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KNX 1070 AM signal down

Jstnpspck

Jstnpspck

Went to jump into the shower about 10 minutes ago and noticed static on the Sangean shower radio at 1070. Grabbed my Sparc HD radio and KNX is loud and clear on 101.1 HD-2. No explanation on their twitter, only them directing people to the Audacy app or 101.1 about an hour ago.

UPDATE- KNX kicked back in on 1070 at 5:44pm
 
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Jstnpspck said:
Went to jump into the shower about 10 minutes ago and noticed static on the Sangean shower radio at 1070. Grabbed my Sparc HD radio and KNX is loud and clear on 101.1 HD-2. No explanation on their twitter, only them directing people to the Audacy app or 101.1 about an hour ago.

UPDATE- KNX kicked back in on 1070 at 5:44pm
Click to expand...
This is when some people blame consolidation or "big groups" for such things. There are critical parts to a station's transmission system that seldom fail, but if they do there is no "auxiliary" procedure.

Most AM's don't have an auxiliary tower. So if the transmission line, the ATU or the antenna switch fails or if the tower is damaged, there is going to be off-air time.

At KLVE in LA when I was, on several occasions, chief operator, we had three transmitters, three antennas on two towers and the transmitter for the second tower was independent of the other set. But we could still lose airtime if the genny failed when the power was out on the hill, and thinks like lightening could damage electrical wiring in the "shack" even if everything was surge protected. Finally, we put a separate system at a different location that likely would not go down if the Mt Wilson site was compromised.

But not all station have a spare million or two to maintain separate site and to have high redundancy at each.
 
DavidEduardo said:
Most AM's don't have an auxiliary tower. So if the transmission line, the ATU or the antenna switch fails or if the tower is damaged, there is going to be off-air time
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A fair few of the Class A AMs do. Dare I say most?

Even KNX has an aux tower at its main site, left over from an attempt to "waste" less power over the Pacific with a mild directional antenna in the 50s.

Here in the midwest, all of the Chicago clears (WSCR, WBBM, WLS and WGN) have auxiliary towers at their main TX site, although I'm not sure if the aux facility at the WSCR/WBBM shared site is set up for diplex operation. And "The Big One" in Cincinnatti, as well as WSM in Nashville are similarly equipped.

WHAS also has a secondary tower in the back yard. But WHAS had quite a bit of downtime last year, mostly during the overnight hours. My understanding of the problem was the switch between the main and aux transmitters wanting to go open-circuit, exactly as David outlined. :D
 
Growing up around NYC in the 50's & 60's I never recall a radio ot TV station being off the air, except for routine once a week early morning maintenance. ( usually early Monday's from 1AM - 5AM ).
And during the 1965 northeast power blackout.
I recall WABC transmitter would trip off during lightning in the area of Lodi,NJ , near their transmitter site and the jock on the air would "joke about it" . . . they never acted like it didn't happen. I recall on smaller market stations if the station went off the air and came back on . . . nobody said anything, like it didn't happen.
I listened much to RnR radio and others in NYC back in the 50's/ 60's, those stations were always on. Including the NYC area suburbun stations.
On the TV side, I recall one morning Channel 5 in NYC ( this was around 1958 ) made an annoucement during a cartoon show ( Sandy Becker Show ) in the morning around 8:30AM . . . saying Mom, kids ,Channel 5 is going to go off the air for about 1 min while we make a change and go to full power so all the kids up in the Poconos & Catskill Mountains can watch cartoons too.
Will be right back !
Sure enough with in 1 min they were back.
( They had been operating at reduced power but were on the air )
I don't even recall during a bad storm radio or TV around NYC, going off for a long period of time.
Even during the 1965 northeast blackout WABC had a tape machine setup at the transmitter that automatically switched on when the studio audio feed from the Manhattan studios was lost . . . WABC played RnR music only at first after the blackout as its people headed out to Lodi to operate from the transmitter site.
I remember on occasion WABC, usually on a Monday morning ( after overnight maintenace ), would say on Herb Oscar Andersons morning show ( HOA ) that they were at 10,000 watts due to a problem with their 50,000 watt transmitter but by 10 AM or so they were back to 50 kw. They'd go off for afew seconds then back to full power. They too would mention, now those up in the Poconos can now hear us better.
Back to the 1965 northeast power failure I was watching TV that day in Nov.,1965, where I was at in NJ. We did not loose power, it just "burped" for a second . . . but our TV lost sync as the studio sync generators went nuts ( the 60 cps was going bad ) . . . then the TV stations were off the air. They had no generators at the time but after the 1965 blackout, generators were installed.
But WABC 770 was ON THE AIR !!! Just music at first ,then the jocks & others as they headed out to the transmitter site in Lodi,NJ.
Al
 
