290 miles away a 150watt beats on us. Engineers???

[Max_l]

We are a station in the middle of the am dial and in the evenings we power down to 450 watts. I can hear another station on the same frequency that is supposed to be powered down to 150 watts. The station is 290 miles away and I can pick up their call sign, some music, ads etc.

1. Can skyway carry this weak signal this far?
2. How can I confirm that they are powering down?
2. What are the steps to take to get the FCC invlolved if they are not powering down from 5KW.

Thanks for your help/tips in advance.

 

[ironbear]

Skywave could do this, yes. But, there's some extra info needed to determine just what's going on. Is your station directional at night? Where are you hearing the problem, exactly? Directional antennas can substantially increase power in some directions, and reduce it in others. The question applies to the other station, too. Some of the information may need to come from a qualified engineer with a field strength meter. Measuring will determine if your transmitter and antenna are working correctly, and if the problem station is reducing power. If it seems extremely strong and the problem really obvious, you might skip a step or two and contact the FCC directly.

 

[SirRoxalot]

First Things First

Have you thought about calling the other station and asking the Chief to check on whether power down is occurring on time? It could be as simple as an idiot board-op or faulty transmitter automation.

If the phone call resolves the problem, you just saved yourself a lot of time and aggravation.

 

[Max_l]

Great suggestions. Please keep em coming.

Good idea about having our engineer measure our site to verify its proper working condition.
Both sites are single stick non-directionals.
Yes I have contacted the problem station in the past an they said yes they have been powering down.

 

[Andy_Brown]

Is your station directional at night? Where are you hearing the problem, exactly? Directional antennas can substantially increase power in some directions, and reduce it in others.

The above information is very important. If you are picking up the other station from a listening position within
one of the nulls of your own directional pattern, there is a high probability that everyone is operating properly and
you are just lacking enough signal of your own to overcome the co channel presence. I can recall occasionally picking up co channel information on the Potomac FI meter when checking monitoring points, mostly in the deepest null we had, and the points were all within close proximity of our 5kw array. I always thought it was ACI until I heard them give a call sign one time.

At another directional I worked at, when I shut down once a week for maintenance, I could pick up 3 of 4 of our protections on the mod monitor clearly (obviously the tuning of the tower array works as a great receiving antenna when you are off the air) and they were all hundreds of miles away.

 

[WDCX]

You could take your station off the air for an hour near sunset, make the FS measurement on the other station and see if they are in fact reducing power by waiting to hear the difference

 

[cceng1]

better yet, take the FIM-41 to their location (1km from their tower)...then measure the signal during the day when there is no skywave, then stick around, have a beer or five and wait until an hour after power change and measure it again.....I have run into this locally and showed the measurements to the chief of the offending station and it quit....seems their sales dept was selling Monday Night Footbal remotes from a local sports bar and they told the board op not the change the power.....so he never changed the power...they were supposed to be 500 day and 55 watts night...quite a dramatic difference.

Charlie Wooten

 

[PaulBWalkerJr]

I would agree with what everyone here said. I think your first choice and best option would be to make a simple, polite phone call to their CE. It saves you any travel time and gas costs if you had to drive up there and saves you from taking your station off the air and losing revenue.

 

[Doctor_Technical]

Politeness -- backed up with the facts -- is a great tool. In my case, it was a Houston AM client suffering from a "stange hum" (their words) at night. Drove miles-and-miles-of-Texas with the FIM in order to triangulate the hum's origin; the result of several widely-separated measurement points quickly and very accurately pin-pointed the location of the offender some 300-400 miles away. Which in this case happened to be a station just across the border, operating full power at night, at about 120 Hz off-frequency. You could hear the beat all over the South.

I parked myself on the U.S. side and made myself visible taking day-vs-night measurements of the offender in high-profile spots all over town. No drop in signal at sunset. And, as you can imagine, the "hum" (beat fq) was not audible within the local contour of X___.

A report was prepared and sent to the client and the FCC, along with a cover letter expressing our sureity that the frequency/power issue was just an oversight, that we would be more than glad to assist with any technical repairs, etc. The hum quickly went away.

Paul E. Burt
Jackson, MS

 

[grayhairdog]

1. Make doubly sure your plant is up to snuff.
2. Be polite, and call the "offending" station.
3. If no luck, travel to their locale and make day and night measurements with an accurate FIM.
4. If they are messing up, call them again. Explain to them what you found, and ask them to correct it.
5. If they refuse to correct it, consider calling the FCC. But, BEWARE, the FCC will likely look you over first (sudden surprise inspection).

Good luck.

 

[Max_l]

GrayhairDog, you offer some keen advice that didn't cross my mind. Thanks for your sound insight.