Chicago weekend radio, in all its turns.
WCPT 820 Weekend collects the station’s Saturday and Sunday voices into one uneven, lively stream. It moves from Bulls front-office talk and Chicago art listings to progressive politics, pro-aging wellness, veteran finance, and speculative universe theories.
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WCPT 820 Weekend gathers a wide stretch of the station’s Saturday and Sunday programming into one rolling feed. It is not built around one fixed host persona. The pleasure is in the rotation. One hour may sound like a Chicago sports room working overtime, with Angel Reese, the Bulls, Arturis Karnasovas, Mark Eversley, the White Sox, and college basketball all competing for oxygen. Another starts with the machinery of live radio fully visible, as Al Kindle keeps First Take at Daybreak moving while Tony Preckwinkle, Pastor Jones, the assessor Hines, and a substitute engineer get lined up. The Lightning Strike brings a more openly political temperature. It talks about party leadership, media manipulation, primary voting, union leaders, Texas, and the frustration of voters who feel the old Democratic playbook no longer matches their lives. Think Theory Radio is the oddball science corner. Damian Perdue and Pauly C riff through the Big Bang, cosmic microwave background, information theory, fractals, sticky-fluid universes, alien-sneeze jokes, and the limits of what anybody really knows. Then the feed can turn practical. Mind Over Matters with Dr. Amy Harris-Nuong frames aging as something to meet boldly rather than fear, blending wellness language with clinical and personal reflection. Around the Town Chicago stays close to Sunday habits: Orthodox Easter chatter, art in Lake Forest, Misericordia, local websites, phone numbers, and the easy friction of co-hosts talking over the week’s list. The Boys From Bridgeport carries neighborhood memory into veteran finance, business ownership, public service, and transition advice for people coming home to Chicago. Some segments are polished. Many are not. That is part of the identity: phones ring, guests wait, engineers scramble, callers thank the panel, and hosts steer back from digressions when the clock demands it. The feed works best for listeners who like local radio as a civic commons rather than a cleanly packaged vertical. It can be warm, blunt, earnest, speculative, and argumentative within the same weekend. Chicago is the anchor, but the subject matter ranges far beyond city limits.
Made for: For listeners who like live public-affairs radio with Chicago roots, rotating hosts, callers, guests, and room for politics, sports, wellness, science, and local culture. It especially suits people who prefer conversational texture over tightly edited narrative shows.
What sets it apart: Its range is the point: one feed can carry Bulls analysis, progressive political frustration, pro-aging wellness, cosmic speculation, dining and arts notes, and veteran finance. The live-radio imperfections make it feel local and immediate rather than packaged.
WCPT’s eclectic weekend programming is available here, from “Where Are They Now” and “The Family Meeting” to “The Hal Sparks Show,” “Think Theory Radio,” and "The Sports Cubicle." Find our full Saturday and Sunday schedule at heartlandsignal.com/wcpt820/schedule. “Chew’s Views,” “Joan Esposito: Live, Local & Progressive,” “Driving It Home with Patti Vasquez,” “The Big Picture with Edwin Eisendrath,” and “Out Chicago” now have their own podcast feeds. Go to heartlandsignal.com/wcpt820/schedule to visit their show pages and subscribe.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
A varied Chicago feed connecting political argument, community affairs, cultural representation, and personal accounts of war to everyday public life.
WCPT 820 Weekend changes voices and subjects with nearly every edition, turning one feed into a broad survey of Chicago conversation. Mohamed Fahim leads a group discussion of Democratic leadership, unions, and electoral choices, while Gene Roy and Jim Balser bring public…
Hennessy with orange juice meets an alien-sneeze universe; your curiosity has room to roam.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
Cosmology, speculation, and live-radio banter shape a loose but engaging hour.
Think Theory Radio spends its hour moving from cosmology to speculation, with Damian Perdue and Pauly C. opening on Artemis II's precise landing timing before widening the frame to when the universe first becomes visible.
A live political table that keeps circling back to voting, party drift, and local stakes.
