WINS 1010AM New York / KOA 850AM Denver

[DaveArnold]

WINS is heard well in Bermuda.During their music days they ran some spots for stores in Hamilton Bermuda.

 

[cd637299]

WINS is heard well in Bermuda.During their music days they ran some spots for stores in Hamilton Bermuda.

As one who did a little daytime AM DXing in Bermuda in June 2005, I attest to this!

cd

 

[Icangelp]

WINS is heard well in Bermuda.During their music days they ran some spots for stores in Hamilton Bermuda.

Seems like an expensive way to advertise to a very small customer base, although if customer visits were needed, I could see the station G.M. might take the trip in place of the sales guy.

Were the spots directed at local Bermudans, or maybe an attempt at generating mail order sales from potential stateside customers?

 

[DaveArnold]

I recall one that was a live tag for mens clothing.

 

[Steve Green NEPA]

@Wthom 100 :

If I have my math straight, not only many big stations but most of the smaller-signalled regional stations are directional at night -- and with the same curious patterns.

A chart of the regional frequency 1480's nighttime patterns, for example, will show a half-dozen stations along the Atlantic coast which send their signals incinerating their cities of license and then going out to sea. That's a lot of fish that come par-cooked, but the actual *city* is getting the signal loud and clear, and doing so as best as conditions allow.

New York City's stations, for the most part, are no different. Many of those stations locate their towers west or northwest of NYC, and launch most of their power through midtown Manhattan. As Scott Fybush states, they cover millions of people in that fashion.

These stations, such as 930, 970, 1330, 1380, 1430, etc. , could not physically locate their towers southeast, lol, because it was the ocean. Plus, they'd then be sending lots of watts and interfering with inland stations at nights ...... Grand Rapids, Detroit,Pittsburgh, Ohio, parts of Ontario, and so forth. Moreover, the famed Jersey Meadowlands transmitter sites are wonderfully suited, geologically, as a good launch pad vis-a-vis conductivity. That's where WINS has its sticks.

* * * * * * *

For a determined DXer, KOA Denver will reach out of the darkness one night for an ID. A lot of stations have come on 850 since KOA was 'The Voice of the West'. We had two 850 stations here in Pennsylvania for the longest while. One of them, WJAC Johnstown, had a signal (to protect KOA and WHDH Boston) described as a thousand miles long and fifteen feet wide. Yet, well, they were heard well in Johnstown.

 

[taylorengineer]

By using a directional facility WINS puts a signal into NYC which is much more intense than a non directional 50 KW signal would. WINS, in it's lobe aimed at NYC, produces almost 5.5 volts signal at 1 km. distance! It would take over 100 KW to produce the same signal intensity using a non directional antenna.
Being at the middle of the dial is already a minus for WINS. It needs all the signal help it can get to compete with the 50s on the lower part of the band.

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

Directional can be a good thing if the population is almost all in the major lobe. If it's moved out into the nulls, it's not so good. I grew up in Flint, MI, and during the daytime the 5 kW stations all had major lobes that hit the downtown and factory areas with 100 mV/m. They could be heard well even inside steel buildings and factories. Now, the factories and downtown are nearly gone, and the people have moved out to Grand Blanc and Fenton, in the minor lobes and nulls. Some stations in other markets have tried moving out further, like WOOD in Grand Rapids, but they are so far out and the conductivity is so much lower than M-3, that even with 20000 watts blasting Grand Rapids, the signal fades at night. I suppose you get that out a ways on Long Island also with the NYC Area stations. Another thread here told about moving AM stations with disappointing results. And WWJ and WXYT Detroit fade at night and are a lot weaker in Oakland and Macomb County with 50 kW than they were with 5 kW. WFDF had to change city of license to Farmington Hills, because they couldn't get 50 kW night, but the signal fades markedly in Flint, the old COL, at night and would even with 50 kW even though they could get a predicted NIF over Flint with 50 kW.

 

[jd]

I understand everything you're saying except the part about WFDF. Six years ago (when they might have still believed the station had some value) didn't Disney want to leave Flint and get into the Detroit metro area?

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

WFDF would have done it as a minor change if they could have, and kept the COL. One of the big obstacles was WSUI. They probably would have had the same day signal on the air 1-2 years earlier, with the increased population served. There's really not much difference except the top of the hour ID. They still put a predicted 5 mV/m city grade day signal over Flint.

Forbes just found Detroit to be the most miserable Metro SMSA in the country, followed by Flint. Farmington Hills is considered to be in the Warren SMSA, and is still in the Top 10 most miserable Metro Areas at number 7. Chicago is 4th, New York City 10th most miserable. All of those have RD affiliates. I guess it just boils down to how miserable do you want your COL to be?

Detroit's and Flint's population just moved further out. The areas as a whole have stable to slight declines overall. Outlying areas are growing, some rapidly. Not what you see and hear on TV. Come and see us sometime.

 

[1L6E6VHF]

By using a directional facility WINS puts a signal into NYC which is much more intense than a non directional 50 KW signal would. WINS, in it's lobe aimed at NYC, produces almost 5.5 volts signal at 1 km. distance! It would take over 100 KW to produce the same signal intensity using a non directional antenna.
Being at the middle of the dial is already a minus for WINS. It needs all the signal help it can get to compete with the 50s on the lower part of the band.

