104.7 How can this be?

How were they able to squeeze in 3 stations (2 LP and 1 translator) onto the 104.7 frequency in South Florida?

1) Coconut Creek https://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/patg?id=WYUN-FL

2) Miami https://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/patg?id=W284CS-FX

3) Miami https://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/patg?id=WAYG-FL

And notice that 2 of them, same frequency, are licensed to Miami. ???

I'm no engineer but have been able to see several applications for stations. First, Radio Locator is predicted coverage. Predicted can be different from real life coverage. Second, you note three areas of coverage. These are 60, 50 and 40 dbu coverage areas. A radio station next to another many times reaches the 40 dbu contour. I think you cannot touch the 54 dbu line. In other words you can interfere in the 40 dbu area. Keep in mind, almost all listening is within the 60 dbu. the inner circle.

For some reason, people think stations simply go on and do what they want. The FCC has rules and separation requirements that have been the same for many years. Simply put, you apply to the FCC and unless it meets the separation rules it is not approved and you cannot build the station. What you are experiencing is the use of the FM dial up to the minimum separations as required by the FCC Rules as they have been all along.

AMRocks said:

How were they able to squeeze in 3 stations (2 LP and 1 translator) onto the 104.7 frequency in South Florida?
And notice that 2 of them, same frequency, are licensed to Miami. ???

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W284CS's three methods are to use directionality, directionality, and directionality.
In their weakest directions, the translator's ERP is something like ¾ of a watt.
They hammer a lot more signal than that, into the ground below.
Both of the LPFM's arrived first and the X-lator squoze in between.
Same thing is scheduled to happen between W298AM on channel 249 downtown Miami and WRMF on channel 250.
WAVS's W263CJ on channel 300 will radiate less than ¼ watt toward WMIV-LPFM, also on the highest channel.

See how we're "fixing" the problems on the AM band? Squeezing more stations onto the FM band and making a mess of that.

AMRocks said:

See how we're "fixing" the problems on the AM band?
Squeezing more stations onto the FM band and making a mess of that.

Click to expand...

They overlap no significant signal levels.
Each fades into oblivion before the other can be heard.

Even going off the estimated coverage from radio-locator it doesn't appear that these stations would impact one another. Personally I'm all for there being more listening options on the FM dial. I happened to be in Miramar last Saturday and caught a bit of Throwback 105.5 and it sounds pretty good. It's been mentioned elsewhere that this format doesn't generally last but it's nice to know that there's at least a FM signal available to try it out on.