Weather Takes Down WWVA Wheeling

[Parttimer]

Even during the day it was only really listenable down in Washington County, and maybe up to around Robinson.

I was in Wheeling today and the signal's there but very inconsistent. Doesn't sound like they have much processing on it either.

 

[schmave]

Over the past few years it has been crappy, largely due to the fact they were running IBOC. Rapid in-and-out fades after sundown.

Sounds like you're right in the middle of the cancellation zone. Man the ground conductivity just eats signals out that way. Even here in central Ohio, where the conductivity is middle of the road, signals seem to fare considerably better.

 

[hypwr]

...
The "antenna" is the stub (50') of the east tower (with all the folded
over tower cut away) plus about 150' of 3/8" guy wire strung between the
East and Center towers (with insulators in the wire before it was
attached to the center tower). The "system" is being driven from the
east tower feed point. The bridge measured the "system" at 5 -j25 which
was matched with an "L" network.

...

Hams would call that an "Inverted-L" antenna. 200' would be electrically short for 1.17MHz, so adding some inductance ("L") would make it look longer. Probably has a very irregular radiation pattern, with gain in some directions and nulls in others.

On 160 meters (1.8MHz), eastern U.S. hams can work Europe fairly regularly with 100W or less, and similar non-ideal antennas, so I wouldn't be surprised by several hundred miles of coverage at night, getting better as we move closer to winter.

When I was working at a short-wave station we had, in addition to our 50KW xmtr., a 250 watt working into a slant wire and had reception reports from 6,000 miles away. This was in the tropical band. We also had a 1 KW going into a delta-match antenna.

You can always get on the air with something. However it may not be efficient. Since a long wire sends out a signal with horizontal polarization that has to be considered also. Alot of the signal goes straight up in the air and bounces of the ionisphere.

 

[FreddyE1977]

Over the past few years it has been crappy, largely due to the fact they were running IBOC. Rapid in-and-out fades after sundown.

Sounds like you're right in the middle of the cancellation zone. Man the ground conductivity just eats signals out that way. Even here in central Ohio, where the conductivity is middle of the road, signals seem to fare considerably better.

Yep. I am probably just about 60 miles east by northeast from their stick.
I used to travel back and forth from Columbus quite often, and if I was anyplace west of Cambridge when the sun went down they would totally vanish from my dial. Michigan stations with great conductivity would boom into Columbus, like WJR. I've gone for walks in the woods in Michigan and ended up sinking into the ground up to my mid-calf.

Right now WWVA sounds better at my house at low-power on a wire 50 ft. off the ground than they do at 50kW running IBOC.

 

[MHVRadiofan]

I have not listened to 1170 WWVA in a very long time, so a before and after they lost their towers comparison is not possible. However back in the day (pre- Bible Thumping) they put a decent nighttime signal into the Poughkeepsie NY area. Poughkeepsie is about 80 miles north of NYC on the Hudson River. .I was curious as to how WWVA’s recent trouble would affect reception in my area. I gave them a try tonight, not expecting much. However I can still pick them up with an ok, listenable signal on my car radio. Not bad for a 12kw long wire set up.