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A day in the life of a lamptimer

I'm waiting for someone to find a station using a photocell to change pattern.
Hey, at night every times there's lightning it powers up to overpower the static!
 
The Kay-Funn 1510 power puzzle continues, as tonight (Sunday)
they didn't drop off the table in the 'Tuke until sometime between
7:15 and 7:20. A check of the Sangean 909 meter-o-power had
it bouncing between 2 and 4 before the power drop, now it's zilch.

Still wondering if their PSSA came into play--

http://svartifoss2.fcc.gov/prod/cdbs/forms/prod/getimportletter_exh.cgi?import_letter_id=2079

--but why would you go with only 6 watts, then 4, if your nighttime
authorization is 100 watts?
 
oldiesfan6479 said:
The Kay-Funn 1510 power puzzle continues, as tonight (Sunday)
they didn't drop off the table in the 'Tuke until sometime between
7:15 and 7:20. A check of the Sangean 909 meter-o-power had
it bouncing between 2 and 4 before the power drop, now it's zilch.

Still wondering if their PSSA came into play--

http://svartifoss2.fcc.gov/prod/cdbs/forms/prod/getimportletter_exh.cgi?import_letter_id=2079

--but why would you go with only 6 watts, then 4, if your nighttime
authorization is 100 watts?
Click to expand...

Simple explanation, fan of pre-KOOL oldies: Pre & Post authorization came into play before the FCC threw in the towel on AM and let just about all daytimers run at night**. The thinking was "give these shlubs some airtime between 6am and local sunrise and make sure they can stay on at least until 6pm". With fulltime authorization of 100 watts with four (nightime) sticks, why would KFuNN want to use their 4 or 6 watts with two (daytime) sticks?

In the humble-pie opinion of the Buckeye Boyz, KFuNN cheats both mornings and evenings with the power and pattern. :eek:

**including our beloved Lumberyard 14~Forty. They have pre sunrise and post sunset authorization, plus nightime authorization of a blazing 52 watts. But of course Gumpdusky can't figure out how to run the Lumberyard at night unless there is a lamptimer malfunction ;)
 
Dr. Akbar said:
Simple explanation, fan of pre-KOOL oldies...
Click to expand...

Not quite, Doc. I favor the 64-79 period, hence my handle.

I'm not sure yet what I think of the sprinkling of early '80s that has
shown up on KOOL following their disastrous (hint, hint, PD Kris ;))
51 days of Christmas ::), although it was nice to hear Billy Joel on
the Ed Sullivan Show.

However I'm not changing my handle to "classichitsfan6479."
 
..lest others think we're making this stuff up, check out KOOL Listener Lauren's Lumberyard 14~Forty web page: http://www.phoenixairchecks.com/KAZG Not only did KLL nail the Tower of Music Pow-Pow-Power, but got that cute 50-ish concrete building housing the infamous lamptimer! Only thing missing is the Ponderosa Lumber marquee facing Thomas Rd and the smell of canal water on a humid August night. A tip of the fez from the Buckeye Boyz to KLL.
 
coming soon to the lamptimer, overflow radio and it's not the pool timer that did the pattern change at another local AM station :-X
 
catfish said:
coming soon to the lamptimer, overflow radio
Click to expand...

ASU Men's Varsity Chess? What other overflow is there after KT'R Sports Parking Lot 6~Twenty & KDUS?
 
catfish said:
check your britches, they are smoking
Click to expand...

Mercury basketball? ASU women's softball? Rattlers' football? Oops, they're dead - my bad. ;D

"It's halftime at US Airways Center, where your Phoenix Mercury lead the Los Angeles Spar.........." (Lamptimer shuts down the transmitter at 8:13 PM). ;D
 
More of the Lumberyard mystery has now been revealed!

http://www.phoenixairchecks.com/KAZG

On this page, Lauren has added inside and outside pics at the KAZG
XMTR site from Eric Stein.

