I looked this up on Google and this is what I found.
HAAT of Mt. Everest is 8848.86 meters (29031.7 feet).
HAAT of Mt. Everest is 8848.86 meters (29031.7 feet).
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What Is The HAAT Of Mount Everest?
- Thread starter Schroedingers Cat
- Start date
That would be height above mean sea level. Height above average terrain is calculated differently:
Yes, I noticed that right after I posted. That's AI for you! I wonder if FCC.gov or fccdata.org utilities would work at those coordinates. I'll have to let you do that. If the terrain database is one that has the whole world, it should work. Then you just have to have the coordinates of Mt. Everest.
Just for information purposes, how many here have ever computed HAAT the old fashioned way? Getting down on the floor, pasting 10+ USGS Quadrangle Maps together, drawing major radials on the maps, and finding the elevation points along each radial? I did that once before talking to Peter Moncure and getting his DOS based Radiosoft software. It should be a rite of passage for communication engineering consultants.
Just for information purposes, how many here have ever computed HAAT the old fashioned way? Getting down on the floor, pasting 10+ USGS Quadrangle Maps together, drawing major radials on the maps, and finding the elevation points along each radial? I did that once before talking to Peter Moncure and getting his DOS based Radiosoft software. It should be a rite of passage for communication engineering consultants.
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Yes. I had built a 2 meter FM repeater as a college project in 1974. To use it, even at my house, I had to file for a separate repeater license from the FCC, apart from my primary and secondary licenses. They required a hand-drawn plot of the elevations at 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10 miles at angles of (IIRC) every 22.5 degrees from the elevation of the base of my antenna (which was on my family's house in Phoenix, at about 1250 feet ASL). I only had to use two maps to get it done, and the FCC blessed it with the callsign WR7AEV. IIRC, those rules were scrapped from the ham regs a year or two later, although the WR calls didn't disappear until 1977 or thereabouts. That was a completely unnecessary pain in the butt, and I'm glad it didn't last long.
In 1974, I don't think they had all the 7.5 minute USGS sectionals yet, and the elevations were in feet. With 15 minute sectionals, you would only need 1/4 as many maps.
Since we're all radio nerds here, and talking hypotheticals, this thread got me thinking... and wondering what coverage would look like from Mt. Everest.
So... let's say we are somehow able to build a 50 foot tower atop Everest, and run an omnidirectional 100,000 watt FM off of it (yes, I know the number of bays, etc. would have an effect, but this is just a basic exercise.)
Perhaps, not surprisingly, our Everest FM has horrible coverage over most of Nepal, with a ton of shadowing from the surrounding Himalayas. The Nepali capital of Katmandu, about 90 miles away, doesn't get a usable signal. To the north, the sparsely populated Tibetan plateau gets much less shadowing.
However, once you get to the southern border of Nepal into the plains of the Ganges, Everest FM booms into the Indian state of Bihar and portions of northwestern Bangladesh. Coverage in this flatter region reaches some 300 miles in areas.
Now, good luck keeping the thing on the air.
So... let's say we are somehow able to build a 50 foot tower atop Everest, and run an omnidirectional 100,000 watt FM off of it (yes, I know the number of bays, etc. would have an effect, but this is just a basic exercise.)
Perhaps, not surprisingly, our Everest FM has horrible coverage over most of Nepal, with a ton of shadowing from the surrounding Himalayas. The Nepali capital of Katmandu, about 90 miles away, doesn't get a usable signal. To the north, the sparsely populated Tibetan plateau gets much less shadowing.
However, once you get to the southern border of Nepal into the plains of the Ganges, Everest FM booms into the Indian state of Bihar and portions of northwestern Bangladesh. Coverage in this flatter region reaches some 300 miles in areas.
Now, good luck keeping the thing on the air.
Hopefully the engineer would also be a sherpa....Since we're all radio nerds here, and talking hypotheticals, this thread got me thinking... and wondering what coverage would look like from Mt. Everest.
So... let's say we are somehow able to build a 50 foot tower atop Everest, and run an omnidirectional 100,000 watt FM off of it (yes, I know the number of bays, etc. would have an effect, but this is just a basic exercise.)
Perhaps, not surprisingly, our Everest FM has horrible coverage over most of Nepal, with a ton of shadowing from the surrounding Himalayas. The Nepali capital of Katmandu, about 90 miles away, doesn't get a usable signal. To the north, the sparsely populated Tibetan plateau gets much less shadowing.
However, once you get to the southern border of Nepal into the plains of the Ganges, Everest FM booms into the Indian state of Bihar and portions of northwestern Bangladesh. Coverage in this flatter region reaches some 300 miles in areas.
Now, good luck keeping the thing on the air.
View attachment 11348
Thanks for answering my burning question. I suspected there would be big shadow problems all over the place from all the other Himilayan mountains. But WOW!Since we're all radio nerds here, and talking hypotheticals, this thread got me thinking... and wondering what coverage would look like from Mt. Everest.
So... let's say we are somehow able to build a 50 foot tower atop Everest, and run an omnidirectional 100,000 watt FM off of it (yes, I know the number of bays, etc. would have an effect, but this is just a basic exercise.)
Perhaps, not surprisingly, our Everest FM has horrible coverage over most of Nepal, with a ton of shadowing from the surrounding Himalayas. The Nepali capital of Katmandu, about 90 miles away, doesn't get a usable signal. To the north, the sparsely populated Tibetan plateau gets much less shadowing.
However, once you get to the southern border of Nepal into the plains of the Ganges, Everest FM booms into the Indian state of Bihar and portions of northwestern Bangladesh. Coverage in this flatter region reaches some 300 miles in areas.
Now, good luck keeping the thing on the air.
View attachment 11348
HAAT and ERP are obviously not the only things to consider. It would most likely be that a whole bunch of small stations or translators with 10 to 250 watts/60 meters HAAT in each settlement would be much more practical and economical. Not to mention a lot safer. I think you would find the same things for many smaller mountains. Mt. Wilson stations would have to have Boosters to serve areas to the North, as some do, for example.
Great fun stuff, folks!
@ Schroedingers Cat :
My buddy and I, neither of us anywhere near being licensed or otherwise deigned as 'qualified' to do anything of the sort, applied for an LPFM in that very first FCC window long ago and somehow got a 100 on the FCC test. With a terrific hint from an FCC fellow and a slight change in the filing, we got the CP back in three days. As it sorted out, we were the only ones in the entire county of 160,000 to get a license.
Thing is, lol, we used those big USGS maps -- 30 of them -- to calculate our HAAT. No doubt the FCC snickered and sent our coordinates across the Potomac to Reston and got the figure back in less time than it took us to lay flat the first map. We wound up 50 feet off. Those Ess-Oh-Bees, hi.
@ Huff :
Gotta love that wicked, warped, terrain-effect map! The cx and remoteness of that scene must be very similar to -- probably more problematic in fact -- than the CBC's venture to cover Canada's Northern Exposure tundra with those 40-watt AM relay xmtrs over 50 years ago. Our gang of 4 DXers near JFK Airport in Queens NY heard a total of about two of those TIS stations helping out people mushing to an outpost to shop for dog chow.
@ Schroedingers Cat :
My buddy and I, neither of us anywhere near being licensed or otherwise deigned as 'qualified' to do anything of the sort, applied for an LPFM in that very first FCC window long ago and somehow got a 100 on the FCC test. With a terrific hint from an FCC fellow and a slight change in the filing, we got the CP back in three days. As it sorted out, we were the only ones in the entire county of 160,000 to get a license.
Thing is, lol, we used those big USGS maps -- 30 of them -- to calculate our HAAT. No doubt the FCC snickered and sent our coordinates across the Potomac to Reston and got the figure back in less time than it took us to lay flat the first map. We wound up 50 feet off. Those Ess-Oh-Bees, hi.
@ Huff :
Gotta love that wicked, warped, terrain-effect map! The cx and remoteness of that scene must be very similar to -- probably more problematic in fact -- than the CBC's venture to cover Canada's Northern Exposure tundra with those 40-watt AM relay xmtrs over 50 years ago. Our gang of 4 DXers near JFK Airport in Queens NY heard a total of about two of those TIS stations helping out people mushing to an outpost to shop for dog chow.
I had a client at my Day job 20 or so years ago. Somehow, we started talking about radio, and it turned out she had been a DJ and Newscaster at a station in a small town in Ohio. She was now a lawyer for a bunch of 501c3s not related to radio. I don't know if it was her undergraduate or law school days, but she went to a college in California, seems like it was somewhere near San Francisco, near some mountains. She got involved with some students who had a low power pirate station in the area where students lived near the college. One day, they drove the signal, and were able to hear it 20 or so miles away in the favorable direction of the terrain. She thought she had done something terribly illegal. I asked her why she didn't do Communications Law. She thought that her pirate radio involvement disqualified her ethically from that branch of Law. I told her that a large percentage of people in radio had done things like that in their youth, and actually developed their interest in radio that way, but she still maintained it disqualified her.
