KXEL AM 1540 Waterloo IA

[pinto vortando]

Booming in here to MI early this morning sounding like a local.
Maybe due to the remains of Hurricane Beryl that drenched much of the Midwest
yesterday with several inches of rain creating excellent groundwave reception conditions.

[NQC]

Hey Pinto,

Nice catch.

KXEL is a fringe ,if not deep fringe station here at Boston.
I usually pair up checking them with WHO.

Lately Dxing at my QTH has
been a “ challenge “ (understatement) for a few technical reasons .

But recently I did manage to pry my way out around to the Northeastern 1/4 of the U.S. on the bcast band.

One or two out a bit further ( ie WBT, WFED ).

Not great, but not horrible either.

de NQC

[pinto vortando]

NQC...

If you want to DX the Midwest, try KMOX AM 1120 St. Louis MO 50kw.  You will have to null the Concord station but KMOX has a really big signal for some reason.
Another to try with a nice nighttime signal is KCJJ AM 1630 Iowa City IA, an X-band station so interference should not be a problem.
OTOH, WBZ really booms in here at night from your location as they send all their power this way.  It's also loud on my crystal set. 

Addendum... You may want to try KCJJ on sunset skip when it has just turned dark at your QTH but the Iowa station is still on 10kw daytime power.

[NQC]

Hey Pinto.

I have copied KMOX in the past, but did it on car radio when going to the darker areas ( away from Boston light pollution) in East Central MA  while looking for a comet.

WBNW / Concord is simply too strong to kill in here Eastern MA, it’s on the same heading as MOX, so no null is possible.But their directional pattern allows you to escape to the back side if you go maybe 35 miles West of Boston.

MOX was banging in very well ( with hockey game, if I recall correctly) .This was my only copy of MOX from MA.

KCJJ isn’t easy, but if prop is up it can do OK.Got them a “ number “ of times.

WBZ , when peaked on my old ( gone) antenna was + 55 here.It was so ear splitting loud on the big litz crystal set,I had to bleed off the excess audio.

OT, I have been pretty much out of the crystal set activity ( and serious factory rigs) due to the big antenna coming down.I have lot of NICE crystal set parts and hope to get something going again in a few months on some “ improvised “ antennas.I am sure they won’t be like the old super big/ super high sky wires though.

I had around 110 US/ Canadian stations  and used to also get some Caribbeans  on the big litz / ( serious) Dx class crystal set.
I also built some pretty good SW Xtal sets as well, and one for VHF air band ( worked only   When “on top of “ tower or aircraft though). Also did one for FM, but pretty much only 6 to 10 mi range.Somewhat mushy  “sloped”  audio though , even on the strong stuff.

Could you describe your Xtal set  ?

de NQC

[pinto vortando]

NQC,

Sounds like you have some very nice crystal sets.
Xtal set here is nothing special, just the typical 1N34 with a couple of variable condensers wired series/parallel, and a spider web coil on a breadboard.
The key is the outboard inductively coupled via its spider web coil antenna tuner.  By adjusting the coupling while tuning its switchable in/out
series/parallel variable condensers (with reduction drives) as well as a reversible antenna/ground connection switch there seems to be some combination of
connections that produces results.  Nothing scientific, just a bunch of components cobbled together over the years.
Antenna is 100' wire with a dogleg in it.   

[NQC]

 Hey Pinto,

It sounds like you have a good  crystal set up.You've got a lot of  the important design features that are conducive to Dx  : double tuning, reduction drives, good ant/gnd, etc.

Crystal set sometimes got a bad reputation because there are a TON of dismal designs out there , folks build these and then when it stinks, the entire crystal set idea also stinks.

With a  crystal set you have to get it right  the first time and squeeze out  every nanowatt, there is no "making up " for a loss by doing it "that much better" further down the  chain. Gone is gone in an Xtal set .

My crystal sets  were actually quite simple, but used TOP grade parts and extreme attention to good construction practices. Admittedly, 90 % of my info was lifted form NSA gear design folks , RADAR techs, B'cast station engineers, etc, etc. I made some "discoveries " but did it 90% THEIR way, because it WORKED.

My antenna was great, but my ground was marginal ( 2nd floor heating pipe) . Still, I never needed a trap stage and got serious Q's  (  maybe 450 or 500  loaded at 1710 Kc  and quickly a LOT  better below  1200 Kc- 750 loaded at 530 Kc ? ).  The big litz  set placed in the top 10% (essentially "worldwide" ). A few  of the other guys in the xtal group did  better though .

All of the rigs from the old days were eventually "recycled", for one big stupid reason and another very valid reason. So basically , I am starting from scratch again . I have an Heath CR-1 crystal set ("fair" performer at best)  and also a few toy class rigs  .

Factory rigs here are DX44 and ATS 803a with Slect-A- Tenna loops for now.

Just put in a BIG magnet wire order for different projects ( crystal and otherwise).

One more question, what are you using for your audio chain from the detector out put - "crystal"Hi Z piezo   earphones  direct ? / matching transformer to  headphones ? (type ?)

de NQC

[pinto vortando]

NQC,

Have used all of the above for audio and additionally have cheated and used a signal tracer.

[NQC]

Hey Pinto,

Thanks for the info.

de NQC