[BC] Why superpower? (was: WLW my take)

[Richard Fry]

Rob Atkinson wrote
>If that happened today, there would be quack-junk-science-crank
>nutjobs all over there screaming that their dna is being rearranged,
> etc
______________

It's almost happening today.  WLW's groundwave field strength at 500 kW was 
3.16X its value at 50 kW.   Some of todays highly directional AMs with 50 
kW txs have a main lobe ERP > 300 kW.   A 300 kW groundwave field is about 
2.45X greater than a 50 kW field -- not a huge difference with respect to 
WLW's superpower days.

What is surprising is the fairly small difference that extra ERP really 
means in terms of extending service contours, other things equal.  For 
example the 2 mV/m groundwave contour in WWJ's ~300 kW main lobe is about 
96 miles away.  Their 2 mV/m groundwave contour with 50 kW ERP would be 
about 66 miles away.  So a 600% power increase produced a 45% range 
increase.

RF