AM Frequency of the week: 1270

A day early this week. Home location far northwest suburban Chicago.....

Days: On a good day, what's left of a very weak WKBF (Rock Island, IL), and an even weaker WWCA (Gary, IN). R-L would suggest things should be just the opposite, but that's not the case IME.

Night: Complete mess. WKBF and WXYT (which protect each other) are the most likely to rise to the top.

Retro: I spent three years in the mid-70s working at WKBF's predecessor, WHBF. Morning drive news. I worked a 4am-noon shift, which began with me making the rounds of the local cop shops. We didn't sign on until 5am, and I spent a lot of that first hour in the "news cruiser" which had a great radio. Therefore: DX time! 1270 was most likely to produce KFJZ from Dallas, which was supposed to be protecting us. Our being off also opened up 1260 for what was usually a surprisingly strong WNDE.

Other location: When I was working at WHBF, I found myself in Atlanta two or three times. To my surprise, we were alone and booming there every night that I checked. One of our three lobes was favorable to the southeast. (We were protecting WXYZ, KFJZ, and KIML, Gillette, WY).

Citrus Heights, CA

Daytime: Nothing

Nighttime: KVMI Tulare, CA

Right before dark KBZZ Sparks, NV

Near north Chicago suburbs Days- WWCA fair/weak. This signal used to be stronger a long time ago. I think they rebuilt the facilities in later years. Nights are a mess with WXYT most often rising up, but I have heard WKBF a few times. Most often a messy frequency at night.

The Valley of the Jolly Green Giant (LeSueur, MN)

daytime-KFAN Rochester, MN
nightime-garbled mess...

radioman148 said:

Near north Chicago suburbs Days- WWCA fair/weak. This signal used to be stronger a long time ago. I think they rebuilt the facilities in later years. Nights are a mess with WXYT most often rising up, but I have heard WKBF a few times. Most often a messy frequency at night.

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I wonder if WWCA running something less than their authorized 1kw. It's a tight figure eight pattern day and night shoehorned between the WKBF and WXYT nighttime nulls. It should at least be routinely audible where I am in Crystal Lake, but I don't usually hear them. I don't know if there's any connection, but co-owned (and simulcast) WKBM (930) from Sandwich, IL is also noticeably weaker than they were during their days as WAUR.

cyberdad said:

I wonder if WWCA running something less than their authorized 1kw. It's a tight figure eight pattern day and night shoehorned between the WKBF and WXYT nighttime nulls. It should at least be routinely audible where I am in Crystal Lake, but I don't usually hear them. I don't know if there's any connection, but co-owned (and simulcast) WKBM (930) from Sandwich, IL is also noticeably weaker than they were during their days as WAUR.

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Good point, WWCA used to be stronger, but I can't remember if that was before their towers were rebuilt. Anyway, you're right WKBM is not as strong as it used to be.

Daytime is the semi-local WLBR Lebanon (the one in PA :- )
One afternoon on a paint job in St. Clair, I caught this grunge-rock station behind them, broad daylight. I kind of like Grunge, both the 1990 style as well as its predecessor from the late 60's back when the genre was called 'heavy metal'. They IDed as Phoenix 1450! I realized then that it was the by-product/mixing spur from WPAM 1450, and WPPA 1360. Those two stations have their towers across Route 61 from the other. Funny I didn't hear WPPA, though. Maybe because WPPA runs a lot of talk shows.
There's one nighttime logging here (and it's taped) : CJTN. I don't even know if they're on the air anymore.
As you can see, I don't dedicate much time to AM DX. Usually, I'm too busy posting to message boards like this one.

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Never logged your WHBF back on Long Island, Cyberdad. I did get WEIC Charleston IL one night. 1270 was a pretty generous DX requency for me (20 catches back then).
Usually it was a weak WSPR from Springfield MA in the day .... a flurry of sunset catches .... and WXYZ Detroit at night.

