WVMI-570 Biloxi: How was the signal?

[MN Maniac]

I have a day off of work and it's currently 3 degrees here in Minnesota. Too cold to go out, so please excuse me for spending WAY too much time researching radio stuff today!

What kind of signal did WVMI have when they were on 570? I'm guessing it must have been pretty restricted to give up the low dial position and move up to 1640 (then becoming WTMI.)

If so, who were they protecting? During the time I lived in Ocean Springs (right before Katrina hit), the only activity I heard on 570 was a weak car radio signal from one of the "tick tock" stations in Cuba. Not much on adjacent channels, either.

Drew

 

[MikeSFNM]

The old WVMI came into New Orleans pretty well, even into the western suburbs, although with some hiss. Even as a kid I could pick it up on Mom's five-tube all American without much problem. Their 1640 station, however, does not get into New Orleans at all with any kind of usable signal. Even on a car radio the audio was buried down in the noise. Why they ever moved, I do not know. This switch happened years before Katrina, so the storm had nothing to do with it.

If memory serves me correctly, WVMI competed for the sole VHF channel on the Mississippi Coast, 13, with WLOX 1490 AM, and lost. WVMI was one of the oldest stations on the coast, second I think to WGCM 1230 AM Gulfport.

 

[MikeSFNM]

Correction: WGCM is 1240, not 1230.

 

[DeadElvis]

I grew up on the beautiful Gulf Coast, and remember the old 570 well (in fact, they tried to hire me once in their country days).

Despite the fact that ground conductivity isn't the best down there, WVMI did pretty signal-wise. As noted, it was audible in New Orleans (though, even 1580 in Pascagoula did because of water path). But, it was also pretty audible in Mobile, too. Wayne Gardner, then PD of WKSJ, once noted that he could comfortably listen to it in his office on Broadcast Drive.

The night signal wasn't bad. 1 kW on 570 covered Biloxi-Gulfport fairly well, with some fatigue west of Hwy 49. The Pascagoula signal was not noise-free. The array did have some pretty deep nulls, though (it was -- what -- 5 towers?).

I understand that upkeep on the array got a bit expensive. Perhaps that's the rub -- one tower just doesn't cost that much to take care of. Further, with the new plant, the station does get to claim 10 kW. The 570 vs. 1640 thing may be over the heads of advertisers. Still, I can hear 1640 here in Memphis most any night @ 1 kW. It's often the strongest X-bander I can hear.

Hope that helps.

DE

 

[RFLA]

When they were still on 570am, Could hear them really good in Houma (about 50 miles west of New Orleans) with just a small amount of noise with it (comparable to some of the smaller New Orleans Ams)

Now on 1640am, It's down in the grass as they say and not even able to listen.

Only 1580am from the coast coming in post K... Do get WRJW 1320am from Picayune coming in occasionally

 

[tomservo]

When did they actually shut off 570?

I seem to recall hearing 570 a time or two while in Gulf Shores in the early 90's.

Up here in Grenada, 1640 is a decent X-band catch around sunset but tends to get lost in the din at night.

 

[kevinkelly]

One of those nulls was over the Orange Grove area (Gulfport, north of I-10)... I have only heard WTNI 1640 once, and that was in Columbus, Ohio... But I would suppose even at the higher frequency, it probably covers the Coast better at night with a non-directional signal. When we changed from day to night pattern, the signal was noticeably weaker on the monitor in the studio.

WVMI transmitted in AM Stereo and the air monitor was mono. I found a Radio Shack AM stereo radio receiver in the engineering room, and spent the next few months trying to find the studio monitor source radio, so I could replace it. Never could find where the engineer hid it. They cut the budget and got rid of the engineer, so there were a lot of mysteries around there.

 

[qid937]

I seem to recall seeing a thread on this subject well over a year ago. If memory serves me correctly, the move up to 1640 was related to signal power, particulaly at night. It may have been related to accomodating clear channel or otherwise trying to get farther away from one in dail position.

I never could figure out why the current owners would drop the heritage VMI calls. Alas, they vanished much like their one time sister station WQID FM did years earlier.

