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Daytimers with extended hours

M

MsMusicRadio

Guest
Other than WHLO in Akron and WJJD in Chicago, were their other AM daytimers that could stay on the air until sundown in another time zone? WLIB?

Thanks
 
Yes, WLIB was one.

They're known as "limited time" stations. Off the top of my head, others included KMMJ in Nebraska and now-defunct WHEB in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. I'm pretty sure that's not a complete list.
 
I admit, I cheated....was looking at old Vane Jones books online that Mr. Eduardo put up for us....

WMBI 1110 also in Chicago was one...is it still one? KFAB is not too far away.

Also a reverse one, a Pacific station which would (apparently) go on air early in the morning after Pittsburgh sunrise: KGBS 1020.

There coulda been others, but those two offhand.

Do such stations still exist?

cd
 
Yes, limited-time stations still exist, but the FCC rules say they won't issue any new ones. (since 1960 IIRC)

The other element with regard to these.. was that they were allowed to operate during any hours the dominant station didn't use. So if KDKA signed off at midnight Pittsburgh time, KGBS could come back on the air at that hour -- which would be 9:00 in California.

Obviously not very useful today (with virtually every station that's licensed to operate 24/7 doing so) but years ago it might have been worthwhile..
 
In the early 60's KDKA DID sign off on Sunday nights at Midnight Eastern time until 5 AM. KGBS DID INDEED come back on the air at 9 PM Pacific Time and signed off again at 2AM Pacific (or 5AM Pittsburgh Time). At that time, KGBS had a 5-hour Jazz Program. IIRC, the host was a Nick Powers.
 
cd637299 said:
I admit, I cheated....was looking at old Vane Jones books online that Mr. Eduardo put up for us....

WMBI 1110 also in Chicago was one...is it still one? KFAB is not too far away.

Also a reverse one, a Pacific station which would (apparently) go on air early in the morning after Pittsburgh sunrise: KGBS 1020.

There coulda been others, but those two offhand.

Do such stations still exist?
Click to expand...

There were a number of extended hour daytimers, including KFVD/KPOP/KGBS in Los Angeles. This 1020 station also signed on at sunrise in Pittsburgh, allowing it to have possibly the first Spanish language programming in the market starting at 4 AM every day.

640 in Akron could stay on till sunset in LA; I believe Ames, IA on the same channel could do the same.

IIRC, WTIC in CT stays or stayed on day facilities until sunset in Dallas on 1080.

I don't recall all of them, but there were more. There were also some Limited Hours stations that got special consent to run less than the minimum daily schedule for their class, such as a former Class IV running 6 AM to 7 PM daily.
 
DavidEduardo said:
There were also some Limited Hours stations that got special consent to run less than the minimum daily schedule for their class, such as a former Class IV running 6 AM to 7 PM daily.
Click to expand...

The formal term was "Specified Hours".
 
Here's another oddity..... WCKY-1530 in Cincinnati stays on Daytime, non-directional facilities until sunset in Sacramento (KFBK) and then goes directional to the East until Cincinnati sunrise.
 
WVSG (820 AM) in Columbus, formerly known as WOSU, is non-directional until Dallas sunset, when it goes sharply directional to protect WBAP. It also changes tower facilities at this time, from a one-tower setup at Ohio State's golf course to a six-tower array on Columbus' southwest side.
 
KR4BD said:
Here's another oddity..... WCKY-1530 in Cincinnati stays on Daytime, non-directional facilities until sunset in Sacramento (KFBK) and then goes directional to the East until Cincinnati sunrise.




How is that possible?
Click to expand...
 
FRR said:
KR4BD said:
Here's another oddity..... WCKY-1530 in Cincinnati stays on Daytime, non-directional facilities until sunset in Sacramento (KFBK) and then goes directional to the East until Cincinnati sunrise.




How is that possible?
Click to expand...


Years ago, WCKY and KFBK were the ONLY stations allowed to operate on 1530 at night. BOTH had 50KW day and night. In order to do this, they "protected" each other at night. Since sunset came about 2 or 3 hours later at KFBK's location in Sacramento, WCKY was allowed to continue operating with their Daytime, Non-Directional pattern until sunset in Sacramento. I know this to be true because when WCKY switched to the night pattern, the signal is very sharply cutoff to the west. I have been in Central Colorado in recent years and been able to hear WCKY clearly on 1530 a hour or two AFTER sunset in Colorado. Soon after that, it totally disappears when the sun sets in Sacramento. I believe they still do this. I will check with a Clear Channel engineer I know who is very close to the situation to see if this is still being done.
Click to expand...
 
