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KFI to be off
- Thread starter mofocat
- Start date
There is WHLO "back east" in Akron, OH. but since they cut back to 500 watts at night not sure if you'd be able to get them. I thought at one time they used to be 5000 watts 24/7 but either they cut it back or I am mistaken.
Good call! That would make sense since the station I am hearing is coming from a general southwest direction here at my current location in Southern California and it is a mix of Spanish talk and then music. That’s quite impressive that Cuba would make it this far to be audible on a portable radio inside a house in Southern California!
Back on at 3:30 AM.
Southwest of LA is in the Pacific, towards American Somoa, not Cuba. Do you mean "Southeast"?
Whoops! Yes David, sorry about that. I meant to say I was picking up the Spanish language talk and music station when I was pointing my radio in a southeast direction / northwest direction, which would corroborate the reports of Radio Progreso from Cuba coming in. Sorry, I got my cardinal directions messed up!
Awesome, another chance to pick up Cuba and anything else that wants to break through the slop here in Southern California! Reminds me of the old days when stations used to sign off at midnight.
Anyone have a line on what KFI's doing with its tower/transmitter that is necessitating taking the station dark for three entire nights (so far)?
I checked their stream last night after noticing their signal unexpectedly missing from my dial. George Noory was just kicking off everyone's favorite trailer park radio show and, amusingly, announced KFI's transmitter outage to his entire nationwide audience, suggesting L.A. listeners use the internet to hear the final three hours of his show.
The reason I'm curious what the outages are for is because Noory said something to the tune of "they're working to make KFI's signal even bigger and better than it already is." And I didn't know if that was just some complimentary word salad or if they actually found a way to improve upon their existing 50,000 watts and location.
I checked their stream last night after noticing their signal unexpectedly missing from my dial. George Noory was just kicking off everyone's favorite trailer park radio show and, amusingly, announced KFI's transmitter outage to his entire nationwide audience, suggesting L.A. listeners use the internet to hear the final three hours of his show.
The reason I'm curious what the outages are for is because Noory said something to the tune of "they're working to make KFI's signal even bigger and better than it already is." And I didn't know if that was just some complimentary word salad or if they actually found a way to improve upon their existing 50,000 watts and location.
Until we are told by them what the project is, we can only guess.
Things among those that could require being off:
1. Changes in the ATU (the thing that tunes the output of the transmitter to the tower)
2. Rewiring tower lighting. Due to power level, best done with station off air. Requires huge lighting of the tower.
3. Transmission line replacement. Possibly from a lightening strike or arcing.
4. Mounting of some kind of auxiliary antenna on the tower, assuming that could be done at night.
I just remembered. They have an auxiliary tower and a couple auxiliary transmitters. Would any of those (or any other likely jobs that come to your mind) preempt even the use of their auxiliaries, as is apparently the case here?
That's not correct. They were 5000 watt "Limited Time" (meaning they could stay on until LA sunset, which was as late as 11pm in the summer.
KFI is back on the air as of 12:55 AM PST. It was off at exactly midnight when I checked inside my house and I was picking up Cuba faintly again. When I went outside to try to see if there was anything else in the background on 640 AM, KFI was back on the air loud and clear. Not sure what work they were doing, but considering they came back on the air a lot earlier tonight compared to last night, I presume any transmitter maintenance has been completed.
I have not payed any attention to WHLO for decades since they went talk. The last time I listened to them was last year when dialing around the AM band and happened to notice they were playing music [twice last year, both times on a holiday weekend]. I was amazed who great it sounded and can't believe they didn't promote it at all. Even used some of the old station ID jingles. Anyways, I haven't payed attention to their wattage output or hours of operation for years and could not remember what it was. I know I used to drive by their tower site every once in a while and you couldn't even see the towers because of all the trees surrounding it. Last time I went by, I could see the towers so either they increased the height of them or they finally trimmed down the tops of the trees.
Yes, they did over a holiday weekend. I remember WHLO's late 70s talk format.
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