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Dodgers Baseball

Personally, I'd welcome a move away from KFWB. In the hills of the Westside at nite, 5 kw 980 is buzzy and crackly - not the kind of in-Metro signal one would expect for a major league baseball team - especially in market #2!

Too bad they can't be on KSPN with that 50k blowtorch, but I understand the conflicts with Trojans football.

It a shame there doesn't seem to be a situation comparable to the Padres and 1090 - a big signal sports formatted station that could devote considerable airtime to Dodgers coverage, even outside of play-by-play.

I'm also wondering how the Angels will fare on KLAA 830. Even though it's 50kw, it ain't real loud in much of LA.

Nick Gerard
 
Nick Gerard said:
Personally, I'd welcome a move away from KFWB. In the hills of the Westside at nite, 5 kw 980 is buzzy and crackly - not the kind of in-Metro signal one would expect for a major league baseball team - especially in market #2!

Too bad they can't be on KSPN with that 50k blowtorch, but I understand the conflicts with Trojans football.

It a shame there doesn't seem to be a situation comparable to the Padres and 1090 - a big signal sports formatted station that could devote considerable airtime to Dodgers coverage, even outside of play-by-play.

I'm also wondering how the Angels will fare on KLAA 830. Even though it's 50kw, it ain't real loud in much of LA.

Nick Gerard
Click to expand...

Nick, KSPN's "blowtorch" signal drops to a directional 10,000 watts at night and KLAA's 830 AM 50,000 watts powers down to 20,000 watts at night. Being that KSPN's transmitter is in the North Hollywood/Van Nuys area, reception is not a problem for those on the westside of LA. But Orange County folk complain about hearing Angels games even in the Stadium parking lot at night! Methinks the Angels might need another affiliate for adequate SF Valley coverage.

There's only a few "big signal" stations around anyway... KFI, KNX, and KLAC. The Angels won't be on any of those and the Dodgers would not like playing second fiddle to the Lakers in April and May on KLAC.
 
97.1 is running Dodger play by play on their HD- 2 channel.
 
"There's only a few "big signal" stations around anyway... KFI, KNX, and KLAC. The Angels won't be on any of those and the Dodgers would not like playing second fiddle to the Lakers in April and May on KLAC."
Click to expand...

KLAC is only 5kw and directional, at night, as well. All of the other "big signals" have to reduce power and run tightly directional at night. KFI is presently also at half power due to the tower collapse so that would leave only KNX, the sister station to KFWB, as the 50,000 watt blowtorch in town.
 
KLAC's 5,000 watts at 570 is a better signal than KTLK's 50,000 watts at 1150 due to dial position. Same for KABC's 5,000 watts at 790 vs. KFWB's 5,000 at 980.
 
nmoore6676 said:
KLAC is only 5kw and directional, at night, as well. All of the other "big signals" have to reduce power and run tightly directional at night. KFI is presently also at half power due to the tower collapse so that would leave only KNX, the sister station to KFWB, as the 50,000 watt blowtorch in town.
Click to expand...

The factors are more than power.

1. 1 kw on 540 covers like abut 50 kw on 1600, all other things equal.
2. The conductivity of the transmitter location is very important. KABC's site is much better than KFWB's. KFI's is better than 710, 1110, 1540, etc.
3. The directionality may favor a station... like KTNQ which sents the equvalent of about 200 kw over LA.
4. Location of the site. KFI's site is much nearer being at the population center of the market than KNX, which loses 60% of its signal over water.
5. The efficiency of the antenna system is also a factor... half wave towers create greater coverage for the same power than quarter wavers.

So, even at 25 kw (a 25% reduction in coverage from 50 kw) KFI covers more and better than KNX due to location, conductivity, and lower dial position.

KLAC and KNX, in fact, have, for any power level, nearly identical coverage except for the fact that KNX extends a bit more on the shoreline up and down the coast due to the Torrance transmitter location. 570 5 kw on 570 is equivalent to abut 40 kw on 1070, in fact.
 
KLAC's 5,000 watts at 570 is a better signal than KTLK's 50,000 watts at 1150 due to dial position. Same for KABC's 5,000 watts at 790 vs. KFWB's 5,000 at 980.
Click to expand...

Depends on where you are, I am in North Hollywood. Of the 5K signals my best is KABC, then KLAC, and last KFWB which is noisy all day and night. KLAC is noisy at night (after they go directional) and KABC is fairly consistent. KTLK is on a five tower directional array shared with KTNQ near City of Industry. KNX and KFI (normally) are non-directional with 50 thousand watts because they are on the originally set up "clear channels". Generally the lower frequency stations propagate better on the groundwave in comparison to the higher channels where the sky wave signal comes in closer to the station as well as from distant co-channel and adjacent channels.

Stations now are trying for higher powers to get over the major amount of electrical noise and once IBOC comes on at night that will be much worse in many areas. Nevertheless a 50KW highly directional signal can pale against non-directional 5 or 10KW signal in most cases as far as coverage over a metro area like LA.
 
There was talk some time back of them moving to the site (I believe it's Irwindale) where KDIS's transmitter is located. Property values in North Hollywood were so attractive that it made sense to sell the site for development, and it didn't make sense to maintain two xmtr locations. Don't know if that's still the plan.
 
Something to keep in mind about KABC is the transmitter is located close to the "movers and shakers" of LA media. Life is good when you have lots of signal where the opinion makers live their lives.

I agree that KLAC is a good choice for sports radio. Note the night time directional pattern of KLAC produces gain over much of LA, compared to the non directional day signal. Most listeners in Orange County and Los Angeles will have more signal at night from KLAC than during the daytime.

http://www.fcc.gov/ftp/Bureaus/MB/Databases/AM_DA_patterns/314669-24241.pdf

Low frequencies like 570 will experience more electrical interference, though.
 
KFWB's signal is pretty poor in quite a few places....and doesn't travel nearly as far as the Dodgers fan base is spread.

Moreover, having a 24 hour headline-based news station, one that people depend on for a quick hit of news/weather/traffic, suddenly lapse into a breezy 4 hour baseball broadcast.... I would think that would frustrate and confuse some of the audience. You'd think KFWB would want to stick with "All News...All the Time."
 
Greg Strickland said:
Something to keep in mind about KABC is the transmitter is located close to the "movers and shakers" of LA media. Life is good when you have lots of signal where the opinion makers live their lives.
Click to expand...

It's also on some pretty high conductivity former swampland... no doubt the reaspon why La Cienega means "the swamp."
 
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