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KTRB 860
- Thread starter alok
- Start date
Yup. They just told the FCC it's unusable.
Are they off the air now? What happened with their transmitter? I thought I read somewhere that either daytime or nighttime reception turned out to be amazingly poor.
Correct, daytime is diplexed on KFAX. They told the FCC that the nighttime transmitter was damaged, and too expensive to repair, so they got permission to transmit from their daytime diplex at reduced power. It has been just about two years since the nighttime site has been used.DavidKaye said:
You have to dig a little even in the Central Cal Board.
Night Site: NIMBY & regulations requires the propane to be trucked in every day.
FCC Special Temporary Authority filings:
STA October 6, 2010
Exhibit 16
Engineering STA
Pappas Radio of California,
A Limited California Partnership
Radio Station KTRB-AM
San Francisco, CA
860 kHz 50 kW DA-1
KTRB-AM is applying for this STA because due to circumstances explained herein it is unable to operate at the licensed power of 50,000 Watts from its nighttime transmitter.
The KTRB-AM nighttime transmitter site is located off the utilities grid, and relies solely on liquid propane fueled generators for its power. The site has two generators capable of producing 235 kW each, but due to the wear and tear of normal use the generators have failed and require rebuilding or replacement.
The financial condition of KTRB-AM, and Pappas Radio of California, which until the recent assignment to Susan L. Uecker, Receiver, was the licensee of KTRB-AM made either repair or replacement too expensive. As a short-term solution a portable diesel generator was rented on August 27, 2010. The rented generator only has a maximum capacity of 56kW, and can not carry the full load of the transmitter. The nighttime transmitter is being operated at
20,000 watts.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BLSTA 08/09/2011
Exhibit 13
Description: EMERGENCY OPERATION PURSUANT TO 73.1680
THE KTRB NIGHT SITE IS ENTIRELY DEPENDENT UPON GENERATORS TO REMAIN ON THE AIR. ALTHOUGH RECENT ATTEMPTS HAVE BEEN MADE TO OPERATE AT LICENSED POWER, THE GENERATORS ARE UNABLE TO PROVIDE STABLE, RELIABLE ELECTRICITY. ADDITIONALLY, RECENT OPERATION FROM THE NIGHT SITE WITH THE GENERATORS HAS CAUSED SUBSTANTIAL DAMAGE TO THE TRANSMITTER AND OTHER EQUIPMENT THERE. IT HAS BECOME APPARENT THAT THE GENERATORS WILL NEED TO BE REPLACED AND THE TRANSMITTER AND OTHER EQUIPMENT REPAIRED BEFORE RELIABLE OPERATION CAN RESUME FROM THIS SITE. THIS IS NOT A SMALL PROJECT AND WILL TAKE SEVERAL WEEKS AND POSSIBLY MONTHS TO COMPLETE SINCE CALIFORNIA LICENSING OF THE GENERATORS WILL ALSO BE NECESSARY.
PURSUANT TO 73.1680, KTRB RESPECTFULLY REQUESTS THAT IT BE ALLOWED TO OPERATE THE DAYTIME ANTENNA FROM THE DAYTIME SITE AS AN EMERGENCY ANTENNA FOR NIGHTTIME OPERATION AT 12.5KW (25% POWER)WHILE THE EMERGENCY REPAIRS ARE UNDERTAKEN TO RESTORE KTRB TO FULL LICENSED POWER AT NIGHT.
Night Site: NIMBY & regulations requires the propane to be trucked in every day.
FCC Special Temporary Authority filings:
STA October 6, 2010
Exhibit 16
Engineering STA
Pappas Radio of California,
A Limited California Partnership
Radio Station KTRB-AM
San Francisco, CA
860 kHz 50 kW DA-1
KTRB-AM is applying for this STA because due to circumstances explained herein it is unable to operate at the licensed power of 50,000 Watts from its nighttime transmitter.
The KTRB-AM nighttime transmitter site is located off the utilities grid, and relies solely on liquid propane fueled generators for its power. The site has two generators capable of producing 235 kW each, but due to the wear and tear of normal use the generators have failed and require rebuilding or replacement.
The financial condition of KTRB-AM, and Pappas Radio of California, which until the recent assignment to Susan L. Uecker, Receiver, was the licensee of KTRB-AM made either repair or replacement too expensive. As a short-term solution a portable diesel generator was rented on August 27, 2010. The rented generator only has a maximum capacity of 56kW, and can not carry the full load of the transmitter. The nighttime transmitter is being operated at
20,000 watts.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BLSTA 08/09/2011
Exhibit 13
Description: EMERGENCY OPERATION PURSUANT TO 73.1680
THE KTRB NIGHT SITE IS ENTIRELY DEPENDENT UPON GENERATORS TO REMAIN ON THE AIR. ALTHOUGH RECENT ATTEMPTS HAVE BEEN MADE TO OPERATE AT LICENSED POWER, THE GENERATORS ARE UNABLE TO PROVIDE STABLE, RELIABLE ELECTRICITY. ADDITIONALLY, RECENT OPERATION FROM THE NIGHT SITE WITH THE GENERATORS HAS CAUSED SUBSTANTIAL DAMAGE TO THE TRANSMITTER AND OTHER EQUIPMENT THERE. IT HAS BECOME APPARENT THAT THE GENERATORS WILL NEED TO BE REPLACED AND THE TRANSMITTER AND OTHER EQUIPMENT REPAIRED BEFORE RELIABLE OPERATION CAN RESUME FROM THIS SITE. THIS IS NOT A SMALL PROJECT AND WILL TAKE SEVERAL WEEKS AND POSSIBLY MONTHS TO COMPLETE SINCE CALIFORNIA LICENSING OF THE GENERATORS WILL ALSO BE NECESSARY.
PURSUANT TO 73.1680, KTRB RESPECTFULLY REQUESTS THAT IT BE ALLOWED TO OPERATE THE DAYTIME ANTENNA FROM THE DAYTIME SITE AS AN EMERGENCY ANTENNA FOR NIGHTTIME OPERATION AT 12.5KW (25% POWER)WHILE THE EMERGENCY REPAIRS ARE UNDERTAKEN TO RESTORE KTRB TO FULL LICENSED POWER AT NIGHT.
It's too bad the FCC doesn't have the manpower to investigate some of these claims.boiseengineer said:
They've been pretty good at gaming the system so far.
Have these folks running this broadcasting company ever heard of the great quality generator sets made by Catarpiller? Just google them! They've got what they need to do the job anytime anywhere the need is! Reliable and quiet and especially efficient and easily licensable by the state of California. The sales people at the station don't know how to set up a trade for the generator's and the fuel to run them? Are you kidding? The FCC engineer's can't see through all this B.S.? Are you kidding? Again? Time for a new set of manager's at the Pappas Radio Company! The problem starts at the top and rolls down from there!
Truthiness4DaBray said:
Digging through the correspondence file, KTRB was ordered to reduce night power from the Hayward site from 12.5kw to 5kw (non-D). Apparently KPAM in Portland filed the complaint due to interference. Any way they can make that permanent as it appears Sunol is FUBAR?
Pappas doesn't own the station anymore. Comerica Bank does. It's being run by a receivership and an LMA. There's no money for the generators, and probably not much enthusiasm for them as long as the FCC lets them operate day and night from the KFAX diplex.RadioStarOne said:
Sunol is not beyond hope. The major expense will be new generators or getting PG&E to the site. Transmitter repairs are chump change.Dr. Akbar said:
Truthiness4DaBray said:
If it is a solid state 50 kw transmitter that for some reason blew its amp modules, the costs could be in the $100 k range to get the transmitter going.
I believe the issues regarding PG&E were not the high costs, but, IIRC, either NIMBY issues or the need to cross over protected federal or state land.
SFStatic said:
I have a friend who produces biofuel power generators. His current largest produces 20kw, but I'm sure his company could design larger. The thing runs on anything from nut shells to coffee grounds. This is no joke. Here's a link to his site:
http://www.gekgasifier.com/
As for the decision to place KTRB's transmitter in the hills east of Sunol, who was boneheaded enough to come up with that idea? Since people in management typically do not get there by being boneheads, I'd think that the property might have been owned by the Pappas family or there was some other tie to the area that made it seem like a good idea at the time. Otherwise it seems that either KKSF 910's site in Richmond or KDYA or is it KDIA's site in along San Pablo Bay would have worked better.
DavidKaye said:
The site was determined by the desire to have 50 kw day and night. That required protection of Tijuana, some Canadian allocations, and a few pre-existing night operations in the US, meaning they had to locate to the far southeast of San Francisco to shoot a big lobe over as much of the market as possible.
Unfortunately, the site has considerable challenges for it to work.
Having dealt with Harry Pappas I dare say you would be foolish to call him "boneheaded" to his face.DavidKaye said:
DavidEduardo said:
Both daytime and nighttime patterns submitted in 2005 to the FCC show a large lobe emanating from the site with a maximum power at 270 degrees and no significant back-end signal. That's both daytime and nighttime. That can be accomplished from existing AM sites in Emeryville (the 1510 warehouse rooftop), Berkeley (possibly, depending on how large KVTO's property actually is), and the KMKY 1310 and KIQI 1010 sites at the Bay Bridge toll plaza. All (except possibly 1010) have frequencies far enough removed from 860 so as to make diplexing easier.
And all have existing zoning which allows AM towers, and of course, are likely to have owners more than happy to lease out their site to spread out the costs.
Given the patterns shown in the 2005 plots, KTRB's pattern would be fairly simple to produce. I mean, heck, this is nothing compared to the engineering mess that is KTCT 1050 (the old KOFY) or the defunct KWUN 1480, which were nightmares. But KTRB, by contrast, is a piece of cake.
What I don't understand at all is the Sunol site. It's southeast of SF not northeast as the KTRB specs showed when the station was being proposed. I don't know what kind of nulls it was supposed to produce, but I'd suggest that Sunol made it extremely complicated given that a null to
That's what leads me to believe that there was something else in play besides the desirability of the site, since as far as I've read on the issue, Sunol is not a desirable site at all.
KTRB Day plot: http://transition.fcc.gov/ftp/Bureaus/MB/Databases/AM_DA_patterns/1165307-97181.pdf
KTRB Night plot: http://transition.fcc.gov/Bureaus/MB/Databases/AM_DA_patterns/1061638-90438.pdf
DavidEduardo said:
Those two issues (especially in CA) can doom an Ancient Modulation operator to a life of fueling generators. Crawford fought the battle in SoCal with KBRT and through dogged determination (and probably divine intervention) succeeded in getting PG&E power to their new site in the foothills. Until a new owner comes along, it's rather doubtful anything longterm will be done at Sunol.
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