X17 flare, what am I hearing? 1430 kHz Central Ohio
 

Day only stations, such as KHBM 1430 in Monticello, AR, where I was chief, used
to sign on at 0800 local (and sign off within 15 minutes of local sundown). Has
that changed?

Bill, K5BY

WShoots1 wrote:
Day only stations, such as KHBM 1430 in Monticello, AR, where I was chief, used
to sign on at 0800 local (and sign off within 15 minutes of local sundown). Has
that changed?

Daytime-only stations have assigned sunrise and sunset times for each
month, determined by their coordinates and rounded off to the nearest 15
minutes. For October, KHBM's sunrise is 0615CST, and sunset is 1730CST.

There is nothing to keep a daytime-only station from signing on *later*
than sunrise, or signing off before sunset. (they are however required
to operate a minimum schedule - signing on at noon and off at 3pm every
day, for example, wouldn't fly. 0800-sunset is fine.)

Many (most?) daytime-only stations do hold PSRA authority to sign on as
early as 0600 local time - if sunrise is later than that, then reduced
power is used until sunrise. Many also hold PSSA authority that allows
operation as late as 2 hours after sunset, again at reduced power.

Anyway, 1110UTC is not a valid official sunrise time. (because it's not
a multiple of 15 minutes) But if sunrise at the station's location is
earlier than 1110, then it could legally sign on at the later time.
(for that matter, it could have been a station with fulltime operating
permission, which simply chose not to operate all night) 1110 does
seems like a *strange* signon time to choose for a station that could
have been on earlier though.

(I wonder if signon was supposed to be earlier and the operator screwed
up? Maybe someone forgot to set back his alarm at home & showed up late
for work?grin)

Oh, for what it's worth the same sunrise and sunset time provisions
apply to switching from night to day power/antenna and back again for
full-time stations that have reduced power and/or different antenna
patterns at night.

You can check the sunrise/sunset times for other stations at
http://www.fcc.gov/mb/audio/amq.html .

- Enter the station's call letters in the appropriate box and press Enter.
- Click on the call letters. (there will probably be multiple lines
with the same call letters. It doesn't matter which one you click on.)
- Find the name of the time zone, and click on it.

A chart appears showing the official FCC sunrise and sunset for that
station each month of the year. There's a pull-down menu at the bottom
for converting to different time zones.
--
Doug Smith W9WI
Pleasant View (Nashville), TN EM66
http://www.w9wi.com