KTUB on air from a temporary site?

[CAwasinNJ]

While checking the status of KDYL for Ken in another thread I checked on the status of other silent AMs and found that apparently KTUB applied for and was granted special temporary authority for 10 watts from a whip antenna located at the Seventh Day Adventist Church next to the Mountain America Credit Union on 9000 S in West Jordan.  (The FCC apparently doesn't think engineering STAs are worth including in their daily reports.  Thanks FCC.)

There are a couple of interesting things in their filing.  Of immediate interest is that they state they resumed operation on Oct 16, almost a year after going silent.  Their contour projection shows they should be audible in the Kerns/Sandy/Riverton area.  Can anyone in that area confirm hearing anything?

They also say that there are 4 possible sites they're looking at for a new permanent site.  They don't say what those are, but that there are that many I find intriguing.  Lack of land space for AM sites has been an ongoing topic for a while.  Could there be space for a new site or are these sites all multiplexing on existing sites?  I'm going to be very interested to see where they end up.  I couldn't even guess where that might be.

[kenglish]

I'm hearing them faintly, at Midvale. They just finished a program about neutraceutals, and are now running some religious talk

[CAwasinNJ]

That's really interesting that they aren't running the Juan format. Is it possible that you were hearing a distant station and not KTUB?

[kenglish]

They gave a full Legal ID, with call sign (though it was at the quarter hour).
Sounded a bit like they didn't really have a specific format.

[seattlefollower]

"Juan" has a rather unique format at this point -
It has some content from TUDN Deportes Radio, though some was moved to KBMG-FM in the early morning hours after the transmitter situation.
Weekends and evenings are largely the "Juan" 'tocando todo que le gusta' (playing everything you like) format, but daytimes are kind of a mix of things.

Mornings are the TUDN provided content,
"Buenos Dias America" and "El Tiradero"
Middays are a mix of local programming and Juan, including a radio classifieds show from 12-1 pm (I am not sure if this is presently going with the transmission change)
1-2 pm is Andres Gutierrez (financial advice)
2-3 pm is the very popular Dr. Cesar Lozano, who seems to give inspirational / motivational speeches
4 pm resumes sports content with a variety show, but generally a soccer focus - Fantasticos del deporte
5 pm used to be a local sports show, but I don't think that's continued with the tower loss
6 pm is Futbol de Primera, another syndicated sports show focused on soccer.

[Terry]

From here at east Murray, (formerly known as Cottonwood) I’m hearing something on 1600 that is in English. It’s a very weak signal, but it sounds like an infomercial for some brain drug. There was a very brief interruption at 8 minutes past for what might have been a station ID, in Spanish. It wasn’t clear enough for me to understand it. Earlier today, and also yesterday, I heard lengthy religious programming, in English. It’s coming from the direction of Riverton.

[dspete]

I live here by the church on 90th so I had to go see if they do have a wire antenna set up but I'm seeing nothing on roof or any kind of make shift setup on ground like you would see with a short wave pole.

[CAwasinNJ]

If you look at page 5 of the STA document here you'll see exactly where they say it is.  I wonder if they're actually using that tree.  It looks like it could be about 20 feet tall.

[amanuensis]

I live in West Jordan and yesterday I spent a few minutes in the parking lot of the Seventh Day Adventist Church (which the transmission equipment is located) and I couldn't see anything in the trees or elsewhere. I have no doubt that the signal is coming from there, somewhere, because the ONLY place in WJ where I have heard 1600 without static is in that parking lot. An INCREDIBLY weak signal.

The station IDed twice. Once at 5 till the top of the hour, breaking into the programming, and once at the top between programs. The station IDs were done by different people, a man and a woman. Nothing Spanish about either ID, or any branding. I had forgotten that the COL is Centerville. Does the STA also give them permission to temporarily not serve their COL?

There is no way that the signal strength map that CAwasinNJ linked to is accurate. Just a mile away from the church and the signal is almost inaudible, at least with my car's radio. There are lots of power lines running along 90th South, which of course don't help. I wonder if the reason that I could not see the antenna is because it is not currently extended. Maybe it has fallen and can't get back up. That could explain why I literally had to be in the church's parking lot to get a good signal.

The program leading up to the top of the hour was a minister with some kind of credentials in health care talking about good nutrition as a way of preventing dementia. After the top of the hour, the same minister was speaking about why it is unhealthy to give kids candy bars. Totally in English. I assume that the minister is affiliated with the Seventh Day Adventist Church, which has a focus on healthy eating. www.healthline.com/nutrition/seventh-day-adventist-diet

[CAwasinNJ]

The guidelines for STA's are here: www.fcc.gov/media/radio/special-temporary-authority

It does say that the STA facility must provide service to the licensed community, however the definition of "community" in FCC parlance isn't necessarily the dictionary definition. The best example is public interest programming. It's well established that public interest programming isn't limited to the community listed on the license. Anything in the general area will do, which is fortunate for clusters so they can run the same public affairs programming on multiple stations with different COLs. The STA request specifically says that it will allow them to resume service to the community and the surrounding area. That signal isn't even theoretically going to get anywhere near Centerville, but it does cover part of the area that was covered by the licensed signal. Apparently that's good enough for the FCC. But speaking of that....

Coverage area maps in general are largely theoretical in nature and the STA contour map even basically says so. Sometimes stations get out much better than the math says they should (like the Lake Mountain stations) and sometimes it's much worse. The STA application says it has a ground system, but I have to wonder about the efficiency of a non-permanent ground system like that. In any case I doubt Alpha really cares. At this point they probably don't care much about who can hear the station or even what it's broadcasting. The most important thing is to protect the license so when they have a new site they'll have something to build there.

[Paul B. Walker, Jr.]

