Hello. Oh my yes indeed. Some very interesting items to be heard soon on 860. I wish I could say more.
As for the station's technical progress I can not devulge much, but it will be some VERY entertaining radio. I worked with this deal and had to leave abruptly because of "personal" issues. Did they finally get their 12 towers erected? When a "certain" company did the site survey for the two sites there was a large amount of very expensive land puchased, and some rumours over this deal with deisel generators needed to run the one site 24/7. I just can not spill too many beans at this time, and wish I could blog off some of this knowledge but it is all so very hush hush. ONE thing IS public record however. Apparently the one site that was scrapped had some typically erratic Central California soil problems and ground conductivity was officially deemed unstable, and dangerous to wildlife. For this property the Pappas family is said to be looking into a "white wall project" (you will have to look this up I am afraid to say)
As late as five months ago it has been devulged that the prefferred and current test site turned out to be built over a large secret "OS1-GV" (Out of Service Class 1 Government Vehicle) landfill formerly operated by the US Department of the Interior and shut down in 1967. There, about 13 meters down are hundreds and hundreds of old goverment buses that had "supposedly" been sold off to other countries and shipped via freighter. These vehicles allegedly also had numerous residual traces of incriminating DNA and other substances, along with many hundreds of cartons of papers and microfishe sheets with secret information relating to the Korean War and (as some have alluded) cans of movie film of "out takes" from the three previous attempts at "moon landings" in 1958, and 1963 respectively. The contracted freighter company secretly moved these vehicles to the 161 acre tract of land (known as USGS Parcel #CA-C-449131) To avoid lawsuits the government denied ever selling these buses and cars to other countries and placed all documents regarding this set of transactions into sealed black lexan cases. They are known to be stored somewhere in Arizona at the Federal Records Vault near Yuma. The current KTRB San Fransisco tower site is now owned by the Pappas family. It was purchased by them as a commercial investment, and the brokers had no clue of the acreage's history. But this information will explain the relative ease in which the FCC variance and subsequent amendment was achieved.
Mr. Pappas is a very interesting gentleman with great vision. And make no mistake my friends. This signal will be very strong and may very well be the most powerful and penetrating AM signal in the Bay Area using the high mineral content from the deteriorating buses as an active ground system. I also understand that he will have temprary authority to use a higher modulation level as an experimental "audio wedge" .
I am sorry that I can not provide additional information at this time.