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AM Frequency of the Week: 820

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cyberdad

cyberdad

Crystal Lake, IL....

Days: 820 is WCPT. 5kw Non Directional with a good signal at my location (but not as good as the 50kw behemoths around here.

Night: WCPT drops to 1,5kw and uses six towers to direct a pattern that protects Dallas. At my location, turn the radio one way whether you hear WBAP or WCPT depends on which way you orient your radio. I've also heard CHAM (Hamilton, ON) a couple of times. Some others around here have also heard WWBA from St. Pete, but I've never heard it.

Other location: You don't have to go very far into Wisconsin. before CHAM starts making appearances. By the time you get to Lake Superior, CHAM is on top
as often as not.
 
Melbourne FL

820 - WWBA Largo FL - The Big 8 - Sports talk

820 - WBAP - Fort Worth - Newstalk 820 - News, talk

820 - CMBD - Ciego de Avila - Radio Reloj - News, time checks

kw
 
Hartland, VT:
Days nothing, nights occasionally CHAM Hamilton, ON, poking above the noise floor.

Meriden, CT:
WNYC New York days, mixing with CHAM nights.
 
Sometimes in the more recent middays I could hear this distant hiss. But WWFD from Frederick was logged before they went digitosis.
Two 820's were around sunset. WGGM from VA, nice tape ..... and WWLZ from Horseheads NY.
WBAP at night.

@CTListener
Thanks for the WNYC mention. For some reason I don't have them logged here yet. Back in NYC when they were on 830, they had two sticks in Brooklyn accross the East River from the UN Building. Radio-Locator now has their tower site in NJ (and 10000 watts!) so they should be arriving some late afternoon.
 
From the southwest suburbs of Chicago ...

Today: It's WCPT with 5.8 kW days from a tower site on Milwaukee Ave. on the northwest side of Chicago. Nights, WCPT, as cyberdad mentioned, drops to 1.5 kW and transmits from a site on the east side of Joliet. Those six towers shape the signal to protect WBAP Dallas and that signal is aimed at me, but once in a blue moon (I should have checked the other night), you get a hint of WBAP under it.

820 has a complicated history in Chicago. The original WAIT broadcast from a three-tower site along I-290 in Elmhurst, limited hours until sunset in Grapevine, Tex., the WBAP/WFAA site. At signoff, that combo (WBAP most available hours in Chicago) bombed in. Eventually a nighttime signal was coaxed out of the FCC. It was so weak, you could hear WBAP under WAIT driving past the tower site. Where I live, it was as cyberdad has it now, turn the radio one way for WBAP and the other way for WAIT.

Real-estate values convinced the owner to sell and WAIT went off the air in January 1991. In the interim I picked up WRFA Largo, Fla., and CHAM Hamilton. On 1/2/1992 WSCR went on the air with 5kW from the WSBC/WXRT site on Belmont Ave. in Chicago, again on air until Grapevine sunset. When WSCR's all-sports format went to 1160, so did the call, displacing WJJD. 820 became WYPA, then WCSN, then WAIT again, and finally WCPT, with 24/7 air starting somewhere in there. So four different calls, five changes, four transmitter sites and a partridge in a pear tree.
 
Near north Chicago suburbs: days all WCPT with
A good signal. Night WCPT drops down and WBAP moves in and competes. I’ve also heard CHAM and WWBA usually around sunrise in winter.
 
Location (for one more time): Oakland. 820 is blocked by KGO at 810.

I lived in Chicago for a couple of years in the late 1990s, when 820 was first "The Score" and then "Personal Achievement Radio". I remember tuning across to 820 during one late winter afternoon commute from Hoffman's Mistake Hoffman Estates to the lakefront and hearing WSCR go off the air, then "thump", then "The Troy Aikman Auto Mall!" at just about an equivalent signal strength. Yep, WBAP.

In Columbia, Missouri, I did manage to get WAIT (as it then was) at 5 pm on November 26, 1981. That must have been during the limited-hours window that @tvnut referred to (in an excellent recounting of the history of that channel).

I also have a note that says "Radio Belize", 10:02 pm, March 28, 1985 - by then I was living in Houston - but I think that station was actually on 830, not 820. So this mention might be premature. That said, next week around this time, I may not be able to post, since I will be going to my new location in Denver.
 
Wilmington Delaware

Days - Nothing. WNYC is to far to my NE and WWFD is too far to my west.

Nights - A mix of weak signals. I listened for several minutes last night and couldn't identify anything.

Retro - WBAP could be heard when it was still a clear channel signal at night. Now it is just buried 'in the mix'.
 
Tyler TX:

Goes without saying, powerhouse WBAP Fort Worth all day, every day. Full stop seek, local strength here 90 miles east of Dallas.

At night, WBAP is virtually gone. Hard as heck to pull it up from the floor, as I'm in the cancelation zone, much like I am with KWKH in S'port. Nothing much exists there, other than an extremely weak Mexican signal mixing in with the equally bad signal from WBAP.
 
tvnut said:
From the southwest suburbs of Chicago ...

