Southern Illinois

[cyberdad]

My travels this past week took me to Effingham, IL....which is about 200 miles SSW of Chicago and 100 miles east of St. Louis. Managed to sneak in a couple of quick DX sessions about an hour after sunset Thursday, and then just after dawn Friday morning. Here's a "mini" bandscan" of what I found to be of note.....

540: CBK-Biggest surprise came Friday after dawn....this was blasting in like a local.
600: WMT with a good post-dawn signal
640: WHLO on top at dawn
650: WSM weak groundwave by day....blasting in at night.
660: WFAN fair at night
670: WSCR reliably on top of the Cubans at night....alone at dawn. Fair-weak groundwave by day
720: WGN most dependable Chicago signal
740: CFZM "owning" KRMG underneath it at night. Semi-local WVLN at sunrise.
770: WABC best of the New Yorkers
780: WBBM getting trashed by something unidentifiable underneath Thurs eve. Alone and good Friday morning.
830: WCCO strong. Good path to the north
860: CJBC good both evening and morning. Better than CFZM
870: WWL fair at night.
890: WLS fair day/night
1010: I thought I had CFRB Thursday night, but it faded before I could ID
1040: WHO blasting after sunset. Easily the best skywave
1070: Looking for KNX. Getting absolutely nothing but slop....Indy occasionally on top.
1130: Tried CKWX. Nothin' doin!
1180: Noise....high pitched, actually....under WHAM. Could it have been the Marti-Cuba battle?
1220: I had a really strong oldies signal for about 6-8 minutes around dawn. Then it faded refore any ID.
1510: Rather lousy reception of WLAC
1520: Impressive ESPN signal, but I couldn't catch a local ID
1530: WCKY. Same ESPN pgm as 1520 right after dawn, but worse signal.
1560: More sports. KGOW with a really good signal. I'll bet the "semi-nearby" Paducah 1560 has got to be really thrilled about this one.

 

[jd]

When did you hear KGOW?

 

[crainbebo]

Could your ESPN 1520 be KOLM Rochester, MN? It's been heard in New York state...

-crainbebo

 

[cyberdad]

KGOW: That was Friday morning after sunrise. That's the time of the day I typically hear them at home northwest of Chicago.

KOLM: Definitely a possibility. I used to hear them all the time during my college years in southeast
Iowa back in the late 60s. Looking for KOMA....finding KOLM. Thanks for jumping in.

 

[jd]

Re: KGOW, thanks cyberdad...that's what I thought. In the colder months they're very strong here in East Texas, often until close to 11:00 AM and back again around 2:30 or 3. In between those times they just get weaker, but never completely go away, even though I'm not actually in the middle of their strong NNE lobe. But with 46,000 watts I can imagine they can be heard in similar fashion all the way up into Arkansas and maybe beyond.

 

[cyberdad]

In the Stone Age when I was in college, KOLM was a 10kw daytimer. What would happen in the winter is I'd get out of class around 4pm....an hour or so before sunset. I'd get back to the room, turn on 1520, hear top 40, and think it was KOMA. Sometimes it was...sometimes it was KOLM, which ran a similar format. Usually this didn't last for long. KOMA would invariably overtake it....usually sooner rather than later. And/or KOLM would sign off.

But given the short hop and high dial position, KOLM would frequently make it in on daytime skip during the winter.

As for hearing Houston....the most frequent nighttime visitor in that part of Iowa was 790. KTHT in those days "demand radio 79", a slogan which referred to a request-driven adult contemporary format. Signal was usually pretty good on what was then a much less crowded channel.

 

[schmave]

How did the St. Louis stations come in? Is Effingham in KMOX's cancellation zone?

 

[cyberdad]

How did the St. Louis stations come in? Is Effingham in KMOX's cancellation zone?

Somewhat. KMOX is fair day/night, but with a few night fades. Still very listenable. KTRS, KFNS, KJSL, WEW, KFUO, KZQZ, are all very listenable daytime. Then vanish to one degree or another at night. None more than WEW and KFUO....daytimers!