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Old KSTB frequency going up for auction

Is there space for a new frequency in Houston? No.

Where the FCC approves the Crystal Beach tower site will be where the station will be, transmitter and all. If not you can bet interference will occur and they will be found out very quickly. And with as many licenses as they have, they certainly don't want something as blatant as setting up shop at an unauthorized location.
 
Mrtejano said:
I mean like is there space for any new frequency??
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The FM band in Houston is pretty much full. Unless the FCC relaxes current separation and spacing rules, there won't be anything new, other than perhaps a few more translators and LPFMs shoehorned into a few areas of town, with limited coverage.
 
I'm kinda shocked that hope media (ksbj) didn't make a move on this allotment. Galveston is the last hole in their serving the Houston dma. They have the engineering resources to have moved the station to a site close to Galveston, even if that meant using a directional antenna to protect adjacent signals.
 
Fieldtech1 said:
I'm kinda shocked that hope media (ksbj) didn't make a move on this allotment. Galveston is the last hole in their serving the Houston dma. They have the engineering resources to have moved the station to a site close to Galveston, even if that meant using a directional antenna to protect adjacent signals.
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That's a really good point about Galveston being a hole in KSBJ's coverage. But, in the case of this Crystal Beach allotment, it isn't about engineering or financial resources. I'm not surprised Hope didn't pursue it.

There are spacing rules based on station classes, you can look this up in the CFR (73.207). Sometimes the FCC will allow those rules to be waived and use contours instead of distance (73.215), which typically opens a larger area to locate. This is the method used for NCE (non-com) stations.

However, even with contour spacing, this new station has put a 70 dBu over Crystal Beach and keep it's 100 dBu outside of KLOL's 60 dBu. Look at the KLOL map... https://fccdata.org/?facid=&call=kl...=&lmspl=&party_type=LICEN&latd=&lond=&lang=en

There is no magic here and this new station will not even get a 60 dBu at any part of Galveston Island. The only other thing i can think of that would potentially improve coverage in Galveston is if they used some kind of offshore platform or possibly if there was an uninhibited island in the bay where they could request a "no population" waiver, regardless those ideas are not practical would be cost prohibitive to say the least.
 
Ryan Williams said:
That's a really good point about Galveston being a hole in KSBJ's coverage. But, in the case of this Crystal Beach allotment, it isn't about engineering or financial resources. I'm not surprised Hope didn't pursue it.

There are spacing rules based on station classes, you can look this up in the CFR (73.207). Sometimes the FCC will allow those rules to be waived and use contours instead of distance (73.215), which typically opens a larger area to locate. This is the method used for NCE (non-com) stations.

However, even with contour spacing, this new station has put a 70 dBu over Crystal Beach and keep it's 100 dBu outside of KLOL's 60 dBu. Look at the KLOL map... https://fccdata.org/?facid=&call=kl...=&lmspl=&party_type=LICEN&latd=&lond=&lang=en

There is no magic here and this new station will not even get a 60 dBu at any part of Galveston Island. The only other thing i can think of that would potentially improve coverage in Galveston is if they used some kind of offshore platform or possibly if there was an uninhibited island in the bay where they could request a "no population" waiver, regardless those ideas are not practical would be cost prohibitive to say the least.
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There is plenty of trickery that can be done with directional antennas. There is a c2 near me that has a tight boomerang pattern to squeeze in where engineers said they never would. The lobes of the pattern hit the two population centers they were going for, but not much else. I found the KSTB signal was decent one car radio in Galveston when they were on the sandbar in Gilchrist prior to Ike. There is virtually no obstruction to Galveston from there. Tropo and temp inversions can suck on the coast though.
 
Or put it on the eastern end of Galveston island and attempt to cover Crystal Beach from there. 😀
 
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