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Another Cyberdad Road Trip....Part Two

cyberdad

cyberdad

Second stop....Barrie, Ontario. About 55 miles north of downtown Toronto. Sunday night 10/8/23.....

First thing I did in the limited time that I had was check the big signals from Toronto. The following were near local quality: 590, 640, 740, 860, 1010, and 1050. Among the Toronto "big boys" CFTR on 680 was weaker than the others. At first that surprised me, but then I realized CFTR is sandwiched inbetween WRKO and CJOB for nighttime protection purposes. So the signal is aimed northeast instead of north. The transmitter site is in Grimsby, Ontario adjoining lake Ontario. So the signal actually travels about 30 miles over nothing but eater before it arrives in Toronto. I've driven by the site dozens of times, including this past Sunday. Just off the freeway connecting Toronto and Buffalo.

Anyway, also strong in Barrie WGR, WSM, WLW, WGN, WGY, WKNR, KDKA,, WBZ, WWVA, WHAM, WHAM, WPHT

Surprises; WSB and WWL. Not as good as the list above, bur still pretty good, Bigger suprise for me (and maybe it shouldn't have been) was CBEF from about 250 miles away in Windsor. I had been wondering what had become of them, but there they were with a pretty decent signal.

Feel free to let me know if you have questions about any of my stops on the latest of my excellent adventures,

.....
 
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cyberdad said:
Second stop....Barrie, Ontario. About 55 miles north of downtown Toronto. Sunday night 10/8/23.....

First thing I did in the limited time that I had was check the big signals from Toronto. The following were near local quality: 590, 640, 740, 860, 1010, and 1050. Among the Toronto "big boys" CFTR on 680 was weaker than the others. At first that surprised me, but then I realized CFTR is sandwiched inbetween WRKO and CJOB for nighttime protection purposes. So the signal is aimed northeast instead of north. The transmitter site is in Grimsby, Ontario adjoining lake Ontario. So the signal actually travels about 30 miles over nothing but eater before it arrives in Toronto. I've driven by the site dozens of times, including this past Sunday. Just off the freeway connecting Toronto and Buffalo.

Anyway, also strong in Barrie WGR, WSM, WLW, WGN, WGY, WKNR, KDKA,, WBZ, WWVA, WHAM, WHAM, WPHT

Surprises; WSB and WWL. Not as good as the list above, bur still pretty good, Bigger suprise for me (and maybe it shouldn't have been) was CBEF from about 250 miles away in Windsor. I had been wondering what had become of them, but there they were with a pretty decent signal.

Feel free to let me know if you have questions aboutany of my stops on the latest of my excellent adventures,

To be further continued :) .....
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Thank you Cyberdad. Always interested in conditions from various places.

Speaking of Windsor, I didn't have a lot of time for dial-twisting during my brief visit for the CKLW Rosalie Trombley event but a few notes. I took a quick scan that Sunday evening around 7:45p, and noted WRDT Monroe (560), CKWW-580, WJR, CKLW, WNZK-690, WJYM-730 (I was surprised but I note there is an Eastern lobe) and WKNR-850 among others. Indeed CBEF is there on 1550.
 
Schroedingers Cat said:
CBEF 1550 is a Class I-B/Class A at 10000 watts. The pattern favors that direction.
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Yeah I knew it went East. But earlier this year, I didn't hear it in Niagara falls nor near Toronto, so I was starting to wonder if they went dark. My third stop earlier this year was London (midway between Toronto and Windsor/Detroit.) In London CBE was there, but quite weak. Possibly due to convergence.

Speaking of London, I was going to do a third post about my experiences there. But I've posted about London a few times in past years, and there was really nothing really new or of consequence this time around to share, so I came to the decision that there was really no point.

Other than London may be a glimpse of the future. Vibrant city of a quarter million people and now down to just ONE AM (CFPL on 980).
 
fybush said:
The US database makes no effort to keep actual callsigns current. It exists only to tell US applicants what facilities in Canada need to be protected, not what the actual status of those facilities is.

It's CBEF on 1550.
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Yeah, and the FCC still has 93.9 in Windsor as CKLW-FM, even though it hasn't been in many years. I even emailed Dale Bickel about it several years ago, but nothing changed. It's CIDR-FM in the Canadian Database currently. The Canadian Database also has a lot of old call letters and other information for US stations.

I put CBE in my post so you had access to the protected 50% Skywave contour on fccdata.org in the US Section. There is no ground wave shown for Canadian stations on fccdata.org. Radio Locator shows the 540 ground wave pattern for CBEF.

One thing I like about fccinfo.com is you also have access to archived old call letters and DA patterns for many AM stations. That helps old timers locate stations when they only remember decades old legacy call letters.
 
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