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In my days of working in Springfield Mass radio, I lived across the Connecticut River from WSPR's two towers. So, naturally I find it ironic that, in my nights DXing there, I heard only one 'split frequency' station.
Radio Paradise 1265 from St. Kitts. I guess WSPR must've been off that night.

Here in Reynoldsburg, Ohio ...
* Daytime: All oldies WQTT from Marysville, about 35 miles northwest. They've been running their nighttime pattern for at least 7 1/2 years, which sends most of its power southeast over greater Columbus and another lobe off to the west, towards Marysville and further into western Ohio.
* Nighttime: Depending on your location in the area, WQTT can sound pretty good or almost cease to exist. Where I am, it's a mix of both. WXYT is the only other station I can remember hearing on this frequency.
I know gr8oldies has reported hearing Delaware's WDLR, a sister station of WQTT, in Tennessee. Even with the lobe WQTT sends southeast at night, I have never seen a report of it being DXd.

Steve Green NEPA said:

Daytime is the semi-local WLBR Lebanon (the one in PA :- )
Never logged your WHBF back on Long Island, Cyberdad. I did get WEIC Charleston IL one night.

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WEIC is now gone. As for WHBF (WKBF), they don't send much signal to the east to protect WXYZ (WXYT). The 5kw nighttime pattern has two main lobes, basically north-south. And a third, slightly smaller lobe to the west-southwest. So I'm not surprised that we didn't make it to Long Island.

Sidebar "personal" note. I enjoyed my time at WHBF...an AM-FM-TV (Ch 4) combo, CBS affiliate. Goofy hours, lousy pay, but great experience. We actually had a seven person RADIO news staff. We also helped out the TV crew (I carried a 16mm silent film camera with me in the news cruiser). It was my last on-air gig, before I moved on to sales and ultimately publishing for more than 30 years. My morning drive news partner was Paul Meincke, a name that may be familiar to those in the Chicago area from his 30 years as a reporter at WLS-TV. Great guy both to work with and hang out with. I also did some local sports color with rookie PBP guy Greg Schulte, longtime radio voice of Arizona D-backs (who also did PBP for the NFL Cardinals, and NBA Suns). We (and our colleagues) were basically all just kids doing radio for fun more than anything else.)

Here in Wood Dale, IL in the near NW suburb of Chicago:

Daytime: Mostly weak WWCA although WKBF heard in the past.
Nightime: WXYT and WKBF the common ones at night

DX/RETRO: WLIK (Newport, TN), WKZT (Fulton, KY), WNLS (Tallahassee, FL), WMKT (Charlevoix, MI) among others. Also two foreign ones: XEPRL (Leon, Mexico) and Radio Reloj Cuba.

In NW San Antonio...

Daytime: Usually nothing, but one early winter afternoon in 2015 I caught a very weak KEPS, a Tejano station in Eagle Pass, TX.

Night: KFLC "Univision Deportes" in Benbrook (near Dallas) and XERPL "La Poderosa" in León, with the former being most dominant. On rare occasions, in KFLC's null I've heard a very weak KINN, a news station in Alamogordo, NM.

Sunset: KFLC is always fairly strong, but once almost exactly two years ago I heard KNWC "Faith Radio" in Sioux Falls, SD, mixing in for a bit.

Sunrise: Sports station KRXO "The Franchise" in Claremore, OK, eventually comes up and sometimes fights and takes over KFLC for a while before everything is gone. In its null, occasionally talk station KSCB in Liberal, KS, can be heard briefly and sometimes KINN (much more reliably than at night).

Central Baldwin Co., Alabama:

Daytime: Semi-local WIJD Prichard (Mobile) with Christian teaching.
Nights: Despite the dial position, I often hear Spanish language talk programming. Sounds vaguely Cuban but I don't think it's Reloj because no clock tones. And it's not Progreso or Rebelde since I can hear those on HF and compare directly.