"Tom Kneitel's circuit makes you bigger, and another makes you small, but those Part 15 devices, won't go anywhere at all!"-Parody lyrics to "White Rabbit", for those who don't remember.
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What are the color ranges? I'm guessing Green=>70 dBu, Aqua=61-70 dBu, Blue=50-60 dBu, White <50 dBu. Where is K2? Don't say Casper, WY.Since we're all radio nerds here, and talking hypotheticals, this thread got me thinking... and wondering what coverage would look like from Mt. Everest.
So... let's say we are somehow able to build a 50 foot tower atop Everest, and run an omnidirectional 100,000 watt FM off of it (yes, I know the number of bays, etc. would have an effect, but this is just a basic exercise.)
Perhaps, not surprisingly, our Everest FM has horrible coverage over most of Nepal, with a ton of shadowing from the surrounding Himalayas. The Nepali capital of Katmandu, about 90 miles away, doesn't get a usable signal. To the north, the sparsely populated Tibetan plateau gets much less shadowing.
However, once you get to the southern border of Nepal into the plains of the Ganges, Everest FM booms into the Indian state of Bihar and portions of northwestern Bangladesh. Coverage in this flatter region reaches some 300 miles in areas.
Now, good luck keeping the thing on the air.
View attachment 11348
Here's a HAAT Calculator on the FCC Website:
Enter the Latitude & Longitude of Mount Everest
(27° 59' 18'' N, 86° 55' 31'' E)
Enter the Elevation at the top of the Antenna ...
8848 meters + 15 meters for a 50 foot tower, so
8863 Meters ... or 29078 feet
in that case, The Height Above Average Terrain of that Antenna would be: 2701 Meters, which is 8861 feet. Thats Over 1.5 Miles High
I Would love to hear the FM Reception is Like From Up There, Perhaps So Many Stations over 200 or More Miles Away. It Would Definitely Be worth a listen, Hang On, Let me grab my Portable Oxygen tank ❄🥶🌀 and maybe some noise cancelling headphones too. 📻😅 and It Would Be Just Like Listening to the Radio From inside an Airplane; Having Tropo DX Conditions 24/7 - Which Would Be Great! Think of Perhaps like Hearing NYC Stations from over Virginia or Perhaps Northern & Central Florida Stations, From over Atlanta.
Stations with Some of Biggest HAAT Numbers, Like WMIT and WKSF in NC, and WHOM and WPKQ in NH, have some of the Largest Coverage Areas in the US. Those stations have HAATs over 2500 or even 3000 ft. WHOM is at 1141 meters (3743 feet) HAAT. WMIT is at 942 meters (3091 feet). They are some amazing signal blowtorches.
Another good example is 103.3 KRUZ in Santa Barbara - Super Poweres 105,000 watts, and a tall HAAT of 905 meters (2969 feet).
Enter the Latitude & Longitude of Mount Everest
(27° 59' 18'' N, 86° 55' 31'' E)
Enter the Elevation at the top of the Antenna ...
8848 meters + 15 meters for a 50 foot tower, so
8863 Meters ... or 29078 feet
in that case, The Height Above Average Terrain of that Antenna would be: 2701 Meters, which is 8861 feet. Thats Over 1.5 Miles High
I Would love to hear the FM Reception is Like From Up There, Perhaps So Many Stations over 200 or More Miles Away. It Would Definitely Be worth a listen, Hang On, Let me grab my Portable Oxygen tank ❄🥶🌀 and maybe some noise cancelling headphones too. 📻😅 and It Would Be Just Like Listening to the Radio From inside an Airplane; Having Tropo DX Conditions 24/7 - Which Would Be Great! Think of Perhaps like Hearing NYC Stations from over Virginia or Perhaps Northern & Central Florida Stations, From over Atlanta.
Stations with Some of Biggest HAAT Numbers, Like WMIT and WKSF in NC, and WHOM and WPKQ in NH, have some of the Largest Coverage Areas in the US. Those stations have HAATs over 2500 or even 3000 ft. WHOM is at 1141 meters (3743 feet) HAAT. WMIT is at 942 meters (3091 feet). They are some amazing signal blowtorches.
