Rick is correct that there are many stations sharing the same frequency. Most of them must make a significant power reduction at sunset (typically to 100–150 W output) to limit skywave interference with other co-channel stations that are trying to serve their own local (groundwave) service area.
Far fewer MW BC stations are licensed for extended footprints at night. I work as chief engineer at KVCU on 1190 in Boulder CO. While we’re just 120 W at night, I have some nice recordings from MW DXers in northern Scandinavia who took advantage of the positioning of the terminator this month. I have a new transmitter to put on air. With any luck we’ll get to do some full-power testing later this month… > On Oct 12, 2026, at 12:10, Richard (Rick) Karlquist <[email protected]> > wrote: > > The trouble with this concept is that there are hundreds of stations on any > given frequency in locations all over north america, so in general even if > you had propagation from the east coast to W6, the east coast stations would > be lost in the massive QRM of all the other stations > on the west coast. I remember I once heard WCBS on a beverage antenna going > coast to coast, but that probably had a lot more to do with other stations on > 860 kHz being in fades at the time than WCBS suddenly getting very strong due > to propagation. > > 73 > Rick N6RK > > On 10/12/2026 9:15 AM, Radio KH6O via Topband wrote: >> Aside from their tens of thousands of watts and incredible antennas, are AM >> broadcast stations, operating at the top end of their band, a good >> indicator of nighttime 160M conditions? >> Seems like there should be some correlation between, say, a station >> operating near 1700 KHz and what we might expect around 1800+ KHz. >> (Discounting, as mentioned, power and antenna.) >> Jeff KH6O >> _________________ >> Searchable Archives: http://www.contesting.com/_topband - Topband Reflector > > > _________________ > Searchable Archives: http://www.contesting.com/_topband - Topband Reflector _________________ Searchable Archives: http://www.contesting.com/_topband - Topband Reflector
