AM broadcasting AM was the dominant method of broadcasting during the first eighty years of the 20th century and

remains widely used into the 21st. AM radio began with the first, experimental broadcast on Christmas Eve of 1906 by Canadian experimenter Reginald Fessenden, and was used for small-scale voice and music broadcasts up until World War I. San Francisco, California radio station KCBS claims to be the direct descendant of KQW, founded by radio experimenter Charles "Doc" Herrold, who made regular weekly broadcasts in San Jose, California as early as June of 1909. On that basis KCBS has claimed to be the world's oldest broadcast station and celebrated its 100th anniversary in the summer of 2009. The great increase in the use of AM radio came late in the following decade as radio experimentation increased worldwide following World War I. The first licensed commercial radio services began on AM in the 1920s. XWA of Montreal, Quebec (later CFCF, now CINW) claims status as the first commercial broadcaster in the world, with regular broadcasts commencing on May 20, 1920. The first licensed American radio station was started by Frank Conrad, KDKA in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Radio programming boomed during the "Golden Age of Radio" (1920s1950s). Dramas, comedy and all other forms of entertainment were produced, as well as broadcasts of news and music. Operation AM radio technology is simpler than FM radio and DAB. An AM receiver detects amplitude variations in the radio waves at a particular frequency. It then amplifies changes in the signal voltage to drive a loudspeaker or earphones. The earliest crystal radio receivers used a crystal diode detector with no amplification. In North American broadcasting practice, transmitter power input to the antenna for commercial AM stations ranges from about 250 watts to 50,000 watts. Experimental licenses were issued for up to 500,000 watts radiated power, for stations intended for wide-area communication during disasters including Cincinnati station WLW, which used such power on occasion before World War II. WLW's superpower transmitter still exists at the station's suburban transmitter site, but it was decommissioned in the early 1940s and no current commercial broadcaster in the US or Canada is authorized for such power levels. Some other countries do authorize higher power operation (for example the Mexican station XERF formerly operated at 250,000 watts). Antenna design must consider the coverage desired and must direct the transmitted signal so as not to interfere with other stations operating on the same or adjacent frequencies. Medium-wave and short-wave radio signals act differently during daytime and nighttime. During the day, AM signals travel by groundwave, diffracting around the curve of the earth over a distance up to a few hundred miles (or kilometers) from the signal transmitter. However, after sunset, changes in the ionosphere cause AM signals to travel by skywave, enabling AM radio stations to be heard much farther from their point of origin than is normal during the day. This phenomenon can be easily observed by

scanning an AM radio dial at night. As a result, many broadcast stations are required as a condition of license to reduce their broadcasting power significantly (or use directional antennas) after sunset, or even to suspend broadcasting entirely during nighttime hours. (Such stations are commonly referred to as daytimers.) In the United States and Canada, some AM radio stations are granted clear channel status, meaning that they broadcast on frequencies with few other stations allocated, allowing an extended coverage area. Relatively few stations enjoy clear-channel status. Commercial broadcasters generally rely on the ground-wave coverage only as their target market for advertising. The hobby of listening to long distance signals is known as DX or DX'ing, from an old telegraph abbreviation for "distance". Several non-profit hobbyist clubs are devoted exclusively to DXing the AM broadcast band, including the National Radio Club and International Radio Club of America. Similarly, people listening to short wave transmissions are SWLing. Frequency bands AM radio is broadcast on several frequency bands. The allocation of these bands is governed by the ITU's Radio Regulations and, on the national level, by each country's telecommunications administration (the FCC in the U.S., for example) subject to international agreements.

