AM Frequency of the Week: 540

[kc0ltv]

Going along with the FM Frequency of the Week thread...

What do you normally hear (day or night) on 540? What have you logged there?

540 is almost always CBK, Watrous, SA, about 682 miles to the northwest, running 50,000 watts. The signal is usually moderate in strength, but suffers from noise when I listen to it in my car.

The only thing else I've ever logged there was XEWA San Luis Potosi, Mexico (1767 mi, 150 kW).

 

[cyberdad]

40 miles northwest of Chicago....

Milwaukee (actually, Jackson, WI) owns the channel day & night. Weaker at night. Just flipped to all sports, so I'm not sure what the calls are these days.

Daytimes, if I null my Grundig Yacht Boy, KWMT from Fort Dodge, Iowa is perfectly audible. At night, CBK can be heard under Milwaukee from time to time. Less often, XEWA shows up. Even more rarely, I've also heard WDAK and KNOE.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

What do you normally hear (day or night) on 540? What have you logged there?

Dallas

Daytime, a local 540. Interestingly, I could pull it out in Lubbock 330 miles away using a loop and GE SR-3, even though it is very low power.

At night, a jumble of most Spanish.

 

[mimo]

In Ottawa it's CBEF Windsor predominantly with WLIE occasionally. I've logged XEWA twice here, but they were a constant catch for me in Southeast Iowa along with CBK at night, and KWMT in the day. I've logged CBK from Kenora, Ontario to Banff, Alberta. I haven't heard any other 540's yet.

 

[WTUX]

CBK is all I can receive here on the East coast.

 

[Lawppy]

From Coldwater, MI

CBEF Windsor pretty much owns this frequency, but I have also heard..

CBK- Watrous, SK- (approximately 1,175 miles)
WLIE- Islip, NY
WWCS- Pittsburgh, PA (Radio Disney)
KWMT- Iowa (Country)
WDAK- Columbus, GA
WRRD- Jackson, WI (Now an ESPN affiliate, but unsure of new call)

I KNOW i've heard a Mexican station on 540, but i'm not fluent enough in Spanish to understand what they're saying. And i'm trying hard for Florida, but no luck yet.

 

[cyberdad]

Forgot to mention CBEF. Shows up in the slop under the Milwaukee 540 here in Northern Illinois on occasion. Not very often and not very well.

 

[mimo]

I forgot that I have heard Milwaukee's AM 540 many times as well.

 

[gr8oldies]

Dayton, OH area.

WWCS-Radio Disney in PA daily

When I lived in Indiana it was Jackson WI (WYLO at the time). I have heard Birmingham. 540 in Florida is all of its incarnations has never gotten to my reciever.

 

[FreddyE1977]

worthless to me due to close proximity of the PA Radio Disney station

 

[MarcB]

During the day I get WLIE 540, the all Russian station licensed to Islip, Long Island. At night 540 is a mess.

 

[PhilJSmith67]

35 miles south of Chicago, I get WAUK Jackson-Milwaukee (old calls WRRD,WZER,WYLO) during the day, with a fair signal. At night, I get a mix of WAUK and CBK Watrous-Regina. I used to get CBK exclusively at night, until a few years ago when the Jackson-Milwaukee station upped their nighttime power. There are still a couple nights per week, on average, when CBK takes over 540.

 

[vibe]

All I get is mostly static on the car radio on 540 or a signal too weak, it just doesn't make sense to identify.
In FLA (Englewood) we get a so so 540 out of Orlando. My son says he got it during the daytime, about 1 hr after local sunrise on the NC-VA border 3-4 days before Christmas, 2005. He had lived in FLA: 540 was one of his presets.

 

[dxnemo78]

From Northeast MO, of course it's KWMT, Fort Dodge in the daytime. In the car I usually keep preset button #1 on it. I'm pretty sure I heard CBK once or twice years ago, but I didn't log my catches then. Usually at night it's weak garble or basically nothing.

 

[MotoMuzak]

SE Vancouver, WA

Let's see.......by day 540 is WPHD710, which is the TIS broadcasting from Portland International Airport. (On a clear day I can see PDX Airport from the balcony of my flat, just over the Columbia.) Kinda' odd because PDX reportedly operates on 530!

Night, 540 seems to be a jumble of Spanish stations, Washington Department of Transportation TIS' and buzzing noise. Not IBAC hash, this is electrical buzzing.

Radios:
Yacht Boy 400
Realistic DX302
and a GM-Delco radio from the late-80s, with AM Stereo and a "digital" tuner.

 

[fortmill]

WYNN-AM/540 Florence SC broadcasts with a whopping 250 watts daytime and (I think) 122 watts at night, both non-directional. Considering the low power and horrible ground conductivity in this area, coverage is amazing--50 to 75 miles daytime and at least 20 miles at night, easily surpassing the 10000watt day/3000watt night signal of 970 in Florence.

 

[cyberdad]

From Central London last week.....

540 Hungary (Radio Kossuth) modest to strong each night dominating the channel. (Ah....the brute force of two megawatts!) Spanish station occasionally audible underneath and minor occasional splatter from nearby local on 558. Relating to "sister" thread, I also tried 1600...actually 1602. Essentially a mess here with nothing riding to the top of a batch of very weak signals.

My receiver is a Sony AM-FM Walkman...which regularly pulls in quite a bit of stuff from various points in Europe. This includes about a half-dozen stations from France, Belgium, and Netherlands daytime.

Incidentally, the BBC on 648 and 692 are pretty much the 800-pound gorillas of the am band in southeast England. Strongest nighttime skywave blowtorch? Still probably the legendary radio Luxemburg on 1440, but there are several others.