Your "Go To" Nighttime Station

[cyberdad]

In 1974, when the late Oogie Pringle took over evenings at WNBC, after working at WRIE and WJET here in Erie, PA, I'd listen for him on WNBC. I also remember when Pat Rogers took over evenings at WLW in 1977 or so listening to him. He also had worked at WRIE in Erie.

Loved Oogie's presentation and I know he had a successful career after WNBC... moving on to Milwaukee, Cleveland, Rochester, Minneapolis and Southern California. Sad that he took his own life in 1987.

I remember Oogie from his days on Milwaukee's WISN around 1976-77. Very witty and entertaining guy. Sorry to hear that his life came to a tragic end.

 

[John Gallagher]

There was another ex-WRIE jock who also went to WISN in 1977. He used the airname "Mike Murphy" while at WRIE. He might have used the same name in Milwaukee. He's been in Denver for years as Murphy Huston. Just came across a news release that he's now only on-air weekends after 25 years on air in Denver.

 

[schmave]

Schmave, you brought back some good memories of my early DX days. Growing up in the Chicago area and being a big White Sox fan as I still am, I can remember all the stations I used to get for baseball.
WCBS Yankees, WCAU Phillies, KDKA Pirates--Bob Prince was hysterical. WJR Tigers, WLW Reds, WCCO Twins, WTMJ and then WSB for the Braves, KMOX Cardinals, and others that I'm forgetting right now. A few times I even heard Vin Scully on KFI. I never could get the Boston station that carried the Red Sox. It would've been easy if they were on WBZ, which they weren't back then.

Sports are what led me to DXing. I loved seeing how many baseball games I could get at night, and then later on, I found more stations as I grew to like basketball and hockey.
WOWO was more a sentimental connection. It was (and is) a blaster in my mom's hometown of St. Marys, Ohio, about 100 miles northwest of Columbus, and listening to it growing up helped me feel closer to our family who lived/lives there.

 

[icybluelake]

My go-to station as a kid in the 70s was WLS. It was kind of a big city sound, and came from the city I thought of as our regional capital, Chicago. I could listen to WLS in the daytime, although its nighttime signal was much stronger. At night I would look around for WABC, which was almost a rare catch. I listened to KAAY once in a while, too. Other stations I would look for: KSTP (nearby but not reliable), WLAC, KOMA. At various times, X-Rock 80 blasted in, at other times CKLW was strong. (Later on, neither would appear, but the Netherlands Antilles station was there.)

I also went through phases of listening to WBZ, KYW, KDKA, WHAM, WHAS.

These days, I'm interested in very little of the programming on AM. I'm just interested in pure DX, and it's more and more seldom that I make interesting catches. WCCO, WBBM for news, and my local public station, WSUI are about the only AM stations that even remotely interest me.

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

KAAY was rarely heard on the Eastern side of Michigan. I do remember hearing it on the Western side of the state. Somebody, I think it was Art Vuolo, had a skywave field strength map of KAAY, and as I recall, the 0.5 mV/m 50% skywave contour just touched land on the Western side of the state. It fell off greatly just 50 miles or so inland. WBAL wasn't heard that much either, except just before it changed patterns.

Yes, it has been years since I have heard KFI, KSL, or even KNX. I think one thing that changed all that, besides all the new stations, was the fact that in the 1980s, virtually all stations went 24/7, or just had brief sign off periods on Sunday or Monday morning. You couldn't even depend on a 5 hour period off the air like you used to. WOAI and WBAP have also been rare since all the new stations signed on.

 

[hm insulators]

Plus the increase in consumer electronics and the extraneous "noise" they emit.

 

[CTListener]

Schmave, you brought back some good memories of my early DX days. Growing up in the Chicago area and being a big White Sox fan as I still am, I can remember all the stations I used to get for baseball.
WCBS Yankees, WCAU Phillies, KDKA Pirates--Bob Prince was hysterical. WJR Tigers, WLW Reds, WCCO Twins, WTMJ and then WSB for the Braves, KMOX Cardinals, and others that I'm forgetting right now. A few times I even heard Vin Scully on KFI. I never could get the Boston station that carried the Red Sox. It would've been easy if they were on WBZ, which they weren't back then.

In suburban Boston, I could receive all those stations at least marginally except for WTMJ. I assume you could get the Indians, too. They were on WWWE, which put in a very good signal out my way The Expos (starting in 1969) came in on a French-language station, but I could never get CFCF, their English flagship -- although during the day, CFCX shortwave (6005) was audible.

Not sure if WBZ has ever had the Red Sox. They were always on one of the Boston AMs whose nighttime signals went out to sea rather than to the west. Now, the flagship is WEEI-FM -- giving the advertisers what they want, I guess, a 100 percent local audience -- and distant fans have to depend on WTIC Hartford. As more and more sports stations make the move to FM and its desirable demographic, play-by-play DXing will become yet another fond memory.

