Proposed towers get static on both sides of the border

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Proposed towers get static on both sides of the border

Postby radiofan » Thu Aug 22, 2013 9:50 am

Residents upset over Pt. Roberts radio tower proposal

People on both sides of the border concerned about potential impact

Sandor Gyarmati / Delta Optimist
August 21, 2013



Residents on both sides of the border at Point Roberts are voicing concerns about a plan to erect five large radio broadcast antennas in the U.S. peninsula.

Whatcom County is considering an application from BBC Broadcasting Inc. to construct the 150-foot steel towers at an undeveloped lot on McKenzie Way, just west of Tyee Drive in Point Roberts, WA. It’s in close proximity to the border with Tsawwassen. The towers would transmit South Asian radio station KRPI, AM 1550, which broadcasts from studios in Richmond, B.C.

Currently broadcasting at 50,000 watts during the day using antenna located in Ferndale, WA, the company has already completed a National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) checklist for the project to comply with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Several professional studies were completed, including a visual resources report that concluded the visual impact should be minimal. Another report states the towers do not appear to present a significant risk to birds.

The FCC last year granted a construction permit for the radio communication facility,

but a conditional use a permit is still required from the county.

A report by the Whatcom County Planning and Development Services notes the department has reviewed the application for potential adverse impacts and expects to issue a “Determination of Non-Significance (DNS)” for the project. A county hearing examiner must also give his stamp of approval following a public hearing.

A comment period, open only for residents on the U.S. side of the border, wrapped up last week.

Arthur Reber, a member of the Point Roberts Community Advisory Committee, which organized a public meeting for concerned residents this week, told the Optimist there was little notification. He said many in the community only found out recently about the application.

“The mood of Point Roberts is, shall we say, the tar is boiling in the back and the folks with the feathers are plucking chickens to get ready for it. Others are building guillotines,” he said.

Noting the antennas have been problematic and hugely controversial in Ferndale, Reber said residents have many concerns, including the likelihood of the powerful signal wreaking havoc with other broadcast signals as well as electronic devices.

Reber noted broadcast facilities may be seen as a necessary utility, however, the proposed antennas are for a Canadian radio station serving the Lower Mainland, and thus that infrastructure should be located in Canada.

He said residents are planning a long fight, including a formal appeal to Whatcom County council if the application receives approval.

Living just a few feet from the borderline, Tsawwassen resident Ralph Parker agreed there’s little doubt residents on both sides of the will be impacted by interference, including his Delta Amateur Radio Club.

“I thought what it’s going to do with other residents, and it’s going to be a large interference issue,” he said.

“It may be something that’s going to cause problems with the people at the border because being very close to all that huge amount of radio frequency energy, who knows what it will do to all their sensitive equipment on both sides of the border. On the Canadian side the other day, I asked them what they knew about it and they didn’t know anything,” Parker said.

Tsawwassen resident Greg Edwards this week wrote to Whatcom County Planning and Development Services asking why an engineering report that supports the application ignores the fact that thousands of Canadians live nearby

He also questioned a claim that the towers would be welcome because Point Roberts was an economically depressed community, a claim he says Point Roberts residents would consider is nonsense.

Delta South MLA Vicki Huntington said it’s difficult to expect Washington State officials to consider the impacts their decisions might have on individuals north of the border, and they have no obligation to do so.

“That said, I have indicated to them that we would appreciate it if they took into account the complaints U.S. citizens had in the first instance, i.e., the electrical humming and interference. Respectfully requesting they recognize the impacts may continue to affect the residents of not only Point Roberts, but also their Canadian neighbours to the north, is about all we can do. Hopefully, Whatcom County will take the issue into consideration when making their decision,” she said.

© Copyright 2013

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Re: Proposed towers get static on both sides of the border

Postby jon » Thu Aug 22, 2013 11:30 am

On a hunch, I clicked on Wikipedia's transmitter coordinates for CKNW and, by eye-balling it, would say that distance from the new Point Roberts site for KRPI to Downtown Vancouver is the same as from CKNW to Downtown. Both licensed for 50,000 watts with directional patterns favouring Vancouver.

