Farthest Away from COL

[ftballfan]

What station has their tower the farthest from their COL?

Here are some candidates:
WGFM 105.1 (43kW/295m) - Their COL is Cheboygan and their stick is near Vanderbilt, 36 miles away. Their 60dBU barely includes Cheboygan.
WIAA 88.7 (100kW/315m) - Their COL is Interlochen and their stick is near Harrietta, 25 miles away.
WGLQ 97.1 (100KW/326m) - Their COL is Escanaba and their stick is near Trenary, 28 miles away.

 

[fybush]

The stations on Mount Potosi are a goodly distance from their Las Vegas-area cities of license. KXTE 107.5 is 51 km (~32 miles) from Pahrump, while KFRH 104.3 is 43 km from North Las Vegas.

Perhaps the all-time winner in the category was the now-defunct 540 KKGO Costa Mesa, CA, which ran 25 kW into a six-tower array north of Lucerne Valley in the high desert, something like 80 miles away. KIRN 670 Simi Valley had a CP at one time to build a new site up that way, too, in Lancaster. It wouldn't have been quite as distant, but still...

KMJ in Fresno may be the AM winner these days, at ~24 miles away from its COL.

On TV, the winner once upon a time may well have been WMTW, Channel 8, licensed to Poland Spring ME and transmitting from Mount Washington, N.H., 80 km (49.7 miles) distant. WMTW moved its digital site closer to Poland Spring, though. (And back in the day, the original FM station on Mount Washington was actually licensed to Boston, some 100 miles away.)

Today's winner may well be WPTZ, licensed to North Pole NY and with its digital transmitter on Mount Mansfield in Vermont, 83 km (51.4 miles) distant. Perhaps Doug Smith can come up with an even better example?

 

[NHRadio]

Today's winner may well be WPTZ, licensed to North Pole NY and with its digital transmitter on Mount Mansfield in Vermont, 83 km (51.4 miles) distant.

The always accurate Wikipedia says the COL was changed to Plattsburgh in 2011. Can anyone confirm?

 

[fybush]

It's weird. The FCC changed the table of allocations in late October 2011 and said it was modifying the WPTZ license, but somehow the change hasn't made it to the CDBS database yet. It's about 54 km from Plattsburgh to the WPTZ transmitter on Mount Mansfield, for what that's worth.

 

[LKellerIII]

KNTV is licensed to San Jose, but moved their transmitter to San Bruno Mountain between Brisbane and San Francisco, when the station became the Bay Area's NBC affiliate about 2003. They otherwise would not have been able to provide OTA reception to the North SF Bay counties.

The distance between their studios in San Jose and San Bruno Mtn is approximately 42 miles.

 

[Bongwater]

Try this:

http://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/pat?call=KVFS&service=FL&status=L&hours=U

 

[dave73]

WZZM Grand Rapids on the TV side is around 40 miles NW from their COL, in order to protect WTVG Toledo, OH (both in the analog & digital era).


WBCT Grand Rapids I believe is on the same tower as WOOD-TV, & it's around 30 - 33 miles south of Grand Rapids. For now, they can get away with it, because they're a grandfathered Class B, running 320kw @ 781 ft (238m). Their backup must run at 70kw just to reach their COL.

WSRW Kalamazoo, MI has their tower around 30 - 33 miles north of their COL, & like WBCT, it's a grandfathered Class B, 265kw @ 581 ft (177m). Their backup must run at 99kw in order to cover their COL. While not on the same tower as WOOD-TV, it's around the same area as WOOD-TV & WBCT.

 

[ftballfan]

WZZM Grand Rapids on the TV side is around 40 miles NW from their COL, in order to protect WTVG Toledo, OH (both in the analog & digital era).


WBCT Grand Rapids I believe is on the same tower as WOOD-TV, & it's around 30 - 33 miles south of Grand Rapids. For now, they can get away with it, because they're a grandfathered Class B, running 320kw @ 781 ft (238m). Their backup must run at 70kw just to reach their COL.

WSRW Kalamazoo, MI has their tower around 30 - 33 miles north of their COL, & like WBCT, it's a grandfathered Class B, 265kw @ 581 ft (177m). Their backup must run at 99kw in order to cover their COL. While not on the same tower as WOOD-TV, it's around the same area as WOOD-TV & WBCT.

WBCT is actually on the WWMT tower, 24 miles south of Grand Rapids. Speaking of WWMT, they are licensed to Kalamazoo, and that tower is 25 miles north of Kalamazoo.

