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FCC approves new KGOL facility

M

Mediafrog+

The FCC has granted the KGOL 1180 application for a permanent diplex at the KGOW 1560 night site in NW Harris County.

Powers will be 50kw daytime, 35kw during critical hours, and 5.7kw at night.

The day and critical hours will be transmitted from a two tower directional array consisting of a new tenth tower at the site along with one of the existing KGOW towers.

Nights will employ all nine existing KGOW towers. The new tower included in day operation is not used at night and detuned.

Daytime directional pattern is broadly to the ESE, while night is a tighter SE lobe.

Complete details are in the engineering exhibit attachment to the application:

 
secondchoice said:
I find it's humorous that moving to a new site is considered a "minor" modification.
Having been involved with a couple of tower site moves, there is nothing "minor" about the work required.
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There should be a second, positive outcome of the KGOL application being approved.

As all nine towers of the KGOW array will be involved with the KGOL diplex, there will be a reconstruction of feed lines and phasing units. All kinds of adjustments will be made to ensure the 1180 and 1560 signals are playing together nicely, and proof of performance will be conducted for both stations.

That should likely mean that for the first time in many years the currently out of whack 1560 signal will be operating within its licensed parameters. No more Vietnamese being heard on 1560 in Alaska, or booming into DFW at night like a local.

I wonder if KGOL ownership has thought about buying KGOW outright to have complete control of the transmitter site. KGOW is a leased signal, and Gow Media could wash its hands of the operation.
 
kevtronics said:
Is 1560 KGOW the station with the most sticks in the air? 6 daytime towers and 9 nighttime towers, on two separate transmitter sites.
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KFXR has 12
WLQV has 9
 
kevtronics said:
Is 1560 KGOW the station with the most sticks in the air? 6 daytime towers and 9 nighttime towers, on two separate transmitter sites.
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KGOW has been operating full time from its nine tower night site for several years now. The six tower day site is no longer operational according to STA filings with the FCC.
secondchoice said:
Night site I believe KGOL will have 10 when it is all finished.
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KGOL will share the nine towers of KGOW at night. The new tenth tower is for the KGOL daytime two tower array that includes one of the KGOW towers.
SomeRadioGuy said:
KFXR has 12
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KFXR has 16 towers total, four at the day site and 12 at the separate night site.

Here in Houston KNTH has 11 towers.
 
Did Texas just happen to be in the right place at the right time to have cheap land + growing urban areas + AM still being viable to have a confluence of many-tower directional arrays?
 
kevtronics said:
Did Texas just happen to be in the right place at the right time to have cheap land + growing urban areas + AM still being viable to have a confluence of many-tower directional arrays?
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The 16 tower KFXR two site arrangement goes back to 1970. The tight night signal misses much of the DFW market due to urban sprawl over the years.

The KNTH array in Houston was originally nine towers in the late 1960s with two shorter towers added later to provide some suburban fill-in. It is probably the most impressive array I’ve ever seen; each of the main nine towers is 500 feet tall. Throw in the additional two 230 foot towers and you have close to 5,000 feet of steel in the air.

Yes, cheap land and lax development guidelines helped. But you also have some facilities that are pretty much shoehorned around other stations on their respective frequencies.
 
Also the ground conductivity is good compared to the Southeast in a lot of parts of Texas. Take 570 in Dallas there are 50KW mid dial stations that would love to have that coverage KLIF has. So 5KW might have to be directional daytime not mess with a station 250 + miles away. Then night coverage you have to squeeze in between East Coast, West Coast, Midwest and Mexican stations. As Mediafrog stated before relatively cheap land made this possible. Another factor is financial, there was a lot of money in the market so someone would try to get a piece of the pie.

Detroit has a bunch of 4 + tower directional stations too. Pre 1974 Detroit was a "rich" market too.
 


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