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POWERING DOWN

J

jughead

I am a complete novice with all this stuff, I just like coming on the board and hearing what's going on from time to time. But I have to ask this:

It was my understanding ALL AM stations in Indianapolis have to power down at night.

Are there special circumstances for special events? It seems to me - especially when it's a sporting event on ANY AM station in Indy - the stations I normally can't get at night suddenly are loud and clear.
 
All either power down, change directional pattern, or both. There are no exceptions for sports or special events, however there are for emergencies.
This doesn't say that there aren't styations that operate illegally to broadcast sports events.
 
jughead said:
It was my understanding ALL AM stations in Indianapolis have to power down at night.

Are there special circumstances for special events? It seems to me - especially when it's a sporting event on ANY AM station in Indy - the stations I normally can't get at night suddenly are loud and clear.
Click to expand...

It's not just Indianapolis....atmospheric (ionospheric) conditions change at sundown and radio waves on these frequencies are capable of traveling much further distances...just tune around at night and you will hear stations you normally cannot hear during the day. Because of this, AM stations, depending on their frequency, location, etc. must either go off the air at sundown (actual times vary from month-to-month) or as mentioned in another post, reduce their power and/or antenna pattern to minimize interference to other stations operating on the same frequency. Things like sporting events would have nothing to do with this. A lot of AM stations are now set up to do this all automatically. The one I worked at required the operator to do the pattern/power change via remote control at the specified time..although I can recall a few times where the board op spaced it and the station operated at full power that evening....ooops :)
 
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