107.7 FM Virginia House Radio - Richmond, VA 24 January 2020

[R4002]

Virginia House Radio continues going strong as of this morning. 

Logged yesterday and a couple days before that as well.  I've noticed that, in the morning when there's propagation enhancement - there's QRM from two distant stations on the same 107.7 MHz FM frequency.  The main one seemed to be the WTOP (WTOP-FM 103.5 FM) simulcast transmitter WWWT-FM 107.7 FM doing 29 kW ERP 646 feet HAAT out of Manassas, VA.  WWWT-FM is 86 miles straight line distance from downtown Richmond.   

WWWT-FM seems to mix in with WMOV-FM 107.7 FM out of Norfolk, VA (15 kW ERP 427 feet HAAT).  WMOV is 80 miles straight line distance from Richmond. 

The 107.7 MHz FM frequency is also bracketed by two equally busy FM frequencies, 107.9 MHz and 107.5 MHz.  I often hear multiple stations on both frequencies, with WBQK on 107.9 MHz often being the winner for that frequency.   

There was a translator station for WLES-AM on 107.9 MHz - W300DK doing only 45w ERP - but that translator has since gone quiet, WLES apparently then switched a different translator on 97.7 MHz - W249CI out of Belwood, VA (doing 240w ERP). 

The Richmond metro FM band is now full of these translators and repeaters...some of them repeating local AM stations (for example, WRVA 1140 kHz AM - the city's powerhouse 50kW AM station - is also repeated on 96.1 MHz FM with W241AP (145w ERP 837 feet HAAT) even though WRVA's AM signal is strong enough to be heard under a bridge with poor local noise conditions.    WXGI on 950 kHz AM - one of the city's two local AM sports talk stations has no less than three translators - WTPS-AM in Petersburg on 1240 kHz, W258DC in Richmond on 95.5 MHz and W274PX on 102.7 MHz in Petersburg. 

WRNL on 910 AM, the other local AM sports station, now also has a Richmond-based FM translator (on 105.1 MHz). 

It seems like 107.7 was basically Virginia House Radio's only option when it came to even sort of clear frequencies. 

They're certainly using it though.