New towers for CFUN

[Dan Sys]

CFUN has applied to relocate their transmitter site located near the Dease Tunnel to a site already owned by CTV about 8km's south-east. I assume this must be the TEAM 1040 transmitter site located near Highway 91 & Ladner Trunk Road in Delta.

Normally I wouldn't bother mentioning something irrelevant like this, but I find the fact that CTV admits the revised coverage area will result in a potential loss of 574,000 listeners quite interesting. That's like 25% of the population of Greater Vancouver.

http://www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Notic ... 8-71.htm#8

[Mike Cleaver]

I wonder if this co-site will mean separate transmitters but shared antennas, much like the former CKOV/CKIQ arrangement in Kelowna?
That can open an entire new engineering can of worms.
Also doesn't say much about the capabilities of the engineers that the current site was allowed to fall into such disrepair.

[kat]

Normally I wouldn't bother mentioning something irrelevant like this, but I find the fact that CTV admits the revised coverage area will result in a potential loss of 574,000 listeners quite interesting. That's like 25% of the population of Greater Vancouver.

CFUN would be lucky to have 574,000 listeners.

A 25% loss could make them and AM 730 cell mates in the bowels of the BBM. Sad to see Vancouver's two longtime Top 40 stations of the 60's and 70's reduced to waste from the poop and sewage treatment plant on Annacis Island.

[jon]

The Consulting Engineers, D.E.M. Allen, actually provide two comparitive maps showing coverage. The 5 mV/m map shows almost identical coverage, between the proposed and present patterns.

It is the 15 mV/m map that has the problems. The proposed pattern (same day and night) fails to cover most of the City of Vancouver, including all of Downtown. Same with all of North Vancouver and West Vancouver.

Both maps are PDF files listed individually as Appendix 2B in http://www.crtc.gc.ca/public/broad/appl ... 1011-0.zip

[Dan Sys]

So in other words CFUN will likely experience a scenario similar to that of CKNW.....no signal downtown.

If CFUN does end up sharing the towers with CKST what kind of implications might that have on CKST's signal? At this point CKST seems to have pretty good coverage downtown and is widely known as one of Vancouver's better 50KW powerhouses for covering distance (ie-quite often I hear reports about DX'ers in California and other far away places picking them up loud & clear).

[Mike Cleaver]

Feeding two transmitters into the same towers at different frequencies can be done but it's unpredictable in the results.
The signal for the Team could be degraded and it seems for sure the CFUN signal will be weaker.
Consulting engineers can try to predict what the results will be but it's only after the site is up and running and radials have been run (does anyone do that any more?) that the reality of the signal can be verified.
Again, my point is, how can anyone let a 50k site deteriorate to the point they can't even run a proper proof?
CHUM Limited always made money available for transmitter improvements.
Maybe the Vancouver suits never asked for any?

[jon]

For those of you who DX'ed in the 1960s, you might be scratching your head at Mike's comment about the difficulties of using a single tower for multiple AM transmitters. "Didn't the late Alan Roycroft make a big name for himself doing just that in Honolulu in the 1960s?"

Well, yes, he did. And he was rightfully proud of his accomplishments.

But he had one big advantage: all Hawaiian AM stations were non-directional in those days (they probably still are). But try to get directional patterns working properly in a shared (multi-)tower situation, and you get the headaches Mike mentions.

On the other hand, a quick look at CKST's and CFUN's current night-time directional patterns and they appear amazingly similar. CFUN's current daytime pattern, on the other hand, is very different!

If I read the CRTC application correctly, CFUN is asking to switch to the same directional pattern day and night.

[arthurdent]

As 'land-heavy' as AM is, it is an interesting statement from ownership to keep AM going, much less to reinvest in it.

[WPGGUY]

This change is all about the money. I wonder how much they are selling the old transmitter site property for. I will bet that the money they will make from the sale will more that cover the changes to their new AM site and there will still be some leftover...

[Dan Sys]

If I'm not mistaken the existing CFUN towers are located on ALR protected land which means any type of development other than it being related to agriculture is forbidden. No huge windfall for CTV selling the property in this case.

[radiofan]

It's likely going industrial, everthing east of the TX site is industrial , so I'm sure there is some expansion happening there. It's definately not a great site for million dollar condos.

[Jack Bennest]

There seems to be a lot of misinformation about the new CFUN transmitter site and the new proposed coverage. I would like to take the opportunity to set straight the record.

A few years ago, the company looked at what to do with the present transmitter site. The site was built in the early 60’s, but had come to a point in its life where almost all of the facilities (towers, buildings, equipment) needed to be replaced. The cost to do so on the present site would have been astronomical, not to mention the disruption to programming while the rebuilding would have taken place. About this time, the previous owners (CHUM) also purchased CKST. The present CKST site was also in a position where major work was required to bring it up to current standards. Engineering studies were done and found that combining sites was very feasible. A decision was made to purchase new property and combine facilities with state of the art equipment. 47 acres of property was purchased on 104 Street between Hwy 10 and Hwy 99.

When a major change in facilities is undertaken a coverage study is always undertaken. Our consultants found that there was an opportunity to improve the night coverage to the Fraser Valley. CFUN always had an excellent signal to Vancouver Island, but it is not in the prime coverage area. The consultants found that the station could become a DA1 (one pattern) by also modifying the day pattern, but the main benefit is the improved night-time coverage to the Valley. The down side is that coverage to the western side of Vancouver Island and Washington State is reduced. These are in areas that we do not sell to. The prime coverage area that covers Metro Vancouver is not drastically affected. The only reason that the CRTC has asked for public comment is that there is a major change in the pattern.

The new transmitter site is going to consist of 7 towers which is a reduction of 1 tower from the present total. This reduction was made possible by the elimination of one pattern for CFUN. We decided against common towers for redundancy purposes. The towers are also going to be self support towers instead of guyed towers. This was done to allow for full agricultural production on the site once construction is completed. If guyed towers had been used, 40% of the area would have been lost for farming. With self support towers, only 2% of the area will be lost. The Agricultural Land Commission reviewed the proposal and in a unanimous decision allowed the proposal.

CTV has been in constant consultation with Delta Municipality to address any concerns that they may have about the project and is just awaiting their final approval. The site will be state of the art. Every attempt is being made to make the site environmentally friendly.

By way of interest, the present CFUN site was built by Gus Sondermeyer when he was with RCA. He is now consulting on the new project and his son Richard is the project manager.

I hope that this will lie to rest the misinformation. If you have any additional questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.

David Youell

Chief Engineer
Vancouver Radio Division
CHUM Radio
A Div. of CTV Globemedia Ltd.
(604)871-2947

[WPGGUY]

Hey Dave

Any chance that you could take some pictures of the new site as you are building it and post some of them here?

It is not often you get to re build an AM site any more so it would be very interesting to see some of that!!

[David in North Burnaby]

At night, in North Burnaby at least, The Buzz has another station faintly (ish) in the background. Really quite annoying when I tune in to hear the loonies, I mean researchers (:D )on Coast to Coast.
Does anyone know if this change might eliminate that?

[radiofan]

David

I get that same interference on 1410 at night. Interesting thing is, it's only there during Coastto Coast, not under commercial or news breaks, so that leads me to believe the satellite reciever is either fauily, or another feed coming into the building is leaking into the CFUN board.

Most nights KFBK 1530 from Sacramento is in like a local, so I listen there, and as a bonus get the US commercials rather than the non-stop promos and psas that CFUN runs.