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Where's AM 1340 - Sand Springs?

G

GeneSavage

I'm hearing "Hot 1340 The Groove" now exclusively on "Hot 1120 The Groove"... the IDs for 1340 are gone, and the 1340 transmitter appears to be turned OFF.

Anybody know what happened to 1340? I don't think that transmitter's gone dark for decades...
 
A month or so ago, it was the other way around. 1120 was off the air and 1340 was airing IDs for both stations.
 
The electric meter is still in the can but it is not turning at all, the main breaker must be off. It appears that James Hardman has left the place.
 
Really? Wow... had no idea.

So now it sits there unless somebody comes up with the money to buy or LMA it?

Does he just have to notify the FCC every 30 days that he's dark to avoid having to turn in the license?

I've always wondered what the signal could do with a cranked-up Optimod or Omnia. The signal was always so gently processed that I assumed they were still only using a CRL final limiter on the signal, as they were back in the mid 90s. The coverage was there, but the noise floor was just way too high on the fringe.
 
ADDITIONALLY:

Here's an FCC action against the listed owner of KJMU-AM 1340, Sand Springs from earlier this year... OOPS.

...As described in greater detail below, we conclude under this procedure that Birach is apparently liable for a forfeiture in the amount of $15,000 for its apparent willful and repeated violation of Section 310(d) of the Act by transferring de facto control of Station WMFN(AM) to a time broker without prior Commission approval, and of Section 73.1125 of the Commission's rules by failing to maintain a meaningful presence at the Station's main studio....
Click to expand...

http://www.fcc.gov/eb/Orders/2010/DA-10-455A1.html
 
That's not good, according to the FCC's website KEOR 1120 is only a daytimer right? and KJMU 1340 is a 24 hour signal even though it doesn't cover all of Tulsa very well especially at night where you can't get it on the south side of the city. Maybe Hardman can get a translator with a fair to decent signal over Tulsa simulcast on that.
 
If it is going to be dark then Birach needs to obtain an STA to be licensed but silent.

As for the fine at WFMN he could possibly have had the same fine at Sand Springs if the station had been inspected. Birach was doing exactly the same thing, just was not caught in the act by the FCC.

The station has an Omnia 3 but audio is not the problem. The ground system has serious problems on the east side of the tower, for the most part it is not there. As the area became developed the radials were cut and the new owners of the property where the tower sits and to the east could care less about and did not understand the importance of the ground radials.

A bad ground system plus being on 1340 equals bad coverage in the noise of Tulsa. In the past when the rain had saturated the ground at the tower you could receive a decent signal on a car radio in Muskogee but more radials have been cut since that time.
 
I hate to see any station go dark.

A compromised ground system will hurt any AM. I had always assumed a poor ground system was why the folded unipole was hung on the 1340 tower in the first place. With the unipole, the AM tower is grounded and fed through wire skirts hanging down the side of the tower. First one I saw was on the old KNOR in Norman. At the time, it was touted as a method for dealing with a poor ground system. But, not true. you can't cheat mother nature in that fashion. With the typical vertical radiator, the ground system has to be there or you will see a reduction in the radiated signal.

The 1340 in Sand Springs is unusual in that its day power is lower than it's night power. All of these class C channels (some call them graveyard channels) are spaced under the assumption that they're running 250 watts daytime. So when they all operate at full power, the signals overlap. No consideration is given to nighttime skywave. It's kind of a Mutually Assured Destruction allocation scheme. The 1340 in OKC is an old station, on a tall, very efficient tower, and as a result its 250 watt daytime footprint is much larger than normal. I always assumed it to be the reason that 1340 SS had an upside down power authorization, 450 watts daytime and 900 nighttime.

Some older-timer might be around who could explain the history of the Sand Springs 1340. I recall that its original tower site was on top of a building in downtown Sand Springs. The ground straps from the tower ran down the side of the building. Could be that the original station was so inefficient that when it was moved it was locked into to what it had. In any event, it's not much.
 
I worked at KTOW from April 1968 to the end of December 1968. KTOW was in a building in downtown Sand Springs, and yes the tower was mounted on the second floor roof. The transmitter faced the control room. And yes, the ground straps, such as they were, ran down the side of the building. 1340 was a Class 4 AM station. Class 4's or "Local Class" stations ran 1000 watts daytime, and 250 watts at night with non-directional antennas. KTOW signal covered most of Tulsa in the daytime, and barely got out of Sand Springs at night. At the time, they were the only country station in Tulsa, so even with the terrible signal had good ratings. Until 1962 or 1963, they could only run 250 watts day and night, but then the FCC allowed them to a kilowatt daytime. I used to drive to Oklahoma City frequently and would leave the car radio on 1340. Around Stroud KTOW and KOCY would interfere with each other, but only for a few miles, then one would over run the other depending on whether I was go to OKC or coming back to Tulsa. At about the same that the FCC permitted the power increase, they also implemented the Third Class Radio-Telephone license as a requirement to operate non-directional stations. When I went to Dallas in September 1964 to take the third phone test, there were a number of older guys taking the test to keep their jobs. They were really sweating bullets over having to pass the test. Buddy Powell owned KTOW at the time, he was great to work for. Dean Jenkins (Kelly) was the PD and I was the news director. I replaced Bob Losure when he left to do news at KAKC.
 
I didn't explain, the FCC rule change applied to all Class 4 stations, not just KTOW or KOCY. there were (are) four AM frequencies designated as Class 4 Local. There were (maybe still are) thousands as AM stations assigned to those four frequencies. Another ground story. In 1976 Ed Montray left Swanson Broadcasting where he'd the vice president of the FM division, to buy KTMC in McAlester. KTMC is a Class 4 AM in 1400. He persuaded me to leave KRMG and move down there to as Sales Manager. A year so after we'd moved there he leased 20 acres or so where the station was located to a farmer who was going to plant corn or wheat or something. One day, I had to go over to Hartshorne to make a sales call. Driving back, the signal dropped out. When I got back to the station, I found that the farmer had plowed up the ground, and came into the station to tell Ed that he found hundred of little pieces of copper wire where he'd been plowing. Ed didn't know what a ground system was, but learned that day that the ground system is as important as the antenna. He ordered a big spool of copper wire, and two weeks later invited all the Swanson GM's and Ken Greenwood to spend the weekend in McAlester. On that Saturday morning, there they were all out behind the station, shovels in hand, replanting the KTMC ground system. Ed Montrey looked like Tom Sawyer getting his friends to paint the fence, or in this case plant the ground ssystem.
 
Tower Lights said:
It appears that James Hardman has left the place.
Click to expand...
Apparently, Hardman did the same thing at 1560 WMBH in Joplin.
 
Update: Friday morning, KEOR is silent. KJMU is broadcasting en español.

btw, there are six Class IV local channels: 1230, 1240, 1340, 1400, 1450, and 1490.
 
Well, as of 6:30 p. Friday, KEOR has re-emerged with the apparent former 1340 format. 1340 still in Spanish. Low modulation on both stations. Little or no processing.
 
Low modulation on both stations. Little or no processing.
Click to expand...

That's why I about fell over when it was claimed earlier in this thread that 1340 had an Omnia-3am.

...Really??? Did anybody bother to plug it in and put it in the chain? Did somebody hit the "bypass" switch on it?

It was always SO dry that it sounded not like an "open" AM, it sounded like a tape not recorded in Dolby, being played back with the Dolby switched on.

What city of license is 1120 assigned to? What city are they tying with their calls? Thought I heard the wrong city... maybe not.

Also... should they still be on after 7:30 at night?
 
NightAire said:
What city of license is 1120 assigned to? What city are they tying with their calls? Thought I heard the wrong city... maybe not.
Click to expand...

KEOR is one of two daytimers licensed to Catoosa. They transmit from 106th North and Peoria, near Sperry.
 
According to the link in the previous post, it looks like 1120 has been leased or sold to Catholic Diocese Of Tulsa, yet this link http://www.urbantulsa.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A27162 indicates the deal fell through.

Here https://licensing.fcc.gov/cgi-bin/ws.exe/prod/cdbs/forms/prod/cdbsmenu.hts?context=25&appn=101403230&formid=301&fac_num=3651 it appears he applied in December of last year to go to 10 kw day, 7 kw critical hours (& the FCC database indicates a construction permit was issued).

I see no indication in the FCC database that he's dark -- but I haven't heard 1120 in... 6 months or more?

As long as he's not interfering, does the FCC just not care?
 
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