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Is WVAM on the air?

T

theengineer

I was scanning across the AM band while driving thru Central PA on Route 22 last week and noticed that WVAM was absent from the dial unless you were very close to Altoona. In the area from Water Street to Frankstown where even WRTA and WFBG were both booming, WVAM was nowhere to be found -- I could only hear it when I crested the top of the Frankstown Road shortcut and could see the 3 towers were still standing.

Did someone forget to take them out of night pattern, are they having problems or have them become the poster child for the poor state of AM radio in this part of the world? I also notice that much is left of either WKVA or WHUN - both of which had decent regional signals at one time.
 
theengineer said:
I also notice that much is left of either WKVA or WHUN - both of which had decent regional signals at one time.
Click to expand...

I've been at WKVA since Feb. I've heard it north above Lock Haven & faintly in downtown Altoona. What sort of signal did it have?
 
At one time the WKVA coverage was much closer to what WIEZ is today. Daytime it was very solid to Clark's Ferry to the East and well beyond Huntington to the west. Nighttime was listenable in State college (although much better further east on 45 .. toward Millheim) .. southeast down to East Waterford was very listenable at night. This was 20 - 25 years ago and at that time WIEZ was WMRF-AM way up the dial on 1490 running 1KW/250W and barely made it to Reedsville day or night. Like many AMs, the combination of aging of the ground system, increased manmade nose and poor receiver sensitivity have all contributed to the decline. Another contributor is that many AM stations are also still using early vintage solid state or 30 + year old tube rigs and processing from the same era. At one time I think WKVA had an MW1 -- it sounds like they still do. I've never liked that box very much. They were the first solid state transmitter out there so while you could get pretty loud, but they just never sounded very good regardless of what audio they were fed.

At least most radios don't have that nasty IF whistle that had cursed 910 & 920 since the beginning of the superhetrodyne.

All AMs are worse off than they were, it's just that some have technically declined more than others.
 
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