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Your "Go To" Nighttime Station

Great post, Icangelp and the rest. Lots of memories.

The teen years near Kennedy Airport in Queens NYC also could be split into two symbiotic groups: guys and gals with transistors, and guys (plus gals) who were DXers.

The first group, the normally-adjusted one, would have the transistors on either Murray The K on WINS, or Cousin Brucie on WABC, or B. Mitchell Reed on WMCA. On or around one of the two 'action' stoops on our block, a teen could catch a generational cacophony as radios got switched back and forth. 1963 was a real big year for that unofficial basement-party gathering. We were all 15, 14, 13.

We DXers in the overall group, nighttimes on that fairly quiet and scenic Archie Bunker-ish block, would often (and easily) find a WPOP Hartford or a WARM Scranton coming out of our transistors. But by far, WKBW became that 'fourth' choice for the whole transistor clan. Joey Reynolds was the key to that enjoyment. I wonder now and then if WKBW ever 'showed', even if way down in the book, in the New York City metro ratings. Two different non-DXers (a guy and a gal) went to separate family vacations for a week or so in northern New Jersey, and I got postcards from them both about WKBW! Out and up that way, they would have no WMCA and maybe only a fitful WINS. So Cousin Brucie on WABC and Joey on WKBW were their companions.

* * * * * * *

As a DXer with my little GE clock radio (the identical one to the radio atop the kitchen fridge in Happy Days) my erratic teenaged insomnia was accompanied by 'KB, WOWO, some WBZ and some WPTR Albany. Heck -- that routine had begun in GRAMMAR school for me.
The big radio, its WaveMagnet antenna, and it's seemingly bottomless cornucopia of Top 40 and other distant choices was in the basement. But DXing things on it like KUDL Kansas City, WYRE 810 Annapolis, WLCY St. Pete, KQV Pittsburgh, and so forth, was a different rite-of-passage, I'd say.
 
@Steve Green, did you listen at all to WLS or later on WCFL in Queens? Maybe you weren't able to null the adjacent WCBS & WINS. When I was at the New York Worlds Fair near Shea Stadium in 65 I was able to hear WLS & WCFL at night.
When I was in those long lines at the fair I listened to a lot of WMCA & WABC on my transistor. WINS had just switched to news.
 
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If we drew a Venn Diagram of DXers, Aircheck Recorders and Collectors, Radio Music Survey Chart and other Memorabilia Collectors, and "Garage Band" members, we would find an intersection between all these subgroups. Bob Seger, one of the ultimate "Garage Band" founders and one of the most successful, was a high school classmate of Radio Archivist Art Vuolo. Bob Seger was a DXer, believe it or not, who listened to distant radio stations, specifically WLS, WCFL, and WLAC are mentioned, in his early home town of Ann Arbor, where daytimer WPAG 1050 is credited as being the first to play one of his records, an acetate, in 1961. The late Terry Knapp/Knight, Michigan DJ at WTAC, WTRX, WJBK, and CKLW, and cofounder/early manager of Grand Funk Railroad, hand delivered an audition tape to one of his favorite nighttime stations, WLS, while he was still in high school. He was told to finish high school and keep practicing to become a DJ. Terry's Lapeer, MI classmate was Pat Bergin, known as Scott Carpenter on CHUM. Garage Band members were also avid collectors of station charts on which their records appeared, often on a single station or handful of stations, often for a single week.
 
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Good stuff there, Schoedinger. If I can add a footnote: I'd read someplace that the lead singer of the Edsels used to consider WLAC his own 'Go to' nighttime station. I doubt he was alone, hi.

@ Radioman:
Not only were the DXers in our little clan down by Jamaica Bay able to get WLS regularly, but it was with WCBS 880 being the closest 50,000 watt stick to our homes. For the non-DXers though (♫ and all the girls out on the stoops, yeah ...' ♫ -- Paul Simon) WKBW was that alternate choice.

With the radios we oddball DXers had, separating stations posed only minimal hassles. So indeed, WCFL and WLS were easy enough logs. So were WJJD 1160 Chicago and WHLO 640 Akron. But trenchant, slop-scarred DXing and ID's for the collection was another matter for the DXers in those days. That was a different pursuit from social position jockeying.

Lol -- we grew up a bicycle ride away from the World's Fair, Radioman. I consider myself one of the few to've watched them build neigboring Shea Stadium and THEN watch them tear it down !
 
