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How far do your local AMs go?

G

gr8oldies

Just to piggyback the previous topic..how far do your AMs go and where have you DXed your local AMs. If your market has 50000 watt blowtorches, we pretty much know, but if your locals are 10000 watts or less it's obviously a different story.

We have 3 5000 watt AMs in Dayton, OH, all directional at least at night. Regular daytime coverage for WHIO, WING and WONE will get out strongly from Middletown to Piqua, east to Springfield and West to near the Indiana border, and a little more marginally to about Rt. 3 in Indiana, the western suburbs of Columbus, Lima and the 275 beltway around Cincinnati. Night coverage is a problem as all three suffer from interference in the market area, with WING and WONE marginal in Springfield. I have DXed WING as a kid on vacation in Fremont, MI, as it blasted in as soon as semi-local WGRD signed off. In Crossville, TN, WING was a regular at night more recently, and I was able to hear WONE briefly about an hour after sunrise. No WHIO there, but I could hear them in Lafayette, IN.

Our smaller AMs: WDAO on 1210 gets out suprisingly well for 1000 watts, about Sidney to the north on a good day, and I have heard them in the Lafayette, IN area after sign on at Philadelphia sunrise. 1500 WBZI's classic country can be heard in most of the suburban Dayton area but suffers from interference near the ends of the day, and sometimes all day in the winter.

How bout y'all and your locals?
 
All of our AM's here in Ottawa are 50'000 watt stations, CFRA 580, CJRC 1150, CFGO 1200 and CIWW 1310. I've heard all but CFRA in south east Iowa regularly, including CIWW 1310 about 10 miles south of Keokuk, Iowa, wiping out local KOKX. CFGO would sometimes come in during late afterno0ns in the wintertime, fighting with what's now WRTO Chicago.
 
I heard KPTK (1090 kHz) about 100 miles away in the daytime at Pacific Beach, WA.

I've also heard KIRO (710 kHz), KGNW (820 kHz), KOMO (1000 kHz) and KKNW (1150 kHz) in the early-mid afternoon in Wapato, WA. Even heard KBSN Moses Lake (1470 kHz) over there.

-crainbebo
 
In the Charleston, SC area, most of our AM's are weak, and have trouble growing our growing market, as the strongest is 5kw WTMA. WTMA has the best signal, available in most of the tri-county area during the daytime.

However, even WTMA barely comes in the northern parts of Berkeley County, around the top of Lake Moultrie (and barely comes in Santee, while most Charleston FM's have good signals) It has a good signal all along the coast, as I have heard it from Daytona Beach to North Myrtle Beach.

1390 WXTC is the next best, but they don't come in clear on 17 until you get nearly to Ravenel, and their day signal is blocked above McClellanville by 1400 in Georgetown. Their night signal leaves large parts of Berkeley and Dorchester out of range.

WTMZ has a pretty good signal for 500 watts, as it goes out almost as well as TMA due to the lower frequency.

WJKB at 950 has the best inland signal, but it is very directional, and it is hard to hear at the coast, and their night signal only is good east of the Cooper River, and leaves out large parts of the market. 810 has a good signal, but it is weaker by the coast, due to it being 60 miles from the coast.

The other AM's are graveyarders, owned by the same company (Kirkman), and they don't get out well at all. You can hear a hum in their signal just a few miles from their transmitter, in the Goose Creek/Summerville area, and forget about hearing 1340/1450 north of Ashley Phosphate on 26 at night. WZJY at 1480 is the worst signal, as it dies out maybe 20 miles or so from the transmitter, and their night signal doesn't even cover all of Mount Pleasant (its city of license).
 
1420 WVJS Owensboro, KY during the day shoots its signal north and south with nulls to the east and west. You can hear them this side of Terre Haute, In and past Clarksville, TN in the day. Almost all of the signal at night shoots to the southeast. You can hear WVJS in Southeastern Kentucky and we've had QSL reports from as far away as Raleigh, NC.

1490 WOMI has about a 40 mile radius during the day.

Back in the day, the owners of each station battled on who had the better signal. WVJS was 1kw ND-day at the time using a 208 degree self supporting tower, WOMI was 250 watts using a sectionlized 5/8 wave self supporting tower. One day the engineer of each station performed field strength reading at several locations with clergy present to assure accuracy. WVJS won but just barely. At night WVJS went directional while WOMI was swallowed up by skywave.
 
Only one in Coldwater, MI

WTVB 1590- Has a decent signal for a 5kw station near the top of the AM band. In the daytime hours they can be heard about 40-50 miles out. However, i've heard them just east of Toledo on the Ohio Turnpike and in a parking lot in Mount Pleasant, MI.

