WPON WCXI Updates - 2020

[CK-722]

1160 and 1460 are 30 miles away. I guess I have to finally buy some field strength meters to prove what I'm saying, instead of estimating based on other measurements I made in the past. And M-3 really overestimates it on this path. Looks like all the spares that were lying around to borrow are gone. They're going for ridiculous prices online. I'll have to look at the old Allied Catalogs to see what they went for in 1970. The price for renting them for a month is almost as much as the units cost.

[MWmetalhead]

I have zero signal from WPON at my house today. This is the first time I've checked since last Wednesday for reception. Were they off the air the entire weekend?

WCXI is readable but faint.

Both stations are a total joke. Worse than the typical high school radio station (speaking of which, I'm gonna start a new thread to discuss the abortion known as 88.3 WSHJ).

[SixPlusOne]

I have zero signal from WPON at my house today. Were they off the air the entire weekend?

I'm noting just a carrier at this time although they were OK earlier today with programming. I believe they were off during the weekend for whatever reason.

WCXI is readable but faint.

Noting the link below are you in the blue contour?

https://fccdata.org/?facid=&call=WCXI&c ... d=&lang=en

[fuzzpower]

WPON was on this weekend and earlier today. Their signal still sucks- it’s too weak in my area to listen to for long periods. I get better reception from WSPD and even WPAY.

[MWmetalhead]

Noting the link below are you in the blue contour?

Those contours are for the longtime, former TX site near Fenton. They are meaningless since the station now broadcasts from Wixom.

For some reason, FCCdata.org hasn't updated the contour plot to reflect the new TX location.

[CK-722]

WCXI is on STA with 250 watts nondirectional from the Wixom area site. The LIC site is still in Fenton. Normally, they don't show the STA contours. I have heard nothing to the effect that the WCXI phasor or transmitter have been installed. The WCXI CP expires 2-15-20.

Based on an 82.8 degree tower with 250 watts and using M-3 (likely to overestimate signal in this area), the 2 mV/m contour would go out about 16 miles, and the 0.5 mV/m would go out about 31 miles. The licensed WPON site at Benstein and Loon Lake Rd., about three miles East, showed much lower field strength than predicted by M-3. As I recall, at 27 miles East the signal was only about 1/3 to 1/2 of the predicted value. I seem to remember that it was around 170 uV/m that I measured, but my measurements can't be located.

[kc8yqq]

I noted both stations on yesterday 3-5ish as I was leaving Lafontaine Subaru in Commerce TWp (Maple between M-5/Haggerty). From there I was on my way home (Jackson) and checked in on them from time to time. Both sounded like they had equal signal strength (or close to it). WCXI was playing Spanish music and WPON was playing oldies.

[Rich]

Noting the link below are you in the blue contour?

Those contours are for the longtime, former TX site near Fenton. They are meaningless since the station now broadcasts from Wixom.

The graphic below shows their CP daytime contours for the tx site near Wixom.

The NAD 27 coordinates for the site are 42° 32' 39.00" N Latitude, 83° 33' 36.00" W Longitude.

[fuzzpower]

WCXI should have a decent daytime signal when it is actually built. Now they need a format.
WPON has many nulls, but 15 Mile and Haggerty isn’t far from the transmitter in Milford Twp (I think it’s just past Charms Road (lined up with Napier for those to the south).

[CK-722]

WPON should have moved to the top of a building Daytime nondirectional with ~1 kW, as close as possible to the old TL near Square Lake and Telegraph, instead of just selling the site circa the early to mid 1980s.

[CK-722]

WCXI should have a decent daytime signal when it is actually built. Now they need a format.
WPON has many nulls, but 15 Mile and Haggerty isn’t far from the transmitter in Milford Twp (I think it’s just past Charms Road (lined up with Napier for those to the south).

I suspect that the signal will be much less than the predicted. David Gleason of americanradiohistory.com has a lot of experience and examples from Central and South America where stations would relocate the TL and increase from 10 kW to 100 kW with very disappointing results.

[Rich]

... I suspect that the signal will be much less than the predicted. David Gleason of americanradiohistory.com has a lot of experience and examples from Central and South America where stations would relocate the TL and increase from 10 kW to 100 kW with very disappointing results.

For an example, in the case of WLW increasing transmitter power from 50 kW to 500 kW with their non-D antenna, the distance to their 2.5 mV/m daytime groundwave contour for Earth = 8 mS/m, d.c.15 went from 79 miles to 120 miles.*

For a power increase of 10X, the radial distance to their 2.5 mV/m GW field increased about 1.5X.

* based on the FCC database for WLW, and the FCC GW propagation chart for 700 kHz

[SixPlusOne]

Those contours are for the longtime, former TX site near Fenton. For some reason, FCCdata.org hasn't updated the contour plot to reflect the new TX location.

Here is the update:

https://fccdata.org/?lang=en&appid=1792526&facid=10475

[CK-722]

Remember, they are on 250 nondirectional STA. I have heard nothing recently to indicate testing of the new CP facilities.

[fuzzpower]

I was picking WCXI up in north Toledo yesterday, but that was likely due to some atmospheric conditions. CHOK Sarnia was also booming in down there.