• 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: 730

Status
Not open for further replies.
cyberdad

cyberdad

Far northwest suburban Chicago....

Days: Splatter from local WGN (720)

Nights: CKDM B with a fair signal, but usually strong enough to overcome WGN splatter. Supposedly 5kw with a null to the south, Occasionally XEX from Mexico City shows up but only rarely. They're supposedly 100kw non-directictional. But given that they're somewhat less common than previously, I suspect they're running less. But hey...I also suspect CKDM is operating exactly in compliance within authorized parameters. I've also heard CKAC from Montreal a couple of times.

Sunrise/Sunset. Occasionally WJMT fr0m Merril, WI sneaks in,

Other Location. On the Gulf near Pensacola, XEX is reliable. Usually with a fair-good signal. The 730 from Covington, Louisiana (North of New Orleans_ used to be audible during daytime with a weak signal (1kw, IIRC), but they're long gone.

Fun Fact: CKDM puts a city grade signal into Winnipeg 24/7 from a distance of more than 100 miles. Fun Fact -2. Speaking of "long gone", CKAC used to be my go-to...In French...on biz trips to Montreal whenever the Cubs were playing the Expos. The English language broadcasts were on CFCF (600) which suffered from a deep null to the west. Which meant I'd lose it rather quickly driving to either Toronto or Ottawa. CFCF is also now "long gone".
 
@cyberdad
Fun stuff there. It's ALWAYS interesting to read about the variations of what comes in night or day in different regions. And this supposedly Mexican-cleared 730 is even more cool with all those high-power heavy hot dogs.

Days here, 730 is occupied by a 1000-watt omni from some 35 miles NE of here. I will always call them WNAK, from Nanticoke PA. They had been WNAK for decades, recently changed to WGMF. Those are a form of the closely-cossetted 'house' letters of the Gem-104 tribe, an Oldies outfit out of Scranton.
Atop them one early June SSS was CKAC Montreal, with an Expos PBP ballgame done, for some reason, in French. Again, I will always remember them for a call on an inside-the-park home run from 'MAAWWWW - Keeessss GREEEE-summmm!', excitedly repeated a few times, like the call of a soccer goal.
More sedate SSS catches include WDOS upstate NY, WPAL from NC, WACE (from the once-equally heavy French speaking Chicopee MA, lol), and WEZLfrom SC.
 
Hello....

730 KHz - WLTQ- Charleston SC - EWTN - Catholic - 2023 (daytime - fair signal)

730 KHz - CMBC - La Fe - Radio Progreso - La Onda de la Alegria - 2023 (nights - fair)


kw - Melbourne FL
 
Tyler TX:

730 is KKDA Grand Prairie (DFW) "Radio Korea" during the day. Fair to moderate signal most days. At night, KKDA is completely overtaken by XEX in Mexico D.F. Varying strengths on XEX. Sometimes it's really strong, sometimes it's barely receivable.
 
Wilmington Delaware

Days - A weak WTNT from Alexandria VA with Spanish programming. I can hear it on my car radio but not in my apartment.

Nights - A fair signal from CKAC in Montreal. Not as good as CJBC on 860 but still nice to hear French on AM from Quebec.
 
In Pickerington, Ohio, a weak WJYM from Bowling Green by day and nothing by night. I've heard more WGN and Zoomer slop on that frequency over the years than XEX or Canada.
I remember XEX blasting into the Houston area at night. Listenable even with noticeable KTRH slop from next door, and I say listenable with a personal asterisk because I barely know any Spanish.
 
cyberdad said:
Far northwest suburban Chicago....

Days: Splatter from local WGN (720)

Nights: CKDM B with a fair signal, but usually strong enough to overcome WGN splatter. Supposedly 5kw with a null to the south, Occasionally XEX from Mexico City shows up but only rarely. They're supposedly 100kw non-directictional. But given that they're somewhat less common than previously, I suspect they're running less. But hey...I also suspect CKDM is operating exactly in compliance within authorized parameters. I've also heard CKAC from Montreal a couple of times.

Sunrise/Sunset. Occasionally WJMT fr0m Merril, WI sneaks in,

Other Location. On the Gulf near Pensacola, XEX is reliable. Usually with a fair-good signal. The 730 from Covington, Louisiana (North of New Orleans_ used to be audible during daytime with a weak signal (1kw, IIRC), but they're long gone.

Fun Fact: CKDM puts a city grade signal into Winnipeg 24/7 from a distance of more than 100 miles. Fun Fact -2. Speaking of "long gone", CKAC used to be my go-to...In French...on biz trips to Montreal whenever the Cubs were playing the Expos. The English language broadcasts were on CFCF (600) which suffered from a deep null to the west. Which meant I'd lose it rather quickly driving to either Toronto or Ottawa. CFCF is also now "long gone".
Click to expand...
Near north Chicago suburbs days WGN splash, nights CKDm sometimes Mexico City but not as often as it used to be.
 
East Tennessee (Knoxville/Sevierville: WLIL, Lenoir City, Day and night. I remember getting KQPN, West Memphis ARK once in Sevierville.

