Does anyone know if KDON's Transmiter is in the Santa Cruz Mountains or somewhere around there, because in many places it seems to come in like a San Jose station. Last night while I was in the Richmond area KDON not only came in but it decoded in HD and showed in HD. (It never locked)
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Why is KDON So Strong?
- Thread starter travisl5678
- Start date
Also does anyone know why St. John still does the sweepers on KDON? They seem like recent bumpers.
D
dharmadoug
Guest
in the parking lot of Seton med Center in Daly City you can get KDON clear as a bell.. but drive a few blocks north and u get static mixed with KSFM from Sac...
A few days ago I was getting KSFM clearly in San Mateo, although I imagine they put a huge signal over San Jose, do they target the SJ area?
travisl5678 said:
They really only put a useful and competitive (64 dbu) signal over the "bottom" half of Santa Clara County, which is not where most of the population is.
According to RL KDON is in the red all the way to Milpitas, what kind of coverage map did you use David? Longley Rice?
I believe their Transmitter sits high atop Mt. Toro (at least 1000 feet, if not more) in the Monterey/Salinas area at 15kw.
I can catch their signal as far North as Windsor/Santa Rosa sometimes!
The signal is usable in a car, in South San Jose (south of 880) and as far North as Fremont/Hayward.
After that, you'll catch them in elevated, line-of-sight spots throughout Northern Cal....That is, if KSFM/Sac isn't trying to sneak in there too!
One time, way back, on a flight back from Hawaii, I caught them in the plane....at least 175 miles west of the Bay Area!
I can catch their signal as far North as Windsor/Santa Rosa sometimes!
The signal is usable in a car, in South San Jose (south of 880) and as far North as Fremont/Hayward.
After that, you'll catch them in elevated, line-of-sight spots throughout Northern Cal....That is, if KSFM/Sac isn't trying to sneak in there too!
One time, way back, on a flight back from Hawaii, I caught them in the plane....at least 175 miles west of the Bay Area!
travisl5678 said:
The RL red is about 20% bigger than the 64 dbu contour, which is about the minimum for in home and at work reception. I just used one of the engineering apps to get terrain adjusted contours.
Not to be too picky, but 102.5 KDON's Tower and Transmitter is actually on "Freemont Peak"
The circular polarization signal is on a "South/West" leg of the same tower that KSBW TV-8 is on.
From best I can tell from looking up to the transmitter, I would guess it is about forty feet up.
The view from the Freemont site is quite the place, seeing all of the Monterey Bay, and shooting
up the Santa Clara Valley. If ever you’re in Hollister, look to the mountains, you can’t miss it, the monster in the middle of the whole mountain ridge. The funny thing, as I travel from Santa Cruz to San Jose for work, and on the down side of the hill (HWY 17) KSFM does a pretty good signal over KDON, but once down to Lexington, "One O Two and A Half" as it was once called in the late 70's and 80's comes back in solid.
A little history on the "mighty "Don" was way back in its beginning, the station was AM 1460, and when simulcasting became the trend, and AM was (sad to say) losing it audience, the FM side took the call letters and has remained 102.5 Kdon since. That’s not to say that before 102.5 was KDON-FM it was KSBW-FM. The interesting thing about KDON is that on its 102.5 FM location on the dial it never changed call letters,(not even when things got sticky for the station later on down) and has beaten every station in the Monterey Bay area that has ever came in to challenge the format and try to take away ratings. KDON, KWAV and perhaps KUSP, are the only FM stations in this area (Monterey Bay) that have never lost or changed their call letters.
Hope this was helpful
Regards.
Mike~
The circular polarization signal is on a "South/West" leg of the same tower that KSBW TV-8 is on.
From best I can tell from looking up to the transmitter, I would guess it is about forty feet up.
The view from the Freemont site is quite the place, seeing all of the Monterey Bay, and shooting
up the Santa Clara Valley. If ever you’re in Hollister, look to the mountains, you can’t miss it, the monster in the middle of the whole mountain ridge. The funny thing, as I travel from Santa Cruz to San Jose for work, and on the down side of the hill (HWY 17) KSFM does a pretty good signal over KDON, but once down to Lexington, "One O Two and A Half" as it was once called in the late 70's and 80's comes back in solid.
A little history on the "mighty "Don" was way back in its beginning, the station was AM 1460, and when simulcasting became the trend, and AM was (sad to say) losing it audience, the FM side took the call letters and has remained 102.5 Kdon since. That’s not to say that before 102.5 was KDON-FM it was KSBW-FM. The interesting thing about KDON is that on its 102.5 FM location on the dial it never changed call letters,(not even when things got sticky for the station later on down) and has beaten every station in the Monterey Bay area that has ever came in to challenge the format and try to take away ratings. KDON, KWAV and perhaps KUSP, are the only FM stations in this area (Monterey Bay) that have never lost or changed their call letters.
Hope this was helpful
Regards.
Mike~
DavidKaye said:
In the mid 60s, when I discovered DXing, one of the first stations I picked up (from Lo Angeles) was K-Don 1460, which either had the Drake format, or a close copy. I recall that they used the same jingle package as the other Drake stations with 2 syllable calls (KA-FY, KE-NO, KY-NO)
DavidKaye said:
Here is a little souvenir of KDON from 1960:
http://www.davidgleason.com/Archive Cleveland/California Verification Optimized.pdf
Go down to page 34 and there is a letter from KDON... and a coverage map
WOW! Those are amazing, I went through all of them, and there's a lot of good stuff in there. Where did you find it?
DavidEduardo said:
David Gleason actually picked up all these stations from CA in Cleveland Hts, OH? I lived in NY, on LI, and the furthest stations to the west I could receive were from Chicago (WCFL when WINS powered down at night, occaisionally WLS) and St Louis (KMOX). We could get KY11 Cleveland, but it kept fading in and out with WBAL Baltimore.
There are some amazing nuggets in their, including KTYM 1460 in Inglewood (LA), which was always daytime only, as I recall. Also, KNBC (KNBR), and a different KMET.
Did you ever sleep, David?
Did you ever sleep, David?
radioguy39nj said:
Yes, I did pick all of them up. That's a sample of about 2,400 verifications of receptions (what some call QSL's) from that Cleveland location. 50 states, 10 provinces, about 80 countries.
KDON and the 1460 in Yakima were the two signals on 1460 on Monday morning back then once KENO had singned off.
On a good receiver (Hammurlund HQ 180) and with a good antenna (altaz loop, tuned, remote adjusted with servos) such catches were rather regular. The more challenging things were Alaska (one station, one time only) and Australia / New Zealand. The band was cleaner, there was much less man made noise, and nearly everyone signed off on Sunday night.
Lkeller said:
Nope. But it was just Monday morning when most stations were off for maintenance. So DXers didn't sleep till about 6 AM.
And by 1964, I was always up that one night of the week, too... but this time doing the maintenance on stations instead of taking advantage of them being off.
DavidEduardo said:
Wow! Names I haven't read in years -- Roger Roberts (KFAX), Howie Immekus (where, KABL?), George Sampson (KCVR, still in broadcasting today at KLIV I believe), George Snell (KEEN).
I used to DX a lot, but alas I no longer have my QSLs. From the Bay Area (SF, Hayward, or Union City), I pulled in CBR Calgary, WBZ Boston, WCCO St Paul, KCMO Kansas City, CKLW Windsor, WWL New Orleans, and a few TV stations, KOLO Reno (about 200 miles), KIEM Eureka (250 miles), KRCR Redding (about 200), XETV Tijuana (500 or so miles).
I was thinking when you mentioned KDON that you might have had a QSL from KDON 1240. I've been trying to figure out when the station changed its callsign to KMBY but haven't pinned it down.
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