The KKOB towers were near the Balloon Fiesta park, which no doubt accounts for the elevated risk. I did see where a couple of other balloons tangled with power lines, causing outages. No doubt PNM will be relieved to see the end of the festival.
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KKOB 770 Tower Collapse
- Thread starter SomeRadioGuy
- Start date
By that time, nighttime coverage just didn't matter so much any more. The real issue for KKOB was coverage in Santa Fe on the night pattern; the booster has helped resolve that problem for at least the central part of Santa Fe. Not sure how it does in the Eldorado area that's seen a lot of growth in recent years.
The true irony is that KKOB's being forced to directionalize in 1957 gave it a spare tower that came in handy in 2004 and again this year.
I picked up the temporarily authorized 12.5 kw signal in Denver tonight. That was kind of tough due to slop from local 760 KDFD, "Freedumb 93.7", and not something a typical listener would put up with, but doable. KKOB sounded weaker than usual. But conditions always vary from night to night, so it's hard to draw conclusions.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
It did not occur to me, when I replied to your post earlier, that "antenna farms" for AMs in a market could be a logistics nightmare because each added tower in the immediate vicinity of others affects the directional pattern of the others.
So that would be the reason why your observation about AMs being scattered is correct. Of course, these days we are seeing more and more shared towers for AMs (KKOB's Santa Fe booster is itself in such an arrangement).
Fast forward to April 2025, when KKOB has filed to extend its STA to operate with 25 kw daytime and 12.5 kw nighttime. The STA exhibit includes this development:
The exhibit document concludes:
Edit to add link: Draft Copy « Licensing and Management System « FCC
The wording is ambiguous, but seems to imply that there are three parties involved: KKOB, the property owner, and the tower owner.
The exhibit document concludes:
One can infer that the facility may not be rebuilt exactly as before. Danged balloons.
Edit to add link: Draft Copy « Licensing and Management System « FCC
KOB/KKOB has been at that site many years before the Balloon Festival MOVED next to it.
IF, reason was involved, the entire issue of towers in the potential flight path of the balloons would be entirely on the festival.
They shouldn't have launched if there was a possibility balloons would wander in the direction of the towers.
Hell, even KOB/KKOB had a balloon sponsored in it.
IF, reason was involved, the entire issue of towers in the potential flight path of the balloons would be entirely on the festival.
They shouldn't have launched if there was a possibility balloons would wander in the direction of the towers.
Hell, even KOB/KKOB had a balloon sponsored in it.
If I recall correctly, KKOB was one of the original sponsors of the festival.
The first time the tower was toppled, KKOB didn't have an FM outlet. Now it does. As a consequence, it may not feel as pressured to rebuild exactly as before. If there's a separate property owner involved (which isn't clear from the STA exhibit), that property owner may be getting kind of fed up with dealing with another tower crash.
By the way, the STA exhibit also says that the tower is still on the ground.
If they are going to rebuild the tower anyways to broadcast on am why not just spend the extra money to make it be able to broadcast at full power 50kw.. maybe someone with knowledge of this situation can help me better understand why they are looking to only broadcast at 25 kw if they still have the authorization to broadcast at 50kw. Would they have to spend more money on building a tower capable of broadcasting at 50 kw instead of 25?
The only difference in a "50 kw tower" and a "25 kw tower" is, in some circumstances, the size of the guy wire insulators and the base insulator. In general, we overbuild insulators and such parts of an antenna to avoid arcing due to dust buildup, moisture from rain and humidity, etc.
The main reason why I would not build at 50 kw today in a smaller market because the power is not needed to cover that market and there is generally no other revenue to be had from coverage outside the metro survey area (MSA). Lesser power requires a less costly transmitter, lesser power bills and lower maintenance costs.
With AM in severe decline, rebuilding at a more economical scale makes enormous sense.
I believe it was a AbqAnonymous who mentioned earlier that the Balloon Fiesta was started to celebrate the 50th anniversary of KOB 770's sign-on.
Not sure where it was (if anywhere) before it moved to near the AM transmitter site, but having it there makes some sense given the reason for the Balloon Fiesta in the first place.
I once worked for a station that had its own hot air balloon, though it was actually a paid advertisement. While we didn't own it and, to the best of my knowledge, no one from the station ever rode in it, I remember it couldn't just launch from anywhere. It had to have plenty of space and had to be a certain distance from above ground power lines and the like.
The main reason for KKOB to rebuild as before would be to cover Santa Fe. That's the only significant population center near to Albuquerque/Rio Rancho. (Sorry, Los Alamos and Española.) Even so, it's likely that there's more listening to KKOB-FM than the AM in the combined area. There wasn't an FM simulcast the first time the AM tower was hit and collapsed; now there is. I will say that it's been my experience that FM signals from Sandia can be spotty in Santa Fe proper, so that could be an argument in favor of a full rebuild. Another such argument is that KKOB(AM) continues to have its experimental nighttime booster in Santa Fe. That gives it a better nighttime signal than daytime signal in the city. As for Albuquerque itself, 10 kw would be sufficient to cover the city and its largest suburb, Rio Rancho. There's a variety of strategies Cumulus could consider:
- Lower power in Albuquerque for the AM; operate the experimental booster fulltime for Santa Fe. (Possible since the booster is still officially experimental.)
