by jon » Thu Aug 11, 2011 5:10 pm
If I was Industry Canada, I too would be protecting every Canadian frequency allocation that ever existed since The Big Frequency Switch of 1941. Give them up and they just don't come back. It is tough enough to keep frequencies like 1130 usable.
For a number of reasons, the U.S. is still increasing the number of AM stations on the air. If Canada does not protect its frequency allocations, it won't get a second chance. Precedent is everything in the assignment of radio station frequencies, both within Canada and the U.S., and cross border.
"Who is there first" even trumps cross-border issues, where U.S. stations are not allowed to cause grief across the Canadian border. For example, 50KW CFCW Camrose is moving from 790 to 840 to escape interference from a 3800 watt station in Spokane on 790. How is that possible? Well, the Spokane station has a very tight 4 tower night-time directional pattern that points almost right at Camrose, making 3800 watts more like 15,000 watts. CFCW's market is far and wide, and much of it rural. But they can't complain to the FCC because Spokane was there first, before CFCW moved from 1230 to 790 in the early 1960s.
On a similar topic, I just checked and was surprised to see that KVRI-1600 has 50,000 watts day and 10,000 watts night. With different really ugly 6 tower patterns.
If all they care about is serving Canadians, you would think they could get 50KW full-time with a simple Null to the South using two towers. Surely they don't have to protect 1570 Nanaimo.
Of course, asking for a North pattern like that would blow their cover of being there to serve the local U.S. market.
No matter what, they will continue to require a very good Null to the South, both day and night. To protect 1590 Seattle, and a couple of stations in Oregon on 1600.