AM Frequency of the Week: 870

[rbrucecarter5]

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

From what I remember, it even made it to the East Coast of Florida during the day. Really impressive coverage - although the ground conductivity was helping a lot.

It almost sounds like a local in Galveston, especially the beach. The old WNOE was also impressive on the beach - almost local. For those that didn't like McLendon censorship of top-40, it was a welcome change.

 

[davideduardo]

The old WNOE was also impressive on the beach - almost local. For those that didn't like McLendon censorship of top-40, it was a welcome change.

1060 is now silent. It may have made it to Galveston, but there were big parts of NOLA that it covered poorly. And the Govna' could never get that one "fixed".

 

[radioman148]

From what I remember, it even made it to the East Coast of Florida during the day. Really impressive coverage - although the ground conductivity was helping a lot.

It almost sounds like a local in Galveston, especially the beach. The old WNOE was also impressive on the beach - almost local. For those that didn't like McLendon censorship of top-40, it was a welcome change.

WNOE was a good station back in the day. It used to make it up to the Chicago area in the fall and winter before sunset when they reduced power.

 

[charlestondxman]

WWL was one of the first clear channels that I remember getting in SC, when I started listening to AM radio about 1999 or so. It gets interference here now, but usually it is very good at night.

My experience is that I have gotten WWL at Madeira Beach, but WGUL interferes with it. If that WGUL wasn't there, WWL would be easy copy throughout the Tampa Bay region, similar to what WOKV is, but over a longer distance. WOKV comes in every day as far as Wilmington, NC well and at the Outer Banks on the south facing beaches.

Talking about New Orleans, 620 WDAE is another signal that is huge. I've heard them in the French Quarter with a Walkman radio in the daytime. I've also heard them at Edisto Beach, maybe 25-30 mi SW of Charleston in the daytime. 620 gets interfered with WBMQ here (like a local in the daytime), but with professional equipment, you can definitely hear WDAE under the station from the Columbia area in Charleston.

820 from Tampa comes in here daytime.

 

[joebtsflk1]

Likewise when I discovered the world of AM DX as a kid, WWL stands out as the last station before the tunes on WLS on my pocket transistor radio. Even into the 70s, long past the end of broadcast cigarette advertising, the time checks still stand out: "WWL King Edward Cigar time is (chime) 9:40"

 

[Smittian]

Likewise when I discovered the world of AM DX as a kid, WWL stands out as the last station before the tunes on WLS on my pocket transistor radio. Even into the 70s, long past the end of broadcast cigarette advertising, the time checks still stand out: "WWL King Edward Cigar time is (chime) 9:40"

I remember that as well when listening to Dave Nemo's "Road Gang" overnight show on WWL

 

[cyberdad]

Even into the 70s, long past the end of broadcast cigarette advertising, the time checks still stand out: "WWL King Edward Cigar time is (chime) 9:40"

Now THERE'S a blast from the past! And don't forget WWL's equally ubiquitous similar plugs for Delta Airlines.

 

[cyberdad]

I remember that as well when listening to Dave Nemo's "Road Gang" overnight show on WWL

I remember Charlie Douglas as the host of the "Road Gang" overnight show.

But my favorite show on WWL was the "New Orleans Jazz Club" or (similarly named group) which had a Sunday Night program of traditional classic jazz. Historic recordings with commentary. At least in the late '60s, the traditional jazz genre also took over the WWL format for the three or four days leading up to Mardi Gras.

 

[charlestondxman]

WWL has been talk/news/sports for probably 30 years now, but I always liked it because of its distinctive New Orleans flavor. The LSU games; high school football scoreboards on Friday nights; and the late night trucking shows.

 

[kf4rca]

Can't say "Govna" on this board.

That translates to a four letter word in Russian and other slavic languages.
Its WWL here loud and clear with ocassional ticks in the background. They must have a fantastic ground system. 100% ground conductivity.
My brother (used to live there) says when they drilled to set an electric pole, chunks of mud fall off the drill.
Wish I could bottle up that ground conductivity and sell it to the AM's around here.

 

[Steve Green NEPA]

I hope I'm not too far off-base or off-topic here with a memory. It's just that I keep reading about 'WGUL' and 'WDAE', and well, to me, such abuse of call letters is blasphemy.

IIrc, it was 1971 when I travelled to Florida and wanted to stay there for a while, drink Cactus Cooler, and not have to scrape ice off any windshield I owned. Kevin Jeffrey Holzapfel was a pal of mine, and said they were looking for a DJ or two at WGUL. I actually made a pretty decent career following the late, lamented, creative-character 'Kevin Jeffries' around, perhaps getting 14 years of employment replacing him at two nice jobs.

Anyway, the WGUL I visited for a peek around was just off Highway 19. At the time, New Port Richey was largely undeveloped. It looked like some Oklahoma prairie with palm trees. Highway 19 was over a decade away from turning into the Autobahn it is today.

Well, WGUL was a daytimer on 1500. It also had an FM on 105.1 (?) that no one spoke very much about.
And now I see the calls are on 860.
Up until the Eighties, 860 had been WAZE Clearwater! 'Tampa Bay's 86 ways'.

Don't get me started on 'WDAE', either, lol. Back in the days when I first fell in love with Florida, there were three MoR/Chicken-rock stations in the market: WSUN 620, WFLA 970, and WDAE 1250.
Those were fun times to be in love with radio. I just sort of have to wince a bit when I see those grand calls being traded like Topp's Curt Flood baseball cards. Sigh.

* * * * * * *

I think it's pretty universal that WWL is the nighttime regular for a lot of time zones, lol.

 

[cyberdad]

1060 is now silent. It may have made it to Galveston, but there were big parts of NOLA that it covered poorly.

I've posted before about WWL's "local quality" signal on the beach where we regularly visit in the Pensacola area. From a distance of 150 miles. 1060 was almost as good. At least when it was WNOE. Not quite so much afterwards. I'd tune in regularly during the several years during their life as a country station when they were on the Chicago Cubs network. The night signal was listenable as well. Pretty much the same story on 690 for WTIX and successors prior to Katrina.

 

[Art Landing]

"Back in the day" - that is, before 1980, I had occasion to pick up WWL on a rent a car radio in Virginia - in those days the station out of New Orleans was always available on car radios in Los Angeles after the then daytime-only KIEV went off the air. I wonder, were car radios forty years ago superior or is lessened DX reception today simply the result of other changes, such as FCC failure to control the impact of wi-fi and cell phones, or perhaps automated transmitters and reduced engineering staff?

 

[rbrucecarter5]

That translates to a four letter word in Russian and other slavic languages.

I doubt anybody but you knows or even cares. I don't think Engiish speaking people can be held responsible for every accidental combination of spelling / pronunciation that might exist elsewhere in the world. Ikea regularly discovers that their made up words offend somebody. Guess what? It is impossible to go through life without regularly, unintentionally, offending somebody. They need to get a thicker skin and get over it!

 

[kf4rca]

Lighten up!

More people know Russian than you think. Dah??? Spacibah.
I've heard that digital radios have more LO (local oscillator) noise than analog. This is due to the LO being used to drive the frequency display. The LO noise gets into the tuned signal and de-senses the radio. Now, I don't have any test equipment to confirm this and surely not all radios are created equal.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

More people know Russian than you think. Dah??? Spacibah.
I've heard that digital radios have more LO (local oscillator) noise than analog. This is due to the LO being used to drive the frequency display. The LO noise gets into the tuned signal and de-senses the radio. Now, I don't have any test equipment to confirm this and surely not all radios are created equal.

The local oscillator cannot be used directly to display the frequency, because it would read the frequency plus the IF frequency. There are little add-on modules that do the math, but they are a bit pricey. Most radios do not use a frequency counter technique. They just use software to determine the frequency based on the instructions being sent to the DAC programming the voltage, and drive the display appropriately.

As far as Russian being understood - most people know the "g_vna" word from the movie Mary Poppins, which is how Bert the chimney sweep addresses Mr. Banks. If the g-word offends you, I recommend you do not watch Mary Poppins.

 

[davideduardo]

I I don't think Engiish speaking people can be held responsible for every accidental combination of spelling / pronunciation that might exist elsewhere in the world. Ikea regularly discovers that their made up words offend somebody.

However, international marketers need to be sensitive to the obvious offenses that might affect sales in some areas of the globe.

The producers of "Free Willy" were smart enough to change the name for the UK and Ireland.

GM was not smart enough to realize that "Nova" meant "does not go" in Spanish.

Mitsubishi introduced a model in Puerto Rico called the "Cricket", a name which was pronounced in the Caribbean norm of dropping final consonants and sounded just like the slang word for female genitals. They did not sell very many.

 

[gr8oldies]

It wasn't all that long ago when some international marketer (I forget the U.S. brand) translated a type of brown to "(N-word) Brown". People were blaming the U.S. brand which had nothing to do with it, and an online crap-storm ensued.

Rule #1. Don't use Google Translate for any professional purpose