I've been fascinated of skylines that can be seen from far away. It's noted that the skyline of Chicago is sometimes seen from 50-60 miles as the crow flies across Lake Michigan. Certain atmosphere conditions creating a mirage of the skyline. I have 2 questions about this. First one is for anyone that has DX'ed from places such as Warren Dunes and St. Joseph, MI, do the Chicago stations come in like locals? Since there isn't anything but a body of water in between. My 2nd question, when these certain atmosphere conditions occur, is tropo also active? Meaning when the buildings occasionally appear over the horizon, does the effect help FM signals travel farther?
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Has anyone ever FM DX'ed across Lake Michigan from Chicago?
- Thread starter Xale57
- Start date
While visiting family in Chicago, I caught an FM station from Benton Harbor, MI about a decade or so ago.
Upon further review, the station was on 99.9 FM, was country at the time and is now CHR/Pop. It fought with then "Nine FM" (now Bible Broadcasting Network) out of Kankakee, IL.
It's 62 miles from Sears Tower to St. Joseph/Benton Harbor, which is to the east-northeast.
Right next to the lake and for a couple of miles inland, it's not even DX. It's routine to pick up Chicago FMs, at least in the car. And you can go several miles inland and still get reasonably good reception, with some breakup in heavily treed areas.
Back in the analog TV days, a decent outdoor antenna aimed west would get all the Chicago stations, even WBBM-2, with only a bit of snow, on a dead-condition day. Old transmitter maps show the Chicago VHF's getting there with a fringe signal, at least. Digital, with some being directional, probably not. (Through smart Chicagoans with summer homes in the area might bring their DirecTV dishes along and still get Chicago stations, as its well within the coverage area of the spot beam.)
Right next to the lake and for a couple of miles inland, it's not even DX. It's routine to pick up Chicago FMs, at least in the car. And you can go several miles inland and still get reasonably good reception, with some breakup in heavily treed areas.
Back in the analog TV days, a decent outdoor antenna aimed west would get all the Chicago stations, even WBBM-2, with only a bit of snow, on a dead-condition day. Old transmitter maps show the Chicago VHF's getting there with a fringe signal, at least. Digital, with some being directional, probably not. (Through smart Chicagoans with summer homes in the area might bring their DirecTV dishes along and still get Chicago stations, as its well within the coverage area of the spot beam.)
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Interesting, 62 miles is pretty far for decent reception! I imagine Milwaukee stations boom in very clear during tropo.
As you go inland, where the elevation rises, such as in Western CASS COUNTY, 50 years ago, you could receive ALL the ANALOG TV STATIONS-2, 5, 7, 9, 11, 20, 26, 32, and 44 at the time, ON RABBIT EARS near ground level. You could get all the unduplicated and adjacent channel AMs >=1 kW below 1000, and >=5 kW above 1000. For some reason, I don't remember listening to FM much when I visited there. I would assume you could get all the FM stations back then not bothered by cochannels and first adjacent stations, which are prevalent since Docket 80-90. I also remember hearing WJIM-TV 6 sound there on the FM radio. WMAQ was strong, WIND and WLS were listenable but obviously weaker.
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From what I understand, seeing the buildings mirage is the same phenomenon as the one that brings DX across the lake. I've not DXed from Lake Michigan but I have from Lake Erie, with Ontario across the water from Vermillion, Ohio. It wasn't extensive but I had 103.1 from Leamington, London and Southern Ontario, and secondarily, Windsor and stronger Detroit stations.
That's interesting. So you effectively had TV from Chicago, South Bend and 3 from Kalamazoo. How about 8 and 13 from Grand Rapids.
A man who has studied this, named Kadlec, has studied the Fata Morgana vs. FM TV DX, and he claims that he can't find a correlation between the two. I think he is not looking at the correct height above the ground corresponding to the refraction angle. The atmosphere has a prismatic effect, and the bending angle is proportional the the frequency ratio. We're talking 1 X 10^8 Hz for FM and 5 X 10^14 Hz for Light, so FM has 5 million times the wavelength of Light. So at what angle are the FM waves bent vs. Light? That is what it boils down to.
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8 was OK. 13 is much further away, so not much as I recall. 500 kW WJFM and 265 kW WOOD-FM came in well. Older people listened to WOOD-FM mainly as I recall. I think both were Beautiful Music.
