Was the car radio a Delco? By 1965 though I think Ford and Chrysler paid royalties for Delco patents that made them as good or nearly so. I had a friend with a Mustang and the radio was comparable. I told the story of my father wanting to listen to WJR in the Daytime at Crystal Lake near Frankfort in about 1960 and just putting the telescoping antenna all the way up and listening to what was probably on the order of a 50 uV/m ground wave signal.
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Yep, 1962 Chevy Impala.
Funny thing about Hawaii. My father played Hawaiian Guitar as well as the more standard Spanish Guitar. He was really into Hawaiian music and culture. But by the time he got to visit there after he retired, it was totally different than the traditional culture, with commercialized Luaus and pig roasts and Don Ho and double entendres about getting "Leid". He never wanted to go back. His friend and bandmate went out to the other Islands where the old culture still existed in some form, and even to Tahiti. He stayed for several years.
One program my father always wanted to listen to on WJR was "Hawaii Calls", with Webley Edwards.
One program my father always wanted to listen to on WJR was "Hawaii Calls", with Webley Edwards.
The comment about Honolulu being an RF mess flashed me back. I knew two people who were out there in the '70s
One told me AM stations were sharing towers on a large scale, and it was not an ideal situation. Another told me parts availability was a problem, with logistics of shipping from the mainland a big chore. More recently I've concluded the Palehua FM site is something all you can do is deal with it. This site has to protect a FCC monitoring station (probably now operated remotely) resulting in high bay count antennas and narrow vertical beam width. One good thing is TPO is very low, and you only have to get a narrow horizontal azimuth range right. But, I've never been there, perhaps it plays just fine on the car radio.
Additionally, some Hawaii sites are helicopter access, or hike with backpack. This brings logistical and mortality thoughts. Someone told me one engineer was in helicopter that lost power, fortunately it was four feet above the ground at the time.
Then there is real estate cost, yikes. Good side of this is the established engineers out there, who have a low housing cost basis are also probably very experienced and know how to work with the situation. For the oldsters- it appears there is just one trauma center in the state. Do you feel lucky?
One told me AM stations were sharing towers on a large scale, and it was not an ideal situation. Another told me parts availability was a problem, with logistics of shipping from the mainland a big chore. More recently I've concluded the Palehua FM site is something all you can do is deal with it. This site has to protect a FCC monitoring station (probably now operated remotely) resulting in high bay count antennas and narrow vertical beam width. One good thing is TPO is very low, and you only have to get a narrow horizontal azimuth range right. But, I've never been there, perhaps it plays just fine on the car radio.
Additionally, some Hawaii sites are helicopter access, or hike with backpack. This brings logistical and mortality thoughts. Someone told me one engineer was in helicopter that lost power, fortunately it was four feet above the ground at the time.
Then there is real estate cost, yikes. Good side of this is the established engineers out there, who have a low housing cost basis are also probably very experienced and know how to work with the situation. For the oldsters- it appears there is just one trauma center in the state. Do you feel lucky?
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Local ads fascinated me. For example, had it not been for DXing, I'd never have heard of Hamm's (beer) "from the land of sky-blue waters," Playback the Electronic Playground, or Avellino's "right tires at the right price—and left tires at the right price, too."
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Harvey_Dogg
Guest
Hawaii was easy in the midwest on WWV frequencies on shortwave. If you heard a female voice announce the time? You were hearing WWVH from Hawaii instead of WWV.
The only AM station I ever had from Hawaii was 650 KORL. Had to null WSM and only heard it once and not very well.
I enjoyed hearing the Latin American stations that operated between the 10 KHz
channels.
I had a friend in Indianapolis who received Radio Caroline and the BBC on AM.
He also could hear Africa just above 1400 KHz. He had a communications receiver.
All, a long time ago.
The only AM station I ever had from Hawaii was 650 KORL. Had to null WSM and only heard it once and not very well.
I enjoyed hearing the Latin American stations that operated between the 10 KHz
channels.
I had a friend in Indianapolis who received Radio Caroline and the BBC on AM.
He also could hear Africa just above 1400 KHz. He had a communications receiver.
All, a long time ago.
Where did you hear KORL? I tried many times, but WSM was too close. I did hear it once on the west coast.
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Harvey_Dogg
Guest
Near Rushville, Indiana in the 1970's. I could completely get rid of WSM . I found that a good ground helped a lot to not only get rid of man made noise but also bring up signal levels tremendously.
My family moved to Springfield, Ohio in that decade. There was a local radio station, WIZE on 1340 KHz. It was 1,000 Watts and would overload some electronics. I could null it out and hear WLBC from Muncie, Indiana on 1340.
