DXing in the 1950s and today

[Schroedingers Cat]

They were all from 3 different locations in the same local area (Chicago) not too far from each other. Two of the locations were in the northwest side of Chicago (near Irving Park and Harlem) and my current location in Wood Dale, IL just west of the O'Hare Int. Airport.

Like DavidEduardo pointed out DXing the AM band (or SW for that matter) was much different in the past. It was much easier to log new stations. The noise level in those days was much lower as well.

There were Chicago area based DXers (and members of CADX) that had higher totals in their log books than me.

How far did you live from WSBC, WCRW, and WEDC? I was always amazed at how strong they were out by the old WJJD tower site near Greenwood Ave. and Ballard Rd., especially since they all operated at the legacy mimimum efficiency for Class IVs/Class Cs to protect WJOB 1230.

Why did Olson Electronics have a map for DXers showing different frequencies in different neighborhoods?

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

I think the Olson Electronics I was at was at 4101 N. Milwaukee Ave. I actually still have the things I bought. Made a patch cord from them. I think it was November, 1968. Going back to Michigan a few days later, I heard "Both Sides Now" by Judy Collins on WLS.

https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-Catalogs/Consumer/Olson Radio-1974-Catalog.pdf

 

[CADXER]

When I lived in Chicago I was approximately the same distance from WEDC and WSBC. I was somewhere in between the two about 2 miles from each. WEDC tower was at 5475 N. Milwaukee Avenue, the same tower that is today used by WSBC and WCPT. WSBC's original tower was at 4949 W. Belmont Avenue, which also housed the studios for both WSBC and WXRT FM. WCRW was the farthest away from where I lived. They had a tower on top of the a building at 2756 N. Pine Grove Avenue. That was around 8 miles away from where I lived.

And yes I remember Olson Electronics on Milwaukee Avenue. You could get anything electronics related there. Used to shop there all the time. It was either Olson Electronics or Tri-State Electronics for electronic parts.

Here are pictures of the three Chicago time sharing stations on 1240 kHz from my collection:

 

[radioman148]

When I lived in Chicago I was approximately the same distance from WEDC and WSBC. I was somewhere in between the two about 2 miles from each. WEDC tower was at 5475 N. Milwaukee Avenue, the same tower that is today used by WSBC and WCPT. WSBC's original tower was at 4949 W. Belmont Avenue, which also housed the studios for both WSBC and WXRT FM. WCRW was the farthest away from where I lived. They had a tower on top of the a building at 2756 N. Pine Grove Avenue. That was around 8 miles away from where I lived.

And yes I remember Olson Electronics on Milwaukee Avenue. You could get anything electronics related there. Used to shop there all the time. It was either Olson Electronics or Tri-State Electronics for electronic parts.

Here are pictures of the three Chicago time sharing stations on 1240 kHz from my collection:

If I remember correctly when WSCR first came on the air on 820 in 1992, they also used the tower on Belmont Avenue.

 

[davideduardo]

Here are pictures of the three Chicago time sharing stations on 1240 kHz from my collection:

Nice pictures and memories.

DXers all wanted the thrill of logging all three of these... I managed from Cleveland, only because the one that had the least night hours did a test one Monday morning! The other two, and I can't remember which 60 years later, were pretty easy catches at that close distance.

Oh, yeah... and my first DX receiver was bought at Olson Electronics in Euclid Avenue in Cleveland! That place was like a toy store.

 

[Steve Green NEPA]

Just this afternoon I 'heard' a good one -- KIFW, a graveyarder from Alaska.

Of course, the idea of doing that from an actual radio in Pennsylvania is beyond Beyond Comprehension. It was off that new British Columbia SDR site instead.

Two things are different for me after the decades.
1. Here in Ne PA I managed to log just about every AM station in Eastern PA in the 90's. But the daytime dial has become a snarling, unlistenable, prohibitive, static/interference/QRM abomination compared to the days of 1961, my first year of AM DXing. It's a tragedy now. The best radios in the house are now useless. So the SDR should suffice during the day. It's a fun toy.

2. Irrespective of format back in the 60's, DJ's spoke after every song and IDed most of those times. Nights now on the AM dial (no music) mean purely listening to some syndicated rubbish at the top of the hour for any clue. And even THEN, too many stations emphasize their slogans and their brand-new FM translators -- verbiage enough to obscure any actual call letters or COL.

I have about 450 AM stations logged here in NE PA, on a new list I started from 0000 when I moved to here from near JFK Airport. Only about three or four 'new' loggings have taken place in maybe the past five years.

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

From David's site:

CLEVELAND 2020 Euclid Ave. (216) 621-6387

24 blocks from the WABQ tower.

 

[tvnut]

Great pics! I'd never have thought of that.

I still remember the live handoffs from one station to another, the second or two of dead air as one transmitter was turned off and the next one was turned on. Then a "Thank you, WSBC, this is WCRW" or some such.

And yes, WSCR 820 had studios and transmitter at the crowded Belmont Ave. location (with WSBC and WXRT, the old WSBC-FM) when it started on 1/2/1992. I believe the transmitter was in a corner of the studio.

 

[radioman148]

And yes, WSCR 820 had studios and transmitter at the crowded Belmont Ave. location (with WSBC and WXRT, the old WSBC-FM) when it started on 1/2/1992. I believe the transmitter was in a corner of the studio.

Thanks. I thought that was the case.

 

[fybush]

If I remember correctly when WSCR first came on the air on 820 in 1992, they also used the tower on Belmont Avenue.

They did - and in more recent years CBS Radio built out the Belmont rooftop site as a last-ditch aux for WBBM and WSCR, as well as for its Chicago FM stations.

820 (now WCPT) has its daytime facility these days at the N. Milwaukee site that used to be WEDC and is now the full-time WSBC site.

 

[tvnut]

They did - and in more recent years CBS Radio built out the Belmont rooftop site as a last-ditch aux for WBBM and WSCR, as well as for its Chicago FM stations.

820 (now WCPT) has its daytime facility these days at the N. Milwaukee site that used to be WEDC and is now the full-time WSBC site.

That's double redundancy at Belmont for WSCR and WBBM, since there's a backup tower (pulled out of mothballs by RCA and installed after WMAQ's original tower fell in an ice storm in the late 1940s) at the Bloomingdale site (itself bought by RCA in 1934 after Westinghouse had to move KYW to Philadelphia).

 

[fybush]

That's double redundancy at Belmont for WSCR and WBBM, since there's a backup tower (pulled out of mothballs by RCA and installed after WMAQ's original tower fell in an ice storm in the late 1940s) at the Bloomingdale site (itself bought by RCA in 1934 after Westinghouse had to move KYW to Philadelphia).

There sure is. I wrote about it in some depth back in 2008:

https://www.fybush.com/sites/2008/site-080111.html

 

[tvnut]

There sure is. I wrote about it in some depth back in 2008:

https://www.fybush.com/sites/2008/site-080111.html

Great stuff. I read this way back and was amazed to discover the KYW connection. Makes this Chicago's oldest tower site. (In 1929, WGN, WBBM, WLS, WCFL and the others were not where they ended up by the 1940s. WGN was near Elgin, WBBM was in Glenview, WLS was in Crete just before joining with WENR in Downers Grove prior to moving to Tinley Park, and WCFL was on Navy Pier.)

Alas, a couple of years ago, the WMAQ letters came off the building and were not replaced. In the 1970s, there was also a sign out front with the famous N and "WMAQ-AM" in the Helvetica font NBC favored at the time.