Not to mention the abysmal soil conductivity in much of the New York City area. Typical soil conductivity may be about 4 μS/m, with 30 μS/m being excellent (found in some parts of the Great Plains - which is why it is said that KFYR - a 5kW station, not a 50kW, has the largest daytime groundwave coverage of any US station). Manhattan and parts of other boroughs have 1 μS/m - which means, during the day, that AMs there can't get out worth schist (except over the ocean).

 

[schmave]

By using a directional facility WINS puts a signal into NYC which is much more intense than a non directional 50 KW signal would. WINS, in it's lobe aimed at NYC, produces almost 5.5 volts signal at 1 km. distance! It would take over 100 KW to produce the same signal intensity using a non directional antenna.
Being at the middle of the dial is already a minus for WINS. It needs all the signal help it can get to compete with the 50s on the lower part of the band.

Not to mention the abysmal soil conductivity in much of the New York City area. Typical soil conductivity may be about 4 μS/m, with 30 μS/m being excellent (found in some parts of the Great Plains - which is why it is said that KFYR - a 5kW station, not a 50kW, has the largest daytime groundwave coverage of any US station). Manhattan and parts of other boroughs have 1 μS/m - which means, during the day, that AMs there can't get out worth schist (except over the ocean).

Is that because it's so paved and built up? Or would it be a 1 anyway?

 

[fybush]

The pavement doesn't help any, but Manhattan is basically one big rock anyway, so even if it weren't as built-up as it is, AM would still have difficulty. It's possible to drive down the West Side Highway in the West 90s, maybe seven or eight air miles from the WCBS/WFAN site on High Island in the Bronx, and almost completely lose those 50 kW signals. (The same is true in the opposite direction; even the biggest Meadowlands AM signals, like WABC and WOR, have dead patches on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.)

The greater New York metropolitan area is a fascinating patchwork of groundwave propagation oddities. In addition to the unconductive rock that characterizes most of Manhattan, the Bronx and some areas to the north in Westchester and Rockland, you've got the spectacularly good propagation in the Meadowlands and up and down Long Island Sound and the Atlantic coast...and the even more dramatically lousy sandbar of Long Island in between. Even the very best AM sites still have bad spots somewhere in the market, and even the very worst usually have something redeeming about them.

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

I would think that the buildings on Manhattan would have something to do with the dead spots there also. Chicago has good to very good conductivity from my experience and some consulting engineers agree. But there are places on Lake Shore Drive where the buildings cancel signals from the West, and reinforce signals from the East. I was confused back in the 1960s when a friend of my relatives near there told me that he listened to hockey games on a station from Saginaw, which turned out to be WSGW 790. Apparently, there are areas where the buildings blocked WBBM's signal on 780 and enhanced WSGW on 790. So that probably also adds to the dead spot problems on Manhattan. There are probably a lot of buildings in the 300 foot range (near 1/4 wave at 770)on Manhattan which affect the signals.

I took a Sony Sports headset into the CN Tower in Toronto and experienced some other strange things, like WBEN 930 Buffalo booming in inside the building, in an area where CHKT 1430 and CHIN 1540 are the only stations that boom in outside. Perhaps Scott has tried similar things.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

Not to mention the abysmal soil conductivity in much of the New York City area. Typical soil conductivity may be about 4 μS/m, with 30 μS/m being excellent (found in some parts of the Great Plains - which is why it is said that KFYR - a 5kW station, not a 50kW, has the largest daytime groundwave coverage of any US station). Manhattan and parts of other boroughs have 1 μS/m - which means, during the day, that AMs there can't get out worth schist (except over the ocean).

Is that because it's so paved and built up? Or would it be a 1 anyway?

Funny you should mention schist - because that is the bedrock under Manhattan. And its conductivity would be very low.

Another funny thing, everybody says the same thing about WSB Atlanta. Poor ground conductivity makes for difficult coverage in Atlanta. It makes it into Daytona Beach, FL, even inland, during the day so there is nothing wrong with their transmitter, tower array, or ground radials. It was also one of the stations I could hear clearly in Lubbock, TX, during the day with a 5 foot loop. Lubbock just happens to have excellent ground conductivity, and Daytona Beach also has good ground conductivity. So much so that beach side, some of the NYC stations come in during the daytime. I don't recall if WINS was one of them. So it is the ground conductivity at the listening location that matters, not the transmitting location.

Some day I am going to get around to testing the opposite scenario. I am going to carry a GE SR and a five foot loop up Stone Mountain, which should have very low ground conductivity, and see what sort of DX is possible on top. My guess is that it will be dismal.

