AM reception

[KyleSmith1988]

Recently Drove from Upstate S.C. to South Central Kansas, to the Wichita area, and 📻 650 WSM-AM in Nashville TN was easily heard at Night 🌃 almost perfectly during the entire trip !! (1000+ miles)!

The 650 WSM AM Tower, Just South of Nashville, is Almost Exactly at/about the Halfway point, right in the Middle of/in between both locations & easily heard overnight 🌃 from & in both of those places.

Also, 640 WCRV in Memphis (Bott Radio Network), is a Pretty Strong Neighbor / Far Reaching Station 📻 That's just 10 KHz away from WSM on the dial, (and ⚡ is a bit weaker 🌃 at night), but I heard that station in most of West Tennessee, From / To / Almost / Just West of Nashville, and Heard Easily to Little Rock, and also to the East, Reaching beyond Northern Mississippi and into North/Central Alabama.

The other usual BIG AM Station 🌃 that I've Heard Overnight in Both SC & KS is 750 WSB in Atlanta.
(Plus a few others 📻 in the Chicago area).

Also, The Furthest / Westernmost AM Station 📻 Usually Heard Overnight 🌃 is Perhaps KMOX 1120 in Saint Louis. 📻 I Have yet to something like WOAI or KOA at night here in Upstate South Carolina.

 

[KyleSmith1988]

I'm listing a few other good examples of some AM Stations that have great coverage, using very little power, from areas with great ground conductivity,
Such as these stations near Kansas City:
📻 KCMO 710, KFNZ 610, and WHB 810.

... and a few others nearby 📻 I'd also like to mention:
KKOW 860, KSGL 900 & KMMM 1290 (Kansas),
KWMT 540 & WOI 640 (Iowa), KLIF 570 (Texas),
WNAX 570 (South Dakota),
and KFYR 550 (North Dakota).

Heard all across the Midwest & Great Plains. 🌻
Each covering very large parts of the region.

 

[radiofan2023]

I'm listing a few other good examples of some AM Stations that have great coverage, using very little power, from areas with great ground conductivity,
Such as these stations near Kansas City:
📻 KCMO 710, KFNZ 610, and WHB 810.

... and a few others nearby 📻 I'd also like to mention:
KKOW 860, KSGL 900 & KMMM 1290 (Kansas),
KWMT 540 & WOI 640 (Iowa), KLIF 570 (Texas),
WNAX 570 (South Dakota),
and KFYR 550 (North Dakota).

Heard all across the Midwest & Great Plains. 🌻
Each covering very large parts of the region.

I've listened to WNAX coming in strong in the daytime in Iowa, and WOI comes in during the day in the Kansas City area but fades in and out.

 

[Patrick 29582]

Recently Drove from Upstate S.C. to South Central Kansas, to the Wichita area, and 📻 650 WSM-AM in Nashville TN was easily heard at Night 🌃 almost perfectly during the entire trip !! (1000+ miles)!

The 650 WSM AM Tower, Just South of Nashville, is Almost Exactly at/about the Halfway point, right in the Middle of/in between both locations & easily heard overnight 🌃 from & in both of those places.

Also, 640 WCRV in Memphis (Bott Radio Network), is a Pretty Strong Neighbor / Far Reaching Station 📻 That's just 10 KHz away from WSM on the dial, (and ⚡ is a bit weaker 🌃 at night), but I heard that station in most of West Tennessee, From / To / Almost / Just West of Nashville, and Heard Easily to Little Rock, and also to the East, Reaching beyond Northern Mississippi and into North/Central Alabama.

The other usual BIG AM Station 🌃 that I've Heard Overnight in Both SC & KS is 750 WSB in Atlanta.
(Plus a few others 📻 in the Chicago area).

Also, The Furthest / Westernmost AM Station 📻 Usually Heard Overnight 🌃 is Perhaps KMOX 1120 in Saint Louis. 📻 I Have yet to something like WOAI or KOA at night here in Upstate South Carolina.

I'm further east near Conway and KMOX does pretty well (WHO and WWL also) here, weak but readable most nights. No KOA though, and a local 1200 covers WOAI, while a religious stick in NC shoots it's signal directly our way, really blocking WCCO (sometimes can hear it faintly fade up underneath).

 

[schmave]

I was wondering if WCCO would be audible down there.
I continue to be astounded that WOAI does not get into central Ohio better than it does. It does not matter the radio, I just never hear it anymore. Even when I lived in the Houston area, ~175 miles from San Antonio, I must have been in the cancellation zone because I never heard it to be a powerhouse.

