Love when locals are off. 6/19/14

[crainbebo]

Two new station heard with a 100KW blaster completely off the air!

107.3 - CHBE Victoria, BC; KFFM completely off the air doing maintenance on their transmitter and microwave links. Heard with song "Chandelier" by Sia, matched the playlist at 1106 PT. NEW #241, 20KW, 185 miles. Unless KFFM is off the air again, I will never hear this one ever again!
107.5 - KXJM Banks, OR; rap music at 1055 PT, only possible dead-band match. 71KW, NEW #242 at 137 miles.

Also heard were my groundwave 107.9 K300AP Sunnyside WA which has been killed 100% by those KFFM spurs lately, also KMBI Spokane, WA fading up and possibly KHPE with a Coastal Farm & Ranch ad. Also 106.5 KEGX, which is usually heard, but KFFM's spurs have killed it.

-crainbebo

 

[MarioMania]

What do you mean by spurs?

 

[frankberry]

Spurious radiation.

 

[cyberdad]

I also love it when locals are off....which doesn't happen very often around here.

However....back when I was in high school in the 1960s, the local "educational" (now PBS) TV station, WTTW, Ch 11, used to be dark all day Saturday until late afternoon Sunday. The result...at least from our nearly-ominidirectional rooftop antenna was frequently a comfortably viewable picture from WLUK-TV, then an ABC afilliate from Green Bay. I remember watching the WLUK locally broadcast Saturday late movie a few times when there was nothing of greater interest on the Chicago or Milwaukee channels. Distance involved was about 150 miles. As often as not, the WLUK signal was absent....but when it was in it was usually solid and fade free.

 

[radioman148]

Locals being off allowed me to get my best e-skip. WBBM-FM was off the air one afternoon in the late 70s and on 96.3 I heard WMJX Miami, Fl while in my car. The skip lasted several hours as the station was still coming in when I got home. Somewhere I have a tape of this. The most amazing part is that this was in January on a freezing cold Chicago day.

 

[dxtrfn80]

Once when 1250 AM WDVA Danville VA was off the air I got Radio Disney out of Pittsburgh and on 1260 AM I got Indianapolis and Charlottesville stations.

 

[crainbebo]

107.9/106.5 spurious signals are GONE!! KFFM went off to work on those it seems. KEGX is back on 106.5 hopefully permanently!

-crainbebo

 

[cyberdad]

107.9/106.5 spurious signals are GONE!! KFFM went off to work on those it seems. KEGX is back on 106.5 hopefully permanently!

-crainbebo

Maybe their CE is a lurker on this board!

 

[cyberdad]

Locals being off allowed me to get my best e-skip. WBBM-FM was off the air one afternoon in the late 70s and on 96.3 I heard WMJX Miami, Fl while in my car. The skip lasted several hours as the station was still coming in when I got home. Somewhere I have a tape of this. The most amazing part is that this was in January on a freezing cold Chicago day.

That's pretty impressive...especially for January. I don't remember the last time I encountered e-skip on the Chicago channels. But then again, I'm not much of an FM DX guy. But I do know what's not unusual here, 44 miles from the downtown Chicago antennas, is tropo on adjacent channels. Happens quite a bit during summers. I remember one stretch about 15-20 years ago where Madison's WMGM (98.1), 90+ miles away, was making Chicago's WLUP (97.9) unlistenable for about two weeks nonstop.

 

[radioman148]

That's pretty impressive...especially for January. I don't remember the last time I encountered e-skip on the Chicago channels. But then again, I'm not much of an FM DX guy. But I do know what's not unusual here, 44 miles from the downtown Chicago antennas, is tropo on adjacent channels. Happens quite a bit during summers. I remember one stretch about 15-20 years ago where Madison's WMGM (98.1), 90+ miles away, was making Chicago's WLUP (97.9) unlistenable for about two weeks nonstop.

I'm not much of an FM DX guy either and, in fact, I didn't even know why I was hearing DX on FM. I called the station in Miami & the CE explained it to me.
Like you I have experienced tropo often & knew what that was even 36 years ago when my e-skip experience took place.

 

[ftballfan]

That's pretty impressive...especially for January. I don't remember the last time I encountered e-skip on the Chicago channels. But then again, I'm not much of an FM DX guy. But I do know what's not unusual here, 44 miles from the downtown Chicago antennas, is tropo on adjacent channels. Happens quite a bit during summers. I remember one stretch about 15-20 years ago where Madison's WMGM (98.1), 90+ miles away, was making Chicago's WLUP (97.9) unlistenable for about two weeks nonstop.

I wonder if tropo can occasionally make Chicago stations unlistenable in your area.

 

[radioman148]

I wonder if tropo can occasionally make Chicago stations unlistenable in your area.

I can remember several instances where extreme tropo created strong interference to Chicago stations. At least a few times I remember Milwaukee stations that were adjacent to my local Chicago outlets making WBBM-FM and whatever the calls were on 95.5 in the 80s very difficult to hear in my car while driving in the near north Chicago burbs.

 

[cyberdad]

I wonder if tropo can occasionally make Chicago stations unlistenable in your area.

