AM Frequency of the Week: 670

Far northwest suburbs of Chicago, it's all WSCR 24/7. 50KW from about 25 miles southeast of me. My middle son lives about two miles from the stick.....so I figure if he owned a Steve Green model electric can opener, he could probably hear WSCR whether the gadget was turned on or off!

At night, on the very rare occasions when WSCR has been off, I usually hear R. Rebelde from Cuba.

Other locations: WSCR is also the best/most reliable Chicago day signal reaching Canada. Crossing the border at Detroit-Windsor, WSCR is usually listenable for about 30 miles into Ontario on a good car radio.

At the place where we stay on the gulf coast on the Alabama-Florida state line, it's R. Rebelde 27/7. Same goes for pretty much the entire Florida Gulf coast and points west towards New Orleans. At least around Pensacola, WSCR sometimes breaks through, but usually only briefly. I've also heard another Spanish-language station in the background. Perhaps that could be YVLL? They have (or used to have) a distinctive sounder during newscasts that would make them easy to identify, but, I've never caught whatever station this is doing news.

Finally, I know a Catholic priest who's also an army chaplain assigned to a base in Alabama. He's from Chicago, a sports fan, and typically listens to WSCR on drives between the base and home. He told me that when driving at night, he typically loses WSCR (to Cuba) somewhere around Nashville.

Day, night, anytime: all WSCR. It's one of probably two remaining AM radio stations that I enjoy listening to, I'm sorry to say. Sometimes Cuba is barely audible in the background at night, but not usually.

Retro: WMAQ (now WSCR) was one of the first out-of-town radio stations I remember discovering. I've never really liked country music but I remember listening to it sometimes anyway as a little kid.

Not too much different here in the logbook than from the 'retro' days.

I have this daytime regular logged as WIEZ. Here is their current identity and coverage.
https://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/pat?call=WHYF&service=AM&status=C&hours=D

They're louder and clearer here than WFAN is during the day. We live near the capital 'H' in the word Hazleton.

The nighttime loggings here are 'WMAQ' from Chicago, and the heritage Radio Rebelde.

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Retro DX from SE queens NYC were not that much different. In the day -- forget it; WNNNNBC's stick was the closest omni thing to us.
Nighttimes: WMAQ and a Cban station that was // to the one on 690.
Somehow I managed a 'TIJC' from Costa Rica one night. That Lafayette ha 600 was a wonderful radio for its price.

Lol on our Hamilton Beach can-opener/radio, Cyber! We do keep it set to 860 all year 'round. There are plenty of other radios in the house to enjoy. It'll be three years this December that we've listened to CJBC's French programming on Christmas Eves.
That quirky appliance was what sold me on this 'new' house (built in 1928). The classified ad read 'Kitchen can-opener/radio, 3 BR, full basement, 2-car garage'.
K i d d i n g

When WMAQ was Adult Contemporary/Talk, before it was C & W, I used to listen regularly in SE MI even in the Daytime. It was strong enough to hear in the Daytime even on 5 kW Auxiliary facilities, on a Sony TRF front end portable. WAIT was stronger in SE MI when WMAQ ran 5 kW! I listened to Greg King (my spouse was in Greg's HS class here in SE MI, oddly enough), and Larry Langford (a sometime AOL cohort of mine) during the last days of the WMAQ News Format. I was sad that the WMAQ call letters were given up.

I remember when WMAQ rarely had any detectable cochannel interference back as late as the early 1970s. Then a decade or so later you could usually hear Cuban interference 10 miles from the WMAQ transmitter, by nulling it out.

Schroedingers Cat said:

When WMAQ was Adult Contemporary/Talk, before it was C & W, I used to listen regularly in SE MI even in the Daytime. It was strong enough to hear in the Daytime even on 5 kW Auxiliary facilities, on a Sony TRF front end portable.

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Do you remember WMAQ being "under modulated" during its last couple of years being AC? I liked the station myself, but I always had to turn up the volume to listen if I was flipping over to them from any other station. Didn't matter if I was local or elsewhere in their normal coverage area, WMAQ was always "quiet" compared to everything else. I don't recall that being the case by the time they were country.

I don't recall Greg King, but I do remember Larry Langford. As you probably already know, he came over from WIND and is the son of long time Chicago City Councilwoman, Anna Langford.

In the near north Chicago suburbs it's a very strong WSCR day & night. The few times I've heard them off the air I hear Cuba.

