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An AM Station with Transmitters in Different States

G

Gregg.

580 WGAC Augusta, Georgia is a rare AM station has separate day and night transmitters in different states. By day, it runs 5,000 watts non-directional from a transmitter site in Martinez, Georgia. An night, it runs 840 watts from a directional antenna with a four-tower array in North Augusta, South Carolina.

A number of AM stations use separate transmitter sites for its day and night operations. But I'm not sure any other station has its transmitters in different states!
 
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For a long time, the station which began as WTTO 1520 Toledo, OH in the 1960s had two six tower arrays, a 1000 watt Day site near Temperance, MI and a 1000 watt Night site near Perrysburg, OH. This was because at the time, WYFC 1520 operated at 250 watts nondirectional Daytime only in Ypsilanti. The Day site couldn't protect the other stations on 1520 adequately, so they had the Night site. Recently the station became WPAY and has consolidated operation at a new site, and is licensed to Rossford, OH with a five tower in line pattern with 400 watts Day and Night. At one point, WYFC 1520 Ypsilanti, MI had proposed Night operation from near Willis, MI, which was extremely close to the Toledo area sites. But the newer Canada Treaty allowed them to move to 990, and eliminating the unsustainable 250 watt station on 990 in Clare, allowed them to operate at 9200 Watts Daytime, extending a predicted 0.5 mV/m into Canada, which had formerly been limited to 5 uV/m. It is now WDEO.

WIND 560 Chicago, has its main facility near Gary, Indiana, their original City of License, and has a fully operational nondirectional auxiliary in Des Plaines, IL at the WYLL Day site. It even meets the newer ridiculously low Class B efficiency standards with 1000 watts Day and 580 watts Night with a 45 degree WYLL tower. With newer relaxed coverage standards, it would be able to be licensed as the main facility. Years ago, WIND operated with 1000 watts Day, 500 watts Night nondirectional, also from near Gary, IN.
 
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Here in the Kansas City area, the stateline between Kansas and Missouri runs north-south right through the middle of the metro area. As such, there are a number of AM stations licensed in one state with transmitters in the other state.

Examples:

KSCP [formerly WDAF] 610 kHz, 5 kW non-directional, licensed to Kansas City, Missouri with the transmitter in Prairie Village, Kansas:

KCSP-AM Radio Station Coverage Map

KCCV - 760 kHz, 6 kW, 3-tower directional day and night, 200 w night, licensed to Overland Park, Kansas with the transmitter in Kansas City, Missouri:

KCCV-AM Radio Station Coverage Map

KYYS - 1250 kHz, 25 kW, 4-tower directional day and night, 3.7 kW night, licensed to Kansas City, Kansas with the transmitter in Liberty, Missouri

KYYS-AM Radio Station Coverage Map

KCCV barely comes in at my location in south Overland Park at night. On occasion, they are overtaken by WJR.

Bob
 
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Gregg. said:
580 WGAC Augusta, Georgia is a rare AM station has separate day and night transmitters in different states. By day, it runs 5,000 watts non-directional from a transmitter site in Martinez, Georgia. An night, it runs 840 watts from a directional antenna with a four-tower array in North Augusta, South Carolina.

A number of AM stations use separate transmitter sites for its day and night operations. But I'm not sure any other station has its transmitters in different states!
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Interesting.

Of course, it wasn't always like that, for the directional array at Martinez appears to have been intact into the late 1990s.

Looking at the Google Earth shots, it appears the land value around the Martinez site was worth more to sell off, to keep only the non-directional antenna system, and then build a separate nighttime site in South Carolina. Thanks.
 
Schroedingers Cat said:
With 6 kW Day power, I've heard KCCV 760 overpower WJR near the Straits during the time between Sunset at WJR and Sunset at KCCV.
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Wow! This is somewhat of a surprise since the KCCV day pattern somewhat protects WJR, although there is a lobe toward the NE. Good catch!

Bob
 
DXBob said:
Wow! This is somewhat of a surprise since the KCCV day pattern somewhat protects WJR, although there is a lobe toward the NE. Good catch!

