A day in the life of a lamptimer

[asugeorge1]

The question I ask is why is the Lumberyard signing on with 52 watts of power at 6:05 A.M.? There's no talk show on that early to warrant the early start to the Goldmine and, 15 minutes later, it amps up to full power. What's the reason behind this?

Also, this makes it pretty clear that the 52 watt transmitter is working properly so Gumpdusky could, if they wanted to, have the Lumberyard roll all night long. But, in classic Lumberyard fashion, it sticks to its guns as a strictly daytime station. Why, Gumpdusky, why?!

 

[DrAkbar]

There seems to be a debate among the techies following Lumberyard 14~Forty. Some think Gumpdusky is capable of choking their 5kw xmttr down to 52 watts for pre-sunrise operations (heavens forbid they use those watts for nightime service!). Then there are those who persuasively argue that the ancient Ancient Modulation xmttr is incapable of running at 52 watts. Personally Nurse Czarina Jeff and I think this brouhaha misses the point: Gumpdusky can run Lumberyard 14~Forty 24 hours and use their pre-sunrise and post-sunset authorizations to maximize the Buckeye Boyz istening pleasure. But they seemingly remain content being the Valley's only daytimer!

 

[asugeorge1]

There seems to be a debate among the techies following Lumberyard 14~Forty. Some think Gumpdusky is capable of choking their 5kw xmttr down to 52 watts for pre-sunrise operations (heavens forbid they use those watts for nightime service!). Then there are those who persuasively argue that the ancient Ancient Modulation xmttr is incapable of running at 52 watts. Personally Nurse Czarina Jeff and I think this brouhaha misses the point: Gumpdusky can run Lumberyard 14~Forty 24 hours and use their pre-sunrise and post-sunset authorizations to maximize the Buckeye Boyz istening pleasure. But they seemingly remain content being the Valley's only daytimer!

True dat, Doc! Gumpdusky CAN do it (as we have seen this past week in the mornings around 6:05 A.M.), they just chose NOT to do it.

 

[catfish]

There is no 52 watts.. post sunrise power around 200 watts, the Gates ain't type accepted for 52 watts, ain't gonna happen. In todays economics a new transmitter to do 52 watts is not feasable plus how do you justify the expense and make money to pay for it? Maybe if the economy improves (and it will)when it does, the owners may consider investing the capital to buy a new transmitter if the current one begins to fail. It was installed in 93 and should last for some time. Gary is a great engineer and being a solid state box, they run for several decades provided they are kept clean and in a controlled environment which it is. Wanna see how well 49 watts works, listen to KXEG they have 5 power levels during the day and after one hour past sunset they go down to 49 watts for the night. I'm sure that when the time comes a new transmiiter will be installed that can do all 3 power levels

 

[oldiesfan6479]

What do you know...the lamptimer was adjusted sometime during the day
on Thursday as last night's carrier dump was only about 2:35 or so late
(already off the air at 6:32:50).

This morning (Friday) the carrier popped on at 6:02:43 with whatever lower
power setting KAZG is using, with full daytime power spooling up at 6:17:43.
This evening's carrier dump--6:32:48.

So if catfish (with a "C") is correct about the Harris Five being unable to run
52 watts, just what power setting are they using pre-sunrise? The PSRA?
Those calculations are really wacko but I've tried again and came up with
281 watts at 6:00 AM until monthly sunrise during September.

Catfish, can the rig do 281, or 490, or 500 watts? And what about several
Aprils ago when Lumberyard 1440 stayed on at night for several weeks?
You may recall they signed off then came back on about 5-7 minutes later
with what we thought was 52 watts per their nighttime license. Was it 52
(and what XMTR was being used), or was it the PSSA power? Problem was,
the PSSA is only good for a couple hours at most and the station was on
all night.

 

[boiseengineer]

I think the Gates-5's type accepted to 250 watts and I've run one around 150 watts & it sounds OK. It begins to be more and more distorted the lower the power. Not sure how to tell if it's doing 50 watts even if I tried since the metering is really useless at that power level.

