[BC] Counterpoise Ground System

Wed Sep 20 13:22:53 CDT 2006

I think that too, but the FCC doesn't look at it that way. They don't
want to get involved in city and county codes regulations, and leave it
up to the licensee to figure that out.

At the FCC, I guess they figured you have approached stupid, local,
councilmen, zoning officials, etc, before you even applied for a CP to
build the tower and station.

Being a federal agency, it's high time the FCC gets a few employees off
their butts and start dealing with this issue. Yea, not in my back yard,
but when it comes to being their in an emergency, they want us (AM's)
there, cell phones working, etc.  Ladies and Gentlemen, this shows us
how stupid the public is!

I think more research should be done to manufacture antennas that would
get us the coverage we need with out so much tower and land. Ted Hart
proposed the e-h antenna, and in the beginning, I thought wow, here is
the answer. He tested it in his hometown at a local AM at the high end
of the dial.  He had a 20db loss in signal. There is still an
application out there for KYET in Williams, AZ to install and use the
e-h antenna for daytime only use. It still has been granted because Norm
Miller, nor anybody else up there in DC understands how it works.

Scott

-----Original Message-----
From: broadcast-bounces at radiolists.net
[mailto:broadcast-bounces at radiolists.net] On Behalf Of nakayle at gmail.com
Sent: Wednesday, September 20, 2006 1:09 PM
To: Broadcasters' Mailing List
Subject: Re: [BC] Counterpoise Ground System

Scott , I happen to think that the FCC should be the authority when it
comes
to what constitutes an acceptable antenna system for a federally
licensed
radio station and that their judgement should supersede ignorant local
politicians who don't know beans about broadcast antennas.

 - Nat

On 9/20/06, Bailey, Scott <sbailey at nespower.com> wrote:
>
> Nat,
>    My station in Gallatin, TN, when we got ready to replace my old
195'
> wind charger tower, codes came to me and want me to go down to 100'.
At
> the time, my knowledge of unipoles, was not good, and I was still
> learning about what top loading was. I told Jim Zobota (the codes guy)
> that I needed to be at least 150' to be almost right at 1/4 wave, and
> have the same efficiency I had before, and to meet FCC specs for the
> frequency I'm on. The City Council went along with what the 150' tower
> height, but lots of questions were thrown at me at the time, and were
> difficult for me to answer.
>    I'm on the high end of the band, 1560, and I discovered later a
100'
> tower with a decently built unipole would work. Actually, an 80' tower
> would work good for daytime use, but I have some Pre-Sunrise,
> Post-Sunset, and some flea power I use at night, and I was afraid of
the
> high angle radiation that the smaller radiator would cause.
>    If I was force to replace the 150' Pirod, Self Supporting tower I
> have, I probably would have to go with a Valcom or Kinstar. I know the
> Valcoms work o.k. but, the not convinced about the Kinstar yet, due to
I
> don't know of any stations using one, and another thing, it seems to
be
> a property/land hogger, something that city and county codes won't
like
> here at all!
>    I thought that when Tom King was developing the Kinstar, he would
> have taken into consideration about real estate and the price is
getting
> higher and higher, and developers want that land to build houses and
> businesses. I wished he would have come up with a way to do a
> counterpoise of some sort to shorten the radials to a certain degree,
> especially for us on the high end of the band. I've seen buildings
built
> over ground system, and I don't think that's a keen idea.
>    This was 1999. Today, Sumner County Codes are trying to stop any
> tower building at all, including for 2 way emergency use in the UHF
> band, with is really stupid. WQKR (1270), Portland, TN, was forced off
> their licensed tower site by property owner Larry Collins. I think he
> wanted the towers gone to use the land to expand a factory building
> nearby..
>    WQKR former owners went in front of City Codes for a new site
found,
> and were turned down. They then found a possible site location outside
> the City of Portland, in the county. Sumner County said...hell no, and
> asking why do you need 2 towers anyway?
>    Luckily, Portland, TN is near the county line, and they found a
site,
> just off I-65, near the Robertson County/Sumner County Line. The site
> was zoned in Robertson County. Two towers were erected and the 5 mv/m
> barely covered the city of Portland, but the consultant engineer made
it
> work.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: broadcast-bounces at radiolists.net
> [mailto:broadcast-bounces at radiolists.net] On Behalf Of
nakayle at gmail.com
> Sent: Wednesday, September 20, 2006 11:07 AM
> To: Broadcasters' Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [BC] Counterpoise Ground System
>
> Very interesting installation but I never have understood the logic of
> rooftop AM antennas.  Seems to me a ground mounted tower would work
> better
> and be so much easier to do.
>
> And I can't imagine even building a rooftop system now a days as
strict
> as
> zoning and building codes have become.  Now a days you're lucky if
they
> let
> you build a tower at all.
>
>   -Nat Kayle
>
> On 9/19/06, Bill Harms <wharms at philcobill.com> wrote:
> >
> > Scott:
> >
> >         Please check this out.  KSBN 1230 Spokane, Washington uses a
> > counter-
> > poise system that stretches across the streets and parking lots to
> > other buildings.  http://spokane.philcobill.com/kfio/tower.php
> >
> >
> _______________________________________________
>
>
>
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