Here's the scoop...680 from Louisville is having weak audio and I'm hearing some nostalgia/soft oldies in the background (1PM EDT). As luck would have it, Louisville's audio gets strong on local spots and ID's so the top of the hour will always be covered up. Any ideas? I called Escanaba,MI WDBC and it is not them. WKAZ Charleston,WV is another possible, but again, they don't stream.
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AM 680 Indiana
- Thread starter BobOnTheJob
- Start date
Thanks dad...Louisville comes in pretty well here during the day (90 air miles) but never at night. I'm starting to suspect it's WKAZ Charleston,WV at 240 air miles. I was hoping it was Escanaba,MI at 441 miles (285 of which are over water) but calling them on the phone ruled that out. That would have set a new record for daytime groundwave (current is WMT 600 at 350 air miles--and that only happens since 610 WTVN turned their IBOC off--now it's there every day).cyberdad said:
C
cd637299
Guest
How so many 680's are allowed at night from the FCC in the Eastern US is beyond me. You can "go directional" all you want, but it's still a mess.
I remember listening to 680 at night in the early 80s right outside the old Atlanta Stadium....WCNN was there all right, but you could hear something underneath, surely WPTF.
Oh well....AM stations could well be thinning out over the years.
cd
I remember listening to 680 at night in the early 80s right outside the old Atlanta Stadium....WCNN was there all right, but you could hear something underneath, surely WPTF.
Oh well....AM stations could well be thinning out over the years.
cd
I fear you are right...it's heartbreaking for one who grew up with AM and knew what it once was (AM music stations with 70 shares at times), but I tend to think that Only The Strong Survive (and how long will even they survive??) will start coming into play as my generation marches toward the finish line. I don't see any young AM listeners following in my footsteps. How I hope someone can convince me I'm wrong.cd637299 said:
Bob
680 is an interesting frequency here in Central KY. Here in Lexington, I usually hear WCTT in the daytime with a weak signal mixing underneath that I suspect is Louisville. Near sunset, WKAZ is quite common with oldies. They also "forget" to power down at sundown with some regularity. At night it's a mess.... Corbin, Atlanta, WPTF, Memphis, Toronto, and a Missouri station (which has been heard fairly often lately). Around sunrise, Atlanta and Memphis are "regulars". About 20 years ago, I even heard KNBR San Francisco, just before sunrise a few times. I have never heard the Escanaba, MI station here. I vote for WKAZ or WCTT being the station you are hearing.
680 is an interesting frequency here in Central KY. Here in Lexington, I usually hear WCTT in the daytime with a weak signal mixing underneath that I suspect is Louisville. Near sunset, WKAZ is quite common with oldies. They also "forget" to power down at sundown with some regularity. At night it's a mess.... Corbin, Atlanta, WPTF, Memphis, Toronto, and a Missouri station (which has been heard fairly often lately). Around sunrise, Atlanta and Memphis are "regulars". About 20 years ago, I even heard KNBR San Francisco, just before sunrise a few times. I have never heard the Escanaba, MI station here. I vote for WKAZ or WCTT being the station you are hearing.
C
cd637299
Guest
cyberdad said:
Seriously?!?! That's what 1230/1240/1340/1400/1450/1490 are for, no?
cd
cyberdad said:
Could that be theoretically done with just a few transmitters - by maybe sending, at each site, 2 megawatts (50kW limit would have to be lifted I realize) into an antenna with an efficiency of at least 510 mV/m @ 1 km for 1 kW (which would work out to about 22,800 mV/m @ 1 km)? Also is there any way to get considerably higher radiation efficiency in the horizontal plane on an AM station? Also what might be the "radiation efficiency" in those terms (mV/m @ 1 km for 1 kW) of some FM and TV antenna setups?
Of course another thing that would definitely help (and if we were to choose one *OR* the other, I'd choose this) is to crack down on noise-generating devices. In my opinion, if you hook up a FIM directly to the "output" of a noisemaker (CFL light, plasma TV, power line, etc) inside a multi-mile-underground screen room, if the signal even registers on the FIM (assuming it's calibrated so the ambient natural noise level is at least 40-60dB above the bottom of the scale) it should be considered non-compliant.
I'm thinking if noise levels could be brought down low enough, then maybe people (general, not talking about DXers) might be able to listen to, say, 10 µV/m signals, and not have to wait till it's 15 mV/m like in L.A. before the signal becomes "listenable"?Does WCTT play oldies all day? Corbin is 770 watts at 193 miles and Charleston is 10,000 watts at 240 miles. But the coverage maps suggest that Corbin would have more signal here. They're playing oldies such as Andy Williams - Can't Get Used To Losing You and Charlie Rich - The Most Beautiful Girl. It doesn't seem to be a Beach Boys/Beatles/Monkees kind of oldies. Does that narrow it down any? Whatever it is, it plays a LOT of music in the mid day. My antenna may be somewhat directional as it goes up at one angle and back down at another angle. It's like an end fed inverted vee for lack of a better description.Icangelp said:
How far can KNBR go to the East??
MarioMania said:
KNBR was just reported in Michigan this month in another thread.
In my own experience, KNBR is now a very tough catch here in the Chicago area. The increased noise floor doesn't help, but the main problem for me is splatter from the local 50kw on 670....WSCR. I'm about 25 miles from the stick. Up until a couple of decades ago, you could null the local 670 and hear KNBR on an occasional basis without too much trouble. But the closest to here that I've heard it in recent years is in the vacinity of the Mississippi river....about 130 miles west of me.
Mario, I heard them in Eastern NC many years ago on a "table-top" Emerson tube radio. It was around sunrise. With a bit of luck and a good antenna, you should be able to hear coast to coast class A stations once in a while. Some of the serious DXers with top notch stations should hear them more often. I only got them that one time.
To add to what Cyberdad said, I too live in the Chicago area and WSCR makes KNBR very difficult. Years ago when 670 was WMAQ, they used to signoff on Monday mornings for maintenance and KNBR was an easy catch.
As N4GBK mentioned, coast to coast DX was a regular thing in the 60s & 70s when the 1A clears were still around.
Many times I heard WABC, WNBC, & WCBS on the west coast. As recent as the 80s I was still able to pull WCBS out of the mud in California.
Today you have to have a setup like Kilokat7 in order to DX coast to coast successfully.
As N4GBK mentioned, coast to coast DX was a regular thing in the 60s & 70s when the 1A clears were still around.
Many times I heard WABC, WNBC, & WCBS on the west coast. As recent as the 80s I was still able to pull WCBS out of the mud in California.
Today you have to have a setup like Kilokat7 in order to DX coast to coast successfully.
Yeah, AM Stations blew up in the Last 30 Years
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