The Strongest Skywaves In The Straits Area Of Northern Michigan

[CK-722]

1. WWJ 950 50000 watts, Directional to the North.
2. WFDF 910 25000 watts, Directional to the North.
3. WJR 760 50000 watts, Nondirectional.
4. WMVP 1000 50000 watts, DA to the East.
5. WGN 720 50000 watts, Non-DA.
6. WLS 890 50000 watts, Non-DA.
7. WCKY 1530 50000 watts, trifolar DA pattern, large lobe to the North after KFBK Sacramento Sunset.
8. WLW 700 50000 watts, Non-DA.
9. WHAS 840 50000 watts, Non-DA.
10. WSCR 670 50000 watts, Non-DA.
11. CFZM 740 50000 watts, Non-DA.
12. CJBC 860 50000 watts, Non-DA.
13. WBBM 780 42000 watts, Non-DA. Historically, before the diplex and power reduction, would be in the Top 5 or so.
14. WBZ 1030 50000 watts, DA to the West.
15. WCCO 830 50000 watts, Non-DA.
16. KYW 1060 50000 watts, bifolar DA, major lobe to the NW.
17. WRVA 1140 50000 watts, bifolar DA, major lobe to the NW.
18. CKLW 800 50000 watts, bifolar DA, major lobe NNE, better in Eastern Michigan, Alpena.
19. WSM 650 50000 watts, Non-DA.
20. WLAC 1510 50000 watts, trifolar DA, major lobe North.
21. WCBS 880 50000 watts Non-DA.
22. WABC 770 50000 watts, Non-DA.
23. WFAN 660 50000 watts, Non-DA.
24. KDKA 1020 50000 watts, Non-DA. After 100 years, they have apparently solved their geologically compromised ground system. Something about ferrite type deposits close underground as I recall. Old timers called it "Fadey KA".

Historically, WOWO 1190 50000 watts, DA to the East would be in the Top 5 or so.
WXYT 1270 50000 watts DA, better to the NNE, near Alpena, and away from WMKT 1270 27000/5000 U2.
WOOD 1300 20000 watts DA, NNE, strong but with a lot of interference usually. Best during CH, which favors shorter distances 150-300 miles away. WRDZ LaGrange, IL is in the same general direction, and also WJMO 1300 in Cleveland, legacy call letters WERE, are primary contributors, increasing toward Sunset.
CHML 900 50000 watts DA, WNW and ESE, is very strong in some areas, but has very narrow lobes. Some towers are a half mile away from each other, maybe a little more.

[k8jd]

Great list, I was thinking Zoomer radio was directional at night but it may have been CFRB.
I was trying to find a strong Detroit station that I could hear in the FL Keys, but WJR had a competing signal from Tampa area and the other ones are all directional to the north.

[CK-722]

There are some I missed. I'll fill those in later.

[rugratsonline]

Great list, I was thinking Zoomer radio was directional at night but it may have been CFRB.

CFZM inherited the old facilities, status and pattern that was used for many years by CBL, until they moved to FM many years back.

CFRB is the directional one, to protect another strong 50kw station in Canada, CBR Calgary, as well as protecting the much-closer WINS in New York City.

[Turkeytop]

I've never heard anything from Detroit at our place in the Tampa Bay area. On one or two rare occasions, I've heard CFRB.

The Chicago stations are strong down there.

[Rich F.]

... I was trying to find a strong Detroit station that I could hear in the FL Keys, but WJR had a competing signal from Tampa area and the other ones are all directional to the north.

Yes, there isn't much of a chance for WJR to be heard south of ~Orlando, FL due to the co-channel interference produced there by WLCC and WEFL.

[Rich F.]

1. WWJ 950 50000 watts, Directional to the North.
2. WFDF 910 25000 watts, Directional to the North.
3. WJR 760 50000 watts, Nondirectional.
...

Here is a comparison of the 50% nighttime skywave fields from those stations in/near Mackinaw City, MI using FCC data and methodology:

WWJ 2.1 mV/m
WFDF 2.3 "
WJR 0.84 "

[CK-722]

Rich, is that the Day Patterns or Night Patterns for WFDF and WWJ? I'm kind of confused if the shorter towers (127 degrees)for WFDF vs. the taller towers (168 degrees 2 center towers, 138 degrees 4 end towers) could have that much higher angle radiation that would make up for 25 kW vs. 50 kW Nighttime. I think you sent the ground waves and the 10% skywaves for the three a few years ago in an e mail. I'll look for the old e mail. With a good old console tube radio with a built in fairly large loop, you can get all three ground waves by nulling the interfering cochannels and adjacents (WARD 750 is on Silent STA, WDOR 910, and WCLB 950). It seems that the new WFDF facility is about 4 Hz different than the old 5 kW facility). The old 5 kW facility was probably a little stronger due to actual path length and conductivity. The old 5 kW WWJ nondirectional facility was difficult to hear unless you had some kind of long wire (like a TV 300 ohm twin lead with the conductors twisted together) and/or preamp. The Night 5 kW DA on WWJ from 8 Mile Rd. was quite listenable without an external antenna due to the umbrella of its III-A protection level. This was true mainly before WNTD 950 Chicago went full-time with 5 kW Night, and all the PSSAs. When WXLW 950 actually signed off, you could hear WWJ in Indiana at Night. This was due to the 186 degree tower having a deep enough vertical radiation null to make it virtually nondirectional from the shorter tower at certain distances.

[Rich F.]

Those are the nighttime skywave fields (50%) for all three stations.

[CK-722]

It might be the pattern beam width also. The WFDF ground wave with 25 kW Night in Ann Arbor is much stronger than WWJ with 50 kW. Near US 23 and Plymouth Rd., WFDF is not that much weaker than WJR at Night. That's partly due to TL vs. WWJ.

[CK-722]

Cavell and Mertz (fccinfo.com) has better archive files than fccdata.org. I haven't explored all of them yet.

https://www.fccinfo.com/CMDProEngine.ph ... &Archive=Y

Old WWJ 5 kW Night Pattern. From Cavell and Mertz site.

[Rich F.]

Below are plots showing the nighttime relative fields serving Mackinaw City, MI radiated by WJR, WFDF and WWJ, based on FCC data and methodologies:

[ftballfan]

How does WTMJ perform up there? They're a blowtorch all along the west shore of Lake Michigan

[Rich F.]

How does WTMJ perform up there?

Mackinaw City is located considerably off the peak of the narrow main lobe of the nighttime pattern of WTMJ. Their nighttime, 50% field in MC is about 0.36 mV/m.

[CK-722]

How does WTMJ perform up there?

Mackinaw City is located considerably off the peak of the narrow main lobe of the nighttime pattern of WTMJ. Their nighttime, 50% field in MC is about 0.36 mV/m.

WYLL should probably also be on the list. But they are 50 kW Night from a second site in Lockport, IL.

WTMJ also is less because it is "only" 10 kW Night. They were the first or second Class III/Regional to go to 50 kW Day. I think if more sophisticated software had been available, they might have been able to design something that would have allowed more power at Night. It's usually difficult to get much more than 20-25 kW, unless you are along the edges of the forty-eight states, and or already interfered a lot with other cochannel stations.