WSYW daytime or not?

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ind224

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FCC data says daytime 250 watts but they play at night and FCC has not bothered to call me back to discuss.
The translator on 93.4 confirms same programming.
 

GlobalNorth

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Their license says 250 watts during daylight hours only.

Have you filed an online complaint?


Here is the owner info:

CONTINENTAL BROADCAST GROUP, LLC
180 POST ROAD EAST
SUITE 201
WESTPORT, CT 06880
(203) 227-1978 [phone]


Filing a complaint with the Licensee's Public Inspection File may show them that someone is actively monitoring their violation of their license limitations.

Another option is to contact a clear channel licensee operating on that frequency and let them know that you can't hear them over a local licensee who is broadcasting in violation of their license to shut down at night. Broadcasters take a dim view of such operations.
 

ind224

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I have not filed as I wanted to be certain no owner transfers waivers test permits etc were issued that have not been documented.
Confusion results when they answer the phone Connoisseur Media at the the phone number we see on the FCC info and there is a relation to Continental also in CT but so far front line phones don't know what that relation is.
I was finally able to get the station direct via phone and the CEO says his engineer will "take a look this weekend" and that FCC was coming out to look at all stations allegedly under their control in the near future but I don't know if that was regular inspection stuff or for specific issues. He suggested a timer might be at fault and I asked that he would confirm with me what the issue was when they find out.
Tonight I will record at sunset to see if they go dark.
 

ind224

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Per an email this am from the CEO after my call he thanked me for the call and asked me to report if I hear the station next week after the engineer investigates. I thought this stuff was dealt with in real time (as much as possible) to avoid a notice and or fines.
 

n5ims

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One issue may be that many stations are owned and operated by station groups and a large number of their smaller stations may not have anyone local to handle issues. The closest engineer may be a day's drive away so they can't just check things immediately even when that would be best. That engineer can remotely access the station's transmitter controller and see how that transmitter is doing and even turn it on or off as necessary, but the standard day to day operation is done automatically and that automation may not be programmed correctly (e.g. a station in Iowa may be using the automation file for a sister station in Idaho so the transmitter times are off by several hours or the controlling computer froze so the transmitter controller defaulted to its stored programming from several months ago so the on/off times were way off). I suspect that the engineer will find and correct the issue and if they were indeed operation in violation of their license send a notice to the FCC of what they found and what action was taken to correct the issue and generally that will make things right all around.
 

ind224

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I was hoping to record the off air but it happened last night after sunset around 730p local. I'm up now and will be listening for sign on and off today to see how close to published rise and set they are. And even as I type, they just came up at 0500 local. No announcement or tones just right into a song that was already playing.
I figured if their engineer was not available any properly licensed engineer in the area could still power down and that would be cheaper / less problematic for the station in the long run.
So now I'm trying to find what the actual on and off times should be as our published sunrise is not until about 0800 local and I read something about US "official" logging starting at 0600 local. I figured there would be a window like 15 to 30 min but I'd like to see the actual documentation. I found the lat log chart for monthly day and night but still not a finite window given.
I could tell at least one of the other stations on 810 was up but not able to identify, I'll try again tonight.
Two class A exist; one is WGY NY the other KGO in SF.
Edit: My bad on "going dark" when I meant off the air. I was ignorant of the 30 day definition of "dark", now I know and if they are off the air for 10 days or less they don't even have to tell the FCC.
 
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W1KNE

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So a couple of points to this post.
1) They likely have a contract engineer, and not someone in house. Another engineer isn't going to step on the toes of someone who already had the job. Their contract engineer will resolve the issue, if this is an actual issue. (Some AM stations like to stay on because the owners risk the fines or don't care.)
2) The FCC's enforcement bureau doesn't have the staffing to do the routine inspections like days prior. Now a days, inspections are done on trigger (complaint, political, etc).
3) The sunrise and sunset times for AM stations are officially designated by the FCC. You can search for them on the FCC's MB website to find out what they are,.
 

n5ims

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The sunrise and sunset times according to the FCC for specific locations (use the FCC AM Query page for specifics for the station in question --> AM Query Broadcast Station Search | Federal Communications Commission (fcc.gov) <--) can be found on this FCC web page --> Local Sunrise Sunset Calculations | Federal Communications Commission (fcc.gov) <--. The information for WSYW should be below.

Table of Approximate Local Monthly Sunrise and Sunset Times in the USA
at North Latitude 39 43 32, West Longitude 86 11 8

Monthly Local Sunrise Times

January 8:00
February 7:45
March 7:00
April 6:15
May 5:30
June 5:15
July 5:30
August 6:00
September 6:30
October 7:00
November 7:30
December 8:00
Monthly Local Sunset Times

January 5:45
February 6:15
March 6:45
April 7:15
May 7:45
June 8:15
July 8:15
August 7:45
September 7:00
October 6:00
November 5:30
December 5:15
All times above correspond to Eastern Standard Time (EST)

Also note:

Many AM broadcast radio stations operate with presunrise authority (PSRA) or postsunset authority (PSSA). These special authorizations allow the station to incrementally change power or mode of operation (directional or nondirectional) before sunrise or after sunset, in recognition that changes in the ionosphere (the atmospheric layer that reflects AM signals at night) do not occur instantly at nightfall or at sunrise. For these stations, the times shown by this search indicate when the incremental station changes must begin.
 

GlobalNorth

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WSYW is broadcasting on a clear channel frequency of 810 khz - the same as KGO [San Francisco] and WGY [Schenectady] that are both Class A broadcasters at 50 KW. In 1987, the FCC stopped allowing applications for new Class D stations to broadcast between 250 watts or less at night. They are a "daytimer" only. They are licensed for and do use a FM translator for night ops.

Grandfathering could be possible, but since the station has changed ownership, formats, call signs, etc. but that's not the case since their license says "daytime only"

 

ind224

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Ok the chart that I saw indicated 0800 for Jan in EST but they came up at 0500. Two hours before and after?? I'm going to listen to tonight's shutdown with our sunset being 5:55p local published and FCC chart / month Jan says 5:45p local for EST.
 
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