[Milsurplus] WQEL382 1610 kHz

[Hubert Miller]

Somewhat off-topic but maybe there's room for this slight digression. Keywords: Coast Guard;
AM broadcasting; electrically short, inductive loaded antenna.

WQEL382 , U.S. Coast Guard bar crossing report broadcast station, 1610 kHz, Newport, Oregon.
Located at the Newport USCG compound. I guesstimate power as 10 watts. As you can see, it's
only a few feet ASL, but over salt water, it propagates fine, and the target audience is only in the
harbor here and maybe a few miles out, for vessels approaching the jetty bar crossing. There is an
observation tower which I am told is only staffed when the bar crossing is restricted ( to vessels
of a certain size, depending on the roughness and danger of the crossing. ) The broadcast is a
continuous loop of the same information broadcast periodically on VHF channel 22.

I think the second photo is kind of interesting. You can see the ground network, a kind of 'doily'
ring network of wires. Also the feed cable which carries up the power and audio. And the antenna
cable exiting the bottom left of the transmitter, up to the no doubt loading coil in the antenna. Also
the rust. Yes, everything left outside here rusts, everything !

There is a much stronger station heard here, a NOAA weather broadcast for the Oregon - Washington
north coast, 1650 kHz. This one has much more power than the USCG station, maybe 10x as much,
by guesstimate. Carries the same broadcasts as the Newport area VHF weather station. But my attempts
so far to locate its site or its actual call letters ( if different from the VHF broadcast from Otter Crest high
point, north of Newport ) has been unsuccessful. NOAA representative at national HQ even told me that
this broadcast may be a "rebroadcast" by some other local broadcaster - apparently NOAA HQ is not even
aware of their own station ! Their station list only lists VHF stations.
I tried to use the FCC database lookup and it did not work. Your government at work.

A crystal radio at my location hears these two special stations and two commercial AM broadcasters. It is
kind of a unique experience to hear weather broadcast stations on a crystal radio !
-Hue

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