I am so utterly glad that WVGB 1490 got out like this. Mark Jones, the owner, is a DX enthusiast himself - I've met him at DX conventions.

The reception itself is also a very good one. Northern and coastal North America is easy pickings for someone with a good antenna system in Scandinavia and northern Europe. But from reading reports, it seems that the interior is a lot harder to hear. Furthermore, 1490 is one of five frequencies reserved for low-power local-oriented stations. The channels are known in DX circles as graveyards, largely because the channels sound like a jumble of dozens of stations. I could sit on one for five minutes and be lucky to make out anything substantial.

I've never heard WVGB AM. Even though Mark once ran a DX test on 1490 with morse code and all kinds of bells, whistles and tones, the best I could do from the Kawarthas during the test was a station out of Sutton WV. I have the FM in my logbook but it's from far enough back that I can't easily find the details.

Thanks for posting this, RA!

RadioActive wrote:

In addition to 1490, those other AM low power frequencies are 1230, 1240, 1340 and 1450.

Maximum power is usually 1,000 watts day and only 250 at night. 

None of them go very far and even if you have one in your city, depending on where you live, they can be hard to get at night. 

Actually, there is no difference between day and night power with "graveyarders" now.  The Class "D" stations can operate with 1000 watts at night now also if they wish.

WECK 1230?

Forgot about 1400 - another AM frequency you can barely get unless you're in the immediate area. It was home to the great WYSL in Buffalo for many years. It's now Urban Oldies WWWS, which has its own FM repeater at 107.3.

Last edited by RadioActive (September 22, 2025 5:33 pm)

I've found radio propagation can be very selective in terms of regions and it makes sense why this 1kW Mississippi station was heard in Europe above all the other 1kW's on that same channel.  As an example, here are two 50kW east coast stations about 600 miles apart, received reasonably clearly on different nights in the UK. Granted, they are much more powerful than WVBG, but it gives some idea how propagation determines whether you can receive one and not the other.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqoDWdKajyI   1010 CFRB heard in the UK
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hv2KctNdow4   1010 WINS heard in the UK