FCC Makes it Official. Everett to get a 4th radio station this summer

[systemdump]

With KGA dropping its clear status, maybe they could bring back the one in Mountlake Terrace!

If the KGA power drop happened 28 years ago, it would have been an answered prayer for the old KURB/KKNW/KKZU. But it also probably would have meant a super-crazy nighttime signal pattern for 1510 on this side with the rules being what they were in the early '80s.. Can't go east, not very far south, have to protect then-CKAY 1500 in the northwest. Probably a weird "clover" shape with lobes going northeast/southwest/west, but missing most of Everett and Seattle. It would probably give any engineer a stroke just thinking about it......

Other then dropping the power at night, how many antennas would it take for 1510 AM? Probably not affordable.

 

[IndigoCoyote]

That sweet weird little radio station. At one time, weren't they actually using the Mountlake Terrace water tower as their tower?

 

[Bongwater]

That sweet weird little radio station. At one time, weren't they actually using the Mountlake Terrace water tower as their tower?

Yes they were! (It's still in radio use today for KCIS's nighttime signal pattern.)

On a winter afternoon, just before dark, even if you were parked just below that water tower, you STILL had problems picking up KKNW/KKZU because of the sheer BLAST of KGA's 50,000 watts

 

[scott salvatori]

because of the sheer BLAST of KGA's 50,000 watts

some of us night time drivers actually enjoyed that sheer blast of 50,000 watts. KGA was a legitimate live overnight air personality country station, circa pre early 90's. they actually programmed some good music too! oh and when that came to an end, KGA talk was born, and art bell commenced upon us at 1510 in the wee hours...

 

[Bongwater]

Not complaining about it. But I'm sure the Mountlake Terrace station management probably sat there frowning in the waning daylight hours in that same spot I did, directly below their own radio station's tower running at the full licensed power of 500 watts. And cannot even hear their station, but one 300 miles away.....

Must've been a sad, sad sight......

 

[Wonderfulwino]

Ah yes...KURB. Located in an old real estate office and a program log loaded up with spots for the owners carburator rebuild shop, and not much more. It was a depressing place to work. A listening audience of about 10 people, 9 if she wasnt home. Average age of staff including sales and air was about 19. I'm almost certain you could say "****YOU!!" ten times an hour on that station and the phones wouldnt ring. When you were getting ready to kill the transmitter toward days end, you could very often hear KGA splattering through quite nicely.

 

[Andrew Skotdal]

Bill...50kW 24/7 costs about $3,500 per month...not too bad, really.

 

[Andrew Skotdal]

That sweet weird little radio station. At one time, weren't they actually using the Mountlake Terrace water tower as their tower?

Yes they were! (It's still in radio use today for KCIS's nighttime signal pattern.)

On a winter afternoon, just before dark, even if you were parked just below that water tower, you STILL had problems picking up KKNW/KKZU because of the sheer BLAST of KGA's 50,000 watts

Bongwater...the KCIS nighttime site has 3, 386 foot towers east of Mill Creek and southeast of a big substation in the headwaters of Bear Creek...no water tower.

 

[MisterGort]

KOMA on 1520 has always had a good signal -even at the higher frequency. When I worked at KOMA in the late 1960's we always had a good number of callers from all over the western US. KGA had very good coverage at night time as well -- but Mappleton wanted the night time power at their other station on 1510 -- north of San Franciso. Good luck to you Andy !!

 

[Bongwater]

That sweet weird little radio station. At one time, weren't they actually using the Mountlake Terrace water tower as their tower?

Yes they were! (It's still in radio use today for KCIS's nighttime signal pattern.)

On a winter afternoon, just before dark, even if you were parked just below that water tower, you STILL had problems picking up KKNW/KKZU because of the sheer BLAST of KGA's 50,000 watts

Bongwater...the KCIS nighttime site has 3, 386 foot towers east of Mill Creek and southeast of a big substation in the headwaters of Bear Creek...no water tower.

