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KCBS AM 740 SF

There is no 680 in Sacramento. KNBR is 680 and they're a San Francisco station. KSTE in Sacramento is 670. Perhaps your tuner is a little off. KCBS always comes in at night and KNBR has 5o thousand watts so they can be tuned in in LA at times but there is a lot of interference from adjacent frequencies.
 
As I noted on the SF board - I grew up in LA near Glendale in the 1960s. At night, I could pull in KCBS, KNBR, and even 610/KFRC which was only 5,000 watts. My mother listened to KGO at night, and the signal was often better, if anything, than sister talk station KABC.

I also listened to KOY Phoenix, , and KSL from Salt Lake City,. among others. I've heard stories of other people DXing stations from much farther away than that.

To reverse it - in the Bay Area, KFI and KNX often come in loud and clear.
 
jasonharper2007 said:
Just Notice I am Getting In 680 AM And 740 AM From Bay Area

740 AM KCBS In HD
680 AM In Perfect No HD
Click to expand...
The 50kw's from SF (KNBR, KCBS, KGO) are generally easy to get at night in So Cal. If you want to go for distance, try KKOB 770/Albuquerque or KOA 850/Denver - both are doable. Of course, the best was years ago when I listened to a Dodgers game on KFI - in Missouri!
 
I also once got KSFO and KNEW down here too, but the signal is weak.
 
KCBS-HD - Of course, KCBS has a strong signal here in L.A. at night, but most of the time my HD radio can't quite

lock in. But occasionally when the signal is stable enough it will switch from the narrow band audio of AM

to the wider HD audio (sounds like a good web feed) for as long as ten minutes before dropping back into AM.

Its impressive, considering its coming from 400 miles away.
 
I have listened to KCBS a lot over the years...Now, as I turned 43 the other day, I'm now glued to the other blowtorch from the Bay Area 810 KGO to get my nightly preaching from the one and only Mr. Gene Burns ;D Joe
 
Back before the FCC "breakdown" of the Clear Channel frequencies, it was fairly easy in L.A./So. Calif. in the 1970s and '80s to get at night, mostly in the winter, WCCO-830 from Minnesota, WHAS-840 from Louisville, WWL-870 from New Orelans (before 870 in Glendale went 24 hours in 1984); KRVN-880 in Nebraska ( and sometimes WCBS New York, if KRVN went off the air); WLS-890 from Chicago; KDKA-Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (after 1020 in New Mexico went off at midnight Mountain Time till the early-'80s); KTWO-1030 from Wyoming; WHO-1040 from Iowa; sometimes KMOX-1120 in St. Louis with the antenna nulling out KPNW-1120 in Oregon, 1180 in Montana, 1210 in Guymon, Oklahoma KGYN; and sometimes WCAU-1210 in Philadelphia after KGYN's sign-off at midnight; KGA-1510 in Spokane, WA and KOMA-1520 in Oklahoma City.
Even got some of these on our car radio in the winter. Orange County Register radio columnist Gary Lycan did a story on AM band DXing and quoted me in 1983 about stations that could be heard in Orange County. Later I used a fancy loop antenna and communications receiver and heard about 670 stations from 36 states and 12 countries on AM. Best was 5 kw daytimers in Florida on 1040 and 1560, 890 from North Dakota which was a 1,000 watt daytimer, 250-watter on 900 from Texas, 1220 from Indiana, a 5 kw daytimer, 1550 from Smyrna, Georgia and 860 from Douglas, Georgia at 5,000 watts. Several from Hawaii, South Korea and Japan like 774 and 828 khz.

Here in the Monterey area, I get KNX and KFI (with some splatter from 630 in Monterey; 1110, 870, 830, 1540, 930, and 760 and 600 from San Diego along with 1700. On my Sony SW/AM DX receiever I can also get quite a few regionals like 1380 from Washington and Parker, Arizona, but it is hard to get the old 50 kw stations or anything further east than 1160 and 850!! Also, a long time ago, we used to get 670 in Chicago in KBOI was off the air or 780 in Chicago if Reno was silent. Same with WGN-720 if KDWN was off the air. But these days, hard to even get WHO or WWL like the old days, and now with new stations on 830 and 840, can't get those old midwest clar channels anymore.

Jim Hilliker
casual DXer Monterey, CA
 
Was down in Ensenada a time back.....KCBS/San Fran boomed in like a local !

