50 kw to 10 kw

[Savage]

Jay, just curious - how many monitor points on the Rockwall 12-tower? And if you recall, how many daytime with the 50??

"Gee, I'm almost done with the MPs. Time to take the monitor points again...."

I look out at my four towers, and think about the painting, and the gap-cleaning, and fence maintenance, and the mothballs in the ATUs (we have separate ones for each pattern) and the bee-killing and the woodchuck-chasing and the weed-whacking. Then I multiply that by THREE. And my head starts to hurt....

 

[Jay Walker]

Jay, just curious - how many monitor points on the Rockwall 12-tower? And if you recall, how many daytime with the 50??

"Gee, I'm almost done with the MPs. Time to take the monitor points again...."

I look out at my four towers, and think about the painting, and the gap-cleaning, and fence maintenance, and the mothballs in the ATUs (we have separate ones for each pattern) and the bee-killing and the woodchuck-chasing and the weed-whacking. Then I multiply that by THREE. And my head starts to hurt....

Sorry, I've slept since then and just don't recall off the top of my grey head :

I do know it was a FULL day and then some job. As a side note back in the day when you had to go out to the dog houses and take base current readings every half hour, the station bought a jeep to run up and down the array so the readings could be completed in time. This is a pretty large array, two parallel rows of six towers each.

Here's the link to an aerial view of the nighttime site:
https://maps.google.com/maps?q=32°5...F-8&ei=vymVUIPxJIXbqgGqqoHgDA&ved=0CAsQ_AUoAg

The daytime transmitter was a Harris DX-50 which replaced the original Continental 50k. I never saw the Continental but I'm fairly certain it was older than the infamous 317 series.

The nighttime transmitter was a solid state SX-5 (I think). Backup at Rockwall was a tube type 10k Continental running at 5k with the RF clipper mod. Note this is subject to the whims of my memory so I can be totally incorrect...

The daytime site was in a flood plain so the transmitter building and towers were raised above grade significantly (6ft or better) and there was a row boat for access. Plus elevated walkways to each dog house. The daytime site was also Copperhead heaven. The place had a serious snake issue.

Too bad it's so under utilized these days.

 

[DrAkbar]

Speaking of weird ass Anciently Modulated stations in Detroit...wassup with WNZK and it's schizo frequencies? 6~Ninety during the day and 6~Eighty at night. How'd that come about and how do they do it (one or two xmttrs)? Bet if they have IBOC that sounds like crap between 6~Seventy and 7~Hundred. How do listeners with digital tuners handle back to back frequency changes? Oh, that's right..this is Ancient Modulation

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

Re: 50 kw to 10 kw t

CHYR started it with 710 days and 730 nights. Still in the database.

680-Too much day interference from CFTR.
690-Too close to Canada to operate at night on a Canadian Class A/Class I-A channel, and too close to Montreal protected contour.

 

[SarasotaJim]

Re: 50 kw to 10 kw t

CHYR started it with 710 days and 730 nights. Still in the database.

Does Leamington still operate with two call signs? CHYR days and CHIR at night?

 

[w9wi]

Re: 50 kw to 10 kw t

CHYR started it with 710 days and 730 nights. Still in the database.

Does Leamington still operate with two call signs? CHYR days and CHIR at night?

No, Leamington moved to FM years ago. CHYR-FM on 96.7.

Shortly before they moved to FM, one of the transmitters failed (I forget which one) and they operated on the same frequency 24/7 for a few months. The AM callsign in the database is CHYR on both frequencies, but it's possible it's only the database that was changed -- that by the time the night calls were changed in the database, the AM was already off the air.

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

CHYR is now on 96.7.

CHIR originally operated with 250 watts, and later 500 watts, on 730. CHYR originally was CJSP, whose call letters are now on coowned 92.7 in Leamington, at the old CHYR AM site. CHYR moved closer to Windsor.

They were authorized to operate on 710 at night with 1000 watts minimum efficiency (700 watts input, two separate records).

WLW complained about the adjacent frequency interference from CHYR on 710 at night, not WOR. This was reportedly at the urging of Art Vuolo. I have no idea for certain if this was the case, but that's what I was told.

They were originally CHIR on 730, and later they were CHYR-7.

 

[Goldilocks94941]

As a kid in downriver Detroit, I remember hearing CHYR when it switched frequencies at sundown. The station must have only been a few years younger than I was at the time (mid 1960s). They would play a series of electronic tones after a short announcement that the programming would continue at 730 on the dial. "Please tune your receiver now to hear this sound...." And, sure enough, there it was again, with those tones signaling us back, but a little weaker and not as quite as crisp as what I think was a 10kw signal aimed at Windsor and Detroit. Programming would resume after about 30 seconds of tones with an ID and short announcement. But that dual-frequency scenario has been gone for at least 20 years now, eh? And so has the programming. Not sure why my neighbors listened to it, but they did. I think they had some ethnic programming (Italian and French, perhaps), maybe a short daily rosary reading, race track results (maybe there's a connection??) and a few other such programming novelties when it wasn't running a pop-MOR music format.

I later started my radio career at a daytime-only station on AM730 a few miles south of Toledo, whose signal was aimed away from Leamington and Lake Erie. But you could still hear CHYR on 730 at night all over the region, just not a dominant signal at what I think was 250 or 500 watts.