When it was on 830, WNYC New York was able to stay on until around 9 pm or so. Of course, the dominant station on that channel was WCCO Minneapolis/St. Paul. Also in New York, WLIB stayed on the air until sunset in Fort Wayne, to protect WOWO. Eventually, of course, WLIB parent Inner City Broadcasting bought WOWO and reduced the power to enable WLIB to stay on at night.
WINS did something similar some years back. The now-defunct KLRA Little Rock was also on 1010, at 10 kw-D and 5 kw night. Westinghouse bought KLRA and shut it down.
 
WCKY still has its specified hours license.

How about the 5AM sign-on that many daytimers had before pre-sunrise hours were more universally assigned? I've always wondered about that.
 
The old WHDH in Boston (originally on 830, moving to 850 in 1941) was able to stay on the air until sunset in Denver (a bit more than two hours after sunset in Boston) until 1942 (to protect Denver's KOA, which used 830 and then 850).

This meant that (according to some vintage Boston Globe radio listings from 1941) WHDH's sign-off ranged from 6:30 P.M. (in Decemebr) to 10:30 P.M. (in June).

In early 1942, the FCC allowed WHDH to broadcast full-time. On March 15th of that year (according to that day's Boston Globe, the station began broadcasting until 12 Midnight.
 
To answer Williamb3, when WNYC New York was on 830 kilocycles, they were allowed to broadcast daily until 10 P.M. during World War II, and were able to keep that sign-off time until the station moved to 820.
 
As I recall, WTIC was ordered to start changing patterns at sunset when WOAP Owosso, MI was approved for nighttime service at Waverly, MI. WNWI Oak Lawn, IL also had separate night patterns applied for or approved for post sunset operation before and after KRLD sunset/WTIC pattern change. I believe this is still in effect, even though the Waverly CP was not built. WTIC limited time nondirectional service was found to be intended to be groundwave local service, not skywave, so the groundwave, not the skywave needed to be protected. David may remember this more accurately without finding the explanation online.

You could get really involved with this with the situation every 15 minutes with signoffs and pattern changes, and SS+0.25, SS+0.5, SS+1, SS+2,... skywave prediction curves at each station and make it very complex. The truth is that other 1080s interfered and interfere with WTIC before and immediately after sunset anyway.
 
WHCU in Ithaca, NY was also one of those specified hours stations, which would run 5,000 watts daytime on 870 until sunset, then power down to 1000 watts and stay on the air for another hour until New Orleans sunset, when they'd have to sign off to make way for WWL to dominate the channel over the eastern 2/3 of the country.

Some years ago they installed a 3-tower directional array with a sharp null to the southwest toward Louisiana, then got authorization to operate 24/7 with 5000 watts daytime, 1000 watts directional at night, becoming one more round-the-clock regional station.
 
I believe starting in the late 70's or early 1980's the now-defunct WMMM 1260 in Westport use to be able to stay on some limited time after sunset at a reduced power of 50 watts. The late Art Silver of Harris modified the station's MW-1 transmitter with a third power setting to accommodate the 50 watts power level. The station was later granted a post-sunset nighttime power of 9 watts that would kick in after a certain time of running at 50 watts.

I thought I had it bad until I heard the fact at least one daytimer got a post-sunset power of 3 watts - like, really? A light bulb got out further than the RF power!
 
Bill DeFelice said:
I believe starting in the late 70's or early 1980's the now-defunct WMMM 1260 in Westport use to be able to stay on some limited time after sunset at a reduced power of 50 watts. The late Art Silver of Harris modified the station's MW-1 transmitter with a third power setting to accommodate the 50 watts power level. The station was later granted a post-sunset nighttime power of 9 watts that would kick in after a certain time of running at 50 watts.

I thought I had it bad until I heard the fact at least one daytimer got a post-sunset power of 3 watts - like, really? A light bulb got out further than the RF power!
Click to expand...

WCBR Richmond, KY would drop to 3 watts at sundown and an hour later would drop to a watt before signing off an hour later. The station was at 1110 and actually got out well for very little power. This ended when WBT lost their towers from Hugo and operated non-directional. Poor little 1 watt WCBR was clobbered until WBT rebuilt the towers.
 
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