At night, KCBS, KNX, KNBR, KFMB, sometimes KFI, KGO (due North & South seemingly)....All seem to do pretty well in California.

KDWN/720 Las Vegas, KOH/780 Reno, KOA/850 Denver all seem to get in to most of California at night too!

Daytime Signal (sheer size-of-area wise) has to go to KMJ/580 Fresno?

That station gets in to Santa Rosa (an hour North of the Golden Gate), Sacramento, and all the way down to northern Santa Barbara...And if not for KLAC/570, probably in to L.A?.........Long way!
 
I moved from Southern CA to the Nashville, TN area last year, and was shocked to hear KNX over the pileup of graveyard stations on 1070. On some nights, KNX is fairly reliable, fading in and out of the mess a few times an hour with good IDs, and their unique traffic tones.

I tried for a long time to get 650 WSM from California, and never managed to pull it off with Mexican station(s) and KMTI in Utah, and of course some splatter from adjacent KFI. About the best I was able to do was KRVN 880, who made it in fairly often, but not nightly, and WBAP 820, which I only heard a few times.
 
Jim Hilliker said:
Back before the FCC "breakdown" of the Clear Channel frequencies, it was fairly easy in L.A./So. Calif. in the 1970s and '80s to get at night...(snip)...KOMA-1520 in Oklahoma City.

Jim Hilliker
casual DXer Monterey, CA
Click to expand...

Casual? Surely you jest! :D

It's been said that you could drive down the Sunset Strip at night and
listen to "yours truly KOMA." (The Boss Jocks were not pleased. ;))
 
I spent a summer on a ranch in northwestern Wyoming, the station we listened to at night there was KOMA. Similarly in rural northern California, for rock XEAK was a regular choice and later XERB with the Wolfman. As a kid I came across Wolfman's show on XERF and was surprised to hear ads from companies from Louisiana to Nebraska on that 150kw monster. KOMO and KSL were dependable early morning signals in San Diego. At night driving down the coast you can still get KOMO well as far as Orange County. I often listened to Padre games on KOMO when they were playing in Seattle in the PCL days.

DX used to be fun and pretty easy before the breakdown of clear channels. For distance my record was WBZ in Boston, for difficulty some of the Ohio regionals like WPVL, WING, or WHK. I have never gotten KNBR in San Diego--too close to the Tijuana 690. KYA on 1260 and KDIA on 1310 came in fairly regularly, also the 1240 from Sacramento, KROY, then, when KSON was off. Also got WKY from Oklahoma City when KHJ was off. Others...KIMN, KJR, KMA, KTW, KGA of course even now, CKRD, CKWX.

On the east side of Maui at night its interesting to see what comes in. KNX, KFI, KNBR are all crystal clear, KOA, KKOB, WOAI, WBAP, and something I looked up once all the way from Australia.

I was shocked to see an article on Fybush reporting the shut down of two of Canada's biggest 50kw AMs for financial reasons. Its hard to believe AM is slowly dying off. But as it does I guess its possible DX will get easier again.
 
Lopaka said:
I spent a summer on a ranch in northwestern Wyoming, the station we listened to at night there was KOMA. Similarly in rural northern California, for rock XEAK was a regular choice and later XERB with the Wolfman. As a kid I came across Wolfman's show on XERF and was surprised to hear ads from companies from Louisiana to Nebraska on that 150kw monster. KOMO and KSL were dependable early morning signals in San Diego. At night driving down the coast you can still get KOMO well as far as Orange County. I often listened to Padre games on KOMO when they were playing in Seattle in the PCL days.

DX used to be fun and pretty easy before the breakdown of clear channels. For distance my record was WBZ in Boston, for difficulty some of the Ohio regionals like WPVL, WING, or WHK. I have never gotten KNBR in San Diego--too close to the Tijuana 690. KYA on 1260 and KDIA on 1310 came in fairly regularly, also the 1240 from Sacramento, KROY, then, when KSON was off. Also got WKY from Oklahoma City when KHJ was off. Others...KIMN, KJR, KMA, KTW, KGA of course even now, CKRD, CKWX.

On the east side of Maui at night its interesting to see what comes in. KNX, KFI, KNBR are all crystal clear, KOA, KKOB, WOAI, WBAP, and something I looked up once all the way from Australia.

I was shocked to see an article on Fybush reporting the shut down of two of Canada's biggest 50kw AMs for financial reasons. Its hard to believe AM is slowly dying off. But as it does I guess its possible DX will get easier again.
Click to expand...

