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WWJ STL troubles

Discussion pertaining to Detroit, Ann Arbor, Port Huron, and SW Ontario
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Colonel Flagg
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WWJ STL troubles

Post by Colonel Flagg » Fri Dec 02, 2022 11:43 am

For about a week or more, WWJ seems to be having STL (studio-transmitter link) issues. The audio will drop, and it comes back a few seconds later. Is anyone else hearing this? It seems to be getting worse, not better. The STL path, and methods chosen, have been a problem, especially during severe weather, but this is happening during fair weather. From the top of the Rouge River Bridge, it is possible to see both the WWJ towers to the southwest, and the TV towers in Southfield to the north. Seems to me you could microwave the whole thing from the WWJ studio roof, to the nearby Channel 50 tower, and down to Berlin Township from there. That would have to be better than bouncing between different legacy phone companies downriver, and whatever other loose connections they are using. Microwave is old technology, but pretty solid.


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Splouge
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Re: WWJ STL troubles

Post by Splouge » Fri Dec 02, 2022 4:08 pm

Their sister station, WOMC, has dropouts about every 5 minutes, which last for about 1/5 of a second. But unlike WWJ, they don't have their tower far away in Berlin Township, which makes the whole thing even more of an oddity.

Also, exactly where is the Rouge River Bridge you're referring to?


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MWmetalhead
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Re: WWJ STL troubles

Post by MWmetalhead » Fri Dec 02, 2022 6:34 pm

I-75, over the Rouge River, near the Marathon Refinery.

Audacy is known for tech glitches. RDS for 98.7 was displaying "Amp Radio" for much of 2021.

The music logs on their station web sites crash frequently. The handful I've pulled up over the past week have all been null or are stale.



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SolarMax
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Re: WWJ STL troubles

Post by SolarMax » Fri Dec 02, 2022 9:54 pm

Speaking of station audio sounding like sh*t, I've had the unpleasant experience of hearing "J" in between my ears with some AKG headphones on a good receiver.
OMG :barf . The anchor's console mike audio was glitchy and fringe-y/fuzzy (kind of like early ISDN), while some other sources, spots, liners/sweepers, field reports, etc. were at least somewhat listenable. I'd hoped that dropping IBOC would make it sound at least a little better.



paul8539
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Re: WWJ STL troubles

Post by paul8539 » Mon Dec 12, 2022 4:06 am

I have been hearing this too. Irregular and infrequent, but noticeable.



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Colonel Flagg
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Re: WWJ STL troubles

Post by Colonel Flagg » Fri Feb 24, 2023 11:26 am

The STL hiccups are back again. I imagine there's probably an ice coated branch somewhere along the path that's wagging back and forth. I'm sure the sponsors love it when the audio takes a dump during one of their spots. This is a bush league problem that should be limited to small markets, for Pete's sake.


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Ben Zonia
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Re: WWJ STL troubles

Post by Ben Zonia » Fri Feb 24, 2023 11:42 am

WQCV560 951.5000 MHz

26955 W. Eleven Mile Rd. Very top of tower.

https://www.fccdata.org/?lang=en&uls=2723860

https://www.fccdata.org/?lang=en&qmenu= ... n=-83.3122

7370 Labo Rd. South Rockwood, MI.

TV Fool at this address.

At 100 feet, it shows 32.1 miles to the Channel 50 tower on 11 Mile Rd. All area TV towers are line of sight.

Maybe icing from the ice storm? Strange bending of path from severe weather conditions?

At 32.1 miles, there might be Fresnel Zone issues?


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Colonel Flagg
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Re: WWJ STL troubles

Post by Colonel Flagg » Fri Feb 24, 2023 12:17 pm

Ben Zonia wrote:
Fri Feb 24, 2023 11:42 am
WQCV560 951.5000 MHz

26955 W. Eleven Mile Rd. Very top of tower.

https://www.fccdata.org/?lang=en&uls=2723860

https://www.fccdata.org/?lang=en&qmenu= ... n=-83.3122

7370 Labo Rd. South Rockwood, MI.

TV Fool at this address.

At 100 feet, it shows 32.1 miles to the Channel 50 tower on 11 Mile Rd. All area TV towers are line of sight.

Maybe icing from the ice storm? Strange bending of path from severe weather conditions?

At 32.1 miles, there might be Fresnel Zone issues?
I was there when they built the Berlin Twp transmitter site, and I seem to recall it was part microwave, and part phone lines, that at the time, crossed through 3 different local phone company territories. The phone lines seemed to be the source of the trouble. As we all know, it gets really unstable when there's severe weather between Southfield and Berlin Twp. The TV towers in Southfield, and the tallest WWJ sticks in Berlin Twp, are both visible from the I-75 Rouge River Bridge.

Fresnel zone? Maybe. It would not surprise me.


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MWmetalhead
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Re: WWJ STL troubles

Post by MWmetalhead » Fri Feb 24, 2023 12:30 pm

South Rockwood area had bad icing from the storm; it is probably weather related.



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Ben Zonia
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Re: WWJ STL troubles

Post by Ben Zonia » Fri Feb 24, 2023 12:33 pm

Colonel Flagg wrote:
Fri Feb 24, 2023 12:17 pm
Ben Zonia wrote:
Fri Feb 24, 2023 11:42 am
WQCV560 951.5000 MHz

26955 W. Eleven Mile Rd. Very top of tower.

https://www.fccdata.org/?lang=en&uls=2723860

https://www.fccdata.org/?lang=en&qmenu= ... n=-83.3122

7370 Labo Rd. South Rockwood, MI.

TV Fool at this address.

