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How listenable is CKWW in Detroit, and how many listeners does it have?

F

fordranger797

Hi everyone,

I'm not from Detroit (and have never had a chance to visit). I have, however, listened to CKWW on and off for many years via their online stream. I'm curious about how well the station actually comes in if you're trying to listen to it anywhere around Detroit. Looking at the daytime and nighttime pattern online, it looks like the pattern isn't exactly favorable to Detroit listeners (but I would assume there are people who still listen).

How well does CKWW get out? At 580 on the AM dial, maybe it still does pretty well.
 
It aims north and east mostly. Figure Detroit proper and areas north and east. I've listened to it in Port Huron, and across the river in Lambton County, Ontario. In Sarnia, I had to be outside because of electrical interference. But it has a good null and probably does not come in very well in the SW part of Detroit. I didn't try it last time I was in Detroit so I can't say much.
 
Loud and clear here in Livonia, and I listen regularly. It starts to fade for me in the car around west of Plymouth. The signal is much stronger the more directly north you go from the transmitter, so it comes in pretty well up 94 into Port Huron. I can receive it loud and clear on a portable radio at my cottage in Lexington.
 
JeremyAndrews said:
They had storm damage
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RadioFixerCLE said:
When I visited Detroit, I was able to hear it just fine all over the city itself. Good clean reception
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Given these two comments taken together, it sounds like they may be on nondirectional operation at low power. Much of the Detroit Area is in directions with nulls and minor lobes. These directions would receive better signals than with directional full power operations. I have observed this many times with other stations on STA over the years.


Other examples are the severe storm damage to Night DAs for WKZO and WTVN. It took years to fix these. As populations have moved into null areas, many parts of the areas actually received better signals at Night with STAs than with full power DAs.
 
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The usual STA for a US station would be 125 watts nondirectional. I don't know if that's the rule in Canada. With the International Agreement, usually it would be the same.

If you look at the polar graph, 125 watts nondirectional would be a circle just over 100 mV/m at 1 km, the innermost circle on the graph. As you can see, that's quite a bit higher than the DA value in most directions toward the US, except when you get close to 330 degrees in the pattern.

 
Both 560 from Monroe and 580 from Windsor get out further than what would be expected for 500 watts. In Sarnia you used to have to turn a portable to block their signal if you were trying to hear WKBN from Youngstown on 570.
 
Marc1178 said:
Both 560 from Monroe and 580 from Windsor get out further than what would be expected for 500 watts. In Sarnia you used to have to turn a portable to block their signal if you were trying to hear WKBN from Youngstown on 570.
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When both are operating with their full facilities, that is true. I'd like to see the applications and how they dealt with being so close to each other and 20 kHz apart. Probably used the treaty rules at the time concerning the border areas, water overlap, and interference ratio exhibits. Also 540 kHz, which was CBEF, which is now vacant, but still in the international database.

The US Domestic overlap restriction is 5 mV/m to 5 mV/m for 20 kHz apart. There would be quite a bit of overlap of those contours, so the Agreement between the US and Canada would have had to be used. I think it's 15 mV/m to 0.5 mV/m, or a 30 to 1 interference ratio, in the current Agreement.
 
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How many listeners does CKWW have in Detroit?
It hasn't shown up since June 2018, when non-subscribing stations below the 0.1 AQH rating threshold started to be excluded from data.
The last time it had more than a 1.0 share was May 2010.
The best it ever did under PPM measurement was a 1.4 share in Dec. 2009.
 
CKWW was a popular station among the elderly in Metro Detroit 15+ years ago.

The advent of IBOC digital broadcasting, in particular the initial version of the technology, was detrimental to clean daytime reception. WRDT 560 used that technology; its sideband noise was noticeable on 580.

That isn't as much of an issue anymore, but Bell Media has allowed deferred maintenance of its AM and FM properties alike in Windsor to pile up.

580 never delivered a good signal to the western third of Metro Detroit, but now the areas of mediocre reception seem to have expanded.

I get substantially better reception from 630 CFCO where I live, both day and night. I am 15 to 20 miles NW of downtown Detroit. CFCO even comes in a bit more strongly than 800 CKLW.

None of Bell's Windsor stations are encoded for PPM. They completely stopped U.S. ad sales in 2016, I believe. If listening were still being measured, I suspect CKWW would cume under 20,000 on this side of the border. Even the once mighty WJR cumes only 133,000 these days.

Windsor Numeris share data was publicly published twice annually until recently. In greater Windsor, where AM radio usage is stronger than the U.S. side of the border, CKWW generally bounced around a 2 share in ages 12+ during the final couple years data was publicly available.
 
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This link discusses the real conductivity of the path from CFCO 630 to Southeastern Michigan. At least until it hits land in Michigan, the conductivity far exceeds M-3. This map clearly shows Lake St. Clair as 40 mS/m. Canadian land is clearly shown as 20 mS/m along the path. Zoom in enough and you'll see Chatham, and the region and conductivities clearly. The inverse directional field to the West is near maximum, 1639.12 mV/m @ 1km. According to Agreement reference efficiency (300 mV/m @ 1 km @ 1 kW), this is about the equivalent of 30 kW. They may also be operating with Day facilities at Night. They get DX reception reports from the Pacific Northwest. Radio Locator doesn't use 40 mS/m over Lake St. Clair, so it won't look like it really is. Board Administrator Scott Fybush reports listening to CFCO in his car all the way from Western New York to Northeast Indiana.



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I remember being able to null WLAP, Lexington and get CFCO, just fine. In West Central Ohio, I was on the CFCO/WLAP line. CFCO predominated in Lima on day pattern.
 
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