Observation on AM radio: Not as Right as it used to be

[greekspeak]

I have mentioned this subject before, but here I go again. Since I was abou 14 I have been interested in Radio DXing. That is, seeing what stations you can get on radio. I specialise in AM radio. Back in the old days, there was little RW radio to be heard. Then it mushroomed. BUT. I have recently been scanning the dial again. The last time I did so was in 2004. Can I say that in 2004 I found no liberal voices on evening AM radio? NONE. Now, every evening, I find liberal voices. Not on one station. On no fewer than SIX. Air America, and others. One was WBT Charlotte. I was SHOCKED. WBT and WCKY in Cincy both broadcasting liberal voices at 50 KW all over America. I live in Tallahassee, FL and could hear my concerns being aired in Cinncinati! Our voices are OUT THERE--far more than 18 months ago. Is this but another sign of the right being less controlling? What is up here? No complaints...just happy with what I am hearing.

[Eric J in MN]

1. What is Radio DXing?

nt

[greekspeak]

3. Dx stands for "distance, really."

I like to see how far I can hear radio waves from my location. AM radio wave travel well at night. If you turn on your radio and seek closely, you can find stations from all over America.

[Warpy]

13. I was a total AM radio distance junkie when I was a kid

in NC. I'd crash out after supper, get up around ten and start listening all over the dial. After midnight is when the stations would start playing the good blues. Ten at night was Jean Shepherd on WOR. Some stations were playing old radio serials. Garner Ted Armstrong was big in Alabama and I thought he was the most brilliant satirist I'd ever heard. Then I found out he was serious, imagine my shock. WLS in Chicago played the new bubble gum stuff and WOWO in Ft. Wayne was garbage over about a tenth of the dial due to its massive power.

Thanks for the blast from the past.

[greekspeak]

14. Thank you for understanding exactly where I come from

I can hear all the stations you mention. I have memories of nearly 20 years ago of what the dial looked like. Not as polarized. God, Talk Net was everyhwhere. I love the old radio shows. I have lots of CDs and Tapes. They force the imagination. I like that!!! :hi:

[Gloria]

15. Me, too, Warpy! Had the old pink radio picking up Wheeling, WVa

loud and clear at night, after listening to Jean Shepherd (I lived outside of NYC and went in one New Year's Eve to Town Hall to see him!! We all got kazoos!)

Used to get WOWO and WLS and also that big station out of Buffalo, really well. I forget the call letters on the Buffalo station--WKBW??

Today, I DX shortwave, but also like to pick up stations on the regular dial...in fact, one RW station out of Oklahoma wipes out Air America El Paso by the late afternoon. Of course, we are inundated with Mexican radio stations.

The prize, however, is picking up KGO San Francisco and listening to Bernie Ward--on good nights I can actually hear him pretty well through the noise...I'm in Las Cruces, NM 50 miles N of El Paso, so that's pretty cool!

[Speck Tater]

24. Wow. Blast from the past!

I had a 30-foot long wire dipole stretched from the garage roof to the house roof when I was a kid. I lived in Los Angeles and regularly picked up WMAQ in Chicago and another power house station in Baton Rouge that I don't recall the call letters for, (but they had an unknown DJ named Wolfman Jack back in the late 50's and early 60's). The best I ever did was to pick up and tape record a station in Boston. From L.A. that's about as DX as AM can get.

I used a Heath Kit tuner (anybody old enouth to remember Heath Kit and the big, fat Allied Radio catalog?) and a homemade 2 tube RF pre-amp.

[greekspeak]

27. My dad talks about Heath Kit tuners

And cats' whisker antennas. He was did radio field work in Germany in the 50's, and knows lots of great stuff about how to get great stations. His father, in turn, back when radio was pretty much brand new, built a set himself and the family listened to it.

[electropop]

4. DX = distance

An old-time hobby, trying to hear the farthest possible stations. Popular for AM and shortwave signals (you can receive shortwave from around the world). I works best at night, due to solar influence on the ionosphere. The ionosphere is a layer of charged particles at the outer limits of the atmosphere, and under the right conditions it can channel radio signals for long distances.

[greekspeak]

7. Thank you,,,exactly what I want to say

Shortwave allows us to hear stations in Europe that are not afraid to uncover the crap in America.

[Roland99]

18. Check out this site. I did some DTV DXing when it first went live here.

http://dxfm.com/

[greekspeak]

28. I have done TV dxing on two occasions...by accident

The phenomenon of ducting is fascinating...the TV waves just bounce around in the clouds and come down long distances away pretty clearly (channels 2-4 I think). My personal experiences. One day after school I was watching TV and flipping. On channel 4, I was getting two stations at once. I was able to get each them in clearly for long enough to find one was from Florida and the other from South Carolina. This was when I was in southwestern Missouri. At another time in that same place, I got a station from Montana, either on 2 or 4. We had a channel 3 in Springfield, and a freind of mine's dad worked there. They got reports from all over the U.S. of reception, as far as California and New York.

[electropop]

2. The radio stations have decided to try a radical new idea:

Making money by broadcasting shows that people actually want to hear. I know, I know, sounds crazy, but what the hell, they've been hemorrhaging listeners, it's worth a shot.

