WBT's AM NIGHTTIME SIGNAL

[JR1967]

I was doing some Google Searches on WBT's AM signal at night and its NE-SW directional pattern to protect KFAB in Omaha, NE. I realize that they have the 99.3 FM signal to cover the null areas west of Charlotte (ie. Gastonia), but just wondering has there ever been an attempt to relocate their transmitters further west
of the city to cover the entire area with their AM signal, or are there issues in that area due to either ground conductivity or the growth of the Metropolitian area?

 

[artsutton]

I was doing some Google Searches on WBT's AM signal at night and its NE-SW directional pattern to protect KFAB in Omaha, NE. I realize that they have the 99.3 FM signal to cover the null areas west of Charlotte (ie. Gastonia), but just wondering has there ever been an attempt to relocate their transmitters further west
of the city to cover the entire area with their AM signal, or are there issues in that area due to either ground conductivity or the growth of the Metropolitian area?

You might want to check out www.fybush.com and read his tower site visits to WBT. I believe that he explains the situation. WBT was bought by CBS in the 1930s for the express purpose of improving their facility at Chicago, I believe it was. I seem to recall it had something to do with improving 780 in Chicago. It was sharing time with Omaha as I recall so they moved Omaha to 1110 off 780, got a small town station in the midwest to free up 1110 and take 780 daytime and WBT directionalized 1110 to protect KFAB in Omaha is how it went, I seem to recall from the story told to me.

Note on their pattern, there is also a null off to the east, southeast that is not nearly as deep as the one to the west,northwest. If you were to go too far west to put signal in the western side of the metro , you would have issues putting a solid city grade groundwave signal at night back over Charlotte proper. Also, the landing pattern at the Charlotte airport is north south so you have major airway issues not to mention the cost of property, etc. It might be interesting to see if any improvements could be had using the four towers of 610 but the costs for the equipment, etc. would be tremendous. There were many efforts over the years to improve their nighttime signal to the west. Once there was an AM repeater station in Shelby which I believe operated directional with 1000 watts. I always questioned how much the FM signal helped them since the Gastonia area is well beyond it's 1 mvm contour. I guess they wanted a better signal in Rock Hill but I recall the AM nighttime signal does pretty well there.

You can't hear WBT in Gastonia at night but it booms into South Georgia where I grew up in the 1970s and listened to it crystal clear every night on a transitor radio. Charlotte's low ground conductivity doesn't help matters either with WBT's nighttime coverage.

Another similar situation exists with 680 WPTF in Raleigh. Although not a Class A Clear channel facility like WBT, it would have much better coverage of the Raleigh Durham market if the transmitter site were located Northwest of Raleigh or even just northwest of Durham and pushed its 50KW off to the Southeast and Northwest. Right now the city of Raleigh is almost in their null to the northeast..a lazy figure 8 pattern that is oriented northwest/southeast off their two short towers.

 

[Powell]

Art, the WBT booster in Shelby was a synchronous non directional 1000 watts. WBZ had one at one time. KKOB still has one.


Powell

 

[vchimpanzee]

I haven't tried it lately but I used to get WWWE (1100 in Cleveland) and KMOX (1120 in St. Louis) better than WBT. That's east of town.

 

[fortmill]

Yes, WBT-AM's nightime signal is completely gone about 50 miles east/se of their tx, always has been, except for a few months after Hugo when they lost one of their towers. I believe even eastern Union is very iffy at night. The crazy thing is, they claim not to be nulled to the SE, and I can't see any reason why they would be, but THEY ARE. The daytime signal IS ALSO nulled in the same direction---you don't really get a useable signal past 50 miles then either. Regarding 99.3, I agree the signal is of little use if we're talking about Gaston county, and WBT-AM provides a blockbuster signal 24/7 to 99.3's prime coverage area, York, Lancaster and Chester Cos. At least they have the advantage of being available in FM in those areas and south Charlotte (where most of WBT's listeners are) But, why would I care? I find the programming on WBT offensive.....

