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AM Stations with the largest amount of towers

K

Kevin

Guest
I remember back in the mid 70’s when CKJD AM in Sarnia, Ontario moved from 1250 to 1110 and had a 16 tower array. CKJD is no longer an AM station and had moved to 106.3 during the 90’s. Is a 16 tower array the largest?
 
I might be wrong on the 16 towers and apologize for that. According to the FCC info website they still have the data on CKJD/CKTY 1110 Sarnia, that station had 4 daytime and 9 nighttime towers so that would make a 13 tower array.
 
Kevin said:
I might be wrong on the 16 towers and apologize for that. According to the FCC info website they still have the data on CKJD/CKTY 1110 Sarnia, that station had 4 daytime and 9 nighttime towers so that would make a 13 tower array.
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I suspect they used (4) of the (9) towers on their day pattern. So, this would have been a 9-tower array.

Bob
 
I believe CHOK uses 6 at Night, but 3 Days, but I don't know if there is an extra tower or two Days. The Day pattern is like the old 5 kW nondirectional signal toward the US. The IDF in excess of the old 5 kW nondirectional goes into Canada.

WMKM 1440 did have 12 total, 6 Days and 6 Nights, two separate arrays.

WMUZ 1200 has 4 Day, 10 Night, 10 total.

WCAR 1090 has 10 towers, a 4 Day and 6 Night with the same array center.

WNZK 690/680 has 6 Day and 6 Night, 8 total to steer the maxima different directions Day and Night.

WFDF 910 uses an 8 tower "near parallelogram" arrangement, Day and Night.

When you get to 7 and 6, even more. Only comparable number of towers DA market is Toronto.
 
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Looks like one extra tower in between two Night pattern towers for the Day pattern of CHOK. For some reason, you can't see towers or doghouses on a satellite map photograph. One map looks like the array is deliberately obscured.

CKJD/CKTY may have used 4 in a line Days, a multiplicative cardioid to protect WUNN 1110 Mason.

Just checked. It's a 1 3 3 1 multiplicative binomial design, just slightly doglegged for slight asymmetry with the fourth tower.

am_pattern.php
 
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Then there's KNTH 1070 in Houston, with an 11-tower array (though not all are used at once), adding up to more total feet of steel in the air (4551') than any other AM site anywhere.

It's at the bottom of this page on my site:

www.fybush.com

Site of the Week 11/13/2020: Wrapping up Houston

Text and photos by SCOTT FYBUSH We were only there for a couple of days in September 2019, but we
www.fybush.com
 
gr8oldies said:
As I recall at one time WLQV (ex-WDEE, WCZY) had 12 towers.
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You are correct, back in the late 80’s the owner of WLQV sold part of the land to K-Mart Corporation so they could build a store on it. At that point WLQV became a 9 tower array.
 
Looks like CKTY had 12 towers total, 9 in a 3 X 3 array for Night , 3 more in a slightly dogleg along with a tower common to the Day and Night array. This from analysis of the Cavell and Mertz site information. The CKJD 1250 site was reported to have had 16 towers, not sure about the arrangements for Day and Night.
 
Schroedingers Cat said:
Looks like CKTY had 12 towers total, 9 in a 3 X 3 array for Night , 3 more in a slightly dogleg along with a tower common to the Day and Night array. This from analysis of the Cavell and Mertz site information. The CKJD 1250 site was reported to have had 16 towers, not sure about the arrangements for Day and Night.
Click to expand...
So what I heard back then on the 16 towers was somewhat true. Thanks for the info.
 
Here's a link to the CHOK Daytime Pattern. The pattern toward the US is very close to the 5 kW Daytime nondirectional signal when it was 5 kW Day 1 kW Night Nondirectional. Never did figure out how they authorized WOAP Owosso on 1080. Maybe there was some kind of agreement between the two. WOAP 1080 was 250 watts until the early 1960s.

am_pattern.php

CKTY 1110 would also have had to protect from overlap of the 0.5 mV/m signals with WTAM 1100 in the US, and under the present Agreement with WDFN, 15 mV/m to 0.5 mV/m, or 30:1 signal ratios in the US.
 
Just analyzed the array. For one thing, from the map, it looks like it was actually on the vacant looking property to the North and East. Looks like the coordinates are wrong. This happens frequently on FCCdata.org, and it looks like the FCC coordinates are wrong.

There are two rows of five towers along about a 330/150 axis. That's the Night array. Then there are two West of the lines of towers, completing a six tower parallelogram with four of the ten towers. That is the Day array.

So it looks like a total of 12 towers.
 
Schroedingers Cat said:
Just analyzed the array. For one thing, from the map, it looks like it was actually on the vacant looking property to the North and East. Looks like the coordinates are wrong. This happens frequently on FCCdata.org, and it looks like the FCC coordinates are wrong.

There are two rows of five towers along about a 330/150 axis. That's the Night array. Then there are two West of the lines of towers, completing a six tower parallelogram with four of the ten towers. That is the Day array.

So it looks like a total of 12 towers.
Click to expand...


I agree the LAT/LON isn't quite correct.

I think two of the towers for the day array are actually between the two lines of five towers.

I had to go back to some of the earlier Google Earth shots to get some clearer views of the property.

Use the Google Earth search on this LAT/LON:

42 53 59.76n 78 57 19.81w

That is about halfway between the two center towers of the day array and go back to the Google Earth imagery dated June 2014. That image is much clearer to see all 12 towers.


The day pattern uses the north two towers of the west set of five, the two towers centered on the above LAT/LON and the south two towers of the east set of five.
 
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