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WGMF 1460 Signal 6-30-13

Steve Green NEPA

Steve Green NEPA

On the way through the area this past weekend (and then back) the audio level on WGMF was so low both times as to be virtually unintelligible.

I'm constantly trying to add them to the DX log here (1/2 way between Hazleton & Pottsville). At present they're my 'closest unheard'. Both the Radio-Locator page plus the FCC's site for coverage maps have them pretty much the same. They do send some signal this way, even with me somewhat co-linear between WGMF and the sports station in Harrisburg.

http://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/pat?call=WGMF&service=AM&status=L&hours=D

Also missing from Radio-Locator this visit to the site is WGMF's nighttime pattern.

How long has this weak-audio stuff been going on? On one car trip up that way, maybe ten years back, I remember them positively blasting along I-84, east toward Port Jervis. Saturday and Monday, though, WSAN Allentown on 1470 was much louder audiowise. The car radio is excellent, by the way.
 
I did get them in Hazleton, T-O, on a pretty good portable. They were under the Harrisburg station, but I paralleled three songs in a row with the 730 station from Nanticoke.
Not just that, but I was listening within about a mile of WAZL on 1490, and its splash.
An old unwritten DX rule is that you can count any stations you hear within ten miles from your house; in the car, walking around -- but not after ten miles away. Hazleton is about 15-17 miles off.
It may sound arbitrary and maybe a little bit outdated, but, well, that's the guideline I and some others have been using for over fifty years of DXing.

That purplish lima-bean pattern for WGMF is pretty close to the FCC one and the Radio-Locator one in terms of direction. A thumbnail calculation tells me they send about 800 of their 5000 watts in my direction.

That should be plenty. For example, WARM 590 sends next to nothing toward me because of Harrisburg on 580. We would not be considered to be in WARM's coverage area here either, but they're there every day.
They don't trip off the 'scan' button, of course. But they're there.

WGMF eventually will show up. The logbook here lists four 'catches' on 1460, all of them more distant than WGMF.
But they won't show up via the audio I heard this past weekend!
 
I emailed them, and they sent a reply, but with a warning that it was not to be reposted anywhere else. 8)
They said they're aware of the situation, and repairs are pending, but will take a while as 'they always do when dealing with AM'.
 
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