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KJFK 1490am in low power?
- Thread starter jras20
- Start date
I’ve been in both Austin and San Marcos in the past few weeks, and the KJFK signal is much weaker than normal. Perhaps they have completed the move to the KTSN 1060 site with the 390 watt day power?
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Engineering report to management about prosecuting the CP:
The good news: We saved the station.
The bad news: No one can hear it now.
The good news: We saved the station.
The bad news: No one can hear it now.
That's a funny line, but no one is listening to Jack on 1490. All the listening is on 96.3, which is quite good for what it is. For what it is worth, I would not ever describe 1490 as a good signal since I have been pay attention from the late 90s. It was okay in central Travis County. And basically mia in the other four metro counties.
Also, I have heard from someone who would know that the move and lowering of power was a saving the station situation. The licensee did not own the land and it is in a central, high growth area in close proximity to downtown. 1490 is a historic Austin station and moving it was the only option to save it, to which I imagine they went to great expense in order to do.
When I was in Austin a little over three weeks ago the KJFK HD was a mess when I could get a lock on it. The audio sounded like the moaning and screeching you would hear at a Halloween haunted house, almost as if someone had hijacked the HD feed…really bizarre. My car radio had a very difficult time locking to the HD, had been pretty solid in the past.
KTSN also sounded weaker on my recent trips to the area. They are likely on the new 690 watt authorization.
Both KJFK and KTSN are now merely zombie stations feeding a translator. 1490 is a long, long way from its glory days as KNOW in the 1960s and 70s.
That’s unfortunate. The HD used to be pretty decent sounding. I wonder why they even bother now
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
You just, in a single sentence, explained why Ajit Pai's "AM revitalization program" ... didn't accomplish anything even close to it.
If you think about it only as saving what was as in am in the am context of yesteryear, then you are probably correct. If you think about it as helping those existing AM operators continue serving listeners and their ongoing viability, then I would say it was a success.
The reality is that saving AM in the context of AM has been a lost cause for quite some time. The "revitalization of AM" concluded the only way to potentially give it new life was to give it a place on the FM band. We can debate the wisdom or circular logic of that all we want, but the situation is what it is.
I am told that KJFK's move to the new tower site has not yet taken place, but will likely occur in the next quarter.
Currently there is an issue with a transmitter component which is actively being serviced, but there are some delays. The transmitter is not at full power and the HD is currently off until that component is fixed.
The licensee is a good operator and I would expect an STA to be filed shortly if the issue is not quickly resolved as this is a recent situation.
Currently there is an issue with a transmitter component which is actively being serviced, but there are some delays. The transmitter is not at full power and the HD is currently off until that component is fixed.
The licensee is a good operator and I would expect an STA to be filed shortly if the issue is not quickly resolved as this is a recent situation.
If it was a success, that success will be only a short-term one. Keep in mind that, with few exceptions, medium wave is pretty much dead in the rest of the world. The U.S. is just now starting to catch up with that fact.
Do I think it's a bad idea for radio stations to go off of AM? Absolutely! And it's for the same reasons that it is bad for shortwave to no longer be a viable option. Putting all of your eggs in one basket (FM for radio, Internet for everything else) will have its downside should the powers that be decide to clamp down on both the gathering of and free access to news critical of the current U.S. administration.
In the scheme of everything, all technological success is short-term. The lifecycle of technology involves it eventually being sunsetted and replaced.
If the powers-that-be clamp down on gathering of and free access to news and information critical of them, a viable AM band wouldn't prevent that. It would just become another source for propaganda.
Personally, I'll miss AM during football season if it goes away. Problem is, radio stations aren't museums. Private companies can't indefinitely subsidize their AM stations for the few people who still enjoy them. The people have spoken, and most of them don't go to AM for their entertainment or information anymore (if they ever did).
Indeed.
I would like an inside tip on when 'social media' goes by the wayside....
Oh, I think
IMHO: they misname it. It should have been called "saving local or small town radio". I believe it has done that, for now.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Now that is a much better term. A decent percentage of the translators that went into service to simulcast local AM stations in danger of failing are doing exactly that.
Long-term, though, I still see this as being an interim step toward a wide-scale reduction in AMs with little to no viability, by licensing the translators under the AM call letters and taking the original station silent. Despite Ted and others objecting to the idea, reality is a stronger hand than sentimentality or "just in case" scenarios.
Fair, but that statement has generally been true at the time it was said. It was true when said 50 and 100 years ago, too. While we have had periods when human knowledge has contracted (the Middle Ages in Europe is the biggest example), the technological lifecycle always gets shorter as knowledge expands.
I would assert that you're overestimating the importance of AM and shortwave, at least with respect to the United States. You have to be pretty close to the border in order for international stations to be a source of information. In Europe, you drive six hours, and you're in another country. I can leave Overland Park, KS, drive six hours west on I-70, and not even have left Kansas. Growing up in Texas and Oklahoma, the only international stations you could regularly receive on AM weren't informative unless you spoke another language. I could occasionally get CBW 990, but not consistently enough to be able to rely on it. I live in the Midwest today, and I can get stations from the Rockies to the East Coast on AM, but the only Canadian station I can get is CJBC 860 from Toronto. I only know a simple book of French. So, that station doesn't help me.
Shortwave has never been commercially viable. It has never hit critical mass, even briefly. If private companies are going to run our media, they have to be able to make money off of it. That's the alternative to government-controlled or government-funded media. If it's either of the latter options, the government simply stops funding it if it doesn't like what's being said about it. Ask your local public radio station about that.