AM Frequency of the Week: 870

[cyberdad]

This week, let's visit one of the former 1-A clear channels. Specifically, what are you guys hearing when you park your dial at 870.

Here in the far northwest suburbs of Chicago during the daytime, the channel is basically vacant, but prone to splatter from a suburban local on 850 (WAIT). WKAR from East Lansing, MI has been known to sneak in here around sunset as well as on daytime skywave, but I haven't heard them for a long, long time.

At night it's all WWL. With one of the best nighttime skywave signals in the area. Yet to my astonishment, on very rare occasions, you can hear a faint R. Reloj underneath. This is definitely the exception and not the rule. But it can and does happen

 

[schmave]

300 miles to your east-southeast in Reynoldsburg, Ohio, my experiences somewhat mirror yours.
Daytime, it's always slop from local WRFD at 880.
Nighttime, always WWL. Sometimes a blaster, sometimes less than that, pretty much always listenable. And I've heard the Reloj ticks behind it as well.
Oddly enough, I don't remember hearing them when I lived in Houston from 2007-09, but not saying they weren't there back then.

 

[radioman148]

Here in the near north Chicago suburbs WKAR is in daily, weak, but listenable. At night it's all WWL still strong, but not as strong at my location as it used to be. Years ago it was one of the strongest nighttime signals at my location.

 

[gr8oldies]

By day it's WPWT, Colonial Hts, TN and by night, WWL in Knoxville TN

 

[cyberdad]

Nighttime, always WWL. Sometimes a blaster, sometimes less than that, pretty much always listenable. And I've heard the Reloj ticks behind it as well.
Oddly enough, I don't remember hearing them when I lived in Houston from 2007-09, but not saying they weren't there back then.

I stand to be corrected, as always. but I think R. Reloj is a fairly recent arrival to 870. If memory serves, I think my first encounter with them was about 5-6 years ago. I'm not surprised that the Cubans put something on 870. Not only do they seem to be keen to occupy every AM channel, but WWL throws a null at Havana. I discovered that a few years back when I was in Key West, where WWL was absent in the daytime and barely audible at night. That wouldn't have been the case without the null.

 

[gar hi]

Daytime - Nothing

Nighttime - Either nothing or a very weak signal usually not audible enough to ID but the times I've heard it come in just strong enough to understand, it's WWL.

 

[RyanHoward]

Warminster, PA(Philly 'burbs):

Daytime: mostly splatter from local 860 WWDB.
Night: either WHCU Ithaca, NY or WWL.

 

[Steve Green NEPA]

Daytime it often is the static from the wife's vacuum cleaner (I hardly ever DX with batteries in the GE SRII; I use the wall current).

One sunset, March 13 1995, WHCU Ithaca came in for a nice taped ID. Subsequent tunes-in indeed have WHCU as a faithful SSS 'regular'.

It'd be neat to snag that TN station, Great8. (O/T somewhat; but perhaps someone here would know
if SSS DXing in the summer is different/better than in the winter?)

Nighttimes it's WWL.

* * * * * * *

Long, long ago, in a DXing galaxy far far away, near JFK Airport in Queens, those two stations were logged, as was the aforementioned WKAR in Lansing one SSS. Don't ask how I ever cadged an 870 station at sunset; if I stood on my roof I could probably see WCBS 880's tower.
But a real treat was one overnight, 0430, when that super-local WCBS 880 was off -- as was WWL. A beautiful-music/MoR station was there, faint but steady. It was WHOA from Puerto Rico, in English.
WHOA had a jingle that actually went, ♫ Four-thirty ..... four-thirty ..... it's half past the hour of fourrrrrrrr .....♫ So that's how I know what time i logged them.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

Daytime, far West Houston - a very weak WWL. It makes a good test for radios - if it gets WWL, it is a good radio. If it doesn't, I pass on it.

Nighttime, of course, is dominated by WWL.

 

[davideduardo]

It makes a good test for radios - if it gets WWL, it is a good radio. If it doesn't, I pass on it.

And that is where you differ from the average, normal everyday listener: most of the rest of us would judge the appearance and the sound quality as the main benefits of a receiver... not whether it could pick up DX reception of waaaaay out of market stations.

 

[Steve Green NEPA]

Am thinking, David, that RBruce5 might've been talking about daytime reception on a test radio (?)

Plus, no one within 500 posts of here is an average, normal everyday listener anyway, or we wouldn't be here, lol

* * * * * * *

That said : Gotta ask, David, if WHOA 870 always had been an English-speaking station since it signed on.
And if/when they changed.

 

[davideduardo]

That said : Gotta ask, David, if WHOA 870 always had been an English-speaking station since it signed on.
And if/when they changed.

WHOA began in 1954 as an English station on 1400, owned by Carmina Méndez. In the early 60's it moved to 870, and was there until the station sold in 1990 to local broadcaster "Pichín" Román who took it Spanish as WQBS with a Dominican focused format.

Unlike Bob Hope's WBMJ, which did a pure mainland type Top 40 from 1968 to around 1973, WHOA was always an MOR community station aimed at "continentals" or non-Puerto Ricans resident on the Island. As that group shrank in the 80's, the format ran out of listeners.

The last non-religious English station in PR went silent about 18 months ago: WOSO on 1030. It was not making enough to pay the increased electric bills for its 10 kw transmitter and was "cut off" and never came back except as a temporary STA with a wire down the side of a condo building that did not perform.

 

[cyberdad]

Daytime, far West Houston - a very weak WWL. It makes a good test for radios - if it gets WWL, it is a good radio. If it doesn't, I pass on it..

My approach, as well, Bruce. My "test station" 40-odd miles northwest of Chicago is WMT. No WMT, no sale!

 

[gar hi]

Daytime, far West Houston - a very weak WWL. It makes a good test for radios - if it gets WWL, it is a good radio. If it doesn't, I pass on

I agree.

When I first got my Sangean PR-D5, I could get a nice listenable signal (with a little splatter from the local 860) all day every day even as far inland as Tampa.

Even the car radio couldn't do that.

But then something changed and WWL became barely audible below WGUL's splatter and could only be heard well out at the beaches.

The radio didn't change, so I still can't figure out why the drastic difference in daytime signal reception.

Could it be due to a big change in the salinity of the Gulf?

 

[radioman148]

My approach, as well, Bruce. My "test station" 40-odd miles northwest of Chicago is WMT. No WMT, no sale!

I agree and as a long time Chicago area resident Cyberdad I'm sure you remember when we could hear WOI, KWMT, WHO, and WJR during the daytime. Now I can't hear any of those during the day due to all the stations that have been put on those frequencies. In the case of WJR, it's the Portage, Indiana station that kills it for me during the day.

 

[gar hi]

I was looking at the Radio Locator daytime coverage map for WWL and now that we are able to zoom out and see greater distances, the coverage it shows for the Gulf coast of Florida is way conservative compared to my experience.

IMO, the immediate coastal area in central Florida should be well within the area called 'distant' and the area called 'local' should come close to Florida's west coast.

The daytime signal quality, minus the local splatter, is very good. Not 'local' but not far from that either.


http://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/patg?id=WWL-AM

 

[jim-satx]

Daytime here in S.A. is nothing but splatter from 860 KONO.

WWL pops up around sunset and has a fairly good signal at night with little fading. It still has to contend with some KONO splatter, though. Occasionally I'll hear faint tics from Radio Reloj underneath. On one occasion in in a partial null of WWL, I managed to catch a weak XEXM, "Radio Jerez."

At sunrise, I can usually catch XETAR in Guachochi when it signs on. The station features talk and local ethnic music that's different than the commercial Mexican music styles.

 

[cyberdad]

I agree and as a long time Chicago area resident Cyberdad I'm sure you remember when we could hear WOI, KWMT, WHO, and WJR during the daytime. Now I can't hear any of those during the day due to all the stations that have been put on those frequencies. In the case of WJR, it's the Portage, Indiana station that kills it for me during the day.

You're right. It's pretty much the same for me, 30 or so miles west of you. WHO is impossible with the local 1030 only a couple of miles away. WJR is effectively no longer do-able, although I can sometimes hear a carrier on 760. I can still sometimes hear WOI and KWMT under Grand Rapids and WAUK respectively, but not very often. I have to have the stronger occupant of the respective channels completely nulled, and conditions need to be completely optimum....usually in winter. WLW is another formerly common daytime catch for me that's turned into very tough duty. But not quite impossible....at least not yet. Ditto KTRS, which I predict will be "next to go".

 

[cyberdad]

I was looking at the Radio Locator daytime coverage map for WWL and now that we are able to zoom out and see greater distances, the coverage it shows for the Gulf coast of Florida is way conservative compared to my experience.

IMO, the immediate coastal area in central Florida should be well within the area called 'distant' and the area called 'local' should come close to Florida's west coast.

The daytime signal quality, minus the local splatter, is very good. Not 'local' but not far from that either.


http://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/patg?id=WWL-AM

I agree with you, Gar, about R-L. IME, WWL has always been rock solid on the drive from Sarasota to Naples on I-75. And on my latest visit, on the beach right in front of where we stay in Treasure Island, it was relatively easy to pull out WWL from under the nulled local 860 pest using the Superadio II.

 

[radioman148]

You're right. It's pretty much the same for me, 30 or so miles west of you. WHO is impossible with the local 1030 only a couple of miles away. WJR is effectively no longer do-able, although I can sometimes hear a carrier on 760. I can still sometimes hear WOI and KWMT under Grand Rapids and WAUK respectively, but not very often. I have to have the stronger occupant of the respective channels completely nulled, and conditions need to be completely optimum....usually in winter. WLW is another formerly common daytime catch for me that's turned into very tough duty. But not quite impossible....at least not yet. Ditto KTRS, which I predict will be "next to go".

I can still hear WLW and KTRS, but as you point out not nearly as well as years ago. Before WISN moved to 1130 in the mid 60s, I could hear WCAR in Detroit during the day.