Not a theory, simply a hunch.
I yesterday noticed on radio-locator.com that a translator station, 99 Watts, at 101.5 MHz, had a CP to move to 101.9 MHz at the increased power of 250 Watts.
I have been using 101.9 as my editing channel with a C.Crane FM transmitter, and did some exploring.
Yesterday I was able to hear some bad music on 101.5. but nothing on 101.9.
Today, already the bad music has moved over to 101.9. Fast work!
So I moved my editing channel to 101.5, kind of a "doe-see-doe" from square dance culture, and everything seems fine.
But there's more to the story.
Stay tuned.
I am waiting for more....
Here's the conspiracy part of my conspiracy discovery. Not a theory.
In fact, the total conspiracy I have come across is larger than the portion I will now describe, but I want to confine my exposition to circumstances surrounding the recent upgrade of a translator-booster on 101.9.
Also, it's important to realize that a "conspiracy" is not a crime in itself. The word simply means "a group of people who agree on a common plan," which could be "planning a family re-union." A so-called "criminal conspiracy" is simply a special category of law and does not apply to all conspiracies. But conspiracies often have a secret element, such as wanting to avoid inviting uncle Carl to the reunion, since all he does is talk about radio." Still not a crime.
Three transmitters are involved, ALL ON THE SAME TOWER, thus all serving the same footprint.
93.7 is the host of our 101.9 booster, a 74kW station with a 250W booster, again ON THE SAME TOWER SERVING THE SAME COVERAGE AREA. But the programming on the booster is not coming from its owner, 93.7.
The programming on 101.9 (booster) is from 99.1, 100kW, ON THE SAME TOWER WITH THE SAME COVERAGE AREA.
But, but, we thought boosters-translators were intended to carry a host station to outlying fringe locations not well served by the main signal.
What we have here is one station licensing a translator-booster and letting some other license holder run their programming on it.
So let's look at the program source, 99.1, 100kW, with exceptionally good signal coverage of the area. Why would they even want to place their programming on a 250 Watt booster-translator that they're probably paying to use, simply to cover the same area they already cover?
Uncle Carl has been kept out of the loop because he thinks there is some kind of scheme to hog, dominate, and monopolize all the frequencies so that small-timers like LPFMs cannot possibly be invited to the radio re-union.
Comments are invited here at the Part 15 conspirators website.
Regarding the translator carrying the same programming from the same station source on the same tower I speculate that this is to fill in gaps in the coverage near the tower. Gaps can happen when a station uses a high gain antenna (usually equals high e. r. power) which produces a "pancake" radiation pattern. The higher the gain the flatter the pancake to the point where there is little signal at the ground near the tower. This is extrapolated from my experience and conversations with a TV broadcast engineer. When I was in college I lived about a mile from a TV tower and could not receive a good signal (had ghosting and snow) because, as it was explained to me, the downtilt in the pattern was not enough to provide a good signal near the transmitter site. Perhaps the same explanation applies here to the FM station where the translator antenna pattern is designed to hit the ground near the tower.
I also speculate, and have seen it happen, where a broadcaster will put a second station on the air and then sell the license to another broadcaster later, the sale being part of the original plan.
These are my guesses and they may not be fact, but it is possible.
Neil
Conspiracy aside, I have the sense that Radio8Z has hit the nail on its head by describing a scenario that reasonably fits the circumstances.
Interestingly, I thought of exactly what Neil described, although in my imagination the reason for the fill was not based on a gap in coverage by the main signal, but due to overloading of receivers in close proximity to the tower.
But I dismissed myself because I figured if there was anything to such an idea I already would have heard about it, having worked in FM since the 1950s.
Sorting over the history of FM, perhaps not so much was known back in the 50s, and the advent of high power and super towers didn't really arrive until about 1970.
What we have might be considered "new knowledge."