WHOOPS! My bad. I was under the impression that KCIS was using the old 1510 Mountlake Terrace tower. But checking the coordinates, you won the cookie. Cheers!

 

[crainbebo]

KOMA on 1520 has always had a good signal -even at the higher frequency. When I worked at KOMA in the late 1960's we always had a good number of callers from all over the western US. KGA had very good coverage at night time as well -- but Mappleton wanted the night time power at their other station on 1510 -- north of San Franciso. Good luck to you Andy !!

KOMA (now KOKC) Oklahoma City is occasionally heard at my QTH in Bothell, usually under KGDD in winter. Wonder if that will change with the new 1520...

-crainbebo

 

[Bongwater]

KOMA on 1520 has always had a good signal -even at the higher frequency. When I worked at KOMA in the late 1960's we always had a good number of callers from all over the western US. KGA had very good coverage at night time as well -- but Mappleton wanted the night time power at their other station on 1510 -- north of San Franciso. Good luck to you Andy !!

KOMA (now KOKC) Oklahoma City is occasionally heard at my QTH in Bothell, usually under KGDD in winter. Wonder if that will change with the new 1520...

-crainbebo

It probably will. I've never picked up anything on this side of the Cascades on 1520 kHz other than whatever comes out of Oregon City/Portland. KGDD has a MONSTER signal and while KKXA may cover Snohomish County pretty good, you might even be spared in a nighttime null. I don't know what the nighttime pattern will look like, I'm guessing most of the night signal will shoot straight north-northwest.

 

[DanStrassberg]

I don't know what the nighttime pattern will look like, I'm guessing most of the night signal will shoot straight north-northwest.

KKXA's 50-kW CH/N pattern will be a modified cardioid centered at 308.5 degrees. ID field @ 1 km will be greater than 4V/m, which is the equivalent of well over 100 kW (some might say as much as 200 kW) over a broad arc of at least 60 degrees centered on 308.5 degrees true. KRKO's night pattern is similar, though somewhat asymmetrical and is centered a bit more to the north-northwest than KKXA's. Andy insists that he could use only two of KRKO's towers in the KKXA array, but I really still don't see why he couldn't have used all four of KRKO's towers, which would have avoided the need to construct two towers for KKXA that are not also used by KRKO.

 

[Andrew Skotdal]

Dan, if we could have avoided the extra construction expense, let alone the additional hearings (I think adding the additional two towers led to 15 additional hearing and trial days, but I'd have to check.), we would have done that. There is no way to create a 50kW, 24/7 signal on 1520 using the 1380 array for 1520. In fact, the best nighttime power 1520 could achieve on the 1380 array isn't enough to cover the City of License (Snohomish) using the 1380 array. We looked and looked. I'm waiting for someone to whip out NEC or MiniNEC and try to prove we could do better than 10kW nighttime for 1520 using the 1380 array (and then do HD at night as well). The 1520 nighttime signal is going to cover four core cities - Everett, Mill Creek, Snohomish, Lake Stevens, and possibly some of Lynnwood/Mukilteo, but we don't know what it will cover at night beyond that...the signal has a high interference-free contour. It will be better, population-wise, than KRKO was from it's old transmitter site on Larimer Road at night if you are looking at useable signal. The KRKO night contour from Larimer died at Silver Lake. The 1520 signal will be much better in the day than the Larimer Road signal, except, perhaps during critical hours.

 

[DanStrassberg]

Dan, if we could have avoided the extra construction expense, let alone the additional hearings (I think adding the additional two towers led to 15 additional hearing and trial days, but I'd have to check.), we would have done that. There is no way to create a 50kW, 24/7 signal on 1520 using the 1380 array for 1520. In fact, the best nighttime power 1520 could achieve on the 1380 array isn't enough to cover the City of License (Snohomish) using the 1380 array. <SNIP>...the signal has a high interference-free contour.

KKXA's NIF will be 45 mV/m, IIRC. That IS high, though scarcely unprecedented; Oregon City must put a HUGE nighttime signal into your area. The highest NIF I can recall seeing on an application was 95 mV/m. Pretty sure that a CP was granted (for 1540) but the upgrade was never built. The station was WADK in Newport RI. I think I also saw 70 mV/m for a station in Newport NH (WNTK 1010?). (Is there something about AMs with high NIF's in cities/towns named Newport?) I think WNTK's CP was also granted but the permittee surrendered it unbuilt.

Won't KKXA ultimately be able to get more than 20 kW non-CH D? Don't the conductivity studies that you did for KRKO's 50 kW ND-D already tell you that? Or you could stay with 20 kW-D and move KXXA to the tall tower by day (non-CH). IIRC, that tower is a little over 200 degrees at 1520. 20 kW from that tower would be almost as good as 50 kW ND from one of the shorter towers. Might be too costly to build out, though; BIG diplex filters for the tall tower.

 

[Andrew Skotdal]

50 kW is possible omni-directional daytime for 1520, and it's also possible for critical hours, but not as an omni pattern during critical hours.

 

[dunno]

Andrew,

Have to ask why? Guru, who posts here has outlined the future, and AM stations are not a part of it.
Can you even break even with all these AM's????

 

[Dan Sys]

What does Guru know? I live north of the border in suburban Vancouver. While it's true that most of the AM stations in rural B.C. have flipped to FM in recent years, there is absolutely no room for FM expansion in the Vancouver area. As a result the latest PPM's for Vancouver show 5 AM stations in the Top 10: #1-CKNW 980, #2-CBU-690, #6-CKWX-1130, #9-CISL-650, #10-CKST-1040. Not to mention the Ethnic stations on 1200, 1320, & 1470 that have a ton of listeners, but don't subscribe to PPM. The AM band is doing just fine up here.

Ii will be real interesting to see what kind of signal the new KKXA 1520 puts out up here. As it is now KGDD in Oregon City is like a local at nights. It's also not all that uncommon to hear KGDD at 12 noon on the car radio.

Good luck Andrew! It's going to be a tough go in this day & age with all the negativity happening towards the AM band, but old radio freaks (like myself) have the greatest respect for your efforts.

 

[Andrew Skotdal]

AM has challenges, and I will be the first to admit that. It's a problem that radio-enabled smart phones will likely never be capable of receiving AM radio due to antenna issues, though I do believe most smart phones will ultimately have activated FM chipsets because the combined cost of bandwidth and battery utilization for streaming to phone users is tamping the desire to stream. More pressing is the fact that a larger proportion of listeners are camped on FM - though available content has as much to do with that as audio fidelity. Perhaps someday the FCC will explore the proposal for rulemaking before them to allow AM band migration to 76-88 MHz, which is the spectrum left behind by TV Channel 5 & 6 in the DTV transition (the entire FM band sits between VHF TV Channel 6 and 7 so with the spectrum available in 76-88 MHz, you could migrate every station in America on the AM band, add new LPFMs, and the bonus is a large portion of the existingradio receivers in the U.S. can already tune to those frequencies).

The ways to survive, and even grow on the AM band are full of risks, but there is still tremendous value in a fully mature, proven platform available to everyone in America for the cost of a cheap receiver. Brokered programming of many kinds will continue to find life on the AM band. There are growing podcast-to-air opportunities for podcasters who seek more exposure - and an infinite amount of new talent and potential content for AM stations. What podcaster wouldn't fall all over himself/herself to actually be broadcast? Startup AMs, rimshot stations, and smaller markets that present the station as local going forward will be doing it with one or two "faces." It could be two deejays. It could be two talk hosts. It could be two newspeople. And, those people (or the one person) will be the kind of person who is eager to attend all the bar functions, remotes, fundraisers, etc. to be "the" face of the station. If the station can operate with two people, then at least there is some balance for the staff.

There are rimshot signals and smaller AMs that are doing well. Nobody talks about them, though. Almost none of them are standalone operations.