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The DFW Market…in the year 2043?

  • Thread starter Deleted member 76036
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Deleted member 76036

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There’s been some recent discussion about how 93.3 KLIF doesn’t have the best signal as a C2. I was thinking that as the market continues to grow (mostly to the north) and because the Cedar Hill tower farm is at the very southern part of the metroplex, in 20 years or so, we’ll probably get to the point where the full C’s will get a bit fuzzy in the north. I think right now, the center of where the population is would be in Irving…and maybe in 20-30 years if things continue to go the way they’re going, the center of the market would be just east of Flower Mound?

With that being said, are the growing areas to the north just out of luck? Would it be possible, ideal or even feasible to relocate the tower farm? I understand Cedar Hill has the highest elevation in the area, but as DFW continues to grow, it may no longer be the best spot for the tower farm. Who knows what radio will be like when that happens, but I guess I’m just curious on your thoughts.

Sleepless in Grand Prairie (haha, gonna blame that on the format flip)
 
chriscervantez said:
There’s been some recent discussion about how 93.3 KLIF doesn’t have the best signal as a C2. I was thinking that as the market continues to grow (mostly to the north) and because the Cedar Hill tower farm is at the very southern part of the metroplex, in 20 years or so, we’ll probably get to the point where the full C’s will get a bit fuzzy in the north. I think right now, the center of where the population is would be in Irving…and maybe in 20-30 years if things continue to go the way they’re going, the center of the market would be just east of Flower Mound?

With that being said, are the growing areas to the north just out of luck? Would it be possible, ideal or even feasible to relocate the tower farm? I understand Cedar Hill has the highest elevation in the area, but as DFW continues to grow, it may no longer be the best spot for the tower farm. Who knows what radio will be like when that happens, but I guess I’m just curious on your thoughts.

Sleepless in Grand Prairie (haha, gonna blame that on the format flip)
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That's if radio is a viable business in 20 years.
 
To be frank with you, I’m wondering if FM radio will make it to 2043. I think a common quote on this site is “if you want to see what FM will be like in 20 years, look at what AM is now.” As a millennial(34 years old) I talk to plenty of other millennials and Gen Z. I’m one of the very few who still listens to ANY radio, and even then, it’s split 50/50 with my Spotify premium. I certainly wouldn’t miss the commercial stations. Hopefully, the non comms will adapt.
 
nalyem said:
To be frank with you, I’m wondering if FM radio will make it to 2043. I think a common quote on this site is “if you want to see what FM will be like in 20 years, look at what AM is now.” As a millennial(34 years old) I talk to plenty of other millennials and Gen Z. I’m one of the very few who still listens to ANY radio, and even then, it’s split 50/50 with my Spotify premium. I certainly wouldn’t miss the commercial stations. Hopefully, the non comms will adapt.
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Who really knows, but I do think that Millennials and Gen Z tend to listen to terrestrial radio much more than we realize. I just think they like to be cool and trendy and will only admit listening to the newer technologies.
 
chriscervantez said:
With that being said, are the growing areas to the north just out of luck? Would it be possible, ideal or even feasible to relocate the tower farm?
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Previous comments aside, let's assume FM is still viable 20 years from now:

First off, the signals at Cedar Hill are practically all hemmed in now by dozens of other co-channel and adjacent channels throughout north Texas and southern Oklahoma. Most of them can't be moved without having to move/downgrade lots of other signals. I shudder to even think of how many signals might be involved.

The next HUGE factor is DFW Airport. The Cedar Hill tower farm pre-dates it by almost two decades, hence flight patterns have to work around the tower farm, and by and large there is enough separation so it's not an issue. (Though that wasn't the case for the old Naval Air Station in Grand Prairie.) Any new tower that would more effectively cover the northern sprawl of the metro would run further into the heart of flight paths for not just DFW, but likely also Love Field. Finding any location that the FAA would approve would be challenging to say the least.

Then, there's the NIMBY factor. The odds that a local municipality would approve a 1000+ foot tower to be erected would be incredibly miniscule, as most efforts in recent years to erect tall towers in populated areas have faced stiff headwinds from local homeowners who consider such towers as eyesores. (Even getting a much shorter cell tower put up in many areas can be a challenge.)

So... generally speaking, not possible, ideal or feasible.
 
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@Huff - Yeah, I thought about NIMBY and even the acquisition of enough land, but didn’t really consider the two airports. The only thing that *might* make sense is putting the antennas on top of a skyscraper, like they do in cities such as New York or Chicago. Arlington has said that they want a skyline, so I guess other cities could potentially do the same as the metroplex continues to grow. Flight patterns would still have to be worked out, but this probably would have better chance of approval by the FAA than actual towers.

However, it would still be a huge headache, a lot of work and a lot of money to make it happen. Adding back the previous comments…probably not possible, ideal or feasible. Those in the new northern part of the metroplex might just be out of luck.
 
Furthermore, WFAA's AM towers were once located on what is now the northeastern corner of DFW Airport. They were demolished and moved further east to North Lake (Coppell) to make way for DFW in the late 60s.

In 1952, WFAA proposed building a 1700' tower at its AM site to carry WFAA-FM and WFAA-TV. The idea was nixed by the CAB (the FAA's predecessor) because it was too close to Amon Carter Field (which would eventually be replaced by DFW Airport). Soon after WFAA's proposal was rejected, it teamed up with KRLD to build the Hill Tower at Cedar Hill for both their FMs and TVs.
 
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Huff said:
Furthermore, WFAA's AM towers were once located on what is now the northeastern corner of DFW Airport. They were demolished and moved further east to North Lake (Coppell) to make way for DFW in the late 60s.

In 1952, WFAA proposed building a 1700' tower at its AM site to carry WFAA-FM and WFAA-TV. The idea was nixed by the CAB (the FAA's predecessor) because it was too close to Amon Carter Field (which would eventually be replaced by DFW Airport). Soon after WFAA's proposal was rejected, it teamed up with KRLD teamed up to build the Hill Tower at Cedar Hill for both their FMs and TVs.
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Thanks for your knowledge and sharing some history! I appreciate it! 🙂
 
chriscervantez said:
Who really knows, but I do think that Millennials and Gen Z tend to listen to terrestrial radio much more than we realize. I just think they like to be cool and trendy and will only admit listening to the newer technologies.
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There won't be any more radio broadcast towers in 2044 - only cell towers. By then, if not already, someone will have designed a streaming radio app that actually works. One where you can click between your favorite stations with no delay at all and no extra commercials every time you switch!

I could do this now, just by buying a whole bunch of cell phones, and phone lines, one for each favorite station. Then, routing the output into a rotary switch or equivalent.
 
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chriscervantez said:
With that being said, are the growing areas to the north just out of luck? Would it be possible, ideal or even feasible to relocate the tower farm? I understand Cedar Hill has the highest elevation in the area, but as DFW continues to grow, it may no longer be the best spot for the tower farm. Who knows what radio will be like when that happens, but I guess I’m just curious on your thoughts.
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Don't forget what killed AM was less the sound and programming quality than that most stations were built with the idea of covering cities before suburbs became popular. Since few, if any, people had any concept of suburbs and anticipated their growth, metro areas outgrew AM stations' coverage areas.

That FM could suffer the same fate isn’t a new concept. More than 30 years ago, Atlanta had WYAI 104.1/WYAY 106.7 with one for the south side of the metro and the other for the north. That those stations were designed to cover separate areas rather than complement each other was well-known. Susquehanna also bought the old Hot 97 in San Jose to help with coverage deficiencies of KFOG 104.5 around 1993. It had the same benefits and liabilities as the WYAI/WYAY simulcast and, like WYAI/WYAY, no longer exists.

If the DFW metro population expands north to the point that Cedar Hill is no longer the best location for signals, the Collinsville and Wise County sticks will either adjust their programming or swap with Cedar Hill signals so various stations will have better signals for their target audiences. That, of course, assumes radio will still be viable at all 20 years from now. Entirely possible is that we won't be listening to radio at all at that point or that it moves to a completely different system that we can’t even comprehend today. When you consider that roughly 2/3 of teenagers today will be doing jobs ten years from now that don’t even exist at the present time and that human knowledge collectively doubles twice a day, that's not as far fetched as it might sound.
 
well, what will happen to radio in 2043, well, it won't exist in it's current form, FM Radio becomes the new AM, HD Radio is discontinued, and AM is retired and it's bandwidth and radio waves are given to 6G, 7G or 8G phone/internet connections. and music is gone from radio due to rights issues.
 
Will_H_69_9 said:
well, what will happen to radio in 2043, well, it won't exist in it's current form, FM Radio becomes the new AM, HD Radio is discontinued, and AM is retired and it's bandwidth and radio waves are given to 6G, 7G or 8G phone/internet connections. and music is gone from radio due to rights issues.
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The AM band is not suitable for any point to point transmission due to night skywave and only 1.1 MHz of bandwith in total.
 
Thanks for all your responses! I was interested in others’ thoughts on this and that’s what I got. I appreciate y’all! 🙂
 
Will_H_69_9 said:
i'm sure they may find a way to fix that in 2043 cause remember, technology changes with time and technological advances.
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AM has no future. The laws of physics don’t change, and technology can only compensate for that so much. When dealing with cell phones and internet, you don’t want to use a band that skips off the layers of the atmosphere and is subject to environmental interference.

If anything, AM will become another amateur radio band. It'll be fine for hobbyists and DX'ers, but it won’t be auctionable.
 
I feel like if in 20 years they were to move the towers it would be for TV signals. Although I’m sure with ATSC 3.0 or whatever standard is used will make it easy to basically have boosters for the areas not covered. I’m sure some FM stations will hop on the new TV towers if they were made.
 
I don’t think the human race will survive that long if aliens will come here like they say they will in 2027. Maybe aliens voicetracking? aliens accepting donations for Dallas public radio stations?
 
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