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AM Frequency of the week: 820

cyberdad

cyberdad

Northwest of Chicago....

Days: WCPT. 5kw Non-Directional with a good signal. But not as good as before they moved their stick to Southwestern suburban Chicago from a closer-in western Suburb.

Nights: WCPT roughly equal in strength to WBAP. Null either one and hear the other. Very rarely CHAM sneaks in.

Retro: At one time when the Chicago 820 was WAIT, the first attempt at nighttime operation was launched from what was then known as the "chicken farm" adjacent to Elmhurst, IL. It was pretty much a disaster. 1kw aimed northeast and missing more than half of the Chicago COL. Not to mention most of the suburbs. Going in the other direction....west....you could start to hear WBAP while the WAIT towers were still fully visible in the rear view mirror. The current site in Willowbrook, IL works much better at night.

Other location: You only need to go an hour or two north of my home QTH until CHAM becomes fairly common at night. Albeit mixing with WBAP and/or WCPT.
 
in southeast Wyoming, sometimes KUTR Salt Lake City by day if conditions are really good

At night, usually WBAP but sometimes XEABCA Mexcali
 
In the near north Chicago suburbs Days are all WCPT with a good signal. At night it’s a mix of WCPT and WBAP fighting it out.

Retro: other stations heard on this frequency are CHAM and WWBA from Florida pre sunrise.
 
From central Baldwin County, Alabama, on the Gulf of Mexico:

Days - Nothing
Nights - WBAP

Closer to the actual beach, during the day it's not hard to receive WWBA Largo, FL out of the Tampa market but it fades quickly once you move inland.
 
East Tennessee: Days: Nothing
Before sunset: A tossup between WVSG (I'll never get used to that not being WOSU), Columbus, OH and WWBA, Largo, FL.

Nights: All WBAP, all the time.

Retro/other: WOSU always had a decent signal in much of Ohio, and was still audible with its former "Limited Time" signal tied with WBAP's sunset. Nights always WBAP.
 
Orange County, TX WBAP strong at nights, weak, but can be heard during the day, when the noise floor isn't too high.
 
Reynoldsburg, Ohio: It's local WVSG (ex-WOSU), transmitting from the southwest side of Columbus 1-2 miles northwest of the I-71/270 interchange. With 5,000 watts, it's a solid daytime signal that nicely covers a good chunk of Ohio.
About an hour after our sunset at Dallas sunset, WVSG goes to a directional 790 watts that still covers most of the metro nicely, but still leaves some very nasty nulls as close as 2-3 miles southwest of the tower, in the direction of WBAP. It's a fascinating listen to cross the pattern after dark heading out of town. 15 miles down I-71 toward Cincinnati, WBAP pretty much owns the channel. The only reason that doesn't happen even closer in is some co-channel flutter because even though WVSG throws almost no signal that way, it does cause interference the closer to Columbus you get.
I'm east of the tower out here, so I can't really null WVSG to hear WBAP, but you don't have to get too far east out of Columbus because WBAP retakes the channel.
I don't think I've ever heard CHAM here.
 
West Houston, WBAP is strong day and night. During the day, it's one of the stronger out of town signals here. Sometimes at night I can pick out something in Spanish underneath, but haven't ID'ed it.
 
Yakima WA

Day (and night) - KGNW Seattle (Christian Talk)
Also at night - occasional XEABCA Mexicali (Spanish News/Talk) and WBAP Fort Worth TX (News/Talk). One-time log of CHAM Hamilton ON (Comedy). Occasionally at sunset, KUTR Taylorsville UT (Christian Talk) overpowers KGNW.
The only one I really need on 820 is WBKK Wilton MN (near Bemidji) with Catholic Talk, simulcasting KWTL-1370 in Grand Forks. Its 10KW day should make it out here at sunrise, but I'm never up to check.
 
Here in Wood Dale, IL in the near NW suburb of Chicago:

Daytime: WCPT
Nightime: WCPT, but can be nulled to allow reception of WBAP and sometimes CHAM

DX/RETRO: others heard on this frequency include WMGG (Largo, FL), WWAM (Jasper, TN), CHAM (Hamilton,, ON) and CMBU (Havana, Cuba).

