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AM Frequency of the week: 1200

cyberdad

cyberdad

Far northwest suburban Chicago.....

Day: WRTO (Chicago) with a good signal, even though th3 20kw signal is not particularly favorable to me.

Night: WRT0 drops to 4500 watts and a different pattern. Still not particularly favorable, but good enough for it to mix at fairly equal strength with WOAI. Null one and in comes the other.

Sunrise/Sunset: Rare, but I've heard CFGO (50kw Ottawa) a couple of times with WRTO nulled. Presumably on day pattern around sunset.

Other Location: The WRTO night pattern favors the north, so in Wisconsin (at least the eastern half) WRTO is strong enough to reliably be on top of WOAI
 
In the near north Chicago suburbs WRTO has a pretty good daytime signal. At night WRTO mixes with WOAI. I can also partially null WRTO and hear WOAI better at night. I have heard CFGO a couple of times.

Retro: Before WRTO came on the air WOAI was clear as can be. In the early 60s, WOAI was the only station in the US on 1200.
 
Here around Columbus, Ohio at night, not much of anything. A TIS station once occupied this frequency several years ago, but I don't remember hearing it recently.
WOAI barely makes it up here anymore. I've heard it on cold nights, but forget it during the summer.
When I lived in League City, Texas, a southeast suburb of Houston, WOAI was pretty weak daytime and never all that strong at night in my experience. Maybe I was on the edge of their cancellation zone.
 
radioman148 said:
Retro: Before WRTO came on the air WOAI was clear as can be. In the early 60s, WOAI was the only station in the US on 1200.
Click to expand...

It's probably safe to say WOAI is yet another "50KW I-A clear" that isn't getting out quite as well as it used to. But with WRTO "butting in" locally, along with higher ambient noise levels on the band, it's a little hard to say that with certainty. That said, however, I do remember WOAI as being one of the stronger skywave signals out there when it had 1200 all to itself.
 
Although I'm real casual about DX nowadays in the new digs, I actually have as many 1200's logged (4) as I did through all those DX years near Kennedy Airport in Queens.

Daytime -- a weak but faithful WRAK Williamsport
WSML from NC was a sunset catch.

WAGE from VA was a SSS/Nighttime nab.

WOAI often pops out of the racket at night. I wonder how many of the 15 stations listed nowadays on 1200 were owned by Clear Channel, lol.

* * * * * * *

Retro:
My wife-to-be and I were driving through east Brooklyn one night. The car had a decent AM radio -- a 1972 Nova thing. And while tuned to 1200 to some music station there and yakking about the scenery and history and architecture, she stopped me with: 'Shut the (heck) up.'
The radio spit out the ID 'CFGO. Ottawa'.

I had never logged CFGO there before.

The girl might have some promise as a DXer.
 
Here in Wood Dale, IL in the near NW suburb of Chicago:

Daytime: WRTO with their 20kW transmitter from Chicago's West Pullman neighborhood
Nightime: WRTO, but WOAI possible with partial null of WRTO

DX/RETRO: Prior to 1988 when WMXA come on the air, WOIA was the station that ruled the frequency in the Chicago area. Other frequent visitors were KFNW (West Fargo, ND), and CFGO (Ottawa, ON). Also heard on this frequency in the 80's/90's were WBCE (Wickliffe, KY), WKOX (Framingham, MA), WAGE (Leesburg, VA). YVOZ (Caracas, Venezuela) the only foreign station I ever heard on this frequency.
 
Warminster PA(Philly 'burbs):

Nothing but IBOC hash from local 1210 WPHT. Before WPHT adopted IBOC:

Daytime: zippo.
Night: WAGE from Leesburg VA, now WCRW on 1190. Occasionally, WOAI was heard here.
 
Daytime - nothing

Nighttime - WOAI much of the time but I don't think I'd call it a regular like WBAP because it's not as consistent and not as strong a signal which is a surprise, being that it's a much higher frequency.

There's another station there too in the background but far too weak to ID because it's never even strong enough to make out exact words.
 
Daytime: nothing. WRTO from Chicago on rare occasion but I think that's been a case of daytime skywave.

Nighttime: Most often WOAI or WRTO or a mix of the two. I have heard CFGO on occasion, as well as KFNW West Fargo, ND. I've also gotten other stuff in recent times that I know wasn't WOAI or WRTO but haven't been able to ID it (may have just been KFNW). This has become a less predictable frequency for me in recent years.

Retro: (at night): almost always WOAI, often quite strong.
 
All day and night it’s local WOAI. Often at sunset and nighttime I can get very small N/S partial null in which I can hear a weak XEQJAL in Jalpan de Serra.
 
Yesterday morning, WRTO was off during the pre-dawn hours.

As expected, that opened things up for WOAI, which had a fair-good signal. Underneath, and emerging with WOAI nulled, was a weak signal that I couldn't positively ID. It was a monologue, in English. I did hear the word "roster" a couple of times, so I assumed sports talk and CFGO. But I can't say with certainty. If if was CFGO, it's likely the first time I ever heard them on their night pattern.
 
Cyberdad, it was undoubtedly CFGO, because here's how it works: you go for years expecting to catch a station and you never (or rarely) do, then you talk about it on this board and then a few days later it happens. Voila! That's how I caught KNBR a few years ago.
 
I used to listen to what was then WOPA and later WLXX Chicago when I lived in Iowa in the 90's, and every fall, CFGO would blast in afternoons and blow them off the dial. They were Energy 1200 back then, and it was nice to hear a voice from home that played new music.
 
1200 in Chicago started as WMXA in 1988 with 9 tower array at 104th & I-94. They were 10 kW during the day and 1kW at night. In 1989 they changed calls to WOPA. Later they became WLXX (around 1995). For a brief time in 2003 they also used WVIV calls before becoming WRTO at the end of 2003. WRTO moved their transmitter site in 2010 to Chicago's West Pullman neighborhood at 127th and South Wntworth Avenue, where they currently use a 6-tower array with 20kW during the day and 4.5 kW at night. Prior to them moving to their current site it was much easier to null their signal with a loop antenna at night. Sometimes WOAI would overpower their night signal in my location. After their upgrade its not the case anymore.
 
icybluelake said:
Cyberdad, it was undoubtedly CFGO, because here's how it works: you go for years expecting to catch a station and you never (or rarely) do, then you talk about it on this board and then a few days later it happens. Voila! That's how I caught KNBR a few years ago.
Click to expand...

Amen! It's happened to me a few times as well
 
Nobody's mentioned KYAA Soquel, CA yet. Dominant here in the SF Bay Area, and probably vastly unknown anywhere else, even though, as Immaculate Heart Radio, they should be destructively overpowering more heathen stations.

WOAI has been heard here, back when "Three's Company" was a #1 TV show.
 
NoMoreLurking said:
Nobody's mentioned KYAA Soquel, CA yet. Dominant here in the SF Bay Area, and probably vastly unknown anywhere else, even though, as Immaculate Heart Radio, they should be destructively overpowering more heathen stations.

WOAI has been heard here, back when "Three's Company" was a #1 TV show.
Click to expand...

KYAA is a critical hours catch here in Phoenix, AZ, especially in the pre-dawn hours. Haven’t listened to it in a while since they switched their format from oldies, but back when they were oldies, I used to listen to it often. From what I remember, KYAA would come in pretty good here in Phoenix, especially after sunrise.

In the middle of the night, WOAI is on top, but not as clear as one would expect for a clear channel station. Surprisingly, the Dallas clear channels, KRVN and KOKC usually come in better than WOAI.
 
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