DXING IN WILKES-BARRE

[Tiger1983]

Yesterday afternoon while sitting in my car outside Barnes and Noble in W-B Twp, I was playing around with the radio on my new 2005 Chevy and I was hearing stations that are 150+ miles away from W-B. On 96.9, I was hearing a rock station from Utica-Rome, NY with the format being much similar to Rock 107. It came in almost LOUD and CLEAR for a few minutes despite getting interference by adjacent 97 BHT. Then sometimes it was interfered by another station on the same frequency that played Donna Summer's "She Works Hard for the Money" but I don't know which station that plays the song was coming from, and another rock station but again don't know which location it is coming from. I then tuned to 97.3 and I got a mish-mosh of ESPN radio with a commercial for a bank located in New Jersey(I'm sure it's not one of ESPN 630/1240's new translators coming on) and a lite rock station WYXL from Ithaca. Then I switched to 92.5 and I picked up a country station out of Rochester and finally on 104.7 came another country station, this time from Syracuse. This all occurred within the 5 o'clock hour on a cloudy Friday afternoon.

As W-B is situated in a valley between 600-700ft of elevation, it is very unusual to get such stations that are located more than 150+ miles away because these mountains can block such signals, but as you drive to let's say Mountain Top, which its elevation is about 1,400 ft, it would be almost common to receive them from such great distances. In Mountain Top, almost all of the Williamsport and the mid-Susquehanna valley stations can be picked up clearly, even with a portable radio! Later this month, I'll be heading towards the Ricketts Glenn State Park which is over 2,200 ft. I wonder if I would be picking up more signals, probably 200 miles away.

 

[ThomasCarten]

I've found wake-up time in the mornings can be interesting for stations southwest of wherever you happen to be.

 

[wbz1030]

I would actually have to say that is somewhat of a regular occurrence. I used to live in Hazleton and typically heard FM stations far to the north. I would regularly get stations from southern NY and if the tropospheric conditions kicked in, stations even more upstate NY. Now I'd have to say it was a bit cheating as our house was on a hill facing north, tropospheric bounce would kick some stations even into the valleys.

Also from my location in Hazleton, some spectacular tropospheric bounce conditions produced by lake effects enabled me to listen to the now WLKK 107.7 MHz in Buffalo, NY regularly. That was before WGMF started up. The same conditions would also enable me to occasionally pick up CFPL TV channel 10 in London, Ontario back when it was a CBC affiliate. It would fade in for hours at a time!

 

[JustPastBuffalo]

Tiger, sounds like some good Trop-Ducting. Here's a great website, DX INFO CENTER for tropo conditions.

The Utica station on 96.9 would be Classic Rock WOUR, which has an enormous TX location. Big stick on top of a mountain just north of Utica, at the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains. WOUR sometimes blows into the eastern counties of the Buffalo TSA (Western New York) and interferes with Classic Rock WGRF/97 Rock, which has a pretty good TX location in the city, on the north side of Buffalo.

 

[GlennSummers]

Tiger: The 97.3 you heard was probably WENJ-FM out of Millville (COL) New Jersey.

 

[pdjames]

My weirdest experience with tropo-ducting-I had been fired in North Carolina (long story that) and tried like hell to get another job down there. The place I lusted to work for was WSFL in New Bern NC. Never got that chance. Two years later I was listening in my living room in Laconia NH (!) on a fairly good tuner but with only a dipole and all of a sudden they came screaming in like a local. I thought I had slipped into another dimension.
Of course the fact that they were 100,000 watts probably had some influence on their tunneling that far but that's a fair haul.

Once heard a South Carolina signal on 102.3 when I was PD there on my car radio in Dallas. Was shocked to hear top 40 on the Mtns Freq.

 

[warmland]

My weirdest experience with tropo-ducting-I had been fired in North Carolina (long story that) and tried like hell to get another job down there. The place I lusted to work for was WSFL in New Bern NC. Never got that chance. Two years later I was listening in my living room in Laconia NH (!) on a fairly good tuner but with only a dipole and all of a sudden they came screaming in like a local. I thought I had slipped into another dimension.
Of course the fact that they were 100,000 watts probably had some influence on their tunneling that far but that's a fair haul.

