Re: 590 Re: Alex Beam column

[Dan Strassberg <dan.strassberg@worldnet.att.net>]

At 01:48 AM 6/6/99 -0400, you wrote:

>        In addition to WTMJ, Milwaukee, a big increase in a big market was
>KJR, 950 kHz, Seattle. It used to be 5 kW, DA-N. It was able to go up all
>the way to 50 kW, DA-N.

KJR is still using its old facilities although it did complete construction
of the new ones. It's a complicated story that I don't fully understand. The
Port of Seattle took the sites of three AMs, KJR, KKOL and one other that I
can't recall. I'm not sure whether the stations devised a plan to multiplex
with each other or whether they were planning to multiplex with other
stations, but KJR's power increase looked like a slam dunk. As it turns out,
it was no slam dunk because, after the new (50 kW DA-N--two towers nights)
facilities were constructed, I believe that the Port Authority took those too!

KJR now holds a CP to move to the KHHO (850) site just east of downtown
Tacoma, using a five tower array and running 50 kW DA-1. The pattern puts a
major lobe to the north over the Sound toward Seattle. The beam is wide
enough and the site is far enough south of Seattle that Seattle's eastern
suburbs will get a good signal, as will communities on the west side of the
Sound and north of Tacoma. Not much signal goes anywhere else, however. I
believe that KJR owns KHHO and that KHHO simulcasts KJR. KHHO runs 10 kW-D/1
kW-N DA-2. There are four towers at the site at present. KHHO's day pattern
is a two-tower cardioid aimed due south to protect an AM 850 in BC. So the
station does not cover Seattle at all, but puts a good daytime signal into
the state capital, Olympia, which is at the south end of Puget Sound. KHHO's
night pattern is a three-tower cardioid aimed west northwest, away from KOA.
It appears that diplexing KJR with KHHO will require adding two towers to
the site, one north of the current towers and one south. KJR's array will
consist of four towers not quite equally spaced more or less along a
north-south line and one tower to the west of that line. Three of the five
towers are ones already at the site. One is the tower that KHHO already uses
day and night. One is the tower that KHHO uses by day only, and the one that
isn't in line with the other four is one of the towers that KHHO uses only
at night.

There is a new AM 950 somewhere in Alaska, and one would think that station
might get creamed by KJR's new night signal. I don't know whether that has
anything to do with the situation, but I read in DX news that KJR's CE told
an NRC member that the new facilities would not be on the air for a couple
of years.

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Dan Strassberg (Note: Address is CASE SENSITIVE!)
ALL _LOWER_ CASE!!!--> dan.strassberg@worldnet.att.net
(617) 558-4205; Fax (617) 928-4205

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