White Mountain Road Trip

[dhett]

Took my Mustang convertible on a White Mountain road trip Monday - the cooler air was calling, plus I figured I'd give that DPS officer a chance to tell his co-workers that he got to pull over an old Mustang.

Being the geek I am, I also took my portable TV along to see what I could pick up. Here's what I found:

St. Johns. 3 licensed stations: 6, 7, 11, which are supposed to translate Tucson stations KVOA, KGUN, and KOLD. Couldn't pull any of them in. Transmitter is about 6 miles W of town and the FCC website shows that the signal should reach town, but I couldn't get anything, even 2-3 miles away.

Nutrioso. (That's south of Springerville on 180/191.) Renewed expired licenses for channels 7 & 13. License to cover on 7 but not 13. 7 translates KVOA 4; 13 still silent - to be KGUN 9.

Greer. 2 licensed stations, 6 & 7, translating KGUN 9 and KVOA 4, respectively.

Show Low. 4 licensed stations, plus 1 CP nearing expiration (7/3/05). 3 translates KAET 8, 5 is silent, 7 translates KSAZ 10, and 11 is silent. The 2 silent stations are supposed to carry Tucson stations. FCC shows the CP on ch. 16 owned by the Londen Family 2002 Trust, which is KAZT. They weren't broadcasting yet.

 

[K7VOR]

> Greer. 2 licensed stations, 6 & 7, translating KGUN 9 and
> KVOA 4, respectively.

Back in '85 I licensed Ch 11 in Greer to translate Tucson Ch 13. When Ch 13 moved to another peak in Tucson 13 years later, their signal was lost to the White Mts. and it was shut down next trip up the hill. Unfortunately, Greer's Ch 6 and 7 are not well maintained now. Saw the signal last summer and it had deteriorated significantly. It may have no maintenance at all now, considering the high number of sat dishes there.

Springerville shut their xltrs down some years ago and no longer appear in the FCC data base. Cable and sat reception was their doom. No one contributed.

> Show Low. 4 licensed stations, plus 1 CP nearing expiration
> (7/3/05). 3 translates KAET 8, 5 is silent, 7 translates
> KSAZ 10, and 11 is silent. The 2 silent stations are
> supposed to carry Tucson stations. FCC shows the CP on ch.
> 16 owned by the Londen Family 2002 Trust, which is KAZT.
> They weren't broadcasting yet.

All are owned by Porter Mt TV Assoc. with, as you say, only Ch 3 and 7 in operation. Happy to say that KSAZ spent some dollars and tuned up the Ch 7 xltr. The audio was down and the color almost non-existent. It is also back up to its 33 big watts. There are no funds available to bring Ch 5 and Ch 11 back up. Those licenses will probably expire.

Forget the KAZT CP as they have no resources to develop it, according to their CE. They also found the existing viewership of Porter Mt's systems has greatly diminished, also probably due to the proliferation of sat dishes. Had Ch 10 not spent some dollars on the system it would have continued to degregate.

 

[dhett]

That's good info. I'd wondered about some of these small burgs that have LPTV translators. Even though they may not be properly maintained, I'm surprised to see so many still in existence, considering how popular and relatively inexpensive satellite is. I'd wondered if St. Johns had shut theirs down completely and am surprised that Nutrioso is bringing theirs back online.

Just curious: with a minimal power setup similar to what you licensed on Greer ch. 11, or what Porter Mtn. is operating in Show Low, how much does something like that cost to properly operate?

 

[ironbear]

> Just curious: with a minimal power setup similar to what you
> licensed on Greer ch. 11, or what Porter Mtn. is operating
> in Show Low, how much does something like that cost to
> properly operate?

It depends a lot on the equipment in use. If it's solid state and functioning OK, it mostly comes down to: rent and power bills, Forest Service fees (for commercial stations, individual to each electronic site), mountaintop user association fees, and the annual FCC regulatory fee, which was $385 last year (and going up).

Tiny stations like those mentioned could be supported through local advertising, leased out to satellite fed program providers, or locally programmed as true LPTV's. Why not, when broadcast properties are in such short supply elsewhere?

