While traveling to many cities, it seems like some medium sized cities have more stations that you would expect from the city and associated metro area. Two cities come to mind: Buffalo and Salt Lake City. In the case of Buffalo, the FM dial is packed with stations from Buffalo and Western New York State, and Southern Ontario which includes Toronto and Hamilton. There seems to be numerous stations for each format. While the FM dial in SLC is not packed like in Buffalo, numerous translators needed because of the mountainous terrain give the impression of a packed dial. Still, a lot of variety for the size of the SLC metro. I would give Albuquerque and Dayton honorable mention.
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Metro Areas With More Stations Than Expected For Their Size
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Casper, WY has a total of about 2 dozen signals between commercial signals, non commercial signals, and translators.
All for a city of 50,000
Like lots of relatively isolated markets. Traverse City, MI, metro survey area has 41 commercial stations and 24 non-coms. There are lots of markets that are not near other bigger cities that sucked up all the surrounding channels after Docket 80-90 made moves and upgrades easy.
Dayton? They don't strike me as having all that many stations relative to their size. Being relatively close to Cincinnati and to a lesser extent Columbus means there are a lot more listening options, however.
One advantage they definitely have over Columbus is powerful FM signals, WHIO, WHKO and WTUE being arguably the top three.
One advantage they definitely have over Columbus is powerful FM signals, WHIO, WHKO and WTUE being arguably the top three.
Respectfully, I think you're mixing up two concepts here.
There are a lot of signals you can hear in Buffalo, it's true, because of the geographic proximity to Canada's Golden Horseshoe, the biggest concentration of population (and of big radio signals) in the entire country. But just because you can hear them in Buffalo doesn't make them "Buffalo" signals - translators on co- or adjacent channels get in the way these days, and in any event (especially with the border being closed) the ads and the news on the Canadian signals are increasingly irrelevant to most Buffalo listeners.
And then subtract out the three sizable commercial-band signals that are operated with noncommercial or religious formats (WNED 94.5, WDCX-FM 99.5, WLOF 101.7) and if anything, Buffalo is actually somewhat under-radioed when you look only at commercial FM signals that broadcast to and for Buffalo listeners with "mainstream" formats. 92.9, 93.7, 96.1, 96.9, 98.5, 102.5, 103.3, 104.1, 106.5 and the rimshot on 107.7 - that's just ten full-power FM signals for more than a million potential listeners, compared to thirteen in the slightly smaller Rochester market.
(A good comparison here is Providence, which is somewhat under-radioed in terms of actual Providence-market signals, but which has a very full FM dial because of all the Boston and Worcester signals that are very listenable in most of the area even if they don't get ratings or ad dollars there.)
Salt Lake is a completely different animal. It's hundreds of miles from the nearest other sizable market, and so the local dial has filled over the years with stations that are specifically local to SLC and vicinity. It's also been the poster child for second-adjacent boosters - you have full class C signals on, for instance, 100.3 and 101.1 in SLC, and full C rimshots on 100.7 and 101.5 were able to locate at a site called Humpy Peak some 60 miles to the east, at precisely the minimum full spacing for C-to-C second adjacents. And then the second-adjacent Humpy signals were able to get 20 kW boosters on the east side of the Salt Lake Valley. Those boosters are the "real" signals that actually provide 100.7 and 101.5 (and many others) to SLC, and all those stations thus became fully competitive in SLC, too. I count something like 25 full-power (or full-power + booster) commercial-band FM signals serving Salt Lake City from within the market. That's a packed dial.
(A good comparison here is Las Vegas, which has similar geographic isolation and has had a similar crop of boosters. Dallas-Fort Worth also has ended up with many second-adjacent Cs, but instead of boosters, they use the geographic sprawl of the market and the lucky accident that the heritage FM signals in DFW were all built at Cedar Hill, 20 miles south, while the growth of the market has all gone north. So putting second-adjacent class C FMs 40 miles north of Dallas still ends up giving a good signal to all the fast-growing suburban sprawl up in Carrollton and Denton and beyond.)
According to CFR 47 Section 73.207, the C to C Minimum Second Adjacent Spacing is still 65 miles. The C0 to C0 Minimum Spacing is 60 miles. It's possible, if they are still full Class Cs, to operate with Class C Minimum Facilities or more, even Maximum Facilities, by using CFR 47 Section 73.215. I'll have to check this out further. When Section 73.215 was young, I was involved in upgrades which owners and engineering consultants said, on initial comment, that they "couldn't be done". They could be and at least three are operating with those facilities. Since I was the new kid in town, I was always questioned, and having my work "checked" by the big boys, at considerable expense to the applicants. The big boys finally had to concede I was right. But the damage was done, so I moved on.
www.law.cornell.edu
The FCC should have dumped Section 73.207 years ago and replaced it with contour overlap restrictions, allowing reduced ERP, reduced HAAT, and DA allotments, like Canada has had the option to do for years, the USA had until 1962, and NCE-FM in the USA has always had, replacing most AMs in this fashion. The FCC clings to outmoded anticompetitive notions about First Local Service and Rural Service over serving more people. With the rules Canada has, these notions would have taken care of themselves, with right sized First Local and Rural Service, serving those areas rather than being larger market "rimshots".
47 CFR § 73.207 - Minimum distance separation between stations.
The FCC should have dumped Section 73.207 years ago and replaced it with contour overlap restrictions, allowing reduced ERP, reduced HAAT, and DA allotments, like Canada has had the option to do for years, the USA had until 1962, and NCE-FM in the USA has always had, replacing most AMs in this fashion. The FCC clings to outmoded anticompetitive notions about First Local Service and Rural Service over serving more people. With the rules Canada has, these notions would have taken care of themselves, with right sized First Local and Rural Service, serving those areas rather than being larger market "rimshots".
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KYMV 100.7 pulls in like a DA due to terrain and reduced radial HAAT.
KEGA 101.5 also pulls in like a DA due to terrain and reduced radial HAAT.
KBER 101.1
I can't get the applications to load, and they may be too old to show if they are Section 73.215 applications.
Before CFR 47 Section 73.215, new short spacings were allowed on a case by case basis, and subject to the condition that no suitable fully spaced site was available, a claim which was often questionable, and probably invited Petitions to Deny.
Section 73.215 requires 99 km, 61 miles, for Class C to Class C Second Adjacent.
www.law.cornell.edu
KEGA 101.5 also pulls in like a DA due to terrain and reduced radial HAAT.
KBER 101.1
I can't get the applications to load, and they may be too old to show if they are Section 73.215 applications.
Before CFR 47 Section 73.215, new short spacings were allowed on a case by case basis, and subject to the condition that no suitable fully spaced site was available, a claim which was often questionable, and probably invited Petitions to Deny.
Section 73.215 requires 99 km, 61 miles, for Class C to Class C Second Adjacent.
47 CFR § 73.215 - Contour protection for short-spaced assignments.
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fybush wrote: Respectfully, I think you're mixing up two concepts here.
You are right and probably more familiar with the business. I was merely referring to the large number of signals as you scan across the band. Thanks for the clarification.
You are right and probably more familiar with the business. I was merely referring to the large number of signals as you scan across the band. Thanks for the clarification.
With Boosters, because radio waves are coherent, they cause interference fringes where the main and booster signals are close to equal field strength/amplitude. Usually, there is enough signal in the shadows behind the mountain from the main transmitter due to reflection and refraction to cause interference fringes. This is why less is more with booster ERP and HAAT. You only want to serve the severely shadowed areas. You can try to minimize the fringes in various ways, but it doesn't work that well.
Coherence Physics Definition.
Coherence Physics Definition.
Coherence (physics) definition and meaning | sensagent editor
Coherence (physics): definitions, meanings, uses, synonyms, antonyms, derivatives, analogies in sensagent dictionaries (English)
dictionary.sensagent.com
I worked for a station with an on channel booster... it did cause some issues, thankfully in sparsley populated areas where youd climb out of the bowl it was in.... and hit the main signal.. it'd get staticy. they eventually turned the booster off and handed in the license.. whenever the booster went off, we only ever got one complaint each time.. from the same person.. no one else.. and having the booster didnt help us in terms of ad dollars. (IE: it was originally built so no one could claim. .we cant hear you.. the booster was located just inside or very very near the main center of commerce)
The statoon in question is WDDH 97.5
I am not sure about Albuquerque getting 'honorable mention'. At one time Albuquerque/Santa Fe had the most stations per capita. Every FM dial position is full with either and LP, Full FM, or a translator. We even have a case (102.1) with two stations on opposite sides of the city. Plus a move-in translator propsed on the same frequency (not sure how that is going to work out).
I just did a search on FM Query. The Salt Lake City rimshots are actually 104.52 km > 104.5 km, clearing the C to C 2nd Adjacent Requirement by .02 km, clearing by about 66 FEET! It's just about 65 miles not 60. I just helped a friend find a new site for an LPFM. It cleared by .01 km, or about 33 feet!
I did say "some 60 miles" in my original post... I'm mostly on vacation and away from the 73.207 spacing charts.
And yes, everything you say about boosters is true, if the goal is to use the booster as a fill-in to the full power main signal. The "Humpy" class stations are designed differently - the goal is to use the boosters as the means to reach most of the actual market population, and so the "main" facility was built with single polarization and a (rumor has it) deliberately de-optimized antenna to ensure as little as possible of the "main" signal gets anywhere near the Salt Lake valley. (And of course it's in a location where terrain gets in the way, too - again, entirely deliberately.)
I have heard lots of stories about many of these western "Humpy" main sites (not just Salt Lake but other areas, too) being deliberately run at reduced power (or left off the air entirely for extended periods), because they're only there on paper to enable the boosters to exist. More than once I've been out in areas where the main site should be very listenable and have heard little or no signal.
The empirical results of these boosters very much support your contention that the spacings in 73.207 need to be revisited. You could never license a signal like 100.7 or 101.5 at their booster locations in SLC as a full-power license, but in the real world they function just fine alongside 100.3, 101.1 and 101.9. The same goes for the second-adjacent "super-translators" on Sandia Crest in ABQ, a unique situation where the height of the crest allows for a "250-watt" translator that significantly exceeds the derated power level of a 6 kW A at the same height, and comes close to what a C3 would be there.
A few years ago, when going through SLC , I noted then 106.1 KBMG... seemed to have the main off
Compared to receivers from the 1950s to circa 1970, with the better receivers, they should reduce third and second adjacent restrictions. The most problematic have to do with second adjacents to Class Bs, where big group owners asked small business people to PAY THEM just to upgrade Class As from 3 kW to 6 kW, because they increased Class B protection from 60 dBu to effectively 54 dBu in about 1962, and then increased the distance separation from 40 (39.5) to around 43 miles for 3 kW Class As from Docket 80-90. At the very least, reduce second and third adjacent protection to from 54 dBu to 94 dBu to 60 dBu to 100 dBu.
Wyoming in general is too populated with stations compared to pop count. Even Cheyenne only has something like 85,000 people, and that's the largest city in the state.
I've had the opportunity to purchase stations there, and ultimately passed because of the saturation.
When Mexico declared AM to be non-viable, they created a pathway to FM for over 80% of all AMs by doing exactly that.
Equivalent heights to put a 60 dBu F(50,50) Class A contour the same distance with a 250 watt translator at a certain HAAT. Calculated from propagation software on fcc.gov. Keep in mind that the 3 kW equivalent is impractical in most of Zone I, and the 6 kW equivalent is only practical in areas without FAA tower height restrictions, and mountainous areas, of Zone II.
3 kW 100 m 328 feet
0.25 kW 348 m 1142 feet
6 kW 100 m 328 feet
0.25 kW 479.5 m 1573 feet
3 kW 100 m 328 feet
0.25 kW 348 m 1142 feet
6 kW 100 m 328 feet
0.25 kW 479.5 m 1573 feet
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Right.. i worked full time 2 years for a laramie station.... and am still on the air there thanks to VTing from Alaska
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