640/KFI

[Icangelp]

Tuesday, I was on my way to work at 6:00 AM Eastern, and doing my usual AM DX as I drove. I always check 640/680/1070 at some point during my trip.

640 Cuba was very strong as I approached downtown Cincinnati, where all but a few local AM signals disappear.

Just before I hit the dead zone, up pops a strong KFI with a TOH I.D. It was gone just as fast as it arrived.

This is one big reason I love AM DX. You just never know what you are going to hear.

 

[cd637299]

.....I love AM DX. You just never know what you are going to hear.

Hey! AM, FM, SW, TV, and others....it's the same mystery! Good work on KFI. I haven't caught anything in California since the early X-band days of the late 1990s. Better'n nothing, I guess!

cd

 

[MarioMania]

Nice one

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

Back in the late 1970s, I was hearing KFI and KNBR one night in Michigan. I called up KFI and Big Ron O'Brien (RIP) was on the air. I told him where I was listening. We talked about his years at WCAR 1130, and WCFL 1000. He talked about some of the stations he heard from Detroit (Southgate I think he said was where he lived). He said he lived about a mile south from the WDEE/WLQV array and could barely hear it at night. He said he remembered hearing WTAC 600 and WFDF 910 in Southgate. He was a bona fide DXer as well as an iconic DJ.

 

[cd637299]

Back in the late 1970s, I was hearing KFI and KNBR one night in Michigan. I called up KFI and Big Ron O'Brien (RIP) was on the air. I told him where I was listening. We talked about his years at WCAR 1130, and WCFL 1000. He talked about some of the stations he heard from Detroit (Southgate I think he said was where he lived). He said he lived about a mile south from the WDEE/WLQV array and could barely hear it at night. He said he remembered hearing WTAC 600 and WFDF 910 in Southgate. He was a bona fide DXer as well as an iconic DJ.

Man I wish I recorded some of my DX when I was a teen....ISTR hearing the former WDEE 1500 in south Florida in the 70s, when WTOP in DC was off the air. From what you are saying, it is possible they were testing day power or pattern, then, as if they knew WTOP would be off. But it didn't sound like 50 k...maybe they were running the 5 k on day pattern. Dunno.

cd

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

I could have KFI and KNBR recorded somewhere, recorded from my Sony CF-450 with no external antenna. Easiest DX recording and one of the best radios I ever had. FM was great if there were few local stations. AM was good, though not an extra TRF front end. As such it had images on AM. The signal meter behaved like a SWL/Ham receiver S meter on AM, scaled but not calibrated in units and decibels over S9. I probably could have calibrated it fairly accurately as a rough FI meter, if I had had an FI meter and made a chart at several frequencies throughout the dial and interpolated. As it was, it was probably accurate to 30 percent or so. It maxed out at around 100 mV/m full scale from M-3 predictions and some FI readings. The meter movement went to about 12 on the 10 point scale. I never overloaded it intentionally like some here are fond of doing. It was fairly log linear from what I could determine. When you are dealing with easily a 60 dB dynamic range of signals across the meter d'Arsonval movement, that's pretty good.

WDEE could have been on STA when you heard them. As jry will attest, they constantly did plenty of work on the pattern and DA components.

I also heard KNX 1070 and KPMC 1560, but not at the same time as KFI and KNBR. I also heard KDIA Vallejo one morning, and I think it was on the old X Band frequency, and I think they moved 10 kHz later.

 

[radioman148]

I never recorded KFI when I was a teen in the 60s, but they were a regular here in the Chicago area for years. However, with all the interference on 640 now, I haven't heard KFI since the late 90s. I can still hear KNX & KNBR once in awhile.
I did record several eastern stations signing off on Sunday night/Monday mornings in the early 60s. I recorded WBZ, KDKA, WNBC, WABC, & WLS among a few others around 1963 & 64.
If anyone would like to hear those tapes, I'll be glad to dig them out & post them sometime.

 

[cd637299]

@ S'Cat,

Yeah I caught KXBT Vallejo on both 1630 and 1640, and I still hung on to their faxed QSL. I also heard the 1650 outside of L.A.

I also caught the 10-watt DFW airport stations on 1640 & 1680.

