• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

AM Frequency of the week: 1020

cyberdad

cyberdad

Back to the "1-A" clears for a few weeks. First stop 1020. Here at my location in far northwest suburban Chicago.....

Days: Slop from my local (WNVR) on 1030. Their stick is about five miles from my house. Before this major pest came on, with a good radio, I could usually get a very weak WPEO from Peoria, IL.

Nights: Usually all KDKA. Much has been said in other threads about how this signal seems to be underperforming. I'll agree with that to a point. They used to be sound better to me than they do now. But I think the KDKA signal is still pretty good here. Good enough to overcome slop from WNVR when they go to "flea power" at night. I have also heard KBRF from Fergus Falls, MN a few times when they've "forgotten" to power down.

Other location: On my 1994 trip to Maui, KTNQ was easily the strongest nighttime mainland signal.
 
In the near north Chicago burbs during the daytime it's slop from WNVR. Like Cyberdad I used to be able to hear a weak WPEO during the day before WNVR. At night all KDKA.
 
East Tennessee: Daytime: Nada. Night is KDKA. I've heard Spanish at night as well,

Retro/other: WPEO, Peoria was heard in both Lafayette IN and Quincy, IL during the day. Sometime during the mid-90s, I heard a station with English language religious programming from somewhere in the Carribean.
 
cyberdad said:
Other location: On my 1994 trip to Maui, KTNQ was easily the strongest nighttime mainland signal.
Click to expand...

Anecdote time. Around 1997, a Miss Hawaii one one of the national beauty pageants. The overnight talk host at KTNQ made some remarks about who he thought should have won, dismissing Miss Hawaii as undeserving. He immediately got several dozen calls from Hawaii protesting his remarks and praising the contestant. Further research revealed that there was a consistent little regular audience to the station, since Hawaii had no Spanish language service at the time.

But you could not hear us in San Bernardino!
 
I can vouch for the fact that KTNQ puts a big signal into Hawaii. When I was there about 8 years ago, KTNQ & KFAX were the strongest, but KNX was actually the most steady signal from the mainland. KTNQ was the loudest at times.
 
South of Minnesota River suburbs (Minneapolis, MN)

daytime-bleedover from WCTS Minneapolis (50kw signal)
nighttime-usually KDKA

by the way....WCTS has one of the biggest dropoffs I've seen when nightime comes. 50kw day 1kw night (they have a CP for 4kw at night)
 
Daytime: nothing really. Hints of WPEO Peoria, but nothing audible. KMMQ Omaha doesn't make it over here despite a 50k watt signal -- odd.

Nighttime: KDKA is regular, but not the blowtorch that it once was. KMMQ does show up at night sometimes under KDKA.

Retro: all KDKA, pretty much every night.
 
gr8oldies said:
East Tennessee: Daytime: Nada. Night is KDKA. I've heard Spanish at night as well,

Retro/other: WPEO, Peoria was heard in both Lafayette IN and Quincy, IL during the day.
Click to expand...

During my college years in the late 60s in southeast Iowa (Mount Pleasant), WPEO was very weak but clearly audible on a regular daily basis. One of those stations where the R-L maps don't do it justice. Which is not a knock on R-L. Ground conductivity in Central Illinois and adjacent areas of Indiana and Iowa is very, very good. I listened to Peoria's WIRL regularly in my dorm room/apartment almost every day. Perfectly noise and interference free, although, according to the R-L map, I should've been well out of range.

(Nowadays, I still listen to WIRL from time to time. Online. 60s/70s and a few classic WIRL jingles that I remember).
 
Interesting frequency in West Texas, essentially the 50kW monster that isn't. Now KCKN Roswell. Its pattern appears to protect KDKA, but they operate 50 kW day and night. But even with good radios in West Texas, it is an also-ran signal - nothing especially powerful about it. Nighttime - by the time you get to places like Dallas or Houston, it has descended into the usual background jumble of stations. Their lack of signal must be aliens -----
 
I've heard the Roswell 1020 as a nighttime regular on biz trips to the west coast. They do also appear to have an additional null to the west-southwest. The result, IME, is that unless I happen to be in the greater Los Angeles area and KTNQ's primary coverage area, the signal is typically "decent" but unremarkable.
 
