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50 kw to 10 kw
- Thread starter PHIL Z
- Start date
WLQV 1500 is still 50 kW day. It increased to 10 kW night from 5 kW (officially) night. This was made possible by negotiations with the 1500s in Washington, DC and St. Paul, MN.
Darn tootin' Cat.
Pretty good piece of work as, for a while, they had us down to 1KW at night, during the whole mess.
You're right about the "officially" on the 5KW night. There was an efficiency resistor in the night phasor that cut the power in half. You'd see 10 amps on the CP Bridge but, it was just for show.
There was a time when Gannett owned it that we were forced to drop the power to 10 or 25 KW due to an Edison grounding glitch in the proximity of the transmitter site.
We only used all 12 at night but dropped three in 88 or so.
That deal with KSTP and WTOP was on the FCC Docket for 19 years. It was the oldest standing or open issue at the Commission.
Pretty good piece of work as, for a while, they had us down to 1KW at night, during the whole mess.
You're right about the "officially" on the 5KW night. There was an efficiency resistor in the night phasor that cut the power in half. You'd see 10 amps on the CP Bridge but, it was just for show.
There was a time when Gannett owned it that we were forced to drop the power to 10 or 25 KW due to an Edison grounding glitch in the proximity of the transmitter site.
We only used all 12 at night but dropped three in 88 or so.
That deal with KSTP and WTOP was on the FCC Docket for 19 years. It was the oldest standing or open issue at the Commission.
George B. loved 50kw stations and owned a bunch of 'em: 10~Fifty, NY; 9~90, Philly; 15~Hundred, Detroit; 7~Ten, Miami; and 10~Twenty, LA (for a long time just a daytimer). He figured that ad agencies equated 50kw with great coverage and wouldn't bother to check signal patterns or nighttime power. Being 50kw = more buys. Even today there are a number of owners who want a 50kw Ancient Modulation station for bragging rights. Salem plowed a lot of money into upgrading 9~Seventy in NY to 50kw and even paid an adjacent frequency station to surrender their license. And who can forget how much Clear Channel paid for 11~Ninety in Dallas? $16m for a 50kw station that drops to 5kw at night with 12 towers. YIKES!
Why didn't Salem build the 50000 watt CP for WMCA? It had something to do with acquiring more land, but was there more to it than that?
Schroedingers Cat said:
Not aware of any plan to take 5~Seventy to 50kw. That would require a lot of towers out in the Meadowlands to protect co and adjacent channel stations up and down the East Coast. Scott Fybush has a PhD in figuring out Ancient Modulation patterns, so mehbee he'll chime in on this subject. And imagine the interference to Salem's own "Famous 56" down in Philly
It was 50000 watts day and 30000 watts night with another row of three towers on one side of the existing ones, a total of six. It was about 10 years ago, and they had a CP.
Savage said:
Like this 50kw Flame Thrower in Boss Angeles: http://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/pat?call=KBLA&service=AM&status=L&hours=D You can bet all the fish in El Pacifico are diggin' that signal!
Dr. Akbar said:
He was enamored with 50/5, wasn't he? Even when it wasn't a real 5 at night. We were classified as a "Critical Array" and had bodies at the Lincoln Park site 24/7. Man, was that ever a mess. It reminded me of Animal Farm or something like that.
Dropping the easterly 3 towers and getting rid of the "Critical Array" deal was huge.
Don't forget Salem making a deal with a Canadian station to get 50KW for WYLL.
Actually, the 1160 in Thunder Bay was just an allotment, replaced by another frequency. They made a deal with WHBY Kimberly, WI to upgrade to 20/25 DA-2 from 5 DA-2. As I recall, they had to build a whole new array for them.
990 in Providence is now WALE as I recall. That could refer to the pattern or the "listeners" under the ocean. But remember that the skin effect also applies to all conductors including sea water, and the whales may have a hard time hearing it without coming up for air.
990 in Providence is now WALE as I recall. That could refer to the pattern or the "listeners" under the ocean. But remember that the skin effect also applies to all conductors including sea water, and the whales may have a hard time hearing it without coming up for air.
990 Providence was originally WLKW, for "50 kw." At one point a few years back they had to brace one of their six towers because it was so corroded it was in danger of collapse. WALE is actually an old callsign from elsewhere in the market, like many markets where they've been swapped around. They had an early-series RCA Ampliphase that caught fire when the primary AC feed lost a phase (traffic accident took down a utility line) and the blowers quit.
Dr. Akbar said:
Off topic but...
Sadly 1190 in Dallas is yet another rental radio facility these days. When the brokered shows aren't on, the format is a lack luster poorly automated (Winamp would sound tighter) Classic Country format. It is sad to see how low this facility has fallen. It is a shame because there are a few format holes that this 50K could fill and make enough money to pay the power bill.
It was at it's best with the "Cowboy 1190" Vt'd classic country format and as "The Mighty 1190" when they played a 55-70 gold format. Now CC is just going through the motions and collecting the rent check.
We now return to the thread already in progress....
Jay Walker said:
Ahhh, the Mighty 11~Ninety. Two different transmitter sites separated by about 30 miles. No way to make the day pattern work at the night site, and vice versa. What in the Wide, Wide World of Sports was Gordon McLendon a thinkin' when he went 5kw at night with 12 sticks?
But there are so many heritage Ancient Modulation stations either slipping into the tar pit of irrelevancy, or already there. Canada and Mexico allow some owners the opportunity to surrender their AM license and get an FM. Doubtful that will happen in Los Estados Unidos, but a bunch of Ancient Modulation stations need to go away permanently.
Come with me back to the thrilling days of Top 40 yesteryear, kids....when Gordon McLendon was running a money-printing 1kw daytimer licensed to the Dallas suburb of Oak Cliff (hence the callsign.) He is one of the "originators" of format radio and KLIF was absurdly successful, producing a number of elaborate upgrades over the years - first to fulltime service, and eventually to 50kw daytime (for the bragging rights, as above.) Recall that the 50s and early 60s were the days when AM was king and FM wasn't even rated. But 1kw DA-N was a problem, and Gordon wanted a night lobe over Fr. Worth, so the crazy 12-tower 5kw was hatched. It took a few years to get the authorization for the Rockwall site, but after that and over a year of construction it happened.
Problem was, DFW development soon outgrew the 5kw pattern and the Mighty 1190's slide began not long after the gargantuan Rockwell night site started operation in 1969.
There are some fascinating stories about the 12-tower KLIF including (Google it) "the world's biggest battery" and the fact related by then-CE Dave Hultsman that, during the Rockwall construction, he was responsible for a single AM station with a 4-tower DA-D 50kw array, the existing 5-tower 1kw DA-N, plus the 12-tower Rockwall site under test. That would be (tympani roll, please...) ...a total of TWENTY ONE towers for one AM.
Quick...let's get back to Detroit before the OT Police show up.....
Problem was, DFW development soon outgrew the 5kw pattern and the Mighty 1190's slide began not long after the gargantuan Rockwell night site started operation in 1969.
There are some fascinating stories about the 12-tower KLIF including (Google it) "the world's biggest battery" and the fact related by then-CE Dave Hultsman that, during the Rockwall construction, he was responsible for a single AM station with a 4-tower DA-D 50kw array, the existing 5-tower 1kw DA-N, plus the 12-tower Rockwall site under test. That would be (tympani roll, please...) ...a total of TWENTY ONE towers for one AM.
Quick...let's get back to Detroit before the OT Police show up.....
Savage said:
Not to worry....the Old Scotsman also owned WWWW and there are plenty of Detroit stories with that one!
Another Big D connection is Big Jim Edwards of the BIG 8, CKLW. He came to the Motor City (err, Windsor) from Toledo's WTTO. As Jim recalled, "...we had 12 towers: 6 facing Michigan some of the time; 6 facing Ohio at other times. And unfortunately none of them facing Toledo..."
These weird Ancient Modulation stories just can't be told with FM.
When I was CE I had the dubious pleasure of running field measurements on the beast in Rockwall. If we had kept the place I was seriously considering a power reduction to run nighttime from the Irving site. My "guess" was a chance at running 1kw from Irving which would have given 1189 a decent signal over the northern suburbs where all the growth ended up.
Someones knocking at the front door, oops looks like the Topic Police are here....
Someones knocking at the front door, oops looks like the Topic Police are here....
Back when i was GM of SRN, we had a Houston 50 KW at 1180, licensed to Humble.
Our night time output was a whopping 1 KW. It was almost useless as Cuba had a flame thrower that would just kill us.
We almost got some real relief as our local Congressman stuck our relief into a some bill that was up for a vote. Almost.
Our night time output was a whopping 1 KW. It was almost useless as Cuba had a flame thrower that would just kill us.
We almost got some real relief as our local Congressman stuck our relief into a some bill that was up for a vote. Almost.
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