I was in Rome, Ga 70 miles NW of Atlanta on Thursday June12. After dark WSB's signal was very weak. You could even hear Mexican interference as you could hear the same interference on 760 and 770. WLW boomed in as if it was 10 miles away. I thought WSB was a non-directional signal with 1 tower. It comes in better just north of Orlando when WQTM 740 fades out. Any thoughts.
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After dark there is skywave.... radio that bounces off some layer.... I think it is called the ionosphere. That's why you can sit in Rome and probably hear KMOX in St Louis, a handful of stations in Chicago, New York and maybe Dallas and Denver.
This does not happen in the daytime. The ionosphere gets beaten down and flattened out by the rays of the sun and it does not reflect the radio waves of A.M. stations. (Well, there is that period called Critical Hours a couple hours either side of sunrise and sunset when the skywave behavior gets strange.) When it gets to be night-time, that layer kind of fluffs-out like Grandma's favorite comforter and acts like a mirror reflecting the skywave back to earth.
This does not happen in the daytime. The ionosphere gets beaten down and flattened out by the rays of the sun and it does not reflect the radio waves of A.M. stations. (Well, there is that period called Critical Hours a couple hours either side of sunrise and sunset when the skywave behavior gets strange.) When it gets to be night-time, that layer kind of fluffs-out like Grandma's favorite comforter and acts like a mirror reflecting the skywave back to earth.
K
KE4KLS_Radio
Guest
Sometimes there is groundwave / skywave cancellation, when that happens the two tend to cancel each other out. That could be possible if you were in Rome, GA since there is still a considerable groundwave from WSB there.
Goat Rodeo Cowboy said:
Critical hours are based on the fact that while it may be daylight at a particular station, it may be dark at the point where the waves will reflect from the ioonosphere.
For example, at sunrise in Baltimore, it's still the middle of the night in St Louis.. making reflection possible for determined angles of radiation. Or at sunset, it may be daytime in Kansas City, but very dark in Atlanta, so at a midpoint area, signals reflect because it is night there.
A
ALRocker
Guest
The big 750 never has come in real good here in north Alabama. 760, 780, 840, etc. all come in better. I'm about 140 miles away.
I'm hearing WSB fair in the Greater Cincinnati area tonight. By way of information, there is a low-power day-night area station on 740 AM and WJR in Detroit at 760 A.M. can be heard here night and day WSB is edging through regardless just as it usually does in this area at night.
ALRocker said:
Daytime? Night time?
KE4KLS_Radio said:
If the OP's in Rome that's exactly the problem. I used to listen to WSB off and on when going between B'ham and Atlanta at night and around 65 miles out from the WSB stick is where they start to fade... Around Rome or the AL/GA line.
The station is a bit better here in central Mississippi when KRMG from Tulsa on 740 isn't hammering away, than it ever was in Birmingham.
My best nighttime DX of WSB was easily between Milwaukee and Minneapolis on I-94 - fairly solid and strong for several hours, until after sunrise.
schmave said:
I thought we had covered ground wave and Atlanta earlier in this discussion but we have not.
Science 101. The coverage you get from a radio station during the daytime is GROUND WAVE. It goes out 20, 50, 70, 100 miles depending on the transmitter power, the frequency, and GROUND CONDUCTIVITY.
At night there is the phenomena called sky wave. See my comments above about ionosphere, etc.
Technically the GROUNDWAVE goes just as far out at night as it does in the daytime, but at the edges of groundwave coverage, it gets covered up by skywave coming from every direction from multiple stations. If your small town has a 1,000 watt station on 1230, 1240, 1340 1400, 1450 or 1490, it also (normally) has 1,000 watts at night. The night time coverage is typically about 1/3 the miles from the transmitter as is the daytime coverage.
In different parts of the world, the soil is more conductive or less conductive of this ground wave. If you are in the wheat belt on the corn belt you probably have excellent ground conductivity and stations go forever and ever it seems.
