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How ***STRONG*** Is KFBK 1530 In West Central Alaska?

SomeRadioGuy

SomeRadioGuy

KFBK 1530 Sacramento, CA uses Franklin antennas which produce a massive local groundwave field strength and low radiation angle which means a resistance to skywave fading. That combined with the 50KW TPO and estimated 125KW ERP in it's main lobe along with my exact perfect location means KFBK is heard better here in McGrath Alaska 2300 miles from KFBK and about 250 miles NW of Anchorage.. KFBK is better than the 10 and 50kw non directional Anchorage AMs are!

How strong is KFBK here? S9+70 or better alllll night long after dark with very little fading/fade downs/fade outs. Lets put it this way.... I can open up my radios audio bandwith filters to 8khz and I can tell that Sacramento is a PPM market and KFBK has Voltair, the PPM watermarking gear cranked up to FNord Levels because of the metallic ringing in their audio

Here's the audio:
KFBK 1530 Sacramento, CA 808pm AK Thu Jan 11, 2024.mp3

This picture is from fybush.com in 2005 for tower site of the week

kfbk-wide.jpg
 
Often get KFBK in N WA in the middle of the day, quite clearly if you can get away from the noise floor a bit. Especially in the winter of course, but even spring/fall at times.
 
Same here - KFBK is a regular all day long during winter from eastern WA. They are somewhat easy to null out at night, however, especially when I had my homemade 3ft. loop. If conditions were ripe, I could pick up ESPN (or Brother Stair) from WCKY Cincinnati.
 
only time i regularly hear anything else on 1530 besides KFBK is when KFBK is off.. nothing even bubbles up under them ever.

I did hear a 15kw signal on 1530 from romania one morning after KFBK skywave burned off
 
There is no consistent standard on S meter readings to my knowledge. Plus it is completely dependent on your antenna and preamp if you use one. If you can find an AM BC FIM-41, you can find the actual field strength for KFBK 1530. For instance, WCFL/WMVP 1000, WOWO 1190 with the old 50 kW DA-N, and WCKY 1530 on DA-N were all peaking at about 10 mV/m in Southeast Michigan. WWJ 950 and WFDF 910 peak at about 10 mV/m and WFDF about 7 mV/m with 25 kW Night near the Straits of Mackinac. Hakan Sundman, an accomplished Finnish DXer, said that S meters rarely moved much off the bottom of the scale with their Beverage Antennas on stations from North America.
 
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KFBK has always been a reliable night time signal here in my section of the Seattleland metro, sort of like KGO, very dependable. Variable during the later mornings, but you can usually follow the morning shows well on a PR-D5.
 
In Ecuador in the 60's, I'd get KFBK many nights of the year on my car radio. As stations in Colombia, Perú, Venezuela and much of Central America use high dial frequencies for low power stations, that huge power from KFBK was very easy to hear.
 
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