Just wondering if there is now a U.S. AM radio station that can be heard from coast to coast? This would be a station whose signal comes off of the tower and can be heard directly (without satellite or relays of any kind) directly to a standard radio in a state or states on the Atlantic Coast and the Pacific Coast. Back in the 1960's WGN 720-AM in Chicago ran an add in Broadcasting magazine claiming that station could be heard "from the Tappan Zee (a bridge north of New York City) to the Pacific sea". I don't think it's signal does now, but is there another U.S. AM station that does?
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U.S. AM Radio Station Heard Coast To Coast
- Thread starter Cincinnati Kid
- Start date
40 years ago, before every AM station had a nighttime signal, I could pick up several stations on the eastern seaboard from my house in Portland Oregon. It was just a matter of waiting for any other stations to be out of the way first. I imagine that prior to the 1960s, when several clear channels added an additional primary station, it would've been quite easy. Even without that advantage, WOAI is pretty centrally located and up until recently should've been a fairly easy catch.
I think when Herb Jepco did his overnight show...he was originally on KSL Salt Lake....and WHAS Louisville. Ity coverred a good deal of the continent.
KSL = http://www.nf8m.com/pattern_maps/US-CA_nighttime/N-map_1160KHz.html
WHAS = http://www.nf8m.com/pattern_maps/US-CA_nighttime/N-map_840KHz.html
Add WBZ to that plan, and it would cover almost the whole US, no?
http://www.nf8m.com/pattern_maps/US-CA_nighttime/N-map_1030KHz.html
I haven't heard Herb Jepko's name since the last millennium! I recall hearing him on KSL, but not on WHAS.
Indeed. Of course, there was a time when WBZ's powerful directional signal could be heard on the West Coast. KTWO et alia changed all that.
"Herb joined radio station KSL first doing mid-days, and then in April 1963, becoming the station's morning show disc jockey, a shift he held throughout the rest of 1963. Despite being in a very visible shift, Herb was puzzled that KSL signed off at midnight, even though it was a 50,000-watt clear channel station whose booming signal reached most of the western half of North America. On November 4, 1975,[1] the show was picked up by the Mutual Broadcasting System and became the first nationally syndicated call-in talk program. One of the stations that carried it via Mutual, WHAS in Louisville, was a 50,000-watt "flamethrower" like KSL. The two stations' combined power brought Nitecaps to nearly all of North America.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herb_Jepko
WBAP in Fort Worth-Dallas would be the best bet for this feat.
I worked there years ago and produced a night time talk show that got calls from all over the country and up in to Canada.
We would occasionally get calls from South Carolina and once got a call from Los Angeles.
Check out the night time pattern: http://www.nf8m.com/pattern_maps/US-CA_nighttime/N-map_820KHz.html
I worked there years ago and produced a night time talk show that got calls from all over the country and up in to Canada.
We would occasionally get calls from South Carolina and once got a call from Los Angeles.
Check out the night time pattern: http://www.nf8m.com/pattern_maps/US-CA_nighttime/N-map_820KHz.html
Based on its location and looking at its night-time pattern, WBAP is certainly a good bet for being heard coast-to-coast. Now with computers, streaming audio, etc. being heard over that distance may not sound like a giant accomplishment, but if it is being done through the air, it really is quite a feat. I tend to think a signal going east to west across the country may do better when transmitted from the southern portion of the U.S. because it more easily may avoid the higher portions of the Appalachian Mountains to the east and the Rocky Mountains to the west although the night-time ionosphere skip assists with this as well.
I always remember this Dallas-Fort Worth station having two sets of call-letters; WBAP for a portion of the broadcasting day and WFAA for the other portion.
I always remember this Dallas-Fort Worth station having two sets of call-letters; WBAP for a portion of the broadcasting day and WFAA for the other portion.
With 570 AM being used for whichever operator did not have the rights to be on 820.
I recall in the early 60's neither of them operated in overnights, so I'd tape HJED from Cali, Colombia, with a timer to have music to listen to in Cleveland, OH, the next evening when I did my homework. They had an all music show sponsored by the Colombian division of Chrysler, so there were very few ads... and the show was directed at truckers!
HJED was 50 kw and also on 820 using beautiful Westinghouse transmitters.
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Gulf Coast to Pacific Coast is undoubtedly easier: WWL 870 and KVNS Brownsville on 1700. Both have been heard here in the PNW numerous times.
If you include Cuba into the mix, Rebelde on 1180 is audible even today in the PNW when conditions are right, and it's bordering the Atlantic. I heard it two nights ago, and snippets of it last night, just on a PR-D5 (behind two other stations, a regional and a semi-local).
If you include Cuba into the mix, Rebelde on 1180 is audible even today in the PNW when conditions are right, and it's bordering the Atlantic. I heard it two nights ago, and snippets of it last night, just on a PR-D5 (behind two other stations, a regional and a semi-local).
Judging by your screen name, you probably know that at one time WLW in Cincinnati operated at 500,000 watts, and had been designated as "the nation's station." But while that might have been necessary at one time, a decision was made that one station couldn't have that much power and be that important. Especially since radio stations were independent businesses, rather than owned by the government. The American system of broadcasting was more decentralized, and more independent stations, rather than one station for everyone. This is at the core of how the FCC operates. So they cut the power of WLW down to 50,000 watts, and started to license more localized stations, filling up the spectrum. Then they came up with the concept of a national alert system that all stations had to carry. That way, if a national emergency happened, the government could use every station to reach everyone, rather than one station that was heard coast to coast. So the gradual chipping away at station power, coupled with the gradual increase in spectrum interference and noise, has made it virtually impossible for any AM station to be heard coast to coast....unless some stations co-operate and sign off...and certain weather circumstances co-operate. But it would be a freak occurrence, not something that would happen regularly.
