London, Ontario AM Bandscan Highlights,

[cyberdad]

Just a few highlights. Thurs 10/7, 9-10pm EDT 5th floor hotel room, relatively noise free despite being less than one block from a high voltage power transmission line. Radio was C Crane skywave. Conditions fair at best. London is located roughly midway between Detroit and Toronto. About a two hour drive from each city.

First of all, the Chicago 50kw signals were present with fair-good signals, except WYLL on 1160. Four New York 50kw signals also present with fair-good signals. WFAN, WOR, WABC, and WCBS.

As for the other highlights....

600: CKAT on top, but other signals underneath.
630: CFCO fair-weak, but pretty much alone (65 miles)
680: CFTR fair...mixing with weaker signals
740: CFZM convergence zone. Lots of fading, but alone. Day signal is good. A little over 100 miles west from transmitter site.
760: WJR roughly the same distance as CFZM, but minimal convergence
800: CKLW fair-weak
850: WKNR fair-good
870: WWL weak...mixing with the wobbler
950: WWJ fair, but on top of a couple of other signals
1010: CFRB fair at best
1070: CHOK fair (60 miles)
1080: WTIC weak
1160: Several weak signals. WYLL may have been one, but unidentifiable. In the early 80s, I did hear WJJD here a few times.
1170: WWVA fair-good
1180: WHAM good
1270: WXYT fair-good and on top. A mild surprise
1410: Former home London's now-dark CKSL (10kw), now like a GY channel. London (360,000pop) now has only 2 AMs. 980 & 1290.
1540: KXEL good, no apparent trace of CHIN

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

Looking at the CFZM 740 183.6 degree tower vs. the WJR 760 194.7 degree tower situation. The vertical radiation characteristic reaches zero (minimum) at around 71.5 degrees above the horizon for CFZM and WJR reaches zero (minimum) at about 57 degrees above the horizon. 71.5 degrees corresponds to a distance of about 40 miles from the CFZM tower. 57 degrees corresponds to about 80 miles from the WJR tower. So WJR may have near zero skywave at close to 100 miles, meaning minimal ground wave skywave fading.

I remember that WJR was soliciting letters from listeners approximately 100 miles away probably about 40 years ago about the quality of their signal at that distance at Night. I wonder if they thought they needed a shorter tower to have more skywave at those distances. But it would seem like maybe it would have just caused more fading.

I do remember that WCFL was not only Directional to the East, but their shorter towers compared to WLS combined to produce an awesome skywave, approaching 10 mV/m at times, and frankly, superior to WLS in much of Michigan past the cancellation zone. Not that it seemed to matter in the ratings, but it also affected the ground wave of WCFL, which far exceeded WLS in the Downtown/Loop areas and North and Northwest suburbs of Chicago. The late great Glen Clark, staff engineer at WLS, and chief engineer at WLS-FM for a number of years, designed the new WCFL/WMVP 1000 DA, and the new WFDF 910, WWJ 950, and WXYT 1270 arrays. If the FCC had changed the rules about standard pattern quadrature value, they probably could have designed patterns for the Regional 50 kW Class Bs, with less fading than resulted from the broadside design which minimized the RSS/RMS ratio, and the resulting standard pattern quadrature factor, allowing them to achieve 50 kW Daytime, 25 kW Nighttime for WFDF.

WFDF should have gone to 5 kW Night when they increased to 5 kW Day in 1957. That probably would have allowed them to later increase to 50 kW Night also. They may have sold off one corner of the property with a house that precluded an easy build of a fourth in line tower to increase to 5 kW Night. The ownership and management of WFDF were always very frugal, including the founder and CE, Frank D. Fallain, and later protege CE Gerry Wolpert, who long maintained that 1 kW Night was enough. It did have a reasonably low NIF, 5.0 mV/m, from the old site in Burton, and a signal that reached Saginaw and North Oakland County quite well before all the new 910s and PSSAs, and apparent lax enforcement of rules limiting interference by stations not going to Night facilities. That also affects the rest of the stations and frequencies.

 

[radioman148]

No WTAM in London?