At 100 feet, it shows 32.1 miles to the Channel 50 tower on 11 Mile Rd. All area TV towers are line of sight.

Maybe icing from the ice storm? Strange bending of path from severe weather conditions?

At 32.1 miles, there might be Fresnel Zone issues?
I was there when they built the Berlin Twp transmitter site, and I seem to recall it was part microwave, and part phone lines, that at the time, crossed through 3 different local phone company territories. The phone lines seemed to be the source of the trouble. As we all know, it gets really unstable when there's severe weather between Southfield and Berlin Twp. The TV towers in Southfield, and the tallest WWJ sticks in Berlin Twp, are both visible from the I-75 Rouge River Bridge.

Fresnel zone? Maybe. It would not surprise me.
I can't see another short tower for the STL, only a dish at the transmitter building. Could be on one of the towers closest to the transmitter building, but can't see it on the satellite view. Usually they use a separate short tower for the STL, so the STL antenna doesn't mess up the pattern as much.

I don't know if you would want to live in that house nearby. You probably could hear voices in the drain pipes. We're talking 500 kW WLW fields.


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Ben Zonia
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Re: WWJ STL troubles

Post by Ben Zonia » Fri Feb 24, 2023 12:55 pm

Rich here on the board has some good software for modeling this path.

You can have a good line of sight, and still terrain and other obstructions at ground level can affect the Fresnel Zone, and induce signal variations. Also, there are index of refraction differences with temperature variations. And it sounds like temperature variation at different heights above the ground, as there was a strong temperature gradient, increasing to the South. Anyone notice if FM signals to the South were coming in when all that was going on? Can't tell much on TV anymore. TV channels are too repacked, with all the full power, LPTV stations, and fill in translators. Maybe Amateur Radio Operators noticed on VHF and UHF bands?

WPBN 7 and WTOM 4 had all kinds of redundancy to deliver NBC programming back in the day. It was a set of numerous multi hop microwave towers and off air head ends. They even had a 4 bay 10 element Yagi to pick up WNEM, then NBC, off air from the WTOM tower back in the day, during extreme tropospheric events. It wouldn't be a bad idea for WWJ to have some STL redundancy, and someone to notice when there are problems. Have any of you tried calling WWJ to report it when it happens? They have traffic tipsters, why not STL tipsters?


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Plate Cap
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Re: WWJ STL troubles

Post by Plate Cap » Fri Feb 24, 2023 3:13 pm

Ben Zonia wrote:
Fri Feb 24, 2023 12:55 pm

You can have a good line of sight, and still terrain and other obstructions at ground level can affect the Fresnel Zone, and induce signal variations. Also, there are index of refraction differences with temperature variations. And it sounds like temperature variation at different heights above the ground, as there was a strong temperature gradient, increasing to the South.
All good points, and I would add the possibility of water in a connector freezing and expanding contact surfaces away from one another.

Ben Zonia wrote:
Fri Feb 24, 2023 12:55 pm

WPBN 7 and WTOM 4 had all kinds of redundancy to deliver NBC programming back in the day. It was a set of numerous multi hop microwave towers and off air head ends. They even had a 4 bay 10 element Yagi to pick up WNEM, then NBC, off air from the WTOM tower back in the day, during extreme tropospheric events.
I was sent out to WTOM once when the M/W failed, and the fix was to pull programming off of a Dish Network receiver and feed the TX with it. Worked like a charm. A very cheap backup STL plan that showed some great out-of-the-box thinking. Dish gets their feed direct from the studio.


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Ben Zonia
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Re: WWJ STL troubles

Post by Ben Zonia » Fri Feb 24, 2023 3:20 pm

Plate Cap wrote:
Fri Feb 24, 2023 3:13 pm
Ben Zonia wrote:
Fri Feb 24, 2023 12:55 pm

WPBN 7 and WTOM 4 had all kinds of redundancy to deliver NBC programming back in the day. It was a set of numerous multi hop microwave towers and off air head ends. They even had a 4 bay 10 element Yagi to pick up WNEM, then NBC, off air from the WTOM tower back in the day, during extreme tropospheric events.
I was sent out to WTOM once when the M/W failed, and the fix was to pull programming off of a Dish Network receiver and feed the TX with it. Worked like a charm. A very cheap backup STL plan that showed some great out-of-the-box thinking. Dish gets their feed direct from the studio.
Found this online.

https://signons-and-signoffs.fandom.com ... 4_sign_off

The Morley Stanwood head end link pulled WOOD-TV 8 off the air. The head end South of Barryton pulled WNEM-TV 5 off the air. Sometimes, you could tell which source they were using by the Severe Weather Bug. I think Fetzer had microwave links between WKZO-TV 3 and WWTV 9. Channel 3 was subject to frequent Sporadic E events. Don't know if there was a back up, maybe WJIM-TV 6 back in the day.


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Matt
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Re: WWJ STL troubles

Post by Matt » Fri Feb 24, 2023 9:32 pm

Doesn't WWJ have a stuttering news reader that ignored RT's challenge?


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Re: WWJ STL troubles

Post by edj » Fri Feb 24, 2023 10:30 pm

Matt wrote:
Fri Feb 24, 2023 9:32 pm
Doesn't WWJ have a stuttering news reader that ignored RT's challenge?
Yep, she’s still there. Luckily live games occasionally cut her off.



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