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KMCH 94.7 FM Manchester, Iowa received in the Iowa Quad Cities May 7-9, 2010

Q

QCA USA 1

Sorry for the extremely late entry here as I was very busy last month and my computer finally came out of the repair shop this past weekend: ;D

-A little bit over a month ago, on Mother's Day Weekend to be exact, I was able to pick up KMCH "Mix 94.7" Manchester, Iowa, from my weekend security post in Eldridge, Iowa (located just north of Davenport). I was listening to the station on my car radio while driving rounds. The signal would fade in and out a little here and there, even when parked, and, being a VHF/FM station, naturally faded in and out even more rapidly whenever the car was in motion. The KMCH signal was not particularly strong, defnitiely not strong enough to stop the radio in the "seek" mode, but was audible with stereo and enough so that I clearly id'd the station several times over both nights that I worked that weekend (Friday May 7 to Saturday May 8 and Saturday May 8 to Sunday May 9). KMCH is a Class A FM station with an ERP of 6000 watts (6 kW) and a HAAT of 100 meters (328 feet).

-Distance from my work location to the KMCH Tower near Oneida, Iowa: 74.5 miles
 
One thing I forgot to mention in my original post on this topic: The 94.7 MHz frequency/channel on the FM dial (channel 234 if you go by FCC terms) is actually occupied by a Class A FM station much closer to the Quad Cities than Manchester, Iowa is. The closer station, which puts in a "rimshot" signal to the QC metro area, is KMCN Clinton, Iowa. That's the station I normally hear in this region on 94.7.

KMCN Clinton was either broadcasting at super-low power or was off the air altogether the weekend that I heard KMCH Manchester; presumably due to either maintenance or technical difficulties/transmitter problems at the KMCN transmitter site.

As many of us know, in AM broadcasting, the weaker signal will be heard underneath the stronger signal during occurrences of co-channel interference (particularly at nighttime when skywave is occurring); however, in FM broadcasting, the stronger signal often "drowns out" the weaker signal, making the weaker signal impossible to detect, unless of course, both signals have "similar" but not quite equal levels of signal strength. Equal levels of signal strength will, of course, cause the two signals to cancel each other out, probably regardless of the type of modulation being used. Any engineers who have better/extensive knowledge about this are more than welcome to put in their "two cents" worth. :)

In any event, with KMCN Clinton off-the-air on Mother's Day Weekend 2010 and with the 94.7 MHz channel "in-the-clear" I was able to pick up a weak but fairly reliable signal from KMCH Manchester. During a KMCH fadeout on Friday evening of that weekend, I also briefly heard KSHE ("K-SHE 95") from Crestwood, Missouri, a Rock station from the St. Louis market which is a Class C0 station with an ERP of 100 kW and a HAAT of 313 meters (1027 feet). It definitely requires some tropo to pick up stations from St. Louis all the way up here. Distance from my weekend work location to the KSHE transmitter site: 211.4 miles.

I enjoyed listening to KMCH that weekend as it is a station that I frequent whenever I travel to northeast Iowa (lots of scenic places up that way), as well as on visits to Cedar Rapids, Waterloo, and Dubuque. A good small town station with a good hometown sound and feel to it.

As of Thursday, May 13, 2010, KMCN Clinton is back on the air again. I haven't noticed it off the air since then.
 
KSHE is a nice tropo catch!

-crainbebo
 
KMCH 94.7 FM Manchester, Iowa received in the Iowa Quad Cities June 18, 2010

I received KMCH Manchester at work yet again last night. This is the second time in just a little bit over a month.

Due to last night's weather, however, this is not a shock of any kind as there were massive thunderstorms rolling through both the Quad Cities and Clinton areas. As a result, there were a few power outages in eastern Iowa and northwestern Illinois. While the power outages weren't widespread, I believe that this is the reason KMCN Clinton was off the air again last night.

According to an article in the Clinton Herald, trees and power lines were taken down in the Clinton area. The article does not mention the radio station and I couldn't find anything on KMCN's website about the station being off either. However, I believe Clinton may have gotten it worse than we did during last night's outbreak of severe weather. I would suspect that last night's storms were probably responsible for taking KMCN Clinton off the air.

The weather on Mother's Day Weekend, however, was quite mild with no storms at all, in fact, it was unusually cold at that time and there were frost warnings on late Saturday night and early Sunday morning of that weekend, so I have no idea why the Clinton station was off that weekend.
 
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