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I wonder how far you could get their groundwave in the right direction.
I'm curious about that too. I remember when I first listened to shortwave and heard WRUL. This was in the early 60s. I think the transmitter was in Virginia.
They were so strong on 15 meters it seemed as though it was groundwave here in the midwest. However, when the band died at night they were gone. I still wonder how far the groundwave from a SW station goes.
My only experience with SW was during the short time I owned an AM/SW combo in San Pedro de Amaguaña, Ecuador. The SW was on the 3300 kHz band, and it had funny behavour. Around the transmitter, you could hear it for a couple of kilometers , then nothing for several more kilometers. Then it came in again. I suspect the groundwave was limited to less than 10 km at the 250 watt transmitter output. But it had really good coverage of several provinces around it.
I never did any further investigation, as I moved the AM to Quito and turned in the SW license as not being necessary.
I experienced something similar firsthand. On many of my biz trips to Toronto, I stayed in a suburban hotel about five miles from the CFRX transmitter site. 1kw on 6070. The signal at the hotel...groundwave....was "fuzzy" and full of hiss. Not as listenable as at my home location more than 400 miles away. And no....the problem was not the construction of the hotel. It was basically a wood frame building which easily let in a full compliment of other AM and SW signals.
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Unless a station is using one of those NVIS type antennas for local coverage, you're going to experience a pretty big doughnut of no coverage around the transmitter where there is no groundwave and the signal is beamed over you into the atmosphere. At least that's how it is in the meat of the HF broadcasting bands between 5 and 18 MHz.
Back when WEWN first came on the air and was running 250-500 kW, I drove to the TX site from across the county and didn't hear anything on the radio until I was basically within eyesight of their complex. And what a complex it was, hidden up on a mountaintop! Nowadays, down here on the gulf coast, WEWN's Central & South American-beamed programming in Spanish will peel the paint off the walls for a huge chunk of the night on 5970 kHz. I'm around 300 miles away and right in the sweet spot.
One nice thing about steerable antennas like that Ampegon is that they usually have adjustable beam tilt, so they could make it into a short hop or long haul path with a few knob twists or clicks of a mouse button. My guess is the early testing was aimed at Mexico and on a short hop low angle to reach as much of the US as possible.
Back when WEWN first came on the air and was running 250-500 kW, I drove to the TX site from across the county and didn't hear anything on the radio until I was basically within eyesight of their complex. And what a complex it was, hidden up on a mountaintop! Nowadays, down here on the gulf coast, WEWN's Central & South American-beamed programming in Spanish will peel the paint off the walls for a huge chunk of the night on 5970 kHz. I'm around 300 miles away and right in the sweet spot.
One nice thing about steerable antennas like that Ampegon is that they usually have adjustable beam tilt, so they could make it into a short hop or long haul path with a few knob twists or clicks of a mouse button. My guess is the early testing was aimed at Mexico and on a short hop low angle to reach as much of the US as possible.
To a short wave dummy like me (I've never really DXd it, as odd as that might be ... I usually stick to AM), the lack of groundwave is fascinating to me. I shouldn't be surprised knowing how groundwave acts in the graveyard, 1500 and 1600 frequencies but still, I see a station of WBCQ's power and figure it at least can be heard decently well for local listeners and that it has cancellation issues like stations lower on the band. Neat stuff to read, Tom.
The religious programming on 9330 begins July 8th at 0000UTC and will be 24/7
Call up "WBCQ, Britton Road, Monticello, ME" on Google Maps. Street View shows a couple of windmills. I don't know if they would cover the power bill, though (probably better than solar - in Maine.
(It's 7:15 PM EDT, and 9330 is blasting into N. Georgia on my portable Sony (no ext. ant.) with a Bruce Springsteen concert.)
It seems to have been somewhat pointless to build this, just to lease it out 24x7 to one group. If it had a variety of programming at least part of the time, that would be different. Maybe Allan Weiner found that the numbers just did not add up, as many have speculated.
Maybe there's a "back of the mind" plan for him to take it over and run it at lower power once the religious cult runs out of fund. He'll have a new big transmitter and a steerable antenna for his troubles. Seems worth the risk as long as he doesn't get left holding the construction costs to himself.
By the way, it's going to be interesting to see if this causes Cuba any consternation. They use 9330 regularly (like, right now) for their spy numbers and I'm hearing it pretty well right now, no sign of WBCQ.
The funding terms could change - perhaps "World's Last Chance", which teaches that the earth is flat, and that the sun and other planets revolve around it, may find that the propagation of half million watts doesn't give them what they expected.
WBCQ's owner tweeted the station is off for a little bit while adjustments are made to broadcast on higher frequencies during the day.
They may be just being cautious, checking SWR, watching for anomalies, loose grounds, etc. while gradually trying higher powers, different frequencies, and different antenna positions. There can't be many similar antenna / transmitter combos in the world to go by.
A 500,000 watt arc over would not be pretty...
A 500,000 watt arc over would not be pretty...
Actually, I think that Ampegnon (sp?) antenna is not too uncommon, and there are still a few 500 kW transmitters using them kicking around. France's Issoudun facility comes to mind. They have an entire array of the things. They're even visible on Google Street View: https://goo.gl/maps/3xHLPrYyV46wPHRY7
Nauen Germany has one or two, also. WBCQ's is the only one in North America.
There's another big facility that has a couple, but I'm drawing a blank as to who it is. Either the Cerrik site in Albania or possibly Radio Taiwan outside of Taipei.
Nauen Germany has one or two, also. WBCQ's is the only one in North America.
There's another big facility that has a couple, but I'm drawing a blank as to who it is. Either the Cerrik site in Albania or possibly Radio Taiwan outside of Taipei.
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