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AM Frequency of the Week: 570

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Chicago by the lakeshore:

Daytime: WIND splatter only.
Nighttime: Something of a jumble, highly dependent on exactly where I am. Right on the lakeshore WSYR in Syracuse, NY is not uncommon. A few times I've also heard WMCA in New York City, which I've heard a little inland too. I used to hear WNAX in South Dakota if I were away from the lakeshore. I haven't recently but this might be just due to the fact I've been listening less lately.
 
Great Ecuador DX on WMCA there, David. And I actually just checked the map to discover that Ecuador is in the Eastern Time Zone as the US. And then there's half of Brazil, in Bermuda Triangle standard time. Who knew ?

Days here in PA (also in Eastern time, hi) is sometimes a weak but steady WMCA.

One sunset, off someone's Hammarlund SP-600, we caught WTEM from Washington DC -- and it's taped, too.

Nighttimes it's a mix of WSYR Syracuse and WMCA, with the occasional doomsday clock R. Reloj. Can't imagine working there and having to listen off-air for hours on end.

* * * * * * *

Retro days from near JFK Airport in Queens: WKBN once or twice. Never heard WSYR there. And going by ground conductivity things I've read, perhaps, one midday if WMCA were off, we'd get WNAX ; otherwise never heard 'em.
WWNC Asheville was a goodie (and taped) one overnight.
And on another rare WMCA absence, in came WPLP Pinellas Park (Tampa) Florida. I called a buddy in Brooklyn I knew would be awake, to tell him. All I heard was the clonk of his phone against the wall and diminishing footsteps away from the phone.
 
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Looking at the WMCA pattern, it looks like it was designed to protect WSYR. With an array like WMCAs, as you increase the elevation angle, it's like going toward the azimuth angle off the back of the array. The null is about 50 degrees off the back of the array in the horizontal, which puts a null at 50 degrees elevation above horizontal. I'll look and see if I can find a study which shows the NIF contributors.

Here's one. WQDR. KLIF 570 application didn't show stations far enough away.


So it was kind of a compromise between protecting WSYR and WKBN and others further away. WSYR would be about 30 degrees average skywave elevation angle.
 
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Before they changed the skywave calculations and rules, the maximum interference allowed to a Class III-A was normally 2.5 mV/m, although there are some that have been allowed to go from III-B to III-A with much higher interference levels. Keep in mind that a Class III-A did not mean it was necessarily 5000 watts full time, nor does being 5000 watts full time mean it was a Class III-A. Look at the 1960 NAB Engineering Handbook for the rules at that time. 2.5 mV/m is roughly what the interference level allowed to WMCA, WSYR, and WKBN.
 
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Northeast New Jersey

WMCA day/night

I can get at best a faint ticking from Radio Reloj in the background if I really try for it at nighttime.
 
MichaelTheZ said:
Chicago by the lakeshore:

Daytime: WIND splatter only.
Nighttime: Something of a jumble, highly dependent on exactly where I am. Right on the lakeshore WSYR in Syracuse, NY is not uncommon. A few times I've also heard WMCA in New York City, which I've heard a little inland too. I used to hear WNAX in South Dakota if I were away from the lakeshore. I haven't recently but this might be just due to the fact I've been listening less lately.
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Nice catch on WMCA. I've never been able to catch it in the Chicago area.
 
In west Houston, it's KLIF all alone in the daytime. At night KLIF is still mostly dominant with XEBJB underneath. I've also heard WNAX and Radio Reloj.

XEBJB used to be regional Mexican music but recently they're playing mostly SS pop music.

Retro from Tulsa in the early '70s, WFAA/WBAP were strong during the day, less so at night. I remember hearing WWNC and WKBN on Monday morning with WFAA off.
 
Kenosha, WI- With a REALLY good radio, in a REALLY quiet location (usually near Lake Michigan), I can sometimes hear WMAM Marinette, WI during the day. Their tower is in a low lying area right next to the water; you can see it from the US 41 bridge over the Menominee River. Pretty good for 250 watts from about 170 miles.

Most common at night is WNAX, usually in early and out late. Some mornings it's quite good (4:30-5:00 AM) driving between Kenosha and Waukegan.

Other than that, pretty much WKBN.
 
ente said:
South Mississippi:

Day - nothing. WVMI Biloxi, MS used to operate a news/talk format, and country before that. The 6-tower array was expensive to maintain, so they moved to 1640 in 2003, becoming WTNI.
Night - KLIF Dallas, WAAX Gadsden, AL, and sometimes Radio Reloj
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I thought I had read or heard somewhere that those WVMI towers were deteriorated to the point that at least one of them collapsed. "Back in the day", I remember WVMI being listenable along the coast at least from New Orleans to Pensacola.
 