For the record, XERF (Cd. Acuna, Coahuila, MEXICO) was licensed to 250,000 watts. But more than likely, they were NOT running the full 250 gallons. A great catch nonetheless. The last time I heard XERF/1570 was in 1982 while DX'ing in Wareham, Massachusetts, using a Radio Shack DX-160 connected to the heating duct system on my parents home. It was a major DX antenna system. I could hear portable phones from miles around on the old 1650 kHz band. Back to XERF..... in October, 1982 I heard a paid religious program paid for by The Reverend Dr. Cross, who begged you to send your letters to him and please include a "$10 donation with your first prayer request!". Afterwords I heard the typical and famous Paul Kalliger ID's "Tell them you heard this program on X-E-R-F Ciudad Acuna, Coahuila, MEXICO. This is Paul Kalliger speaking".

KFI/640 was a regular here on the east coast, just a hour or so before sunrise. I never did get a QSL from them, even after a few tries in 1978. OH, well. While in Central Arizona back in the mid 80's, most of the major LA stations came in quite well. I also got WHAS/840 in Louisville and was able to hear WBZ/1030 underneath KTWO from Casper. While in LA and Orange County, DX'ing is a chore. I was able to listen to hear KGO/810 and KCBS/740 at night pretty well. Otherwise, the whole AM band was a mess. While in Florida last year, the Cubans were a major pain in the a** with their so-called news and tourism radio stations on multiple frequencies. Never mind the "wobblers" (jammers) on many Miami co-channels. DX'ing was so much better before the breakdown of the "Clears". Back in the day, KSL in Salt Lake was strong even here in the east after WJJD/Chicago would shutdown at SLC sunset. (*sigh*).

Peter Q. George (K1XRB)
Whitman, Massachusetts
 
Peter Q. George (K1XRB) said:
For the record, XERF (Cd. Acuna, Coahuila, MEXICO) was licensed to 250,000 watts. But more than likely, they were NOT running the full 250 gallons.
Click to expand...

The RCA 250 kw transmitter was installed in 1959, per Sergio Ballesteros, the manager. It ran at full power well into the 80's, when maintenance became too costly to maintain it as listening moved to FM acrosss the US.

The station had its own generator, and to insure peaceful relations with the little town of Acuña, they provided enough power to light the city streets at night! Since the station signed on at 6 PM and signed off at 6 or 7 AM, they didn't run the generator in the daytime, anyway.

There are several pictures of the XERF transmitter on the web. There were no other 250kw RCA's in the Western Hemisphere on Medium Wave.
 
Jim Hilliker said:
Back before the FCC "breakdown" of the Clear Channel frequencies, it was fairly easy in L.A./So. Calif. in the 1970s and '80s to get at night, mostly in the winter, WCCO-830 from Minnesota, WHAS-840 from Louisville, WWL-870 from New Orelans (before 870 in Glendale went 24 hours in 1984); KRVN-880 in Nebraska ( and sometimes WCBS New York, if KRVN went off the air); WLS-890 from Chicago; KDKA-Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (after 1020 in New Mexico went off at midnight Mountain Time till the early-'80s); KTWO-1030 from Wyoming; WHO-1040 from Iowa; sometimes KMOX-1120 in St. Louis with the antenna nulling out KPNW-1120 in Oregon, 1180 in Montana, 1210 in Guymon, Oklahoma KGYN; and sometimes WCAU-1210 in Philadelphia after KGYN's sign-off at midnight; KGA-1510 in Spokane, WA and KOMA-1520 in Oklahoma City.
Click to expand...
...in reverse, when I was in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, in the late '70s, I used to listen to KFI/640 at night and once even won Linda Ronstadt's Greatest Hits and a KFI t-shirt from Dave Diamond during an overnight shift ;-) ...
 
That range between 800 and 900 was a DX'ers dream back in the day. I think I got most of the stations mentioned here,
although for some reason, hearing anything east of Chicago was difficult from LA. Never heard any of the New York stations from there.

I did manage to hear, ever so slightly, the Key Marathon VOA station in Florida, beamed down to Cuba. (Nulled out Bakersfield, and listened, ever so intently, for the "Yankee Doodle " theme at the top of the hour....this was 1979 or 1980.

Never got Hawaii or any other trans-Pacific DX either....

I sort of lost the itch when the band got covered with too many stations and other junk. But, every so often, I'll give the dial a spin.
 
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