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

R. Fry and I did some calculations about different conductivity along paths. It really turns out that the whole path affects the groundwave, but that the transmitter site has the biggest effect. Once you get a few miles into a mountain range, there may be great signal loss, but also you could be behind mountains. The far side of a mountain cannot possibly get an unattenuated signal. Line of sight is something that is not usually addressed in AM signal propagation. But as reports from pilots (broadcasters, DXers, and family members of such) of small planes (Small planes have AM radios, as FM radios CAN interfere with 108-136 MHz signals.) will tell you, losses from ground conductivity disappear with elevation. Skywave intensities also tell you that there is an elevation where ground conductivity is not important. WSB's skywave also shows that. It's fine to the north. I predict that the mountaintop gets a good signal if you can see the transmitting tower of the station.

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

What contour did KFYR use to demonstrate that it had the largest coverage area in the country? Was it 0.5 mV/m or 0.1 mV/m? KFI or WMAQ/WSCR would have the 0.1 mV/m as the service areas as Class Is/Class As, whereas KFYR's service area would be 0.5 mV/m as Class B. It would just about have to have been the 0.1 mV/m for all, or 0.5 mV/m for all. Can't imagine that KFYR's 0.5 mV/m contour area was bigger than WMAQ's 0.1 mV/m contour area.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

I predict that the mountaintop gets a good signal if you can see the transmitting tower of the station.

I was definitely going to measure WSB, but there are other targets that would be worth measuring, like WSM, WHAS, WLW, WBT, WWL, and, of course the NYC clears if the others are there. I strongly suspect not even WSM will come in.

Once measuring the worst case scenario on Stone Mountain, and other locations I can identify as being potentially poor. Then I will go back to Daytona Beach Shores - site of multiple NYC stations daytime reception, and take measurements. Along with other Gulf Coast, Atlantic, and Pacific beach locations. Then inland like Lubbock, other places with good conductivity like the Crosbyton Canyon where KFAB curiously appears.

It seems that there has never been a controlled scientific study of this. It usually turns into a bragging contest "my radio is better than your radio", or dubious claims of fantastic reception with no repeatability or proof. Video cameras and Youtube postings will be used to verify all claims, the same receiver(s), spectrum analyzers, and antennas at all locations.

 

[1L6E6VHF]

What contour did KFYR use to demonstrate that it had the largest coverage area in the country? Was it 0.5 mV/m or 0.1 mV/m? KFI or WMAQ/WSCR would have the 0.1 mV/m as the service areas as Class Is/Class As, whereas KFYR's service area would be 0.5 mV/m as Class B. It would just about have to have been the 0.1 mV/m for all, or 0.5 mV/m for all. Can't imagine that KFYR's 0.5 mV/m contour area was bigger than WMAQ's 0.1 mV/m contour area.

The Chicago class As are definitely contenders for the greatest land coverage. KFI is not even in the same league (talking about daytime here), as the LA area mostly has a 4 soil, and then is surrounded by mountains. The Fresno AMs may get out - but the whole Central Valley is not as big as the coverage of the likes of KFYR, WNAX, KWMT and the Chicago monsters.

As for aircraft AM, most of it is in the 115-136 MHz range. True groundwave does not apply at all - so soil does not matter. It's having 39000' above average terrain that works wonders. The spacewave that affects VHF and UHF is often called "groundwave" in error. True groundwave requires a relatively low frequency, good soil conductivity, and vertical polarization.

A very common misconception is that FM signals cannot propagate well, but an FM signal at 600 kHz would carry over good soil very well by day and by skip at night, whereas an AM signal in the 2-meter band will almost always be limited in range (the abnormal conditions of tropo or sporadic-E notwithstanding).

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

I should have used the insistence of my neighborhood amateur when I was in high school, whose callsign is now K8RY, but is nowhere near MI or OH now, to call it the AM BCB and FM BCB, as a guideline here.

Propagation path has nothing to do with the modulation type. Beacons and air traffic control are on the ground though. I was referring to AM BCB receivers on small planes, and FM BCB receiver oscillators potentially interfering with aircraft communications. The call letters at the TLs of various AM BCB stations on aeronautical charts is/was due to this, as well as landmarks. They had mostly disappeared the last I checked.

More recently, it used to be handy to go over to UIZ to get an aeronautical chart, but the airport and the 215 kHz beacon are gone. Before tower databases were online, and some frequency searches were done with a map and a ruler before home computers, they were essential tools of dabbling technical consultants.

 

[tomservo]

What contour did KFYR use to demonstrate that it had the largest coverage area in the country? Was it 0.5 mV/m or 0.1 mV/m? KFI or WMAQ/WSCR would have the 0.1 mV/m as the service areas as Class Is/Class As, whereas KFYR's service area would be 0.5 mV/m as Class B. It would just about have to have been the 0.1 mV/m for all, or 0.5 mV/m for all. Can't imagine that KFYR's 0.5 mV/m contour area was bigger than WMAQ's 0.1 mV/m contour area.

I was somehow led to believe that WNAX, Yankton, SD had the best "coverage per watt" of any AM broadcast station in the continental US. KFYR seems like it could beat them, judging by the maps.

My personal yardstick of huge coverage is not in Chicago but Memphis: WCRV, 50 kW at 640 in a pretty conductive part of the US. Although seeing it side by side with WSCR now on Radio-Dislocator shows that it is nowhere near as huge from the Chicago signal.