This may have been addressed already, but I'll put it out there. The 680 signal used to be non-existent at night in northeast Cobb/South Cherokee. I dialed it up last week after a long break and now the signal is pretty strong. Did the FCC grant them an upgrade?
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680 The Fan
- Thread starter Marvelous Mark
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'twas only a few years ago that 680 North Atlanta could reliably count on a phone call from 680 Raleigh if the pattern did not auto-switch on time. Sigh...
Thanks for weighing in. I just checked again (1 in the morning) and they're still booming in heee, a week or two later. If they're not switching pattern, I would think Raleigh or someone would have called them on it by now. Puzzling.
Raleigh has an FM translator that they are advertising as the main signal. Maybe the staff is not paying attention to the AM. Also, they may not even be staffed at night. The younger people (under 40) who work in a station have no idea about patterns and power. They just know that the AM sounds like crap and they tune in the FM even if it is staticy.
That's because you're so close to the transmitter.
The WCNN pattern at night:
WCNN-AM Radio Station Coverage Map
IIRC part of the directional day time system was to protect a 680 class “B” in Sylvia NC that had 2 sites and directional antenna to maintain, which wisely moved to 540 5KW day 140 at night on one tower. That station has a translator that could go farther but that is another thread. Looking at the FCC web site:
https://transition.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/amq?call=&arn=&state=&city=&freq=680&fre2=680&single=on&type=0&facid=&class=&list=1&dist=&dlat2=&mlat2=&slat2=&NS=N&dlon2=&mlon2=&slon2=&EW=W&size=9&ThisTab=Results+to+This+Page/Tab
IMHO the closet station’s night time service to really worry about (besides WPFT) is WCTT Corbin KY:
WCTT-AM Radio Station Coverage Map
WCNN should able to put some more power to the west without interfering with Memphis’s WMFS night time service:
WMFS-AM Radio Station Coverage Map
I am surprised the Dickies haven’t hired an engineer to figure how to take a tower or two out of the night time pattern and go non directional daytime since they don’t have to worry about Sylva NC anymore. A less complicated the directional system has to be cheaper to maintain.
WCNN-AM Radio Station Coverage Map
IIRC part of the directional day time system was to protect a 680 class “B” in Sylvia NC that had 2 sites and directional antenna to maintain, which wisely moved to 540 5KW day 140 at night on one tower. That station has a translator that could go farther but that is another thread. Looking at the FCC web site:
https://transition.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/amq?call=&arn=&state=&city=&freq=680&fre2=680&single=on&type=0&facid=&class=&list=1&dist=&dlat2=&mlat2=&slat2=&NS=N&dlon2=&mlon2=&slon2=&EW=W&size=9&ThisTab=Results+to+This+Page/Tab
IMHO the closet station’s night time service to really worry about (besides WPFT) is WCTT Corbin KY:
WCTT-AM Radio Station Coverage Map
WCNN should able to put some more power to the west without interfering with Memphis’s WMFS night time service:
WMFS-AM Radio Station Coverage Map
I am surprised the Dickies haven’t hired an engineer to figure how to take a tower or two out of the night time pattern and go non directional daytime since they don’t have to worry about Sylva NC anymore. A less complicated the directional system has to be cheaper to maintain.
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WCNN's 8-tower transmitter is off of Spalding near Winters Chapel in Peachtree Corners. Closer to Roswell than WSB's tower across from Northlake Mall. It's practically a stone's throw from the river and the Roswell city limits.
If you have a radio with a crappy, nonselective tuner, 680 bleeds all over the dial here in Gwinnett. And if you pass under high-voltage lines, sometimes 680 bleeds onto other AM stations even with a good radio.
Where I live, the two AM stations that come in even on the worst radio are 610 WPLO (even at night) and 680 (not so much at night).
They'd still have to go DA at night, so not sure how much that would save. And their current day pattern is about as good if not a tad better than WSB's nondirectional pattern, even with a directional antenna.
All that said, they haven't updated their patterns since the station in Sylva moved. And it would be nice for 680 to reduce that null towards the heart of Gwinnett. It's negligible during the day, but vicious at night.
This last season, I was listening to a Tech game on a (new to me) early-1950s Zenith Trans-Oceanic and, of course, 680 came in loud and clear. Unfortunately, there was a Braves game later, so Tech got bumped to WFOM, and I couldn't pick them up in Gwinnett (still daytime). In hindsight it would have been a great time to detach the Zenith Wave Magnet antenna and reattach it with the cord, and use it as a directional antenna to see if it would pick up WFOM in Gwinnett.
I need to see if WCNN is cheating and running their day pattern after sunset. Would help me in Gwinnett.
My (clumsy made) point was that some years ago the nighttime pattern null (refer to WCNN FCC AM Query coverage map) was over my west Roswell location, and made listening difficult, at night, even while being so close to the transmitter. There must have been some tweaking of the pattern since then because reception is much better now.
What's the reception like at the Braves stadium? According to radio locator map, it's in a null at night.
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