Retro: WMAQ back in the 60s was one of four Chicago clears that I could hear throughout most of the lower 48 and parts of Canada.
It (WMAQ) was also the first Chicago clear that started getting interference from other stations coming on 670.

Reynoldsburg, Ohio ...
* Daytime: A very weak WSCR, audible only on the very best radios. My parents' car radio is good enough to pick enough WSCR daytime any time of year here in metro Columbus but hardly any farther east. My car radio, on the other hand, sustains too much interference within the car itself to pick up 670.
* Nighttime: WSCR every night, although not always with a great skywave signal (usually not quite as strong as WGN or WMVP). WSCR takes far less interference from Cuba than it did 15-25 years ago, when there were nights that Cuba was so strong that then-WMAQ simply could not be heard here no matter how you turned your radio. Sometimes, that was only the case for a little while on a given night. I seem to remember WMAQ usually could be heard better much later at night.

cyberdad said:

Do you remember WMAQ being "under modulated" during its last couple of years being AC?

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I definitely remember that. WMAQ also seemed to have more of a bass tone quality to the audio. Not a bright sound at all when they were AC
I liked WMAQ very much when they were all news and was sorry to see them drop that format.

cyberdad, Greg King was at WBRB Mt. Clemens, MI before WKDC Elmhurst. WBRB is also where late 1970s-1980s WMAQ PD Bill Hennes began his career.

http://chicagoradioandmedia.com/new...eporter-writer-greg-king-organizes-fundraiser

Here's a History of WMAQ.

http://www.scottchilders.com/timecapsule/TCWMAQ.htm

I do remember that in SE MI, WGN and WBBM seemed stronger than WMAQ, maybe because they were louder/had higher modulation levels.

Larry Langford now owns WGTO 910 Cassopolis, MI. I did read his fascinating history years back. Not to be confused with the other Larry Langford in Birmingham, AL who was also involved in Broadcasting and Politics, and whose career ended badly. People not in the know have confused the two.

@SC, thanks for the uodates. I do remember Bill Hennes, but wasn't aware of the connections you wrote about. As for the WMAQ history article, I had read that, but it was quite a while ago, so it was fun to read it again and refresh my knowledge of the history. Finally, regarding Jim Hill, he was a longtime friend of a relative of mine. Never met him IRL, but I talked to him on the phone a few times. Super-nice guy. As you may well be aware he was also a weekend and fill-in weather guy on WMAQ-TV, ch 5.

I hadn't met Bill Hennes or remembered his history until years later. He has an encyclopedic knowledge of many aspects of radio.

On the 670 dial in Daytime is really nothing. But in the nighttime I can get WSCR pretty good in Cincinnati. All of the clear channel Chicago stations can be heard pretty good. I know that WMVP can be heard in very cloudy days in Cincinnati. The reason why I know that WMVP can be heard in cloudy days is because I've heard the radio station. So, nighttime it's WSCR.

Day: weak WFAN overlap
Night: mush. Probanly WFAN overlap and the weak signal of WLUI mixing

South of the Minnesota River (suburbs of Minneapolis)

Daytime-nothing
Nighttime-WSCR

unclehonkey said:

South of the Minnesota River (suburbs of Minneapolis)

Daytime-nothing
Nighttime-WSCR

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I did pick up WSCR--then WMAQ and WGN during the day, about 1PM in August on a good car radio just east of the Minneapolis St Paul airport about 25 years ago. Of course now the noise levels on AM are considerably higher.

I've heard a tropical themed music with bongos on 670 mixing into WSCR. That might be that station from Cuba. I've just searched on Radio Locator and saw no station playing on this kind of format.

unclehonkey said:

South of the Minnesota River (suburbs of Minneapolis)

Daytime-nothing
Nighttime-WSCR

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Like Radioman, I've also heard WSCR/WMAQ in the Twin Cities daytime. Multiple times. But only on a REALLY good car radio in low-noise areas. Lots of dead spots, but it is audible and identifialbe.

@schlep....I'm almost 100% certain the Spanish you heard in Cincinnati was R. Rebelde from Cuba. How much power they're using is an open question, but it's definitely a lot. Undoubtedly at least some of the reason for that is to block the 670 from Miami.

After the post I've posted in this post. I've started listening to dial 670 for the Cuban radio station. This week has been very strange for Me and the dial 670. Something has caused the Cuban station listenable with mixing from WSCR. Last night It was mixing awfully with Cuba, and WSCR and I think some other radio station too. Other nights I've heard is just Cuba mixing into WSCR. Does this happen in a regular basis of these two radio stations? If so, then I'll be pretty ok with it.