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KTRB/860: Say What?

Lenhockey just called and mentioned that KTRB/860 (Xtra Sports 860) ran an announcement this morning saying that they'd be shutting down at 8 PM for some sort of maintenance on their night-time facility.

Listening in now to see if they run it again...
 
Gave up at noon. Nothing further heard. Disregard previous comment.
 
Okay, disregard my previous comment to disregard my previous comment. I just received word from Someone Inside The Building saying it's true.

It is reportedly a transmitter or antenna system maintenance issue.

Oh, boy. I haven't heard XEMO/860 up here since about 1990. Haven't been trying, for that matter.
 
I'm glad you heard about this from inside because I thought I might be hearing voices in the head!!!! lol
I'm now wondering how many nights this will take and what effect it will have on A's baseball??
 
lenhockey said:
I'm glad you heard about this from inside because I thought I might be hearing voices in the head!!!! lol
I'm now wondering how many nights this will take and what effect it will have on A's baseball??

here's hoping the A's/Indians game (starts at 4:05) doesn't go into extra innings... Actually, the A's are in other time zones for the next week, so maybe that's why they're doing this now?
 
MarioMania said:
How long will they be off tonight??

Three hours, fourteen minutes and 27 seconds. Exactly.
 
Listen faster.
 
3 hours and 27 minutes and 17 sec. will be the best programming that station has ever had in it's history.
 
They were off the air during the A's game on Tuesday night. I know because my wife had to watch something else on TV so I tried to tune it in. I forgot to check last night, but I can say for sure they were off the air before sunrise this morning when I checked. Maybe something seriously wrong with the nighttime transmitter site?
 
DaveBayArea said:
They were off the air during the A's game on Tuesday night. I know because my wife had to watch something else on TV so I tried to tune it in. I forgot to check last night, but I can say for sure they were off the air before sunrise this morning when I checked. Maybe something seriously wrong with the nighttime transmitter site?

Maybe the truck carrying the propane broke down on the way to the Livermore site;>( With the current rules on auxiliary AM sites, it might be impossible for KTRB to get its day site (an ND diplex at the KFAX site) licensed at low power as an auxiliary night site. I believe there are two main criteria: The auxilary coverage must fit entirely within the main coverage (in this case, the main coverage would be that from the main night site--that is, the Livermore site) and the inverse-distance field from the aux site must not exceed that from the main site (again, the Livermore site) along any radial. For sure, even if it were running only 1 kW ND from the KFAX site, KTRB couldn't meet the second of those criteria. I'm not sure about the first one, but I think probably not.
 
I heard the announcement about KTRB going off the air last night right before Chris Townsend went on the air after the A's game a bit after 7pm. Chris T was pretty vocal about his feelings about the situation, saying "Its an absolute embarrasment". And at 8pm sharp, right in the middle of a call, off they went.

Sounds like this might not be a quick fix; I'm not in the Bay Area tonight so I don't know if they're on or not...I'm guessing not. I guess we don't get JT the Brick back for a while.
 
EastBay said:
I heard the announcement about KTRB going off the air last night right before Chris Townsend went on the air after the A's game a bit after 7pm. Chris T was pretty vocal about his feelings about the situation, saying "Its an absolute embarrasment". And at 8pm sharp, right in the middle of a call, off they went. Sounds like this might not be a quick fix; I'm not in the Bay Area tonight so I don't know if they're on or not...I'm guessing not. I guess we don't get JT the Brick back for a while.

Unless KTRB has secured post-sunset authority, which, if granted, might allow continued operation with the day facilities (50 kW ND from the KFAX site) for an hour after local sunset, KTRB had to be operating from its four-tower night site near Livermore for the hour between 7:00PM and 8:00PM PDT. Did anyone who was listening at 7:00PM last night detect the drop off in signal strength that occurs in most of the more populous parts of the Bay area when KTRB switches sites at sunset? If KTRB did not switch sites at sunset, it might be because the propane to fire the generator that powers the night Tx might just have become too expensive for them. Or maybe KTRB is trying to stretch its supply of propane by using the night site for just one hour a day instead of 11.
 
EastBay said:
I heard the announcement about KTRB going off the air last night right before Chris Townsend went on the air after the A's game a bit after 7pm. Chris T was pretty vocal about his feelings about the situation, saying "Its an absolute embarrasment". And at 8pm sharp, right in the middle of a call, off they went.

When you say "last night," I assume you mean Wednesday. On Thursday night, Chris wrapped up a call, mentioned something about the next broadcast (I'm not sure, because my kid was singing something by Love Handel at the same time) and then someone hit the off button. At least he got the last words out of his mouth before the plug was pulled.

I'm amazed (and then again, I'm not) that the station has such little regard for its listeners. There's no "we're signing off for transmitter maintenance, but we'll return at 6 AM" message. You know, just in case there might be someone tuning by and wondering why there's sudden dead air where a radio station is supposed to be.

(Did somebody at 300 Broadway just holler "He hates us because we didn't put his format on our station"? I don't hate you. I'm just continually bewildered by your lack of effort and imagination.)
 
DanStrassberg said:
Unless KTRB has secured post-sunset authority, which, if granted, might allow continued operation with the day facilities (50 kW ND from the KFAX site) for an hour after local sunset, KTRB had to be operating from its four-tower night site near Livermore for the hour between 7:00PM and 8:00PM PDT.

I'm pretty sure they stay on the daytime site until 8:00 PM PDT this month. The FCC page says 7:00, but it's Pacific STANDARD time. I never understood why they do this, but they do. Everyone else changes except the FCC :)

Dave B.
 
BossRadioDJ said:
(Did somebody at 300 Broadway just holler "He hates us because we didn't put his format on our station"? I don't hate you. I'm just continually bewildered by your lack of effort and imagination.)


"KTRB...the internet's 50,000 Watt Blowtorch!!!!!"
 
DaveBayArea said:
I'm pretty sure they stay on the daytime site until 8:00 PM PDT this month. The FCC page says 7:00, but it's Pacific STANDARD time. I never understood why they do this, but they do. Everyone else changes except the FCC :) --Dave B.

Absolutely! You are correct. My bad. Sorry.
 
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