJ is Robbie from the Canadian band Robbie Lane and the disciples. Cfzm was originally built for the Canadian government and designed to carry the government station all over Ontario. Call letters cbl. I think Canadian broadcasting limited. They built the best, a 5/8 wave antenna, over 700 feet tall powered by a 50 kW Continental transmitter on a clear channel. Chwo bought it and renamed cfzm broadcasting for 50 plus zoomers
Back in 2003 We picked up KNX 1070 AM from Los Angeles, while visiting friends and family in Albuquerque, NM for T-Giving in the friggin' original equipment car radio. It. It was about 3:00 AM after driving most of the day and arriving very early the next morning. It was wild! It was a little staticky but mostly listenable.
5Rounds Rapid I rarely bother scanning the am dial anymore, but when I do here in Arizona, I can usually get KOA out of Denver and KTWO from Casper, and both make me nostalgic from when I was a kid scanning the AM dial at night in Douglas, Wyoming
Back in the 90s, (the last time the Pirates did well), I used to listen to Pirates games on KDKA Pittsburgh from the FL panhandle in my car at night. I'd sit in my car and listen.
Amazing video, you gave me a great ideia, I will make this test with my receiver Sansui 5050 1976,with internal antenna. Here in Brazil the AM frequency still in operation.
I think that is by design. Local stations must power down at sundown to allow smaller stations to sing through. I am not completely positive on the entire set of rules. www.fcc.gov/media/radio/am-stations-at-night
The funny thing is sometimes the reception will be garbage locally but great in distant places. 1560 from NYC was known for this, amazing skywave reception but garbage local reception.
Something like that happened to me once while I was stuck in a traffic jam on the freeway. I was having trouble receiving the AM station from the major metropolitan area a few counties over, but when I scanned the dial I found that I was receiving stations from other states with surprising clarity.
fiftyfuckingfeet Higher frequencies are usually much better with skywave. If you’re close enough to a shortwave station, you can’t hear it, especially at night.
Back when I lived in the Midwest I listened to 650 WSM pretty much every night! It was like the only AM station that played music and it beat the local “country” music stations! Since I’m into Classic Country and Folk music I loved it! I live now in the Southwest (New Mexico) and it seems hard to get it, but I enjoy listening to it online!
WLS Chicago goes down the Mississippi River to the Gulf at night. My mother-in-law listened to it in the ‘70s in rural Mississippi. WWL in New Orleans goes the opposite way.
If you are in NYC, you can’t get WLS on 890, because it’s interfering WCBS-AM at 880. Back in the 1960’s and 1970’s, while living in sections of Brooklyn and Manhattan, the two stations Chicago you can’t pick up at the time was WLS-AM and WCFL-AM, because both were interfered with WCBS-AM and 1010 WINS where they were all-news. If you go up north of the city and into the Hudson Valley, you can get WLS-AM and WCFL at night where both were Top 40 stations in Chicago.
@@Musicradio77Network I've done pretty well in Connecticut and Vermont getting 890 WLS out of Chicago. I listen to 700 WLW out of Ohio for Bill Cunningham when WTIC 1080 has sports. I try to log the station call letters and frequency as well as the program I'm hearing. I note the radio make and model I'm using. I note the date and time in 24 hour format. I note the overall reception quality. It's interesting to observe skip and fading and also when reception is stable. It's a fun hobby and more fun when you get interesting programming. Older AM or AM/FM or multi-band radios can do well especially during the winter. But a really good and well tuned radio is a pleasure. I have yet to get good communications headphones and dig deep into the weeds for the real fringe stations. I am thinking also about the digital signal processing detectors and possibly modifying an older radio to do that. Any DX'ers or clubs around? Thanks and God Bless.
@@5roundsrapid263 it's funny but they use to have a show called "The Sports Nuts" that was funny. I would tune in and hear these die hard Bears fans obsess over their team. They reminded me of a "Morning Zoo" with all the jokes and smack they talked. I always thought that was so funny. With the Saint's we were never that obsessive. At least until the 2000s.
CFZM 740 is a great classic hits station, also CKDO 1580, which seems to have the best sounding audio quality for music on AM right now. From Montreal, there is a station CJEU, 1670 kHz which plays dance / trance music at night, their commentary is French, but the music they play can bounce subwoofers... on AM, which I find is part of the fun.
Some of the songs CFZM plays is better than some FM Oldie Stations near me... I’m lucky that my HD Radio picked it up from Northwestern Indiana, outside of Chicago.
When I was a boy I scanned the AM band at night on a old RCA Victor Model 811K (It's console radio from the late '30s) when I wasn't listening to shortwave. I still have a log of what I heard.
9:00 Digital hush interference is not actually that bad. When I googled AM digital they said it interferes with adjacent channels that receiving distant stations next to it is difficult. We don't have AM digital here in the Philippines so I thought digital severely interferes with the adjacent channels because some people were complaining wishing to bring back the analog AM stereo.
On the 12 of November, 2019. A DXer in Dalton, GA has managed to receive Radio Nacional Español from Murcia, Spain on 855 kHz during night time. His setup is only a Tecsun PL-380 using the built-in ferrite rod antenna! First ever barefoot transatlantic AM DX over 4,500 miles! Video of his reception can be found right here: th-cam.com/video/dpvwiwoTpAI/w-d-xo.html
"Is Fayettevile, Alabama?" - VWestlife That's a small town near Talladega. I've gotten WHO in Victorville, California. At the end of the video Under CFZM I can hear a heterodyne on 740.
That’s a car dealership in Syracuse Romano Ford N. Burdick St. in Fayetteville. You were listening to our station here 620 I think it’s power 620 its hip-hop R&B.
I can receive Power 620 driving from Toronto all the way up to North Bay (220 miles north of Toronto) *during the day.* At night, another station overpowers it.
When I lived in FLA. near St. Augustine in a rural area I h I tuned in would listen at night to stations , WLS, WOWO,WCFL. The most distant station might have been KAAY in Little Rock, Arkansas. I don't know what the distance was of these stations and they would drift, overall it was clear at times. The most amazing local station I grew up listening to was 690 WAPE , which I tuned in while camping at Cape Hatteras,N.C. and this was During The Daytime. Salt water works wonders for radio signals
Used to do this with all my radios when I was a kid. Even did that on my grandparents old RCA valve radio. Always have and will love radio dxing. Most of these older receivers were good on medium wave. Yes in 1979 the mw dial was expanded to 1710 in USA and Canada but stations are usually less than 25 kW.
