KEJI 91.5 Darrington

Bet you didn't even know this station existed. Neither does the licensee apparently.

Recently had occasion to drive through Darrington twice. First time, I noticed this two-bay FM antenna on a short tower next to the highway. Did a scan on the car radio and found dead air at 91.5. Took some pictures the second time:







As you can see, the tower with the two-bay is right along Highway 530 on the property of a church- nowhere it's licensed location, along Crawford Loop Road up on the hill above the city. Second, it's clearly damaged- you can see the feedline has broken away from the antenna itself. There's a small antenna (?) on top of the garage in one of the pictures; not sure if that is a temporary or backup but again, it's nowhere the station's licensed location.

Station was broadcasting dead air with a strong signal both times I drove through Darrington- more than a month apart. Not sure why Iglesia Pentecostal Visperia Del Fin would spend the money to acquire a license, put the station on the air and then completely abandon it. The fact that they put the antenna in a location of their own choosing rather than the licensed location is telling about how seriously they took getting in the business of radio.

Not sure why I'm posting this, other than it's interesting to see how completely a station can be abandoned in such a short time. Was their competing applications for this license? There's no way a community group, for example, could have done worse with this license.

Don't look to the useless FCC to clean this up anytime soon. Bunch of broadcast industry licking toadies (those who are left); these sorts of compliance issues probably aren't even on their radar. At some point the electricity will be cut to the garage this thing is in and that will take care of it first.

Unless somebody gets in first and takes all the gear (hint-hint)!

Val

valvashon said:

Don't look to the useless FCC to clean this up anytime soon.

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Actually a notice of violation was posted 3 years ago.

https://www.fcc.gov/document/iglesia-pentecostal-visperia-del-fin-delphi-wa

From what I can see, the organization hasn't raised any money in four years.

valvashon said:

Unless somebody gets in first and takes all the gear (hint-hint)!

Val

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I would avoid taking the gear...those podunk towns like Darrington have a police force who are itching to catch the "big one". You'll make the cops' week/month! They don't know any better about the difference in AM vs FM transmitter plants...they'll think you (or I) are meth heads salvaging copper. In which case, better hope you look good decked out in all orange with shackles!

The smarter money would go to the head of the organization, offer them some nominal amount for the equipment. Tell them you want to use some of it for another on-the-air station or your ham shack. Remind them a non-functioning transmitter site is a big liability. Lie if you must...they clearly don't know or care about FCC rules...tell em having a non-lighted tower is a federal criminal offence.

Hell, you may get the license for a song too! It's not doing them a darned bit of good sitting there collecting dust. And they clearly don't have the money to get it running again.

Nice pics, BTW!

Radio-X

Yeah, I know what KEJI is. I went through Darrington about three years ago, and 91.5 was airing Spanish Christian music. The signal doesn't make it out of Darrington...just a few miles west. When the town has about 1,400 people, and only 3% of them are Hispanic...what's the point of having this station on the air?
As for reception of other stations, the Mt. Constitution Bellingham stations do fine. 92.1, 98.5 and 100.3 from Victoria are fair, as is KSER 90.7 Everett. Seattle is quite weak, 94.1 and 96.5 were hardly audible. 95.7 and 92.5 seem to be the best Seattle signals there.
Some type of knife edge refraction over Whitehorse Mountain as well...KSWW 102.1 and KDUX 104.7 were in, but very weak.

Wow, what's the deal. The first poster hints at stealing the equipment, then another poster says to lie to them. Really? In my opnion sound like you guys might be more of a problem than KEJI could ever be. I say a CP for a move to the site in question at one point.

b-turner said:

Wow, what's the deal. The first poster hints at stealing the equipment, then another poster says to lie to them. Really? In my opnion sound like you guys might be more of a problem than KEJI could ever be. I say a CP for a move to the site in question at one point.

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So they did or they didn't have a CP to move to where I found the tower? If you can produce the CP that's fine but the licensed location is not where the abandoned equipment and antenna are located.

Disclaimer: I didn't actually visit the licensed location, I simply observed from the highway that there appeared to be no broadcast tower along that ridge.

Val

Why don't you knock on the door and ask to see their public file?

Doubt there's anyone in that building.