Long wave is 148.5 kHz283.5 kHz, with 9 kHz channel spacing generally used. Long wave is used for radio broadcasting in Europe, Africa and parts of Asia (ITU region 1), and is not allocated in the Western Hemisphere. In the United States and Canada, Bermuda and U.S. territories this band is mainly reserved for aeronautics navigational aids, though a small section of the band could theoretically be used for microbroadcasting under the United States Part 15 rules. Due to the propagation characteristics of long wave signals, the frequencies are used most effectively in latitudes north of 50. Medium wave is 520 kHz1,610 kHz. In the Americas (ITU region 2) 10 kHz spacing is used; elsewhere it is 9 kHz. ITU region 2 also authorizes the Extended AM broadcast band between 1610 kHz and 1710 kHz. Medium wave is by far the most heavily used band for commercial broadcasting. This is the "AM radio" that most people are familiar with. Short wave is 1.711 MHz30.0 MHz, divided into 15 broadcast bands. Shortwave broadcasts generally use a narrow 5 kHz channel spacing. Short wave is used by audio services intended to be heard at great distances from the transmitting station. The long range of short wave broadcasts comes at the expense of lower audio fidelity. The mode of propagation for short wave is different (see high frequency). AM is used mostly by broadcast services other shortwave users may use a modified version of AM such as SSB or an AM-compatible version of SSB such as SSB with carrier reinserted.

Frequencies between the broadcast bands are used for other forms of radio communication, and are not broadcast services intended for reception by the general public.

Limitations Because of its susceptibility to atmospheric and electrical interference, AM broadcasting now attracts mainly talk radio and news programming, while music radio and public radio mostly shifted to FM broadcasting in the late 1970s. However, in the late 1960s and 1970s, top 40 rock and roll stations in the US and Canada such as WABC and CHUM transmitted highly processed and extended audio to 11 kHz, successfully attracting huge audiences. In the UK during the 1980s, BBC Radio 4 (a largely speech channel) had an FM location, whereas BBC Radio 1, a music channel, was confined to AM broadcasts over much of the UK. Frequency response is typically 40 Hz5 kHz with a 50 dB S/N ratio.[citation needed] The limitation on AM fidelity comes from current receiver design. Moreover, to fit more transmitters on the AM broadcast band, in the United States maximum transmitted audio bandwidth is limited to 10.2 kHz by an NRSC standard adopted by the FCC in June of 1989, resulting in a channel occupied bandwidth of 20.4 kHz. The former audio limitation was 15 kHz resulting in a channel occupied bandwidth of 30 kHz. AM radio signals can be severely disrupted in large urban centres by metal structures, tall buildings and sources of radio frequency interference (RFI) and electrical noise, such as electrical motors, fluorescent lights, or lightning. As a result, AM radio in many countries has lost its dominance as a music broadcasting service, and in many cities is now relegated to news, sports, religious and talk radio stations. Some musical genres particularly country, oldies, nostalgia and ethnic/world music survive on AM, especially in areas where FM frequencies are in short supply or in thinly populated or mountainous areas where FM coverage is poor. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AM_broadcasting AM radio - Definition AM radio is radio broadcasting using amplitude modulation. This was the dominant system of radio in the first two thirds of the 20th century, and it remains important into the 21st.

Because of the inferior sound quality of AM broadcasting, the medium lends itself particularly to talk radio, news radio, and public radio, while music radio has in recent decades tended to be broadcast using FM. AM radio technology is simpler than other types of radio, such as FM radio and DAB. An AM receiver detects the power of the radio wave and amplifies changes in the power measurement to drive a speaker or earphones. The earliest crystal radio receivers used this principle. AM radio was used for small-scale voice and music broadcasts before World War I. The great increase in the use of AM radio came the following decade. The first commercial radio services began on AM in the 1920s. Radio programming boomed during the "Golden Age of Radio" (1920s to 1950s). Dramas, comedy and all other forms of entertainment were produced, as well as broadcasts of news and music. AM radio is broadcast in on several frequency bands:

Long wave is 153 - 279 kHz Medium wave is 530 - 1710 kHz. Short wave is 2300 kHz - 26100 kHz, divided into 15 "broadcast bands".

(In the US, the allocation of these bands is managed by the FCC.)

