Just going to cover a few quick items this time. A reminder that I also do the College Sports Networks column, and if you have any college football networks, please pass them along. I’m going to try to include networks this year only if they weren’t included in one of the columns last year, to try to get some diversity of information.

We begin this time with some answers to the questions regarding grounding that were at the end of our last column, (which, if you noticed, Russ was actually going to use for his column before I included it here!! – sorry again, Russ)

Frederick R. Vobbe <fred@vobbe.com>: Hope I can answer these. I've been a few years out of the directional antenna business, but here goes. "1) the ground system and variations in conductivity or moisture content within the area of the ground field" In any distribution of power, there needs to be equal flows in both the negative and positive voltage, and current swings, in order to maintain peak efficiency. If one, or both sides of the load are compromised, then the result is an inefficiency, or distortion of some form. When a ground system resides in a sandy or dry soil, it does some good as the balance is on the wires, but when you have wet soil, or good conducting surfaces the balance of the ground system is spread out more. If you have a system (120 radials) in a nice wet porous soil, it's as good as one sitting on rocks where the entire ground screen is as big as the radials. One side benefit to having a decent, wet ground system is that the antenna is more stable. When I was at WTHM-1530 in Lapeer, the array was built on a sand, and it would walk around depending on the leaves in the trees and what grass grew. The only time it was stable was in a good hard rain."2) does the depth of the radial system need to vary with local ground conductivity and/or composition (sand vs. clay for instance)" If you can get to decent earth within the first 12" it's probably worth it to get a "chugger" and bury them deep. The moisture would be decent, and the dry cracks of earth won't tear up the copper. Also, you have to be conscience of some doofus driving a car in the field. The issue of radial placement becomes a cost factor. Like I said above, if you can get the radial down into some moisture, it would probably be OK. However, if the land is sandy or clay, you might as well string them on the surface or just below.

"3) what can one do to achieve optimization of the ground system to the antenna for a receiving site" To lower the noise, I would be sure that things like nearby chain-link fences are grounded. I would ground them in multiple places. I would also place.1 mf disc caps across things such as security light switches, and opti sensors. A bad firing SCR in a quartz light will kill your reception. Look at nearby phone poles. While most have grounds, many are poorly done. While I'm not advocating you getting close to high voltage, check the ground above. I've found that the messenger cable for the telco and CATV was not attached to the ground, and by grounding it (6" of copper wire and 2-U clamps) the noise dropped. On the transmission line, coming out of your shack, make sure you have a common ground to the rigs and earth ground just outside your shack. At the feedpoint of the antenna, be sure you have a closeby ground, and make the connection to ground short. What I do is have the line end right by the ground rod, and then jump up to the antenna (about 6 inches). On the shack side, it does not hurt to make sure that you have computers, and other devices grounded. Oh, for lightning protection, on my longwires up at my father's farm, I have the antenna feedpoint about 1" from the ground. The feedpoint from the antenna to the coax is a #32 gauge wire wound five times around a pencil and stretched out. While the "pig tail" will affect the RF above 50 MHz, it will pass AM RF. The lightning will take the easy path, which will be to blow out the pig tail, if it gets that far, but it will jump to ground a lot quicker. One other thing, at the far end of the antenna put a ground rod and make up something with (2) 3-penny nails facing each other, and separate them by 1/4". Again, the physics of lightning attraction work here. The lightning is more likely to jump the 1/4" gap to ground. At AM freqs with no power, there is no capacitance from the nails.

I’ll use the next item to introduce a new name to these pages:

Richard E. Hillman <HillmanR@health.missouri.edu>: Since I'm new to the list I'll introduce myself first. Started DXing in the 40's on an old Philco. First Ham license in 1953. Then essentially became only an occasional listener (except for news) until last year when I dusted off my old Zenith Transoceanic (not the original tube version. The 70's transistor version.) I now use primarily a newly purchased Drake SW8. In any case, I enjoy the list server. My request for help involves a Spanish speaking station at 530 kHz. Came in very strong the other night with a very rapid talk that may have been religious----kept repeating la palabra (the word) over and over. Although strength was 3/6 I couldn't understand it enough to pick out a source. Only listing in my WRTH is for a station in Costa Rica. That night, by the way, LA was coming in well which it never has before. Enough. Richard Hillman, Columbia, MO.

Several members notified Richard that this was most likely Radio Vision Cristiana, which led to the following information:

Patrick Griffith N0NNK / WPE9HVW <AM-DXer@webtv.net>: When I confirmed my reception of Radio Vision Cristiana (which I received here in Denver in 11/97) chief engineer Peter Polanco said that they had been running 40 kW for several years. The transmitter is a Nautel Ampfet50. It is a 50 kW transmitter but they run it powered down to 40 kW probably as a cost savings due to the high price of power on the islands. The antenna is a single 485 foot tower located on the north end of South Caicos in the British West Indies. I'm sure it gets out so well because of the salt water ground system and the low angle takeoff over flat ocean. I think the 100 kW myth is being propagated by the fact that the WRTH still shows this station at 100 kW. They also show the station still on 535 kHz. That information has been inaccurate for many years.

