AM stations on "High School Football" Power

[nd2023]

It's football season, and with that comes AM stations that stay on day power to broadcast high school football on Friday nights. It's a unique opportunity to log daytimers that you otherwise would never hear.

 

[kenglish]

You have to wonder how many of them would actually send a QSL (with a signature), knowing they are operating illegally.

 

[OKCRadioGuy]

LOL!!!! Oh yes! Many do run that "football post-sunset authorization" LOL! We have several around the state that do just exactly that.

 

[nd2023]

I remember hearing a high school football game broadcast on 880 interfere with WCBS only 50 miles from NYC.

 

[FreddyE1977]

I'm sure the logs all reflect a "legal 17 watts".

And unless they are unlucky enough to have someone standing outside
with a field strength meter, who's to say? (anyone who has one is likely
roaming around looking for someone with a longer-than-regulation antenna
on their Talking House)

 

[audioguy]

I've noticed that a few of the X-band stations are "forgetting" to reduce power to 1 kW at night lately... especially during sports broadcasts. Not necessarily limited to High School sports.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

Is this even legal? I know I would be pretty upset if some football game interfered with a station I owned, or as a listener to a station I was trying to listen to. A football game from some high school across the country is not a compelling reason to violate the terms of a license. After a hurricane strike or other natural disaster, maybe - it is vital information needed by survivors. But football? Not a necessity, does not serve the public interest. They should power down. So many times, the audio sounds like it is fed through a phone line, really poor quality.

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

Actually, what is the reason for reducing power to 1000 watts on X-Band stations? With the Class IVs/Class Cs, they eventually decided that they could almost all go from 250 watts to 1000 watts night. If all countries agree by treaty to go to 10000 watts nighttime, I don't see why they couldn't. Their NIFs would all go up by SQRT 10, their service areas would remain the same, and the signals would all be stronger to overcome electrical noise. A possible exception would be interference on 1600 at night, but there are very few 1610s as I recall.

Now with Class III Regional Class Bs, the situation is different. A single station on full day power and pattern will increase the effective NIF dramatically, and dramatically reduce the service area of the well protected stations. I often hear interference to well protected Class III/Class B stations that appears to be coming from stations with PSSAs staying on day power.

 

[nd2023]

I don't even know why stations stay on day power just for football. And the FCC does nothing. The interference is worse than IBUZ.

 

[Bongwater]

I'm sure the logs all reflect a "legal 17 watts".

And unless they are unlucky enough to have someone standing outside
with a field strength meter, who's to say? (anyone who has one is likely
roaming around looking for someone with a longer-than-regulation antenna
on their Talking House)

With all the stations that constantly get away with what they're doing. I don't know who but the most egregious violators gets docked anymore.

But then again, you're probably right. These germ-power Talking Houses are the "problem". It also might help if these station owners have deep enough pockets and/or resources to, shall we say, make the inspectors look the other way......

 

[nd2023]

The FCC would have a field day just listening to the AM band on a Friday night in Washington DC, then noting which stations are carrying football, then IDing those stations. Any of those stations that are supposed to be off or at flea power at night would be listed in a database. The following Friday night, they alert the local FCC offices to send inspectors to those stations. They need to prove that the station is operating at high power at night, because simple DX isn't enough proof (think of how many complaints the FCC gets every time there's a major tropo or e-skip opening).

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

From what I've observed, some of the big players are doing the Friday Night Lights "STAs". These football games sell out the spot load, and I've heard the sales/managerial quote, "I can't even hear the station at the studios when it's on low (PSSA) power. How can it possibly interfere with stations hundreds of miles away?"

 

[rbrucecarter5]

From what I've observed, some of the big players are doing the Friday Night Lights "STAs". These football games sell out the spot load, and I've heard the sales/managerial quote, "I can't even hear the station at the studios when it's on low (PSSA) power. How can it possibly interfere with stations hundreds of miles away?"

Ah - its all about money. Too bad - the station managers know the terms of the license. If they leave power up for football, why not for other reasons? Like to play commercials. And their lack of understanding of the basic noise floor on a given frequency is not an excuse. The license says power down, so they need to power down or be shut down. Period.

 

[FreddyE1977]

A football game from some high school across the country is not a compelling reason to violate the terms of a license. After a hurricane strike or other natural disaster, maybe - it is vital information needed by survivors. But football? Not a necessity, does not serve the public interest.

Obviously you have never lived in Western Pennsylvania. ;D

 

[cyberdad]

Is this even legal?.......

......A football game from some high school across the country is not a compelling reason to violate the terms of a license. After a hurricane strike or other natural disaster, maybe - it is vital information needed by survivors. But football? Not a necessity, does not serve the public interest.

From my own experience, I can see both sides of the argument. I began my career over four decades ago at a small town AM/FM combo. A true mom & pop shoestring operation. The AM was a daytimer. The high school sports went on the FM. So there was NO powering up....we were OFF. Period.

