As the weather begins to cool off, we’re getting the calls and emails that usually accompany this change in the season. For example, the listener who called to say “Your signal on 92.7 is breaking up in the north end. Really bad.” I’m no engineer, but I’ve had engineers explain the physics involved in what they refer to as “tropospheric propagation” and “ducting,” so I’ll try to translate what they said into something even I can understand. As you well know, the air in our part of the country is humid. As the air cools, sometimes warmer air can come into the region and trap that cooler moist air beneath it in the atmosphere. When that happens, radio signals can “bounce” off the upper warmer air layer and travel great distances in the cool, moist air. When those distant signals are stronger than the local signal, they interfere with reception. You may have experienced this in the past when turning the dial on your analog radio in the cool night air to find you could pick up radio signals from very far away that you cannot receive normally.
In the case of WHQR’s 92.7 signal, it’s already a low-power signal, at 250 watts compared to our main signal at 100,000 watts. That low power signal is easily overwhelmed by a distant, stronger signal coming into the area. In extreme cases, even our main station can be overwhelmed by a distant signal. When that happens, there’s nothing we can do to our signal to improve your reception, we
just have to wait for the weather to change. In those cases, I recommend streaming WHQR from our website, the WHQR app or your smart speaker, none of which are affected by the weather. By the way, if you’re interested in reading more about this phenomenon, I’ll put a link to an article that explains it better than I can on the WHQR website with the audio for this Friday Feedback.
We got a question from a listener recently who wrote “Your coverage of our prisons and the incarceration of immigrants, was very informative and I would like to share that on FB. Am I able to do so, and if so how?” This is in reference to a story from NPR’s Morning Edition in September. This story was posted on the WHQR site, but is also available on the NPR site. On the WHQR site, there are four small icons in the upper right corner of the page, one of which links directly to Facebook to share the story. The others go to email, X and LinkedIn. There are similar icons at the bottom of the story on the NPR site. However, the easiest way to share a story from our website is to simply copy the URL in the address bar and paste it into your message on any social media site. And thanks for sharing!
Finally, one listener who moved from the area wanted to take a piece of the Cape Fear with her. She wrote to say “I so much miss listening to Smooth Landing music broadcast - I've moved away from the area and wonder if you might post a collection of his music compilation to Pandora. His selections are terrific - at least let him know I said so.” Unfortunately, it would be impossible to upload George Scheibner and his musical knowledge into Pandora, though we appreciate the sentiment. We are working on a way for our listeners to enjoy George’s show whenever they want, which I’ll have more on in the future, but for now, that’s all I can say. And I will pass your message on to George.
We love to hear from you. Please send us your questions, comments and criticisms. You can find us on Facebook, Instagram and Bluesky. You can email us at feedback@whqr.org. Thanks for your feedback, and we look forward to hearing from you.
https://www.radioworld.com/tech-and-gear/nicks-signal-spot/when-weather-bends-fm-signals