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610 KILT Downgrades

Mediafrog+ said:
Radio-locator now has info for the new KILT CP: KILT-AM 610 kHz - Houston, TX
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Those new Radio-Locator "maps" show it being about the same and in some areas possibly slightly improved, but what they don't show is in a mega-urban environment like Houston how some places inside say Beltway 8, for example, will no longer have a clean signal because the 2,700 watts cannot overcome all of the electrical noise that 5,000 watts did (I don't think the current 5,000 watt 610 signal is really enough either in 2022).

I know you know this, Frog, but for others, those daytime AM R-L maps feature several color contours. The innermost red line is only a 2.0 mV/m signal. In a dense, urbanized area 2.0 is not enough to overcome much of anything, its not going to get inside many if any structures, including homes.
 
the aquatic life in the Gulf of Mexico will have plenty of signal to tune into

Many of stations in the Boston area can't send signal west at night, so we say they are "broadcasting to the fishes" at night as mostly all of their predicted pattern as shown on the R-L maps is out over the Atlantic
 
Ryan Williams said:
I know you know this, Frog, but for others, those daytime AM R-L maps feature several color contours. The innermost red line is only a 2.0 mV/m signal. In a dense, urbanized area 2.0 is not enough to overcome much of anything, its not going to get inside many if any structures, including homes.
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True. The ITU feels that 15 mV/m is the minimum today
 
Ryan Williams said:
Perhaps Univision would part with 93.3, but that is a another rimshot is not going to be sufficient for 610's audience and why would Audacy want to max out their local ownership with that marginal signal?
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Maxing out your ownership with a non-full market signal be problematic only if you needed to make room for another station down the road. And if not 92.1 or 104.1, what would it be?

Sports is arguably Audacy’s strongest format. At some point you’d expect them to take their sports effort in Houston a bit more seriously when there is no dominant player in the market and it easily could be them.
 
JustinT said:
Maxing out your ownership with a non-full market signal be problematic only if you needed to make room for another station down the road. And if not 92.1 or 104.1, what would it be?

Sports is arguably Audacy’s strongest format. At some point you’d expect them to take their sports effort in Houston a bit more seriously when there is no dominant player in the market and it easily could be them.
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Urban One and Audacy did swap signals in Charlotte and Philly. Would getting 92.1 for a simulcast or an outirght move make a difference for KILT-AM?
 
MRBIboredop said:
the aquatic life in the Gulf of Mexico will have plenty of signal to tune into

Many of stations in the Boston area can't send signal west at night, so we say they are "broadcasting to the fishes" at night as mostly all of their predicted pattern as shown on the R-L maps is out over the Atlantic
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As I mentioned before, there appears to be more signal going out to sea now than there will be!
 
salemjedi54 said:
Urban One and Audacy did swap signals in Charlotte and Philly. Would getting 92.1 for a simulcast or an outirght move make a difference for KILT-AM?
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I’d expect an Audacy sports FM to be treated as a net-new Station from a branding perspective. AM in Houston at this point is one conservative talk station and two sports talkers; can’t imagine casual listeners are drifting down there too much.

FM would give Audacy access to a much wider pool of listeners, without poaching from any of their existing FMs. Good, entertaining content could pull from iHeart’s KTBZ and Cox’s KHPT/KGLK, and they’d be the Texans flagship from Day 1 (for whatever value that adds in a season like this one).
 
JustinT said:
I’d expect an Audacy sports FM to be treated as a net-new Station from a branding perspective. AM in Houston at this point is one conservative talk station and two sports talkers; can’t imagine casual listeners are drifting down there too much.