[greekspeak]

5. Maybe radical. But it our voices ARE there

Slamming the war in Iraq, domestic policies. And not just in a hateful stance. A simple repetition of what the facts bear out. REality is scary, kids. And finally SOME are waking up to the boogey man.

[junkiebrewster]

6. a question

What are the call numbers for WBT and WCKY?

[greekspeak]

8. WBT is 1110 AM. WCKY is 1530

You are liable to get them better the further east you are. When I lived in Missouri, I could hear WCKY easily, sometimes WBT. In Tallahassee, WBT comes in crystal clear and WCKY pretty well. But look for other stations too. I think some of the shows I heard were locally originating. If I can offer a bit of advice, if you want to DX well, the car radio works well. The hatemongers are there. No doubt. But now the liberal voices are there!!

[junkiebrewster]

9. I live in SC

I live in SC, so I thought I might have a chance at the Charlotte station.

[greekspeak]

11. Should be no problem...peaks my Short Wave Radio at highest strength

And I am quite a bit far south. Now, this was ONE show. I do not know what else they run at that station. But I heard the Lionel show. Slamming the shit out of Shrub.

[CottonBear]

25. I live in Northeast Georgia. WCKY comes in great after dark!

I listen to the Randi Rhodes rebroadcast (they apparently broadcast Ed Shultz during Randi's 3-7 PM slot. The rebroadcast may begin at 6PM but I'm not sure. I'm never in my car then and it's a little too early to get the station then anyway. Air Atlanta is usually barely audible here only 80 miles from Atlanta and mostly doesn't come in at all.

[libnnc]

10. who is liberal on WBT?

[greekspeak]

12. Lionel show

All I heard was slamming of Shrub.

[mucifer]

20. Here in Chicago when our station wcpt goes down after dark WCKY am

is usually coming in fairly strong for a few more hours of lefty radio til it turns into christian garbage.

[Gold Metal Flake]

16. What are you using for a receiver?

Can't really DX around here, as I am surrounded by mountains. Can't even get the local stations!

Your report is certainly welcome news!

[greekspeak]

17. I use an OLD radio,,,Realistic DX 440

I bought it in 1991 with money recieved from helping my uncle work on an addition to his home

[Gold Metal Flake]

21. Ya call that old?

I have a small collection of vintage receivers, not that they are of any use where I live now. I just hooked up my Hallicrafters SX-24 (1939-1943) with a quicky antenna but it's just a dissapointment. I'll try a roof-mounted L antenna in a couple of weeks.

Those Realistic receivers are nice. When I was on flatter land, I used an external copper wire antenna and a ground to the plumbing and could grab all sorts of stuff. Kinda fun just to spend an evening twirling the dial listening to far away stations.

[greekspeak]

26. I own a Hallicrafters S 38E...but it does not work too well anymore

It looks cool though. Alas...I wish I had time to DX like I did in my youth.

[Gold Metal Flake]

29. The main problem with old radios.

The most frequent reasons for poor performance in an old tube-type radio are dirty controls and aged capacitors.

Treating dirty controls is easy to do with contact cleaner. The TV tuner cleaner at Radio Shack has a lubricant that can become very messy when you have to use it to clean all of the potentiometers and switches in something like an S-38. I use something like Blue Shower and follow it up with a little of the lubricated stuff. My SX-24 needs another cleaning, in fact.

Capacitors fail as a result of a breakdown in the dielectric in film caps or the evaporation of the moisture in the electrolyte in the electrolytic caps. They are fairly easy to replace using film caps and electrolytics from a supplier like Mouser.com. Many old radios are wired point-to-point, and you just remove and replace caps one at a time using some wire to reach where yu need to go as needed.

Usually, the resistors and coils are fine. The tubes are also usually good, good enought to work anyway.

Alignment is another issue. I still don't have a signal generator that will allow me to align any of my receivers. But, they always work fine when I am in open ground.

If you wanna discuss the S-38 further, drop me a PM.

[Liberal In Texas]

19. When you think of how long the AM band has been saturated with the RW

and one "wanna be" Limpball after another trying to make the big bucks, you have to think that the RW format has not only become over-saturated, but also tedious to many people who aren't buying their lock-step line of BS anymore.

Any savvy station manager or owner (not a part of the RW cabal) who wants to carve out a new market for his station, has to be looking at progressive, liberal talkers as an alternative to the same old same old.

Even some former "conservative" talk show hosts who have been out of work for a few years are popping back up with new "liberal" shows. These people are probably nothing more than opportunists, but the overall trend is good for our side. And good for some balance in dialogue for the average Joe.

[Gold Metal Flake]

22. Kick, because this promotes general optimism.

Those stations turning away from hate radio and towards truth radio should be commended.

[Clark2008]

23. Too bad that's not true of where I live.

It's all Rush, Neil Boortz, Sean Hannnity and even the local guys are right-wing.

Lionel does come on in the evenings, but, by that time, the signal is fast-fading and you really can't hear but about 10 minutes of the show.

There's no AAR (unless you can afford satellite radio) and, while there's Tammy Bruce, she's not really a Democrat, is she? Heck, the news on our local and most popular talk radio station is even piped in by Faux News, damnit.

Sadly, Dems and/or liberals in East Tennessee have no choices but to listen to music instead of talk radio.

[pstokely]

30. WCKY chops up the AAR programming

and it airs fundie programming after midnight (at least it did before I got XM last fall).