 

[JR1967]

Another similar situation exists with 680 WPTF in Raleigh. Although not a Class A Clear channel facility like WBT, it would have much better coverage of the Raleigh Durham market if the transmitter site were located Northwest of Raleigh or even just northwest of Durham and pushed its 50KW off to the Southeast and Northwest. Right now the city of Raleigh is almost in their null to the northeast..a lazy figure 8 pattern that is oriented northwest/southeast off their two short towers.
[/quote]

Thanks Art for your explanations.  At your suggestion, I did look at fybush.com and the info on WBT's transmitters.  The diamond-shaped towers are a quite unique design.

I never considered the null out to the SE of the city.  However, a couple of decades ago when I was in the Marines stationed near Camp Lejeune, WBT's nighttime signal would be very strong on the coast and I remember listening to the then-Charlotte Hornets first year broadcasts at night.  Must have been their skip-signal affect being that far east of Charlotte.  Also, WPTF was quite clear at night there except about an hour before sunset when 680 out of Atlanta could be heard on top of them.

Being here in Atlanta (Kennesaw) WBT is audible up here at night, but not really that clear since Metro Atlanta seems to be on the very edge of WBT's contour pattern.

 

[amfmxm]

Any daytime null to the SE on 1110/WBT is topographical since radiation from the single tower is omnidirectional--most likely caused by the lousy soil conductivity along the sandy coastal plains. (Interestingly enough, the mountains to the west-northwest likewise create a "directional" effect, more-or-less pushing BT's daytime signal to the NE/SW much like the night DA).

The oblong night pattern that creates the very real SE null at night is one of the standard patterns created by three-tower directional rigs--and the null is essentially a (softer) mirror image of the severe null to the west-northwest needed to protect KFAB.

The resulting pattern literally forces WBT's night signal to the northeast & southwest, and as Art noted above, 1110's night signal booms into southwest Georgia and up the Shenandoah Valley like clockwork (basic physics--it's gotta go somewhere). In Hagerstown, Maryland in the early seventies, 1110/WBT was a huge player during their Top 40 (?) period. I can still sing the jingles...

 

[EncSpy]

their groundwave/skywave seems to cancel in the triad, WBT sounds like a shortwave station day and nite

 

[yugoidar]

I've noticed driving North on 77 pre-sunrise, the WBT signal is barely listenable much beyond the Mooresville/Statesville areas. What's with that?

 

[amfmxm]

I've noticed driving North on 77 pre-sunrise, the WBT signal is barely listenable much beyond the Mooresville/Statesville areas. What's with that?

Well, pre-sunrise, BT is still on the night rig which drives the signal northeast and southwest. Going due north you drive into the null--the backside of the pattern--by the time you hit Statesville.

Right around sunrise you may also be picking up interference on 1110 from the 50-kw daytimer WYRM in Norfolk, which most likely signs-on before the sun comes up in western NC. (Let's see... does the sun still come up in the east)? Even though they employ a severe directional to protect WBT, those pesky AM signals bounce around all over the place early in the morning...

 

[mp3RadioGuy]

I’m just glad that someone at BT had the intelligence NOT to stick that crappy IBOC signal on their AM carrier. The AM band definitely doesn’t need anymore sideband trash and buzz especially from a local 50Kw.

 

[oldiesfan6479]

I’m just glad that someone at BT had the intelligence NOT to stick that crappy IBOC signal on their AM carrier. The AM band definitely doesn’t need anymore sideband trash and buzz...

Part of a page torn from Booble Struble's Christmas card list for 2009:

WBZ
KDKA
KNX
WOR
KTAR
KFYI
Glynn Walden
Tom Ray
Savage
oldiesfan6479
mp3RadioGuy

Sorry, mp3 dude, I hear that iCRAPuity has a real neat card this year.

