Indeed baseball PBP was a big reason for non DXers to tune in distant stations. I knew a guy way back who regularly asked me what station he could find certain teams on. I know of several people who did this.
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Do you know any non DXers who listen to out of market stations?
- Thread starter charlestondxman
- Start date
I became a baseball fan in the late 60's in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Tulsa was then a Triple A affiliate of the St. Louis Cardinals. KVOO Tulsa was the Cards station, but would always carry the Tulsa Oilers game if there was a conflict. One night, disappointed that the Cards were preempted on KVOO, I tuned down the dial from 1170 and came upon KMOX carrying the Cards game. I was amazed when I heard the ID (and how clear the signal was) and started looking for other out of town stations, thus beginning 50 years of tuning around the AM band.
In the late 1990s when I started DXing we still had a good chunk of teams on clear channels. Yankees, Mets, Phillies, Orioles, Braves, Tigers, Indians, Cardinals, Cubs, Twins could be heard from most of the east coast at night. Rockies, Dodgers, Giants, White Sox as well.
Even some 5 kW III-As like WTMJ attracted listeners even at Night far and wide for Baseball PBP back in the day. Seems like a few secondary affiliates like that did also. Bob Ufer, University of Michigan football announcer in the glory days, was on WHFB Benton Harbor (also WCFL's Chickenman's real name), and attracted Michigan fans in the Chicago area.
Before all the electrical noise on AM, and even some on FM, and all the squeeze in allotments and translators, you used to be able to hear at least a few stations in adjacent markets. If a market refused to have a certain music format or if it did a bad job presenting that format, you had alternatives. These often took the form of adding songs much earlier, or playing songs banned or ignored on those local stations. This can be clearly seen on such sites as ARSA. If you wanted to listen to recent recurrents played as if they were new music, you could always listen to WLS or WABC.
Very true. If you didn’t like the limited playlist on WLS you could hear a little more variety on WCFL. In NYC WABC had an even tighter playlist. WMCA had a much deeper playlist.
Growing up in Peoria, IL. for Top 40 during the day I listened to local WIRL, WLS, KXOK and WCFL. WLS was by far the most popular station at my high school even over local WIRL. At night, beyond WIRL we listened to a fadey WLS, KAAY and WKYC [Big Jack]. We could not receive highly listenable signals from either WCFL and KXOK at night. Each station had a different character and somewhat different playlists.
Bob
Bob
Up until WildThangJim's post, I hadn't seen KMOX mentioned. I apologize if someone before he did mentioned them. There couldn't have been many non-DXing-types, fans of the team that won the 2nd-most World Series ever who didn't encounter them at one time or another. Either by word of mouth or by happenstance.
And there were a few mentions of WKBW. Young folks listening in Metro Thule would have found them, unaware that they were 'DXing'.
* * * * * * *
On WKBW:
A gal we know downstate PA is an erstwhile DXer. She listens mostly to FM even though her radios are pretty good AM rigs ... CCrane and so forth. She got into the message-board scene and made some mention of getting WKBW and its '50-thousand kilowatts from Buffalo'. She curses me out whenever I recall that.
Our crew built her a loop, which she says still works. But she listens for interesting nighttime and overnight shows for their content, not for their distance.
And there were a few mentions of WKBW. Young folks listening in Metro Thule would have found them, unaware that they were 'DXing'.
* * * * * * *
On WKBW:
A gal we know downstate PA is an erstwhile DXer. She listens mostly to FM even though her radios are pretty good AM rigs ... CCrane and so forth. She got into the message-board scene and made some mention of getting WKBW and its '50-thousand kilowatts from Buffalo'. She curses me out whenever I recall that.
Our crew built her a loop, which she says still works. But she listens for interesting nighttime and overnight shows for their content, not for their distance.
I've posted this before. Around the 1:00 point in the video, they show a WKBW scatter map showing where they were heard, which included Western Europe and Northwest Africa.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lbe2c7XysnU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lbe2c7XysnU
Whenever I was on the east coast I loved listening to WKBW in the 60s. At home in the Chicago area no matter how often I tried I could very rarely get a whiff of it. KOMA killed it here.