As pre-teen and early teen in Cleveland, I mostly listened to WERE, WHK and Pete "Mad Daddy" Myers on WJW. But every night I'd set the tape deck and HQ-180 to turn on at WBAP/WFAA's sign off time, and most nights it would record 90 minutes of HJED-820 and its overnight truckers' music show which I would listen to while doing homework the next evening.

Summers in Northern Michigan were WJJD, and after it went Top 40, WLS.

As a late teen, it was HCRM1 all day and night. It the only Top 40 for about 1,000 miles around. And it would have looked really bad if I did not listen to it.
 
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@Steve Green, if I had only known you were nearby when I was at the fair, we could have DXed together. (LOL)
Regarding WLAC, Wolfman Jack was an avid listener according to his bio.

@Cyberdad, great thread!
 
Yes, quite a few DJs and recording artists have mentioned listening and being influenced by what they heard on WLAC. Believe it or not, many areas of the country had never heard a James Brown record on a local radio station before "Living In America". Many artists and listeners first heard James Brown on WLAC. James Brown was a positive unifying influence on America, and it was sad to see the problems he had in later years being remembered, more than the good he did, after he passed away. The Wikipedia article attributes the downfall of WLAC being its turn to Top 40 in later music years. I still listened, and people riding in my car commented on all the cool stations I listened to, including WLAC, in the early 1970s.
 
Wow! I had no idea what I was getting us into here. Glad everyone seems to be enjoying. A couple of notes...

@radioman: I think you may be right about Larry Lujack not having been at KOMA. I thought he was there briefly in late '66 or early '67, but there's no mention of that in his Wikipedia bio. I may have been thinking of someone or something else.

@Icangelp: Interesting that you were listening to KIOA in Indy. They were a very tough catch at my location in northeast Illinois, but they did throw a rather narrow secondary lobe to the east-southeast. Which would have been right where you were in Indianapolis and actually, also right at me in southeastern Iowa. And since a number of great jocks have been mentioned, I'd also have to include Dic Youngs, "The Old Youngster," who was the main main at KIOA for four decades.

I'd also add this... If we're also talking about daytime "go to stations", the good news for me back in my college was that I was in daytime range of several legendary top 40 AMs. In addition to WLS and KIOA, there were two Storz stations, WHB (Kansas City) and KXOK (St.Louis). Between those two and KOMA at night, that meant that I had the good fortune to be able to hear three Storz stations on a daily basis. Also, what about WCFL? The daytime signal did make it to Iowa, but was prone to splatter where I was from WCAZ, a semi-local on 990 from across the river in Carthage, Illinois. And finally, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention also being within range of two very worthy superb smaller market powerhouses in their own right. KSTT (1kw 1170) from Davenport, Iowa and WIRL (5kw 1290) from Peoria, Illinois Both produced some distinguished alumni, perhaps most notably KSTT. All of these stations disappeared after sundown except WLS and KIOA. WCFL usualy was still able to put in some weak nighttime skywave, but got routinely trashed by XEOY.
 
Speaking of WJJD, those post Des Plaines until Salt Lake City sunset hours with the 50 kW two tower pattern were awesome. WJJD would blast in with an interference free signal in Michigan, and I would have it on at high volume so that everyone could hear that it was WJJD. I really liked the news sounder they had, which was very distinctive. Quick, what movie was the sound of WJJD heard on? It was "Somewhere In Time", starring Christopher Reeve, after he returns to Chicago from Mackinac Island, near the end of the movie. I could kind of understand the new 1160 stations wanting them to reduce to 5 kW at sunset though, since it was giving them an effective 70+ mV/m NIF during those hours.

Back in about 1974, WJJD was authorized to use 50 watts presunrise for an hour when they extended daylight savings time into January or February due to the "energy crisis". I heard it and recorded it in Michigan with 50 watts. The skywave was about the same strength as KSL was, and they would fade in and out with WJJD.
 
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I remember WJJD hammering into northern Wisconsin before Salt Lake sunset. As WYLL they still do. Absolute Killer night signal, which certainly would also include the U.P. They also had a good signal in Winnipeg when I was there this past August.
 
The 50 kW WYLL night site shows that if there is a WYLL, there's a way to get to 50 KW nighttime. I was kind of surprised that they could protect KSL with just 6 towers. The upgrade also required a vacant Canadian allotment in Thunder Bay to be moved, and paying for WHBY Kimberly to upgrade to 20/25 DA-2/U4.
 
