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WDBO

I just read on the Eastern North Carolina thread how WGTM 590 had an opportunity to upgrade to 25KW. I know 970 WFLA did it years ago. I'm suprised WDBO has never attempted to do so. Would they be allowed to do it? I bet David Eduardo would know.
 
They don't need to. 580 WDBO at 5kw off a tower on Lee Road is more than enough for the area it serves. Seriously, it's not all about power. It's about dial position, tower location, and daytime and nighttime patterns. As a comparison, 540 might have a full 50kw, but it's too low on the dial (ever heard the electrical interference during an afternoon thunderstorm on 540?) and it's towers are way out West of Orlando. Same goes for AM 620 in Tampa Bay... it's only 5-10kw... but it's signal pattern and tower location near the water allows it to be one of the best AM frequencies in Florida. All additional power gets you is a higher electric bill and by the looks of the ratings WDBO does just fine.
 
The one advantage to WDBO going 50k would be better night coverage. They could go west or northwest of Orlando and assure coverage of Lake and northern Seminole counties at night. Currently the signal gets a little flaky around Sanford after dark because of a northerly null. They have a lower nighttime interference ratio than WFLF so they'd get out farther for the same watts. One problem would be 570 in Tampa. The pattern would need to have a tight null to the southwest. But if that allowed 570 to tweak its pattern, both stations might end up with improved coverage of their respective metros.
 
If you can pull in WHTQ FM HD-2, you can pull WDBO's signal in wherever you're at, day or night.
 
Hmm, scratch that. Apparently tonight it seems you can't pull in WDBO via HD2 at the moment. With the storms approaching, I sure wish it would have been kept active--considering they're the "Emergency Weather Radio" in the advertisements...
 
tanner said:
I just read on the Eastern North Carolina thread how WGTM 590 had an opportunity to upgrade to 25KW. I know 970 WFLA did it years ago. I'm suprised WDBO has never attempted to do so. Would they be allowed to do it? I bet David Eduardo would know.

First, would that increase make the signal usable in the MSA to people who don't get a good signal now (and about 10 mv/m is the level needed to get diary mentions of any significance).

We have to consider what is on 570 and 590 in the area... if the signal is pushed south, we have Clewiston, and West has the Tampa area station... so they would be limited in sites.
 
Byron said:
Hmm, scratch that. Apparently tonight it seems you can't pull in WDBO via HD2 at the moment. With the storms approaching, I sure wish it would have been kept active--considering they're the "Emergency Weather Radio" in the advertisements...

The WDBO simulcast on WHTQ-HD2 is back on as of today.
 
Apparently, their board op/automation has been having some issue with providing the simulcast audio mix into the WHTQ HD2 encoder consistently. For as long as I could tell today, it was dead air from anywhere as early as 12p up to the 5:58p quick ID following the end of Hannity when I heard simulcast audio resume once again... The carrier was up, as you'd hear the WHTQ HD-2 Orlando legal ID every 30 minutes or so... but nothing else.
 
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