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WEAS - Signal Question

A

acheron1982

I currently live in Atlanta but have family and grew up in Vidalia. As I travel down interstate 16, I always search my radio (like a nerd) in the attempt to see how far I can pull stations. One consistency is that 93.1 begins to go clear just east of Dublin and stays clear until I get close to Vidalia (until WTCQ ruins it). Now, my question is what technical cause allows WEAS to get out towards the west so much further than other stations, including those that are strong and higher up on the tower (I.E. WZAT). This is consistent because as a child, I would be a fan of the rock stations, WIXV and when it was rock in the mid 90's, WZAT but my friends would all listen to WEAS. Lucky for them, they always had a clear signal while I played with aluminum foil all the time and purchased outdoor antenna's just to pick up my stations of choice. Why is this? What does WEAS have going for them that the others don't.

2nd Question: If I was going to purchase a car stereo (after market), which would be my best choice if my desire is to pick up fringe stations? I'm looking for one with an excellent tuner and also one that limits over modulation from other smaller stations that are close by. This is for an automobile.
 
I can take a stab at the second question. You must decide which you prefer: high sensitivity or high selectivity in your receiver. With the former, you can pull in weaker signals, but subject yourself to a lot of unwanted noise; with the latter, receiver circuitry filters out weaker signals - which means you get fewer stations. You can also opt for higher-priced gear which rocks multiple I-F conversion circuitry and state-of-art equalization and audio processing. In short, the kind of receiver I wish I could afford.
 
For your first question there are several technical answers but I will give you the two simple ones.
1. THe lower your frequency the better your signal will travel.

2. the fewer bays on your antenna the more RF and building penetration. The more bays you have the better your coverage area. Most stations in Savannah have 6-10 bays. WEAS has a 12-bay antenna.
 
Check that! I meant the relationship between the number of bays and the RF & building penetration - which is the second point Mr. Combs made.
 
The less bay you have on the antenna, the more power you will need out of your transmitter to get full power. Therefore, more RF. For example, WEAS is 100kw. With line loss it takes about 19kw out of the transmitter to reach full power with a 12-bay ERI antenna. If we were only using a 10-bay antenna we would need about 25kw out of the transmitter to reach full power. Every 2 bays of the ERI Rototiller antenna has a gain of 1 so a 12-bay would have a gain of 6 and a 10 bay a gain of 5. Less bays and more RF concentrates your power in your local coverage area and allows for better building penetration of your signal in that area.
 
Antenna height and tower location are involved in that equation as well.
 
Thank you. Makes sense when properly explained - not to mention easy to remember. One more thing I didn't know but now I do.
 
If you are talking AM it is true that the lower the frequency on the dial the better the coverage will be, on FM that is not true. The signal coverage with equivalent facilities are much the same across the range from 88 to 108 Mhz
 
I think I have the list coverage wise for all things being equal.


AM: /Daytime:

#1 Frequency (the lower the better)
#2 Power
#3 Antenna location (water and soil conductivity are your friends), tower's physical height five eights wave length works good, if the station is directional can mess up #1 and #2 if you are "out of the pattern".

FM:
#1 Antenna location / Height (the higher the better)
#2 Power
#3 Frequency of nearest stations. Full blown C's get second adjacent protection. This protection will soon be lost for class D non profit community stations.
#4 Number of bays, polarization dual verses circular, and terrain, steel / concrete buildings do have effect.

Money and good engineering always help!
 
You should get or atleast earlie in the morning get WEAS 93.1 in western laurens county until you get to US 441 exit on down to about the river bridge it come in again. WKKZ 92.7 will fade out the signal because they are over modulated.
 
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