[AMRadio] Can they 'really' know?

[CL in NC]

Amongst all this talk about AM and amps and legal limit, etc., have you considered the monitoring authorities ability to really know your power level if they know nothing about your antenna?  Would seem to me, 60 meters is the only band that the FCC could take an educated guess as to whether a station was legal or not, considering it's current 50 watt limit of ERP.  Maybe they could take a good guess about 160 or 80, 40 sometimes, but after that, propagation, reflection etc., would be a huge variable.  Of course, I'm talking about a general observation at a distance, not an investigation where they are down the street in the van taking voltage readings.

Given the proper conditions, a dipole with 12000 watts is going to sound the same as a yagi with 9db of gain and only 1500 at the feedpoint.  While it would be hard to get 9 db of gain on the low bands, and the power is not needed on the higher, 10 watts into the same dipole can outdo 1500 into that yagi if the ionosphere is cooperating in the direction of interest.

I know character and obeying the rules are always a ham trait, but, I find it hard to believe that you folks with those old BC xmtrs and older ham xmtrs capable of putting out the power in excess of the legal limit, don't just let it rip some times.

Charlie, W4MEC in NC