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Post by kenglish on Mar 14, 2024 10:43:42 GMT -6
I thought I remembered something about a vertical antenna. I wonder if the ground connection is still intact. Maybe there is enough energy from the adjacent 1010 antenna, that it's reradiating the second-harmonic that should normally be filtered out within the transmitter. Or, maybe there's a mismatch somehow. I'm monitoring for signs of the intermittent RF mixing that occurs in that end of the valley, which usually only happens in acclimate weather, but only seeing the 2020 now. But, the hum is intermittent, and the strength changes intermittently.
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Post by kenglish on Mar 13, 2024 10:57:22 GMT -6
It was gone last night, and earlier this morning, but is back faintly now. I'm hearing it on an ICOM R8600 with a spectrum display, fed by a Wellbrook loop antenna. I wonder if it's only showing up on their daytime power, but not when they go to the night or Critical Hours (low) power. If KMRI is operating just for a few hours occasionally (to keep the license alive), they may be duplexed on to the KIHU-1010 tower, or maybe a long-wire antenna attached to it. Does it say in their latest filing? I can hear KIHU audio under the noise.
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Post by kenglish on Mar 12, 2024 11:26:07 GMT -6
Anybody else hearing a strong second-harmonic of 1010, with a huge hum, on 2020? Wonder if it's just the rain, or something else.
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Post by kenglish on Mar 11, 2024 12:18:03 GMT -6
I suspect many people will have severe overload/desense problems due to the FM channels up there. KBYU (89.1) is on Mount Vision, and KBEE (98.7) and KJMY (99.5) are just a few feet away, on the lower edge of Mount Nelson. I called Standard Supply, to see if they carry FM Trap filters, but they don't stock them. Here's a link to Channel Master: www.channelmaster.com/collections/splitters-combiners-filters
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Post by kenglish on Mar 11, 2024 9:16:47 GMT -6
The carrier at about 310 KHz above the lower edge of the channel is also called a pilot. It's purpose under ATSC 1.0 was to create a frequency reference, and a pilot carrier for AGC in the older tuners. I could see their pilot nice and solid, so I knew something was there (ones and zeros), but didn't have a way to try and decode it. I think that there are still plenty of VHF-capable antennas in areas that had translators before, so many folks still use them, with or without adding a UHF.
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Post by kenglish on Mar 10, 2024 10:15:54 GMT -6
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Post by kenglish on Mar 9, 2024 10:12:42 GMT -6
I see the signal in Midvale...just the pilot and some data. I haven't tried a receiver yet. Don't know why they wanted a low-VHF channel though. Nobody but TV DXers probably watching. Do you think they will send QSL cards😉?
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Post by kenglish on Feb 28, 2024 12:33:27 GMT -6
I was at the Tabernacle many years ago, during Conference, when (I think it was Westar-4) rolled. We lost service for twenty seconds. Many people said it seemed like hours. I immediately grabbed my address book, with the secret numbers, and called the Western Union TT&C center, and got the full story. They were doing their routine "Center-of-Box" ranging on their big uplink dish, and hit a dirty spot on the potentiometer. The dish swung away from the satellite, and the satellite rolled a bit, until it lost sight of the earth. Being a spin-stabilized bird, it took a few seconds to switch to the on-board earth sensor, then slowly rolled to find the earth, while the engineers got the big tracking dish back in service. I used a can of Planter's Peanuts and it's plastic lid to give a quick course in Satellite operations to a whole bunch of suits from the LDS church. All in all- it was a fairly normal failure, and all the backups worked as they were designed, so everybody was happy. It's nice to have contact with the engineers, rather than getting info from a help desk, sometimes.
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Post by kenglish on Feb 28, 2024 12:10:35 GMT -6
I wonder if we'll ever be told what exactly happened. Sounds like it only affected the Ka spot beams, but those are far more directional than the Ku beams. We'll have to see what happens over the next few days.
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Post by kenglish on Feb 28, 2024 12:00:38 GMT -6
K66FN was the channel that Willie Marshall won from the FCC lottery originally. He sold it to Azteca when he moved away. I remember when he first turned it on, operating from some shack out by Kennecott. His test source was an Atari video game, with the call sign and Willie's phone number, and "Prepare to Invade" across the bottom of the screen. Still never heard exactly why the FCC let Azteca keep two channels after moving to Farnsworth. They were two sections of the same transmitter, feeding the same antenna, and seemed to be a burden more than a help. Rarely had both channels up, usually with 39 running with only one or two amplifiers. 25 usually was barely working, and they had an air leak in the transmission line for years. I tried to convince Alex to have the whole thing rebuilt, and run on 25, with the two transmitters as a backup to each other. I think the Riverdale station was kept as the City of License for 39, and they kept a studio at Ogden and another in SLC. They made a few changes before Alex died, and got a couple of digital subchannels going. Later, his son decided not to pursue the the channel 9 thing.
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Post by kenglish on Feb 27, 2024 18:58:59 GMT -6
Major chaos across America today, as DirecTV seems to lose a satellite. Speculation is that the old satellite has died of old age. Even DirecTV didn't know what to say, claiming things like "a satellite positioning error". It's just the twice yearly "sun outage", as it's often called. It will happen at various times for the next few days, then be OK until next time. Just like always. Sadly, no old-timers were around to raise an eyebrow, Joe Spears style, and explain it with an Alabama drawl. ðŸ¤
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Post by kenglish on Feb 27, 2024 14:43:21 GMT -6
lowcountry34media.com/fcc-applicationsNot anything specific on this station, but it looks like they are on a selling spree, to Bridge Network and Grey Television. KSVN had transmitter problems for years. Which channel did they sell off recently? They, somehow, wound up with two channels on Farnsworth after the DTV changeover, but could never keep more than one working at a time. They gave one up in the repack, but I think they turned in the license on the other. (Wish it was possible to get to the FCC files with this phone. It used to be so easy to check things out, before they changed things.) As for the RF channels, KBYU-FM is on Mt. Vision, where they want to put the K03JD transmitter. That's putting an LP digital right next to the strongest FM analog that's up there. The other issue is, most "Digital" TV antennas are optimized for UHF. They perform very differently on UHF than VHF high-band, and very strangely on low-band. Amplified antennas are not well recommended in a place like Salt Lake
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Post by kenglish on Feb 27, 2024 11:17:25 GMT -6
That would explain why 90.1 had no tables on their HD signal yesterday. Are the channels labelled now?
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Post by kenglish on Feb 24, 2024 6:58:35 GMT -6
I was told that no one has seen a signal from K03JD ever. They are doing construction on Mt. Vision, though. Looks like they are being sold to Bridgenews/Newsnet. I have to wonder how well a low-power low-band VHF will be received off the mountain up there, with all that FM nearby, and everyone using "HDTV" antennas. Do they expect cable carriage?
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Post by kenglish on Feb 23, 2024 16:46:38 GMT -6
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