WOKV

[K9EZ]

WOW....

When on the beaches of North Carolina, 690 WOKV in Jacksonville, FL comes in rather nicely.

When driving through Jacksonville a couple of days ago, I was stunned at how narrow their nighttime pattern is. They have an FM simulcasting. A little 6kW job. I thought, why do they need it? Well it turns out that they need it to cover the very narrow beam width of the AM night pattern. In the main lobe tons of power (and mostly over the ocean too). But it falls off very quickly.

[DG19075]

690 is a Canadian frequency, so I guess they needed to protect Montreal. Think Mexico uses the channel too, This probably why the old WAPE was just a daytimer...

[K9EZ]

690 is a Canadian frequency, so I guess they needed to protect Montreal. Think Mexico uses the channel too, This probably why the old WAPE was just a daytimer...

They must have some side lobes as I picked them up near Vero Beach last night.

Tijuana is directional nighttime with a north south-ish lobe. Yes it is a Canadian Clear.

[w4cl]

WOW....

When on the beaches of North Carolina, 690 WOKV in Jacksonville, FL comes in rather nicely.

When driving through Jacksonville a couple of days ago, I was stunned at how narrow their nighttime pattern is. They have an FM simulcasting. A little 6kW job. I thought, why do they need it? Well it turns out that they need it to cover the very narrow beam width of the AM night pattern. In the main lobe tons of power (and mostly over the ocean too). But it falls off very quickly.

Back in the 60's we would listen to the Big Ape on the beaches of NC with "transistor" radios like it was a local. Those WERE the days.

[Deep Thought]

Salt water path. A quarter mile inland I'll bet they're gone.

[K9EZ]

Salt water path. A quarter mile inland I'll bet they're gone.

I do listen to them while at the beaches on a small transistor radio on the beaches of NC. I can pick them up inland near Fayetteville, NC.

[w4cl]

Straight line, JAX to NC is only about 300 miles. Driving is an other matter as you curve west to move northeast about 500 miles!

[ai4i]

Can't say about today, but the office and studios used to be at the daytime transmitter site (50kw, non-da) in or near Green Cove Springs. When they found a place to put their night array, The jocks at "The Ape" could not get a clear enough signal to monitor and needed to backhaul with a TSL, probably by phone line, hence the FM station. I think WBT does the same thing with a class A FM station.
I listened to The Ape and WPDQ (600) when I attended UF in Gainesville in the early-mid seventies. They used to advertise "500 miles of music", meaning 300 miles north and 200 miles south. The problem with their south signal was a NARBA compliant Cuban station on 690.
I do not know the full story, but I had heard that way back when the station was first trying to get on at night, an engineer actually committed suicide because he just could not get their expensive new six tower array to work properly. I guess the next guy did better.