My Uncle in the NWC/ORD Area had some kind of discount for buying Panasonic products through the company he worked for. He had a Panasonic AM FM Portable with very good FM Selectivity, probably in the 30 dB first adjacent selectivity range typical of many Panasonic and Technics products at the time. You could easily get WJFM 93.7 and WOOD-FM 105.7 there, which probably lasted until IBOC came to be. I also remember hearing WCXT 105.3 Hart, MI 100 kW near Union Grove, WI before it downgraded and moved to Coopersville, MI. At the time, both WCXT 105.3 and WZRC 106.7 were both Z-Rock. Near Union Grove, WI, you frequently got WNDU-TV 16, WSBT-TV 22, and WSJV 28 and others from South Bend, IN, and even WWTV 9 from Cadillac, MI across Lake Michigan, and even in Digital recently.
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WSRW-FM (the former WOOD-FM) and WBCT (the former WJFM) both can be heard well to this day in the car in the Benton Harbor - St. Joe area. Those communities are right on the edge of reliable listening range. Reception goes downhill quickly near Stevensville.
In terms of Chicago FM reception, reception along I-94 usually isn't very good during non-tropo conditions until one gets within 15 to 20 miles of the Indiana - Michigan state line. I-94 is closer to Lake Michigan in that area than it is in the immediate Benton Harbor - St. Joe area.
In general, most of the Hancock Tower stations (WCHI, WDRV and WKQX to name a few) perform best in Berrien County, MI. WXRT has a bit of a null to the northeast, so they don't come in quite as easily.
Among the Sears Tower stations, 104.3 for some reason tends to outperform the rest. I believe 104.3 does have the best HAAT / ERP combination of the stations using that site, which could explain the superior performance.
During "dead" DX conditions, reception of Chicago stations usually disappears very quickly once one continues eastbound on I-94 past the I-196 / I-94 split. In some cases, they've already become unlistenable by the time one reaches that interchange.
In terms of Chicago FM reception, reception along I-94 usually isn't very good during non-tropo conditions until one gets within 15 to 20 miles of the Indiana - Michigan state line. I-94 is closer to Lake Michigan in that area than it is in the immediate Benton Harbor - St. Joe area.
In general, most of the Hancock Tower stations (WCHI, WDRV and WKQX to name a few) perform best in Berrien County, MI. WXRT has a bit of a null to the northeast, so they don't come in quite as easily.
Among the Sears Tower stations, 104.3 for some reason tends to outperform the rest. I believe 104.3 does have the best HAAT / ERP combination of the stations using that site, which could explain the superior performance.
During "dead" DX conditions, reception of Chicago stations usually disappears very quickly once one continues eastbound on I-94 past the I-196 / I-94 split. In some cases, they've already become unlistenable by the time one reaches that interchange.
I vacationed at a house on Lake Michigan between St. Joseph and South Haven for a week in 2015. Even without tropo (but it was up much of the time), the full power Chicago FM stations were an easy catch. Some Milwaukee stations were receivable, along with Waukegan's WXLC 102.3 (straight west). The terrain immediately to the east weakened the South Bend and Kalamazoo stations significantly. The house's TV antenna was pointed across the lake and without tropo received several Chicago and Milwaukee stations, along with WGVK from Kalamazoo (transmitting on channel 5). Most of the Chicago and Milwaukee AM stations were receivable. The tropo went all the up to cell phone frequencies. The local towers weren't line of site, so phones would occasionally flip to Central time (Illinois) and back at certain spots on the property.
In my Lake Erie example, though I did not experience this, some cellphone users stateside reported occasionally finding themselves with an international roaming warning from Rogers in Canada
I was using a Sony Portable AM/FM/Monoaural Cassette radio with great Sensitivity, but the First Adjacent Selectivity was not as good as the Panasonics that came out soon after.
There was WDOW 92.1, WNDU-FM 92.9, WJFM 93.7, WNIL-FM 95.3, WNWN 98.5, WMUK 102.1, WKFR 103.3, WVGR 104.1, WOOD-FM 105.7, and WQLR 106.5 then that may have blotted out half of the Chicago commercial frequencies. As I recall now, 100 kW WMBI-FM 90.1 came in well, and also wafted in and out in the entire Great Lakes Region when it was about the only powerful 90.1 in the region. I heard it in the parking lot of a Walmart in SE Michigan several years ago.
There was WDOW 92.1, WNDU-FM 92.9, WJFM 93.7, WNIL-FM 95.3, WNWN 98.5, WMUK 102.1, WKFR 103.3, WVGR 104.1, WOOD-FM 105.7, and WQLR 106.5 then that may have blotted out half of the Chicago commercial frequencies. As I recall now, 100 kW WMBI-FM 90.1 came in well, and also wafted in and out in the entire Great Lakes Region when it was about the only powerful 90.1 in the region. I heard it in the parking lot of a Walmart in SE Michigan several years ago.
