Now that KASA 15~Forty is off the air, UofA's 50kw daytimer comes sailing into the Valley. At the nosebleed frequency of 15~Fifty, KUAZ is once again heard in Sun Devil country. But this blowtorch is extinguished at sunset with not even a single watt of nighttime pow-pow-power. In full simulcast with sister station KUAZ-FM, one has to wonder its purpose. Even Los Buckeye Boyz question why taxpayers need to foot the electric bill for the Wildcats' waste of energy by owning a daytimer.
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The Tucson Blowtorch
- Thread starter DrAkbar
- Start date
I an hear KUAZ 1550 easily at sunset 700 miles away in Laramie, Wyoming .. sometimes real good, other times not. Reception was great this past winter when they forgot to sign off one night.
KDRI 830 makes it here, poorly to fairly on occasion.
KUAZ often competes with KDCC Dodge City, KS (sports) and KMRI Salt Lake City. (La raza spanish music)
KDRI competes with WCCO and KLAA
KASA will eventually be on with a long wire antenna.
Accordingly, the licensee is requesting special temporary authority (STA) to operate KASA with parameters at
variance while the towers are removed, a new site is found, a construction permit is
applied for and new permanent facilities are erected.
The STA Facility will be set up on a portion of land adjacent to the existing transmitter
site. At that location, KASA Radio Hogar will employ as a radiator for station KASA a
100 ft copper wire end fed antenna approximately 25 feet above ground with appropriate
transmitter and antenna tuning unit. A security fence will protect the antenna and feed
line from human contact. Because the power level will be very low, RF exposure will not
be a significant factor.
Specifically, under the STA the transmitter power will be limited to that of the current
lowest null radial. TPO will be determined by using a Field Intensity Meter to adjust the
transmitter to what is needed to achieve the minimum null requirement
I'm sure there's a listener (or two) in the farthest reaches of Cochise or Graham county.
How about KQFN 1580 AM, the Fanatic? Have you picked them up in Wyoming? They run 50,000 watts non-directional during the day before dropping to 95 watts at night. I have picked them up during critical hours at sunset as far north as Beaver, Utah and as far northwest as Fresno, California. And KQFN was not just barely coming in, it was booming in loud and clear. I’d imagine you could pick it up in Laramie, Wyoming before they drop power at 6:30 PM MST (in September). They air a local sports radio show called the Daily Blender that runs until 6:00 PM so it should be easy to identify!
Yup, they make it up here right before sunrise.. sometimes well, sometimes not.. sometimes it's clashing with KFCS Colorado Springs (Tigre FM) and KAMI Cozad, NE (classic country)
1540 AM
Actually 1540 is on the air,, heard it today,, just one low power,, so pretty weak.
Actually 1540 is on the air,, heard it today,, just one low power,, so pretty weak.
The Nurse and I heard something on 15~Forty the other day, but didn't know if it was KASA or some other out of market station. The FCC has approved their STA request calling for 255 watts day, and 7 watts at night from a 100 ft long wire antenna supported by two telephone poles. That wire has to be 25 ft above the ground, so I guess the Buckeye Media Hut football team can't use it for field goal practice.
Gee Doc, when you titled this "The Tucson Blowtorch" I thought this would be about KDRI 830/101.7. 830 is 50 kw-D, 1 kw-N, DA-N. 101.7 is its Oro Valley-licensed translator.
AM 830 does put a reasonably decent signal into the 'Tuke during the day. I've even have it on the car radio's AM presets.
Radio-Locator shows the 50-gallon signal (since it's a lower freq) gets out further that KUAZ 1550. BTW, it also shows the five gallons daytime on The Giant 580 covers almost as much ("local" signal) as the 50 on 830.
And it's Booby & Bailey (not Brad) in AM drive. All you former Cloud 95 freaks will remember "...and Brad."
AM 830 does put a reasonably decent signal into the 'Tuke during the day. I've even have it on the car radio's AM presets.
Radio-Locator shows the 50-gallon signal (since it's a lower freq) gets out further that KUAZ 1550. BTW, it also shows the five gallons daytime on The Giant 580 covers almost as much ("local" signal) as the 50 on 830.
And it's Booby & Bailey (not Brad) in AM drive. All you former Cloud 95 freaks will remember "...and Brad."
No surprise that 830 at 50kw goes farther then 1550 at 50kw.
To put it into perspective.. 250W on 540 is like 20kw on 1600
The lower the frequency, the farther it goes on the same power as something higher up in frequency
Hence why 5,000 watts of KFYI on 550 AM allows you to hear KFYI as far west as Indio, California during the day. Now imagine if the then KOY 550 AM had gone after that 50,000 watt license from the FCC back in the 1940’s and 1950’s? You could have heard KOY (or the now KFYI) 550 AM all the way to Los Angeles during the day and all the way up to Seattle at night!
What became the 1A and 1B clear channels were pretty much created with the establishment of the FRC and the reassignment of channels in the 1927-1928 period. At the time, Phoenix had a population of around 44,000 persons. Fresno was about 25% larger, and Bakersfield was nearly as large.
By the time the FCC took over in '33, the primary stations on the clear channels were established and all but one were at the full 50 kw.
By the early 40's, there had been no opportunities to add a protected 50 kw clear channel station for a decade. Even when the FCC "broke down" the 1A clears in the 70's in an effort to provide service to gray areas, Phoenix did not get a signal of that power; in the early 70's the leading stations were on 1060, 1360 and 1230 and nobody thought the market really needed a big signal (except for Buck Owens who wasted 50 kw on a daytimer at the wrong end of the dial).
The farthest I ever had a readable daytime signal on 550 was somewhere between Blythe and Quartzite. KFI generally was gone between Desert Center and Blythe. I've never heard 550 even with a loop and a Drake R4B and I'm about a mile from the Indio city limits.
But your point is clear: only a low-on-the-dial high power station on AM could serve today's sprawling Phoenix area. But cities like Phoenix and San Diego did not seem big enough to warrant one back when the assignments were up for grabs... and today many later-growth markets, from Miami and Orlando to Houston and even Dallas have few if any full market signals.
I'm just back from a week and a half in Texas. I'll agree that the Houston AMs have issues with the sprawl at night. But Dallas still does extremely well - 820, of course, is full market and then some, and the growth managed to avoid 1080's northeast null. Even the newly relocated 570 still does very well everywhere except the northern sprawl up past Denton.
Dallas, which can arguably be said to have 3 AMs that cover at least 80% of the market at night, is better than most.
I looked at the top 100 markets and came up with less than 200 AMs that cover at least 80% of their MSAs day and night with a 5 mV/m signal. That is a generous concession to what even the ITU says is a minimum of 15 mV/m for acceptable noise-free reception today in homes and buildings, so the real number of "viable" AMs is actually lower.
That leaves an average of about 1.5 viable AMs per market. And that is not enough to create cume circulation to the band to sustain it. We saw what has happened in DC when 1500 went to pure FM, and 570 and 630 downgraded signals: the band is nearly dead overall.
But that is today. What happened 90 years ago was mostly due to the fact that today's growing sunbelt markets were very minor markets back then and it was thought that those 1 kw regional stations would be more than adequate to cover them.
KDRI does throw a favorable night-time lobe toward the southeast valley at night, even with their 1,000 watts at night. Could be that. If KDRI were broadcasting at 50,000 watts non-directionally at night, there would probably be reception reports up and down the West Coast! https://radio-locator.com/pats/KDRI_AM_LN.gif
And maybe a complaint out of Los Angeles & Minneapolis!
Actually, what IS the lowest frequency 50kW station in the US?
540 kHz: WFLF Pine Hills, FL. 50 kw day, 46 kw night. Orlando market.
Next is 580, KMJ, Fresno.. 50kw day and night.
Then WTCM, also on 580, inTraverse City, MI. 50kw day and 1100 watts night.
On 610, WIOD in Miami has applied for a CP for 50kw day and 20 kw night.
620 has WTMJ in Milwaukee at 50 kw day and 10 kw night.
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And then, for the lowest dial position 50,000 watt non-directional day and night Clear channel radio station in the United States, it’s KFI AM 640, Los Angeles, CA. Surprised that this station doesn’t get picked up more in DX reports, but, in my experience, KNX 1070 seems to have a better night-time signal.
Now if you want to look at North America as a whole, it’s hard to argue with the amazing day-time coverage area of CBK, AM 540, from Watrous, Saskatchewan. With some of the best ground conductivity in all of North America and the extremely low dial position, CBK gets out far with their 50,000 watt non-directional day and night Clear channel signal with reception as far south as North Dakota and Montana during the day. At night, it can be heard throughout the Northern half of the United States from Michigan to Washington State. South of the border, you have XEWA-AM 540 from San Luis Potos?*, San Luis Potos?*, Mexico with a massive 150,000 watt non-directional signal. If you are in the south-central part of the United States, namely Texas, you have probably heard this station. Don’t know what the day-time ground conductivity is like there, but 150,000 watts definitely can get out!
XEWA is rumored to only be running about 30 kw... it's still on the air only because the AM -> FM migration plan required migrants to keep the AM going if any listeners would be unserved were the AM to cease operation. Otherwise, they would have shut it off.
The same owner has lowered the power of its XEW, XEQ and XEX in Mexico City as well.
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