High school football night DX

[Icangelp]

I live in SW Ohio, not a particularly friendly location for DX, but I also live in perhaps the primo area for friday night football DX. I must admit I love to hear high school football games called by local announcers. It is true Americana, and you can't beat it.

Last friday, I logged no less than 13 KY/TN/AL/SC stations on way past their day signoffs/power downs/directional signal switches...and I wasn't even trying hard. They were all on the "regional" frequencies, most in the 1250-1480 range. Both Harlan County KY stations had games on & were blasting away well past bedtime. (970/WFSR & 1410 WLIN)

Game calling ranged from some excellent play-by-play announcer/color commentator combinations, to what sounded like a high school kid doing his first game and trying to keep his voice from cracking.

There really should be a couple of new DX categories: high school football fridays & on way past signoff.

For the most part, I'm all for these blatant disregards of FCC rules. Anarchy rules!

 

[spunker88]

I dont think many people care about AM listening anymore except DXers. And with the overabundance of stations in the graveyard frequencies already, you don't notice much of a difference when there happens to be another one or two mixing in. I did hear a station on 690 (a quiet frequency where I am at since CINF singed off) playing football one night and it was doing a good job beating WLW's IBOC. It quieted down after the game was over.

 

[kilokat7]

My best "high school power" catch was hearing KNMX out of Las Vegas, NM. on 540 carrying a high school basketball game earlier this year. I listened for a good hour with fairly decent reception, no doubt on 5kw day power.

 

[nd2023]

I'm sure Friday nights would be a good time to log new AM daytimers you usually can never hear. The FCC doesn't care about pirates, or daytimers blasting away into the night. The play by play announcers probably don't even know that the station is breaking the law by staying on.

 

[DX]

It's great to pick-up these stations, which - with their significantly lower authorized nighttime power - would get lost in the "mush".

But if you chase Q.S.L.'s... good luck trying to verify these stations. I find a significantly lower return rate from these stations. (Of course, Q.S.L. return rates are down generally.) The few which DO verify INSIST they're using nighttime power, and it's a magnificent example of "skip".

Conversely, when calling a station engineer one time - as I recall, in Georgia - he flat out told me he didn't want to put his name to any document verifying long-distance reception!

 

[Cincinnati Kid]

I recall in the 1960's into the 1970's that WFAA/WBAP (I think they were still using the dual call-letters at that time) 820-AM in Dallas would carry high school football & basketball games. It was interesting even then to think of a 50,000 watt station carrying high school games - particularly during the regular season. As noted, it is usually the lower power stations that broadcast them at least on the AM band. I think some years back WHO in Des Moines carried some girls basketball games of the Iowa State Tournament.

 

[FreddyE1977]

Here in high-school football mad Western PA we have seen a trend towards games moving off of the
1kW local stations with puny nighttime power, and onto some fairly decent-sized and formerly prominent
AM signals (ESPN 1250, the former WTAE, KQV, WKBN in Youngstown, Ohio, etc.) The play-by-play man
on a recent KQV broadcast was Lanny Frattare, long-time Pittsburgh Pirates broadcaster. Don't know if that
is due to increasing listenership or those stations now finding it an attractive programming choice given their
alternatives.

 

[317C50KW]

In the medium/large markets usually the only way you can get a game on is to buy the time from the station and sell and produce it yourself. Works well if you've got a good station to partner with (the one I deal with has everything from POTS to Comrex to ISDN).
But in my market it's easy to hear a lot of 3rd rate broadcasts on 4th rate stations.

 

[audioguy]

So please help me out here... is there actually something in the rules that allows a station to stay on daytime power if they're broadcasting a game? Or is urban legend... or wishful thinking???

 

[DX]

I believe the rules & regs only allow daytime stations to remain on-the-air at night, or for stations to maintain daytime power at night, for legitimate real emergencies: Hurricanes & other storms, earthquakes, threatening forest fires, civil strife, etc.

Whether a broadcaster can do this unilaterally, or whether it requires a specific EAS activation, I don't know.

(With Hurricane Katrina knocking some stations off the air, anyone who COULD stay on-the-air did so, even along the periphery of the affected area.)

As a practical matter, with all the burning issues before it, I doubt the FCC would raise a stink in a borderline case.

And as we see with the use of higher daytime power for nighttime high school sporting events, some small stations violate the rules with impunity.

With all the IBOC sideband interference and overall interference on the A.M. dial, does it really matter any more?

 

[oldiesfan6479]

With all the IBOC sideband interference and overall interference on the A.M. dial, does it really matter any more?

Apparently not...to the FCC at least. Their track record of shutting down pirates
is abysmal, so why would they care about "illegal power aliens"?

I suppose if Mrs. Lumberyard wanted to hear My Way at 8:30 PM, she'll just have
the Goldminers override the lamptimer, turn the station back on, and play Frank.
The justification? Well, if they can do it for high school football games... :

 

[gr8oldies]

There is absolutely, positively, no rule allowing stations to stay on past sunset, not power down or stay on day pattern at night because of high school football. You can stay on for a genuine emergency (but no commercials) without prior authorization. WPDQ (formerly WAPE and now WOKV), Jacksonville FL stayed on its 50kW day power as Hurricane Hugo was hitting Charleston, SC and for the next few nights.

 

[radiorob2.0]

I looked into purchasing a small town AM daytimer. Our contact talked about how the station broadcast local high school football. After looking at the license, I asked how that was possible with one hour of post sunset authority. The contact didn't have an answer.

The Harlan, Kentucky situation mentioned in another post brings up a different dynamic. What do you do when the competitor, also a daytimer, is breaking the rules and making money? I don't endorse breaking the rules but understand why it happened.

 

[gr8oldies]

Turn 'em in! I was working at a station in Ohio with 1kW daytime and 34 watts night. Guy who brokered out our high school sports begged us to stay on day power during games, even said he'd pay our fine but we said no dice.

 

[charlestondxman]

Here in the Lowcountry, high school games are on the radio plenty, but most of the games are on stations that drop down to the proper power. Summerville games used to be on 980 AM out of Summerville, a weak signal at night (they kept day power on for that), but it moved to FM about five years ago, and are on the big 50kw news-talk FM (94.3), and have a big listening audience.

Two teams are on 6kw FMs, another on a 6kw night signal that does well, and the game of the week is on 910 AM, a 500 watter that has a better signal than many 5,000 watt stations.

In Myrtle Beach, three or four of the major FMs broadcast games every week. 107.9 has one team, 104.9 another, 99.5 another, and the FM sports station the game of the week. Only one game is on AM.

 

[pianoplayer88key]

I looked into purchasing a small town AM daytimer. Our contact talked about how the station broadcast local high school football. After looking at the license, I asked how that was possible with one hour of post sunset authority. The contact didn't have an answer.

The Harlan, Kentucky situation mentioned in another post brings up a different dynamic. What do you do when the competitor, also a daytimer, is breaking the rules and making money? I don't endorse breaking the rules but understand why it happened.

One of my far-fetched ideas is to take a station 10kHz up/down the dial, run IBOC on it, and phase the antenna array so that the field strength in the offending station's service area is upwards of 25,000mV/m from sunset (or whenever their PSSA expires) until they sign off.