Having spent a majority of my terrestrial radio career at smaller AM facilities of 5,000 watts or less; I have lately become interested in researching in the origins of daytimers. So far I have come up short in finding any solid information on when the FCC began authorizing sunrise to sunset broadcasting. Does anyone know a reliable resource of this history and why the government began this practice? The best info that I have found indicates the FCC began this practice after WWII. I write a couple of blogs on my history in radio and like to inject a few stories of the medium's history in order to put my contribution into perspective with the "big picture."
-
Get involved.
We want your input!
Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.
After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.
After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/
Thanks in advance and have fun!
RadioDiscussions Administrators
Information please; history of AM Daytimers
- Thread starter jimoneal
- Start date
jimoneal said:
Not an answer but a data point. The first AM DA in the US was at WFLA/WSUN 620 in St Petersburg FL in 1931 or 1932. The FCC (or was it still the FRC?) had warned the stations, which shared time and shared a Tx site, that if they could not reduce skywave interference to co-channel WTMJ Milwaukee, daytime-only hours would be imposed on them. I have no idea whether they would have been the first daytime-only station had this happened, but the fact that it might have happened in 1931 or 1932 suggests that daytime-only operation in the US dates back at least to 1931 or 1932, but probably started earlier. Now it's up to somebody else to cite an earlier example. I think it's likely that somebody will.
Daytimers considerably predate WWII. I believe they can be traced back to the General Order 40 realignment of the radio dial in November 1928, at a minimum. I've been studying General Order 40 in some depth of late, and I can point to at least one daytimer it created: WKEN in Buffalo had been on 1470 prior to General Order 40, and would have been forced to share the frequency with WKBW (which had been on 1380), but instead WKEN petitioned the Commerce Department for a different assignment and became a daytimer on 1040.
I'm sure a study of the RADEX and White's Log back issues at David Gleason's americanradiohistory.com site will turn up other examples.
I'm sure a study of the RADEX and White's Log back issues at David Gleason's americanradiohistory.com site will turn up other examples.
Scott Fybush said:
I think it may prove difficult to establish.
Remember that in the early days of broadcasting, there was of course no such thing as a 24/7 station. Many stations weren't *anything*/7, they didn't broadcast every day. I think it's likely a number of early stations *voluntarily* broadcast only during the day -- even though their licenses had no such limit -- and then when the FRC established formal limits on nighttime operation, they found that limit embedded in their licenses.
The second station authorized in the U.S., WHA-970 Madison, is a daytimer. Randall Davidson's book details how WHA arrived at that status. Of course, I can't find my copy right now! Basically, WHA had been sharing time with a Chicago commercial station. The Chicago station began ignoring the time-sharing agreement and broadcasting whenever they could sell the airtime -- and the government was unwilling to enforce the agreement. The FRC allowed WHA to experiment with the use of a different frequency, as long as they understood that frequency could only be used during the day. It worked better than "sharing" with a Chicago station that wasn't willing to share... and WHA is still there today. (+/- the great 1941 frequency shift)
I *believe* this event happened in 1929. I do not claim it was the first such move.
_________________________________________________
The earliest daytimers I'm finding listed are in 1930. I concur with Scott, I believe the concept was created with General Order #40 in 1928. (but again, I believe there were some stations broadcasting daytime-only before then.)
(I wonder when the minimum operating schedule regulations were adopted?)
I see this conversation has progressed quite well with some very interesting historical observations. But no one has commented on the WHY of establishing daytime-only stations.
In the frequency spectrum used by AM radio, during daylight hours the signal more or less goes so far and plays out. Maybe 20 miles for a low power station. Maybe 150 miles for a 50KW in the upper Midwest. The soil in that part of the country tends to have better "ground conductivity".
Some of the power coming off and AM tower (or set of towers) beams up toward the wild blue yonder. During the daytime, it just keeps going until it becomes weaker and weaker some where in outer space. But come night time, something magical happens. A layer up there somewhere up there known as the ionosphere settles into a tight little blanket at night when the sun's rays no long beat up on it and fluff it up. This tight little blanket acts something like a mirror and bounces that energy back toward earth at night. We then call it "skywave" and it comes down somewhere distant from the originating station. Maybe 400, maybe 800, maybe 1,200 miles away.
Two stations can operation on the same frequency during the daylight hours 800 miles apart and not interfere with each other. But at night their skywave comes down and wipe each other out with interference. So the FCC (and the FRC before it?) authorized some stations to operate in the daytime only, with requirements that they shut down during those mutually destructive hours.
Stations with multiple towers use them to "directionalize" their signal. If there is a station 1,000 miles away to the South of you, design your towers so little or no power goes that direction. Some owners looked at the cost of installing directional tower systems and decided: "I will just stay daytime only, thank you."
Hope that helps you see the WHY of daytime only stations.
In the frequency spectrum used by AM radio, during daylight hours the signal more or less goes so far and plays out. Maybe 20 miles for a low power station. Maybe 150 miles for a 50KW in the upper Midwest. The soil in that part of the country tends to have better "ground conductivity".
Some of the power coming off and AM tower (or set of towers) beams up toward the wild blue yonder. During the daytime, it just keeps going until it becomes weaker and weaker some where in outer space. But come night time, something magical happens. A layer up there somewhere up there known as the ionosphere settles into a tight little blanket at night when the sun's rays no long beat up on it and fluff it up. This tight little blanket acts something like a mirror and bounces that energy back toward earth at night. We then call it "skywave" and it comes down somewhere distant from the originating station. Maybe 400, maybe 800, maybe 1,200 miles away.
Two stations can operation on the same frequency during the daylight hours 800 miles apart and not interfere with each other. But at night their skywave comes down and wipe each other out with interference. So the FCC (and the FRC before it?) authorized some stations to operate in the daytime only, with requirements that they shut down during those mutually destructive hours.
Stations with multiple towers use them to "directionalize" their signal. If there is a station 1,000 miles away to the South of you, design your towers so little or no power goes that direction. Some owners looked at the cost of installing directional tower systems and decided: "I will just stay daytime only, thank you."
Hope that helps you see the WHY of daytime only stations.
Goat Rodeo Cowboy said:
Quite true - but this needs to be put in historical context, since daytime-only operations preceded directional arrays by several years. If we accept that the first stations licensed for daytime-only operation came into play somewhere around 1928-1930, the widespread adoption of directional arrays on regional channels didn't happen for a decade afterward, by which point the landscape of the AM dial had pretty well congealed into the form we recognize today. (Yes, there were a handful of earlier examples, most notably the WSUN-WFLA/WTMJ situation on 620, but those were exceptions to the rule.)
Where the DA really came into play at first was in allowing power increases on the regional channels. A regional (class III) station that might have only been able to do 500 or 1000 watts with the non-directional antenna it built in 1930 could often power up to 5000 watts fulltime by building three or four towers a decade later.
After World War II, there was an explosion of new stations, and it was only then that the economics of a non-DA daytimer versus a DA fulltimer really started to play out in the way GRC describes.
That post-WWII explosion of new stations also brought about a huge number of new stations that, at least under the rules of the day, had no choice but to operate daytime only. Some of those stations were later able to add nighttime DA service if they could afford to build the arrays, especially if they were operating on clear channels that were broken down, but others were simply shoehorned in so tightly that they could never operate at night with any significant power.
One of my best mentors in the business is a fellow who does allocation work for one of the big radio groups, and he shared with me a lesson he learned early on from one of his mentors: if you want to know which AM allocations are truly viable and which will always be compromised, learn by heart the layout of the AM dial at the time of the 1941 NARBA realignment. I'd extend that axiom even deeper - I'm increasingly convinced, the more I research this stuff, that it was General Order 40 back in 1928 that really established most of the framework of today's AM dial, eight decades on.