 

[ted chittenden]

I was wondering if WCCO would be audible down there.
I continue to be astounded that WOAI does not get into central Ohio better than it does. It does not matter the radio, I just never hear it anymore. Even when I lived in the Houston area, ~175 miles from San Antonio, I must have been in the cancellation zone because I never heard it to be a powerhouse.

The last time I checked, WOAI's signal was a non-directional one. It would probably come in better in Phoenix if the local on 1190 kHz wasn't partially blocking it. As to central Ohio, I wonder if you hear the 1200 kHz licensed to New Castle, PA, at night (I bet you don't). I also wonder if Fort Wayne's 1190 kHz station may be blocking WOAI's signal, at least partially. Finally, as I noted earlier (and I think @davideduardo noted it as well), how well you receive some of those U.S. clear channel stations from your location can be linked directly to what kind of receiver you are using and the amount of man-made static that can be heard on the AM band in the area where you live.

 

[KilowattKat]

WCCO had a nice looking QSL card they would send out with a reception report. I received one from them back in 1978. I could pick them up faintly from Phoenix.

 

[Patrick 29582]

WCCO had a nice looking QSL card they would send out with a reception report. I received one from them back in 1978. I could pick them up faintly from Phoenix.

WTRU 83O in Kernersville NC is almost directly between us and the Twin Cities, and aims its directional signal our way. Pretty tough to fight that. WGN and WBBM are easy and WLW and WTAM blast in (WJR much less so.) Zoomer Radio 74O from Toronto also is easy here. I think if WTRU wasn't there we'd get WCCO fairly regularly.

 

[KyleSmith1988]

WTRU 83O in Kernersville NC is almost directly between us and the Twin Cities, and aims its directional signal our way. Pretty tough to fight that. WGN and WBBM are easy and WLW and WTAM blast in (WJR much less so.) Zoomer Radio 74O from Toronto also is easy here. I think if WTRU wasn't there we'd get WCCO fairly regularly.

I wonder about the (still decently strong, but powerful) nighttime signal of KRMG 740 AM in Tulsa, compared to CFZM Zoomer Radio in Toronto.., how far they both reach & still not interfere with each other, or is there a place where their signals both cancel each other...?

CFZM is heard weak at night in Upstate SC..,
Weak Signal on KRMG 📻 24/7 - south of Wichita KS.

 

[ted chittenden]

I wonder about the (still decently strong, but powerful) nighttime signal of KRMG 740 AM in Tulsa, compared to CFZM Zoomer Radio in Toronto.., how far they both reach & still not interfere with each other, or is there a place where their signals both cancel each other...?

CFZM is heard weak at night in Upstate SC..,
Weak Signal on KRMG 📻 24/7 - south of Wichita KS.

That null for the Tulsa's signal going south is primarily due to Houston's KTRH (740 kHz) and perhaps secondarily due to the Texarkana, TX station licensed on the same frequency but with minimum nighttime power.

 

[schmave]

The last time I checked, WOAI's signal was a non-directional one. It would probably come in better in Phoenix if the local on 1190 kHz wasn't partially blocking it. As to central Ohio, I wonder if you hear the 1200 kHz licensed to New Castle, PA, at night (I bet you don't). I also wonder if Fort Wayne's 1190 kHz station may be blocking WOAI's signal, at least partially. Finally, as I noted earlier (and I think @davideduardo noted it as well), how well you receive some of those U.S. clear channel stations from your location can be linked directly to what kind of receiver you are using and the amount of man-made static that can be heard on the AM band in the area where you live.

I've never heard the New Castle 1200, and WOWO hasn't been a factor at night around here in many years. Even when it was 50K, we were in the skip zone and never got the strong night signal heard in many other areas. About 50 miles northwest of Columbus was where the groundwave kicked in on their old and best-known pattern.

 

[Patrick 29582]

I've never heard the New Castle 1200, and WOWO hasn't been a factor at night around here in many years. Even when it was 50K, we were in the skip zone and never got the strong night signal heard in many other areas. About 50 miles northwest of Columbus was where the groundwave kicked in on their old and best-known pattern.

As a youth in Columbia South Carolina in the 1970s I remember hearing WOWO on a pocket radio one night and I have been hooked on AM ever since (the technology moreso than the programming these days.)