The move of flagships to FM or non-clear-channel AM has really cut into the availability of out-of-market baseball. No more Phillies, Pirates, Orioles, Nationals, Tigers or Braves here in central Connecticut. We're down to the Indians, Reds, Cubs and White Sox in addition to the Yankees, Mets and Red Sox. And if the Orioles were ever to return to WBAL, WTIC's IBOC hash would smother the signal.
We still have the Mariners (of course), SF Giants (KNBR), A's (KTRB) and Rockies (KOA) available to us here on AM. The Padres left 1090 when they flipped formats. Dodgers network has no affiliates available every night here, and even then they are very weak. Out of the whole network, I've only heard KLAC-570, KAVL-610 and KCBL-1340.
And if there was an FM within a 100 miles or so that you could hear with a good receiver and antenna, it would be blotted out by a translator or IBOC sidebands.
Have said it in other threads but baseball is what got me into DXing in the first place. When our cable in central Ohio did not carry WGN in the late 80s, WGN radio's night games were the only way I could follow the team except for if they were on TBS, WWOR or the occasional Reds broadcast.
At one time, Reds, Indians, Tigers, Cubs, White Sox, Braves, Pirates, Phillies, Mets, Yankees, Cardinals, Twins and Rangers games all could be heard here at night (the first two are our local teams and WJR is audible all day and night here). I don't remember ever picking up the Red Sox if they even aired on WTIC in those days. Now, it's down to the teams you mentioned minus the Red Sox but plus the Cardinals and Twins.
I was in college in Iowa. The only station where i heard "Acapulco Gold" was KSTT from Davenport. Which had it in at least semi-regular rotation. If WCFL was on it I missed it. WCFL was audible at my location. But too weak to overcome splatter from WCAZ (990,,,Carthage, IL) by day. At night, mixing with XEOY was the issue. Bottom line was I didn't listen to Super 'CFL very much when I was away at school.
I was a shortwave listener a few years before I got into baseball. Like many Boston kids, I had little interest in the second-division Red Sox until the "Impossible Dream" year of 1967. The following season, I started to tune the AM band at night and discovered other teams' play-by-play. Having been an SWL since the age of 9, I knew that medium wave stretched out to a certain extent at night, but I was too wrapped up in shortwave and the thrill of hearing signals from the other side of the world to care much about it other than to listen to the hits on locals WBZ and WMEX.
I don't know if this will work without signing in, but here is the survey distribution by state. Green is no chart appearances. White is light chart appearances.
http://las-solanas.com/arsa/singles_chart_map.php?hs=10526
This site is definitely worth signing up for if you have an interest in what stations played what songs.
I think "Timothy" was banned on WLS but not WCFL. Rupert Holmes wrote it to get recognition. It finally worked with "Escape".
Not being played on WLS and or WABC meant not hitting the Top 10 Hot 100. "Ariel" was so controversial in New York City that WABC didn't play it. WLS did play it and it hit #4 on their chart.
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The Braves used to be on WSB but they switched to a much weaker AM and a a FM a few years back. We have a local affiliate here in Charleston carrying the Braves but large parts of SC are completely unavailable on terrestrial radio.
During the day only the Braves are heard. We used to get Rays games but they switched signals on their Orlando station. At night, I get the Yankees on WFAN, Mets on WCBS, Nationals on WFED, Indians on WTAM, the White Sox on WGN and the Reds on WLW.
I can’t hear Minnesota or Cubs games because of other signals and those signals being weak in our area.
During the day only the Braves are heard. We used to get Rays games but they switched signals on their Orlando station. At night, I get the Yankees on WFAN, Mets on WCBS, Nationals on WFED, Indians on WTAM, the White Sox on WGN and the Reds on WLW.
I can’t hear Minnesota or Cubs games because of other signals and those signals being weak in our area.
Didn't the Nats leave 1500 for an FM flagship?
It’s interesting that the ABC flagship, with its transmitter just a few miles down Route 17 from Paramus Park, didn’t play it. Nevertheless, “Ariel” was that summer’s most requested song on WNEW-FM.
Apparently, WLS listeners didn’t mind all the references to New York and New Jersey, including the “friends of ‘BAI” at the aforementioned shopping mall “way on the other side of the Hudson.”
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