An AM DX wish list

[jd]

Which AM station(s) would you like to catch off the air? And if it happened, which other stations would you like to hear in their absence? No rules, except it should be a somewhat plausible "wish list." I'll post my own later, after I see some of yours. This could be fun!

 

[crainbebo]

I'd love to hear the following off and other stations in absence

570-KVI off, WNAX, WMCA, KLIF, etc in place in and out.
630-KCIS off, CHED in place
710-KIRO off-WOR and Cuba in place, KSPN south.
770-KTTH off-WABC in place as well as KKOB.
880-Any west coast stations except for KRVN off, KRVN and WCBS in it's place.
1000-KOMO off-WMVP and XEOY in it's place.
1060-CKMX off-KYW and WLNO in it's place.
1230-get rid of the NW GYs and replace it with ones from the Midwest. Would love to hear something different on this freq.

-crainbebo

 

[Steve Green NEPA]

So many of them used to go off the air, of course, back in the Sixties. Naturally, that led to coast-to-coast reception at times. And on Monday morning, that absence led to some swell additional catches when stations returned to the air with that grand reveille of 'The Star Spangled Banner' at 5AM, or 5:30, or at 6. Holy Smoke! Maybe this will be a new catch!

Since around the time of the CB craze, when it seemed as though every one of those folks had to have at least one lip flapping or face social oblivion, the AM dial at 3 in the morning has sounded like it does at 9 at night.
Full-time signal FM was glomming all the new listenership at that same point in time, of course. AM had to keep pace by Bohannon-ing away.

I can't think of one authentic full-time/full-power AM station in the whole country that stayed on the air since they were licensed. Perhaps DXers from other markets can name an exception, but at one time or another, for an example, our little NYC crew (Eastern Queens, near JFK) found every single one of our locals gone at least on one occasion. Dad, at times of those almost Biblical windows we'd all be parked like vultures on those rare absence-voids, those great fishing spots, for hours. In my recall, WNEW 1130 and WMCA 570 were the most stubborn of the 24/7 signals to discover gone from the NYC dial. But it happened.

Times change. Interest for the hobby wanes. People move. Priorities shift. Over the years, AM stations became duller, and held less interest in between IDs. The more orthodox DXers start their totals lists over from zero when they move. The number of stations you'd like to find missing are fewer. The internet is now there to fill in most musical cravings.

Yet, there are two things I'd like to see.
One would be another one of those nights when a WTIC left the air for xmtr work and KRLD came in .... or when those Chicago clears went off concurrent with at least one station (Idaho) doing a DX test.
The second would be a realization by some myopic station owners that it would save a few bucks every week to shut the flippin' station off overnight on occasion to save electricity. For crying out loud, the old 1540 WPTR (WDCD when it went dark) reported that they could not afford to keep a directional 50,000 watt station on the air anymore! And come on now : Is it really necessary or prudent for Disney Radio in, say, metro Philadelphia or New York City to be programming at 3:30 in the morning to kids barely out of kindergarten? The ratings show that no one is listening to either of these stations in broad daylight!

With all the recent cutbacks and fiscal discipline conducted by the largest companies and the largest stations, one would figure that even the FM's would 'give it a rest' from time to time. On another level, I believe there were only a handful of X-Band stations ever to make a ratings book in the past fifteen years. So shaddup already! Turn off your tubes and chips and diodes and get a good night's sleep once in a while.

 

[cyberdad]

I'd love to hear the following off and other stations in absence

570-KVI off, WNAX, WMCA, KLIF, etc in place in and out.
630-KCIS off, CHED in place
710-KIRO off-WOR and Cuba in place, KSPN south.
770-KTTH off-WABC in place as well as KKOB.
880-Any west coast stations except for KRVN off, KRVN and WCBS in it's place.
1000-KOMO off-WMVP and XEOY in it's place.
1060-CKMX off-KYW and WLNO in it's place.
1230-get rid of the NW GYs and replace it with ones from the Midwest. Would love to hear something different on this freq.