Nice receiver! It can receive stations from “A Thousand Miles Away” as the Heartbeats would say. Too bad, 1260 AM KSUR “K-Surf” can’t pick it up there, because it’s in Los Angeles and Beverly Hills, but the only show I listened to every late Saturday night into Sunday morning is “Disco Saturday Night”, a 6-hour show featuring nothing but classic dance and forgotten dance favorites from the 70’s and 80’s from disco to funk to freestyle. It’s on from 10 PM Saturday night all the way to 4 AM Sunday morning if I’m in the eastern time zone, because show was on from 7 PM through 12 AM in the pacific.
K-SURF 1260 is shango066's favorite station!! When I am in Long Beach, I listen to K-SURF on the HD-AM car stereo, and the sound is incredible! This is a great oldies station. For those interested, they have an online stream, then you can listen to the Disco Saturday night wherever you live!
Lake Nipissing Thanks the tip. I’m in Brooklyn for a visit and I listened to “Disco Saturday Night” which is my favorite show that “shango066” is listening to. The sad thing about the Saturday night dance show, it ran from 10AM until 4AM. That is crazy. Listening to “Disco Saturday Night” on K-Surf in the middle of the night which is kinda odd to hear the classic retro dance from disco, funk, and freestyle. I recorded the show over the weekend and it lasted for 6 hours. It ended around 4AM and I was still sleeping. That make “K-Surf’s” “Disco Saturday Night” an all-night dance party after hours.
At least there is AM (Medium or Long Wave) Radio still in the United States. In Ireland and the UK, there is only five radio stations still on AM compared to around 100 or more stations 25 to 30 years ago- Ireland- RTE Radio 1 (Long Wave 252khz) UK- BBC Radio 4 (Long Wave 200khz/1500m) Ireland- Spirit Radio (Medium Wave- Unknown) UK- BBC Radio Ulster (Medium Wave- Unknown) UK- Absolute Radio (Medium Wave- Unknown)
RTE 252 KHz, along with the notorious CCI from Algeria on the same frequency is receivable in North America as long as you have the correct time of day, propogation and antenna.
There's more than the five you just mentioned. BBC Radio Scotland 810 kHz Radio Caroline on 648, I can get that in The Netherlands during the day, even though it's one 1kW). There's at least one BBC station left on 693.
@@lennartbenschop656 I know there more than the five or so I mentioned, however, these are the only medium and long wave services that I can obtain with a very good sound. I could barely make out BBC Radio Wales and BBC Radio Scotland. It depends on where you live. I live in the Midlands of Ireland, so I am only about an hours drive from the Summerhill transmitter for RTE Radio 1. If I had a World Band Radio, I could probably receive more Medium or Long Wave broadcasts. I think the 693khz BBC station is BBC Radio 5 Live or something. I could barely pick it up though.
@@danieldaniels7571 Your right...but at night at 900 chml is the oldies stations I listen to at 10:00 its from Canada ..other than that its all news or sports which I dont listen to either one.
I haven't had much luck with distant AM stations here in Baltimore, but I used regularly to listen to CFZM 740 from Toronto on my way home from work at night. Good enough reception to listen continuously. Decent music too. Also 19:53 is likely WQLL 1370 from Pikesville, MD and they have a FM translator for 99.9Mhz in harford county MD. They play a lot of oldies.
As you slowly tune...I keep expecting to hear "At the tone....four hours, fifty-eight minutes...coordinated universal time....This is radio station WWV, broadcasting on internationally allocated standard carrier frequencies...." (even though it wasn't a SW tuner...)
I managed to pick up a couple 5000 watt Canadian stations on my early 1970s Montgomery Ward receiver this summer. These old receivers are surprisingly good for AM DX.
Very rarely see any radios with lw/am functions in the shops nowadays in the UK, its mostly DAB, DAB+ and FM. I think there's a few uk stations still on AM including a few DRM test broadcasts by the BBC but the quality is dreadful and no one would choose to actually listen to it as all the stations are available via other means at higher quality. Im surprised the government hasnt repurposed the bands for other more useful services yet. Interesting that the usa still uses it so much but I guess it makes more sense given the vast expanse of the country. I still fondly recall listening to Atlantic 252 on LW, the signal would be drowned out by European broadcasts around 6pm and become unlistenable.
LOL . . . Right now classic hits (seniors-oriented) CFZM 740 from Toronto, Canada is playing LL Cool J - "Doin It" How many radio stations out there playing LL Cool J and then run commercials for mobility aids, heart meds and hearing aids? AM radio is certainly a unique world of entertainment.
Very normal thing here in Italy also, for example I can hear very clearly Jil Fm, an algerian station from over 1400km from where I live, and countless eastern european and russian stations.
Do you ever try LW ? Many LW stations use transmitters with 100s of thousands of kW or even more than a megawatt. LW travels a long distance compared to MW.
I can get some British stations in the late afternoon, like Gold 1548 and talkSport 1089 from London, with a fairly strong signal. No BBC R4 on 198, though.
Nice video :) It reminds me of when I was a kid. We had vacation in our car basically, a big car we could sleep in. We drove up to mountains called "Haukelifjell". I had a portable radio with me with AM. With no mobile phones, no internet, it was so magical to tune in to AM radio signal and hear radio from other countries. Especially when I was in mountains, and felt hidden away from the rest of the world, but receiving signals from so far away. I made my own antennas to try to get more signals. My dad tried to tell me the antenna had to be a certain length to be optimal for a certain frequency, but I wouldn't listen. I made all kinds of weird antennas and experimented.
Holy smokes. I actually went to Unique thrift store in Union, New Jersey on Saturday (11/16) and I saw this EXACT receiver. All I did was test to see if the radio tuner worked, which it did, but I didn't buy because I didn't need it, and it was too big. But now it looks as if I should've gotten it! Great video as always!
