KOZN #1 in nation?

[redneckriviera]

1620/KOZN appears to be the nation's highest ranked "expanded band" AM station. #12 in Omaha, a top 75 market, the last two books--with a 2.7/2.3 share.

One of the oddities is that being in the "expanded band"--above 1600--is a huge disadvantage. Even among the AM band's last batch of prospective listeners (50+) most folks don't know 1620 exists.

And to add to the weirdness, NRG owns a couple of relative blowtorches on 1020 & 1180--especially 1180--that KOZN beats like rented mules. Shifting that bad boy to 1180 would likely double or triple that 2 share.

Does anybody at 50th & Capital understand this kind of stuff? Or are they just happy to finally see 1620 show up this high?

 

[jh]

The sports format on 1620 was originally on 1180. It was moved to 1620 because 1180 has a strange directional pattern at night. 1620 is supposedly the better signal. 1020 also doesn't have the strongest night signal in Omaha.

Getting a 2-something share isn't bad for a sports station. The ratings for sports in other markets tend to be in the 2-3 share range. 590 has what's probably the best AM signal in Omaha, and the sports station there only gets a one share.

 

[redneckriviera]

1180's night signal likely gets a lot of first-adjacency interference from 1170 (Tulsa) & 1190 (KC + teapots in Marshalltown & Beloit, KS), although 1180 itself is fairly clear in the midlands. Looks good on paper, but it is an extremely severe 4-tower pattern, throwing almost no signal at all to the east.

1020 is f*cked up by its Plattsmouth heritage--an upgrade to the old KOTD ("Keep One Thousand Dialed"). NRG needs to change the C-O-L (uh, Carter Lake?)--a task make much easier by 106.9's licensure to Plattsmouth--and reconfigure that night pattern. Frankly, the only way to make both of those signals worth something might be to build a new diplexed rig for both of them east of Council Bluffs to produce a DA pattern designed to cover human beings instead of cattle & corn...

 

[awsherrill]

1180 used to get some adjacent interference from 1170, but in most places as I recall it gets slammed by WHAM.

One of the big contributors to problems with that signal into Omaha is the Missouri River. I was involved in proofing the daytime power increase for 1180 in the mid-90s, and I measured almost 14 dB of signal drop after crossing the river into Nebraska...in the main lobe, no less. If I were to move 1180 or 1020 I'd put them west of the Missouri.

 

[jackandcoke]

Okay, let's make this easier. Instead of changing 1020's city of license to Carter Lake, make it Elkhorn. Then change 1180's col to Waterloo--permissable since by FCC rules neither Plattsmouth nor Bellevue would be left "unserved" and the moves would represent "first service" to both Waterloo & Elkhorn (Yeah, stupid rules, but we're trying to play the game).

Most importantly, both towns are adjacent to each other, so contour requirements will be much easier to meet with diplexed signals. And since the DA patterns for both 1020 & 1180 are very similar--protecting Class A clears within a few hundred miles of each other in the northeast--diplexing from one site shouldn't be incredibly difficult.

And since those two lovely, picturesque & historic communities are out in the corn fields, finding a site big enough to handle six (?) towers may not be out of the question.

Big question: Primary lobes for both stations will shoot west, away from Omaha. In the daytime that's not such big a deal, but at night? Is there enough room on the "backside" of these signals to actually provide listenable signals to the Omaha Metro area? Or do we slap the rig up somewhere north of Florence and try to shove the pattern to the south as much as possible?

Or should we give up and switch the "cities of license" to Avoca and Weeping Water and burn up Lincoln? Lot of nice flat cheap land in metropolitan Avoca.

 

[amfmxm]

As much fun as it might be to play "solve the pattern puzzle" with those AM sticks, it would make a whole lot more sense for NRG to slap the sports format on 101.9/KOOO and start unplugging those AM rigs to save on the electric bill.

KOZN is whipping KOOO, as it is, a solid piece of evidence that they've got the wrong formats on the wrong sticks. Alert them folks in Dundee--this ain't rocket surgery.