KGB-KLSD Shuffle

[DavidEduardo]

The problem with iHeart sports stations is that on many occasions, they don't put much effort into them. KGME used to be THE sports talk station in Phoenix, but now they're just a shadow of themselves.

The problem is that, while a decent daytime signal, the night signal on 910 is dreadful with deep nulls towards Scottsdale and Glendale, limiting coverage to the east and west. Most of the night signal goes over downtown and towards South Mountain. It has more signal over Gila Bend than Paradise Valley or Sun City.

 

[david]

It was midnight on a Wednesday night/Thursday morning. Who'd you be doing this for?

A history mile-marker, self-respect, heritage marker... as well as all the radiodiscussions people who care 'bout these things. ;-)

 

[DavidEduardo]

A history mile-marker, self-respect, heritage marker...

Why distract people working on the frequency change and run up overtime with no ROI when the staff can be better dedicated to doing something that might produce ratings or revenue... neither of which would have occurred at midnight on any day of the week?

as well as all the radiodiscussions people who care 'bout these things. ;-)

Maybe.

 

[michael hagerty]

Why distract people working on the frequency change and run up overtime with no ROI when the staff can be better dedicated to doing something that might produce ratings or revenue... neither of which would have occurred at midnight on any day of the week?

Exactly. Assuming nothing's gotten worse in the 2 years and 8 months I've been gone from iHeart, there's one---maybe two---people in the cluster who are responsible for telling the servers for ALL the stations what to play when. Just getting the feeds to switch stations was work enough.

They did this just before a holiday weekend. The plan clearly is to begin promotion (if any) after Labor Day.

 

[EricStein]

The problem is that, while a decent daytime signal, the night signal on 910 is dreadful with deep nulls towards Scottsdale and Glendale, limiting coverage to the east and west. Most of the night signal goes over downtown and towards South Mountain. It has more signal over Gila Bend than Paradise Valley or Sun City.

They also make the mistake of putting their only relevant local show on morning drive, where many people can't hear the first two hours of the show in winter months unless they're streaming or listening to the HD2 simulcast.

 

[DavidEduardo]

They also make the mistake of putting their only relevant local show on morning drive, where many people can't hear the first two hours of the show in winter months unless they're streaming or listening to the HD2 simulcast.

The night signal is better than the day signal… 50 kw covers the populated areas. In Julian, not so good…but elsewhere it is a 50 kw signal.

 

[powers]

This move (to me) makes both good sense and bad sense for different reasons. It seems like iHeart is doing a KFI/KEIB thing in San Diego, with KOGO taking the dominant and local talk positions and then branding 1360 (poorer signal and probably lower ratings) as The Patriot with right-wing, mostly network-fed talk. 760 had been kind of an also-ran to KOGO, with much the same Conservative talk format, but with less promotion, despite the technically larger signal. (Yes, I know that 5kW at 600 is considered stronger than 50 kW at 760....maybe only marginal difference since they are both lower band signals) Since 760 had some longtime stars dating back to KFMB, it made sense to move Slater and Larson to KOGO somehow. The other head-scratcher is that moving sports to 760 only makes sense to me if they stand to bring on a large sports audience or a team like the Padres. As said before, unless I don't know something that others do, The Fan re-signed the Padres so it will be a while before their rights are up again. I would have thought that rebranding 760 to The Patriot would perhaps kill or diminish the similar format of "The Answer" on 1170, especially with a stronger night signal. Now it looks like 1360 and 1170 are just going to go head-to-head in format and night signal. That's how they do it in LA with 870 and 1150.

If the Padres or another big team are on the table, then the 760 move to sports makes more sense to me. I guess iHeart sees them as taking the KLAC position for San Diego....same patterns of moves here.

 

[DavidEduardo]

This move (to me) makes both good sense and bad sense for different reasons. It seems like iHeart is doing a KFI/KEIB thing in San Diego, with KOGO taking the dominant and local talk positions and then branding 1360 (poorer signal and probably lower ratings) as The Patriot with right-wing, mostly network-fed talk. 760 had been kind of an also-ran to KOGO, with much the same Conservative talk format, but with less promotion, despite the technically larger signal. (Yes, I know that 5kW at 600 is considered stronger than 50 kW at 760..

KOGO is now 9 kw day and 10 kw (or is it 11?) at night. And 760 is just slightly up the dial from 600, so the daytime 760 signal covers lots more than 600. .

 

[michael hagerty]

This move (to me) makes both good sense and bad sense for different reasons. It seems like iHeart is doing a KFI/KEIB thing in San Diego, with KOGO taking the dominant and local talk positions and then branding 1360 (poorer signal and probably lower ratings) as The Patriot with right-wing, mostly network-fed talk. 760 had been kind of an also-ran to KOGO, with much the same Conservative talk format, but with less promotion, despite the technically larger signal.

Except that KOGO is still going to run Clay Travis and Buck Sexton from 9-noon and Sean Hannity from noon-3---so there's six hours of right-wing, network-fed talk. Of course, that's what they do at KFBK in Sacramento (with Tom Sullivan in noon-3 instead of Hannity, who airs on KSTE), so maybe that's just iHeart's model for large (not major)-market operations with two AM talkers now.

 

[michael hagerty]

KOGO is now 9 kw day and 10 kw (or is it 11?) at night. And 760 is just slightly up the dial from 600, so the daytime 760 signal covers lots more than 600. .

Wait a minute, David. I'm confused. KOGO's at 10(ish)kw daytime. 760 is 5kw day and 50kw night. So the daytime 760 signal should be inferior to KOGO's, shouldn't it?

 

[TomásEstefan]

For years AM DXers have talked about nighttime “cheaters”…that is, stations running day power/patterns at night. Could 760 be the first example of a “daytime cheater”?

If this is what's happening, I'm sure the FCC would notice rather quickly as I believe the So Cal field office is still in Long Beach.

This move (to me) makes both good sense and bad sense for different reasons. It seems like iHeart is doing a KFI/KEIB thing in San Diego, with KOGO taking the dominant and local talk positions and then branding 1360 (poorer signal and probably lower ratings) as The Patriot with right-wing, mostly network-fed talk. 760 had been kind of an also-ran to KOGO, with much the same Conservative talk format, but with less promotion, despite the technically larger signal. (Yes, I know that 5kW at 600 is considered stronger than 50 kW at 760....maybe only marginal difference since they are both lower band signals) Since 760 had some longtime stars dating back to KFMB, it made sense to move Slater and Larson to KOGO somehow. The other head-scratcher is that moving sports to 760 only makes sense to me if they stand to bring on a large sports audience or a team like the Padres. As said before, unless I don't know something that others do, The Fan re-signed the Padres so it will be a while before their rights are up again. I would have thought that rebranding 760 to The Patriot would perhaps kill or diminish the similar format of "The Answer" on 1170, especially with a stronger night signal. Now it looks like 1360 and 1170 are just going to go head-to-head in format and night signal. That's how they do it in LA with 870 and 1150.

If the Padres or another big team are on the table, then the 760 move to sports makes more sense to me. I guess iHeart sees them as taking the KLAC position for San Diego....same patterns of moves here.

5 kw at 600 is not stronger than 50 kW at 760, the freq difference is only 160 kHz. If both stations ran the same power/pattern the difference would be insignificant. If there is nearly a Megahertz or more difference between frequencies it is very significant. If you compare say LA's 570 with LA's mid-band 1070, 570 is 5 kW, 1070 is 50 kW both non directional. 1070 is a complete salt water path to San Diego, 570 is about 2/3 water path. 570 is fair quality and completely listenable in SD, but 1070 is absolutely Local. Now if you compared 570 with say 1570 and used 5 kw into the same type of non-directional antenna, you'd barely get 500 Watt coverage from the 1570 facility. Imagine the now defunct station in Riverside on 1570 that was authorized only 50 Watts at night, served probably a radius of less than 5 miles, and if you factor in co-channel interference real coverage was probably only 2 or 3 miles.

