Like Clockwork

[Shellanswerman]

Well, it's Friday afternoon, and like clockwork, something is awry at WKOX-AM. 168 hours ago, the station was running Portuguese programming from WSRO-AM; today, just an unmodulated carrier (as of this writing).
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Skywave seems to attenuated these days, and for the last two mornings, I've been able to listen to Rachel Maddow's early show on WKOX. Usually I pick it up on NYC's WLIB-AM which comes in fairly well between 5:00 am and Local Sunrise.

 

[JustinT]

> Well, it's Friday afternoon, and like clockwork, something
> is awry at WKOX-AM. 168 hours ago, the station was running
> Portuguese programming from WSRO-AM; today, just an
> unmodulated carrier (as of this writing).
> S
> I
> D
> E
> B
> A
> R
> Skywave seems to attenuated these days, and for the last two
> mornings, I've been able to listen to Rachel Maddow's early
> show on WKOX. Usually I pick it up on NYC's WLIB-AM which
> comes in fairly well between 5:00 am and Local Sunrise.
>

As of 11:37PM, 1200 WKOX is on running Jerry Springer.

A question for those in the know: How does WKOX get the Air America signal from WXKS? Is it just an OTA signal? You can almost always recieve WXKS in Framingham in the daytime, though at night the signal is inaudible in part due to WVEI 1440.

I'm curious as well, how are the studio facilities there? Are they still as Fairbanks had them during WKOX's last serious format (local talk back in 1995), or has Clear Channel put money into the Framingham studios.

 

[Eli Polonsky]

> A question for those in the know: How does WKOX get the Air
> America signal from WXKS? Is it just an OTA signal?

I don't know what kind of a link is used to get the signal from WXKS to WKOX, but it's definitely not the air signal.

I've heard instances when music has been played on the network, and one stereo channel appeared on WXKS, and the other on WKOX. They simply sent one side of the stereo network feed to WXKS, and the other to WKOX.

You could actually use two AM radios and get old-fashioned "AM stereo" utilizing two mono stations, like was occasionally done as a gimmick (for classical concerts, etc...) back in the late 50's and early 60's.

> You can almost always recieve WXKS in Framingham in the daytime,
> though at night the signal is inaudible in part due to WVEI 1440.

I don't think you'd hear it at night in Framingham regardless of WVEI. To the west, WXKS-AM at night is only sometimes barely audible as close as Newton, and it's gone by Route 128, where WVEI isn't even yet a factor.