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AM Frequency of the Week: 580

cyberdad

cyberdad

40 miles northwest of downtown Chicago.....

Days: WILL. Fair-weak. 5kw from Champaign, IL....about 130 miles south of me.

Nights: Mix of very weak unidentifiable signals. WKTY ("Katy at 580") is most likely to rise to the top.

Other Locations: This past January, after years of trying, I finally heard WDBO (Orlando) daytime at our gulf location on the Florida-Alabama state line. I guess all I needed was the Superadio-II and an unobstructed east-facing location. Usually there, I get a very weak signal from the 580 in Albany, GA. This time I was able to null that and hear an (also) very weak, but easy to identify WDBO on a daily basis. There was daytime skywave for a couple of days during my stay, but I heard WDBO every day, so I assume the (mostly) saltwater path was responsible.

Retro: Back home, 580 used to be a great place to hear Canada. CKY, Winnipeg fairly regularly, but also CKPR (Thunder Bay, ON), and CKAP (Kapaskasing, ON) were occsaional visitors. The latter two were from western Ontario, north of Lake Superior. All three are now gone from the AM band.
 
Near north Chicago suburbs WILL is fair/good during the day both home & in the car. At night not much is heard.

Retro: CKY was pretty regular and in the 90s they played a nice mix of music with some oldies as I remember.
 
radioman148 said:
Retro: CKY was pretty regular and in the 90s they played a nice mix of music with some oldies as I remember.
Click to expand...

CKY was all oldies by the mid-90s. At one point, Burton Cummings, lead singer of The Guess Who, was doing afternoon drive. He was a real treat to listen to....and an excellent broadcaster. He was even good at reading commercials, weather forecasts, etc. What really made him stand out was that he was a fantastic storyteller and super-knowledgeable about pop music. No shortage of on-air conversations with music biz figures from performers to producers and executives. On top of all that, he was a serious record collector, who'd bring in stuff from his own library and play it on the air. Loads of "inside baseball"....and a 50KW day signal that penetrated at least 150 miles into North Dakota and Minnesota.
 
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Thanks for jogging my memory Cyberdad. I went up to Northern Minnesota a few times in the 80s when my daughter went to overnight camp there. That was the first time I heard CKY extensively. At that time I think they were mixing in oldies with some currents. What I really liked was many of the oldies that they played were from Canadian groups--songs that I had never heard. Later on I remember hearing some of Burton Cummings excellent show.
 
East Tennessee: WYHM, Rockwood, TN days.
Nights is a hodge-podge but I've often heard WCHS, Charleston, WV

On the newly reconfigured KiwiSDR in south of Indianapolis.
Days: WILL. Nights: WCHS, WELO Tupelo MS, WIBW, Topeka. One time log of WTCM, Traverse City but that was funky daytime skip.

Retro: western Ohio was a mix of WILL and WCHS. CKWW would occasionally sneak south and WIBW especially around sunrise and sunset. WILL dominated in Lafayette, IN...they even did some advertising there.
 
gr8oldies said:

WILL dominated in Lafayette, IN...they even did some advertising there.
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Maybe they were trying to launch a ratings war with WBAA. The battle of state university owned public radio stations! LOL :)
 
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Kenosha, WI Days- WILL Urbana, IL with an OK signal, certainly listenable. A good portable can null it to hear WTCM Traverse City MI.

Nights- most commonly WIBW, CKWW, or WKTY. A few mornings in March, just before sunrise, I heard WCHS Charleston WV all alone on the car radio.
 
Another retro 580 - CKPR - super regional up in Canada - going much farther than the radio locator maps indicate. It was a great top-40 about 50 years ago, but it ID'd itself as "Ft. William / Port Arthur", not "Thunder Bay".
 
rbrucecarter5 said:
Another retro 580 - CKPR - super regional up in Canada - going much farther than the radio locator maps indicate. It was a great top-40 about 50 years ago, but it ID'd itself as "Ft. William / Port Arthur", not "Thunder Bay".
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The two cities merged and took the name "Thunder Bay"
 
Daytime in NW San Antonio: XEMU is almost local-like.

Nighttime: XEMU is still fairly strong but subject to fading and can often be nulled. In the null, news talker KRFE in Lubbock pops up most often. WIBW is sometimes heard weakly, as is XEAV in Tlaquepaque, which often plays American classic hits. On rare occasions I've heard KJMJ "Radio Maria" in Alexandria, LA, under XEMU.
 
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Houston: At sunset. it is sometimes possible to get WDBO Orlando before they go nighttime pattern.
 
North of Atlanta; WGAC hiding behind the buckshot from 590-WDWD. WGAC is usually just a carrier, but produces some audio on colder winter days.

At night or at sunset, WIBW, WILL, WACQ and WELO.
 
The pretty-loud WHP Harrisburg PA is the midday regular.
Their omni daytime pattern is probably the reason why neighboring WARM 590 in Scranton sent very little this way.
WHP is inedible at night here. I've heard WCHS from WV coming in a few times.

Retro: WTAG Worcestor MA was the faint daytime catch back near JFK Airport. WHP was a real toughie to hear. Usually they'd be there at SSS, but hardly ever at night.
One goodie we did log one morning back then -- it was just starting to get light out -- was an ID from WIBW Topeka.
 
Daytime: a whisper from 580 KUBC Montrose CO. The trip east across 120 miles of low-conductivity mountainous terrain effectively kills the signal. Nearby 590 KCSJ Pueblo has a signal with remarkably clean sidebands keeping the adjacent channel splatter to a minimum.

A retro entry for deleted 580 KKSU Manhattan KS, the long-time ST partner of WIBW Topeka. WIBW was readable in southern Iowa in the daytime, so was KKSU, just noticeably weaker with its location 50 miles further west.
 
Daytime - nothing

Nighttime - KMJ Fresno

Since they have a directional signal to the west, I'm wondering how far to the east they've ever been heard at night.
 
hawaiigar said:
Daytime - nothing

Nighttime - KMJ Fresno

Since they have a directional signal to the west, I'm wondering how far to the east they've ever been heard at night.
Click to expand...

Years ago, heard them in Cleveland, OH.
 
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