 

[cyberdad]

Baseball (and other play by play sports) undoubtedly introduced masses of people to DX. Although most never gave even a passing thought to pursuing DX for any other reason. I remember a few high power "affilliates" including a couple with better signals than the flagship. WOAI and WWL carried the Houston Astros in the 1960s. Maybe nobody mentioned them because they weren't exactly an exciting team to listen to. Weren't the Texas rangers on WBAP? Seems they might have been but I don't remember.

I do remember a few biz trips to Canada in the '90s where I was trying to listen to Cubs-Expos on CFCF (600). Severe null to the west and southwest....even daytime. Usually my next stop after Montreal was either Toronto or Ottawa. I'd lose the game after about a half hour or 45 minutes on my way to either city. Sometimes I'd resort to trying to follow the action in follow the action in French on CKAC.

 

[radioman148]

My baseball DX started in the early 60s. At that time the Indians were not on 1100, which then was KYW, then became WKYC I think around 1965. Anyway, later on I did get the Rangers on WBAP.
I remember on a family trip to Canada & northern New York in 1962, following all the White Sox games which were then on WCFL. WCFL had a great signal towards the east coast at night. Also as Cyberdad pointed out many people who listened to baseball via DX were just baseball fans and had no interest in radio or DX.

 

[joebtsflk1]

Chasing oldies in the 70s, my go-to stations in Iowa were 540 CBK Regina for Al Bonner's Hall of Fame, which was my first exposure to the Cruisin' aircheck recreation series by Ron Jacobs. CBK in Iowa now has KWMT Ft. Dodge and now the 540 in Sauk Rapids MN in the way.

Also WHAS 840 Louisville anytime Joe Donovan was on. Didn't tune in the weeknight overnights much, but listened to his Sat. evening show regularly.

For current music of that time, KY in Little Rock and LS in Chicago...though FM was competing for my attention by the late 70s. Honorable mention in 1975 of 1560 WDXR Paducah KY, whose night pattern would shoot straight into eastern Iowa. 1 kW in that pattern could do OK as a regular visitor in Iowa. But there were a number of nights where WDXR was running 4's on a 5 scale signal meter, sometimes stronger than KAAY. Me thinks someone at WDXR hot-rodded the 10 kW daytime xmtr into the night pattern in those occasions.

Also memorable in the mid 70s was WDXR's sign-off, which went something to the effect of "WDXR, The Duke of Kentucky, is owned and operated by Lady Sarah McKinney-Smith." In my mind, radio stations were owned by companies, not people, but here is WDXR, owned by an individual, and a woman to boot. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WDXR

 

[cyberdad]

..... WHAS 840 Louisville anytime Joe Donovan was on. Didn't tune in the weeknight overnights much, but listened to his Sat. evening show regularly.

Now THERE'S a reason to DX on a nightly basis! IMHO, Donovan was the absolute best at presenting oldies in a thoughtful and entertaining fashion. His calm, relaxing, conversational style was perfect for the ovrernight shift.

 

[mimo]

That was a good show. I was a regular listener.

 

[gar hi]

When I was growing up in south Jersey, it was WKBW and CKLW.

They had stronger signals at night than WABC 80 miles away too because of the mixing of skywaves and ground waves.

Another one was WLS, of course. A good signal usually but not as consistent as the other two.

 

[bm10k]

During Hockey Season I easily pickup TSN 1290 from Winnipeg for the Jets but usually I have it on CBW 990 (CBC Winnipeg) which comes in like a local even in the daytime or CBK 540 (CBC Saskatchewan)

 

[boombox4]

Nighttime 'go-to' station used to be KGO San Francisco when they had their really good talk shows, then after that it was KFBK for Art Bell and C2C. Sometimes KEX now. They play C2C when the local FM is playing infomercials.

 

[Carltheradioguy]

Here in Southeastern Connecticut, I have a lot of "Go To" stations. Using my C Crane 2E, I always get WFAN,WCBS,WFME,WBBR from New York, WWRU from New Jersey and WBZ and WMEX from Boston Every single night and at nearly full strength.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

From West Texas, it was KOMA for the majority of young people. WLS was also possible, but weak enough a lot of people didn't discover it. WABC sas not possible because of KOB, but on trips to Houston I could null KOB to get WABC.

 

[AKDXer]

Here in Port Alexander, AK, it's usually CKOR/800 Penditction or 800 KINY Juneau (Depends; they overpower each other at times). Also KXXJ 1330 Juneau. Others *(Less often) include KGO 810 San Francisco and KTKN 930 Ketchikan.