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AM Frequency of the week 1130

cyberdad

cyberdad

One of the more interesting frequencies for me here in the far northwest suburban Chicago.....

Day: WISN, Milwaukee. Good signal 50kw mostly aimed north.

Night: WISN powers down to 10kw, tightens the pattern (9 towers) and disappears completely. The result is that 1130 around here is relatively open. Despite the abundance of big signals on the channel....including the one in "my backyard". WBBR is the one most likely to land on top, but sometimes it's WDFN, KWKH, or...even more rarely...WISN. On a handful of occasions CKWX comes through and takes over. KTLK (Minneapolis-St. Paul) has a 9-tower night setup of their own and 25kw. It's been several years since I've heard it here at night, however.

Sunrise/Sunset: During critical hours, WISN is still strong. But not strong enough to prevent signals from intruding underneath. WDFN is the most likely of those to intrude. KTLK and KWKH sometimes also come in.

Retro: 1130 is where I got my first introduction to daytime skywave, as a teenager. WISN hadn't come on the channel yet (they were still on 1150). So one Saturday morning, I was hearing top 40 from (then) WDGY, Minneapolis. Weak, but fairly steady and listenable into the afternoon.
 
Laramie, WY (SE corner of the state)

During the day: Nothing

At sunset/right after sunset: KQNA Prescott, AZ and sometimes KXET Mount Angel, OR

After dark: CKWX Vancouver and sometimes KXET
 
In the near north Chicago suburbs during the day it's WISN with a good signal. At night WISN disappears and WBBR can most often be heard. Others I have heard are KWKH, KTLK, and WDFN.

Retro: way back before WISN moved to 1130, on a good radio during the day I could hear Detroit, (at that time WCAR) weak, but in there daytime on a good radio.
WDGY would come in afternoon critical hours usually in the late fall & early winter.
 
From 25 miles SW of Kansas City:

I really am in "no man's land" with this frequency at my location.

Day: Nothing, totally quiet.

Critical Hours: KWKH when they are on daytime power and pattern.

Night: Nothing identifiable as yet and I have tried. KWKH totally disappears on nighttime power and pattern. Usually, just fading.

Bob
 
Forgot to mention....

Newcomers here might not remember (or remember reading about) KWKH being on an STA operating at 12.5kw non-directional. During that time span several years ago, and lasting for about a year, IIRC, KWKH was heard with regularity far more widely than it is now. Here, NW of Chicago without much to block it, KWKH became something of a nighttime regular with a fair-good signal.
 
cyberdad said:
Forgot to mention....

Newcomers here might not remember (or remember reading about) KWKH being on an STA operating at 12.5kw non-directional. During that time span several years ago, and lasting for about a year, IIRC, KWKH was heard with regularity far more widely than it is now. Here, NW of Chicago without much to block it, KWKH became something of a nighttime regular with a fair-good signal.
Click to expand...

I had forgotten about that. Yes during that time KWKH was heard in the midwest most nights.
 
Chicago by the lakefront: During the daytime, WISN comes in pretty well. At night, it's WBBR, coming in reasonably well as is typical for a 50KW New York City station. I believe I have also heard WISN at night. Unlike the other Chicago area people I haven't heard any other stations on this frequency.
 
East Tennessee: Daytime-really nothing
Randon daytime skip: Occasionally WDFN. Sunset has brought a strong WISN.
Night-wasn't quite sure so I did a spot check and found WBBR atop the channel.

Retro/other: Dayton, Ohio area. WEDI (the former WCTM--Stan Coning's beautiful music AM) fair to middlin'...simulcasting with WBZI-1500/100.3 and WKFI-1090. When Coning owned WEDI he would stay off the air Sundays (and during his illness, the station spent a lot of time off the air), a weak WDFN would make it in.
 
Here in the near NW suburb of Chicago:

Daytime: WISN
Nightime: WBBR most likely, KWKH, WDFN also make it in occasionally

DX/Retro/etc: otehrs heard include KMBR (Bismarck, ND), WDGY (Minneapolis, MN), WLBA (Gainsville, GA), and the foreigners Radio Rio Mar (Barranquilla, Colombia) and Radio Ideal (Caraballedo, Venezuela).

Also the 1134 kHz split frequency would provide a good chance to hear the blowtorch from Zadar, Croatia. Heard couple of times in the Chicago area, with the best reception on December 27, 1997. Excellent signal which was even heard on my portable ICF 2010 on that day just with the radio's built in antenna. Unfortunately the station is no longer on the air.
 
