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AM Frequency of the week: 620

cyberdad

cyberdad

Far Northwest suburbs of Chicago.....

Current: WTMJ 24/7. The day signal is good, but not great, despite their towers being only 36 miles northeast of me. The 50kw is aimed mostly north. Actually, the WTMJ signal was actually a little better when they were 5kw ND from about 60 miles north of my location. Night, I'm in an even more severe null when they go to 10kw, and send the equivalent of less than 1kw my way. The result is that while WTMJ is still on top, they do tend to get trashed pretty significantly sometimes. Annoying when I'm trying to listen to Packers football! CKRM is usually the main culprit, but other signals are present as well.

Retro: In the mid 70s when I lived 130 miles west-southwest of here on the Mississippi River (Davenport, Iowa market), WTMJ at 5kw produced a fair daytime signal. At night with the 5kw directional pattern, WTMJ was still comfortably on top, but CKCK (now CKRM) and WDNC would also be regular visitors. Sometimes either one of them would be capable of rising to the top.

Closer to home....as posted in a recent thread...I once caught at positive ID from WJDX one evening during a WTMJ pattern change.
 
620 in Charleston is a mix of two stations daytime; WGCV Cayce, SC and WDAE from St. Petersburg. WGCV comes in stronger than WDAE being so much closer to the Columbia area than Tampa.

WDAE has a huge daytime signal. I've heard it near the French Quarter in New Orleans on a Walkman, and in Charleston. They also have a very strong signal to the north on I-75 from Tampa. I usually get them at night as well. Sometimes Knoxville mixes in. I've never heard WTMJ.
 
In the near north Chicago suburbs WTMJ has a very good day time signal. At night WTMJ is considerably weaker than they are during the day, but the night signal is still better than it used to be on their old night power. Although I've heard stations underneath, I've never actually identified one.
 
WTMJ was always one of the amazing 5000 watt AMs that came in weak (around 50 uV/m) but solid and without cochannel interference in SE MI in the Daytime, but less reliably at Night. It was about 220 miles to the old 3 tower array. There was some first adjacent channel interference from CFCO, but it wasn't a problem. I have heard WATE...WRJZ Knoxville. Can't think of what else offhand.
 
620 is a frequency I've never had an official confirmed ID from here in Hawaii but likely what I do hear at night is KPOJ Portland.

WDAE has a huge daytime signal. I've heard it near the French Quarter in New Orleans on a Walkman, and in Charleston. They also have a very strong signal to the north on I-75 from Tampa. I usually get them at night as well. Sometimes Knoxville mixes in. I've never heard WTMJ.
Click to expand...

Years ago when I would drive from Tampa to New Jersey and back, I would usually make my overnight stop at the Florence, South Carolina Days Inn on I-95 because it's about half way and at night the then 620 WSUN was easy to hear.

I've always wondered how much more north they can be heard from there but in all my trying, I've never heard them in south Jersey at night.
 
Nothing much on 620 here in the day. I ID'ed the 620 Newark NJ station once, when they were 'WSKQ'. But that was one sunset.
(I used to enjoy them back near JFK when they did the Mets games in Spanish. I'll never forget the PBP guy's pronunciation of the pitcher BBdddetttttt Sobberhoggin'.)
610 WIP and 630 WMAL are louder signals here midday than anything is on 620.

Nighttimes here have brought in WHEN Syracuse and the flame-throwing/hot-rockin Radio Rebelde.

Retro days near JFK Airport: the previously-mentioned WSUN St. Petersburg FL was a steady/weak/steady regular overnights on Monday mornings. Our local WVNJ was off many overnights.
 
Here in Reynoldsburg, Ohio, 620 is all slop from local WTVN (610) daytime, and that's the case no matter where you are in central Ohio.
Nighttime is a different story. It's still slop if you're out in front of WTVN's directional pattern that favors pretty much due north. Outside that nighttime lobe, the slop decreases almost entirely and occasionally you can hear a weak WRJZ (but strong enough to hear what they're saying) from Knoxville, Tennessee. 610's signal strength changes considerably depending on where you are, so listening experiences can be quite different within a short distance.
I have never heard WTMJ here. Driving from Chicago toward Ohio, I've heard WTMJ to not far east of Plymouth, Indiana, but that's about where it faded.
 
