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MsMusicRadio
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How can Detroit/Windsor have AM's at 540,560, and 580 ?
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MsMusicRadio said:
The two Windsor, Ontario stations are directional, and most of their power is directed towards SW Ontario and Windsor. WRDT's daytime signal is directional, and covers more of suburban Detroit, so there should be a minimum of interference between the 3 stations. The two Windsor stations are spaced 40kHz apart, which is considered the minimum separation of two AM stations in the same city. WRDT is serving a different, though adjacent market, and listeners to 540 and 580 in 560's primary coverage area may be subject to some interference from 560 since 540 and 580 are Canadian stations, and are not generally intended to be listened to in SE Michigan, though the signal is quite audible there.
560 and 580 have been dial neighbors for probably at least 50 years now, and 540 came on the air in the 1970s. They all have sounded fine, with no discernable interference at all between stations, until the past few years. That's when the people operating the Monroe station on 560 (I think it's now called WLLZ??) started to "soup up" the station's sidebands, and it started to splatter on both of the neighboring Windsor stations all over the US side of the border.
The two Windsor transmitter sites are closer to Detroit than 560's, which is south of Monroe and aimed northward. But in Toledo, its signal has been unlistenable for many years now since some adjustment to the directional pattern years ago made it sound out of phase, twisted and shrill. Yet even in Ohio, the 560 sideband spatter still affected the other two stations when I was there a couple of years ago, even tho' the main carrier on 560 is essentially unlistenable a few miles south of Monroe.
Being at the low end of the dial, the much longer wavelengths seem to have something to do with being able to squeeze stations in closer without interference, than the directional arrays, as far as I have been able to determine in this case. But the lack of technical oversight by the FCC in the past dozen years, since the "free for all" (ie, the collapse of industry regulation in favor of financial takeovers by a chosen few) has resulted in reduced listenability to lots of AM signals that used to be just fine in years past. Add in the aging transmitters and ground systems, electrical interference from new traffic signals and unshielded power lines, and crappier AM radio receivers, and you'd got some of the reasons for precipiting the decline of the AM dial. Not to mention program content.
I grew up with WQTE on 560 and CKWW on 580 happily side by side on the Detroit radio dial. And when CBEF came on at 540, I discovered wonderful music styles I had never heard before, and got to love the cadence of the French language enough to eventually study the language and represent musicians who would get airplay on Radio-Canada.
I hope people thruout SE Michigan, plus Toledo and Windsor, can still get to hear CBEF and CKWW without WLLZ's bought and paid for preachers and business charletans pissing all over their signals anymore from its daytime signal splatter. It's a shame to crowd out longstanding signals for some infomercials and barking preachers that few people will ever want to listen to, and which they can't already find at several other places on the dial.
The two Windsor transmitter sites are closer to Detroit than 560's, which is south of Monroe and aimed northward. But in Toledo, its signal has been unlistenable for many years now since some adjustment to the directional pattern years ago made it sound out of phase, twisted and shrill. Yet even in Ohio, the 560 sideband spatter still affected the other two stations when I was there a couple of years ago, even tho' the main carrier on 560 is essentially unlistenable a few miles south of Monroe.
Being at the low end of the dial, the much longer wavelengths seem to have something to do with being able to squeeze stations in closer without interference, than the directional arrays, as far as I have been able to determine in this case. But the lack of technical oversight by the FCC in the past dozen years, since the "free for all" (ie, the collapse of industry regulation in favor of financial takeovers by a chosen few) has resulted in reduced listenability to lots of AM signals that used to be just fine in years past. Add in the aging transmitters and ground systems, electrical interference from new traffic signals and unshielded power lines, and crappier AM radio receivers, and you'd got some of the reasons for precipiting the decline of the AM dial. Not to mention program content.
I grew up with WQTE on 560 and CKWW on 580 happily side by side on the Detroit radio dial. And when CBEF came on at 540, I discovered wonderful music styles I had never heard before, and got to love the cadence of the French language enough to eventually study the language and represent musicians who would get airplay on Radio-Canada.
I hope people thruout SE Michigan, plus Toledo and Windsor, can still get to hear CBEF and CKWW without WLLZ's bought and paid for preachers and business charletans pissing all over their signals anymore from its daytime signal splatter. It's a shame to crowd out longstanding signals for some infomercials and barking preachers that few people will ever want to listen to, and which they can't already find at several other places on the dial.
