Local Signals that struggle in your area

[davideduardo]

Yeah, 5KW isn't that great in reality on 95% of AM stations. Around here, they get swallowed up due to the electrical interference due to our power not being underground. Luckily for you, you have plenty of signals near Chicago

The earlier licensed AMs on lower channels do quite fine, even in areas with terrible ground conductivity like much of New England.

WICC on 600 does amazingly for its power, and 960 in New Haven is a similarly great signal, just like 630 in Providence, 590 in Boston, 560 in ME and 550 in VT.

In fact, one of the largest coverage areas in the US is that of 5 kw WNAX in Yankton, SD, on 570.

As another poster mentioned, the dominant stations on the regional channels were licensed for the most part in the 30's and were designed to cover much more compact metros when there was little noise on the AM band. Power levels were established by the FRC and FCC in the period from the late 20's to the early 30's. As cities grew and noise increased, many of those stations were outgrown by their markets.

As strange as it may have seemed 80 years ago, today our nation's capital does not have a single station that covers the entire market day and night with a usable signal.

 

[cyberdad]

In fact, one of the largest coverage areas in the US is that of 5 kw WNAX in Yankton, SD, on 570.
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KFYR in Bismark, ND used to claim America's biggest daytime coverage with 5kw ND on 550. Which is not to take anything away from WNAX's signal, which is fantastic. Our campus carrier-current radio station where I was in southeast Iowa broadcast on 570. When we were off....day or night....WNAX could be heard, from more than 300 miles away. As an aside, I've driven past the building housing WNAX's studios in Yankton. You could put a picture of the building in the dictionary next to the word "nondescript" and have an accurate definition!

Of course the biggest day signal in North America has to be CBK from Watrous, Saskatchewan. A few summers ago, I personally logged it from extreme Western Ontario to extreme Eastern British Colombia. That had to have been well over 700 miles of groundwave.

 

[radioman148]

WNAX's groundwave signal is amazing. I first noticed how outstanding it was in the early 90s when I was in Galena, Il. In the middle of the day I was able to hear WNAX on my car radio with a listenable daytime signal. I was amazed how well that 5KW signal could be heard during the day.

 

[Carltheradioguy]

The earlier licensed AMs on lower channels do quite fine, even in areas with terrible ground conductivity like much of New England.

WICC on 600 does amazingly for its power, and 960 in New Haven is a similarly great signal, just like 630 in Providence, 590 in Boston, 560 in ME and 550 in VT.

In fact, one of the largest coverage areas in the US is that of 5 kw WNAX in Yankton, SD, on 570.

As another poster mentioned, the dominant stations on the regional channels were licensed for the most part in the 30's and were designed to cover much more compact metros when there was little noise on the AM band. Power levels were established by the FRC and FCC in the period from the late 20's to the early 30's. As cities grew and noise increased, many of those stations were outgrown by their markets.

As strange as it may have seemed 80 years ago, today our nation's capital does not have a single station that covers the entire market day and night with a usable signal.

Wish they had a like button on this forum like facebook does but yeah very true about a few 5KW signals. There are certainly some like the ones you mentioned are quite solid. WICC is really impressive for only 1KW, I can get it in Montville with my most powerful radios and the signal isn't great but it is understandable. Too bad most of the content of these stations are unbearable to listen to but that's based on political and sports preferences. I thought WFED 1500 was received well day and night. I know most people up and down the east coast receive it well even on basic radios.

 

[Carltheradioguy]

KFYR in Bismark, ND used to claim America's biggest daytime coverage with 5kw ND on 550. Which is not to take anything away from WNAX's signal, which is fantastic. Our campus carrier-current radio station where I was in southeast Iowa broadcast on 570. When we were off....day or night....WNAX could be heard, from more than 300 miles away. As an aside, I've driven past the building housing WNAX's studios in Yankton. You could put a picture of the building in the dictionary next to the word "nondescript" and have an accurate definition!

Of course the biggest day signal in North America has to be CBK from Watrous, Saskatchewan. A few summers ago, I personally logged it from extreme Western Ontario to extreme Eastern British Colombia. That had to have been well over 700 miles of groundwave.

That's impressive! Granted, North Dakota is very flat (mostly) so the signals will travel far just based on LOS and lack of interference. Also impressive was your canadian catch! I've just not had great experiences with lower powered AM signals. Often, they are highly directional and get killed in the interference and lack of ground conductivity of New England. There are some that are impressive to say the least like 590 out of Boston and KFYR among others.

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

The earlier licensed AMs on lower channels do quite fine, even in areas with terrible ground conductivity like much of New England.

WICC on 600 does amazingly for its power, and 960 in New Haven is a similarly great signal, just like 630 in Providence, 590 in Boston, 560 in ME and 550 in VT.

In fact, one of the largest coverage areas in the US is that of 5 kw WNAX in Yankton, SD, on 570.

