1st adjacent AMs with significant daytime overlap of their 2.5 mV/m contours

[charlestondxman]

In our area, we have WSPO 1390 and WGTN 1400. WSPO 5kw, WGTN 1kw, 56 miles apart. WGTN gets slammed as close as McClellanville, only 20-25 miles from transmitter site. Forget about it south of there unless you have a good radio.

You also have WJBS 1440 and WQNT 1450, but both are graveyarders and the overlap isn't over that much population.

 

[mimo]

CBM 940 Montreal moved slightly, and to protect existing US and Mexican stations and to concentrate the signal in Canada, went very slightly directional. They have moved again and are nondirectional under private ownership.

CBM moved to FM and is NOT under private ownership. CFCF 600 applied to change frequencies to 940 and has since gone silent. That lincense was turned in. Another applicant has applied for and won the license to put on a new station that has until this November to sign on. When CFCF became CINW they chose to remain slightly directional to put a stronger signal over downtown. They could have remained omni if they wished.

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

CBM moved to FM and is NOT under private ownership. CFCF 600 applied to change frequencies to 940 and has since gone silent. That lincense was turned in. Another applicant has applied for and won the license to put on a new station that has until this November to sign on. When CFCF became CINW they chose to remain slightly directional to put a stronger signal over downtown. They could have remained omni if they wished.

I didn't mean CBM was private. I meant that 940 was private. I have not been able to keep up with all the changes on 940. Most of the information I have is in the Region II Database. The station has been on and off so much, and the Region II database often remains the same. Did CINW continue to use the 690 site? I thought there was another site when 940 went private, based on the Region II database. In any event, the guy at the CBC office didn't know CBM 940 was directional and had to look it up, so there is a lot of confusion to go around unless you can/could easily hear 940 every night, and then, you would not know the technical details.

Of course, they could have remained nondirectional at the IDF of the minimum in the 690/940 collocated and/or diplexed facility by reducing power or using a shorter wire skirt antenna in the tower.

I guess CBW 990 Winnipeg is now 46000 watts nighttime, probably due to a similar issue.

 

[davideduardo]

Getting back to the question of any Grave Yard AM leading its market, for a while 1240 WMMB Melbourne FL was #1 with an Adult Standards format, perhaps a Music of Your Life affiliate. This was back in the 90s. That's the only one I know of.
.

There were many graveyarders that were #1 but you have to go back to the 50's and 60's and the pre-FM era. These were all #1 in rated markets.

WNOR Norfolk
WCOL Columbus
WCPO Cincinnati (very briefly in its battle with WSAI)
WBBQ Augusta
KRIZ Phoenix
KIST Santa Barbara
WNIK Arecibo
KNRY Monterey
WBML Macon
WROV Roanoke
WBOW Terre Haute
WCVS Springfield, IL
WRIT Milwaukee (briefly)
WKDA Nashville
WBSR Pensacola
WKGN Knoxville
WITH Baltimore
WKWK Wheeling
KUNO Corpus Christi
WFEC Harrisburg, PA
Several different ones in Hagerstown, MD

There were many more, but I can't yank them out of my memory bank righ now.

 

[semoochie]

https://transition.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/amq?list=0&facid=25441

KYW is a class A. I believe all the former 1-A and 1-B clears are now class A.

Other 1-Bs like WGY and KGO are also A class today.

I must be having a brain freeze! I thought KYW was a Class II because I was thinking they were only 10KW at night. I'm sure I had this right at one time. Thanks for the correction.

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

Here is the DA data for CINW. It appears to be a new two tower array with close to 1/4 wave towers. The FCC and Region II Database HAS to be more accurate than the FM and TV because of the skywave interference possible. The only things that tend to be not accurate are the call letter changes. They lost and had to load an older database and update it at some point as I recall, and lost some of the newer call letters like CKAT. I don't think the old CBM data is still on there, but I will look later.

https://transition.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/amq?list=0&facid=136972

And I'll try to get the actual DA-1 pattern.