They include the Harris rig mentioned by John Davis way earlier in this
thread, along with an older CCA model. Are those tubes inside the CCA
on the pic with the door open? At any rate, I guess this puts to rest a
rumor of an "old Ampliphase." :(

The one thing we still wonder about though...where is the lamptimer?
Must be in another part of the building where photos weren't allowed. ;D

Closed circuit for Eric: care to give us the backstory on your visit?
 
The Gates-5 is running a little under 4 kW, a blown fuse indicatior on one PA, and there's a PDM Amp fault light on.
Looks like a typical Gates-5 after a thunderstorm.

Did ya notice the KDOT AM/FM Scottsdale sticker on the CCA?
 
There's more rust on some of that Lumberyard 14~Forty eeek-quipment than the left rear wheel well of our '76 Gremlin! Our eyesight isn't as good as yours, but it doesn't surprise Nurse Jeff and me that the xmtr hut has KDOT stickers all over it. Gumpdusky just doesn't care about this lovable last of the daytimers in a top ten market! But as long as they keep pumpin' out 14 in a row from the daytime goldmine, who really cares?
 
Earlier today, while driving to Scottsdale Stadium for the Giants/Dodgers spring training game, I passed by the lumberyard. I decided to tune to 1440 at this point, and I noticed that they were carrying high school basketball -- specifically, the Conference 4A Division II Semifinals from Jobing.com arena. I heard some mention of the "AIA Radio Network".

According to the pages linked below, there are 5 games scheduled to be played at that arena today - including one that starts at 6pm and another at 7:45pm. I am assuming (hoping) that someone turned the dial on the lamptimer so that the transmitter doesn't power down until the games have completed. If that's the case, could this set a record for the number of hours the station is on the air in a single day?

http://www.azcentral.com/sports/preps/scoreboard.php?sportid=11
http://www.azcentral.com/sports/preps/scoreboard.php?sportid=10
 
justthenumbers said:
there are 5 games scheduled to be played at that arena today - including one that starts at 6pm and another at 7:45pm. I am assuming (hoping) that someone turned the dial on the lamptimer so that the transmitter doesn't power down until the games have completed.
Click to expand...

The Lumberyard was "dark" as of 6:32 PM, so the lamptimer likely did its job
at or about 6:15. Of course they could have reduced to their seldom-used
52-watt nighttime lowtorch, but apparently not.

Fellow Gumper lamptimer KDUS 1060 is airing an ASU women's basketball
game which had a 6:30 "tip off" (to use the TV sports jock vernacular).
We'll be back with more sports after this (makes visual time-out signal)
time out. ;)
 
oldiesfan6479 said:
The Lumberyard was "dark" as of 6:32 PM, so the lamptimer likely did its job
at or about 6:15. Of course they could have reduced to their seldom-used
52-watt nighttime lowtorch, but apparently not.
Click to expand...

I wasn't listening at the time of sign-off, so I don't know if the 6pm game (Chaparral/Agua Fria - Boys) was even being carried. Perhaps coverage ended with the conclusion of Shadow Mountain/Canyon del Oro (Girls), which had a 4:15 start.
 
Actually the audio and processing on Lumberyard 14~Forty is quite good for such a lame station. Meanwhile up the dial, the frequency response and non-existing processing of The Lounge Sound on KPHX is abominable! A good engineer with a pair of good ears could probably clean it up in a couple of hours. But then again, who under the age of 60 listens to AM for music anyway?
 
Dr. Akbar said:
Actually the audio and processing on Lumberyard 14~Forty is quite good for such a lame station...(snip)...But then again, who under the age of 60 listens to AM for music anyway?
Click to expand...

Gee Doc, does your familiarity with the format 'n' stuff on Lumberyard 1440
(i.e., listening to it) mean that you're not under 60? ;)

Signed,
A Curious Under 60 Lumberyard Listener
 
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