KFXR night ERP

[Ai4i]

Anyone have a clue as to what their effective radiated nachturnal power is at 251º?

 

[317C50KW]

One of the DX groups used to publish a night pattern book. It was about the only thing out there that gave a rough idea of DA patterns until Radio Locator and even better FCC-Info came along. The FCC's actual website is also helpful if you have the patience to navigate it.

Anyway the night pattern book used KRLD's 50KW night signal as an example and at it's maximum it was something like 150KW ERP going toward the west southwest.
Here's the plot:

http://transition.fcc.gov/ftp/Bureaus/MB/Databases/AM_DA_patterns/158701-74350.pdf

Here's KFXR's plot:

http://transition.fcc.gov/Bureaus/MB/Databases/AM_DA_patterns/221001-66822.pdf

Note that both stations send the bulk of their signal in almost the same direction. The only difference is KRLD's night coverage is broad and we all know KFXR's night coverage isn't.

Since I can't do calculus (or add or subtract for that matter) I'll take a guess and say that KFXR might max out at around 35 or 40 KW ERP at 251 degrees.

Maybe 1190's chief knows...and certainly Dave Hultsman who built it knows!

I'll throw this out, I think the 1070 site in Houston should be of equal interest. 11 towers day, 9 at night and most if not all are 180 degrees in height, at that frequency that's close to 500 feet each. That's a lot of iron in the air and copper on the ground.

 

[radi0avenger]

If you had asked me 10 years ago I probably could have spit out the monitor point readings at any direction you wanted. But alas I've slept since then.

 

[Ai4i]

I'm surprised that 'FXR or whatever their calls were @ the time didn't let their pattern out and/or up their power when WOWO was emasculated by WLIB. I assume their null is pointing toward Fort Wayne.

 

[317C50KW]

Supposedly the Kansas City station on 1190 got an app in to better their night signal, leaving our local 1190 out. And at the same time 1190 was in its ownership flux period (Salem-CBS-Radio One-CC).

And we all forget about the 50 kilowatt gorilla south of here, WOAI on 1200.

 

[fybush]

There's not so much a "null" to the KLIF night pattern as there is just a single narrow lobe of power banging down I-30 into Dallas and Fort Worth. In the process, of course, KLIF protected (and still protects) the incumbent class A stations on the channel in Fort Wayne, Portland and Guadalajara.

Opening up the 1190 Dallas night pattern toward Fort Wayne wouldn't really do much of anything useful, since there's not much population up in that direction (and it's already at the edge of the DFW radio market, isn't it?)

It's the signal toward Portland (and by extension, St. Louis and Kansas City, where there are class B stations now on 1190) that would be more useful for KLIF/KFXR to expand, since that's the direction where all of the market's population explosion has been happening, and as long as KEX is still a class A signal in Portland (which it is), there's not much room for Dallas to improve its DA.

 

[Ai4i]

A thorough answer, Scott.
Plus, if they opened their pattern, they would need more power just to deliver the same ERP into Fort Worth.
I guess my thinking is that no one can predict where a market might expand to in the future.
Of course by then, AM radio might be "Only on The History Channel".

 

[DrAkbar]

But 11~Ninety came in good in Terlingua when the skies were clear at night

 

[radiorob2.0]

I'm surprised that 'FXR or whatever their calls were @ the time didn't let their pattern out and/or up their power when WOWO was emasculated by WLIB. I assume their null is pointing toward Fort Wayne.

An 1190 topic came up a while back and that subject was discussed. Essentially the hierarchy running 1190 dropped the ball when WOWO made the downgrade. Adding insult to injury was the co-ownership under Clear Channel with KEX Portland. A mutual agreement on interference issues would allowed 1190 Dallas a better night pattern. However, other 1190's and adjacent channels beat them to upgrades.

 

[Steve Eberhart]

It seems somewhere in my research of the station years ago, I was told it puts an ERP of 50,000 in the main pattern lobe. McLendon apparently wanted to maintain the same signal strength at night in Dallas as during daytime operations, and put a city grade into Arlington and Fort Worth.

The pattern did that but reduced coverage in some key areas that exhibited enormous growth in the next decade, including Collin and Denton Counties.

The original 1000 watts from Pleasant Grove at night actually covered "some" of the Dallas Fort Worth area better than the new 5000 watt Rockwall facility.

I do know it was an enormously expensive propostion that presented many challenges.

Only weeks ago I was given a tour of the Rockwall site and transmitter building. It is an amazing site, 12 towers, 6 on each side in a row...essentially unchanged since its design in the late 1960's and implementation in 1970. I stood there in amazement at the engineering feat in front of me, and then just shook my head as I realized how crazy this place is. The massive site was so unneccesary and it was so much money spent poorly, but that was McLendon. Never one to shy away from spending whatever it took to do what he wanted to do.

For my money, I would have moved the 1000 watt nighttime site from Pleasant Grove to Grand Prarie or Arlington. The circular pattern would have covered most of the entire metroplex with a city grade signal that would have in many ways been better than the highly directional 5000 watt sticks in Rockwall. The cost to build it would have been incredibly less and the maintenance over the years I understand has been a bear - to bear!