Jan 14, 2024 22:29:18 GMT -7 CAwasinNJ said:

The guidelines for STA's are here: www.fcc.gov/media/radio/special-temporary-authority

It does say that the STA facility must provide service to the licensed community, however the definition of "community" in FCC parlance isn't necessarily the dictionary definition. The best example is public interest programming. It's well established that public interest programming isn't limited to the community listed on the license. Anything in the general area will do, which is fortunate for clusters so they can run the same public affairs programming on multiple stations with different COLs. The STA request specifically says that it will allow them to resume service to the community and the surrounding area. That signal isn't even theoretically going to get anywhere near Centerville, but it does cover part of the area that was covered by the licensed signal. Apparently that's good enough for the FCC. But speaking of that....

Coverage area maps in general are largely theoretical in nature and the STA contour map even basically says so. Sometimes stations get out much better than the math says they should (like the Lake Mountain stations) and sometimes it's much worse. The STA application says it has a ground system, but I have to wonder about the efficiency of a non-permanent ground system like that. In any case I doubt Alpha really cares. At this point they probably don't care much about who can hear the station or even what it's broadcasting. The most important thing is to protect the license so when they have a new site they'll have something to build there.

you contradict yourself there.. when the FCC says "provide service to the licensed community".. thats exactly what they mean, the licensed community.  

Theres no coverage requirements in an STa, unlike  a regular license which says you must provide x amount of signal level to your entire community of license.

Your STA coverage can't extend beyond the main contour of your licensed contour.

There's zero requirement, as far as i know, for a ground system with an STA, but having one, even a basic one is a good idea. Even one coppyer strap from the transmitter buried into the ground is better then nothing.  But says 6-12  going out and buried are even betterm and old hat/easy for an expeirienced engineer.


Nothing about programming is really invovled in the STA, most regular rules still apply. .so whatever programming the ywere runnign before, as long as it met the minimum, loose FCC rules, it's fine.

My name and signature has actualyl been on STA paperwork before for an AM station, so I've been through 

[CAwasinNJ]

Jan 20, 2024 15:56:32 GMT -7 Paul B. Walker, Jr. said:

you contradict yourself there.. when the FCC says "provide service to the licensed community".. thats exactly what they mean, the licensed community.

When the FCC says to provide service to the licensed community they don't mean service SPECIFIC to the licensed community. In other words, the "public interest, convenience and necessity" doesn't have to involve the community listed on the license. It could, but it isn't required. As long as the station broadcasts programming that meets the public interest criteria and is in some way relevant to listeners in the general area that's fine. Besides the cluster example I already gave, you can take a look at KSL. KSL-FM is licensed to Midvale. How often is there a topic of discussion about something that's happening in Midvale? About as much as any other comparable city along the Wasatch Front. That's not a problem because pretty much all they do is cover topics of interest to listeners in the area. IMO specific public interest coverage of the COL should be required, but that's not how it is. The COL is an FCC fiction and that's not likely to change.

[oldiesfunhouse]

I haven't heard them in several years, but my memory tells me that KALL 700, which is licensed to North Salt Lake, Used to have maybe a one or two minute community calendar of sorts that they ran about events specific to North Salt Lake. I assumed that this was to fill the requirement that Paul was talking about. That's the only instance in my memory where a station did something SPECIFICALLY geared towards their community of license. KIQN was licensed to Tooele, and I don't even think you could hear them there at night. That's KIHU now. I don't know if their COL is still Tooele, or if it got changed.

[Paul B. Walker, Jr.]

Jan 23, 2024 8:54:22 GMT -7 oldiesfunhouse said:

I haven't heard them in several years, but my memory tells me that KALL 700, which is licensed to North Salt Lake, Used to have maybe a one or two minute community calendar of sorts that they ran about events specific to North Salt Lake. I assumed that this was to fill the requirement that Paul was talking about. That's the only instance in my memory where a station did something SPECIFICALLY geared towards their community of license. KIQN was licensed to Tooele, and I don't even think you could hear them there at night. That's KIHU now. I don't know if their COL is still Tooele, or if it got changed.

KIHU is still licensed to Tooele, and as a Class D.. there's no night time coverage requirements of your COL

[Paul B. Walker, Jr.]

Jan 21, 2024 5:47:18 GMT -7 CAwasinNJ said:

Jan 20, 2024 15:56:32 GMT -7 paulbwalkerjr said:

you contradict yourself there.. when the FCC says "provide service to the licensed community".. thats exactly what they mean, the licensed community.

When the FCC says to provide service to the licensed community they don't mean service SPECIFIC to the licensed community. In other words, the "public interest, convenience and necessity" doesn't have to involve the community listed on the license. It could, but it isn't required. As long as the station broadcasts programming that meets the public interest criteria and is in some way relevant to listeners in the general area that's fine. Besides the cluster example I already gave, you can take a look at KSL. KSL-FM is licensed to Midvale. How often is there a topic of discussion about something that's happening in Midvale? About as much as any other comparable city along the Wasatch Front. That's not a problem because pretty much all they do is cover topics of interest to listeners in the area. IMO specific public interest coverage of the COL should be required, but that's not how it is. The COL is an FCC fiction and that's not likely to change.

Public interest coveragre of the COL is such an outdatred out modded method of thinking. Theres so much more going on now, these communities have grown.

I can think of a number of places elsewhere that the city of license was reall a distinct place 40-50 years ago when the station was licensed.. but its glommed on to the nearest big city and isnt much different than it these days

I'm even ok with doing away with the legal id requirement.. the only people who care are some radio nerds and the FCC.

Go listen to Australian or UK radio stations, they dont use their calls or COL.

Let US stations ID their station via RDS or FSAK (FSK only being allowd for translators now, not full pwoers)