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KenoGuy said:
Kenosha, WI- With a REALLY good radio, in a REALLY quiet location (usually near Lake Michigan), I can sometimes hear WMAM Marinette, WI during the day. Their tower is in a low lying area right next to the water; you can see it from the US 41 bridge over the Menominee River. Pretty good for 250 watts from about 170 miles.

Most common at night is WNAX, usually in early and out late. Some mornings it's quite good (4:30-5:00 AM) driving between Kenosha and Waukegan.

Other than that, pretty much WKBN.
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Do you hear WTCM 580 at all? Can you null out WILL at all? An old Marine Direction Finder might be able to do that. There's a new conductivity map (NOT a new M-3 Map, the NAB would lobby against that, and giving the degree of grandfathering, and many necessary TL changes, rightly so) which shows Lake Michigan with much higher in conductivity. WTCM is really absorbed by the sand before it hits Lake Michigan, but once it gets there, it's home free.
 
Daytime, WNAX from my place in eastern Iowa. Nighttime, usually nothing audible. Have definitely had Radio Reloj many times. Hints of WNAX at best, and little else.

At night recently, I've been hearing a high-pitched tone on 570. What is this phenomenon called again? Have been having this the last few months, not sure if it's just my receiver or if it's the effect of radio signals interacting.
 
Schroedingers Cat said:
Do you hear WTCM 580 at all? Can you null out WILL at all? An old Marine Direction Finder might be able to do that. There's a new conductivity map (NOT a new M-3 Map, the NAB would lobby against that, and giving the degree of grandfathering, and many necessary TL changes, rightly so) which shows Lake Michigan with much higher in conductivity. WTCM is really absorbed by the sand before it hits Lake Michigan, but once it gets there, it's home free.
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Below is map showing the field contours of WTCM vs. WILL and other geographic "neighbors," using the more modern Earth conductivity values.

580kHz Daytime Contours, Upper Midwest.png
 
ZantennaG1 said:
It could be a hetrodyne signal, or possibly the "Warbler" on a new frequency. Previously, it was on 870. @cyberdad your take?
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I'd have to hear it to make an educated guess. If what icybluelake is hearing is a continuous tone, it's probably a het.

If it's a sound that's sort of like the blade of a saw being pushed back and forth, it's a "wobbler". Someone here more knowledgeable than me can explain how those are created.. Anyway, several months back a "wobbler" on 870 was being widely heard, and the most common theory was that the noise was emanating from Cuba. That line of thinking stemmed, in part, from the noise being strongest on the Key West SDR. I actually heard it a couple of times when I was at our beach location near Pensacola this past February. Although then the sound was well in the background of WWL.

When the "wobbler" was first heard about 10-15 years ago, it turned up on Channels that the Cubans might have an interest in jamming. But 870 is a frequency that Cuba shouldn't have any objections to. And WWL has a null 24/7 in the direction of Havana.
 
Schroedingers Cat said:
Do you hear WTCM 580 at all? Can you null out WILL at all? An old Marine Direction Finder might be able to do that. There's a new conductivity map (NOT a new M-3 Map, the NAB would lobby against that, and giving the degree of grandfathering, and many necessary TL changes, rightly so) which shows Lake Michigan with much higher in conductivity. WTCM is really absorbed by the sand before it hits Lake Michigan, but once it gets there, it's home free.
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First of all, my thanks to Rich for posting the map in response to your question.

My "real wold response" can't speak directly to Kenosha, although I'd think that if you're close enough to the lake and can null WILL, WTCM would probably sneak through on a good radio. What I can speak to is Madison, Wisconsin, where to my surprise, 580 is still all WILL. I can also say that I've never heard WTCM at my home location, where WILL's signal is somewhere between fair and good.

Since 580 is on tap for discussion next week, I'll leave it there. That's been a fairly interesting channel for me, so I'm looking to hear what everyone else here has to say about it. :)
 
tvnut said:
Good timing, though, to mention WILL. It's celebrating 100 years on the air today.
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Awesome! Be sure to get a recording, and post it to RD or YouTube, or both!
 
"Do you hear WTCM 580 at all? Can you null out WILL at all?"

Yes. Even though WILL is still pretty decent in Kenosha, a little nulling will have WTCM bubbling underneath. In winter during CH sometimes it will overtake WILL.

Sounds like a topic for next week!
 
I should have mentioned that WILL did some advertising in Lafayette, IN (mostly buscards) even with WBAA there. Reason was WBAA had stopped carrying Morning Edition and All Things Considered for a time.
 
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