 

[cyberdad]

No WTAM in London?

Definitely WTAM in London. Weak during the day, good at night. (WKNR actiually has a slightly better daytime signal in London than WTAM).

I was trying to keep my post from getting overly lonq by keeping out what I thought were some of the more obvious catches (eg....WTAM, WBZ, WHO, WPHT, WCKY, WHAS and a slew of others.) Hence the word "highlights". But I knew one or more of you guys would wonder why one station or frequency was missing.

So if anyone is wondering about what station or frequency I didn't list, just let me know.

 

[billmich]

thinking of detroit windsor stations not listed - as well as a few others

560 wrdt?
580 ckww
910 wfdf
1050 CHUM (toronto)
1130 (wdfn, ot wbbr?)
1200 detroit?
1220 cleveland?
1310 (really doubt it, but hey)
1370 WSPD toledo?
1500 (WLQV or minny/dc?)
1550 CBEF?

 

[radioman148]

Definitely WTAM in London. Weak during the day, good at night. (WKNR actiually has a slightly better daytime signal in London than WTAM).

I was trying to keep my post from getting overly lonq by keeping out what I thought were some of the more obvious catches (eg....WTAM, WBZ, WHO, WPHT, WCKY, WHAS and a slew of others.) Hence the word "highlights". But I knew one or more of you guys would wonder why one station or frequency was missing.

So if anyone is wondering about what station or frequency I didn't list, just let me know.

WKNR's strength where you were doesn't surprise me. Thanks!

 

[cyberdad]

WKNR's strength where you were doesn't surprise me. Thanks!

WKNR fades rather quickly going either east or west from London on the 401. CJBC takes over going east. Going west, you get them for a while longer than you do going east, but they're pretty much spent by the time you get to Windsor-Detroit.

Sidebar note: I also drove by the CFCO towers Friday morning....but I only got a quick glimpse of one of them. Rain and fog limited visibility. I also couldn't track CFCO as well as I'd have liked going through Michigan due to electrical noise from scattered thunderstorms (it wasn't exactly a pleasant drive....unlike the first four days of the week) What I CAN tell you is that CFCO was still good in and around Ann Arbor.

 

[radioman148]

WKNR fades rather quickly going either east or west from London on the 401. CJBC takes over going east. Going west, you get them for a while longer than you do going east, but they're pretty much spent by the time you get to Windsor-Detroit.

From previous experience driving that route 1220 WHKW also has that big north-south lobe and then fades quickly going east or west even with 50KW. They were WGAR way back when I first drove that way.

 

[Theater of My Mind]

1570? It was formerly St. Thomas-London's now-dark CHLO which had an 8-tower site in Sparta. I believe they migrated to 103.1 as CFHK-FM in 1994.

 

[schmave]

WKNR fades rather quickly going either east or west from London on the 401. CJBC takes over going east. Going west, you get them for a while longer than you do going east, but they're pretty much spent by the time you get to Windsor-Detroit.

Sidebar note: I also drove by the CFCO towers Friday morning....but I only got a quick glimpse of one of them. Rain and fog limited visibility. I also couldn't track CFCO as well as I'd have liked going through Michigan due to electrical noise from scattered thunderstorms (it wasn't exactly a pleasant drive....unlike the first four days of the week) What I CAN tell you is that CFCO was still good in and around Ann Arbor.

CFCO always sounded great daytime in Toledo when I lived there. Nighttime, it was nowhere to be found.
Cleveland's 1220 definitely fades really fast going west, even daytime. Its signal isn't good as close as Oberlin. Going east is a much different story.

 

[SomeRadioGuy]

CFCO always sounded great daytime in Toledo when I lived there. Nighttime, it was nowhere to be found.
Cleveland's 1220 definitely fades really fast going west, even daytime. Its signal isn't good as close as Oberlin. Going east is a much different story.

I dont mean to be rude, but DUH, if you looked at the directional pattern

 

[billmich]

CFCO always sounded great daytime in Toledo when I lived there. Nighttime, it was nowhere to be found.
Cleveland's 1220 definitely fades really fast going west, even daytime. Its signal isn't good as close as Oberlin. Going east is a much different story.

when CFCO went from 1K to 6K nights, was it on the exact same pattern, or did the pattern change?

