Dubuque Legacy Radio Station Heard in Finland

Working in radio for as long as I have, I have heard stories about people in different countries receiving our local radio signals. This just so happens to be the first time that I am managing one of the stations that was broadcasting WAY out of its intended range.

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Local legacy media station AM 1490 WDBQ has been a staple in Dubuque since 1937 and has operated for over a century in the Tri-States (1925). It, along with four other radio stations, makes up our cluster in Dubuque, including: WDBQ-FM 107.5, KXGE-FM 102.3, KLYV-FM 105.3, and WJOD-FM 103.3. I'm sure by now you've noticed something different about one of these stations' call letters. That difference between AM and FM is how this recent development occurred, and an email from the country of Finland came into play.

That email came from one Dr. Jopi Nyman, and no, he wasn’t sitting in a car somewhere in Wisconsin scanning the dial. Jopi lives in Joensuu, Finland. He’s a university professor of English and cultural studies who lives in the eastern part of the country, not far from the Russian border. Finland, for context, is about the size of Minnesota, has a population smaller than Wisconsin, and is known for forests, lakes, long winters, and a whole lot of quiet.

In our correspondence, I learned that Jopi has been a radio hobbyist, or “DXer,” as they’re called, for more than 40 years. DXing is the practice of listening for distant radio stations, especially on the AM band. Unlike FM, which is mostly line-of-sight and stays local, AM signals can bounce off the upper atmosphere at night. When conditions are just right (low solar activity, minimal geomagnetic storms) AM signals can travel thousands of miles. Check out the proof in Dr. Nyman's recording below.

To improve his odds, Jopi does something that sounds a little extreme, but makes perfect sense for his hobby. Every winter, he drives about 600 miles north to a small cabin above the Arctic Circle. The goal isn’t sightseeing or northern lights. In fact, DXers don’t like auroras much at all; they’re a sure sign of major interference. What Jopi wants is silence. No power lines, no electronics, no nearby towns. Just snow, trees, reindeer, and radio waves.

His setup includes a high-end software-defined radio receiver and a very long directional wire antenna stretched out toward North America. On a January night, with darkness covering both Finland and the Midwest, that antenna pulled in a familiar jingle: “Newstalk 14-90 W-D-B-Q, a Townsquare Media Station.” Just think, a local Dubuque, Iowa radio station, heard in a cabin near the Arctic Circle.

Radio has changed a lot over the decades, but moments like this are a reminder of what makes it so special. Sometimes, when conditions line up just right, a voice meant for the Tri-States ends up halfway around the world. And hey, someone was WAY out there listening.