On 'WTMJ', Schmave:

Retro story here. Back from the JFK Airport days.

One of our block's gurus was an older fellow by a few years who delighted in smoking his pipe and watching us DXers -- we were late teens -- go through our social paces. He could play classical piano and try his hand at jazz.
The late Art Marino (passed at 73 last year) also had an afro, was 6'2, 300 pounds, rode a motorcycle, and looked like a Hell's Angels bodyguard. He was perhaps the funniest nonsensical person with whom we ever hung out.
And Art would occasionally buy some unlikely radio and try his hand at DXing -- to keep in touch with the block's oblique DXing crew. He bought one of those Grundig (?) ones, with the tone controls designated and displayed by musical instruments rather than by treble/bass/midrange increments.
One night local WVNJ 620 was off the air early. Next day Art told us he'd heard some station on 620 'with a whole bunch of T's and 'J's and 'M's in it'.
We assured Art that he could count 'WTMJ' on his list of logged stations.
 
charlestondxman said:
WDAE has a huge daytime signal. I've heard it near the French Quarter in New Orleans on a Walkman, and in Charleston. They also have a very strong signal to the north on I-75 from Tampa. I usually get them at night as well. Sometimes Knoxville mixes in. I've never heard WTMJ.
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As posted previously, I've not only heard WDAE daytime in New Orleans itself, but on the Lake Ponchartrain Causeway, I've had it trip the scan button on a good car radio. Multiple times, in fact.

From time to time, I stay at a hotel in Covington, Louisiana, a few miles from the northern terminus of the causeway, and WDAE is listenable there, and for about ten more miles inland. Then WJDX emerges and begins to eventually take over.
 
radioman148 said:
In the near north Chicago suburbs WTMJ has a very good day time signal. At night WTMJ is considerably weaker than they are during the day, but the night signal is still better than it used to be on their old night power. Although I've heard stations underneath, I've never actually identified one.
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My son lives about 12 miles east northeast of us (Between Wauconda and Fox Lale). WTMJ's night signal is much better at his location than it is for me. And like you, that night signal is better now than it was with the old power and pattern. Day signal is not appreciably different than it had been with 5kw ND.
 
Pretty impressive log there Steve! I did not realize WTMJ has a null pointed pretty much right at Columbus, so I will not hold out much hope of hearing them here.
I have never checked 620 at night when I visit family in the western suburbs of Chicago, but will do so the next time I'm there if I remember. They are in Naperville, roughly 30 miles or more south of Cyberdad.
 
The only directions where the Day IDF is substantially less than the old 5 kW Day ND facility in Brookfield, WI is to the SE, generally toward the 620 in Louisville, KY, which is now using the legacy 790 callsign WAKY.
 
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Timed out.

Note that WTMJ serves at least TWO larger inland lakes called Crystal Lake well, one in the Fox River Illinois area, and the other in the Northwest Lower Peninsula of Michigan, West of Traverse City. I guarantee that WTMJ is one of the strongest AM signals in NW Lower Michigan near Lake Michigan.

http://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/patg?id=WTMJ-AM&h=D

V Soft Zip Code

Rich or David, if you have an FI meter, I bet that if you go to Frankfort and measure WTCM and WJNL, they are weaker than WTMJ in reality. Put in Zip Code 49635, it shows as #3 at 0.85 mV/m.

http://zipsignal.v-soft.com

WTMJ History Page from the Station. Old and new tower pictures. There are also old and new coverage maps and old DA data, but you can't read it from the picture.

http://www.oldradio.com/archives/stations/MKE/wtmjpix.htm
 
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Knoxville TN: It's all WRJZ all the time. It's the strongest AM signal throughout this part of East Tennessee (by comparison I can get other stations under 990-WNML even in Knox County). They feed a translator with the AM (when they bother to tune the radio on frequency) and I can hear some hash on it after dark.

