Could anyone tell me which transmitter is where on which tower in this photo? I'm just curious to know who all is up there - I know 89.5 KPBS is there, but I don't know where, or who else.
-
Get involved.
We want your input!
Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.
After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.
After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/
Thanks in advance and have fun!
RadioDiscussions Administrators
Who's who up on San Miguel?
- Thread starter pianoplayer88key
- Start date
I don't think there are any transmitters on any of those towers.
RadeoEngineer said:
Ok then what's what? Also I thought 89.5 KPBS was up there - they blast in here with easily the strongest signal on my PL-606, about 15-20dB or so stronger than the runners up atop KOGO's and KLSD's towers. I do have a direct line of sight to San Miguel, too.
pianoplayer88key said:RadeoEngineer said:
Ok then what's what? Also I thought 89.5 KPBS was up there - they blast in here with easily the strongest signal on my PL-606, about 15-20dB or so stronger than the runners up atop KOGO's and KLSD's towers. I do have a direct line of sight to San Miguel, too.
I think if you asked "which antennas are on those towers" you might get an answer
Ok, then.... How about...
Which antennas are where on those towers? For example I'd like to be able to point to a specific tower (on an LCD screen through a zoom lens for example) and say "that's KPBS FM's main antenna, that one over there is KUSI DTV's backup, the little one on that tower second from the right is..." (or whatever the configuration is, if in fact those are up there).
Which antennas are where on those towers? For example I'd like to be able to point to a specific tower (on an LCD screen through a zoom lens for example) and say "that's KPBS FM's main antenna, that one over there is KUSI DTV's backup, the little one on that tower second from the right is..." (or whatever the configuration is, if in fact those are up there).
pianoplayer88key said:Ok, then.... How about...
Which antennas are where on those towers?
Do a search on Scott Fybush's "Tower Site of the Week" and / or FCCInfo.com
KPBS-FM, KSIQ-FM (translator/repeater) are two of the FMs there. Plus 15, 39, 51, 69 (digital) and a LPTV of 69 (analog) are there. It's a nice hike from the 'hood below; a short 2.1/4 mile up (and back).
Media Hack Chris | SDR said:pianoplayer88key said:Ok, then.... How about...
Which antennas are where on those towers?
Do a search on Scott Fybush's "Tower Site of the Week" and / or FCCInfo.com
KPBS-FM, KSIQ-FM (translator/repeater) are two of the FMs there. Plus 15, 39, 51, 69 (digital) and a LPTV of 69 (analog) are there. It's a nice hike from the 'hood below; a short 2.1/4 mile up (and back).
That's one steep hill to be walking up Chris. Used to scare the begeebus out of me to drive up there in foul weather.
I can't access Scott's site anymore (except for a few things on the front/home page). Also I tried FCCinfo.com and I can't really figure out how to or if it's even possible with their info to do what I'm trying to do.
I'm hoping to be able to figure out exactly what is what on those towers. I cropped a central portion of the pictures and put some sample (NOT accurate!) annotations just to give you an idea of what I'm hoping to accomplish.
https://picasaweb.google.com/118228...key=Gv1sRgCIer0efojpPg8AE#5679128189790017650
No, I'm not expecting someone to annotate my photo for me, but I would like to be able to know exactly which antenna is for which station (aux, backup, main, STL, etc), which building houses which transmitter, which sat dish is for which service / link, whose cell sites are up there and where, etc.
BTW that photo was taken in my front yard about 7 km and 172° from there.
Also I tried FCCinfo.com and I can't really figure out how to or if it's even possible with their info to do what I'm trying to do.I'm hoping to be able to figure out exactly what is what on those towers. I cropped a central portion of the pictures and put some sample (NOT accurate!) annotations just to give you an idea of what I'm hoping to accomplish.
https://picasaweb.google.com/118228...key=Gv1sRgCIer0efojpPg8AE#5679128189790017650
No, I'm not expecting someone to annotate my photo for me, but I would like to be able to know exactly which antenna is for which station (aux, backup, main, STL, etc), which building houses which transmitter, which sat dish is for which service / link, whose cell sites are up there and where, etc.
BTW that photo was taken in my front yard about 7 km and 172° from there.
The LPTV of 69 vanished last year and moved to channel 50 where it went digital.
Media Hack Chris | SDR said:pianoplayer88key said:Ok, then.... How about...
Which antennas are where on those towers?
Do a search on Scott Fybush's "Tower Site of the Week" and / or FCCInfo.com
KPBS-FM, KSIQ-FM (translator/repeater) are two of the FMs there. Plus 15, 39, 51, 69 (digital) and a LPTV of 69 (analog) are there. It's a nice hike from the 'hood below; a short 2.1/4 mile up (and back).
Want to see what's where?
Download this for your Google Earth http://ge.fccinfo.com/fccinfo.kmz
Thanks to Cavell, Mertz & Associates http://www.cavellmertz.com/
Download this for your Google Earth http://ge.fccinfo.com/fccinfo.kmz
Thanks to Cavell, Mertz & Associates http://www.cavellmertz.com/
Media Hack Chris | SDR said:pianoplayer88key said:Ok, then.... How about...
Which antennas are where on those towers?
Do a search on Scott Fybush's "Tower Site of the Week" and / or FCCInfo.com
KPBS-FM, KSIQ-FM (translator/repeater) are two of the FMs there. Plus 15, 39, 51, 69 (digital) and a LPTV of 69 (analog) are there. It's a nice hike from the 'hood below; a short 2.1/4 mile up (and back).
From what street????
sdwulfdawg said:
Northbrook Ave. I believe that is in Chula Vista or South El Cajon.
http://maps.google.com/?ll=32.666657,-116.951692&spn=0.001034,0.001904&t=h&z=19&vpsrc=6
It's a steep hike up and obviously, just as hard coming down if you have bad knees as I do. It is rewarding to view from the vista on top and no annoying gates. I plan on rehiking it and taking pictures before the end of the year.
I've seen all kinds of critters up there. Bobcats, snakes, hawks, coyotes, foxes and even Kevin Douglas.
pianoplayer88key said:I can't access Scott's site anymore (except for a few things on the front/home page).
Sure you can access my site...if you subscribe...
(I know, I know, but the amount of work that goes into the site has gone far beyond what can be sustained as a hobby in the current economic climate; it was either go pay or shut it down completely. More here: http://www.fybush.com/a-letter-to-readers-september-2011/)
In any event, I've never been up San Miguel, so the question is moot, since there are no San Miguel pictures on my site.
The FCCInfo.com suggestion is probably your best bet - if you follow the instructions on the right side of this page (http://fccinfo.com/fccinfo_google_earth.php), it's pretty straightforward, really. You'll probably want to uncheck "ASR Towers" and "Broadcast Microwave" under the "FCC Info" box (in the "Places" menu on the left sidebar) - and when you do, you'll get a pretty good view of what's licensed up there, broadcast-wise. From the looks of it, the major towers up there, from west to east, are KSWB - KNSD - KUSI (two towers flanking the transmitter building, presumably one main and one backup), KPBS FM-TV (a little north of KUSI) and a tower on the east end of the compound where the fabled KSIQ-FM-1 is located.
Bing Maps (maps.bing.com) has even better "birds-eye" imagery of many sites, including San Miguel.
I'm hoping to get back out that way next spring and get a better look at the site in person...
Here's a very rough annotated image:
http://www.fybush.com/Site images/sanmiguel.jpg
Your image isn't quite detailed enough to show the KPBS-FM antenna, which is side-mounted on the KPBS tower, which appears between the two KUSI towers from your angle. The UHF TV antennas are the skinny spires sticking up from the top of each tower. Without knowing the details of the analog/DTV transition on San Miguel, I'm not sure how many of those antennas are defunct analog antennas that haven't been removed yet. Certainly one of the two antennas on the KPBS tower is an old analog 15 antenna, and presumably one of the two KUSI antennas as well...
http://www.fybush.com/Site images/sanmiguel.jpg
Your image isn't quite detailed enough to show the KPBS-FM antenna, which is side-mounted on the KPBS tower, which appears between the two KUSI towers from your angle. The UHF TV antennas are the skinny spires sticking up from the top of each tower. Without knowing the details of the analog/DTV transition on San Miguel, I'm not sure how many of those antennas are defunct analog antennas that haven't been removed yet. Certainly one of the two antennas on the KPBS tower is an old analog 15 antenna, and presumably one of the two KUSI antennas as well...
Yeah.. but bing's not quite as detailed as Google (I can zoom a few more levels on my house for example). Also it's a bit outdated - it's still showing KNSN's old half-tower, and KFI's tower is nowhere to be found.
