• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

ESPN Radio Booster

Serious question, not intended as snark...

Usually you see on channel boosters where there's terrain that shields one signal from the other so they don't fight each other. Since there's no natural terrain here to do that, how do you keep the booster from interfering with the main since the two signals must overlap?
 
johndavis said:
Serious question, not intended as snark...

Usually you see on channel boosters where there's terrain that shields one signal from the other so they don't fight each other. Since there's no natural terrain here to do that, how do you keep the booster from interfering with the main since the two signals must overlap?
Click to expand...

You don't.

It will prove to be another fool's errand from the people who thought building a 9 tower nighttime site for KGOW would make some kind of difference. Consulting engineers must love these guys.

The CP site for KFNC-FM1 is the same tower that has already been tried as an aux site for a few eastern rimshots at much higher power levels and failed miserably each time. KKHT and KHJK have both broadcast from that site, and the result was far inferior to their licensed main sites. KKHT had over twice as much power and KHJK had over 6X as much power as KFNC-FM1 will.

It won't extend coverage. It won't improve coverage. It will just interfere with the main channel as a booster. The only real value it will have is as a backup site, as the main transmitter site is prone to flooding.
 
Mediafrog+ said:
Why does KFNC need a booster in the Baytown area? The signal is solid there.
Click to expand...

They don’t need one there.

If I had to guess, someone has probably sold them on it helping during tropo ducting. It won’t. It’s already been tried (and failed) with the two other stations.

It won’t help at all with KFNC’s primary tropo problem, which is the stations on 97.5 in Corpus and Waco, which blast in regularly every tropo season.
 
stan said:
If KFNC is going to get a booster, why not put it on the west side of downtown?
Click to expand...

An on channel booster cannot extend a signal outside of its primary contour. The booster signal has to remain within the footprint of the main signal. The 60 dBu contour doesn't reach downtown; it falls just to the east in the EaDo neighborhood.
 
TheEngineer975 said:
We are working on it now. it does seem promising so far. Thanks for asking!
Click to expand...

Boosters are designed to be in sync with original signal, so this could help with building penetration near Houston's downtown and east side - please advise on what you see as the advantage of the booster station. What happened to the Construction Permit on moving the main KFNC tower from distant Winnie to closer Mont Belvieu since that's the real solution for improved reception in Houston.
Let me guess - money.
 
2Speakers said:
They don’t need one there.

If I had to guess, someone has probably sold them on it helping during tropo ducting. It won’t. It’s already been tried (and failed) with the two other stations.

It won’t help at all with KFNC’s primary tropo problem, which is the stations on 97.5 in Corpus and Waco, which blast in regularly every tropo season.
Click to expand...

They could do like a rimshot station near Fort worth did a few years back, and put up a highly directional antenna on a non-d license giving them an erp of 280kw blasted towards Houston. Until they get busted at least.
 
The booster will create a messy signal clash in east Harris County and will do nothing to improve reception near downtown. Makes no sense to me.

If Gow wants to improve coverage, and has some money to spend, they should pry 92.1 from Urban One, then sell 97.5. Better west side coverage, and I've never heard any tropo issues on 92.1. And they might want to make that move before Entercom (610) or iHeart (790) beat them to it for moving their sports format to FM.
 
Mediafrog+ said:
The booster will create a messy signal clash in east Harris County and will do nothing to improve reception near downtown. Makes no sense to me.

If Gow wants to improve coverage, and has some money to spend, they should pry 92.1 from Urban One, then sell 97.5. Better west side coverage, and I've never heard any tropo issues on 92.1. And they might want to make that move before Entercom (610) or iHeart (790) beat them to it for moving their sports format to FM.
Click to expand...

I did hear 92.1 up in NW Pennsylvania this past summer :)
 
Wow do you work for Gow media?

2Speakers said:
You don't.

It will prove to be another fool's errand from the people who thought building a 9 tower nighttime site for KGOW would make some kind of difference. Consulting engineers must love these guys.

The CP site for KFNC-FM1 is the same tower that has already been tried as an aux site for a few eastern rimshots at much higher power levels and failed miserably each time. KKHT and KHJK have both broadcast from that site, and the result was far inferior to their licensed main sites. KKHT had over twice as much power and KHJK had over 6X as much power as KFNC-FM1 will.

