X Band Power Down at Night

[N4GBK]

In a different thread, Schroedingers Cat mentioned X banders power at night. I'm about 35 miles from WHKT 1650. They are the only 1650 in the east. When they drop to 1000 watts, they are still heard but are too weak to listen to on a regular home type radio. If they were still 10 kW, their local groundwave would improve. I occasionally hear 1650 from Iowa. With so few stations on the X band, night time power increase probably makes sense if they don't violate treaty with Canada or Mexico etc.

 

[frankberry]

At 10kW, the stations would have very substantial nighttime skywave.
X-band groundwave isn't good but the skywave is great.

 

[BobOnTheJob]

X-band groundwave isn't good but the skywave is great.

True stuff Frank...during the winter, it's not uncommon to hear weak but present signals a few hundred miles out. Even in early-mid September, I'm now listening to WTDY 1670 Madison,WI at 313 air miles a good 3 hours after sunrise.

 

[N4GBK]

I agree. But who would get slammed by the skywave with so few stations? When the majority of ClassIV stations went to 1kW at night, did they gain any local coverage? I don't think the X band has been what they planned it to be.

 

[frankberry]

10kW could produce enough skywave to interfere with a station halfway across the country.

 

[chriscollins]

10K day/2.5K night would probably be a better combo...

 

[satech]

Originally all Expanded Band stations were supposed to be 10,000 watts daytime, 1000 watts nighttime, non-directional. However, the FCC has since granted allowances for some EB stations to increase their nighttime power by using a directional array, especially coastal stations which aim most of their power out to sea -- such as 1660 WWRU in Jersey City, NJ (a de facto NYC station) which runs 10,000 watts directional full-time (using 2 towers during the day and 4 towers at night).