-crainbebo

Great topic, great post. I think some of these would be very doable. The tough ones, IMHO would be these....

570: WFAA and WMCA. I've never heard either of these in the Chicago area. Juice goes south and east respectively, IIRC. WNAX should be doable, however.

1000: WMVP really nulls Seattle, but you might be able to snag them if you could catch them on day pattern. My guess is that XEOY would be relatively easy. I hear them under WMVP on a somewhat frequent basis.

1060: WLNO. The good news for DXers is that they don't seem to maintain their pattern very well. The bad news is that they don't seem to maintain anything very well. Bottom line is they don't get out nearly as well as they used to. I've heard them here in the Chicago area a number of times....but not recently. I know Radioman has heard them around here as well, but again, not sure if recently. KYW, meanwhile, has a really good nighttime signal here, and perhaps could make the hop.

 

[cyberdad]

Off the top of my head here in the Chicago area my list would look like this....

560: WIND off. I'd want to see if I could bag either WFIL, WQAM, or WHBQ....three legendary vintage rockers. I'm pretty sure I have heard WHBQ once or twice when WIND was off. I've also heard CFOS and most frequently KWTO. I've also heard KLZ not far west of here. Still, the channel is relatively open when WIND leaves.

670: When WSCR has been off, I've heard Cuba roar in. I'd be more interested in in KBOI and even more interested in KNBR on 680. Actually, 680 would be where I'd be more interested in hanging out. Looking also for CJOB, CFTR, WPTF, KFEQ, and whatever else might be out there.

720: WGN off. I've never heard KDWN here, so that would be my main target. KSAH would be another interesting catch. Way, way back in the day when they would go off on Monday mornings, Cuba would usually come through.

780: WBBM off. This almost never happens. I've never heard KKOH, but I wouldn't really know what to expect. CKSO used to put a strong enough nighttime signal here to crash through the splatter on 790. Now that they're permanently off, I'd be curious to hear what might surface there.

890: WLS off. As is, they're not strong enough to completely wipe out Cuba. But with the channel cleared locally, it would be interesting to see which of the "new" 890s might turn up.

1000: WMVP off. As stated earlier, XEOY underneath isn't uncommon. With WMVP off, the big prize would be KOMO, but I'd also be looking for KTOK. I'd expect both of those to be tough.

 

[cd637299]

Here near Miami, my AM "wish list" would crash all the PC's.....I'll stick to daytime AM DX from remote areas.

cd

 

[radioman148]

I'd love to hear the following off and other stations in absence

570-KVI off, WNAX, WMCA, KLIF, etc in place in and out.
630-KCIS off, CHED in place
710-KIRO off-WOR and Cuba in place, KSPN south.
770-KTTH off-WABC in place as well as KKOB.
880-Any west coast stations except for KRVN off, KRVN and WCBS in it's place.
1000-KOMO off-WMVP and XEOY in it's place.
1060-CKMX off-KYW and WLNO in it's place.
1230-get rid of the NW GYs and replace it with ones from the Midwest. Would love to hear something different on this freq.

-crainbebo

Great topic, great post. I think some of these would be very doable. The tough ones, IMHO would be these....

570: WFAA and WMCA. I've never heard either of these in the Chicago area. Juice goes south and east respectively, IIRC. WNAX should be doable, however.

1000: WMVP really nulls Seattle, but you might be able to snag them if you could catch them on day pattern. My guess is that XEOY would be relatively easy. I hear them under WMVP on a somewhat frequent basis.

1060: WLNO. The good news for DXers is that they don't seem to maintain their pattern very well. The bad news is that they don't seem to maintain anything very well. Bottom line is they don't get out nearly as well as they used to. I've heard them here in the Chicago area a number of times....but not recently. I know Radioman has heard them around here as well, but again, not sure if recently. KYW, meanwhile, has a really good nighttime signal here, and perhaps could make the hop.

