Topband: 1.810 BCB interference

[ws6x at comcast.net]

On Fri, 5 Jan 2007 20:01:59, Tom Rauch wrote:

>ID'ing the station is absolutely necessary if you don't want 
>to wait months.

>If you get a positive ID and if the station doesn't respond 
>to a call I can pass it directly to the Field Office. After 
>a series of successful busts they gave me direct numbers and 
>I'd be happy to call it in.

>In difficult cases I "stereo match" audio of stations. I 
>listen in one ear to the spur and the other to a BC 
>receiver.

>73 Tom 

I don't know what the other W6 / W7stations are hearing on 1810, but for us in the Fresno area the audio is without a doubt, KXEX. This is always the prominant audio (sometimes the only audio). You can listen for such identifiers as "KXEX", "Sporting News Radio", "The voice of Fresno City College sports", and of course, the frequency, "1550."

The other station involved in the spur,and co-located with KXEX, is KAVT, transmitting on 1680. Since this is the signal harmonically related to the spur, it seems to me this is the likely culprit. KAVT is part of the Disney Radio network, whatever that is!

Here is a summary of signal reports from my QTH, 20 miles east of the TX site.

At local noon yesterday, listening on an 80M sloper (no attenuation switched in), AM mode with no aux filters in place:

- The 1810 spur = a noisy, but steady S9 - no audio component other than KXEX;

- KXEX, 1550 = S9 + 40dB;

- KAVT, 1680 = S9 + 50 dB

- KAVT 2nd harmonic, 3360 = no copy. (Even though I sometimes hear modulation around this frequency, I've never heard anything that I can identify as KAVT audio.) 

Vic, K2VCO, is the person who has communicated with the field engineers of the two stations. One guy is a ham, BTW. Until Vic proved his credentials, he got the typical run-around: asked what kind of receiver he was using, etc.

This continued for several overs, and included letters to station managers, with suggestions as to how this spur could possibly be generated. It eventually died on the vine. The "ham" engineer really seemed to be in a fog on the whole topic.

Jim - WS6X