I suppose it's not an issue for those who have to live and die by their market's Arbitron ratings, but one of the beauties of directional AM clears like KGO is the steady nighttime (and even twilight) coverage for hundreds of miles in the path of the directional signal. Too bad that ultra-conservative religious stations in Portland and Seattle got decent nighttime signals a few years ago, which prevent those of us in the population centers who would still enjoy being able to listen to KGO to actually hear it without it being jammed by the adjacent station splatter. A real waste of AM spectrum, in my opinion, for yet another set of time-brokered religious stations with just enough listeners for Dobson and his ilk to pay for airtime, but not enough general service programming to matter to the rest of the world. Or to help keep AM a viable and compelling service.
For those of us who still like to DX AM signals, especially when there's some programming of note on them, powerful signals like KGO. and WBZ Boston and the old WCFL Chicago, and maybe even KFBK Sacramento, what used to be on WLAC Nashville and some of the programming out of WWL New Orleans, and even those crazy border stations aimed north from Mexico, showed what a directional array could accomplish for motorists and small town listeners hungry for something to connect to at night -- something that going FM-only can't accomplish without a network. (I propose that this would be the real purpose of satellite radio - to provide actual national networks from a single source, and then give some of the local signals over to smaller operators to serve their local communities without having to service investor debt as their primary purpose.)
If you're one of the few 50kw-ers with a killer AM signal, and you're putting out a steady signal in one direction, you're probably coming in stronger than many of the local AMs hundreds of miles away. And, with compelling, unique programming, you could find a steady audience well beyond your MSA. At least, that used to be the case when they aired local programming and the signals were protected where they actually went.
For what it's worth, if I could still hear KGO in my car on I-5 in Seattle, I'd be listening to it at night. Maybe even to Gene Burns. Definitely to Christine Craft. With the lack of local talk shows at night in Seattle, I probably wouldn't be alone, since KGO's signal is otherwise amazingly strong up here when you get away from KGNW. But the adjacent channel splatter from AM820 makes it impossible to hear now until I get well outside my usual sphere east of Redmond or north of Everett.
Now if we could just get a pattern aimed this way from KCBS (740) and CKWX (1130), we'd also have a choice for some news updates beyond the sometimes-fumbling of KOMO. (I do think their evening guy is top-notch -- it's just their programming clock, super-irritating liners, and seemingly 50% commercial load make it hard for me to sit thru more than 5 minutes of KOMO. "kohhh-mohhhh on the faaarhs...")
What say ye, old-timers who still have AM presets on your car radios? Is there anything from out of town (not counting inernet or I-Phones) that you're tuning into on a regular basis anymore?