WSRW is actually licensed to Grand Rapids. It was WOOD-FM for years and used to be located on that tower until moving to a new tower a few years ago (along with fellow grandfathered radio station WVGR).

WZZM is only 27 miles northwest of Grand Rapids. They were originally supposed to be on channel 9, which would have had them short-spaced to WGN, WOOD, and CKLW.

 

[dave73]

WZZM Grand Rapids on the TV side is around 40 miles NW from their COL, in order to protect WTVG Toledo, OH (both in the analog & digital era).


WBCT Grand Rapids I believe is on the same tower as WOOD-TV, & it's around 30 - 33 miles south of Grand Rapids. For now, they can get away with it, because they're a grandfathered Class B, running 320kw @ 781 ft (238m). Their backup must run at 70kw just to reach their COL.

WSRW Kalamazoo, MI has their tower around 30 - 33 miles north of their COL, & like WBCT, it's a grandfathered Class B, 265kw @ 581 ft (177m). Their backup must run at 99kw in order to cover their COL. While not on the same tower as WOOD-TV, it's around the same area as WOOD-TV & WBCT.

WBCT is actually on the WWMT tower, 24 miles south of Grand Rapids. Speaking of WWMT, they are licensed to Kalamazoo, and that tower is 25 miles north of Kalamazoo.

WSRW is actually licensed to Grand Rapids. It was WOOD-FM for years and used to be located on that tower until moving to a new tower a few years ago (along with fellow grandfathered radio station WVGR).

WZZM is only 27 miles northwest of Grand Rapids. They were originally supposed to be on channel 9, which would have had them short-spaced to WGN, WOOD, and CKLW.

I don't know how I got WSRW wrong on the COL. I thought radio-locator.com listed it as Kalamazoo. As for WBCT & WSRW, they couldn't cover Grand Rapids effectively on 50kw from their existing sites. So they have to be thankful to be on grandfathered licenses, & be able to cover both Grand Rapids & Kalamazoo with those signals.

As for WZZM, I mentioned 40 miles from Grand Rapids, because that's what I read on various websites that mentioned the mileage. If they had stayed on RF 39, they might have been able to locate closer to Grand Rapids, instead of only covering the northern part of the market on RF 13. For a while, WOOD-TV was short-spaced with WLS-TV in the digital era. WWMT is short-spaced with WMVS in the digital era, since both stations are on RF 8.

 

[LKidd]

KFRM Salina, KS has their tower 40 miles north of there, south of Concordia which was the original COL when it was put on the air in 1947 as a repeater for KMBC in Kansas City. BTW it's my understanding their city grade comes fairly close to Wichita. (What a DA on 550 and the salt dome can do for you)

 

[ftballfan]

In the analog days, WPBN's tower was near Harrietta (incidentally on the same tower WIAA uses) and their COL was and is Traverse City, 34 miles from the tower. Their main digital signal broadcasts from east of Kalkaska, 45 miles northeast of the analog stick and 27 miles east of Traverse City.

WGTU has always been on the same tower that WPBN's digital signal broadcasts from and is also licensed to Traverse City.

WCMV's digital signal is located on the same tower as WPBN and WGTU, 38 miles northeast of Cadillac (its COL).

WFQX, also licensed to Cadillac, used that tower for a while for digital broadcasting before moving back south to the WWTV tower.

WDCQ, licensed to Bad Axe, transmits their digital signal from a tower 38 miles southwest of there.

 

[w9wi]

Perhaps the all-time winner in the category was the now-defunct 540 KKGO Costa Mesa, CA, which ran 25 kW into a six-tower array north of Lucerne Valley in the high desert, something like 80 miles away. KIRN 670 Simi Valley had a CP at one time to build a new site up that way, too, in Lancaster. It wouldn't have been quite as distant, but still...

...

Today's winner may well be WPTZ, licensed to North Pole NY and with its digital transmitter on Mount Mansfield in Vermont, 83 km (51.4 miles) distant. Perhaps Doug Smith can come up with an even better example?

I didn't think I could, but I wasn't looking close enough! I can't beat the KKGO-540 past record but I can shatter WPTZ's figure..

WNPX-TV virtual channel 28. Licensed to Cookeville, Tennessee, the transmitter is on the northwest side of Nashville. That's 116.7km or 72-1/2 miles.

I am not at all certain WNPX is the *most* distant. The city-of-license signal requirements for DTV are VERY lax.


The grand winner will probably be a LPTV station. Some of these have moved hundreds of miles without changing the community specified as the "location". However, these stations don't have a "city of license" in the sense that a full-power station does -- there is no obligation to provide a quality signal across the specified community, only an obligation not to interfere with anything else.

