Many decades ago I really enjoyed hunting for and listening to the many SW BC stations around the world. Now there are many fewer stations, and with the propagation conditions as poor as they have been the past few years it has even been more of a challenge at my 61 degree north latitude. A year ago I built a directional receive array designed for 80 and 160 meters. It works fine on these bands and even on 30 and 40 meters, but it has really earned it's keep for BCB DX listening. Often AM BCB stations come in loud and clear from over 2000 miles distance. A steerable antenna ( perhaps a ferrite bar, loop of some kind, etc. on a rotator, or electronically steerable array) is a necessity for good results on the BC band. Often (usually) several stations share the same frequency and it is not unusual to select the station you want, or null out a loud station you do not want and have good copy on either by just changing the the direction of your rx antenna. Most of these "small" rx antennas require a preamp with at least something like 20dB gain. Occasionally my MF array even works better on SW BC stations than my traditional antennas at least up to 7 or 10 MHz. Jim, I think your Texas nephew should be able to hear BC band stations in many of the "lower 48" states and occasionally much further, when propagation is poor on the SW bands. I know this is off topic, but is an option to also consider. Rick KL7CW Palmer, Alaska