I live in Northern California, and in the mid 80's I was listening to 890 WLS in Northern California (about 1800 miles away). I actually called the station at 2AM California time and they mentioned me on the air, I still have the cassette recording of it somewhere. I was using the GE Super Radio II (digital tuning).
This brings back memories of my childhood, slowly going through the AM dial trying to see how far away I could pick up stations. It was a long shot but was checking to see if you could pick up WBAP 820 from Dallas/Fort Worth, lol! Sounded like a garbled mix of stations around that frequency for you.
This looks just like a receiver my older brother had. I used to DX on it when I was a kid.
There is a local station on 820 kHz here (WNYC in New York) so my chances of hearing WBAP are very slim.
I used to listen to 660 The Fan for wrestling news late Saturday or Sunday nights back in the day. I lived in NC and thought it was amazing getting a station from so far away.
James Clarke I live near WSM, but I can usually get 660 on my Superadio.
820 comes in clear as could be at night here in Atlanta.
Your Fisher (Sanyo) tuner has amazing adjacent-channel selectivity, allowing it to minimize "splatter" from very strong adjacent frequency stations. Many of the AM tuners offered on receivers during the 1970s tended to have relatively decent reception, albeit few of them offered extended high-frequency response. Like you, I occasionally like to surf the AM dial at night to find distant stations, typically using a portable battery-powered radio or a walkman. Although I don't have one, I understand that a series of U.S.-made Philips "High Fidelity Laboratories" receivers and tuners manufactured from 1976 to 78 featured advanced AM tuners and specifically extended frequency response up to 10 khz. Thanks for bringing back memories about DX'ing, something not well-known to some younger listeners who have little exposure to AM radio.
My radio that I designed is based on the MK484, and with a little regeneration, it can pick-up, at night, AM bcb stations that are several hundred miles away. It has no external antenna
Heck, most of the younger crowd is likely to get annoyed by the static and distortion of DX'ing. Those of us who grew up scanning the dials have fond memories (and are amazed by a good catch)
@@Devo_gx I was going to say I still like the sound of tuning. But at almost 30, Kids Today have let it be known in no uncertain terms they consider me An Old now! So perhaps I need to let go of the idea I know anything about what younger folks like anymore 😅
@@Devo_gx For the boomers the distortion sound is music to the ears :)
1:47 - it's in Polish. The host is mentioning some guys who donated like 300$. For religious purposes presumably
Czech, Russian, Polish language, for people confusing Europe with a Country is all the same.
Radio Maria! ;-) (not really... I don't think it's in Canada, and they'd be talking zlotych, not dolarów)
www.am530.ca/programschedule.htm
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CHLO_(AM)
Probably not from Poland. Only worldwide AM station broadcasting from Poland is Program 1 at 225 kHz and this receiver lower limit is about 400 kHz. There are a few low range local AM stations but i doubt this radio would pick them up. I guess it's Polish station in USA.
@@doctorrzepa I used to receive a real Polish radio station on 225 KHz LW via an online SDR receiver in Rockport, Maine a few years back. It's Polskie Radio Jedynka if I'm not mistaken.
Yesterday I checked the local central NJ online KiwiSDR receiver and I was able to receive one European VLF, two African LW stations, two European LW stations and one Middle Eastern MW in the USA; 77.4 KHz DCF Mainflingen Germany, 171 KHz Medi 1 Morocco, 225 KHz Polskie Radio Jedynka and 252 KHz Chaine 1 Algeria with interference from 252 KHz RTE Radio 1 (transmitting from the former transmitters of Atlantic 252) - and the power house signal (1 MW!!) of SBC Radio Riyadh, Duba Medina, Saudi Arabia on 1521 KHz, with interference from 1520 WWKB Buffalo NY. I have to null the latter to get at least an audible signal from 1521.
When i was a teenager i had in my room the Fisher MC-4037, great AM-FM tuner and cassette player, very similar to this one except it had additionally two channel level indicator, an 8 track cassette deck and an automatic turntable. It worked great and never broken down since I received it (second-hand from my uncle) in 1987 to 2005 when i finally bought a modern equipment. Those were the good old days when technology had soul. Thanks for the memories and another great video Mr. VWestlife.
1:42 this is actually a station in Polish! It talks about people donating money to something, 200 and 360 dollars, not really sure for what or why, but eh, interesting stuff
I had a Kenwood AM/FM Tuner manufactured around 1977 that I bought from a restoration shop located a bit north of Albany NY in the hamlet of Halfmoon. I connected a longwire and ground wire to the tuner and picked up Hanoi Vietnam one night. I wish I had recorded the event but I certainly remember it.
Recall some nights picking up "Radio Reloj" from Cuba on an AM radio I've used.
That used to boom in when I lived on the Gulf Coast. I once took a handheld radio on a Caribbean cruise, and sat on the top deck at night. I heard stations from the Midwest to Honduras. Oddly, WSM 650 in Nashville came in fairly clear even down to Jamaica.
Long , very long...on long wave in the sixties...i received radio Canberra... In the Netherlands! In the evening starting with An Australian bird call..the cookaberra...
G'day, VWestlife! Right-on! Excellent! (I will agree, brings back memories!!) Another, marvelous video, showing what a "good AM radio tuner, easily able to pick up virtually every clear-channel station within a 1000-mile radius via skywave at night, using only its built-in antenna." By the way... I would drive all the way, out to the Lake! Just to hear Dale Sommers, better known as "The Truckin' Bozo', whose overnight truckers' show aired throughout much of the nation on 50,000 watt AM clear channel frequency on '700 WLW-Cincinnati'.
Sommers worked in radio in several markets, including Evansville, Charleston, West Virginia, Kansas City, Miami and San Diego before, returning to Cincinnati in 1984, and launching the overnight show. His son Steve Sommers, later took over the WLW overnight, known as the "America's Trucking Network". When he retired; closed a 45-year career in radio.
