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AM Frequency of the Week: 870

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From the southwest suburbs of Chicago:

Days, nothing.

Nights, WWL New Orleans is the regular inhabitant of 870. Chicago is dead-center in WWL's wide directional pattern. Even during Hurricane Katrina in 2005, when WWL was on emergency power and cut to 30 kW, it was still an easy listen.

Others: WKAR East Lansing, Mich., best early AM winters; WTIM Shelbyville, Ill., 500 watts – it carries CBS and at first I thought WWL was still bombing in; not so (and WTIM, at least in 2020, still carried the full 10 minutes of the morning CBS World News Roundup); Radio Reloj, Cuba with 10 kw almost on top of WWL one night; WPWT Colonial Heights, Tenn., in sunset skip on 1/10/2023; KPRM Park Rapids, Minn., a few minutes later. Finally, the Wobbler has horned in at least a couple of times.
 
Chicago by the lakeshore:

Daytime: WKAR in E Lansing can be heard right on the lake but it deteriorates rapidly as you move inland.

Nighttime: Like for many above, WWL in New Orleans dominates. There's some fading, but it's pretty decent. I've also heard the Cuban "Clock" station Radio Reloj at times.
 
In west Houston TX, daytime is nothing but slop from local 880 KJOZ. I have to get closer to the coast to hear WWL. At sunset, WWL comes up with a strong signal. I can sometimes null them and hear Spanish Christian KFJZ in Ft Worth. At night, it's WWL with interference from the "wobbler". Around sunrise WWL is strong but I've heard XETAR in Guachochi, Coah. under them a few times with interesting indigenous music.

Echoing the comments of @dlf1 , WWL was pretty strong day and night from my beachfront hotel balcony at South Padre Island in August.
 
wildthangjim said:
In west Houston TX, daytime is nothing but slop from local 880 KJOZ. I have to get closer to the coast to hear WWL. At sunset, WWL comes up with a strong signal. I can sometimes null them and hear Spanish Christian KFJZ in Ft Worth. At night, it's WWL with interference from the "wobbler". Around sunrise WWL is strong but I've heard XETAR in Guachochi, Coah. under them a few times with interesting indigenous music.

Echoing the comments of @dlf1 , WWL was pretty strong day and night from my beachfront hotel balcony at South Padre Island in August.
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I remember getting a decent signal daytime from WWL when I lived along the League City-Friendswood border. I was roughly five miles inland from the bay, with Kemah being the closest point, but WWL was very listenable. Strong at night, of course.
 
From NW San Antonio:

Day: Heavy splatter from 860 KONO.

Sunset: Aiming N/NE to get a partial null of the splatter, I can hear a weak KFJZ in Ft. Worth. The signal eventually improves quite a bit until sign-off. WWL starts coming up a little later, and I can null out KFJZ by aiming E/W.

Night: WWL is strong and rarely fades, especially if I keep the E/W orientation.

Sunrise: KFJZ comes up at sign-on, and it dominates if I aim N/S. Later XETAR in Guachochi is regularly heard when it signs on for the day.

DX/Retro: I logged Radio Reloj in Cuba once back in 2016. Before XEXM "Radio Jerez" in Jerez de Garcia was retired, I would occasionally hear it at night.

For several days now, KONO has been broadcasting distorted audio and has a faint echo. Also, it seems to be staying on daytime power/pattern 24 hours, which increases its slop on 870 noticeably.
 
anwar said:
Wilmington Delaware

Days - Nothing

Nights - Usually WWL with a fair to good signal. However tonight I hear a very faint broadcast of Sunday Night Football which is WWL, also a few time pips, and some interference probably the WOBBLER. It reminds me of the old Shortwave Days with Russian jamming of the VOA. Poor WWL being on that frequency.
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During my February visit to the beach near Pensacola this year., "the wobbler" was an annoying nighttime visitor to 870 under WWL. Not as strong as in previous years, and fairly easy to null. During daytime . it disappeared.
 
