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August 19, 2019 5:51 pm  #31


Re: CN Tower FMs

CN Tower stations have been on the last few nights. Anyone know if further outages are planned (or where auxiliaries might be used)?

(Still going through recordings ... have lots ... but have a few intriguing things, including presumed Portuguese on 97.3 (twice, actually) which would be a Boston-area station. And Lexington KY on 104.5, and Aurora NE on 97.3... plus Winnipeg on 91.1 and 107.1. More to review...

 

August 5, 2021 3:10 pm  #32


Re: CN Tower FMs

Just digging up an old post to ask a peculiar question -  I have a friend that wants to go up to the CN Tower for the first time and I agreed to tag along.   I probably wont do this but it would be interesting or if anyone did try it....bring up a portable radio like a walkman and see what you receive while being up there!

Im thinking it would be an overload of a mess.

 

August 5, 2021 5:36 pm  #33


Re: CN Tower FMs

markow202 wrote:

Just digging up an old post to ask a peculiar question -  I have a friend that wants to go up to the CN Tower for the first time and I agreed to tag along.   I probably wont do this but it would be interesting or if anyone did try it....bring up a portable radio like a walkman and see what you receive while being up there!

Im thinking it would be an overload of a mess.

I have, and it is
 

 

August 5, 2021 5:49 pm  #34


Re: CN Tower FMs

It's confession time here about how I once did something I wasn't supposed to. You know they tell you when you get on board an airplane that you should turn off all your electronic devices because it could interfere with sensitive onboard equipment? 

I had one of those small mini-radios with a headphone with me when I was flying once from New York to Detroit and then back to Toronto. I decided to turn on the radio briefly just to see what, if anything, I could get. AM was all but completely lost with the all the noise but the FM was a DXers' dream. As the plane cruised along at a jet-like speed, I checked out the band. Stations were coming and going like crazy, many on the same frequency, as we passed over various cities. Some lasted only about a minute.

A station would fade out while another took its place. It was like one of those classic tropo weather days we get here every once in a while, only on steroids. What an amazing experience that was, even if I wasn't supposed to be doing it! It was only for a few minutes and we obviously landed safely, so no harm done.

 

August 5, 2021 5:58 pm  #35


Re: CN Tower FMs

RadioActive wrote:

It's confession time here about how I once did something I wasn't supposed to.

Cue the Don Lafontaine VO Trailer Voice:

He's a Renegade Radioactive DXer, who leaves the comfort of his trusted AM Radio, and flies the skies .... flirting with disaster on the FM Band .... Die Hard DXer.  Playing in theatres NOW!


EDIT:  Oh yeah - Playing Now at the new "Multiplex" Odeon. - Bwhaaahahhah!

 

Last edited by Jody Thornton (August 5, 2021 6:01 pm)


Cheers,
Jody Thornton
 
 

August 5, 2021 6:06 pm  #36


Re: CN Tower FMs

RadioActive wrote:

It's confession time here about how I once did something I wasn't supposed to. You know they tell you when you get on board an airplane that you should turn off all your electronic devices because it could interfere with sensitive onboard equipment? 

I had one of those small mini-radios with a headphone with me when I was flying once from New York to Detroit and then back to Toronto. I decided to turn on the radio briefly just to see what, if anything, I could get. AM was all but completely lost with the all the noise but the FM was a DXers' dream. As the plane cruised along at a jet-like speed, I checked out the band. Stations were coming and going like crazy, many on the same frequency, as we passed over various cities. Some lasted only about a minute.

A station would fade out while another took its place. It was like one of those classic tropo weather days we get here every once in a while, only on steroids. What an amazing experience that was, even if I wasn't supposed to be doing it! It was only for a few minutes and we obviously landed safely, so no harm done.

I do it every flight. I go to the Caribbean every winter, and the small town stations from the Carolinas, Virginia, Georgia are a hoot. Stations you'd never hear since they don't stream. 
 

 

August 5, 2021 10:25 pm  #37


Re: CN Tower FMs

Saul wrote:

DX site is in the north Kawarthas. Nothing sophisticated by any means, certainly not compared with what some other DXers have in the way of expensive tuners and high towers and such. 

Two Sangean portable 909s with RDS readout. They're very senstitive, cost $200 a number of years ago, and I've had good DX using just the whip antenna. They'd be useless in or near a city like Toronto - too much overload.

Three Pioneer supertuner car radios a friend built into portable box-like wood cabinets. Equipped with dipoles that connect into the back using the connectors that would plug a car antenna into the back of that radio. They're very good at working on channels that are co-channel to stronger almost-local signals. So Barrie 93.1 doesn't interfere too much if at all on 92.9; CKLY 91.9 doesn't bother 92.1. These radios cost 2-300 or so back a decade or so ago. 

My main advantage is rural location. My main disadvantage is a lack of height. But that's also sometimes my main advantage. Lack of height also reduces clutter from stations within 100 miles or so. We used to have a tower here for TV watching. That's how I started with this nonsense ... discovered one day I could watch Florida and such.

I too have a Sangean ATS 909. It's a great radio. Trouble is, it's stuck at our place in Florida, so I can't use it.


I started out with nothing and I still have most of it.
 

