Heard tons of stuff tonight and last night; also both daytimes as well. Yesterday evening was perhaps one of the most intense I've ever had, lasted 4 hours to top of FM band. Swath from Florida to Minnesota. Tonight less intense, started with South Dakota and Wyoming, switched to AL-TX-AR, then suddenly Saskatoon appeared out of nowhere on 92.5 (The Bull). Others from SK and MB and then into WY/CO. Appears to have died off a few minutes ago.

KERA Dallas just popped in  on 90.1as I was heading to the land of nod...

Stayed tuned. Temps are supposed to soar into the 30s this coming week, often resulting in opportunities for some good catches.

One day this summer I was picking up a few TV stations from central Pennsylvania and just a few minutes ago I picked up low power station WBXZ ( Channel 23). The station has a whopping 17 sub channels. Most of them are not that great. Not sure why the time reads as 920. I think it was 1020.

Edit - the time on my DVR was not changed, BTW The station is still coming in at a signal strength of about 50 %.

Last edited by Fitz (June 28, 2026 10:53 pm)

I find the 67's (which have a ton of good subcarrier channels) come in only about three or four times a year where I am in North York, and only for a limited amount of time. Wish it was more often!

mace wrote:

Fitz wrote:

One day this summer I was picking up a few TV stations from central Pennsylvania and just a few minutes ago I picked up low power station WBXZ ( Channel 23). The station has a whopping 17 sub channels. Most of them are not that great. Not sure why the time reads as 920. I think it was 1020.

Edit - the time on my DVR was not changed, BTW The station is still coming in at a signal strength of about 50 %.

That is an incredible catch. Ever pick up WBBZ ch 67? That is available in the GTA but only under tropo conditions.

I don't think I have picked that up. The RF channel is 7 and my antenna does not do well on VHF but I have been checking for it on my manual scans this summer and so far no luck. BTW several Rochester UHF stations are coming in right now and CBS and Fox had signal strengths between 80 and 90 %. 

Edit: receiving FOX Syracuse right now.

Last edited by Fitz (June 29, 2026 2:58 pm)

I caught that opening this morning while in bed. I tuned my clock-radio to 92.9 and was getting WBUF, so I knew something was up. KISS 98.5 was as strong as Flow 98.7. A TV scan only got me WNGS 7 and WBXZ 23. The latter now has 17 services on it (aka 56-x)! I found the first program is encoded with MPEG-2 but the remainder are MPEG-4. This is how they are packing so many channels in. Problem is they will orphan older TV's that don't support that codec. It will also be annoying to tune through, since the other 17 will be in the EPG but show up in black.  Their call, I guess.  Also got WHEC 10 Rochester with the antenna facing Buffalo. I didn't get a chance to rotate it. Otherwise, it looked like the opening faded by late morning.

Another strong tropo opening today. Some westerner and central NY stations taking over semi local frequencies such as 103.5, 102.9 and 95.3. Actually it's been interesting for the last few days. On Saturday I got Omaha, Nebraska on 89.7. I have logged 4 really distant catches over the last week but usually when such is the case I get more and so it's kind of strange that these have been so sporadic. 

The one thing I will say is that HD ( bc of  adjacent channel interference) and Christian stations have made DX'ing less interesting, Have caught so many Christian channels that I have not wanted to stick around to ID.

Country is also a popular format that I do not find interesting and I sometimes don't stay on to ID.

Pretty crazy this morning in north Kawarthas. Had Tr opening that started modestly with eastern Wi with fairly ho-hum signals and landed in MN, IA and SD with signals big enough to trigger RDS. Just the second time I've heard SD via Tr and this time I had multiple ones, the farthest exceeding 900 miles. Towards the last few hours, starting mid-morning, E-skip fire up to the south and southwest and the lower channels. Tr seems over though Rochester and Sudbury and Michigan remain elevated; and at 7pm some very minor Es to FL/SC is happening. It's been a busy summer season for sure...

markow202 wrote:

The wildfire smoke must also be an aid to the tropo.    Buffalo has been coming in all day in Barrie clearly on radio.  Aswell, 97.7 St Catharines has over taken Max 97.7 FM Wasaga Beach it seems. 

Was WBKV able to overpower CBC Shelburne on 102.5?

mace wrote:

WBKV was silent for several hours today. I was able to pickup Magic 102.5 from Rome, NY. I heard a Morgan&Morgan lawyer ad who I think are prominent in NY State. Then some Classic Rock started to bleed in.I heard a Traffic report mention I-70 plus a Steelers promo. It must be WDVE. A great deal of interference on 96.9 as well. Two Country stations were dueling with WGRF.Turns out they were "The KOW" KKOW Pittsburgh, Ks and "The Legend" WDJR Dothan, Ala. I also heard a partial weather forcast mentioning Oklahoma. Possibly KQOB Oklahoma City. By 4pm the FM dial was back to normal.

Over the last hour or so here in west Pickering I have picked up two Florida stations, one Nebraska and Pittsburg and more I was not able to I’d.

Here's some audio that I recorded during the start of the heatwave. The first few days. includes two distant catches Will post more clips in the future and yesterday was actually the best day for distant catches.

I played everything through my AM stereo transmitter even though the signal was not necessarily stereo at all times.

1. Jet FM KSWN McCook Nebraska 93.9
2.  The Bull 100.1 KILT FM Houston TX.
3. WCMF Rochester - station is now mostly unavailable due to HD but I used to listen during the progressive days.
4. WECK Translator at 100.1. A tough frequency in this area due to HD and the translator is not axactly a blowtorch.
5. Classic Rock 93.9, Dansville NY  - not a tough catch but I wanted to play this as this was the first time I heard the group Can on terrestrial radio since perhaps WUWU or even CHUM FM. A bit from a syndicated show called Floydian Slip also indules some early and experimental Pink Floyd. A Throwback to the underground era.
6. The Spot FM 87.7 - The Franken FM from Syracuse. Used to be Fox sports when I first heard them last year but is now 90's music. 

DX June 28 and beyond

Last edited by Fitz (July 19, 2026 12:17 am)

Going a bit out of chronological order with my uploads because I will be uploading more but I wanted to highlight the craziness that I heard on the dial last night. May have lasted about an hour. The first clip has a program called The Sock Hop on 93.9 and I was not able to ID station, some rap I think on 92.9 and also other frequencies, some country on 92.3, a few segments of Art Bell I think on 93.9 and the usual wacky caller. Ends with the Mamas and Papas and Firefall on WTIX 94.3 from New Orleans and also some contemporary pop in the middle on the same frequency on a station I was not able to ID and I could not ID the rap and Art Bell stations either. I got an RDS on WTIX while Firefall was playing. Signals on the same frequencies were drifting in and out.

\WTIX 93.4 and More Jul 18  2026

The second clip is WKZA from Jamestown thru my AM stereo transmitter recorded Friday.



WKZA 106.9 via AM Stereo Jul 17  2026

 Edit - the audio on the AM stereo sounds really thin but Tom Jones sounds better than Jethro Tull. May have been bc I took the audio directly from cassette to the AM transmitter rather than using an amp in the middle but am not sure if that is the culprit.


 

Last edited by Fitz (July 19, 2026 11:02 am)

At 2pm today I had Catholic Radio KZTW Tioga, ND overpowering WHTT extremely well. Tioga is in the NW part of the state.

Fitz wrote:

mace wrote:

At 2pm today I had Catholic Radio KZTW Tioga, ND overpowering WHTT extremely well. Tioga is in the NW part of the state.

Mace if you get the chance you should try that radio you got with the car chip. Not sure if the e skip is still on as I had to go out but I did leave a 45 min tape running on WTIX 93.5 as it was coming on strong without much drift.

Are you referring to my Qodosen DX-286?