DTV

As much as I am sick of hearing about the DTV conversion. There is one piece of fallout that I did not think about. Channel six audio on the analog broadcast was able to be picked up on the FM radio band. This means that people could get news and information from the television station while in their cars. This might be a big issue for some and not so much for others. It will be interesting to see how this affects the markets with a channel six that has gone away on the fm bands.

WAWK is back on the air

It was not long after my post yesterday that WAWK came back. they did have a weaker signal and went off and on a few more times. There have been power outages in the area and ice storms are hard on everything. It has been a miserable few days around here and has reminded how glad I am that I run a bunch of my radios off batteries that I can keep listening even if power goes out. Luckily, power outages were not an issue for us this time around but with the weather chill being so dangerous, I am thinking of taking my weather radio with me even on errands.I have been listening to my police scanner more and paying more attention to what is coming on. I have been hearing some scary stuff the last few days. I got a feeling this is going to be a long harsh, soul sucking winter. Try to keep warm everyone and keep those radios playing.

WAWK is off the air

One of my favorite radio stations is off the air right now. I think it is because of the ice storm that North East Indiana got hit by. I could not get it at all yesterday and all I have heard today was a few short transmissions. Hopefully I can get the full story when the station gets back on the air.

Happy Birthday WBCQ

Ten years ago today, WBCQ officially went on the air for the first time with the show Allen Weiner World Wide. I do not exactly remember when I first started listening to them but the more I listen, the more I think it was close to the beginning or at least with8in the first couple of years. The hard part was that I was off and on listening to shortwave that it is hard to pin it down. I have been going for QSL fairly regularly since 2005 and been listening off and on to shortwave since before I was married. But anyway, I am getting off track. Happy Birthday, WBCQ.

WBCQ

I have been repeatedly hearings about woes at WBCQ. Between losing paying programmers and the rising costs of energy, they have been really feeling the pinch. I have notice their transmissions getting shorter and weaker. I have heard they are trying cost cutting options. I really hope they can bring it together and keep the station on the air. I have enjoyed their programming for years and would miss them. I will I was in a spot to help out but that is not in the cards right now. Seams a bit hollow but there it is.

CHWO changing call letters

It sounds like CHWO AM 740 out of Toronto is changing its call letters. There is some scuttle butt there is going to be some big changes at the station as well. WE will see. I don't have much information so far.

Listening To CHWO

Yesterday's article reminded me of listening to CHWO (740 AM) from Toronto except in reverse. CHWO is a 24/7 station but due to its distance from me, I can only hear it starting about 30-40 minutes after dark depending on conditions. It makes it kinda odd that WAWK, a local daytime medium station cuts off usually before sunset and then a bit after sunset, Toronto starts propagating. It is weird. I lose WAWK so it does not going farther and interfering with another station but with Toronto, I start getting it because it si on a clearer frequency. One o fthe neat things about DXing.

WAWK Scheduling of Broadcasts

This week has reminded mer on how WAWK's broadcasting changes with the seasons. This is the Week of the Noble County Fair and is the only week where they have live programming for the full week in the evening. It is usually prerecorded music. Before I go further, i should also say they are a daytime only AM station. Usually their only live evening programs are on the weekend. This is also not true for the year for during winter they usually sign off about 5 or 5:30 PM. This usually means that the prerecorded stuff is also gone during the winter. You can usually tell if it is prerecorded by the way they sign the station off. If, it is a live broadcast, they say say they are going off and play the national anthem. If it is on auto pilot, it justs goes off the air and a lot of times, it does so in the middle of a song. Makes for some interesting listening sometimes.

WBCQ Friday Night Line up

I got to listen to WBCQ's line up last night. I started listening to Blue Grass State of Mind. I always did like bluegrass. The crew from Lumpy Gravy radio show was filling in for Jenny with her 867-5309 show. They try to be this drug culture music show and I got a feeling most of it is show. They place generally good music and go from the weird to the funny and are mostly enjoyable good programming. Allen Weiner World Wide came on next. That one is a talk show and is a loose show on topics of radio and how WBCQ is going. They have lost two major programmers. Good Friends Radio and the Christian Media went on to other grounds. Good Friends has some good programming but Christian Media is one I am not going to miss. I am Christian but i have never been a big fan of religious programming. I have to wade through too much to fin d something good. I can see there is some stuff that is good but I am not in the target audience of the show so it really is not as relevant to me. The signal started off poor but got steadily better and last night's storm did not interfere too badly.
I also remembered to stay on a bit later and tune into Radio Sweden on 6010 KHZ. I missed hearing them. I really need to listen to the shack more often.

Until later.

WLW 700 AM

Found another good night time listen on the medium wave band. It's WLW out of Cincinnati on 700 KHZ. When I listened in the wee AM this morning, it was coming in as all 5's on the SINPO rating. It the first time I heard the show, America's Trucking network. It's a talk radio show for trucker's and is both serious and entertaining. The host I heard today was Bubba Bo and he does good job dealing with the serious and fun topics. He has been asking to hear Christmas carols while talking about issues facign truckers. Check out both the radio station and the program here.

Small Town Radio

If you have not figured it out from this blog so far, WAWK out of Kendallville is one of my favorite stations. I feel sorry for the DJ this morning. There are a ton of school delays and closings and he is alone trying to run the station and take the calls for updates. The challenges of small town radio. I do like how committed they are to storm response or at least severe weather response. I really hope they get approved for 24/7 transmission. They are the best for weather and they are are one of the closest stations to our house. A little west to they can tell us what it coming. A lot handy. So dear Mr FCC reviewer, do the people around here a favor and give us a 24/7 station. They have had a lot of support from alot of areas and weather reports were one of the reasons in favor. Just getting emphasized again today with the school closings.

AM 740 CHWO

CHWO is a great station. Plays great music. They play anything from swing and big band to rockabilly and do whop. It's a taste of nostalgia radio. They also do comedy routines and radio shows when the golden age of radio. The best thing and nestet for me is that the station is in Toronto and I can hear it clearly at night here in North East Indiana. On the right night it has a SINPO rating of all 5's and sounds better than some local channels. The Ontario DX Association does QSL cards for the station. Or least they use to. I sound check into that. Look for and update on this in further blog posts.