As another poster mentioned, the dominant stations on the regional channels were licensed for the most part in the 30's and were designed to cover much more compact metros when there was little noise on the AM band. Power levels were established by the FRC and FCC in the period from the late 20's to the early 30's. As cities grew and noise increased, many of those stations were outgrown by their markets.

As strange as it may have seemed 80 years ago, today our nation's capital does not have a single station that covers the entire market day and night with a usable signal.

Cities tend to be centered next to bodies of water, which is also the lowest elevation in a given area. For a variety of reasons, as elevation increases, conductivity usually decreases in a local area. Stations which have relocated further from the population center tend to have disappointing results, even with high power, again for a variety of reasons. It does seem like much more care was used in locating AM sites in the early days. Some considerations are beyond a station's control though, especially with relocations. An oversimplification perhaps, but true in many cases.

 

[Carltheradioguy]

WNAX's groundwave signal is amazing. I first noticed how outstanding it was in the early 90s when I was in Galena, Il. In the middle of the day I was able to hear WNAX on my car radio with a listenable daytime signal. I was amazed how well that 5KW signal could be heard during the day.

From looking at Radio Locator's signal coverage map on it, yes, it seems really powerful. Its map is similar to a 50kw signal.

 

[Carltheradioguy]

Cities tend to be centered next to bodies of water, which is also the lowest elevation in a given area. For a variety of reasons, as elevation increases, conductivity usually decreases in a local area. Stations which have relocated further from the population center tend to have disappointing results, even with high power, again for a variety of reasons. It does seem like much more care was used in locating AM sites in the early days. Some considerations are beyond a station's control though, especially with relocations. An oversimplification perhaps, but true in many cases.

Very valid! and I didn't even think of the population center argument until now but that certainly makes sense (especially for lower powered signals) There are some contradictions I can think of about elevation but they are all on FM which is a different animal. Sadly, there often isn't a lot of room in these cities to put transmitters. I know Boston has like 6 FM transmitters on the Prudential center( i think that's the building) and cities like Chicago, Boston, New york etc just don't have the room now to add AM transmitters on the ground. From what i've seen, the powerful am signals like WJR, WLW, WBAL etc etc are in the suburbs and in good spots.

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

I think somewhere in the 1960 NAB Handbook, it states that AM sites at higher elevation are always, or almost always inferior, at least in so many words. Obviously, this is not true for FM sites.

Several of the posters here are familiar with WBCM, now WMAX, 1440 in Bay City, MI. They were the last station in the state to change from very early 1000/500 nondirectional U1 facilities from a superior site in Hampton Township. Most people agree that when they went to 5000/2500 DA-2 U4 facilities further from Lake Huron in the late 1970s, it was not an unqualified improvement.

I'm sure that many of you can think of similar examples.

 

[davideduardo]

I thought WFED 1500 was received well day and night. I know most people up and down the east coast receive it well even on basic radios.

The ITU now says that a 15 mV/m signal is the minimum for listening in noisy large cities. The 10 mV/m of WFED barely covers 2 million people in a market of 5.8 million. The night signal covers even less.

Until it relocated so the land it was on could be sold to a developer, WMAL 630 really had the best signal in the market. From the new site, its 10 mV/m signal covers less than 2.5 million people in the DC MSA.

 

[davideduardo]

I'm sure that many of you can think of similar examples.

The worst I can think of is the 950 AM station in Caracas. They were 10 kw on fairly flat valley land in the Caracas metro. But they wanted... badly... to be 100 kw.

So they took a small hill (it'd be a "mountain" if it were in Iowa) that they had a TV relay site on, and leveled the top. It was solid rock, so they had to use special equipment to horizontally drill grooves for the radials. It was on the side of Caracas where prevailing weather made it rain very seldom, too.

They got their 100 kw, and wondered why the 10 kw facility had better coverage.

 

[davideduardo]

That's impressive! Granted, North Dakota is very flat (mostly) so the signals will travel far just based on LOS and lack of interference.

It helps that the ground conductivity in much of the area is 30... compared to Long Island's 0.5 and much of the interior of Maine at 1.0.

There is a swatch of 15 to 30 conductivity land from Manitoba down to central Texas. It was a great place to build an AM.

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

One thing to remember is that conductivity can vary considerably from M-3 in many areas. Most of the information is from Class I measured contours and very old DA Proofs of Performance. One example and clue is that patch of 15 mS/m that mysteriously stretches from the WLS tower site SSW toward St. Louis.

Another thing is that FCC rules and rule changes have favored multitier near parallelograms with broadside components that fade a lot compared to in line endfire arrays. An FCC engineer stated off the record that a properly adjusted array most nearly matches the Theoretical pattern, not the Standard Pattern, and that the RSS and RSS to RMS ratio used to predict null depth and pattern stability are not as important as they once were due to design and monitoring improvements.