For the past 20 years, 'Bruce Dale Sommers', who was born in Tennessee, and moved to Cincinnati at age 13, started working at WAEF-AM radio in 1959. He entertained truckers nightly from midnight to 5 a.m. on WLW. The station's strong signal, with a network of about a dozen stations established through Clear Channel radio, and including, satellite radio allowed him to build (quite) a national fan base. (bit.ly/2KHsAVb ) Enjoy! :-)
Long-haulers loved listening to Sommers in the wee hours. Remembering... Before the days of cell phones, they would call him from rest areas, and truck stops. Sometimes, just to offer a hello, sometimes, in need of help.
Sommers has even, helped solve several crimes. In 1986, he was chatting off-air with a regular caller known as "Mississippi Lady," who was at a 24-hour convenience store near Camilla, Ga. Sommers heard her tell someone, "You can't come back here!!" The woman then hung up. Sommers called Camilla police, who knew a 'store clerk with that nickname'. Within minutes, the robber was caught.
Before becoming the Truckin' Bozo, Sommers worked for several local radio stations, and elsewhere nationally, including Kansas City, Evansville, IN. and Indianapolis.
Sommers' nickname reportedly came from his former boss at WLW, Randy Michaels. During a station remodeling, Michael saw Sommers kick a wall whose supports had been removed. The panel crashed across a desk.
"Lord, you're a bozo," Michaels said...
The name stuck.
Sommers was a Kentucky Colonel, enjoyed photography, and was an amateur ham radio operator.
Thank you very much! Cheers! 😊✌🏼📻❤️
My dad told me about this ages ago, I should get out my TecSun and see if I can get a similar thing going. Your videos are very satisfying to watch. Good job learning all of this tech stuff.
Ahh, the good old days in the 1980s, in my family's old lake house in the Adirondacks, WRTH in hand, slowly scanning the AM band, trying to check off additional stations in my "DXing" hobby...
Man, AM DXing is so fascinating. Just recently, on a whim one night as I was out doing Uber and Lyft driving in my area (Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN), I wanted to relieve some memories I had just a few months ago when I was in Nashville with my now-fiancé when we went to the Grand Ole Opry during the weekend of the 94th birthday. So I flipped over to the AM dial to tune into 650 WSM to catch some of the Friday Night Opry show, and lo and behold if I was in the right spot without too much impeding the path of my car's antenna it comes in clear as day! It's no wonder they call themselves the Air Castle of the South!
Longest distance I could consistently receive was Top 40 / CHR , Atlantic 252, which broadcast with 1.2 million watts on 252 kHz Long Wave from Ireland to all of the UK and western Europe. In the early 1990s, I could receive Atlantic 252 in northern Ontario with a Grundig Satellit 6001 connected to a long wire antenna strung from the apartment window to a tree. They played excellent music, better than any of the local stations for sure!!
Now Atlantic Radio Is RTE Radio
Oh, I miss Atlantic 252. The soundtrack to my teens. Yes, RTE now use the huge transmitters that were built for Atlantic 252 in 1989, albeit on much reduced power.
@@rich_edwards79 still it can be received in North America during winter. I personally received them through the Rockford ME online KiwiSDR last year, albeit with strong CCI from Algeria.
Tour video of the amazing 1.2 megawatt transmitter site for Atlantic 252.
Final output drive supply 30,000 Volts. Antenna feedline safety fence signs : "Extreme Danger - Death On Contact"
Energy is sufficient for metal fencing to resonate and play the music being broadcast. A true mega-station which played excellent music! th-cam.com/video/BdeFTOjkpzY/w-d-xo.html
Atlantic 252 haha Jesus Christ.
If it's music you heard on 1190 then most likely it's WLIB as WOWO in Fort Wayne, Indiana is all news & talk. But scanning the band has always been a fun pastime for me since I was young. Fisher made some great tuners too back in the day!
Actually by the time this was made, Fisher was owned and their products were manufactured by Sanyo.
That's pretty awesome! When I was driving to college from Vancouver, Washington to Pullman, Washington, I could easily pick up Los Angeles stations in my car at night. It was kind of neat to listen to LA traffic reports when flying through the Palouse, not seeing another car for miles.
Interesting to hear the Canadian radio station talking about vaccines in late 2019, few of us knew that vaccines would soon become a very big and prominent topic for everyone.
This has been one of my favorite hobbies since i was a kid! Just a few moths ago I listened to a Cardinals baseball game broadcast from St. Louis all the way home to Dallas. Came in perfectly with only a few dropouts through Oklahoma.
Edit: The station I was listening to was 1120 AM KMOX! TH-cam needs something more than just a like button!
KMOX in StL, I used to listen to Cardinal baseball on that station and on WSM when you hovered over it was the one and only Eddie Stubbs. WSM stands for "We Shield Millions" from WSM's former owner National Life & Accident Insurance Company. WSM has been around since 1925.
Some of these older stereos had great radio tuners in them. Back in the mid 1980s, I had a Pioneer stereo receiver from the 70s that was handed down to me from an older brother. Using its built in antenna, I was able to hear RJR Galina, Jamaica on 580khz using just the built in antenna from my then home of Lake Charles, LA. From the same QTH, I also heard TWR Bonaire on 800khz using a Zenith clock radio with its built in antenna. Have QSL cards for both. Fun days.
Memories from when I was a kid and had my dad's old Zenith Transoceanic in my bedroom. I would spend all night going up and down the AM dial. On a side note, 620 WHEN is a tough get once you get 50 miles or so out of Syracuse. The farthest I've been able to get it was northern Pa.
I think I had one of those also, got to use it after my dad died when I was young. Just Googled it - found a You Tube video on it. It was a Zenith H500 Super Trans-Oceanic portable radio (AC only). Thank for mentioning it! Let it go at the estate auction 27 years ago. While I have a photo of it seeing one on video is awesome!
i was a am radio kid way back surfing the dial trying to pick up stations from far away ........brings a new meaning to the statment super tuner !!
In 1969 I was on Kiwai Island at the mouth of the Fly River in Papua New Guinea, and picked up a Vancouver AM station loud and clear. It was toward the upper end of the band but I don't remember the frequency or station ID. Using just a cheap portable radio. Terrific skip!
in the 80's and 90's, my cousin and I used to listen to AM stations all over the country from my Grandparents home near Samson , Al.
