I first got interested in DX'ing on AM when as a 12 year old in 1979. I was cruising around on AM on My shortwave radio and started listening to the Trucking Country Music Show they used to have on WWL 870 AM back in the 70's and 80s. I thought it was cool that I had caught a station on AM so far away from Home(Metro Atlanta). I was hooked from then on. ;D
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What was the first station Y'all caught DX'ing that got You really interested?
- Thread starter David67
- Start date
David67 said:
In 1958, I heard a test of KTCS-1410 in Arkansas, a 500 watt daytimer, from my location in NE Ohio. They asked for letters, so I sent one. When they replied to verify my reception, I was hooked! I did not even know how good a catch that was, just that they had answered!
In the late 50s I heard WLW in the Chicago area. Nothing special about that, but as an 8 year old I was fascinated to be able to receive what I thought
at the time was a distant station. From then on I was hooked.
at the time was a distant station. From then on I was hooked.
On FM, it was hearing WSMJ 99.5/Greenfield,Indiana (77 miles) on an old tube type console radio with a few feet of wire for an antenna after my older brother had educated my 10 year old mind with "FM is strictly Line Of Sight" logic. I learned two things...FM is not strictly Line Of Sight and my brother was FOS...he still is today. FM radios back then were awful...the better ones would pick up Dayton at 35 miles.
On AM, it was a couple years later in 1965...like most school kids, I at least occasionally listened to WABC in New York on 770 (this was in Cincinnati). I listened to them every night & thought nothing of the distance...until the great 1965 New York City power outage silenced WABC maybe an hour after sunset & KOB/Albuquerque,NM was there. I mailed them a reception report & got a QSL card. That got me, hook, line & sinker.
On AM, it was a couple years later in 1965...like most school kids, I at least occasionally listened to WABC in New York on 770 (this was in Cincinnati). I listened to them every night & thought nothing of the distance...until the great 1965 New York City power outage silenced WABC maybe an hour after sunset & KOB/Albuquerque,NM was there. I mailed them a reception report & got a QSL card. That got me, hook, line & sinker.
BobOnTheJob said:
I listened to WABC regularly in Illinois, but was never able to get KOB. Good catch.
Thanks to my dad, I learned at a very early age that - from Virginia - we could get WABC all the way from New York at night. This was back around 1969 or so - right during their heyday. Amazing station and I loved it.
And, one night in the car (waiting for my mom at the mall) he amazed me further with WLS Chicago which seemed like thousands of miles away to me at that time. These "tricks" had me interested enough to try doing the same on my little table AM radio....dxing at the age of 5.
FM came later - we lived in western MA and my crappy radio was picking up JB105 from Providence (it was about 1978 or so). I knew that was odd and at the time didn't realize that FM signals could 'bounce.' And it was really cool because that was the station we often listened to during summer vacations at the beach. That gave me the bug for FM too.
And, one night in the car (waiting for my mom at the mall) he amazed me further with WLS Chicago which seemed like thousands of miles away to me at that time. These "tricks" had me interested enough to try doing the same on my little table AM radio....dxing at the age of 5.
FM came later - we lived in western MA and my crappy radio was picking up JB105 from Providence (it was about 1978 or so). I knew that was odd and at the time didn't realize that FM signals could 'bounce.' And it was really cool because that was the station we often listened to during summer vacations at the beach. That gave me the bug for FM too.
I was 9 or 10 years old. I was sitting in the passenger seat of the parents' 1987 Chevy Nova while Dad was in the store getting some milk or bread IIRC. I was flipping around the dial and I found 97.3 WMEE for Fort Wayne, IN. A station that in the mind of a 9 year old could only be described as 'better than our pop station'.
Dad came back out to the car and asked what I was listening to and I told him 97.3. Growing up in Fort Wayne, he was amazed that one of his favorite stations from back home still existed. I thought Fort Wayne was some exotic catch from here, but it was really only 60 miles away, which isn't very impressive at all for a 50kw station.
