10 kHz AM Frequency of the Week - 1000 kHz

[Buckeyes2001]

What do you get on 1000 AM?

Here in Vermilion, OH it is a weak WCCD/Parma, OH with Urban gospel music and preaching during the day as it's a daytimer with a sharp null to the west to protect WMVP. Near sunset, WMVP takes over and at night it's all WMVP all the time, even in auroral conditions, WMVP is still there but weaker sounding.

 

[cyberdad]

Far northwest suburbs of Chicago....

Day: Local WMVP with a very good signal....although not quite in the same class as WSCR, WGN, and WBBM.

Night: Still local WMVP. Slightly weaker, but still very good. XEOY sometimes is audible with WMVP nulled. I've also heard KTOK once or twice. I've never heard KOMO around here, but my guess is that Stormy or someone else in the neighborhood has probably managed to snag it.

 

[radioman148]

Far northwest suburbs of Chicago....

Day: Local WMVP with a very good signal....although not quite in the same class as WSCR, WGN, and WBBM.

Night: Still local WMVP. Slightly weaker, but still very good. XEOY sometimes is audible with WMVP nulled. I've also heard KTOK once or twice. I've never heard KOMO around here, but my guess is that Stormy or someone else in the neighborhood has probably managed to snag it.

I have never heard KOMO here either in the near North Chicago suburbs, but I have heard XEOY & KTOK when WCFL--er, WMVP is off.
I did get KOMO on the Northern Ireland receiver a month ago.

 

[Darth_vader]

Day: KOMO, very weakly
Night: KOMO

 

[tomservo]

In central Baldwin County, Alabama it would be local "Kix Country" WBZR from Robertsdale, a daytimer that has had a history of staying on 24/7 for as long as I can remember. Even going back to when I was a kid vacationing at the beach in the summer, AM 1000 was on after sunset.

They took a lightning hit a few months back and have been silent since. I've not logged anything, day or night on this frequency. I'm going to listen for XEOY if I can ever get somewhere that isn't racked with noise.

 

[ddsparxx]

In northern VA,

I get really, very, very weak 1 kW daytimer WIOO Carlisle, PA and sometimes even weaker, 300W WRAR Tappahannock, VA during the day. Nights, it's WMVP.

 

[schmave]

Central Ohio ...
* Daytime: Nothing
* Nighttime: All WMVP, all the time. I'm pretty sure there are times I hear AM 1000 better than my cousins who live in Naperville.

 

[Icangelp]

SW Ohio

Days
WMVP - Weak & sometimes not there. Used to provide one of the better day signals from Chicago.

Night
WMVP - A mostly reliable evening skywave signal.

Sunrise/Sunset
WMUF - Paris TN - Sunset in August - I believe has changed their call to WRQR
WIOO - Carlisle PA - Sunset in January

 

[foreverchanges1975]

Memphis daytime: splatter from local 990 KWAM

nightime: WMVP weak through the 990 splatter

 

[crainbebo]

Day/night - KOMO Seattle. Local signal, nothing else heard.

-crainbebo

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

The WMVP night pattern (old and new) does not have a null in the vertical pattern in the major lobe that eliminates the skywave at any useful distance. The only places where there would normally be phase distortion and frequent deep fading would mainly fall over Lake Michigan. Only during Auroral conditions would the skywave be very weak.

WMVP is the only AM station that places a 25 mV/m predicted M-3 signal over the entire City of Chicago, both day and night. This is due to the central north south location, the proximity to all points of Chicago, and the pattern gain to the east.

 

[foreverchanges1975]

right now (7:15 pm CST) in Memphis I'm getting a station playing 70's music ("I Have To Say I Love You In A Song" into "Life In The Fast Lane") over everything. Wondering if they'll ID....

....it's obviously from some satellite service, but didn't ID and then WMVP took over.

 

[cyberdad]

Radioman: You said you've heard XEOY with WMVP off. Have you ever heard them with WMVP (WCFL) nulled? That might be tougher where you are for a couple of reasons. As far as KTOK goes, I've heard them with a positive ID a couple of times at sunset when then-WCFL was off for a couple of second switching patterns. I've also heard them a couple of times since under WMVP.

Zach: XEOY should be relatively easy for you. They're easy to ID because not only are they basically a music station, but also because they have a very distinctive "sing-song" sounder that does a good job of cutting through clutter.

