What I'm Reading Now

New York City AM radio has a presence in my neck of the woods. So over the years at different times, I have been a regular listener of WABC, WCBS, WFAN, WINS, WOR and WNBC—AM stations whose daytime and nighttime coverage area included my hometown, Waterbury, Connecticut and thereabouts.

Being a New York City radio fan as well as a student of radio history, I purchased The Airwaves of New York, subtitled Illustrated Histories of 156 AM Stations in the Metropolitan Area, 1921-1996 as soon as I saw it while book browsing books on Amazon recently.

The first chapter of the book concentrates on the history of AM radio in New York City and briefly touches upon the history of FM radio and television.

The second chapter describes the history of each AM station that operated in New York City between 1921 and 1996... 156 stations from WAAM to WZRC. (The book was published 20 years ago, so the history after 1996 is not covered.)

The book is well illustrated with photos of the radio stations and the people who staffed the stations.

I enjoyed reading the book and recommend it.

1600 x 2

Logged two new stations on 1600 kHz last night.

WKWF in Key West, Florida, transmitting 500 watts, 1282 miles to the south-southwest at 0350 UTC

WEJS in Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania, transmitting 20 watts, 226 miles to the west-southwest at 0358 UTC

Equipment used: ICOM IC-R8600 receiver and 80-meter inverted Vee antenna.

I heard other stations on 1600 around the same time including a French language station, but I was unable to identify them.

WEUP

WEUP 1700 kHz in Huntsville, AL, transmitting 1 kW 881 miles to the southwest heard here Thursday for my 32nd state on the AM/MW band!

Equipment used: ICOM IC-R8600 receiver and the Hy-Gain 18AVT/WB-A vertical antenna.

KKLF

My dog woke me up at 4 AM to take her outside. After she was done, I climbed back upstairs and concluded I could go back to sleep after I checked the radio bands.

Starting at 1710 kHz, I slowly began tuning and stopped short at 1700 kHz where I heard a weak signal. WJCC (Miami Springs, Florida) shows up here often enough that I thought that's what I was hearing, but after a few minutes, I realized that the back-to-back music with no announcements was not WJCC's format.

With no announcements, it was going to be a difficult ID, so I had Radio-Locator list all the stations on 1700. Then I went down the list clicking each station's audio link to find the station audio that matched what I was hearing on the air. Thus, I was able to identify the station: KKLF in Richardson, Texas, transmitting 1 kW, 1419 miles to my west-southwest; my first logging of a Texas station on the AM band!

Equipment used was the ICOM IC-R8600 receiver and the Hy-Gain 18AVT/WB-A vertical antenna.

WNYZ-LP

Four years ago, I logged what I thought was a pirate radio station on 87.7 MHz listening on my Subaru's stock radio in my workplace parking lot. The station had a Russian language format and for some reason, I had it located in Brooklyn, New York.

VHF has been wide open most mornings this month and while tuning around the low end of the FM band with my IC-R8600, I noticed a weak signal below the FM band on 87.75 MHz. It was a foreign language format that I was unable to identify.

Hearing it again this morning, I researched 87.75 and discovered that it was the audio for "low-power television stations in the United States that operate on VHF channel 6 as radio stations." (Source: Wikipedia).

Wikipedia listed the Channel 6 stations and the one nearest to my location was WNYZ-LP transmitting from Brooklyn with a Korean language format simulcasting WWRU radio (1660 kHz) in Jersey City, New Jersey.

Wikipedia indicated that the station had a Russian language format ("Danu Radio") in the past, so my 2014 logging on 87.7 was incorrect, but that was due to the fact that my car radio tuned in 100 kHz steps. Considering the low power (3 kW) of WNYZ-LP and being off frequency by 50 kHz, I was lucky to hear them at all on my car radio!

And for what it's worth, I just checked (at 1600 UTC) and now that the band opening has collapsed, I can no longer hear them, whereas their signal was full-quieting although not strong two hours ago.