Goldilocks94941 said:
That's an awesome story. Having grown up in the Ottawa area and listening to the on/off bickering over language issues for years, I've come to the conclusion that most Anglos here don't know how lucky they are in having another whole world opened up to them. Although I'm Anglo my-self, I find the francophone influence to be a very important aspect of Canadian culture. Nice to hear that it has also influenced those outside of the traditional francophone boundaries.
~BG
MsMusicRadio said:
Mexico City has a 100 kw on 690, 10 kw on 710 and 100 kw on 730.
When I owned stations in Quito, Ecuador, in the 60's the dial was like this:
550, 570, 590, 610, 640, 660, 680, 700, 720, 740, 760, 785, 805, 835, 860, 880, 900, 920, 940, 960, 990, 1020, 1070, 1090, 1111, 1140, 1160, 1180, 1210, 1225, 1245, 1280, 1310, 1330, 1360, 1380, 1410, 1430, 1460, 1490, 1520, 1540, 1570, 1600. Only one was directional (660) and all were licensed to the same city, no suburbs, and all were fulltime. Mine were 570, 590, 660, 805.
The US standard of separation is for the most part based on the technology of the 30's.
Praytell, what were all of those stations in Quito programming? Was there enough variety in content and target audiences to justify that large number of stations for the population? What kinds of business models did the stations operate under, and how many were commercially viable? Was power output relatively the same among neighboring outlets, and was sideband interference kept to a minimum? (God, even more Seattle AM stations now are chewing up 20kHz and beyond their dial position now - makes it almost impossible to listen to anything else coming in from neighboring markets that otherwise put in an audible signal. But I think that's the FCC not caring anymore that stations can splatter for miles way beyond the 10 or 15kHz that they used to - and I'm not just talking about the interfering hum from HD AM, either.)
But I digress.
I think it'snteresting to understand different radio environments, particularly outside the same old same old scenario we find in the USA. If some enterprising broadcaster really understands what has worked elsewhere, then they might be able to adapt some ideas to an American market and be considered a genius for showing how to make something work other than the 3 or 4 format choices the big guys all seem to provide on AM radio now across the US.
Don't know why they bother to squeeze in more local stations and authorize low power AM nighttime on daytimer freqs when a few high powered transmitters would be more efficient all the way around. I find the programming is pretty much all the same as if it's just a national service doing lite rock, doing CHR, doing pop country, doing conservabot talk, etc now. Since it usually is just a national service running. And that can be OK, but not if that's all we can get, and one signal chews up another one's coverage area just to repeat some other national service already found elsewhere on the dial.
Give me more national services, on satellite and internet radio, but don't wreck the spectrum by doing it a kilowatt at a time, please.
But I digress.
I think it'snteresting to understand different radio environments, particularly outside the same old same old scenario we find in the USA. If some enterprising broadcaster really understands what has worked elsewhere, then they might be able to adapt some ideas to an American market and be considered a genius for showing how to make something work other than the 3 or 4 format choices the big guys all seem to provide on AM radio now across the US.
Don't know why they bother to squeeze in more local stations and authorize low power AM nighttime on daytimer freqs when a few high powered transmitters would be more efficient all the way around. I find the programming is pretty much all the same as if it's just a national service doing lite rock, doing CHR, doing pop country, doing conservabot talk, etc now. Since it usually is just a national service running. And that can be OK, but not if that's all we can get, and one signal chews up another one's coverage area just to repeat some other national service already found elsewhere on the dial.
Give me more national services, on satellite and internet radio, but don't wreck the spectrum by doing it a kilowatt at a time, please.
Goldilocks94941 said:
That was the band in roughly the 1968-1970 period.
There was definitely enough listener diversity by age, gender, socioeconomic and income level and ethnicity to support many business models and formats. The city was about 900,000 and the province about 1.2 million. Average annual income at the time was about U$S 460 a year.
Setting the stage, when I put my first AM on the air there in 1964, there was no commercial TV. There was no FM for 1000 miles in any direction.
Here are a few of the format groups:
Evangelical Christian (the venerable HCJB) with the only 50 kw station in the market
Catholic: 3 stations of three different orders.
Soap operas and drama and humor, mixed with news, sports on 5 stations.
Ecuadorian national music, considerable use of Quechua, on 5 stations. These stations lived selling messages, such as "attention on the El Porvenir Hacienda in the San Ysidro Parrish of the Rumiñahui Canton of the province of Imbabura, the owner arrives at noon today on Andean Bus Lines, send a donkey to town to meet him." and such. And on the big saints days, lines formed down the block to buy song dedications and greetings for family members. All cash, which had an attractiveness there...
