Shout out to Boston 1030 AM

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moonshadow
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Shout out to Boston 1030 AM

Post by moonshadow »

Sometimes after sundown when the ionosphere is high in the sky, I like to scan the AM band and see what comes in around the nation...

Today, 1030 AM which I later learned had a call sign "WBZ New England (Boston MA)

Shout out to Carl!

The sky is friendly tonight... there's a signal on just about every frequency! :D

30 second clip (call sign and part of a commercial) signal fades in and out....

https://youtu.be/XeuHwxV8zsI

650 WSM (Nashville TN) is also coming in pretty clear tonight!

Howdy Freedomforall! :mrgreen:
-Andrea
The old hillbilly from the coal fields of the Appalachian mountains currently living like there's no tomorrow on the west coast.
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moonshadow
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Re: Shout out to Boston 1030 AM

Post by moonshadow »

Getting WSB out of Atlanta GA

WWL New Orleans LA



Among others.... this is fun, reminds me of what I used to do after lights out as a child.... (before the www (world wide web)) :wink:

https://youtu.be/o9yxx532cLY
-Andrea
The old hillbilly from the coal fields of the Appalachian mountains currently living like there's no tomorrow on the west coast.
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crfriend
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Re: Shout out to Boston 1030 AM

Post by crfriend »

moonshadow wrote: Wed Jan 20, 2021 12:47 amSometimes after sundown when the ionosphere is high in the sky, I like to scan the AM band and see what comes in around the nation...

Today, 1030 AM which I later learned had a call sign "WBZ New England (Boston MA)

Shout out to Carl!
Ha! WBZ transmits from Hull, MA (just off Nantasket Beach) which is just outside Boston, and has twin broadcasting antennae that make for a great navigational mark for sailors. I've used those a couple of times when doing old-school navigation from Boston to Provincetown sans GPS.
The sky is friendly tonight... there's a signal on just about every frequency! :D
I've been grumbling about this for five years now, and it may be getting to be time to make good on the threat to resurrect my short-wave set that still dwells in the garage, I wonder what I'll find. The short-wave bands used to have myriad delights to them; my favourites were always the news broadcasts from different nations with differing viewpoints than 'd ever see in the domestic papers. Unfortunately, the last time I fired it up (possibly in 2013?) the landscape was littered with preachers all calling for you to "Send in your dollars brothers and sisters so the Lord's Work may go on!" I lost interest, and that was the last time the splendid thing saw power. Perhaps it may be time to see what's "out there" (and how far out there it is).

All I need to do is find a long piece of wire and suspend it from a tree (or just drape it over so I can pull it in again) and a decent ground-stake for it (although the house may provide a good one, quite unlike my last place (which led to a shocking experience when standing on a snowbank I grabbed the shield connector of my GPS antenna downlead and got one heck of a belt from it.)) I figure attaching a long length of light twine to a crossbow-bolt will get me a decent angle and length to draw the wire with... (That's gonna look real good to my landlady...)
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Re: Shout out to Boston 1030 AM

Post by Pleats »

I did a lot of broadcast band DX (distance) listening growing up as well as Shortwave. At night propagation in the AM broadcast band is enhanced and you can hear stations much farther than in the daytime. Higher up in the shortwave band the opposite is true.

Here is something you might want to try. Technology today we have something called "Software Defined Radio". Basically, take the radio spectrum and digitize it. Now you have a digital bit stream. You can pass that through different algorithms to get AM, FM, etc.

One particular device is the KiwiSDR. This is a 0 - 30 MHz receiver with a built in web interface. The unit reports to a central location which you can find going to http://kiwisdr.com/public/
Best to use a PC for this. I found a Smartphone or small tablet does not work very well. The webpage is too hard to navigate.

Here you will see a list of receivers all over the world. You can search for a location or click on the "KiwiSDR Map" button in the upper left. That shows a map of the world with a marker for each receiver currently online. Zoom in on the map, click on a marker, then click on the text in the box that appears next to the marker. That open the website on that receiver. You are now listening to a receiver at that location. Note these are owned by individuals so they may not be online all the time or have time restrictions.

What is nice about this you are hearing the radio from that location as a local would hear it. Not a filtered internet feed.

Learning a different language? Tune in a radio station in an area that speaks that language.

You will have to learn how to navigate the waterfall frequency display and understand what modulation you need for that frequency range or radio service. Broadcast stations that the Kiwi can receive are mostly "AM" so select that mode on the control panel.

For example, if you want to hear something out of the UK click on something in that area on the map. Note that in many parts of the world radio stations are space 9 KHz rather than 10 KHz we use in North America so the frequencies may look a little funny to us on this side of the pond. Also in the UK and Ireland they have broadcast stations on Long Wave (below 550 KHz). One of the major ones is 198 KHz (BBC 4 I think).

Want to hear what the AM broadcast band sounds like in Japan? There are several of these receivers in Japan. For example, Zoom in on Toyko, Japan. Select one. Make sure "AM" is selected and in the "select band" choose "MW" for medium wave. It helps to zoom in on the frequency scale in the waterfall display. The vertical lines are signals. Wider are stronger signals. Click on one or enter a frequency in the frequency box.

Selecting 810 KHz I hear an English broadcast. 693 KHz in Japanese.