Here it is.

https://transition.fcc.gov/ftp/Bureaus/MB/Databases/AM_DA_patterns/603509-76082.pdf

The nulls to the South are quite a bit deeper than the CBM directional pattern.

 

[semoochie]

There were many graveyarders that were #1 but you have to go back to the 50's and 60's and the pre-FM era. These were all #1 in rated markets.

WNOR Norfolk
WCOL Columbus
WCPO Cincinnati (very briefly in its battle with WSAI)
WBBQ Augusta
KRIZ Phoenix
KIST Santa Barbara
WNIK Arecibo
KNRY Monterey
WBML Macon
WROV Roanoke
WBOW Terre Haute
WCVS Springfield, IL
WRIT Milwaukee (briefly)
WKDA Nashville
WBSR Pensacola
WKGN Knoxville
WITH Baltimore
WKWK Wheeling
KUNO Corpus Christi
WFEC Harrisburg, PA
Several different ones in Hagerstown, MD

There were many more, but I can't yank them out of my memory bank righ now.

I would think that KROY Sacramento would be on that list.

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

It's hard to believe a college town like Columbus wouldn't have had more competition in the 1960s than Class IV WCOL for Top 40, but were there "Chicken Rockers" trying to keep more of their older demographics that struck out trying?

 

[davideduardo]

It's hard to believe a college town like Columbus wouldn't have had more competition in the 1960s than Class IV WCOL for Top 40, but were there "Chicken Rockers" trying to keep more of their older demographics that struck out trying?

Part of the issue here is that ratings in the Hooper and Pulse eras did not cover huge geographic areas as they often do today.

Columbus was likely the urban part of Franklin County, not the 7 country MSA it is today. So stations with inferior facilities could compete.

A representative Hooper report from the era says that the telephone sample was drawn from the non-toll call area of the surveyed city or "The sample upon which this Report is based is a random selection of telephone homes located within the Non-Toll-Call area of this city. Inasmuch as the sample does not include homes outside the Non-Toll-Call area, the Report does not measure the total Audience to any station" (Hooperatings, Roanoke, VA, July-August 1961).

If we remember how restricted the non-toll areas of major cities were back when Ma Bell was queen of communications, it's easier to imagine how a Class IV could be #1 in the toll free zone of a central city.

 

[Icangelp]

David.

How about 1340/WAKE in Atlanta? I wonder if they were ever #1?

I remember one of my first business trips was to Austin TX, where I heard Top 40, 1490/KNOW. Again, I have no idea if they ever made it to #1.

 

[davideduardo]

David.

How about 1340/WAKE in Atlanta? I wonder if they were ever #1?

I remember one of my first business trips was to Austin TX, where I heard Top 40, 1490/KNOW. Again, I have no idea if they ever made it to #1.

Although 1340 was Bill Drake's first significant station, it was never a big success. WSB led the market starting in the 30s and all the way to 1980 except one book in 1965 when Quixie was #1. WAKE never came close, with it's best book at less than half of that of Quixie.

As for KNOW, it was #1 from 1969 to 1974. It had also been #1 in the post-War 40's with network programming.

 

[Gregg.]

I said above >>>Getting back to the question of any Grave Yard AM leading its market, for a while 1240 WMMB Melbourne FL was #1 with an Adult Standards format, perhaps a Music of Your Life affiliate. This was back in the 90s. That's the only one I know of.<<<

I should have made it clear I was speaking about the era since the mid-80s where FM stations were getting close to equal listenership as AM, and where market parameters were expanded to most of the territory covered by a Class B or Class C FM station. As David talks about above, by this time, ratings for a given market encompassed many miles from the city center, putting Grave Yard AMs at a strong disadvantage, as opposed to earlier radio measurement, confined to the toll-free telephone zone of a market's core.

