Re-think about Aux locations

[Big 121]

The Mt. Miguel and Wilson/Harvard fires put some FM stations at high risk. The metal building for KPBS was destroyed. A borrowed TX was hauled in
from Imperial Cty, and operations were resumed at SDSU, where KPBS started over 40 years ago. SDSU is now their backup location. KHTS
moved down the mountain also. BUT, KSON and KIFM moved UP the mountain to join KBST' aux site. 102.9 keeps it old site there also.
I think at one time, Julians' 100.1 (ex KBBN, Volcan mountain) was taken down by a wildfire. No aux for them..

Up L.A. way- years ago the migration to Wilson saw stations make a seemingly innocent decision; put their aux stations nearby on the mountain,
right next to the main site. Oops... The "Stations" fire changed that thinking, and sent some owners scrambling for alternate aux sites.Recent
changes include-
a mountain site east of Glendale, for KSCA(old KUTE 102) KPWR, and KLVE.
CBS will have all its aux eggs in one basket, north of Glendale a few miles. KCBS/KTWV/KAMP/KRTH are joining KROQ at it's main site.

Big 121

 

[RadeoEngineer]

Big 121 I built that aux site on Miguel for KBZT/KiFM/KSON. It's a remote controlled frequency agile site that has paid off several times. I actually ran KPBS from there once when they had dual catastrophic transmitter failures and had no other way to get back on until parts arrived 48 hours out. Sure it's got some issues with potential fire problems, but to be able to get back from a catastrophic failure at either Emerald Hills or Soledad was a gift. At the time, KBZT was still across the street at KGTV and I felt pretty good about Miguel as a desperation site, and we used it several times like I said. Generators don't always generate and replacing an old blown out transmitter with a new one in a single transmitter operation (then) was somewhat daunting as a single overnight project (though it could have been done, but you know Murphy's law I'm sure.) I would have loved to get installations up on Black, but that wasn't going to happen. Those three stations all have excellent main installations now, but it's still "restful" at night knowing you have that many options for recovery. Not my problem now though.

 

[davideduardo]

The "Stations" fire changed that thinking, and sent some owners scrambling for alternate aux sites.Recent
changes include-
a mountain site east of Glendale, for KSCA(old KUTE 102) KPWR, and KLVE.
CBS will have all its aux eggs in one basket, north of Glendale a few miles. KCBS/KTWV/KAMP/KRTH are joining KROQ at it's main site.

The Station (no "s") Fire was not restricted to Mt Wilson and Mt Harvard... it burnt about 30% of the entire Angeles National Forest.

The Flint Peak location is the main site for KLAX, and has always had a KPWR aux since KPWR moved the main from there to Wilson. It is also the auxiliary site for KSCA and KLVE, which now have larger transmitters there.

There is no "eggs in one basket" risk for CBS as the Verdugo Mountans site is not in a forest and they have five AM towers (old hardened underground AM 1500 site) to hang antennas from. KXOL also has a main there, as CBS owns a small percentage of SBS. Clear has a multistation capability on Mulholland Drive at the KYSR site.

That still leaves the TV operations and much of the area's major emergency communications equipment with no backup. Of course, in the time that TV and FM have been up there, there has never been the degree of danger seen last summer. In the early parts of the 20th Century, logging was done up there, and growth was thinned and old growth cleared every so often but the threat has grown with every year of ongoing growth since logging was stopped.

 

[Big 121]

(The "Stations" fire is as I wanted it;, no 'correcting' necessary, or needed. I used it to cover all the RF emitter sites- Land Mobile, Public Safety,
Ham/GMRS, SCADA, Microwave,paging, etc. as well as the commercial broadcasters.)

The Miguel aux site for the 3 Lincoln 'stations' (there's that word again!) uses a wideband directional antenna and transmitter, and, as
RadeoEngineer stated, can be remotely configured for freq. and power via the exciters RS232 port. Saves driving up that mountain!
Thanks for the input,R-E

(The life of an engineer is ironic; when your hard work keeps the stations on, you get NO thanks. When an inversion kills reception(fix it!)-or
ratings drop(we need more bass!!)-or lightning hits a power pole..it's all...YOUR fault.)

Big 121

 

[davideduardo]

(The life of an engineer is ironic; when your hard work keeps the stations on, you get NO thanks. When an inversion kills reception(fix it!)-or
ratings drop(we need more bass!!)-or lightning hits a power pole..it's all...YOUR fault.)

There's an amusing coincidence here. A friend at Arbitron told me some years ago that there were two types of Arbitron clients...

The first type had gone up or mamintained a nice position in the ratings. Of course, that was due to the programming talent and skill at the station.

The second type had gone down, and the drop, of course, was due to faulty measurement on the part of Arbitron.