AM – Page 16 – Engineering Radio

WKNY, Kingston, NY

This is another one of those, ahem, AM success stories. WKNY is on 1490 KHz, 1,000 Watts day and night from a transmitter site that is located very close to its target audience of Kingston. It signed on on December 16, 1939, broadcasting 100 watts on 1500 kHz according to the Broadcasting Yearbook 1940 edition.

The transmitter location is the key to this station’s good signal over Kingston. Even though it is a class C AM station when driving around the Kingston city limits there is no electrical interference or nighttime co-channel interference. The reason for this is that most of the city limits are within 2.5 to 3 miles (4 to 4.8 km) from the tower.

This is the original transmitter building and tower. Like many old AM transmitter sites, this one is located in a low, swampy area. The tower is electrically tall for 1490 KHz, at 92 meters (305 feet) it is 163 electrical degrees. Something else that may contribute to the station’s performance.

WKNY tower, a typical design of a uniform cross-section guyed tower from the late 1930s to late 1950s.

WKNY transmitter. Another Nautel ND-1 series transmitter. Nothing ever breaks or goes wrong.

The air studio has an AudioArts R-60 console. For an inexpensive audio console, these things sure seem to last for a long time. I think this one was put in in 1997.

A small talk studio is used to originate local programming of interest. This morning, I was listening to “Speak Out With Jody McTague,” a local interest program that was discussing the impacts being felt in the Kingston area due to the “Affordable Health Care Act.”

The production studio has a rather old Harris rotary pot console from the 1980’s.

Of course, all of this equipment makes radio transmission possible, but what makes radio itself is the local people working at the station and bringing relevant information to the area. I know a lot of very smart people are working on the “solution” to the AM problem. It really has to do with the programming.

Happiness is: An AM directional array at licensed values

Last week I did some repair work at WDDY in Albany NY. It seems the sample line on one of the towers was melted in half by a lightning strike. This station uses sample loops up on the tower for its directional antenna monitoring system.

As it happened, the sample line in question was on the reference tower, which makes everything else meaningless. Before the meltdown, there were several years’ worth of maintenance logs that showed the previous values for current ratio and phase relationship.

With the transmitter turned off and locked out, I removed the damaged section of the line from the base of the tower to the RF choke coil in the tuning house. Where the sample line came off of the base of the tower, there was a UHF-type connector that had been improperly applied. Using spare parts, I fixed that connector, then spliced the line into place. Upon power-up, the transmitter and antenna readings returned to their previous values, which were slightly out of tolerance.

Thus, some phasor tuning was needed. There are not too many people left that can properly tune an AM phasor. All of the control interact with each other; moving the power or phase to one tower will likely affect all of the other towers and possibly the reflected power on the transmitter. This phasor was made in the 1970s by Multronics with what looks like all RCA parts. Multronics, I think, was John Mullaney who is more known for the folded unipole antenna. In any case, after a good few hours of careful hand cranking and a run out to the reference tower to move a coil tap, here are the results:

Not bad for a day’s work.

The FCC: Spectrum management in the public interest

Alternative title: Who will really benefit from all digital AM HD Radio™?

Remember when, at license renewal time, radio and TV stations played this announcement:

On (date of the last renewal grant), (station’s call letters) was granted a license by the Federal Communications Commission to serve the public interest as a public trustee until (license expiration date)…

Emphasis mine.

There seems to be a disassociation between those words and the actions of certain broadcasters who view their licenses as a matter of fact and have little regard for the public interest. The FCC exacerbates the situation with the attitude that everything, including the entire radio frequency spectrum, is for sale to the highest bidder. John Anderson (DIY Media) has a great article on how big business interests game federal regulators into doing what they want. This happens in all sectors; banking, agriculture, energy, health care, media, military and so on. There are many examples of shoddy regulators and big business gone wild over the last ten years to fully prove this theory. If you don’t believe me, do a little research. There is no reason to think that the FCC is different from any other federal regulatory agency.

