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WGNL-FM Greenwood... Transmitter problems?

tomservo

tomservo

Okay, so WGNL-FM (104.3, 50kW @ 299') began broadcasting about a month ago from a tower site off MS-7 between Greenwood and Grenada. When driving by the site a while back, I stumbled upon an oddity: the station is putting out a strong spurious signal at 94.9 for several miles around the site. Well, I was in the area again today and it's still doing it. On 94.9 you can barely hear the audio, which is mostly covered up by a electronic-sounding hum (not an AC hum), almost like someone's mic'd the underside of a window air conditioner or the sound your tires make when you run over the rumble strips on the highway at high speed.

I'm no engineer, obviously, but I've never heard anything quite like that before. It sounds weird and is just 9.4 MHz down from the carrier. I've heard FM stations have spurious emissions on their own second-adjacent before, and I've heard poor radios overload and have the common 10.7 MHz birdies, but nothing like this. What on earth is doing this?

FWIW, the coverage from the new site really seems to stink. The signal's marginally better here in Grenada but in Greenwood it suffers from a lot of picket-fencing and dead spots. I'm wondering if that's related to the spurious signal.

The 94.9 thing isn't interfering with any other service that I know of, and WONA (95.1 Winona) and WWJK (94.7 Jackson) both were listenable right near the tower, but it's got me wondering. . . ???
 
Whatever, Zach, but we have a good home cookin' place here and I will still spring
for lunch and we can further distill the many elements that appear hereon...Thanks...JBI.
 
jboydingram said:
Whatever, Zach, but we have a good home cookin' place here and I will still spring
for lunch and we can further distill the many elements that appear hereon...Thanks...JBI.
Click to expand...

That sounds great. I will take you up on that offer eventually, I promise! When I get some free time and can get up there, I'll send you an e-mail a few days in advance.

:D

(Oh and WGNL did fix their problem.)
 
I've seen bad/old electrolytic caps in the exciter cause a spur like that.

And I’ve seen the Harris MS series exciter do that if an AM station is nearby and the composite cable isn't grounded right and or shielded real well. If this is the case it would also appear an equal distance away on the other side of the carrier.
 
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