... WCCD is off the air again. I tuned in early this afternoon and heard nothing, but within several seconds talking popped in. While in my car after 5pm, I noticed that all I heard was horrendously loud noise on AM1000. Couldn't decipher if the transmitter was on, or was this another sound of a no-signal situation.
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Anybody want to hear a broken (skipping) record? ...
- Thread starter johnbasalla
- Start date
03/31/2022, WCCD is still off-the-air. I notice that the off-air sound at 1000AM is different than other frequencies with no station on them. Therefore, I wonder if the transmitter is actually on, but is emitting nothing but loud noise. Even with that thought, I think there is a better possibility that the transmitter is off. They are moving towards being off the air more than they are on the air. A new WJTB in its last one or two years?
The noise could be an indication of the WCCD transmitter experiencing problems connecting to the STL properly. If you have a portable radio, I would tune to 1000 and go to different areas of your house to see if you can locate a noise source inside the house. If you can, then you'll be able to reduce it so you can at least hear other stations on 1000AM. However, if you don't identify the source in your house, than there's a good chance that WCCD is the source of your noise. Also I should note, that WCCD has a very tight schedule, even in late March, to protect WMVP, so it should only be on until about 6:30pm each night right now.
Please don't jinx it. We've lost enough AM stations as it is!
I have been spot-checking it in my car. I did so around 2pm 03/31/2022. Nothing there but noise.
I don't mind seeing these low power daytimers go away. Unless they are serving a small town like Mayberry, they are just taking up space on a cluttered AM band.
One thing I would like to see is the restoration of the "clear-channels" where only 1 or 2 stations are allowed to broadcast on those channels at night, with one being non-directional, and one being directional, or both being directional, at 50kw. There's been way too much clutter on frequencies like 1030, for instance. At the same time, we don't want the Jacksonville, Florida effect to happen, where your left with an embarrassingly small amount of stations for a city that has 800k population.
Thursday 03/31/2022 5pm. I used my scan to go from station to station. My scan stopped at AM1000 even though there was no program audio, just noise. That tells me that the transmitter is (at least probably) on.
Thank you for the update! I hope they get their transmitter fixed soon.
I gotta believe that Rev. Darrell C. Scott is more invested in his WTAM gig than in the operation of WCCD. It was always meant to be a promotional tool for his church, and the same thing can be accomplished with WCCD’s stream functioning as an internet-only station instead.
WJTB simply died of neglect and apathy, a vicious self-sustaining cycle. In both cases the land the transmitter towers sit on is worth more than the station itself.
WJTB simply died of neglect and apathy, a vicious self-sustaining cycle. In both cases the land the transmitter towers sit on is worth more than the station itself.
Nobody except DXers listens to distant AM stations today, except, perhaps a few former residents of a market who want to hear night baseball games "from home".
In fact, nationally, AM listening in general is now less than 10% of all listening.
The Jacksonville metro has 1.6 million persons and a total, not counting translators, of 35 commercial and 15 non commercial stations in the MSA. That is quite reasonable for market 46.
I keep forgetting that the internet replaces everything, and renders distances moot. Still, I would listen to a Colorado Rockies game on KOA if I was ever on a road-trip 😎
I should've been more specific. Jacksonville's FM band is fine, but their AM band is something of a joke. Although you get a nice saltwater path to Charleston, you actually need a super sensitive radio to take advantage of that. Otherwise, you get 550, 600, 690, 930, 970, 1010, 1050, and that's about it. Even on my poorer performing radios, they can pick up double that amount easily in Cheyenne.
You have 1240, 1320, 1360, 1400, 1530 and 1600 at least... several of the ones you did not mention are 50000, 10,000 and even two at 50,000 watts. 16 AMs are considered home to the market.
The issue in Jacksonville is poor ground conductivity, not the number of stations. You can go inland just to Lake City and no Jacksonville AM is truly listenable, particularly during those noisy summer days.
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