? re: stations that "don't cover their metro area" (for R. Fry, David Eduardo, etc)

[pianoplayer88key]

? re: stations that "don't cover their metro area" (for R. Fry, David Eduardo, etc)

So now and then on the forums I'll see some people mention that a particular station doesn't cover its local metro area well, for whatever reason. It has me wondering about something related to the coverage of those stations. Also I named a couple people who I thought might have insight, but anyone is welcome to answer as well. (Another person I thought of is Schrodinger's Cat or however he spells his name; I don't remember if there's an "i" in it but Chrome's spellcheck isn't squawking at me... (it is complaining about quite a few of the city names, especially in Spanish, and some DXing terms and callsigns though))

I'll use L.A. area as an example. I'm guessing the L.A. metro area might encompass as far as (drawing an imaginary contour clockwise around the area) a little past CA-27 (Calabasas , Chatsworth), I-5 and CA-14, along the foothills north of I-210 (like La Cañada, Altadena, Sierra Madre (maybe as far as Mt Wilson?), Glendora), La Verne, Pomona, along CA-71, a little east of CA-241 (including Santiago Canyon, grazing part of Silverado), Trabuco Canyon & Rancho Margarita, between Rancho Mission Viejo and Caspers Wilderness Park, and down to San Clemente, and along the coast back up to around Tuna Canyon Park near CA-27 and CA-1. (Also I'm not sure if Catalina Island would be included as well, but I'm guessing yes due to the saltwater path and the fact that many L.A. directional signals aim out to sea to protect mainland skywaves. (Not that many if any non-DXers regularly listen to them in the L.A. metro area...)

Another way I'm thinking of defining the metro area (of Los Angeles, for example; could also be for NYC or other large cities) would be how far away from the big city would you have to draw an imaginary boundary completely encircling the metro area, so that immediately outside that it's basically wilderness / farm / pasture land (or ocean)? For example, something like the video clip starting at 1:11 in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlEIq8cGTBc (for this topic just watch from 1:11 to 1:29, or maybe to 2:00. It's a clip of me driving on CA-46 eastbound, somewhere between Paso Robles and Bakersfield. It's part of another series of video clips that includes a Fire Strike benchmark on my PC with other things running simultaneously). In the case of L.A., how wide of an area would that encompass? (I'm guessing it would theoretically include San Diego and San Bernardino, which might normally be considered to be outside the metro area / Southland, right?)


Anyway, as for insufficient station coverage, again using L.A. as an example...

I've heard it said that stations like 740 KBRT, 830 KLAA, 870 KRLA, 900 KALI, 1110 KDIS, 1190 KGBN, 1260 KMZT, 1280 KFRN, 1300 KAZN, 1390 KLTX, 1430 KMRB, 1460 KTYM, 1580 KBLA, and 1650 KFOX apparently don't cover the entire L.A. area at night, and thereby it's hard to "sell" those stations for coverage. (I'm not talking about sale of the stations to a different party, though.)
Thing is, all of those stations, while they have some coverage in the L.A. area, are legally licensed to other cities in the area, not to Los Angeles itself.

So, what I'm wanting to know, is ... even if those stations are insufficient for covering the "metro area", how well do they cover their own legal city of license, at least according to the FCC rules, not the 10 mV/m contour?

Same question goes for some Los Angeles-licensed signals as well, like 790 KABC, 980 KFWB, 1020 KTNQ, 1150 KEIB, 1230 KYPA, 1330 KWKW and 1540 KMPC. In their cases, how well do they cover just within the L.A. city limits, not including outlying areas?

I'm not limiting the topic to L.A., I just used them as an example because I live about 116 miles or so from there, and I often listen to some stations from there (like KFI, KLAA (during baseball season; also I forget which the Dodgers station is - KLAC or KABC? can't remember), KNX, KDIS, occasionally KEIB (for Ramsey/Howard, but their signal is poor here), occasionally KMZT (poor signal though), KFRN, etc) as well as read about them on the L.A. board and other places.

 

[b-turner]

I'll chime in here. As for covering the city of license with the required strength signal is a FCC requirement. You might be able to move to another city of license, especially one with no other radio service, if a move to a better location might do well for you.

As for partial coverage, it is a common issue for many AM stations during full power daylight hours and even more so at night with lower power or very directional array. To put it bluntly, cities got bigger and grew outward but the radio station coverage did not. While that 1,000 watt AM might have pulled good numbers and covered the whole city a few decades ago is now only its a percentage of the city.

The issue seems to be less pronounced on FM, but in markets like the LA market, there were suburban stations because they had to be. Simply put you picked your city and were the local station. As I recall years and years ago, a buddy of mine lived in Costa Mesa (back when wealth was not a term attached to the name). There was an AM and FM that served Santa Ana. There was K-Orange, an FM local station. My favorite became The Fish a few years later. Back then, they were a suburban top 40 FM and was lucky to have 2 or 3 commercials an hour. This really goes back, but I recall Beautiful Music K-Surf, KSRF in Santa Monica from one very far back in time visit. It too served the local area. I think it would have been fair to say KROQ was not a full market back in the day (that day being when Shadoe Stevens was there and before he was Fred. R. Rated although Federated was a regular advertiser). There was a great little oldies station in Pomona back in the late 1970s...was that KWOW? Indeed, not a full market station at that time.

There have always been non-full coverage stations in the huge markets and mostly they struggled (although they really offered an affordable way for businesses to advertise and offered a nice base for the aspiring jock hoping to land a gig on one of the LA stations.

For the AM dial in most major metros, not many can say they have full coverage. Coupled with interference from about anything you can think of and not enough power, many of these AMs struggle with very few options to stay profitable. Religion, Ethnic programming and leasing are becoming the better options since trying a format is almost never successful. With that said, few try to be a station for only a segment of the metro, which might work if done right but it is easier to just sell blocks of time.

 

[davideduardo]

I'll use L.A. area as an example. I'm guessing the L.A. metro area might encompass as far as (drawing an imaginary contour clockwise around the area) a little past CA-27 (Calabasas , Chatsworth), I-5 and CA-14, along the foothills north of I-210 (like La Cañada, Altadena, Sierra Madre (maybe as far as Mt Wilson?), Glendora), La Verne, Pomona, along CA-71, a little east of CA-241 (including Santiago Canyon, grazing part of Silverado), Trabuco Canyon & Rancho Margarita, between Rancho Mission Viejo and Caspers Wilderness Park, and down to San Clemente, and along the coast back up to around Tuna Canyon Park near CA-27 and CA-1. (Also I'm not sure if Catalina Island would be included as well, but I'm guessing yes due to the saltwater path and the fact that many L.A. directional signals aim out to sea to protect mainland skywaves. (Not that many if any non-DXers regularly listen to them in the L.A. metro area...)

The LA metro area, or Metro Survey Area for radio, is all of LA and Orange Counties and has been that way for decades.

Another way I'm thinking of defining the metro area (of Los Angeles, for example; could also be for NYC or other large cities) would be how far away from the big city would you have to draw an imaginary boundary completely encircling the metro area, so that immediately outside that it's basically wilderness / farm / pasture land (or ocean)?

Radio and the Federal Government have slightly different ways of defining metropolitan areas. They are basically trade zones, and the radio metro includes a required minimum listening to stations home to the market. Generally, metros are composed of one or more full counties. This may include some rural areas because metros can include counties where there is high density population at one end and relatively little development at another.

Radio metros are defined by Nielsen. Government definitions come from the OMB.


Anyway, as for insufficient station coverage, again using L.A. as an example...

I've heard it said that stations like 740 KBRT, 830 KLAA, 870 KRLA, 900 KALI, 1110 KDIS, 1190 KGBN, 1260 KMZT, 1280 KFRN, 1300 KAZN, 1390 KLTX, 1430 KMRB, 1460 KTYM, 1580 KBLA, and 1650 KFOX apparently don't cover the entire L.A. area at night, and thereby it's hard to "sell" those stations for coverage. (I'm not talking about sale of the stations to a different party, though.)

None of those fully cover the two county metro in the daytime, and at night it is much worse. About 95% of AM ratings come from areas inside the 10 mV/M coverage area of stations, so wherever those stations do not meet that level they get very little listening.

Thing is, all of those stations, while they have some coverage in the L.A. area, are legally licensed to other cities in the area, not to Los Angeles itself.

All those stations are inside the Los Angeles radio market. They just don't cover it completely.

So, what I'm wanting to know, is ... even if those stations are insufficient for covering the "metro area", how well do they cover their own legal city of license, at least according to the FCC rules, not the 10 mV/m contour?

That is a licensing technicality. For sales and programming, we do not deal with individual municipalities, just the counties in the Metro Survey Area.

Same question goes for some Los Angeles-licensed signals as well, like 790 KABC, 980 KFWB, 1020 KTNQ, 1150 KEIB, 1230 KYPA, 1330 KWKW and 1540 KMPC. In their cases, how well do they cover just within the L.A. city limits, not including outlying areas?

The City of Los Angeles is not a radio market. The LA MSA is the radio market, so coverage of the city itself is irrelevant.

 

[Radio-X]

Don't forget, 30-80 years ago most of these markets were much smaller in size/population. When they signed on most of them that were not suburban stations could cover the defined radio market fine.

DC is another great example. 40 years ago going south 20 miles meant you were in the friggin' sticks! Now, the suburbs reach 50-60 miles out...a tough haul for AM's in a noisy environment and a market limited to class B FM's. Yet the metro stations still are pretty competitive because people identify with that market. Even though a person may be closer to the classic rock station in Fredericksburg, they'll listen to the one 50 miles away outta DC because they at least work near there.

What happens is these suburban stations get gobbled up by metro stations craving a better signal in these well-off areas. In DC, the main NPR affiliate has done this along with WTOP. The stations really couldn't compete with the metro stations, even though the metro stations are far away...people associate themselves with that metro rather than the actual area they live in. I tell people out here I'm from DC -- if I told them I'm from Aquia Harbour, VA, they'd look at me puzzled and say "ain't that by the ocean?"

If we were just opening up the AM band for licenses, I guarantee the FCC would put a power limit of 150-250kW. That is the type of power some of these clear-channel stations would need today to adequately cover a sprawling metro area like DC, LA, etc.

Radio-X

 

[rfry]

... If we were just opening up the AM band for licenses, I guarantee the FCC would put a power limit of 150-250kW. That is the type of power some of these clear-channel stations would need today to adequately cover a sprawling metro area like DC, LA, etc.

A Class A AM station on 1120 kHz (for example) using a 195° tower and earth conductivity of 8 mS/m produces a groundwave field of 10 mV/m at a radius of about 28.4 miles.

Increasing the applied power of that setup from 50 kW to 250 kW moves its 10 mV/m contour out to 38.7 miles -- maybe still not enough to fully cover a major metro area.

 

[Ai4i]

According to R-L, only two AM stations out of the two dozen licensed to cities in the Miami, FL market of Dade and Broward counties put 2½ mV/m night signals across all of Coral Springs, the northwestern-most city in Broward county, and Florida City, the southern-most city in Dade county. Three other stations are close.

When I was young, a common excuse for saying that FM stations could never compete with AMs was that their coverage areas were so much smaller. That was at a time when most FMs were on 200' AM sticks and at reduced power.

 

[gr8oldies]

In Indianapolis, WFNI (the old WIBC)-1070 misses upscale suburbs like Carmel and Noblesville completely at night.

 

[KeithE4]

In Indianapolis, WFNI (the old WIBC)-1070 misses upscale suburbs like Carmel and Noblesville completely at night.

That's why they have two translators on FM now -- they weren't where the money is without them. Of course, having to protect many other stations on 1070 (LA, Sackville, Chattanooga, Madison, probably several others I can't think of right now) doesn't help matters any.

 

[gr8oldies]

When I lived in Lafayette, CHOK in Sarnia, Ontario OWNED the frequency. At the time (early 90s) they were running a Canadian oldies network at night (GTO-Good Time Oldies).