Once heard a South Carolina signal on 102.3 when I was PD there on my car radio in Dallas. Was shocked to hear top 40 on the Mtns Freq.

Mr James,

How was the heat down there. Hear it gets might darn hot. Where is New Bern near? Never heard of it. Charlotte is the big market there correct? Then Raleigh is next???. Remember on The Andy Griffith Show that was a big deal for Andy and Barney to head up to Raleigh.

 

[nepa_radio]

The WYXL is a very strong station I pick it up all the time rain sleet hail or snow, I live 4 miles outside of Carbondale. I also pickup a country station form Ithaca constantly called Q country. The 92.5 form Rochester comes in mostly in the mornings I get WKGB form Binghamton and so does the 104.7, as far as 96.9 I get a religious station that over powers any far off station.

 

[usradioguy]

My weirdest experience with tropo-ducting-I had been fired in North Carolina (long story that) and tried like hell to get another job down there. The place I lusted to work for was WSFL in New Bern NC. Never got that chance. Two years later I was listening in my living room in Laconia NH (!) on a fairly good tuner but with only a dipole and all of a sudden they came screaming in like a local. I thought I had slipped into another dimension.
Of course the fact that they were 100,000 watts probably had some influence on their tunneling that far but that's a fair haul.

Once heard a South Carolina signal on 102.3 when I was PD there on my car radio in Dallas. Was shocked to hear top 40 on the Mtns Freq.

Hey pdjames I'm in my living room in Belmont NH worked WNAK WSGD WCDL WYOS WBAX WPMR WVIA WWAX In NE Penn market Georgia Florida and the Carolina's as well drop me a email small world

 

[pdjames]

Usradioguy-

Sounds like me-couldn't keep a job, huh? (Just kidding) Feel free to email at [email protected]


and WARMLAND... it was hot but here's how hot it was. Being from the north I was stunned and amazed that you could go the beach in JANUARY. So I did. Laid out in the sun and got a wicked sunburn... so bad I tried to call off sick for my double shifts (!) on Sunday. The PD informed me that if I had been in the Military I would have been punished for damaging Government property! Not sure what that meant other than the fact that I should damn well go to work no matter how sick I was.

I alternated between vomiting and shivering so bad when I cracked the mike that I sounded more like Porky Pig than I usually did.

I got a million stories kids.

Jim

 

[Vince Sweeney]

so bad I tried to call off sick for my double shifts (!) on Sunday.

Thanks, Jim, for reminding me once again why I am sooooo happy to no longer work in broadcasting. A double shift on Sunday? Oh, yeah, pulled several myself. They were pure misery, agony.

 

[Roger]

Vince,

Miss seeing you on TV.

 

[SharkeySharkDog]

UGH double shifts on Sunday. I used to have to do a night out till 2am Sunday morning and then God-Squad at 6am...oh how that open bar tab killed me LOL

 

[pdjames]

This was an AM/FM in Jacksonville NC, a Marine town. Ooh rah. The guy I relieved on Sunday mornings was on some sort of a Marine work study deal which as near as I could figure meant the station got him for free. They got what they paid for as the FM was always off the air when I arrived.
The shifts were Sunday 6am-12noon and then 6pm to 12 midnight. The last three hours were Classical music ( on AM-the FM was country, automated.) The PD thoughtfully told me "Y'all can read a book while you play that Classical music." Thanks.
I was pretty much Bisquick from the eyes up by the time the Classical portion of the evening came on. I commited all sorts of radio atrocities including playing the Modern Classical album by Jack Nitzsche entitled "St. Giles Cripplegate"
every Sunday night for a month to see if anyone complained. It is the ugliest Classical music this side of Phillip Glass but no ever said a word to me.
To say my time in North Carolina was not a bright spot in my so-called career is definition of understatement. Try as you will and you can search my Resume until your eyes bleed and you will never see WJNC mentioned there.

 

[Vince Sweeney]

Vince,

Miss seeing you on TV.

