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KCBS was Off Air for about 15 Minutes Last Tuesday Afternoon
- Thread starter cc333
- Start date
The FM was fine.
It probably was technical issues. I realize things like this happen no matter how well maintained the station's equipment is, but is Audacy skimping somehow because of their bankruptcy? I've noticed that the usually solid AM signal has been having periodic issues like this more than it used to. Especially in the past 2 or so years.
c
No. Probably the change is that the GM is no longer requiring the engineer to do planned maintenance at 4am. Since 98% of the listening is to KFRC-FM, a few minutes down on the AM during the day no longer matters.
I've noticed a distinct drop in their AM nighttime signal here in San Diego. Maybe it's just atmospheric conditions?
It's likely that the much larger AM signal has considerably more than 2% of all listening. The market runs from Campbell to Santa Rosa, and the FM misses both ends of it.
And with today's solid state gear, maintenance is not a regular 4 AM thing. Most gear runs with no maintenance until dust needs to be vacuumed or air filters changed, often doable without going off the air. Transmitters had a bunch of modules, each with a percentage of the total power so they can run with a "down" module until the right time for replacement or repair occurs; some have hot switch modules that can be swapped when on the air.
You are giving GMs too much credit today by thinking they even know about doing equipment maintenance.
Not to mention much of what's East of the East Bay Hills
If you want to talk about reception on 740, years ago CBC Toronto sold their giant CBL (AM) 110 mile radius signal in favor of CBL being on FM only. To which they added a whole bunch of translators, and possibly boosters, when their AM signal put a solid blanket over the entire area. The current owners love the stations signal!
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Spoken as someone whos been involved with two big 10kw AMs that ditched them and went for 100 watt or less FM sigfnals, it is MUCH LESS expensive to operate, maintain and fix... way less downtown.. and our coverage is concentrated on the population not wasted in the hinterlands
Solar activity is still elevated, which is likely to affect propagation. It hasn't been quite as dead as it was back in May but it has still seemed "off" to me this year even accounting for fewer hours of darkness in the summer.
KFRC-FM does have.a booster on the Pleasanton ridge but reception is so so on the northern end of the 680 corridor, e.g. Concord, Pleasant Hill.
The KCBS site near Novato was chosen well way back when. Daytime I've been able to carry reception all the way to Paso Robles. The only issue I've encountered is trying to receive it at night in Sonoma city, which is in a null. Probably there's the same issue in Napa.
The situation with densely populated lower Ontario or with providing radio service to the millions living in the San Francisco Bay Area is not at all comparable to sparsely populated Alaska.
Geez, in all the years I've been in this business, I've never heard of a GM requiring night maintenance. Nor have I ever heard someone make the connection of a relatively short outage being caused by a lack of night maintenance.
Yes, but it's Paul and he always has to reply to everything, so.
I used to live up in Ukiah, and KCBS was no stronger than KSFO (560) and much much weaker than KFRC (610) both 5kW stations. It was barely audible on our EBS receiver. All of KCBS' power goes to the south day and night. Here in SoCal the KCBS night time skywave is essentially local and I remember hearing it at night aboard a cruise ship adjacent to Cabo.
Actually daytime is more of a standard figure-8. Nighttime is when the power is sent to the south, protecting Edmonton in addition to Toronto. Blame Canada!
Check KCBS' patterns on FCC.org. 2 patterns with most energy directed to the south-southeast.
Yes.
In Lake County to the east of Ukiah, daytime reception of KCBS isn't local, but it is quite strong and listenable for the most part. Nighttime is when it becomes a mess. It can be listenable with a good radio and antenna, either down in open areas near lake level or up near the peaks and ridges, but it's still very staticky, with many dead spots up in the valleys and canyons surrounding the lake.
The reception going up Mt. Saint Helena on 29 at night is a good example. The signal is strong heading up the mountain toward Middletown, until you get to the top; the signal is all but gone once you start heading down the other side, and outside of a pocket of signal here and there, it doesn't really come back reliably until you get to the bottom.
c
And that makes perfect sense for SF/Bay Area market coverage. Probably 80-90% of the population is south and southeast of their transmitter site.
Some years ago, I was driving across I-40 through north-central Arizona, and KCBS came barreling in clear and strong down there . It has an amazing signal if you're in its pattern.