Re: [IRCA] KGA degrade

[Scott Fybush <scott@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Powell E. Way III W4OPW wrote:
> --- Bill Harms <philcobill@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
>> Patrick:
>>
>>     Maybe from a financial point of view this kind
>> of thing might make  sense for the new owners.
> 
> 
> VERY short sighted sense. They will be getting a
> crippled station. A downgrade to B means that night
> power has to be less than 10,000 watts. At 1510 and
> directional they won't cover a lot of ground at night.

>> However, it negates one of the strong points  of the
> AM band and >that is long distance night time
> coverage. 
> 
> And that will also simply destroy a good bit of the
> local night coverage. They may not even cover all of
> the City of License at night anymore. 

I beg - politely - to differ. This deal does in fact make a great deal 
of sense for the new owners, and in this particular case shouldn't even 
be noticed by anyone listening in Spokane, if it's done right.

Here's how it plays out:

While Class A stations may not use a power less than 10 kW, Class B 
stations now can (and many do) use powers up to and including 50 kW. It 
was expedient, back in the mid-nineties, for WOWO to do its downgrade 
from A to B by dropping to 9.8 kW, but that doesn't mean it HAS to be 
done that way. Even WOWO subsequently filed an application (never acted 
upon) to raise its night power back to 15 kW a few years ago.

The WOWO downgrade was also hampered by a few other factors - the tower 
site is southwest of Fort Wayne, while the station it now has to protect 
at night (WLIB) is just about due east. If you were designing a night 
signal for WOWO that took WLIB into account from the start, you'd never 
in a million years put it where it is.

By contrast, the "new" KGA site that they've been using for the last 
decade or so is precisely in the spot where you'd build it if you had to 
protect a station to the south-southwest, where KPIG(AM) is.

The entire population of the market is to the north, and there's just 
about nothing but empty desert for more than 100 miles along the bearing 
(roughly 200 degrees) to San Francisco. The closest populated area that 
would fall in the new KGA null would be the Tri-Cities 
(Richland/Pasco/Kennewick), and KGA reception is already iffy there at 
night anyway due to skywave/groundwave cancellation.

There's simply no reason - if this whole thing is done competently - 
that KGA will lose any of its coverage north into the Spokane market at 
night. If anything, a tighter northward DA pattern at night will 
increase signal strength in Spokane and environs.

There are even extra towers available on site (already in use by KJRB) 
to create that tighter directional pattern.

Yes, it takes away long-range coverage at night - but then again, if all 
KGA is offering is the same syndicated fare that can be heard all over 
the dial, is that as relevant a point as it would have been even 20 
years ago?

s



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