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Re: Topband: Topband ground characteristics

To: topband@contesting.com
Subject: Re: Topband: Topband ground characteristics
From: Jim Brown <jim@audiosystemsgroup.com>
Reply-to: jim@audiosystemsgroup.com
Date: Wed, 03 Oct 2012 10:53:15 -0700
List-post: <topband@contesting.com">mailto:topband@contesting.com>
On 10/3/2012 9:08 AM, VE7MID wrote:
I have not been able to locate these FCC curves (and it appears that they
may have been withdrawn).

They have been part of the technical section of the FCC Rules that cover AM broadcasting. There is a family of curves for every 40 kHz or so of the AM broadcast band, each curve plotting the drop-off in field strength vs distance for the range of ground conductivities on the FCC ground conductivity maps.

Last I looked, the Rules require that the map values be used, except that an applicant may, at his option, make a prescribed number of measurements along one or more radials from an existing station to obtain more detailed data, and use that data in place of the FCC soil data. The guy I was working for (Pete Johnson, who along with Carl Smith wrote the FCC technical Rules for AM broadcast after WWII), had a station on 680 kHz in Charleston, WV, and was trying to bump up his daytime power. The limitation was that he could not cause interference to second adjacent WLW's contours (about 200 miles away). He ran radial measurements over that distance to support his application, showing that WLW's field strength fell off more than predicted by the FCC ground conductivity data.

73, Jim K9YC
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