1190am off the air

[miche11]

i was listening to dodgeball last night and the station went off and i stll cant get it anyone else?

 

[dfaulkner]

It's on now. Sounds like Pugs & Co. is on.

 

[miche11]

yes they are thank you !!!!!!!!!!1

 

[radi0avenger]

Are you sure it went off the air or did it just change patterns? If you were on the outlying areas of the night site, and it changed, it may have SOUNDED like it went off air

 

[dfaulkner]

Are you sure it went off the air or did it just change patterns? If you were on the outlying areas of the night site, and it changed, it may have SOUNDED like it went off air

Good point. 1190's night pattern is highly directional. It's loud & clear 24/7 in Dallas Co. & a few other areas. But outside of that it basically disappears at sunset (2030 for Radio purposes in June).

 

[radi0avenger]

Good point. 1190's night pattern is highly directional. It's loud & clear 24/7 in Dallas Co. & a few other areas. But outside of that it basically disappears at sunset (2030 for Radio purposes in June).

Basically if you're not on I 30 between Arlington and Rockwall, your reception is dramatically reduced

 

[MikeShannon914]

And, in a related story...Jack-FM inexplicably went off the air a couple of days ago in the middle of a song. Well, the stereo light was still on, so I guess the computer goofed or something. Not sure how long it lasted...kinda hard not to tune away when you know it's an unmonitored computer doing the work. That's OK, no need for a human anywhere around there.

 

[radi0avenger]

And, in a related story...Jack-FM inexplicably went off the air a couple of days ago in the middle of a song. Well, the stereo light was still on, so I guess the computer goofed or something. Not sure how long it lasted...kinda hard not to tune away when you know it's an unmonitored computer doing the work. That's OK, no need for a human anywhere around there.

"hey boss? what does *this* cable do?"
"uhhh I dunno, take it off and see"
...
"well nobody's complaining, so I guess it wasn't being used"


*thud*

 

[MikeShannon914]

Your example requires HUMANS, Avenger...and that applies to radio--how? ;D

 

[dfaulkner]

Good point. 1190's night pattern is highly directional. It's loud & clear 24/7 in Dallas Co. & a few other areas. But outside of that it basically disappears at sunset (2030 for Radio purposes in June).

Basically if you're not on I 30 between Arlington and Rockwall, your reception is dramatically reduced

There's an old joke that 1190's night pattern goes straight down Elm street without hitting either side ! ;D (I think the source of that is someone who used to work there, but I can't remember who it was.)

 

[radi0avenger]

I used to work there. That's pretty much the case! The pattern looks like a spread-out hand with the palm of it in and around Rockwall, and the middle finger stretching basically down I 30. There are a few fingers on either side of that, but for all practical purposes, that's the pattern

 

[dfaulkner]

I used to work there. That's pretty much the case! The pattern looks like a spread-out hand with the palm of it in and around Rockwall, and the middle finger stretching basically down I 30. There are a few fingers on either side of that, but for all practical purposes, that's the pattern

Another former KLIF 1190 employee (no longer living) once told me that when that 12 tower bay first went up in 1970 that the pattern was so tight that if someone drove around to the back side of the towers they would lose the station !

 

[unclepudd]

That was true. When KLIF moved the studios to Arlington it was difficult to hear the station on the 'off the air monitor' at night.

An engineer can confirm but the upgrade to 5000 @ night was to enhance for the sale. John Q. public seemed to never know that during all the years of "50,000 Watt KLIF" it was only 1000 at night.

Shannon would know for sure but I recall KBOX being 5000 days and 500 nights with 4 towers from 9900 McCree Road. There wasn't a lot of coverage in Oak Cliff at night.

 

[jd]

Not to quibble over a couple of city blocks, but the persistent story about the KLIF signal was that it ran all the way down Commerce Street without hitting the sidewalks (or curbs)! Of course, the station was at 2120 Commerce.

An engineer can confirm but the upgrade to 5000 @ night was to enhance for the sale. John Q. public seemed to never know that during all the years of "50,000 Watt KLIF" it was only 1000 at night.

Yes, it was done with the sale in mind but as it turned out, in some places the 1kW signal might have been better than the "upgraded" one. That complicated pattern has a rather large, seemingly "incidental" lobe going into Kaufman County. Back in those days (around 1970) the FCC wasn't into granting oddball power levels, and the next step up (10kW) was out of the question. Even 5kW was a real struggle, with all the stations that required protection in other directions (and there were many of them, even back then). The result was that a considerable amount of of KLIF's power was "dumped" into a less critical lobe. It wasn't poor engineering by the consultants on the job, it was about the best that could be done with what they were given.

 

[Bubbadad]

The signal is as rotten as the bigoted little twit who runs (ruins) the joint.

 

[Gopher]

When I was working in Garland in the mid 90's you could pick it up at night going north on US 75 till McKinney. Cross under the State 121 overpass and it was like flipping a switch. Just gone. WWL and WLS both had better signals than KLIF at that point.

 

[jd]

You're right, and a couple of other drop-off points are 35-E heading north through Lewisville, and another that's about as dramatic as the 121 "dead-zone" you mentioned. That's when heading southeast out of Dallas on U.S. 175 around Seagoville, where 1190 takes a plunge. A few miles further the signal returns to its previous (Pleasant Grove area) level.

 

[Mediafrog+]

All this discussion about the 1190 night pattern simply points out what a farce AM radio has become from a technical standpoint. In an age of smartphones, the Internet, cable/fiber/satellite distribution, HD television, etc, etc you have an old-fashioned, massive, elaborate, 12-tower array that is unable to deliver a reliable signal over much of the market area. And similar situations exist with numerous other stations trying to reach an audience despite all sorts of holes in their signals, battling other stations on the frequency.

Today AM has degenerated into too many inadequate signals struggling to be heard, and a listening public that has for the most part, given up on the medium. Many AM directional patterns go back to the 1940's, when cities were smaller, and their were no alternatives to the AM model. Now it wheezes along, probably mostly out of habit.

The revived discussion by that FCC commissioner about expanding the FM band down to 76 MHz is a positive development. I would think most AM operators would jump at the chance to move to FM and a reliable signal (some inadequate FM facilities could also be reengineered and moved to the expanded band.) Of course, if such a expansion/move doesn't happen in the near future, both AM and FM may find themselves killed off by the newer distribution models I mentioned at the top of this post. We've already seen this with the current death spiral of shortwave broadcasting.

 

[dfaulkner]

Not to quibble over a couple of city blocks, but the persistent story about the KLIF signal was that it ran all the way down Commerce Street without hitting the sidewalks (or curbs)! Of course, the station was at 2120 Commerce.

You tell that story better than I do....(see reply #9)

 

[dfaulkner]

An engineer can confirm but the upgrade to 5000 @ night was to enhance for the sale. John Q. public seemed to never know that during all the years of "50,000 Watt KLIF" it was only 1000 at night.

Yes, it was done with the sale in mind but as it turned out, in some places the 1kW signal might have been better than the "upgraded" one. That complicated pattern has a rather large, seemingly "incidental" lobe going into Kaufman County. Back in those days (around 1970) the FCC wasn't into granting oddball power levels, and the next step up (10kW) was out of the question. Even 5kW was a real struggle, with all the stations that required protection in other directions (and there were many of them, even back then). The result was that a considerable amount of of KLIF's power was "dumped" into a less critical lobe. It wasn't poor engineering by the consultants on the job, it was about the best that could be done with what they were given.

I've wondered why it had that one lobe off to the southeast.