You're right about WLNO Cyberdad. I used to catch it regularly in the Chicago area back in the WNOE days. Usually in fall & early winter it came in well in the late afternoon. Haven't heard it at all in recent years although I sometimes hear 690 in New Orleans.
Regarding WIND being off I have heard KLZ under WIND years ago with WIND nulled.
Somewhere in my collection I have tapes of my reception in the Chicago area of WNOE in the mid 60s.
If I can locate those tapes maybe I'll post them someday. They are on very old reels.

 

[schmave]

740 from Toronto for me. Here in central Ohio, it blocks out most everything else on that channel every night.

 

[foreverchanges1975]

I'd like for the 640 in Memphis to go off so maybe I could snag KFI. Once WDIA went off and I got a very faint KNX, so you'd think it would be doable....

 

[cd637299]

740 from Toronto for me. Here in central Ohio, it blocks out most everything else on that channel every night.

That wish came true, temporarily, about 12 years ago, as 740 was between formats/owners.

 

[ddsparxx]

All AMs on 1160 in the east and midwest, including WYLL be turned off at night, so I could hear KSL in Salt Lake City in VA at night. I have tried to listen in for KSL at night for the last couple of years, but not yet.
And all IBOC on AMs that use it be turned off permanently.

 

[gar hi]

If all stations east of the Mississippi on 680 could go off the air late at night, I could probably hear KNBR.

I've long since stopped trying because even though our local on 680 is easy to null out, it sounds like a graveyard frequency at night.

 

[awsherrill]

If all stations east of the Mississippi on 680 could go off the air late at night, I could probably hear KNBR.

Well, I can arrange for at least one of them to do that ;D

 

[kilokat7]

Off the top of my head here in the Chicago area my list would look like this....

560: WIND off. I'd want to see if I could bag either WFIL, WQAM, or WHBQ....three legendary vintage rockers. I'm pretty sure I have heard WHBQ once or twice when WIND was off. I've also heard CFOS and most frequently KWTO. I've also heard KLZ not far west of here. Still, the channel is relatively open when WIND leaves.

670: When WSCR has been off, I've heard Cuba roar in. I'd be more interested in in KBOI and even more interested in KNBR on 680. Actually, 680 would be where I'd be more interested in hanging out. Looking also for CJOB, CFTR, WPTF, KFEQ, and whatever else might be out there.

720: WGN off. I've never heard KDWN here, so that would be my main target. KSAH would be another interesting catch. Way, way back in the day when they would go off on Monday mornings, Cuba would usually come through.

780: WBBM off. This almost never happens. I've never heard KKOH, but I wouldn't really know what to expect. CKSO used to put a strong enough nighttime signal here to crash through the splatter on 790. Now that they're permanently off, I'd be curious to hear what might surface there.

890: WLS off. As is, they're not strong enough to completely wipe out Cuba. But with the channel cleared locally, it would be interesting to see which of the "new" 890s might turn up.

1000: WMVP off. As stated earlier, XEOY underneath isn't uncommon. With WMVP off, the big prize would be KOMO, but I'd also be looking for KTOK. I'd expect both of those to be tough.

March 10th, 2012 saw a highly publicized and rare event take place: 670 WSCR, 720 WGN & 780 WBBM all went off the air simultaneously for a scheduled maintenance event. These three Chicago super pests completely dominate their respective channels at this location, day or night, I can't escape them even when using my antenna phaser. Since DXing, this is my first experience with WGN & WBBM off the air. I recorded the two hour event with my SDR and it was quite a site seeing all three of these big guns go silent from the airwaves one-by-one. Here's a spectrogram showing the stations going dark: http://amdxer.com/misc/CHICAGO_OFF_10MR12.jpg The time is shown on the left side of the graph (0800-1000 UTC) while the frequency scale is shown at the bottom of the graph (620-820 KHz). The vertical bluish colored lines are AM signals showing modulation on each frequency. WSCR is the first to drop off, followed by WBBM and then finally WGN - all clearly seen on the spectrogram.

