CK-722 wrote: ↑Tue Mar 05, 2019 9:00 pm
You really need a directional FM receiving antenna, cckadlec. You'd be surprised how many nested signals there are capturing the rest. I haven't checked it out lately, but in the old days, it was not uncommon to be able to receive three or four cochannel stations on all but the strongest signals. You've done well DXing, but it really could be a lot better. Even the Antennacraft/Archer FM-6 and FM-10 are/were very good for this. In the old days, the stations in smaller towns would sign off hour by hour, revealing the next lower level of DX.
I've always been happy with what I've gotten I think. I do have a dedicated directional FM antenna, but it's tucked safely under my bed (that is, not connected to anything). I have always been a mobile DXer and most of my work is done on beaches, so directional antennas don't fit so well with that model. In Korea, I especially am discreet as the older generation is pushy on that topic as DXing was illegal (until 2000) when they were growing up, and they're still suspicious of it. At home, the portable gets plenty up to and beyond 400 miles easily, things a directional antenna could never get because I'm able to move it all around and find tiny nulls.
However, such antennas do enhance those very weak signals sometimes. I can take WPHN as a good example. With the portable, I can pick it up very easily in Sudbury as it's a semi-local signal. But once I'm in North Bay and further east in Mattawa, the portable just picks up nothing at all on 90.5. But if I hop in the car, my car radio, which has a rear window directional antenna (very directional actually), it can hear it with no problem whatsoever. So, when it comes to things like my coastal bandscans, I use my car radio as an alternate and do a scan facing both directions on that one as well to sort of fill in any holes, like from signals that the portable may have missed. Sometimes there are additional signals, especially in the out-there areas, and sometimes not.
But my 500 Top-of-Hour ID project was the closure of my DXing in West Michigan, so it's kinda all in the past now. I've heard what I've heard! I have 25 hours of recorded radio content on my website and I'm quite pleased with what I've stumbled upon on the radio bands, whichever antenna I have used
Marine propagation studies, Korean propaganda and jammers (8 hrs. of audio), 500+ Great Lakes TOH IDs (6 hrs.), Chinese AM TOH IDs (53 hrs.), Chinese and Taiwanese propaganda and jammers, plus articles and maps at
www.chriskadlec.com • Tuner: Grundig G8 & TEF6686.