How far north do DFW stations reach?

[CHR_FAN_TX]

I was in Thackerville, OK at the Winstar casino on Wednesday and I was surprised that in the parking lot of the casino the majority of stations from here were still coming in loud and clear with hardly any static at all.. KISS-FM...KDMX....KVIL..and the EDGE were all static free. I know stations reach as far south as Waco on a good day, but does anyone know how far north into Oklahoma people can enjoy DFW stations? Just curious

 

[dismuke]

I was in Thackerville, OK at the Winstar casino on Wednesday and I was surprised that in the parking lot of the casino the majority of stations from here were still coming in loud and clear with hardly any static at all.. KISS-FM...KDMX....KVIL..and the EDGE were all static free. I know stations reach as far south as Waco on a good day, but does anyone know how far north into Oklahoma people can enjoy DFW stations? Just curious

You are just talking FM right? Several of the AM stations on the low end of the dial (KLIF, KMKI, KSKY, WBAP) can be heard into southern Kansas during the day and at night WBAP can be heard in something like 38 states.

Best source of info on this is: http://radio-locator.com/

Here is one of the stations you mentioned: http://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/pat?call=KDMX&service=FM&status=L&hours=U

Here is another: http://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/pat?call=KDGE&service=FM&status=L&hours=U

And another: http://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/pat?call=KVIL&service=FM&status=L&hours=U

And here are the rest of Metroplex stations - just click on the yellow "i" for the station you are interested in and follow the link for coverage map: http://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/locate?select=city&city=dallas&state=tx&x=22&y=3

Note that all of them you mentioned have pretty much the same coverage area.

If you notice, Thackerville, Oklahoma is situated in the middle of a very sharp bend the Red River makes into Texas. The very northern portion of that bend is where the coverage area goes away according to those maps. And that bend is the only portion of Oklahoma where, according to the maps, you can pick the stations up. So you wouldn't have to drive too much further up I-35 before the stations would have faded away.

Now, in practice, Metroplex FM stations CAN be picked up further north in far Eastern Oklahoma and in parts of far Western Arkansas if you happen to be on on the right spot on top of the Ouachita Mountains. That is something I discovered when I was up there years ago as a kid. If you are driving, the stations will fade in and out as you go and disappear once you go down in elevation. But if you find a good spot and stay there, you can tune in. That, of course, has to do with the way that FM signals travel in a straight line and do not go with the curvature of the earth. Get on top of a mountain, however, or put up a really tall antenna, you place yourself above that curvature and can, therefore, pick up more FM signals.

 

[sox fan matt]

I agree with this. WBAP FM has a stronger pull to the north as well as ESPN 103.3. But as stated most fm's that have a 100,000 watt siginal pretty much reach up there but not much further.

If I'm not mistaken on my last trip to Arkansas with my stepdad, Around Durant possibly on 75 the fm's started coming in. In Sherman most are audible on a car antenna also I think.

 

[MN Maniac]

KLIF is audible on a car radio well to the north of Oklahoma City. But you will start to hear another station underneath as you drive north on I-35. By the time you get close to the Kansas state line, the other station is dominant on the frequency.

That "other station" is WNAX in Yankton, South Dakota! 3 states away with only 5,000 watts. The soil conductivity is simply AMAZING in this part of the country!

 

[YEKIMI]

I can pick up WBAP in Northern Ohio with no problem at all during nightime hnours.

 

[Catechuman]

In Dallas we can pick up am 850 out of Denver somtimes.

 

[critic319]

The powerful Cedar Hill signals are audible to about Ardmore, Ok on most days. At least on my car radio.

 

[OKCRadioGuy]

With the right receiver and yagi antenna it's quite possible to listen pretty reliably to many of the Cedar Hill blowtorches. My fav station through high school was the Eagle.

 

[schmave]

Remember too that 103.3 transmits from north of town. You don't get too far south of the city before it starts to fade.
Driving back to Houston after Hurricane Ike, I remember picking up KLUV, 107.5, etc. at least 20 miles south of Waco on Highway 6 before signals really deteriorated.

 

[Triple Fake Jerry]

Most Dallas FM stations can be heard up I-35 past the Red River, and start to come in and out along the way, but are still receivable until you cross over the Arbuckles north of Ardmore. At that point the terrain becomes your enemy and it's time to switch to the OKC stations.

103.3's transmitter is in Howe, which is just south of Sherman, so you can get it pretty strong as far north as McAlester on 69.

 

[YEKIMI]

Technically, I would say since most can be heard on the internet now...they can reach all the way to the North Pole.

 

[charlestondxman]

Well, Dallas stations come in from very far away. I hear WBAP almost every night in Charleston, SC, over 1000 miles away. KRLD also comes in sometimes as well (not often).

You could probably hear the Dallas stations in Wichita Falls with a good antenna.

 

[arnoldevns]

To answer the original poster simply: it depends on the station and the atmospheric conditions.

 

[jd]

To answer the original poster simply: it depends on the station and the atmospheric conditions.

And it also could be said that the Cedar Hill FM's go as far north as the listeners want them to go.

I know that sounds like a cryptic remark but I believe the limit of their coverage is largely dependent on how much interference, fading or weakness of the signal the listener is willing to tolerate. Since most listening is done within the 60dBu contour (and the majority of that listening is within the 70dBu city-grade), discussion of any serious listening in the range of the 40dBu contour is purely speculative. For reference, with most D/FW FM's that contour roughly lies along the Red River just north of Denison. Conversely, the limit of southern coverage for the northern rim-shots is generally the south side of Johnson and Ellis Counties.

In practice the moment when a station begins to be skipped when your car radio is in "seek" or "scan" mode is when the limit of the coverage is close to being exceeded, for all practical purposes. In my experience, when you have to really dig to find a station, you're outside their usable (or "effective") coverage area.

 

[TXDXer]

About three years ago we were in Wisconsin for about 10 days for the Christmas Holidays. Using a Radio Shack DX-398 doing a night 'bandscan' about 8:30 or so, WBAP was coming in loud and clear. I was sitting at the kitchen table listening to the Stars game and my brother-in-law was amazed. When I lived in Idaho, I would occasionally hear KRLD. Going the other direction . . . back in early March I was parked at work (DFW IAP) and heard KNBR-680 San Francisco. So those 50 kw'ers still make it through the noise This, on a Delco caradio.

 

[Kent]

And it also could be said that the Cedar Hill FM's go as far north as the listeners want them to go.

I know that sounds like a cryptic remark but I believe the limit of their coverage is largely dependent on how much interference, fading or weakness of the signal the listener is willing to tolerate. Since most listening is done within the 60dBu contour (and the majority of that listening is within the 70dBu city-grade), discussion of any serious listening in the range of the 40dBu contour is purely speculative. For reference, with most D/FW FM's that contour roughly lies along the Red River just north of Denison. Conversely, the limit of southern coverage for the northern rim-shots is generally the south side of Johnson and Ellis Counties.

In practice the moment when a station begins to be skipped when your car radio is in "seek" or "scan" mode is when the limit of the coverage is close to being exceeded, for all practical purposes. In my experience, when you have to really dig to find a station, you're outside their usable (or "effective") coverage area.

I agree. While every signal will reach a point where it won't be receivable, it will probably hit a point where listening isn't tolerable first. What a lot of radio people fail to understand is that is radio isn't, and shouldn't be, something people will work at to enjoy. As an example, my mother lives in Tulsa and loves smooth jazz. However, she won't listen to the local smooth jazz station, KOCD 103.7, because "it's too hard to find." She's listened to it when riding with me after I've tuned to the station, and she agrees the sound quality is basically fine. However, she won't listen to it because her seek won't stop on it. She especially doesn't like having to specifically seek that station out while driving in heavy traffic.

The last time I was in Texas was last year, right about when the tornadoes hit the Ardmore/Lone Grove area in February. I seem to remember getting the northern rimshots around the Pauls Valley and Turner Falls areas. The first two Cedar Hill signals I got were Jack and KSCS, and I first got them at about the first Ardmore exit. My five year old Honda had a much better radio than the '90 Geo Prizm I had when I last lived in Dallas in '96. In that car, the Cedar Hill stations didn't come in until about the state line, and KDGE and 99.1, which were about the only northern rimshots at the time (though Fab 105 signed on right before I left, and I literally discovered it just after crossing the state line when I was moving out), weren't listenable until Ardmore.

 

[texas_prwriter]

I, too, have picked up the FM stations all the way into Ardmore, and I can occasionally pick up a couple of Cedar Hill stations (KLTY and KSCS are the two that I remember off the top of my head) sometimes north of the Ardmore. I generally use the iPod until I get up toward Norman or Moore, then listen to the OKC stations. (I don't know why, I've always liked 101.9 The Twister up there.

One funny thing I remember was a few years back, when UT games were on KSKY, I was listening to the Thanksgiving Friday Texas-Texas A&M match while driving up to meet my wife's family in Oklahoma. I had to work part of Friday. They went up that morning; I followed that afternoon. I didn't know how long I'd have the signal, but I was driving north on 35 and it kept satisfactorily strong most of the way. The station was going pretty strong as I got up north of Purcell, but the moment I hit the Norman City Limits, the KSKY signal just stopped, never to be heard again.

I believe that some folks at OU had figured how to jam the signal of anything relating to UT within their city limits. ;D ;D

 

[dismuke]

. back in early March I was parked at work (DFW IAP) and heard KNBR-680 San Francisco.

That is neat you were able to pick it up. Back when I was a kid and would actually spend time trying to pick up distant stations, I found that it was very difficult to pick stations up on the other side of the Rocky Mountains and the Appalachian Mountains. I was never able to pick up any of the California stations myself. But I was very excited one evening when I was able to pull in a station ID from KDKA Pittsburgh after several attempts to get it to come through.

What also amazes me is how far some of the weaker AM stations can travel as well. I used to occasionally pick up KSAL in Salina, Kansas which is only 5,000 watts - and sometimes it would come through quite clear.

 

[unclepudd]

Keep in mind that several DFW FM's are now broadcasting from towers in Wise, Cooke and Grayson counties. WBAP FM (96.7) (licensed to Flower Mound) is on the Wise/Cooke county line near Rosston. It's 90,000 watts from a 2,000 ft. tower BUT it's 65 miles North of Cedar Hill. Several are on the same tower.

These are the result of deregulation allowing small stations in outlying areas to upgrade so they can claim DFW.

 

[billyg]

Here over in the Longview/Kilgore area most of the 100K stations from Cedar Hill can be picked up very easily nights and early mornings with a good antenna system, especially KZPS, KEGL, KBFB and KLUV.

I remember picking up KEGL clear as a local station on my 2001 Grand Cherokee's stereo driving out of Shreveport one hot humid night last year.