Goat Rodeo Cowboy will remember that broadcast band DXing was my hobby when he and I worked together in the mid '50s in Stuttgart, AR. Following a recent get-together with '70s and '80s New Orleans radio people, I scanned my car's AM band to see what I'd get, coming up I-55 toward Memphis. Most of the usual 50kW suspects for that area: 650 WSM, 670 Chicago (WMAQ back in the day, but pretty sure I remember a CLs change long ago), 700 WLW, 720 WGN, 740 KTRH, 750 WSB, 760 WJR, 780 WBBM, 810 KCMO (with a lotta "hash"), 820 WBAP, 830 WCCO (some hash there, too), 840 WHAS, 850 KOA (pretty choppy), 870 WWL (could've probably done that one withOUT the radio), 890 WLS, 1040 WHO (also pretty choppy; must've been a bad atmosphere night in the upper midwest, although those Chi-town muggers were mostly blasting in), 1080 KRLD (some hash there, also), 1120 KMOX (see comments, WWL), 1160 KSL, 1200 WOAI, 1500 KSTP, 1510 WLAC, 1530 WCKY. Also got varying-readability signals on those new freq's north of 1600, but they were all either ESPN or Fox Sports, and if they even played a local identifier (didn't hear any actual legal IDs), it didn't include call letters or city. All in all, nothing more less than you'd expect, away from city interference.
But getting back to my lakeside village on the Ark/Mo border at 3PM on a cloudy but dry afternoon, I happened to notice someone banging in like a local on 1690. Stayed in the car long enough to ID 'em -- damnation! WVON, Chicago. Stayed loud and clear for the entire half hour I was in the car. Ran down the band to all the other Chi freq's -- not a thing.
In the past few days, with weather varying from completely cloudy to completely sunny, I've had some equally unexpected results on that upper end: 1620 Pensacola (wish the lady jock with the really sweet pipes had said some CLs), Weerdo's 1640 WTMI Gulfport 4PM Sunday, solid half hour in pure sunshine -- only exception: one road I took, went from S9R5 on them to a pretty choppy signal on what Wayne tells me is probably Radio Disney out of Wisconsin. That would probably be right, because the previous afternoon, with a lot of clouds, got a sports talker on either 1660 or 1670 from Kalamazoo; same afternoon, heard another from Wisconsin or Minnesota in the same part of that high-end spectrum.
Verrrrrrry interressssting (although, reading how much space this took, I can also hear a chorus of "Verrrrrry bo-rrrrrrrrrring." :-[
But getting back to my lakeside village on the Ark/Mo border at 3PM on a cloudy but dry afternoon, I happened to notice someone banging in like a local on 1690. Stayed in the car long enough to ID 'em -- damnation! WVON, Chicago. Stayed loud and clear for the entire half hour I was in the car. Ran down the band to all the other Chi freq's -- not a thing.
In the past few days, with weather varying from completely cloudy to completely sunny, I've had some equally unexpected results on that upper end: 1620 Pensacola (wish the lady jock with the really sweet pipes had said some CLs), Weerdo's 1640 WTMI Gulfport 4PM Sunday, solid half hour in pure sunshine -- only exception: one road I took, went from S9R5 on them to a pretty choppy signal on what Wayne tells me is probably Radio Disney out of Wisconsin. That would probably be right, because the previous afternoon, with a lot of clouds, got a sports talker on either 1660 or 1670 from Kalamazoo; same afternoon, heard another from Wisconsin or Minnesota in the same part of that high-end spectrum.
Verrrrrrry interressssting (although, reading how much space this took, I can also hear a chorus of "Verrrrrry bo-rrrrrrrrrring." :-[