For the 52 watt power level did anyone see an RF meter there that'll read 0.1 amps???

 

[DrAkbar]

I asked Nurse Czarina Jeff to pull out the September Pre and Post authorizations for Lumberyard 14~Forty, and here's what they say:

Pre Sunrise: 500 watts at 6am. 5kw at 6:15am

Post Sunset: 490 watts between 6:30 and 7pm; 49 watts between 7pm and 7:30pm; 29 watts between 7:30 and 8:30pm. Then the goldminers are tucked into bed and it's lights out for the Valley's one and only daytimer.

But wait...Gumpdusky can pull an all-nighter with 52 watts if it so desires. And visiting Media Hut professor Scott Fybush sez a station can use the higher of either pre, post, or nightime authorized power. So for September, Lumberyard 14~Forty could power down to 490 watts at 6:30pm and use their nightime authorization of 52 watts at 7pm, skipping the 49 and 29 watts listed on their Post Sunset authorization. A tip of the fez to the good prof!

The fulltime station they're skywave protecting at night is XEFCD in Camargo, Chihuahua, Meh-Hee-Co which runs 1kw night, non-directional (assuming their lamptimer is working properly). One of these days the Nurse Czarina and I are going to ask the Old Gringo why Mexican stations have three, four and five letter calls?? Estamos confundidos!

 

[oldiesfan6479]

I asked Nurse Czarina Jeff to pull out the September Pre and Post authorizations for Lumberyard 14~Forty, and here's what they say:
Pre Sunrise: 500 watts at 6am. 5kw at 6:15am
Post Sunset: 490 watts between 6:30 and 7pm; 49 watts between 7pm and 7:30pm; 29 watts between 7:30 and 8:30pm.

Maybe and maybe not. The above numbers would be simple, but apparently
the FCC doesn't do anything simple. Must be why they can't shut down all
the pirates in the NYC area. <roll eyes>

There seems to be a "conversion factor" involved and a square root of
something else. Just guesstimating--based on the the square root of
the something else and multiplying that by the nominal power is how I
think I came up with 281 watts for September's PSRA.

Only Gumpdusky could tell us how much wattage is being pumped out
from 6:00-6:15 AM (Lamptimer Standard Time), but they're not talking.
Maybe catfish (with a "C") can find out. <grin>

The fulltime station they're skywave protecting at night is XEFCD in Camargo, Chihuahua...(snip)...One of these days the Nurse Czarina and I are going to ask the Old Gringo why Mexican stations have three, four and five letter calls??

I believe most (AM?) assignments start with "XE." So you can run out of
the three-letter calls (XEG, XEW, etc.) pretty quick. Same M.O. with the
four letters (XERF, XEMO). So now you're up to five, with the likes of
XEPRS, XETRA (is that still on 690/Tijuana?), and lest we forget my fave--
(female voice in Spanish) "XEROK, Juarez Mexico" (hit the shotgun jingle)
"X-ROCK Eighty!"

Paging the Old Gringo...if you can tear yourself away from the El Lay PPM
thread for a bit, we'd appreciate your input on "I heard it on the X." <wink>

 

[DrAkbar]

I believe most (AM?) assignments start with "XE." So you can run out of
the three-letter calls (XEG, XEW, etc.) pretty quick. Same M.O. with the
four letters (XERF, XEMO). So now you're up to five, with the likes of
XEPRS, XETRA (is that still on 690/Tijuana?), and lest we forget my fave--
(female voice in Spanish) "XEROK, Juarez Mexico" (hit the shotgun jingle)
"X-ROCK Eighty!"

Think XEROK is tough for the PAMS singers to shout? Try XESURF in Tijuana or XHEPR in Presidio, MX! Not four calls, not five, but six! Then you've got odd-balls like XEJPV1 - imagine giving those calls after every song and answering the linea de jeffe (bossline) for requests?! You're right...there's only one person Nurse Czarina Jeff and I know who can sort out all this silliness and that's THE OLD GRINGO!