Government, state, city and national, 3 stations.
News and comentary and block music shows, about 12 to 15.
Cultural, 2 with anything from Quechua lessons to art discussions.
Instrumental music, AM, two or three.
Block music programming, 8 to 10.
Top 40 hits, 1.
Tropical 3 to 4.
Additionally, there were 5 FMs, all mine. One was a hybrid beautiful music, with a mix of Latin folkloric and national music and instrumentals, another was classical and foreign language (embassy shows) and the others were simulcasts of 3 of my 4 FMs.
Power ranged from 250 watts into a horizontal wire to a half dozen or so with higher power into real vertical antennas with ATUs. I owned 590 and 570, and each was at an opposite end of the city, which was long and narrow... they did not interfere, and we did not restrict bandwidth.
The religious, government and cultural stations did not sell ads. The message stations did not need to. The others ranged from enormously profitable to subsistence level. Every time I needed another station, I could pick one up for less than $5 thousand dollars, throw out the equipment and rebuild... which might have cost $20,000. I built all my transmitters there, as well as many boards and other gear.
The top dozen stations had about 70% of all listening. One group of stations took nearly 50% of all billing in the market.
To maintain the South American flavor we have going on this thread: ;D
In Cali (major city in Colombia), we have two AM stations that are quite close together on the dial. Both licenced to the city itself.
One is located on 1080 and the other at 1110. Separation of about 20 khz.
If you have a quality radio with good selectivity, there's no problem at all.
However, when I lived there back in 1994, I had a small cheap no-name table radio I bought from a street vendor downtown. A brand called "Sankey".
Listening to 1080 was fine. However on 1110, I could hear some faint crosstalk from 1080. Both stations are 10,000 watt transmitters.
Another similar inexpensive radio (a brand called "International") I had bought at a second hand store had even WORSE selectivity. Listening to 1110 was nigh impossible. 1080, though was satisfactory.
(Unrelated extra: And forget about trying to tune in the sportstalk station at 1030. A frigging birdie in the International blotted THAT station out - no matter how well I tried to align the set. :-\ )
Considering the space between 1030 and 1080, I believe that they could have afforded to move 1080 down at least one spot to 1070....or moved 1110 up one to 1120 without screwing with anyone else on the dial. The next local station is 1160.
That small move could help a lot of people with such bad quality receivers (the majority of radio listeners - especially in offices and portables)
Both radios are pretty much shelf queens now that I keep as souvenirs.
In Cali (major city in Colombia), we have two AM stations that are quite close together on the dial. Both licenced to the city itself.
One is located on 1080 and the other at 1110. Separation of about 20 khz.
If you have a quality radio with good selectivity, there's no problem at all.
However, when I lived there back in 1994, I had a small cheap no-name table radio I bought from a street vendor downtown. A brand called "Sankey".
Listening to 1080 was fine. However on 1110, I could hear some faint crosstalk from 1080. Both stations are 10,000 watt transmitters.
Another similar inexpensive radio (a brand called "International") I had bought at a second hand store had even WORSE selectivity. Listening to 1110 was nigh impossible. 1080, though was satisfactory.
(Unrelated extra: And forget about trying to tune in the sportstalk station at 1030. A frigging birdie in the International blotted THAT station out - no matter how well I tried to align the set. :-\ )
Considering the space between 1030 and 1080, I believe that they could have afforded to move 1080 down at least one spot to 1070....or moved 1110 up one to 1120 without screwing with anyone else on the dial. The next local station is 1160.
That small move could help a lot of people with such bad quality receivers (the majority of radio listeners - especially in offices and portables)
Both radios are pretty much shelf queens now that I keep as souvenirs.
L
Laurence Glavin
Guest
Here in Boston, we're going to find out what happens when two 50,000-watt directional stations with high-efficiency antennas pointed at each other duke it out 30 kc apart. Out on a peninsula ESE of Boston, WBZ-AM 1030 will be directing a signal that could broil a passing seagull west toward the city and its suburbs. Out in the town of Ashland (one of those suburbs), WBIX-AM 1060 is boosting its power from 40,000 watts to 50K and aiming it right toward Boston itself...and Ashland is CLOSER to Boston than WBIX's current site in Framingham! CBS doesn't seem to care.
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