By 12, I figured out that radio could go MUCH farther than 60 miles. I started hearing Detroit and Chicago at this time and that summer I confirmed my first Es. I didn't know what it was at the time, but hearing San Angelo, TX will amaze any 12 year old radio nut.
Dad came back out to the car and asked what I was listening to and I told him 97.3. Growing up in Fort Wayne, he was amazed that one of his favorite stations from back home still existed. I thought Fort Wayne was some exotic catch from here, but it was really only 60 miles away, which isn't very impressive at all for a 50kw station.
By 12, I figured out that radio could go MUCH farther than 60 miles. I started hearing Detroit and Chicago at this time and that summer I confirmed my first Es. I didn't know what it was at the time, but hearing San Angelo, TX will amaze any 12 year old radio nut.
When I was about 10 and would go out with my parents I would find an excuse to leave the restaurant early so I could go in the car and listen to the radio. "I have a stomach ache, oh and can I have the keys so I can hear the radio while I'm sitting in the car?"
I was 10 years old and couldn't sleep, so I turned on my radio and started tuning around, it was actually the first time I had ever changed the station on the dial. I was living in Calgary, and had discovered that the dial was full of stations. I heard CBK from Watrous Saskatchewan, 630 CHED from Edmonton, and CFUN from Vancouver, along with many American stations. It was CHED and CBK that showed me the real power of AM radio. I noticed in the daytime the next day most of the stations I heard were gone, but both CHED and CBK stayed around in the day, with CHED being stronger daytime because of their pattern change. CHED was my favourite station for years, and you can imagine how excited I was a few years later to move to Edmonton, and actually be able to see their transmitter from my house, and have to be driven right past it on the way to scho0l every day.
I discovered FM skip back in 1990 when bored in class, and not finding any go0d music on the AM dial (AM still rocked in western Canada back then) I switched to FM and found a station pop in at 92.5 playing the do0rs...I knew that there was nothing local so I wondered who I was listening to. It was Flagstaff, Arizona. I was shocked, I tuned around and discovered the FM dial had exploded from 8 stations to one on every frequency, that day we had every FM station from the entire state of Arizona, and they stayed in for hours. Back then there was a HUGE gap between 95.9 and 102.1. Calgary's FM dial was very empty, and didn't account for much listening back then. It sounds strange today to say that in 1990, if you were under 40, you didn't listen to FM radio if you lived in Canada.
I discovered FM skip back in 1990 when bored in class, and not finding any go0d music on the AM dial (AM still rocked in western Canada back then) I switched to FM and found a station pop in at 92.5 playing the do0rs...I knew that there was nothing local so I wondered who I was listening to. It was Flagstaff, Arizona. I was shocked, I tuned around and discovered the FM dial had exploded from 8 stations to one on every frequency, that day we had every FM station from the entire state of Arizona, and they stayed in for hours. Back then there was a HUGE gap between 95.9 and 102.1. Calgary's FM dial was very empty, and didn't account for much listening back then. It sounds strange today to say that in 1990, if you were under 40, you didn't listen to FM radio if you lived in Canada.
Great kid minds thought alike! And it didn't hurt that the car radios back then were pretty well all DX machines.radioman148 said:
When my dad announced that we were going to the New york World's Fair in 1964, I could have cared less about the fair. All I could think about is finding out if WABC was really on the air during the day! It was...and I walked around for a day or two with a dazed "how can that be?" look on my face.mimo said:
In 1955, my parents gave me an RCA desktop AM radio for my 7th birthday. Until then, I had a Remco Crystal radio that I had assembled from a kit (very easy) but could only hear one station on it....our local WABJ in Adrian, MI. Still, with that Crystal radio I was amazed I could hear anything at all without the need of a power source or battery... Of course, I had to have a 50 foot longwire strung from my bedroom window to a nearby tree for it to work!
