KGO

[HCochet]

So I wake up around 12:20 and the reception is so terrible, I change to KGO and they are playing the same thing I heard two hours ago!

.........................

Overnight radio is a throwaway for the most part. Stations stay on the air overnight because it saves wear and tear on the transmitter (turning a powerful transmitter on and off can extract a toll on a transmitter, especially older models), .........................

Who says they would have to turn it off? Why not just have dead air?

or play the sound track from the Indian movie
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkST-1U8kf4&feature=related

 

[DavidKaye]

Who says they would have to turn it off? Why not just have dead air?

Because people will not leave their radio tuned to dead air when they go to sleep, and as I said, the make-or-break part of a station's day is the following morning.

 

[HCochet]

Who says they would have to turn it off? Why not just have dead air?

Because people will not leave their radio tuned to dead air when they go to sleep, and as I said, the make-or-break part of a station's day is the following morning.

I think you misunderstood the question. I undersand that people won't listen to dead air. However, you had written:
"Overnight radio is a throwaway for the most part. Stations stay on the air overnight because it saves wear and tear on the transmitter (turning a powerful transmitter on and off can extract a toll on a transmitter, especially older models),"

You implied that they'd rather not broadcast anything at all, but they have to because they can't (shouldn't) turn off their transmitter.

So my response to that was that they don't need to turn anything off. In order to solve the problem you mentioned, they can just leave everything turned on and play dead air. The only thing you need to turn off is the microphones in case someone comes in and says something stupid.
I remember Spanish Language Radio KAZA 1290 going off the air early every night, or certain nights back in the late 1970's. I used to hear it at the meat market where I worked. There would be a certain song that they always closed with. It sounded almost like a Catholic prayer, but I don't habla. After that song, it was dead air until Sometime the next day. I don't know when.

 

[BarryATL]

In the 1970s dead air was illegal. There was no legal automation to control the transmitter. A person had to be on duty, awake, and doing transmitter readings every hour or three hours depending if the station transmitter pattern (certain AM directional stations had to have hourly readings). Today you could do dead air as long as the automation plays a legal ID once an hour.

Turning a transmitter on or off has never really played into a reason for a station staying on all night or not. The amount of $$$ saved on electricity usually makes up for 5% you might reduce the life of the transmitter tubes.

 

[DavidKaye]

In the 1970s dead air was illegal.

Oh? Can you cite me a regulation? KCBS used to sign off Sunday night at midnight but keep the carrier up until they resumed programming at 5:00am. The reason was that they were the alternate key EBS station, and they took over for KNBR or KGO or whichever was the primary key. But KCBS had totally 100% dead air for 5 hours every Monday morning for years.

Turning a transmitter on or off has never really played into a reason for a station staying on all night or not. The amount of $$$ saved on electricity usually makes up for 5% you might reduce the life of the transmitter tubes.

Actually, I can cite a number of stations where this was the case. It wasn't just the life of tubes but the power surge blowing out capacitors, transformers, etc. I can think of a situation in Oregon where a station went off, rain got into some part of the antenna feed line, and when the transmitter was put back on, a short in the line caused the feed line to blow apart. I want to say it was one of the stations at the Council Crest Stonehenge site, but I can't remember....

 

[SFStatic]

David- I can't recall the reg, but it was highly illegal to leave a transmitter unattended in the 70's. You had to have an operator on duty at all times, and in fact, they were supposed to read and record the transmitter readings every half hour until that reg was eased. There were big fines for violating this rule. It's not worth my time to go look that old rule up, but it was probably in section 73 or 74. A few of us on this board have had FCC 1st Class Licenses and had to abide by those rules.

 

[MC]

They were worried that the signal might fail. Were some of those signals needed for FAA ADF approaches and courses? Air traffic IFR flights?

 

[DavidKaye]

David- I can't recall the reg, but it was highly illegal to leave a transmitter unattended in the 70's.

I never said it wasn't illegal. We were talking about dead air, not unattended transmitters.

 

[SFStatic]

Same difference, David. Why would ANY company pay someone to be on duty, and run dead air? Now, of course, it's a moot point, as with deregulation, most stations are unattended anyway, and can be handled by remote control. Clear Channel has a center in Denver that is supposed to be able to control most or all of their transmitters. When in Hawaii on a remote, my engineer got a call, and one of the other stations was having a transmitter issue. He dialed in and changed to the backup transmitter right from the beach in Hawaii!

 

[DavidKaye]

Same difference, David. Why would ANY company pay someone to be on duty, and run dead air?

No, it's not the same difference. You were talking about illegal operation and I was talking about dead air. KCBS did not operate illegally. Period.

In those days with the kind of manual equipment KCBS and other stations had (cart machines, open reel decks, physical switches, boards with pots, etc.) there were plenty of things to fix between midnight and 5am, and thus plenty of reason for an engineer to be on duty.

 

[SFStatic]

I was around when KCBS did weekend overnight maint. They didn't leave the carrier on the entire time...besides the studio work you mentioned, they also were doing transmitter maint. You don't want to be vacuuming out a live transmitter. The traffic service at that time, Traffic Central, kept a staffer on duty all night in the event of a major breaking story, so that the station could return to live and the traffic person could fill until an anchor reached the studios and took over.