FM would give Audacy access to a much wider pool of listeners, without poaching from any of their existing FMs. Good, entertaining content could pull from iHeart’s KTBZ and Cox’s KHPT/KGLK, and they’d be the Texans flagship from Day 1 (for whatever value that adds in a season like this one).
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But the Texans are already on KILT-FM. Is 100.3 not a good city grade signal now for them to have the Texans on two FM sticks.
 
salemjedi54 said:
Would getting 92.1 for a simulcast or an outirght move make a difference for KILT-AM?
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Yes, as it would be by far the best signal and listening experience of the three local sportstalkers. While 92.1 isn't a Missouri City stick, I would take it in a heartbeat over any of the eastern rimshot signals. The new tower (launched in March 2021) has provided a noticeable improvement in reception for 92.1, and the stereo could be shut off to further improve the audio in the far northern reaches of the market.

A move of Audacy's sportstalker to FM would probably finish off rival KFNC and its lousy signal (the worst of the rimshots) likely forcing Gow to sell (VCY America?) so he can concentrate on his web content properties and the national SportsMap network...or he could dump the local talent on 97.5 and just run a straight feed of SportsMap or ESPN Radio on the cheap.

An Audacy move would also strand iHeart's sportstalker (790) on AM, leaving the inferior rimshot signals as the only future option for an FM presence.

Were Audacy able to grab 92.1 I would leave a simulcast in place with 610 for at least a couple of years in order to determine how much of the audience has migrated to FM, and where those listeners are geographically located. If pretty much everyone throughout the market has gone to FM, I would then move the national sports betting format (BetQL) from 650 to 610 and sell off the silly daytimer 650 signal so it can end its existence as Spanish language religion or whatever.

All just my idle thinking. But I agree that Audacy isn't going to blow up one of its current FMs.
 
salemjedi54 said:
But the Texans are already on KILT-FM. Is 100.3 not a good city grade signal now for them to have the Texans on two FM sticks.
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100.3 is a great signal. But the Texans would be a better fit on an all-sports FM station than on The Bull -- especially given their current on-the-field performance. The current arrangement is sending all of the country listeners over to 93Q during game times.
 
If the ratings on KILT-AM were better, it would make more sense to move the sports programming to KILT-FM and push the Bull to 97.1. Or are the ratings on the AM station bad because of the content or because it’s AM?
 
When in the Army, stationed at Fort Polk, LA, between Leesville and DiRidder in 1970 KILT was a staple on the radio non stop, Mess Hall, Barracks, you name it, great music and feel good jocks and variety and this is over 150 miles away. At night a bit harder but solid...
 
BamaTX said:
That's now five AM stations who have either moved or lost their transmitter site in the Houston area. Land being more valuable as development is the AM death blow we have all been waiting for.

610, 850, 950, 1180, 1320,
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But out of the above, three of them are at new sites combined now. 610 moved to Salem's 1070 and 950/1320 are triplexed with 790. They had to spend money on the engineering so evidently the AMs are still worth something.
850 and 1180 are basically dead now ....there is no way 850 will live at a new site.. too expensive to rebuild and protect KOA.. ..1180's site near Humble was a joke anyway ... I know for a fact that the AM directional pattern was drawn over a couple of drinks at a hotel in Humble some 30 or 40 years ago. One of my ex-bosses, a TRHOF inductee as a life long engineer, was there when that happened! How that station got licensed at 50 kW at it's previous location... Somebody sure pulled the wool over the FCC's eyes on that one.
 
ContinuousWave said:
610 moved to Salem's 1070
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Not yet; 610 is still at their longtime site off West Road near I-45. Chuck Tiller might know a timeline for commencing operations at the KNTH location?
ContinuousWave said:
there is no way 850 will live at a new site.. too expensive to rebuild and protect KOA.. ..
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~35 years ago KEYH had a CP to move to 830 with 50kw daytime and 1kw night from a site north of Houston, dumping RF over the city and into the Gulf. Never built. I guess any revival of that idea would be pointless given the overall decline of AM radio. Also KGLA 830 in the New Orleans market might now be an issue (didn’t hit the air until sometime in the 1990s, IIRC.)

The latest KEYH STA expires on December 16. Will the FCC extend it further or pull the plug? Looks like there has been no progress on a new permanent site almost two years after the demise of the previous facility.
 
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