 

[fybush]

I don't know why this one didn't come to mind sooner, since I was just out there within the past year: KAZA, licensed to Avalon on Santa Catalina Island off the California coast, signed on initially as analog 54 from a short tower on the island itself, but moved in the analog era to Mount Wilson, 101 km (~62 miles) away. It's still there as a digital signal on RF 47. Regrettably, I didn't bring a TV receiver with me to Catalina to see what KAZA's signal looks like in its COL, but given the strength of the Mount Wilson FMs out on the island, I suspect KAZA was decently watchable out there as an analog signal for most viewers, and it's probably just fine in digital with a modest antenna. (But everyone out there has cable/satellite if they bother with TV at all, anyway; I don't recall seeing any outdoor antennas. That may be the result of zoning restrictions in town.)

It's amazing what 5 megawatts of analog, or 350 kW of digital, can do from a mile in the sky with no terrain in the way, and the last 30 miles of the path over water!

 

[Kent]

KFRM Salina, KS has their tower 40 miles north of there, south of Concordia which was the original COL when it was put on the air in 1947 as a repeater for KMBC in Kansas City. BTW it's my understanding their city grade comes fairly close to Wichita. (What a DA on 550 and the salt dome can do for you)

I believe KFRM's city grade signal actually does cover part of Wichita. I seem to remember it did most of its broadcasting from Wichita in the mid-80's.

 

[1L6E6VHF]

One candidate for former champion would be WFDF, 910 during its silly "two-step" transition from a Flint station to a Detroit market (Farmington Hills) station.

For a period of time, they ran a two-site operation with their daytime site in Carleton (in Monroe County) and the night site their extant array just south of Flint (this got them 5 mV/m over the NW corner of Flint by day and NIF over Flint at night - a "minor change" in legalese) This put the daytime TL about 71 miles from Flint.

Once the new array was in place, they changed the COL to Farmington Hills and the nighttime site to the new Carleton array - a "major change" that was subject to auction in theory, but with little opportunities for any challenger with the Carleton array and the 50kW day pattern already in place.

 

[davideduardo]

KFRM Salina, KS has their tower 40 miles north of there, south of Concordia which was the original COL when it was put on the air in 1947 as a repeater for KMBC in Kansas City. BTW it's my understanding their city grade comes fairly close to Wichita. (What a DA on 550 and the salt dome can do for you)

I believe KFRM's city grade signal actually does cover part of Wichita. I seem to remember it did most of its broadcasting from Wichita in the mid-80's.

5 mV/m just scrapes the north end of Harvey County, which is the county right above Sedgewick where Wichita is (and is part of the Arbitron metro).

2 mV/m covers all of Wichita MSA save for a tiny piece of Butler County towards the SE.

In today's noisy environment, 2 mV/m is not nearly enough to be listened to in an urban setting. I'm sure that 4 or 5 decades ago, the signal made for comfortable listening... pre-microchips, pre-dimmers, pre-CFLs. And in rural areas, probably still useful quite a ways out (but farms have computers, CFLs and all the rest, too)

 

[Fieldtech1]

On FM, KTJM is liscensed to Port Arthur TX, their tower is 39 miles NW of the center of the city. The station targets the Houston market as a rimshot.

 

[ftballfan]

KFRM Salina, KS has their tower 40 miles north of there, south of Concordia which was the original COL when it was put on the air in 1947 as a repeater for KMBC in Kansas City. BTW it's my understanding their city grade comes fairly close to Wichita. (What a DA on 550 and the salt dome can do for you)

I believe KFRM's city grade signal actually does cover part of Wichita. I seem to remember it did most of its broadcasting from Wichita in the mid-80's.

5 mV/m just scrapes the north end of Harvey County, which is the county right above Sedgewick where Wichita is (and is part of the Arbitron metro).

2 mV/m covers all of Wichita MSA save for a tiny piece of Butler County towards the SE.

In today's noisy environment, 2 mV/m is not nearly enough to be listened to in an urban setting. I'm sure that 4 or 5 decades ago, the signal made for comfortable listening... pre-microchips, pre-dimmers, pre-CFLs. And in rural areas, probably still useful quite a ways out (but farms have computers, CFLs and all the rest, too)

How many mV/m is 60 dBu?

 

[w9wi]

How many mV/m is 60 dBu?

One. (1mV/m = 60dBu)

Generally mV/m is used for AM and dBu for FM/TV.

 

[EmBee]

WAMC 90.3 Albany, NY broadcasts from a tower on Mt. Greylock in Adams, MA, about 30 miles east of Albany.