WWJ signal problems? (+ WJR audio distortion)

[Deleted User 3751]

Could it be due to later sunrises and earlier sunsets? Perhaps you lose the HD portion of WWJ's signal when Montréal's 940 (also 50kW) signal comes in by nighttime skywave?

The HD drop outs that I'm talking about happen in the middle of the day. I've noticed this in two different vehicles with HD. I began to notice it in Early September.

[CK-722]

Some of these steroid-era regionals are getting out, as some 50kW clears at the top of the band have been doing all along.

KZQZ (1430, St. Louis, MO). is 50kW. About one day in four, I listen to them on my way home, as they are one of last Oldies stations left.

[CK-722]

Some of these steroid-era regionals are getting out, as some 50kW clears at the top of the band have been doing all along.

KZQZ (1430, St. Louis, MO). is 50kW. About one day in four, I listen to them on my way home, as they are one of last Oldies stations left.

There's another factor. Canadian stations have been abandoning the AM band in droves. In areas near the border, this opens up nearby stations even with lower power to be heard even in middays around the Winter Solstice.

[bmw]

While they still have the digital noisemaker turned on, I've noticed a significant improvement in WWJ's audio quality (analog). They've backed off quite a bit on the audio compression and the weird distortion I've noticed for years in their audio seems to be mostly, if not completely gone. They're actually one of the quieter signals on the AM dial now (and I'm still receiving plenty of signal strength).

[CK-722]

I noticed a lot of fading tonight in Macomb County around Sunset.

bmw, when you say the signal is good, is this up near Tawas City, and Day or Night or both? Actually, as you probably know, WWJ and other 50 kW stations from the Detroit Area are among the strongest ground waves and skywaves in that area.

If you put in 48763, you'll see this. 10% Skywave for WWJ and others would probably be close to 3-4 mV due to the higher angle of departure that reflects to Tawas City, somewhat less than the Straits Area with lower angles of departure.

https://www.v-soft.com/on-line-based-software/zipsignal

[Rich F.]

... is this up near Tawas City, and Day or Night or both? Actually, as you probably know, WWJ and other 50 kW stations from the Detroit Area are among the strongest ground waves and skywaves in that area ...

According to the FCC engineering data for WWJ and WJR shown in the graphic below, the 50% nighttime skywave field of WWJ near Tawas City is about 3.6 mV/m, and for WJR is about 0.7 mV/m. This difference is the result of the much higher radiated power from WWJ at all elevation angles from the gain of their directional array on the bearing toward Tawas City.

It is interesting to compare the groundwave fields of WWJ and WJR near Tawas City. Even though the ~7800 mV/m, h-plane field of WWJ on that bearing and ~1 km from their array exceeds the 2845 mV/m field of WJR by some 2.7X, the groundwave of WWJ and WJR in/near Tawas City are substantially equal.

This near equality of their groundwaves is the result of the greater propagation loss on 950 kHz vs 760 kHz, together with the slightly shorter path length of WJR to Tawas City than that of WWJ.

The daytime groundwave of WWJ near Tawas City drops to 498 µV/m due their different daytime pattern. This is a little less than the 524 µV/m field for the daytime groundwave there of WJR, but the two are still substantially equal.

[CK-722]

Thanks Rich.

The inverse field at that elevation angle for WJR is considerably reduced at that distance. The WWJ array has a broadside East West arrangement, which causes the field to decrease less with elevation angle compared to the 195 degree WJR radiator, or a classic three or four tower in line or near in line endfire array. The power has to go somewhere, and a broadside array has a narrower horizontal main lobe and more goes above the horizon where more is reflected. A typical endfire array concentrates the signal more into the horizontal like a taller tower.

[bmw]

Sorry Rich, I'm going to have to disagree with those theoretical numbers. From my actual listening experience, both day and night, WWJ is considerably stronger than WJR in the Tawas and Oscoda area, and has been so for as far back as I can remember. That's not to say that WJR doesn't have a decent signal, but WWJ is the strongest signal on the dial after 1480 WIOS. I would say that WJR's signal strength is more on par with that of WSGW AM 790 than with 950.

This is non-scientific, but off the top of my head, I would rate, on a scale of 1 to 10, the strongest signals on the AM dial here (daytime groudnwave) as follows:

#1 - AM 1480 WIOS - 10.0
#2 - AM 950 WWJ - 8.0
#3 - AM 660 WMIC - 7.0
#4 - AM 790 WSGW - 6.5
#5 - AM 760 WJR - 6.0

[CK-722]

Daytime skywave this time of year may be another factor. I've noticed that it rarely affects stations below 900. And WFDF seems to be on their 10 kW back up transmitter a lot. They should have built a building that would have space to hold an old 50 kW transmitter. The old building in Burton had a lot more room.

Edited Daytime list omitting Night facilities and phantom Canadian stations.

843.1 WIOS TAWAS CITY-EAST TAW MI 1480 31477
1.27 WMIC SANDUSKY MI 660 59026
0.66 WFDF FARMINGTON HILLS MI 910 13664
0.66 WJMK BRIDGEPORT MI 1250 4600
0.59 WLEW BAD AXE MI 1340 67045
0.58 WMAX BAY CITY MI 1440 58576
0.57 WJR DETROIT MI 760 8626
0.55 WSGW SAGINAW MI 790 22674
0.53 CKLW WINDSOR ON 800 98868
0.52 WWJ DETROIT MI 950 9621
0.49 WTCM TRAVERSE CITY MI 580 70524
0.42 WSNL FLINT MI 600 42078
0.35 WHAK ROGERS CITY MI 960 2928

Based on data measured for WTCM, WCCW (WOOD and WHGR), and WWJ (WHAK), I'd say that WTCM and WHAK are considerably less than predicted. The rest crossing Downriver, The Thumb, and Lake Huron are probably fairly close.

[SolarMax]

While they still have the digital noisemaker turned on, I've noticed a significant improvement in WWJ's audio quality (analog). They've backed off quite a bit on the audio compression and the weird distortion I've noticed for years in their audio seems to be mostly, if not completely gone. They're actually one of the quieter signals on the AM dial now (and I'm still receiving plenty of signal strength).

The other night, late, I was listening to WWJ with earbuds. Right up close in my ears, the audio quality, at least that of the studio anchor, was simply awful. Sounded like one of those old fuzzy ISDN feeds, while much of their other audio material sounded considerably better, even the AccuWeather guy, as well as most spots and sweepers. I did tune around to make sure it wasn't just my Sony running low on battery. WLS, WCBS, others, sounded pretty clean in comparison.

[CK-722]

Except for the Canadian stations that moved to FM or another frequency, and stations that moved or otherwise upgraded, these are the same signals you always heard in Harrisville. The surprising one was WJBK/WDEE/WLQV 1500. I remember some people on the beach had that weird shaped radio that came in several colors and were listening to CKLW. Somebody drove into the State Park with WTAC (now WSNL) 600 blaring in in their pickup truck. You could get WTRX 1330 there also with a good radio. WLEW 1340 was a perennial. CKNX 920 Wingham also came in quite well.

[bmw]

MW - I had made an extensive bandscan post in here some years back....AH, found the original graphic.

Looks like I did this bandscan in October of 2012. I remember doing it - using a Terk directional tunable antenna and my beastly Grundig Satellit 2400 radio, sometime in the late morning or early afternoon. Here were the results then:

(scale was 0 to 5 with anything less than a 1 being unlistenable but perhaps identifyable)



Might be interesting to do this test again with the same hardware, same time of year, and compare results.

Summarized, the strongest stations then were (doubling to get to same 10-point scale)...

10.0 WIOS 1480
9.0 WLEW 1340
8.0 WMIC 660
8.0 WFDF 910
8.0 WWJ 950
8.0 WNEM 1250
7.0 CFCO 630
7.0 WJR 760
7.0 WSGW 690
6.0 WSNL 600

I guess I forgot how strong of a signal WLEW 1340 generates here. It creates significant adjacent-channel interference with 1330 out of Flint. Looks like my results, re: WWJ vs WJR are in-line with what I had posted here as well.

[CK-722]

Thanks for posting that bandscan again, bmw.

That zip code centroid or post office must be within 1/2 mile from the WIOS towers to be that strong. Almost within the blanketing contour (1 V/m).

[CK-722]

Some old and new contours for stations which changed facilities which reach Tawas City. Old vs. new WWJ service area application was too old to be in the FCC online records.

https://licensing.fcc.gov/cdbs/CDBS_Att ... &exhcnum=1

https://licensing.fcc.gov/cdbs/CDBS_Att ... &exhcnum=2

https://licensing.fcc.gov/cdbs/CDBS_Att ... exhcnum=12

https://licensing.fcc.gov/cdbs/CDBS_Att ... &exhcnum=2

Dismissed.

https://licensing.fcc.gov/cdbs/CDBS_Att ... &exhcnum=2