Medium wave is by far the most used for commercial radio broadcasting; this is the "AM radio" that most people are familiar with. Long wave is used in Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australasia (ITU regions 1 and 3). In the Americas, however, this band is reserved for aeronautical navigation. Due to the propagation of long wave signals, the frequencies are used most effectively in latitudes north of 50. Short wave is used by radio services intended to be heard at great distances away from the transmitting station; the far range of short wave broadcasts comes at the expense of lower audio fidelity. The mode of propagation for short wave is different, see High frequency. AM is used mostly for broadcast uses other shortwave users may use a modified version of AM such as SSB or an AMcompatible version of SSB such as SSB with carrier reinserted.

Frequencies between the broadcast bands are used for other forms of radio communication, such as baby monitors, walkie talkies, cordless telephones, radio control, amateur radio, etc. Medium wave and short wave radio signals act in different ways during daytime and nighttime. During the day, AM signals travel by groundwave, refracting around the curve of the earth over a distance of rarely more than 162 kilometres (100 miles) from the signal's transmitter. However, after sunset, changes in the ionosphere cause AM signals

to travel by skywave, enabling many AM radio stations to be heard much farther from their point of origin than is normal during the day. This phenomenon can be easily observed by scanning an AM radio dial at night. As a result, many broadcast stations are required as a condition of license to reduce their broadcasting power significantly after sunset, or even to suspend broadcasting entirely during nighttime hours. The hobby of listening to long distance signals is known as DX or DX'ing, from an old telegraph abbreviation for "distant". Several non-profit hobbyist clubs are devoted exclusively to DXing the AM broadcast band, including the National Radio Club and International Radio Club of America. AM radio signals can also be easily disrupted in large urban centres by skyscrapers and other sources of radio frequency (RF) interference. FM signals, however, are not affected by these types of interference. As a result, AM radio has lost its dominance as a broadcasting format, and in many cities is now restricted to news, sports and talk radio stations. Stereo transmissions are possible, AM-Stereo. http://www.wordiq.com/definition/AM_radio Music radio - Definition Commercial music radio is a radio format that plays popular music in a manner intended to increase profitability of advertisers, thereby increasing the value of the station's advertising, and the station's profits. Disk jockeys do this by trying to arrange program segments in ways that please the audience as much as possible and yet still maximize the audience's exposure to advertising In general, the items least valuable to the audience are played before a sequence of commercials, and the most valuable items are played after those commercials. To reduce station changes, commercial breaks are made as brief as commercially possible, and the valuable item following a commercial is rotated several times per hour. Commercial breaks may be longer at times when the audience is thought to be larger. In some countries the maximum time given to commercial breaks is regulated. Dead air time is considered wasteful. It neither produces profits, nor draws more audience. Music radio has been helped by the development of semi-automated song-picker programs. Basically, these present the disc-jockey with a list of commercially-acceptable music selections, and other items for the current time slot. These give the disc-jockey some artistic freedom to select songs, promotions, jingles, etc., and yet still assure a cohesive station "sound" and good audience satisfaction. They also reduce a discjockey's workload, allowing him or her to develop news items, run the station, prepare gags, or take call-ins while a song is playing. The employer may as a result reduce staffing levels and thus trim overhead costs.

A station's value is usually measured as a percentage of market share in a market of a certain size. The measurement in U.S. markets has historically been by Arbitron, a commercial statistical service that uses listener diaries. Arbitron diaries were historically collected on Thursdays, and for this reason, most radio stations have run special promotions on Thursdays, hoping to persuade last-minute Arbitron diarists to give them a larger market-share. Stations are contractually prohibited from mentioning Arbitron on the air.

Types of program segment The classic item of music is a "single." This originally referred to a small phonograph disk played at 45RPM, with sufficient capacity to hold five minutes of music at good quality. This format determined the standard size of a song for popular music. Jingles are the musical equivalent of neon signs, and they can be remarkably beautiful. Jingles are brief, bright pieces of choral music that promote the station's call letters, frequency and sometimes disc-jockey or program segment. Jingles were produced for radio stations by commercial speciality services. The most famous jingle service was called PAMS (External link) (http://www.pams.com), based in Texas. Gags are audible jokes, often with a (sometimes imaginary) side-kick. Talk radio evolved out of gags. News, time-checks, real-time travel advice and weather reports are often quite valuable to listeners. The news headlines and station identification are often given just before a commercial. Time, traffic and weather are given just after. The engineer typically sets the station clocks to standard local time each day, by listening to WWV or WWVH (see atomic clock). The station will usually have a policy of announcing time, station call letters and frequency as often as six times per hour, in order to build station loyalty. Jingles can very useful for giving the station a branded sound in a pleasant, minimal amount of airtime. The legal requirement for station identificaiton in the U.S. is once per hour or at the comclusion of a transmission. While small stations may simply "tear and read" news items (from the teletype), larger stations may employ an editor to rewrite headlines, and provide summaries of local news. The summaries allow more news to fit in less air-time. Some stations can share news collection with TV or newspapers in the same media conglomerate. An emerging trend is to use the radio station's web site to provide in-depth coverage of news and advertisers head-lined on the air.

Most radio stations maintain a call-in telephone line for use during promotions and gags, or to take record requests. Jocks generally answer the phone and edit the call during music plays. Promotions are usually the on-air equivalent of lotteries for listeners. Promotional budgets usually run about $1 per listener per year. In a large market, a successful radio station can pay a full time director of promotions, and several lotteries per month of vacations, automobiles and other prizes. Lottery items are often bartered from advertisers, allowing both companies to charge full prices while incurring wholesale costs. For example, consider a cruise vacation. Cruising companies often have unused capacity, and when given the choice, prefer to pay their bills by bartering vacations. Since the ship will sail in any case, bartered vacations cost the cruise company little or nothing. The promotion is itself advertising for the company providing the prize. Music formats Some well-known music-radio formats are Top 40, Freeform Rock and AOR (Album Oriented Rock). It turns out that most other stations (such as Rhythm & Blues) use a variation of one of these formats with a different playlist. Top 40 The original formulaic music radio format was "Top 40." In this format, disc-jockeys would select one of a set of the forty best-selling singles (usually in a rack) as rated by Billboard magazine or from the station's own chart of the local top selling songs. In general, the more aggressive "Top 40" stations could sometimes be better described as "Top 20" stations. They would aggressively skirt listener boredom to play only the most popular singles. Top 40 radio would punctuate the music with jingles, promotions, gags, call-ins, and requests, brief news, time and weather announcements and most importantly, advertising. The distinguishing mark of a traditional top-40 station was the use of a hyperexcited disc-jockey, and high tempo jingles. Some of the most famous Top 40 stations of the era were Musicradio 77 (http://www.musicradio77.com) WABC/New York, Boss Radio 93 (http://www.bossradioforever.com) KHJ-AM/Los Angeles Musicradio 89 (http://musicradiowls.cjb.net/) WLS/Chicago and The Big 68 (http://wrko.org/) WRKO/Boston. Freeform rock A later development was "freeform" Rock, later commercially developed as AOR (Album-Oriented Rock), in which selections from an album would be played together, with an appropriate introduction.

Traditional freeform rock stations prided themselves on offering their disc-jockeys freedom to play significant music and make significant social commentary and humor. This approach developed commercial problems because disc-jockeys attracted to this freedom often had tastes substantially different from the audience, and lost audience share. Also, freeform rock stations could lack predictability, and listeners' loyalty could then be put at risk. Responsible jocks would realize their responsibility to the audience to produce a pleasant show, and try to keep the station sound predictable by listening to other jocks, and repeating some of their music selections. At their best, freeform stations have never been equalled for their degree of social activism, programmatic freedom, and listener involvement. However, to succeed, the approach requires genius jocks, totally in-tune with their audience, who are also committed to the commercial success of the radio station. This is a rare combination of traits. Even if such people are available, they often command extremely high salaries. However, this may be an effective approach for a new station, if talented jocks can be recruited and motivated at low salaries. AOR (Album-Oriented Rock) AOR (Album Oriented Rock) developed as a commercial compromise between topforties-style formulas and freeform rock. A program director or music consultant would select some set of music "standards" and require the playlist to be followed, perhaps in an order selected by the jock. The jock would still introduce each selection, but the jock would have available a scripted introduction to use if he was not personally familiar with a particular piece of music and its artist. Obviiously a computer helps a lot in this process. Computer-directed playlisting was a God-send for AOR, because it gave the jocks a great deal of freedom, without risking the station's commercial stability. The result was often happier jocks, happier audiences, and higher ratings. A wonderful, relatively safe compromise with the artistic freedom of the jocks is that a few times each hour, usually in the least commecially valuable slots of the hour, the disc-jockey can highlight new tracks that he or she thinks might interest the audience. The audience is encouraged to comment on the new tracks, allowing the station to track audience tastes. A skillfully-run AOR station can be virtually indistinguishable from a top-quality freeform station with good jocks that listen to each other. Giving a jock freedom to play a few new songs has other benefits. It increases the credibility of the station with serious listeners. Also, a willingness to identify and play new talent makes a radio station very valuable to record-promoters and artists. The

promotional recordings let a station to develop a large, high quality music library at low cost. To play new songs that honestly interest the audience, the station must publish rules about which promotional offers a jock should refuse. Otherwise commercial gifts, promotional offers and other payola can cause jocks to play bad songs, and ruin the station's ratings and profitability. A policy helps the jocks, because it gives them a simple reason to say no, so that they can continue to do a good job without offending promoters. Classic rock Not playing new artists has been described as a weakness of "classic rock" or "oldies" formats. This is true in a creative but not a commercial sense. One of the unwritten "rules" of commercial radio is to get a big share of ratings and revenue. Stations will not get these if they frequently play songs unfamiliar to their audience. This is why "Top 40" stations played only the biggest hits and why oldies and classic rock formats do the same for the eras they cover. The oldies and classic rock formats have a strong niche market, but as the audience becomes older the station becomes less attractive to advertisers. Advertisers perceive older listeners as set in their brand choices and not as responsive to advertising as younger, more impulsive listeners. Oldies stations must occasionally change to more youthful music formats. This preference for younger listeners caused the decline of the "Big Band" or "Standards" music formats that covered music from the 1930s to the 1950s. As the audience grew too old for advertisers, the radio stations that carried these formats saw a sharp loss of ratings and revenue. This left them with no choice but to adopt more youthful formats. Classical, pop, R&B, easy-listening, jazz, etc These formats all have small but very loyal audiences in the largest markets. Most follow formats similar to the above (Top 40s, Freeform, AOR and Oldies), except with a different playlist. Public service stations following these formats tend to be "freeform" stations. Public service formats Some music radio is broadcast by public service organizations, such as PBS or the BBC. These usually resemble freeform stations, with particular programs for different types of music. More popular formats get more popular hours. The Avant-garde programs tend to be pushed to the late night and early morning slots. Promotional usages

Music radio is also a means of promoting other enterprises, such as a record label or ad-hoc music events in which the broadcaster(s) have a commercial interest. http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Music_radio FM radio - Definition da:FM via VHF bnd II de:Band II fr:Radio FM FM radio is a broadcast technology invented by Edwin Howard Armstrong that uses frequency modulation to provide highfidelity broadcast radio sound.

History of FM radio in the US Main article: History of radio, FM radio. In the United States, FM radio stations broadcast at frequencies of 88108 MHz. FM radio, and later stereo FM radio, were both developed in the United States primarily by Edwin Armstrong. W1XOJ was the first FM radio station, granted a construction permit by the FCC in 1937. On January 5, 1940 FM radio was demonstrated to the FCC for the first time. FM radio was assigned the 42 to 50 MHz band of the spectrum in 1940. After World War II, the FCC moved FM to the frequencies between 88 and 106 MHz on June 27, 1945. The change in frequency was to avoid possible interference problems between stations in nearby cities and to make "room" for more FM radio channels. Radios built for the original FM radio band could be retrofit with converters, but many were just replaced. The greater expense was to the radio stations themselves that had to rebuild their stations for the new FM radio band. The move of the FM band, an organized campaign of misinformation by RCA (a company that competed with FM radio by focusing on AM radio and the emerging technology of television), and adverse rulings by the FCC, severely set back the development of FM radio. On March 1, 1945 W47NV began operations in Nashville, Tennessee becoming the first modern commercial FM radio station. However, FM radio did not recover from the setback until the upsurge in high fidelity equipment in the late 1950's. During the 1970's, FM radio experienced a golden age of integrity programming, with disc jockeys playing what they wanted, including album cuts not designated as "singles" and lengthy prog rock tracks. The film "FM" (1978) portrays a fictional group of L.A. "maverick" FM disc jockeys reacting against the new formatting changes at their station. FM stereo technology

