Re: [IRCA] WOR and IBOC

[Scott Fybush <scott@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Gil Stacy wrote:
> Scott,
> 
> Fortunately I've never had the "pleasure" of driving around Manhattan or
> Chicago's loop trying to listen to a.m. radio. ;)  I was not aware of the
> issues of reception in Manhattan.  However, penetration of concrete
> canyons was not the exclusive purpose of maximum power.  In the infancy of
> MW broadcasting, every effort was made to cover as much territory as
> possible with a stations' broadcast.  Hence the proliferation of the huge
> Knox-Blaw towers among the 3 letter calls and the 500kW of "The Nation's
> Station" WLW on 710.  Ironically,  one of the stations who cried "foul" the
> loudest of WLW's signal even at 50kW was Tom Ray's station, WOR, 500 miles
> away. http://members.aol.com/jeff1070/wlw.html

Blaw-Knox, actually, but yes, your point is valid - the genesis of 50 kW 
operation, and of the many attempts to increase to even higher power 
levels (including the one station that did, WLW), was an attempt to 
provide better wide-area service.

The point also holds, however, that even for the stations like WOR that 
no longer put a priority on wide-area service, there are still valid 
engineering reasons for running high power.

WOR, incidentally, has never sought to provide the same sort of 
wide-area service that a CHWO, WSM, WSB or KOA offers. As early as 1935, 
it installed a directional antenna in an attempt to concentrate its 
signal into New York City. (That first 50 kW DA, at WOR's old site in 
Carteret, was designed to also serve Philadelphia; the subsequent WOR 
arrays at Lyndhurst and now at Rutherford aren't even attempting to 
serve Philly.)

> Even through this day, WSM and WSB are considered by many to be regionals
> throughout the rural south. 740 CHWO prides itself on being heard up and
> down the seaboard by "snowbirds".  Two years ago CHWO saluted its loyal dx
> fanbase and celebrated it with a special event DX QSL card.  Rare is the
> fall/winter/spring night that I can't pick it up here in SE GA on my xtl
> set.

And there's nothing wrong with that - but don't forget another piece of 
CHWO's history, either. It started out as a suburban 5 kW signal on 
1250, which had no hope at all of penetrating the Toronto urban core. 
That only came with the move to the 50 kW ex-CBL signal on 740 a few 
years back...and it's that 50 kW blast over CHWO's local audience, not 
the skywave coverage, that allowed the station to be sold today for what 
was presumably a handsome price.

As for WSB, its skywave regional coverage is nothing to sneeze at, but 
it too makes its money from its Atlanta-market local coverage - and it's 
that 50 kW blowtorch signal that makes it, routinely, the ONLY Atlanta 
AM to make a blip in the ratings. (Probably the only one, at least in 
English, to be making a profit, too...)

s
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