Right Now I Can Hear KCBS San Franisco In Huntington Beach,CA Its In LA/OC Market First time On LA Siginal?
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740 AM KCBS AM On Los Angeles Market
- Thread starter jasonharper2013
- Start date
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musicfan101
Guest
No not at all! I live in Culver City, and I get KCBS on my Walkman every night I go jogging...jasonharper2007 said:
KCBS operates with 50,000 watts from a four-tower array in the marshland at the top of San Francisco Bay outside of Novato, and is directionalized to the south at night. Giving Southern California a particularly strong skywave signal.
Maybe you've been thrown off by KBRT's daytime only signal getting in the way.
Wish I could hear it clearly at night in Seattle, but their signal is pointed the other way from where I now live. It's hard to not have a good all-news station like KCBS or KNX where I live.
Maybe you've been thrown off by KBRT's daytime only signal getting in the way.
Wish I could hear it clearly at night in Seattle, but their signal is pointed the other way from where I now live. It's hard to not have a good all-news station like KCBS or KNX where I live.
jprg said:
As an insomniac kid in the 60s growing up in LA near Glendale, my DXing would bring in KCBS, KNBR, KGO, and even 610/KFRC, which was only 5,000 watts. If atmospheric conditions were right, they would all come in as clear as local stations with transmitters on Mt. Wilson. My mother liked one of the KGO hosts (Ira Blue, maybe) and would listen to KGO at night in the kitchen.
Since I liked Top 40 music, my favorites were KFRC, and KDON/1460 from Salinas.
I could also bring in KOY Phoenix, some other Arizona stations, and a couple from Las Vegas, but no longer remember what their call letters were. Another loud and clear station at night was KSL from Salt Lake City.
I don't DX anymore, but occasional flip the AM dial when I'm in the car - KFI and KNX both come in quite strongly at night in the Bay Area.
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musicfan101
Guest
Believe it or not, I could get KOMO here in Culver City as well! Just not as clearly as KCBS...e-dawg said:
KOMO is the only non-directional 50kw AMer in Seattle, as far as I know, so it does travel quite a way south. Can't hear it in San Francisco because of a local station on 1010. The other 50kw fulltimers here (710, 1090, and maybe 820) are aimed mostly away from the south at night to protect powerful stations on the same freqs in Los Angeles and Tijuana.
As far as content, KOMO likes to use a lot of whooshy sound effects, with a strange sounding smiley-voicer, and doesn't employ more than one or two people to gather news on weekends. There are some good announcers there in drive time, but there are also others who sound like top 40 DJs ripping and reading who really shouldn't be anchoring on an all news format. Credibility suffers.
They also separate traffic from weather by 5 minutes, and it just irritates me that they think making you listen to 3 minutes of commercials to get what often is a ten second weather forecast is a good policy for all news radio. They're making ratings gains lately, but a large part of it is a lack of competition for people who want news 24/7 since their arch rival KIRO-AM went all sports and moved the talk to FM (KOMO also has some sort of midday talk/commentary show, but I've never listened to it, so perhaps it's not really "all news").
Most Vancouver AMs are 50kw fulltime, but, again, directionalized away from the south. Some of them put in a decent skip at night into central Alaska because of it. CKWX is their all news station on AM 1130, and I listen to it in the car almost every day in the near north suburban area of Seattle, but their signal isn't strong enough to make a dent in the Seattle market, and gets a lot of adjacent channel splatter at night. They also use some pretty lightweight feature material from ABC (after 45 seconds you have to ask what was the point of the piece?), but follow a more reliable all-news format clock, and their spot breaks are noticeably shorter than on KOMO, tho' probably not less frequent. I often hear more about issues of interest to citizens of the Seattle-Puget Sound area there than I will on Seattle stations.
