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AM Frequency of the Week: 630

cyberdad

cyberdad

Let's spin the dial again to a spot where those from the parts of the world with 9khz spacing can also jump in once again. I think we've covered all of the frequencies common to all parts of the globe, but it's been a while for a few of them. So this time let's go with 630. What are you hearing there these days?

Here 40-odd miles northwest of downtown Chicago, WTMJ (620) from Milwaukee turns daytime 630 into a noisy mess with its iboc splatter. Before they turned the noisemaker on, I could sometimes catch an occasional whiff of KXOK from St. Louis. Obviously, that was a long time ago.

Nights, I'm in a WTMJ null. KXOK and its subsequent incarnations from St. Louis used to be fairly reliable here at night. But now it's usually CFCO, since they've increased their night power and modified their night pattern. It's not exactly a great signal, but strong enough to typically be on top. WLAP from Lexington, KY also turns up once in a while.
 
In East Tennessee, splatter from WRJZ but I have picked up WMAL at night


cyberdad said:
Let's spin the dial again to a spot where those from the parts of the world with 9khz spacing can also jump in once again. I think we've covered all of the frequencies common to all parts of the globe, but it's been a while for a few of them. So this time let's go with 630. What are you hearing there these days?

Here 40-odd miles northwest of downtown Chicago, WTMJ (620) from Milwaukee turns daytime 630 into a noisy mess with its iboc splatter. Before they turned the noisemaker on, I could sometimes catch an occasional whiff of KXOK from St. Louis. Obviously, that was a long time ago.

Nights, I'm in a WTMJ null. KXOK and its subsequent incarnations from St. Louis used to be fairly reliable here at night. But now it's usually CFCO, since they've increased their night power and modified their night pattern. It's not exactly a great signal, but strong enough to typically be on top. WLAP from Lexington, KY also turns up once in a while.
Click to expand...
 
In the near north Chicago suburbs it's all WTMJ splatter during the day. CFCO in the mix with St Louis at night.
Before WTMJ's IBOC I could hear KXOK and CFCO weakly during the day depending on which way my radio was oriented.
WLAP also sometimes made it in here at night, but not recently.
 
Nothing in the daytime.

At night, it's a barely audible signal and rarely ever strong enough to hear specific words.

But it sounds like a talk station for sure and upbeat.

Going by the AM frequency guide, I think I'm hearing KIDD the sports talk station from Monterey, California.

http://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/patg?id=KIDD-AM&h=N

Not bad. A 1 kw station @ 2,327 miles.
 
One of my longest daytime groundwave receptions over salt water was WBMQ (or what ever their call letters were back then, in the 1980's) from Charleston, SC. They were and are 4.8Kw, omnidirectionally, and about maybe 600 miles or 900 Km from my doorstep, between Miami and Fort Lauderdale, FL. R-L's map shows their extreme fringe signal almost making it to Miami.
 
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Houston daytime: 630 is dominated by regional KSLR San Antonio.
 
Between local WMT 600 and practically-local WOI on 640, I don't think anything shows up during the daytime (except WTMJ on 620). I don't think I've ever heard a hint of KYFI St. Louis (former KXOK) or WREY from the Twin Cities during the daytime.
Nighttime, CFCO is almost always there, sometimes strong, sometimes not. I have heard KSLR from San Antonio before. Always wondered about KHOW from Denver, but never heard it here.
 
West suburbs of Detroit = CFCO Day and night (In stereo). Even before their 6-fold night power increase I could never get anything else if they were on the air.

Would love to see what their old night pattern was at 1k.
 
icybluelake said:
Between local WMT 600 and practically-local WOI on 640, I don't think anything shows up during the daytime (except WTMJ on 620). I don't think I've ever heard a hint of KYFI St. Louis (former KXOK) or WREY from the Twin Cities during the daytime.
Nighttime, CFCO is almost always there, sometimes strong, sometimes not. I have heard KSLR from San Antonio before. Always wondered about KHOW from Denver, but never heard it here.
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When KYFI was KXOK, me and a lot of other people would listen during the daytime at college in Mount Pleasant, about 70 miles south of you. In fact, we'd sometimes rebroadcast KXOK on the carrier current campus radio station when we didn't have a live jock to staff it. The KXOK signal was generally listenable until about 10-15 miles south of Iowa City.

KHOW ... They have a terrific day signal well into Kansas and Nebraska, but I've never heard them here at night...nor, for that matter, in Iowa.

WREY ... In their "glory days" as top 40 KDWB, They were 5kw days, 500 watts night. The day pattern was highly directional to the west northwest, and IIRC the night pattern was similar. Again, I never heard them at home or in Iowa. In fact, when I was going to the Twin Cities on business every 6-8 weeks during the 1980s, WOI would routinely splatter on them in the southern suburbs. I stand to be corrected, but I think the pattern was designed to protect WOI. KXOK and CKRC (Winnipeg), all of which got to 630 (or 640 for WOI) first.

The current pattern appears to be quite a bit different than the KDWB pattern, but still throws a major null towards WOI.
 
Canyon Lake , Texas it's KSLR from San Antonio with a clear daytime signal.

At night the signal is subject to a lot of fading and is periodically on top. I think a Monterrey station dukes it out with them.

KSLR has their daytime array in China Grove (just SE of San Antonio on Hwy 87); their nighttime array is off of I 10 heading towards Seguin.

Years ago they were KMAC and simulcasted then sister station KISS part of the day. It was interesting to listen to Heavy Metal on AM, but 630 covered a lot of areas that 99.5 didn't reach back then.

I've heard KHOW in El Paso at night; not sure how far to the east they go at night.