NW has the advantage of a lower frequency, 980, of course. But there is also talk of a geological issue that somehow reduces the groundwave signal from the Cloverdale transmitter site into Vancouver.

Taken all together, it sounds to me like KRPI and CKNW will be about equal signal strength in Vancouver. A major improvment from the Ferndale site.
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Re: Proposed towers get static on both sides of the border

Postby xwdcatvb » Thu Aug 22, 2013 9:28 pm

jon wrote:On a hunch, I clicked on Wikipedia's transmitter coordinates for CKNW and, by eye-balling it, would say that distance from the new Point Roberts site for KRPI to Downtown Vancouver is the same as from CKNW to Downtown. Both licensed for 50,000 watts with directional patterns favouring Vancouver.

NW has the advantage of a lower frequency, 980, of course. But there is also talk of a geological issue that somehow reduces the groundwave signal from the Cloverdale transmitter site into Vancouver.

Taken all together, it sounds to me like KRPI and CKNW will be about equal signal strength in Vancouver. A major improvment from the Ferndale site.


I would suspect that KRPI/Sher-e-Punjab is far more interested in getting a decent night-time signal into South Surrey/Newton plus South Vancouver than worrying about Downtown.

Night signal from Ferndale into South Burnaby (effectively the same as South Van in the areas of say Main/Fraser south of 41st) is miserable. One facet intrigues me: how well the signal will penetrate into Abbotsford.

They want to match KVRI/1600 R. India more effectively at night, and compete as well against CJRJ/1200 Rim Jhim.

Have to laugh that Point Roberts' types are complaining it's a "Canadian" station. Programming source might be, but the technical facilities are, have been, and will be American.

There's a perfectly good transmitter site, plant, and frequency sitting idle for 600 at Nelson and Westminster in East Richmond... but of course there's the "little" problem of having to become an ethnic/multilingual station rather than unilingual should the CRTC agree to a third South Asian outlet in the market.
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Re: Proposed towers get static on both sides of the border

Postby jon » Thu Aug 22, 2013 9:45 pm

Here is the day pattern for Point Roberts:

ImageImage

And here is the 50,000 watt night pattern:

ImageImage

The 5 towers appear to be laid out in the form of an X. Three towers day and three towers night, with only the centre tower in common.

If you aren't familiar with these pattern drawings, it is like a coverage map with North at the top, South at the bottom, West on the left and East on the right. Only difference is that it assumes dead flat identical terrain in all directions.
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Re: Proposed towers get static on both sides of the border

Postby Toomas Losin » Thu Aug 22, 2013 10:15 pm

This will not be good for South Pacific DX. Right now KRPI is 10 kW at nights but will become 50 kW fulltime and will be closer to the Lower Mainland. This will totally blow away the Australian on 1548 kHz that I've been trying to hear in the current splatter.

The patterns are obviously designed to direct the signal into Canada; located a few hundred metres from the border there's no argument about that. KICY 850 had to get special permission to broadcast from Alaska into Russia. How is this any different? Maybe KRPI got permission but hasn't made any noises about it?
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Re: Proposed towers get static on both sides of the border

Postby radiofan » Thu Aug 22, 2013 10:45 pm

It has been close to 30 years since this station (then called KOQT and licensed to Bellingham) has had anything resembling local or community programming.

In the late 80's and into the 90's it was blasting out brokered religion and religious based network talk shows as KNTR, for a time it was simulcast with a couple of other Western Washington AM
stations. Before it's current incarnation, it was KCCF which I believe was 100% brokered religious programming.

I guess by allowing the programming from Canada on a US signal, the FCC would collect the annual license fee which it wouldn't get if the station was dark. Whatcom Country one Point Roberts profit
with a business tax and I'm sure there is some type of a yearly fee for the towers If you haven't been to Point Bob in recent years, any addition to the tax base would be welcome.

