• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

AM Frequency of the Week: 1540

cyberdad

cyberdad

Delayed this week for obvious reasons. But now that things are back to whatever passes for normal, let's continue our journey up the dial into the "home stretch". The question, therefore, this week is what are you guys hearing this day on 1540.....

At my home location northwest of Chicago, daytime it's not much of anything unless KXEL ma ,kes it in on daytime skywave. It's usually not in all day, but KXEL typically is audible for at least an hour after sunrise and also at least an hour before sunset. There's a 500 watt daytimer on 1540 northwest of Milwaukee (WTKM), but it's not audible for me.

At night, it's all KXEL. Typically, it's my best skywave signal, blowing out anything else that might be on the channel. BUT......just this past week, I tuned into 1540 a couple of hours before sunrise, and to my surprise KXEL was mixing with CHIN. I almost never hear CHIN, so my first thought was perhaps they were on day pattern or non-directional STA or something. Yet, I'm not sure about that because there was an unusually good path from the Toronto area. CHUM was on top of 1050 for the first time in years, and CFRB was also considerably stronger than usual. So I'm not sure.
 
Same here Cyberdad just a little SE of you I hear nothing during the day except the few times I've heard KXEL on daytime skywave. At night it's all KXEL with a strong signal. I can't remember when/if I've heard anything else at this location.
 
WTKM 1540 had a delightful Oldies Format when I heard it on my emergency WI trip. It faded in and out in the Union Grove area, but not a hint of KXEL in the middle part of the Day. KTGG 1540, the new AM K station East of The Mississippi, has moved to Okemos, MI and is diplexing the WJIM 1240 tower. It has a CCM/Talk Format. I haven't heard it yet. So you might hear that and not know what it is.
 
Last edited:
In Miami, it is ZNS with splatter from 1550, WRHC.
 
Warminster PA(Philly 'burbs):

Daytime: WNWR Philly(ethnic daytimer).
Night: either KXEL Waterloo IA or WPTR Albany NY. On occasions, the Bahamas station(ZNS)can be heard here.
 
cyberdad said:
Mrs. Cyberdad stopped for a night to visit a friend in Stuart, FL in January.
That's about 30-40 miles north of Palm Beach, IIRC.
Anyway, ZNS was present with a fair-good signal day and night.
Click to expand...
ZNS-3 on 810 comes in like a local in the Palm Beaches and simulcasts 1540 a lot if not fully.
 
I remember vacationing on NC's Outer Banks in 1995 trying to listen to some fine reggae from ZNS 1540 while having to null out KXEL.

And just looked at NF8M's night patterns for 1540. CHIN really stomps on KXEL's skywave in Ohio and Michigan. I would have thought as a former I-B, KXEL would have been afforded better protection than that. Is this because KXEL is a 50 kW operating on a Bahamian clear channel, unlike the 50 kWers on another former I-B channel like 1090 which I think was a U.S. clear under NARBA?
 
joebtsflk1 said:
This is off-topic other than the story's connection to 1540 and maybe a bit long, but here's why there isn't a KXEL-TV and how in 1953 the 50 kW giant lost out to the cross-town 1 kW upstart in Waterloo
Click to expand...

Good stuff, Joe. Thanks for posting.

When I worked at WHBF Radio-TV in the early and mid 1970s, a small market TV license had become a license to print money.A fact some in management freely admitted. In addition to the drama involved in how Goliath lost out to David, the story is an illustration of how, in fact, giving birth to a cash cow wasn't always easy. BTW, although WHBF-TV was licensed to the Illinois side of the Quad Cities, it was (and still is) a competitor to WOC since it signed on in 1950. The channel 4 signal reached into a good portion of the Waterloo-Cedar Rapids market. Albeit requiring a good antenna.
 
Last edited:
1540 is blank in Ottawa in the day, but a real mess at night, with CHIN, KXEL and Albany all coming in until Albany signs off. All 3 are about equal strength.
 
Daytime in S.A. is local KEDA, "Radio Jalapeño."

During sunset, sunrise and nighttime, XESTN "Radio Red" in Monterrey can be heard in the partial null of KEDA, and KXEL and KGBC sometimes weakly pop in for a while. KGBC is heard least often, and KXEL occasionally has a fairly decent signal.

At sunrise KZMP, a regional Mexican music station in University Park (near Dallas), can be heard when it goes to day power.
 
In Cincinnati. There's (You guessed it) None in the daytime. But, In the nighttime There's Mostly KXEL, One time I got CHIN, and other nights There's a scrambled up mess.
Daytime : None.
Nighttime : KXEL, and CHIN.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom