AM Frequency of the Week - 580 kHz

[Jim In Vt]

I hear a repeat of Cruisin 93.7 Addison & it's pretty strong. Can't find anything
about this anywhere but that's what's there. Not totally nullable
but I can hear what I think is CFRA when aimed at their best null.

Used to get CFRA in listenable before this took over the frequency.

73's!

Jim

 

[Icangelp]

I hear a repeat of Cruisin 93.7 Addison & it's pretty strong. Can't find anything
about this anywhere but that's what's there. Not totally nullable
but I can hear what I think is CFRA when aimed at their best null.

Used to get CFRA in listenable before this took over the frequency.

73's!

Jim

Have you heard the station while traveling around your area?

If only heard at home, it could be a home based neighborhood low power station rebroadcasting the FM signal. But then, you probably thought of that already.

 

[BobOnTheJob]

WILL days in south central Indiana...jumble at night. As a kid, my dad would take me out to Winton Woods park in Cincinnati so I could DX. Noise level there was non-existent. WILL was there on that 1960 Buick car radio quite clearly. I have a friend in Charleston,IL who also tells me that WILL performs better than expected for 100 watts at night.

 

[radioman148]

WILL days in south central Indiana...jumble at night. As a kid, my dad would take me out to Winton Woods park in Cincinnati so I could DX. Noise level there was non-existent. WILL was there on that 1960 Buick car radio quite clearly. I have a friend in Charleston,IL who also tells me that WILL performs better than expected for 100 watts at night.

Wow--I would've never thought that WILL would make it to Cincy during the day.

 

[austingrace]

Here in Altamonte Springs Florida it's 5000 watt 580 wdbo all day and all night. They stay at 5000 watts 24 7. They are symalcast on 96.5 fm now so that would be cool if the am got shut off so I could hear what was on 580 during the day and night. I have heard something under them at night at times but not enough to figure out what it was.

 

[charlestondxman]

580 in Charleston daytime is a mix of WDBO and WGAC. It depends on the day, but usually WDBO wins out. The farther inland you go, the more likely you are to hear WGAC.

Nighttime, it is a jumble. WDBO has a huge signal for 5000 watts, audible out to Myrtle Beach and probably farther daytime because there's nothing on there along the coast.

When I was in Point Pleasant last spring, WHP was there daytime at over 150 miles.

 

[jd]

580 in Charleston daytime is a mix of WDBO and WGAC. It depends on the day, but usually WDBO wins out. The farther inland you go, the more likely you are to hear WGAC.

It looks like the signal from WDBO benefits greatly from a saltwater path for much of the distance up your way. There's also very poor ground conductivity at Augusta, and the combination of those factors would probably account for the reception you describe.

 

[Jim In Vt]

I hear a repeat of Cruisin 93.7 Addison & it's pretty strong. Can't find anything
about this anywhere but that's what's there. Not totally nullable
but I can hear what I think is CFRA when aimed at their best null.

Used to get CFRA in listenable before this took over the frequency.

73's!

Jim

Have you heard the station while traveling around your area?

If only heard at home, it could be a home based neighborhood low power station rebroadcasting the FM signal. But then, you probably thought of that already.

Icangelp,

Yes, but only for a few miles. It does not make it to Burlington at all. It is low power & I suspect not far from me
but not on top of me as I can still hear CFRA thru it when aimed at the 580 null. As I mentioned, they are not totally nullable but I can get them down to about 40% signal.

 

[n2wds]

Wellsville, NY

Days: nothing
Sunrise: WHP a couple of times.
Nights: a mess, but haven't really spent much time listening.

 

[tanner]

When I was in the Fl Keys in Marathon nothing during the day and WDBO weak at times at night with the San Juan station underneath. When I was in the mountains of Ga over Thanksgiving I picked up WDBO briefly one night.

 

[audioguy]

North of Chicago: Daytime, WILL with a good signal
Critical hours: Mix of WILL and WTCM
Nighttime, increasingly a very big mess. Occasionally WIBW, CFRA, or WGAC will rise above it.
A few years ago I used to hear an MOR station from the south, occasionally. And of course, I used to enjoy picking up CKY "back in the day".

I also remember listening to WILL all the way up to Traverse City quite clearly on the car radio. It was a bad idea to allow a regional like WTCM to have so much power. Despite the use of a DA, some of that energy goes off in other directions due to ionospheric reflections. It's things like this that make the AM band the mess that it is. I wish WTCM was back on 1400 (or whatever) with 1 kW.

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

The reason why WTCM comes in during critical hours in unexpected directions is the high angle pattern differs from the horizontal pattern. It would be kind of difficult to put up four 1/2 wave plus towers to reduce that. The reason WTCM needs 50 kW is that the conductivity is really bad around Traverse City.

If there were critical hours protection on regionals, it would only extend to the 0.5 mV/m contour at best. And it would allow at least 5 times the inverse field toward that contour that the Class As would be allowed. I suspect that if they did critical hours RSS studies at 15 minute intervals and at different protected contour points, it would be even higher than 0.5 mV/m, because there is and was always more interference. The big owners wouldn't stand for the new regulations anyway. Look at all the interference from AM IBOC, and even the loss of de facto service of Class A FMs beyond their 1 mV/m contour from IBOC, and all the electrical interference, and tell me there is any consistent regulatory concern for radio interference.

 

[kenrayc]

That would be my hometown blow torch in Fresno/Clovis CA, KMJ-AM News/Talk, 50k ERP all day, Transmitter 14 miles away.

 

[vibe]

580 in central mass would be 580 WTAG Worcester (Woostah) MA. They had a decent coverage area but saw fit to put in a translator on 94.9. That action took away a decent chunk of WHOM's (Mt Washington NH) huge coverage area.