 

[secondchoice]

That null for the Tulsa's signal going south is primarily due to Houston's KTRH (740 kHz) and perhaps secondarily due to the Texarkana, TX station licensed on the same frequency but with minimum nighttime power.

The Texarkana 740 is a Class D AM. IIRC there is no protection for night service for for class D AMs. I haven't check to see if it was a Class B in the past. If it was a class B then KCMC (or what ever the old call letters were) would have some nighttime protection but as it stands now "flea power" under 250 watts at night are not protected.

 

[schmave]

As a youth in Columbia South Carolina in the 1970s I remember hearing WOWO on a pocket radio one night and I have been hooked on AM ever since (the technology moreso than the programming these days.)

I used to listen WOWO a lot of nights on my transistor in the late 80s and early 90s. That and distant MLB and NFL games were what I really enjoyed about DXing growing up. WOWO was a sentimental family thing as much as anything. It was -the- station my mom and her siblings and friends listened to growing up in western Ohio in the 60s, 60 miles southeast of Fort Wayne. To this day it is one of the best AM signals in that area 24/7, but get much farther east at night and their altered pattern kicks in. Unfortunately as you note, their programming now is nothing you cannot get anywhere else.

 

[Calhoun]

As a youngster I spent many a Saturday evening in my Dad's car in our driveway, listening for distant stations to hear college football scores in those pre-ESPN/pre-internet days. It always helped if the stations were carrying a live night game, which made WWL (LSU), WBAP (TCU), and WSB (UGa or GT) go to stations. WHO used to replay that day's Iowa game in the evening, and would give scores on breaks.

WHAS in Louisville had a call-in show they called "Tell-a-score 84" that ran an hour so or after Univ of Louisville games. You'd literally call in on-air and ask for a particular game score. In the background you could hear a teletype chugging away, although I never knew if that was just a sound effect.

 

[schmave]

Had I listed farthest signals I heard from when I lived in Houston, WHAS would have been near the top. It was a dependable skywave catch many nights. WLW is farther of course, and I picked it up many times (oddly enough, more during the summer than the winter), and I heard WBBM and WGN once or twice, but WHAS might have been the best catch from the farthest distance during my time down there.

 

[Mike Sheridan]

I used to listen WOWO a lot of nights on my transistor in the late 80s and early 90s. That and distant MLB and NFL games were what I really enjoyed about DXing growing up. WOWO was a sentimental family thing as much as anything. It was -the- station my mom and her siblings and friends listened to growing up in western Ohio in the 60s, 60 miles southeast of Fort Wayne. To this day it is one of the best AM signals in that area 24/7, but get much farther east at night and their altered pattern kicks in. Unfortunately as you note, their programming now is nothing you cannot get anywhere else.

In the 70s WOWO had a nice contemporary format. Driving from Miami to Buffalo at night we’d lock in 1190 and that signal would go for miles!

 

[gar hi]

Could you pull in AM stations from California in Florida or vice versa in a car radio? I've never had any luck with that. Most stations I could get were from up states like NC and NY, and the farthest I could get was KMOX 1120.

I lived in Tampa for 30 years and heard KFI a few times on my Sangean PR-D5 and even on my Sony Walkman really well one night.

KNX also would sometimes show up if I listened long enough on 1070.

And I tried so hard for KNBR even with the local on 680 being easy to null but never heard it and there were many stations on that frequency at night.

Of course, here in Hawaii, some of the 50 kw California stations are regulars at night and often boom in nicely thanks to the help of the ocean.

Back in the winter of 1977-78 when I lived in New Jersey outside of Philadelphia, I heard KFI once and only once one night after trying for weeks on end.

 

[SignalsradioLLC]

Has anyone logged KTNN 660, the 50kW "Voice of the Navajo Nation" in Window Rock, AZ?

Country/Native music format. Quite the posh spot on the dial!

I just returned from a repair trip due to lightning damage to their transmitter, back on @ 25kW. New parts to restore to full boat are on order from Nautel.

Interestingly, they are licensed ND day @ 50kW, nite @ 52kW DA to compensate for phasor losses.

Dennis

 

[nitroengine]

KTNN is heard fairly often here in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. Based on how strong they are, they can be an indicator for good conditions to the southwest. I had KTNN with a near local strength signal for a couple of nights this past winter, I tuned them in on my GE Superadio I and listened for an hour or two. Good selection of classic country music and the native chants they tend to do after the top of the hour are fun to hear.