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Was there once a "Sports Band"?

DrJerry

DrJerry

I recently saw this radio posted for sale. The dial shows a separate band at the bottom of the AM dial labeled "Sports". I've never seen or heard of this before. Was there a time when these frequencies were designated for sports broadcasting? Anyone know the history here?

sportsband.jpg
 
I've seen one like this before, a different brand but otherwise identical. These were pretty cheap models from Hong Kong or the like. I suspect this might have involved something being lost in translation!
 
The PB is also interesting. That's the modern ham band. And a bit beyond. I wonder if there was a vhf ham band at the time and location this was manufactured
 
KC8UOK said:
The PB is also interesting. That's the modern ham band. And a bit beyond. I wonder if there was a vhf ham band at the time and location this was manufactured
Click to expand...
The 2-meter ham band has been around since the service was reauthorized right after World War II; this radio was probably made in the '70s. Think of it as a bonus for listeners curious about that "police" band. I had a radio much like this that I picked up at a flea market, and it also included part of 2 meters at the low end of its VHF band. The radio was total crap, made in Hong Kong (where most of the bottom-of-the-barrel portables were made in those years), with a front end that was easily overwhelmed by local signals.
 
Look more closely at the dial... what it calls "sports" is just the 1100 - 1600 kHz portion of the normal AM broadcast band. Maybe because stations carrying local sports (high school football, etc.) tended to be "graveyard channel" stations, higher up on the dial? Who knows.

p.s. I posted exactly the same question back in 2023:
radiodiscussions.com

"Sports Band" above 1100 kHz on AM?

This vintage radio caught my eye on eBay. It's from 1970s, and has the AM band split up into two dials: normal AM radio going from 540 to 1100 kHz, and "Sports" going from 1100 to 1600 kHz. Is that just because stations providing coverage of local sports were more likely to be on the upper end...
radiodiscussions.com radiodiscussions.com
 
kevtronics said:
Look more closely at the dial... what it calls "sports" is just the 1100 - 1600 kHz portion of the normal AM broadcast band. Maybe because stations carrying local sports (high school football, etc.) tended to be "graveyard channel" stations, higher up on the dial?
Click to expand...

That probably is the answer. The stations lower on the dial were likely the high powered network affiliates. They aired the national dramas, comedies, soap operas, game shows and news. Ones higher on the dial were mostly regional. They'd likely carry the local teams, college, high school, maybe even a regional sports team.

Of course, the dial really wasn't broken up that way. Most of the clear channel frequencies are between 640 and 1220. But there were some local frequencies in the lower on the dial: 550 to 630, 790, most of the 900s. And even local stations that carried sports only did it part of the week.

The first all-sports station, WFAN, only debuted in 1987. And it spent its early years on 1050 in NYC, later moving to 660. Not in the "sports" section of that radio dial.
 
Interesting but at first I thought “Sports” band was going to be shortwave until I saw the kHz part showing that it’s on AM.

What was “Air” between 110 to 135 mHz.
 
There are/have been airport beacons that can be heard in the lower part of the AM band (530). There used to be one audible in the KC area on that frequency about 25 years ago, but I don't know what airport it was for or if it's still active.
 
This is essentially a three band radio. AM is displayed across two dial markers, FM on one, and the 108 to 174 VHF range (including WeatherRadio) is across three dial markers.
radiofan2023 said:
There are/have been airport beacons that can be heard in the lower part of the AM band (530). There used to be one audible in the KC area on that frequency about 25 years ago, but I don't know what airport it was for or if it's still active.
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While most NDB beacons operated from 190 to 425 kHz, there were a few that used 515 to 529 kHz. Here in Houston one of the private airports used 521 and was easily heard on old style mechanically tuned AM radios. That NDB shut down some years ago.

A majority of NDBs have been decommissioned in recent years, replaced by more modern navigation technology.
CTListener said:
The 2-meter ham band has been around since the service was reauthorized right after World War II
Click to expand...
The 2 meter ham band is 144 to 148 MHz.
 


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