50,000 Watt AM Stations - Why do they exist?

[Skynet74]

I live in Rhode Island and I'm currently listening to 1010 WINS. I'm more than 190 Miles away from the transmitter in New Jersey, but I still have no problem picking up the signal. I do have a GE Super Radio which is great at pulling in distant stations, however I still get many New York stations on my other radios too. This leads me to my question of why such powerful stations even exist? They obviously could cover the local area just fine with half that power or even less. I'm not complaining by any means. I really love being able to listen to the Number one market in the country. But is it necessary to put out all that power?

 

[wabc860]

You are picking up 1010 AM with a directional signal over salt water. Someone else living 190 miles away from the transmitter is not picking up 1010 AM.

 

[EasyBakeOven]

The 50,000 watt AM stations were "grandfathered" in the 1930s by the Federal Radio Commission. At the time, only a small number of stations existed and only the major cities had stations. So, they established high-power stations that served large areas of the U.S. It was intended to provide service to people living in rural areas as well as those in major cities.

 

[NO DAG]

A good chunk of the basis for 50,000 watt clear channel (not the company) stations goes back to WWII and providing information to cover the country, should any major Amercian city get attacked. Most large American cities have at least 1 station that was designated a 1A or 1B clear channel. NYC has WFAN, WOR, WABC, WCBS, and WQEW that were truly clear channels.. WINS is on a Canadian clear channel, WEPN is on a Mexican clear channel. Not sure if WBBR (Once WNEW) would have stacked up in this, since there are a lot of high powered 1130's around and KWKH Shevesport LA was the perhaps the priority channel at the time.

 

[davideduardo]

A good chunk of the basis for 50,000 watt clear channel (not the company) stations goes back to WWII and providing information to cover the country, should any major Amercian city get attacked.

Actually, all the 1A (former designation) and 1B clears date back well before the War, many to the late 20's. In the 30's the FCC wanted a class of station that would fill in the areas not served by local stations, which did not reach, in total, even 1000 by the end of the decade. Although the reorganization of the band in about 1928 and again, per NARBA, in 1941/1942 changed some frequencies, the 25 1A clears existed well before the war. Most of the 1Bs did too, although a few were not 50 kw (like 1560 in Bakersfield)

Most large American cities have at least 1 station that was designated a 1A or 1B clear channel.

The centers of populaton in the 30's were very different then and now. So some of the largest cities, like Washington, DC, Baltimore, Seattle, Miami, Houston, San Francisco, Portland, Orlando, Birmingham, Little Rock, Kansas City, Phoenix, San Diego, etc., did not have a 1A at all... and some did not even have a 1B.

Current stations that have 50 kw day and night, directional, were not all at 50 KW in 1941. Among these are KFBK, WLAC, WQXR, KVOO, 1130 WNEW NY, WHN New York (1 kw), 940 Fresno, 850 Boston, KGO San Francisco 810 (7.5 kw), KTRH Houston (1 kw), 1000 WCFL Chicago for example.

Others, that currently exist, were not on clear channel frequencies like 1140 Sacramento, 1220 Cleveland, 1110 Omaha, 1090 Seattle, etc.

NYC has WFAN, WOR, WABC, WCBS, and WQEW that were truly clear channels..

710 had many fulltimers on it, and 1560 had a second 1B in CA.

WINS is on a Canadian clear channel,

WINS was on 1000 after NARBA, not on the Canadian 1B of 1010.

WEPN is on a Mexican clear channel. Not sure if WBBR (Once WNEW) would have stacked up in this, since there are a lot of high powered 1130's around and KWKH Shevesport LA was the perhaps the priority channel at the time.

They are all 1B clears, with Detroit and Minneapolis having low power then. The only non-directionals were 660, 770 and 880.

You can see the assignments at http://www.davidgleason.com/Radex_Complete_Issues.htm where there are selected by-city and by-frequency listings back to the late 20's.

 

[davideduardo]

I live in Rhode Island and I'm currently listening to 1010 WINS. I'm more than 190 Miles away from the transmitter in New Jersey, but I still have no problem picking up the signal. I do have a GE Super Radio which is great at pulling in distant stations, however I still get many New York stations on my other radios too. This leads me to my question of why such powerful stations even exist? They obviously could cover the local area just fine with half that power or even less. I'm not complaining by any means. I really love being able to listen to the Number one market in the country. But is it necessary to put out all that power?