But high school sports was a cash cow....and a true win-win. We went out of our way to max the visibility of our "sports boosters" with good exposure throughout the broadcast day. The sponsor feedback was almost 100% positive, and the volume of phone calls we got if the line went down (fortunately very rarely) proved the strong community interest. (Admittedly this was in the day before internet, 300-channel CATV, etc.)

But there was another community benefit as well.... The revenue we got from high school sports enabled us to be able to afford things like staff to cover city council and school board meetings. The results of which would otherwise not get reported until the twice-weekly newspaper came out. It also
gave us "breathing room" to better maintain other operational aspects, including public service. It might not even be a stretch to say that at least one staffer could have owed his or her job to high school sports income.

Fast forward to today. My guess is that perhaps some small AM stations are finding that the revenue from high school sports is a vital component to their very survival. Or perhaps a keeping segment of "live and local" programming versus the bird. If it's a case of whether or not some small community gets to keep some or all of its local service....then a couple of hours of "looking the other way" would seem to be a small price to pay.

So the bottom line is that while I agree that operating at a higher-than authorized power should not be condoned, I also see more upside than downside in the FCC looking the other way. That said, my personal view is that the de-facto "STA" should ONLY be allowed AS LONG AS there are no listener complaints or documentable interference complaints from co-channel stations. Abuses such as extending the daytime power/pattern beyond the sports broadcast should also bring about a crackdown.

Just one man's humble opinion.

 

[Bongwater]

Is this even legal?.......

......A football game from some high school across the country is not a compelling reason to violate the terms of a license. After a hurricane strike or other natural disaster, maybe - it is vital information needed by survivors. But football? Not a necessity, does not serve the public interest.

From my own experience, I can see both sides of the argument. I began my career over four decades ago at a small town AM/FM combo. A true mom & pop shoestring operation. The AM was a daytimer. The high school sports went on the FM. So there was NO powering up....we were OFF. Period.

But high school sports was a cash cow....and a true win-win. We went out of our way to max the visibility of our "sports boosters" with good exposure throughout the broadcast day. The sponsor feedback was almost 100% positive, and the volume of phone calls we got if the line went down (fortunately very rarely) proved the strong community interest. (Admittedly this was in the day before internet, 300-channel CATV, etc.)

But there was another community benefit as well.... The revenue we got from high school sports enabled us to be able to afford things like staff to cover city council and school board meetings. The results of which would otherwise not get reported until the twice-weekly newspaper came out. It also
gave us "breathing room" to better maintain other operational aspects, including public service. It might not even be a stretch to say that at least one staffer could have owed his or her job to high school sports income.

Fast forward to today. My guess is that perhaps some small AM stations are finding that the revenue from high school sports is a vital component to their very survival. Or perhaps a keeping segment of "live and local" programming versus the bird. If it's a case of whether or not some small community gets to keep some or all of its local service....then a couple of hours of "looking the other way" would seem to be a small price to pay.

So the bottom line is that while I agree that operating at a higher-than authorized power should not be condoned, I also see more upside than downside in the FCC looking the other way. That said, my personal view is that the de-facto "STA" should ONLY be allowed AS LONG AS there are no listener complaints or documentable interference complaints from co-channel stations. Abuses such as extending the daytime power/pattern beyond the sports broadcast should also bring about a crackdown.

Just one man's humble opinion.

I understand your point and even agree with you on many points. But the problem is like this - if you make an exception for one, prepare to make exceptions for ALL. And that has consequences of it's own.

When WLW went superpower (500,000 watts) in the 1930s, many other radio stations demanded the same status and even made their own plans. Of course the FCC wasn't having any of it, but back then the FCC was a MUCH more powerful entity than it is today. It wasn't at the mercy of radio industry political lobbyists and lawyers like it is today.

Broadcasting a high school football game does count as a community service. It's one of those increasingly rare times local radio is doing something LOCAL instead of running something off the bird or the MP3 player. It's not a life or death thing, but it does fit the bill of their license agreement.

But today, you can find anyone who can make the argument that running anything (including non locally originating programming) that adds extra advertising money is "a community service" Get the right lawyer, a sympathetic politician and an army of support from other stations eager to do the same thing and you have a real mess.

 

[nocomradio]

Heck, most high school football seasons seem to last about 2 months max. Is that really that big a problem for that short a time?

Sure, if you follow the letter of the law, its a definite issue, but after evening drive time, just exactly who is being underserved on the same AM dial everyone here says is dying because of a failure to power down for a couple hours?

 

[audioguy]

Well, if it's OK to let licensed stations operate outside their licensed parameters (power and antenna patterns) at night to broadcast football games, I say we let the Talking House stations put their antennas on water towers so they can cover their local communities better. Many of them do more local programming than the licensed stations do.

 

[spunker88]

The AM band today is full of interference from modern electronics, jamming adjacent frequencies with HD Radio is legal. Its probably hard for these stations to get noticed by the average (non-DX) listener since most of them have a daytime power level less than 5kw.

 

[Icangelp]

The only people who listen to AM at night are DX'ers and old people who are tuned to AM but think it's FM...and people tuning in for Friday night football on the local daytimer running a bit late. I say, more (night) power to them. In this case, rules were meant to be broken.