At night I could hear WMID from Atlantic City, New Jersey behind WIZE.
WMID was the only New Jersey station I heard.
Yes, when other kids were out having fun, my head was stuck in a radio.
My family moved to Springfield, Ohio in that decade. There was a local radio station, WIZE on 1340 KHz. It was 1,000 Watts and would overload some electronics. I could null it out and hear WLBC from Muncie, Indiana on 1340.
At night I could hear WMID from Atlantic City, New Jersey behind WIZE.
WMID was the only New Jersey station I heard.
Yes, when other kids were out having fun, my head was stuck in a radio.
I've whiffed on KORL numerous times at my home location. But I know it's been done in the Midwest. I'm not so sure about the current incarnation of the Honolulu 650. It sounds pretty bad to me on the Hawaii SDRs.
KORL was the bellwether station for DXers for Hawaii and the South Pacific back in the late 50's and 60's. It was the also-ran Top 40 against KPOI where Jacobs and Rounds and the rest really dominated, but being on an open channel on Monday mornings, you knew if you heard KORL you could try for the harder catches like 760, 690, 870, 1040, and even the 250 KIKI in 830 which could all be heard in Ohio where I was... along with 1270 and a couple of sheer luck catches that were only heard once.
I owned a couple of those in Ecuador... and got DX reports from Europe, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand and all over the Eastern and Midwestern US states.
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Harvey_Dogg
Guest
With a Panasonic RF2200 and a good ground you could hear the split channel Latin American Stations. I could regularly hear the ones between 800 and 900 KHz in Ohio.
During the second half of the 1960s, when I got back from my junior year of High School in Honolulu, I tried 650 just about every Monday morning with no luck. I knew from my experience that KORL got out as well as any of the Honolulu signals. Albeit with audio that struck me as slightly "muddy". But still no luck for me. Either here at home in the Chicago area or at my college location in southeast Iowa....which was a couple hundred miles closer to Hawaii, and also somewhat more noise-free.
Sidebar point.... During my stay in Honolulu, the KORL "TOH" ID was alwayd followed by "....For Hawaii and the Pacific, Number one," Unless the were talking about the 4-way tie for "most power" that they were in, their #1 claim was pure fiction. If I knew it, and K-POI knew it. I'm sure Ted Sachs (later Sax) and his crew at KORL knew it too, but they kept on claiming it. As for K-POI, they had a "K-POI number one" acapella jingle (that was all) that they liked to insert between songs, Much more valid claim. At least for the top 40 audience.
The principal ones were Titania 825 and Radio City 875 in Costa Rica, both at 5 kw. Then there was Curom on 865 in the Netherlands Antilles, Radio Nacional 854 in Lima, La Voz del Río Guayas 895 in Guayaquil and my 805, Canal Tropical in Quito, Ecuador.
Remember, K-POI was so good that they had two staff members that became Bill Drake's first and second named PDs when he took over RKO General. Jacobs went to KHJ and Rounds went to KFRC.
Jacobs had just recently left when I arrived. TR was PD and doing morning drive during the entire time of my stay (1964-65 school year). I met some of the other staff on a few occasions, most notably Steve Nicolet who did evenings. He had a bit where he'd countdown the top three songs from mainland cities. For a time I was his provider of WLS surveys sent to me every week in her letters to me. He and the rest of his staff were great, and you could feel the vibe of a group that that was totally on top of their game, were very good, and knew it. If I'm not mistaken, Steve Nicolet went on eventually to a great run in Seattle.
I did meet TR a couple of times, but not much more than "hello" and a moment or two of pleasantries. I would have loved to gotten into a real conversation with him and pick his brain. As if he'd have time for a 16-year old kid to do that....LOL!
I also met a couple of guys who worked at KORL. (One of whom was dating my buddy's older sister). Totally different atmosphere. To be sure, KORL was a very good tightly-run top-40 station (at least IMHO), but they were up against a great one.
Interestingly, there was a third star in the K-POI stratosphere: Mel Lawrence, the promotion director. He went on to run TR's creation of the first mass concert in San Francisco, then another in Miami also for TR and then he was the Director of Operations of Woodstock.
Mel Lawrence - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Nice going. I was never able to catch KORL in the midwest.
With the current incarnation of AM 650, KPRP, in Honolulu being silent, I don’t think anybody will be picking it up anytime soon, in the Midwest or in Hawaii. Maybe it will come back, but I’m kind of hoping it is still off when I am there in May to be able to DX Alaska and other places.
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kenglish
Guest
The FCC website shows KPRP resumed normal operations at the end of January.
Are they silent again?
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