I was looking at the site Yes.com, which purports to list what stations have been playing by running their audio through a computer programmed with digital "signatures" for well-known songs and commercials. They have receivers in various cities around the U.S.
I noticed they had listings at 2 or 3 in the morning for pop songs supposedly played on two local all-religion stations that run 30 watts at night, one on 740 and the other on 1050. The songs were consistent with the formats of 740 CHWO and 1050 CHUM in Toronto, the stations I would hear at night in Cincinnati where I live, if I didn't live near the religious stations.
Later I checked a low-power Spanish-language station on 1320 and found them listed as playing Anglo oldies tunes late at night. When I clicked on that artist in the yes.com listing, it gave me a list of other stations playing the song that morning, one of which was WJAS in Pittsburgh.
Checking around the U.S., I found few stations where this kind of thing would appear to be possible. I found a Spanish station at 1110 kHz in Providence that appeared to sign off at night, then suddenly played Roy Orbison at 1 in the morning. Clicking on the link, I found a list of stations playing that song at that time... the list consisted of two dozen "Coast to Coast AM" affiliates.
One was listed as WBT-FM in Charlotte. That's a simulcast of 1110 WBT-AM, a strong signal on the east coast.
I see people on this board have used Yes.com to verify catches, but I wonder if anyone has been using it to come up with the catches in the first place, or to survey what might be happening around the country.
My limited exposure to yes.com suggests that trying to do this has any number of difficulties to overcome:
1] In many if not most cities, including Charlotte, yes.com doesn't attempt to listen to AM stations.
2] Yes.com doesn't necessarily list all the AM stations in a city that it monitors.
3] This would only work with monitored stations that are off-the-air and low power at night, and if they are low power, yes.com's receivers have to be far enough away to not get much of a signal from them.
4] The sending station either has to be listed by yes.com, or you have to have another way to figure out what they might be playing at a given time.
5] The source stations involved must be playing music, or you must manually compare the monitored station with a station you actually think is the source, because yes.com doesn't let you click on commercials to see who's playing them, like it does with songs.
6] You have to account for the possibility that the stations are simulcasting, especially for Coast to Coast AM.
7] Yes.com often spots bumper music that talk stations use; when it does, this is just as helpful as a song played in its entirety.
8] You need to do this within a couple of hours after the song is played, or it's a hassle tracking the stuff down using yes.com archive lists that don't always seem to include the overnight material.
All this makes me think the most likely stations you can monitor this way would be 50kW stations, where yes.com monitors daytimers or low-power stations in other cities on the same frequency. But one of my hits was on a regional channel.
I don't know if yes.com makes any kind of API available (an API is what web pages use to customize Google Maps), but if they did, you could use it to automate tracking of certain DX events.
I noticed they had listings at 2 or 3 in the morning for pop songs supposedly played on two local all-religion stations that run 30 watts at night, one on 740 and the other on 1050. The songs were consistent with the formats of 740 CHWO and 1050 CHUM in Toronto, the stations I would hear at night in Cincinnati where I live, if I didn't live near the religious stations.
Later I checked a low-power Spanish-language station on 1320 and found them listed as playing Anglo oldies tunes late at night. When I clicked on that artist in the yes.com listing, it gave me a list of other stations playing the song that morning, one of which was WJAS in Pittsburgh.
Checking around the U.S., I found few stations where this kind of thing would appear to be possible. I found a Spanish station at 1110 kHz in Providence that appeared to sign off at night, then suddenly played Roy Orbison at 1 in the morning. Clicking on the link, I found a list of stations playing that song at that time... the list consisted of two dozen "Coast to Coast AM" affiliates.
One was listed as WBT-FM in Charlotte. That's a simulcast of 1110 WBT-AM, a strong signal on the east coast.
I see people on this board have used Yes.com to verify catches, but I wonder if anyone has been using it to come up with the catches in the first place, or to survey what might be happening around the country.
My limited exposure to yes.com suggests that trying to do this has any number of difficulties to overcome:
1] In many if not most cities, including Charlotte, yes.com doesn't attempt to listen to AM stations.
2] Yes.com doesn't necessarily list all the AM stations in a city that it monitors.
3] This would only work with monitored stations that are off-the-air and low power at night, and if they are low power, yes.com's receivers have to be far enough away to not get much of a signal from them.
4] The sending station either has to be listed by yes.com, or you have to have another way to figure out what they might be playing at a given time.
5] The source stations involved must be playing music, or you must manually compare the monitored station with a station you actually think is the source, because yes.com doesn't let you click on commercials to see who's playing them, like it does with songs.
6] You have to account for the possibility that the stations are simulcasting, especially for Coast to Coast AM.
7] Yes.com often spots bumper music that talk stations use; when it does, this is just as helpful as a song played in its entirety.
8] You need to do this within a couple of hours after the song is played, or it's a hassle tracking the stuff down using yes.com archive lists that don't always seem to include the overnight material.
All this makes me think the most likely stations you can monitor this way would be 50kW stations, where yes.com monitors daytimers or low-power stations in other cities on the same frequency. But one of my hits was on a regional channel.
I don't know if yes.com makes any kind of API available (an API is what web pages use to customize Google Maps), but if they did, you could use it to automate tracking of certain DX events.