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Bay Area Radio Predictions for 2011
- Thread starter HenryOchs
- Start date
Lkeller said:
Nope...he doesn't, Llew. You were supposed to wait until 2011 to say it.
weav said:
Even 2010-13 seems too soon to me. I realized AM is becoming more and more irrelevant, but KCBS had decent ratings just a couple of years ago before the simulcast with 106.9 - not to mention the fact that they're the Bay Area's only commercial All News station. I would think that AM 740 gives their signal a reach that 106.9 can't provide. Maybe somebody can weigh in whio has knowledge about the respective reach of the two signals - not to mention the actual cost of "maintaining the plant" relative to the advantages of keeping 740 on the air.
Agree. Won't happen for a long time. No FM really blankets the whole Bay Area. If this were a Dallas, and was flat, a 100Kw FM on a 2000 foot stick could blanket the metro and surrounding area. Not true here, that's why the high power AMs have done as well has they have for so long here.
Madmansam said:
Considering KMEL is the only urban contemporary (not Urban Adult Contemporary which is a different format) west of the Rockies and a money maker for CC because of its call letters (and the history associated with them), I highly doubt it. The station has actually gone up in ratings as well.
SFStatic said:
That's interesting. I figured the most prized stations with flamethrower signals was located on the Sutro Tower. However, I know even those signals have trouble reaching San Jose and the South Bay, which technically another market.
As one brilliant engineer once explained to me (simplified so I could understand every other word or so), it's not just the West and East Bay hills, but the Bay itself affects FM signals and causes something like multipath distortion. Our terrain is somewhat unique here. Again, if it's flat, FM is "line of sight," and the coverage is great in all directions. Having worked on a few high power FMs in one of the fly over states, and owning part of several that cover millions of jackrabbits, I have a little knowledge about this.
SFStatic said:
I guess that explains why KNTV was playing translators tag in Frisco and the North Bay until its tower moved to San Bruno Mountain in northern San Mateo County. However, they still have signaling issues now more than ever in South Bay, where San Jose, its city of license, is suppose to be thanks to this move. The Bay Area is one peculiar TV and radio market(s) because of the signal issues.
Picky Picky, Picky!
BossRadioDJ said:
No Frisco as in the nickname that my cousin whom grew up in the Bay Area calls San Francisco.
kilamanjero said:
The only Sutro station with a real flamethrower signal is KOIT, and even they don't have nearly the market-wide coverage of KQED. The Height Above Average Terrain for Sutro is so high that the licensed power levels from that location are not that great. Even KQED, with 110,000 watts on Mt. San Bruno, has some trouble in parts of the market. Yeah, this place just isn't made for FM.
Dave B.
M
musicman3355
Guest
Where exactly do the SF FMs have signal issues? I know they cover downtown SF and the East Bay well.
Some FM's (espialcaly the ones without boosters) can be scrachy in the Diablo Valley, and HD out here is non-exitent(exept KDFC because it has an HD booster out here)
musicman3355 said:
There are 3 main sites for SF FM's:
Mt. Beacon - just across the Golden Gate in Marin County
Mt. San Bruno - Just south of SF
Sutro Tower.
Both the Mt. Beacon and Sutro stations put incredible field strength into downtown San Francisco, but the San Bruno stations suffer from some shadowing. But they get much better coverage down the peninsula and into San Jose, where there are lots of listeners.
Mt. Beacon stations generally have trouble in San Jose because of distance, and in northern San Mateo County because of shadowing from Mt. San Bruno. Pretty much the same with Sutro stations, although to a lesser extent. Everyone has trouble once you get North to the Santa Rosa area, because of the hills. But Mt. Beacon stations aren't as bad as Sutro & San Bruno.
San Jose has an interesting problem with the boosters on Mt. Diablo. In some places there is mutual interference because Diablo is a clearer shot to San Jose than the San Francisco transmitter sites. So the signals are strong but full of multipath.
If you happen to be in any of the canyons on either the peninsula or the East Bay you pretty much have trouble with everything, and - as mentioned elsewhere - anything East of the East Bay hills has trouble if there's no boosters.
Dave B.
DaveBayArea said:
The bigger issue is that the market goes from Campbell to just north of Santa Rosa, and is pretty much defined by the coverage of the bigger AM stations under the 55/15 rule.
KQED can be really hard to pick up here in Concord, however they do have a translator in Martinez at 88.1 and it comes it okay (the signal strength of the translator is about the same as KQED itself here in Concors
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