While the original intent was to cover lots of territory at night in the 30's and 40's when TV did not dominate nightime entertainment, today high power is essential to compete in the daytime in the local market due to all the man made interference from computers, medical and manufacturing equipment, dimmers, etc. Many stations have upgraded to 50 kw just to be able to put a usable signal over their entire market.

 

[titoisradio]

A good chunk of the basis for 50,000 watt clear channel (not the company) stations goes back to WWII and providing information to cover the country, should any major Amercian city get attacked.

Actually, all the 1A (former designation) and 1B clears date back well before the War, many to the late 20's. In the 30's the FCC wanted a class of station that would fill in the areas not served by local stations, which did not reach, in total, even 1000 by the end of the decade. Although the reorganization of the band in about 1928 and again, per NARBA, in 1941/1942 changed some frequencies, the 25 1A clears existed well before the war. Most of the 1Bs did too, although a few were not 50 kw (like 1560 in Bakersfield)

Most large American cities have at least 1 station that was designated a 1A or 1B clear channel.

The centers of populaton in the 30's were very different then and now. So some of the largest cities, like Washington, DC, Baltimore, Seattle, Miami, Houston, San Francisco, Portland, Orlando, Birmingham, Little Rock, Kansas City, Phoenix, San Diego, etc., did not have a 1A at all... and some did not even have a 1B.

Current stations that have 50 kw day and night, directional, were not all at 50 KW in 1941. Among these are KFBK, WLAC, WQXR, KVOO, 1130 WNEW NY, WHN New York (1 kw), 940 Fresno, 850 Boston, KGO San Francisco 810 (7.5 kw), KTRH Houston (1 kw), 1000 WCFL Chicago for example.

Others, that currently exist, were not on clear channel frequencies like 1140 Sacramento, 1220 Cleveland, 1110 Omaha, 1090 Seattle, etc.

NYC has WFAN, WOR, WABC, WCBS, and WQEW that were truly clear channels..

710 had many fulltimers on it, and 1560 had a second 1B in CA.

WINS is on a Canadian clear channel,

WINS was on 1000 after NARBA, not on the Canadian 1B of 1010.

WEPN is on a Mexican clear channel. Not sure if WBBR (Once WNEW) would have stacked up in this, since there are a lot of high powered 1130's around and KWKH Shevesport LA was the perhaps the priority channel at the time.

They are all 1B clears, with Detroit and Minneapolis having low power then. The only non-directionals were 660, 770 and 880.

You can see the assignments at http://www.davidgleason.com/Radex_Complete_Issues.htm where there are selected by-city and by-frequency listings back to the late 20's.

Don't forget that 700 WLW had 500,000 watts for a short time during the war and was heard in Europe. Transmitter still exists.

 

[MoldaMania182]

What is interesting is while you are a 190 miles away, go an hour north of the city (~50miles) and the signal sounds lousy.

 

[Ozman]

haha lol... its so I can listen to hometown news and traffic to keep up to date what is going on Back home when I miss it let alone listen the Yankees kick some ass here in Northeastern VT on 880 am
-OZ

 

[davideduardo]

Don't forget that 700 WLW had 500,000 watts for a short time during the war and was heard in Europe. Transmitter still exists.

WLW was listed from about 1934 (when it went on) to 1941 as 500,000 watts. The government did not renew the daytime high power operation in '39, and cancelled the experimental authorization in 1942 and did not renew it, partly so the station could not be used as a radio direction finder beacon during the war.

By European standards, 500 kw is not a lot of power.

From W.T. Anderton's notes on WLW:

October 4, 1928-- WLW became the first United States commercial 50 KW station. By the end of that year, four other stations attained the 50 KW power level -- WEAF New York City, WGY Schenactady NY, WBAP Fort Worth TX and KDKA Pittsburgh PA. 1928, thus, became the year of the beginning of regular 50 KW broadcasts.

Early 1933- WLW began construction of a new, first-of-its-kind 500,000 watt facility at Mason, Ohio with the approval of the FRC.

January 1, 1934- The FRC authorized WLW to use 500,000 watts on an experimental basis using the call W8XO.

April 17, 1934- The FRC issued a license to operate at 500,000 watts during regular hours under the WLW call letters.