In 1974, when the late Oogie Pringle took over evenings at WNBC, after working at WRIE and WJET here in Erie, PA, I'd listen for him on WNBC. I also remember when Pat Rogers took over evenings at WLW in 1977 or so listening to him. He also had worked at WRIE in Erie.

Loved Oogie's presentation and I know he had a successful career after WNBC... moving on to Milwaukee, Cleveland, Rochester, Minneapolis and Southern California. Sad that he took his own life in 1987.
 
I forgot WAKR in Akron. Listened to them in the early '60s. For a regional, they had a pretty reliable night signal in Indianapolis.

Their night time guy was Rick Shaw. Not the one from Miami.
 
When I first started DXing as a kid 25 years ago (I did not know the term "DX" then), my go-to stations were always WOWO, WGN and WMAQ (now WSCR). Sometimes WLUP to hear Bulls games, and WSB to listen to the Braves. I listened to the Reds on WLW a lot, but I always considered it a semi-local station to Columbus and still do.
WOWO never came in very well at night around Columbus, and now I realize it's because we were on the outer edge of their convergence zone. It was always listenable here, but nowhere near as well as the Chicago stations, WLW or KMOX among others. 50 miles northwest, WOWO came in much, much better.
 
From South Central Colorado, it was 950 KIMN mostly interference-free at night, KOMA, WLS, and for a while, 1080 KRLD in Dallas when they ran the "Montage" underground show. Also "X-Rock 80," 1500 KSTP, and 1200 WOAI was kinda top 40 at night in the early 70s (when hearing all of this was still possible). All these signals were pretty good though WLS and KSTP could be flaky at times.

I was in one of those rare alleys where one could hear 1190 KLIF Dallas too! Not great, but reliably there every night, with their laser-focused directional pattern apparently sending a mini lobe my way.

1000 was remarkably empty of signals with WCFL barely audible only on the coldest winter night.
 
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Schmave, you brought back some good memories of my early DX days. Growing up in the Chicago area and being a big White Sox fan as I still am, I can remember all the stations I used to get for baseball.
WCBS Yankees, WCAU Phillies, KDKA Pirates--Bob Prince was hysterical. WJR Tigers, WLW Reds, WCCO Twins, WTMJ and then WSB for the Braves, KMOX Cardinals, and others that I'm forgetting right now. A few times I even heard Vin Scully on KFI. I never could get the Boston station that carried the Red Sox. It would've been easy if they were on WBZ, which they weren't back then.
 
At my first commercial radio job in 1977, the then station owner, for years at that point (and even to this day as an AE) holds a sports banquet bringing in athletes and sometimes broadcasters. In 1977, Bob Prince was the emcee and Billy Martin a guest. The owner would have us record (then) on reels of tape the banquet, then go back to the station, edit obscenities out and prepare the banquet for broadcast which was sold to advertisers. Imagine the days and days of editing out inappropriate comments and jokes from Bob Prince and Billy Martin. Pretty short broadcast after the editing job, LOL.
 
First frequencies I check are "beacons" for eastern conditions - 780 and 1500 (WBBM and KSTP). If they are coming in well, I look around for other Midwest/East Coast blasters.
As for go-to, I will listen to KNBR and KGO from time to time, sometimes KSL, sometimes KOA, sometimes KFBK. CKOR-800 Penticton, BC has a good variety of soft rock music, and that's another one I will hit sometimes. Very rarely I will listen to KRVN for a long period.

-crainbebo
 
Now - NOTHING. There is nothing left on the AM band to listen to.

Used to be stations like KOMA and WLS in the 60's and 70's. On frequent trips to Houston, I would pack up my best radio, because I could null KOB Albuquerque and get WABC New York.
 
crainbebo said:
CKOR-800 Penticton, BC has a good variety of soft rock music, and that's another one I will hit sometimes. Very rarely I will listen to KRVN for a long period.

-crainbebo
Click to expand...

Agreed, I like CKOR's mix of pop and 80's-90's stuff, too, their "EZ Rock" format, I guess.

For current listening, I'll also listen to CJYM 1330 if it's coming in, for their classic hits mix. And KSWB 840 in Seaside has a great classic hits mix also. For news and info I usually tune local or to CBR, Calgary.
 
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