I can understand about the image not being detailed enough - after all it was taken right around sunset (hence the "glow" on some of the dishes(?) mounted on the side of some towers) from my front yard about 4.6 miles to the north, using a Canon SX10 IS.
I may have to check out that Google Earth sometime. I've been having problems running it on my computer, though. It used to work ok (except for eating a lot of system resources) but last few times I tried running it, it crashed and wouldn't load. (IIRC I think it had something to do with insufficient video hardware but I don't remember now. IDK why it'd fail when it used to work previously.)
A couple sites I'd like to get an up-close-and-personal look at sometime would be those of KFMB-AM, KECR-AM and KCBQ-AM. (The latter two are diplexers.) One reason being I'd like to find out how close I have to get my Tecsun PL-606 radio, using only its built-in ferrite antenna (or even disconnecting the antenna completely), to the tower for it to overload at least as badly as it gets in this video or this one. For comparison / an idea as to how much gain that Select-A-Tenna plus utility groundwire combination seems to have, this is a video shot up the street from my house about 9.2 miles south of there. (I don't think it's shown in the video near the transmitter site, but my signal strength indicator on the 2nd harmonic (when not boosting the signal) was about 30 dB or so lower than what I was getting near my house when boosting the signal.) BTW in the 3rd video I was 9.2 miles south of there in the ~112kW ERP portion of their lobe, and in the first two videos I was about 300 feet away from the nearest tower (of the 4 in line that are used in the daytime) right in the fat (~200kW ERP) portion of their main lobe. (Ground conductivity is supposedly 8 mS/m along the path according to the M3 map. Maybe sometime I might attempt to calculate the gain in dB, but based on things RF has mentioned in other threads (something to do with near field calculations being a lot different than far field calculations IIRC) I'm not sure if I'd be able to.)
I can understand about the image not being detailed enough - after all it was taken right around sunset (hence the "glow" on some of the dishes(?) mounted on the side of some towers) from my front yard about 4.6 miles to the north, using a Canon SX10 IS.
I may have to check out that Google Earth sometime. I've been having problems running it on my computer, though. It used to work ok (except for eating a lot of system resources) but last few times I tried running it, it crashed and wouldn't load. (IIRC I think it had something to do with insufficient video hardware but I don't remember now. IDK why it'd fail when it used to work previously.)
A couple sites I'd like to get an up-close-and-personal look at sometime would be those of KFMB-AM, KECR-AM and KCBQ-AM. (The latter two are diplexers.) One reason being I'd like to find out how close I have to get my Tecsun PL-606 radio, using only its built-in ferrite antenna (or even disconnecting the antenna completely), to the tower for it to overload at least as badly as it gets in this video or this one. For comparison / an idea as to how much gain that Select-A-Tenna plus utility groundwire combination seems to have, this is a video shot up the street from my house about 9.2 miles south of there. (I don't think it's shown in the video near the transmitter site, but my signal strength indicator on the 2nd harmonic (when not boosting the signal) was about 30 dB or so lower than what I was getting near my house when boosting the signal.) BTW in the 3rd video I was 9.2 miles south of there in the ~112kW ERP portion of their lobe, and in the first two videos I was about 300 feet away from the nearest tower (of the 4 in line that are used in the daytime) right in the fat (~200kW ERP) portion of their main lobe. (Ground conductivity is supposedly 8 mS/m along the path according to the M3 map. Maybe sometime I might attempt to calculate the gain in dB, but based on things RF has mentioned in other threads (something to do with near field calculations being a lot different than far field calculations IIRC) I'm not sure if I'd be able to.)
pianoplayer88key said:
You're looking at the aerial maps. The really detailed views are the "birds eye" views. Switch between the two with the second button from the left above the image. Bing doesn't have hi-res birds-eye views of everything yet, but it does have San Miguel. It takes some moving around and some rotating of the image (the arrows in the upper right corner) to get ones that aren't blurry, but those are pretty nearly as detailed as the images I'd get if I were actually up there on the mountain.
Those dishes are microwave antennas - the high-gain studio-transmitter links for the fairly long throw to the studios over in Kearny Mesa.
As for Google Earth, they keep coming out with new versions. I think the latest is Google Earth 8. It doesn't seem to be quite the resource hog it once was. Download the newest version and give it another shot...
KBZT also has an auxilliary directional antenna up there that used to be the main site. The transmitter is frequency agile and was once used to keep KPBS on the air for two days after a dual transmitter failure. Serving the public interest, ya' know?
- Status