This is what I was hoping to catch during the Chicago down time:

670: The KBOI DX test that ran when WSCR was off. Westward conditions were bad that night and I never heard the test. It would have been nice to log a new state :-(

720: I was hoping to catch the Nicuarguan station here. It's been heard several times by others in the North and I thought I'd have a good shot with WGN off, but I never heard it. I was also looking for KDWN, but again the Western path was non-existent that night.

780: KKOH would have been nice, but it was non-existent too.

So what did I hear that night? Here's the list:

670: Two different Radio Rebeldes, sightly out of sync with one another, not too exciting.

720: XEDE "La Kaliente" (new @ 1,480 miles)
720: XEAVR Radio Fórmula (new @ 1,762 miles)

780: XEMTS Radio Fórmula (new @ 1,595 miles)
780: XEWGR (new at 1,411 miles)

700 XEDKR "Radio Red" was also heard completely over WLW at one point during the Chicago outage, not a new log but a nice catch at 1,846 miles.

So, not a total loss, but I was really hoping for the western stuff!

Yes, I'd like to catch 1000 WMVP off the air some night too so I'd have a shot at KOMO.

 

[charlestondxman]

In our area, all of our locals have been off at one time or another. I've picked up something on most of the local frequencies. The only one that haven't are 810 and 950 AM. I've never picked up much on 960 because of them. I wonder what I could get.

I wish 630 WBMQ would be off some time during the daytime. They are strong even though they are about 80 miles away (most of it through marsh). I caught them on very low power a couple weeks ago and not only was 620 Columbia trying to come in, WDAE was also coming in under it. That is about 370 miles or so daytime, a lot of it over land.

FM is different. Most of our local FMs don't go off the air much. It takes a major storm to knock them out.

 

[radioman148]

Years ago when Chicago's 670, then WMAQ, used to signoff on Monday mornings, I used the opportunity to hear KNBR.
That was a good time to listen for KNBR with no local splatter from WMAQ and a lot of the other 680s were also off.
KNBR used to get into the Chicago area very well in those days--1960s into the 80s.

 

[vibe]

Having gotten KFI from the IN-OH line( the only time I was there) and KSL from SW Fla on a number of occasions, my wish list is for KTNN 660, KNBR on 680, and KKOB 770 (from SW Fla of course.
Other people on the board (you know who you are) have gotten some great, albeit 1 time catches so anything is possible. Right place, right time.

 

[audioguy]

Here in SW Michigan, KSL was a regular after midnight, back in the 80's. Also heard KNBR and KFI. Splatter and co-channel interference was almost nonexistent.

Besides no longer hearing any of those stations, something else I haven't heard in a long time: anything much worth listening to on AM at night, except 650 and 740. Everything else is just cookie cutter network feeds.

 

[romer979fm]

I'd like 1070 in Chattanooga, Indianapolis, Birmingham, Memphis, Greeneville NC, and Madison off:
I've heard KNX in Nashville once in 1989...car radio 5am central...easy to identify with traffic mentions
of "the 405"...and a weather update mentioning "the high desert"

 

[cyberdad]

I'd like 1070 in Chattanooga, Indianapolis, Birmingham, Memphis, Greeneville NC, and Madison off:
I've heard KNX in Nashville once in 1989...car radio 5am central...easy to identify with traffic mentions
of "the 405"...and a weather update mentioning "the high desert"

Keep after it! Don't let the slop on 1070 stop you. KNX is easy (relatively speaking) to pull out of the mess. Their unique "traffic and weather together" can sometimes break through when eveything else is unintelligible. That's how I was able to ID it, last time I heard it about a year and a half ago.

Of course "back in the day", KNX, KFI, KNBR, and KSL were all do-able here in the Chicago area.

And, kilokat, I missed the "great WSCR/WGN" turn off earlier this year. Had my dates mixed up.

D'oh!!!