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Awesome Groundwaves 10000 Watts Or Less

I was going to make it 5000 watts or less, but I wanted to include a few 10000 watts ones. The rule is arbitrary, but you would hope that if you are 50000 watts, that you have a decent groundwave service area, but sadly that is not always true.

Check this pattern out for the old CHYR 710, still in the Region II Database, and notice how it was designed to have a wide beamwidth without falling off for a good 20 or 30 degrees from the maximum. And the ground condctivity is good too. I can't think of another pattern like that with that many towers. Of course, it moved to FM years ago.

http://www.fcc.gov/ftp/Bureaus/MB/Databases/AM_DA_patterns/305316-26504.pdf
 
Another great groundwave daytime: 760 in Tequesta, FL. Easily heard in Charleston daytime, with noise. Also, 970 WJMX Florence. Can be heard easily around Charleston even with co-channel on 980, and heard in Myrtle even with co-channel in Wilmington.
 
I may have already mentioned it earlier, but I think I have ALL you guys beat for receiving a low power, high dial position station over a considerable distance and still having a good signal on an ultralight radio. ;)

500-watt 1290 KZSB Santa Barbara, CA - received 182 miles away in Ocean Beach, CA, with a barefoot Tecsun PL-606 (using its stock 100mm (~3.9") loopstick).

Except for about 0.3 to 0.5 miles of land at each end, it's a saltwater path the whole way.

I know gar fla can beat me for distance over saltwater, though. :p Are there any 1kW or less signals above 1400 kHz from TX you can hear in FL, gar?
 
charlestondxman said:
Another great groundwave daytime: 760 in Tequesta, FL. Easily heard in Charleston daytime, with noise. Also, 970 WJMX Florence. Can be heard easily around Charleston even with co-channel on 980, and heard in Myrtle even with co-channel in Wilmington.
Click to expand...

I heard 760 Tequesta at night in Puerto Rico. Apparently they beam that 1,500 watts into the Caribbean at night.
 
I know gar fla can beat me for distance over saltwater, though. Are there any 1kW or less signals above 1400 kHz from TX you can hear in FL, gar?
Click to expand...

So far, nothing I've been able to ID.

I've never put much effort into it because that may be pushing the limit of how far a 1kw signal can go even on saltwater at that high a frequency. I'm not sure
Although now that I think of it, I'm convinced that cd637299 got WOND from Pleasantville, New Jersey in Bermuda daytime from that recording he once posted here.

That's about the same distance as our west coast beaches are from Houston, Tx.

Speaking of stations from texas and saltwater, I did hear something interesting on 1700 in the daytime at the beach. It's the fluttering sound often heard with co-frequency interference.

That would suggest another station's signal with WJCC Miami Springs which was barely audible at the time. The only possibility I would think is the 8.8 kw KVNS from Brownsville which is a little more than 900 miles.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjDPHQl6owY
 
That Santa Barbara-to-San Diego path tfciwings talks about is a good one, indeed. I have relatives in Solana Beach, and I can regularly hear the Santa Barbara 1250 and 1340 down at the beach there, too.

A similar all-saltwater path exists from Atlantic City up to the south shore of Long Island, and even out to the south shore of Cape Cod. The 1340 and 1400 from AC are regulars all along the coast there, at distances similar to the SB-to-SD path.

Another good one is WBMQ 630 from Savannah. I was listening to that one (4800 watts day) loud and clear in Jacksonville, Florida in February...and it was still listenable another 100+ miles south in Daytona, too.
 
WBMQ has a great signal like I said. They're like a local almost daytime around Charleston, especially by the beaches. WBMQ is also listenable in Myrtle Beach, and if not for the 630 in Wilmington, they probably could be heard at Cape Hatteras.

They had a great night signal too, but they pretty much cut that out about four years ago. WSPO has a very good signal too, along with WTMA out of Charleston. That comes in well at Daytona Beach.
 
A cool ground wave story. A little over twenty years ago the chief and assistant chief engineer of WVLK Lexington, KY were on their way back from Quincy, Illinois and made a pit stop at US 41 and I-64 just north of Evansville, Indiana. The Pioneer radio in the van had a very sensitive AM tuner. They called the manned transmitter site and told the engineer on duty to lower the transmitter power from 5kw to 1kw (day pattern was almost ND, null to north), the signal still existed. The transmitter engineer continued to lower the output power. They finally lost the signal around 200 watts.
 
Well we don't have any salt water paths in my area, but some of the over fresh water Great Lakes paths are pretty good. Canada claims they are 10 mS/m, the US 8 mS/m over the same lakes.

WLIP 1050 250 watts in Kenosha has a phenomenal signal considering power and frequency. It's there under WHFB, which is good for 5000 at 1060 over the lake. WMAM 570 250 Marinette is also good, now covered up by WTCM 580 50000 Traverse City. Now WTCM with 50000 is not as good as you would expect due to the bad conductivity around the transmitter, and nulls over the lake.