Thanks, Roger. One thing I will say about TV as opposed to radio was that the dreadful double shift, or the numbing nine/ten/eleven hour weekend shift, was just about non-existent. On those rare occasions when extra hours were required, there was this thing known as OT which television paid, a thing that radio stations tried for years beat you out of one way or the other. Holidays were double time and a half. That tended to salve the pain of working when the entire rest of your world wasn't. In radio, you worked holidays and shut up.

WARM's favorite trick when it came to OT was telling you that you were a salaried employee. For years I asked, "If I'm salaried, why do I fill out an hourly time card?" Never got an answer and, of course, never got a nickel overtime. I can't swear to this, but I think someone finally challenged them on a legal level, like with Wage and Hour, concerning the lack of paying OT and that put an end to a number of things, including that mandatory six-day week.

I was pretty much Bisquick from the eyes up by the time the Classical portion of the evening came on.

Great, great line, Jim!

 

[waunderlust]

Funny how companies used the term "salaried" whenever they wanted overtime. I remember looking up the PA definition of a salaried employee. This was years ago, but by LAW in PA salaried employees work to work. Thus, some weeks you'll work over 40 hpurs, sometimes under 40 (show me a GM or PD that would accept that). You're not judged on hours, but by doing your work. Also, there is no such thing as a "half day" for a salaried employee. If you showed up and did work whenever you leave is a full day as long as you did your work.

I worked for a company that had a mandatory 40 hour week and 6 hours on the weekend every other week. A disgruntled employee reported them to labor relations and I got over time back pay for every Saturday I had to work. LOL

 

[Vince Sweeney]

I worked for a company that had a mandatory 40 hour week and 6 hours on the weekend every other week. A disgruntled employee reported them to labor relations and I got over time back pay for every Saturday I had to work. LOL

Glad you challenged them, too few employees did, and mostly because they were just happy to have a job in radio. Management knew that, and traded on it for decades.

The amount of money stations and groups made on the backs of on-air employees was absurd. Many places literally had two sets of rules. one for on-air types, and one for the rest of the staff.

WARM was infamous for this nonsense. Once when home office (York) issued a memo proudly announcing a brand new benefit, three personal days per year, our ops manager and PD couldn't move fast enough to make it clear that programming employees were not included, whereupon I asked the GM for a few minutes of his time.

Telling him that nowhere in the memo did anyone within the employ of Susquehanna/Pfaltzgraff get excluded from the new benefit, I politely asked that he get some sort of a ruling from HR down in York. He promptly did. Of course we were included, we got the three days. Our immediate superiors intent was to deny us the days because filling holes in the programming schedule would have meant extra work for them.

Those same "immediate superiors" completely misinterpreted (and I really don't know how they could have, it was explicit) the vacation section of the employee handbook, thereby beating a couple guys out of weeks and weeks vacation for several years. In the end, though, they were forced to make good on the vacation time, but not until there were threats of legal action.

One more for now. They fired an on-air employee for a completely ridiculous and indefensible reason, then really hammered the poor guy by challenging his UC claim. The way the story is told, the UC referee handed the WARM suits their heads at the hearing.

 

[plooker]

Just to add to this little discussion. There was a certain station in this market that I worked at(no names here) That if you worked 37.5 hours you were considered full time. So of course after I worked my 45+ hours a week, I noticed my time card was coming up with 35 hours paid a week(after 3 months) I went to management to confront them about this, and the payroll manager actually told me what happened and why. If I worked over the slotted amount, I would have to have benefits and be considered a full time employee, so to save the company this added expense, they actually shaved my hours and screwed me out of the hours.
My pay was $6 an hour at the time, so this added insult to injury didn't sit all to well. But since I didn't want to lose my job I shut up and took it, and continued to work for them, until I got a better job out of market a year later.
As things turned out, my next move was a dream job and in retrospect, I'm glad I toughed it out in order to land with the company I did, but to this day, I am still so pissed at the way these scum bags screwed me, I will never forgive the GM who allowed this to happen.... OK, I'll give the guys first name.. Bill... You guys can take it from there...