I first heard Roswell in the late 60s when I was on the west coast. At that time KTNQ was KGBS and daytime only. One Monday morning when I was in LA, KDKA was off the air and I heard Roswell. Then KGBS came on for several hours until KDKA returned to the air around 5AM EST.
 
Daytimes here in NE PA, there is QRM.

One sunset in 1993, I got a good taped ID from WKZE, which is located in the NW corner of Connecticut. That little thing gets out. It also was one of my last loggings back from the JFK Airport area days (wicked null on WINS).

It'd be cool to hear that Ocean City station here which Ryan Howard gets. Maybe one of these SSS's .....

The nighttime regular here is KDKA. I gotta 'second' the talk about their nighttime signal issues, though. They and WGY 810 are awful here. Perhaps I'm in their whatever-it's-called zones. But I do have a nice taped ID here from May 1995 of that Turks and/or Caicos station.
 
KDKA has gotten a little better over the past couple of years. I read they used to be known as “Fadey-KA” by DXers because of their weaker daytime and nighttime signal than other clears. I have heard it before sunset when I previously couldn’t hear it that well in Charleston.
 
Here around Columbus, KDKA is pretty bad at all hours. Barely audible daytime from about 175 miles west of the tower, and at night it might get loud occasionally but 90 percent of the time in my experience, it's overshadowed by much more powerful neighbors WBZ, WMVP and WHO.
 
1020 here is a local just five miles away, KDYK Union Gap (Spanish Christian). They have a translator on 93.7.
If I perfectly null KDYK at night, I'll sometimes hear KWIQ Moses Lake (ESPN) or KTNQ Los Angeles (Spanish News/Talk).
Earlier this year, KDYK was completely off the air one night...and I was able to log KDKA Pittsburgh, PA (News/Talk)! Not strong but they showed up; 412 area code mention, weak calls into CBS News. That was a lucky break. I also heard a very faint KCKN Roswell (also Spanish Christian) that night. KCKN was rare even in western WA where 1020 was open. Usually in Seattle, it was KDYK (ex-KYXE) and KWIQ slopping over each other at night.

No wanted list, the local blocks everything. If not for KDYK, I could have a chance at KMMQ NE (transmitter in Glenwood, IA) when they go to 50KW at Omaha sunrise, with Regional Mexican.
 
cyberdad said:
During my college years in the late 60s in southeast Iowa (Mount Pleasant), WPEO was very weak but clearly audible on a regular daily basis. One of those stations where the R-L maps don't do it justice. Which is not a knock on R-L. Ground conductivity in Central Illinois and adjacent areas of Indiana and Iowa is very, very good. I listened to Peoria's WIRL regularly in my dorm room/apartment almost every day. Perfectly noise and interference free, although, according to the R-L map, I should've been well out of range.
Click to expand...

I didn't realize WPEO was only 1kW. That signal does seem to carry pretty well, and central Illinois ground conductivity probably has a lot to do with that. I was thinking about how KTRS is listenable in Chicago suburbs during the daytime, while in my part of eastern Iowa (an equivalent or similar distance from St. Louis), it doesn't really make it here during the daytime. There may be some built-in protection for WSAU, I'm not sure. Anyway, I expect to be able to hear WPEO for quite a distance when I travel south and east of here.
 
I hear Spanish on top of KDKA here. Can't identify whether its domestic, Mexico or Cuba.
 
kf4rca said:
I hear Spanish on top of KDKA here. Can't identify whether its domestic, Mexico or Cuba.
Click to expand...

I hear Cuba on 1020 fairly regularly when I'm in Florida. Including daytime in southwest Florida. The signal isn't in the same class as the big Cuban blowtorches, so I'm guessing it's somewhere in the 5-10KW.range.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom