Northwest Broadcasters is reporting that the FCC has approved a high powered station on 1520 KHz in Snohomish, Washington, when one exists on the same frequency in Oregon City. More or less, these are suburbs of Seattle and Portland.
Seattle will be 20KW non-directional in the day, and 50KW directional in critical hours and at night. Portland is 50KW day and 10KW night, both directional with similar patterns that send about the equivalent of the stated power towards Seattle.
Seattle uses the same pattern for critical hours and nights, and it sends virtually no power towards either Portland or Oklahoma City. Portland's day and night pattern have a Null towards KOKC, the former Top 40 legend KOMA, in Oklahoma.
It is 178 miles, as the crow flies, between Snohomish, Washington, and Oregon City, Oregon. I don't recall the terrain being particularly difficult for AM signals to travel between those two locations.
Is the terrain that different than from Edmonton to Calgary where the distance is 172 miles? The CRTC and/or Industry Canada not only would never think of assigning the same AM frequency to both cities, but has always maintained a 20KHz separation between stations in both cities.
What was the FCC thinking? I just can't see this working. For evidence, look no further than the 1130 debacle with a station South of Portland interfering with CKWX.