At night they cut down to a 1kw directional pattern (protecting WAKR and WONX) throwing their power to the north. They don't make it much more than 20 miles to the north. All other directions and they have a hard time going beyond five miles. I once heard a positive aircheck of WTVB nighttime reception from a guy in the Catskills, so I know they do get out at night. At least in some directions.
 
In Fredricksburg, VA, the local AMs WFVA 1230, WYSK 1350 are very weakdue to 1000W and poor ground conductivity. Nearby AM 730 in Woodbridge, VA area, a stronger station, was once heard in a rural VA town south of Charlottesville with a Grundig 350. That's about it.
 
I think Cincinnati's WLW-700 and WCKY-1530 are well known for their power over the years. WKRC-550 does pretty well, particularly during the daylight hours. WSAI-1360 is okay during the day, but its night-time signal is weak even in some of the suburbs.

I do want to mention that I have listened to Dayton stations here for almost as long as I've listened to radio. WONE, WHIO, and WING do well here during the day, but none can be received once the sun goes down. I'm most familar with WONE because it is the station I tune to for the Cleveland Browns' games. It booms in until just before sunset when changes are made in it's signal range. That makes it hard for those games that begin at 4:15 P.M. during the NFL season.
 
I've had no luck ever hearing 620 WDAE or 970 WFLA from Tampa/St. Pete outside the state. I think their directional signals take them out west over the gulf. I did once pick up 1380 (then WRBQ Am Stereo) up in New Jersey just when it was getting dark but they were probably still on their daytime non-directional pattern. They are a 5kw station that now is Radio Disney. Because of their direction of broadcast, the night time signal is so weak where I am in north Tampa, you'd think it was from hundreds of miles away.
 
Well, I've heard WDAE many times around the Charleston area, even during the late afternoon hours before it gets dark. I have also heard WFLA in Charleston, but only once or twice.

One day a few weeks ago, I picked up your 820 at 1:30 in the afternoon on a cloudy day (I also picked up WSM).
 
gr8oldies said:
We have 3 5000 watt AMs in Dayton, OH, all directional at least at night.
Click to expand...

WONE is a regular just about every night in Northern Illinois. Sometimes in a tussle with WITY, but usually owns the 980 channel here.

The two others show up here from time to time. 1290 sometimes under a much stronger WIRL and 1410 sometimes under semi-local WRMN.

As for "how far does my local AM go?" That would be WAIT. I'm about two miles from their stick. Their pattern is Northwest-Southeast and their 2.5kw on 850 is good for about 125 miles each way. Severe null to the Northeast (protecting Muskegon and an 860 in Milwaukee) limits that to about 30 miles. To the southwest, they're protecting St. Louis' KFUO, but the null isn't quite as severe. Listenable signal for 50-60 miles.

Of course if we're talking the Chicago 50KW non-directional blowtorches, they're good for about 250 miles daytime in any direction....a little less to the east....a little more to the west and southwest.
 
From here in Rochester, WHAM on 1180 is, of course, the coverage champ - though the combination of Cuban interference and new US signals down south have made the signal mostly a memory south of the Mason-Dixon line many nights.

WDCX 990's 2500-watt night signal on a Canadian clear channel (long story) beams east, and is widely heard in New England after dark. I used to listen to it frequently when I lived in Boston in the early 90s.

The others in town are pretty standard-issue regionals - WHTK 1280, WXXI 1370 and WHIC 1460 are all 5 kW DA-N class Bs. During the day, they can be heard decently in about a 75-mile radius; at night, they mainly aim north. We get DX reports on WXXI from Scandinavia more often than we can be clearly heard on the west side of our own market.

WROC 950 (1 kW DA-2) is the market's pipsqueak - it doesn't even cover the whole county by day, and at night it's wedged tightly between WWJ in Detroit and WIBX in Utica.

WYSL 1040 (20 kW day, 13.2 kW CH, 500 watts night) came to the party later. Its signal aims mostly north over Rochester, with killer strength by day, but it's a rare catch outside the area in any of its operating modes.
 
In the Raleigh-Durham area, our strongest AM is 50,000-watt 680 WPTF, non-directional daytime and directional to the south at night. I've heard it has made it as far as Caracas, Venezuela. Daytime, it's a mainstay in eastern NC, southside VA and coastal SC. Nighttime it's a chore to hear them in north Raleigh.

Durham's 620 WDNC, 5,000 watts day and 1,000 watts nighttime Directional both day and night. In the daytime, it can be heard along the coast of NC and Va. I've personally picked them up at Cape Hatteras and Newport News, Virginia.

