Flint was the 50th largest city in the 1930 Census, the highest it ever achieved. Like many cities who didn't annex a lot of land, like Toledo and Fort Wayne have, the most people who left since 1960, when the population was almost 200000, moved to outlying areas of Genesee County. The total population of all of Genesee County in 2020 still exceeds the population in 1960. The out county areas were not affected by the Water Crisis, as they used another pipeline branch and water processing plant.
Someone told me a long time ago that WFDF had the opportunity to move to a Class I facility, but declined. The owner at the time, and callsign meaning initials, Frank D. Fallain, apparently didn't see the need to be that powerful. The station was 100 watts on 1310 until 1941, when they moved to 910 with 1000 watts full-time, with one of the first 40 AM BC directional antennas authorized. They probably could have been 5000 watts Day and Night with 3 or 4 towers if they had done it early, but they probably needed two phasors for Day and Night. They would probably have been an interference contributor to more of the newer stations with 5000 watts Night. That would have allowed them to just decrease IDF 10% toward those stations, which probably would have allowed 50000 watts Night, like WWJ and WXYT, as well as Day when they moved in 2006. Due to the Ratchet Clause, only a handful of Class III stations on Regional Channels have been able to upgrade to 50000 watts full-time. Also, I suspect that WTMJ 620 could have been more than 10000 watts Night if the software and computers Glen Clark developed had been available at the time they upgraded. It likely would have involved some slight dog leg arrangements rather than a parallelogram, which creates pattern asymmetry and "null steering" possibilities. This often allows much more power, with little or no more land.
Someone told me a long time ago that WFDF had the opportunity to move to a Class I facility, but declined. The owner at the time, and callsign meaning initials, Frank D. Fallain, apparently didn't see the need to be that powerful. The station was 100 watts on 1310 until 1941, when they moved to 910 with 1000 watts full-time, with one of the first 40 AM BC directional antennas authorized. They probably could have been 5000 watts Day and Night with 3 or 4 towers if they had done it early, but they probably needed two phasors for Day and Night. They would probably have been an interference contributor to more of the newer stations with 5000 watts Night. That would have allowed them to just decrease IDF 10% toward those stations, which probably would have allowed 50000 watts Night, like WWJ and WXYT, as well as Day when they moved in 2006. Due to the Ratchet Clause, only a handful of Class III stations on Regional Channels have been able to upgrade to 50000 watts full-time. Also, I suspect that WTMJ 620 could have been more than 10000 watts Night if the software and computers Glen Clark developed had been available at the time they upgraded. It likely would have involved some slight dog leg arrangements rather than a parallelogram, which creates pattern asymmetry and "null steering" possibilities. This often allows much more power, with little or no more land.
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