There is one receiver in Tokyo that has an aircraft converter on it. You can listen to air traffic control in Tokyo. There is a similar air band converter on a KiwiSDR in Moscow, Russia. However, I don't see it on line as I type this. Again, these are owned by individuals so they tend to come and go over time.

I find it interesting to hear what the AM broadcast and shortwave bands sounds like in different parts of the world.

Oh, and keeping with the subject matter of this forum, I am wearing a skirt as i type this :)



Enjoy!
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Re: Shout out to Boston 1030 AM

Post by moonshadow »

Pleats wrote: Thu Jan 21, 2021 12:40 am One particular device is the KiwiSDR. This is a 0 - 30 MHz receiver with a built in web interface. The unit reports to a central location which you can find going to http://kiwisdr.com/public/
Best to use a PC for this. I found a Smartphone or small tablet does not work very well. The webpage is too hard to navigate.
Cool! Thanks for sharing!
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Re: Shout out to Boston 1030 AM

Post by 6ft3Aussie »

Those KiwiSDRs are interesting alright, there's a few downunder on our side of the globe as well, and they perform well. I have a friend in Toronto Canada who has designed and built some prototypes of a whizz-band receiver, that covers 100 kHz to 21 MHz, and decodes C-QUAM AM stereo, and has wideband filters in the IF, and when you're listening to an AM stereo station that is running wideband audio, on his receiver it sounds pretty much the same as FM stereo, I think it's a slightly warmer sound but that's me.
An example of that is WION, and they stream online a feed taken directly off air on 1430 AM, search for WION on Mr Google.
My friend in Toronto regularly hears BBC4 on 198 kHz, plus a few other LW stations from Europe.

The Americas are the only region of the world to still use 10 kHz steps on AM MW, the rest of the world uses 9 kHz steps and has done so since 1978.
All 9 kHz channels on MW AM and LW are exact multiples of 9, and an interesting geek fact is that if you add the digits, you'll come out at 9, so 1593 is 1+5+9+3=18, and 1+8=9....

As a side, I wonder if any other members here are licensed radio amateurs?
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Pleats
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Re: Shout out to Boston 1030 AM

Post by Pleats »

That is interesting on the math of the 9 KHz spacing. I knew the frequencies were multiples of 9 but did not realize the numbers add up to nine.
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Re: Shout out to Boston 1030 AM

Post by Pleats »

Here is another site you may find interesting. It is a map of AM stations in the US that shows the antenna pattern for daytime and nighttime.
Go to this web page: https://www.nf8m.com/nf8m/us-medium-wav ... eferences/
On the main page find "Jump to: Day Night Critical Hours" Click on "Night". On that page pick a frequency. Lets look at 1030 KHz. On the map you will see the antenna pattern of all stations in the US on 1030 KHz. Note WBZ and its directional pattern favoring the west. Also note the directional patterns of other stations on 1030 at night. They have a reduced pattern to the east to protect the coverage area of WBZ. The other "flame thrower" on 1030 is KTWO out of Caspter, Wyoming. Pattern to the west. There are smaller stations in the west that that run reduced power with patterns to protect KTWO. Then compare the daytime 1030 to the night. Range is reduced as propagation on that frequency range is gone during daylight. You see more stations on in the daytime. They go off the air at night as propagation picks up.

If you hover over the call sign and information appears on the station. During the day most show one antenna. They are omni-directional during the day. At night other towers are brought online to obtain the directional pattern. KTWO is on one antenna during the day and two at night. WBZ remains directional during the day. Better to point more power to the west rather than over open water. The water enhances coverage out into the Atlantic but you can see the null to the east.
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Re: Shout out to Boston 1030 AM

Post by Uncle Al »

This guy, on Youtube, shows how to repair/resurrect Vintage Ham Radio gear.
He also works on SWL radios. He has many clips which I think you'll enjoy :D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdIUZ18h5UI

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Re: Shout out to Boston 1030 AM

Post by pelmut »

6ft3Aussie wrote: Thu Jan 21, 2021 10:13 am ...As a side, I wonder if any other members here are licensed radio amateurs?
I used to be, but let my licence lapse when everyone started just buying black boxes and using them like mobile 'phones, instead of building their own kit.  I did my apprenticeship with Eddystone Radio in the late 1960s.
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Re: Shout out to Boston 1030 AM

Post by crfriend »

6ft3Aussie wrote: Thu Jan 21, 2021 10:13 amAs a side, I wonder if any other members here are licensed radio amateurs?
I probably should have been one but never went for a license, at the time because I never could accurately code/decode Morse -- and that was a requirement then.

Hilariously, I went on later in life to devise -- and propose to the IETF a 1-April RFC, the Morse Packet Protocol which was (and remains) a method by which to interconnect computers using Morse Code over short-wave radio. The RFC editors at the time weren't sure whether the proposal was a joke or not (it was) because it was actually implementable and some development work was done on a PDP-12 to actually make it work. It lost out to the IMP (Infinite Monkey Protocol) which specified how to combine an infinite number of monkeys on an infinite number of typewriters to produce the works of Shakespeare.

IMP beat out MPP that year, and in the spirit of things I actually agree with the Editors' decision.
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