Curious...is there any location in the US that produces amazing FM coverage in 1 or more directions? FM Height Above Average Terrain is calculated by taking the ground level at 2-10 miles from the tower into account. If there is a flat area at many thousands of feet elevation surrounded by a sudden drop off in at least 1 direction, one might expect that a station transmitting from that spot might have amazing coverage. Mt Washington,NH is one example, but that one is grandfathered in. I'm talking about an anomaly where perhaps a 6KW class at at 328' above average terrain would actually be thousands of feet above the ground at say 30 miles & carries far beyond the "normal" 35-40 miles for a Class A. I was in Denver recently & was wondering if I might experience that to the east on I-70. Having not checked the elevation east of town, I had this vision of being 100 miles out & seeing mountains in the distance (like you can see Humphrey's peak 100 miles east of Flagstaff on I-40). That wasn't the case, at least on a cloudy/snowy day. Anyone have a story about an FM station that gets out far better than what it should on paper?
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FM Stations that get out waaaay too well.
- Thread starter BobOnTheJob
- Start date
BobOnTheJob said:
Some of the LA area FMs that transmit from Mount Wilson get out real well and there are a few that don't use tremendous power.
The Phoenix stations on South Mountain can be heard in about half the state. Most of the Tucson stations can be heard in the southeast valley in metro Phoenix (110 miles). Flagstaff's 93.9 is easily heard in the northern parts of the Phoenix metro as well, at 140 miles away.
Elevation helps. ;D
Elevation helps. ;D
The Las Vegas FM stations on Mount Potosi, 8600 feet above sea level (88.9 KNPR, 92.3 KOMP, 93.1 KPLV, 97.1 KXPT, 104.3 KCYE, 107.5 KXTE) have tremendous reach up and down I-15 in both directions. It's not uncommon to hear them clearly beyond Barstow, 120 miles or so to the south, and north to the Arizona border, more than 100 miles away - and it's pretty amazing to hear the Potosi FMs keep coming in loud and clear going south on I-15 while the terrain rips the Black Mountain FMs (94.1, 95.5, 96.3, 98.5, 100.5, 101.9, 103.5, 106.5) to shreds before you even hit the California border.
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kenrayc
Guest
In Central California, East of Visalia in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, At Eshom point with a height of 5300 ft. the Average terrian is calculated at 800 ft. All FMs have 17K ERP and can be Heard on I-5 from Valencia to Modesto (depending on the co-channel of each station) These Stations are KFSO 92.9, KSJV 90.5, KBOS 94.9, KSEQ 97.1, KSOF 98.9, KFRR 104.1, and KRDA 107.5. They cover the entire San Joaquin Valley.
I second the vote for Albuquerque, but the best I ever encountered was years ago, driving in southeastern Wyoming. It seemed like here was a station on every frequency, most from Colorado, but others as far away as Iowa. Another time coming north from Brownsville, there was an inversion that allowed every station from S.A, Corpus, Victoria, Houston and the Rio Grande Valley to come in, on a cheap junkyard fm-converter.
For some reason, 97.5 KABX in the San Joaquin Valley gets out pretty far also. I could hear it 30 miles WNW of Sacramento and the signal is still pretty clear. On the I-5 Yolo Causeway north of Sacramento, the signal was nearly perfect. The signal can be also be heard in Concord, CA, which is around ~130 miles away from the transmitter. I've never tried listening to that station southbound on I-5 so I don't know how far it reaches in that direction. In the case of 92.9 KFSO and 97.1 KSEQ from Fresno, I could hear those stations too in Concord, although 97.1 isn't that strong. However 92.9 has a fairly strong signal around Concord but the signal interferes with 92.9 KFGY. 93.7 KSKS comes in pretty well in Concord also, which is strange as there's a co-channel station on 93.7 (KQJK) from Sacramento which is much closer to Concord.
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AckDX
Guest
KTJJ 98.5 FM in Farmington, MO is a good example. I think its tower is on Stono Mtn. Here where I live, its WGBH 89.7. I've picked WGBH in Nantucket, and as far as Portland,ME
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kenrayc
Guest
MR5229 said:
The reason KQJK is over taken by KSKS is because, KQJK is a Class B1 with 25K ERP on the valley floor North-East of Sacramento and KSKS is a Grandfathered station with 68K ERP located at 4600 ft at Meadow Lakes in the Sierras N/E of Fresno.Meadow Lakes is another good transmitter site for long distant FM reception even though the rest of the stationd have 3K ERP and lower. KSKS is the only grandfathered signal in the valley.The other Meadow Lakes stations are KFCF 88.1, KMGV 97.9, KLBN 101.9, KKBZ 105.1, KMJ 105.9, and KVPR 89.3. KABX located East of Merced can be heard as far south as Delano and going towards San Luis Obispo on 41 I heard them near Atascedero.
Speaking of Atascadero, I was able to receive either 94.1 KISV or 96.5 KVMX (I think it was 96.5) from Bakersfield near Hearst Castle on Highway 46 and thinking back to it, it's quite something because the reception was fairly good on the Pacific-facing side of the mountain.
The mention of Atascadero reminds me of an interesting little bit of propagation arcana I noticed 20 years ago when I was living in very rural Inyo County, one valley east of Bishop. With a local FM dial that was nearly vacant at the time (just KIBS 100.7 from Bishop), a rooftop antenna pointed west produced VERY reliable reception of the FM stations on Cuesta Peak near San Luis Obispo, most notably KCBX on 90.1, KIQO 104.5 and KSLY on 96.1.
I'm pretty sure that what was happening was "knife-edge diffraction," where the peaks of the Sierras and White Mountains were bouncing the Cuesta Peak signals around in a series of reflections that finally delivered them down to me. The phenomenon was very localized; the FM stations at sites north and south of Cuesta didn't make it through the mountains, and while there was occasional reception of some FM signals between me and the coast (107.5 in Fresno comes to mind), it was never as reliable as the rock-solid coastal signals from Cuesta Peak.
I'm pretty sure that what was happening was "knife-edge diffraction," where the peaks of the Sierras and White Mountains were bouncing the Cuesta Peak signals around in a series of reflections that finally delivered them down to me. The phenomenon was very localized; the FM stations at sites north and south of Cuesta didn't make it through the mountains, and while there was occasional reception of some FM signals between me and the coast (107.5 in Fresno comes to mind), it was never as reliable as the rock-solid coastal signals from Cuesta Peak.
I was able to get a weak KSBY signal, but didn't spend much time playing with TV DX that year. My recollection, 20 years on, is that KSBY was the only TV signal that came in. Bishop didn't have a full-power TV station then, and its translators were on the wrong side of the mountains to get to me.
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kenrayc
Guest
Scott Fybush said:
How about KZOZ 93.3 A grandfathered station from that peak.
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AckDX
Guest
I forgot about WHOM 94.9, that gets out extremely well. When I was in Nova scotia a few weeks ago, I could pick it up at Brier Island, it was weak, but I could hear it
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kenrayc
Guest
Scott Fybush said:
Ive heard that some valley floor stations were recieved in Bishop KRZR 103.7 comes to mind, and what about the other Eshom point stations besides 107.5 like 92.9,94.9,97.1 and 104.1.
96.9 WFPG from Atlantic City has huge signal in the summer. The slightest tropo enables it to cover all of NJ south of I-80, all of Delaware, 90% of Long Island, and southern Connecticut. There's little to interfere with it in the whole region. In the winter, its signal acts like a normal class B. But once the outside temperature rises above the water temperature, its signal gets huge. 104.9 WSJO is a little class A that also routinely covers 100 miles in the summer.
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