Locally the 820 frequency went through a lot of changes. Like cyberdad mentioned above the original site in Elmhurst used to be a farm. It went through a lot of calll changes (WAIT, WSZE, WXEZ, WPNT). That site went silent in January 1991 to make room for new industrial and residential constructions, including the church that I attend these days. The 820 frequency was silent for about a year before it was resurrected WSCR with their Score format in January of 1992 using the the stick (ex WSBC, WXRT) on 4949 W. Belmont Avenue in Chicago. The Score lasted until April 1997 before they moved to the 1160 frequency. Between 1997 and 2007 820 went through many format changes as well as call letter changes (WYPA, WCSN, WAIT). In 1997 the frequency became Chicago's Progressive Talk (WCPT). Eventually the be came 24 hour station, moving to their daytime transmitter to 5475 N. Milwaukee Avenue in Chicago sharing the stick with WSBC (1240 kHz) and using 5.8 kW. Their nighttime transmitter site is at 750 Fox Street in Joliet, Illinois with a six tower array using 1.5 kW.
 
Great stuff, CADXER. Thanks for the recap. Yep....820 in Chicago is the original home of WSCR. I didn't realize they (now WCPT} were still diplexing with WSCR stick. I had thought they were going 24/7 on new site they built when they added their current nighttime service. As I've always said, I stand to be corrected.

Funny thing is, 820 at 5.8kw daytime is still slightly weaker at my location that when it was at 5kw coming from the old "chicken farm" location. It was also still easily listenable every day at my college location in southeast Iowa. Maybe that all has something to do that the 4949 W. Belmont location urban development, while the farm allowed for open space in the area surrounding their stick.
 
Actually they are diplexing with WSBC at the old WEDC tower on Milwaukee Avenue. When they started as WSCR they were diplexing with WSBC at the Belmont Avenue site, but eventually they both (WCPT and WSBC) moved to the WEDC tower. The way I understand the WCPT arrangement is that they use the Milwaukee site during daytime and the Joliet site at night. They also have the Joliet site set up as auxiliary backup site for daytime.

Interestingly the 4949 Belmont tower is now used by various station as an auxiliary backup site including WBBM AM, WSCR, WBBM TV and several FM stations.
 
From far south Kansas City metro:

Day: Nothing but splatter from local non-directional 50 kW WHB.

Critical: WBAP - Fort Worth, TX with splatter from WHB when the latter is still at daytime power.

Night: WBAP is consistently strong and quite listenable and often splatters on local WHB when they switch to 5 kW, directional at night. WBAP is one the strongest nighttime skywave signals in my area. I am 454 miles from their transmitter site.

Bob
 
820
Daytime, nothing of any sort is edible. Loud WEEU Reading on 830 can be nulled, but nothing shows up.

Sunset logs have been WGGM from VA (taped) , WWLZ Horseheads NY, and WWFD Frederick MD -- from back when they had a 'Q' in their call.

WBAP is often the nighttime resident atop the confusion. Not really loud.

I haven't heard WNYC yet. I used to see their two sticks near my HS on the Brooklyn side of the East River and the UN Building. But that was when they were on 830. Here, maybe 150 miles WNW of NYC, they seem ripe for a sunset catch. I'd need a noise-free sunset, though. I'm holding my breath, hi.
 
wildthangjim said:
West Houston, WBAP is strong day and night. During the day, it's one of the stronger out of town signals here. Sometimes at night I can pick out something in Spanish underneath, but haven't ID'ed it.
Click to expand...

Same experience for me when I lived in the Houston area, both at my work off Gessner Road near the Westpark Tollway as well as at my home in League City.
I do remember WBAP being considerably louder when it turned off IBOC. When they did run that crap, the buzz was audible on 830 even in the Houston area.
 
From NW San Antonio:

Daytime: Splatter from 810 KYTY, which can be nulled enough to hear a readable WBAP on my more sensitive radios.

Night: KYTY splatter is reduced a lot. WBAP has a moderate and fairly steady signal. Aiming NE/SW, I can hear XEBM "Ke Buena" in San Luis Potosi and XEBA "La Consentida" in Guadalajara swapping out underneath. Sometimes one of them will come to the fore - most often XEBM.

Sunrise: Same as at night except XEBA is more prominent underneath WBAP.

DX: Back in the fall of 2017, I logged XEABCA and Radio Ciudad de la Habana once each.
 
Warminster PA(Philly 'burbs):

Daytime: WNYC(very weak).
Night: same thing, but a whole lot stronger. On occasions, WBAP would overpower it.
 
With KGO's transmitters so close to me ( +/-) 23 miles, and that their signal is so strong, any adjacent channel is will most certainly get heavy splatter.

Days...Absolutely nothing ( I cant get anything but splatter )

Nights. With a good null of KGO, I can get two stations depending on the conditions. Spanish station ( my guess XEABCA ). WBAP comes in most of the time, but its weak and fades in and out frequently, and having KGO bleeding in almost all the time, makes listening fatiguing.
 
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