One of the best kept industry secrets is Crawford Broadcasting's "The Local Oscillator" web page: http://www.crawfordbroadcasting.com/engineering.htm It's a radio geek's Nirvana, chock full of interesting technical stuff and pictures from their 24 radio stations. This month they document the five year process of moving KBRT off the island to a mainland hillside: http://www.crawfordbroadcasting.com/oakflat_gallery/ Facing the possibility of shutting down altogether because the Catalina Conservatory wouldn't renew their land lease, CBC went to Plan A, then Plan B, and finally Plan C in order to keep 7~Forty on the air. From a new COL to a five fold increase in power, this move had to cost them beaucoup bucks. Later this month Crawford will fire up their new 50kw Nautel and pull the plug on the Avalon xmttr. What's left on the island will be packed and loaded for the 26 mile boat ride back to L.A. A tip of the fez to CBC engineers for allowing us radio geeks to read this incredible story!
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26 Miles & A Boatload of Bucks
- Thread starter DrAkbar
- Start date
That's a lot of work and expense to build something nobody's going to listen to.
landtuna said:
Crawford is one of the most established and experienced religious broadcasters. They can make a most satisfactory income from paid religious programming, and as they have many stations doing the same thing, they may get multiple revenue streams from one ministry.
Or, more simply: if it would not pay for itself, they would not have built it.
While ratings driven formats on AM are limited to the very best signals, there is definitely an "unrated" market for ethnic, religious and broker-based programming and that will exist until such point that webcasts and podcasts replace the need for OTA programming in each type or genre.
50kw at 740....wow. How directional is that pattern (realizing there are 740s in San Francisco and Phoenix)?
I have a feeling the fish are going to get great receptionmichael hagerty said:
michael hagerty said:
Projected coverage is just about the same as their existing coverage with 10k from Catalina Island. They still protect KSeeBS in San Francisco as well as adjacent channels in L.A. and San Diego. But there's nothing like the Pacific Ocean to carry the signal from Catalina north to Santa Barbara and south to San Diego. Can't quite do the same from the new hillside site, but there are still a ton of listeners where that signal goes. Not sure if they're going to use their new nighttime authorization of 190 watts (up from 113 watts at the old site). At least they can reach more listeners after sunset from atop the hill than they could from Avalon.
btw - can a Nautel 50k power down to 190 watts?
Here's a comparison old & new.
https://licensing.fcc.gov/cdbs/CDBS_Attachment/getattachment.jsp?appn=101406595&qnum=5130©num=1&exhcnum=1
https://licensing.fcc.gov/cdbs/CDBS_Attachment/getattachment.jsp?appn=101406595&qnum=5130©num=1&exhcnum=1
KM Richards sent me the coverage map.
Most of that 50kw is going right back to Catalina and beyond...directional over the ocean to protect 740s in San Francisco and Phoenix.
Why not 5 or 10kw non-directional (day) and audible to more humans and fewer fish.
Most of that 50kw is going right back to Catalina and beyond...directional over the ocean to protect 740s in San Francisco and Phoenix.
Why not 5 or 10kw non-directional (day) and audible to more humans and fewer fish.
michael hagerty said:
The soil around the Oak Flat site is not really ideal. The noise level in Southern California is off the charts. 5 or 10 kW just doesn't get the job done anymore. Also, I suspect that even a 5 kW non-directional signal from Orange County might cause some problems, most likely with KFMB and KCBS.
What they will have is a killer AM signal in the populated areas of Orange County and some of the southern parts of Los Angeles County that will penetrate buildings and overcome most electrical noise. In the most recent newsletter, Cris said he measured a 70 mV in the station's parking lot in Costa Mesa.
Ryan Williams said:
That makes sense. Thanks, Ryan!
Ryan Williams said:
One of Crawford's plans was to diplex from the KVNR array in Garden Grove. Because the sticks there didn't align with the needs of KBRT, they considered going non-direction with 3.5kw. (see page 4) http://www.crawfordbroadcasting.com...RT Oak Flat Project - A Narrative Account.pdf That would have sucked big time and probably was something they'd do only if another mainland site couldn't be found.
Correctomundo. Plus with 50kw @ 7~Forty come bragging rights that mean top dollar for brokered time.
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