As a side note, after the needless death of QID, VMI went on as an independant and had studios in a couple of different locations in Biloxi. They became the property of Gulf Coast Radio Partners at the time they where organized and then became and still are a sister station to WCPR, which I believe is the only station in that group to not undergo a format and/or call letter change.

 

[CatFM]

I visited WVMI/WQID in the fairly early days of the newly built 570 when a friend worked there. WVMI mainly protected WFAA (now KLIF) Dallas at night. The heterodyne caused by WFAA on their air monitor was so bad, listening to the program channel of the board was the only way the people on the air at night could avoid a headache. The signal varied around the area, but it wasn't good right at the studio on the night pattern.

 

[Doctor_Technical]

570 was turned off because the original 6-tower, two-pattern array "was too expensive to maintain".

The 1640 operates from the sole surviving 570 tower, which had to be shortened to correctly tune to the new frequency.

 

[smashedcd]

I can pick up 1640 on my ccrane radio daily even in the daytime in baton rouge. But I can also pick up 1130 kwkh ;D

 

[bobrall]

570 was turned off because the original 6-tower, two-pattern array "was too expensive to maintain".

The 1640 operates from the sole surviving 570 tower, which had to be shortened to correctly tune to the new frequency.

It was a seven tower array scattered all over a bunch of acres in more or less diamond pattern with a dummy tower.
It would take a full time enginner just to keep the thing in phase. Getting it ready for the sale from Telesouth to
Starr (K99) it took weeks of repairing and tuning to get the thing to pass due dilegence.
Even with a good signal, most people listened to Limbaugh and other programming on WWL instead of WVMI.
It maintained a strong country presence against K99 for a year. K99 had 20 shares in Jackson County...but was
still pulling 9s in Biloxi for the first year. (The markets were separated then) Bob Lima came over from VMI and brought a lot of the VMI team along...he replaced the GM (Me) and K99 took off and had huge shares in both markets.

 

[tomservo]

It was a seven tower array scattered all over a bunch of acres in more or less diamond pattern with a dummy tower.

This may be a stupid question - but what purpose did the dummy tower serve?

 

[CatFM]

My engineering knowledge is limited, but I think it's safe to say that a "dummy" tower is the same as a parasitic tower or element in a directional antenna array. It is configured into the array and it does serve a purpose by being there, but it does not have any signal fed to it. The phase ratios of the other towers in conjunction with it set up the pattern. I worked for a couple of directional stations that had such a tower in the array. The readings on the log were always 0.00 for that tower since it was not being fed with a signal, but it was part of the array.

For the same reason a parasitic tower works in an AM directional array, many AM stations have had problems when new cellular towers were built close to their transmitter sites, causing them to have to retune their systems. As I understand it, the FCC now requires any new cellular tower built close to an AM facility to be specially registered because of interference they will likely cause.

 

[kevinkelly]

570 was turned off because the original 6-tower, two-pattern array "was too expensive to maintain".

The 1640 operates from the sole surviving 570 tower, which had to be shortened to correctly tune to the new frequency.

It was a seven tower array scattered all over a bunch of acres in more or less diamond pattern with a dummy tower.
It would take a full time enginner just to keep the thing in phase. Getting it ready for the sale from Telesouth to
Starr (K99) it took weeks of repairing and tuning to get the thing to pass due dilegence.
Even with a good signal, most people listened to Limbaugh and other programming on WWL instead of WVMI.
It maintained a strong country presence against K99 for a year. K99 had 20 shares in Jackson County...but was
still pulling 9s in Biloxi for the first year. (The markets were separated then) Bob Lima came over from VMI and brought a lot of the VMI team along...he replaced the GM (Me) and K99 took off and had huge shares in both markets.

The engineering there was never the same after they let go Bob Thornton... not to say anything bad about the contract engineers that followed him, they were top notch guys, but it really did need lots of maintenance, which it didn't get anymore. As far as the parasitic tower goes, I don't remember anything about it, but the station had several lobes in its pattern, so it wouldn't surprise me that it needed more than the 6 hot towers.

 

[CatFM]

It seems very ironic that "too expensive to maintain" was the whole reason for WVMI to abandon operation on 570 with their 7 tower array because WROA has been operating a lot longer with their 8 tower array.

