Is there any more talk on when KFI is going to be back on their air with their new stick? One would think with CC's corporate clout that the station would be back on the air pronto...I think it has been way over a year since the plane accident...
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KFI and their new stick
- Thread starter sdwulfdawg
- Start date
Everything is approved, except thaat the FAA only allowed about 650 feet, well under the required 180 degree height a full former 1 A clear needs. Apparently they are appealing the ruling, and looking at how they could top load the tower to get the minimum efficiency if they can not go to full height. Since the ratings have gone up since the tower incident, they are not in any real rush to fix it.
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awj223
Guest
Don't the people at the FAA understand the fundamentals of RF radiators? You can't just throw up a 3/8 wave tower for a station like KFI. Required height is determined by the laws of physics! Unless the FAA thinks it can redefine the speed of light...Was the old tower a true 180 electrical degrees?If the tower was okay in 2004, one of the same height should be okay now. I think they should probably compromise on the issue. If it was indeed hard to see in certain weather conditions, rebuild it to the SAME height as before BUT:1) Paint the roofs on the buildings closest to the tower RED to indicate a hazard (like they've done on the ground near the KNBR tower, near SFO and the Redwood City airport), which should make it easier to locate in fog or haze2) Put strobes all over it3) Don't let idiots who can't read maps fly into the nearby airport
The FAA understands that a tower authorized in the early 30's may not be acceptable today with increased use of aviation. Since a new tower has to be built, this is the time for the FAA to correct a problem and eliminate a hazard.
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awj223
Guest
Before the tower fell, they were calling for strobes and reflectors on it. If strobes and reflectors are sufficient (and the FAA obviously thought they were), then what is the issue with a new tower of the same height as long as it has as many or more strobes and reflectors as the FAA was asking for. CC could repaint some building roofs for good measure in addition to that.A more interesting question is why don't the LA stations put their sticks on the coast where they can get some saltwater into their ground systems? All the SF area stations have their sticks around the Bay; KFI and KNX could put a towers in Long Beach.
The saltwater ground does not help an LA station. It would help, a little, get the signal up and down the coast, but the market is not up and down the coast. The market is LA and Orange Counties. So the absolute best place for a tower is on land with high conductivity that is centralized. The Buena Park location, in other words, is about as good as you can have. Along the coast, you remove the tower from being central to the far West of the market, wasting half the signal over the ocean. The best locations are those of WABC, KFI, KWKW and KHJ.
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dbdigital
Guest
And just where in Long Beach do you suggest? NIMBY.Actually, nearby Wilmington might be a good choice. KFRN has their two, free-standing towers located at the Pick-Ur-Part junk yard in Wilmington.There's plenty of room.dbawj223 said:
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awj223
Guest
Perhaps somewhere in the harbor? Lots of wide open areas around there. Looking at the conductivity maps, it appears that ground conductivity rapidly decreases from 15 in coastal zones, to 8 in northern LA and Orange counties, to 4 farther inland. KGO in San Francisco somehow gets away with towers that are only 90 degrees tall, and their towers are right on the edge of the bay. Might improving the efficiency of the ground system help the field strength in the entire market? It would also throw a whopper of a signal from Santa Barbara to San Diego and beyond.dbdigital said:
KGO is a directional class B, not what used to be called a 1-A clear, and does not have a 180 degree radiator requierment.SF is a perfect place for a saltwater ground, as the market circles the bay. In essence, the salt water creates a near-no-loss ground to landfall even 25 to 30 miles away on the North Bay. LA is different. A salt water ground would be of little benefit, as the land going East is what you want to cover so the great saltwater conductivity only benefits getting to Oxnard or Santa Barbara or San Diego, none of which are of any interest to an LA station. On the other hand, look at KNX vs. KFI. KFI is much better located, and does a far better job of covering the market than KNX because KNX is too far west. KNX should actually have gone to the KFI Buena Park area years ago as the market grew, but they did not realize that they would be at a disadvantage u8ntil too late. KFI is ideally situated on 15 conductivity land, right about in the geographic center of the market.
