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Downriver AM transmitters

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CK-722
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Re: Downriver AM transmitters

Post by CK-722 » Thu Jun 04, 2020 10:11 am

Here's the WCAR/WDFN History Card. It takes a while to load. I don't think that the old WCAR tower was used in the WPON array. Both sites, not sure how close together they were, were near Square Lake and Telegraph Rd. They originally wanted to build the new array on Grosse Isle. They were originally on 1100 kHz.

Wikipedia is often so incomplete and inaccurate, for instance it doesn't have any information on moving from Pontiac to Detroit, that I had to wait for the History Card to load. It says that the new facility, now within the City of Gibraltar, moved there in 1952. When WLS started calling itself "The Rock Of Chicago", many copycat "Rocks of" surfaced. WCAR became "The Rock Of Detroit". I always thought that it would have been more accurate to call it "The Rock Of Gibraltar".



http://licensing.fcc.gov/cgi-bin/prod/c ... r_id=51362

"The Giant 1130" Top 40 format was programmed by a man named Conrad Jerome Jones, who claimed his given name was CJ Jones. I have known a couple of people whose actual names were just two letters, but apparently he didn't want his given name used professionally. He had had great success with WFDF's Top 40 format in 1970-1972, as "The Giant 91". New FM Top 40 and AOR formats, some dayparted, as Rock Stereo 105 (WWCK 105.5) was, and WDRQ 93Q 93.1 quickly took hold and shortened the success of many Top 40 AM formats. CJ Jones also programmed WJIM 1240 Lansing. The man who called himself "Robert R. Morgan" on WCAR, was actually Bob Burchett from WFDF (later WTRX and WDEE, and later WCXI). Since there was considerable overlap in the WFDF and WCAR signals, he used different names. With WTRX and WDEE, there was little overlap, so he used Bob Burchett on both. The same thing happened in the mid 1960s with the late legendary Terry Knapp/Knight, another "Jack The Bellboy" on WJBK, when he was on WTAC and CKLW.


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Deleted User 15342

Re: Downriver AM transmitters

Post by Deleted User 15342 » Thu Jun 04, 2020 12:39 pm

Thanks CK-722, for some reason I thought both stations (at different times) used the same land but I was wrong in thinking that. Also I do know that WCAR-FM was assigned to 99.5 did they ever operate at that frequency, I know there was a 4 year gap 1960- 1964 that 99.5 was vacant any knowledge of that mess CK-722.



innate-in-you
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Re: Downriver AM transmitters

Post by innate-in-you » Thu Oct 29, 2020 8:21 pm

WOHO wrote:
Tue May 19, 2020 12:53 am
WRDT- do they have to service their COL? Such a null to the south and night time in another county- could they change their COL from Monroe to service Metro Detroit (that is, when they were Honey Radio and had a lot of devoted listeners)? Were they originally a daytimer and why the 13W at night?
WRDT is a two-site operation. By day, they use their original four-tower array south of Monroe, beamed basically NNE, at the Detroit area. With fair soil conductivity, and the directional array makes it sound like (roughly) 3000W.

However, the four tower array is surrounded by other stations - in Chicago, Duluth, and Owen Sound co-channel, as well as adjacent-channel conflicts with stations on 570 in Youngstown and Kitchener (the latter being still-protected as legacy treaty allocation protection).

About 1994, WHND started a nighttime service with 14 (!) watts somehow coupled to the tower in Royal Oak Township, on a tower originally built for the second incarnation of WXON/WGPR Channel 62 and FM radio station WMJC.



innate-in-you
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Re: Downriver AM transmitters

Post by innate-in-you » Thu Oct 29, 2020 8:25 pm

WOHO wrote:
Tue May 19, 2020 12:53 am
WRDT- do they have to service their COL? Such a null to the south and night time in another county- could they change their COL from Monroe to service Metro Detroit (that is, when they were Honey Radio and had a lot of devoted listeners)? Were they originally a daytimer and why the 13W at night?
WRDT is a two-site operation. By day, they use their original four-tower array south of Monroe, beamed basically NNE, at the Detroit area. With fair soil conductivity, and the directional array makes it sound like (roughly) 3000W.

However, the four tower array is surrounded by other stations - in Chicago, Duluth, and Owen Sound co-channel, as well as adjacent-channel conflicts with stations on 570 in Youngstown and Kitchener (the latter being still-protected as legacy treaty allocation protection).

About 1994, WHND started a nighttime service with 14 (!) watts somehow coupled to the tower in Royal Oak Township, on a tower originally built for the second incarnation of WXON/WGPR Channel 62 and FM radio station WMJC.

(As WRDT is a class D station, it doesn't need to cover it's Monroe COL. It's nearly nonexistent in Monroe at night).



k8jd
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Re: Downriver AM transmitters

Post by k8jd » Sat Nov 07, 2020 11:52 pm

I know one area station that is NOT aimed North , located near Mt Clements on 1030 with daylight operation only ! Aimed south west to protect WBZ !

WUFL !



CK-722
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Re: Downriver AM transmitters

Post by CK-722 » Sun Nov 08, 2020 12:17 am

When tvbobn put WDRQ 1030 on the air in 1988, it had the original pattern with deep nulls over Detroit to protect the 1040 station in Northwest Ohio. FLR soon bought the station, and they changed the pattern so the nulls over Detroit were much shallower. Both original patterns had a maximum at 340 degrees true, the two towers being on a 340/160 orientation. When they changed the pattern to three towers with a WSW maximum, they lost a LOT of service to the Northwest into the Thumb and into Canada. And they still have side nulls toward Detroit. Some of us here tried to convince FLR to use the original towers and two more in a parallelogram which could have been 10 kW, maintained their Thumb Area service, and added service to the WSW, but to no avail. The towers are only 199 feet and are unpainted, and can't even be seen in Eminem's toney subdivision across the street. So we never could figure out what the problem would have been. NIMBY with 4 towers but not 3?
Last edited by CK-722 on Sun Nov 08, 2020 12:39 am, edited 2 times in total.


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CK-722
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Re: Downriver AM transmitters

Post by CK-722 » Sun Nov 08, 2020 12:28 am

Second WUFL pattern. At some point early on, perhaps after initial proofs of the DA, the pattern was changed to make the nulls shallower. This is the second pattern. This is the Theoretical Pattern. The Standard Pattern IDF maximum was 1014 mV/m at 1 km at 340 degrees true.

Image


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CK-722
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Re: Downriver AM transmitters

Post by CK-722 » Sun Nov 08, 2020 12:37 am

This is the current Theoretical pattern of WUFL 1030. The maximum is at about 250 degrees true.

Image


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CK-722
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Re: Downriver AM transmitters

Post by CK-722 » Sun Nov 08, 2020 1:05 am

The old Night WXYT pattern on 10 Mile Rd. used 165 degree towers, and went as well to the South as to the North.

The Nondirectional Day pattern was the equivalent of 8250 watts referenced the the legacy Class B efficiency minimum of 282 mV/m @ 1 kW @ 1 km.

Image


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CK-722
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Re: Downriver AM transmitters

Post by CK-722 » Sun Nov 08, 2020 1:18 am

WKZO Night Pattern radiates quite well to the South, like the Standard Pattern legacy minimum efficiency equivalent of about 3.6 kW.

Image


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Re: Downriver AM transmitters

Post by CK-722 » Sun Nov 08, 2020 1:31 am

WKMI Night Pattern. Big minor lobe to SW.

Image


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Re: Downriver AM transmitters

Post by CK-722 » Sun Nov 08, 2020 1:34 am

Old WILS Night Pattern. Major symmetrical lobe to WSW.

Image


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Re: Downriver AM transmitters

Post by CK-722 » Sun Nov 08, 2020 1:37 am

WSGW Night Pattern. Large minor lobe to WSW.

Image


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Rich F.
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Re: Downriver AM transmitters

Post by Rich F. » Sun Nov 08, 2020 1:58 am

CK-722 wrote:
Sun Nov 08, 2020 12:37 am
This is the current Theoretical pattern of WUFL 1030. The maximum is at about 250 degrees true.

Image

Below are plots of the 1.0 and 0.1 mV/m groundwave field intensity contours of WUFL when using that DA:

Image



CK-722
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Re: Downriver AM transmitters

Post by CK-722 » Sun Nov 08, 2020 10:28 am

When WTCM 580 was just 800 watts Nighttime (and possibly when they were 500 watts Nighttime), they had a large minor lobe (3.7 kW referenced to legacy minimum efficiency) to the SSW. A LOT of DXers in the Chicago area used to hear it at Night when it was 500 or 800 watts, partly because they used to hear WILL 580 Urbana, IL well in the Daytime. But when WILL cuts from 5000 watts Day to 100 watts Night, it was right there. When you get toward Milwaukee, DXers hear WTCM a lot during 50 kW Daytime and Critical Hours, by nulling out WILL as best as they can.

Image

When WTCM went to 1100 watts Nighttime, the SSW lobe had to be smaller due to the Ratchet Clause in newer FCC Nighttime rules.


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