AM Frequency of the Week 1680

[cyberdad]

40 miles northwest of downtown Chicago....

Days: Usually blank, But sometimes WPRR from Ada, Michigan (Grand Rapids area) on Daytime Skywave.

Nights: WPRR with a fair signal, which is enough to dominate the channel, Apparently, night power is only 680 watts. I remember the night signal from the Grand Rapids area being significantly better than it is now. I wouldn't expect much difference between 1kw and 680 watts, but that's what I'm hearing. Perhaps there's some sort of STA in place, or perhaps previous incarnations of what's now WPRR were "forgetting" to power down.

 

[Steve Green NEPA]

Frequency​

Calls​

State​

Date​

Taped​

QTH (s)​

Radio​

Antenna​

Sober​

Day Part​

Notes​

Otherness​

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1680​

WQA767​

TX​

​

​

W.John St​

Lafayette​

Loop​

y​

N​

DFW Airport, widely heard​

​

​

​

WTIR ​

FL ​

10-16-01 ​

t​

“​

“​

​

​

N​

COL Winter Graden​

​

​

​

WTTM​

NJ 3-10-95 ​

1-26-15 ​

​

?​

​

​

​

SSS ?​

​

​

​

 

[Battenkill50]

1680 KHz - WOKB - Winter Garden ---- R&B, gospel, inspiration 2016 (about 60 miles away - best around sunset)

1680 KHz - KRJO - Monroe-West Monroe LA - Rejoice 1680 AM - Black gospel - 2001

kw Melbourne FL

 

[gr8oldies]

East Tennessee--daytime. NADA. Sunset, daytime skip and night, KRJO, Monroe, LA.
Retro/other: WPRR as Progressive Talk would often be in in Dayton, Ohio, and, like others in the region, could be in all day during the winter. I seem to remember the Winter Garden FL station coming in with an all-traffic format in the early 00s.

 

[wildthangjim]

In west Houston, starting at sunset, KRJO Monroe LA ("99-7 The Legend" with classic country) is dominant. Mixing in sometimes is WOKB in Florida, weak at night but sometimes good around their sunrise w/urban gospel music.

 

[TXPH97]

DFW, Texas

Daytime: Nothing
Nights: KRJO Monroe, LA is usually there with classic country, although, much weaker than would be expected.
One time catches: WPRR Ada, MI "You're listening to 102.5 FM 1680 AM The Ride, WPRR". WOKB Winter Garden, FL with Urban Gospel.

 

[tvnut]

From the southwest suburbs of Chicago, a few miles from the 1690/1390 transmitter:

WPRR Ada, Mich., is a tough catch thanks to the bleedover from 1690 WVON. Picked it up for the first time early in 2020 and have only noted it once since, though I don't hang out on 1680 often. I noticed a couple of weeks ago that WPRR was coming in clear as a bell in the early morning while driving 25 miles southwest of my house. No bleedover there.

 

[CTListener]

Hartland, VT:

WTTM Lindenwold, NJ, at night with Spanish-language talk and sports programming.

Meriden, CT:

Also WTTM, which puts in a usable signal day and night.

 

[CADXER]

Here in Wood Dale, IL in the near NW suburb of Chicago:

Daytime: sometimes WPRR Ada, MI but not common
Nighttime: usually WPRR, but sometimes KRJO (Monroe, LA) makes it through.

DX/RETRO: Also heard in the past WTTM (Princeton, NJ), WOKB (Winter Garden, FL), KNTS (Seattle, WA) and also the other half of the DFW travelers station WPLR660. WTTM now as Lindenwold COL was heard as recently as last month.

 

[Steve Green NEPA]

Interesting ; those former calls on the old 5.4-16 dial still in use.
On one visit to Florida, I remember WOKB being on 1600 as a directional daytimer outside Orlando.
And WTTM were the calls of a full-time regional on a nice frequency (920) licensed to Trenton NJ, about 10 miles SW of Princeton. Lol -- WTTM 920 was a Country station, off whom I won tickets to see an act after calling the station asking the title of a song they played by that act. The act was the Vogues, a decidedly non-Country group.
(The newer Vogues, not the originals. Nice show!)
X-Band O's & O's seemingly have a curious affection for 'heritage' calls. Doubtless you folks here must know of others.

 

[wildthangjim]

DFW, Texas


Nights: KRJO Monroe, LA is usually there with classic country, although, much weaker than would be expected.

KRJO is weaker here than they used to be. I wonder if they're operating at a lower power than before.