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awj223
Guest
http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/amq?list=0&facid=34471http://www.oldradio.com/archives/stations/ccs/kgopix.htmAccording to both FCC database and oldradio, KGO is directional, but is a class A station, not a class B. It's one of the few frequencies that I know of that has two stations with class A status on it (the other being WGY).DavidEduardo said:
I'm not sure if the KNX/KFI comparison is fair, given that KFI has a much better dial position, but point taken.However, I thought half the battle is getting your signal into the ground in the first place. Otherwise, why have radial ground systems around towers at all? You probably understand this better than I do given your extensive experience in radio, but it seems that there is obviously something "special" about the ground immediately surrounding the tower. That is why I thought that although moving west in the LA market will force your signal to pass through more ground to get to the eastern areas, higher conductivity might get more RF into the ground in the first place, making the radiator more efficient and effectively more powerful, and possibly mitigating the downsides of not being in the center of the market. If that's not true then I stand corrected.So just what ARE those ground radials for then? Do they really make a difference if the ground conductivity immediately around the tower doesn't matter? Or alternately, are they used to increase the effective ground conductivity immediately around the tower, making the tower behave as if it's sitting on salt water no matter where it's actually constructed?DavidEduardo said:
"Getting your signal into the ground" is reminiscent of station owners who put garden hoses on the base of thier towers in dry weather. Being in salt water helps only if you want to get the signal across a bay or up and down the coast. Were being in salt warer effective in covering inland areas, every station in Hawaii would be in the surf; none is. And every coastal staiton in Puerto Rico would be on the beach; none is. Under the old classifications, KGO was a 1 B. It is now an A, as there are no subclassifications of A's. It, like many 1-B's, did not have 180 degree towers. Ground radials are used because... and this is a non-technical analogy... the tower needs "the other side" like positive needs negative. They are there to make the tower take the energy from the treansmitter. It is really kind of like a ham or shortwave dipole. Even stations in salt water have complete radials and ground screens. There are towers, like folded unipoles, that are vertical folded dipoles and really don't need ground. Or Franklin antennas, which are center fed dipoles made of two half wave sections, which need no ground as the bottom half is, in effect, the ground. The signal is conducted in accordance to the conductivity of the land it transverses. If it runs from 15 to areas with 5, as soon as it hits the 5 areas (San gabriel valley, for example) the signal weakens faster. It is about every foot of land outward from the tower site, not about the site itself. 1070 has two A's on it (on inactive but still licensed) with CBA in Sackville and KNX on it. 540 is another, with CBK in watrous and XEWA in San Luis Potosi.
KFI, WSM, WNBC (WTAM) WMAQ (WSCR), WLW, WGN, WSB, WJR, WABC (WEAF), WBAP (WFAA share time), WHAS, WCCO, WWL, WCBS, WLS, KDKA, WBZ, WHO, WTAM (WKYC, KYW), KMOX, KSL, WHAM, WOAI, WCAU. 25... count 'em... 25.
I counted 24 (?) [EDIT] (Oh I guess you're counting WFAA as well as WBAP)Anyway, thanks for the list, David. As a kid growing up in Central New Jersey, I rememember receiving EVERY one of those stations including KFI. When I was a wee lad, my brother (who is ten years older than I) taped some KFI in the wee hours of the morning in early November 1960. I remember the month and year because part of that "air check" recorded on an Ampex was a political commercial encouraging listeners to vote for Nixon/Lodge. Ah yes those were the days when with a decent radio you could receive all those clear channel stations, before Cuban stations upped their power, and long before the very few daytime stations could operate at night.DavidEduardo said:
Ooops. Missed WBBM in typing. WFAA and WBAP originally shared 820 and 570. They alternated usage of each frequency throughout the day. I recall hearing all of them from Ohio, and KFI was the sign of a low band opening to the West Coast. I recall scanning one morning after hearing KFI very loud, and finding a 500 watter from Paradise, CA, KHJ, KOGO, KLAC and several other new ones in just an hour. A good KFI prior to its midnight Sunday sign off also indicated that Hawaiians and stations from Australia and NZ might be coming in later.
WEAF->WRCA->WNBC->WFANWJZ->WABCWABC[sic]->WCBSWLS (shared time with WENR)WTAM->KYW->WKYC->WWWE->WTAMWCAU->WOGL->WGMP->WPHTDavidEduardo said:
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spark gap
Guest
Where do KOA and WWL figure in?
WWL is on my list as one of the original 1 A clears. KOA is a 1 B, as it was not alone on the channel back in the day... 850 in Boston is a 50 kw directional, and WJW in Cleveland, Johnstown, Birmingham, Muskegon and others were significant fulltimers on the channel, as well as a 50 kw (CKVL) in Verdun, Quebéc and a 10 kw Mexican in Orizaba, Ver.
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awj223
Guest
KPO/KNBC/KNBR wasn't a 1-A? Where else was there a 680? How did the entire SF Bay Area, probably the largest population center on the West Coast at the time, end up without a 1-A?Anyone have a reference for the old classification system? What do the "1" and the "B" mean in 1-B, for example? I know that 1-A was a true clear, and 1-B was a station on a clear channel that had a station duplicated on its frequency, usually separated by thousands of miles. My guess is that the first number represents the channel type (clear, regional, or local frequency), and the letter means how many stations are on that frequency?
680 has large fulltimers in San Antonio, St. Joseph, MO, and Boston and Baltimore. There are quite a few smaller ones, also. A 1-A was, originally, a sole night operation on its channel. 680, like channels such as 710, 810 and 850, for B's.
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