Al Merriman - K 4 G L U <merriman@shore.intercom.net>: Don't know how many might be interested in this. In the past few years there has been a shortage of 24 hour direct reading clocks with seconds display which run off the 110v power lines. The only one currently available that I am aware of is made by a company in California and costs a bundle. If you have been looking for a clock like this get in touch with Fair Radio immediately at 419-227-6573. They have some very nice and "high tech" looking units that were made for DOT. These are designed to run off the 110V power line or from an external database - IRIG E or FAA E, whatever these are, hi. Their official name is Timecode Display, Type FA-10046. Hours/minutes are green LED readouts 3/4 inch high and the seconds are a red LED readout 5/8 inch high. All controls are on the front panel and they have a dimmer that will take the display from dark to very bright and they are very easy to set. The price of these are $30.00 plus whatever they charge for shipping. Discovered these when I was at the National Radio Club convention in Lima over the Labor Day weekend. Reason I'm so late in getting this out is I've been traveling and just got home. These are in very limited supply. According to the guys at Fair they have been selling so well that it is unlikely they will ever be cataloged so if you want one or more of these I wouldn't delay. I bought two - for local and UTC and they look great in the shack. Approximate size of these is 9" wide; 2" high; 7" deep. An added bonus is that they generate quite a bit of heat so they will come in real useful if the shack gets cold in the winter, hi. Hope someone finds this useful and you might pass it on to other DXers/SWLs.

Mark Connelly <MarkWA1ION@excite.com>: September brought two good non-solo DX sessions within a week. I'd arranged to meet Kent Winrich (K9EZ) of Wisconsin while he was in the Boston area on a business trip. On Tuesday 12 SEP, he met me out at Granite Pier in Rockport, MA for a sunset-period after-work mini-DXpedition. We enjoyed hearing numerous loud signals from southwestern Europe and northern Africa. Some of these were pushing S9+30 or better, like Morocco-612 that was totally "smoking" WGIR-NH / CHNC-PQ on adjacent 610. Kent said he'd be happy to hear even one Trans-Atlantic at his midwestern home QTH. I referred him to master foreign DXer Neil Kazaross of metro-Chicago for suggested stations and times. I know that some of the big boomers like Norway-1314 and Saudi Arabia-1521 have made it out there occasionally. Obviously you don't get East Coast results there on TA's, but he might hear a few of them. In other DX, he'd have at least a prayer of a chance of hearing something Trans-Pacific. I don't think a TP has been logged in New England in at least 15 years (when Ray Moore got a few Aussie X-banders before US stations started to proliferate above 1600). One thing I mentioned to Kent was that he might want to look for a lakeside site in northern MI, WI, or MN and run a Beverage due north to look for Trans-Polar Russians, Indians, etc. If he could bag some of this DX on a good night, it just might breathe life into midwesterners' conceptions about foreign MW DXing in their part of the world. Maybe Trans-Polar would be something at which they could have more success than DXers along the Atlantic and Pacific shores of North America (where loud transoceanic signals tend to cover up any weaker Trans-Polar stations on the same 9 kHz frequency spacing plan). As we wrapped up the DX session around 9 p.m. local, Kent said he had fun and that he was interested in getting a phasing unit and trying some different antennas back home. On Saturday 16 SEP, I had a nice visit with Vern Brownell (W1VB) in Chatham, MA. Two weeks earlier I'd gone out to his excellent seaside QTH and I did a consult on a DX-worthy antenna system that would help combat local electrical noise. This time around I brought the materials for the antenna and set it up. The main element is a one-turn square loop, approximately 7 feet / 2.14 m per side. This is mounted vertically and aimed for maximum pick-up on an east-west axis. The wire is supported on a wooden frame with cement blocks to keep it from blowing away during high winds. The loop feeds a 1:1 balun whose other turn goes to the coaxial cable which runs back to the "ham shack" room of the house. Inside the house, the coaxial cable goes to the input of a broadband amplifier with about 17 dB of gain. The amplifier's output feeds channel 1 of a DXP-2 phasing unit. Channel 2 of the phasing unit is connected to Vern's multiband trap vertical (40 m - 6 m ham bands). Eventually a second loop will be installed at a right angle to the first one. That would be fed to phaser Channel 2 instead of the whip; this should reduce electrical noise to an even greater extent than the present set-up. At 2125 UTC, with the sun still well above the horizon, Saudi-1521 and other MW Trans-Atlantic’s were audible on my Drake R8A as soon as we were done setting up the antenna system. The next 2 hours brought in some huge signals from the Mediterranean area before conditions gradually deteriorated. Loggings should soon be appearing in NRC IDXD. A highlight was hearing English and French news (including Italian Olympic team results) from Italy-846. The signal was very strong: there didn't seem to be any reduction in power from any other time I'd heard this. Vern now has both a location and an antenna system that should bring him a lot of good DX. I encouraged him to join the National Radio Club since that's where most of the MW DXing talent in the eastern USA and Canada may be found.

And yet another new name into these pages:

Chris <dorn@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca>: Greetings, I am new to this list. I have a general question regarding receivers. I have a Kenwood R-600. I want to use this with my 3ft tuned loop. The R-600 appears to have an attenuation network of resistors in the bandpass filter for the LW and MW spectrums. I could use the extra sensitivity with my loop. Has anyone modified the R-600 for MW use? Would I be better off looking into another receiver such as the newer portables? Thank you.

Let’s see if anyone can help Chris out. This last item is from Dave Hughes’ DCRTV web site, dated September 22, 2000:

Another troubled station, WETT in Ocean City is off the air. The word on the street is that they are being sold, set for around November 1st, but nothing's been filed yet. This station runs 1,000 watts 2 tower directional days on 1590, and they used to be 500 watts 3 tower at night until one of the towers fell down a few years ago. At one point the former owners, (Benchmark which at the time also owned WWFG 99.9 and WKHI (now WOSC) 95.9 tried to give it to a local university, which saw how much it would cost to fix the problems, and said thanks, but no thanks. Finally, what will Clear Channel do with WTGM, 960 AM in Salisbury. They were to move to the expanded band, but the word is they wouldn't, and the CP runs out October 14, 2000. The former owner Cumulus dropped the Sports format back in April to save money, they now simulcast WWFG, Froggy 99.9, a 50 kW.