Ground Radials effecting reception

[drt]

DRT, do you get any other Chicago AMs & if so do they do better than WLS in your area?

I do receive WBBM (although not that well) most nights; WGN 720 seems to be a mish mash of stations at night, almost sounds like one of the graveyard frequencies........ but at my second listening post n.n.e. of here, I can get a weak WGN signal most nights.

Whatever Chicago station (can't recall the call letters) is on 670; I do not receive at all due to the splatter from a local 680 and if I null the splatter, then I get a good strong signal from Cuba, trying to jam a Miami station at 670. (The Cubans also jam 710 WAQI Miami, the number one talk station in Miami.)

 

[radioman148]

DRT, do you get any other Chicago AMs & if so do they do better than WLS in your area?

I do receive WBBM (although not that well) most nights; WGN 720 seems to be a mish mash of stations at night, almost sounds like one of the graveyard frequencies........ but at my second listening post n.n.e. of here, I can get a weak WGN signal most nights.

Whatever Chicago station (can't recall the call letters) is on 670; I do not receive at all due to the splatter from a local 680 and if I null the splatter, then I get a good strong signal from Cuba, trying to jam a Miami station at 670. (The Cubans also jam 710 WAQI Miami, the number one talk station in Miami.)

I've heard about those 670 & 710 wars between Miami & Havana. Most Floridians have said they get WBBM better than WLS.
I guess that's not true in your case.

 

[BobOnTheJob]

In the Lafayette area when I lived there in the 80s and 90s, WLS was the strongest Chicago station, day and night. I had heard KVOZ under WLS and in the mornings the Mississippi station was a regular. Cuba did quite a number on WLS even in Lafayette more recently.

I heard an aircheck of WSAI, Cincy at night with a request from Springfield. These days it's quite a challenge to hear it in Springfield. Either the signal was better in then 60s, people were more tolerant of interference, or both.

If I recall correctly, WSAI had interference in the background in Hamilton at night. Springfield would have been DX. I'd have to agree that people were probably more tolerant of interference back then. Listening to Cousin Brucie on XM taking requests from listeners in state after state who mention his WABC days almost makes it sound like DX listening was cool high school sport back in the day...I know it was for me, but then, I fall in the 'radio geek' category.

 

[radioman148]

>>I know it was for me, but then, I fall in the 'radio geek' category>>

Me too. I used to listen to "the cuz" almost everynight on WABC in the 60s in Illinois.
I'm clearly an old fossil.

 

[drt]

DRT, do you get any other Chicago AMs & if so do they do better than WLS in your area?

I do receive WBBM (although not that well) most nights; WGN 720 seems to be a mish mash of stations at night, almost sounds like one of the graveyard frequencies........ but at my second listening post n.n.e. of here, I can get a weak WGN signal most nights.

Whatever Chicago station (can't recall the call letters) is on 670; I do not receive at all due to the splatter from a local 680 and if I null the splatter, then I get a good strong signal from Cuba, trying to jam a Miami station at 670. (The Cubans also jam 710 WAQI Miami, the number one talk station in Miami.)

I've heard about those 670 & 710 wars between Miami & Havana. Most Floridians have said they get WBBM better than WLS.
I guess that's not true in your case.

I guess, I didn't state things very well...... bottom line is that I do get WBBM better than WLS, basically I don't get WLS (well sometimes I can hear them under Havana, but not always). 780 WBBM I can get most nights, just not that well, but definately better than WLS.

I think that even if the Cuban stations were to go dark; I would still get WBBM better than WLS.

drt

 

[radioman148]

DRT, do you get any other Chicago AMs & if so do they do better than WLS in your area?

I do receive WBBM (although not that well) most nights; WGN 720 seems to be a mish mash of stations at night, almost sounds like one of the graveyard frequencies........ but at my second listening post n.n.e. of here, I can get a weak WGN signal most nights.

Whatever Chicago station (can't recall the call letters) is on 670; I do not receive at all due to the splatter from a local 680 and if I null the splatter, then I get a good strong signal from Cuba, trying to jam a Miami station at 670. (The Cubans also jam 710 WAQI Miami, the number one talk station in Miami.)

I've heard about those 670 & 710 wars between Miami & Havana. Most Floridians have said they get WBBM better than WLS.
I guess that's not true in your case.

I guess, I didn't state things very well...... bottom line is that I do get WBBM better than WLS, basically I don't get WLS (well sometimes I can hear them under Havana, but not always). 780 WBBM I can get most nights, just not that well, but definately better than WLS.