New technology was added to FM radio in the early 1960s to allow FM stereo transmissions, where the frequency modulated radio signal is used to carry stereophonic sound, using the pilot-tone multiplex system. This multiplexes the left and right audio signal channels in a manner that is compatible with mono sound, using a sum-and-difference technique to produce a single "monocompatible" signal, which has a baseband part that is equal to the sum of the left and right channels (L+R), and a higher-frequency part that is the difference of the left and right channels (L-R) amplitude modulated on a 38 kHz subcarrier. A 19 kHz pilot tone is then added, to allow receivers to detect the presence of a stereo-encoded signal. This signal can then be passed through the FM modulation and demodulation process as if it was a monophonic signal, and the stereo signals extracted from the demodulated FM signal by reversing the multiplexing process. Simple mono FM receivers will not extract the left and right signals, but simply reproduce the baseband part of the "mono-compatible" signal. (This relies on the fact that the subcarrier-modulated part of the mono-compatible signal is in a part of the audio spectrum that is inaudible to people, and the pilot tone is a low-intensity tone in a part of the audio spectrum that is inaudible to most people). This backwards compatibility was important, as when the FM stereo system was introduced in the U.S. in the 1960s, mono FM transmissions had been in service since the 1940s, and there was a large installed base of mono receivers that needed to be able to receive stereo broadcasts without any modification. Stereo receivers could automatically switch between "mono" and "stereo" modes based on the presence of the pilot tone. They were also equipped with a notch filter to remove the pilot tone. In poor signal conditions, stereo receivers could also fall back to mono mode, even on a stereo signal, allowing improved signal-to-noise performance in these conditions. The stereo multiplexing system has been further extended to add an extra, even higher frequency, 57 kHz subcarrier, which is used to carry low-bandwidth digital Radio Data System information, allowing digitally controlled radios to provide extra features. Visit http://transmitters.tripod.com/stereo.htm for an article that explains the concepts of FM Stereo, with SPICE analysis and waveforms at different points of the multiplexing process.

