KKOB 770 Tower Collapse

[secondchoice]

Since they most likely will receive insurance money they might have to rebuild or get a judge to let them get the money without good faith efforts to fix it. I not a lawyer but if you are in a similar situation, be careful that you don't get caught up in some kind of "insurance fraud" get a lawyer.

Does Cumulus even own their towers anymore? I believe iHeart sold all their towers a while ago, I wonder if the Cloud company followed suit. If they don't own it most likely they will only get a refund of their rent.

 

[EricStein]

Since they most likely will receive insurance money they might have to rebuild or get a judge to let them get the money without good faith efforts to fix it. I not a lawyer but if you are in a similar situation, be careful that you don't get caught up in some kind of "insurance fraud" get a lawyer.

Does Cumulus even own their towers anymore? I believe iHeart sold all their towers a while ago, I wonder if the Cloud company followed suit. If they don't own it most likely they will only get a refund of their rent.

Cumulus appears to have sold many of its tower sites, including KKOB's, to Vertical Bridge.

 

[Mark Roberts]

Cumulus appears to have sold many of its tower sites, including KKOB's, to Vertical Bridge.

Look up “Tower Payload” on fccdata.org. In this case you will see that Cumulus still owns the KKOB towers.

 

[Mark Roberts]

For those of you in the 'Can AM Radio Be Saved' thread. Here is the question "What is Cumulus going to do?"

Sheesh. Why did you have to bring up that other thread?

 

[Mark Roberts]

TV channels 4, 7, & 13 have news links to the developing story. Didn't find anything on the KKOB website. Engineers are reportedly assessing the damage. Have to wonder if they will replace the tower. The 770 AM signal has been a heritage power house in the SW through the years, but is basically disregarded in station promos for 96.3 signal. I believe it's the taller tower that went down.

KKOB now has some stories and videos at newsradiokkob.com . KOB television (separate ownership) reported that a guy wire was clipped, thus bringing the tower down. While the result is the same, the cause of the collapse 20 years ago was an actual impact with the tower.

The affected tower is the taller tower that’s used full time.

 

[AbqAnonymous]

The news reports on KKOB sounds like they don't care too much about the AM signal loss and TJ Trout was even making jokes about it. So the destruction of the biggest AM signal (or maybe even the biggest signal overall) is now met with "eh, so what". They're probably enjoying the free publicity the station is getting. Twenty years ago this would have likely been a much bigger problem since 770 was the top rated station on the AM alone but now they might take their time getting maybe even a reduced power signal back up without any announcements. Perhaps they could now try to relocate it maybe near the KNML site. There used to be more towers in that area but have since been taken down over the years.

Another fun fact: The Balloon Fiesta was started to celebrate the 50th anniversary of (K)KOB in 1972!

 

[Mark Roberts]

The news reports on KKOB sounds like they don't care too much about the AM signal loss and TJ Trout was even making jokes about it. So the destruction of the biggest AM signal (or maybe even the biggest signal overall) is now met with "eh, so what

I was listening online and noticed the nonchalance as well. They may not want to appear too self-absorbed, especially with the Balloon Fiesta being in town.

The FM signal is just fine for Albuquerque; as I recall from my time in Santa Fe last year, the FM signal there could be spotty in parts of the city. The AM signal there was better at night than during the daytime thanks to the booster on the KVSF tower.

 

[K.M. Richards]

I think that any fellow broadcaster would be sorry to see something like this happen, but I am unable to find out anything about what Cumulus might do.

My personal opinion and nothing more: KKOB hasn't mentioned 770 on the air in years. The logo on their website says "96.3 News Radio KKOB". And I do not want to see the electric bill for that 50kw flamethrower. I say leave it silent and turn in the license. They don't need the AM to feed the FM because the latter is a full-power facility, not a translator. Cumulus obviously doesn't care if anyone even knows 770 is on the air.

And this would finally resolve the old feud with WABC.

 

[Mark Roberts]

For the record, I did ask Don Davis about this. He said he was sorry to see something like this happen but that he has no knowledge whatsoever about what Cumulus might do.

My personal opinion and nothing more: KKOB hasn't mentioned 770 on the air in years. The logo on their website says "96.3 News Radio KKOB". And I do not want to see the electric bill for that 50kw flamethrower. I say leave it silent and turn in the license. They don't need the AM to feed the FM because the latter is a full-power facility, not a translator. Cumulus obviously doesn't care if anyone even knows 770 is on the air.

And this would finally resolve the old feud with WABC.

The reason the station can't go back on the air right now is that PNM has cut the electric power to it, to protect nearby residents. Clean up will also be required and might be delayed now that the NTSB is involved. Once those issues are resolved the obvious thing to do is to file an STA for 25% nighttime power non-directional and operate off the single remaining tower for the time being while considering the AM station's future in a rational manner. A broadcasting license is not something to be surrendered upon the spur of the moment. Moreover, an operational license is worth more than one for a station that's silent.

Speculation about the station's future at this point is highly premature. We're not talking about WFAS here; KKOB is a more viable property.

My own opinion is that I would like to see the license preserved. The original founder of the station died for it, after all.

