[Jeffhs]

Talk about overkill. This word describes Crosley's WLW-AM in Cincinnati, Ohio to a T. WLW had a 500,000-watt (!) transmitter in the 1930s which caused no end of trouble for people living anywhere near it. The signal was so powerful the signal actually caused incandescent light bulbs to glow, even if these bulbs were not installed in light fixtures (floor lamps, etc.). I don't know if the original WLW was full-time or daytime only, but if the latter, a good number of the light bulbs which glowed during daylight hours were extinguished, only to come back on when WLW would sign on the next morning.

Other problems WLW's flamethrower signal likely caused were the signal being received on such unlikely devices as burner coils on electric stoves, tooth fillings, bedsprings, and so on. When the FCC capped the maximum power of AM radio stations at 50kW, the problem was not nearly as severe as it had been, but folks living very close to the station's transmitter tower(s) would still have problems with severe RF overload and unintended reception of the signals on devices other than radios. I can only hope WLW's current array of antennas (if the station uses more than one) are located "out in the boondocks", that is, in an area some distance (read 50+ miles) from metropolitan Cincinnati, where the chances of RF overload are very slim.