I am not familiar with out of town reception in London. Would Erie and Cleveland best be defined as tropo reception only?

I had a 10 element FM antenna on a 40 foot tower with rotor and in my opinion London is really a no mans land for FM reception from the US. It is too far to RELIABLY receive stations from Toronto, Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo, Toledo etc. Sure they would come in sometimes but not reliably. Now I could receive stations from Port Huron Mi., Sarnia, Chatham, Kitchener, Brantford, Guelph, Hamilton and usually WCCK from Erie Pa.

The others are just too far away. It's been my experience the range of FM broadcast signals drop off about 60 - 80 miles from the transmitting tower; many stations with lower power and antenna height make less than this.There my some some exceptions, but not many.

A long time ago, before there were stations at nearly every position on the FM dial in the GTA, Star 104, then known as WCCK (and WWGO before that) from Erie, was a regular in Toronto. I haven't heard it here in years. Stations from Ohio were also common.

In fact, most of the Buffalo FMs used to come in like locals. I remember what was then WGRQ sounding like it was next door. Now, outside of the two grandfathered super powered ones, we can barely and rarely hear anything from down there - including WDGE (then WYSL-FM) and WBUF along with WHTT. All are almost completely unreceivable now. I miss those options. 

RadioActive wrote:

A long time ago, before there were stations at nearly every position on the FM dial in the GTA, Star 104, then known as WCCK (and WWGO before that) from Erie, was a regular in Toronto. I haven't heard it here in years. Stations from Ohio were also common.

In fact, most of the Buffalo FMs used to come in like locals. I remember what was then WGRQ sounding like it was next door. Now, outside of the two grandfathered super powered ones, we can barely and rarely hear anything from down there - including WDGE (then WYSL-FM) and WBUF along with WHTT. All are almost completely unreceivable now. I miss those options. 

Is it the development of buildings mostly the issue?   This would probably come in decent in the area of something like Pickering/Scarborough. 

RadioActive wrote:

I'm honestly not sure what happened, but there's more noise on the FM band than ever. I also remember hearing a long time ago that many of these Buffalo stations were moving their transmitters farther away to the south and that may have had an impact on reception here, as well. Although I was never able to 100% confirm that. Does anyone know if that's true?

Most of those Buffalo transmitters are in the same spots (FM but not the case for some TV).  I think our FM band is just congested with too much signal. 

Last edited by markow202 (November 15, 2023 6:40 pm)

RadioActive wrote:

I'm honestly not sure what happened, but there's more noise on the FM band than ever. I also remember hearing a long time ago that many of these Buffalo stations were moving their transmitters farther away to the south and that may have had an impact on reception here, as well. Although I was never able to 100% confirm that. Does anyone know if that's true?

A few signals have moved, but most haven't. Among the big ones:

92.9 actually moved north, leaving its longtime site near Boston NY to go to the tower behind the WIVB studios in North Buffalo. 

93.7, 96.1 and 106.5 are and have always been on the Rand Building downtown.

94.5 and 99.5 are and have always been next to each other in the hills south of Buffalo on Zimmerman Road.

96.9 moved (a long time ago now) from the WGRZ tower in the south hills to the North Buffalo tower behind WIVB.

98.5 is and has always been on Grand Island, though it's moved around a bit as its old tower was taken down and replaced, with temporary operation from one tower of WBEN 930. 

102.5 is and has always been on the WIVB transmitter tower in Colden, south of Buffalo.

103.3 is on a tower at the intersection of the 33 and 198 on the northeast side of Buffalo. 

104.1 is on the WBBF 1120 tower site on Ridge Road off the 90 and 219 on the south side of Buffalo.

But here's the interesting part - moving north doesn't automatically mean a better signal into Toronto! Those sites in the south hills may be more distant from Toronto but they're also much higher up, which means a better ability to see over the escarpment and across the lake. So the stations that did move north (92.9 and 96.9) probably don't have as good a Toronto signal as they did from the south hills. 

And of course all the additional signals on the dial, electrical noise and tall buildings downtown do a lot to block out what were once clear signals from across the border!
 

Scott Fybush is spot on, as usual. 92.9 and 96.9 are actually often not steadily available at my DX site in the north end of the Kawarthas. Same with 98.5. I have pretty much milked these channels.

