The AM Forum

Hello all, Last night I had a very nice long AM ragchew with W7TMD on 1950. We had planned to meet on 1945, but there was an SSB QSO on 1944, so we QSY'd to 1950. I recall that in the past, 1950 was basically unusable due to a constant nearby signal of some sort, maybe LORAN? I'm just curious if I was lucky, or if the signal is no longer present.

Thanks, Ron

GOOGLE is your helpful search buddy!

Loran-A was dismantled starting in the 1970s; it remained active in North America until 1980 and the rest of the world until 1985. A Japanese chain remained on the air until 9 May 1997, and a Chinese chain was still listed as active as of 2000. Loran-A used two frequency bands, at 1.85 and 1.95 MHz.

On 7 January 2010, Homeland Security published a notice of the permanent discontinuation of LORAN-C operation. Effective 2000 UTC 8 February 2010, the United States Coast Guard terminated all operation and broadcast of LORAN-C signals in the United States.

Loran-A used two frequency bands, at 1.85 and 1.95 MHz.
Loran-C operated in the 90 to 110 kHz frequency range.

More detail here if you care:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LORAN

Hi Pete,

Thanks for the reply. I'm pretty sure the signal was at 1950, or perhaps 1955, and was always there. I'm also pretty sure that It was present less than 5 years ago. I can't actually remember when I heard it last, but it was nice to have 1950 open for an AM QSO. Back in the day, when I was on 160 AM a lot, 1945 was my preferred frequency, but there always seems to be SSB activity from 1940 to 1945 now. 1950 is usually free of SSB activity at my QTH, so maybe I'll try to establish 1950 as an AM spot on the dial.

Thanks again, Ron

You can establish an AM spot or spots anywhere in the 160 meter phone portion which runs from 1800 KHz to 2000 KHz.

You might know or not that Amateur Radio Becomes Primary on 1900-2000 kHz on August 6, 2015
Full details are here: http://www.arrl.org/news/amateur-radio-becomes-primary-on-1900-2000-khz-on-august-6