I was unaware of the clear-channel station concept, thanks for the link to the Wikipedia page; very informative! And now I learned that the small town of Watrous, Saskatchewan where my aunt and uncle lived, has a clear-channel transmitter for CBC Radio, which was meant to serve all the prairie provinces.
And I was thinking he was talking about Clear Channel the company.
stonent nope. I’m shocked the FCC ever allowed them to use that name because of the confusion that caused.
@@stonent The broadcasting part of Clear Channel is now called iHeart radio.
670, 720, 890 and 1000 are clear channel 50kw stations here in Chicago
Holy moly. I remember using am 750 wsb Atlanta to hear the traffic in the am going back 20 years.
I love doing this stuff. I have an old early 60s portable transistor radio that picks up signals like crazy. When I’m bored at night I’d just pick up the little radio and see what signals I can get.
I have so much respect for the scientific knowledge in which you impart onto your viewers. I always learn something new from this channel, and appreciate that I can come here for content that relates to my favourite hobbies. Thank you!
i love how you know most of the distant stations from memory.
I have gotten am stations from Canada on my old Kmart transistor radio.....i love DXing!
Great video VWestlife!
740 CFZM Toronto still plays classic pop hits. It was booming in here in TN last week with Gordon Lightfoot. How Canadian!
After midnight, they broaden their format, and sometimes throw in the odd hip hop / dance song along with Anne Murray and Gordon Lightfoot. I was surprised, considering their target audience is 60 plus. Many times I put this on at night just because they have better music variety than just about any other station I can receive on AM or FM.
5Rounds Rapid sometimes you can get CKLW out of Windsor Ontario as far as Atlanta. It’s at 800 on the AM dial.
These analog tuner are much better than the new digital ones!
One of my favorite things to do when going for drives is to see all the different random AM stations still on the air, but with this thing, I could do it from home!
I used to hear CKMX in Alberta, Canada via skywave from my Eton radio in my home of Forks, WA. By the way, thanks for preserving the dying breath of WPLJ. Even though I didn't listen to it over live streaming, it was really touching and emotional to hear.
That was my station growing up as a kid, and eventually started listening again when they had gone to the classic country format in the 2000s. Now it's a comedy station
I'm in Washington State, and I loved listening to CKMX when they had a country format. It always came in crystal clear at night. It's just not the same anymore, unfortunately.
15:07 W....W...W.B
WBBR
I always get mixed up on call signs too.
I loved this video when you posted it, and I still love it now. Any minute now TH-cam's next jam is gonna be AMSR frequency scanning.
ASMR is a great way to de-stress. I remember quietly DXing as a teen after midnight
I was able to pick up WBBM in Arkansas city KS (at least under 1,000 miles away from station)
I live north of Des Moines and I watched this SOLELY to see if he’d pick up WHO! And he did!
I remember installing a Pioneer CD player with Supertuner in my first truck, back in 1992. Instantly I was picking up stations from all over the western US, including AZ and NM. Considering I was in northern Alberta and my old radio could barely get Edmonton stations, I was completely impressed.
It was only the next day I realized that was not normal. Only on certain nights, could I replicate the results. Still I could pick up Edmonton stations regularly, So I was happy, since the Grande Prairie stations were, and still are, crap.
We're lucky to still have MW broadcasting in the US. Many countries in Europe are shutting down MW, and it's now completely gone in Germany, Netherlands, and several other countries.
There are still many stations most of them in the uk the netherlands has still a few stations.
@Lassi Kinnunen As far as I know, 963 kHz and 558 kHz were shut down in as late as 2006 and 2007, though they were not intended for domestic use but for people in other countries interested in Finland, and Finns living abroad. In domestic use FM superseded AM in 1960's. I remember playing around with a radio when I was a kid in 80's-90's, and at least 963 and 6120 kHz sound familiar frequencies. Here's a clip of the early years of radio in Finland: areena.yle.fi/1-50159664
Well Asian MW stations are storming the band nearly every night and it will also occupy the band every Winter morning too.. One example is 1242 KHz Voice of Vietnam and 1566 KHz FEBC Jeju South Korea.. Receivable in Europe every night as long as there's good propagation..
MW broadcasting is not closed in the Netherlands. Only the high power transmissions have been shut down. Currently there are small low power regional AM radio stations left. Unfortunately it's pretty low power so it will be easily flooded with more high power transmissions coming from the south and east European areas. There is still a lot of activity on the MW band in Europe.
@@Uberhoodsometimes stations from Middle East and Asia.. by the way i heard American stations are possible to be received in Europe right?
I was just watching this and I am in Duncan Ok and on one station a lady was reading the news and said , "Police in Duncan Oklahoma said two men ...", I google it and Nov 18,2019 was when 2 men and 1 women were shot in the Walmart parking lot over a "Lover's triangle". I think 1 man shot his wife and her boyfriend and then himself. I remember that day I was working at KFC and it was the middle of the day and we heard there was a shooting at Walmart. By that "Cassiever" was a good find.
One time I was driving on the freeway at night between Wayne County, Michigan and East Lansing and I was stuck in a traffic jam in the Fowlerville area. I wanted to get a traffic report, but the AM station I normally get traffic reports from (950 WWJ-AM) has poor reception out there, so I started scanning the AM dial to try to find another station that would give a traffic report. I was surprised to discover that I was receiving stations as far away as Boston and Missouri, and with better reception than my local station. I accidentally DX'd with the radio in my Toyota. XD
Yeah being from Ypsilanti. I used to get the grand ole Opryland from Nashville 650 .
Yeah I live in Knoxville tn and we get wjr at night , used to have the wings on
I always enjoy listening to am DX I tune in every night and I find good stations playing music.
10:30 is George Strait’s “All My Exes Live In Texas”. That’s from the era when country wasn’t bad rap with banjos.
It's funny that punk bands are making better country/folk music than actual country bands now
5Rounds Rapid That's right. I really enjoyed his new album, especially when he got to sing with Willie.
@Ari Vicentini K ROSE 🥰
Wow, this takes me back to my crystal radio set days. I had a series of books by the author Alfred E Morgan. Built my first simple Crystal AM radio. Way Back in 1970.