That's terrific DXing on a somewhat hostile frequency, Cyberdad.
Both coasts PLUS the Gulf Coast!

Here in the new digs of NE PA in the day (and at night) it's WBBR from NYC. The fellow across the street, the late Mike Bolinsky, was a DXer of sorts -- mostly of the scanned-scanner type. He was fooled a bit by WBBR's signal out this way, suggesting that he was hearing Bloomsburg radio out of the nearby town with the same name.

At one sunrise occasion WDFN Detroit came in and bothered them. Lol -- the date for that logging here was 12-12-12.

* * * * * * *

In the old digs back near JFK Airport in Queens NYC, mid-late 60's, I heard both Detroit (then as WCAR) and WDGY Minneapolis in rare WNEW absences. As was the case here, Detroit used to give WNEW fits on the *car* radio in the morning -- in places like Valley Stream and Laurelton.
For your general interest. If there is any general interest.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurelton,_Queens#/map/0

WDGY was real, real faint that sole overnight I logged them. There was mention -- true or apochryphal? -- that WDGY's incredible north signal was once heard, over both poles, in Argentina?

Never ever heard WISN though. From either location, Queens or here
 
Steve Green NEPA said:
WDGY was real, real faint that sole overnight I logged them. There was mention -- true or apochryphal? -- that WDGY's incredible north signal was once heard, over both poles, in Argentina?
Click to expand...

I never heard about WDGY skipping over both poles, but north pole is certainly plausible.

I'm pretty sure that WDGY had a different pattern than the current incarnation of the Minneapolis 1130, KTLK. When I was in my early and mid teens, we had family vacations at a northwoods resort in Wisconsin about 90 miles east-northeast of the Twin Cities. WDGY had a fair signal at that location day and night. The day signal on 1130 is now weaker than it had been then, and pretty much disappears at night. Fast forward twenty years, and on my biz trips to the Twin Cities, I'd stay at a hotel in the south suburbs about a mile from the WDGY transmitter site. Ultimately that site was sold for real estate development, and a new site was built.

I don't know the exact location of the new site. I do know that it's still in the south metro And my guess is that the pattern...at least the night pattern...was tightened in the process.
 
cyberdad said:
I never heard about WDGY skipping over both poles, but north pole is certainly plausible.
I don't know the exact location of the new site. I do know that it's still in the south metro And my guess is that the pattern...at least the night pattern...was tightened in the process.
Click to expand...

The current site sends a very good night signal over the North Pole in the winter as we heard it with a pretty strong signal on the Arctic receiver.
 
I guess Midwest stations have been heard in New Zealand. You need to look at the great circle. Somehow I doubt signals going more than half the circumference of the Earth though. On STA nondirectional I could see it in Argentina, or on a nondirectional DX test.
 
radioman148 said:
The current site sends a very good night signal over the North Pole in the winter as we heard it with a pretty strong signal on the Arctic receiver.
Click to expand...

I heard it too. Along with he other two of the Midwest "three amigos" on 1130 (WDFN and WISN) at one time or another.

Speaking of the Arctic SDR, I looked for it last week and didn't find it. I presume it's offline for the season. Does anyone else here know when it may be coming back on?
 
West Central Georgia:

Day: WLBA Gainesville/Atlanta GA Spanish very weak

Nighttime: Mostly WBBR Bloomberg New York, NY with weak but clear signal, occasionally KWKH Shreveport LA interferes or covers WBBR
According to the NF8M radio coverage map for 1130am, I should be receiving KWKH regularly, not WBBR

Critical Hours: WLBA interferes with WBBR
 
Days>>> A very weak KRDU serving the Visalia / Tulare / Fresno market, but way to much fade and lots of static. Its got quite a signal to even make it this far, considering the edge of the wave pattern ends at Los Banos.

Nights>>>It's kinda a mess!! Its hard to tell what is what at times, but I know KRDU is in there, and so is CKWX. I have about three stations all mixed in.
 
formula72 said:
Days>>> A very weak KRDU serving the Visalia / Tulare / Fresno market, but way to much fade and lots of static. Its got quite a signal to even make it this far, considering the edge of the wave pattern ends at Los Banos.

Nights>>>It's kinda a mess!! Its hard to tell what is what at times, but I know KRDU is in there, and so is CKWX. I have about three stations all mixed in.
Click to expand...


I can hear KRDU here in Laramie, WY right before power down some nights... and sometimes, its quite good.. like a few nights ago, during a Fresno Grizzlies minor league baseball game
 
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