Ace and TJ are an extremely popular radio station out of Charlotte NC. Their station in NC is 96.1FM. Why can the same channel not be held in say California?
In: Technology
The idea is that there’s a limited number of radio frequencies we can practically use, so there are government regulations on who can use which ones, for what purpose, and where. If a station in Charlotte wants to broadcast news radio in the 96.1 range but one in Raleigh is already using 96.1 for classic rock, then the one in Charlotte shouldn’t be so powerful that people in Raleigh get interference. Now, let’s say you’re trying take over North Carolina’s business radio game, but the established 96.1 station in Raleigh is popular and can’t be bought. If the jazz fusion station on 95.5 is going out of business, it’s a lot easier to just take over their frequency and advertise which frequency you use. The decisions on who could have what frequency were made a long time ago when radio was new without much of a thought for nation-wide standardization, so it’s hard to standardize now.
There ARE a few stations which are the same nationwide or close to it, “clear channel” stations which are allowed a monopoly on a certain frequency in a large area. The idea was that it would be hard for rural listeners to be near radio stations, so a few high-power ones could cover the country at a couple of frequencies. WSM-AM (650) is a famous one (the “home of the Grand Ole Opry” that established Nashville as a music capital) which to this day blasts its signal from a giant tower at 50,000 watts. During the day it reaches a couple hundred miles from Nashville, but owing to some weird physics the signal goes much farther at night, covering half the U.S. and parts of Canada.
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