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AM Frequency of the Week: 1440

cyberdad

cyberdad

What comes out of your radio when you tune it to 1440?

Daytime for me in the far northwest suburbs of Chicago, it's a fair signal from WROK in Rockford, IL. 5kw directional from about 36 miles west of me. The bulk of their signal is aimed in the opposite direction from me, but I get what amounts to a minor lobe. (Main null is to the south).

Night: WROK used to be 500 watts non-directional since at least the 1960s. Now, for some reason, they've cut that to 270 watts ND. Go figure! Either way, WROK has always been inaudible here at night except during auroral conditions. 1440 here at night is a complete mess. Nothing surfaces with any regularity.
 
At some point, the WROK tower or location must have been changed, causing it to become relicensed. They presently use a sectionalized tower, with a 447.7 mV/m @ 1 km for 1 kW. 270 watts input to this tower exceeds the minimum Class B field for 500 watts, allowing it to have been licensed as 500 watts under old rules. At one time, they may have used an SLR with the antenna and an actual 500 watt transmitter output. Or they may have had a shorter nonsectionalized tower with the same inverse field.

The sectionalized tower may have allowed skywave protection to other stations on 1440 with elevation angle nulls, allowing it to be nondirectional at night, but with annular nulls at certain distances. It is one way of protecting stations at night in several directions while still remaining nondirectional in the horizontal plane.

Before NARBA, a lot of stations used 500 or 1000 watts nondirectional at night on Regional Channels. Some were even 5000 watts nondirectional at night, and some remain.
 
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In the near north Chicago burbs I used to get a very weak WROK during the day & nights were a big mess. The nearby 1430 WEEF splatter kills anything that's on 1440 for me now.
 
http://www.radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/pat?call=WNPV&service=AM&status=L&hours=D

and

http://www.radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/pat?call=WCDL&service=AM&status=L&hours=D

are the daytimers. WNPV is the louderest.

On the WNPV map we live due north of Pottsville, in that little gaggle of smudges, equidistant from Hazleton.

Nighttime have brought in WHIS WV (2-27-95; taped), WRRO Youngstown OH, and -- of all things -- WNYG Long Island with their Oldies.

(Anyone here remember .... creak, creak, where's my cane? .... when Youngstown 1440 was called WHHH and NEVER verified any reception reports?)
 
Here's the story about WROK on the 500 watt to 270 watt change from Scott Fybush.

http://www.fybush.com/sites/2008/site-080229.html

The array was rebuilt at the same site, and the center tower increased in height. Sectionalization was apparently done with skirting of the taller tower. WROK signed on in 1923, and the allotment was apparently on 1410 by 1933 with 500 watts at night nondirectional. It would have moved to 1440 in March, 1941. Older rules would have permitted using the nominal power of 500 watts, even though 270 watts goes to the antenna. Still older rules would have required an SLR.
 
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Thanks for your two posts, Cat. Explains quite a bit. Although Scott's article "admits" that the reason for WROK not going to a higher-powered directional night signal in 1963 when they increased day power to 5kw directional remains a mystery.
 
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Just a guess, but a WROK night DA w/ 5 kW or even 1 kW might have resulted in nulls that would have chipped away at the grand-fathered 500 watt ND night service circle. Had WROK been more aggressive in obtaining higher night power in the 30s, it may have been a different story.
 
There is something to be said for a near Central TL and a lower power nondirectional. At the very least, they would have had to move somewhere else and have an odd pattern with nulls in many directions to increase power with a conventional directional array. There were 1440s in Bay City, MI, Green Bay, WI, Quincy, IL, Golden Valley, MN, Warren, OH, and many others when a decision to move might have been made. The East Central Rockford location probably does better than a location further out. And they may have a vertical pattern which protects the closer in stations. They were most likely a III-B and an NIF now in the higher single digits. They came on in 1923, and probably moved to 1410 around 1933. Other that looking for an application, that's as good a guess as I can make.
 
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Here's an application that shows it. The NIF is 5.8 mV/m, pretty close to many former Class III-Bs with the new skywave and interference model. WBCM/WMAX Bay City has an NIF of 5.9 mV/m and used to be 1/0.5 U1. They moved and increased power by five times day and night in the late 1970s. The old WBCM/WMAX location conductivity seemed to be better than the new TL with 5/2.5 U4 which is further out. The nulls are shallow, but I don't think it gets out to the South as well as it did from the old site, nondirectional pattern, and power. It was really low, wet, and swampy at the old TL.

https://licensing.fcc.gov/cdbs/CDBS...?appn=101404086&qnum=5170&copynum=1&exhcnum=1
 
joebtsflk1 said:
Just a guess, but a WROK night DA w/ 5 kW or even 1 kW might have resulted in nulls that would have chipped away at the grand-fathered 500 watt ND night service circle. Had WROK been more aggressive in obtaining higher night power in the 30s, it may have been a different story.
Click to expand...

I was thinking the same thing, and Schroedingers seems to be on board as well.

In 1963, when WROK increased their day power, a new Chrysler assembly plant had just opened about ten miles east of the Rockford city limits. All the growth was in that direction. Also, the east side was the "well-off" side of town, while the west side was "depressed", to put it politely. That situation still exists today. WROK's studios and towers were/are also on the far east side of town. So it may well have been that a night power boost....especially with a tight pattern...might have been cost prohibitive and would have also resulted in a loss in coverage of desirable real estate. Any added coverage west of town (past the depressed area) would have been in a lightly populated rural area.
 
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Not much in southern CO on 1440, but far NE CO has a 5 kW ND oldies station KRDZ 1440 at Wray CO that a person can easily listen to in a car along I-76 and I-80 for an hour plus, and that's not even going through the heart of the service area. At night KRDZ is a class D - almost B with 212 watts ND.