It won't extend coverage. It won't improve coverage. It will just interfere with the main channel as a booster. The only real value it will have is as a backup site, as the main transmitter site is prone to flooding.
Click to expand...

You seem to just know everything. We should have just come to you first i guess.
 
TheEngineer975 said:
You seem to just know everything. We should have just come to you first i guess.
Click to expand...

I don't know everything, but I know this has been attempted from that tower before, and it was a huge waste of time and money.

As someone said earlier, synchronous boosters are typically deployed where there are terrain issues, some natural obstruction of the primary signal. They know there will be some interference, but the net benefit of the booster is greater than the issues that occur in overlap areas.

You can synchronize the booster's signal with the main site's signal via GPS timing, where they interfere with each other as little as possible, but with no terrain shielding, you'll end up with one spot in Houston where the two signals really work well together, the place where the timing was calculated to result in as little interference as possible, and a lot of places where they don't.
 
Thank you for the info

2Speakers said:
I don't know everything, but I know this has been attempted from that tower before, and it was a huge waste of time and money.

As someone said earlier, synchronous boosters are typically deployed where there are terrain issues, some natural obstruction of the primary signal. They know there will be some interference, but the net benefit of the booster is greater than the issues that occur in overlap areas.

You can synchronize the booster's signal with the main site's signal via GPS timing, where they interfere with each other as little as possible, but with no terrain shielding, you'll end up with one spot in Houston where the two signals really work well together, the place where the timing was calculated to result in as little interference as possible, and a lot of places where they don't.
Click to expand...


But there is newer technology out that in theory can give us a desired outcome in the desired area. It may or may not work as well as we would like. But in a case like ours, we have to try to improve based on what we are working with. If we don't try then what would be the next step? We can not move the transmitter and it is too costly to just buy a better signal. What would you do within reason?
 
If the tower can't be moved due to finances, maybe a directional antenna would help you gain a few extra miles to the west from Winnie, but I bet you already looked into that.
 
TheEngineer975 said:
But there is newer technology out that in theory can give us a desired outcome in the desired area. It may or may not work as well as we would like. But in a case like ours, we have to try to improve based on what we are working with. If we don't try then what would be the next step? We can not move the transmitter and it is too costly to just buy a better signal. What would you do within reason?
Click to expand...

The technology actually isn't all that new. GatesAir (and Harris before it) has been marketing Synchrocast for over a decade.

The reality of it is, under current rules, there isn't a next step to improve KFNC's signal on the west side of the metro, just like all the other eastern rimshots. If there were something that could be done, don't you think any of the stations out there with KFNC and owned by the larger companies would have done it by now?

It has actually been tried. Univision had an on-channel booster for KQBU briefly, but discontinued it.

There comes a point where you just have to accept that the signal is what the signal is. Several of the eastern rimshots have found moderate success by programming formats that cater demographically to the areas served by their signals.

If it were me, I would do everything I could to make sure the signal coming from Winnie was as clean as possible. I'd make sure the AM noise was as low as I could possibly get it, and process the station in a way that would reduce multipath as much as possible. I'd turn the stereo pilot off.
 
Directional antennas are usually not done on 2000ft class C FMs..FM by nature are omni...unless a spacing issue is concern. FCC doesnt normally allow directional on commercial FMs ...it does but must be special case..KFNC is not...it was originally a Beaumont signal...upgraded to be a rimshot for Houston...but wont cover all...its NOT a Houston station...never will be
 
ContinuousWave said:
Directional antennas are usually not done on 2000ft class C FMs..FM by nature are omni...unless a spacing issue is concern. FCC doesnt normally allow directional on commercial FMs ...it does but must be special case..KFNC is not...it was originally a Beaumont signal...upgraded to be a rimshot for Houston...but wont cover all...its NOT a Houston station...never will be
Click to expand...

who says they normally don't? It's not as common as directional am's but it happens.. and it doesn't have to be a special case, there are quite a few cases where FM's are directional to protect another station that would be short spaced to if they were non directional. Look at Denver and Los Angeles, there's several directional FM's.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom