I don’t think it’s better than 680, but it’s easily one of the better AM frequencies in town. It may not be suitable for every format, but for a spoken word format it seems like it wouldn’t be the worst asset to have.
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560
- Thread starter K108 Sacramento
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I did not mean to create an inclusive list... just used a couple of examples of what, to me, are the five most viable AMs in the market. Nothing else has close to the day and night coverage of those.
If you listen to the KPH SDR at Point Reyes, you'll find that the KZAC reception in the north-northwest direction at night isn't so great. It could be due to proximity to the ocean at that location, but there's always another station under the KZAC programming, such as it is right now.
Many years ago (when AM was still a big deal) I remember Joe Talbot - a very talented engineer at KGO - saying the thing to do with 560 would be to build some tall towers out in Collinsville (the old 990 site). The existing towers aren't 90 degrees, but that's hard to do that low on the dial. 610 works so well because it IS tall (97 degrees - I looked it up).
Dave B.
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Also recall that that antenna's electrical height is almost 225 degrees for KVTO (ex-KRE) which originally was the only station on the tower. Not just that, but Aquatic Park is separated from the Bay only by the Bayshore Freeway. KFRC caught a very lucky break with that site.
If Collinsville had been used, wouldn't a DA have been required to get enough field strength into San Francisco?
My memory is hazy on that one, but possibly. I think it could have also meant a power increase. The big incentive was to get the site way East of the population so the night pattern could cover the entire market.
Dave B.
So how accurate are these maps?
Nightime:
Daytime:
Nightime:
Daytime:
They’re accurate but misleading. The red contour represents a field strength of 2 mv which would somewhat of a local sounding station in the 1980s. With today’s noise floor that’s inadequate for any indoor listening. You need about 5 to 10 for indoor listening and I’m being generous.So how accurate are these maps?
Nightime:
Daytime:
The ITU says 15 mv/m for indoor listening now.
"Elvis has left the building"
"Closing time! You don't have to go home but you can't...stay...here...."
The daytime coverage, in theory, is omnidirectional, starting out as a perfect circle, which then is modified by the effects of salt water, of which there is plenty around the Bay Area, and variations in ground conductivity. If you look at the FCC's M3 map, you'll see that ground conductivity ranges from 8 to 30 millimhos (a mhos is the reciprocal of an ohm) - 8 is midrange, 30 is excellent - with a lot of variation in the Bay Area. I also recall a discussion decades ago in a Usenet newsgroup - @DaveBayArea, do you remember this? - where there was speculation that seismic fault lines also could have a negative effect on ground conductivity. Moreover, antenna ground systems deterioriate and become less effective over time. Sites close to salt water initially benefit from its high conductivity but, later, suffer from more corrosion compared to sites farther away from salt water. One suspects that, in recent years, some sites haven't been maintained as well as they once were.
Then, as Michael points out, there's man-made noise that's ever increasing: computers, deteriorating power lines, etc., not to mention increased interference from on-channel and adjacent stations due to lowered levels of protection from those stations. I also wouldn't be surprised to learn that listeners just have less tolerance for noise, given that FM is much quieter and given that digital media have very little noise at all, though at the cost of compression artifacts.
If someone gave me a cluster of AM and FM stations, and if I were crazy enough to accept, unless the AMs were a really worthwhile facility, the first thing I would do would be to shut down the AM stations.
"The seal of approval
Ensures the removal
Of anything bad at all
And just to prove it's real
Here's the KOS official seal!"
<Arf, arf, arf arf!.>
Which would mean that KZAC and KEAR no longer put a useful indoor signal in the South Bay.
I guess I am missing something considerable. I am assuming you have deep experience in radio. If you were GIVEN control of 560, that would, I think, qualify has a worthwhile facility. As an experienced radio somebody, I would bet you could do something better than just the same ol', same ol'.
Am I correct that current FM music radio has an apparent (though still distant) expiration date? Am I correct that commercial radio, if it is to survive will need a new audience of some kind? Am I understanding that radio needs to evolve, and evolving eventually requires a 'first step' in that direction? Am I correct that youthful oriented spoken word has succeeded elsewhere?
People in media should be smart enough to figure out how to get the desired audience, where it is on the web, adapted for broadcast media, where I think the big advertising dollars can be found. Somebody mentioned Joe Rogan - I looked him up on wikipedia, and it said he has an audience of 19 million. Wouldn't he be able to get many more listeners, and advertising dollars/opportunities, if he had a broadcast radio gig to augment his podcasts?
It was said that people, especially younger ones, won't buy radios or tune into something they haven't had the habit of doing. So, meet the audience where it is at, on their phones. A 560ZAC app that comes in crystal clear, and just happens to also play beautifully on your car radio (for free). The Rogan Radio show will be appointment listening, that can also be played back whenever the Podcastphiles want it, but people who have never heard him (like me) might have sampling access. Advertisers have an opportunity they don't have now. Rogan gets another income stream, and can make his audience grow. I don't know how the 19 million figure compares, but didn't Rush have an audience in the 100's of millions?
Don't give up on broadcast radio - adapt it to meet new realities. I am also not suggesting that this will "bring AM back." I think whatever spoken word exists or is developed is eventually going to be needed to fill FM when some of those stations can no longer gather an advertiser-desirable audience with music alone.
Joe Rogan doesn't WANT or NEED broadcast radio. Look up the value of his Spotify deal (it was millions of dollars). He can say whatever he wants and no one will file an FCC complaint or start an advertising boycott, etc.
Adam Carolla said on his podcast a few years ago that SiriusXM offered him a deal a few years ago. He rejected it, because he knew he could make more money by doing his own podcast, together with PodcastOne.
Rush has been dead for four years and the only time I ever see his name mentioned is on this board.
Adam Carolla said on his podcast a few years ago that SiriusXM offered him a deal a few years ago. He rejected it, because he knew he could make more money by doing his own podcast, together with PodcastOne.
Rush has been dead for four years and the only time I ever see his name mentioned is on this board.
Once again, you don't "evolve" by doing the same thing. AM radio is the same thing. It's not going to evolve. It is what it is. The limitations it has existed in the 1930s. That's why Major Armstrong invented FM. Then FM has limitations, so we now have digital. The future won't be like the past. If radio is going to evolve, it needs to break free from the constraints of AM & FM. That's what is happening, and why frequencies like this one are in the state they're in.
Man, I sure got you people fooled!
To think about this clearly, one needs to separate the programming from the medium used to deliver it. The mistake is to think of it as a monolithic stack. People thought it was a monolithic stack because that was all there was at one time. Not any more.
It's been that way for at least 40 years. As a poignant example, in what market was the radio game-show format tried? The all-podcast format? Rebroadcasting a beloved out-of-market FM station (on a move-in, no less)? If you go there, remember to wear flowers in your hair.
This is like suggesting that there's a way to drag people back to ABC, CBS and NBC from Amazon, Netflix and MAX, or that there's an audience for actual printed copies of the daily newspaper if people only had the right idea.
Nope.
Tech has moved on.
What was that song from World War 1? How ya gonna keep em down on the farm after they've seen Paree?