 

[schmave]

The WMVP night pattern (old and new) does not have a null in the vertical pattern in the major lobe that eliminates the skywave at any useful distance. The only places where there would normally be phase distortion and frequent deep fading would mainly fall over Lake Michigan. Only during Auroral conditions would the skywave be very weak.

WMVP is the only AM station that places a 25 mV/m predicted M-3 signal over the entire City of Chicago, both day and night. This is due to the central north south location, the proximity to all points of Chicago, and the pattern gain to the east.

I've gone through their cancellation zone several times driving east away from Chicagoland on 30 toward Ohio. It usually starts right about Valparaiso, and goes for several miles beyond. It's into skywave mode before you hit the cancellation zones for 670, 720 and 780 (listening to any of them in Fort Wayne at night sucks). I can't really attest to 890 because I listen so rarely.
Going the other way, one of my cousins who lives right off Ogden Ave. in Naperville heads to work in the 34/59 neighborhood about 5 a.m. most days. He mentioned off the cuff on my last visit how he has trouble hearing Mike and Mike before sunrise, but it's just fine after. I mentioned the station is directional, which is how I hear it so well in Ohio, but didn't go into all the details.

 

[KenoGuy]

Your cousin in Naperville might have better luck hearing Mike & Mike on WAUK 540 Jackson / Milwaukee. Aimed pretty much right at him.

I commute to Waukegan before sunrise and they are like a local.

 

[radioman148]

Radioman: You said you've heard XEOY with WMVP off. Have you ever heard them with WMVP (WCFL) nulled? That might be tougher where you are for a couple of reasons. As far as KTOK goes, I've heard them with a positive ID a couple of times at sunset when then-WCFL was off for a couple of second switching patterns. I've also heard them a couple of times since under WMVP.

Zach: XEOY should be relatively easy for you. They're easy to ID because not only are they basically a music station, but also because they have a very distinctive "sing-song" sounder that does a good job of cutting through clutter.

I have never heard anything under WMVP at my current location, but back in the late 60s & early 70s when I was going to school in De Kalb I could often hear XEOY under then WCFL. In those days driving west of the Chicago area, once I would get west of Sugar Grove at night, AM 1000 would drop dramatically.
We used to have a saying at NIU, during the day WCFL was half as strong as WLS. At night it was about one tenth as strong.

 

[schmave]

Your cousin in Naperville might have better luck hearing Mike & Mike on WAUK 540 Jackson / Milwaukee. Aimed pretty much right at him.

I commute to Waukegan before sunrise and they are like a local.

Thanks ... I'll mention that. I remember seeing ads for them on a 2011 trip to Milwaukee, and in fact walking right by their studios.

 

[stormy01]

@schmave - That was great wisdom back then for locating the transmitting plant so close-in to the city where the owners did; that's paying off now, especially with the area so much more built up now...and the increased artificial noise levels...

@cyberdad - WMVP is so strong at my location in the NW Chicago 'burbs that with a ferrite rod antenna it's not really enough to null them out to hear what's underneath...a box loop might do it. So the only times I've heard Oak City or Mexico DF is when AM 1000 was off the air, which was more often in the past, not so much now, due to higher uptime and multiple modules in the TX [when a few modules fail, power drops off a few kW, but not taking the 'rig' off the air completely like when there was 1 or 2 "Finals"!] or a backup TX. KOMO is yet but a dream...didn't stay up late often enough to find AM 1000 off for transmitter maintenance to hear them!

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

Try to elevate the ferrite rod above the horizontal plane. A signal strength meter and RF gain control helps. I doubt that there isn't a null, it's just not in the horizontal. If you have a radio with a rotatable ferrite rod, put the radio on its back on a Lazy Susan type turntable, null it out with the meter as much as possible, then adjust the ferrite rod up and down until you reach a minimum.

 

[schmave]

Re: re: 10 kHz AM Frequency of the Week - 1000 kHz

@schmave - That was great wisdom back then for locating the transmitting plant so close-in to the city where the owners did; that's paying off now, especially with the area so much more built up now...and the increased artificial noise levels...

Completely agree. Too often we see where stations completely miss parts of their market because of their transmitter location. WMVP really misses very little. Signal is usable on the back side of the pattern, just not as much the blowtorch it is to the east.