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And also showed up in the Detroit Area across Lake St. Clair, before roaming warnings, as astronomical charges for calls made in Canada, in the early days of cellular. The fact that cell towers are very concentrated in small regions now has helped to eliminate this problem, plus roaming charge exemptions in Canada on many plans. Those Canadian roaming charges may have provided a good alibi for people charged with crimes, like on Dateline.
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Of course it makes a difference for AM mediumwave too. I get CKLW-800 and CFCO-630 at reasonable strengths in the Rochester, NY area. CKLW is 278 miles distant. Signal paths are across the longways length of Lake Erie. WJR-760 Detroit comes in well too.
I'd like it if someone in the Buffalo, NY area would check for Toledo, Ohio FM stations. That's a total Lake Erie length, end-to-end, of about 250 miles, and all water.
Many years ago I heard Houston, TX station KTRH-740 across the Gulf of Mexico at Sanibel Is. in Florida at mid-day. I was on vacation and received it on a car radio. Of course this is salt water, but some 800 miles.
Bill
I'd like it if someone in the Buffalo, NY area would check for Toledo, Ohio FM stations. That's a total Lake Erie length, end-to-end, of about 250 miles, and all water.
Many years ago I heard Houston, TX station KTRH-740 across the Gulf of Mexico at Sanibel Is. in Florida at mid-day. I was on vacation and received it on a car radio. Of course this is salt water, but some 800 miles.
Bill
David could probably tell us more about all the unduplicated AM and FM frequencies that boom in from Detroit and other areas in Cleveland. With their old facilities, WTAC 600 reportedly came in around Buffalo, before other 600s like Salem, OH and the frequency changes and power upgrades of 590 in Toronto, and 610 in St. Catherines. CHLO 680 St. Thomas (London) with 1 kW DA-1 came in great before they moved to 1570, and CFOS 560 can still be heard in Western New York and Northern Michigan. The new CHLO 530 comes in far and wide with 1 kW nondirectional from just Northwest of Toronto.
With the old WTAC 600 facility, with a 4 tower parallelogram designed by or influenced by Carl E. Smith just after World War
II ended, the joke was "North to the Bridge, East to Buffalo, South to Toledo, and West to Bishop Airport. The 0.5 mV/m contour missed the Western end of the 9/27 Runway at Bishop Airport, within the later annexed Flint City Limits. That's one reason they moved the TL going on 20 years ago, with varying results. It was embarrassing when they picked up advertising clients at the airport and could barely hear it driving back to the station. Comes in great now at Bishop though! Consultants claimed that you couldn't let the nulls out because of WKZO 590. Measured radials for both WTCM 580 and WSNL 600 have now shown that this could have been done years ago under the right circumstances. John Fetzer and Carl Lee of WKZO would have fought tooth and nail against it though.
With the old WTAC 600 facility, with a 4 tower parallelogram designed by or influenced by Carl E. Smith just after World War
II ended, the joke was "North to the Bridge, East to Buffalo, South to Toledo, and West to Bishop Airport. The 0.5 mV/m contour missed the Western end of the 9/27 Runway at Bishop Airport, within the later annexed Flint City Limits. That's one reason they moved the TL going on 20 years ago, with varying results. It was embarrassing when they picked up advertising clients at the airport and could barely hear it driving back to the station. Comes in great now at Bishop though! Consultants claimed that you couldn't let the nulls out because of WKZO 590. Measured radials for both WTCM 580 and WSNL 600 have now shown that this could have been done years ago under the right circumstances. John Fetzer and Carl Lee of WKZO would have fought tooth and nail against it though.
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I've heard various of the Chicago stations on a not-great FM personal stereo on the beach at Warren Dunes state park, about 15 miles down the coast from Benton Harbor. The one I recall hearing most was WBBM-FM with RDS readout, and I'm pretty sure I had 97.1 and 103.5 as well. At the time, I didn't even think of it as "DX" - 50-something miles across water seems fairly normal to me.
Here is one picture of the Chicago Skyline from near where some of you stay and travel to. It is called Fata Morgana, and it used to freak people out, sailors for instance, where ships would appear upside down, in one variation. It's all in the Laws of Physics, though.
There are many articles about this, and lots of pictures. A WOOD-TV 8 news story was the first I believe, but I can't find the original story.
There are many articles about this, and lots of pictures. A WOOD-TV 8 news story was the first I believe, but I can't find the original story.
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