The Seattle market is probably a lot like San Diego without any of its border stations from TJ. Seattle only has a couple of Spanish language outlets (all of whom only play norteno "banda" music - no mariachi, no ballads, no tropical, no rock en espanol). Seattle still has a commercial classical station (no non-comm classical, however.) Not much other "foreign language" programming here that isn't religious. Lots of sports and right wing politics and religion, even tho' the latter two are pretty foreign to the social make up of Seattle. FM is largely classic rock, country, and what passes for top 40 today. A contemporary Christian music station is often in the top 5. Actually, the radio stations in this market sounds more like Cincinnati or Indianapolis than what you'll find in most of the other west coast markets. (People here might think that is in insult - not intended to be, just an observation.)
Wish I could hear KTNN AM660 from Window Rock AZ up here at night (a nearby station on 660 covers it up). Anything authentic from a particular community is welcome radio for DXing, in my book.
As far as content, KOMO likes to use a lot of whooshy sound effects, with a strange sounding smiley-voicer, and doesn't employ more than one or two people to gather news on weekends. There are some good announcers there in drive time, but there are also others who sound like top 40 DJs ripping and reading who really shouldn't be anchoring on an all news format. Credibility suffers.
They also separate traffic from weather by 5 minutes, and it just irritates me that they think making you listen to 3 minutes of commercials to get what often is a ten second weather forecast is a good policy for all news radio. They're making ratings gains lately, but a large part of it is a lack of competition for people who want news 24/7 since their arch rival KIRO-AM went all sports and moved the talk to FM (KOMO also has some sort of midday talk/commentary show, but I've never listened to it, so perhaps it's not really "all news").
Most Vancouver AMs are 50kw fulltime, but, again, directionalized away from the south. Some of them put in a decent skip at night into central Alaska because of it. CKWX is their all news station on AM 1130, and I listen to it in the car almost every day in the near north suburban area of Seattle, but their signal isn't strong enough to make a dent in the Seattle market, and gets a lot of adjacent channel splatter at night. They also use some pretty lightweight feature material from ABC (after 45 seconds you have to ask what was the point of the piece?), but follow a more reliable all-news format clock, and their spot breaks are noticeably shorter than on KOMO, tho' probably not less frequent. I often hear more about issues of interest to citizens of the Seattle-Puget Sound area there than I will on Seattle stations.
The Seattle market is probably a lot like San Diego without any of its border stations from TJ. Seattle only has a couple of Spanish language outlets (all of whom only play norteno "banda" music - no mariachi, no ballads, no tropical, no rock en espanol). Seattle still has a commercial classical station (no non-comm classical, however.) Not much other "foreign language" programming here that isn't religious. Lots of sports and right wing politics and religion, even tho' the latter two are pretty foreign to the social make up of Seattle. FM is largely classic rock, country, and what passes for top 40 today. A contemporary Christian music station is often in the top 5. Actually, the radio stations in this market sounds more like Cincinnati or Indianapolis than what you'll find in most of the other west coast markets. (People here might think that is in insult - not intended to be, just an observation.)
Wish I could hear KTNN AM660 from Window Rock AZ up here at night (a nearby station on 660 covers it up). Anything authentic from a particular community is welcome radio for DXing, in my book.
Goldilocks94941 said:
KOMO is highly directional at night, with the major lobes NNE and SSW. The huge null is ESE, on about 100 degrees.
Norteña and banda are two separate music forms... norteña is based on the accordeon, while banda uses brass, featuring the tuba. Norteña is from NE Mexico, while banda is from Sinaloa and the surrounding areas. Mariachi (ranchera, really) is not much heard on regional Mexican format stations, as there are only a couple of big artists today. Pop and ballads are seldom mixed with that music, save in small markets in Mexico. Spanish language rock is not really played anywhere successfully (except Argentina) so that is not an issue. Mexican tropical is played on banda / norteña stations, but there is not much of it.
djj said:
I was in Bakersfield recently and they still battle it out as I was able to receive both in Bakersfield during late morning. KNBR was also coming in pretty well, with the 670 AM LA station not creating interference. KGO doesn't come in during the day, because of the local 800 AM station in Bakersfield.
