At 1500 watts, they are going to lose a lot of coverage area. They should have gone for more. 560 covers all of Georgian Bay and the Bruce peninsula. 

paterson1 wrote:

I wonder about the strength as well.  I do know of a station that is 2,250 watts and kicks out 50-55 km from their transmitter and they are at 49 meters or 161 ft.   At 50 km away they are ok in the car, but not so much in the house. 

However the CFOS FM transmitter will be at the top of Bayshore's tower.  This puts the 1,500 watts at 214 meters or 702 feet.  So if this height can give them decent coverage for 45-55 km they will be fine with that.

This was about what the AM station had for their main market daytime, where they had listeners and sold advertising.  At night CFOS AM doesn't travel well.  The FM even at 1,500 watts will have much better coverage after sunset. Evening radio is important in this part of Ontario with weather and Owen Sound's beloved Attack hockey game broadcasts.  

The best scenario would to continue to broadcast on the 560 frequency as well as the FM. They would probably be allowed to do this indefinitely. But it would be costly to maintain the AM transmitting facility with its multi-tower array. From a business perspective, there is probably little additional advertising revenue in maintaining the large coverage AM signal.

Or, once CFOS is established on the new FM frequency perhaps they might move or flip it to one of their more powerful  transmitters and use the lower power for the other.  

andysradio wrote:

At 1500 watts, they are going to lose a lot of coverage area. They should have gone for more. 560 covers all of Georgian Bay and the Bruce peninsula. 

This is correct.   Its going to be a very weak signal especially due to the terrain.