On the HD section, there was a thread asking about the signals of all the powerful stations near Detroit with huge DA arrays almost all pointed north. I pointed out that in much of Oakland County, the conductivity is bad, and the signals are not as impressive as far north as you would expect. Further east, the condctivity is better across the Thumb and Lake Huron. When you get around Harrisville, many of the Detroit area and Southeast Michigan stations come in quite well, even as you get to the high end of the band.

WOKY 920 5000 is good over Lake Michigan, but much of the signal is obscured by WFDF 910, WGTO 910, and WBCK 930. It's always been that if you get into a null area for the adjacents, you can hear WOKY in the daytime over much of South Central and Southeast Michigan.
 
Schroedingers Cat said:
Well we don't have any salt water paths in my area, but some of the over fresh water Great Lakes paths are pretty good. Canada claims they are 10 mS/m, the US 8 mS/m over the same lakes.

WLIP 1050 250 watts in Kenosha has a phenomenal signal considering power and frequency. It's there under WHFB, which is good for 5000 at 1060 over the lake. WMAM 570 250 Marinette is also good, now covered up by WTCM 580 50000 Traverse City. Now WTCM with 50000 is not as good as you would expect due to the bad conductivity around the transmitter, and nulls over the lake.

On the HD section, there was a thread asking about the signals of all the powerful stations near Detroit with huge DA arrays almost all pointed north. I pointed out that in much of Oakland County, the conductivity is bad, and the signals are not as impressive as far north as you would expect. Further east, the condctivity is better across the Thumb and Lake Huron. When you get around Harrisville, many of the Detroit area and Southeast Michigan stations come in quite well, even as you get to the high end of the band.

WOKY 920 5000 is good over Lake Michigan, but much of the signal is obscured by WFDF 910, WGTO 910, and WBCK 930. It's always been that if you get into a null area for the adjacents, you can hear WOKY in the daytime over much of South Central and Southeast Michigan.
Click to expand...

Interesting observation of WOKY over water because here in Illinois 60 miles south of their transmitter their signal is quite poor.
 
WNWI 1080 when in Valparaiso IN, about 10 miles off the tip of Lake Michigan at 250 watts did a very
good job all the way up to Evanston on the Illinois side, but only for about 1 mile inland.
 
Tom Wells said:
WNWI 1080 when in Valparaiso IN, about 10 miles off the tip of Lake Michigan at 250 watts did a very
good job all the way up to Evanston on the Illinois side, but only for about 1 mile inland.
Click to expand...

Same with WLTH in Gary. If you listened near the lake in Wilmette, their signal was almost local. If you went inland less than a mile you could hardly hear it.
 
Schroedingers Cat said:
The WOKY day pattern beams east with the equivalent of about 20 kW based on minimum Class B efficiency. Not much to the south, though.
Click to expand...

Over the years on the road I've made countless trips into, throughout, back from, etc Wisconsin and it really is
dramatic how fast they fall off to next-ta-nothin in only 20-so miles going due south of that lobe on I 94.
 
radiorob2.0 said:
A cool ground wave story. A little over twenty years ago the chief and assistant chief engineer of WVLK Lexington, KY were on their way back from Quincy, Illinois and made a pit stop at US 41 and I-64 just north of Evansville, Indiana. The Pioneer radio in the van had a very sensitive AM tuner. They called the manned transmitter site and told the engineer on duty to lower the transmitter power from 5kw to 1kw (day pattern was almost ND, null to north), the signal still existed. The transmitter engineer continued to lower the output power. They finally lost the signal around 200 watts.
Click to expand...
That is a cool story...I like doing experiments like that. Solid proof that the second watt is not as important as the first watt and the third watt isn't as important as the second watt... I had a chance to try something on FM where an existing 6KW signal was about to be moved. New site was built but no ready to be commissioned. I had someone listen on her car radio 20 miles from the new site (32 from the old site) as I started the transmitter at zero power and turned it up slowly. At 1% power (49 watts ERP), it was making a mess of the existing signal. At 2% power, it totally captured the receiver. Fun stuff to observe.
 
Tom Wells said:
Schroedingers Cat said:
The WOKY day pattern beams east with the equivalent of about 20 kW based on minimum Class B efficiency. Not much to the south, though.
Click to expand...

Over the years on the road I've made countless trips into, throughout, back from, etc Wisconsin and it really is
dramatic how fast they fall off to next-ta-nothin in only 20-so miles going due south of that lobe on I 94.
Click to expand...

Very true WOKY's signal to the south is quite poor.
 
Ok this won't win any distance contests (unless the contestant is using a crystal radio without an antenna to listen to stations mentioned thus far in the thread), but it is way under 10,000 watts.

How's this for receiving a high-dial TIS from 15 miles away?

1620 WNSB415 San Ysidro, CA

As that was received near El Cajon, CA, there was no saltwater path involved.
 
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