Unconfirmed report silent WDTW (AM 1310) heard testing

A DXer in Carleton, MI has reported on a blog that WDTW (AM) Dearborn was briefly heard on October 9, simulcasting sister station WDTW-FM 106.7.

The station has been silent since a few minutes after the start of the new year, after which the station's six tower array was torn down, so, if real (and I believe the post is truthful), they are transmitting from a different site (five AM existing broadcast arrays are within a few miles of Carleton).

So, they moved this to an array, south of Dearborn? I haven't seen anything on the FCCs Daily Digest about this.
Did they have a legal auxiliary tower site? I cannot imagine them shooting a strong signal too far to the north as they have to protect a second
adjacent 1330 in Flint.

On STA, they would be allowed 1250 watts fulltime with a suitable nondirectional antenna. I think the biggest day restrictions to a new licensed facility are WILS 1320 and WOBL 1320. WEXL 1340 is also a consideration, as well as WTRX 1330. None would affect a suitably located STA. Some stations have been using STAs for many years. I can think of one in Indiana that had 250 watts and a six tower array that is running with 62 watts nondirectional. As the relocation could be argued to be beyond the new licesnsee's control, the ratchet clause may not apply, and new rules may get rid of the ratchet clause anyway.

I knew that part of it. I had an STA on 600, ND. 250 watts in exchange for the 1KW directional. Here is what i am fuzzy on. Don't you in ND mode have to be within your tightest null.
Back to my original remark. I haven't seen anything about this in the Daily Digest. Of course, with the shutdown, there is no Daily Digest.

The group that CC donated it to is going to put religous programming on, right?

Probably not. MMTC isn't a religious group; it typically resells the stations that have been donated to it, if it can get them back on the air at all.

I think that just applies to continued DA use, jry. Say your monitor point is reading 1.41 mV/m, and it is supposed to be 1.0 mV/m. Then I think you could use (1/1.41)^2 or 0.5 times licensed power. So if you were 1 kW, 500 watts could be used until the DA was put back into specifications. I think the 1/4 power STA ND may go back to when a lot of stations went from 1000 ND to 5000 DA. NARBA allowed a lot of stations to run 1000 ND at night, and early DAs were designed to null a 5000 watt directional back to the 1000 watt equivalent. Of course, that doesn't explain why it is 25% and not 20% power, but I think the assumption was that the nulled areas averaged out to be about 1/4 power.

Schroedingers Cat said:

On STA, they would be allowed 1250 watts fulltime with a suitable nondirectional antenna. I think the biggest day restrictions to a new licensed facility are WILS 1320 and WOBL 1320. WEXL 1340 is also a consideration, as well as WTRX 1330. None would affect a suitably located STA. Some stations have been using STAs for many years. I can think of one in Indiana that had 250 watts and a six tower array that is running with 62 watts nondirectional. As the relocation could be argued to be beyond the new licesnsee's control, the ratchet clause may not apply, and new rules may get rid of the ratchet clause anyway.

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It's too bad the FCC site is down, and I did not save the radiation plots (thus, I can't do the math), but I suspect WEXL 1340 (its 25mV/m contour and WDTW's) was the only barrier to WDTW going 50kW-D/5kW-N DA1 by using their night pattern during the day. WDTW's night pattern was so choked in every direction other than about 15° Azi that 50kW into it would shoot less RF in the directions of WILS, WOBL, WFIN, WDPN, WTLC and WERE than 5kW into their 2-tower DA-D did. I strongly suspect (just might be wrong) that, with 50kW into the night pattern during the day, that their 5mV/m contour would have entirely passed to the east of the 5mV/m of WTRX on 1330 (especially if they were to use measured conductivity in Oakland County instead of the unrealistic 8μS/m in the M3 table).

Of course, that night pattern is THE major factor in the demise of WDTW.

If they were to build a new array a few miles south of the old one (thus further away from WEXL), they very likely could go to 50kW and have a "no complaints" signal over the whole high-population/frequently-traveled territory of the Detroit area.

Problem is, fully covering the Detroit area at night on 1310, under their 12mV/m NIF, is a distinct impossibility (unless WTLC, WIBA, WCCW, CIWW and WDPN were all to go silent - or WDTW could run 300kW into a ridiculous array with nulls deeper than the FCC would let them specify - like I said, impossible)

I'm still trying to figure out where the very brief operation may have been from. Since WDTW is still owned by Clear Channel (they seem to have been unable to get the FCC to transfer the license to MMTC), I wonder if they might have used the WDFN array, since they own it. Strange that the October 9th operation was after sunset. Running WDTW from the WDFN array during the day is simple enough (with 7 towers going unused during the day), but all 9 of the towers are needed for WDFN at night (yes, they could have diplexed, but that would be far more complicated than just going with a daytime STA).

WCCW would now preclude a meaningful increase in night power. The other well protected former III-A 1310 stations you mention would likely limit night power to 15 to 25 kW based on what other stations have managed. Only 4 former Class IIIs have managed to get 50 kW night under the new rules, due to the fact that they are near the edge of the populated country and already interfered greatly with many stations. Those are KMJ, KJR, WWJ, and WXYT.

