Congratulations to all parties involved and particularly
to Eric Schecter, KSON’s former Director of Engineering, who
performed a large part of the planning, and to Bill Eisenhamer
who was involved in this project from the beginning and still
has a large number of finish-up details to tidy up.

Following is a December 10, 2008 photo showing the remains
of the old tower (left) and the new tower structure. The new
tower was just about completed at the time of the photo but
still had a gin pole on top:

http://earthsignals.com/add_CGC/Images/KSON/kson_DAWN_sm.jpg

Here are some photos shortly after the collapse.

Tower Lighting

The FCC has issued waivers of the requirement to visually check tower lights annually instead of every three months when using a high tech monitoring system. Flash Technology’s ArgusON monitors have won the confidence of regulators to let broadcasters cut back on these visual inspections.

This is partcularly valuable when the tower site is remote, or difficult to reach during winter.

Consultants and Station Owners have been asking for twenty years for relief on burdensome rules to prove the performance of directional antennas for AM stations.

Last week the shoe finally dropped, and the Commission approved as a notice of proposed rulemaking, the analysis of directional antennas using Method-Of-Moments and rigorous monitoring standards to verify that AM antennas actually perform as they should.  The new rules only apply to series fed, non-toploaded, non sectionalized towers.

For stations meeting the specifications, it means a substantial decrease in cost to commission or rebuild an AM directional array.  The labor intensive and sometimes dangerous and always problematic field measurements may be dispensed with.

For those who choose, the old way remains available.  Several safeguards have been added – regular calibration of the entire sample system, and external measurement reference points.  The good thing about this is that it all encourages regular rational maintenance of antenna systems, instead of inhibiting repairs to ailing systems.

Stations with series fed simple radiators and solid sampling systems may want to consider going through the effort of changing over to the new regulatory scheme, especially if the system needs a good cleanup.

The complete Report and Order is available at the FCC website. This is now at the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking stage, with a comment and reply comment period, and publication period before the final rules are in place. There could still be a hitch if someone files comments that cause serious reconsideration.

• Red – 3.0 mV/m – Generally the Sellable area of the station
• Purple – 0.5 mV/m – Rural protected service area, but nobody would buy ads.
• Blue – 0.1 mV/m – You might still get it on a car radio

For FM they are:

• Red – 60 db/uV or 1.0 mV/m – Protected service area for Class A and C stations
• Purple – 50 db/uv or 0.316 mV/m – A pretty weak Signal, nobody would buy ads.
• Blue – 40 db/uv or 0.1 mV/m – You won’t pick it up, except in rural areas

I determined this by comparing the plots of sample stations in Radiosoft’s Comstudy with their Radio-Locator maps. Hopefully this clears a few things up!

I am looking forward to hearing of the eutectic (metal bonding) and corrosion resistance characteristics of this promising technology. Once the problems of connecting the wire to strap and assuring that the copper cladding stays continuous in the corrosive conditions of soil are understood, we just might be able to find a way to keep the ground system in the ground!

Copperweld wire has low resistance to RF currents because of skin effect. At low frequencies or DC current in a wire flows through the entire conductor. The conductivity of steel is 7 – 13 times higher than copper, so it makes a poor conductor for DC or AC power. At RF steel is even worse, because it is ferromagnetic. A ferromagnetic material increases the skin effect by the permittivity of the steel.

At Medium Wave frequencies the current in a #10 copper wire is squeezed into the outer few thousandths of an inch of the conductor by skin effect, and the amount of current that can be handled by a wire is much less than for DC. Steel wire has much more loss at RF because the skin effect is so much stronger, the conductivity is poorer, and there are other magnetic losses.

The trick with copperweld, is to replace the outside of the steel with copper bonding several thousandths of an inch thick. All the current goes through the thin layer of copper. The heat it causes is on the outside where it can be radiated and carried off by convection or conduction. A copperweld wire is able to handle nearly as much RF current as the same size solid wire, although its rating for DC is not much higher than what it can handle for RF. What is critical is that the copper layer is not damaged by friction during installation, heating during bonding or corrosion, since there is not that much copper. Breaks in the cladding could be disastrous.

Keep your eyes out here for developments.

The petition proposes that stations may maintain their present PSRA and PSSA operations, but if no interference is caused, to potentially operate with much higher power during the transition hours. Everyone knows that skywave signals don’t just suddenly reach out the great distances that they do in the middle of the night. This petition looks at the actuality, and seeks to optimize the use of the available spectrum. The main points of the petition are:

• PSRA and PSSA power need not be limited to 500 Watts if no interference would be caused.
• Secondary (skywave) service areas of class A stations expand and contract from east to west with the transit of the sun. There is no need to protect a service area that either does not exist yet on the western edge of the area, or has ceased to exist because the sun is rising on the eastern edge of the area.
• Stations should be able to use their day, night, auxiliary or one tower of the array – whatever works best for PSRA and PSSA.

