Rumor alert: 101.1

Bill Zurmuehl said:

WJZA="Jazz Atlanta?"

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I was wondering the reason/meaning for the new calls.

Radio-Locator still shows the antenna in the middle of the MARTA Avondale lot.

secondchoice said:

IIRC WLJA 101.1 plays mostly Southern Gospel. Not a powerful demo with ad agencies, but they are just about the only station playing Southern Gospel on a reasonably good FM signal in this area daily. They do have a lot of “local” commercials. As with any music type, there are some very loyal listeners in their audience so any kind of interference would get reported. One would think south of Woodstock not Canton would be an issue.

As I stated before (8/15/17), I personally would pay for a field check of the “directional effectiveness” of the antenna and the whole transmission plant as soon as I had title to the station. I believe there was a modification of a CP where they changed the antenna manufacturer that could be part of the problem.

BTW: Youngers does pay attention to FCC orders:
https://licensing.fcc.gov/cgi-bin/w...t=25&appn=101763532&formid=911&fac_num=147273

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That might have been why I heard preaching and gospel on it on Sunday, over in Gwinnett.

1310 is simulcasting 1290 Hispanic. Apparently they're using an internet STL as it drops out frequently.
101.1 should just get a harmonic filter installed. That's an off the shelf item so it should be easily available.
But they might be looking around for a cheap Chinese one.
I remember years ago the FCC shutting down an entire cable system for leakage into the air band.
Must tear it up pretty bad since FM and TV are both wide band and aircraft is narrow band AM.

IIRC Aviation is a “narrow” FM. I have always wondered how they got 107.9 so close to the airport without the FAA getting involved.

They're AM:
https://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/Aircraft
I've heard that they did have a problem with high powered FMs in the past like that, but after careful analysis by the FCC and FAA, it was determined to be due to poor receiver design (single conversion, no tuned front-end, antiquated receiver design).

secondchoice said:

IIRC Aviation is a “narrow” FM. I have always wondered how they got 107.9 so close to the airport without the FAA getting involved.

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The FAA was involved with 107.5. If you check their license you will see the vertical signal is less than the horizontal - this is due to FAA restrictions. I also wonder why 107.9 didn't also face restrictions. Location relative to flight paths?

kf4rca said:

They're AM:
https://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/Aircraft
I've heard that they did have a problem with high powered FMs in the past like that, but after careful analysis by the FCC and FAA, it was determined to be due to poor receiver design (single conversion, no tuned front-end, antiquated receiver design).

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I use to have an “aircraft receiver” that I bought in the mid 1960’s with my lawn mowing money from the old Allied catalog, when dad got transferred to Chicago. If you tuned all the way down you would pick up a FM station. I never thought AM receivers could pick up FM signals. Therefore I assumed aircraft radios were FM too. Goes to show why you never assume anything because the first three letters of assume with bite you there.

FM is easy to pick up on an AM receiver (slope detection) but AM is hard to pick up on an FM receiver (limiter circuit blocks it out). The reason they use AM is because that's what the air industry started out with and they had to stay compatible with existing users.
I don't know how they keep engine noise out of the radios especially with the jet's turbines. Maybe noise blanking.
They should have migrated over to FM. I understand the pilots have an "informal" intercom channel on 123.45 MHz. That's where they probably noticed the spur from the translator.
One problem with aircraft radios is that they really don't have a ground. The entire plane is sort of an antenna.

Current Airbus and Boeing aircraft like the 737 with engines on wings have the HF antennas on the leading edge of the tail.* Rear engine jets can have their antennas on the wing tips. There are many variations of aircraft so it is hard to make a definite statement. The lack of a real ground does not affect the electronics in flight as the aircraft frame is ground. All battery and generator charges are referenced to the frame. No “ground” is kind of like series batteries. The second battery “sees” one and half volts as “ground” and adds it 1.5 volts to give 3 volts. The lack of ground makes the aircraft in air sort of “lightning proof”.** There is no “ground” and the lightning charges often just goes around on the metal skin. There are reports of a “ball of fire” *** that goes down the aisle and scares everyone on the plane but doesn’t electrocute anyone.

* https://www.ab9il.net/aviation/737-radio.html

** IMHO nothing is lightning proof

** http://www.pprune.org/tech-log/575307-lightning-strike-creates-ball-fire.html

Back to interference issues.

Several years ago a TV station up north got a visit from the Department of Defense officials. (This visit is above and beyond an FCC visit.) Seems the station had a piece of equipment that was radiating on the military's distress frequency of 243.0 MHz It was picked up via satellite. It turned out to be a bad BNC barrel splice connector that was connected to the output of a video time base corrector. The station had set up a video editing suite in a trailer behind the building and the cabling was run over poles back to the studio. When the TBC was in standby mode it outputted the clock frequency used in the D to A conversion. (Believe it was an Ampex TBC.) And, you guessed it, it was on 243.0 MHz. The elevated cabling was the antenna.
I remember my CE saying saying that he was glad it was not our station.

They've tried Smooth Jazz several times in this city and it doesn't work. Why not just switch to another Alternative or Country station (since Atlanta can't get enough of them).