I thought it was really odd that Darrington at 3% Hispanic per the Census Bureau and maybe 2,000 to 2,500 in the listening area would have a Spanish Christian station. That's 60 to 75 for a potential audience. For estimating the coverage area I used RecNet for a LPFM search and chose the towers option with the KEJI tower popping up on the western side of the town. I could only see what a 100 watt signal would do from the pictured tower site (1,733 population in the 60 dbu and 2,416 in the 50 dbu). At 400 watts the coverage is not that much bigger but building penetration is a whole lot better.

You can check everything here by clicking the application: https://licensing.fcc.gov/cgi-bin/ws.exe/prod/cdbs/pubacc/prod/app_list.pl?Facility_id=176052

It seems the station was sold to the current owner for $30,000. I recall reading in the ASA attachment on an application.

As we've discussed in other places, the spectrum is filled with a lot of these defunct non-commercial stations. It's relatively easy to start a station like this, and a lot tougher to keep it on the air.

Seriously? Posting about stealing equipment from a broadcast site? Wow!

In any case, there is a complete inventory. The building is owned by the church next door, which probably won't be too impressed if you break into their garage. They're aware of the situation regarding the dead air and have advised the licensee.

As for the licensee's approach to the site, the tower, the antenna(s), the feedline, the transmitter location, the signal strength, the dead air, etc, etc, etc, it's a long story, maybe not all that interesting, but there are people in town who are aware of the station's status on all of those points.

I sent a note to the licensee today, advising them there's some running interest in the place. Best to leave it alone. It's not as "abandoned" as you might think.

This is the same church that owns the Delphi 91.5 translator, which has had its share of dead air and off the air moments. Radio-Locator now says they are off the air...I suspect 91.5 is a faint KOPB (and maybe KGHI) now in Olympia/Tumwater.
They also own that K205FO translator on 88.9 in Everett...which has turned the Espace Musique station out of Victoria into just a memory in many parts of Snohomish County. Is K205FO on the air w/ Spanish Christian stuff, or is it also dead air? If so, they are broadcasting without the parent station on.

In Yakima, a new station fired up on 103.5 with dead air. Strong signal, cannot hear KWHT much anymore. I suspect this is KZTR-LP, which will be a new Spanish Catholic Religion station. It is owned by the Yakima Diocese, and the transmitter is shared with our KYTR-88.1, which is // KBLE-AM Sacred Heart. Power is 15w.
On the other hand, 93.7 K229AD is off the air. I can hear KQFM Hermiston now, with 5300 watts. Perhaps someone complained in the Lower Valley?

Grounded Grid said:

Seriously? Posting about stealing equipment from a broadcast site? Wow!

In any case, there is a complete inventory. The building is owned by the church next door, which probably won't be too impressed if you break into their garage. They're aware of the situation regarding the dead air and have advised the licensee.

As for the licensee's approach to the site, the tower, the antenna(s), the feedline, the transmitter location, the signal strength, the dead air, etc, etc, etc, it's a long story, maybe not all that interesting, but there are people in town who are aware of the station's status on all of those points.

I sent a note to the licensee today, advising them there's some running interest in the place. Best to leave it alone. It's not as "abandoned" as you might think.

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I didn't believe much of this reply when I first saw it and certainly don't believe it now, considering that this thing is still transmitting dead air on 91.5 (still in Stereo!) almost a year later. Let's catch people up- since Photobucket gave me the "piss-off" when it came to third party hosting, here is what the possible transmitter site in question looked like in October of 2016:






As seen in 2016, garage presumably with equipment (not the licensed transmitter site), a small (transmit?) antenna on top and a short tower with a two-bay antenna on top, complete with what appears to be a broken feed line.

Let's go to August of 2017:






Same beat garage with small antenna on top, although the tower and two-bay antenna has been removed. I find it interesting that a crew of some sort took down the antenna and tower but nobody associated with that process noticed that there is still dead air at 91.5. Maybe the meth-heads did get it for scrap. Or maybe an actual, functioning community station at 91.5 now has a two-bay antenna and tower!

Anyway, this thing is still plugging away with the dead air at 91.5. At some point the license will come up for renewal, nobody will file the paperwork and the license will be cancelled. Then, magically, the transmitter will shut itself off. No, wait, it will keep plugging along as the useless FCC won't verify anything with a field inspection, having long ago abandoned that role and concentrated solely on giving out licenses to groups with the most lobbying power, regardless of their viability.