Only very rarely....at least where I am 44 miles out. But it's another story on the adjacents, as I alluded to in my earlier post, and as Radioman also alluded to. He's closer to the Chicago antennas than I am, but probably about the same distance as me from the Milwaukee sticks....most (but not all) of which are a few miles north of downtown Milwaukee. Where I am, the typical effect of tropo is to bring the signal strength of the Milwaukee stations up to about the same level as Chicago stations.

Tropo DID occasionally have a significant effect on WBBM-TV channel 2....sometimes rendering it unviewable at my QTH. WMT-TV (Cedar Rapids) and/or WBAY-TV (Green Bay) were the usual suspects

 

[radioman148]

Only very rarely....at least where I am 44 miles out. But it's another story on the adjacents, as I alluded to in my earlier post, and as Radioman also alluded to. He's closer to the Chicago antennas than I am, but probably about the same distance as me from the Milwaukee sticks....most (but not all) of which are a few miles north of downtown Milwaukee. Where I am, the typical effect of tropo is to bring the signal strength of the Milwaukee stations up to about the same level as Chicago stations.

Tropo DID occasionally have a significant effect on WBBM-TV channel 2....sometimes rendering it unviewable at my QTH. WMT-TV (Cedar Rapids) and/or WBAY-TV (Green Bay) were the usual suspects

Now that you jogged my memory I remember WBAY interfering with WBBM-TV several times. Also used to get WOOD-TV Ch 3 out of Grand Rapids, Mi, along with strong signals from Milwaukee and Rockford many times. Another FM that used to come in when then WMAQ-FM was off the air late nights in the 70s was the Green Bay 101-FM.

 

[ftballfan]

I wouldn't be surprised if some stations have trouble with tropo in northern Lake County (Waukegan, Zion, etc.), especially those that have 100kW co-channels in Green Bay or Traverse City.

 

[boombox4]

On rare occasions stations being silent has helped me hear new stations on the AM side. That's one of the coolest things about unattended computer hard drive music. When the computer wigs, or someone perhaps programmed a silent period by accident, you have a dead carrier but you can still hear the other stations behind the dead carrier.

Once I heard a local station which had some very strange computer wigging... there were these minute long breaks in the music, which gradually decreased to one second breaks, and then back up to a minute or so again.

 

[crainbebo]

I have heard many AM stations off the air due to problems. KVI was one years ago and I could hear CKWL Williams Lake, BC in the weak mess. KCIS was off one time and I finally heard KFXD out of it. I also heard KUTI off a couple of times and got to hear KLTC Dickinson, ND at sunrise.

-crainbebo

 

[Steve Green NEPA]

Jan 8 1996, super local WMBT Shenandoah and their 2500 omni signal were off because a nor'easter had done bad things to their Oldies satellite dish. And since the studio and tower were in a place called Shenandoah Heights, going up that hill wasn't a real priority for the management that morning. Some of the staff at a 24/7 might be around to keep the place active, but WMBT always was daytime-only.

In WMBT's absence that day, the only new catch was WTRI in Brunswick MD, midday, on 1520.
WMBT has been dark for several years now. In its permanent current state I did manage WVBF from near Cape Cod with a :45 minute ad for Vitamin E during one mid-winter anomaly a few years back. But yeah, hearing things in the temporary absence of a booming local is a rewarding moment ; you never know when the loud local is coming to return.
In this somewhat immediate region, stations have gone dark (with no replacement) on 550, 1290, 1480, 1530 and 1590. And WPAM 1450 usually can be counted on to go off the air for months. But again, yeah, Crain ; total dial desertion is not the same thing, the same challenge, the same log magic as a lightning-in-a-bottle moment.

* * * * * * * * *

In the Long Island DX days there were two such 'Huh?' midday absences. Once, 1010 WINS was off. In came a faint WSID 1010 from Baltimore.
And WINS's loud NYC neighbor WHN 1050 was missing one midday. The resultant, default catch was WLYC 1050 from Williamsport PA.

 

[cyberdad]

Now that you jogged my memory I remember WBAY interfering with WBBM-TV several times. Also used to get WOOD-TV Ch 3 out of Grand Rapids, Mi,

Allow me to jog it again... Channel 3 was WKZO-TV from Kalamazoo, MI. WOOD was on Ch 8. Same market.

But even though WOOD-TV was high band VHF, it did make it to my QTH a few times. As did the other VHF in the market....WZZM, Ch 13....which sometimes was strong enough to blow out semi-local WREX-TV from Rockford, IL.

The sixties....pretty much until the end of the decade...was a great time for "locals off" TVDX. These were the days before 24/7 operation. For example, WSAU-TV in Wausau, WI would be a semi-regular visitor on Ch-7 before local WBKB (now WLS-TV) signed on for the day. Later, in college, local KTVO, Channel 3 would sign off at midnight (or even sooner). Then afterwards every so often you would be treated to a late movie on KMTV from Omaha....more than 200 miles away.

 

[radioman148]

Allow me to jog it again... Channel 3 was WKZO-TV from Kalamazoo, MI. WOOD was on Ch 8. Same market.

I was originally going to write "8" for WOOD and I changed it at the last second for some reason. The memories sometimes get a little fuzzy these days..LOL!
What I do remember vividly (I think) was how well Channels 4, 6, & 12 out of Milwaukee would come in with good tropo. On a good summer afternoon I remember watching "The Adventures of Superman" on one of them one hour after it was on in Chicago. As I'm sure you remember Wisconsin wasn't on DST in the late 50s.