I have done some study on WLW over the years - even did my masters thesis on it. One of those who I interviewed at that time was Jack Gray who was living in the Mason, Ohio area where the WLW transmitter and tower were located. He had been an engineer at WLW when they were 500,000 watts which was basically the years 1934-1939. He related to me that one night, some experimental activity was done and as a part of that, the power was increased to 750,000 watts.
During my conversations with him, Mr. Gray related some thoughts on the decision made by the federal government to have WLW reduce power back to 50,000 watts. Some of it was based on complaints by other stations that the 500,000 watts was interfering with their signals. This particularly involved a station in Toronto and resulted in WLW engineers building a smaller tower to the south of the WLW tower to try and direct the powerful signal away from Toronto (which actually resulted in WLW's signal being stronger to the south). It was also pointed out that politics could have played a part in the decision as the Franklin Roosevelt administration was in power at the time and station owner Powell Crosley, Jr. was a staunch republican.
Despite all of the research that I did for that thesis and in the studies I did both before and afterward, it has never been clear to me just how far WLW was heard on a regular basis when they were 500,000 watts. I've heard that the daytime signal was so great that the station could be clearly received many hundreds of miles away. I've even heard that it could also be received in downtown Los Angeles. I do recall being told that even if a radio station increases its power ten times over what it was (50,000 watts to 500,000 watts) doesn't mean it can be heard ten times farther. Of course, suffice to say during that 1934-1939 period, WLW covered quite a few miles. It might be noted that even after the power was restored to 50,000 watts, WLW's 700 k.c. frequency was on a clear channel.
During my conversations with him, Mr. Gray related some thoughts on the decision made by the federal government to have WLW reduce power back to 50,000 watts. Some of it was based on complaints by other stations that the 500,000 watts was interfering with their signals. This particularly involved a station in Toronto and resulted in WLW engineers building a smaller tower to the south of the WLW tower to try and direct the powerful signal away from Toronto (which actually resulted in WLW's signal being stronger to the south). It was also pointed out that politics could have played a part in the decision as the Franklin Roosevelt administration was in power at the time and station owner Powell Crosley, Jr. was a staunch republican.
Despite all of the research that I did for that thesis and in the studies I did both before and afterward, it has never been clear to me just how far WLW was heard on a regular basis when they were 500,000 watts. I've heard that the daytime signal was so great that the station could be clearly received many hundreds of miles away. I've even heard that it could also be received in downtown Los Angeles. I do recall being told that even if a radio station increases its power ten times over what it was (50,000 watts to 500,000 watts) doesn't mean it can be heard ten times farther. Of course, suffice to say during that 1934-1939 period, WLW covered quite a few miles. It might be noted that even after the power was restored to 50,000 watts, WLW's 700 k.c. frequency was on a clear channel.
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Meanwhile, David Sarnoff, head of RCA and NBC, was very co-operative with the government, and even volunteered to serve in the Army during World War 2, where he was given the rank of Brigadier General. Having a single station with the power to compete with the NBC network, or with greater power than any of the NBC stations, probably didn't sit well with the General.
Listen to the coverage of JFK's visit to Dallas and assassination from WBAP on YouTube and you'll hear the switch back and forth in action. ABC stayed on 570 and NBC on 820 whether WBAP or WFAA was on those frequencies at the time.
For people living nearby, however, the signal was often intrusive: barbed-wire fences acted as WLW receivers; lights remained on perpetually (including the neon sign of a local hotel); and, owing to not-so-good vibrations, gutters detached themselves from buildings.
I've seen an approximation of what WLW's daytime coverage area would have been (using ground conductivity maps and what was on the surrounding frequencies at the time it shouldn't be difficult to figure out). The map I saw had the "red circle" covering Columbus and Indianapolis, with the next strongest band extending to Chicago and St. Louis. Downtown LA in the daytime is highly unlikely, even with daytime skip.
A fun fact I came across (I think in a WLW anniversary special) was WLW engineers slowly turning down the volume of the program just before switching to 500kW power. Because of the AGC, local listeners wouldn't really notice an increase in power, but because of that, the programming would sound louder once the switch was made
A fun fact I came across (I think in a WLW anniversary special) was WLW engineers slowly turning down the volume of the program just before switching to 500kW power. Because of the AGC, local listeners wouldn't really notice an increase in power, but because of that, the programming would sound louder once the switch was made
The story I read was that WOR complained and WLW had to put in a directional antenna. The amount of signal in the null was 50,000 watts! The article had pictures of the transmitter and seemed to be fairly technical but it was probably over 40 years ago that I saw it.
Wasn't WLW a Mutual affiliate, thus giving that network a boost at the time?
WLW was one of four founding stations in The Mutual in 1934. The others were WOR New York, WGN Chicago, and WXYZ Detroit. That was where the name came from. It was a shared services network. Each of the stations provided content for the network.
WLW left Mutual in 1936 to join NBC.
There are many stories such as these. Regarding the light continuing to burn at a local hotel (I heard it was a motel), I heard the owner of the facility actually put up a sign advising of what was causing it to stay on and got some publicity for his business that way. I have seen neon lights at a small watt FM station do this. A small building located under that station's tower had neon lighting and when they were switched off when the station was on the air, they continued to glow although not nearly as brightly as when they were getting electricity in the usual way.
In the late 1950's and up into the very early 1960's, WLW picked up some ABC Radio Network programs to go along with those from NBC. This included taping the news at five minutes before the hour and airing it on the following half-hour. They also picked up Don McNeills Breakfast Club on weekday mornings and, I seem to recall, Paul Harvey's News & Commentary on weekday evenings.
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