The Lightning Strike opens with Mohamed Fahim welcoming Dr. Sheila White, Chris Hilbert, Mike Patino, and Brendan Bond, and Mike's early technical trouble gives the hour a slightly bumpy start before the conversation settles.
A St. Louis breakdown opens into Chicago service talk, dealership shout-outs, and one unforgettable exhaust-pipe surprise.
Saturday's Hawk Takes the Wheel uses Kim and Claire's St. Louis breakdown as a springboard into a roaming Chicago car conversation. Warren Price follows the incident into the broader world around getting a vehicle back on the road, with stops among repair, sales, management, and…
A warm weekend conversation finds the story behind a brisk film and the memorable regulars who shaped it.
A weekend radio conversation turns a guest spot into a bright, easygoing look at a 57-minute film shaped by memories of regulars and local characters.
A local conversation on veteran transition, financial risk, and the gap between business value and personal savings.
The Boys From Bridgeport uses a bright Chicago Saturday as the setting for a plainspoken look at financial risk for veterans entering civilian work.
A loose but affecting radio hour pairs sharp media questions with a guest's devastating account of war and survival.
WCPT's Tori Ryder hour starts in a casual place, with a joke about a control-room colleague's haircut and a green river dyed by the Plumbers Local, then turns toward a harder question: how public language shapes the way war is understood. That swing gives the episode its charge.
A warm media-team conversation about visibility, representation, and why being featured can leave a lasting mark.
This edition of The Inclusive Voice Show centers on the quieter work of making creative labor visible. It opens with Autumn Durald-Ockapaw's Best Cinematography win, using lighting, camera movement, framing, and color to underline how much visual storytelling can shape what an…
Birth choices, argued in plain language.
Warm health talk for messy real life.
The hosts discuss the aftermath of primary elections, Chicago politics, and humorously imitate Bernie Sanders while bantering about billionaires and taxes.
Host Tori Ryder interviews Belarusian playwright Andre Kurechik about his benefit play 'An Ocean Away,' which features real stories of Ukrainian refugees and war survivors.
Host Pam McElvane welcomes executive editor DeErica Stevenson and associate managing editor Sasha Parrish for a behind-the-scenes look at Promenade Media.
Joe Gandersky recounts enlisting in the Army in 1966 and serving on a military intelligence team in Vietnam's Mekong Delta.
This episode of The Sports Cubicle covers recent sports news, including the NBA's internal issues, college basketball confrontations, the Chicago Bulls' front office changes, Angel Reese's trade to the Atlanta Dream, and updates on the Chicago Wolves and White Sox rookies.
This episode of First Take at Daybreak is a live, behind-the-scenes look at setting up a news show with host Al Kindle, featuring guests like President Preckwinkle and Pastor Jones, despite technical and crew challenges.
Damian Perdue opens Think Theory Radio with a direct welcome and an easy, conversational rhythm.
Mohamed Fahim opens The Lightning Strike with Dr.
Tori Ryder discusses the Swalwell scandal, where multiple women have accused a congressman of sexual assault and inappropriate behavior, analyzing media coverage and societal reactions.
This episode of Around the Town Chicago discusses local events including an art show in Lake Forest and an upcoming interview with Steve Achilles from Misericordia.
This episode explores a pro-aging perspective, challenging negative societal views on aging and offering clinical and personal insights on embracing the aging process holistically.
Warren Price uses WCPT's Hawk Takes the Wheel on April 11, 2026 to mix St.
Gene Roy opens the Saturday program with Jim Balser and Pat Scanlon.
The hosts ease into the morning with Greek Easter chatter and a basket of candy scored at 90 percent off.
This episode explores the tension between dystopian and utopian visions of the future, focusing on how technology like AI and Apple's acquisition of a pre-speech tech company founded by IDF intelligence officers might shape society.
This episode discusses concerning CDC data on maternal mortality rates in the U.S., highlighting persistent disparities affecting women, particularly Black women, during Women's History Month.
This episode is a recap of the 2026 Illinois primary election results, featuring analysis and audio clips from election night.