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WCXI at reduced power?

Discussion pertaining to Detroit, Ann Arbor, Port Huron, and SW Ontario
Kennelly Heaviside
Posts: 145
Joined: Fri Jun 11, 2021 12:06 am

Re: WCXI at reduced power?

Post by Kennelly Heaviside » Fri Sep 03, 2021 9:56 am

When you have low conductivity, the signal can increase greatly by going just a few miles closer. When WCXI was at the North Rd. site, just by going a few miles closer, the signal increased quite noticeably, over much the same soil types. Not until you get a mile or so East of my RL, does the soil change quickly from sandy to clay, which has a lot of standing water, like in the vicinity of the original WBRB 1430 site on Hayes. Rd. (It's not a rumor, it's on the History Card. Bill Hennes didn't remember, and Bob "Layne" Liggett passed away sadly before I could ask him.). The 270 degree radial from WUFL 1030 shows great conductivity through Sterling Heights though. Begins to conk out starting at Dequindre.


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Colonel Flagg
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Re: WCXI at reduced power?

Post by Colonel Flagg » Fri Sep 03, 2021 11:08 am

Kennelly Heaviside wrote:
Fri Sep 03, 2021 9:56 am
When you have low conductivity, the signal can increase greatly by going just a few miles closer. When WCXI was at the North Rd. site, just by going a few miles closer, the signal increased quite noticeably, over much the same soil types. Not until you get a mile or so East of my RL, does the soil change quickly from sandy to clay, which has a lot of standing water, like in the vicinity of the original WBRB 1430 site on Hayes. Rd. (It's not a rumor, it's on the History Card. Bill Hennes didn't remember, and Bob "Layne" Liggett passed away sadly before I could ask him.). The 270 degree radial from WUFL 1030 shows great conductivity through Sterling Heights though. Begins to conk out starting at Dequindre.
WCXI sounds like it's on night power again. Much weaker today.

The Macomb County Courthouse may have some of the WBRB Hayes Rd site info on microfilm, including building permits and such. That seems like a far superior site to the one off Gratiot, geographically speaking. Hayes was probably a dirt road in those days.

I have never understood the purpose of moving WPON to Walled Lake, at all. Jerry Tertzakian once explained that the Walled Lake day pattern points straight down Grand River at Detroit. That was true, but back then, we didn't have the noise floor to deal with. WPON is noisy enough at Grand River and Telegraph. Nevermind Grand River & Woodward.


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Kennelly Heaviside
Posts: 145
Joined: Fri Jun 11, 2021 12:06 am

Re: WCXI at reduced power?

Post by Kennelly Heaviside » Fri Sep 03, 2021 11:54 am

This is the old WPON Polar Graph for the Daytime Pattern from Loon Lake.

Image

The IDF was much stronger to the East, but the real world conductivity is much better to the SSE and South. It would be nice if we could get a look at the Proofs of Performance for WPON from Loon Lake, the WCXI Proofs of Performance from North Rd, and the full Proofs of Performance from 1988 for WUFL. I think it may have been the Colonel who told me that Harold Munn told WPON not to move from Square Lake and Telegraph. They should have done a dual use like KRKD/KIIS/KTLK/KEIB on top of that Industrial Complex. Would have been a lot simpler with three towers, or even if the Day site just stayed there with one tower.

An actual picture of KEIB 1150 towers, and KTNQ 1020, although I thought they were moving. 130 kHz separation diplex! Tell me WPON wouldn't have been much easier.

Image

More pictures from fybush.com

https://www.fybush.com/sites/2006/site-060127.html
Last edited by Kennelly Heaviside on Fri Sep 03, 2021 12:37 pm, edited 4 times in total.


Kennelly Heaviside. The best Technical Consultant no money can buy.

Kennelly Heaviside
Posts: 145
Joined: Fri Jun 11, 2021 12:06 am

Re: WCXI at reduced power?

Post by Kennelly Heaviside » Fri Sep 03, 2021 12:21 pm

If this doesn't show the KEIB towers (5) on top of the buildings, click "View Towers", Zoom in, and for a better view of building outlines click "Open Street Map".

https://www.fccdata.org/?facid=&call=KE ... d=&lang=en


Kennelly Heaviside. The best Technical Consultant no money can buy.

Kennelly Heaviside
Posts: 145
Joined: Fri Jun 11, 2021 12:06 am

Re: WCXI at reduced power?

Post by Kennelly Heaviside » Fri Sep 03, 2021 6:52 pm

There may have been several factors in why WBRB moved to Pitko St.

At the time, there weren't that many people to the North of the site. It didn't really hit the COL that well from there. You can see a line of trees where the towers were.

The site was and is a wetland, and it looks like they tiled in the small tributary next to the site. It was probably constantly flooded, and sometimes it may have gone above the base insulators.

They wanted to go full-time, and definitely couldn't have done it from that site to serve Mt. Clemens with a Nighttime Interference Free signal. But even after moving to Pitko St. they didn't go full-time until circa 1980.

They wanted to start an FM, and they were too close to Berz Macomb airport to put up a tall enough tower to make it worthwhile. Plus, the short spacing took effect to WOIA in the early 1960s due to FCC rule changes, whereas it was perfectly OK under the old rules. The move increased the distance between WOIA and WBRB-FM slightly,


Kennelly Heaviside. The best Technical Consultant no money can buy.

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