Today: It's WCPT with 5.8 kW days from a tower site on Milwaukee Ave. on the northwest side of Chicago
Click to expand...
Thanks for the update. I didn't realize they were now at 5.8kw from a Milwaukee Ave site on the northwest side of the city. They sound pretty much the same on day power as they did when they were at the Elmhurst chicken farm. As for night, they were slightly stronger when they were in with the chickens than they do now, Not all that much difference, really. And you could still hear WBAP underneath. I remember driving west past the site on the Eisenhower Expressway extension, seeing the towers in the rearview mirror, and hearing WBAP surface in less than five minutes.
 
Here in Wood Dale, IL in the near NW suburb of Chicago:

Daytime: WCPT
Nighttime: WCPT mixing with WBAP depending on the loop antenna orientation.

DX/Retro: others heard in the past include WMGG (Largo, FL), WWAM (Jasper, TN), CHAM (Hamilton, ON), CMBU Radio Ciudad Cadena, Cuba.

To add to tvnut and his brief history of 820 in Chicago here are some additional details:

Locally (Chicago area) we have 4 different transmitters sites and 2 different Cities of License for 820 kHz.

The Elmhurst, IL site (4 towers on Church Road) was used between 1941 - 1/3/1991. Call letters WAIT (1941 - 1980's), WZSE (1980's - 1988), WXEZ (1988 - 1990), WPNT (1990 - 1/3/1991). The land was sold in 1991 and 820 went silent until WSCR signed on from the 4949 W. Belmont site in Chicago ( 5 kW - 1 tower - daytime only) on 2/1/1992. WSCR's last day on 820 was on 4/7/1997. Next day WYPA took over the frequency. Other calls used on this stick WCSN (2001 - 2005), WAIT (2005 - 2007), WCPT (2007 - 2016?). In 2005 the COL was changed from Chicago, IL to Willow Springs, IL

The nighttime site (1.5 kW, 6 towers) in Joliet, IL was authorized by FCC in 2010.

Not sure when they moved their daytime signal to the 5475 N. Milwaukee Avenue in Chicago (former WEDC 1240 site). I want to say 2016, but I could be wrong. There they use 5.8 kW and are diplexed with WSBC (1240 kHz) on the old WEDC stick. Soon the nighttime site in Joliet will be diplexed with WMVP AM 1000.
 
Of course, if you go back to the 1970s and before, you had the twice-daily shift of WBAP and WFAA between 820 and 570, but the network affiliation didn’t move. NBC was clear-channel 820, ABC was regional 570. Wacky!
 
Canyon Lake, Texas: WBAP by day although 810 from Somerset does bleed over significantly. When 810 is off, WBAP has a decent signal from 252 road miles. I was in Eagle Pass a few years ago and was able to listen to Rush on 820; weak signal by day, but quite impressive almost 500 miles away.

WBAP comes in at night, but not as strong as one would think. I’m guessing cancellation plays a role.
 
Mark Roberts said:
Location (for one more time): Oakland. 820 is blocked by KGO at 810.

I lived in Chicago for a couple of years in the late 1990s, when 820 was first "The Score" and then "Personal Achievement Radio". I remember tuning across to 820 during one late winter afternoon commute from Hoffman's Mistake Hoffman Estates to the lakefront and hearing WSCR go off the air, then "thump", then "The Troy Aikman Auto Mall!" at just about an equivalent signal strength. Yep, WBAP.

In Columbia, Missouri, I did manage to get WAIT (as it then was) at 5 pm on November 26, 1981. That must have been during the limited-hours window that @tvnut referred to (in an excellent recounting of the history of that channel).

I also have a note that says "Radio Belize", 10:02 pm, March 28, 1985 - by then I was living in Houston - but I think that station was actually on 830, not 820. So this mention might be premature. That said, next week around this time, I may not be able to post, since I will be going to my new location in Denver.
Click to expand...
At one point Radio Belize was on the split frequency of 834 and pretty widely heard. It moved to 830.
 
East Tennessee: Days- NADA. Sunset/critical hours. A tossup between WVSG (the former WOSU), Columbus, OH and WWBA, Largo, FL. Night is all WBAP.

Retro/other: Ohio: WOSU always had a great daytime signal around the state. It's former "L1" designation kept it on the air until Dallas sunset. Lafayette, IN area. Daytime was whichever of the 117 incarnations of the Chicago 820 were on the air at the time.
 
Mark Roberts said:
I also have a note that says "Radio Belize", 10:02 pm, March 28, 1985 - by then I was living in Houston - but I think that station was actually on 830, not 820.
Click to expand...
Most of the time Belize had an AM, it was on 834.
 
Chicago by the Lakeshore:

WCPT is dominant, day and night. I've lived in two locations here and in neither of them does WBAP come in more than slightly. I have identified them but it was tough.
 
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