• 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

Lib Station Discovers It's Better To Go Black

SLIGHTLY OFF TOPIC:

This has turned out to be a pretty good thread; civilized conversation; good research.

It was begun as an "illegitimate birth" of a conversation just to see how high people would jump. Call it a professor's experiment. I told the OP we were going to end up in Take-It-Outside in about two blinks. The OP may still be monitoring but no longer stirs the slurry at the bottom of the pool. You folks can pat yourself on the back for making it a worthwhile conversation..... still welcome in it's original forum.

Congratulations for being adults!
 
jry said:
If i were in the consultant game, i'd be looking at some of these AMs that have been turned in and then i would see which AM stations could upgrade or benefit from the silencing of those aforementioned AM stations.

I've said it before but, some of the guys that can hang on will benefit from better facilities and less interference.
Click to expand...

If the AM service area can be essentially duplicated with a short spaced directional FM frequency allotment that meets interference ratios requirements to all existing stations, I could support doing this. This is basically done in Canada all the time, as evidenced by all the new stations in Essex, Kent and Lambton County, Ontario. I have a problem reducing the total number of full power allotments in market areas with few allotments compared to population.
 
Schroedingers Cat said:
WILS to the west. WEXL to the north. Not much chance of moving much in either of those directions.
Click to expand...

Though one wonders, with the demise of WHMI (AM) long ago, and the channel deleted, could WEXL find greener pastures on 1350?

Which has me thing about another thread I had thoughts of launching: How did WEXL get that awful two-tower daytime pattern, which, if the figures on FCC and R-L are correct, results in a weaker signal in all directions. If it was something they did to protect other stations already on, I might understand it - but WEXL is one of the oldest stations around.

Furthermore, I swear WEXL is not as strong as it was in my youth. I build a crystal radio when I was a little kid, and could get WEXL okay (near Cadieux/Harper) on the crystal set. It was a strong signal on the usual battery/AC radios of the day as well. Now it seems to be pretty weak, not nearly as strong as WDTK (was WEXL ND1 back in the 70s, or could their ground system by tarnished?)
 
WEXL was 250 watts as a Class IV from the tall tower we now call the WOMC tower. It already nearly overlapped WTRX, WHMI, and WLEW (and probably some Ohio stations with 1000 watts) at 250 watts, so they put up another tower to increase to 1000 watts DA RMS for Class IV minimum efficiency. In fact, WEXL and WLEW nearly overlap to the 0.5 mV/m with both DAs (WEXL and WLEW) as predicted by M-3, rather than the prescribed 0.5/0.025 overlap (look at R-L). Night NIFs are higher and apply to adjacents and cochannels so they can be 1000 watts Omni full efficiency with the ~200 degree tower.
 
The main point is that the licensed day facility does not use a full 1000 watt input power. There are many such stations. Newly licensed facilities show the actual input power. Older facilities show the power class (0.25, 0.5, 1, 2.5, 5, 10, 25, 50) in kW. Stations have to go to weird lengths to get an even sounding power nowadays. Otherwise the questions are like why are you only 640 watts and how is that 1000 watts? I don't know if any stations still use series limiting resistors. KOA Denver can't input more than about 37500 watts and they are still considered 50000 watts. The comment used to say "LIN RESISTOR" and still may.
 
Schroedingers Cat said:
The main point is that the licensed day facility does not use a full 1000 watt input power. There are many such stations. Newly licensed facilities show the actual input power. Older facilities show the power class (0.25, 0.5, 1, 2.5, 5, 10, 25, 50) in kW. Stations have to go to weird lengths to get an even sounding power nowadays. Otherwise the questions are like why are you only 640 watts and how is that 1000 watts? I don't know if any stations still use series limiting resistors. KOA Denver can't input more than about 37500 watts and they are still considered 50000 watts. The comment used to say "LIN RESISTOR" and still may.
Click to expand...

I had one in my night array at 1500. The commission nixed those, many moons ago.
When Storer built it he just had to see 10 amps in to the nighttime common point. Actually, that 12 tower array only put out 2500 watts.
When we got approved for 10KW at night, the resistors went away. All AMs on 1500 got a little nighttime kiss from the FCC, due to the change in WTOP and KSTPs class. FOr most, it didn't mean much.
 
Funny thing that you should mention the SLR on WJBK/WDEE/.../WLQV, jry. Back around 1975, I had gone to Detroit to take an admissions test, and wound my way back to U of M by way of Gibraltar, where I visited the WCAR...WDFN 9 tower array. A very young Ralph Hunt was there, and we talked about a station that had an SLR (not WDEE) and was now reducing input under new rules, a 5000 watt licensed station that input 3841 watts and not the full 5405. He apparently didn't know that WDEE was using an SLR, as he thought that it was only small market stations that did that. He was the first to mention to me all the detuned high tension towers that WJBK had to put up to achieve George Storer's dream of having a 50 kW station in Detroit, and what a nightmare that DA was.
 
It wasn't so bad. Other than Storer, i owned that station the longest. I hired Paul Whitney in 1990 to rebuild the phasors and networks. We worked for about 10 days and REALLY straightened it all out. Made if very stable. Bob Jones had started the work and screwed it all up. He would just run the Ampliphase into the day array and watch for arcs and blown caps. Not a plan. The Commission removed our Critical Array status right about the same time. We made the night array work without the other 3 towers. K Mart built on the Dix frontage.
My only real hassle was with the locals. The 5 FCC inspections in a 3 year period and John Dingell breathing down our backs.
That all got diffused and that last 8 years of ownership was pretty much a joy.
 
The 1500 issue was the oldest issue on the FCC docket. 18 years or so. I vowed that it would be finished under my watch.
It cost WTOP (Bonneville) And KSTP (Hubbard) 365 grand to set it straight as they were the ones in violation. I got 10KW at night, a new Sampling system all of the proofs and some detuning.

Meetings in DC with all of our Lawyers and their Engineers.... Bill Kennard listening through a door off of the conference room. Roy Stewart telling all of us (18 people) to act nice. Midnight to 3 AM listening tests with Rackley, Sawyer, Jenny Morris, Ezra from Bonneville and yours truly. Crazy and cool. Built some great friendships through it all.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom