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10 kHz AM Frequency of the Week - 970 kHz

B

Buckeyes2001

What can you get on 970 AM?

Here in Vermilion, OH it is a fuzzy WFUN/Ashtabula, OH during the day and at night it becomes a messy mix of stations including WFUN and another sports station and others.
 
WFLA.

Their towers are only two miles away and I can see them when I get out on the main road that runs by my complex.

I'm so close that WFLA can be heard on tthe entire AM band in the daytime on empty frequencies.
 
Actually nothing here in northern VA on days except a trace of an unidentified, station with an unlistenable signal combined with WTEM 980 slop. Nights it's semi-weak WBGG Pittsburgh.
 
From NE NC car radio.
Days:
970 WRCS Ahoskie, NC
Sunrise/sunset:
WNYM Hackensack, NJ
WBGG Pittsburg, PA
WYSE Asheville, NC
 
Here in northern St Johns county FL it's Spanish WNNR Jacksonville about 20 miles during the day. WFLA Tampa is the usual catch at night.
 
Here in Newfoundland the most regular station heard on 970 is WZAN in Portland , Maine, a couple less commons are WSTX in US Virgin Islands and WFLA in Florida
 
Hearing WFLA there is an amazing catch.

It's almost a complete ocean path and you also don't have stations directly in between on the same frequency to get in the way.

Have you ever tried for WQAM Miami? It's only 1 kw at night but that's a complete ocean path for the skip.
 
Gar fla. Have you ever tried for WQAM Miami? It's only 1 kw at night but that's a complete ocean path for the skip.
WQAM has a cp for 25 kW nights. They boom in here many nights on top of WGAI.
 
Here in Tampa, I can get WQAM day and night behind the splatter of WTBN.

Back in the 70s when I lived in New Jersey, I would try for WQAM at night down at our shore house because WFIL was easy to null out but I never was able to hear WQAM. Not with an ID anyway.

Had I known back then saltwater was so conductive, I would have tried at the beach midday. And I bet anything it could probably be heard along with WFIL and WGAI. I could kick myself for not thinking of trying back then.

At the time, I thought hearing WBZ at the shore was a good catch.

Once around sunset at the shore, I heard the old 790 WFUN Miami come in real well for a short time.

Then up in Bethlehem, Pa at college, once and only once, I heard WIOD on top of WIP.

If only we had a poster here who lives in New Jersey or out on long Island and could sometime see if WQAM can be heard daytime at the shore.

The low frequency and the location of their transmitter make it highly possible.
 
Far northwest suburbs of Chicago....

Day.....WHA, Madison, WI. Fair-poor
Night....Usually a mess. KQAQ is occasionally (but not very often) on top. I've also heard WMAY in there a few times.

As for the WFLA comments, when we're at Perdido Key (on the Gulf near Pensacola), WFLA is a regular daily catch, but disappears into the slop at night. However, I'm not surprised that Zach's not hearing anything at his location which is too far inland....via landpath with lousy conductivity.
 
Northeast-North Central Pa..WBLF Bellefonte during the day. WNYM sometimes at night, mixed in with Pittsburgh.

I don't think WQAM would ever come in during the day on Long Island or the Jersey shore. WFIL on 560 is dominant and on the North shore of Long Island it's WHYN in Springfield,Mass. I would imagine WQAM might come in on the southern end of the DelMarva peninsula.
 
Cedar Rapids, IA:
Daytime usually nothing; occasionally WHA Madison, WI.
Nighttime is also a mess, often KQAQ Austin, MN. Occasionally WGTK (former WAVE) Louisville, KY.
 
That KQAQ in Austin MN sure has a shoe-horned 5 kW day pattern looking at it via Radio Locator...does the squeeze play between Duluth and Madison
 
Located in Western WA.

I usually get a mix of KUFO Portland and the EWTN station in Spokane. Long ago I logged KOOK, Billings MT on the frequency (now apparently KBUL). Sometimes I heard other sigs in the background but haven't IDed anything.

I heard a strange mix of ranchero and tropical music on 970 a few nights ago. I have been told it probably is a station in Idaho.
 
Here in Thornville, Ohio, it's WATH from Athens daytime and nothing at night. WATH puts a decent signal in here ... 4 on a 1-to-10 scale.
WFUN has a pretty decent signal across most of northeast Ohio from a four-tower array just south of the intersection of I-90 and Ohio 11. It has a notch in its pattern that makes it considerably weaker at night as close as Conneaut, where there's some crosstalk but not so much as to render the signal unlistenable (for me, anyway). WFUN also appears to slightly tuck in the signal toward Athens. It certainly doesn't look like a null to protect 960 in Wooster.
 
joebtsflk1 said:
That KQAQ in Austin MN sure has a shoe-horned 5 kW day pattern looking at it via Radio Locator...does the squeeze play between Duluth and Madison
Click to expand...

I'm guessing that the pattern is a tough one to maintain, given that you sometimes hear KQAQ in places where you probably shouldn't,  Here northwest of Chicago it should be pretty much invisible. But on nights when it does come in, it tends to own the channel, and it also tends to be in for consecutive nights, then vanish entirely. Then it seems to re-surface at some point in the future just as quickly as it had vanished....and once again as "top dog".

I'm not sure if KQAQ is obliged to protect Duluth. My guess is that they're protecting a 5kw 980 in Minneapolis (which is also very directional).
 
gar fla said:
Here in Tampa, I can get WQAM day and night behind the splatter of WTBN.

Back in the 70s when I lived in New Jersey, I would try for WQAM at night down at our shore house because WFIL was easy to null out but I never was able to hear WQAM. Not with an ID anyway.

Had I known back then saltwater was so conductive, I would have tried at the beach midday. And I bet anything it could probably be heard along with WFIL and WGAI. I could kick myself for not thinking of trying back then.

At the time, I thought hearing WBZ at the shore was a good catch.

Once around sunset at the shore, I heard the old 790 WFUN Miami come in real well for a short time.

Then up in Bethlehem, Pa at college, once and only once, I heard WIOD on top of WIP.

If only we had a poster here who lives in New Jersey or out on long Island and could sometime see if WQAM can be heard daytime at the shore.

The low frequency and the location of their transmitter make it highly possible.
Click to expand...

Gar, I think someone already beat that. :)

http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg24696.html - several paragraphs down ...

Chris, While still in the employ of Uncle Sam I visited Signal Hill in
St. Johns, NF in September 1988, at the peak of Solar Cycle 22. At the
time I was an SWL, not yet licensed as a Ham, which came in December
1989. I had with me a Sony ICF-6500W receiver and at daytime on ground
wave I was able to clearly copy WQAM 560 kc 5 kw in Miami, FL. At the
time WQAM's single tower was out in Biscayne Bay. That was an
approximate distance of 2158 km, 3474 mi. Part of the ground wave path
in NF was over land but the signal probably skewed along and around
the coast to Signal Hill.
Click to expand...
It looks like he may have had the km and mi switched on the distances, and a moderate error in conversion. Miami, FL, to St. John's, NF, is still a good haul on groundwave, and only 5 kW. :)
 
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