AM Frequency of the Week: 880

[cyberdad]

Days: Moderate splatter from WLS (890).

Nights: WCBS is usually able to break through the WLS splatter. Most often with a good signal. CKLQ from Manitoba is also present as oftgen zs not.

Sunrise/Sunset: KRVN (Lexington, NE) on day ND pattern occasionally surfaces. CKLQ a little less often. I;ve a;so heard WRFD (Columbus, OH) and WMEQ (Menominee, WI). Both on day power/pattern.

 

[DXBob]

From south Overland Park, Kansas:

Day: A very weak KRVN. They are a tad stronger in winter and during critical hours when they are on day pattern.

Night: KRVN disappears completely. On rare occasion, WCBS. On one evening last winter WCBS was strong. Otherwise, there is typically nothing on this frequency at night.

Bob

 

[gr8oldies]

East Tennessee: Daytime---a weak WPEK, Fairview (Asheville) NC, though I seem to have not heard it recently. I know it's still on the air, I checked it with an SDR in the Tri-Cities NC/VA area.
Sunset--- It's not unusual for WRFD, Columbus Ohio to make an appearance.
Night----Generally WCBS, but frequently WNDB, Nashville TN will be on day pattern at night with a Regional Mexican format. It's widely heard, and makes it to the Edinburgh IN SDR.
Retro/other: I heard KRVN once in Ohio on a Monday morning, obviously on day pattern. When I lived in Quincy, IL KRVN was regular from their sunset until it faded out midday. There was an SDR in Puerto Rico and I snagged WCBS on it.

 

[radioman148]

In the near north Chicago suburbs days are light splatter from WLS. At night WCBS is the best of the NYC blowtorches
at my location. WLS is far enough away from me that I can null it enough to hear a very good WCBS.
Other stations heard are WRFD, KRVN on day pattern and a couple times CKLQ.

Retro: In the late 70s I heard WCBS in the UK just before local sunrise. Also, back in the day WCBS could be heard on the west coast late at night. Last time I was able to hear it in California was 1980 after KRVN signed off at midnight CST. Now 880 is much more crowded out west.

 

[MichaelTheZ]

Chicago by the lakeshore:

Daytime: Right on the lake, with great difficulty you can occasionally make out WRFD in the Columbus area.

Critical Hours: Sometimes WMEQ makes an appearance. I've never gotten KRVN here, but this might just be because I never listen too early in the morning.

Nighttime: WCBS dominates, with a good signal. I did identify CKLQ in Manitoba at least once, but it's rare where I am.

 

[cyberdad]

Last time I was able to hear it in California was 1980 after KRVN signed off at midnight CST. Now 880 is much more crowded out west.

IME on the west coast, I've mostly heard KRVN at night just about everywhere except the Pacific Northwest, where KIXI rules in the Seattle area and on up into Vancouver, BC. When I spent several days in the Southern California a couple of months back, KRVN was solid on most nights.

 

[radioman148]

IME on the west coast, I've mostly heard KRVN at night just about everywhere except the Pacific Northwest, where KIXI rules in the Seattle area and on up into Vancouver, BC. When I spent several days in the Southern California a couple of months back, KRVN was solid on most nights.

KRVN can be heard most nights in Southern California. I don't remember what year KRVN went 24 hours, but before they did I could hear WCBS in Southern Cal. Back in the 60s the 880 in Seattle wasn't on at night so WCBS could be heard out west on a good radio.

 

[CADXER]

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

Daytime: nothing
Nighttime: normally WCBS, but WMDB Nashville, TN has been making regular appearances with their Ranchera format, no doubt using their daytime power.

DX/Retro: KRVN and CKLQ are common catches at night. Others heard on this frequency include WPEK (Fairview, NC), WMEQ (Menomonia, WI), and the Cuban CMAF Radio Progreso (Pinar del Rio)

 

[cyberdad]

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

Daytime: nothing
Nighttime: normally WCBS, but WMDB Nashville, TN has been making regular appearances with their Ranchera format, no doubt using their daytime power.

DX/Retro: KRVN and CKLQ are common catches at night. Others heard on this frequency include WPEK (Fairview, NC), WMEQ (Menomonia, WI), and the Cuban CMAF Radio Progreso (Pinar del Rio)

I hear R. Progreso regularly at night on 880 at our beach location. But it's usually weaker than the R. Progreso relay "next door" on 890. I don't hear either one of them during the day.

 

[wildthangjim]

In west Houston, daytime is KJOJ La Calle from Conroe (north suburbs of Houston) with a tropical Spanish format. At night after their power reduction, they're down in a mix of stations, primarily KRVN and the Cuban. I've also caught KLRG "Arkansas Rocks" at sunset. There was once a Chihuahua City Mexico station on this frequency, but is now I believe FM only.

I was out of town the last couple of weeks. First week was Mendocino County, north of San Francisco. 880 there was a jumble, with stations now south of the Bay Area, in Portland, and in Seattle, with KRVN in there sometimes. Second week was spent mostly roaming around northern Arizona. Down there, KRVN was strong.

In Tulsa back in the early 70's, I don't remember anything in the evening before KRVN came around. In the wintertime, WCBS could be heard fairly often.

 

[ente]

South Mississippi:

Day: nothing
Night- WCBS is relatively weak, also there is WXBN Sweetwater/Miami, FL (Black Information Network) and Radio Progreso.

 

[KML0224]

WCBS-AM 24/7 south of Hartford. A cheap radio will get splatter from WLAT-AM 910 of New Britain (transmitter in Farmington) or WRYM-AM 840 of New Britain (transmitter in Newington).

 

[tvnut]

Days: Adjacent WLS growls at me from about 8 miles away.

Critical hours mornings: KRVN Lexington, Neb., is there if I work at it. One magic dawn, I caught KRVN while driving a couple of miles from the WLS transmitter. Also, once or twice, WRFD Worthington, Ohio, had checked in.

Nights: WCBS New York is pretty reliable, even in summer, with the best radio in the house (a Sony ICF-2010) and usually there with the CCCrane bedside. In both cases, tuning to 878 (or playing with the SSB and sync tools on the 2010) yields a listenable signal in most cases. That wasn't the case when WLS rocked and the NRSC-1 10 kHz standard wasn't in effect. Then WCBS was a rumor except on a really good night, and WWL would get slapped around as well.

Also: CMAF Pinar del Rio (a.k.a. Radio Progreso) was a long-ago catch in my Radio Shack multi-band days.

 

[schmave]

Always local WRFD daytime from Pickerington, Ohio. But once it goes off the air at sundown, WCBS is right there to take over.
I've heard WCBS under WRFD as close as 35 miles east of Columbus during critical hours. Never so at my home location, about 15 miles from WRFD's tower.

 

[Steve Green NEPA]

Loggings from about 3 miles south of Shenandoah PA. This won't take long.

Days it's an 'okay' WCBS. But sometimes while driving around near SSS, I hear WRFD from near Columbus OH. One day back in the 90's when WRFD was doing traffic and weather, I thought it was WCBS. WRFD is a decent 'pilot' station for 660 reception, too. Perhaps it was daytime skywave because WESC from Greenville SC was one afternoon in the clear -- very weak but unfading. No sign at all of WFAN.

In the retro days near JFK Airport, with me using retro radios and WCBS/WFAN being the closest 50,000 watt omnis to the den, I'd get CMAF. It was // to 690. WCBS was, naturally, silent. And one overnight, again with WCBS off completely, BBC came in pretty readable on 881.

 

[ZantennaG1]

Cheyenne, WY
Daytime: A weak KRVN at 280 miles.
Nighttime, KRVN Lexington with local strength!
With proper nullifying, I can hear country underneath it.

 

[cyberdad]

Nighttime, KRVN Lexington with local strength!
With proper nullifying, I can hear country underneath it.

Probably CKLQ from Brandon, MN. Semi-Regular under (or on top of) WCBS here in the Chicago area. Either their pattern is leaking or they're running on day pattern,

 

[K8PLW]

From SE MI near Detroit:

Days: Weak WRFD.
Nights: WCBS comes roaring in. Easily the best signal of any NYC here. I can also hear CKLQ if I null WCBS.

I did receive KRVN once, about 2 years ago from the car. Never heard before or since, assume they may have been on day power/pattern.

WCBS can occasionally be heard mid-day here in winter under WRFD.

 

[Harvey_Dogg]

This morning just as the sun was coming up, KRVN was putting a monster signal into central Indiana. Lexington, NE was stronger than just about anything else on AM.

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

In West Central Michigan in the late 1970s, I would fall asleep listening to WLS (I'm trying to remember if I usually heard Tom Kent or Brant Miller, maybe both at different times. I called the DJ one night after he mispronounced the insecticide Malathion, reading live copy, putting the accent on the second instead of the third syllable, and a short I instead if a long I) on a Panasonic AM FM Clock Radio (Called the Park Ridge, ironically for you Chicago Are DXers). It was a decent radio, I took the wires to the electrical cord antenna and put two terminals on the back. It actually had very good first adjacent selectivity, and there were stations on FM I couldn't get on many other radios with an outside antenna. You could get WKZO 590 5 miles from WTAC 600 by turning the radio in Genesee County. Anyway, I would wake up in the middle of the Night, and WCBS would be coming in instead of WLS.

Excellent picture of this Panasonic radio.

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