Re: 590 Re: Alex Beam column

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

At 12:35 AM 6/8/99 -0400, you wrote:
>At 08:34 PM 6/6/99 +0000, Dan Strassberg wrote:
>o!
>>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.
>
>Is this a recent development?  I lived in King County north of Seattle in
>the mid 70s when 850 was KTAC, and they had a reasonably listenable signal
>day and night.
>
No, I don't think there has been any significant change in the operation of
the 850 in Tacoma in quite a few years. I'm not sure where the BC station
is, but I remember that when I visited Seattle and the Olympic Peninsula in
1979, KTAC was virtually inaudble in Seattle but was quite audible on the
other side of the Sound. I assumed at the time that the day pattern had a
very narrow null and that we had been driving in and out of it. Looking at
the patterns on John Kodis' Web site, I see that that just isn't the case.
(At least is isn't the casr now; I suppose the 850 setup could have changed
in 20 years.) So now I wonder whether I had tried to listen to 850 in
Seattle during the day but listened on the west side of the Sound at night.

I don't recall KHHO's effective field to the north during the day. I'm
guessing that it's equivalent to a few hundred watts. If your QTH in
northern King County was a relatively clear shot across salt water, you
could have picked up the Tacoma station pretty sell, I'd guess. But the
eccentricities of the soil conductivity in the area surrounding Puget Sound
are legendary. In a lot of places, even if you're not in a null, the signals
go to hell pretty quickly as you move away from the water.

And then, there are those really funky directional patterns. For example,
770 and 1090 share a site which I think is on Vashon Island, west of
Seattle. Both stations are directionalized mainly to the northwest (at least
at night). The major population on the east side of the Sound is in minor
lobes "behind" the patterns. The signals reach these areas over salt water,
however, so the signals are not bad. But there you have two 50 kW stations
(770 is 5 kw at night) that push signal _away_ from the COL and send the
equivalent of 2 or 3 kW over the COL.

Was 820 KGNW (licensed to Burien) on the air when you lived in King County?
If you lived anywhere near the 820 TX, I would think it would have made 850
very hard to receive, at least during the day, when 820 is 50 kW and 850 is
directionalized to the south; 820 is 5 kW at night. During my last trip to
Seattle, in 1993, 820 had a killer signal wherever I went, even at night. I
don't recall where the 820 TX is, but it must be in a pretty good location.
The other Seattle-area 50 kW (10 kW-N) whose TX seems to be in a good spot
is KIXI 880, which is licensed to Mercer Island. I understand, though, that
the 880 frequency is a disaster in the Pacific Northwest (much as 1200 is
around here). There are a couple of stations within only 200 miles of KIXI
(one in OR and one in eastern WA). At least one (and maybe both) of those
stations operate(s) ND at night. So KIXI does not have a quiet channel. 820
is much quieter (I guess due to the presence of an 820 in AK, which stations
in the lower 48 have to protect), so even though KGNW has lower night power
than KIXI, the signal may reach a lot further. 

- -------------------------------
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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