Retro/other: Dayton and West Central Ohio. Jimmy Swaggart's WJYM, Bowling Green, OH, with a bowling pin pattern which seemingly goes everywhere south, east and west, I first discovered this station as WMGS (see below). I've also heard WPIT, Pittsburgh

Lafayette IN: Still WJYM days with sunset reception of KWRE, Warrenton MO (I was at the time working for its sister station in Frankfort, IN.

Central IN SDR: Also WJYM, but when it was off the air for a few days,it was receiving WFMW, Madisonville KY.
There's more about WJYM's predecessor, WMGS in this thread from 2009
 
Here in Wood Dale, IL in the near NW suburb of Chicago:

Daytime: WGN slop
Nighttime: XEX, CKDM, or CKAC in no particular order. Depends on propagation conditions at that time.

DX/RETRO: other DX catches include KWRE (Warrentow, MO), KWOA (Worthinhgton, MN), KKDA (Grand Prairie, TX), WFMW (Madisonville, KY), WJTM (Merril, WI), WLIL (Lenoir City, TN), WDKT (Madison, AL), WZGV (Cramerton, NC), TIHB Radio Reloj (San Jose, Costa Rica) as well as the now silent CJNR (Blind River, ON). Most of these were heard in 1980's/1990's. The most recent new catch on this frequency is WPIT (Pittsburgh, PA) heard in 2022.
 
I've been waiting for this one, for reasons to become apparent at the end of this post.

At home (Oakland) - too close to KCBS (740) day and night for anything else to get through.

Current location (Denver) - haven't tried. I'll see about it tonight; I've got both my CC Skywave and Tecsun PL-320 with me.

Why this is a topic I've been looking forward to:
My first radio job was at KWRE Warrenton, MO, 730 on the dial. My first day was July 4, 1976, a Sunday. I worked there for a couple of summers when I had time off from classes at the University of Missouri. John McMasters was the GM - a wonderful man. I totally lost touch with him and haven't been able to find out where he ended up. I hope, wherever he is, that he's done well. He was one of the most decent people I knew.

Also, way back when, I listened quite a bit at night to XEX from Mexico City. I have a recording from the early 1980s of an NFL football game on XEX as well.
 
Mark Roberts said:
Why this is a topic I've been looking forward to:
My first radio job was at KWRE Warrenton, MO, 730 on the dial. My first day was July 4, 1976, a Sunday. I worked there for a couple of
Click to expand...
KWRE gets out quite well, as you undoubtedly know. it was audible daytime at my college ;location in Southeast Iowa. Very weak and with WGN splatter, but it was fairly reliable. A couple of other "1kw blowtorches" with daytime signals that got out for 100 miles and more are KWOA in Worthingon, MN and KLOE in Goodland, KS.
 
Mark Roberts said:
I've been waiting for this one, for reasons to become apparent at the end of this post.

At home (Oakland) - too close to KCBS (740) day and night for anything else to get through.

Current location (Denver) - haven't tried. I'll see about it tonight; I've got both my CC Skywave and Tecsun PL-320 with me.
Click to expand...
No luck at Cherry Creek. I thought I might get traces of KLOE, but it's just noise here.
 
cyberdad said:
KWRE gets out quite well, as you undoubtedly know. it was audible daytime at my college ;location in Southeast Iowa.
Click to expand...
You must have done a good job of nulling out KBOE on 740 from Oskaloosa (now KMZN) which was famous for getting out just about anywhere in Iowa even with 250 watts. Even now, KMZN is quite audible in downtown Des Moines.

At KWRE, we had regular listeners who would call in from Illinois, particularly around Hardin. I think the Illinois River, which joins the Mississippi at Grafton, Illinois and north of Orchard Farm, Missouri may have given our signal a little bit of a boost over there. Hardin is right on the Illinois River.
 
Bellingham WA
CKGO is 50kW day and night from Vancouver and is about 41 miles away. So it dominates as you might expect. Though it is nulled away from the US fairly tightly, so occasionally right before sunrise you can hear Boise on daytime power underneath- 15kW with one lobe headed my way.

Some in the west will remember this frequency as "LG73" CKLG top 40 from the late 50s up to the early 80s. Now they are 24/7/365 live Travelers Information- traffic reports, ferries, border crossing times to the US and so forth. Ski reports from Whistler in the season. Etc. Hence the "GO" in the calls.
 
Just checked some of the SDRs in that area and CKGO comes in pretty well across the Puget Sound, perhaps better than I would have expected with those nulls. It definitely was much weaker on an SDR east of Bellingham but still quite listenable. I am guessing it blasts up toward Alaska.
 
Here on the coast of Maine it's WJTO 730
Bath/Brunswick/Portland. "The Memories Station" whose owner Bob Bittner recently passed away, unfortunately. It is also simulcast on WJIB 740 Cambridge/Boston and WBAS 1240 West Yarmouth/Hyannis/Cape Cod.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.


Back
Top Bottom