Raleigh's 850 WRBZ, 10,000 watts daytime non-directional and 5,000 watts nighttime directional east easily covers east-central NC and southside Va during the day but is very spotty in Durham and points west at night.

Wendell-Zebulon (two separate cities)-licensed 540 WETC with 4,000 watts daytime and 500 watts nighttime (directional day and night) covers the market, albeit weakly and gets into the eastern part of the state well. Their nighttime signal is pretty impressive, too.

Wake Forest-licensed 1030 WDRU, a 50,000-watt daytimer, covers the market and has a huge lobe to the southeast that gets them to the coast and, I've heard, even the Bahamas on occasion.

The rest of the local AM band is 5,000 watts or less and coverage varies from moderately covering the market to being only listenable in the city of license.
 
Over the years ----

Dallas regionals are exceptional out West in the daytime. KLIF 570, KMKI 620, KSKY 660 are so strong they have a following in towns like Lubbock and Midland. Certainly WBAP had a huge groundwave before IBOC - they are considerably weaker now. Pre-IBOC, they quit about 50 miles from Roswell, NM.

Around the country - WSB barely gets into Daytona Beach, FL.

I remember WKRC 550 from Cinci reception in Jackson, MI, it was clear and listenable with a bit of the 550 in Buffalo beneath. The Chicago 50 kW stations were as strong as locals in Jackson, MI.

By nulling semi-local KCRS 550 in Lubbock, TX, I was able to get reception of KTSA San Antonio. KGNC 710 Amarillo is easily receivable in Plano, TX North of Dallas. KOA Denver makes it as far as Amarillo in the daytime, with occasional reception in Lubbock.

On the barrier islands, much farther daytime reception is normal, but that is a different phenomenon. I've also done 1000 mile reception of 50kW blowtorches in the daytime with a large loop, but that is also a different scenario.
 
KMOX HD AM comes in clear on some days. I can pick up Dayton's 1290 on Sundays. I can pick up the big Chicago stations and last night I can pick up 1210 AM from Philly. I'm using an Hybrid Digital radio, the HD100.

WKRC comes in decent daytimes. The WRFD 880 AM the day timer station in Columbus is 23,000 watts. On some nights WTVN comes in Preble County Ohio.
 
Nashville, Tennessee area:
This area suffers from poor soil conductivity and urban sprawl. The only AM that comfortably covers it all is 650 WSM. The other class “A” here, WLAC 1510 has issues with high dial position, the inherent selective fades and is second in over-all day/night. In the day, two other stations arguably are better WCRT 1160 and WNQM 1300. A long time before the upgrade of these facilities to 50kW day, WYFN 980 at 5000 watts U/DA-N (formally WSIX-AM) competed with WLAC for second place. At night WYFN would now be a distant third place and is subject to a lot of “monkey chatter” from illegally operating class “D” stations. I live ~40 miles south of the WLAC transmitter and most nights it is not listenable due to IBOC self interference and the frequent illegal night operation of a co-channel class “D” in Aurora, Illinois. WNQM 1300, WCRT 1160, WVOL 1470, WPLN 1430 all have multiple deep directional minima along with high night-time interference levels that only partially cover even the core of Nashville.

w/
 
Watt Hairston said:
Nashville, Tennessee area:
. I live ~40 miles south of the WLAC transmitter and most nights it is not listenable due to IBOC self interference and the frequent illegal night operation of a co-channel class “D” in Aurora, Illinois.
Click to expand...

Watt....

Unless its a pirate, there's no 1510 in Aurora, IL. There is a gospel station on 1510 in Joliet, IL not far away. They don't have much of a daytime signal, but as you suggest, they may be "trying to pull a fast one", at least at night. Where I'm located, about 40 miles Northwest of Chicago, WLAC's nighttime signal is pretty good.

Not quite as good as your WSM, however. I'm about 25 miles from the WSCR stick and your station cuts through their IBOC hash quite nicely. The only other Nashville signal that used to be commonly heard here was 1160 (and before that on 1170). Never a great signal, but usually audible in the slop. This one, however, has been absent since semi-local WYLL went 50kw nights, with most of their juice aimed right at me.

Anyway, back to the original topic. You didn't mention the daytime signal of 560. Where would you rate that. I get into Nashville once or twice a year on average, and they seem to have a respectable signal....unless I'm on I-40 heading for Memphis. (Obviously, in that direction they're trying to protect WHBQ, which used to be audible in Nashville...if barely....daytime).
 
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