Back in SE IA, WGEM was the usual daytime catch on 1440. Unlike WROK's less than aggressive newspaper ownership prior to the 60s, WGEM has local ownership with a name known in a number of small and mid level TV markets: Quincy Newspapers. And, WGEM is a rarity these days: it's a grandfathered AM-FM-TV-newspaper combo, all with the WGEM calls except for the newspaper of course, the mighty Herald-Whig, which retains that masthead because the Herald-DefunctPoliticalParty doesn't have the same ring. They don't like change much in Quincy. The Oakley family has been involved in the ownership of Quincy Newspapers since 1838.
 
joebtsflk1 said:
Back in SE IA, WGEM was the usual daytime catch on 1440. Unlike WROK's less than aggressive newspaper ownership prior to the 60s, WGEM has local ownership with a name known in a number of small and mid level TV markets: Quincy Newspapers. And, WGEM is a rarity these days: it's a grandfathered AM-FM-TV-newspaper combo, all with the WGEM calls except for the newspaper of course, the mighty Herald-Whig, which retains that masthead because the Herald-DefunctPoliticalParty doesn't have the same ring. They don't like change much in Quincy. The Oakley family has been involved in the ownership of Quincy Newspapers since 1838.
Click to expand...

WGEM has a good signal. Especially for 5kw on the upper end of the dial. When I was in college, also in SE IA, WGEM, had a good day signal, but disappeared completely at night (while WTAD and KHMO stayed in). The "solution" for WGEM was to flip to FM for their nightly top 40 program.

These days for me, WGEM is the "go-to" for daytime Cubs games on I-44 southwest of St. Louis. Even at that distance from Quincy, the signal in a good car radio is listenable for about 40-50 miles....once you get away from the local on 1430.
 
Here around Columbus, Ohio, nothing on 1440 day or night (or at least nothing I have noticed rising above the graveyard mush).
When I was a kid and lived a few miles closer to the WBNS-AM (1460) tower, 1440 was slop from 1460's tower.
Also in those days, 1440 was a regular frequency for my grandparents in St. Marys, Ohio. With no WGN on their cable back then, that's how they listened to daytime Cubs games from WPGW in Portland, Ind., about 30 miles to the west.
 
And to bring another 1440 into the discussion, KMAJ Topeka KS appears to be the station WGEM had to protect way back when, as Radio-Locator shows for WGEM's night pattern: http://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/pat?call=WGEM&service=AM&status=L&hours=N

So to try to confirm my suspicions, I checked out the .pdf History Cards on both stations, available on the FCC's AM Query search (not all stations have been done yet) The first app for a CP for what is now KMAJ was filed in October of 1945, 1 kW-D, .5 kW-N. They amended in January 1946 to specify 5 kW day and night with the same DA pattern.

Meanwhile WGEM first filed for 1440 at Quincy with 1 kW day and night in June of 1946. I can only guess that some sort of deal was struck between KMAJ and WGEM, for on 4/28/47 and 4/29/47, respectively, both stations filed for new CPs, with KMAJ at the present-day 5 kW-D/1 kW-N and WGEM at 1 kW-U with DA. (now 5kW-D/1kW-N)

And so that's how WGEM came to have that odd "rabbit ear" night pattern with the spot between the ears pointed at Topeka.
 
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joebtsflk1 said:
And so that's how WGEM came to have that odd "rabbit ear" night pattern with the spot between the ears pointed at Topeka.
Click to expand...

That explains quite a bit. R-L is certainly off, however, on their day coverage map. As I posted earlier, WGEM daytime, is surprisingly easy duty on a good car radio for about an hour or so southwest of St. Louis along I-44. The first time (of several) I came across the Cubs broadcast on 1440 I wasn't sure what I was listening to. I was pretty surprised when I heard it was WGEM.
 
Daytime in San Antonio, it's a weak KELG, "La Palabra" in Manor, TX, near Austin.

At night XEEST, "Quiéreme 1440" in Granjas near Mexico City is the most prominent, but it's fairly weak and intermittent. ESPN affiliate KEYS in Corpus Christi pops in and out weakly through the night, as does CBS Sports Radio station KPUR in Amarillo. Also, before AZ sunset when it's still at 5 kW, KAZG in Scottsdale can sometimes be heard faintly with its non-stop oldies pop/rock.

There are a few very weak English and Spanish stations on the frequency at night that I've yet to ID, and at times it's like a mini-graveyard.
 
During my brief career at KGRC, I remember when I would drive home to Quincy and punch up WGEM, it had a lot of chatter underneath it until I got closer to town. Rockford and St. Louis should be a factor in their pattern as well

cyberdad said:
That explains quite a bit. R-L is certainly off, however, on their day coverage map. As I posted earlier, WGEM daytime, is surprisingly easy duty on a good car radio for about an hour or so southwest of St. Louis along I-44. The first time (of several) I came across the Cubs broadcast on 1440 I wasn't sure what I was listening to. I was pretty surprised when I heard it was WGEM.
Click to expand...
 
When I worked at WPGW in 1976, we carried the Reds. The 1440 signal gets out reasonably well for 500 watts, especially to the east. When I lived in Western Ohio, WROK and WNFL and WHIS would occasionally surface at night.

schmave said:
Here around Columbus, Ohio, nothing on 1440 day or night (or at least nothing I have noticed rising above the graveyard mush).
When I was a kid and lived a few miles closer to the WBNS-AM (1460) tower, 1440 was slop from 1460's tower.
Also in those days, 1440 was a regular frequency for my grandparents in St. Marys, Ohio. With no WGN on their cable back then, that's how they listened to daytime Cubs games from WPGW in Portland, Ind., about 30 miles to the west.
Click to expand...
 
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