I looked up a station recently on radio-locator and was shocked to see it was only 2 watts. Are there stations with 1 watt? How do they even make money to run those kinds of stations? I mean they gotta stream online or only a small area will hear them. Wish every station was 100k watts or 120k watts but that would cause some interference problems.
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Small wattage stations - how do they survive?
- Thread starter icycool7227
- Start date
Yes there are stations that run 1 watt at night, there are quite a few of them. Some examples
you could look up at Radio-Locator are WSQR, WBNL, WZRK to name a few.
It is really hard to make money on these stations at such low power, there are quite a few
that do get a somewhat decent coverage area with 6 watts or more, not the majority of them,
a few do though.
One watt is really not helpful unless the population lives within a mile of the tower. Outside of
about a mile or so, the signal is most likely of no benefit.
Where your tower is located is extremely important too. I work at a small town station that is
allowed 6 watts at night, and we use it. We don't make much money at night, and are completly
automated at night.
Our tower happens to sit smack dab in the middle of the town we serve, so that six watts covers
about 80% of the audience we are going for during the day, so it does work for us.
Most stations I've encountered have their towers built a few miles out of town in a field. When they
use such low power, they rarely reach any populated areas with a listenable signal.
My station also happens to be up in the dial, on a frequency that is not to bad most nights.
Our 6 watts is listenable out to about 10 miles with no real problems, and is audible most
nights, to about 20 miles, although past about 10 miles you are not really getting a quality
signal that most would listen to.
I would say it all depends on the frequency, the tower location, in terms of what you get.
With all that being said, a lot of stations, regardless of power, make very little of their money,
during overnight hours.
My station is lucky in that our tower is located within a mile of the biggest employer in the
county. A factory which runs 3 shifts, and they listen to us. We also benefit from being close
to restaurants and stores that open between 5 and 6 AM, that listen as well. Without our very
low power at night they would not be able to hear us that early the majority of the year.
I'm glad they can, they are some of my best clients.
you could look up at Radio-Locator are WSQR, WBNL, WZRK to name a few.
It is really hard to make money on these stations at such low power, there are quite a few
that do get a somewhat decent coverage area with 6 watts or more, not the majority of them,
a few do though.
One watt is really not helpful unless the population lives within a mile of the tower. Outside of
about a mile or so, the signal is most likely of no benefit.
Where your tower is located is extremely important too. I work at a small town station that is
allowed 6 watts at night, and we use it. We don't make much money at night, and are completly
automated at night.
Our tower happens to sit smack dab in the middle of the town we serve, so that six watts covers
about 80% of the audience we are going for during the day, so it does work for us.
Most stations I've encountered have their towers built a few miles out of town in a field. When they
use such low power, they rarely reach any populated areas with a listenable signal.
My station also happens to be up in the dial, on a frequency that is not to bad most nights.
Our 6 watts is listenable out to about 10 miles with no real problems, and is audible most
nights, to about 20 miles, although past about 10 miles you are not really getting a quality
signal that most would listen to.
I would say it all depends on the frequency, the tower location, in terms of what you get.
With all that being said, a lot of stations, regardless of power, make very little of their money,
during overnight hours.
My station is lucky in that our tower is located within a mile of the biggest employer in the
county. A factory which runs 3 shifts, and they listen to us. We also benefit from being close
to restaurants and stores that open between 5 and 6 AM, that listen as well. Without our very
low power at night they would not be able to hear us that early the majority of the year.
I'm glad they can, they are some of my best clients.
icycool7227 said:
It depends. I ran a couple of ten watters at one time. They were non-commercial, and we got our momey from local taxes. Community radio. The idea isn't to reach large numbers of people, but a small and narrow audience. School closings, community meetings, local information, that sort of thing. Volunteer staff, donated equipment, broadcasting from a small room in the high school. That kind of thing is becoming impractical now, do to local funding cuts.
Hold on a minute.
Are we talking about low-wattage AM or FM? Low-wattage AMs are extremely common, from the Class Ds that got Omni-directional night authorization in the last couple decades to some stations with a small directional array that still only have 100 watts or so night. These stations almost exclusively survive on their day signal and operate at night because they can do so cheaply and keep some listeners they would otherwise lose.
If you have an FM that is running 10 watts or less, it is either a non-com or a translator. If its a non-com, the funding comes from grants, fundraising, or sometimes taxes. If its a translator, the substantial $$$ come because of the main signal.
Are we talking about low-wattage AM or FM? Low-wattage AMs are extremely common, from the Class Ds that got Omni-directional night authorization in the last couple decades to some stations with a small directional array that still only have 100 watts or so night. These stations almost exclusively survive on their day signal and operate at night because they can do so cheaply and keep some listeners they would otherwise lose.
If you have an FM that is running 10 watts or less, it is either a non-com or a translator. If its a non-com, the funding comes from grants, fundraising, or sometimes taxes. If its a translator, the substantial $$$ come because of the main signal.
icycool7227 said:
TR1922 gave a very good explanation if you are referring to the very low night powers some AMs are authorized to employ. Generally, these stations have much much higher daytime power, and daytime is where the audience and revenue is.
However, since you refer to 100 kw stations, I wonder if you are referring to FM since no FCC licensed US AM may have move than 50 kw. There are lots of FMs with a couple of watts, but they are translators or boosters for "real" stations. A booster, for example, might be intended to fill in a small area where a station should have a signal but does not due to terrain, etc., and is on the same frequency as the station it fills for.
Back to AM: as TR1922 said, it depends on the market and transmitter site. Many stations given low night power don't use it as it achieves no objective. There is not a lot of night revenue in bigger markets (small ones can do well with local HS sports, etc) so lack of coverage and lack of revenue makes it unattractive to use these authorizations.
How far does 1 watt go in the day time on AM??
Does it cover a small town??
Does it cover a small town??
MarioMania said:
A VERY small town, yes, if the conductivity is good and all RF efficiencies of the good.
Not with a tiny antenna, but something properly sized electrically for the wavelength.
It also pretty much would require that listeners have a fairly clean environment, as far as RF noisemakers.
1 watt won't ride over any noise at all to speak of....
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