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50,000 Watt AM Stations on Regional Channels
- Thread starter Gregg.
- Start date
Yep, KGOW is one of the few US signals that routinely gets into Costa Rica at night, though I've heard WHAS down there at night once or twice.
I live not far from your brother, and agree with your assessment! Was just in Duluth a couple weeks ago and it was KTLK that pounded in on 1130; but as I said, I was impressed at how local and stable WISN's nighttime signal was in marquette, mi. Waaaay stronger than it is in Racine or Kenosha. And it's dead by Crystal Lake where you are.My brother lives in Salem. Kenosha County. Where WISN has a worse night signal than graveyard channel WRJN on 1400 does much better...from farther away! And you're absolutely right about WISN daytime being stronger than WLS in Lake County, where I grew up. Where I am now in Crystal Lake, the day signals of WISN, WLS, WMVP, and WYLL are all about equal.
Last Labor Day weekend my son and I were on a road trip across the "top" of Lake Superior On the stretch between Thunder Bay and North Bay, Ontario we stopped for the night in Kapuskasing, Ontario. About a hundred miles north of the eastern portion of the Lake. WISN at night there was as strong as anything on the AM dial...if not stronger.
(Local CKAP on 580 can no longer claim that distinction, since they migrated to FM.)
When I was a kid, I lived in northern VA and remember how WLS, CKLW and others came in there. The strongest nighttime only guest was WKBW. But after that you had WCFL, which was always stronger than WLS and often stronger than WABC's skywave too. Of course, that's because so much of its ERP was pointed my way, at the expense of people in the far western suburbs.
The KGOW signal is aimed right at Cartagena and Barranquilla, Colombia, so much of Central America would be within a spread out signal at that distance.
I’ve seen reports of KGOW being heard on the southeast coast of Brazil. The high end of the AM band might be lousy for groundwave but makes up for it in often impressive skywave.
along with SE WY quite regularly and alaska on occasion, for KGOW
6 towers at their daytime site, and another 9 towers at their nighttime site... does KGOW have the most sticks in the air of any U.S. AM station?
KFXR 1190 in DFW has 16. Four at the day site and twelve at the night site.
Having done band scans in Costa Rica long ago, I can say that the dial was just jammed with US stations, mostly from Houston and New Orleans. Costa Rica used to assign a station every 25 kHz from 550 upwards, so back then most of the dial was empty with just Cuban and other Central American interference
The best Houston stations on a portable radio were 610, 740, 790, 950 (with local off air) and 1590. Biggest signal was WWL, despite a local in San José on 875.
Those were also among the stations that were relatively easy catches for me in Ecuador back then. The big differences today are that most surviving AMs in Central America are now 24/7 operations plus many AMs in Central America are now gone... either moved to FM or silent.
Like much of Latin America, there is less regulation and lots more man-made noise from electrical and electronic devices.
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explains why Houston stations are something of a rarity in the Chicago area.
Somewhere packed away in a box right now is a copy that I made of a coverage map of Houston nighttime AM signals circa 1984. KTRH had the map produced to promote its coverage. Almost all the the Houston nighttime signals were aimed at the Gulf of Mexico. It's an obvious move - put your tower north-ish of the city and cover most of the metro. KTRH's site was northeast of Houston; many of the others were northwest(-ish).explains why Houston stations are something of a rarity in the Chicago area.
I thought I had seen this map on worldradiohistory.com but can't find it at the moment.
KLVI 560 and KXYZ 1320 were sometimes heard in the Great Lakes region, but may have been on nondirectional Day facilities before Sunset or during the Experimental Period.
KXYZ was 1 kw non-directional at night for decades, and it seemed to get out abnormally well... enough to be a pest on 1320 at my Cleveland location.
Been doing this every trip since 1999 and it's always interesting. I've gotten KTRH, WOAI, WHAS, WBAP, WBCN (Charlotte), and others from time to time. BTW- somewhat surprising that I've heard more from Texas than Florida down there, but that's the nature of the band. Often, I get little or nothing from the USA; but of them all it's KGOW that is the most likely catch on any given night. Given all of the electrical interference present now, and the crowded band, you don't get nearly as much from the US as you could back in the day, That San Jose local would no longer be on 875 kHz, as they have been on the 10 kHz scheme for decades now. I believe it's on 870 now.
Indeed 1520 is a "clear" channel.
Just wanted to add that it's interesting how a Seattle area station can operate on 1520 full time with 50 kW, when the Port Hueneme/Oxnard station has attempted at least a couple of times to increase their night directional power to something above their existing 1 kW and they have always been rejected. Does the Friendly Candy Company really think that anything above 1 kW will interfere with Oklahoma City?
Port Hueneme had to protect the 1530 in Sacramento, as well as 1510 and even 1540 in the LA area, among others. It's very tightly spaced.
Yeah I just looked it up I never realized that KFBK in Sac is a Class A station. It would have to be protected from adjacent skywave from lesser class stations...oh well!
Not only that... KFBK has Franklin antennas, giving them superior coverage.
KFBK POUNDS into western alaska nightly so strong I can tell theyre running Voltair in a PPM Market. They have that slightly metallic sound like the Voltair watermarking box is cranked up to 11 to get the most out of the PPM.
I once had a KFBK QSL hand delivered to me at NAB in Vegas by the late engineer Dave Fortenberry.
I once had a KFBK QSL hand delivered to me at NAB in Vegas by the late engineer Dave Fortenberry.
As I mentioned on another thread KFBK's nightime skywave is sometimes so strong in places like Burbank that LA's 1540 is hard to tune in. Same for Oxnard's 1520 in Camarillo.
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