I was doing some Google Searches on WBT's AM signal at night and its NE-SW directional pattern to protect KFAB in Omaha, NE. I realize that they have the 99.3 FM signal to cover the null areas west of Charlotte (ie. Gastonia), but just wondering has there ever been an attempt to relocate their transmitters further west
of the city to cover the entire area with their AM signal, or are there issues in that area due to either ground conductivity or the growth of the Metropolitian area?
You might want to check out
www.fybush.com and read his tower site visits to WBT. I believe that he explains the situation. WBT was bought by CBS in the 1930s for the express purpose of improving their facility at Chicago, I believe it was. I seem to recall it had something to do with improving 780 in Chicago. It was sharing time with Omaha as I recall so they moved Omaha to 1110 off 780, got a small town station in the midwest to free up 1110 and take 780 daytime and WBT directionalized 1110 to protect KFAB in Omaha is how it went, I seem to recall from the story told to me.
Note on their pattern, there is also a null off to the east, southeast that is not nearly as deep as the one to the west,northwest. If you were to go too far west to put signal in the western side of the metro , you would have issues putting a solid city grade groundwave signal at night back over Charlotte proper. Also, the landing pattern at the Charlotte airport is north south so you have major airway issues not to mention the cost of property, etc. It might be interesting to see if any improvements could be had using the four towers of 610 but the costs for the equipment, etc. would be tremendous. There were many efforts over the years to improve their nighttime signal to the west. Once there was an AM repeater station in Shelby which I believe operated directional with 1000 watts. I always questioned how much the FM signal helped them since the Gastonia area is well beyond it's 1 mvm contour. I guess they wanted a better signal in Rock Hill but I recall the AM nighttime signal does pretty well there.
You can't hear WBT in Gastonia at night but it booms into South Georgia where I grew up in the 1970s and listened to it crystal clear every night on a transitor radio. Charlotte's low ground conductivity doesn't help matters either with WBT's nighttime coverage.
Another similar situation exists with 680 WPTF in Raleigh. Although not a Class A Clear channel facility like WBT, it would have much better coverage of the Raleigh Durham market if the transmitter site were located Northwest of Raleigh or even just northwest of Durham and pushed its 50KW off to the Southeast and Northwest. Right now the city of Raleigh is almost in their null to the northeast..a lazy figure 8 pattern that is oriented northwest/southeast off their two short towers.
