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AM Frequency of the week: 670

cyberdad

cyberdad

Far northwest suburban Chicago....

Day: WSCR is arguably the strongest Chicago signal at my location...or at least in a three-way tie with WGN and WBBM. 50kw from 25 miles to my southeast.

Night: All WSCR (Duh!). When they've been off for maintenance or whatever, I've usually heard R. Rebelde. I also am pretty sure I've heard YVLL from Venezuela (R. Rumbos) with their unique sounder coming through the noise.

Other Location: At our beach getaway location 23 miles southeast of Pensacola, it's R. Rebelede 24/7. Strong enough to dominate the channel. Usually, R. Rebelde is alone, but sometimes WSCR surfaces in the background or more rarely even breaks through on top. I've also heard R. Rumbos sneak in a few times.

From my own experience and as confirmed by others, WSCR is generally listenable nighttime to about the southern border of Tennessee and adjacent areas before Rebelde takes over.
 
East Tennessee: We used to have a semi-local in WMTY, Farragut (operated ot of Sweetwater and simulcast with 98.3 (except Sundays when the FM ran block programmed religion while the AM continued with Scott Shannon's True Oldies Channel. The land the towers for WMTY and WKVL-850 was sold out from under them and both stations went off the air at the end of 2014. WMTY turned in their license; WKVL came back on with 1KW a day short of the expiration of its STA. Otherwise, at night it's WSCR and/or the Rebelde Chorus depending on whether or not auroral conditions are in place. I have heard the Rebeldes wreaking havoc on WSCR even as close in as the SDR south of Columbus, Indiana
 
Yakima WA

Daytime - Very weak KBOI Boise (News/Talk) at approximately 300 miles.
Nighttime - KBOI dominates. Once in a while, KMZQ Las Vegas (Conservative Talk, ex-SB Nation Sports) will leave their day stick on at night, and they will be dominant under KBOI. WSCR Chicago (Sports) is heard once in a while but not at the strength of WGN and WBBM. Radio Rebelde Cuba is heard once in a while too. One-time log of KIRN Simi Valley CA (Iranian programming) during aurora. And they beam NOTHING towards me! Most of the pattern goes towards Baja and the ocean.
KLTT Commerce City CO (Christian Talk) was just heard at sunrise back in October.

The only one I really want on 670, is KDLG Dillingham AK. After finally hearing KICY and KFQD in the late Oct/early Nov splurge of TP activity, this one would be a nice 'three's-a-charm' log from AK. Salmon capitol of the world!
 
From SE AZ, nothing in daylight. Night:

KMZQ Las Vegas NV Talk
KLTT Commerce City CO Religion
 
In the near north Chicago suburbs it's all WSCR "strong" day and night. In the few instances when I have caught them off the air I have heard Cuba.
This station was once one of four Chicago clear channels. Now it's a fairly crowded frequency at night in some places. I've heard it a few times on
the Northern Ireland SDR over the years, but usually Cuba and other stations come in over WSCR on that receiver.

Retro/other: In 1963 when I went to the west coast for the first time on a family trip, 670 then WMAQ, was the first of the Chicago 1A Clears that I heard out there.
It was a good thing I heard it then because soon after that KBOI went on the air and I never heard Chicago's 670 out west after that.
Also back in the 60s and 70s when WMAQ signed off for maintenance on Monday mornings that was the best time to listen for KNBR in the Chicago area.
 
Here in Wood Dale, IL in the near NW suburb of Chicago:

Daytime: WSCR
Nightime: WSCR

DX/RETRO: the only other reception on this frequency has been done with WSCR (WMAQ) being off the air. Until 2012 the only other station I heard on 670 was Cuba. Then on March 10, 2012 there was a coordinated silent period by the 3 big ones (WSCR, WGN, WBBM) for testing purposes. All three stations went off the air for about 3 hours in the early morning hours. As part of this event some DXer convinced KBOI to run morse code IDs during this period. Unfortunately the propagation conditions that night were very poor. I did manage to hear very weak signal with KBOI code ID resulting in my only Idaho station heard at my location. Also heard during the same time was WWFE (Miami, FL) and of course the ever present Cuban.
 
On 3/10/2012, we were in the midst of massive aurora, thus conditions were almost non-existent to the west or east. The September 2017 Au here was similar to what was experienced in March 2012 - wipeout of everything except California, Nevada, Arizona, Mexico. I haven't heard XEX-730 since that Au!
 
Three 'regulars' re in the log here, that all.

Days: WLUI from Lewistown PA. They're in mid-state, Near State College. 5000-watt daytimer. I have em as WIEZ.
Those might've been their original calls upon sign-on.

Nights: WSCR (I'm showing my age a bit when I admit as having logged them as WMAQ)
Also nites is a logging and tape from those rebellious rascals in Cuba.

What I wouldn't give to hear KBOI -- or ANYTHING from Idaho. Even during all those DXing years in NYC, I never heard one Idaho station
 
Steve Green NEPA said:
Three 'regulars' re in the log here, that all.

Days: WLUI from Lewistown PA. They're in mid-state, Near State College. 5000-watt daytimer. I have em as WIEZ.
Those might've been their original calls upon sign-on.

Nights: WSCR (I'm showing my age a bit when I admit as having logged them as WMAQ)
Also nites is a logging and tape from those rebellious rascals in Cuba.

What I wouldn't give to hear KBOI -- or ANYTHING from Idaho. Even during all those DXing years in NYC, I never heard one Idaho station
Click to expand...

Same here in the Philly 'burbs(Warminster, PA), WLUI by day, WSCR by night.
 
Daytime in NW San Antonio is heavy-duty splatter courtesy of 50 kW 680 KKYX, which is about 15 miles SW of me.

At night KKYX goes to 10 kW directional; however, the splatter is still very bad.

To the NW, a weak WSCR can often be heard popping in an out of the noise. Sometimes instead I'll hear a weak KHGZ "Caddo Country" in Glenwood, AR, which is supposedly a daytimer. The mwlist.org site lists that station's hours as 1300-0100, so maybe it's on an afternoon/evening schedule?

Aiming NW/SE I can mitigate the splatter somewhat, especially when using a radio with narrow bandwidth filters or a sync detector. Radio Rebelde usually has a fairly decent signal, and KLTT sometimes mixes in. At sunrise, KLTT has a stronger signal and is the only station that can be heard.
 
From the south end of the Kansas City metro:

Day: A weak WSCR can be heard on occasion during the winter months. I recently started a thread on reception of a stronger daytime skywave signal from WSCR [413 miles.]

Critical Hours: In the morning, it is WSCR until KLTT switches to 50kW of daytime power. I will then receive KLTT for about 1.5-2.0 hours after my local sunrise time. In the afternoon or evening, it is a strong WSCR [occasionally with KLTT underneath] during winter beginning around 3:00pm local time.

Night: Early in the evening, it is typically a strong WSCR. However, on most evenings by 9:00pm local time WSCR gradually disappears and then, all I often hear on 670 kHz is fading until morning. This is a real surprise to me since I would appear to be at a near optimum skip distance for WSCR. On rare occasion, I have heard Cuba but that signal is typically weak.

Bob
 
From the west side of Houston, similar to Jim in SATX at night I get WSCR usually on top, with Rebelde when conditions favor the south. WSCR doesn't seem as strong as it used to be.

I hear KLTT at sunrise, with WSCR hanging in there longer this time of year.
 
In the summer nothing during the day. In the winter WSCR pretty much all day ranging from weak to moderate. At night WSCR dominates.
 
From Reynoldsburg, Ohio ...
* Daytime: Nothing -unless- the last remnants of WSCR's groundwave make it this far. This is a fairly common occurrence in the winter, especially if there's snow on the ground between here and Chicago. Line of sight, I'm right about 305 miles east-southeast of the transmitter.
* Nighttime: Always WSCR, unless it's a night where the Cuban signals are particularly strong. That doesn't happen as much as it used to. There were nights in the mid-90s that Cuba would be so strong that it would completely blot out then-WMAQ and not even a turn of the radio would make a difference. That usually happened earlier in the evening, especially inconvenient for this displaced Chicago sports fan if he was trying to listen to the Jordan-era Bulls.
That still happens sometimes, but not all that frequently. If it does, the two signals are even in strength and a turn of the radio does help.
All of that said, I found at times that the interference from Cuba wasn't nearly as bad in northern and northwest Ohio for whatever reason. I can remember driving back from Toledo the night before Thanksgiving in 2000 and listening to a Hawks game on what by then was WSCR. It was a solid listen for a while but the Cuban interference started ramping up about an hour north of Columbus. Any farther south, it was a mess.
 
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