 

[K7VOR]

> > Just curious: with a minimal power setup similar to what
> you
> > licensed on Greer ch. 11, or what Porter Mtn. is operating
>
> > in Show Low, how much does something like that cost to
> > properly operate?
>
> It depends a lot on the equipment in use. If it's solid
> state and functioning OK, it mostly comes down to: rent and
> power bills, Forest Service fees (for commercial stations,
> individual to each electronic site), mountaintop user
> association fees, and the annual FCC regulatory fee, which
> was $385 last year (and going up).
>
> Tiny stations like those mentioned could be supported
> through local advertising, leased out to satellite fed
> program providers, or locally programmed as true LPTV's.
> Why not, when broadcast properties are in such short supply
> elsewhere?

I will try to respond to both of your postings. Once past the installation phase of a small one watt (10w ERP) system your annual upkeep is limited to labor costs for system tune-up, including recabling, repairing antennas, checking the battery back ups, even checking the enclosure against critter investation.

Due to the cold I wired up a 10 bulb, 100 watt octagon assembly, with each two wired in series, that hung over the xltrs to raises the ambient temperature in the small shack during the cold winters. The lamps are still burning, I hear, being wired in series. They could last another 50 years.

I'm not familiar with any current FCC fees. We never had any. That could break a small community-operated system.

By the way, we were careful never to repair the transmit yagis, so as to retain the FCC certification status. These were always replaced about every two years, while the receive antennas would last 4-5 with repaired elements. They were not a very pretty sight with all the tape and twine.

We had one fellow that lived on the back side of the hill overlooking Greer who would hike up and turn the yagi antennas toward his property. I had a good friend at the Springerville Forest Service that obliged us by sending him a "cease and desist" order not to trespess on Forest Service land. Scared the begeebers out of him.

 

[ironbear]

> I'm not familiar with any current FCC fees. We never had
> any. That could break a small community-operated system.

By default, the fee is collected of all TV/FM translators and LPTV's, but it's waived with a showing that they operate non-commercially. Criteria include the non-profit status of the owner organization of the owner, and support throught community contributions. Commercial entities which own FMT's in the non-commercial part of the FM band may be exempt, but stations which originate advertising owned by community groups appear not to be exempt. I went through a lot of this fee craziness with the FCC re: FMT's I owned a while back.

Are those TV translators EITELCO's by any chance? The late George Eitel was responsible for building a number of 1 and 10 watt TV translators (good design, but they look garage-built), including some in the White Mountains. George was a great guy, and a real translator pioneer.

 

[K7VOR]

> Are those TV translators EITELCO's by any chance? The late
> George Eitel was responsible for building a number of 1 and
> 10 watt TV translators (good design, but they look
> garage-built), including some in the White Mountains.
> George was a great guy, and a real translator pioneer.

Yes, the original tube-type were indeed by George Eitel. Never met the man but spoke on the phone several times. Someone went up to the Greer site and peak-tuned his translators until they were no longer broadband. Suspected as much when the community accepted help from, get this, a ham operator, who must have taken a thru-line watt meter up and cranked all the coils until it made maximum smoke.

Audio was down and no color passed when he was through.

George benched and retuned (his) gear and all was well again. When I took over (no fee) I carried a small scope and batt-operated sig gen up whenever tuning was necessary. Biggest problem was tube replacement. Carried spare tubes and kept a tube checker in the building. And when I say carried, I'm being literal. This was a ¾ mile climb up the west side of what they call "TV Hill." Had to sit down frequently to rest, with all the crap I was carrying, including water.

We later changed everything out to solid state. His antenna pre-amps were also tubed. There was enough sig on Tucson's CH 11 that we licensed a CH 11/13 translator, with ½ inch helical cable carry the sig from one side of the hill to the other. Had to pre amp both ends to provide sifficient drive to the xltr.

These are great memories from that time and I made many friends. Some provided horses whenever we had to carry much gear up. After we downtilted the antennas "into" the valley it was like a double to triple effect on reception and also provided less interference from Springerville's same-fx system. No change to the licenses were required.