AM Frequency of the Week - 930 kHz

What can you all get on AM 930?

In Vermilion, OH it's local WEOL/Elyria, OH with a local news/talk format. At night it's still WEOL but others can be heard behind it. I"m pretty sure I heard WBEN in there.

Here in the Northern Chicago Burbs I get the station in Sandwich, Il, whatever their calls are now. Used to get WBCK & sometimes at night in the past WKY Oklahoma City has made it in among others that I can't remember.

Warminster, PA(Philly 'burbs):

Daytime: zippo, maybe a trace of WPAT from NYC.
Night: mess of stations, including WBEN from Buffalo, NY(no relation to Philly's 95.7, also called WBEN)

gr8oldies said:

In East Tennessee it's "Smoky Mountain Radio" WSEV. If you ever hear it, look for comedy bits by Milton Crabapple. The purpose of this station is to entertain visitors long enough to get them to stop at their welcome center, and hopefully sign up for a time-share presentation. I've heard plenty underneath it at night but nothing comes to mind.

Dayton, WHON, Richmond (which I did hear one night in Crossville, TN with Indiana U. basketball. College basketball "STA"?

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For sure, WSEV should be a target for anyone who is searching for stations with a unique format. Their target audience must be empty nest baby boomers down for a short vacation, because no family with kids will be listening to AM, especially a station with non stop ads. Ha.

I was making an informal pitch to our local tourism council today about using my proposed LPFM for legitimate visitor info radio. But maybe this is a better scam!

Kidding of course...in southern CO daytime 930 is vacant, although the generalized Radio-locator maps show KRKY Granby CO getting as far south as CO springs. Lots of mountains between those two.

Back in SE Iowa to the SE of Ottumwa, daytime the former KIOA 940 in Des Moines would gently give way to the Gem City's (or better yet, the RF City's) best AM signal, 930 WTAD Quincy IL 5 kW ND days.

Middays and most of the days here, it's WHLM Bloomsburg, which is just over a few hills from us here but is slightly weaker than the downstate station on 940.
They've been calling themselves 'News Radio Nine Thirty' for years. But whenever I hear them, they seem to play OLDIES most of the day! You'll hear 'Jet Airliner' play, and fade, then 'News Radio 930, WHLM', and then 'Don't Stop' by Fleetwood Mac. Weird.
The station used to be called WCNR. And when they were that (during the 90's) they had an AWESOME supply of oldies variety. Somewhwre I have a half dozen air checks of them on cassette. These weren't preserved for the excellence of the station's presentation but for the music. I would swear that their entire library later wound up a few miles away at WFBS Berwick (Oldies on 1280; Radio Smiles) for a while. But 930 WHLM is playing it a lot safer with the playlist.

Nighttime catches include
a) the omniscient WBEN Buffalo
b) WSEV from Tennessee (on 148 watts. Yeah, sure) It was the same night as
c KWOC from Missouri in 1995. That might have been on a special DX test.

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In Queens NYC, WPAT was always on. 24/7.
Beautiful Music.
Forever.
But on the very rare occasions they were off at night, some swell stuff would come in. Buffalo and Savannah were usually the duellists, depending on which was still on. And WKY Oklahoma came in once, real faint. I guess just about EVERYTHING in the East had to be off for that. No one in our bunch ever heard KHJ, though.
Thing is, WPAT was an easily-nulled station for some reason back near JFK, even in the day. On what was probably a Mid-Winter Anomaly afternoon, a good null on WPAT and its Melanchrino Strings brought in, from a fortuitous 90° angle, WWNH from Rochester New Hampshire.
Another time, WPAT was completely off the air in the early afternoon. What was there, faintly but steadily in its place? What else -- the aforementioned WCNR Bloomsburg.

A crucial null one day on WPAT, negating a song or two from them by The Billion And One Oboes, also brought in the darned-near-impossible WTTM 920 Trenton NJ. WTTM sent virtually nothing toward us, what with a deep null toward WPAT and toward 920 WJAR Providence.
But I got a WTTM ID on tape.
Along with IDs from WJAR Providence and from the usual-loudest 920 by us, WGHQ Saugerties NY.
That was quite a session ; thank you, WPAT.

Actually Jacksonville on 930. It was WJAX, then WNZS, now WFXJ with a sports format. Good 5kw signal up and down the coast. Easily heard in Charleston daytime. Not as strong as 690 or 600, but probably the third best AM signal from FL here. You can't pick up much on 930 at night.

From Tampa -

Daytime - A fair signal from WLSS Sarasota.

Nighttime - A big mix of many stations with not any one dominating on a consistent basis.

Sometimes, it's WLSS. Then other times, it's sports radio WFJX from Jacksonville. And sometimes, it's the oldies station WMGR from Bainbridge, Georgia.

Radio Reloj also pops up now and then because I can sometimes hear that quique ticking sound.

There are other stations in the background too that I've not had an ID from.

Warminster, PA(Philly 'burbs):

Daytime: zippo, maybe a trace of WPAT from NYC.
Night: mess of stations, including WBEN from Buffalo, NY(no relation to Philly's 95.7, also called WBEN)

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Interesting.

When I grew up in south Jersey and I would go up north on the turnpike to visit relatives with my parents, they always put on WPAT once it started to come in between around Exit 8 and 9. Those were the days when they played elevator music.

I was never able to hear them during the day in south Jersey right outside Philadelphia but at night I sometimes heard WPAT drift in weakly and briefly.

Down at the shore on Long Beach Island which was the same distance from Patterson, I could hear WPAT even in the daytime.

Far northwest suburbs of Chicago.....

Days, WAUR, Sandwich, IL (about 50 miles south-southwest of me). Fair. Nights, WAUR still fair, despite higher power. Not quite enough to stop the slop underneath. Back before WAUR came on it was a very weak WBCK days, sometimes WTAD and Bowling Green, KY at night. For whatever reason, I've never heard WKY.

@ Gary FL :

>> ' When I grew up in south Jersey and I would go up north on the turnpike to visit relatives with my parents, they always put on WPAT once it started to come in between around Exit 8 and 9. Those were the days when they played elevator music.' <<

True as the sunset. My Folks had moved from Long Island to Fairless Hills PA in 1971 ; that's the beige blotch under the capital T in Trenton

http://www.radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/pat?call=WPAT&service=AM&status=L&hours=N

So I commuted a lot, the occasional weekend, and used Route 1 most of the time. On one nighttime trip back north I wanted to hear Beautiful Music for some reason, and tried for WPAT. Instead, 930 was all WBEN. Route 1 may as well have been a dart from the southwest puncturing WPAT's balloon. It wasn't until I reached the jughandle for Fords when I heard the actual WPAT start to come in. I thought they'd been off the air!
That Radio-Locator map might actually be pretty generous toward WPAT to the southwest.

Gar : Do you -- or maybe someone else here -- remember those TV spots that Patrick O'Neal did for WPAT? It was he, with that cultured Columbo-villain face of his, going 'Dahhble you pea ay tea.....'

I do remember those commercials, as I had my own antenna on the roof pointed at New York. The reception was snowy most of the time but at least I was able to see all those channels from 80 miles away.

Oh, and when we would return home at night from Jersey City, WPAT would be strong until somewhere between Exit 10 and 9 on the turnpike when almost like the snap of a finger, the signal would get very weak and there would also be interference from other stations on the same frequency.

That's when I would think "All right!" and I would then lean forward from the back seat to put WABC on!

Springfield, IL (Daytime): Fair signal from WTAD Quincy.

Mostly slop at night.

In east central Iowa, daytime, a weak WTAD Quincy, IL (if anything).

Nighttime, usually a combination of WTAD and WKY. Another I've heard from time to time is KSDN Aberdeen, SD. I've also heard KKIN Aitkin, MN, and probably others.