Another good example is 103.3 KRUZ in Santa Barbara - Super Poweres 105,000 watts, and a tall HAAT of 905 meters (2969 feet).
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The question is how many decent owered FMs are within 200 miles of the to of Everest. Methinks not too many!
Another one that is way up there is KBZM Big Sky MT. 3337 feet HAAT. 11175 deet above sea level. But it is a class C1 so only 5000 watts. Still goes a LOOOOONG ways out there.
Another one that is way up there is KBZM Big Sky MT. 3337 feet HAAT. 11175 deet above sea level. But it is a class C1 so only 5000 watts. Still goes a LOOOOONG ways out there.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
I've told this story before, but KRUZ was originally going to be on 99.9 (where today's KTYD is) with 3100w.
One year after receiving the CP in 1958, they applied for (and got, obviously) a change in frequency to 103.3, along with a huge ERP to 50kW. They actually got the CP to increase to 105kW seven weeks before the license to cover the 50kW facilities (June 5, 1961 and July 25, 1961). And it only took until November 24 of that year to be licensed at that superpower (TPO 10kW). So they got in only about three years before the new rules took effect near the end of 1964.
It has been said that KRUZ covers the largest geographic area of any U.S. station, reaching 200 feet into Mexico at the southern end of its coverage (not to be confused with its protected signal contour).
I think WMIT on 106.9 Has the Largest Service Area on the East Coast for sure. (or maybe tied with WHOM).
WMIT has only 36,000 watts, but from the Tallest Point on Land East of the Mississippi River, on a Grandfathered Signal, it Over-Performs, Like a Champ, Having the Reach as 100,000 Watt, or Equivalent is Maybe even More Than That. **
(** - More Details Noted Below)
They have many additional signals to extend coverage across the region, but I've heard WMIT clearly South into & Near Columbia & Camden SC, and also into North & Central Georgia, beyond Augusta & Athens, West into East & NE Tennessee, Beyond Knoxville & Bristol & Southwest VA, Northeast into the Triad NC, and East beyond Uptown Charlotte, and Claims to Serve CLT as a Local Station, and Easily Covers most of the CLT Metro Area Static Free, despite being in the Fringe zone on the coverage map.
Local Coverage Contour is 60 Miles, and beyond the WNC Mountains, there's not much or any static until the Piedmont or Midlands in SC, out to 80 miles until their Fringe area, and outer fringe coverage at 120+ miles.
Here's a nice Article how they performed during Hurricane Helene, (only off for 5 minutes during that storm in 2024). WMIT was mentioned to have the 12th largest coverage area of any station in the country, Coverage Potential 7 Different States, and OTA Audience Potential of 5 Million People.
The Light FM's Superpower Signal Shines - Radio World
One of the most powerful FM signals in the nation, 106.9 WMIT(FM), "The Light FM," played a critical role during Hurricane Helene.
www.radioworld.com
** Notice how Far the Longly Rice Map Indicates a 'Great' Signal in Coverage (in Green) - Zone Extends well beyond & outside of the Local & Distant Contour Circles at 50 & 60 Miles.
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K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
I just realized, re-reading my last post, that in November KRUZ will have been at 105kW for a remarkable 65 years.
Huff, was that calculation based on protected contour, or actual coverage? Or did it omit "over water" mileage? Because I can't fathom* KRUZ not being on that list unless the Pacific Ocean was removed from the equation.
(*-see what I did there?)
Huff, was that calculation based on protected contour, or actual coverage? Or did it omit "over water" mileage? Because I can't fathom* KRUZ not being on that list unless the Pacific Ocean was removed from the equation.
(*-see what I did there?)
* Land area coverage
WHOM FM transmitter was, and maybe still is, on Mt. Washington in New Hampshire. My father used to listen nightly to Marlin Taylor's Beautiful Music tapes from there in 1972 - 1976 after Alpert owned it. Did not get the WHOM calls until 1976. Use of that site goes back to the Edwin Armstrong days. WMTW FM from about 1958 which comedian Jack Paar owned in the mid 60s for a couple of years and then Paul Herron of Philadelphia. Gardiner Greene had a multiplex background music business on that frequency from 1959 through most of the 1960s out of Laconia NH.