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AM Frequency of the week: 750

cyberdad

cyberdad

Moderator
Staff member
Sorry I'm late with this one, guys. Traveling and nonstop "family fun" for the last several days. Anyway, let's pick up where we left off. Next up as we trek through the "1-A clears, regionals, and local" is a stop at 750....

For me, northwest of Chicago days it's WNDZ, which is based in the far southeast Chicago suburbs in Indiana. Signal at my location is generally fair-good. WNDZ is a 15kw daytimer with a "marble shooter" pattern that's aimed at Chicago, and as such, favors me also.

Night: WSB is one of the best and most reliable skywave signals. Almost always alone, but once in a while I've heard something unidentifiable underneath that sounds like Spanish, but I'm not really sure.
 
In Cincinnati on the dial 750. It's WSB with a minor interference with 740 local WNOP. I don't even know why WSB would be interferered with a local station with only 6 watts, and another signal CFZM mixing local WNOP. How that even possible!
So, It's 750 WSB with a pretty good signal, but minor interference of Local 740.
 
In the near north Chicago suburbs during the day WNDZ is pretty strong at my location.
At night it's always a reliable WSB. Sometime underneath I will hear a Spanish language station.
 
Houston daytime - blank. Night WSB.

From ten years ago, Plano, TX daytime Durant, OK, with a pretty good signal. Night WSB.

WSB was the farthest station I could get in Lubbock, TX, with a five foot loop and GE SR-3. I got them during a test in the winter, and one in the summer. Of course that area has very high ground conductivity.

They were a good daytime test for a radio in Daytona Beach, FL and later in Melbourne. The latter being another 80 to 90 miles further South, only the best radios had any chance in the daytime. Daytona Beach it was weak but receivable on just about anything with tuned RF stage, including most car radios.
 
Daytime in East Tennessee: Weak WSB, usually pummelled by local WETR.
Night WSB, sometimes with (presumably)Caracas, which MWList shows as offset at 749,9898. Is that enough to cause a het througout the hemisphere?

When I lived in Lafayette, IN WNDZ was a daytime regular. In the 90s it was an interesting mix. An LGBT morning show and "The Fundamentalist Hour" (realm name of program) all on the same station (along with foreign language). I heard WNDZ near Dayton, Ohio around sunset as well
 
In central Maryland;

Daytime: Baltimore's WBMD with Family Radio.

Nights: Atlanta's WSB dominates, maybe once heard West Virginia's country WPDX in the background at sunset.
 
gr8oldies said:
749,9898...Is that enough to cause a het througout the hemisphere?
Click to expand...
Someone's decimal place is wrong because that is either
not a medium wave frequency or the station is 10.2Hz low.
The station is likely at 749.9898KHz, the same as 749,989.8Hz.
750,000Hz minus 749,989.2Hz equals 10.2Hz.
That would sound like a rapid ten-hertz fluttering noise.
I wish that all stations on each channel would be required
to sync to standard time and frequency sources.
 
gr8oldies said:
Night WSB, sometimes with (presumably)Caracas, which MWList shows as offset at 749,9898. Is that enough to cause a het througout the hemisphere?
Click to expand...

Depending if the deviation is 102 Hz or 10.2 Hz, it depends. 102 Hz is just enough to cause a low, rumbling het in areas where the Radio Caracas Radio (RCR) signal is strong enough. Most of the interference zone will be over the Caribbean, I am guessing... and in the fringe area of CARACOL Medellín in Colombia.

Many of the Caracas... indeed, all of Venezuela... stations are running reduced power. They can not get foreign exchange to buy tubes (if they still use them... many stations do) and parts, and electrical service is increasingly unreliable while revenues are way off.

The FCC rule reads "§ 73.1545 Carrier frequency departure tolerances.

(a)AM stations. The departure of the carrier frequency for monophonic transmissions or center frequency for stereophonic transmissions may not exceed ±20 Hz from the assigned frequency. "

So a 10.2 Hz deviation would be legal even in the US.

 
Last edited:
Daytime here is a faint but steady WITK from Pittston PA. I have them in the log as 'WMXH'.

Some sunsets I've heard 'WBMD' from Baltimore. They're on tape somewhere. See, we're actually closer to the Maryland state line than we are to the NY state line to our north. Yet, we're considered 'NE PA Coal Country'.

Nighttimes: WSB.

* * * * * * *

'Retro' days back near JFK Airport:
WBMD and WHEB from NH often would alternate from sunset to sunset.
WPDX from WV is in the log -- another sunset sign-off.
WSB at night, of course.
But Radio Caracas was another nighttime catch. I have them as 'YVKY'
Radio Sandino (sp?) from Nicaragua was another. In the logbook I have them as 'YNX'.

The nighttime dial was so friendly to us back when everything was retro.
 
ai4i said:
I wish that all stations on each channel would be required
to sync to standard time and frequency sources.
Click to expand...

I agree - that is long overdue. Thanks to GSM cell phones, GPS chips with time capability are just a few dollars. Incorporate them into exciters! No more need for ovenized crystals. GPS is at least as reliable, and if it goes out there could still be a backup oscillator in the exciter.
 
Reynoldsburg, Ohio ...
* Daytime: Nothing. In the bad old days when WJR ran IBOC, that hash could be heard all the way down here, about 175 miles south of Detroit.
* Nighttime: All WSB, usually with a very good signal. Listened to the Braves many nights on that signal, including the moment they clinched the 1995 World Series. I was on my Homecoming date and my date who was an Indians fan was not as amused by Skip Caray's call as me. :)
 
750 here in Charleston is a very weak WSB daytime. It is stronger in the winter and with a good radio/loop. WSB is usually decent at night. Some nights it is as clear as a bell, other nights weak because of Caracas and other foreign signals.

Their daytime signal is one of the weaker ones of the clears. It is only clear about 50-60 miles away from the transmitter. Even in Athens, there is noise on WSB's daytime signal. I've heard it as far as Columbia, SC regularly, but the terrible ground conductivity there in that part of GA hurts that signal.
 
charlestondxman said:
Their daytime signal is one of the weaker ones of the clears. It is only clear about 50-60 miles away from the transmitter. Even in Athens, there is noise on WSB's daytime signal. I've heard it as far as Columbia, SC regularly, but the terrible ground conductivity there in that part of GA hurts that signal.
Click to expand...

What matters is the ground conductivity at the receiving location - as my reception of it in central Florida daytime attests. And those tests with very large loops in Lubbock, TX, brought it in daytime at two separate times of the year. It was the furthest clear I could receive from that location.

One of the things on my "bucket list" is to hike up Stone Mountain with that five foot loop and a GE SR-3, and see what a location with NO ground conductivity is like. My bet is that almost nothing comes in except locals.
 
Schlep82 said:
I don't even know why WSB would be interferered with a local station with only 6 watts, and another signal CFZM mixing local WNOP. How that even possible!
QUOTE]

I stand corrected at WNOP's nighttime watts. It's 30 watts, but not 6 watts. Why do I even say 6 watts?
Click to expand...
 
Remember the [/ to close a quote!
Too bad we only have (I think it is) 15 minutes to edit.
 
Days: a weak WNDZ Portage, IN, or nothing.

Nights: usually WSB.

Retro: WSB was always there, pretty much every night. It's not nearly as reliable as it used to be years ago.
 
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