Re: [IRCA] KNTS 1220 Palo Alto CA CP

["Dan Strassberg" <dan.strassberg@xxxxxxx>]

Patrick Martin wrote:

I have a question. Maybe one the CEs out there can answer it for me.
  KNTS 1220 Palo Alto CA (San Francisco) which runs 5000/ 145 U1
currently,  has got a new CP for U4 50000/5000. How is the world did
they get that?
1220 in CA has Canyon Country (North of LA) with U4 1000/500 and Pomona
(LA) with U3 250/250.
1210 in CA has Rocklin (Sacramento) with 5000/500, Fowler (Fresno) with
U1 370/370 and San Marcos (San Diego) with 20000/10000.
1230 in CA has Stockton 50 miles away with U1 900/900.
   Plus all of the other night traffic on 1220. I presume the site will
be East of SF shooting the signal due West with hardly anything N, S.,
or E. Just a guess. But I wonder how much signal they can senf N/S/ or
E? 145 watts? Any thoughts? Thanks.

------
Actually, the listing in the IRCA bulletin is in error--KNTS's CP is for 50
kW-DA-2! If you don't believe me, check the FCC's CDBS database. The
transmitter location is indeed in the East Bay. The site is adjacent to that
of KTCT 1050. Salem originally acquired the site for KFAX, whose site is 1.2
miles to the southwest of the new KNTS site. KFAX was going to lose its
current site for an an upgrade of the power grid in the area. The power-grid
project came-a-cropper, however, and KFAX will not be moving. The KTCT site
and the new KNTS site constitute an active garbage dump owned by the town in
which the sites are located. The radio stations use the sites under lease.

KNTS will use three 200' towers by day in an almost in-line configuration
with unequal spacing between the towers. The day pattern is a rather
standard three-tower modified cardioid with a small lobe out the back. The
maximum inverse-distance field of 4010 mV/m @ 1 km lies to the
west-southwest at 246 degrees. The night array comprises four towers (the
three in the day array plus one more 200' tower somewhat northwest of the
extended line of the three day towers). The night pattern, which is, of
course, tighter than the day pattern, is roughly circular, but is tangent to
the transmitter location with a few small lobes out the back. The radiation
maximum at 248 degrees differs by only two degrees from the daytime maximum
but at 4659 mV/m, the inverse-distance field @ 1 km is 16% higher
(equivalent to 35% higher power).

Despite the huge power increase, KNTS will actually lose a significant
amount of daytime coverage to the east of SF Bay. The FCC's ratchet rule
required a reduction in signal strength to the east to protect the stations
you named in your post. All of them, I believe, have prohibited overlap with
KNTS's present operation. The CP operation reduces that overlap. KNTS will
send substantially less than the equivalent of 5 kW to the east during the
day and still less at night. San Francisco, Silicon Valley and areas in the
immediate East Bay will get huge signals day and night, however, although in
Oakland, there will be many stronger AM signals at night

If you want your own copies of the KNTS's new patterns and those of every
other AM station in CDBS, download Bob Carpeneter's AMSTNS program. (Search
for "AMSTNS download" at Google or at the search engine of your choice.)
AMSTNS is FREE (not shareware; it's really free; Bob wrote it as a labor of
love and Larry Vehorn hosts free AMSTNS-compatible downloads of the CDBS
database at his Web site. Larry posts a new version of the database just
about every week. The file size for the database updates is appoximately 1.8
Mbytes--no sweat, even over a dialup connection.)

--
Dan Strassberg, dan.strassberg@xxxxxxx
eFax 707-215-6367







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