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AM Frequency of the Week - 950 kHz

B

Buckeyes2001

What have you gotten on 950 AM?

Here in Vermilion, OH it is a local-sounding WWJ/Detroit during the day. It comes in strong enough that my HD radio will get occasional HD locks on them (of course that means that 940 and 960 DXing is almost useless unless I go inland about 10 miles). At night the frequency is more of a jumble but WWJ stays on top for the most part.
 
Cincinnati

Days
WXLW Indianapolis - Outside & using a Tecsun PL-600, barely above the threshold at my location in the western suburbs. Non existent in my house and in the city.

Sunrise/Sunset
A variety of stations depending on time of year and conditions, including the following:
WORD Spartenberg SC
KWOS Jefferson City MO
WYWY Barboursville KY - Also, I heard these guys past their bedtime at least once.

Night
No one dominates, and sometimes nothing there.
WAKM Franklin TN
Cuba
WWJ Detroit MI - An occasional night time visitor. I sometimes hear them at sunrise and sunset.
 
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In Marysville, WA, days it's local KJR Seattle (Sports).

Nights it's KJR and sometimes KMTX Helena MT (Adult Standards) way under, confirmed SUN. for a new log. Also hear Mexican music and SS talk on occasion, prob XEKAM.

Also have heard KOZE Lewiston, ID a couple times at sunset. Yet to confirm my two most wanted: KAHI-CA and KTBR-OR.

-crainbebo
 
In Chicagoland, I get WNTD Chicago. In Lake County Indiana, where I reside, WNTD has a stronger signal at night, than during the day. During the day, it's only 1kw ND, while at night, they're 5kw D, & they aim more of their signal toward Lake County Indiana. So some areas of Lake County Indiana are in Grade A coverage at night, while in Grade B coverage during the day.
 
Northern VA, i's DC area's WCTN with ethnic programming with the distant WXGI Richmond underneath. It's a mess at nights with a little bit of WWJ on top.
 
Far northwest suburbs of Chicago.....

Days WNTD fair. Nights....WNTD is highly directional, so it's barely on top, if audible at all. WWJ and KOEL also surface from time to time. As others have noted, WWJ is not as frequent around the Chicago area as it used to be. Last winter, I heard classical music, which several of the regulars here helped me identify as CFAM. (Haven't heard it here since).

Back in the '60s for whatever reason, I used to hang out on 950 quite a bit. The Chicago 950 was a daytimer (1kw ND...same as now), first as legendary jazz station WAAF, then R&B as WGRT. At night in addition to WWJ and KOEL, I also would occasionally hear KIMN, WKAZ, and (rarely) WPEN.
 
WWJ still dominates even though their nighttime signal south of their array got much weaker right around 1/1/13 (likely a re-tuning of their array up to spec - not a pattern change).

Only thing I've been able to make out under them is the Radio Reloj on 950 from Habana - easy to ID with its morse code "RR" every minute.

In the winter, I've been pestered by some station running country that signs on the channel significantly before the Detroit sunrise (they actually play The Star-spangled Banner in their SO, but I've never been able to ID it.)

In the UP, they get more interference at night from WNTD as one would expect, but one night I was in Grand-Sudbury and WWJ was in like a local (er, actually, can't say that, there's no such thing as a local AM in Grand-Sudbury, LOL)

With its powerful beam North and being between two 9kHz channels (945 and 954), WWJ must be a DX target in Europe and Russia.
 
It looks to me like the Regional daytime only stations became that way around 1928, when stations settled into the frequency allotment system that preceded NARBA and the 1941 frequency shifts. WAAF then moved to 920 kHz. Directional antennas were not used until 1932. It is reported that WNTD, then WAAF, became a daytimer in 1928. It was apparently too close to WWJ to use 500 watts nondirectional. It is one of the 50 oldest stations in the United States. WNTD stayed a daytimer until around 1980.
 
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