 

[gr8oldies]

Someone applied for those facilities. The alternative would have been not having an AM station

That's pitiful! Sometimes I don't know what is the point of having AM if they are going to be directional and at low power. But we all know the FCC's stances.

 

[icybluelake]

Three AM stations from Iowa City, 25 miles from me, all have strong daytime signals. All of them at times struggle to get into my city, Cedar Rapids, with the signal strength that they ought to be able to have. They're basically locals, but rather impaired in various spots around the city.

 

[seattlesarchiebunker]

AM speaking, I can think of most of the DC stations struggle mightily with coverage. 570 gets smashed by WMCA or Radio Reloj in Cuba depending on where in the metro you are. WMAL and WTEM (formerly WRC-AM) used to have OK coverage when the DC metro when it only stretched 20 miles out. Now, with the aformentioned AM interference and DC suburbs stretching out in 50 miles virtually any direction, neither cut the muster...enough so that WMAL now simulcasts its programming on FM, recently sold its Tx site for big bucks, and now diplexes with another station with a huge reduction in coverage area.

FM-wise, Savannah, GA has (or had...they may have since fixed this) a class C FM that despite being on the tallest tower with 100kW at the Pooler "tower farm", always seemed to have real trouble penetrating the old brick buildings downtown and even becomes a real challenge in some of the coastal areas in the summer due to heavy tropo and E-skip. WZAT down there used to be a hot top 40 station with good ratings and talent who ended up with impressive resumes, but hasn't found real footing since ditching their modern rock format in the late 90's. I always wondered if not being able to pick it up well in areas has something to do with this.

The market engineer for Cumulus-Savannah used to post on here and I think explained it as an antenna design "issue". That was many moons ago, though.

 

[KML0224]

If this was already a thread, sorry. Is there any AM or FM signals that are semi local or locals that should be coming in perfect that don't. For me it's 1310 WICH and 980 WXLM that are 5-10 miles away and are super directional.

for those not from Connecticut: WICH-AM 1310 is from Norwich, CT. I believe WXLM-AM 980 is from Groton.

One larger Norwich station affects the Hartford/New Britain/Middletown radio market directly. Norwich has WCTY-FM 97.7. We have WUCS-FM 97.9 of Windsor Locks/Hartford (97.9-ESPN). This station was once further away in the Springfield/Holyoke, MA market. Today, 97.9 FM has a Hartford transmitter that has to be nulled to the southeast to protect WCTY-FM. That definitely affects the signal. I sometimes had issues with it to the southwest in New Britain and the Kensington section of bordering Berlin, CT.

The one which really does poorly here is WPRX-AM 1120 of Bristol/New Britain.

 

[formula72]

I was about to say that it sounds like a college station (89.3) We have ones just like that, super short transmitters and they don't travel more than 20 miles.

You are right about 89.3 KOHL, it is part of Ohlone College in Fremont.

The one closer to me is a local High School radio station. I believe its 100 watts. I think I better retract my "thank you" to Pioneer H.S, seems they only turn off the transmitter when they feel like it. I have to deal with 100 watts of dead air ( no modulation ) when trying to listen to KOHL.. Turn off your transmitter if you not broadcasting anything!!

Also, Pioneers transmitter is on top of a water tower, on a hill, and I think its a stubby, probably no taller than 5-6ft

 

[Carltheradioguy]

for those not from Connecticut: WICH-AM 1310 is from Norwich, CT. I believe WXLM-AM 980 is from Groton.

One larger Norwich station affects the Hartford/New Britain/Middletown radio market directly. Norwich has WCTY-FM 97.7. We have WUCS-FM 97.9 of Windsor Locks/Hartford (97.9-ESPN). This station was once further away in the Springfield/Holyoke, MA market. Today, 97.9 FM has a Hartford transmitter that has to be nulled to the southeast to protect WCTY-FM. That definitely affects the signal. I sometimes had issues with it to the southwest in New Britain and the Kensington section of bordering Berlin, CT.

The one which really does poorly here is WPRX-AM 1120 of Bristol/New Britain.

I wouldn't consider at least for me WCTY to be a weak signal. I get it well into Rhode Island most of the time and up and down I 395 but to the west you're right. Right on about 1120.

 

[Carltheradioguy]

You are right about 89.3 KOHL, it is part of Ohlone College in Fremont.

The one closer to me is a local High School radio station. I believe its 100 watts. I think I better retract my "thank you" to Pioneer H.S, seems they only turn off the transmitter when they feel like it. I have to deal with 100 watts of dead air ( no modulation ) when trying to listen to KOHL.. Turn off your transmitter if you not broadcasting anything!!

Also, Pioneers transmitter is on top of a water tower, on a hill, and I think its a stubby, probably no taller than 5-6ft

wasting energy too!