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KTRB/860: Say What?

SFStatic said:
With due apologies to Uncle Walt, this station has the most Mickey Mouse transmission setup in a long, long time!
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Granted. But knowing that they're trying their best on a shoestring budget counts for something.

Of course, I think you get 200 points just for signing your SAT, so simply turning that 50kW blowtorch on during the day in the Bay Area should count for something ... shouldn't it?

(Not the same thing, but you get my point.)
 
SFStatic said:
With due apologies to Uncle Walt, this station has the most Mickey Mouse transmission setup in a long, long time!
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Easily said, but not easily fixed. There's lots of good soil conductivity in the Bay area, what with a body of salt water right in the middle of it. But finding a site anywhere close to the Bay where you can put up radio towers is something else. And KTRB has to protect stations to its north, south, and east at night. That forces the site to be east of the Bay. There is also the FCC monitoring station to contend with. Any AM signal that reaches it must be less than 10 mV/m. KTRB was thus forced into the hills south of Livermore with a teardrop pattern aimed westward. The site is in an area of poor soil conductivity. Also, zoning prohibits the use of oil to fire the generator that powers the night site and no gas pipeline runs anywhere nearby. What's more, zoning also prohibits the storage of large quantities of propane at the site. So propane must be trucked in daily--a horrendously expensive deal. You might say that KTRB can't win for losing.
 
I bet Pete Pappas is rolling in his grave. Very sad situation. Pete knew how to operate KTRB. Not Harry or Jim.
 
EastBay said:
And at 8pm sharp, right in the middle of a call, off they went.
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You mean they just "pulled the plug" with no legal ID? :eek:

Sounds like KTRB is suffering from "lumberyard syndrome" (KAZG Scottsdale). ;)
 
oldiesfan6479 said:
You mean they just "pulled the plug" with no legal ID? :eek:
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Are they required to give a legal ID when signing off?

If they are, big deal. If they aren't, big deal. But either way, it just seemed sloppy and had an air of "who cares?"

On Thursday night, Chris Townsend simply finished what he was saying and the carrier went off. No "This is KTRB, San Francisco" or anything. They just, essentially, turned off the power like you'd turn off the TV before going to bed.
 
Sounds like they were able to get a truckload of propane up to the site last night. I tuned in around 11:15 PM on Friday night and they were on.
 
MarioMania said:
Did KTRB go off again tonight??

I'm hearing XEMO
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Must have ran out of propane, lets get real why can't they get power there,they should have originally done that, at this point is KTRB going to end up like KMPH 840, OFF THE AIR, especailly after baseball is over.
 
kenrayc said:
why can't they get power there,they should have originally done that, at this point is KTRB going to end up like KMPH 840, OFF THE AIR, especailly after baseball is over.
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A friend showed me a map on which the locations of AC power lines in the vicinity were marked. The closest one is, IIRC, about four miles away. Not only would it cost millions to extend the service to the KTRB property, but I believe the lines might have to cross other people's property, meaning that easements would have to be secured. Could very well be impossible, and if not impossible, prohibitively expensive.

The most straightforward thing to do would be to apply to make the ND day site, which is diplexed into one of KFAX's four towers, into a low-power auxiliary night site. I haven't tried to figure out how much power could be granted. Not very much, I suspect--and possibly the FCC rules would make it completely impossible. The rules for AM auxiliary sites, which used to be pretty straightforward, have become quite weird in the past decade or so.
 
I had heard from someone close to the situation that it wasn't millions, but was over a million to run power to the site. It seems that's something that should have been checked out ahead of time. Had another station on 990 that had a chance to move in the late 80's and go from 5Kw to 25Kw, (and from 3 to 6 towers), but the expense of moving it 6 miles, building the new tower farm, and running power made it fiscally impossible. It would have taken decades to earn the money back if at all.
 
Mike said:
They were off the air for awhile in the middle of the baseball game last nite. The A's cannot be pleased.
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Maybe KKGN(Green 960) and KYLD(WiLD 94.9) should start airing A's games beginning with the 2011 season. Just a thought.
 