NOW, let's talk WSB in Atlanta. Starting somewhere in Atlanta or maybe a bit further south, and in a belt running north-northeast there is an area of LOUSY, TERRIBLE GROUND CONDUCTIVITY. AM stations in Atlanta and all the small communities going up along I-85 get much, much less coverage area than a similar station in say Kansas, Texas, Illinois, etc. The FCC maps that show the approximate ground conductivity indicate for this area in Georgia a value of 2. My home county in Arkansas has a value of 30.
If I remember correctly, Art Sutton who owns some stations in this area of reduced ground conductivity posted recently that he had an engineering company do some testing and found the value in Northeast Georgia was ACTUALLY a 1 rather than the 2 shown on the maps. Andy why would someone have this measurement done? If you are applying for a new AM frequency, a power increase, or a station move, that changes the interference boundaries. AM goes by actual measurements. FM goes by arbitrary mileage circles.
C
CW
Guest
It also depends on the tower (antenna) the station is using for that determines the take off angle of the skywave signal.....certain designs like the Blaw-Knox that WLW uses (1/2 over 1/2wave) puts the skywave signal at a low take off angle...thus farther out before it comes back down and cancels the groundwave signal...WSB looks to be a simple 1/2wave or maybe 5/8wave at their freq....thus it would have a higher take off angle and it's 1st dead zone at night would be closer in to the site than WLWs...Simple physics and antenna math 101 
CW said:
The WLW and the WSM Blaw Knoxes are about half wave high... 189 degrees for the WLW one and 190 on the WSM. They are not split in the middle... that would be a Franklin antenna, and it would be 1600 feet high for those stations. WLW is not using a Franklin, just a normal 1/2 wave vertical.
As far as I know, the only operating Franklin now is KFBK 1530 in Sacramento... the KELO one I believe came down some years ago. And KDKA's huge 900 foot one collapsed years back.
[¿/quote] puts the skywave signal at a low take off angle...thus farther out before it comes back down and cancels the groundwave signal.[/quote]
1/2 wave or 5/8 wave do well for skywave surpression in the primary ground coverge areas.
[/quote]..WSB looks to be a simple 1/2wave or maybe 5/8wave at their freq.[/quote]
It is a half wave, a tad shorter than WSM or the WLW towers. But nearly identical electirical qualities.
...thus it would have a higher take off angle and it's 1st dead zone at night would be closer in to the site than WLWs...Simple physics and antenna math 101
The three operate approximately half wave vertical radiators. The only difference is going to be the ground conductivity around the site and the area. Atlanta is the worst, with Nashville about as bad and SW Ohio being very very good.
Is there a way to determine how your metro area does in terms of soil conductivity? I would imagine we'd do better here in central Connecticut than north Georgia. At any time of day, I will get WCBS-AM 880 New York better than WBZ-AM 1030 Boston. More of the WBZ signal is going over land than WCBS' does. As for the two stations mentioned here...I get a so-so signal of WLW-AM 700 here, while the WSB-AM 750 signal is almost nothing.
KML-224 said:
It's a crummy version of the map but look at this on the FCC website. Download the jpg file and you can flow it up some in photo software, but the map is still pretty bad.
also on this webpage is the opportunity to download the mother of all maps. Finding the one of 24 that covers your area can be a bit of a struggle but if you do you will have a very GOOD map of your area.
http://www.fcc.gov/mb/audio/m3/index.html
By the way, where you live, incoming signal from NYC area could be enhanced by the path over seawater. That would be true if you live near the coast. Sea Water has the untimate ground wave rating value.
Goat Rodeo Cowboy said:
Are you in the Arkansas delta or in the west-central ?
David, I thought the Franklin was with KHTK... I guess they use something different? I could never figure out if it was all just good ground conductivity that got KFBK and KHTK out so well or antenna-related, too.
Nope, I think CT is like middle GA: Mostly 2 and some areas of 1. I have the full sectioned color map, it's only about 7 mb unzipped. Of course, when I downloaded way back when on dialup, it seemed much bigger!
