The Southern Ontario/WNY Radio-TV Forum / 680 On Lower Power Monday Morning

**Posted by RadioActive** May 26, 2025 6:14 am

680 Newsradio may be a powerhouse for headlines, but its power was severely lessened on Monday morning.

Sometime after 5 AM, the station's signal almost disappeared and it sounded like it was on emergency power, much lower than normal.

No word on what happened but at 6 AM, they still weren't back to full strength, although it was slightly better. No word on when it may be back to normal.

**Posted by mace** May 26, 2025 7:13 am

Back in the 60's, many AM stations shut down Sundays from Midnight to 5AM for transmitter maintenance which made for a fun night for dxers particularly if Monday was a holiday. Transmitter technology has improved to the point where radio stations rarely, if ever, are required to leave the air. I am sure transmitters today still need maintenance but perhaps now it can be done with the station on air, but at reduced power. The technical members would certainly know.

**Posted by markow202** May 26, 2025 1:42 pm

I was wondering why I could barely pick it up in Barrie this morning

**Posted by mjf** May 26, 2025 3:07 pm

They did mention on then air that they were having transmitter problems when I was listening just before 7:00am. They said that things were just about fixed and the power was definitely back but the signal kept dropping. They did say that you could get reliable listening from their HD broadcast or streaming.

**Posted by turkeytop** May 26, 2025 8:35 pm

I listen to 680 every morning. We arrived back here in London on April 22, after being away all winter. The signal from 680 has seemd very weak ever since we got back here. Lots of background noise and interference. Today was no better or worse.

**Posted by mjf** May 27, 2025 12:24 pm

Unfortunately, the amount of electromagnetic interference seems to be increasing daily too. Try again during a power outage. It's amazing how clean the band is then. It's like when I was a kid dxing back in the early 70s.

**Posted by Radiowiz** May 27, 2025 12:38 pm

I suppose listening online was fine?
The problem with this thinking is, not everyone can afford to pay $15 extra per month for the ability to have Rogers internet during an actual (area) power outage.
https://www.rogers.com/internet/internet-connectivity-backup

Last edited by Radiowiz (May 27, 2025 12:46 pm)

**Posted by tvguy** May 27, 2025 9:32 pm

There has been a massive amount of solar activity, giant sunspots which have disrupted communications on earlth. Seeing reports the last few days that High Frequency amateur radio bands have been badly impacted. How much AM radio has been affected by the solar flares….I’ll leave that to Skywave to weigh in.

**Posted by turkeytop** May 27, 2025 10:45 pm

tvguy wrote:
There has been a massive amount of solar activity, giant sunspots which have disrupted communications on earlth. Seeing reports the last few days that High Frequency amateur radio bands have been badly impacted. How much AM radio has been affected by the solar flares….I’ll leave that to Skywave to weigh in.

The past week or two have been terrible for MW radio, at night. The band is mostly dead. The high power US clear channels aren't present at all. Just noise.

**Posted by Evuguy** May 28, 2025 1:27 pm

CFTR has an aux transmitter at the 855 York Mills Road campus. Possible they may have been temporarily
running on that. The antenna is a monopole - believe it's 1kW.

**Posted by turkeytop** May 29, 2025 12:15 am

turkeytop wrote:
tvguy wrote:
There has been a massive amount of solar activity, giant sunspots which have disrupted communications on earlth. Seeing reports the last few days that High Frequency amateur radio bands have been badly impacted. How much AM radio has been affected by the solar flares….I’ll leave that to Skywave to weigh in.
The past week or two have been terrible for MW radio, at night. The band is mostly dead. The high power US clear channels aren't present at all. Just noise.

May 28, 12:15 AM. Just fired up the Radio and 650 WSM is pounding in again. Getting back to more normal conditions.

**Posted by Saul** May 30, 2025 7:49 am

There has been considerable aurora the last month. That impacts reception outside normal AM contours and actually can enhance reception of locals and semi-locals by cutting out stuff further out (on emptier channels the benefit is that signals from much more distant, usually southwards stations, are enhanced). So it might have been an optimal time to work 680 from a place like Barrie, or my own DX location. But if I'd bothered checking 680 the last month, even with CFTR at full power, I'd have heard better signals from eastern Europe. In fact I walked right by 630 AM studios in Timisoara Romania. So I missed out on any potential DX from this outage. I presume they're back to full strength by now.