It's one of those with an audio chip (extra postage required). When you
open it, it sounds just like the first adjacent freq. of an I-CRAPping AM! ;D

 

[DerekJMU]

WBT's night time and early morning signal definitely booms into the Shenandoah Valley. When I moved back to Harrisonburg, VA for a short time in 2001-2002, I tuned in from time to time to hear familiar sounds of Charlotte.

Still liked the very hometown local sound of News Talk 550 WSVA, so my AM band usually stayed on the low-end of the dial.

 

[trusty]

Being here in Atlanta (Kennesaw) WBT is audible up here at night, but not really that clear since Metro Atlanta seems to be on the very edge of WBT's contour pattern.

Going north, about halfway between Atlanta and Tennessee, the signal drops out completely, which shows the "sharpness" of the nighttime pattern.

 

[amos]

Still liked the very hometown local sound of News Talk 550 WSVA, so my AM band usually stayed on the low-end of the dial.

Do you know Bill Phipps of WSVA / Verstadig Broadcasting? l worked with him in GA a bunch of years back. He was also at WQEN Gadsden, AL and did sports on TV in Albany, GA.

-amos

 

[WXmit]

Well, I don't live around Charlotte any more, but I grew up in Rock Hill, and I sure listened to WBT quite a lot.

I still can listen to WBT at night if I want. Central Pennsylvania where I live now is pretty nicely in the lobe pointing north from their transmitters. Most nights I can get a good signal even on my car radio. Well, the JVC one I have now and the one I store downstairs for backup purposes has a pretty good AM tuner. The Sony one I had for a while couldn't get a clear signal from WBT from Carolina Place Mall. Actually the JVC one I have now can get WBZ in HD for several minutes at a time.

I have also questioned the need for 99.3, I never have had a problem with getting a signal from 1110 day or night from anywhere in York, Chester, or Lancaster Counties. That was, until my parents moved up to Polk County. I can get 99.3 weakly all the way to their house going out U. S. 74, and pretty strongly between Gastonia and Forest City. Then again, I can get WMIT's HD from northern Meck County using the aforementioned JVC radio, so it must have a solid FM tuner as well. I always wondered why I couldn't get WBT when I lived in Asheville, I once emailed the staff at WBT about it (this was the late '90s) and they were nice enough to explain the WBT versus KFAB situation to me in a response.

The really odd thing I have found with WBT's signal is that the daytime groundwave signal travels quite well to the north ... I usually can keep my radio on 1110 all the way to the NC/VA border on I-77 when heading back home, but at night I sometimes struggle to get a signal. In fact, one rainy night a couple of years ago, I couldn't get anything on 1110 while heading south through southern Virginia and NC all the way to Statesville. I got a better signal from the bounce into Winchester, VA than I did from northern Iredell County! That really annoyed me, the Panthers were losing to the Cowboys that night (I think it was a Thursday) and I really wanted to listen to that game.

Heading south, I was able to get WBT clearly to about the Richland County line back when I lived in Columbia (mid-'90s). When I was a kid, we listened to WBT on the car radio at night when we were on beach trips to Charleston. Never could get it from Myrtle Beach (there's your null to the southeast). Actually, I recall getting a pretty clear signal on a Chicago station on one of those Charleston trips, probably WBBM or WLS on one of those trips (that was probably in the late '70s, on the factory GM radio in Dad's '69 Impala).

vchimpanzee, I also have in the past gotten KMOX pretty clearly while making evening runs back to Asheville from Rock Hill ...

Oh, and DerekJMU, WSVA is a nice and solid station, my radio goes to 550 any time I am passing through the Shenandoah Valley.

Sorry if I rambled on too much here ... it's just that I have done a lot of listening to WBT in my time, 'tis a shame you don't get green stamps or My Coke Reward points for it...

 

[DerekJMU]

I guess I like SVA due to it's very local sound. The noontime farm bureau report didn't really mean squat to me, but in such a rural area, it's nice to hear a local news/talk format carefully catering to its listeners.

amos- yes, I worked with Bill Phipps on several remotes. Very nice guy and very professional. To my knowledge he is still there, was concentrating on JMU Sports broadcasting at one time.