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

The pattern changed. When it was 1 kW, it had three towers Night.

FCCInfo Results

FCC Info is a Radio and Television Station Search Engine provided by Cavell, Mertz & Associates, Inc.

fccinfo.com

The 6 kW pattern has five towers, and is much different.

FCCInfo Results

FCC Info is a Radio and Television Station Search Engine provided by Cavell, Mertz & Associates, Inc.

fccinfo.com

 

[cyberdad]

From previous experience driving that route 1220 WHKW also has that big north-south lobe and then fades quickly going east or west even with 50KW. They were WGAR way back when I first drove that way.

1220 was pretty much a mess when I checked it. WHKW on top, but not by much. The Cleveland 1220 will always be WGAR to me.

 

[gr8oldies]

1220 was pretty much a mess when I checked it. WHKW on top, but not by much. The Cleveland 1220 will always be WGAR to me.

WKNR belongs in Dearborn. Offices in the Sheraton Cadillac, Detroit

 

[cyberdad]

1570? It was formerly St. Thomas-London's now-dark CHLO which had an 8-tower site in Sparta. I believe they migrated to 103.1 as CFHK-FM in 1994.

Yep, Long gone. If memory serves, CFOR, 1570 in Orillia, Ontario (about an hour and a half north of Toronto) also bit the dust a long time ago. I have a hard time getting my head around a North American metro with a population approaching a half million and only two AM signals. In London that's CFPL 980. and CJBK 1290. I suspect both them may be struggling. Especially CJBK, which has had format changes....to go along with a highly directional signal.

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

Yep, Long gone. If memory serves, CFOR, 1570 in Orillia, Ontario (about an hour and a half north of Toronto) also bit the dust a long time ago. I have a hard time getting my head around a North American metro with a population approaching a half million and only two AM signals. In London that's CFPL 980. and CJBK 1290. I suspect both them may be struggling. Especially CJBK, which has had format changes....to go along with a highly directional signal.

Most of the AMs in Canada have moved to FM, because the Canadian communications governing body has allowed much more flexible allotment rules than that in the US for decades. That includes reduced class ERP/HAAT facilities, directional drop ins vs. fully spaced allotments in the US, and some negotiable and allowable overlap of normally protected facilities for the class of the station. If you can find the applications online, you will see how this has been done. Often the drop ins are "right sized" reduced facilities in the 1-3 kW/100 meter range in small communities, often with DAs. As most of the Canadian population is fairly close to the US border, very often the Agreement between the US and Canada comes into the allotment procedure, something that US side stations have been LTTG to, except in the 88-92 MHz NCE FM band in the US, which has long had different rules than the 92-108 Commercial FM band.

Because the definitions of city limits and urban and metro areas are different in Canada, the populations cannot be directly compared to US city limits and metro areas, particularly in the heavily populated Northeast US Canada border areas. The cities in Canada tend to include areas that in the US would be separate suburban cities.

 

[icybluelake]

CFCO always sounded great daytime in Toledo when I lived there. Nighttime, it was nowhere to be found.
Cleveland's 1220 definitely fades really fast going west, even daytime. Its signal isn't good as close as Oberlin. Going east is a much different story.

I was actually in Oberlin a few years ago and heard no WHKW at night, at all. Remarkable for being only 30 or 35 miles outside Cleveland. I was wondering, what happened to that signal? If memory serves, WGAR was a nighttime regular in the 70s and 80s at my home in Iowa.

 

[radioman148]

1220 was pretty much a mess when I checked it. WHKW on top, but not by much. The Cleveland 1220 will always be WGAR to me.

When we took a family trip to Toronto back in the 60s WGAR was strong for quite awhile on the north side of Lake Erie during the day. Agreed on 1220 Cleveland always being WGAR.

 

[Theater of My Mind]

I have a hard time getting my head around a North American metro with a population approaching a half million and only two AM signals.

OTOH they have CFPL-FM with 179,000 watts ERP at 273 meters.