Was glad to be able to bag them, before the TIS's spread like wildfire.....

cd

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

Most of my Sony and other radios that I have accumulated over the years get up to 1670 or 1680 without modification, the excpetion being the GE SuperRadio II which only gets up to 1630 unmodified. I would hesitate to modify a good radio, as I would wonder whether the alignment would be as good without a complete alignment procedure being done. There's just too many trimmers on most radios to mess around with unless you know exactly what needs to be done. You could probably easily modify a trimmer on the oscillator capacitor to get from 1670 to 1700 (2125 to 2155), but the antenna capacitor wouldn't track properly. The average person wouldn't care though.

 

[jd]

I also caught the 10-watt DFW airport stations on 1640 & 1680.

Was glad to be able to bag them, before the TIS's spread like wildfire.....

You're right, the stations were heard nationwide years ago, but both were licensed to run higher power than other TIS stations. The one on 1640 is long gone, but WPLR660 on 1680 remains, licensed for 80 watts.

 

[cyberdad]

I wonder if this could somehow be related to the unusually good path from the southwest I was hearing a few days ago from Mexico to the Pensacola-Gulf Shores area. Only KFI in Ohio given current 21st century conditions is even more impressive. As Radioman said, KFI used to be relatively common here in the Chicago area, but I haven't heard it around here for a very long time.....probably also early or mid 90s.

 

[cd637299]

I also caught the 10-watt DFW airport stations on 1640 & 1680.

Was glad to be able to bag them, before the TIS's spread like wildfire.....

You're right, the stations were heard nationwide years ago, but both were licensed to run higher power than other TIS stations. The one on 1640 is long gone, but WPLR660 on 1680 remains, licensed for 80 watts.

I'm sorry there---80 watts may have been more like it. A former DXer on the east coast of The Big Island in Hawaii (who, sadly, is no longer with us) bagged both of them there!

cd

 

[gar hi]

The chances of coast to coast AM reception were a lot better back in the 70s.

I'll never forget when I finally heard KFI once and only once after listening night after night for weeks.

It was winter 77/78 and it drifted in for only a minute or two in south Jersey but it was very listenable while it lasted.

They were playing the song 'I Go Crazy' by Paul Davis and then they gave the ID '64 KFI'. That was on my favorite radio I ever had, my portable Panasonic AM/FM with FM 'Stereo Spacer'.

It was a solid radio and I would guess the AM antenna was at least ad big as the 200 mm one in my Sangean PR-D5. No chance of ever hearing KFI there now with the station on 640 near by.


Then in early 2009, I heard KFI for the first time here in Florida on my little Sony Walkman late at night and I knew it was them as soon as I heard them say 'the southland' during a weather forecast.

The next year, I got my first video catch of KFI from Tampa.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgDnuvAkUD4

Haven't heard it yet this season but I haven't been listening to 640 as much as I could either.

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

I did get the TIS from the I-294 Tri State Tollway a few times when there were few TIS stations. You heard a low frequency hum consistent with being slightly off frequency between transmitters, like carrier current stations in different dorms. There was also a carrier shift or changing amplitude transmission from a station near Harrisville, MI, which I heard more than 100 miles away. It was in the low 1600s. It was some kind of navigational aid.

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

My father grew up in the early days of radio, and told me of many of the stations he used to hear, one of which was KFI. He said it usually came in late at night after many stations signed off. I don't think it was 50000 watts when he first heard it. Another station he mentioned hearing was WPG Atlantic City, NJ. I bought a Panasonic RF-2200 in 1982, and for the first time, I could regularly hear KFI many nights. I was able to share this with my father, and he was amazed at how well it came in. I'm glad I got to share this with him before they started putting other fulltime stations on 640, which was a few years later.

 

[radioman148]

My father grew up in the early days of radio, and told me of many of the stations he used to hear, one of which was KFI. He said it usually came in late at night after many stations signed off. I don't think it was 50000 watts when he first heard it. Another station he mentioned hearing was WPG Atlantic City, NJ. I bought a Panasonic RF-2200 in 1982, and for the first time, I could regularly hear KFI many nights. I was able to share this with my father, and he was amazed at how well it came in. I'm glad I got to share this with him before they started putting other fulltime stations on 640, which was a few years later.

I remember my dad telling me that KYW was originally in Chicago. At the time he told me this KYW was in Cleveland before it moved to Philly. At the the time I didn't know that it had originated in Chicago.