The vast majority of mass media outlets in the US are owned by just six major corporations (see below). Radio remains the only piece of the mass media system that has not been completely rolled up in consolidation. Currently, there is a small number corporate radio owners who own a combined ~2,300 stations and one public broadcasting network that accounts for another ~900 stations. I include public radio here because the majority of those station’s upgrades were footed by the taxpayer though grants from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. That leaves a majority of the approximately 8,500 radio stations that are still owned by a diversified collection of medium and small groups and individuals.

Forcing radio stations to adopt the proprietary, all digital HD Radio™ as the broadcasting standard would, in effect, drive many of those small owners and individuals out of business because of the exorbitant costs for equipment upgrades, antenna modifications, and licensing fees. This would create a new wave of consolidation as smaller groups and single station owners sold out. Any remaining small station owners will not have the legal wherewithal to fight against the coming waves of digital interference on both the AM (medium frequency) and FM (VHF) bands.

Therefore, the short answer to the question; who benefits from an all conversion to all digital HD Radio™ is iBquity and its investors, many of whom are found in the list of consolidated media corporations below. Who looses? Just about everyone else; small and medium group owners, independent radio owners, listeners, communities of license, radio employees, advertisers etc. For those sitting on the fence, thinking “I’ll just do my job any everything will be just fine.” Full implementation of HD Radio™ will destroy what is left of broadcasting in this country. Radio is already on shaky ground as a result of product dilution, staff cuts, mediocre programing and competing media systems. One more step backward, such as adopting a technically flawed digital system that works worse than its analog counterpart, and the remaining listeners may just say “screw this,” and abandon radio altogether. When the last radio station is turned off, what do you think will happen to your job then?

At the big NAB Las Vegas confab, FCC commissioner Ajit Pai and to a lesser extent, Commissioner Rosenworcel, encouraged people to write or email them with their ideas on how to revitalize AM radio. I suggest we take advantage of that invitation and tell them what HD Radio™ really is. There is a shrinking window of opportunity to join the discourse and be heard, now is the time.

Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion. Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing. ~John Stuart Mill

What is at stake? The future of diversified media and radio broadcasting in the US.

Sidebar: Mass Media Consolidation

Can the public trust a mass media that is owned mostly by six mega corporations to honestly and without bias report news, current events, investigate corruption, and be a government watch dog? History says no.

Who owns the media?

Time Warner

Home Box Office (HBO)
Time Inc.
Turner Broadcasting System, Inc.
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
CW Network (partial ownership)
TMZ
New Line Cinema
~~Time Warner Cable~~ (spun off in 2009)
Cinemax
Cartoon Network
TBS
TNT
CNN
HLN
MapQuest
Moviefone
Castle Rock
Sports Illustrated
Fortune
Marie Claire
People Magazine

Walt Disney

ABC Television Network (8 stations owned, 200 affiliates)
Disney Publishing
ESPN Inc.
Disney Channel
Radio Disney (31 stations, 2 affiliates)
SOAPnet
A&E
Lifetime
Buena Vista Home Entertainment
Buena Vista Theatrical Productions
Buena Vista Records
Disney Records
Hollywood Records
Miramax Films
Touchstone Pictures
Walt Disney Pictures
Pixar Animation Studios
Buena Vista Games
Hyperion Books

Viacom

Paramount Pictures
Paramount Home Entertainment
Black Entertainment Television (BET)
Comedy Central
Country Music Television (CMT)
Logo
MTV
MTV Canada
MTV2
Nick Magazine
Nick at Nite
Nick Jr.
Nickelodeon
Noggin
Spike TV
The Movie Channel
TV Land
VH1

News Corporation

Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Fox Television Stations (25 stations)
The New York Post
Fox Searchlight Pictures
Beliefnet
Fox Business Network
Fox Kids Europe
Fox News Channel
Fox News Radio
Fox Sports Net
Fox Television Network (175 affiliates)
FX
My Network TV
MySpace
News Limited News
Phoenix InfoNews Channel
Phoenix Movies Channel
Sky PerfecTV
Speed Channel
STAR TV India
STAR TV Taiwan
STAR World
Times Higher Education Supplement Magazine
Times Literary Supplement Magazine
Times of London
20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
20th Century Fox International
20th Century Fox Studios
20th Century Fox Television
BSkyB
DIRECTV
The Wall Street Journal
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Interactive Media
FOXTEL
HarperCollins Publishers
The National Geographic Channel
National Rugby League
News Interactive
News Outdoor
Radio Veronica
ReganBooks
Sky Italia
Sky Radio Denmark
Sky Radio Germany
Sky Radio Netherlands
STAR
Zondervan