Up until a few years ago, the KLYN FM tower was not too many feet from the Canadaian Border on the US side of 0 Avenue around 216th Street. The station has since moved it's TX to Orcas Island.
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"' Re: Proposed towers get static on both sides of the borde

Postby Eldon-Mr.CFAY » Fri Aug 23, 2013 4:25 pm

Greetings,
Regarding 1550 AM from Ferndale, Washington I know quite a bit about the history of this station! My favorite time for 1550 AM was when it was a 1000 watt Daytime Only station known as KOQT and a great hokey local country format, that would be back in the late or mid-60s when I first got into radio dxing. I could barely get its signal on my Holiday 8 Transistor Radio in North Surrey, the first AM radio I started dxing on sometime in 1966 and Jan. 1967! Later in 1967 I got a really neat little AM Hitachi Portable which I still like to this day. It was quite sensitive and selective but still KOQT on 1550 was hard to hear in the daytime with their 1000 Watts difficult signal (non-directional) to North Surrey, BC. I did log several dx reports and got them verified by letter about 1969 or 70. I remember as a local country station (no satellite crap to speak of in those days!!!) they had this slogan "We Do Not Prostitute our Sound, K O Q T is one hundred per cent Country!!!!' The guy announcing the pre-recorded station IDs like this sounded about down home an local yokal as you can get! By the way their competition in Bellingham at that time was also a daytimer KENY 930 also 1000 watts. KENY sounded a bit more current country and was all local too started by Tom Haveman who later did News Broadcasts on KVOS TV 12 Bellingham!

About 1970 KOQT 1550 went through ownership and format changes, still have a bunch of printed memorabilia from them during that time and throughout the 70s and 80s too! They switched about 1970 after been silent for a few months to new ownership and MOR/Top 40 Soft Rock format as I recall, owned by Bellingham Broadcasting, I have the printed promo page on this change. I think radiofan might have it too as we visited the station together when it was in a mobile home beside I-5 on the North Side of Bellingham just south of the KGMI 790 studio facilities which were much bigger. Anyway about 1971 or maybe early 1972 KOQT was sold again (still a 1 KW> Daytimer) to Hillcrest Chapel and Richard and Leona Ellison! They immediately changed format to all local christian gospel music with some paid religious shows and local programming too. Over the following years in the 1980s I listened to their local talk program broadcast several times daily. They took calls from listeners and discussed the station including boosting power to 10,000 watts from the 1000 watts and going fulltime. They also were going to build new studios in Ferndale which they did. They were a Ma and Pa owned Christian Gospel station and were quite convincing at raising funds for KOQT 1550 for various station causes like boosting power and building new studios. Richard and Leona Ellison and their daughter Judy and son-in-law did try to help a lot of people in need in the Bellingham and Vancouver areas. I am talking about Food Bank programs, praying for listener needs etc... I got the strong impression they were quite sincere and not just your typical televangelist types. They also had a real downhome approach to radio too, no big corporate religious style here at all! Anyway it was a bit of a struggle for them but they did raise enough money with the help of listeners to boost KOQT 1550 to 10,000 Watts Fulltime perhaps about 1980 or so. I would say at least 50 or 60 per cent of the programming including Southern Gospel Music shows were local right up to 1990 or so! I used to phone them up quite frequently in the 80s and early 90s around 1990 to 1992 or so on their talk show. They even discussed the early history of KOQT from its beginning in 1962 or so and other non-religious issues such as extreme weather storms, Mount Baker Highway etc. etc.. Had local news and detailled local weather reports too on KOQT. Sometime after 1992 or so they sold KOQT and once again it became under new ownership, before they did this they changed the calls a few years before to KNTR. For a time Richard Ellisons health was not too good (he had a heart problem as I recall) but I think his son-in-law and other staff changed the format as KNTR to a local News Talk format in the late 80s with the odd syndicated talk show too. That was for a brief period of time though till Richard and Leona took the operation back to Christian programming. After they sold KNTR 1550 in 1992 or so it became KCCF 1550 which stood for Classics of the Christian Faith and played a lot of MOR and Old Christian selection music. That was for a lot of the 1990s, they were local owners but KCCF was no longer a Ma and Pa station. Sometime in the 2000s perhaps around 2004 1550 was sold again only this time to BBC Broadcasting which owns it today and of course they dumped all the local and Christian programming for South Asian one hundred per cent. 1550 basically from that point onward programmed almost exclusively to the Canadian Vancouver South Asian Market, not Ferndale or Whatcom County at all!!! By the way BBC Broadcasting has absolutely nothing to do with the BBC in the United Kingdom, or England, just the name of this wholly owned South Asian Punjabi company! Even when Richard and Leona Ellison owned the station they did have approaches from several South Asian companies or individuals trying to buy the station from them. Right over the air on their talk show they announced this but Flatly refused to sell it. They wanted 1550 AM to remain all local and christian programs in format. Except for some of the syndicated Christian Talk Shows which they broadcast, they did not broadcast as much paid religion talk shows as KARI 550, perhaps maybe one third as much. So when they did sell KNTR 1550 in 1992 or so it was to other local business people in Whatcom County who had an interest in continuing Christian programming as KCCF. I guess over the years though up 2004 some of these other local business people may have changed in shares of ownership and finally in 2004 whoever was left owning KCCF could no longer resist the great financial offer to buy 1550 KCCF by the South Asian Company who wanted to serve Greater Vancouver exclusively.

Personally I think the FCC should prevent things like this from happening. If a station has been licensed to serve Whatcom County it should stay that way. If a company wants to serve another location like this and especially another country they should have to apply to the radio licensing board in the other country to get a license. Obviously BBC Broadcasting does not give a rats butt about serving any part of Whatcom County, they want to serve parts of Greater Vancouver, British Columbia Canada so should move to Canada completely. Yeah apply for 600 or some other AM frequency even 1550 to CRTC and Industry Canada, thats where their primary market is. I know there are other examples of stations doing this in the USA like KVRI 1600 and KARI 550 too however I feel the same thing should apply to all of them. KARI 550 IS A BIT DIFFERENT BECAUSE THEY DO CATER TO SOME IN WHATCOM COUNTY WHO LIKE RELIGOUS PROGRAMMING AND ALSO DO PROVIDE LOCAL WEATHER AND SOME NEWS DURING THE 5 pm HOUR OR CLOSE TO IT EACH WEEKDAY. KARI WAS SOLD QUITE A FEW YEARS AGO TO A LARGE MULTICULTURAL COMPANY IN THE USA THAT OWNS QUITE A FEW ETHNIC OR RELIGIOUS STATIONS AND THEY WERE THE ONES WHO ACTUALLY PUT KVRI 1600 ON THE AIR AS SOUTH ASIAN.

As far as interference goes, Tswassen and South Delta has a fairly high residential propulation, might be a problem. Point Roberts it technically in the USA but has a high portion of Canadian residents, it is more rural in a way than Tsawassen but basically a beach resort community. Whenever you are talking about high power like 50,000 watts and multiple antenna towers on AM there is always the possibility of more interference if its real close to a large residential population. CKNW 980 has its towers north of Frys Corner in a fairly rural area of East Surrey (lot of farmland around there).. It is not located at Guildord, Whalley or right in Cloverdale although they are not that far away. However you have a good two miles or so at least in all directions that are mainly farm land and rural. Even Cloverdale is at least 5 miles south of the CKNW 980 transmitter site. I might add that there is a big difference between a 500 watt or 1000 watt AM transmitter site and 50,000 watts multiple Antenna Tower site. If you have a 500 watt or 1000 watts station with a single tower or even two towers much less chance of interference! Unless you happen to live right next door to it! Many amateur radio operators use 500 watts or 1000 watts regularly all over North America!!! Many of them in residential areas too!

Anyway it will be interesting to see the finally outcome of this. IN the meantime good dxing Toomas on the frequencies near 1550 in case they do get local Whatcom County approval on this! Hope you can get some good AM DX catches before anything does change to 1550 AM...

73s Eldon
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Re: Proposed towers get static on both sides of the border

Postby jon » Fri Aug 23, 2013 4:48 pm

While Eldon may be right, my memory tells me that KOQT-1550 was silent for a lot more than "a few months", though they may have been silent for "a few months" on several occasions.

What I do remember is spending at least one Burnaby winter concentrating on "Daytime DX", defined as 11am-1pm, with a separate log book and everything that goes with it. My best catch was on 1550: 10,000 watt daytimer KRGO in Salt Lake City.

Then again, my memory may be faulty and my 4' box loop antenna better than I remember, as I don't remember having any trouble with 1,000 watt daytimer KGAR-1550 in Vancouver, Washington, either. Of course, they may have been off the air because of financial difficulties, too.

All I remember is aligning the loop North-South and getting a nice clear KKHI-1550 in San Francisco, back in the days when you could play classical music on AM and make money. And moving the loop from South towards the East until KKHI disappeared, and getting KRGO in clearly.

Never did get anything over The Rockies in my brief Daytime DX period, but it is fairly routine here now in Winter in Edmonton.

Based on the strength of signals I routinely got from L.A. from daytimer KGBS-1020 and KFI-640, I still believe that XETRA-690 and XERB-1090 would have been heard 24/7 into Vancouver in the winter were it not for CBU-690 and KING-1090.
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Re: Proposed towers get static on both sides of the border

Postby Eldon-Mr.CFAY » Fri Aug 23, 2013 6:13 pm

Hi Everyone,
I had posted a second update here but looks as if it did not get through. I was mentioning the fact I have at least 30 cassette airchecks of KOQT and KNTR 1550 including their fund raising and listener callers when they were going to boost to 10 kw. fulltime. That is probably about 1979 or so. They were fundraising to build brand new studios and transmitter site in Ferndale. Also have tapes of a lot of the local programming including Southern Gospel , local news and weather, the local talk show with Richard and Leona in the mornings and at night near dinner hour. Some of the programming sounded pretty hokey much like KOQT's old country format of the 1960s!!! But that made it different, not the tight big corporate approach that so many stations had. I liked the local downhome approach and I liked the Ma and Pa ownership. Some of it sounded a little like the informal pirate radio approach to broadcasting. However these days some of these big corporate owned stations have people on them with a pretty amateurish style too as mentioned in various Radio West posts in recent months. That however is mainly the cheap approach been used by big corporations in hiring some on-air talent though!

However listening to KOQT 1550/KNTR under Richard and Leona Ellisons ownership was different and had a lot of local programming especially in the 70s and 80s so it was not the same as tight on-air big corporate radio even some Top 40 stations. I have always liked the Different approach in radio even if it less professional

Oh also Jon it is possible that KOQT was off the air for more than a few months in 1969 to 1970 before it was bought and put back on the air by Bellingham Broadcasting and a new local owner which I think was in the spring of 1970. They may have gone off the air in the summer of 1969 or so which might have been close to 10 months or so off the air. After it was bought by Hillcrest Chapel and Leona and Richard Ellison about 1972 or early 73 it remained on the air almost constantly from the point forward. They did n't boost up to 10 KWs till the very late 1970s about 79 or 80. I have all the tapes and a lot of printed info. that they sent me from KOQT and KNTR but its all out in Langley. Sometimes even when they were on the air you could get other stations in the winter like Vancouver, Washington KGAR and KKHI quite frequently near sunrise and before sunset by a few hours too. As a 1000 watt station daytimer in the 70s the signal did not by any means dominate 1550 in Greater Vancouver or North Surrey. It improved considerably when they went up to 10 KW. but at night other stations still faded in some nights to the North Surrey location. I did hear KOQT or KNTR 1550 in Calgary in the mid 1980s perhaps around 1985 near sunset and at night (they were fulltime by then). However one night they completely faded out and I got KSVY 1550 Spokane Valey, Washington quite well. That station went dark in the early 90s in the Spokane area. I think KSVY was about 10 KWs. Daytime, can't remember their night power.

Anyway a few more things to add here.

Take care everyone ,,73s

Eldon
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Re: "' Re: Proposed towers get static on both sides of the b

Postby Toomas Losin » Fri Aug 23, 2013 6:15 pm

Eldon-Mr.CFAY wrote:IN the meantime good dxing Toomas on the frequencies near 1550 in case they do get local Whatcom County approval on this! Hope you can get some good AM DX catches before anything does change to 1550 AM...

Thanks. The band around 1550 is a nice area to DX.

Before KKXA 1520 started up one could hear KOKC Oklahoma City. KFBK 1530 has been there forever and was my first DX reception beore I knew there was such a thing. 1540 has KXEL Waterloo, Iowa. 1550 has KKOV Vancouver making noises beneath KRPI. 1560 has a station in Bakersfield that I haven't heard since 1985 when it was KPMC. 1570 has CKMW for a short while longer but also has XERF Ciudad Acuña and KUAU Hawaii (from which I'm still trying to hear a TOH ID). 1580 has CKDO Oshawa and KMIK Tempe.

Across the Pacific there's HLAZ 1566 in Korea, VOA on 1575 in Thailand, and 4QD 1548 in Queensland. The carrier for the latter can be heard often before sunrise.

All of that could be in jeopardy when/if KRPI moves closer to the Lower Mainland and blasts 50 kW full-time at us.
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Re: Proposed towers get static on both sides of the border

Postby radiofan » Fri Aug 23, 2013 6:15 pm

I'd have to agree with Jon. KOQT was off the air for a long period of time in 1968 - 69. Along with some friends, we visited the KOQT studios/tx site in the spring of 1970, right around the time the
station was returning to air air. This was going to be the big time for QT Radio. They had a sales/business office on State Street in downtown Bellingham.

Out at the studio/tx site, the record library was a room full of records just heaped on the floor. No shelves, no filing system, just records strewn everywhere.

That site is now either a part of the Bellis Fair parking lot or a subdivision north of Bellis Fair and south of Northwest Avenue.

The old KGMI / IGM building still exists (thanks to Little Eric for finding it). It's south of Fred Meyer and north of Northwest Avenue behind the GM dealership. There is an IGM sign visible on the front
of the building. Next time I'm down, I'll try to snap a pic.

As for 1550, my best catch was WOKJ from Jackson, MS in the summer of 1970.
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Re: Proposed towers get static on both sides of the border

Postby jon » Fri Aug 23, 2013 7:06 pm

Yes, 1550 was a great little frequency for DX in the '60s. As well as WOKJ, 5000 watt KKJO in St. Joseph, Missouri, could be heard when KKHI was off the air, typically sometime between midnight and 6am Monday morning. A couple of years earlier, before the CBC stopped running 24/7, CBE Windsor was the first Ontario catch for most of us, on Monday mornings, despite being only 10KW. Later, they could be heard at signon.

As Toomas alludes to, the 1500s were always lots of fun. CKAY-1500 in Duncan was easy to null out for KSTP in St. Paul, Minnesota. Monday mornings, it was WJBK, a cooking Top 40 station in Detroit. Monday mornings also brought the legendary Soul music pioneer WLAC on 1510 with KGA Spokane off the air. Null out KYMN/KYXI Oregon City on 1520 and you got KOMA in Oklahoma City most evenings, and WKBW in Buffalo all alone on the frequency on Monday mornings. During the KYMN days, that meant the three 50KW stations on 1520 were all great Top 40 listens.

KFBK Sacramento dominated 1530 day and night, but Monday morning gave you WCKY in Cincinnati. It didn't take much of a null to hear KXEL despite a 1000 watt station in Bellevue on 1540. Monday mornings with 10KW KPMC-1560 in Bakersfield off the air, things were pretty quiet until WDXR in Paducah, Kentucky, signed on. CHUB's 10KW in Nanaimo certainly dominated 1570, but 250KW XERF was almost always there underneath. When CHLO in St. Thomas moved to 1570 around 1970, a good null on XERF on Monday mornings gave you CHLO at signon.

