550 WKRC is highly-limited to the west/northwest during the day [due to St. Louis’ 550 and Chicago’s 560. WKRC actually GAINS SIGNAL STRENGTH in the n/w direction [despite their drop to 1kw] AT NIGHT. The meter on my Icom IC-R71A receiver GAINS THREE S-UNITS at 550’s nighttime power/pattern change in Connersville, IN... In other directions, it likely ranks a firm second place position [daytime] and easily provides the second-best coverage [overall] of the market... In fact [considering the severe groundwave/skywave conflict that hinders 1530 in the Butler/Warren County “northern metro” – WLW and WKRC are the ONLY TWO full-market coverage stations after sunset. The market has long-outgrown quality coverage from 1360. I’ll concur that 550 KFYR—Fargo, ND and 570—KNAX Yankton, SD are 5kw “AM aberrations”—considering their AWESOME daytime groundwave coverage – better than many 50kw sticks can crank-out in most other locations [both have better signals than does 50kw 750 WSB—Atlanta]! 1030 KTWO—Casper, WY is another that hikes many miles during the day. Sadly, Indianapolis has no full-market AM station coverage at night!
Cincinnati has always been a bit peculiar in the FM reception realm—likely because of your stations’ necessities to address their local terrain issues - The "San Francisco Effect" [with tall towers on the hill that work-out to well-above 500-ft HAAT Class B facilities, thus a consequential ERPreduction below the typical 50kw that benefits the "near field" at the expense of regional coverage, terrain obstruction, and a possible “beam-tilt” to fill-in the valleys]. In my hometown of Connersville [equally-seated between Cincy and Indy], Indianapolis FMs are easy to receive – Cincinnati FMs are much-less so. I can only recall two exceptions... B105 and 93.3 WAKW [which used to inflict havoc on my childhood reception of 93.1 WNAP]. The last time I was “home” in C’ville, I could not listen to most Cincy FMs – I could easily listen to nearly Indy FM. I frequently receive Class A 101.9 WKLR from the west side of Indy INSTEAD of Class B WKRQ... I spent my teenage years addicted to Q-102, and I can rarely get-it in Connersville today! I have this feeling that most Cincy FM CEs "focus" their signals towards "The Senven Hills" rather than the "outback".