 

[HCochet]

I'm sure KAZA 1290 went off the air at night a lot. Between 1978 and 1981 when I worked at the meat market in Morgan Hill. They advertised on KAZA and played it in the store after hours. We closed at 7 PM. I don't recall how late it was, or if it was Sunday's only or every day. I just know that a dozen or so times I was in the store hearing KAZA when they had a closing song, sort of a spoken song/(prayer?) with background "singers", followed by dead air. I didn't listen to dead air all night to find out when they came back on. Maybe another format took over minutes after like I hear KSJO is doing. You know, Chinese, then Spanish in the same day. Unless another station/call letters took over, KAZA did have dead air late at night during the years 1978-1981. Maybe it was just a 5 minute switch over, but I don't think so.

 

[rricci]

So I wake up around 12:20 and the reception is so terrible, I change to KGO and they are playing the same thing I heard two hours ago!

.........................

Overnight radio is a throwaway for the most part. Stations stay on the air overnight because it saves wear and tear on the transmitter (turning a powerful transmitter on and off can extract a toll on a transmitter, especially older models), .........................

Who says they would have to turn it off? Why not just have dead air?

2 reasons come to mind.

1) Even if you're not sending any programming out, you're still sending a signal in the air. And what powers that? That's right, electricity. And the last time I checked (when I paid my PG&E bill), electricity ain't free.

2. Sending a signal in the sir could cause interference to another station in another part of the country, especially at night.

Now a question: DOn't transmitters have a "stand by" mode where the electronics stay warmed up without putting a signal out? That would cure the problems associated with the power surge because of power cycling. Just an idea

Finally, a comment. back in 1978, we went to Italy. I remeber having my radio with me (being at the age of 15, I couldn't be without my radio). Anyway, we were at a hotel in Rome. I remember it being a balmy night. b Ubcomfortable. I couldn't sleep. So I turned on my radio and was channel surfing when I came upon a station that just playing what sounded like a drum machine. Drum kept playing. I listened for a while just to see what would happen next. I think I finally fell asleep. Don't remember what was on the next day

 

[jonbruce]

You leave the fillaments on for the transmitter to stay "warmed up". If a daytimer left the transmitter powered up after local sunset that would be illegall. A full time authorized facility that signs off but leaves the carrier on would have to run a legal id near the top of the hour. Yes in the old days a transmitter operator would have had to remain on duty (1st class ticket holder if directional), but not anymore.

 

[DavidKaye]

You leave the fillaments on for the transmitter to stay "warmed up". If a daytimer left the transmitter powered up after local sunset that would be illegall. A full time authorized facility that signs off but leaves the carrier on would have to run a legal id near the top of the hour. Yes in the old days a transmitter operator would have had to remain on duty (1st class ticket holder if directional), but not anymore.

KCBS used to run a dead carrier all night (or at least most of the night) on Monday mornings. They ID'd at the top of each hour, but staggered from KBRT in Avalon, which also used that time period for testing. So, it was possible to hear the KCBS ID and then the KBRT ID under the KCBS carrier.

And to the other poster who mentioned about a station staying on all night with a dead carrier "interfering" with other stations, it's not interference if the station is authorized to use that frequency during the time and with the power specified, active carrier or not.

 

[BarryATL]

He specifically said daytime station.

KCBS is an anomoly among stations. MOST stations across the country could not afford to pay someone to be at the station all night and pay the electric bill just to broadcast a dead carrier. On a 1970s era transmitter which was probably actually from the 1950s or 60s, the electric bill could be a huge expense for the average AM radio station. Unless a very large market, most stations who had unlimited broadcast authority signed off at 11PM. An unlimited station was required to broadcast 16 hours a day minimum (if I remember those rules correctly). A nighttime directional station tried to broadcast as few hours as possible at night because of the 1st class engineer requirment (they were a lot more expensive).

Again, the AM radio class A stations really do not count as they had lots of money, staff, and resources. Most regional or local frequencies broadcast the minimum hours required because they could not sell commercials in Dothan, AL (or similar community) for 3am.

So, for the purposes of this discussion there were FCC rules and simple economics that worked against most AM stations keeping their carriers on all night.

Heck.. in the late 70s at the 1k daytimer I worked at, we did not even leave leave the transmitter tube filiments on unless the outside temp was going below freezing. The transmitter building was located in the middle of a swamp and the station owner would not heat the building.

 

[DavidKaye]

So, for the purposes of this discussion there were FCC rules and simple economics that worked against most AM stations keeping their carriers on all night.

Here in the Bay Area (this forum is about San Francisco after all), nearly all the fulltime stations, even in towns like Santa Rosa and Santa Cruz stayed on the air 24 hours, shutting down only once a week on either early Sunday or Monday mornings.

The only two exceptions I can think of were KWUN 1480 Concord (500 watts) after they went fulltime signed off at either 10pm or midnight, I forget -- and KGO.

KGO? Yeah, 50kw big-city KGO signed off between 1 and 5am every day until the mid-70s. Maybe the cost of a union engineer wasn't worth it to them.

 

[BarryATL]

Was KGO directional in the 70s?

One of the other guys can correct me, but I do believe that a 50kw station required a 1st class engineer at all times... this is fuzzy memory, but somewhere in my brain I seem to remember that any non-directional station 10k or above required a 1st class license.

 

[DavidKaye]

Was KGO directional in the 70s?

Yes. As far as I know, KGO has been directional ever since it moved from Oakland in the 1930s.

One of the other guys can correct me, but I do believe that a 50kw station required a 1st class engineer at all times... this is fuzzy memory, but somewhere in my brain I seem to remember that any non-directional station 10k or above required a 1st class license.

This is correct. This was how I managed to just walk into a station and get a job. I had a First. In those days stations were desperate for Firsts.

 

[BarryATL]

WOW! Directional in the 30s. That really did require an engineer to keep the pattern tuned/aligned.