Park City's boosters.

[dxstuboy]

Ugh. I've been up in PC for Sundance and have had some time to listen to the local radio and the boosters for CC stations. 94.1, 106.5 and 105.7 seem to all be fuzzy in and around town. Not fuzzy in the fact that they are fading or from line of sight problems, but fuzzy for another reason.

The regular frequencies on Farnsworth are just that much different that (at least on my radio) the boosters sound off, and fuzzy.

If the other rimshots can get away with it, why not CC? 103.1 doesn't sound off frequency in PC. I noticed this last summer too so its not a new problem. I just wonder if moving the booster to the hill in town would help, or just adjusting the frequency. I'm no engineer mind you.

Sorry if this sounds like a rant but its mainly because I've just been freezing my butt off at Sundance for the past few hours.

[Timmy]

I think 104.3 has one up there too. I think it's on 92.9 or .7, not sure... CJ can chime in. I know KSOP is proud of it and mentions it on-air quite often.

[dxstuboy]

The Bee has one up there too, 95.3. I was mainly talking about CC's boosters having problems. All other stations were operating normally.

[michaeljwyo]

Glad you mentioned this because I was going to. Last night I made a quick food run from Evanston down to Morgan and back. Was just dialing around seeing what there was to find and honestly none of the PC boosters seemed right. Then too this is I-84 we're talkin'....so yeah behind the hills and getting images I'm sure from the boosters' signals as well as the main signals. Honestly I think the boosters work better when you are more shielded from the main transmitters. I am pretty sure the boosters are all on Lewis Peak which is above Coalville and overlooks that valley, but is also visible on the other side of Silver Creek Canyon in the Park City area. My wife is a die-hard 97.1 ZHT listener. I have a roof antenna and a Sony HD radio at home and she uses it to listen to 97.1 every day. So of course that is where the radio is tuned when we're in the car headed out to SLC or something. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but when I can see Lewis Peak right to our right when we're on I-80, shouldn't the station be loud and clear and damn-near perfect??? It's not, but shouldn't it be? If not, then why isn't it? Are these boosters just too close to the mains? Is too much signal from the mains getting over this way? I'm sorry but I don't feel the boosters are doing their job and instead all you have is a mess. The humpy boosters aren't like that. Each and every one of them is crystal clear down along the wasatch front....but again like I said most of the wasatch front is pretty well shielded from Humpy and once you go through a canyon and you're picking up the main signals from Humpy, you're not picking up the boosters anymore....so for Humpy it works.
So......what gives?

Michael n Wyo

[dxstuboy]

Well at first I thought it was just a directional antenna causing the signal from the booster to be forwarded in a particular direction, but looking at the coverage map:
www.radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/pat?call=KZHT-1&service=FB&status=L&hours=U it seems that they use omnidirectional antennas. I agree Michael, I think they should consider moving the boosters to a place where there is further terrain shadow from Farnsworth. Looking on Google Earth, Lewis Peak is LOS to Farnsworth. Me thinks the boosters are fighting it out with the mains in PC.

[michaeljwyo]

You know there's something else that might have some bearing on this too....and that is the HD. What signal are the boosters picking up? Are maybe the boosters picking up the hash (not as bad as AM, but there is buzz on the sides of the channel) and trying to re-broadcast it too? Again with the Humpies, none of them are HD. Honestly I don't see them EVER being HD. You've have to HD-ize each booster.....hmmmmm......AND HD-ize the main. And depending on the method (digital data circuit I believe) of GETTING just the 2 channels of audio from SLC to Humpy, how would you get the rest of the data information (song titles, HD-2 channels...etc) ?? So you've have to be sending ALL that junk to the main on Humpy as well as the boosters. It bothers me enough as it is that they DO send RDS data to the boosters but don't send it to the mains on Humpy. When I'm in Utah I get RDS on several of the Humpy stations.....you guys down there already know that I'm sure.....well they ain't sending it this way to the mains. But I digress....
Is it possible the boosters are picking up hash and trying to re-broadcast it? Is it also possible that the digital buzz from the main signal is clashing with the buzz-less signal from the boosters???

Michael n Wyo

[dxstuboy]

All good possibilities Michael. I just don't have the engineering experience to pinpoint what it may be. I agree with the RDS problem on the mains. I can receive KJQN in Green River on occasion and my dad's truck has RDS, but no whiff of anything from any Humpy. Here in SLC, the boosters display the station name and title and artist. They actually do a good job with it too, better than some other locals.

Seeing as how the FCC just allowed stations to increase their HD signal, this problem will likely persist, since CC seems to have a love affair with HD Radio.

[Timmy]

Is it because maybe those boosters aren't time-sync'd correctly with the main? I recall reading a techy article about the humpy systems and how they are all digitally controlled over a network and use gps to adjust their delay and timing so that moving from one booster to another is seamless, even when there is some overlap. I don't know much about all that, but if the boosters and the mains weren't sync'd properly, they would indeed sound strange when overlapping or swapping.

[CAwasinNJ]

Jan 30, 2010 9:14:53 GMT -6 Timmy said:

Is it because maybe those boosters aren't time-sync'd correctly with the main? I recall reading a techy article about the humpy systems and how they are all digitally controlled over a network and use gps to adjust their delay and timing so that moving from one booster to another is seamless, even when there is some overlap.

This one?

www.rwonline.com/article/85002

[Timmy]

That's the one, CA. Sounds really neat! But do you think that the mains and boosters aren't sync'd makes them sound "off"?

[CAwasinNJ]

Jan 31, 2010 15:18:46 GMT -6 Timmy said:

That's the one, CA. Sounds really neat! But do you think that the mains and boosters aren't sync'd makes them sound "off"?

I don't think so. FM signals only change their frequencies to modulate the signal, so there can't be destructive interference. AM signals maybe, but not FM.

[Timmy]

Oh, I was more speaking about time-based delay/syncing. If the main is playing a song and it's at 2:32.00 and the booster is playing it at 2:32.50 due to transmission delays, that would sure make things sound strange if I was getting both signals in my car. Perhaps the timing I used here is exaggerated, but am I even on the right path?

[dxstuboy]

I suspected a timing problem too but it also may be something else as it was considerably scratchy. I was hearing a slight delay, but that just may be my radio being itself. The scratchy signal practically LOS with the booster is what I was wondering about.

[CAwasinNJ]

It really shouldn't. FM has what's called the "capture effect". That's what makes boosters feasible. What happens is that if there are two signals on the same frequency the radio only sees the stronger signal and rejects the weaker one. The only time you should hear two different signals is if they are at the same strength and even then if they were out of sync you'd just hear the same thing twice in a short period of time, like what DX was referring to in that last post. (KUDD has been particularly bad about that in the past, but I haven't paid enough attention recently to know if they still are.)

If anyone wants to record a sample and post it then maybe we can put our heads together and see if we can figure it out.

[dxstuboy]

Next time I am up in PC, I'll bring a recorder. I can tell you exactly where it happens down to the street.

maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=40.65478,-111.509063&spn=0.001669,0.004136&t=h&z=18

On Google Earth, if I pan around right, I can tell this spot is LOS with Lewis Peak. To the direct west is Park City Mtn Resort.