AM Frequency of the week: 1660

Far northwest suburbs o Chicago....

Days: 1660 is normally blank save for some occasional wintertime skywave from WQLR (Kalamazoo, MI).

Nights: A mix of weak signals, KQWB (Fargo, ND) and WQLR most likely to rise to the top (but not all that often).

Retro/Other Location. My first X-band catch was the New Jersey 1660, Which had the channel....and the entire expanded portion of the band....all to itself. The result was that it was pretty much a nightly regular around here.

Then there's KXOL from Salt Lake City. IIRC, KXOL came to the X-band with an oldies format on 1660. I used to hear it all the time at night on my biz trips up and down the west coast. I also heard it here in the Chicago area one spring morning here in 2005 about an hour after sunrise. They may have been on day power at the time, but whatever, the signal was listenable and steady for about a half hour.

(There's no longer a 1660 in the Salt Lake City area. I don't know for sure, but my guess is that what's now on 1640 in Salt Lake City is the successor to KXOL/1660)

In the near north Chicago burbs it's pretty much the same for me. During the day basically nothing. At night Kalamazoo and sometimes Fargo mix weakly. I also remember hearing New Jersey all alone in the early X-band days.

Day - nothing
Night - KBRE Merced CA (Rock) the usual one here, sometimes mixing with KQWB West Fargo ND (Fox Sports, Bison 1660). Used to hear KXOL Brigham City UT before they went off. Oldies, then Spanish.
WQLR Kalamazoo MI (Fox Sports) and WBCN Charlotte NC (then CBS Sports, now Southern Rock) have also been logged. WBCN is my only North Carolina station in the logbook. The NOAA TIS in Eugene OR has also been logged, operated by ODOT.

Wanted - Everything else in the United States (along with WGIT in PR). Kansas City should be easy. Never logged. Also waiting for my first time for KRZI Waco.

Orange County, TX, Days nothing, nights KRZI, Waco, TX with Spanish underneath.

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

Daytime: depending on the loop antenna orientation it could be one of the local TIS (Palatine, Skokie or Lisle). Sometimes WQLR.
Nightime: usualy WQLR (ex-WQSN) or KQWB

DX/RETRO: as mention by cyberdad WJDM (Elizabeth, NJ) used to rule the frequency. They are now WWRU with Korean language programming, but not longer common. KXTR (Kansas City, KS) used to be an interesting catch with classical music programming before switching to sports. Also heard KXOL (Brigham City, UT), KRZI (ex-KAXY - Waco, TX), WFNA (Charlotte, NC). WMIB (Marco Island, FL) logged thanks to a specially arranged DX test in 2001. Also in 1999 WD2X experimental station in Cincinnati, OH was received in the Chicago area. Have been trying for WGIT casanovas to finally put Puerto Rico in the log book, but no luck yet. Also hoping for KBRE Merced, CA but that's probably not very likely.

Another "memory refresher"....

The 1660 from Marco Island (now WCNZ) makes the daytime hop across the gulf to where we stay on the beach near Pensacola. Very weak, but listenable enough to get a positive ID. About 450 miles distance.

Daytime - nothing

Nighttime - most of the time it's not anything I can identify but tonight, it's a strong KBRE from Merced, California on both my PR-D5 and the Maui SDR receiver.

Daytime here is nothing unless there's significant cloud cover over the SE. Then its WBCN Charlotte (NC). At night they are pretty reliable on the frequency also.
They now rebroadcast "The Smoke" FM southern rock. BUT they used to be news/talk but that didn't work out for them.