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AM Frequency of the week: 790

cyberdad

cyberdad

Moderator
Staff member
Back to an orphaned "regional" channel this week....790. Surrounded by all those clears in either direction!

Day/Night Here, northwest of Chicago, it's all WBBM splatter all the time. Nothing staaarong enough on the channel to breakthough. Unlike 770, where WABC is fairly reliable at night.

Retro: Before WBBM turned on their iboc noisemaker, CKSO from Sudbury, ON, was reasonably dependable at night and easy to ID with country music. They've been gone for about 20 years, if not more. One morning at about 9:30 AM, back in thre 1960s when WBBM was off due to some issue, I was surprised to hear WSGW from Saginaw, MI. May have been daytime skywave, but I'm pretty sure Radioman also hears it once in a while.

Other location: During my college days in southeast Iowa, the Houston 790 (as KTHT) used to be reliable and listenable. "Demand Radio 79" was adult contemporary (a polite way of saying "chicken rock), and sometimes I'd listen to it when I got tired of the usual blowtorches (WLS, KOMA, or KAAY).

Targets never heard: WEAQ, WMC, WAKY, WQXI. WEAQ (now WAAY) probably will never happen. They're dropping to 123 watts (if they haven't already). That's likely a moot point for me, however. Even at 5KW, their figure 8 night pattern had a major null in my direction. OTOH, I'd hear them at night during my travels in Kansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, and Iowa.
 
In the near north Chicago suburbs it's WBBM splatter day & night. Before the days of WBBM IBOC I used to hear Norfolk, Va at night. When I first heard it the calls were WTAR on 790. I did hear CKSO a couple of times. I've heard WSGW a few times during the day on Lake Shore drive in Chicago when the skyscrapers null WBBM.
 
790 here in Charleston is either Brunswick, GA (sports) or Miami (also sports), or Bamberg-Denmark, SC (religious). None of those 3 dominate here.

WQXI used to come in sometimes early mornings here, and at night when they forgot to lower their power. WNIS Norfolk is the dominant at night here.
 
Here in Reynoldsburg, Ohio, it's WHTH licensed to Heath but for every other intent and purpose a Newark station, with a decent signal during the daytime. Used to be news and talk, but for the past few years it's been "Buckeye Country." Different directional patterns day (1,000 watts) and night (a, well, robust 26 watts) but both are aimed southeast.
I've heard Radio Reloj ticks under WHTH at night in Granville, only about four miles up the road from the towers but behind their main lobe.
 
Daytime in Ottawa, it's a very weak WTNY from Watertown New York. At night it was the former CKSO until a few years ago when they went FM. I remember them as a top forty station, and for some reason, I thought they were on 810 at one point and was totally convinced they were, back in 82...but have since learned they never broadcast on that frequency.
At night, it's a jumble and I haven't bothered trying to ID anything.
 
@mimo.... I think you may be right about CKSO having a run with top forty. But I still remember them as country. Them and CKCY (920) as two relatively easy country music catches from that part of Ontario.

With apologies for the veer and getting several weeks ahead of myself, I still hear country music from time to time on 920 via CFRY from Manitoba.
 
The only time I ever heard CKCY was when I was Elliot lake in 1982, and like CKSO, they were top 40. I think what caused CKSO to flip to country was that AM 550 won the format war, and Sudbury just wasn't big enough at that time for 2 top 40s, and a lot of stations were dumping out of the format, both in Canada and the U.S.
 
Springfield, IL area Daytime: a weak WRMS Beardstown, IL (50 miles away but highly directional due to WBBM).

WRMS comes in more robust 10 miles southwest of Springfield where I now live (Chatham).
 
cyberdad said:
Back to an orphaned "regional" channel this week....790. Surrounded by all those clears in either direction!

Day/Night Here, northwest of Chicago, it's all WBBM splatter all the time. Nothing staaarong enough on the channel to breakthough. Unlike 770, where WABC is fairly reliable at night.

Retro: Before WBBM turned on their iboc noisemaker, CKSO from Sudbury, ON, was reasonably dependable at night and easy to ID with country music. They've been gone for about 20 years, if not more. One morning at about 9:30 AM, back in thre 1960s when WBBM was off due to some issue, I was surprised to hear WSGW from Saginaw, MI. May have been daytime skywave, but I'm pretty sure Radioman also hears it once in a while.