For AM DX, other than the classic Panasonic RF2200 if you can find one, I'll recommend, flimsy as it is, the XData 808 (also known as Sihuadon D808), which has an oversized loop antenna in it. I was able to tune out KYW at 1060 (470 miles northeast, clear channel) and instead tune in WQMV in Waverly Tennessee, 320 miles west, using *four watts* of power.
With the Panasonic I've received KOA Denver here in western North Carolina, and a station in Michigan running ten watts. Also interesting to tune is the upper band 1610-1710. Even though almost all of them are limited to 1kW at night there's not much competition and you can still get hundreds of miles. Back in the 1930s when there was less energy on the band my Dad picked up KFI in Los Angeles, from his home in Philadelphia, so a lot depends on what else is out there competing.
1360am is MY favorite channel it's called the KAT and located in Galax, Va !!!! (Gay-Lax)
I edited this to let you know the call sign is WCGX
Keep forgetting that "the kat" is just the "name".
Daytime power - 5000 watts
Nighttime - 31 watts
When I was a teenager in the 70's I used to fall asleep tuning in the am band on my "portable" Sanyo radio here in Brisvegas.
In about 1991 in November I picked up KOA from Denver in Michigan. WBAP was pretty consistent when I got my DX-390 in 1997.
This video is excellent, love to see videos like these, thank you, love the channel, looking forward to seeing the next video, take care
Hi from France (Paris) : what a childhood remembering ! But I’m so sad to say today there is no more AM stations mostly in western Europe, broadcasting centers have been shut down. Still receive some Spanish, North Africa, Italian and Eastern Europe + Russian broadcast with still some parts in French. We have still 3 AM station on LW band : Europe 1, RTL and RMC. Even the national radio France Inter is closed , still get the signal but no more modulation on it, just for a clocking system... stupid decision of technocrats.
Je suis d'accord, il n'y a plus ce côté merveilleux à recevoir une station lointaine avec un simple poste de radio. En AM, quand j'étais petit, on recevait facilement pas mal de chose, et en ondes courtes c'était fantastique ! Dire qu'une technologie vieille d'un siècle pouvait traverser le monde... Et en cas de conflit, la radio était irremplaçable. Aujourd'hui, tout serait plus compliqué...
Radio Caroline is back!
I used to do that all the time as a kid - it was the only way to listen to music at night. LG73, AM106, 630 CHED, and so on.
Wow! It has great selectivity. There's something on almost every increment
This is what shortwave was all about. I remember being in the car and picking up distant stations. WHAM was a good one when you could get it in. There was also a station we could get Dr. Demento on occasionally.
Of course a good, well placed antenna helps as well.
That's really neat. I remember picking up Quebec on my clock radio it was an older type. My mom I remember told me in her 1964 AMC rambler classic she would pick up stations all over the place. I thought wbz was on 1610am home to Arnie woo woo Ginsburg Night train show. They must have changed frequency.
Fantastic video! Used to listen to 1030 Wbz Boston every day!
The country song that was playing on 920 was All my Exes live in Texas by George Strait. amazing song! It's crazy how many AM stations are able to be picked up!
620 kHz in Syracuse!, that’s near me! I’m in a small town called Weedsport ny
I can receive get French, Spanish and Italian on AM on mine, I'm in the north west UK, but on top of a hill right next to a large transmitter (transmitter is to bounce signal over this big hill).
Listening to AM reminds me of David Cronenberg, who when he was younger, used to tune into stations after the terrestrial channels went off the air and would pick up weird things, which went onto inspire 'Videodrome'
back when I had a 1988 Ford F-150 with the factory radio, I could listen to stations from Canada at night, and it was even winter! I live at Kansas and AM radio and its capabilities are endless!
Factory analog tuning AM radios from the 1960s - 1980s often have _incredible_ sensitivity, selectivity and audio quality. This was really the pinnacle of AM radio receiver build quality, when it was 'the' source of entertainment when on long road trips, or daily commute.
@@nicholascabral it's very well possible, and I think depending on the elevation too, you could get better results.
My cousin Jim has a Realistic casseiver early 80's model that put out 16W/ch, I once had to replace a 1uF E cap that went open on the preamp board in that, one time Jim got home drunk and put on his phones and forgot to turn off the speakers, then aunty Helen came in his room and gave him a slap around for the blast of music coming from the tower speakers (2 10" woofers each)
Here in the Bay Area we have 740 KCBS which is a very strong signal that is sometimes picked up in Colorado.
you are 100% right on the Canadian stations. I was born in Toronto. Amazing receiver.
At 25:11 he ends with a Toronto station on 740. The DJ is Robbie from the Canadian band Robbie Lane and the disciples. Cfzm was originally built for the Canadian government and designed to carry the government station all over Ontario. Call letters cbl. I think Canadian broadcasting limited. They built the best, a 5/8 wave antenna, over 700 feet tall powered by a 50 kW Continental transmitter on a clear channel. Chwo bought it and renamed cfzm broadcasting for 50 plus zoomers
Back in 2003 We picked up KNX 1070 AM from Los Angeles, while visiting friends and family in Albuquerque, NM for T-Giving in the friggin' original equipment car radio. It. It was about 3:00 AM after driving most of the day and arriving very early the next morning. It was wild! It was a little staticky but mostly listenable.
I’ve gotten KOA Denver once or twice in TN.
I get KNX as good as a local station up in NorCal at night, a good 400-500 miles away, it’s crazy!
5Rounds Rapid I rarely bother scanning the am dial anymore, but when I do here in Arizona, I can usually get KOA out of Denver and KTWO from Casper, and both make me nostalgic from when I was a kid scanning the AM dial at night in Douglas, Wyoming
Daniel Daniels I’ve never gotten anything further west than Denver on AM. I did get KREZ-2 in Albuquerque back when TV was analog.
Back in the 90s, (the last time the Pirates did well), I used to listen to Pirates games on KDKA Pittsburgh from the FL panhandle in my car at night. I'd sit in my car and listen.
I did a similar thing during the 2007 playoffs. I could get a Colorado Rockies broadcast in Minnesota. Really fun.
Amazing video, you gave me a great ideia, I will make this test with my receiver Sansui 5050 1976,with internal antenna.