WRJZ has quite the skywave signal. I've heard it in Dayton, Ohio and even on the Lake Erie shoreline. It makes SDR remote receivers in Edinburg IN (south of Indianapolis), Elida, Ohio and Farmington, MI.
 
Schroedingers Cat said:
Timed out.

Note that WTMJ serves at least TWO larger inland lakes called Crystal Lake well, one in the Fox River Illinois area, and the other in the Northwest Lower Peninsula of Michigan, West of Traverse City. I guarantee that WTMJ is one of the strongest AM signals in NW Lower Michigan near Lake Michigan.

http://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/patg?id=WTMJ-AM&h=D

V Soft Zip Code

Rich or David, if you have an FI meter, I bet that if you go to Frankfort and measure WTCM and WJNL, they are weaker than WTMJ in reality. Put in Zip Code 49635, it shows as #3 at 0.85 mV/m.

http://zipsignal.v-soft.com

WTMJ History Page from the Station. Old and new tower pictures. There are also old and new coverage maps and old DA data, but you can't read it from the picture.

http://www.oldradio.com/archives/stations/MKE/wtmjpix.htm
Click to expand...

Using V-Soft, put in 49411 and WTMJ is the strongest AM signal there (WMTE hasn't been on in years and surprisingly still has their license). In 49660, WTCM just nudges out WTMJ. In reality, WTMJ, WSCR, WGN, and WBBM are likely stronger than WTCM in Manistee.
 
Schroedingers Cat said:
Wish I could access the old database on WTMJ. The old Day tower was taller than the other two. Crystal Lake, IL is substantially closer to the new WTMJ array near Union Grove, WI. The Day IDF toward Crystal Lake, IL is in the 600-700 mVm @ 1 km range, close to what a typical 5 kW nondirectional inverse field would be.

https://transition.fcc.gov/Bureaus/MB/Databases/AM_DA_patterns/206684-24597.pdf
Click to expand...

IIRC, according to FM Atlas, WTMJ sends something like 5.6KW towards me during the daytime. As a practical matter, the signal strength versus the old site on I-94 near Brookfield is still undetectable to me without the benefit of an S-meter. Despite the greater distance of the old site. In contrast, WIND on 560 is 5kw aimed in my direction and has a slightly better signal here than WTMJ.

At night....again IIRC....I think WTMJ is pushing about 700 watts towards me. Maybe even less. Still listenable, if interference prone. I know where Crystal Lake, MI in, and I wonder if WTMJ's night signal is better there. What I do know is that WTMJ is audible 24/7 in Soo Sault Marie, Canada.

And incidentallyy, Union Grove, WI is home to the WTMJ towers, the WISN towers, and for many years, a regionally famous drag strip!
 
The WTMJ Night skywave signal might be better at Crystal Lake, Michigan. But the groundwave is a lot weaker at Night than in the Day. The Night beamwidth is also less due to the additional two broadside arranged towers. But the broadside arrangement and relatively short distance would favor more high angle skywave than an endfire arrangement, so it might balance out. I suspect that groundwave to skywave interference would be a factor though.

I would expect the groundwave across Lake Michigan to exceed the R-L prediction, and the groundwave from near Traverse City to be much less than the R-L prediction. One or more of the WTCM applications has measured radials, which are substantially less than M-3. And it would be similar for WJNL.
 
Day: a weak WTMJ.

Night: An unpredictable mixture that is hard to ID because of nearby WMT on 600. WTMJ; KMNS Sioux City, IA; CKRM Regina, SK; and WRJX Knoxville, TN have all made appearances.

Retro: CKRM used to be much more of a regular at night. I've heard WTMJ in the daytime as long as I can remember.
 
WDAE was supposedly the first station to adopt a night pattern, due to widespread interference
with WTMJ. This would have been way back in the late 20's.

Locally in Pittsburgh it is WKHB from nearby Greensburg. During the day it's at 5500 watts, and
as strong as anything on the dial. It gradually ramps down after sunset to a shaky overnight
signal of 55 watts, which still precludes you from hearing pretty much anything else on the frequency.
 
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