CBS Corporation

CBS News
CBS Sports
CBS Television Network (16 stations owned, 200 affiliates)
CNET
Showtime
TV.com
CBS Radio Inc. (130 stations)
CBS Consumer Products
CBS Outdoor
CW Network (50% ownership)
Simon & Schuster (Pocket Books, Scribner)

NBC Universal

Bravo
CNBC
NBC News
MSNBC
NBC Sports
NBC Television Network (10 stations owned, 200 affiliates)
Oxygen
SciFi Magazine
Syfy (Sci Fi Channel)
Telemundo
USA Network
Weather Channel
Focus Features
NBC Universal Television Distribution
NBC Universal Television Studio
Paxson Communications (partial ownership)
Trio
Universal Parks & Resorts
Universal Pictures
Universal Studio Home Video

Large and medium group radio owners:

Bain Capital Partners, LLC Thomas H Lee Partners, LLC

Clear Channel Outdoor
Clear Channel Broadcasting (800 stations)
Premier Radio Networks
Radio Computer Services (RCS)

Cumulus Media (public)

Cumulus Broadcasting (550 stations)
Cumulus networks (formerly ABC Radio networks)
Broadcast Software International

Townsquare Media (220 stations)

Entercom (109 stations)

Salem Communications (97 stations)

Saga Communications (88 stations)

Univision (69 radio, 42 television stations)

Radio one (69 stations)

Family Broadcasting (63 stations)

Beasley Broadcast Group (47 stations)

Moody Radio (36 stations)

Suppression of ideas

I found this video called Empire of Noise about broadcast radio jamming. It seems to be about ten years old and is a post-cold War documentary about the jamming of radio signals by the USSR, Warsaw Pact counties, and China. It is an interesting look into the extent and expense that governments will go to suppress counter thoughts and ideas.

The video is quite long, and there are stretches of jamming noise that can be annoying, but perhaps that is the point. It is worth the time if interested in history and radio broadcasting. You know what they say about history; those that do not understand history are destined to repeat it.

A few of the highlights:

The former Soviet Union had the most extensive jamming network of anyone on Earth. There were groundwave jamming centers in eighty-one Soviet cities which consisted of approximately 10-15 transmitters each in the 5 KW covering the medium and shortwave frequencies.
Each groundwave jamming station consisted of a transmitter site and a receiver/control site. The receiver site possessed lists of frequencies to monitor, when objectionable material was heard, the jamming transmitters were turned on.
There was a skywave jamming network consisting of 13 jamming stations with 10 or more 100-200 KW transmitters in each. There were some transmitters in the 1,000 KW power range. These were located in Krasnodar, Lvov, Nikolaev, Yerevan, Alma-Ata, Grigoriopol, Sovieck, Novosibrisk, Tashkent, Khanbarovsk, Servdlosk and Moscow (some of these names may have changed). These operated in a similar fashion to the groundwave jammers.
After the sign-off of government stations, Soviet jammers sent a blanketing signal on the IF frequency (most likely 455 KHz) of receivers to effectively block them from receiving any station while USSR government stations were off the air.
Baltic states had 11 jamming stations with approximately 140 transmitters
Ukraine had approximately 300 Jamming transmitters.
Warsaw Pact countries had extensive medium-frequency jamming networks.
It is estimated it takes about 20 times the transmitted power to jam any one signal.

The entire jamming network was hugely expensive to equip and operate, costing several tens of millions of dollars per year.

It is interesting that the US position in all of this was:

Everyone has the right to seek, receive and impart information through any media and regardless of frontiers. Jamming of radio broadcasts is condemned as the denial of the right of persons to be fully informed concerning news, opinions and ideas.

Sounds perfectly reasonable. The free exchange of ideas and information over the internet is something that should be guarded carefully and should not be restricted or censored. Perhaps somebody should inform Congress.