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Possible pirate on 96.1?

K

kc8kfg

Guest
Driving this past Friday evening down I-75, scan on the car landed on 96.1 playing poorly modulated, uncensored rap, and an ad for the Roselawn LaRosa's. It came in from the Lockland walls on I-75 all the way up North Bend Rd. just about to Finneytown, where it was lost possibly from height, interference from WMOJ/WAQZ/WGRR/WAKW right up the hill there, or just distance. From my home in Finneytown, was unable to recieve the signal on my home stereo with my beam, but possibly for the same reasons. Anyone else come across this?
 
> Driving this past Friday evening down I-75, scan on the car
> landed on 96.1 playing poorly modulated, uncensored rap, and
> an ad for the Roselawn LaRosa's. It came in from the
> Lockland walls on I-75 all the way up North Bend Rd. just
> about to Finneytown, where it was lost possibly from height,
> interference from WMOJ/WAQZ/WGRR/WAKW right up the hill
> there, or just distance. From my home in Finneytown, was
> unable to recieve the signal on my home stereo with my beam,
> but possibly for the same reasons. Anyone else come across
> this?
>
The station that you are picking up is 102.9 FM. It seems to bleed over onto many stations, not just 96.1. Dayton's FM channels aren't affected, but Cincinnati and Columbus' stations are.
 
> > Driving this past Friday evening down I-75, scan on the
> car
> > landed on 96.1 playing poorly modulated, uncensored rap,
> and
> > an ad for the Roselawn LaRosa's. It came in from the
> > Lockland walls on I-75 all the way up North Bend Rd. just
> > about to Finneytown, where it was lost possibly from
> height,
> > interference from WMOJ/WAQZ/WGRR/WAKW right up the hill
> > there, or just distance. From my home in Finneytown, was
> > unable to recieve the signal on my home stereo with my
> beam,
> > but possibly for the same reasons. Anyone else come
> across
> > this?
> >
> The station that you are picking up is 102.9 FM. It seems to
> bleed over onto many stations, not just 96.1. Dayton's FM
> channels aren't affected, but Cincinnati and Columbus'
> stations are.
>
I seriously doubt that I was hearing WDHT. The audio processing was terrible, and as I mentioned before, there was a brief commercial for the Roselawn LaRosa's. Also, I don't think Radio One could get away with not censoring their music. They aren't CC. I'd like to check, however, but I can't hear 102.9 clearly being so close to WEBN and here in Oxford I obviously wouldn't pick up whatever feed I heard.<P ID="edit"><FONT class="small">Edited by kc8kfg on 02/11/06 02:40 AM.</FONT></P>
 
When I saw the first post, I listened for this station the next few times I was nearby, and one time I drove around it, listening on a new and pretty good car stereo, marking with GPS the points at which this station's signal dominated competing signals. (A horrible way to measure signal strength.) Later I put these points into a mapping program in order to make a horribly crude signal map.

Once or twice the audio was bad, but other times it was clear and in consistent stereo. A couple times there was music that sounded like a CD skipping for lengthy periods, but it's possible this was intentional because occasionally the skip pattern varied without missing a beat.

A couple weeks ago I listened on a Friday, figuring that whoever is running this station might choose that time to be live, while running recordings at other times. Good guess. There was a guy talking live, with another in the background at times. At one point they said the station is on 24/7. (It has on been every time I've driven by recently). They also gave a phone number of 780-8434, if I remember correctly; 780 sounds like a cellphone exchange.

The map came out showing about a 2 1/2 mile signal radius (5-mile diamter) north to south, running roughly from Glendale-Milford to Seymour Ave, and about a 1-mile radius east to west, running roughly from Reading Rd to Route 4, but tilted a bit counterclockwise from that configuration.

The map likely is lopsided is not because the station has a directional pattern, but because the station is in a valley, and that as you rise up the hillsides on the east or west, the interfering station or stations no longer have their signals atttenuated by the hills. The pattern on the map was far more jagged on the west side, which has steeper hills and deeper valleys.

Country music could be heard clearly on this channel at Winton at Galbraith, but just 2000 feet down the hill toward Vine pirate completely replaced it. Country music could be heard at various other places.

At first it seemed the country station might have been 96.5, but a check on radio-locator.com, verified later by listening, confirms the country station is WQLK, Kicks 96 Country, 96.1, Richmond IN. That website's theoretical signal map shows this station with a "local" signal reaching Oxford, a "distant" signal into Springdale, and a "fringe" signal reaching as far as Anderson Twp.

My seat-of-the-pants guesstimate is that this station is putting out the equivalent of about three watts from a rooftop (which could equal 10 watts from somebody's bedroom), and that it is broadcasting from somewhere not too far from Anthony Wayne and Galbraith. The signal would probably be usable a little bit farther if they were on a channel without interference, like 95.7, a frequency on which many people had applied for a licensed low-power FM station.
 
I attempted to find where the signal was located by driving around with a portable radio equipped with a signal strenght meter. First the portable radio was tuned to 96.1 and was placed on the passenger seat. Initially, all that could be heard was white noise. The station started to pop in near Bond Hill. At that point, I looked at the meter and it was maxed out in Avondale. I then switched the radio from DX to local to attenuate the signal. The meter was barely above the zero mark but the station was still audible. As I drove north on Reading Road from the WCIN studio, the signal became stronger and the meter was maxed out between Clinton Springs and Paddock Roads. The radio was tuned off frequency to 96.3 while driving around the nearby blocks. Bleedover occured while passing a large apartment building on Reading Road near Paddock. I suspect one of TV antennas on the building roof was the source of the signal.
 
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