Has anyone been out to the supposedly licensed transmitter site to see what's out there? I'm wondering if that was a backup site that you saw.

Apparently I need to eat some crow on this, but only to a point. And, fccdata.org is a great site. This station filed a "Remain Silent Authority" in February of 2017:

ON FEBRUARY 1, 2017, KEJI EXPERIENCED A FAILURE ON ITS TRANSMITTER, NECESSITATING REPAIRS AND RESULTING IN SUSPENDED OPERATIONS. APPLICANT HAS SINCE BEEN UNABLE TO REPAIR OR REPLACE THE FAILED TRANSMITTER TO RESTORE SERVICE. ACCORDINGLY, APPLICANT REQUESTS THIS SILENT STA PENDING REPAIR OR REPLACEMENT OF THE TRANSMITTER, AND WILL PROMPTLY NOTIFY THE COMMISSION WHEN OPERATIONS RESUME.

This, of course, is a lie given that I found the station transmitting dead air at what appears to be at or near their licensed power (from what appears to be a different transmitter site than licensed) in October of 2016, months before the 2017 STA filing. The transmitter could have failed at that point I assume but it was surely transmitting dead air for months. Then they filed for an STA extension in August of 2017:

ON FEBRUARY 1, 2017, KEJI EXPERIENCED A FAILURE ON ITS TRANSMITTER, NECESSITATING REPAIRS AND RESULTING IN SUSPENDED OPERATIONS. APPLICANT HAS SINCE BEEN UNABLE TO REPAIR OR REPLACE THE FAILED TRANSMITTER TO RESTORE SERVICE. ACCORDINGLY, APPLICANT REQUESTS THIS SILENT STA PENDING REPAIR OR REPLACEMENT OF THE TRANSMITTER, AND WILL PROMPTLY NOTIFY THE COMMISSION WHEN OPERATIONS RESUME.

Also a lie, as I observed the transmitter plugging along just fine, virtually the same signal as before, about two weeks after this filing to continue the STA. Perhaps they don't know that "Silent" means "actually turning your transmitter off, not just transmitting dead air".

The only way I can be wrong about this is if what I am hearing is their exciter (perhaps their final "failed"?) but the signal really seems to get out much better than what you would expect from that, even if it was hooked up to the antenna. Even then, it's transmitting dead air under a silent authority, which also seems to be against the rules.

Clearly the FCC has become useless, concerned with handing out as many licenses as possible and helping to consolidate ownership, while having no real oversight of the licenses they have handed out, in this case to wholly unqualified applicants and their "engineers".

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valvashon said:

Same beat garage with small antenna on top, although the tower and two-bay antenna has been removed. I find it interesting that a crew of some sort took down the antenna and tower but nobody associated with that process noticed that there is still dead air at 91.5. Maybe the meth-heads did get it for scrap. Or maybe an actual, functioning community station at 91.5 now has a two-bay antenna and tower!

Anyway, this thing is still plugging away with the dead air at 91.5. At some point the license will come up for renewal, nobody will file the paperwork and the license will be cancelled. Then, magically, the transmitter will shut itself off. No, wait, it will keep plugging along as the useless FCC won't verify anything with a field inspection, having long ago abandoned that role and concentrated solely on giving out licenses to groups with the most lobbying power, regardless of their viability.

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Hopefully that tripod is bolted onto the roof.

Has anyone been up to this station lately? I heard via ATR yesterday that sometime in the last week they signed back on. Can anyone confirm?

Drove through Darrington yesterday. 91.5 is still on with dead air, almost certainly from the garage featured in the photos earlier in this thread, given the signal strength as you drive by. Fun fact- their STA expired on February 2nd, not that they were silent anyway. If you are in the market for a transmitter, I would get (your own) transmitter just like this one, since it can apparently run for 2+ years with zero maintenance. That will keep your engineering costs down!

Val

What a waste of a channel. I'd rather see 91.5 go off the air, or someone buy out the transmitter and turn it into a community radio station for Darrington and Oso - music, local information, weather, etc. like KVSH-LP on Vashon. Darrington has no local stations and most FM stations (besides Bellingham and some B.C. stations) are hit and miss out there.