- Put an FM booster in Santa Fe to solidify the signal there and not be concerned with AM coverage of the city. (Santa Fe is within the FM's 60 dBµ contour; the coverage problems I mention are due to terrain.)
- Rebuild the AM tower at a lower height. (The former primary tower was half-wave; a lower height would reduce coverage somewhat but not be as drastic as a power drop.)
I haven't been to NM since the tower crashed so I can't say what KKOB(AM)'s coverage is like now in Santa Fe. With the tower in operation, daytime reception was steady but prone to noise. It's probably noisier now. The only other Albuquerque AM that can be received at all in Santa Fe is KNML. As I mentioned, KKOB-FM reception in Santa Fe depends on where you are in the city. It's probably OK in Los Alamos, which sits on a high mesa, but that's small potatoes. From my time in Santa Fe (I almost bought a house there!), it seemed that, as far as radio is concerned, Santa Fe and Albuquerque function as mostly separate markets. That's another factor for Cumulus to consider.
Remember, the Albuquerque market is not made up of cities but counties. Bernalillo, Sandoval and Valencia counties are the Nielsen Metro Survey Area. 25 kw is more than adequate to cover that area in the daytime. The same slightly lower power into the night directional pattern should be adequate, as the power is focused on the MSA.
The issue is "how important is Santa Fé to Albuquerque market advertisers, both local and national? I suspect that they could live without any coverage of Santa Fé at all.
That's the best of the three ideas.
Half the power does not result in half the coverage. Powers are exponential; it takes four times the power to double the coverage.
For regional and national ad buys, they are separate. The question is whether more local advertisers care. I know that when I was involved with HBC's cluster in ABQ, there was no added revenue to be had from Santa Fé, but we were running a predominantly Hispanic cluster.
In other words, an area stretching from Bernalillo (northern end) to Belen (southern end). The main drivers would be Albuquerque and Rio Rancho.
I'll just note that there are some FM stations licensed to Santa Fe (and a couple licensed to Los Alamos) that attempt to cover Albuquerque, but not all do.
I was referring to electrical height, not power, in that particular quote. A shorter tower might be less, um, attractive to balloons and still do a reasonable job.
The "Hispanic" audience in Santa Fe would most likely be Spanish, and English dominant, as you and I have discussed many times before
Have to remember that Santa Fe is the state capitol. From a political standpoint it was good to have a signal there 24/7.
The "short" tower @ 124 deg tall at 770 is still better than a 90 degree tower if it's decided to go with that as a replacement.
If the replacement is shorter then the old tower the FCC may require KKOB to protect the later co-channel stations to some extent.
The "short" tower @ 124 deg tall at 770 is still better than a 90 degree tower if it's decided to go with that as a replacement.
If the replacement is shorter then the old tower the FCC may require KKOB to protect the later co-channel stations to some extent.
Remember, the concept of "city of license" dates back to the late 20s' (FRC) and early 30's (FCC) where the model was the newspaper A newspaper was mostly limited by the distance copies could be delivered from the central location of the printing presses.
That is why, for example, Akron, Ohio, had its own newspaper and did not depend on the Cleveland ones too much. And as you went West, Sandusky and even nearby Elyria had their papers as did nearby Painesville and then Ashtabula to the east.
So the authorities of the time, around 90 years ago, thought of radio through the perspective of the newspaper model. The idea that a radio signal could be delivered a hundred or more miles away instantly just was not part of the thought process.
Because of that thinking, we got the whole "city of license" and "community service" requirements that resulted in decades of Sunday morning shows nobody listened to and beasts like "community leader ascertainment".
Interestingly, Mexico now shows the location of station transmitters as the "allocation". Each station's market is whatever they cover from there, but there is no requirement to specifically serve the area where the antenna is; a station serves its entire coverage area, without distinction for specific towns and cities and villages.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
I have long said that the concept of COL has become increasingly meaningless as time goes by. If the new FCC chair Brendan Carr is serious about updating or eliminating useless regulations and policies, I think all radio and television stations should be identified by market name instead. Or go even further and make the TOH legal (§73.1201) optional for stations. The majority of stations identify with their branding identity other than that dinosaur of a requirement, and that ID is no longer needed to identify stations by FCC field inspectors (wait ... are there any of those left now?).
I think Mexico is right. Show the transmitter location on the license and be done with it.
I think Mexico is right. Show the transmitter location on the license and be done with it.