Roundhouse Radio Transmitter Site: Higher with Lower Power

[jon]

The CRTC opened up comments on Friday, until June 1st, on Roundhouse Radio's proposal to move CIRH-FM's approved transmitter site at 1785 Quebec Street in False Creek, after the City of Vancouver refused to issue a Building Permit due to new Municipal Regulations.

Roundhouse proposed six potential sites and was able to get 666 Burrard Street (corner of Dunsmuir) approved. The tower height above average terrain will be much higher -- 87.5 metres Above, rather than 11 metres below -- necessitating a major decrease in power. Maximum ERP will now be 1700 watts instead of 6000 watts. Still with a directional transmission.

Roundhouse's CRTC submission says that the higher tower with lower power will give them a fair bit less primary (3 mV/m) coverage, but slightly more secondary (0.5 mV/m) coverage. Frequency, of course, remains 98.3 MHz.

Total ("purchase") price of the new transmitter site is listed as nearly $400,000. There is mention of a Landlord, and existing 15 metre tower(s) on the roof at that location, as would be expected on a multi-million dollar building of this size. Cannot see much on the roof with Google Earth.

[PMC]

This will open the headspace of those that said what is Roundhouse, as I did.

http://www.roundhouseradio.com/

[Blabbermouth]

I'm not sure what any of that means. Is it saying the signal is not as good or better? And will it go further outside of the Vancouver city limits?

[Dan Sys]

I will find it very interesting to see how Roundhouse Radio and Star FM (CKSR) in Chilliwack with 5,000 watts will be able to coexist on the same frequency. Outside of their primary coverage areas I have a feeling that the interference generated by the two signals will make neither station listenable. Currently in Aldergrove CKSR blasts in here like a local.

[skyvalleyradio]

I was delighted to see Don Shafer & his team win the license for Roundhouse Radio, until i discovered the frequency issued by IC. What a bad assignment & many in this area will merely get a noisy "mix" of these signals as their radios attempt to lock onto one or the other signal. This is totally unworkable & both Roundhouse & Star FM will suffer. There ARE a few other frequencies which would have worked & no, I'm not talking about covering up more 100 kW Seattle signals. Since it's Roundhouse' objective to serve inner city residents in & around the downtown/ West End/East End core, they should get a clean signal into these areas. Best of luck to them!

[jon]

To answer Blabbermouth's question, my experience is that the higher the tower, the better the coverage of "deep natural valleys", especially areas near "high walls" in the direction of the transmitter. For example, what was then Magic 99 really improved along Fox Drive when they moved off of CKUA-FM's tower and on to one of the two tallest towers in this area (Edmonton).

Dropping power to one quarter to get on to a higher tower, as Roundhouse has done, means a weaker signal near the tower.

As for "valleys", tall buildings do not equate to natural valleys because an FM signal can penetrate fairly well into buildings, but not at all through huge quantities of dirt and rock.

[jon]

The CRTC approved this change today. There were no interventions, but a reminder that August 16, 2016 is the deadline for getting on the air.