August 6, 2021 1:57 am  #38


Re: CN Tower FMs

RadioActive wrote:

It's confession time here about how I once did something I wasn't supposed to. You know they tell you when you get on board an airplane that you should turn off all your electronic devices because it could interfere with sensitive onboard equipment? 

I had one of those small mini-radios with a headphone with me when I was flying once from New York to Detroit and then back to Toronto. I decided to turn on the radio briefly just to see what, if anything, I could get. AM was all but completely lost with the all the noise but the FM was a DXers' dream. As the plane cruised along at a jet-like speed, I checked out the band. Stations were coming and going like crazy, many on the same frequency, as we passed over various cities. Some lasted only about a minute.

A station would fade out while another took its place. It was like one of those classic tropo weather days we get here every once in a while, only on steroids. What an amazing experience that was, even if I wasn't supposed to be doing it! It was only for a few minutes and we obviously landed safely, so no harm done.

I do that every time I fly anywhere.  I saw on TV once where an aviation analyst admitted that was BS.  Same as having to make sure your cell phone is away from the gas pump.
 

 

August 6, 2021 10:40 am  #39


Re: CN Tower FMs

I knew an aquaintance that was a pilot for Air Canada and asked him the whole "electronics being used" on a plane question - said it wont harm their equipment or crash the plane.   Heck, someone flew a drone next to the CN Tower from the bottom to the top and being close to the antenna mast it didnt lose control.

 

August 6, 2021 11:47 am  #40


Re: CN Tower FMs

Back in my DXing days, even before the CN Tower RF overload destroyed FM and TV Dxing in downtown Toronto, I did some dxing with really good radios (1970's vintage) around Dundalk.   You're far enough from Toronto RF overload and the ehaat is highest in S. Ontario.  Beat's the CN Tower "observation" level.1,735 feet Dundalk, just south of Collingwood, has the highest elevation in Southern Ontario (south of Algonquin Park) at 526 m (1,735 feet).

 

August 6, 2021 12:05 pm  #41


Re: CN Tower FMs

tvguy wrote:

Back in my DXing days, even before the CN Tower RF overload destroyed FM and TV Dxing in downtown Toronto, I did some dxing with really good radios (1970's vintage) around Dundalk.   You're far enough from Toronto RF overload and the ehaat is highest in S. Ontario.  Beat's the CN Tower "observation" level.1,735 feet Dundalk, just south of Collingwood, has the highest elevation in Southern Ontario (south of Algonquin Park) at 526 m (1,735 feet).

Yes ive heard of this area having the highest elevation..  I remember reading the history of CIDC FM Evanovs 103.5 and their old tower site northwest of Orangeville was marked higher in elevation than the CNTower which is understandable - if you drive in that direction from Toronto your only going up and up.

 

August 6, 2021 9:43 pm  #42


Re: CN Tower FMs

tvguy wrote:

Back in my DXing days, even before the CN Tower RF overload destroyed FM and TV Dxing in downtown Toronto, I did some dxing with really good radios (1970's vintage) around Dundalk.   You're far enough from Toronto RF overload and the ehaat is highest in S. Ontario.  Beat's the CN Tower "observation" level.1,735 feet Dundalk, just south of Collingwood, has the highest elevation in Southern Ontario (south of Algonquin Park) at 526 m (1,735 feet).

I had to attend some business in Toronto. I stayed on one of the upper floors at one of the hotels downtown. The second thing I always do when I get in a hotel room is turn on my radio. I always carry my own because the ones in the room are never any good. My travel radio is a Sangean portable model. When I turned it on, nothing worked. The digital display just started flashing random characters. There was no sound and none of the controls worked. Then, I looked out the window and saw the CN tower just a short distance away.

I collapsed the telescopic antenna down into the radio. Then it worked after that. The strong RF field had been messing up the electronics in the radio


I started out with nothing and I still have most of it.
 

August 9, 2021 10:11 am  #43


Re: CN Tower FMs

turkeytop wrote:

tvguy wrote:

Back in my DXing days, even before the CN Tower RF overload destroyed FM and TV Dxing in downtown Toronto, I did some dxing with really good radios (1970's vintage) around Dundalk.   You're far enough from Toronto RF overload and the ehaat is highest in S. Ontario.  Beat's the CN Tower "observation" level.1,735 feet Dundalk, just south of Collingwood, has the highest elevation in Southern Ontario (south of Algonquin Park) at 526 m (1,735 feet).

I had to attend some business in Toronto. I stayed on one of the upper floors at one of the hotels downtown. The second thing I always do when I get in a hotel room is turn on my radio. I always carry my own because the ones in the room are never any good. My travel radio is a Sangean portable model. When I turned it on, nothing worked. The digital display just started flashing random characters. There was no sound and none of the controls worked. Then, I looked out the window and saw the CN tower just a short distance away.

I collapsed the telescopic antenna down into the radio. Then it worked after that. The strong RF field had been messing up the electronics in the radio

Which reminds me - in central etobicoke my parents have a house and when I lived there I noticed especially out of town stations, id have to collapse the telescopic antenna to make that or any station clear.   The house did have a distant view to the CN Tower in line of sight and on a slight hill so im wondering if those signal were still too strong even being 15kms away to mess it all up.