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KGA 1510

E

e-dawg

Since KGA downgraded their nighttime signal from 50kw to 10kw. Could they move back to 50kw at night, or is it too late?
 
e-dawg said:
Since KGA downgraded their nighttime signal from 50kw to 10kw. Could they move back to 50kw at night, or is it too late?
Click to expand...

They can't go back to their former Class A facility. They surrendered class A status (which provides protection from interference to a station's skywave coverage) when they downgraded. As a class B facility, it's possible KGA could power back up; class B signals can run up to 50 kW at night now as well...but KGA would now have to protect other 1510s from interference, and would have to comply with the arcane "ratcheting rules" that prevent a lot of useful AM upgrades. In practice, its new class B 50 kW signal, if it's possible at all, would be so intensely directional as to be a practical downgrade from the current 10 kW at night.
 
If they had unlimited funds, the best thing to do would be to move the transmitter site and start over. Maybe even go back to two sites for 790 & 1510. Too many compromises and serious mistakes made in the current setup.
 
Didn't they reduce their nighttime power to allow 1510 KSFN Piedmont CA to better cover the San Francisco market at night?

How could they return to 50,000 watts and still give KSFN decent coverage of the Bay Area?
 
How could they return to 50,000 watts and still give KSFN decent coverage of the Bay Area?
Click to expand...

All explained in the previous posts.

Need a completly new tower arrangement. Current one won't work.
Would be very directional.
Cost a lot of $$$
 
KGA still puts in a healthy signal in Puget Sound at night, though nowhere near that marauding wave they used to be. They had such a rock solid signal with nearly zero fading in the Seattle area for several hours every night for decades, were it not for the TOH ID, you could mistake them for a Seattle station.

And for what did they reduce KGA for? For this crappy little Piedmont, CA station? Reminds me of the disastrous WOWO reduction for WLIB. And for what benefit?
 
I've only heard KSFN one time, and KGA was on open carrier. I can't hear anything other than KGA most nights. I may have gotten KCKK under the open carrier one time, but I got no ID.

-crainbebo
 
What was the business mechanics of KGA dropping its class and power? Was there financial consideration? Joint ownership? The whole theory behind clear channel high power broadcasting was to cover rural areas, that doesn't seem to matter any more.

To answer my own question, joint ownership, Mapleton owns both stations. Too bad. A good signal over a wide underserved area was an asset. Why not just take it off the air entirely, or make it daytime only, then the Bay Area could have its fifth 50 kw signal.
 
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Mapleton owner of what is now KSFN, bought the entire Citadel Spokane group of stations including KGA.
"Killed two birds with one stone." Expanded into Washington State and got a big upgrade for their Piedmont station.
The SFO market station that is worth a whole lot more now. As for Spokane, they put the talk on 790 and sports
on 1510.
 
Still can't hear KSFN under KGA at all, except that one time two years ago. KKXA 1520's horrible IBOC hash kills almost anything on 1510 anyways.

-crainbebo
 
Piedmont has a null pointed rght at ya' crainbebo.
KLLB 1510 kHz West Jordan, UT has just gotten a new license that eliminates a 1kw "criticle hours" power since they don't have to protect KGA anymore.
 
Of course the idea of long range AM coverage is kind of dated now, but as the Colorado floods remind us and as Sandy and Katrina reminded us, nothing has come along so far that matches AM for its ability to cover large areas and that can be significant in emergencies. It is not out of possibility that something may come up when eastern Washington and Oregon could have benefited from a fulltime powerful KGA. These situations don't come up often but when they do strong AM coverage could be most beneficial. Old history.
 
Fast forward to 2021. KGA has done another nighttime power reduction, to 540 watts. (See the FCC's AM Query web page.)

This was done in order to simplify their antenna system to a single (nondirectional) tower.

The region does not have to worry that much about loss of radio communications in an emergency. Under some conditions, stations could stay at daytime power (still 50KW for KGA) at night, particularly if a wide region electrical blackout silenced a large number of stations..
 
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ajaynejr said:
Fast forward to 2021. KGA has done another nighttime power reduction, to 540 watts. (See the FCC's AM Query web page.)

This was done in order to simplify their antenna system to a single (nondirectional) tower.

The region does not have to worry that much about loss of radio communications in an emergency. Under some conditions, stations could stay at daytime power (still 50KW for KGA) at night, particularly if a wide region electrical blackout silenced a large number of stations..
Click to expand...
Of course, without nighttime protection, the signal wouldn't be nearly as effective!
 
ajaynejr said:
Fast forward to 2021. KGA has done another nighttime power reduction, to 540 watts. (See the FCC's AM Query web page.)

This was done in order to simplify their antenna system to a single (nondirectional) tower.

The region does not have to worry that much about loss of radio communications in an emergency. Under some conditions, stations could stay at daytime power (still 50KW for KGA) at night, particularly if a wide region electrical blackout silenced a large number of stations..
Click to expand...
IF ! KGA had a working generator...
 
Just thinking out of the box, here. If Mapleton by taking KGA down to 540w at night before they left town to enhance their bay area property's prospects, why not just take KGA down to 10kw daytime? If they are going to nuke it, why not save on electricity, too?

The market share they are generating with the 50kw daytime, I'd think could be achieved with 10kw.
 
I worked for KHQ Inc. for about 10 years.

The stories about KQNT (KHQ) 590's original antenna were fascinating to hear. I believe it was 3/4 wave compared to what iHeart is running today (1/4 wave?). One of the old timers there took pride that the old KHQ 590 skywave coverage was on par with KGA.
boiseengineer said:
KQNT 590 has the best signal in Western Washington and Northern Idaho day and night.
Click to expand...
 
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