5kw power and a 190 foot radio tower how many miles out can it go?

[MD507]

FM Radio station with - 5kw power and a 190 foot radio tower how many miles out can it go? I can't get on my local radio, but on-line I can get the station. I live about 70 miles from the city that has the radio tower. At 5kw power how many miles out does the signal go. They want to get 15kw not sure when that will happen.

[rthompson80819]

A lot of depends on terrain, hilly or flat, tall trees or no trees, etc.

5kw is not very much power for a FM radio station and a 190' tower isn't that tall for a radio tower.  The signal probably doesn't make it very far outside the city limits of the city it transmits from.  And I'm not sure going to 15kw will help your situation.

[mroilfield]

That sounds like a math problem one would have for home work.

[Salmon Trout]

That sounds like a math problem one would have for home work.

70 miles is well outside the service area of a VHF FM transmitter using any practical antenna mounting scheme. Curvature of the earth. (Math homework like you said?)

[Salmon Trout]

The maximum line-of-sight distance from a transmitter 190 feet high to a receiving antenna around ground level is much less than 70 miles, so using a multi-element antenna designed for fringe area reception and putting it on a tower would probably help.