> > Is it just me or does KIOL seem to be weaker? My antenna
> > had a hard time pulling it in when I was down at Lavaca
> > county over the weekend, it usually pulls them in just like
> > a local, only with a few exceptions from the weather, but it
> > was real staticly this weekend to me.
> >
> I know that KIOL has dropped it's power from 100kw to 94kw,
> so that may be a factor. There is a noticable difference
> here inside the loop as well. The station fades out at
> certain points that it didn't seem to before, or at least
> not as noticably.
>
j, it's not your imagination, KIOL is much weaker in the city on the west side. In the Galleria area the drop-outs are constant and by the time I get out to Jones Road and the 290 and head north the signal is about comparable to KODA, KKBQ, KRBE, etc when I am going to Dallas and am past half way there. There are some stretchs of Jones where KIOL drops out completely for more than a few blocks.
KIOL is using a Beam Tilt of 0.75 degrees on the antenna and thus dropped the power as osr wrote. It has made the signal one of the worst when driving around Houston. I don't have any problem at home, once the antenna is adjusted the signal is very good. It sure isn't working out very well if you are driving around though.
I feel for those guys at Cumulus that have been working on both KIOL & KFNC since the begining trying to get a decent signal into Houston and just not having any luck. I'm sure they have tried everything legal, now how much power is the transmitter rated for, since KIOL is only using 30.62kW to reach 100kW ERP, the legal maximum? Might be time to crank up the transmitter, if it can deliver enough power over 31kW to make the "misjudgement" in ERP needed worth the risk the FCC might find out. Then the FCC doesn't seem very concerned about any of numerous "errors" that stations in the area make, especially on AM.
Mike O
