Quote:
Originally Posted by electroking
CBC has many small transmitters to fill up isolated areas operating on 540 kHz, for
some reason. The only CBC AM powerhouse that still exists AFAIK is the French
Toronto transmitter on 860 kHz, an easy to identify catch in Eastern Canada and
NE USA. Regards.
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Their signal pattern must not include northeastern Ohio, as I have never heard anything on 860 from here (eastern Lake County, Ohio, 33 miles east of downtown Cleveland), even at night. I can hear WHAS-840 in Louisville, Kentucky and WWL-AM 870 in New Orleans after sundown, but in all my years of AM DXing I have yet to hear anything on 860. Perhaps that's because there is a 50kW day/4.7 kW night Cleveland station on 850 that bleeds over to 860 just about everywhere the signal can be heard in northeast Ohio and beyond. The problem is worst in areas very near the transmitter, which is located in a southwestern suburb of Cleveland. If you are within a few miles of the station's towers, their daytime signal will take over your radio dial, even being heard in between other local stations. I lived in a Cleveland suburb about 38 years ago on a street just about a third of a mile from a local FM station on 92.3 MHz. That station came in exceedingly well on my FM radios, on my TV on channel 6, and even on a transistorized stereo tape recorder. Believe it or not, I was even hearing the station, very faintly, at several spots on the ten-meter ham band on my old Hallicrafters SX101-A, which was the receiver in my first ham radio station.
Leaving that suburb (Cleveland Heights, Ohio) three years later cured the problem; it did not repeat itself, either when I moved back to the suburb where I grew up or when I moved to where I live now. I don't have that kind of trouble here since I am perhaps 40 miles from Cleveland's AM and FM radio stations, and at least as far from the city's TV stations. The only thing that could possibly cause me trouble here as far as interference is concerned (but doesn't, thank goodness) is a 1kW/0.5kW (day/night) AM station five miles away. The only problem that station ever caused me (if you can call it a problem) is that it comes in at two points, 900 kHz (0.9 MHz) apart on the digital AM/FM tuner in my stereo system. Most of the time, however, I don't even know the station is there.
I've never forgotten the problems that 27.5-kW ERP station's signal caused me, and I'm sure I never will. I had an aunt who lived only about five miles from Cleveland's TV transmitters; she could get excellent reception on all three (at the time) local network stations, using just a length of wire on the set's antenna terminals. I swear she was getting almost city-grade reception at times
without an antenna--that's how strong the signals were in her area.