1580 was quite interesting. Although KDAY in Santa Monica could be heard most days, their directional pattern at night was so tight that even with KDAY's 50,000 watts, XEDM in Hermosillo was usually all alone. Except at sunset in the winter, when KBGO Waco, Texas (1000 watts day/500 watts night) could often be heard. They also appeared at sign-on on Monday mornings before XEDM signed on, burying 1KW KLOU in Lake Charles, Louisiana, which had signed on earlier.

1590 was KETO then KSND in Seattle, but KTIL in Tillamook, Oregon and KLIV in San Jose were easy pickings underneath. WAKR in Akron, Ohio was all alone on Monday mornings.

Even today, here in Edmonton, the 1500s are interesting, including 1580, which is your best shot at hearing Ontario.
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Re: Proposed towers get static on both sides of the border

Postby xwdcatvb » Fri Aug 23, 2013 9:39 pm

Toomas Losin wrote:This will not be good for South Pacific DX. Right now KRPI is 10 kW at nights but will become 50 kW fulltime and will be closer to the Lower Mainland. This will totally blow away the Australian on 1548 kHz that I've been trying to hear in the current splatter.

The patterns are obviously designed to direct the signal into Canada; located a few hundred metres from the border there's no argument about that. KICY 850 had to get special permission to broadcast from Alaska into Russia. How is this any different? Maybe KRPI got permission but hasn't made any noises about it?


<guffaw>

I really don't think the FCC is gonna be too concerned about a dude in Metro Vancouver trying to hear 4QD/1548 from Emerald, Qld. KRPI/1550, KVRI/1600, and whatever the call is now on 1110 are simply American domestic transmitters which happen to be heard in a foreign country, and have decided their programming might make more money that way. Ditto a certain TV station operating from Mt Constitution since way back in the 50's.

As for KICY/850, wouldn't that have been a case of applying to change an existing domestic pattern for Nome? I really don't think the FCC could care less as long as the new pattern didn't interfere with a NA co-channel (KOA... yeah...) or violate any agreement with the Russians.

I feel sorrier for the poor Chukchis around Provideniya et al being bombarded with Ammurican religious "help".

Yikes.
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Re: Proposed towers get static on both sides of the border

Postby xwdcatvb » Fri Aug 23, 2013 9:58 pm

jon wrote:Here is the day pattern for Point Roberts:


The 5 towers appear to be laid out in the form of an X. Three towers day and three towers night, with only the centre tower in common.

If you aren't familiar with these pattern drawings, it is like a coverage map with North at the top, South at the bottom, West on the left and East on the right. Only difference is that it assumes dead flat identical terrain in all directions.


Hmmm, well, night pattern would be miserable into Newton/South Surrey!
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Re: Proposed towers get static on both sides of the border

Postby Toomas Losin » Fri Aug 23, 2013 11:21 pm

xwdcatvb wrote:I really don't think the FCC is gonna be too concerned about a dude in Metro Vancouver trying to hear 4QD/1548 from Emerald, Qld.

I know.
xwdcatvb wrote:As for KICY/850, wouldn't that have been a case of applying to change an existing domestic pattern for Nome? I really don't think the FCC could care less as long as the new pattern didn't interfere with a NA co-channel (KOA... yeah...) or violate any agreement with the Russians.

It's a regular pattern change for KICY but its purpose is to transmit to another country. The ITU allegedly doesn't like it when one country does this without consent. That's de jure; de facto it happens all the time.

I understand this is a basis for Cuba's complaints about Radio Martí, and it would presumably be the same for any reciprocal complaints the US might have about Cuba blasting into the US.

When KICY changes pattern it cleverly airs a heavy-sounding message about getting FCC and Geneva Convention (ITU?) approval to broadcast into Russia. This might be to mollify the local religious population that doesn't speak Russian but it also suggests that they did need to get approval for it, de jure. De facto, no one may have noticed if they didn't.

KVOS's service contour covers a lot of US territory down to Seattle in addition to the Island and Lower Mainland. KRPI, however, can't make much of an argument that it would serve a US population from the Point Roberts site. I'm wondering if there is an agreement in place, de jure, between Canada and the US that addresses a situation like this.
Toomas Losin
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