Bob
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The maximum is about 17 kW referenced to 282 mV/m @ 1 km @ 1 kW, the Class B minimum efficiency before it was unwisely reduced. Stations are going to very short towers with very low powers to feed translators that are secondary services. Translators should be replaced with a new Class of FM station, and require the AM to sign off one after five years like the AM Expanded Band. Collocated or near collocated second and third adjacent frequency translators to full power stations usually would usually not preclude a new full power allotment nearby.
 
KPAM 860 Troutdale / Portland OR, The Answer, operates from across the Columbia in east Vancouver. 50K Day/15K Night.
 
Off the top of my head, locally there's WIND. COL Chicago. Transmitter in Indiana. Then there's KMOX. COL Saint Louis. Transmitter in Illinois. Actually a few Saint Louis sticks are located in the lowlands on the Illinois side of the river/
 
I guess we could go on and on about "border blasters". For many years, CKLW Windsor, ON operated as a quasi Detroit station. It's five towers were/are near Harrow, Ontario, but it's now very strictly Canadian programmed. It used to have a huge audience in the US as a Top 40 giant, now it's almost none, but it has a huge Canadian audience with local Talk. There has for many years been talk of flipping formats between CKWW 580 and CKLW 800, but it has never happened.

Not exactly a border blaster, but with 13 kW directional WTOR 770 Youngstown, NY has a signal and format aimed at Toronto from across Lake Ontario. Of course it's Daytime only.
 
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radioman148 said:
How about the two stations that serve Southern California from Rosarito, Baja California? XEWW and XEPRS.
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And there are multiple FMs licensed to Tijuana that principally server and derive most of their revenue from San Diego, including at least two of the Spanish language stations.
 
In 1986, we visited CA and stayed a couple of nights in Carlsbad with my wife's aunt, uncle, and 14 year old cousin. We managed to find their house with just a map. When we rang the doorbell and knocked, her cousin had XETRA-FM 91.1 (91X) on so loud they couldn't hear it. Now THAT'S a border blaster! Can't remember much about the AM BC band, except that KCEO 1000 was the strongest AM there.
 
radioman148 said:
Back in the 60s and early 70s "The Mighty 1090" XERB was listened to widely throughout Southern California with Wolfman Jack.
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The station became XEPRS in 1972, per the station's trasffic manager and was Spanish in the daytime and had the Wolfman at night. After about 6 to 9 months, Wolfman was gone and the "Radio Express" Spanish language format ran into the night, leased to Teddy Fregoso, a well-known Mexican composer and bullfighter.

The Wikipedia article is very inaccurate.
 
I think the only NYC stations not in or near The Meadowlands in New Jersey are WFAN 660/WCBS880* and the licensed but silent WFME 1560.

The ones that are:

WMCA 570/WNYC 820*
WOR 710
WABC 770
WNYM 970 Hackensack/WWRV 1330*
WINS 1010
WEPN 1050
WBBR 1130
WLIB 1190
WADO 1280
WKDM 1380/WWRU 1660 Jersey City*
WZRC 1480
WWRL 1600

*-Indicates the stations are diplexed into the same towers and/or the same tower site.

Back in the 1960s, National Geographic had a New York City Area insert map in one edition that showed all the tower locations of New York City area stations. It seems like one of the 1330 stations still had a site shown in New York. Later, like WSBC/WCRW/WEDC Chicago, they coordinated to one site, and eventually dropped Shared Time and became a single station.
 
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This looks like it may be part of the map of Greater New York from National Geographic in 1964. On this map, there was only one tower shown for each station. It was a little Isosceles Triangle with cross bars, about a quarter inch tall on the maps, with the apex toward the North. Other cities showed all the towers in some DAs on the map. I don't see any tower icons on this image, but the timing of the issue is about right. I might know where I can find it, but not sure if it is one of the ones in the pile of maps.

 
DavidEduardo said:
The station became XEPRS in 1972, per the station's trasffic manager and was Spanish in the daytime and had the Wolfman at night. After about 6 to 9 months, Wolfman was gone and the "Radio Express" Spanish language format ran into the night, leased to Teddy Fregoso, a well-known Mexican composer and bullfighter.

The Wikipedia article is very inaccurate.
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I heard Wolfman on XEPRS and he didn't sound nearly as enthusiastic as he had previously. I think he knew he'd be gone soon.
 
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