Back in the early 1960s, we had a Magnavox Stereo Theater TV/Radio/Phonograph. The FM section of the radio was slug tuned, which you discovered when you took the thing apart to fix the dial cord (now there's another topic for discussion!). The FM section had decent sensitivity, but poor selectivity, and the AGC was such that you had to turn the volume all the way up to hear 50 microvolt signals. We had a turnstile FM antenna side mounted on a 30 foot tower. I was able to get stations regularly up to about 65 miles away. CKLW-FM (and CKWW-FM) were about 60 miles away, over a large, gradually sloping, rolling 500 foot terrain shield about 20 miles away. They didn't move the signal strength meter much if at all, but could be heard regularly by cranking the volume all the way up. When tropospheric effects were present, 500,000 watt WJFM Grand Rapids, MI on 93.7 would come in and block out CKLW-FM, and I also logged 37,000 watt WAWK 93.3 Kendallville, IN as one of my first FM DX receptions. WNOB 70,000 watts from Cleveland would come in on 107.9 when 19,000 watt WGMZ 107.9 was off the air. WFBE, 3,700 watts on 95.1, was off in the summer, as it was an instructional public school station at the time. It went off early in the school months also, which allowed WHFI 94.7 Birmingham and WLDM, 165,000 watts on 95.5 Detroit to be heard. When tropo was present on July mornings, WSWM 99.1 with 116,000 watts, WKAR-FM 90.5 with 125,000, and WUOM with 230,000 watts kicked the signal up to what I figure was about 2 mV/m from about 40-45 miles away. WXYZ-FM, 27,200 watts from 880 feet on 101.1 as WRIF is today, and WOMC, 215,000 watts from 330 feet on 104.3, were regulars that kicked the signal meter up to about 20 to 25% of full scale. They have always been about equivalent grandfathered facilities despite the extreme ERP/HAAT differences.
At that time, CKLW-FM 93.9 simulcast CKLW(AM) 800 from 12 AM until 6 PM. There was non simulcast programming (Classical and Jazz as I recall) from 6 PM until 12 AM.
