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AM Frequency of thw Week: 830

40 miles northwest of downtown Chicago.....

Days: WCPT (820) splatter. I'm guessing that with them off, I could catch a whiff of WCCO, but haven't done it yet.

Nights: WCCO. Usually good, but sometimes underperforms. Sometimes either the 830 from Memphis, or the 830 from the Nashville area forget to sign off. A couple of times I've even heard both. Maybe there's a little-known state law in Tennesee that allows daytimers on 830 to just keep broadcasting all night.

Other location: I'm posting today from Perdido Key, Florida. Pensacola city limits, but 23 miles west-southwest of downtown. Finally back at the beach after more than tweo years....Yay! Here at our place EXACTLY on the Florida-Alabama state line, 830 is KGLA, 5kw, from Norco, LA (New Orleans), About 160 miles west of me. Fair signal daytime, slightly weaker at night. WCCO sometimes breaks through, but Cuba is more common.
I've heard KGLA mixing with or under WCCO at my home locqtion. Apparently on day pattern.
 
Chicago by the lakeshore:

Daytime: Nothing.

Nighttime: WCCO is there daily, and is quite listenable. One time recently WCRN in Worcester MA was there too and only slightly weaker. I'd guess they accidentally left their daytime pattern on but it is possible conditions were just unusual that day.

Retro: 80's San Francisco area:

Daytime it was a weak KNCO in Grass Valley, CA which is in the Sierra Nevada foothills. At night they went off and you could sometimes hear WCCO despite the distance. Around that time period KNCO converted to a 5KW 24 hr station pointing their signal towards the Bay Area, so I'm guessing they don't hear WCCO there anymore.
 
40 miles northwest of downtown Chicago.....

Days: WCPT (820) splatter. I'm guessing that with them off, I could catch a whiff of WCCO, but haven't done it yet.

Nights: WCCO. Usually good, but sometimes underperforms. Sometimes either the 830 from Memphis, or the 830 from the Nashville area forget to sign off. A couple of times I've even heard both. Maybe there's a little-known state law in Tennesee that allows daytimers on 830 to just keep broadcasting all night.

Other location: I'm posting today from Perdido Key, Florida. Pensacola city limits, but 23 miles west-southwest of downtown. Finally back at the beach after more than tweo years....Yay! Here at our place EXACTLY on the Florida-Alabama state line, 830 is KGLA, 5kw, from Norco, LA (New Orleans), About 160 miles west of me. Fair signal daytime, slightly weaker at night. WCCO sometimes breaks through, but Cuba is more common.
I've heard KGLA mixing with or under WCCO at my home locqtion. Apparently on day pattern.
That state law must include 880 and a few others :)
 
East Tennessee: Daytime--absolutely nothing
Night: WCCO unless it's auroral, then often it's KGLA, Norco LA
Whenever WQZQ, Goodlettsville TN is on late, they blast in and also are heard on the Edinburgh IN SDR.
 
In the near north Chicago suburbs, daytime is WCPT splatter. At night it's all WCCO with usually a good signal.
I have heard Memphis during critical hours.

Other: When in Southern California KLAA is heard from Orange County.
Enjoy your vacation cyberdad!
 
From the southwest suburbs of Chicago:

Days, nothing.

Nights, it's 8-3-0 WCCO. A dependable regular, but there have been a few surprises over the years, including:
• CMCA Havana (10 kW, way back with a Radio Shack Patrolman 10)
• KFYH Spring, Tex. (50 kW, 2/21/1991)
• WQZQ Goodlettsville, Tenn. (2 kW, 12/28/2020, heard mid-evening)
 
From south Overland Park, Kansas:

Day: Nothing, totally quiet.

Night: WCCO, the signal strength can vary greatly from strong to totally disappearing at times. On occasion, I hear Spanish language programming however, I have never caught a station ID. I presume this is either Cuba or Mexico. WCCO is an "underformer" here. Adjacent frequencies WBAP and WHAS are clearly more consistent and listenable, yet slightly further away in distance than WCCO. This anomaly puzzles me as a DXer.

Bob
 
San Jose, California

Days..Deep In the mud is a barely audible 5KW KNCO out of Grass Valley, California, about 143 miles away.

Nights...I have two stations, KNCO is the more dominant station, but occasionally I also get KLAA out of Southern California

Around that time period KNCO converted to a 5KW 24 hr station pointing their signal towards the Bay Area, so I'm guessing they don't hear WCCO there anymore.
Nope, no WCCO out this way.
 