I think that even if the Cuban stations were to go dark; I would still get WBBM better than WLS.

drt

Thanks!

 

[K4WRF]

One prominent antenna manufacturer/consultant once put it very succinctly, “it’s not so much the transmit antenna or receive antenna, but the stuff in the middle”. That said, I’ll have to disagree with the concept that the issue is with any of the transmission systems that have been mentioned in this thread. All of these stations are top-notch well engineered operations. I can tell you from firsthand experience, if there is a problem with the antenna system (for which the ground system is fifty-percent) you know about it immediately due to the constant and redundant antenna monitoring that is incorporated into every transmitter today as well as other on-site antenna test resources. I can tell you with 99% certainty that these facilities are operating at or near the same antenna efficiency they had when most of them assumed their current dial positions in 1941.

Now, I will also say that we yet don’t know everything about the nature of the various propagation medium, be it sky wave or ground wave.

We do know that the ambient noise level, manmade and natural, is at an all time high, having quadrupled over the past decade. Look around your house, florescent light bulbs, computer monitors, triac light dimmers, computers even if they are in your refrigerator or stove. Low voltage lighting, alarm systems, cell phone chargers, other switching power supplies. It can even originate in your neighbors home if you are fed from the same power service transformer and dirty power is another issue by itself.

Mixer stages in radios can translate out-of-band high-level signals into the radio that can wipe out select frequencies. Soil conductivity varies dramatically from season to season and gradually over longer periods and cycles 10, 50, 100 years and longer. We are now in the bottom of the deepest sun spot cycle on record. Varying geomagnetic properties and conditions can suppress sky wave propagation on one frequency and have no impact on another just a few kilocycles away. And the fact remains; there are a whole lot more radio stations on the air now than it was forty years ago. It takes a relatively small, even imperceptible signal to completely degrade another.

I know of one day-time only station in Alabama that leaves the unmodulated carrier on all night much to the detriment of the Class A station.

All makes for a very challenging hobby doesn’t it?

 

[radioman148]

Thanks for your thoughts "Watt".
I think you hit every nail right on!

 

[JohnW]

It takes a relatively small, even imperceptible signal to completely degrade another.

Let's not forget the biggest noisemaker of all - AM IBOC!

 

[radioman148]

It takes a relatively small, even imperceptible signal to completely degrade another.

Let's not forget the biggest noisemaker of all - AM IBOC!

That goes without saying.

 

[K4WRF]

It takes a relatively small, even imperceptible signal to completely degrade another.

Let's not forget the biggest noisemaker of all - AM IBOC!

Look out! Those iBOC cops are going to hunt you down….

 

[hipporadio]

One prominent antenna manufacturer/consultant once put it very succinctly, “it’s not so much the transmit antenna or receive antenna, but the stuff in the middle”. That said, I’ll have to disagree with the concept that the issue is with any of the transmission systems that have been mentioned in this thread. All of these stations are top-notch well engineered operations. I can tell you from firsthand experience, if there is a problem with the antenna system (for which the ground system is fifty-percent) you know about it immediately due to the constant and redundant antenna monitoring that is incorporated into every transmitter today as well as other on-site antenna test resources. I can tell you with 99% certainty that these facilities are operating at or near the same antenna efficiency they had when most of them assumed their current dial positions in 1941.

I AGREE, Walt.... The “What’s in the middle” paradigm was one of the first rules I learned from a dearly-departed friend, ham-op, and consummate AM engineer that I met as a "snot-nosed young'n" while working at Notre Dame University... I didn’t want to believe it at first, but came to accept that technical reality as I rebuilt/diligently-maintained a couple AM facilities later in my career. I was “side-by-side” with my experienced AM engineer, and he echoed your assertion that a severely-depreciated ground system would affect system parameters and would be clearly-indicated when you diligently maintained your transmitter/ATU/antenna and viewed the "results" off a few meters.

WLS’s daytime signal in eastern Indiana HAS NOT depreciated since I was a teen [neither have the other Chi-Town AMs]... WSM’s is receivable in the same location [albeit weakly] during the day. In fact, I can receive MORE AM signals on the “typical radio” than I could on my childhood and teen-years AM radios – the difference is interference, which has increased at near exponential values... More atmospheric noise due to the sum of all the computers, light dimmers, and aquarium heaters... Add to that [at night] the cadre of low-powered 5-75-watt stations, who were once ordered off-the-air at dusk, and now can remain on-the-air and spread their collective skywave after dark.

The complaints here should be directed toward years of “FCC Policy” – and less to indite a few buried copper wires that *may* have become disloged in a heritage AM antenna system.