In eastern Iowa:
Nothing in the daytime. Nighttime is all WWL. I hear the wobble from time to time, not all the time. The interesting thing is that a couple times lately I've heard a wobble on WHO Des Moines on 1040.
 
icybluelake said:
In eastern Iowa:
Nothing in the daytime. Nighttime is all WWL. I hear the wobble from time to time, not all the time. The interesting thing is that a couple times lately I've heard a wobble on WHO Des Moines on 1040.
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If indeed the Cubans are responsible for the wobbler on 1040, perhaps they have a problem with the sports format on Tampa's WHBO. :ROFLMAO:
 
Central Kentucky:
Days: WMTL Litchfield with a Country mix, today's country and the legends. It's about 90 miles from me and it's too weak to enjoy, but is easily identifiable.

Nights: WWL with varying degrees of signal strength.
 
Special Annular Eclipse and Hotel Parking Lot DXing Edition from Farmington, New Mexico

Daytime - Quiet.
Nighttime - WWL comes in and out, readable approximately 40-50% of the time. Tonight they were doing primary election returns. There was some interference from time to time from adjacent 880 KRVN.
 
"The Wobbler" -- I haven't heard that term before. Do you mean it's the time blips from Cuba's Radio Reloj?

Even if you're not hearing the Spanish language news reports, you hear the blip, blip, blip from the time signals?

(BTW, in Northern NJ, I hear only 880 WCBS. Once or twice over the years, I heard WWL late at night but only when WCBS was doing transmitter maintenance.)
 
Gregg. said:
"The Wobbler" -- I haven't heard that term before. Do you mean it's the time blips from Cuba's Radio Reloj?

Even if you're not hearing the Spanish language news reports, you hear the blip, blip, blip from the time signals?

(BTW, in Northern NJ, I hear only 880 WCBS. Once or twice over the years, I heard WWL late at night but only when WCBS was doing transmitter maintenance.)
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"The wobbler " doesn't refer to R. Reloj. It's a noise that sounds a little like rhe blade of a hand saw bending back and forth repeatedly. No one knows for sure what it is or where it's coming from. But the prevailing opinion is that it's either intentional interference or jamming, or it's some sort of transmitter defect/malfunction that creates interference on other stations. Whatever it is, it seems to be coming from Cuba. But nobody seems to know that for sure.

I first heard "the wobbler" on 930 about 15 years ago. Since one or more versions of it have turned up on other channels. Most notably of late on 870. When the 870 pest first turned up a couple of years ago it pretty much rendered WWL unlistenable. here at my location in the Chicago area. Fortunately, that only lasted 2-3 months, znd since then, the wobbler hass only been a very rare intruder. However, on my visits to the Gulf about 140 miles east of New Orleans, the noise is usually audible at night. underneath WWL or with WWL nulled.

Adding to the mystery is the question of why would Cuba want to jam WWL? WWL has no anti-Cuban programming, and is nulled towards Cuba. On top of that Cuba has at least one R. Reloj transmitter on 870. That said, Cuba IS in the jamming business, They have multiple transmitters on 710 and 1180 that relay R.Rebelde to block U.S. based Spanish-Language programming from Miani and the keys that the Cuban government doesn't happen to like.
 
tvnut said:
It’s not a jammer. It’s just a technical mishap borne of negligence or a lack of parts.
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As I said. jamming does not seem to make a lot of sense. Certainly on 870. And the Cubans have other ways for jamming unwanted signals. Part shortages and neglect seem to make more sense, if we're talking about Cuba. I remember a story some years back about Cuba having a sjotage of screws for attaching license plates.
 
Here in Wood Dale, IL in the near NW suburb of Chicago:

Daytime: WKAR or WTIM from Assumption, IL
Nighttime: usually WWL along with Radio Reloj time pips and "rr" code underneath. The warbler also makes an appearance once in a while.

DX/Retro: other stations heard in the past include KUUY (Orchad Valle, UT), KAAN (Bethany, MO), KPRM (Park Rapids, MN), WHCU (Ithaca, NY), WQXR (Valley Head, AL), WMTL (Litchfield, KY), WPWT (Colonial Heights, TN), Mar Caribe, Barranquilla, Colombia. WTIM, Assumption, IL has been an easy catch recently. In the past they were heard as WINU (later WTIM) Shelbyville, IL before they switched COL to Assumption, IL. The Cary, IL TIS (WPIV413) is no longer on the air. They used to be heard during daytime mixing with WKAR. The O'Hare Airport TIS (WPIJ539) briefly used this frequency in 1995 before they switched to 800 kHz. Most recent new catch on this frequency is WFLO Farmville, VA in 2022.
 
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