Re: [IRCA] Copper/Radials

[Scott Fybush <scott@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Mike McKenna wrote:
> 
> As a Hobbist or Ham radio operator -- thinking on your feet -- and
> being able to change elements or parts -- is ok.  However -- any
> change to a Commercial radio station,  without FCC approval,  is NOT
> allowed.   If an AM CP or license calls for 120 radials -- 90 degrees
> long --- by adding extra radials or any other metal to the system --
> makes that station illegal. 

This is quite true. However, in a situation where the licensed ground 
system has significantly deteriorated (as seems to be the case with 
KOHI, just to keep the topic going), it would be a very simple matter to 
get the FCC to issue Special Temporary Authority (possibly even a verbal 
STA) to effect "emergency" repairs to the ground system.

I know nothing of KOHI's specific situation beyond what's been discussed 
on the list, but it's a very safe generalization that the overall state 
of maintenance of AM antenna systems around the US (and what few are 
left in Canada) has gone downhill in the last 20 years or so. I can 
think of numerous examples of smaller stations whose signals are now 
pale shadows of what they once were, simply because no money or effort 
has been expended to keep the ground system working, the ATUs tuned up 
properly, the transmitter site free of weeds and obstructions, and so on.

I had one local station, no longer at the site in question, whose site 
had been chopped up for development without ever properly repairing the 
ground system. Its signal, at the end, was atrocious, and even though 
its new site won't perform nearly as well as the old one on paper, it 
should sound better in reality simply because it will have a working 
ground system and all new components.

Not to sound pro-AM IBOC, because I'm not, but the lone bright spot in 
the thing is that it requires stations using it to clean up their 
antenna systems, and that will keep paying off long after AM IBOC is 
(one hopes) a thing of the past.

s
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