Finally, I have to wonder how the shopping center built up around WSB's stick affects the signal. I've never seen a clear channel 50kw tower in the middle of a parking lot, behind Dunkin Donuts. ;D
Zach said:Goat Rodeo Cowboy said:
Are you in the Arkansas delta or in the west-central ?
West Central Arkansas. Along the Arkansas River. In the area between Russellville and Fort Smith.
(It's not where I AM, it's where I'm FROM.
)Many years ago I did live and work in The Delta. The hills I would return to. But not the Delta. It's just a personal preference.
That question is often raised, and it is often answered by those who list the numerous measures taken at the time of construction to keep the shopping center from having disastrous results. I guess we will never know for sure.
IF, GREAT BIG IF.... WSB were the only AM station in the area not having the kind of coverage we would expect to see from a comparable facility in other parts of the country, then maybe one could be critical of the shopping center location. But, since every other AM station in the area ALSO has less than spectacular signal strength at distances from their towers, maybe the soil conductivity is the big culprit.
C
CW
Guest
Zach said:Goat Rodeo Cowboy said:
Are you in the Arkansas delta or in the west-central ?
David, I thought the Franklin was with KHTK... I guess they use something different? I could never figure out if it was all just good ground conductivity that got KFBK and KHTK out so well or antenna-related, too.
Nope, I think CT is like middle GA: Mostly 2 and some areas of 1. I have the full sectioned color map, it's only about 7 mb unzipped. Of course, when I downloaded way back when on dialup, it seemed much bigger!
Finally, I have to wonder how the shopping center built up around WSB's stick affects the signal. I've never seen a clear channel 50kw tower in the middle of a parking lot, behind Dunkin Donuts. ;D
Actually, the shopping center was a good thought by COX. They got approached by the center's developers wanting to buy the land....COX decided to lease the land instead provided they build WSB a new xmtr building and deal with the RF in any of the shops of the shopping center....that way, COX got out of having to deal with it and kept the site where its at PLUS got the extra cash from the lease.....NICE deal for all.....I guess when the ground system was buried, it was done so they would not have to worry about it being dug up, etc...thus no radial issues in the future (but think pof trying to dig up a radial that somehow got cut, etc!!
)KFI is in the same situation (middle of a large parking lot/shopping area...though I think its more industrial than retail)....and I dont know if KFI owns the land of the area or is leasing the site....This was one deal COX did right with WSB
I remember Paul Jellison talking about the new subdivision being built behind WLW in 00 or 01 and shaking his head thinking about the RF complaints they were gonna get...(even after informing the developer about the RF issues and advising to run Cat 5 for all low voltage wiring and some suggestions on the 220 stuff...you KNOW that went in the bit bucket and the contractors used normal 3 pair and cut wires, etc where needed; RF?? that went in one ear bounced off the other side and went right back the same ear!! I found that at one house where the outside was 3 pair...but for some reason only one pair was good inside...sure enough, in the attic, found they had ran the 3 pair to a nail, wrapped it 10 times, then only spliced ONE pair in and daisy chained all the rooms from that one pair; with different colors between the daisy chains!!! ARGH...took me 8 hrs to rewire the entire house to get two more lines to a room that the HR person was going to use as her home office...WHEW!!!)
WSB, like many other stations can be heard a lot more clearly at night om 500-900 mi away than 50-100 mi. Likving in Central Mass I tend to listen to the Orioles-Red Sox games on WBAL 1090 vs the other nearby red Sox afflitiate stations. Nearly a city grade signal most nites vs a lot of mumbo jumbo on the locals.
WSB's nitetime signal is very strong, can get it 1000 mi or so to the NE (in MA) and 500 mi to the S in SW Fla. I remember getting it in the Midwest as well so it covers a LOT of states but doesn't probably do as well in the area it primarily serves at nite.
WSB's nitetime signal is very strong, can get it 1000 mi or so to the NE (in MA) and 500 mi to the S in SW Fla. I remember getting it in the Midwest as well so it covers a LOT of states but doesn't probably do as well in the area it primarily serves at nite.
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