KMOX Radio, St. Louis

That one night back in high school where I discovered that I could tune in distant radio stations at night will forever remain special to me.  I was able to get all sorts of stations.  WCFL in Chicago.  CBM in Montreal.  WWWE in Cleveland.  WWVA in Wheeling.  WJR Detroit.  And more were to follow that night.

The prize catch of them all was KMOX St. Louis.  That was the most distant signal I got that night, and certainly the westernmost.  I remembered that station from a road trip when I was not even a teenager, as that the family favorite baseball team was the St. Louis Cardinals, and their games were carried on KMOX.  On one trip we stopped to take in a Cardinals game.  This was back in the era of Lou Brock and Bob Gibson.  Curt Flood and Orlando Cepeda.  Nelson Briles and Steve Carlton.  They were America's team in their day.

We had to resume the trip, so after catching the last half of the first game (it was a double header) and the first half of the second game, it was back on the road.  We listened to the game on KMOX as we continued on to Kansas.

I hadn't heard KMOX since then, until that one night.  KMOX was the standout catch, and I hadn't heard KMOX since then..........until last night.

I've been spending some nights tuning in those distant stations.  The radioscape here, of course, is different.  I've been getting stations in Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Utah, and other places.  Stations from Mexico have been tuned in and identified (my Spanish has gotten quite rusty over the years but it has been a help).  But the one station I had been most wanting to get, KMOX, just wasn't coming in.  I have checked on those nights set aside for listening, checking 1120 kHz, but nothing.  Oh, there is a station in Utah on that frequency that I can get almost every night, but I would null them out to see if KMOX was there.

Last night wasn't set aside for radio listening.  Several nights are spent laying upstairs in bed with Sheila.  She's watching her favorite shows and I'm working on some favorite novels.  Lots of time we talk.  I enjoy being with her and I very much enjoy being married to her.

Anyway, it was time to check the garage, and I thought, I'm going to go out there and turn on the radio to see if KMOX is there.  It was almost the top of the hour, when station IDs take place, and I didn't want to miss out if they were there.

This time, there was a signal on 1120.  Utah had been nulled out and the signal that I had was weak to fair, but copyable.  I thought I had heard a mention of KMOX but I wasn't sure.  There were some local commercials, some local weather, and I'm thinking, that might be the type of weather one would expect in St Louis this time of year.

I continued listening, and then got a definite ID.  It was them!  I was hearing KMOX for the first time since high school!  I then came back inside, and making use of a distance calculator, I learned that they were some 20 miles further away than KOMO out of Seattle, which I got a week or so ago.  KMOX held in steady, but I couldn't stay long as that I was tired and bedtime was fast approaching.

Long distance radio listening, called DXing within the hobby circles, is one hobby that I've indulged in off and on over the years.  Winter is the "season" for AM broadcast band DXing, and I've been doing plenty of it during this sabbatical.  Logging KMOX here has been a goal since I've resumed this, and I figured sooner or later I would get them.  KMOX has been heard in Europe and in South Africa.  I knew they would be heard here sooner or later.

Now if I can only get a positive log on WWL from New Orleans.