I immediately found there was a whole new world of radio stations on that RCA 5 tube monster with an internal antenna! I quickly noted that some stations disappeared at night and others would then appear that could not be heard in the daytime. My earliest recollection was receiving WBZ in Boston just as clearly as any local station. One really weird thing I do remember from about 1957 was WBZ or KDKA (not sure which) that was actually experimenting with STEREO broadcasts, but not using any methods we think of today. They instructed listeners to get an AM radio set to their AM frequency and an FM radio to their FM frequency to "get the full STEREO" effect. My dad had a large FM console radio iwth a rooftop antenna and I tried to find these FM signals, but was too young at the time to realize FM was pretty much limited to line-of-sight and these stations would not be normally heard in Michigan. Obviously, those early "Stereo" broadcasts could only be heard near the home cities of the stations using that method. Does anyone else remember such "stereo" broadcasts?
It wasn't long before I was hooked on AM DXing often listening to "regulars" from all over the country at night like: KSL, WLAC, WCAU, WABC, KOA, WWL, WSB, WOAI, KMOX, etc. Great memories!
I immediately found there was a whole new world of radio stations on that RCA 5 tube monster with an internal antenna! I quickly noted that some stations disappeared at night and others would then appear that could not be heard in the daytime. My earliest recollection was receiving WBZ in Boston just as clearly as any local station. One really weird thing I do remember from about 1957 was WBZ or KDKA (not sure which) that was actually experimenting with STEREO broadcasts, but not using any methods we think of today. They instructed listeners to get an AM radio set to their AM frequency and an FM radio to their FM frequency to "get the full STEREO" effect. My dad had a large FM console radio iwth a rooftop antenna and I tried to find these FM signals, but was too young at the time to realize FM was pretty much limited to line-of-sight and these stations would not be normally heard in Michigan. Obviously, those early "Stereo" broadcasts could only be heard near the home cities of the stations using that method. Does anyone else remember such "stereo" broadcasts?
It wasn't long before I was hooked on AM DXing often listening to "regulars" from all over the country at night like: KSL, WLAC, WCAU, WABC, KOA, WWL, WSB, WOAI, KMOX, etc. Great memories!
I wasn't born yet back then but what I do remember at least was when AM Stereo was introduced in the early 80s. Still living in New Jersey at the time, I remember WNBC giving instructions as to how to get the stereo signal by taking two radios and tuning one to the left side of the frequency and one to the right. I remember the thrill at being able to hear it with two portable radios. WFIL in Philly went stereo around that time too.
Before I got my actual AM Stereo Walkman, I made a set up through my AM/FM Turntable stereo system where I connected each of my portable radios to the auxiliary jack, one for the right and one for the left. I then could put on the headphones, turn the setting to "AUX", and hear WFIL and WNBC in fantastic stereo.
Those were the days!
Before I got my actual AM Stereo Walkman, I made a set up through my AM/FM Turntable stereo system where I connected each of my portable radios to the auxiliary jack, one for the right and one for the left. I then could put on the headphones, turn the setting to "AUX", and hear WFIL and WNBC in fantastic stereo.
Those were the days!
WGN for me. I remember hearing it daytime at my grandparents' house in western Ohio, but one night before WGN-TV was returned to our cable system (this was in 1989, I think), I caught a Cubs game one night and was on Cloud Nine. I started exploring the rest of the dial after that and the rest is history.
BobOnTheJob said:
Those radios were great. I had a field day using them especially on winter nights.
BobOnTheJob said:
I waited in lines at that Worlds Fair with a transistor radio to my ear switching between WABC, WINS, and WMCA. Being from the midwest I had never heard WMCA or WINS before.
A
ALRocker
Guest
For me it was WLS in the early 70's. During the day everyone listened to our local top 40/rocker WKUL 1340 but after dark it was all WLS. I'm located in north Alabama.
ALRocker said:
I spent a year in Oklahoma in the late 60s & WLS was the most listened to station at night.
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