When I park the radio on 92.9, and record the channel, I'll typically hear CHTG The Grand from Haldimand the most often. If regional enhancement is really strong towards Buffalo, Bufaflo will become more steady or mix with CHTG. WJZQ Cadillac is maybe the third most common, then CBC Radio 2 Kingston, followed by WEZF Burlington VT. Often, I'll get these four in regular rotation, taking brief turns and spiking up a decent signal for maybe 10-30 seconds. But in truly dead conditions, I can go 15 or more minutes with nothing coming in save meteor scatter bursts and E-skip when the latter is in season. Pittsburgh PA is a very occasional visitor.

96.9 behaves similarly. CKOI Verdun/Montreal is actually the most common when enhancement towards Buffalo is not happening. The rotation almost always then goes to WOUR Utica NY. Then Buffalo. Then WBTI Lexington MI, which is near Port Huron. I was surprised this summer by W245DI, a 250 watt translator of 1420 AM WACK that is located in Sodus NY near the Lake Ontario shoreline, and sometimes I'll get fadeups from other Michigan stations and from Pittsburgh.

98.5 is much the same with Niagara Falls well behind the pecking order. CKWR Kitchener-Waterloo is the most common, followed by Niagara Falls, and CHMP Longueuil QC is often in 3rd place but - like CKOI - I can get good long stretches of it. WUPS Harrison MI is also a regular in the rotation.

102.5 is often occupied either by Buffalo or by the CBC repeater in Shelburne, which is perhaps more common. Rome NY occasionally pops in, but it's the CBC French from Ottawa that's in 3rd place. WIOG Bay City MI is generally in there too. But Buffalo and Shelburne pretty much own the channel, though I have the ability to set the portable dipole antenna so as to block them a wee bit.

96.1 - Buffalo and CBC North Bay are pretty even, and Bay City MI is commonplace too.

94.5 is mostly a mix between Buffalo and Wingham, some Syracuse NY.

93.7 is mostly Georgina, with Buffalo always in the mix depending on my antenna direction. Owen Sound is always waiting in the wings. I don't get any real empty space anyore for meteor scatter, but e-skip signals will often override all of this.

99.5 is mostly Muskoka. Followed by Buffalo. It takes an effort or a DX opening to get anything else.

Now, when I walk up with a portable to my 'East Hill', which literally hugs the base of a small rock cliff to my west and south, I can break all the rules and clean up on signals out towards Ottawa and Montreal. CKOI basically is a constant on 96.9. Kingston and Vermont own 92.9. Ottawa owns 102.5. 94.5 is Ottawa and some Syracuse. 98.5 is mostly Quebec and occasional CBC Whitney ON (Algonquin Park area). But this is a site where CKCU Ottawa comes in strong despite nearby CHAY Barrie on 93.1, and where I have heard eastwards to Saguenay a couple times, as well as Maine and even New Brunswick via tropo.

Driving along the 401 from Toronto to London is interesting. Buffalo and Detroit stations are always fairly strong, but there is some fading in of other stations. I've often heard Pittsburgh during otherwise blah conditions.                     

That's a great explanation and a lot of work, so thanks for that. The only thing I would say is I believe a lot of these signals becoming effectively non-existent in my neck of the woods (the northern edge of North York) happened before HD became a big thing.

Maybe they were preparing for those signals in advance, I can't say. But this lack of reception almost certainly predates the sideband, although I couldn't give you an exact date for when it started. They all seemed to disappear around the same time. 

Can't get them OTA most of the time, even in the car, which usually has the best reception. I want my Buffalo FMs back!

WGRF, WEDG, WBKV, and WHTT no longer broadcast in HD.

RadioActive wrote:

That's a great explanation and a lot of work, so thanks for that. The only thing I would say is I believe a lot of these signals becoming effectively non-existent in my neck of the woods (the northern edge of North York) happened before HD became a big thing.

Maybe they were preparing for those signals in advance, I can't say. But this lack of reception almost certainly predates the sideband, although I couldn't give you an exact date for when it started. They all seemed to disappear around the same time. 

Can't get them OTA most of the time, even in the car, which usually has the best reception. I want my Buffalo FMs back!

HD radio has been around for quite some time now.  I'd say Buffalo started with it at least 15 years ago. I believe  the first GTHA station to go HD was CING 95.3 - thinking around 2009.