Other location: During my college days in southeast Iowa, the Houston 790 (as KTHT) used to be reliable and listenable. "Demand Radio 79" was adult contemporary (a polite way of saying "chicken rock), and sometimes I'd listen to it when I got tired of the usual blowtorches (WLS, KOMA, or KAAY).

Targets never heard: WEAQ, WMC, WAKY, WQXI. WEAQ (now WAAY) probably will never happen. They're dropping to 123 watts (if they haven't already). That's likely a moot point for me, however. Even at 5KW, their figure 8 night pattern had a major null in my direction. OTOH, I'd hear them at night during my travels in Kansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, and Iowa.
Click to expand...

Did WRMS Beardstown, IL (500 watts) ever make daytime appearances at your southeast Iowa location during your college days? Although highly directional to the NE due to WBBM and to the east because of Louisville, it still gets out pretty good on the other side into parts of SE Iowa and much of the northeast half of Missouri.

WRMS 790 used to be country but since fall 2004 (after occasional silence for a few years prior) has been a repeater of the St. Louis-based Covenant Network (Catholic radio).

https://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/patg?id=WRMS-AM&h=D
 
I remember WRMS as faint but readable in Ottumwa 35 plus years ago. 790 was among the half dozen or so "quiet" daytime channels in SE Iowa that weren't former I-A clears.
 
Here in Northeast PA:
Three 790 loggings so far. Blush.

WAEB Allentown is the daytime beast. At night they vanish entirely.
Nighttime loggings are 'CIOF/CIGM' (are they the same as the aforementioned CKSO?) and for reasons which eluded me at the time, WLKW from Rhode Island. Them I have on tape.

* * * * * * *

Retro ... near an Idlewild Airport far far away ......
790 gave up 12 stations to me and the old Zenith. Monday mornings -- remember those? -- were primo hours for a kid to DX. Via one of those proofs-of-performances I got to log my only Montana station -- KGHL.

If the FCC really is eager about this AM Revitalization stuff, they should rule that all AM full-timers sign off once a week for a few hours. And rule that maybe once a year every daytime-only or regional be allowed to test with their daytime power and pattern, so that DXers can hear more of them and spread the word to those in need of a hobby.

The plan might cover and affect only a tiny portion of the avalable listenership. But since we DXers are the only ones left listening late at night to the AM dial anyway ......
 
@Steve.... Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but I remember CIGM as Montreal. And on 990. There's an 800 in Montreal (CJAD). I don't know the history of the area, so I'm wondering if some call letters/frequencies may have been shuffled around.
 
East Tennessee: Daytime WETB, I'll have to get back to you about night.

Retro/other: Western Ohio. Back in the 70s, WAKY would make it in around sunrise and sunset, sometimes splattering CKLW on a cheap radio. A variety of stations in the evening but most often WTAR, Norfolk, most notable for having an oldies show on Saturday night. It was interesting making a visit to Virginia Beach and hearing WTAR "like a local"
 
CIGM was the call for 790 in Sudbury in it's final days and continue to be it's calls now that it's on FM. I think Cyberdad is thinking of CKGM (the former 990 now on 690) It turns out the CIGM calls were originally FM calls belonging to the station at 92.7 (they were once CKSO FM when they signed on in 1965 and the CIGM calls didn't come until 1978 when 92.7 went country. In 1990 the FM and AM stations switched programming, but the FM calls became CJRQ and CIGM ended up on 790. So it was 1990 when CKSO "died" and a country station took their place. The FM flip occurred on August 24, 2009, and the AM was switched off for good on September 30th, 2009
 
Northern Essex County, NJ. Daytime: A faint WAEB from Allentown, PA. Nighttime: An occasional faint Radio Reloj tone, otherwise a mess
 
@mimo: Thanks for coming to the rescue and clearing up that bit of history. I was thinking of the Montreal station during its days as "Oldies 990", which coincides with the 10-12 year period I was making the two-hour run between Montreal and Ottawa every few months. It probably didn't help my failing and/or confused memory that the station only gave the call letters for the TOH legal ID. The rest of the time it was "Oldies 990".
 
It probably didn't help that the letters I and K are only separated by one letter, and both stations ended with a "90" Similar calls, similar sounding frequency.
 
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