Scott Fybush said:
One of the byproducts of all that is that I think of certain AM frequencies as "Good stuff happens here" and some frequencies as "Seldom does a station on this frequency do good." Here I am referring to the REGIONALS.
920 good. 950 good. 1290 has a lot of good stations. Maybe those were good frequencies WHERE I LIVED AS A KID.
FM frequencies on the other hand have no pre-conceived expectation. They are more fungible. All FM frequencies seem to have equal opportunity to sound good or sound bad.
Somewhere I have a wonderful hard cover book called "This is Radio" written in 1927, fully describing the industry of the day.
The night coverage problem was being explained,to the public in that day, as a hypothetical "Hotel Radio" which could accomodate so many "guests" during the daytime, but a much smaller number with "overnight accomodations".
I hope I find it again before I die.
I believe the 1928 date for establishment of daytime only operations.
The night coverage problem was being explained,to the public in that day, as a hypothetical "Hotel Radio" which could accomodate so many "guests" during the daytime, but a much smaller number with "overnight accomodations".
I hope I find it again before I die.
I believe the 1928 date for establishment of daytime only operations.
Goat Rodeo Cowboy said:
Yup - it's funny how your perception of certain regional channels is weighted heavily by where you are (or where you came of age!)
Ask anyone up here in Rochester and they'll tell you 950 is a dog of a frequency - home here to the 1 kW DA-2 signal long known as WBBF that managed to own the ratings in the 60s and 70s even though an increasing amount of the market couldn't hear it after dark.
Ask anyone in Detroit about 950 and they'll tell you it's as good as a regional channel gets.
They're both right!
Scott Fybush said:
I've spent some time tonight combing through the Radio Service Bulletins on the FCC website. (http://www.fcc.gov/mb/audio/decdoc/radio_service_bulletins.html)
The definition of a "daytimer" is established in General Order #41, issued on Sept. 4th, 1928. It appears the changes established in General Orders #40 and 41 (among others) went into effect on Nov. 11, 1928. I would suggest this date is the birth of the daytimer, from the regulatory standpoint.
I have not seen evidence that any stations were limited by their licenses to daytime-only operation before that date. With the possible exception of stations involved in a time-sharing agreement that didn't allow for nighttime hours.
_________________________________________________
Goat Rodeo Cowboy said:
I would disagree with the premise that all FM frequencies are created equal, in terms of the coverage of the stations there...
As I know some of you are aware, until Docket 80-90 went into effect, twenty commercial FM channels were reserved for use ONLY by Class A stations. The remaining commercial channels were ONLY available for stations that were *not* Class A. While 80-90 has been with us for more than 25 years now, its effects linger.
A quick survey shows that 92.1, one of the pre-80-90 reserved channels, today contains 129 license records in CDBS. Of these, 96 are for Class A stations.
92.3 was NOT reserved pre-80-90. It contains 99 license records. (and thus is roughly 30% less crowded than 92.1...) Of those 99, only 26 are for Class A stations.
You are more likely to find a more powerful station on 92.3 than on 92.1.
_________________________________________________
As a general rule, lower regional frequencies do better. (of course, you can say that for *all* AM frequencies, but IMHO the difference is more obvious among the regional channels)
That said, I know as a Milwaukee native my opinion of the value of 620KHz is far better than that of a New Yorker!
w9wi said:
You've done some excellent research and we who read this post by you appreciate your efforts.
I'm less than thrilled however that you took my observation out of context. I was not discussing coverage area or Effective Radiated Power and antenna Height Above Average Terrain or differences between Class A, B and C licenses for FM stations.
My remarks about A.M. Regional stations was not about power and coverage. It was about stations on certain frequencies seemed to have more pristine audio quality, crisp and delightful programming delivered by top notch on air people. As Mr. Fybush observed we sometimes get very attached to the stations we heard "as we came of age". And I think that is a supportable view of the emotions and opinions that many in the industry have. However, I "came of age" (with a slightly longer than usual period of coming of age" as a person who lived in seven different states. When the Army Reserve would send me off to two weeks annual training I would negotiate the option of driving my own car rather than riding in the back of a Deuce-and-a-Half and I would drop in and "slum" every station I could. As flawed as it may be, I strongly hold the opinion that for some reason some regional A.M. frequencies were the home of better than average stations in facility appearance, programming quality, audio fidelity and employee caliber.
My observation today is that there are no FM channels that market after market are inhabited by better than average "quality" operators while other FM channels are routinely inhabited by operations that.... that.... operations that suck.
I may be totally wrong. I simply offered my opinion and memory which people often do here on Radio-Info.
It is admirable that you have some pride in a Milwaukee station. I don't know that you accomplish much of anything by getting all uptight that Mr Fybush or I may or may not have said anything about Milwaukee.
Take a chill pill. Conversation can be delightful and educational. Jump and join us. But remember... the word conversation implies something that is BI-DIRECTIONAL.
w9wi said:
Yeah, well, sure! WTMJ has been on 620 since the early '20s, I believe, and was, AFAIK, the first regional channel AM in the US to increase to 50-kW D. The station that began life as WVNJ Newark on 620 in the New York market (and is now WSNR Jersey City) didn't begin life until December 1947.
Although the original WVNJ had quite a decent signal in New York City, it was a bottom feeder from the git-go. Those of us who were around in those days are unlikely to be able to forget Cortland 7, that's CO-7 1212 and in New Jersey Mitchell 3, that's MI-3 8888, which were the call-in numbers for all of the PIs that supported the station. WVNJ 620 may have had some good years later on--after I left New York to go to college--but it never could become a major station in a market that by now must have 10 or so 50-kW AMs (OK, several of those are 50 kW only by day).
And the loss of the original transmitter site was nearly a death blow to the 620 station. Although the current site is many miles closer to downtown Manhattan than was the original site, the unique geography of the New York market and a plethora of first-and second adjacents forced a daytime power reduction and the clockwise rotation of the array to the point that the very slender 5-tower teardrop pattern delivers such an impaired signal to northern Manhattan, all of the Bronx and Westchester, and parts of Queens. that the station is essentially unlistenable in most of the market. With technical liabilities like that, you don't need bad formatics to destroy an AM, but WSNR has had plenty of those as well. Yet because of its good dial position in the #1 market, the station has changed hands at some fairly lofty prices even within the last decade.
Many daytimers in Indiana and Ohio were created by an engineering consultant that would stop at nothing to shoehorn a pattern in, so we got 990 with 250 watts and 6 towers in Muncie IN, 1350 in Celina OH sandwiched between WIOU and (then)WSLR, and 1090, 1110, 1130, 1210 and 1500 near Dayton OH all with limited or no PSRA.
I'll add the now defunct 1080 in Sidney which signed on at WTIC's sunrise and an almost complete null to the west to protect WIBC on 1070.
When I was growing up,nothing sounded better than 800.
I'll add the now defunct 1080 in Sidney which signed on at WTIC's sunrise and an almost complete null to the west to protect WIBC on 1070.
When I was growing up,nothing sounded better than 800.
Must endorse that statement. The Big 8 had the audio and programming both perfect in the 60's & early 70's. What baffles me is that WJR was set up by the same engineer as CKLW and to me WJR has always sounded somewhere between lackluster & muddy.gr8oldies said:
About WJR, absolutly. I remember one time a buddy of mine called to tell me he had been at the Michigan State Fair and ran across WJR doing a remote. He ask me if I could listen and identify the remote setup they were using. Five minutes later I called him back with a guess of a Shure M69 mixer and EV635 mic. He told me I nailed it. When they went off the half wave tower the signal dropped in Ohio
CKLW sounded great until they turned the pattern into Canada sometime in the late 60's I think, then the background noise came up. The best sound they had was around 1964-1966
CKLW sounded great until they turned the pattern into Canada sometime in the late 60's I think, then the background noise came up. The best sound they had was around 1964-1966
- Status