Back to the Lumberyard: The correct power setting for pre-sunrise power is so easy to calculate, a fifth grader of average intelligence can do it! Here's the easy to follow calculation from the FCC: The nominal power listed is not necessarily the same as the Antenna Input power. To determine the Antenna Input Power permitted during PSRA; multiply
the INPUT POWER listed on the station authorization by the SQUARE of the
ANTENNA CURRENT CONVERSION FACTOR. The Antenna Current or Common Point
Current permitted during PSRA is obtained by multiplying the ANTENNA CURRENT
CONVERSION FACTOR by the AUTHORIZED ANTENNA CURRENT or COMMON POINT CURRENT.

YIKES! Paging Scott Fybush, paging Mr Fybush...you're needed at the Phoenix board. STAT!

 

[fybush]

You rang? (I'd put an emoticon in here, but they're still broken, at least in Firefox...)

First off, there aren't really any Mexican calls that end in numbers. That's an FCC record-keeping thing - if Mexico has submitted multiple records to the FCC for the same station, they get numbered in the FCC database. (That's also the origin of all those records in the FCC database for "XENVA" stations - the NVA stands for "Nueva," and those are really just records for new Mexican stations that were submitted to the FCC without real calls attached.)

As for the power calculations, any engineer who knows what he's doing can make sense of that. For the rest of us, the best summary is this: "not very much power, no matter how you figure it."

The difference between 52 watts and 249 watts is pretty insignificant in the real world, against all the incoming interference from those other 1440s in Riverside and Santa Maria and wherever else.

 

[DrAkbar]

As for the power calculations, any engineer who knows what he's doing can make sense of that. For the rest of us, the best summary is this: "not very much power, no matter how you figure it."

The difference between 52 watts and 249 watts is pretty insignificant in the real world, against all the incoming interference from those other 1440s in Riverside and Santa Maria and wherever else.

But this is the legendary Lumberyard 14~Forty! And in spite of it's lowly Class 4 status, there are enough gold mine geeks here in the Valley to make this station a semi-contender if only Arbitron would send us one of those new fangled PPMs. The Nurse Czarina and I find it interesting that when our favorite daytimer is off the air, we get a smattering of spanish language stations and KUHL out of Santa Maria, CA. Interesting because KUHL is supposed to be directional to the west at night with 500 watts, yet that skywave sends the signal back to the Valley with clarity. Either that or they've got a Gumpdusky issued lamptimer controlling the phasor! (inset non-working winking emoticon here)

 

[oaktree]

Eeess 1 mighty keelowatter to dee west at the nighttime after sun go down. I knows. I leeve near there. New transingmitter, too! 5kw day, 1kw nite. Thank you for your timeing. PS- The wind throws the signal all over the place like smokes in a fire. We are glad that you hear us in Gumpduskyville. I hope you weel wright for a QSL letter. Maybe they use a Gumpsusky approved lamptimer and toss their 5kw cookies your ways just to see if yous is paying attention, no? It is, after all, Santa Maria. Not far from "Lom-poke."

 

[oldiesfan6479]

Hey Doc--I much prefer "Dr." and "Nurse" over "Czar" and "Czarina."

So unless you can find a real bureaucratic czardom to czar over
instead of just hanging out in Janet's new multi-million dollar lobby,
it's time to head back to Buckeye, especially since in another week
or so it will be late September and you really should be back at school
...for the fall semester at the Media Hut.

I hear there's mega interest in, and a waiting list for, your new course
on PSRA and PSSA. It's rumored you've come to an agreement with
Gumpdusky that, after classroom study finishes in December, there will
be "behind the wheel training" where each day students get to manually
perform the on/up/down/off transmitter functions at Lumberyard 1440
while the lamptimer is sent out for much-needed repairs.

