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KKOH 780 DX Test/Off Air Tonight Sat. Feb. 15

SomeRadioGuy

SomeRadioGuy

With special thanks to Chief Engineer Daniel Appellof, and Broadcaster/DX’er Paul Walker, we have arranged for a DX Test tonight for KKOH 780 Khz in Reno, Nevada. At approximately midnight Pacific time, KKOH will switch to 50 KW Non-directional. They plan to run 15-20 minutes of DX Test material that we have provided.

This material includes sweep tones, Morse Code IDs at 700 hz (10 words per minute), telephone off-hook sounds, and vintage voice sounders for the station. The sweep tones and telephone sounders are especially good at cutting through noise, and should give many DX’ers a chance to log the station.

After the test period, KKOH 780 will power down the transmitter for additional maintenance. This will provide a “silent period” for West Coast DX’ers to log new stations on 780 Khz.

When the maintenance concludes, the station will power back up. They may or may not repeat the DX Test material at that time. The maintenance is expected to take about six hours, possibly less.

This is a rare chance to log Nevada, and for those in the Western US to log new stations on 780 KHz as well.

Please spread the word via e-mail lists, chat rooms, etc. DX Tests are rare these days. I hope that everyone will join me in expressing our gratitude to Daniel and Paul.
 
Easy as as the sun coming up the next morning here. They are a 365-night/year regular in WA. When they sign off I need to listen carefully for anything floating under Chicago. I need KAZM, KNOM, or XEs. I probably won't be able to stay up until 5:30 in the morning to hear WJAG sign on.
Being heard in Carleton MI and in Peoria IL at the moment.
 
Now there's a weak signal of what sounds like slow jazz music with WBBM back again gaining strength too.
 
In Citrus Heights, CA

I had to go outside

like 5 mins ago I heard traffic report then the weather, I was waiting for a ID, But keeps fading, I can't hear it

Said 42 tonight, I-80

My Eton keeps on trying to mute it
 
KKOH being off is a blessing. It's given me my first new station since January 3rd.

780 - KAZM AZ, Sedona; heard a very faint 'KAZM radio...' in promo underneath WBBM at 0033 PT. Also hearing C2C bumper music and Richard Syrett under WBBM. NEW #790, 250 watts at 952 miles. A much-needed 780 in the log finally, good for AZ #14.
WBBM is in and out with KAZM, mostly over them. No sign of KCEG CO, no sign of any Spanish stations.
 
Wow, Just wow

Heard WBBM real weak, Like I can't hear it, But I heard a Lady

Match it with the Onine Stream & heard 105.9 then faded out
 
I never heard KKOH last night but did log KAZM for the first time like Crainbebo. At 10:48 p.m. CT I was hearing a weak signal in/out with sports talk in the null of WBBM. It was followed by local news with multiple AZ references (head-on collision on Cornville road, Flagstaff PD receiving a $61,000 grant, etc.).

Never got an ID, but what I heard matched KAZM's web stream. It was only in for about 10 minutes and I crashed for the night not too long after that. Distance is 854 miles.
 
Last edited:
MarioMania said:
Wow, Just wow

Heard WBBM real weak, Like I can't hear it, But I heard a Lady

Match it with the Onine Stream & heard 105.9 then faded out
Click to expand...

The lady you heard was undoubtedly Jan Coleman. Overnight weekend news anchor at WBBM. "Back in the day" she worked for my competition, but was among of the circle of friends I was in. A genuinely nice person, consummate professional, well liked and respected. AND she's a fantastic folk singer/guitar player. (Her singing voice is NOTHING like her on-air news delivery voice.)
 
No go here in PA, roughly halfway between Scranton and Harrisburg.

I hung around from about 1:55 to 3:05.
That's 'WBBM time', hi. I use that just to describe all I was getting ID-able on 780, along with a swarm of QRM.

The HQ-180 has a fixed longwire stretched east-west, while the barefeet GE SR was getting more audio via nulls. Off the GE I was hearing indecipherable vocal music under WBBM at times, male and female vocals. I'm thinking it might've been from a Spanish-language station because of the music's lilt, but the static made even THAT anonymous.

There were MAYBE some beep tones detected about :20 minutes in. Perhaps 1200 hz tones? And at :36 minutes into it all I heard some loud gong go off.

* * * * * * *

That was some good DX you folks in the west picked up!
Thanks for the tip, SomeRadioGuy. It was about time my ear wax got a good dusting off.
 
cyberdad said:
The lady you heard was undoubtedly Jan Coleman. Overnight weekend news anchor at WBBM. "Back in the day" she worked for my competition, but was among of the circle of friends I was in. A genuinely nice person, consummate professional, well liked and respected. AND she's a fantastic folk singer/guitar player. (Her singing voice is NOTHING like her on-air news delivery voice.)
Click to expand...

Jan Coleman was the first morning news anchor on WJMK in 1984 when they were known as "Magic 104"
 
Steve Green NEPA said:
No go here in PA, roughly halfway between Scranton and Harrisburg.

I hung around from about 1:55 to 3:05.
That's 'WBBM time', hi. I use that just to describe all I was getting ID-able on 780, along with a swarm of QRM.

The HQ-180 has a fixed longwire stretched east-west, while the barefeet GE SR was getting more audio via nulls. Off the GE I was hearing indecipherable vocal music under WBBM at times, male and female vocals. I'm thinking it might've been from a Spanish-language station because of the music's lilt, but the static made even THAT anonymous.

There were MAYBE some beep tones detected about :20 minutes in. Perhaps 1200 hz tones? And at :36 minutes into it all I heard some loud gong go off.

* * * * * * *

That was some good DX you folks in the west picked up!
Thanks for the tip, SomeRadioGuy. It was about time my ear wax got a good dusting off.
Click to expand...


The dx test material material ran from about 12:02 to 12:16am pacific....
 
MarioMania said:
Wow, Just wow

Heard WBBM real weak, Like I can't hear it, But I heard a Lady

Match it with the Onine Stream & heard 105.9 then faded out
Click to expand...


Good to hear you got it!

Back in the days when 890 was actually a 'clear' frequency, WLS Chicago could be heard in northern California every night.

I remember hearing it on my portable radio at my brother's place.

That was during their top 40 era.
 
Darn it! I was going to get up and listen via the Northern Utah SDR, but I forgot.
I don't get radio or TV at home anymore, so I have to use the SDR and my phone's half-inch speaker.
 
hawaiigar said:
Good to hear you got it!

Back in the days when 890 was actually a 'clear' frequency, WLS Chicago could be heard in northern California every night.

I remember hearing it on my portable radio at my brother's place.

That was during their top 40 era.
Click to expand...

Very true. Back in the 60s, 70s and early 80s WLS and WBBM could be heard almost nightly on the west coast. In Nov 78 I heard both in Hawaii.
WLS was still in the clear until about the mid 80s when KDXU moved to 890.
 
cyberdad said:
The lady you heard was undoubtedly Jan Coleman. Overnight weekend news anchor at WBBM. "Back in the day" she worked for my competition, but was among of the circle of friends I was in. A genuinely nice person, consummate professional, well liked and respected. AND she's a fantastic folk singer/guitar player. (Her singing voice is NOTHING like her on-air news delivery voice.)
Click to expand...

Oh Cool, It was so weak, I couldn't understand her

hawaiigar said:
Good to hear you got it!

Back in the days when 890 was actually a 'clear' frequency, WLS Chicago could be heard in northern California every night.

I remember hearing it on my portable radio at my brother's place.

That was during their top 40 era.
Click to expand...

I hear the ID again weak, said it like 3 times..I think it was TOH

I should of Recorded on my Eton from my PC, But didn't have the Cables
 
WBBM here. Looking at the Wikipedia entry, they run MORE power at night (42KW) than they do in the daytime (35KW).
 
You're right.

I didn't believe Wiki, so I went to Radio Locator and they say that too.

https://radio-locator.com/info/WBBM-AM

I always thought they were 50 kw.

No?


If only more stations would do the kind of tests that KKOH did the other night.

If, let's say, if all 5 kw stations on a certain frequency across the country went off the air at once except for one on the west coast, could that station be heard on the east coast on a standard portable radio?

I can hear such stations in Hawaii at the same distance but the ocean has very low resistance compared to land.
 
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