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Mini Nightime AM Bandscan: Clarksville, TN

cyberdad

cyberdad

Road trip to Tennessee this past weekend. To my surprise, my hotel Friday night in Clarksville....about 40 miles northwest of Nashville...was relatively nose free. Also to my surprise, I had a time to do a quick bandscan with the SRF 37. Most of these were around 10pm CDT.

My first bright idea didn't work out so well. I was wondering if CBK could make the hop to Tennessee. Maybe it can, but where I was in Clarksville, there was a local on 540. OOPS! Anyway, my time was somewhat limited, but here are some highlights....

640: Cuba....fair-good no trace of KFI, but some other unid noise in the background
650: WSM....good, but not awesome. Ground conductivity in the area is pretty lousy.
670: WSCR....good but Cuba easily audible underneath
680: Yes, there are several strong 680s in the South and Southeast. But all alone here was "the little blowtorch" WCTT from Corbin, KY
690: WJOX...fair at sunrise Saturday morning. Assume 50kw day power.
700: WLW blasting away
710: "Cuban Chorus"...fair. No trace of WOR
720: WGN... fair
740; CFZM,,,good, KRMG unerneath
760: WJR...fair
780: WBBM...fair-good
820: WBAP....fair-weak
830: WCCO getting clobbered by music in Spanish. I'm guessing the Norco, Louisiana station on day power.
840: WHAS...weak. Convergence?
850: KOA....fair. A mild surprise
860: CJBC...good and alone
870: WWL...good
890: WLS...fair-good. Cuba underneath
990: Possible weak CBW fading in and out, but I couldn't ID it.
1000: WMVP...good
1020: KDKA...good
1030: WBZ...fair
1090: KAAY...fair. Another mild surprise.
1100: KYW...fair
1120: KMOX...fair
1180: UNID...fair-good. EE adult contemporary pop music
1200: WOAI...fair-good
1510: WLAC...weak with fading. What was that I was saying about lousy ground conductivity around here....
1520: KOKC...fair...and yet one more mild surprise
1530: WCKY...poor
1560: KGOW...poor-fair. This one was actually at sunrise Saturday.
 
I'm a bit surprised KMOX was just fair, and WCKY was poor, but that's medium wave for you.

Clarksville? Back in the day, I had a customer in Hopkinsville, KY. If the folks in Hopkinsville couldn't have dinner, I'd frequently stay in Clarksville since I was coming from a stop at Saturn in Spring Hill (near Nashville).

BTW, Little Richard, Roy Acuff and Jimi Hendrix are all from Clarksville. :cool:
 
Nice report!
You might have been in WLAC's null, too. Although with the lousy conductivity in that part of the country, being in front of their pattern might not have helped. :)
I take it KRLD didn't pop up on 1080? I have received it here in Ohio only once or twice.
 
Icangelp said:
I'm a bit surprised KMOX was just fair, and WCKY was poor, but that's medium wave for you.
Click to expand...

KMOX surprised me a little....especially with Canada barreling in on 740 and 860. WCKY was about what I expected. They don't do all that well to the west or southwest when they go to their night pattern. But I wasn't expecting KOKC to have a (slightly) better signal than WCKY. As for WLAC, I just presumed that it was a null, convergence, or some combination of the two. Hopkinsville? WHOP on 1230 made the "hop" from "Hop"kinsville to Clarksville. It was on top....barely, but steady.

KRLD? 1080 was pretty blank. KAAY was doing rather well on 1090....so maybe there was a good, but narrow, path from the west that didn't quite extend to Dallas or St. Louis . WBAP was "underwhelming", but KRMG was certainly making itself evident under CFZM. 1070 was pretty much a jumble.

I knew Roy Acuff was a Tennessee native, but I didn't know from where. There is...or was...a small hotel with his name on it just outside of Chattanooga. I always thought Little Richard and Hendrix were from Macon, Georgia and Seattle respectively.
 
KRLD is direction to the SW at night....it protects co channel WTIC (who also is directional to the NE to protect KRLD). TN is in the null for both....Clarksville is also in a deep NW null for WLAC at night....
 
I knew about the setup with regard to KRLD and WTIC, so I wasn't surprised that 1080 was relatively vacant. After my last post, I went to the maps for radio-locator and could immediately see what the problem was with WLAC at night. WLAC's daytime signal was better than at night...but still not all that great.
 
cyberdad said:
KMOX surprised me a little....especially with Canada barreling in on 740 and 860. WCKY was about what I expected. They don't do all that well to the west or southwest when they go to their night pattern. But I wasn't expecting KOKC to have a (slightly) better signal than WCKY. As for WLAC, I just presumed that it was a null, convergence, or some combination of the two. Hopkinsville? WHOP on 1230 made the "hop" from "Hop"kinsville to Clarksville. It was on top....barely, but steady.