Schroedingers Cat said:

WCCW would now preclude a meaningful increase in night power. The other well protected former III-A 1310 stations you mention would likely limit night power to 15 to 25 kW based on what other stations have managed. Only 4 former Class IIIs have managed to get 50 kW night under the new rules, due to the fact that they are near the edge of the populated country and already interfered greatly with many stations. Those are KMJ, KJR, WWJ, and WXYT.

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Wow, I never realized it was THAT few - half of them in my market!

Only further supports my point that 1310 can't deliver the whole "populated area" at night.

One does not really have to deliver from the Ohio line to Capac, and west to Howell- serving the whole official market, but if you don't cover everything from S Rockwood, to Canton, thence to Rochester Hills, over to New Baltimore, then many people either won't hear them at home at night or will not hear them in their commutes or when visiting friends and relatives. A refined WDTW could cover this by day, but not at night, and it would have to go after a "niche" market (e.g. in Spanish covering downriver and SW Detroit strong 24/7 at home and the whole Detroit area quite well by day).

As it was, WDTW covered most of that "populated area" by day, though a little weak in the north and eastern parts of it, but its night coverage was awful, covering basically the western 2/3 of "the black metropolis", plus small parts of (mostly white) downriver and SE Oakland County.

There are a couple more with night power in the 45 kW range. Then it falls all the way down to WFDF with 50 kW day, 25 kW night, along with WHBY 1150 with 20 kW day, 25 kW night. We had a thread about this but I can't find it now. There's a link, but it just comes back to the whole thread list. The stations that had the four oldest DAs in Michigan are among the 10 most powerful Class IIIs at night. Being able to send their signals into thinly populated areas of Canada at night helps, as sending it into the ocean helps KMJ and KJR, and as I recall, the 40-49 kW night ones.

The FCC website is back up as of about midnight. So far there is no CDBS record of an STA location for WDTW.

What is the rule on third adjacent AM? WEXL is a Class D or 4 or ?

jry said:

What is the rule on third adjacent AM? WEXL is a Class D or 4 or ?

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WEXL was a Class IV, so it is now Class C.

It's 25 mV/m to 25 mV/m regardless of class domestically. I figured you could go 20 kW daytime from the WDFN site several years ago diplexing 4 to 6 of the WDFN towers daytime. That was before WCCW, which affects what they could do at night. The daytime DA would have to be more complex than the licensed one. With the ratchet clause, 4 kW is probably what they could do at night with WCCW there without a really narrow or divided lobe like WXYT has for WMKT.

Thanks.

One question about WFDF: It is 25kW at night, or is it actually 19kW (FCC database showed both - either way, they had a good signal into Oscoda this past weekend, day and night).

WCCW would have no effect on any plan to improve the daytime coverage of a new WDTW. WCCW is directional by day its contours to the southeast are not very far from their TL, and the soil is awful. WCCW might as well be KNPT insofar as protecting daytime coverage is concerned.

Best thing to do about WCCW would be to buy it and an FM (both should be cheap up there), flip the FM to sports and drop WCCW to a class D (it you don't just turn the license back in). The other option would be a TL further to the west and to beam the night pattern at about 30° azi, between WCCW and CIWW. Personally, I think the only way to make lemonade out of their lemon of a nighttime channel would be to target SW Detroit and Downriver with about 2kW into four towers down that way (y con programación en español). Another 4-tower (perhaps 3?) array further to the SW would blast the area with 50kW day.

WFDF was originally going to be 25 kW night, but problems with clipping of WSUI were anticipated and they reduced it to 19 kW to get it through and built. Later, they applied for 28 kW, which the consultant for WSUI complained about clipping, which was then eliminated with a slightly altered pattern and reduction to 25 kW. It is licensed for 25 kW. It is still one of the strongest signals in Oscoda, as it was when it was 5000 watts day and 1000 watts night from the Burton site. V-Soft Zip Code shows this, and if you remove the vacated Canadian signals, nighttime signals, and inland stations below the signal predicted by M-3, it is pretty high on the list of strong signals, higher than many locations further south.

http://zipsignal.v-soft.com/

Put in 48750 for Oscoda. CHYR is gone, but I suspect CFCO should be listed but is ignored by the program because of a wrong code in the FCC database record. Some stations may be higher (WJR and WWJ) and some lower (WHAK and WTCM) due to path.

You are correct about WCCW not impacting the daytime operation of WDTW. They could probably be 50 kW nondirectional toward WDTW. WCCW had a CP for 50 kW daytime directional.

Schroedingers Cat said:

...You are correct about WCCW not impacting the daytime operation of WDTW. They could probably be 50 kW nondirectional toward WDTW. WCCW had a CP for 50 kW daytime directional.

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Here is a map showing the 150 µV/m daytime groundwave contours for WCCW, the previous WDTW, and other stations on that frequency in nearby states. The patterns include the directional pattern radiated by the station (if any), and the effects of M3 conductivity.

http://s20.postimg.org/86g2a1xil/1310_Midwest_Map.gif

This listing just appeared on radioTVdeals.com. It certainly looks like WDTW:

"FEATURED LISTINGS:
DETROIT - AM BUILD OUT OPPORTUNITY
Buyer would be purchasing the station license and transmitter only. A full-build out (studio, transmitter site and towers) is needed in order to broadcast. Station currently silent and towers have been deconstructed. Previous site is available to lease for a rebuild."

I am 99.9% sure that it is WDTW. The license probably expires 12 months from when it was just turned on.... Did anyone see any authorization to do what they just did from where ever they did it?