Hi all,

Last night I had a nice catch of WELD, AM 690, from Fisher, WV to my home in Southern MI (USA).

The distance was 330 miles, but what made it cool (to me) was that the station was only putting out 14 watts of nighttime power.

Why so low?  And why 14?  Why not 15?

Are they limited by the FCC or just don't want their signal to go too far?  I thought the general intention was to reach as many listeners as you can?

Thanks!


Johnny

On Wed, Mar 16, 2022 at 9:54 AM Johnny via groups.io
<jlochey@...> wrote:

Why so low? And why 14? Why not 15?

Are they limited by the FCC or just don't want their signal to go too far? I thought the general intention was to reach as many listeners as you can?

Yes/yes and yes, but within the terms of their license.

The are protecting other stations of higher classes on the same or
adjacent channels from interference at night. There are many stations
that operate at 50 kW non-directional, 24/7, but not as many as there
used to be and whatever value there was in trying to entice
advertisers in your night contour seems to be gone these days.
Regardless, if you *ask* a higher class station if they want their
night contour protected, they are unlikely to say "meh". So the rules
assume that they require protection, so you end up with stations
running 14 W at night and that probably covers their City of License
adequately.


--
Peter Laws | N5UWY | plaws plaws net | Travel by Train!

Good answer but one additional note is that they may not have reduced their power appropriately when you heard them. For a crowded frequency that is a long distance for 14 watts, although nothing is impossible. Many times these power reductions are automated and especially with the recent change to Daylight Savings Time they may have been at their higher daytime power/pattern when you caught them. Just guessing.

Jay

I've also been picking up WELD off and on since last Dec., with my last reception being on Feb. 25.  The distance to my location in southern Ontario is 295 miles.  Usually all I'm hearing is CKGM (50kW) in Montreal.  Sometimes I can hear WELD faintly underneath, but at times WELD would ride up right over them.  This would occur after midnight when they should have reduced power, unless something has gone wrong with their power reduction switching.  However I would think that the FCC would be on them if they've not been reducing power for any length of time.  This is one of those situations where every night I expect to only hear CKGM but surprise, surprise, this little low power station pops up due to the vagaries of propagation.  That's the fun of it.

Cheers,
John