 

[Ai4i]

I was informed in a PM that the forward ERP is actually 75 big ones.
In 1984, I drove northeasterly away from the array and for about twenty miles was hearing supressed carrier DSB.

 

[DrAkbar]

For my money, I would have moved the 1000 watt nighttime site from Pleasant Grove to Grand Prarie or Arlington. The circular pattern would have covered most of the entire metroplex with a city grade signal that would have in many ways been better than the highly directional 5000 watt sticks in Rockwall. The cost to build it would have been incredibly less and the maintenance over the years I understand has been a bear - to bear!

Somewhere in cyberspace is a recollection that the original plan was to bump up the nighttime power from the daytime (Irving) site, but the FCC didn't buy it. Back in the day, Dallas and Ft Worth were separate Arbitron markets and the Ol Scotsman didn't want KFJZ and KXOL to own it all at night. With 12 towers and 5kw, he got into Ft Worth at the expense of losing a lot of real estate north of Dallas. While everyone speaks of the crappy night coverage of 11~Ninety, it's just as crappy during morning drive hours in the winter. Having to wait until after 7am to fire up the 50kw afterburners sucks. And then there's the "size matters" theory, which was widely used by Ancient Modulation operators back then: if you're 5kw at night, you're 5 times better than a 1kw station. What did media buyers know about directional patterns, anyway? So Gordon got exactly what he wanted...but bet his money on the wrong horse. In this case a dog.

 

[fybush]

O Be-Fezzed One, I think you underestimate the canny Ol' Scotsman...don't forget that he didn't hang on to KLIF very long after he'd built the big night array. Having accomplished the merger of the Dallas and Fort Worth radio markets, he cashed out on ~11-Ninety and hung on to KNUS-FM...and then ran that one up in ratings and revenues, too, didn't he?

 

[DrAkbar]

Timing is everything, and on that one the Ol Scotsman nailed it. IIRC Fairchild wasn't interested in paying a small pittance more for that upstart KNUS~FM. But there's something about 11~Ninety and wishful thinking: Clear Channel paying $16m. YIKES!

 

[iyiyi]

50kW yields 2,700 mV/m @ 1km. 1190 pumps 2,642 mV/m @ 1km on it's 250 degree radial...

-

 

[FlyOnWall]

Ah yes, I remember it well! I was there the day the sale of the Mighty 1190 was announced to the staff. We were all summonded to the movie theatre for a "major announcement". There sat Ken Dowe with a cassette recorder in his lap (I think it even had a Car-Teach logo on it!) He simply pressed the play button. Even through the tiny speaker, came the unmistakable booming voice of the Old Scotsman himself "My father and I are selling KLIF and KILT..." etc. etc.

Things were NEVER the same again...

O Be-Fezzed One, I think you underestimate the canny Ol' Scotsman...don't forget that he didn't hang on to KLIF very long after he'd built the big night array. Having accomplished the merger of the Dallas and Fort Worth radio markets, he cashed out on ~11-Ninety and hung on to KNUS-FM...and then ran that one up in ratings and revenues, too, didn't he?

 

[Holstead]

I recall failing to switch to the Rockwall/Night Pattern once when I worked there. I was 16, it was right before the switch to talk. Saturday night. I got a rather "feisty" phone call from the CE at WOWO. First, confirming that it WAS "Blue Highway" by John Conlee on the air, and that I was in fact shredding the 1190 signal over greater Ft. Wayne.

WOAI used to blow KLIF off the dial regularly just prior to sunrise-right in our own headphones. Many called it Mark's revenge. Named after KLIF newscaster Mark Watkins, who was fired for a brief time, and immediately found work doing the morning news at 1200 in San Antonio.

Same thing would happen on occasion in Houston when I worked at the FM/AM simulcast of KIKK. We'd fail to power down, and some Grand ol' Opry fanatic from Cypress would raise hell to the FCC.

Memories. -woops

 

[rbrucecarter5]

I just remember how excited we all were in Midland when we heard KLIF was going to increase their nighttime power from 1 kW to 5 kW in the late 60's - it would make the signal a lot better over Midland at night - when we were stuck with KOMA at night, a few of us were lucky to have good radios to get WLS. The KLIF "upgrade" hardly made a difference at night. Same severely degraded signal compared to day. Hardly an improvement at all.

After KLIF dropped top-40, I didn't give a darn what happened to the station - same with KOMA when they went country and WLS when it went talk. Once great stations - now silenced as far as I am concerned.

 

[Curl]

Lets not forget the nightime IBOC problem for KFXR. I think WOAI has thankfully turned it off, but even 1170 in Tulsa can wipe out KFXR along LBJ in North Dallas at night. The weird effect is that when going UNDER a bridge, the 1190 signal suddenly improves because the IBOC from 1170 is cut off.

 

[Ai4i]

A friend of mine ran an undocumented AM station with some vertical and some horizontal components and bridges had about no effect on his signal.