Far northwest suburban Chicago.....
Days: All WILL, the University of Illinois NPR station from Urbana, IL, 5kw with a favorable pattern in my direction from a distance of 149 miles. The result here is a fair signal alone on the channel. Last week, there was a "sidebar" discussion of daytime overlap between WILL and WTCM. I've never heard that at my location, but it was reported on this board as happening (with WYLL nulled) at Kenosha, Wisconsin. "K-town" is a little more than 30 miles northeast of me. I also pointed out that WYLL is alone in Madison, WI, which is closer to WTCM in Traverse City, Michigan, and even closer yet to WKTY in La Crosse, Wisconsin than it is to Champaign-Urbana. Travel east-northeast of Madison, and, you should be able to hear all three stations fighting it out as you approach Lake Michigan.
Aaah, the magic of directional antennas! I'm expecting to travel through that area later this year, so I'll make it a point to check that out in greater detail.
Nights: 580 used to be an interesting channel around here at night. Now it's rather empty. WIBW is most likely to rise to the top of the mix of very weak signals. WKTY less likely. WTCM even more rare.
Reto: In the 1990s and before, 580 was a good spot fpr Canada DX. CKY (Winnipeg) was in most nights with a good signal and a "good listen" top 40 format CKPR from Thunder Bay, Ontario, and CKAP from Kapuskasing, Ontario were also sometimes in the mix with CKY nulled. All three are long gone from the AM band.....but at least I can say I've been to all three places along the Trans Canada Highway.
Fun Fact, I first learned about "football power" from a WKTY engineer! He told me that he'd been instructed to leave the 5kw day power/pattern on when La Crosse Central high school was playing it's biggest rival, 45 miles away. Normal night power then (in the 70s) was 1kw. Apparently, the station never got any complaints, but the FCC eventually did get wind of what was going on. .... Good ol' "Katy at 580"!
Fun Fact #2, WKTY came into being because a Minneapolis radio station owner got word that a would-be competitor was thinking about setting up shop on 580 in the Twin Cities. The existing Twin Cities operator dealt with the situation by launching WKTY, which is weak, but audible, 24/7 in the Twin Cities. (Distance of about 115 miles)
Other Locations. WIBW was a daytime regular at my college location in southeast Iowa. At that location, WILL was much closer, but also completely invisible due to being nulled to the west. WKTY is also closer, but nulled to the south.
CKY's 50kw daytime coverage was right up there with CBK and KFYR. It covered all of North Dakota, parts of South Dakota (Until WNAX took over), and basically the northwestern half of Minnesota. One of my biggest customers was in Northwest Minnesota, and I had other customers in Winnipeg, and CKY was my go-to on roughly 20 years of business trips.
Wanted: WDBO, CFRA. I know both have turned up in the Chicago area, but certainly not by me.
Days: All WILL, the University of Illinois NPR station from Urbana, IL, 5kw with a favorable pattern in my direction from a distance of 149 miles. The result here is a fair signal alone on the channel. Last week, there was a "sidebar" discussion of daytime overlap between WILL and WTCM. I've never heard that at my location, but it was reported on this board as happening (with WYLL nulled) at Kenosha, Wisconsin. "K-town" is a little more than 30 miles northeast of me. I also pointed out that WYLL is alone in Madison, WI, which is closer to WTCM in Traverse City, Michigan, and even closer yet to WKTY in La Crosse, Wisconsin than it is to Champaign-Urbana. Travel east-northeast of Madison, and, you should be able to hear all three stations fighting it out as you approach Lake Michigan.
Aaah, the magic of directional antennas! I'm expecting to travel through that area later this year, so I'll make it a point to check that out in greater detail.
Nights: 580 used to be an interesting channel around here at night. Now it's rather empty. WIBW is most likely to rise to the top of the mix of very weak signals. WKTY less likely. WTCM even more rare.
Reto: In the 1990s and before, 580 was a good spot fpr Canada DX. CKY (Winnipeg) was in most nights with a good signal and a "good listen" top 40 format CKPR from Thunder Bay, Ontario, and CKAP from Kapuskasing, Ontario were also sometimes in the mix with CKY nulled. All three are long gone from the AM band.....but at least I can say I've been to all three places along the Trans Canada Highway.
Fun Fact, I first learned about "football power" from a WKTY engineer! He told me that he'd been instructed to leave the 5kw day power/pattern on when La Crosse Central high school was playing it's biggest rival, 45 miles away. Normal night power then (in the 70s) was 1kw. Apparently, the station never got any complaints, but the FCC eventually did get wind of what was going on. .... Good ol' "Katy at 580"!
Fun Fact #2, WKTY came into being because a Minneapolis radio station owner got word that a would-be competitor was thinking about setting up shop on 580 in the Twin Cities. The existing Twin Cities operator dealt with the situation by launching WKTY, which is weak, but audible, 24/7 in the Twin Cities. (Distance of about 115 miles)
Other Locations. WIBW was a daytime regular at my college location in southeast Iowa. At that location, WILL was much closer, but also completely invisible due to being nulled to the west. WKTY is also closer, but nulled to the south.
CKY's 50kw daytime coverage was right up there with CBK and KFYR. It covered all of North Dakota, parts of South Dakota (Until WNAX took over), and basically the northwestern half of Minnesota. One of my biggest customers was in Northwest Minnesota, and I had other customers in Winnipeg, and CKY was my go-to on roughly 20 years of business trips.
Wanted: WDBO, CFRA. I know both have turned up in the Chicago area, but certainly not by me.