FM radio channel assignments in the US

In the United States, frequency-modulated broadcasting stations operate in a frequency band extending from 87.8 MHz to 108.0 MHz, for a total of 20.2 MHz. It is divided into 100 channels, each 0.2 MHz wide, designated "channel 200" through "channel 300." In actual practice, no one (except the FCC) uses these channels numbers; the frequencies are used. To receive a station, an FM receiver is tuned to the center frequency of the station's channel. The lowest channel, channel 200, extends from 87.8 MHz to 88.0 MHz; thus its center frequency is 87.9 MHz. Channel 201 has a center frequency of 88.1 MHz, and so on, up to channel 300, which extends from 107.8 to 108.0 MHz and has a center frequency of 107.9 MHz. Because each channel is 0.2 MHz wide, the center frequencies of adjacent channels differ by 0.2 MHz. Because the lowest channel is centered on 87.9 MHz the tenths digit of the center frequency of any FM station in the United States is always an odd number. FM audio for television channel 6 is broadcast at a carrier frequency of 87.75 MHz, and many radios can tune down this low; a few low-power television stations licensed for channel 6 are operated solely for their right to use this frequency and broadcast only nominal video programming. For the same reason, assignment restrictions between TV stations on channel 6 and nearby FM stations are stringent: there are only two stations in the United States (KSFH and translator K200AA) licensed to operate on 87.9 MHz. Originally, FM stations in a market were generally spaced four channels (800 kHz) apart. This spacing was developed in response to problems perceived on the original FM band, mostly due to deficiencies in receiver technology of the time. With modern equipment, this is widely understood to be unnecessary, and in many countries shorter spacings are used. Other spacing restrictions relate to mixing products with nearby television, air-traffic control, and two-way radio systems as well as other FM broadcast stations. The most significant such taboo restricts the allocation of stations 10.6 and 10.8 MHz apart, to protect against mixing products which will interfere with an FM receiver's standard 10.7 MHz intermediate frequency stage. Commercial broadcasting is licensed only on channels 221 through 300, with 200 through 220 being reserved for noncommercial educational broadcasting. In some markets close to the Canadian or Mexican border, such as Detroit, Michigan and San Diego, California, commercial stations operating from those countries target U.S. audiences on "reserved band" channels, as neither Canada nor Mexico has such a reservation. FM stations in the USA are now assigned based on a new table of separation distance values from currently licensed stations, based on station "class" (power output, antenna height, and geographical location). These new regulations have resulted in approximately double the number of possible stations, and increases in allowable power levels, over the original "bandplan" scheme described above. All powers are specified as Effective Radiated Power (ERP) which takes into account the multiplier effect of multiple antenna elements.

The USA is divided into Zone I (roughly the northeastern quarter of the US mainland, excluding the far northern areas), Zone I-A (California south of 40 degress latitude, Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico), and Zone II (all other locations). The FM station classes are:

D - 10 watts, Alaska only LP10 - 10 watts, 30 meters antenna height, new Low Power FM rules LP100 - 100 watts, 30 meters, new Low Power FM rules A - 100 - 6000 watts, 100 meters, All Zones B1 - 25000 watts, 100 meters, Zones I and I-A B - 50000 watts, 150 meters, Zones I and I-A C3 - 25000 watts, 100 meters, Zone II C2 - 50000 watts, 150 meters, Zone II C1 - 100000 watts, 299 meters, Zone II C0 - 100000 watts, 450 meters, Zone II C - 100000 watts, 600 meters, Zone II Note: The B classes and the C classes have different "protected" signal area regulations with different separation rules.

High power is useful in penetrating buildings, diffracting around hills, and refracting for some distance beyond the horizon. 100000 watt FM stations can regularly be heard up to 100 miles (160 km) away, and farther (e.g., 150 miles, 240 km) if there are no competing signals. A few old "grandfathered" stations do not conform to these power rules. WBCT-FM (93.7) in Grand Rapids, Michigan, runs 320000 watts ERP, and can increase to 500000 watts ERP by the terms of its original license. This huge power level does not usually help to increase range as much as you might expect, because VHF frequencies travel in nearly straight lines over the horizon and off into space. Nevertheless, when there were fewer FM stations competing, this station could be heard near Bloomington, Illinois, almost 300 miles (500 km) distant.
Da vao , S ou ther n M in da nd ao , P hilip pines AM RADIO 621 25kW FM RADIO 89.1 15kW 93.1
5kW

RMN Davao (DXDC) - Da vao

Ci ty (Davao, Southern Mindanao)

93.9 25kW 96.3 10kW 98.7 10kW 105.1 10kW 105.9 -

Killer Bee Davao (DXBE) - Davao C it y (Davao, Southern Mindanao) hot ac Crossover (DXLR)|on AM - Davao C it y (Davao, Southern Mindanao) smooth jazz iFM (DXXL) - Davao C it y (Davao, Southern Mindanao) pop Star FM (DXFX) - Davao C it y (Davao, Southern Mindanao) Home Radio Davao (DXQM) - Davao C it y (Davao, Southern Mindanao) ac Yes FM (DXST) - Da vao Ci ty (Davao, Southern Mindanao) Mix FM (DXMX) - Davao C it y (Davao, Southern Mindanao) pop