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Flea Power Actually On?

T

trusty

Radio-Locator shows Atlanta having some real powerful (place sarcasm here) AM stations at night:

1010/WGUN - 78 watts
1040/WPBS - 77 watts
1420/WATB - 51 watts
1570/WIGO - 50 watts
1480/WYZE - 44 watts
970/WNIV - 39 watts
1260/WTJH - 39 watts
1550/WAZX - 16 watts
and last (and least)
1210/WDGR - 1 watt

That's right - 1 watt. I don't know of any station anywhere licensed to broadcast at 1 watt. I mean ... you could place your tongue on the tower and feel nothin' - 1 watt. (well, you may feel somethin' - cold.)

OK, here's the question: are any of these stations actually on the air at night, or are they just using their "power" as an excuse to broadcast on the internet (probably not) - which disqualifies WDGR since it doesn't have a website. (No - you really need to listen to the station sometime in the day; the audio quality(?) leaves just a little to be desired (slightly worse than WYAY). But I digress...) :D

Maybe some of the bigger of the smaller-powered stations, like WGUN (Remember "the BIG gun"?) are on at night, but seeing a station like WAZK go from 50,000 watts to 16 watts is like falling off a cliff; also WDGR, from 10,000 watts to 1 (count it) ONE watt. ::)

So, which ones are actually on at night?
 
trusty said:
Radio-Locator shows Atlanta having some real powerful (place sarcasm here) AM stations at night:

1010/WGUN - 78 watts
1040/WPBS - 77 watts
1420/WATB - 51 watts
1570/WIGO - 50 watts
1480/WYZE - 44 watts
970/WNIV - 39 watts
1260/WTJH - 39 watts
1550/WAZX - 16 watts
and last (and least)

1210/WDGR - 1 watt

That's right - 1 watt. I don't know of any station anywhere licensed to broadcast at 1 watt. I mean ... you could place your tongue on the tower and feel nothin' - 1 watt. (well, you may feel somethin' - cold.)

OK, here's the question: are any of these stations actually on the air at night, or are they just using their "power" as an excuse to broadcast on the internet (probably not) - which disqualifies WDGR since it doesn't have a website. (No - you really need to listen to the station sometime in the day; the audio quality(?) leaves just a little to be desired (slightly worse than WYAY). But I digress...) :D

Maybe some of the bigger of the smaller-powered stations, like WGUN (Remember "the BIG gun"?) are on at night, but seeing a station like WAZK go from 50,000 watts to 16 watts is like falling off a cliff; also WDGR, from 10,000 watts to 1 (count it) ONE watt. ::)

So, which ones are actually on at night?
Click to expand...

WGUN is not on at night anymore, 1600 is on at night pretty strong too, 1480 is much more audible now where I live in the Highlands, at least 250 watts. The others I have no idea, But 1210 has about the most bizarre music I have ever heard, I truly have no idea what it is, they have a permit to go to 20k???
 
Some of these stations might have pre-sunrise authority or post-sunset authority in excess of their licensed night signals, which isn't shown in Radio-Locator. From what I have gathered elsewhere on this board, the FCC doesn't even know who has PSRA or PSSA anymore. I heard an aircheck of a daytimer signing off, where the station touted their PSRA.

What was the original purpose of these fleapower night signals? Night service in the immediate community of license?

I wouldn't think you would need an air signal to webcast.
 
- jabba is right: you don't need any air signal to webcast. Indeed, if you can find an FM translator to relay your AM, you can leave the translator on all night at full power even if the AM has to reduce power or even shut down.

- The purpose -- well, for decades, the FCC only allowed certain discrete power levels. 250, 500, 1000,2500,5000, 10000, 25000, or 50000 watts, you had to operate at one of these levels during the day and another one of these (possibly the same one) at night. If you couldn't use at least 250 watts at night without interfering with someone else, you couldn't operate at night at all.

Eventually, they dropped the discrete levels. If 8,158 watts is the most you can run without interfering with someone else, the FCC will print "8,158 watts" on your license.

If your station was limited to daytime broadcasting, the FCC staff calculated how much power you could run without interfering, and sent your station a letter with that number. You weren't *required* to use that power. That's where these small figures came from.
 
I used to live near the Cheshire Bridge 790/970/1190/1690 antenna farm off of Lenox Road. WNIV was consistently on at night on 970 at that low power. It was amazing that 970 would start fading out into the mush as soon as you reached Lenox Mall as you travelled away from the tower on Lenox Road. In fact you can see the tower lights for the 970/1190 tower from Lenox Mall and at times could not hear the signal at night. So the signal would only get out about a mile or two from the tower but there are quite a number of people living within that radius.

WAFS 1190 was pretty liberal on the PSRA and PSSA rules as they would still be on their critical hours power levels or daytime power at night and sign off was usually way beyond sunset.



trusty said:
Radio-Locator shows Atlanta having some real powerful (place sarcasm here) AM stations at night:

1010/WGUN - 78 watts
1040/WPBS - 77 watts
1420/WATB - 51 watts
1570/WIGO - 50 watts
1480/WYZE - 44 watts
970/WNIV - 39 watts
1260/WTJH - 39 watts
1550/WAZX - 16 watts
and last (and least)
1210/WDGR - 1 watt

That's right - 1 watt. I don't know of any station anywhere licensed to broadcast at 1 watt. I mean ... you could place your tongue on the tower and feel nothin' - 1 watt. (well, you may feel somethin' - cold.)

OK, here's the question: are any of these stations actually on the air at night, or are they just using their "power" as an excuse to broadcast on the internet (probably not) - which disqualifies WDGR since it doesn't have a website. (No - you really need to listen to the station sometime in the day; the audio quality(?) leaves just a little to be desired (slightly worse than WYAY). But I digress...) :D

Maybe some of the bigger of the smaller-powered stations, like WGUN (Remember "the BIG gun"?) are on at night, but seeing a station like WAZK go from 50,000 watts to 16 watts is like falling off a cliff; also WDGR, from 10,000 watts to 1 (count it) ONE watt. ::)

So, which ones are actually on at night?
Click to expand...
 
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