Plus Melbourne is a small market geographically, hemmed in by Orlando and Daytona. So in the 90s it was still possible for 1000 watt WMMB to go to #1. And in the Florida retirement city of Melbourne, it's not surprising that an Adult Standards station could reach #1.

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

I wonder what kind of ratings WLS and WCFL had in Columbus at night in the 1960s and early 1970s. WLS and WCFL usually had substantial ratings at night in cities without solid Top 40 signals. But Class IVs were solid if close enough. WCOL was an early add station, and the evidence is on ARSA. It looks like CKLW was not that strong in Columbus day or night. I guess WOWO and WKYC could also have been heard well at night.

Other cities with substantial WLS and WCFL listenership and ratings include Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, Lansing East Lansing, and Ann Arbor. Grand Rapids had WLAV 1340 and WGRD 1410 was a daytimer. Kalamazoo had WKMI 1360 with 1 kW night with the minor lobe toward the city, and WKLZ/WYYY 1470 was a daytimer. Lansing East Lansing had WJIM 1240, WILS 1320 with 1 kW night and nulls that crossed the cities, and WVIC 730 was a daytimer. WAAM 1600 Ann Arbor had an on and off Top 40 format, but was MOR/AC/Chicken Rock for parts of that era. WPAG 1050 was a daytimer and was an early add station in the 1960s, but had gone to AC/Full Service by the mid 1970s. CKLW 800 changed patterns and was weak in Ann Arbor at night, especially when PJB operated with 500 kW, and even XEROK interfered occasionally.

 

[schmave]

Schroedinger's Cat: My dad grew up in Columbus in the 60s. While neither he or I can answer the ratings question, I will see him tomorrow and if I remember, ask off the cuff what stations he listened to back then. WCOL was huge, of course, but I imagine he heard some of the big skywave signals back in those days.
My mother, who grew up in western Ohio just outside Lima, vividly remembers listening to WOWO far more than anything else. My uncle, who is two years younger, recalled listening to CKLW quite a lot as well as WOWO. WOWO put an excellent signal into that area, and still does even with the downgrade. CKLW can be heard very well there daytime, then much weaker but still there at night.

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

Thanks Schmave. As David probably remembers, CKLW came in better at night than in the daytime in Cleveland. Back in the mid to late 1960s, I always wondered why CKLW would give the temperature in Toledo in the daytime and Cleveland at night. I didn't know much about the patterns back then, only that most stations in our region directed their signals North at night. I remember thinking in the 1960s that the WKNX 1210 towers near Bridgeport, that Frank and HGR1290 and Rich probably know well, were for WSAM or WSGW. Before I took a lot of Physics and Mathematics, the fact that a line of towers would produce a theoretically symmetrical pattern, and a parallelogram usually an asymmetrical pattern was something not yet known to me. WSAM had and still has a very good signal for being way up at 1400, and I assumed it was 5000 watts! I'm sure some other DXers here had similar delusions, except for those of us who were never kids!

 

[cyberdad]

I wonder what kind of ratings WLS and WCFL had in Columbus at night in the 1960s and early 1970s. WLS and WCFL usually had substantial ratings at night in cities without solid Top 40 signals.....

.....Other cities with substantial WLS and WCFL listenership and ratings include Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, Lansing East Lansing, and Ann Arbor.

From listening to WLS at the time, it was also pretty clear that WLS had significant listenership in the South. That would stand to reason in an area where local top 40 stations would be hindered by poor ground conductivity. WCFL was audible in parts of the Southeast, but the signal was nowhere near as good as WLS. Going west from Chicago, WLS also had a good nighttime signal. But, as discussed in another thread several months ago, so did KAAY and KOMA. WCFL, of course, was a non-factor with it's rather severe null to the west.

