[78-L] Radio blues

[Michael Biel]

From: "Royal Pemberton" <ampex354 at gmail.com>
>> Back in the late 1980s I lived in Keokuk, Iowa,... would
>> pick up 740 in late evenings 'on the skip'.  One problem
>> with that was KTRH, another 50 kw flamethrower, from
>> Houston, that would sometimes swamp the signal from Canada.
From: "Steven C. Barr" <stevenc at interlinks.net>
> When the FCC (and international law) set aside specific "clear channel"
> frequencies, and assigned a few specifically to Canada...it was not yet
> known what the range of post-sunset "skip" would cover on the 540-
> 1500 (later 1600) kHz band might be...?! 

Sure they did.  It is just that they took into consideration what amount
of protection they thought a station should have.  Some were given 1000
miles, some 2000 miles, and only WLW was given the whole continent. This
WAS carefully calculated considering power, directional antennas,
landscape, etc. knowing full well that it was constantly changing so it
could never be exact. But you are dead WRONG that they didn't know what
nighttime skip could potentially do.  It is just that not all stations
were given more protection than they were worth, and they felt a Texas
station was far enough away to generally protect Canada's 740 for all of
Canada and the Northern part of the U.S.  In all probability, there were
more listeners in Iowa who would prefer the Texas station over the
Canadian one.  

Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com