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What in the wide world of sports is with you, board op?
KNX never tried "an attempt to 'waste' less power over the Pacific with a mild directional antenna in the 50s."
The spare antenna was built when someone cut down the main antenna in 1965. KNX went back on the air by buying KFAC's soon-to-be-installed replacement antenna, and installing it with 10k power, until the new main tower could be bought and installed.
The old KFAC tower remains to this day.
 
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KCBS went off the air recently in SF. This is twice in a short time that Audacy 50 kw AM stations have died in the middle of the day. What's really bad is that both of them are Primary Entry Points for the California EAS systems. This simply is not supposed to happen, ever. For it to happen once is very bad. Twice?
 
ragazzo-pazzo said:
KNX has both auxiliary transmitter AND auxiliary antenna system. Did they pay the bill? LOL
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Of the former 1-A clears, I wonder how many have auxiliary towers.

For a directional station, it was a lot harder to have a spare antenna system, as the option would be non-directional with vastly reduced power.
 
zumabeachhans said:
KCBS went off the air recently in SF. This is twice in a short time that Audacy 50 kw AM stations have died in the middle of the day. What's really bad is that both of them are Primary Entry Points for the California EAS systems. This simply is not supposed to happen, ever. For it to happen once is very bad. Twice?
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KCBS is a directional station, and the site is sort of a marshland. Sites like those are subject to floods, fires and other natural hazards. And, as I said before, there are critical elements in a station, such as the antenna switches and the coax that feeds the towers that can prevent any auxiliary system from working.

A bad lightening strike can make the most prepared station go off the air. If it takes out the coax between the building and the towers, or damages the transfer switch or even the ATUs for each tower, it can take hours if not longer to get back on the air.
 
zumabeachhans said:
KNX never tried "an attempt to 'waste' less power over the Pacific with a mild directional antenna in the 50s."
The spare antenna was built when someone cut down the main antenna in 1965. KNX went back on the air by buying KFAC's soon-to-be-installed replacement antenna, and installing it with 10k power, until the new main tower could be bought and installed.
Click to expand...
From Fybush.com:
In the fifties, CBS experimented with a directional antenna system here, in hopes of reducing the amount of signal the non-directional tower was radiating over the Pacific Ocean.

That tower found a new use when the main tower was sheared over a decade later.
 
I had asked KNX back in the 70's about the second short tower and was told that they had used it at one time to experiment with the possibilty to lessen the power over the Pacific during the day , as PTboardop94 said. The person that told me this was an engineer at KNX at the time.
The link that zumabeachha ns points too, from Scott Fybush points out KNX did experiment with the DA idea in the 50's. It would seem that in 1965 when the " newer ??? " second tower was put up, when KNX lost the main tower . . . that prior to that in the 50's there was maybe another "second tower" put up for the DA trials then taken down . . . just a thought ?
Because in 1965 they had no "back up" tower when they needed it ! Then that "other" second tower was put up to get back on the air . . . in 65.
Ya confused yet !!!

Al
 
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