Who is not WHO

[johnbasalla]

A first. While driving on Interstate 77 in the City of Cleveland, Ohio, close to 9:00am, I chanced to dial up 1040AM. If I hear anything now that a local daytimer has been off-air for a number of months now, it's going to be WHO. However, today I heard Spanish language programming. Who might that be? WHO it isn't.

 

[Icangelp]

Perhaps WSGH Lewisville NC. They throw a tiny bit your way, and lately strange things have been happening.

 

[Unregistered]

Don't know if this is your suspect, but a station down in N.C. -- WSGH -- has been an occasional visitor here in NW Maryland. It airs a Spanish language format and runs 9.1kw DA-D. But! You mean to tell me the world famous WJTB is silent? Say it isn't so!! No wonder there's been no het observed lately at 1040kc.
BTW, also observed at my location on 1040: WHO (of course), WYSL Avon, NY and WCHR, Flemington, NJ. WZSK Everett, PA is relatively close, but barely makes it in since dropping power to 2.5 kW from 10kw.

 

[1L6E6VHF]

WJTB, North Ridgeville, OH (Cleveland area) is not WHO.

I believe they had programming in Spanish in the past, though their format was black gospel most of its life.

Interesting if that is what you've heard. They've been silent for an extended period of time. Perhaps they are running some form of STA to keep the license alive.

 

[johnbasalla]

It was definitely not WJTB. I heard the top of the hour ID, but it wasn't clear enough to make out the entire four letters, but I can confirm that it wasn't WJTB. As you point out, it's been silent, now for some months. The reason I tune into 1040AM is to hear if WJTB ever comes back on. WJTB brokered time to Spanish language programmers, mostly if not only, on the weekend as well as to preachers. All of them went away when the signal strength and audio quality went from mediocre and poor down to unintelligible. The owner just let the technical plant go until it could go no more. The end began during the extremely bad winter weather of January/February 2014. That's when the station would be off for days, then weeks. No more then a few months later the station was on with very low power for two days in a row. Since then, it has never signed on again. The programming was an off-the-bird Gospel music format.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

I checked KGGR - it has a respectable daytime footprint, perhaps a bit of lingering skywave could bring it your way at 9 AM. But it doesn't seem to program in Spanish, so I doubt it is your mystery station.

 

[Lester_the_NightFly]

Cuba hasn't been active spitting in Radio Marti's eye lately?

 

[1L6E6VHF]

Cuba hasn't been active spitting in Radio Marti's eye lately?

Personally, I haven't heard Cuba on 1040 in decades. Today, they have no incentive to do anything on 1040, as they target 1180 (Radio Martì), 710, 1550 (stations founded by Cuban expatriates) and 670 (a Spanish religion station that hosts an anti-Castro program in the evenings).

If I recall correctly, their operation on 1040 was a one-time stunt to protest the then-proposed creation of Radio Martì. Ronald Reagan had backed the plan, and Reagan's media career (again, IIRC) began at WHO.

It seems sad that this 5kW omni facility in Cleveland's western suburbs sits dying while so many Cleveland AMs have problems covering the western parts of the market. WJMO, WCCD, WWMK and WINT, and even WHKW, despite its 50,000 watts, has a drastic null to its west. WWGK would also make a good pair with WJTB, especially considering they tried to improve coverage to the west only to be blocked by local politics.