Here in Brazil the AM frequency still in operation.
Some of those distant stations are coming in stronger than the local ones lol.
I think that is by design. Local stations must power down at sundown to allow smaller stations to sing through. I am not completely positive on the entire set of rules.
www.fcc.gov/media/radio/am-stations-at-night
The funny thing is sometimes the reception will be garbage locally but great in distant places. 1560 from NYC was known for this, amazing skywave reception but garbage local reception.
Something like that happened to me once while I was stuck in a traffic jam on the freeway. I was having trouble receiving the AM station from the major metropolitan area a few counties over, but when I scanned the dial I found that I was receiving stations from other states with surprising clarity.
fiftyfuckingfeet Higher frequencies are usually much better with skywave. If you’re close enough to a shortwave station, you can’t hear it, especially at night.
Radio, the last Analogue bastion still resisting the Dishital revolution 🤙🏻
Back when I lived in the Midwest I listened to 650 WSM pretty much every night!
It was like the only AM station that played music and it beat the local “country” music stations! Since I’m into Classic Country and Folk music I loved it!
I live now in the Southwest (New Mexico) and it seems hard to get it, but I enjoy listening to it online!
I love how I click on this video and immediately hear The Chicago Bears on WBBM 780.
WLS Chicago goes down the Mississippi River to the Gulf at night. My mother-in-law listened to it in the ‘70s in rural Mississippi. WWL in New Orleans goes the opposite way.
Yes. I lived in rural Louisiana in the 1980's and could get WLS nightly after 8 or 9 pm.
If you are in NYC, you can’t get WLS on 890, because it’s interfering WCBS-AM at 880. Back in the 1960’s and 1970’s, while living in sections of Brooklyn and Manhattan, the two stations Chicago you can’t pick up at the time was WLS-AM and WCFL-AM, because both were interfered with WCBS-AM and 1010 WINS where they were all-news. If you go up north of the city and into the Hudson Valley, you can get WLS-AM and WCFL at night where both were Top 40 stations in Chicago.
Billy Barker I could too. I remember hearing the Tyson/Douglas fight on WGN back in 1990.
@@Musicradio77Network I've done pretty well in Connecticut and Vermont getting 890 WLS out of Chicago. I listen to 700 WLW out of Ohio for Bill Cunningham when WTIC 1080 has sports. I try to log the station call letters and frequency as well as the program I'm hearing. I note the radio make and model I'm using. I note the date and time in 24 hour format. I note the overall reception quality. It's interesting to observe skip and fading and also when reception is stable. It's a fun hobby and more fun when you get interesting programming. Older AM or AM/FM or multi-band radios can do well especially during the winter. But a really good and well tuned radio is a pleasure. I have yet to get good communications headphones and dig deep into the weeds for the real fringe stations. I am thinking also about the digital signal processing detectors and possibly modifying an older radio to do that. Any DX'ers or clubs around? Thanks and God Bless.
@@5roundsrapid263 it's funny but they use to have a show called "The Sports Nuts" that was funny. I would tune in and hear these die hard Bears fans obsess over their team. They reminded me of a "Morning Zoo" with all the jokes and smack they talked. I always thought that was so funny. With the Saint's we were never that obsessive. At least until the 2000s.
CFZM 740 is a great classic hits station, also CKDO 1580, which seems to have the best sounding audio quality for music on AM right now.
From Montreal, there is a station CJEU, 1670 kHz which plays dance / trance music at night, their commentary is French, but the music they play can bounce subwoofers... on AM, which I find is part of the fun.
Nice! I remember when I lived back home in southeastern WI, one night I scanned around the AM dial and stumbled upon 1580 CKDO too.
Some of the songs CFZM plays is better than some FM Oldie Stations near me... I’m lucky that my HD Radio picked it up from Northwestern Indiana, outside of Chicago.
When I was a boy I scanned the AM band at night on a old RCA Victor Model 811K (It's console radio from the late '30s) when I wasn't listening to shortwave. I still have a log of what I heard.
Another new VWestlife! Great channel!!
9:00 Digital hush interference is not actually that bad. When I googled AM digital they said it interferes with adjacent channels that receiving distant stations next to it is difficult. We don't have AM digital here in the Philippines so I thought digital severely interferes with the adjacent channels because some people were complaining wishing to bring back the analog AM stereo.
On the 12 of November, 2019. A DXer in Dalton, GA has managed to receive Radio Nacional Español from Murcia, Spain on 855 kHz during night time. His setup is only a Tecsun PL-380 using the built-in ferrite rod antenna! First ever barefoot transatlantic AM DX over 4,500 miles! Video of his reception can be found right here: th-cam.com/video/dpvwiwoTpAI/w-d-xo.html
It's Radio Nacional Española
"Is Fayettevile, Alabama?" - VWestlife
That's a small town near Talladega.
I've gotten WHO in Victorville, California. At the end of the video Under CFZM I can hear a heterodyne on 740.
That’s a car dealership in Syracuse Romano Ford N. Burdick St. in Fayetteville. You were listening to our station here 620 I think it’s power 620 its hip-hop R&B.
I can receive Power 620 driving from Toronto all the way up to North Bay (220 miles north of Toronto) *during the day.* At night, another station overpowers it.
When I lived in FLA. near St. Augustine in a rural area I h I tuned in would listen at night to stations , WLS, WOWO,WCFL. The most distant station might have been KAAY in Little Rock, Arkansas. I don't know what the distance was of these stations and they would drift, overall it was clear at times. The most amazing local station I grew up listening to was 690 WAPE , which I tuned in while camping at Cape Hatteras,N.C. and this was During The Daytime. Salt water works wonders for radio signals
Used to do this with all my radios when I was a kid. Even did that on my grandparents old RCA valve radio. Always have and will love radio dxing. Most of these older receivers were good on medium wave. Yes in 1979 the mw dial was expanded to 1710 in USA and Canada but stations are usually less than 25 kW.
You are very lucky to have an electrically quiet location.
Nice receiver! It can receive stations from “A Thousand Miles Away” as the Heartbeats would say.
