50000 Watt Fulltime Class Bs That Were Class IIIs

[davideduardo]

And the 710 Cuban station is actually a collection of perhaps 5 or 6 transmitters along Cuba's 450 mile east to west length;

Typo... Cuba is 750 miles "wide"

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

Here's the next installment of most powerful former Class III facilities at NIGHT.

WPEN (1929) 950 43 kW Day 21 kW Night
WSUA 1260 50 kW Day 20 kW Night
WOOD 1300 (1924) 20 kW Day 20 kW Night
WUNR 1600 20 kW Day 20 kW Night
WSAU 550 (1937) 15 kW Day 20 kW Night
WRCA 1330 25 kW Day 17 kW Night

The Wikipedia articles and some other lists are out of date on this. The rest signed on in the late 1940s.

 

[w9wi]

Here's the next installment of most powerful former Class III facilities at NIGHT.

WSAU 550 (1937) 15 kW Day 20 kW Night

For what little it's worth, WSAU hasn't been on 550 since 1937 -- they signed on as a Class IV station (1200=>1230?) and moved to 550 after WW2. But there's the better part of *nothing* between Wausau and the border, so it's certainly not a surprise they got a nice boost from the Class B power increase.

 

[tanner]

What about 540 and 740 in Orlando. 740 is 50KW at night. The fishes in the Atlantic enjoy it. 540 you can see their towers on SR50 in Clermont and the signal is breaking up.

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

Right now we're concentrating on the regulatory effect of allowing Class III stations on Regional Channels to use more than 5000 watts day and night, up to 50000 watts, starting with the most powerful night facilities. Other threads have dealt with Clear Channels like 540 and 740. Usually those on Clear Channels are overwhelmingly affected by Class As (former Class I-A and I-B). But the interesting thing here is that many well protected Regional Channel stations seem to be more of a limitation on maximum power than the Class As, probably because they are much closer and more numerous.

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

Here's the next installment of most powerful former Class III facilities at NIGHT.

WSAU 550 (1937) 15 kW Day 20 kW Night

For what little it's worth, WSAU hasn't been on 550 since 1937 -- they signed on as a Class IV station (1200=>1230?) and moved to 550 after WW2. But there's the better part of *nothing* between Wausau and the border, so it's certainly not a surprise they got a nice boost from the Class B power increase.

The sign on date has variable relevance, particularly with pre 1930 frequency assignments. But of the most powerful Class III facilities created have a distinct tendency to be older stations. Perhaps it is because those that have survived all these years had better than average consulting in the 1930 to prewar era, ending up at least post NARBA with a bigger signal footprint already, and a tendency to have lower nighttime interference, making them even better candidates for upgrade. Also, as was discussed before, many were already major interference contributors, making the 10% reduction result in larger inverse fields in those directions, allowing a minor lobe to protect some stations rather than a null. Those 5 kW-U omni stations in the center of the country are out of luck though.

W9WI, do you have any idea where to find the old parameters for the WISN 5 kW DA-1 array? In the link I posted, there was enough information between the pictures and the interference analysis to reverse engineer the pattern somewhat. The whole thing wasn't there, but I've got a good idea how much inverse field the minor lobe around 190 degress toward WJJD was. I plotted a polar pattern from what information I had and connected the dots, though I can't figure out how to post it here.

 

[gar hi]

710 is an interesting frequency to listen to during the day here in Tampa.

WAQI and the station from Cuba sound like more than just two stations on the same frequency.

In a weird way, it sounds like they are fighting with each other and there's almost what I'd call an echo effect going on.

 

[cyberdad]

710 is an interesting frequency to listen to during the day here in Tampa.

WAQI and the station from Cuba sound like more than just two stations on the same frequency.

In a weird way, it sounds like they are fighting with each other and there's almost what I'd call an echo effect going on.

That's because Cuba has several stations on 710 (for the express purpose of seeing to it that WAQI can't be heard there.) These stations carry the same programming, so what you're hearing is two (or more) of the Cuban 710s slightly out of sync. The effect of the "Cuban Chorus" on 710 has been noted in other threads. I've heard it several times myself in my travels.

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

I never heard that CBS was considering downgrading WBZ.

This was going back fifteen years or so ago, not now. Detroit is headed down in market rank, and it's already not a Top 10 Market, so I doubt if they would sacrifice WBZ now. But all kinds of strange ideas were being considered. The strangest looking ultra dog leg array that looks like a constellation in a layout diagram is what resulted in the end. Then WXYT started simulcasting on FM, and the ratings went way up, starting a national trend.

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

I've done some preliminary reverse engineering of the old WISN 1150 DA data over on the Engineering Radio board. The calculated theoretical inverse field toward WJJD (now WYLL) was in a minor lobe of about 150 mV/m @ 1 mile maximum. This was from the interference study done in the 1940s. It will be interesting to see if the DA parameters I calculated are anywhere close, since all we had was a picture of the array and tower height data and the approximate null azimuths.

http://www.engineeringradio.us/blog...t-radio-station/comment-page-1/#comment-21459

 

[w9wi]

I know you asked somewhere , I'm afraid I don't know anything more about the WISN 1150 facility than you've already got. Heck, I didn't even know where it was located until someone piped up earlier this year.

Someone on one of these threads tagged WISN's pre-DA facility as a daytimer. That's not true; it was 1,000/250 ND before they built the DA.

 

[radioman148]

Was the old WISN facility in the same location as the present one?
I always found it odd that there was an 1150 in Milwaukee, and another 1150 in Rockford, right in the backyard of an 50KW 1160 in Chicago.

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

No, it was in Greenfield at 5001 S. 60th St. according to the call letter history page I found. Union Grove is too far from Milwaukee for a 5000 watt four tower to put a really good signal into Milwaukee. With 50000 with 6 towers day and 10000 with 9 towers night, it blasts in better. The conductivity in that area seems empirically good as well as pretty good on M-3. It's really flat and has clay loam soil. WTMJ is a few miles further south.

Recall that WJJD was 20000 watts omni for another 10-15 years according to some online histories. And the day DA minimum in that direction to this day is the equivalent of about a 20000 watt Class B minimum efficiency.

 

[w9wi]

Was the old WISN facility in the same location as the present one?

No. The current location was built when they moved to 1130 & increased power.

I always found it odd that there was an 1150 in Milwaukee, and another 1150 in Rockford, right in the backyard of an 50KW 1160 in Chicago.

WISN was one of the first stations in the state. (IIRC it even predates WTMJ) The Rockford station came along far later -- indeed, I'd have to take a look at the old magazines, WISN may have already been on 1130 by the time Rockford signed on.

The 1160 Chicago thing I do find a bit perplexing. It wasn't 50kw when it got assigned next door to WISN (IIRC it was 20kw during WW2) but it was still plenty powerful. If I had to make a guess (and it would be only a guess) the FRC couldn't find them a better channel in the 1928 refarming.

 

[radioman148]

Was the old WISN facility in the same location as the present one?

No. The current location was built when they moved to 1130 & increased power.

I always found it odd that there was an 1150 in Milwaukee, and another 1150 in Rockford, right in the backyard of an 50KW 1160 in Chicago.

WISN was one of the first stations in the state. (IIRC it even predates WTMJ) The Rockford station came along far later -- indeed, I'd have to take a look at the old magazines, WISN may have already been on 1130 by the time Rockford signed on.

The 1160 Chicago thing I do find a bit perplexing. It wasn't 50kw when it got assigned next door to WISN (IIRC it was 20kw during WW2) but it was still plenty powerful. If I had to make a guess (and it would be only a guess) the FRC couldn't find them a better channel in the 1928 refarming.

Rockford & Milwaukee were both on 1150 when I first heard them driving through each city in the early 60s. I found it quite perplexing even then.
Thanks SC for letting me know where the old WISN was.

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

The Rockford station mush have fit into the 245 degree double null. One was from the north south paralellogram component and one as from the east west component. The Engineering Radio link says it was rectangular and the array picture looks to be rectangular.

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

When the 1150 in Rockford, IL signed on, it was WJRL. It signed on in 1960. The legacy call letters were WRRR.

I was going to say that WJRL should have been where John Records Landecker (JRL) started his career, but then I remembered that he was just 13 years old in 1960 and was living in Ann Arbor.

 

[w9wi]

Yep, checked that myself last night -- Rockford 1150 is older than I thought JRL stood for the initials of the owner, but it wasn't Landecker.

It was directional.

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

1150 WRRR was later owned by popular Chicago Radio Personality Howard Miller.

 

[FreddyE1977]

I never heard that CBS was considering downgrading WBZ.

How about KDKA? Or do they think that people in 37 states want to hear WPIAL
high school football on Friday nights?