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AM Frequency of the week: 600

cyberdad

cyberdad

Far northwestern suburbs of Chicago....

Days: WMT weak-fair, but reliable.

Nights: WMT stays at 5kw, but goes directional. The amount of signal sent in my direction (almost due east) stays roughly the same, but WMT largely gets swallowed up into the mess. Still, WMT is mostly likely to emerge on top.

Retro: In the 590 thread last week, there was a post about Cuba operating on 600. At one point "back in the day", the Cubans were relaying R. Moscow on 600 with what must have been a flamethrower transmitter. The night signal here was quite good. With audio that was quite bad! Now, on my trips to the Gulf Coast, I still hear Cuba on 600....but not with a blowtorch signal.
 
Actually, if you go NE from WMT, you're in the 5 kW omnidirectional range, but due East, it's roughly the equivalent of 1 kW. I think this was originally to protect WICC (Bob "Hogan" Crane worked there, later KNX hired him away because WICC was eating into WCBS NYC ratings) Bridgeport, CT to the 1 kW Nondirectional level. It also worked to allow WTAC Class III-B protection. Never could figure out how you designed doglegs like WMT's, without just kind of winging it, to protect WREC Memphis with a deep null, using the other two towers, while the shallow nulls were created in the right directions by playing around with the locations of the other two towers. I guess the other approach would be to design a parallelogram with two shallower nulls coinciding toward WREC to create a deep null, then eliminating the fourth low field ratio tower.

https://transition.fcc.gov/Bureaus/MB/Databases/AM_DA_patterns/1311881-107595.pdf
 
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In the near north Chicago suburbs WMT is in during the day with a fair but steady signal. At night WMT is on top of a pretty large clutter.
As Cyberdad pointed out in the late 70s & early 80s as I remember it, the Cuban station would blast in at night with a big signal.
 
East Tennessee-WCVP, Murphy, NC by day. WKYH, Paintsville KY, has made it in around sunset. Nights could be WSJS, or Cuba.

Edinburgh, IN SDR-WMT Day and night. The most distant daytime station this receiver picks up. WSJS has also been heard.
 
Days: A very, very weak WCVP, Murphy NC. Sunrise/sunset, WBOB. Nights: A mix of WSJS and WREC and a few others. North of Atlanta.
 
Schroedingers Cat said:
Actually, if you go NE from WMT, you're in the 5 kW omnidirectional range, but due East, it's roughly the equivalent of 1 kW. I think this was originally to protect WICC
https://transition.fcc.gov/Bureaus/MB/Databases/AM_DA_patterns/1311881-107595.pdf
Click to expand...

Thanks for the clarification. Without having a receiver with an S-meter (at least since the 70s), I never noticed any significant dropoff in signal. But this was typically when the channel was starting to get noisy. Also, my location is/was actually slightly north of due east. That may explain things. But, whatever, I'm sure you're correct that there's less than 5kw coming my way.
 
600 here daytime is a strong WBOB Jacksonville with news/talk (mostly talk). Second best AM signal out of Jacksonville behind WOKV. Strong as far west as Gainesville, up to Charleston, can be heard as far as Wilmington, NC during the day.

Nighttime is a jumble. I've heard WREC, Jacksonville, and a couple others.

Retro: I remember listening to 600 when it simulcast WKQL 96.9 (the oldies station in Jacksonville) for a few weeks in 2002. 96.9 was a good oldies station at the time. This was between its stints as sports (The Ball) and Radio Disney, then ABC sold them to Chesapeake-Portsmouth and they moved their talk format from another frequency (I think 1320).
 
Looking at the History Card, it looks like WMT went from 1/0.5 U1 to 5/1 U2 with two towers about 1936, and to 5 U2 in 1941 with 3 towers. It looks like looking at the design as a "truncated" parallelogram with the fourth tower deleted is worth looking at. The ratio of the fourth tower would be about 0.196, or about 4% of the power in the main tower of the array. While that would be significant for an array with multiple deep nulls, it may not be with a single deep null. The phantom fourth tower would be to the East of the existing three, but the array would then take up about twice the amount of land, which would be huge at 600 kHz. I'll have to look at the History Card for more details, like who the Consulting Engineer was for the DA. Note, still can't find Consulting Engineer's name, only Attorney's names on various filings.

In any event, it sends a lot of power toward the West Coast, and it is probably heard there quite a bit.
 
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Here in Columbus, Ohio, nothing day or night next to local WTVN. Even in the areas where WTVN is weak at night because of the directional north signal, 600 is empty.
I remember hearing WREC frequently when I lived in Houston, even next to local KILT (610).
 
Schroedingers Cat said:
I'll have to look at the History Card for more details, like who the Consulting Engineer was for the DA. Note, still can't find Consulting Engineer's name, only Attorney's names on various filings.
Click to expand...

I wonder when the first application with Carl Smith's name on it was filed?
 
DavidEduardo said:


I wonder when the first application with Carl Smith's name on it was filed?
Click to expand...

My first thought when I see a dogleg array like WMT's from the early days of AM DAs is "was it Carl Smith's design." But Carl Smith's are usually like WGAR or WTVN or CKLW, and if it's a four tower parallelogram, it's an additive design rather than two two tower patterns multiplied together.
 
From Canada's capital.
At the moment I hear nothing during the day on 600. That is expected to change in the next few weeks as Montreal is due to sign on. Wonder if the recent Quebec flooding might change that.
At night, I hear CKAT North Bay Ontario with a moderate signal.
 
Two daytime reports on 600 AM; around 2PM in downtown Saint Petersburg, dxing outside(only place to dx without interference from routers, printers etc)..........a very faint not listenable signal, so faint that at first I could not even determine the language, but then patience paid off, and I heard English and a commercial, so it had to be Jacksonville.

About 90 minutes later in eastern Hernando county, it was clearly and listenable, AM 600 out of Jacksonville.

At night, in Saint Petersburg, it is Cuba; will have to check to see what is on 600 AM at night in eastern Hernando county.
 
Night-time (about 30 minutes past sunset in Eastern Hernando, FL (midway between Dade City and Bushnell,FL.......nothing but Cuba; could not even hear a trace of Jacksonville.
 
There's lot of RFI on 600 here, and I have to go to the edge of my front yard to fully escape it.

Daytime: With my most sensitive radios and a Terk loop, I can hear a faint XEMN "La Regiomontana" in Monterrey.

Sunset: XEMN and KTTB in Tyler, TX

Night: WREC comes up, and it can be heard popping in and out along with XEMN and KTTB. Also, KROD "600 ESPN" in El Paso, TX, will come up occasionally.

Sunrise: KROD is dominant with XEMN mixing in. Once last winter I heard KSJB in Jamestown, ND.

Retro: I used to hear XELAZ "La Major" in Ciudad Guzmán occasionally but have not heard a trace of it in over a year. I suppose it has migrated to FM.
 
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