 

[uncle don]

The AM signal is back on the air. Good strong signal, but I'm line of sight to the transmitter site.

 

[fybush]

Speculation is fun, but indeed also very premature. It's all going to be in the hands of the lawyers and the insurance companies for a while, of course.

If the power stays off for a while and the aux antenna can't be used right away, it is actually going to be an interesting opportunity for Cumulus to see how much 770 mattered to KKOB's bottom line.

No doubt they'll hear from listeners in outlying parts of the state who now can't hear the OTA signal - but is it worth restoring expensive 50 kW operation just for listeners beyond the boundaries of the ABQ radio market?

I can't imagine the 770 license would be completely surrendered. It still has value to someone, whether it's rebuilt at the existing site or sold to another operator and rebuilt elsewhere.

But the reality is also this: we are in the end times of big AM, one way or another. Freak incidents like this wouldn't have been the last straw for a KKOB a decade ago. These days, though, they just might be.

Oh, and as for WABC? It won that fight in the 1970s and has been the class A station on 770 ever since. It's already 50 ND day and night. If KKOB goes away for good, it won't change a thing for WABC.

 

[K.M. Richards]

Oh, and as for WABC? It won that fight in the 1970s and has been the class A station on 770 ever since. It's already 50 ND day and night. If KKOB goes away for good, it won't change a thing for WABC.

I was being facetious.

 

[K.M. Richards]

The AM signal is back on the air. Good strong signal, but I'm line of sight to the transmitter site.

Line-of-sight matters more to FM than AM anyway.

 

[K.M. Richards]

Maybe not naked but an accepted STA even with a very low power AM will let you run a translator.

That's not what you said originally ... but yes, now that 770 is back on the air (apparently at reduced power from the second tower) if the FM was a translator -- and again, it is not -- there would be no issue.

 

[K6JHU]

I hear KKOB about 25 miles from the transmitter at night. Means they are probably putting out some decent power.

 

[boiseengineer]

Reminder: Cumulus does not own the tower or the land it's on. It is leased from Vertical Bridge (VB Nimbus Corp).
KKOB-FM is a full class C broadcasting from Sandia Crest. The old KHFM. Not the little translator. (Green)
The translator with 250 watts from up there wasn't a slouch either (yellow coverage).

 

[Gregg.]

As has been discussed in this thread, the FCC does not grant waivers of the translator rule for any reason, including STAs. The reason is that the translator is considered a secondary service and only exists as a retransmission medium.

But even if KKOB 770 were off the air for repairs, you could have its translator rebroadcast KKOB off of a Cumulus FM station's HD signal. Just put your AM station's programming on an FM HD subchannel and the translator could simulcast that.

Last year, you may remember the story that thieves "stole" an AM tower in a small community. The story got national notice and iHeart volunteered to the station's owner he could have one of iHeart's HD signals for a while, during the reconstruction of the AM tower. His translator could continue broadcasting from that subchannel's feed.

(Actually, it turned out the owner was not being truthful. Someone noticed from Google Street View that the AM tower had toppled months earlier and he was operating the translator all that time without his AM station on the air. The thieves took the toppled tower's metal but they didn't take it down.)

 

[K.M. Richards]

But even if KKOB 770 were off the air for repairs, you could have its translator rebroadcast KKOB off of a Cumulus FM station's HD signal. Just put your AM station's programming on an FM HD subchannel and the translator could simulcast that.

But that is going far afield of what the poster I was responding to was saying, which was that the FCC would allow a STA for a translator to operate when the originating station is silent. The Commission doesn't allow that.

Last year, you may remember the story that thieves "stole" an AM tower in a small community. The story got national notice and iHeart volunteered to the station's owner he could have one of iHeart's HD signals for a while, during the reconstruction of the AM tower. His translator could continue broadcasting from that subchannel's feed.

(Actually, it turned out the owner was not being truthful. Someone noticed from Google Street View that the AM tower had toppled months earlier and he was operating the translator all that time without his AM station on the air. The thieves took the toppled tower's metal but they didn't take it down.)

Ah, yes. WJLX. I hope someone told the FCC about that Street View evidence.

And, although it seems a lifetime ago, the report of the theft was only at the beginning of this year.

 

[Mark Roberts]

Reminder: Cumulus does not own the tower or the land it's on. It is leased from Vertical Bridge (VB Nimbus Corp).
KKOB-FM is a full class C broadcasting from Sandia Crest. The old KHFM. Not the little translator. (Green)
The translator with 250 watts from up there wasn't a slouch either (yellow coverage).


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You’re looking at the FM station. It was the fulltime AM tower that collapsed, which is in the Rio Grande River valley near 2nd & Alameda NW.

 

[Mark Roberts]

But even if KKOB 770 were off the air for repairs, you could have its translator rebroadcast KKOB off of a Cumulus FM station's HD signal. Just put your AM station's programming on an FM HD subchannel and the translator could simulcast that.

Unless things have changed since last year, none of the Albuquerque Cumulus stations operate in HD.

If one is going to come up with hypotheses about a particular station in a particular market, it would be wise to learn something about the station and the market first.