[BC] Interesting Phenomena With WWDB 860

[Tom]

With the station in Baltimore on 860 off the air it was 
interesting listening to WWDB this afternoon.  At first I 
thought it was a spurious emission from another station.  
Then I thought it was WWDB in a selective fade.  However, I 
think it was just the way that WWDB was being received here.

When I was tuned right on 860 there was almost no signal and 
the audio was muffled.  As I tuned off to either side the 
audio got louder but it was distorted.  Could this be due to 
a very sharp phasing system whereby the null of the signal 
was less at perhaps 858 and 862 kHz than at 860 kHz thus 
letting audio above maybe two kHz through more than the low 
frequencies of the audio?

I've heard that sometimes when driving through the null of a 
directional pattern the audio of a station can be distorted 
but I thought that happened only with in a few miles or so of 
the station.  I am almost a hundred miles from Philadelphia.

That might explain why when WWDB had IBOC on for a short time 
the IBOC racket was rather loud while WWDB audio was way 
under the Baltimore station.

Tom Dimeo

Harrisburg Pennsylvania