Wednesday, May 2, 1934- WLW began experimental 500 KW broadcasting as Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt threw the switch at the White House desk in Washington D. C. Some saw the WLW call letters as signifying "Whatta Lotta Watts".

December 21, 1934- WLW was required to cut back to 50,000 watts during the nighttime hours due to interference caused to CFRB at Toronto, Ontario, about 375 miles away.
October 1, 1935- New downtown Cincinnati studios were opened in the Union Central Building Annex. WLW's main studios, including the showplace "Studio A" with its massive pipe organ (dubbed the "Moon River Organ"), remained at 1329 Arlington St. The organ is now located at the Shady Nook Restaurant in Millville, Ohio.

October 18, 1935- WLW's 831 tower was struck by an aircraft at the 600 foot level, leaving the tower mechanically undamaged!

Early 1938- WLW used the air slogan "The Nation's Station".

February 28, 1939- WLW reverted back to 50,000 watts of power, ending the superpower experiments, except for the W8XO experimental license, allowing 500 KW operation between 12 midnight until 1:00 AM, which remained in effect until December 29, 1942.

 

[radiorob2.0]

Legend has it, and we know how reliable that is, the amplifier remained intact for years. Occasionally, the WLW engineers would be nostalgic and perform some after midnight experimentation to see if it could still make power....and then some.

If you want to talk about power let's not forget about Dr. John Brinkley and his megawatt border blaster.

 

[davideduardo]

If you want to talk about power let's not forget about Dr. John Brinkley and his megawatt border blaster.

XERA, at best, was 500 kw... but most of the time it ran at considerably less due to problems with the power grid. Sergio Ballesteros, the former manager of its successor, XERF, told me that they built their own generator plant to sustain the 250 kw operation and, to placate the authorities, lit the streetlights in "downtown" Villa Acuña as a quid pro quo for not getting hassled.

To the best of my knowledge, there have been only two megawatt operations on AM in the western hemisphere. First, around 1970, a Mr. McLendon of the McLendon Ebony Station group of Jacson, MS, bought 625 AM TIRICA in San Jose and put a million watter on, aimed at the gulf coast of the US. It ruined telephone communication for miles around, and drained the power grid; it lasted a very short time. The transmitter was dismanteled and sold to the government of Venezuela, which put it on 1240 (why?) where it ran for a short time and proved ineffective... but as a result, Class IV WALO in Puerto Rico got to run 1 kw day, 5 kw nights for about a decade in the 70's and early 80's under an STA.

 

[icybluelake]

I live in Rhode Island and I'm currently listening to 1010 WINS. I'm more than 190 Miles away from the transmitter in New Jersey, but I still have no problem picking up the signal. I do have a GE Super Radio which is great at pulling in distant stations, however I still get many New York stations on my other radios too. This leads me to my question of why such powerful stations even exist? They obviously could cover the local area just fine with half that power or even less. I'm not complaining by any means. I really love being able to listen to the Number one market in the country. But is it necessary to put out all that power?

I don't know if it is necessary, but I will say that there are plenty of reception issues for even the big sticks around NYC and immediately outlying suburbs. Indeed, reception on 1010 WINS is not great from areas not far outside the city, and in Manhattan, there are plenty of issues with signals like WCBS's and WFAN's. Less so with 1010 WINS in the city. I'd like to be able to hear WCBS-AM whenever, whereever I am in the city, but it's not always possible at every location. I can't explain the reasons for this, but have a pretty good idea that it has to do with transmitter design/configuration/whatever. Can anyone else comment?

As an NYC guy, I don't consider any of the 50K signals a waste, but that's my selfish point of view. I will say I find it odd that I can occasionally pick up 1010 WINS and WEPN (1050) at night, however faintly, when I am on business in Puerto Rico, but that has everything to do with the nighttime directional signal coverage of those stations, I am told. And nighttime coverage is really another issue...

 

[Skynet74]

Wow... it sounds so weird to hear that some people in the Manhattan area can barely hear WINS or WCBS (in some cases not at all), but I'm sitting almost 200 miles away in East Providence, Rhode Island and I hear them just fine. It's a little Bizarre.Thank God Salt water is such a great conductor. Although if you draw a straight line from the transmitters to my location, it still looks like the signal has to go through half of connecticut and across the whole state of Rhode Island to get to me. I know that WFAN reaches all the way up to Boston during the day.

 

[neo11]

That's AM radio for you. The AM signals have a hard time penetrating the steel and concrete of Manhattan and especially with all the electrical and background interference which is sky high, as you can imagine. WFAN and WCBS are on High Island, off the coast of the Bronx and Westchester County, and have an especially tough time towards the city compared to the other AM stations, most of which have their sticks in the swamps of NJ, just across the Hudson and which as a result have a clearer path towards Manhattan proper.

Of course, in the other direction, the signals have lots of salt water to travel over so it's easy for those 50,000 watts to shoot up the LI sound and to Rhode Island and Cape Cod and beyond.

 

[DG02816]

One of my engineer friends, Dana Puopolo, posted on the [BC] reflector that WCBS,WFAN, and WABC would kill to have the signals of WOR, WEPN, and WINS in Manhattan. And it even becomes more of an issue with IBOC, now that 1010-1060 have stations here n the East running it.

 

[Oldiesking]

What is interesting is while you are a 190 miles away, go an hour north of the city (~50miles) and the signal sounds lousy.

I go to Newport, RI every summer for Vacation for a couple of weeks. I get WINS and WEPN excellent during the day in Newport. Newport, RI is around 175 miles from NY. However when I travel south in New Jersey or upstate New York, I am lucky if I can get either station 50 Miles away from NY because of the directional signal of both stations. In fact during the day, WINS comes in better in Newport than WABC which is a 50,000 Watts Clear Channel. I am able to get WFAN in Newport like I am in NY.

 

[Tom Wells]

50,000 watts, which is only 47 horsepower, is necessary to penetrate the steel-brick-concrete, and as such, the granting of the "clears"
coincided with the cities having the densest of this type of construction. Previously, in-town antennas, often horizontal,
had a major portion of their radiation absorbed and shunted uselessly. Tuning changed minute by minute with wind, streetcars, etc.
Stray currents from noise sources near the transmitters worked their way into the signal. When stations decided to move the antenna out of the city, 50,000w was considered a reasonable level for signal penetration. Even then, most NYC and major city apartment roofs were
COVERED with tenant's longwires. The better apartments and co-ops had a master antenna, wideband RF amp, and twisted-pair
balanced 1/4 phone jacks in the living room. What the hell happened? This was THE way to get AM in the dense city.
Such realities were recognized and addressed then, including the bloopers. Bloopers were regenerative sets, which most people ran into regeneration, outputting a signal to the antenna, creating massive heterodyne interference, since few listeners tuned to perfect resonance.
Once superhets took hold around 1930, actual "burn the bloopers" events were held by stations and radio dealers, eager to
clean up reception for everybody by eliminating the offending radios, and promoting sales of far better radios.
Seems technology outran itself for a few years, as internal antennas had been sufficient these many decades since the
mid-30's when immense gain became cheap and easy. Now that we have implemented so much AM-ingnorant technology, we are back
to late 1920's levels of AM interference. They dealt with it then, and we must now. Proper engineering of these supposedly
pt 15 compliant devices is for ****. Let's propose an FCC rulemaking regarding proper bypassing, shielding and grounding of this
interference. There is no reason to not require the FCC to enforce the existing pt 15 rules, which to my knowledge, they have never
had an enforcement action against the manufacturer of an "unintentional radiating" device to ban its sale, manufacture or import.
Whew! I like the 500,000 watt idea, but the new crap radios with no tuned RF section would again, put us right back in 1927.
Better to address the noise issue than scream louder, if possible.

 

[BACKnUSSR]

One of my engineer friends, Dana Puopolo, posted on the [BC] reflector that WCBS,WFAN, and WABC would kill to have the signals of WOR, WEPN, and WINS in Manhattan. And it even becomes more of an issue with IBOC, now that 1010-1060 have stations here n the East running it.

Never thought that WABC had a Manhattan problem at all.

 

[doublex]

Wow... it sounds so weird to hear that some people in the Manhattan area can barely hear WINS or WCBS (in some cases not at all), but I'm sitting almost 200 miles away in East Providence, Rhode Island and I hear them just fine.

Many years ago I was on Bermuda. At about 4pm (AST) the 50kw New York stations started booming in. And surprisingly, so did WALE. As I recall its directional pattern blows out across the ocean.