KNX numbers, FM vs AM

[PTBoardOp94]

Date of birth is the way health providers and banks determine identity, so yes, I'd recommend keeping the DOB off social media. If someone has your name, DOB, and address they can steal your identity.

I would call that a problematic practice. DoB might be a piece of a puzzle, but not the whole answer.

Apple Music and Amazon both want credit card number. Unless you're already in their system through Apple ID or Amazon Prime.

Which a majority of Americans are existing customers of both.

You overstate smartphones...

https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/mobile/

Funny enough, that's the same source I was going to cite. You'll note I used the qualifier "working age." To be technically correct, I probably should have said 95% of adults age 18-50 own a smartphone. For 18-65, smartphone penetration is around 91%. Much lower for seniors - as you might expect.

 

[TheBigA]

Which a majority of Americans are existing customers of both.

In which case they have all of your personal data as well as a credit card number. None of that is required to listen to the radio.

No passwords, no user names, no personal data, you are completely anonymous.

 

[ragazzo-pazzo]

None of that is required to listen to the radio.

YAY radio! We work in what is an amazing industry on so many levels. Unfortunate there are so many who only want to find things to pick at.

 

[TheBigA]

Unfortunate there are so many who only want to find things to pick at.

Ha! When you've been around for 100 years, you make a lot of enemies.

You see how angry some people are at "big tech?" Wait til they realize that big tech runs their music service.

 

[kwthom]

Ha! When you've been around for 100 years, you make a lot of enemies.

You see how angry some people are at "big tech?" Wait til they realize that big tech runs their music service. most aspects of their lives.

Amended that last sentence.

 

[semoochie]

I would call that a problematic practice. DoB might be a piece of a puzzle, but not the whole answer.

Which a majority of Americans are existing customers of both.

Funny enough, that's the same source I was going to cite. You'll note I used the qualifier "working age." To be technically correct, I probably should have said 95% of adults age 18-50 own a smartphone. For 18-65, smartphone penetration is around 91%. Much lower for seniors - as you might expect.

Even 91% seems high, when you figure in the homeless, excessively disabled and just not interested and compare with those without a television or bathtub!

 

[TomásEstefan]

Again, the issue is not the stations themselves but the rapidly decreasing percentage of homes that have not radio at all... and the ones that do generally no longer have a battery operated receiver. So in the event of a disaster, the vast majority of homes will have not operating radio.

Beyond that, how many "big signal" AM station have a news department that can jump in and cover a major happening?

Of course, there are very few AMs that have a signal big enough to serve a distant market day and night in such a case.

And, since huge disasters are a decade or more apart in most cases and most places, how are those stations supposed to sustain a news department in the interim when, now, two generations of Americans don't think of radio as their primary news source.

A hurricane or an earthquake quickly prove how fragile the cellular system is. We are worse prepared than ever.

This is why I said in a previous post that KNX 1070 has been vital over the years to SoCal. I agree sky wave is almost irrelevant, but that 50 kW non-directional signal is virtually interference free day and night in the entire survey area. If there is an earthquake in the middle of the night, I hit the power button on my bedside table radio and KNX is on it, instantly.

 

[asugeorge1]

This is why I said in a previous post that KNX 1070 has been vital over the years to SoCal. I agree sky wave is almost irrelevant, but that 50 kW non-directional signal is virtually interference free day and night in the entire survey area. If there is an earthquake in the middle of the night, I hit the power button on my bedside table radio and KNX is on it, instantly.

Exactly, and for listeners in southern Orange County where the KNX-FM signal does poorly due to the numerous hills and mountains blocking the FM signal from Mount Wilson, KNX-AM is the go to station on the radio dial, not staticky KNX-FM. Ironic considering a lot of their key demographic lives in southern Orange County! Same goes for KFI.

 

[asugeorge1]

That's awesome!

Yeah, I realize that. I think I just used the wrong analogy here.

WNAX just amazes me with their signal.

Shortwave around 3 mHz and 5 mHz in the tropical bands bounces all day long, but in smaller regions. I owned, briefly, a SW station in Ecuador and with just 500 watts it covered most of the region (about 10 provinces) in the daytime, and the whole country at night.

The ground conductivity in the Atlanta zone is 0.5 to 1.0 in most areas. In the area around Manitoba, it is 30. There is a 5 kw station on 570 in SD that covers portions of 7 states where it serves farmers and makes a great deal of money doing so.

The ground connectivity in the northern Great Plains and southern Canada is second to none. This would be an interesting side topic, but it’s a shame that Long Wave never caught on in the US like it did in Europe because if you dropped a LW station in the middle of the country on a dial position of say 153 kHz, you would get amazing coverage. I can only imagine how far a station like WNAX would go if it was at 153 kHz with 50,000 or even 500,000 watts and no other station interfering!

 

[semoochie]

The ground connectivity in the northern Great Plains and southern Canada is second to none. This would be an interesting side topic, but it’s a shame that Long Wave never caught on in the US like it did in Europe because if you dropped a LW station in the middle of the country on a dial position of say 153 kHz, you would get amazing coverage. I can only imagine how far a station like WNAX would go if it was at 153 kHz with 50,000 or even 500,000 watts and no other station interfering!

Wouldn't longwave require much taller transmitting towers and very large loop receiving antennas?

"No static at all!" Small bugaboo: The noise on FM is not static. It's multipath interference, the main signal and reflected ones arriving at the receiver at slightly different times.