Oh and you can get the Gremlin checked out at Congressional Rambler
in D.C. before you drive back to Phoenix. $24.95* for oil change, lube,
and a 35-point inspection. <wink>


*: Plus $2.00 EPA recovery fee and a generous contribution to the
"community organizer" group of your choice. (ACORN now ineligible.)

 

[Sammi Brie]

Mexico is assigned by the ITU calls that start with XA to XI (having the whole K and W range for the US is a rarity). All TV and FM stations except those inheriting AM calls use XH (inherited calls start with XE).

Canada has CF through CK but does not use CG in that range. It uses CB as well under an agreement with Chile.

 

[fybush]

Canada has CF through CK but does not use CG in that range. It uses CB as well under an agreement with Chile.

Though it does so only informally, and only for domestic use by the CBC. Any international services from the CBC have (or had) calls in the ITU-assigned CF-through-CK range - the shortwave relays of CBN St. John's and CBU Vancouver are CKZN and CKZU, respectively, and the Radio Canada International transmitters at Sackville also used calls in the CKZ_ range back in the days when they used calls at all.

 

[oldiesfan6479]

Excerpted from reply #58 in the Successful Daytimers thread on the
Classic Radio board:

KLEE, 1480 Ottumwa IA. 500 w 6AM-sunset until nighttime auths gave them 33 watts, created in the 80s by sending 500 watts into a coil that burnt off 467 watts as heat. Cheap, if inefficient way to hit a low nightime power.

Catfish (with a "C") has noted that the Gates Five at the Lumberyard can't
get down to 52 watts on its own, and boisengineer states that said rig can
comfortably do 250. I'm assuming it can be lowered to the FCC's former
"standard" power levels of 250, 500, 1000, and even the more seldom-used
2500 watts. (And maybe any one-off power level above 250?)

I wonder if this "trick of the trade" is being performed at KAZG--lowering the
XMTR power to 250, then sending 198 watts into a coil to be "burned off,"
leaving 52 watts for on air, on the rare occasion the Goldmine rolls all night;
or do a similar scenario to make whatever the PSRA is in a given month and
time of day, if it's below 250 watts.

Only problem might be what do you do with all that excess heat...in AZ...
in the summertime. (Play Mungo Jerry? <grin>)

 

[boiseengineer]

Well, they could run it at 52 watts. ;-)

The thing is continuously adjustable from nearly 6,000 watts down to zip, nada. Six preset power levels with a tiny little adjustment pot for each.

It’ll just sound like crap at 52 watts.

 

[DrAkbar]

I wonder if this "trick of the trade" is being performed at KAZG--lowering the
XMTR power to 250, then sending 198 watts into a coil to be "burned off,"
leaving 52 watts for on air, on the rare occasion the Goldmine rolls all night;
or do a similar scenario to make whatever the PSRA is in a given month and
time of day, if it's below 250 watts.

That would require advanced engineering...the kind that made the Gremlin a car truly ahead of it's time!

Only problem might be what do you do with all that excess heat...in AZ...
in the summertime. (Play Mungo Jerry? <grin>)

Or it could be Hot Fun In The Summertime, Gumpdusky style?

 

[DrAkbar]

Maybe they use a Gumpsusky approved lamptimer and toss their 5kw cookies your ways just to see if yous is paying attention, no? It is, after all, Santa Maria. Not far from "Lom-poke."

Either dat oh dey are owned by da same guys dat own KFuNN - ware powering up b4 sunrise eees da weigh 2 go! It is, after all, Mesa. Not far from "Qween Kweek". Nurse Czarina Jeff and I'll trade you QSL cards!

 

[landtuna]

That would require advanced engineering...the kind that made the Gremlin a car truly ahead of it's time!

Or, it could be as simple as ratcheting up the SWR so the effective transmitted power is 52 watts - or slightly less than your garage door opener light. That would be hard on the plate.....or the grid.....never could keep those straight!