1. KTRB has a deal to carry the A's until 2019
2. KKGN has terrible coverage, at night here in Concord I get CFAC on 960 from Calgary
3. If the A's moved to KYLD, ratings would drop and MOViN would finally take over
Although flipping KKGN to sports might not be a bad idea , the demos would be better than the current talk format, and maybe they could get it an FM translator like sister station KFAN in St. Paul
 
I won't be surprised if KTRB pulls a KMPH by going off the air. Is Savage even helping the station? Does the station even have listeners?

The A's are NOT going to WiLD 94.9. I doubt the CHR listeners are sports fans. However, the CC cluster has 3 stations they could put the A's on - 910 KNEW, Green 960, and 103.7 The Band. If one of the AMs were to flip to sports, it would likely be 910 as they are more stronger than 960.
 
Should KTRB keep dropping off during games at night enough, or go off entirely, the A's could cancel their agreement with the station. After all, the primary purpose of the deal is to get them coverage for their games in the Bay Area.

The A's were formerly on 960. The present ownership didn't like it because they couldn't hear the night games well past the East Bay hills. The station has to protect the Canadian clear channel station on 960, and has a major null that runs Northeast of Concord.

910 had to give up about 15% of signal towards Contra Costa when it went to 20Kw. So in the Bay Area county with the most conservatives to garner, they have less signal. It doesn't seem likely that they would want to be the so far down in the pecking order of sports stations. It would be very hard to make any money.

It would seem that neither of these stations would be satisfactory to the present A's ownership, and without a baseball team, it's not easy to have a successful sports station.
 
SFStatic said:
Should KTRB keep dropping off during games at night enough, or go off entirely, the A's could cancel their agreement with the station. After all, the primary purpose of the deal is to get them coverage for their games in the Bay Area.

The A's were formerly on 960. The present ownership didn't like it because they couldn't hear the night games well past the East Bay hills. The station has to protect the Canadian clear channel station on 960, and has a major null that runs Northeast of Concord.

910 had to give up about 15% of signal towards Contra Costa when it went to 20Kw. So in the Bay Area county with the most conservatives to garner, they have less signal. It doesn't seem likely that they would want to be the so far down in the pecking order of sports stations. It would be very hard to make any money.

It would seem that neither of these stations would be satisfactory to the present A's ownership, and without a baseball team, it's not easy to have a successful sports station.
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Agreed. And as the A's deal clearly is the main source of revenue for KTRB, even if they don't shut down beforehand, the possibility of losing the contract (and all that money) would be akin to performing open-heart surgery with a chainsaw. They would have no choice but to sign off for good; even if an all-brokered or ethnic format was possible, I can't see that remotely covering the costs of all that kerosene.

Let this be a lesson to people that want to build their station into a 50kW signal. Having all that wattage is clearly a mortal wound.
 
DanStrassberg said:
The most straightforward thing to do would be to apply to make the ND day site, which is diplexed into one of KFAX's four towers, into a low-power auxiliary night site. I haven't tried to figure out how much power could be granted. Not very much, I suspect--and possibly the FCC rules would make it completely impossible. The rules for AM auxiliary sites, which used to be pretty straightforward, have become quite weird in the past decade or so.
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Well, I did my study, for whatever it's worth. ND operation at night from the KFAX site would limit KTRB's night power to about 10W--probably enough to be heard beyond the site's property lines, but not a lot further. Looks like a non-starter to me. KTRB might, however, be able to use two towers at the KFAX site at night (either #s 1 and 2 or 3 and 4) and conceivably could run 500W or so. Wouldn't be a competitive signal but at least it would be one with the potential to reach more than 100,000 people. The problem: cost. A two-tower diplex with KFAX would clearly cost what KTRB has to pay for many truckloads of propane (NOT the Kerosene to which another poster referred; the zoning at the night site prohibits the storage of liquid fuel). Since there is apparently no money to pay for even a single truckload, somebody with (my guess) at least $300k would need to play Dutch uncle. Still cheaper than bringing AC power to the 50-kW night site.
 
Back to flipping KKGN to sports, I think that maybe they could put an FM Translator on Mt. Diablo or around pleasonton, just like most Bay stations do with boosters. Any thoughts?
 
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