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Auction 109 King City 284A - Strange Downgrade

R

RF101

Dimes Media submitted their engineering paperwork for Auction 109 . It's quite a major downgrade, making the new allotment pretty much useless. In lieu of 102.7 FM which could cover 84,000 under a 60dBu contour t , Dimes proposes a 150-watt "flashlight" station in downtown King City on 104.7.

Dimes paid $58,000 in Auction 109 for that signal , definitely not small change. There must be an ulterior motive at work here... to protect EMF's Monterey translator, support the buildout of an adjacent channel facility (e.g. a Salinas station upgrade)? Let the guessing games begin....
 
Here is the application, for the curious. I don't see anything here that explains why they are requesting a channel change.

Licensing and Management System

Licensing and Management System
enterpriseefiling.fcc.gov enterpriseefiling.fcc.gov
 
About a 5.3kw ERP on a low hillside northwest of King City would reach around 84,000. A more detailed Longley-Rice plot shows an optimal antenna placement would even reach Alisal , part of Salinas. Strange.. We'll know perhaps in a few months or years the real story.
 
The King City application is now in "review" status (10/25). If Dimes were ever to actually do a build out on the proposed 104.7 allocation point the 60dB contour would make it to Chualar... not bad! Perhaps the 150-watt flashlight was just a placeholder.
 
Maybe the move to 104.7 is to protect their 104.9 translator?

The downgrade looks like it's just to satisfy the site assurance requirement-- it's on their property.
 
Maybe they dont want anymore competition so they are doing this as cheaply as possibly?

I know an owner in WEstern PA who bid $15,000 on a full 6kw Class A.. would've been decent coverage of the market.... he downgraded it to a 2 bay with 100 watts from the roof of a building 15 miles away and basically left it like that before selling it to EMF.

HE bought it because he owned all the commercial stations in a economic center there and someone buying it wouldve chipped away at his profits, even if the competition didnt make a ton of money.
 
The FCC approved (11/22) the Dimes Media proposal for a 150-watt outlet on 104.7 to serve King City. Perhaps the FCC can now put the original 102.7 into a future FM auction.
 
The Dimes Media Auction 109 station now has a callsign assigned to it. It's KSGG but still only has 150 watts ERP for planned coverage on 104.7, just serving the immediate King City area.
 
Wow! Lightbulb-sized KSGG was granted a license-to-cover by the FCC on March 18th. This King City station will be worth a watch for its long-term direction.
 
We now know the reasoning behind the post-Auction 109 downgrade and frequency change of KSGG 104.7 in King City. As expected, it was a placeholder. Dimes Media filed on 4/21 for a change of community to Soledad and a relocation northward of the transmitter/antenna. The end result is now a Salinas rimshotter.

This brings KSGG's 60dBu protected contour some 16km closer to Salinas than possible with the original the Auction-109 102.9 MHz King City frequency . While the technical report claims a huge population increase, the Salinas River Valley's topography shows the neighboring town of Gonzales might be in the shadows at the new site. Thus, KSGG will need an in-town booster in Gonzales.

The proposed site is an American Towers facility - 37390 River Lane (Soledad Peak T1 #8505) which is a big satellite uplink location: ASR 1053794. The mountaintop also hosts KSEA, Greenfield, 107.9 MHz but I do not if the Chavez station broadcasts from the same physical tower.

The technical studies are here:
* Community Change: https://enterpriseefiling.fcc.gov/dataentry/api/download/attachment/25076f91801fe91a01802df488ae04d5
* Engineering: https://enterpriseefiling.fcc.gov/dataentry/api/download/attachment/25076f91801fe91a01802df7b19404d6
 
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There are no satellite uplinks at Soledad Peak. It shows on Google Earth a few TVROs. None are registered so they have no protection if they are C band downlinks.
 
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You are correct. Those are probably old CATV-dedicated downlinks. At least we know what the K-S-G-G call letters signify "Soledad, Gonzales, Greenfield".

This is slick. By earlier submitting a very-low-power initial application for King City, the applicant could later claim a massive population increase with the move to Soledad, thus appearing to be beneficial as-a-whole. The original 102.9 allocation could have been built on a hillside northwest of King City producing pop-counts close to what 104.7 offers, although that hillside would require powerlines and a new antenna build.
 
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Frequency1 said:
I have found that they were from Falcon Cable TV who is now Spectrum and does still use one of the dishes (5 Mtr).
Click to expand...
Falcon Cable. I haven't heard that name in forever.
My parent's friends lived in Prunedale, served by Falcon. And I was always jealous that system carried the SF broadcast stations long after MPTV dropped them (1992 Cable Act).
 
The FCC this week approved the Dimes application to move KSGG 104.7 using Soledad as the new community of license. Salinas gets another rimshotter. Smart move Dimes!
 
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