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

I'm surprised that WCFL didn't come in as well as WLS in the Southeast. WCFL/WMVP was/is the ONLY Chicago station to put a predicted 25 mV/m signal over the entire City of Chicago, and that includes an area in the SE corner not covered by the 25 mV/m contour of WMAQ/WSCR. In Michigan, it was one of the strongest skywave signals at night, often peaking around 10 mV/m, along with 50000 watt night WOWO, and WCKY after Sunset in Sacramento. Because the pattern favored the East (80 degrees was the maximum IDF direction, and the towers were about 1/2 wavelength, unlike WLS with its 190 degree tower and a distance corresponding to the null in the vertical pattern, which also lowered the vertical radiation characteristic at the reflection angle range corresponding to the Eastern part of Michigan. WLS only tended to be probably about 1/2 of the FI WCFL usually was at night. It probably peaked around 5-6 mV/m. Supporting this, I actually heard WCFL (and WOWO) on a crystal Rocket Radio with a long wire antenna of a little over 100 feet long, but never heard WLS. WFDF 910 signed off at 12:30 AM in those days, so that wasn't it, after sign off.

I'm thinking maybe the closer distance to the South and Southeast US is one reason WLS came in better there, though you wouldn't think that it would be that great of a difference. Perhaps it had to do with WLS being farther from the geomagnetic North Pole.

 

[joebtsflk1]

In southeast Iowa, WLS was day and night, though rather weak daytime. Jumping off track for a bit, went to a rod and custom show in Pueblo yesterday...nearly 2000 cars were there. Saw a 67 GTO, mostly original, with the original Delco AM, just like the one my oldest brother 13 years my senior bought new or close to new. Remember listening to WLS in it around 10 AM one winter morning (which helped). And there was a special option: a reverb speaker so you could make everything echo if you wanted.
'
'CFL showed up just after sunrise and before sunset, but otherwise we were just far enough away and the extra 110 kHz higher made it mostly impossible to hear daytime, then of course the night pattern shut us out. KAAY 1090 had a monster signal at night, better than WLS, but I don't remember listening much to KAAY although it rated a preset on the car radio, along with KIOA and WLS. Too far east for KOMA to be reliable.

 

[rfry]

... WSAM had and still has a very good signal for being way up at 1400, and I assumed it was 5000 watts!...

Thanks for the observation, S. C.

WSAM uses a 1/2-wave tower, with a groundwave IDF of 381.4 mV/m at 1 km using its authorized 1 kW of applied power.

This is the equivalent of applying ~1.55 kW to a 1/4-wave tower, other parameters the same -- and a 1.9 dB field improvement compared to applying 1 kW to that 1/4-wave tower.

Rich, a (way, way) former C. E. of WSAM

 

[cyberdad]

In southeast Iowa, WLS was day and night, though rather weak daytime. Jumping off track for a bit, went to a rod and custom show in Pueblo yesterday...nearly 2000 cars were there. Saw a 67 GTO, mostly original, with the original Delco AM, just like the one my oldest brother 13 years my senior bought new or close to new. Remember listening to WLS in it around 10 AM one winter morning (which helped). And there was a special option: a reverb speaker so you could make everything echo if you wanted.
'
'CFL showed up just after sunrise and before sunset, but otherwise we were just far enough away and the extra 110 kHz higher made it mostly impossible to hear daytime, then of course the night pattern shut us out. KAAY 1090 had a monster signal at night, better than WLS, but I don't remember listening much to KAAY although it rated a preset on the car radio, along with KIOA and WLS. Too far east for KOMA to be reliable.

The late '60s were my college years in southeast Iowa. WLS was exactly as you described it. Rather weak daytime, but still listenable on a good radio. As for WCFL, you could hear it in the daytime, but WCAZ (990) pretty much rendered it unlistenable. At night, WCFL made it in...if only barely...but it was prone to frequent fading and interference from both CBW and XEOY. Only on rare nights when conditions were just right was it listenable. KOMA was actually quite listenable...evem complete with WKBW surfacing from time to time underneath. But by the time of my return visits in the 70s, KOMA was not what it had been. I'm not sure if they tweaked their night pattern, if their physical plant had degraded, if the more crowded channel and increase in noise sources took took their toll, or some combination of all of the above.