I may draw fire on this, but trying to operate a complex directional system with contract engineers is a poor management decision. I'm sure there are a lot of good contract engineers, and I have worked for stations that got by using contract engineers only, but a full time company engineer always has more of a reason to keep things operating efficiently and legally. To some contract engineers, as with contractors of any type, it's just another job, but a company engineer has a much greater stake in the operation. From my experience, management also tends to listen to a full time company engineer's suggestions more than a contract engineer, so it's a two way street.

 

[K4WRF]

It seems very ironic that "too expensive to maintain" was the whole reason for WVMI to abandon operation on 570 with their 7 tower array because WROA has been operating a lot longer with their 8 tower array.

I may draw fire on this, but trying to operate a complex directional system with contract engineers is a poor management decision. I'm sure there are a lot of good contract engineers, and I have worked for stations that got by using contract engineers only, but a full time company engineer always has more of a reason to keep things operating efficiently and legally. To some contract engineers, as with contractors of any type, it's just another job, but a company engineer has a much greater stake in the operation. From my experience, management also tends to listen to a full time company engineer's suggestions more than a contract engineer, so it's a two way street.

Your post regarding the term “dummy” antenna is correct. The technical term is “negative resistance” and is not the same as a negative phase angle, a common misconception. The negative resistance tower still has a current and relative phase angle as current passing through it results in a radiated field. The only difference is power is flowing out of it rather than in. This condition is common in many systems but not all. In cases where the power is low enough, it is simply dissipated in a resistor, or “dummy” and that is where the term originates. Now in other systems where the power is significant, it is returned to the phasor in phase to improve efficiency and stability.
Over the years, the FCC has relaxed only monitoring and logging requirements for directional antenna systems. The requirements to maintain the licensed operating parameters are the same as it always has been. Unfortunately, some owners and operators took this relaxation to mean no maintenance, another common misconception. Some systems will run flawlessly with little attention others are more critical and subject to instability, much of this based on the original design. More than most want to know, but important information to have.

w/

 

[cyberdad]

Back to the original question....

I've spent a lot of time on the Gulf Coast on business as well as for beach vacations....especially during the '90s. In a word, the 570 signal was good. Generally solid all the way from Pensacola to New Orleans. I recall the audio as being somewhat "muddy" at times, however.

 

[MN Maniac]

Does anyone have an old WVMI coverage map they could scan? Given the 7-tower pattern, I'm curious to see exactly where the lobes and nulls fell. I'm sure there was one null towards Dallas and probably another towards Cuba (?)

Great story on nearby structures detuning AM directional arrays: Here in Minneapolis, WDGY-1130 was the big Storz Top 40 station. 50kW day/25kW night, but with a NINE tower directional array. Had to protect Shreveport, NYC, Detroit, Milwaukee, etc., at night.

In the early 1970s, a church was built a few blocks from the transmitter site. The church had a metal roof and steeple. This caused the WDGY pattern to fall out of tolerance limits. The engineers tried and tried to correct it, but never could get it right. Eventually, an FCC waiver was granted and life went on.

 

[CatFM]

Since it was a church causing the interference, maybe the FCC gave them a break because it was "an act of God."

I have a map that shows a pattern for WVMI, but it has to be a mistake. It is in an update of the NRC Night Pattern Book, but it has to be the day pattern that was shown because it shows major lobes NNE and SSW, with a slightly lesser lobe pointing WNW right toward Dallas. There are deep nulls to the NW and SW, and very little energy being radiated to the east. This is supposed to be the 300 MV/M contour, but it would have to be for the 5 KW Day signal because it is way too large for it to be for the 1 KW Night signal. I even question the size of it for 5 KW Day because it covers Memphis, Birmingham, Montgomery, and almost Nashville, and the west lobe reaches into Texas. Their day signal was never THAT good!

I saw the night pattern not too long ago and I remember that most of it was oriented SW toward New Orleans. Needless to say, there was a dead null toward Dallas. As with WROA, hardly any of the signal left the coast in any direction over land since most of it was pointed out into the Gulf.