Too bad, 1260 AM KSUR “K-Surf” can’t pick it up there, because it’s in Los Angeles and Beverly Hills, but the only show I listened to every late Saturday night into Sunday morning is “Disco Saturday Night”, a 6-hour show featuring nothing but classic dance and forgotten dance favorites from the 70’s and 80’s from disco to funk to freestyle. It’s on from 10 PM Saturday night all the way to 4 AM Sunday morning if I’m in the eastern time zone, because show was on from 7 PM through 12 AM in the pacific.
K-SURF 1260 is shango066's favorite station!!
When I am in Long Beach, I listen to K-SURF on the HD-AM car stereo, and the sound is incredible!
This is a great oldies station. For those interested, they have an online stream, then you can listen to the Disco Saturday night wherever you live!
You can listen to K SURF 1260 AM on the tunein radio app for free.
Lake Nipissing Thanks the tip. I’m in Brooklyn for a visit and I listened to “Disco Saturday Night” which is my favorite show that “shango066” is listening to. The sad thing about the Saturday night dance show, it ran from 10AM until 4AM. That is crazy. Listening to “Disco Saturday Night” on K-Surf in the middle of the night which is kinda odd to hear the classic retro dance from disco, funk, and freestyle. I recorded the show over the weekend and it lasted for 6 hours. It ended around 4AM and I was still sleeping. That make “K-Surf’s” “Disco Saturday Night” an all-night dance party after hours.
1610 is CHNA in Toronto, which AFAIK is the only broadcast station on 1610 in North America.
Lake Faith Radio AM1520 WXPQ Eatonton GA USA
at night Chinese radio stations are everywhere at my tune at the day nothing but when im in the forest local radio stations are everywhere
Fisher, I think at that time owned by Sanyo. I used to have a Fisher quad receiver from that era that had great FM and AM tuners for DX-ing.
Sanyo, correct.
Thank You Mr. Reginald Fessenden.
At least there is AM (Medium or Long Wave) Radio still in the United States. In Ireland and the UK, there is only five radio stations still on AM compared to around 100 or more stations 25 to 30 years ago-
Ireland- RTE Radio 1 (Long Wave 252khz)
UK- BBC Radio 4 (Long Wave 200khz/1500m)
Ireland- Spirit Radio (Medium Wave- Unknown)
UK- BBC Radio Ulster (Medium Wave- Unknown)
UK- Absolute Radio (Medium Wave- Unknown)
RTE 252 KHz, along with the notorious CCI from Algeria on the same frequency is receivable in North America as long as you have the correct time of day, propogation and antenna.
Absolute Radio is on 1215 KHz
There's more than the five you just mentioned.
BBC Radio Scotland 810 kHz
Radio Caroline on 648, I can get that in The Netherlands during the day, even though it's one 1kW).
There's at least one BBC station left on 693.
@@lennartbenschop656 I know there more than the five or so I mentioned, however, these are the only medium and long wave services that I can obtain with a very good sound. I could barely make out BBC Radio Wales and BBC Radio Scotland. It depends on where you live. I live in the Midlands of Ireland, so I am only about an hours drive from the Summerhill transmitter for RTE Radio 1. If I had a World Band Radio, I could probably receive more Medium or Long Wave broadcasts. I think the 693khz BBC station is BBC Radio 5 Live or something. I could barely pick it up though.
Love my Medium Wave, through a vintage Hacker the Oldies shows are a trip. Easy on the batteries bonus.
Just goes to show...that when conditions, and the atmosphere is exactly right, you can pick up anything, on any radio....
Kennynva but honestly, I really didn’t hear much on any of those stations that I would actually want to listen to.
@@danieldaniels7571 Your right...but at night at 900 chml is the oldies stations I listen to at 10:00 its from Canada ..other than that its all news or sports which I dont listen to either one.
I haven't had much luck with distant AM stations here in Baltimore, but I used regularly to listen to CFZM 740 from Toronto on my way home from work at night. Good enough reception to listen continuously. Decent music too. Also 19:53 is likely WQLL 1370 from Pikesville, MD and they have a FM translator for 99.9Mhz in harford county MD. They play a lot of oldies.
As you slowly tune...I keep expecting to hear "At the tone....four hours, fifty-eight minutes...coordinated universal time....This is radio station WWV, broadcasting on internationally allocated standard carrier frequencies...." (even though it wasn't a SW tuner...)
WWV and WWVH just celebrated their 100th birthday in September
Some people think that WWV is a waste of money and frequency allocation and it needs to be shutdown.
swling.com/blog/tag/wwv-closure/
I managed to pick up a couple 5000 watt Canadian stations on my early 1970s Montgomery Ward receiver this summer. These old receivers are surprisingly good for AM DX.
When I think back about the hours I spent in the evening looking and listening for radio stations.
Very rarely see any radios with lw/am functions in the shops nowadays in the UK, its mostly DAB, DAB+ and FM. I think there's a few uk stations still on AM including a few DRM test broadcasts by the BBC but the quality is dreadful and no one would choose to actually listen to it as all the stations are available via other means at higher quality. Im surprised the government hasnt repurposed the bands for other more useful services yet. Interesting that the usa still uses it so much but I guess it makes more sense given the vast expanse of the country.
I still fondly recall listening to Atlantic 252 on LW, the signal would be drowned out by European broadcasts around 6pm and become unlistenable.
LOL . . . Right now classic hits (seniors-oriented) CFZM 740 from Toronto, Canada is playing LL Cool J - "Doin It"
How many radio stations out there playing LL Cool J and then run commercials for mobility aids, heart meds and hearing aids?
AM radio is certainly a unique world of entertainment.
WWVA is still using CRL audio processing.
Very normal thing here in Italy also, for example I can hear very clearly Jil Fm, an algerian station from over 1400km from where I live, and countless eastern european and russian stations.
Do you ever try LW ? Many LW stations use transmitters with 100s of thousands of kW or even more than a megawatt. LW travels a long distance compared to MW.
US AM stations are receivable in Europe right?
I can get some British stations in the late afternoon, like Gold 1548 and talkSport 1089 from London, with a fairly strong signal. No BBC R4 on 198, though.
@@HBC101TVStudios They are, but the signal usually isn't strong.