KRLD? 1080 was pretty blank. KAAY was doing rather well on 1090....so maybe there was a good, but narrow, path from the west that didn't quite extend to Dallas or St. Louis . WBAP was "underwhelming", but KRMG was certainly making itself evident under CFZM. 1070 was pretty much a jumble.

I knew Roy Acuff was a Tennessee native, but I didn't know from where. There is...or was...a small hotel with his name on it just outside of Chattanooga. I always thought Little Richard and Hendrix were from Macon, Georgia and Seattle respectively.
Click to expand...
I'm red faced. All three were born elsewhere. I was told the three were born in Clarksville, although it was over 15 years ago...by an apparently unreliable source, the purchasing manager at my Hopkinsville customer. You know those purchasing agents. Stretching the truth is a major asset with them. Ha. I just checked Wikipedia, and it does state all three lived there at one time. Go Governors!

Definitely on the fringe of WCKY's night pattern which kicks in at sundown in Sacramento.
 
Last edited:
cyberdad said:
Road trip to Tennessee this past weekend. To my surprise, my hotel Friday night in Clarksville....about 40 miles northwest of Nashville...was relatively nose free. Also to my surprise, I had a time to do a quick bandscan with the SRF 37. Most of these were around 10pm CDT.

My first bright idea didn't work out so well. I was wondering if CBK could make the hop to Tennessee. Maybe it can, but where I was in Clarksville, there was a local on 540. OOPS! Anyway, my time was somewhat limited, but here are some highlights....

640: Cuba....fair-good no trace of KFI, but some other unid noise in the background
650: WSM....good, but not awesome. Ground conductivity in the area is pretty lousy.
670: WSCR....good but Cuba easily audible underneath
680: Yes, there are several strong 680s in the South and Southeast. But all alone here was "the little blowtorch" WCTT from Corbin, KY
690: WJOX...fair at sunrise Saturday morning. Assume 50kw day power.
700: WLW blasting away
710: "Cuban Chorus"...fair. No trace of WOR
720: WGN... fair
740; CFZM,,,good, KRMG unerneath
760: WJR...fair
780: WBBM...fair-good
820: WBAP....fair-weak
830: WCCO getting clobbered by music in Spanish. I'm guessing the Norco, Louisiana station on day power.
840: WHAS...weak. Convergence?
850: KOA....fair. A mild surprise
860: CJBC...good and alone
870: WWL...good
890: WLS...fair-good. Cuba underneath
990: Possible weak CBW fading in and out, but I couldn't ID it.
1000: WMVP...good
1020: KDKA...good
1030: WBZ...fair
1090: KAAY...fair. Another mild surprise.
1100: KYW...fair
1120: KMOX...fair
1180: UNID...fair-good. EE adult contemporary pop music
1200: WOAI...fair-good
1510: WLAC...weak with fading. What was that I was saying about lousy ground conductivity around here....
1520: KOKC...fair...and yet one more mild surprise
1530: WCKY...poor
1560: KGOW...poor-fair. This one was actually at sunrise Saturday.
Click to expand...


You got KGOW in Clarksville, TN? That's great! What time was it when you got a signal on them? 1560 is a Clean Channel in the western part of Tennessee because WQEW's directional pattern, both day and night. I have picked up WKFN (old WDXN) on 540 during the nighttime hours in Metro Nashville at night and they were at 55 Watts! When I was a kid, I loved to DX, but now, in my 50s, you go through a life change. I have a Tecsun PL-310 Receiver. It small, but it reads out the signal strength in "sub" in stead of the old cheap Radio Shack 1, 2, 3 numbers.

I recall the old days before the FCC allowed these low "nighttime flea powers" for Daytime Stations. I would always do my DXing at Sunset to catch Daytimer's Sign Offs, playing the National Anthem. These days, most Daytimers have low nighttime power, but there are some that do not. Since streaming audio is bigger these days, what few Daytime Only Stations are left that have to turn it off at sunset, these stations just shut off the AM Transmitter at Sunset and don't give a official sign off because broadcasters now believe "On Line Streaming" has more listeners than terrestrial radio does.
 
When I got KGOW in Clarksville, it was right around sunrise. The signal wasn't very good, but there was nothing to block it. I'm guessing day pattern. That was the setup the few times I've heard them here at home near Chicago. At home the KGOW sunrise signal has been generally stronger than what I was hearing in Clarksville....but with more fading and interference.

WKFN/540....That thing has a nice signal. I was able to follow it most of the way to Memphis. Maybe WLAC would like to swap with them.

Famous people from Clarksville....The street in front of the Hotel (U.S. 79) is named after Wilma Rudolph.
 
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