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Monday, January 4, 2021

WTIC's IBOC and WWCO's absence

Before turning in last night, I tuned the AM band to hear what I could hear and came up with a couple of surprises.

WTIC on 1080 kHz, 50,000 watts, 13 miles line-of-sight from my home, seems to have turned off its IBOC, which made reception on 1070 and 1090 kHz difficult, if not impossible. I noticed this when I turned to 1070 and could actually hear stations without having to use my receiver's filters to tune out WTIC's IBOC. I checked again this morning and the IBOC was still off, but it had returned when I checked again this afternoon. It was nice while it lasted.

Tuning further up the band, I noticed that 1240 kHz was absent WWCO's signal (1000 watts, 7 miles from my home). I cannot receive anything but WWCO on 1240 when it is on the air, but last night, there was a cacophony of stations on 1240 typical for a graveyard channel.

I decided to forgo sleep and take advantage of this rare opportunity and try to identify something. Briefly, WFTN popped up for identification – a new one for the log. (WFTN transmits 1000 watts from Franklin, New Hampshire, 142 miles to the north-northeast.)

I hung around for about 15 minutes more until WWCO came back to life and dominated 1240.

Receiver: ICOM IC-R8600, Antenna: 128-ft Loop on Ground (LoG)

WTIC's IBOC'd signal extends from 1065 to 1095 kHz!

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