 

[jim-satx]

Been hearing some strangeness on 1680 since 2:53 a.m. CT this morning. Radio is aimed N-NE and there is no sign of KRJO. Instead I’m hearing a weak signal in/out with r&b and hip hop music that’s not matching WPRR’s (or WOKB’s) stream. There was no TOH announcement at 3:00, and there hasn’t been any talk at all.

I started wondering if KRJO was stunting, but it usually has a much better signal than this.

I’m leaving the radio and recorder on overnight now since I have to get up early for work.

 

[WCJ]

Been hearing some strangeness on 1680 since 2:53 a.m. CT this morning. Radio is aimed N-NE and there is no sign of KRJO. Instead I’m hearing a weak signal in/out with r&b and hip hop music that’s not matching WPRR’s (or WOKB’s) stream. There was no TOH announcement at 3:00, and there hasn’t been any talk at all.

I started wondering if KRJO was stunting, but it usually has a much better signal than this.

I’m leaving the radio and recorder on overnight now since I have to get up early for work.

I noticed the same thing last night during a power outage when the AM band was noise free. KRJO usually booms in. Unfortunately, I caught no new stations in that quite time

 

[Steve Green NEPA]

Any super-Aurora cx that night, fellers ?

Mexico, pirate, Cuba, maybe even Central or South America as candidates ? I had the HQ-180 fired up about the same time (for equipment test purposes only) and did not hear WBZ at all, while similarly latitudinal to me WHO was a ton of brix ......
Happy hunting!

 

[TXPH97]

Been hearing some strangeness on 1680 since 2:53 a.m. CT this morning. Radio is aimed N-NE and there is no sign of KRJO. Instead I’m hearing a weak signal in/out with r&b and hip hop music that’s not matching WPRR’s (or WOKB’s) stream. There was no TOH announcement at 3:00, and there hasn’t been any talk at all.

I started wondering if KRJO was stunting, but it usually has a much better signal than this.

I’m leaving the radio and recorder on overnight now since I have to get up early for work.

@jim-satx I checked 1680 this morning at 6:30am from DFW and heard nothing. No sign of KRJO, although, they have been very weak when I do hear them.

 

[CADXER]

Been hearing some strangeness on 1680 since 2:53 a.m. CT this morning. Radio is aimed N-NE and there is no sign of KRJO. Instead I’m hearing a weak signal in/out with r&b and hip hop music that’s not matching WPRR’s (or WOKB’s) stream. There was no TOH

I am 100% certain that you were hearing WPRR. Their streams usually don't match whatever is played on 1680.

 

[MichaelTheZ]

Chicago by the lakeshore:

Daytime: You can hear WPRR Grand Rapids right along the lakeshore, but it fades pretty rapidly as you go inland.

Nighttime: No one station stands out. Besides WPRR, the most common is KRJO in Monroe, LA but it's still not too common. I've also heard WOKB in Winter Garden, FL (which strikes me as an extremely Florida name for a town).

 

[jim-satx]

I am 100% certain that you were hearing WPRR. Their streams usually don't match whatever is played on 1680.

Thanks, all, for your responses about my 1680 mystery.

KRJO was still off air until last night. The previous two nights I didn't hear the urban music station due to presumably poor propagation and heavy static crashes from thunderstorms. I did finish going through my live and unattended 1680 recordings from Tuesday, though.

@CADXER - The main reason I’m still not sure about it being WPRR is because during those three hours of recordings, I didn’t hear any IDs, even at the top/bottom of the hour, and there were no ads or DJ talk.

Yesterday I came across a thread on the HF Underground website that is possibly related. A DXer in Nebraska stated that he heard a station playing a similar urban music format on 1680 back in January. The latest post, from March, was made by a DXer in Minnesota who said it's a new pirate station that prevents him from hearing WPRR. Interesting.

Unknown 1680 AM 0835 22 Jan 2023

Unknown 1680 AM 0835 22 Jan 2023

www.hfunderground.com

 

[jim-satx]

From NW San Antonio:

Day: Blank, but I heard KRJO once via daytime skywave in December 2018 when it was "My FM" and playing classic hits.

Sunset: KRJO comes up with a fairly good signal.

Night: KRJO is still steady. Aiming NW, I can null it out. There is some splatter from 1670 XEFCR, and occasionally I'll hear a weak KGED with Spanish-language Catholic programming.

Sunrise: KGED sometimes has a decent signal in the null, and the XEFCR splatter is stronger.

DX/Retro: I've only knowingly heard WPRR once; it was back in January 2016 when the station aired a talk format and KRJO was off air. (See above for info about my possible reception of it this past week.) Also, I used to receive WOKB fairly often in KRJO's null, but I haven't heard the station in a while.