• Class B, and D stations should be able to operate with any power, up to the maximum of day or night station power during PSRA and PSSA so long as no interference is caused.

All station owners who have stations with anemic night signals should comment on this petition, as it could significantly increase your coverage during the critical hours when folks are getting out to work and coming home.

To make a comment is pretty easy – Read over the petition posted here. Note the proceeding number RM-11384 and go to the FCC’s Electronic Comment Filing System and make your thoughts known. Simply enter RM-11384 in the Proceeding box, then fill out your name, affiliation, address, etc. You can either type in your comments directly, or you can upload an MS Word, Wordperfect, or Adobe PDF file that is prepared offline. Comments are due by August 20th. (The FCC informs me that the ECFS system has a problem right now. If you want to read other folks’ comments, for the time being, you need to download the file and rename it so that it has a .pdf extension and you should be able to read it. Otherwise it should work fine 8/03/07)

If you think that this petition would benefit your stations, isn’t too complicated and protects the night coverage of other stations adequately, then you should make your thoughts known.

More details are available in a previous AMBAND.ORG article on the subject.

New York

Congress’ change to the dates for Daylight Savings Time has madePre-Sunrise authorizations more important than ever. Operation of daytime stations and fulltime stations with weak night power is seriously impacted. Daylight will come even later in the morning this March and next October and November, and for each year thereafter.

As I reported earlier, the FCC’s Pre-Sunrise and Post Sunset Authorization calculator is seriously broken, and won’t be fixed until at least next fall. The Commission has implemented a stopgap measure to patch the system for this spring for many stations, but it is pretty bad news for stations with no pre-sunrise authorizations at all.

I am filing a Petition for Rulemaking that proposes a more rational set of rules that will significantly increase expanded hours authorizations to permit all class B and D stations to operate during the transitional hours on a non-interference basis. Those stations now eligible for 500 Watt (or lower) PSRA operations under the current rules would still be eligible, but those stations that can run more power without interference could do so.

The petition calls for:

1. Stations could operate during expanded hours with any power, up to their licensed day, night or critical hours power, whichever is highest, that causes no interference to other stations.
2. Stations now eligible for PSRA and PSSA before 6 PM to take advantage of present limits.
3. PSRA authorizations with power over 500 Watts would specify power levels in 15 minute increments
4. Extend PSRA and PSSA eligibility to all class B and D stations. Many class B stations have service limitations ontheir night facility which would be relieved by being able to use the night antenna at greater power, or the day antenna for extended hours.
5. Define the intermittent service area of domestic Class A stations to be the actual location of the 0.5 mV/m 50% skywave contour as modified by the dinural curves. This means that the western end of a secondary service area does not exist until well after sunset, and the eastern end of the secondary service area disappears before sunrise. This will permit much more extensive PSRA or PSSA authorization for Class D stations on US clear channels
6. Permit flexibility in what antenna system is used for PSSA and PSRA. The FCC staff decided that class D stations using separate night antennas could use their authorized night antennas instead of the day antenna, which makes a lot of sense. In some cases, one element of a directional day antenna system, or the auxiliary antenna near the center of town makes more sense. Stations should be able to request which antenna they want to use for their PSRA and PSSA operation. The petition also asks the Commission to use a slightly different method for calculating radiation from directional antennas at low power. Scaling the “Q” value will effect the amount of power and sometimes the ability of a station to operate at all using PSSA and PSRA.
7. PSSA and PSRA which specify more than 500 Watts should also fully protect first adjacent channel domestic stations, which is not presently done.
8. The petition suggests that the additional complexity of PSSA and PSRA applications might cause an additional workload on the Staff which might be compensated by making the authorization request a minor change application.
9. The present PSSA and PSRA does not properly protect foreign class A stations. The procedure should include correct treatment of protection of these stations where their secondary service areas extend beyond national boundaries. The present scheme grossly overprotects some foreign stations.

Daytime broadcasters should review this proposal and make appropriate comments once the FCC’s ECFS has provided the proper rulemaking links.

This is the right time for the FCC to act, as the Commission must pay attention to the problems that the system has right now. Pre Sunrise Authorizations were initiated almost 50 years ago, before sophisticated computers and the FCC has patched it several times since. Updating the system to provide a rational expanded hours regime should be done now, instead of just fixing the clunky, antiquated system of regulation now in place.