Here in Wood Dale, IL in the near NW suburb of Chicago:

Daytime: nothing
Nighttime: usually WCCO unless KGLA Norco makes one of their frequent appearance

DX/Retro: some other logs include WCRN (Worcester, MA), WKTX (Cortland, OH), WQZQ (Goodlettsville, TN), WMMI (Shepherd, MI). Also back in 1988 the Cubans used 830 to broadcast Radio Taino with reported 300 kW transmitter from La Julia site, which was quite easily received in the Chicago area.
 
When I was in So-Cal last month (vacation part 1), KLAA had a good signal in Palm Springs. Not so much in the High Desert, Santa Monica, and Santa Barbara. Especially at night.
 
Last edited:
When I was in So-Cal last month (vacation part 1), KLAA had a good signal in Palm Springs. Not so much in the High Desert, Santa Monica, and Santa Barbara. Especially at night.
KLAA gets into the Coachella Valley pretty well during the day. Not as much at night.
 
Reynoldsburg, Ohio:
Slop from local WVSG on 820 daytime, WCCO at night. Never a powerhouse but dependably there.
 
830 been Berry Berry good for me here in NE PA (sri, Frank :- ). Despite the far-more-casual dial spinning here, 830 has been better than the longer and more fixated years near JFK Airport.

In the midday, WEEU Reading is the second-loudest AM station (to WPPA 1360); this solely because their new tower array is much closer to Pottsville than to Reading. A poster on another site recounted the time he heard WEEU near Jones Beach* on Long Island'

Nighttimes it was WCCO. I haven;t checked 830 in a few years.

Vis-a-vis SSS, I could use some help, folks. I have three 830 stations logged from NC : WETR, WTRU and WXII. Were these three, or two, or one and the same facilities?
WXII was heard at night, maybe 9:00, by the way -- on late for some reason,
Lol about the 'little-known Tennessee law', CyberDad !

@ DXBob : Might the indifferent WCCO reception by you be altered by that albatross shrugged off by several 50,000 watt omnis in the more northern latitudes ? WGY 810 and KDKA 1020 come immediately to mind here.

* A popular reference in much of the NYC metro for the place remains Jones'es beach, hi
 
I seem to remember hearing WMMI 830, nulling out WAIT 820 by any other name, when I spent some time near Union Grove, WI, along with WSGW 790, nulling WBBM 780, and WKAR 870, nulling WNOV 860 by any other name, along with the usual Michigan stations closer to Lake Michigan. Seems like WLIP 1050 blocked WHFB 1060, and of course WTMJ 620, several miles West from my receiving location, blocked out CFCO 630.
 
@ DXBob : Might the indifferent WCCO reception by you be altered by that albatross shrugged off by several 50,000 watt omnis in the more northern latitudes ? WGY 810 and KDKA 1020 come immediately to mind here.
This could be the reason. I receive KDKA here most every night but they are not a strong performer. The Chicago 50 kW non-directional stations generally perform well here in the Kansas City area at night. The strongest performer here from the Twin Cities is KSTP on 1500 kHz. Of course, they are directional with a lobe aimed right me. WHO in Des Moines is a also poor performer here [even poorer than WCCO]. I may be too close at 190 miles from their transmitter site. However, KMOX in St. Louis at 244 miles performs very well. Obviously, these inconsistencies have some explanation beyond my technical knowledge.

Bob
 
On occasion, I hear Spanish language programming however, I have never caught a station ID. I presume this is either Cuba or Mexico.
Computer issues last night when trying to the above from Bob. Apologies. The web here eventually went down for several hours.

Anyway, as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted.....The Spanish you were hearing could have been KGLA, which is a Spanish language station.
 
Computer issues last night when trying to the above from Bob. Apologies. The web here eventually went down for several hours.

Anyway, as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted.....The Spanish you were hearing could have been KGLA, which is a Spanish language station.
Thank you! I will try to ID KGLA...

Bob
 
South Mississippi:

Day- KGLA Norco, LA
Night- KGLA is a bit weaker. Very rarely 830 WCCO comes in, WCCO is more common further away from KGLA.
 
South Mississippi:

Day- KGLA Norco, LA
Night- KGLA is a bit weaker. Very rarely 830 WCCO comes in, WCCO is more common further away from KGLA.
FWIW, going in the other direction, WWL is usually a fairly easy catch in the Twin Cities area. But by the time you get to Central Minnesota, KPRM (Park Rapids, MN) takes over. I think WWL's DA gives it just a slight extra boost that WCCO doesn't have going in the othrer direction.
 
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