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KCXL - 1 AM with 2 FM Translators in the same city

KCXL's 102.9FM translator causes interference with KMMO 102.9FM, Marshall, MO, on the East side & possibly, KTOP 102.9FM, Saint Marys, KS (Topeka, KS area.), on the West side.
Coverage Area for K275BQ 102.9 FM, Kansas City, MO
Coverage Area for KMMO 102.9 FM, Marshall, MO
Coverage Area for KTOP 102.9 FM, Saint Marys, KS (Topeka, KS area.)
Their 104.7FM translator has a weaker, more directional, signal.
Coverage Area for K284CH 104.7 FM, Kansas City, MO
In addition, there is also an LPFM (KOJH-LP) that is also on 104.7FM in the Kansas City, MO area, which serves an area just North of K284CH's coverage area.
Coverage Area for KOJH 104.7 LPFM, Kansas City, MO
It looks like KCXL has 2 translators that are causing some interference with 2 full power & 1 low power FM station.
 
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To meet the definition of interference in the FCC's eyes, people actually have to be listening. I lived in Johnson County for a couple years almost 25 years ago, and you couldn’t hear KTOP-FM (then oldies KQTP) in any of the urbanized portion of JoCo unless you had a really good car radio. I got most Topeka FM's on every radio I owned (one of my co-workers used to listen to KMAJ on her clock radio on her desk in Lenexa), but KQTP and KWIC 99.3 were not among the most.

KMMO used to do a little better in eastern Jackson County, but it had few-to-no listeners in Independence, Blue Springs, and Lee's Summit.

KCXL's translator on 104.7 is more likely to cause problems for KOJH than anyone else, and its signal contour is specifically designed to avoid causing interference to KOJH.
 
As you look at the coverage maps, the inner circle is where the listeners live (the 60 dbu signal). The FCC allows, I think, a 54 dbu signal to meet one another. The middle circle is the 50 dbu. This is in the FCC rules that does not license stations that interfere with other stations. If it's on the air, it meets FCC Rules to even obtain a construction permit to build.

For example, from the applications list for K284CH look at maps. This is licensed because it meets FCC Rules on station spacing. Thus, by FCC Rules, it does not interfere. If it did, the application would have been dismissed. Here's the link: https://licensing.fcc.gov/cdbs/CDBS...?appn=101720901&qnum=5120&copynum=1&exhcnum=2
 
I thought FM translators were like Gold, getting just one was a prize.

What's to prevent a big AM station from obtaining a large number of FM translators in a given market (to keep the AM competition "out")?


Kirk Bayne
 
There are very specific rules about where translators have to be located if the AM station applies for it. You can lease translators. A more common scenario is to lease an HD FM channel and rebroadcast it on a translator. The HD signal can be the same programming as your AM station. And you can own the translator. This might sound confusing but a translator you get because you are an AM station has certain rules. The owner of the AM station is not restricted from owning 1,000 translators if they desire but the only way they can rebroadcast their AM station is to abide with the certain rules that apply. A loophole is you, as an AM owner, can utilize an HD FM channel and then rebroadcast that HD channel with a translator or two. That HD channel can be the same programming as your AM station. In commercial radio translators are generally restricted to the normal coverage area of the host station, which would be the HD channel in this scenario.

Yes, translators are like gold in many places because the FM dial is so crowded only a few eligible stations manage to get a translator. Looking at the coverage maps of some translators, they cover very few people so they are sort of useless but that's not the real value in the eyes of an owner, It's a translator that might be able to move to a better spot at some point. To move a translator, you must have one, and the FCC is not allowing new translators now.

As to if an AM could get a bunch of translators, I suppose you could if you meet the geographic rules and purchase translators after you are granted the one for your AM station. I'm thinking a 4 leaf clover styled concept where each leaf represents a translator coverage area with the stalk being the AM station site. In that respect, if it was at all possible, you could acquire three translators to go with your one you were granted, move as needed (if possible) to create the 4 leaf clover. The key is you need to stay within the geographic requirements for an AM translator. (For example, you don't see an AM translator for a San Antonio AM in Dallas because of the geographic restrictions)
 
kfbkfb said:
I thought FM translators were like Gold, getting just one was a prize.
Click to expand...

If you're a small operator with just an AM and were able to get an FM translator free in the window the FCC opened a few years ago, you're viable again. That is like gold, and not everybody had that option. Of course, a large percentage of those free translators in that window went to large operators, but they absolutely were a lifeline to small AM operators.

kfbkfb said:
What's to prevent a big AM station from obtaining a large number of FM translators in a given market (to keep the AM competition "out")?


Kirk Bayne
Click to expand...

As Turner mentions, there are a handful of geographic restrictions on AM translators, though there are fewer of them than there were 10 years ago, when the FCC started allowing FM translators for AM's. The biggest obstacle for larger stations is that the real estate for FM translators is limited. There are only so many available frequencies no matter where you are, and, if people have to have four different buttons for your station to listen on their drive home, they're just not going to listen. People aren't going to work to enjoy radio. The benefit of all of the engineering studies and actually having to move translators, which the FCC has made more difficult, stops being worth the cost for most operators after a couple of signals. I suppose RDS might be a solution to that at some point, but I don't think the technology has been adopted widely enough for us to be there yet. Plus, available real estate is still an issue. In most larger markets, you just don't have enough places on the FM dial to put translators.
 
"CJ Country" WCJW 1140 AM Warsaw NY (the Western NY Buffalo/Rochester area) is also on: 100.9 Geneseo, 100.9 Alden, 103.7 Warsaw, 104.3 Avon, 104.9 Arcade, and 105.5 Batavia. That's a lot of translators!
 
If you have tons of cash. FMs go for a premium compared to AMs and they generate the income. It is likely the AM bills a small fraction of what an FM bills. An FM translator is not a real costly start-up compared to the full power FM. Anyway, if the AM generates enough to survive on AM, it would need many times that amount to handle the note payment on an FM full market station. I had a friend that got his translator on for about $30,000. He leases a tower at $750 a month. An FM in his market might start in the lower teens of millions of dollars. It has been stated on this board that depending on where you are, 5 to 15% of radio listening is to AM stations. You can turn that around to say 85% to 95% listen to FM stations.

Now, if we're talking a small market, those prices are based more on what a market can generate in income but the FM will always cost a few multiples of what an AM would sell for. And the reason is pricing is based on what such a station might be able to achieve in income. In a small market, the translator is usually all you'd need.

In a market I know, the AM is #1 and top biller because they have an FM that covers the whole county. Sure, the AM can be heard well past the county line but the station wisely is the local station for the county. In that market every FM was snatched up by the big boys to be moved closer to a major metro to become a rimshot.
 
Route66Fan said:
KCXL's 102.9FM translator causes interference with KMMO 102.9FM, Marshall, MO, on the East side & possibly, KTOP 102.9FM, Saint Marys, KS (Topeka, KS area.), on the West side.
Coverage Area for K275BQ 102.9 FM, Kansas City, MO
Coverage Area for KMMO 102.9 FM, Marshall, MO
Coverage Area for KTOP 102.9 FM, Saint Marys, KS (Topeka, KS area.)
Their 104.7FM translator has a weaker, more directional, signal.
Coverage Area for K284CH 104.7 FM, Kansas City, MO
In addition, there is also an LPFM (KOJH-LP) that is also on 104.7FM in the Kansas City, MO area, which serves an area just North of K284CH's coverage area.
Coverage Area for KOJH 104.7 LPFM, Kansas City, MO
It looks like KCXL has 2 translators that are causing some interference with 2 full power & 1 low power FM station.
Click to expand...
On radio-locator only the innermost red contour reflects the approximate protected contour of each non-translator station you mention.

You might try FCCdata.org - powered by REC as a better indication. The 60 dbu station contour is generally the protected one. The other contours are "maybe you can hear it in your car" and "it's a DX catch if you can hear it".
 
Kent said:
I suppose RDS might be a solution to that at some point, but I don't think the technology has been adopted widely enough for us to be there yet. Plus, available real estate is still an issue. In most larger markets, you just don't have enough places on the FM dial to put translators.
Click to expand...
In Europe, RDS is extensively used by "national" stations that use dozens of main transmitters and hundreds of lower power facilities that are like our translators. The RDS system looks for the best signal for a station, and automatically switches to whichever is best where the listener is.

Many years ago, we activated that feature of RDS for KRCD and KRCV in the LA metro, and found that in RDS equipped car radios that used the European standard, the switching happened perfectly as one drove around.

However, we found that some cars made in Asia did not have that RDS feature, so the effectiveness was not universal. The good thing is that the consumer has to do nothing for it to work.
 
DavidEduardo said:
On radio-locator only the innermost red contour reflects the approximate protected contour of each non-translator station you mention.

You might try FCCdata.org - powered by REC as a better indication. The 60 dbu station contour is generally the protected one. The other contours are "maybe you can hear it in your car" and "it's a DX catch if you can hear it".
Click to expand...
On the subject of how far translators need to be from other stations, there is an FM translator at 103.3 near where I live and another one 30 miles to the northwest. Both AM stations play oldies so occasionally I get confused as to which is which because their names both end in 103.3. I can listen to the station 30 miles to the northwest when I am in the town where the first one is, but I suppose there's some value to the translator. Obviously I can stay on the AM frequency for 30 miles.
 
MarcB said:
AM 1220 in Providence, RI is on both 94.9 FM and 93.7 FM. They do Spanish CHR as La Mega 94.9 which in my opinion is wrong because in the nearby Boston Market AM 890 is also on 94.9 doing Spanish CHR as La Mega 94.9
Click to expand...
I'm sure folks in the Foxborough, MA area have been confused.
 
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