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DXing With WDTW 1310 (The Old Keener 13) Off The Air

S

Schroedingers Cat

Yesterday about 3:00 PM I heard CIWW Ottawa on 1310 since WDTW signed off the air December 31, 2012.

Clear Channel sold the land WDTW's antenna array is on for a shopping mall or industrial park. Clear Channel has donated the station license to a group that looks for new owners. They are going to take down the 6 towers near I-94 and Telegraph Rd. They are most likely going to have to go STA nondirectional to get back on the air fast enough to keep the license. Some stations have done this for extended periods. They could be permanently licensed as Class D nondirectional with about 1000 watts daytime, but would be restricted to about 30 watts nighttime with a ~1/4 wave antenna. That would limit future options due to the infamous ratchet clause and other unpopular new FCC AM rules.

STA would most likely be limited to 1250 watts nondirectional.
 
Any existing towers in the neighborhood where they might be able to diplex? Just curious.
 
Heard CIWW 1310 Ottawa, ON today at high solar noon. Also about 12:10 local time. Frequent weather reports with a high of -7 are a clue.

I'll send you a PM about the diplex situation.
 
The biggest challenge, at least in my back-of-the-envelope review of the situation, is WEXL on 1340. It was there long before WKMH/WKNR moved down the dial from 1540 to 1310, and it restricts how close 1310 can get to the core of Detroit, because the 25 mV/m contours of 1310 and 1340 cannot overlap. Then you've got second-adjacent protections to 1290 in Saline and 1330 in Flint to cope with, restricting how far west or north you can take the 1310 signal.

The bottom line is that anyone who ends up with the 1310 license has two choices: accept that what you have is essentially a daytimer, locate it somewhere west/south of Detroit as either a reduced-power non-DA (probably a kilowatt or so) or a diplexed directional (in which case you might get somewhere close to the 5 kW the Dearborn facility used), and pretty much give up on nights...or go broke spending high-six/low-seven figures getting approval for and then building an elaborate multi-tower DA, which will still have the same limitations the old six-tower array did, putting very little signal over Detroit itself or up where the money is north of Eight Mile.

There are some more complex plays, too, that would involve shutting down some even less valuable outlying AMs...but that's where the "paid consultant" hat goes on.
 
Frankly, I think the reason they donated it to MMTC is to keep it away from Salem, Crawford, and Birach, who are the most likely to benefit from acquiring it. I've done some analysis over the years. Second adjacents aren't really much of a problem. WTLC limits the maximum power achievable at night, and possibly WIBA. Most Regional Bs, formerly IIIs, can't get much past 20-25 kW because of the standard pattern minimum limitation. WDTW has a moderately high NIF, above 10 mV/m, so without eliminating the night cochannels, you still aren't going to get that much improvement. There's already 8 50 kW day AM stations in the market if you count CKLW. Frankly, Detroit isn't that hot a market any more, below Top 10, to warrant buying out a bunch of stations or put up an ultradogleg array like WXYT. I wouldn't sacrifice any more licenses for day territory without doing extensive measured groundwave studies from a proposed site. WHGR could have remained on 1290 if CC had done that when they upgraded WOOD.
 
I heard WCCW 1310 Traverse City ID today at 5:00 PM EST. There is a Spanish Talk format on 1310 that I also heard. Maybe David Eduardo knows what that might be.
 
Schroedingers Cat said:
I'll send you a PM about the diplex situation.
Click to expand...

Got it, thanks. But my reply bounced.

Essentially what I said is, my question was pure curiosity. I've always been somewhat intrigued by the job that was done "shoehorning in" the Detroit area 1310.
 
Daytime skywave was almost nonexistent today.

WDTW/WKNR's day pattern is just two towers, and I believe it was originally 1 kW nondirectional. The nulls aren't much deeper than the 1 kW level. The thing that complicates moving the day site is moving toward WOBL or WILS, and having to reduce existing overlap under 0.5/0.25 mV/m contour overlap rules. If the COL stays as Dearborn, they can't move much north, regardless of whether the 25 mV/m contour potentially overlaps WEXL's by moving further north.
 
At 6:20 PM EST, I heard a strong WCCW 1310 Traverse City today, and also WJAS 1320 Pittsburgh. Have not heard the mid daytime skywave now for several weeks. Next week will take EDT sunset around 7:30 PM. Hard to call 5:30 PM critical hours skywave mid day.
 
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