Tropo? Reception from Foley/Gulf Shores, AL 03-20-12

[DeadElvis]

I am assuming the thing on top actually connected to the bow of the airship. From what my brother was told, the structure was never used for its intended purpose. The age of airships was short-lived, indeed.

An aside... the tower above the Empire State Building was also meant for dirigibles. But wind currents in the City (and, I assume, the absolute silliness of the idea) doomed the project. It was converted to a broadcast tower in 1953.

Cool, huh?

I would love to get a look at the WGSO antenna. As an Extra Class ham, I know just enough about antenna theory to be puzzled about how the WGSO antenna works.

DE

 

[awsherrill]

Somewhat off-topic...the TV show "Fringe" featured an alternate-timeline Earth in which the age of airships (instead of fixed-wing aircraft, apparently) continued to present day. There was at least one scene in which passengers debarked from an airship which was moored at Empire.

 

[cyberdad]

A few quick updates from the beach....

670: WSCR briefly underneath R. Rebelde Wednesday night.....

890: .....Meanwhile, WLS was strong enough that night to trash R. Progreso. Interestingly, the Cuba 890 is audible here in the daytime, but the R. Progreso on on 880 has a much better signal here at night (despite being absent in the daytime).

1310: Zach mentioned local WHEP. 2.5kw resulted in a fair signal daytime (14 miles away). At night with 43 watts there was no trace of it. 7 floors up with enough fiddling with the whip antenna, you can coax a listenable noise-free signal from the 250-watt FM translator on 92.5.

1570: Following up on something posted previously, I heard a fair-good signal here. I'm pretty sure it was XERF, but I couldn't positively ID it. Music, female announcer, and commercials. Definitely not Cuba.

1600: KLEB....which had the fabulous day/night signal last weekend and early this week was effectively missing later on in the week. My guess is that what I had heard earlier was some sort of testing or similar type work on their planned upgrade

1660: Didn't mention it earlier, but worth noting that WCNZ (Marco Island) has a very listenable signal here day/night

1700: Tried everything I could think of....various locations/radios, etc. to snag KVNS daytime. No dice. For the most part, they had a decent nighttime signal, but around sunrise, Miami overpowered them.

107.9: I use this frequency to broadcast my iPad and internet radio. With that off, WPFM and WZKX fight it out....WPFM usually on top, and once or twice strong enough to mess (very slightly) with my whole house FM audio.

 

[radioman148]

Regarding 890 & WLS' reception in the south, I used to make a lot of trips to New Orleans during the 70s & 80s (not too far from where you are now).
The WLS signal into that area was like a local station at night back during their Musicradio days. Many people I knew down there used to have car radio presets for WLS so they could listen to it at night. These days it seems it's a rare night if you can even hear WLS in the deep south.

 

[cyberdad]

Regarding 890 & WLS' reception in the south, I used to make a lot of trips to New Orleans during the 70s & 80s (not too far from where you are now).
The WLS signal into that area was like a local station at night back during their Musicradio days. Many people I knew down there used to have car radio presets for WLS so they could listen to it at night. These days it seems it's a rare night if you can even hear WLS in the deep south.

My exact same experience and observations from those days...and present time. I'll be in NOLA in a few weeks. Based on my most recent experiences there, if the Cubans and the WWL splatter don't put a dagger into WLS' signal, the increasingly high urban noise level will!

 

[radioman148]

Regarding 890 & WLS' reception in the south, I used to make a lot of trips to New Orleans during the 70s & 80s (not too far from where you are now).
The WLS signal into that area was like a local station at night back during their Musicradio days. Many people I knew down there used to have car radio presets for WLS so they could listen to it at night. These days it seems it's a rare night if you can even hear WLS in the deep south.

My exact same experience and observations from those days...and present time. I'll be in NOLA in a few weeks. Based on my most recent experiences there, if the Cubans and the WWL splatter don't put a dagger into WLS' signal, the increasingly high urban noise level will!

Back in the day when I was in NOLA, WWL had no effect on the WLS signal as it blasted in every night. As you pointed out now with Cuba & the noise level I imagine it would be very tough to hear.