 

[ZantennaG1]

Wouldn't longwave require much taller transmitting towers and very large loop receiving antennas?

Yes. Many portable radios are effectively "deaf" to LW, however with the proper loop, or even a long wire "beverage" antenna, LW is still more accessible than some options. If you are reasonably close to the tower, your portable will pick it up just fine without the external antenna. Someone in Scotland managed to pick up BBC4 on 198 khz using just their Tecsun. Overall though, it helps to have an external antenna.

"No static at all!" Small bugaboo: The noise on FM is not static. It's multipath interference, the main signal and reflected ones arriving at the receiver at slightly different times.

Yes, FM has multipath, but I doubt that's the reason why KNOU has bad signal in Orange County compared to KNX. Remeber the Hacienda Hills are between the transmitter and Anaheim, for example, and that for FM, you need a good, long antenna.

 

[davideduardo]

Exactly, and for listeners in southern Orange County where the KNX-FM signal does poorly due to the numerous hills and mountains blocking the FM signal from Mount Wilson, KNX-AM is the go to station on the radio dial, not staticky KNX-FM. Ironic considering a lot of their key demographic lives in southern Orange County! Same goes for KFI.

The population of southern OC is tiny once you get south of Irvine. So any FM issue there has a minuscule effect on ratings. The Lancaster-Palmdale area has much greater population,

 

[TomásEstefan]

One clear doing well by using their 50 kw AM coverage is kgo 810 san Francisco. Has loud daytime signal Mendocino to Monterey to Sacramento and a bit beyond each. Daytime talk show hosts very progressive and refer to area codes calls and texts come from including 916 Sacramento and 831 Monterey. Does not have an FM do it or advertises 810 but also promotes Google smart speakers. One of the hosts 4 to 7 pm John Rothman does ads for c crane radio.

Also loud in the same coverage area is 680 knbr which is now sports talk and the flagship for the sf giants. In Sacramrnto there is no local giants affiliate because knbr is so loud.

Kcvs 740 different story.At night .use protect Edmonton 740 so it effectively nulls Sacramento. Knx actually has a louder night signal.

Almost all of KCBS' signal goes to the south. Night pattern covers SoCal like a local, but is hard to hear more than 100 miles north of the Bay.

 

[semoochie]

Almost all of KCBS' signal goes to the south. Night pattern covers SoCal like a local, but is hard to hear more than 100 miles north of the Bay.

Before Portland's KXL attained night coverage in 1980, I could hear KCBS every night but the fading was much more frequent than KGO or KNBR.

 

[david]

The population of southern OC is tiny once you get south of Irvine. So any FM issue there has a minuscule effect on ratings. The Lancaster-Palmdale area has much greater population,

David... you got this one inversed. South OC's population possesses the much greater population:

Mission Viejo 95,638
Lake Forest 84,666
Laguna Niguel 65,048
Aliso Viejo 50,385
San Juan Capistrano 35,976
Laguna Hills 31,613
Laguna Beach 22,991

Lancaster 157,697
Palmdale 153,240

Already, from just the 7 cities I itemized South OC has L/P beat 385K to 311K; and that's before even factoring in additional South OC places like Ladera Ranch, RSM, Coto, San Clemente, etc.

Bottom line, South OC is an important population geography for radio signals to attempt to cover within their 60 dBu contour if they can.

 

[davideduardo]

David... you got this one inversed. South OC's population possesses the much greater population:

Mission Viejo 95,638
Lake Forest 84,666
Laguna Niguel 65,048
Aliso Viejo 50,385
San Juan Capistrano 35,976
Laguna Hills 31,613
Laguna Beach 22,991

Lancaster 157,697
Palmdale 153,240

Already, from just the 7 cities I itemized South OC has L/P beat 385K to 311K; and that's before even factoring in additional South OC places like Ladera Ranch, RSM, Coto, San Clemente, etc.

Bottom line, South OC is an important population geography for radio signals to attempt to cover within their 60 dBu contour if they can.

"The current metro area population of Lancaster-Palmdale in 2022 is 517,000, a 2.58% increase from 2021. The metro area population of Lancaster-Palmdale in 2021 was 504,000, a 2.65% increase from 2020. The metro area population of Lancaster-Palmdale in 2020 was 491,000, a 2.94% increase from 2019."

https://www.google.com/search?channel=cus5&client=firefox-b-1-d&q=lancaster+plamdale+metro+area

 

[K.M. Richards]

I believe david (lowercase "d") fell into a common trap in challenging David's (uppercase "D") by using only the numbers for the incorporated areas of the cities of Lancaster and Palmdale. There is nearly as much population in the unincorporated areas, which include Quartz Hill, Rosamond, and Lake Los Angeles ... and (I think) Mojave and Edwards.

That said, if all population in southern Orange County was to be compared to the Antelope Valley I suspect the margin between them would be fairly small. Anyone who wants to prove or disprove my suspicion by researching and posting official statistics is, of course, welcome to do so.

 

[TomásEstefan]

Before Portland's KXL attained night coverage in 1980, I could hear KCBS every night but the fading was much more frequent than KGO or KNBR.

The 100 miles or so was in reference to typical daytime coverage. The KCBS groundwave signal to the is not much better than KSFO 560 and not anything like the gangbuster signal of KFRC/KEAR 610. Both of those stations are 5 kW.