 

[jry]

As a kid in downriver Detroit, I remember hearing CHYR when it switched frequencies at sundown. The station must have only been a few years younger than I was at the time (mid 1960s). They would play a series of electronic tones after a short announcement that the programming would continue at 730 on the dial. "Please tune your receiver now to hear this sound...." And, sure enough, there it was again, with those tones signaling us back, but a little weaker and not as quite as crisp as what I think was a 10kw signal aimed at Windsor and Detroit. Programming would resume after about 30 seconds of tones with an ID and short announcement. But that dual-frequency scenario has been gone for at least 20 years now, eh? And so has the programming. Not sure why my neighbors listened to it, but they did. I think they had some ethnic programming (Italian and French, perhaps), maybe a short daily rosary reading, race track results (maybe there's a connection??) and a few other such programming novelties when it wasn't running a pop-MOR music format.

I later started my radio career at a daytime-only station on AM730 a few miles south of Toledo, whose signal was aimed away from Leamington and Lake Erie. But you could still hear CHYR on 730 at night all over the region, just not a dominant signal at what I think was 250 or 500 watts.

Ahhh, Jimmy Swaggerts station. Many many nights, they didn't reduce power. Many hours without a legal ID....

 

[SarasotaJim]

Ahhh, Jimmy Swaggerts station. Many many nights, they didn't reduce power. Many hours without a legal ID....

Don't be too sure you weren't hearing a lot of legal IDs you didn't recognize. I don't know about now, but when I was still working in Canada in the 70s, the legal identification requirements weren't as bizarre as those in the US. And a legal ID consisted of call sign and frequency, NOT call sign and city of license. And they were very liberal in their interpretation of both. As an example, back then at least, the jingle "The Big 8 - C-K-L-W" was a legal ID. And up in Toronto, an acceptable ID was the jingle "Ten-Fifty Chum" - as in "chum" the word, not C-H-U-M pronounced individually. (And CHYR did call themselves "Cheer" a lot. Don't know if they used that as a legal identification or not.)

That was a long time ago. I have no idea what the requirements are now.

 

[Goldilocks94941]

I think if anyone was picking up the station that, shortly after my tenure, became all-Jimmy Swaggart, all the time, call letters or not, you'd know it. Because all they aired for several years was Jimmy Swaggart. Not sure what year they got nighttime authorization, but when I was there in 1973-74 it was daytime only with a low wattage pre-sunrise authorization (less than 50 watts, I think). Thanks to its directional signal to the south-southwest, the station actually got DX'd as far south as Georgia and Cuba, I was told, in the pre-dawn hour.

WMGS could have used some post-sunset authorization on the night of the great tornado outbreak in the spring of 1974, however. The acting PD was there a bit later than usual at the studio in Lime City, OH while I was holding the sign-off shift, and the station still had AP wire service (before it got cut off for non-payment). It got to be nearly non-stop tornado warnings for nearly every county in its western Ohio and eastern Indiana coverage area in the hour before signoff. We probably should have felt empowered to stay on to announce the weather warnings, as I believe the FCC rules would have allowed (if you remained non-commercial during the extended hours, and notified the FCC). But we were too small, and maybe a little too scared, to stick it out beyond sundown sign-off. Not that anybody could hear me that clearly over a tremendous amount of lightning static. The towers were being struck like something out of a Frankenstein movie. I even had trouble hearing myself on the air monitor that evening, and the studio was a mere ten feet and a single glass panel away from the transmitter, and surrounded by four 250 foot tall towers, in the middle of a flat field in an old basement-free train depot, in a perfect path for a tornado on the southeast outskirts of the metro Toledo area.

 

[DrAkbar]

Speaking of feeding the fish with RF, here's one of my fav's: http://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/pat?call=KKSM&service=AM&status=L&hours=U In fact it does look like a bloated goldfish headed to Hawaii.

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

There are many of these patterns that go into the ocean. Here in Michigan and surrounding states, most patterns go in to Canada at night. There are many jokes about this, but unlike fish, the Canadians actually listen to the radio. This is done to avoid interference to other stations. It looks like the Oceanside station should have been built further inland to serve more people.

 

[jry]

I'm talking about the legal IDs on Jimmy Swaggarts station.

 

[HHH]

Ahh, yes....another 50-gallon "fish feeder." Tons of RF, all heading out to sea, a la the former WLKW Providence on 990. Meanwhile, over the landmass where actual people live: nulls.

But hey, the website and letterhead say "50,000 watts!!"

Actually, I remember seeing the proposed WMCA higher power pattern, and it took the station all the way down LI right to the Hamptons, so it was not just a "letterhead 50" (as we used to say). There was some real zip code coverage.

I don't know why they didn't build it.

WMCA has always done pretty well with only 5KW (being way down at 570 sure helps!)...and was, in the Good Guys era in the 60s, the 5 boroughs' #1 rated station. But they don't get out to Eastern LI very well and the power boost would have fixed that.

 

[jry]

I talked to a friend who has family on Long Island. He told me that MCA does a bad job on the island.

 

[fybush]

I talked to a friend who has family on Long Island. He told me that MCA does a bad job on the island.

As does anything else, 5 kW or 50, that has to cross the low-conductivity schist of Manhattan and then the even lower-conductivity sandbar that is Long Island. WABC and WOR don't do significantly better, and while WCBS and WFAN have somewhat superior Long Island signals thanks to their shared site right on Long Island Sound, they underperform WMCA on the west side of Manhattan and in parts of New Jersey. There's no perfect site for full AM coverage of Long Island.