Re: [IRCA] Help please from Salem and Vancouver tower historians
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Re: [IRCA] Help please from Salem and Vancouver tower historians



Says Earl Higgins:

Of course, as you correctly point out, BY doesn't seem to have started including
transmitter coordinates until 1991. KSLM's location is given in that issue as 44
56 32 N 123 04 17 W (what you would type into Google maps:  44.9422,  -123.0714);
this is several miles south of the current FCC listing of  44°    59' 43.00" N  123°
04' 15.00" W  (what you would type into Google maps:  44.9953,  -123.0708).

If you look on Google maps, the "old" (1991) coordinates map to an address on a
street curiously named "Tower Drive NW" but clearly now a residential
subdivision. In fact, it is within 2/10 of a mile of the address you have for
the tower site in the 1950s. It's likely the 1950s site you have, and the 1991
site Broadcasting Yearbook has, are in fact the same site. So there you have
reasonably definitive evidence that it was probably there in 1976. Incidentally,
you can see their now single tower located in the corner of some kind of orchard
or farm by typing in the current coordinates.

Here's one more resource you can bring to bear on the issue, just to be even more certain:

Go to FCCInfo.com. Type in "KSLM" into the "Historic Call Sign" box (second from top). A list will pop up of all the stations that have used the KSLM calls, and the one we want is the last one, now KWOD 1390.

Click on the call letters in blue, then click on them again on the next page that pops up - and then click on "Other KWOD Applications." This brings us to the FCC's Application Search Results page (it's quicker to get there from FCCInfo.com than from the actual FCC page!)

This brings up all the apps that have been filed with the FCC since about 1978 for this station. We can disregard most of them - any of the ones that start with "BR" are license renewals, "BTC" and "BAL" represent station sales or transfers of control, "BZ" are requests for direct measurement and "SMOV" is a dummy record for an X-band allocation that never happened.

That leaves just a few files of interest that start with "BP," "BLSTA" and "BL."

"BP" is an application for a construction permit to modify KSLM's facilities, and we can see that the only BP- record since 1978 is dated 5/30/1996. "BLSTA" is the Special Temporary Authority that was apparently granted while KSLM was moving facilities, and the lone BL- record, dated 1/21/1997, represents KSLM's license to cover its new facilities at its new site.

While a handful of FCC records have been lost from the electronic database over the years, we can now say with near 100% certainty that KSLM did not move between at least 1978 and the coordinates in the 1991 Broadcasting Yearbook, and that it did not move between then and 1997, when it arrived at its current coordinates. Combined with Earl's "Tower Road" find, this gets us to at least 99% certainty that KSLM in 1976 was at the same location as in 1991.

Now, on to CKWX. The 2002-2003 Edition of Broadcasting Yearbook, the most recent
one available on the site, lists CKWX 49 09 22 N 123 04 00 W (what you would
type into Google maps:  49.1561, -123.0667). Looking at Google maps satellite
view, you can see there are indeed 2 towers at this site, and both
http://www.radio-locator.com/  and  http://topazdesigns.com/ambc/  agree that this
is the current site of CKWX. So we can assume that it was there in 2005 as well.

So one could say, with a pretty high degree of confidence, that KSLM, at
-123.0714 degrees west, being further west than CKWX's -123.0667 degrees west,
is your furthest west catch.

And having visited CKWX in 1999, I can confirm that it was at the same location in 1999 as in 2002-03 and now...and thus in 2005 as well. Of the Vancouver AMs, only 1040 and 1410 (and of course the new 1200) have built new sites in the last decade or so.

s
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