A billion Watts from Antarctica? The environmentalists would never go for that. It might melt the polar ice cap.
I said "Why didn't they just issue a daytime-only license"
Turns out they quit issuing daytime-only licenses about the time KCKX started up. Interesting ... I didn't know that.
As the title above says, there is a wonderful
full service radio station 16 miles from me
that runs 46 watts at night. (They are
2500 watts during the day.)
I am in West Hartford , CT. The station is
WMRD in Middletown, CT. This station still
has the hometown sound and has plenty
of advertisers.
I like their morning DJ. But at night they play
old radio programs. Sometimes they are very
clear. (And sometimes they get clobbered by
interference.)
Maybe nobody else is listening to WMRD at night.
But I am. (And I know they are reducing power
correctly at night, because of my informal
connections with the Connecticut broadcast
engineering community.)
Best Wishes,
Bruce, MICRO1690/1700
In another era of radio broadcasting, prior to the spread of FM stations, the FCC's solution to granting local radio licenses (localism) was accomplished with a "daytime only" radio service. Many of these stations were on Mexican and Canadian Clear channels on the AM BCB. In later times, small, close-spaced, local AM stations were shoe-horned in and were licensed as "daytimers" or Class D stations. The daytime powers were increased when the FCC went to computer modeling to predict daytime ground wave and nighttime sky wave propagation. This process helped regulators predict nighttime interference levels more accurately in "city's of license". Obviously, the nighttime power levels did not come up to the heretofore 250 watt minimum of previous years. The FCC ruling, then, dealt with pre-sunrise and post sunset authority and eventually the process led to very low power at night to keep these Class D stations on the air 24-7.
When Class C AM stations were allowed to increase to fulltime 1kw day and night (unlimited), the argument to keep daytimers off at night became somewhat indefensible in the face of the deteriorating economics of operating a local Class D.
With access to a nighttime signal authorization, and now FM translators, the FCC will no longer license NEW Class D stations. The new AM classifications and service parameters are available at:
http://www.fcc.gov/mb/audio/am.html
And finally, I used to engineer this station (KCKX). I knew the original builder and owner. There is a very well established AM station on 1450 KHz in Eugene, Oregon, just 50+ miles from this station in Stayton and a 5KW Class B license in The Dalles, Oregon at 1440 (90 air miles Northeast). Remember, when you cut the distance in half, that is where the other stations listening signal contours very likely lie. Where the signals overlap (and they do) nobody listens to either station. The KCKX operation has always been a little on the "loose" side; fudging on EAS, logging, maintenance and the like.
Ken is NOT on the hook for this power change violation. That part of the rules and FCC case law established responsibility for violations years ago when the FCC allowed brokerage of a station's time and facilities (LMA, TBA, LSA and constulting agreements). The responsibility for license rules compliance lies squarely with the licensee alone, period.
Yeah. But he isn't there no more. Isn't KCKX now Cowboy Country?