 

[TomásEstefan]

KOGO is now 9 kw day and 10 kw (or is it 11?) at night. And 760 is just slightly up the dial from 600, so the daytime 760 signal covers lots more than 600. .

It's 10 kW...

 

[michael hagerty]

It's 10 kW...

And so it doesn't get lost---am I right that 760 is 5kw day and 50kw night?

 

[TomásEstefan]

And so it doesn't get lost---am I right that 760 is 5kw day and 50kw night?

Absolutely right, 5 kW ND Day, 50 kW DA-N. A rare facility. If it weren't for KBRT 740 in Orange County their Daytime power would be 50 kW ND. Presumably a 50 kW Daytime pattern with the equivalent of just 5 kW going to the North wasn't considered because that 50 kW plus lobe would simply be wasted going out to the ocean. Their night time pattern is another story, about a 90 kW ERP lobe is aimed up the coast to Alaska and a deep null is aimed at WJR in Detroit. 760 puts a similar signal at night in NorCal that KCBS puts down here.

 

[michael hagerty]

Absolutely right, 5 kW ND Day, 50 kW DA-N. A rare facility. If it weren't for KBRT 740 in Orange County their Daytime power would be 50 kW ND. Presumably a 50 kW Daytime pattern with the equivalent of just 5 kW going to the North wasn't considered because that 50 kW plus lobe would simply be wasted going out to the ocean. Their night time pattern is another story, about 90 kW ERP lobe is aimed up the coast to Alaska and a deep null is aimed at WJR in Detroit. 760 puts a similar signal at night in NorCal that KCBS puts down here.

Yeah---I used to listen after sunset to 760 in Ukiah at night in the mid-late 70s. That's roughly 650 miles and it came in strong.

So, daytime, 600 has 10kw and 760 has 5kw. Which would suggest that---daytime---600 has the stronger signal.

 

[sdwulfdawg]

Geeks are we.

 

[TomásEstefan]

Yeah---I used to listen after sunset to 760 in Ukiah at night in the mid-late 70s. That's roughly 650 miles and it came in strong.

So, daytime, 600 has 10kw and 760 has 5kw. Which would suggest that---daytime---600 has the stronger signal.

The reason the facility is so rare is that KFMB 760 was on 540, they moved to 760 in 1965 because the FCC reached an agreement with Mexico to free up 540 to make it a true Mexican Clear Channel freq. KBIG(now KBRT) went on the air on 740 as a daytimer way back in 1952. Their xmitter was on Catalina Is. with 10 kW aimed right at San Diego even though their intended market was Los Angeles. When KFMB moved to 760 there was mutual interference on wideband radios in North San Diego County but a exception to the rules was allowed because KFMB was licensed to "serve the San Diego Metropolitan Area" and KBIG's primary target was LA. As a side note when KBIG was granted a construction permit for 740 way back when, the folks at KCBS "freaked out" and protested strongly to the FCC.

 

[EricStein]

The night signal is better than the day signal… 50 kw covers the populated areas. In Julian, not so good…but elsewhere it is a 50 kw signal.

I was talking about KGME. Their best (and only salaried) local talent is in morning drive, yet the signal stinks in the AM for a few months of the year.

 

[SomeRadioGuy]

Absolutely right, 5 kW ND Day, 50 kW DA-N. A rare facility. If it weren't for KBRT 740 in Orange County their Daytime power would be 50 kW ND. Presumably a 50 kW Daytime pattern with the equivalent of just 5 kW going to the North wasn't considered because that 50 kW plus lobe would simply be wasted going out to the ocean. Their night time pattern is another story, about a 90 kW ERP lobe is aimed up the coast to Alaska and a deep null is aimed at WJR in Detroit. 760 puts a similar signal at night in NorCal that KCBS puts down here.

I cant recall having heard heard KOGO or KFMB here

 

[TomásEstefan]

I cant recall having heard heard KOGO or KFMB here

Alaska is theoretical, 760 is regularly heard at least as far as BC.