One of our clients needs to move to another transmitter site because their lease is expiring at the old site. We have been working on this for several months now. One of the nice features of this project is the panel antenna.
This is installed in a 2-bay 3-around configuration. I don’t see this particular model in the Kathrein catalog anymore, but there are other cross-polarized panel antennas available from them.
There are many existing services on this tower including two full-power FM stations, a translator, a VHF TV station, numerous cell carriers, etc. Once the installation is done we will have to check carefully for intermodulation.
Winter in the Northeast; there was just enough snow and slush on the access road that the truck could not make it to the top of the hill. This track machine works great. We have added a Polaris Ranger 900 to our inventory (not this machine) for winter access to several of the more difficult transmitter sites. While I do enjoy the occasional walk in the snow, the key word here is occasional.
The three stations are combined into the panel antenna with this rather nice American Amplifier Technologies C-IR-3-3-30K-N branch combiner.
The input filters needed a slight adjustment to compensate for the difference between the test load they were tuned to and the actual antenna load they will be running into
Two of the transmitters are Broadcast Electronics STX-10 units. We have had good service from the STX-10 which was installed on Mount Beacon a few years ago.
We are waiting for the Comrex Bric Link III to come back from the factory after their firmware update. They are to be used for the STL. Once they are returned, we should be good to go for site turn-up.
You get to do all the cool stuff…
Scott, there are good days and bad days…
It’s too bad, because of the downgrade those stations are going to have overall once they move. Their old location was fantastic. I’ve heard one here (15 miles east of Providence) on several occasions during summer “FM enhancement”. Have any pictures of the existing transmitters? I’ve seen the posts with the antennas but never the actual transmitters.
Mike, signal wise you are correct. The new location will not have as far of a reach as the old one. However, it does cover the sales area and then some. The problem with the old location (without getting too specific) was that the owner of the new tower and building at that location was not amenable to a lease renewal. As the current lease is running out at the end of this year, it was time to make a move or go off the air.
As far as the inside of the old site, I don’t have any pictures with good reason. I will do my best to describe it; there was a partially stripped-out carcass of a BE FM3.5B transmitter, a rack, a Harris HT3.5 transmitter, and another rack jammed in next to the door. In order to get behind the racks, the door had to be closed. On top of the Harris transmitter and Nautel 2. VS transmitter sat, which was the main transmitter for one of the stations. Above that was the ERI combiner suspended in the ceiling. It was also difficult to get to.
I believe that looks like GPK near Castleton, VT. I used to pull a transmitter shift up there many moons ago when it was VT ETV. A RCA TTU-2A with TWT’s for the IPA. You can still see the anchors for the windmill back in the 30’s & 40’s up top. It lost one of it’s blades one night and cut a swath down the mountain! Good times! I think the two stations are better off on GPK than on Killington. There was a significant amount of multipath over the city of license and with an FM station almost on every city block, people don’t need to DX anymore.
Dave, you are correct. There is a picture and a history file of the windmill on the first floor outside of the bathroom. Interesting read.
I also compared the two sites; the old site is about 2600 HAAT while the new one is 1335 HAAT. The old site covered better to the east, with the 60 dBu contour making it to Lebanon NH. The new site covers better to the west, almost making it to Glens Falls NY which aligns better with the station owner’s sales area.
The windmill story is pretty interesting and this location is not that difficult to track down. Recommended reading if you want to do a bit of sleuthing.
You don’t see many of those panels in the US. Kathrein is bigger in Europe. (They have some very nice installs there. I saw one in Austria and one in Hungary.). Funny that one of the only other multi station K antennas I can think of off the top of my head in the US , is the 93.3/107.3 down in Ulster County. They’re nice antennas, I wonder with Shively not being Shively anymore, if Kathrein’s share in the US will get larger.