Goldilocks94941 said:
In Pinole (15 miles NE from SF) you can still get KOMO 1000 really clearly at night. It's still possible to get KOMO 1000 5 miles from the transmitter, but there's a lot of splatter from 1010.
It's also possible to get 1130 CKWX from Vancouver in the SF Bay Area, if you're in the right place. One place in mind is at the Berkeley Marina, where for some reason, the Vancouver signal wins out over the other signals on 1130. The SF Bay Area is strange signal-wise as you can find certain places where a skywave signal can nearly overpower a local signal (ex. 960 AM Calgary overpowering the local 960 near Concord)
musicfan101 said:
Living in SF and in the suburbs, when I used to DX I could get KNX, KFWB, XETRA, XERB (XEPRS), XEROK, KFI of course, KGBS 1020 (aka KTNQ), KIIS 1150, and a few other LA area stations.
I could also pull in with regularity KSL, KBOI Boise, KPNW Eugene, KIRO and KOMO Seattle, CKWX Vancouver, KTWO Casper Wyoming, KOA Denver, KOB Albuquerque, etc.
When I was really in the mood to DX and fired up the old Philco 41-290 with the great turnable loop that surrounded the 15 inch speaker in the back of the cabinet, I could pull in WWL New Orleans, KCMO Kansas City, CKLW Windsor Ontario (Detroit area), WLS Chicago, and a couple times WBZ in Boston (2700 miles I'm told).
These were all without external antennas, just using what came with the radios and perhaps some tweaking of antenna inductance, etc.
What's strange is I only live about 100 miles south of the KCBS transmitter and at night, the signal is better in SoCal...Get a lot of washout at night??
Every night I get KDWN 720/Las Vegas, KFMB 760/San Diego, KOH 780/Reno, KOA 850/Denver, KSL 1160/Salt Lake.
KMJ 580/Fresno has to have one of the most encompassing daytime signals in California....Signal is listenable from Santa Barbara to Santa Rosa, North of the Golden Gate...That's about 400 miles! Only thing that keeps KMJ's signal from getting in to L.A. is KLAC 570.
Nightime coverage in California has to go to KCBS?
Every night I get KDWN 720/Las Vegas, KFMB 760/San Diego, KOH 780/Reno, KOA 850/Denver, KSL 1160/Salt Lake.
KMJ 580/Fresno has to have one of the most encompassing daytime signals in California....Signal is listenable from Santa Barbara to Santa Rosa, North of the Golden Gate...That's about 400 miles! Only thing that keeps KMJ's signal from getting in to L.A. is KLAC 570.
Nightime coverage in California has to go to KCBS?
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musicman3355
Guest
Its not a first - KCBS always comes down here. Believe it or not, I've also gotten KNEW and KSFO here in LA aswell! Just not as clear though.
When I was a kid growing up in West Sacramento I used to regularly pull in CKLG Vancouver. Back then (the 70's) I could get quite a few big signals. Once I even pulled in WLS. It was after midnight and I was pretty shocked to pick up a Chicago station. 1090 XPRS used to come in pretty good back then as well. X-Rock 80 was another flame thrower that came in at times. I used to listen to Lohman & Barkley for the small amount of time they were on before the sun came up. KFI's signal really used to get out. I pulled a shift on the Super 64 back in the early 80's and got calls on the request lines from Washington, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada and Wyoming. It was pretty cool.
airpab said:
If you're 100 miles away you're likely between the groundwave and the skip, in a nothing zone where if there is any signal you probably get both and phase differences would likely cancel each other out. Same thing happens to KGO about 150 miles to the north and 150 miles to the south.
DavidKaye said:
That's exactly what happens to the Sacramento 50kw AM signals at night in parts of the SF Bay Area. During the day, the signals reach the Bay Area just fine. But at night, 1140 KHTK and 1530 KFBK the signals are horrible, almost to the point of being unlistenable, at least where I live at.
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