22 MORE FORGOTTEN Radio Stations You Could Only Hear After Midnight

At two in the morning, with everyone asleep and your ear against the speaker, a station you had never heard in daylight arrived clear enough to hear the man breathe between records. A radio station in Manhattan went dark every evening because the sun had set over a town in Indiana. A man in Albuquerque spent thirty-eight years in court over a frequency the government told him was temporary. And in Tulsa, a band nobody wanted got handed the only slot the station had open, at midnight, and Western swing reached America because of it. In this documentary, we count down twenty-two more American AM stations whose signals covered the country after dark. Why was a station in Boston allowed to aim its antenna when almost none of the others were? Which network quietly rearranged three stations in three states so its Chicago signal would come in cleaner? And why did the first radio station in the world only fire up its biggest transmitter between one and six in the morning? In this video, we cover: Sunset In Fort Wayne: New York City went silent on a clock set in Indiana. Thirty-Eight Years In Court: A temporary wartime assignment that outlasted the lawyers who argued it. The Midnight Audition: Bob Wills got the only slot left, and it changed country music. A Cigar Advertisement: How a Philadelphia radio spot built CBS. One To Six In The Morning: Pittsburgh ran the transmitter the law would not allow, when nobody was awake. Chapters: 0:00 - Why the Night Was Different 0:48 - WOR New York 2:22 - WCCO Minneapolis 3:33 - WBZ Boston 4:50 - KWKH Shreveport 5:58 - WBT Charlotte 7:33 - WHAM Rochester 9:01 - WGY Schenectady 10:05 - KFAB Omaha 11:22 - WPTF Raleigh 12:37 - KOA Denver 13:48 - KKOB Albuquerque 15:14 - KSTP St. Paul 16:06 - WTAM Cleveland 16:57 - KXEL Waterloo 19:10 - KVOO Tulsa 20:53 - KEX Portland 22:57 - KNX Los Angeles 23:44 - WCBS New York 24:57 - WBBM Chicago 26:07 - WCAU Philadelphia 27:25 - WOWO Fort Wayne 28:48 - KDKA Pittsburgh If you enjoyed this look back at the signals that carried across the country after dark, subscribe for more forgotten American radio history. AM Radio, Clear Channel, Jean Shepherd, KDKA, WOR, WBZ, Louisiana Hayride, Bob Wills, Skywave, Radio History, Nostalgia