Dlf
 
From down here in Perth Western Australia, day and night it's 6AL ABC Local Radio in Albany WA, 5kw from 200 miles away. There's another ABC Local Radio in Townsville (way on the opposite side of Australia) which I've never been able to ID, although I've heard a bit of echo with Albany at times when all the LR's are simulcasting. I've also heard the 50kw RRI-1 Indonesia and occasionally the Chinese CNR-2 synchros. Up in northern WA, you can hear Vietnam mixing with the Indonesian and the Aussies at times, but have never heard it here.

I've tried repeatedly to catch Madagascar in the pre-sunrise hours but no luck yet.
 
billmich said:
West suburbs of Detroit = CFCO Day and night (In stereo). Even before their 6-fold night power increase I could never get anything else if they were on the air.

Would love to see what their old night pattern was at 1k.
Click to expand...

As I recall, the old CFCO Night Pattern was a slightly dogleg three tower pattern, but the radiation to the West and Northwest was much less. There was a single shallow null off the back of the array, and two off the sides, maximum close to North. The key to the upgrade was the old KDWB 630 Minneapolis going to Class D for a while, and the 630 in Winnipeg moving to FM.
 
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dlf1 said:
Canyon Lake , Texas it's KSLR from San Antonio with a clear daytime signal.

At night the signal is subject to a lot of fading and is periodically on top. I think a Monterrey station dukes it out with them.

KSLR has their daytime array in China Grove (just SE of San Antonio on Hwy 87); their nighttime array is off of I 10 heading towards Seguin.

Years ago they were KMAC and simulcasted then sister station KISS part of the day. It was interesting to listen to Heavy Metal on AM, but 630 covered a lot of areas that 99.5 didn't reach back then.

I've heard KHOW in El Paso at night; not sure how far to the east they go at night.

Dlf
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Ah, KMAC. I remember listening to it at night and hearing interesting and eclectic rock songs that I'd only read about or never heard of before...

Here in northwestern San Antonio it's KSLR by day. At night it's still strong, but I can get a tiny partial null, which allows me to hear a few other stations weakly. The most prominent is XEFB in Monterrey, and I can usually hear KYFI pop in and out for periods. KHOW makes occasional brief appearances, but it's more common toward dawn. Also, a few times I've heard a Mexican station that I have yet to ID but suspect is XEERO in Esteros.
 
Oops, I meant WBMQ, Savannah, GA, not Charleston, SC.
(nobody corrected me :( )
 
Not to turn this into a KMAC thread, but the block programmed KMAC was unique. Farm Reports, I think some C & W, The Metroplitan Opera on Saturdays, and 12 hours of hard rock and heavy metal. Quite a listen.

Dlf
 
dlf1 said:
Not to turn this into a KMAC thread, but the block programmed KMAC was unique. Farm Reports, I think some C & W, The Metroplitan Opera on Saturdays, and 12 hours of hard rock and heavy metal. Quite a listen.

Dlf
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Hah! Reminds me of a stop I made for several months early in my career. I hosted the "Pepsi Cola Party" top 40 show on Saturday afternoons. Then in the same time slot on Sundays, I had the "Hour of Fine Music" (which actually ran TWO hours and consisted of classical and semi-classical music.)
 
BBC Three Counties Radio in Luton on 630 travels a very long way, despite only being 200 watts, and aimed at Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire it's audible across a fair bit of southern and central England due to the clear channel.

I'm about 80 miles away and it's weak but perfectly audible in daylight. After dark it gets drowned out by 621 (Belgium) and 639 (Spain), although a better receiver than mine might be able to split it off.

Eventually 630 will probably close as the FM coverage of 3 counties is also good. It's the local service for much of the northern half of the London commuter belt, and my station of choice when driving down the M1 to London, which I do semi-regularly.
 
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ai4i said:
One of my longest daytime groundwave receptions over salt water was WBMQ (or what ever their call letters were back then, in the 1980's) from Charleston, SC. They were and are 4.8Kw, omnidirectionally, and about maybe 600 miles or 900 Km from my doorstep, between Miami and Fort Lauderdale, FL. R-L's map shows their extreme fringe signal almost making it to Miami.
Click to expand...

WBMQ from Savannah is one of the best salt-water daytime signals out there from that Oatland Island transmitter. It is audible pretty much anywhere on the coast from Titusville basically all the way to Myrtle Beach and beyond. On a good radio it causes splatter in the Charleston area.

They used to dominate at night here too, but they dropped down to something like 50 watts at night a few years back. Even that signal carries thru most of the city at night.

Too bad it is basically wasted as a Cumulus talker now. I don't think it even has a local talk show now. The only real local programs are Savannah SandGnats baseball games (and they are leaving to go to Columbia in 2016), and Savannah State.

For decades they carried the Georgia football games with Larry Munson. They were the only station in our area that carried those games, and many people listened to them here. They also had a local talk show with Ben Bennett.
 
Great nostalgia stuff with that Pepsi hour, Cyberdad.
My own first job out of school was at a station on top of a Coca Cola plant, near the Chesapeake Bay in VA.

Atop 630 here in the day is WEJL, one of the 22 sports stations in the Scranton market. * Faintly * u/them is WMAL from Washington DC.
Odd, though ..... where I do a lot of my beer-money work is Saint Clair, a town about 5 miles south of here as the crow coughs. In those houses on the same GE SRII, WMAL and WEJL are pretty equal.

Nothing logged here in this NE PA locale at night. So I may have to stand in the corner and humbly wear a pair of disconnected earphones in DX class until I spin some nighttime 630 dial.
 
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