One more FM in Nome

[VelvetR]

New with 600 Watts on 89.3, KQQN.

Owned by Nome Seventh Day Adventist Church, located in the Icy View subdivision just North of the city. Given the flat seaside terrain there should be decent coverage of the population of 3,500 but, with a very short "tower", the signal won't get to the outlying areas where it might reach an additional 50 or so people. Should be more effective than the 188 Watt KUAC translator (Alaska Public Radio Network) but considerably less than either KICY-FM or KNOM-FM, each at 1 kW with antennas approximating 100-feet above ground.

CP for 2 kW. which will help but not known of any plans for higher antenna. Not likely at present location due to proximity to Nome's International Airport (formerly Marks AFB) and the general aviation "Munz Field".

 

[Goldilocks94941]

With Catholic, Protestant, and now a Seventh Day Adventist station for the miniscule population base, will the Mormons be next to start a station? Then again, Bonneville selling off major market radio properties - maybe to fund yet another missionary outreach to the gold miners and Eskimos??

What you all really need access to on the air is some of the Canadian programming on CBC North out of Whitehorse, Yellowknife, and the services from Iqualuit or from Nunavut. Hard to hear anything on American radio that reflect indigenous culture in a way that isn't trying to assimilate it.

 

[AZJoe]

Soon with the realignment of their satellites, Siriusxm will be able to be picked up in this part of Alaska, giving everyone a real choice of radio programming.

 

[VelvetR]

Soon with the realignment of their satellites, Siriusxm will be able to be picked up in this part of Alaska, giving everyone a real choice of radio programming.

Them with newer vehicles and the willingness to pay for it.

There'll be a few.

 

[fortmill]

Soon with the realignment of their satellites, Siriusxm will be able to be picked up in this part of Alaska, giving everyone a real choice of radio programming.

Them with newer vehicles and the willingness to pay for it.

There'll be a few.

You don't need a vehicle to listen to xm---xm boomboxes and plug in tuners for home stereo systems are available.

 

[VelvetR]

You don't need a vehicle to listen to xm---xm boomboxes and plug in tuners for home stereo systems are available.

True.

However the Western Alaska population does a major part of its "listening" in their vehicles and very little in the home. Except, of course, for local news and weather. The news most could live without, so satellite radio might entice those with the money to buy equipment and subscribe. Miss an update on the weather and your heirs might enjoy your bequeath of a satellite radio. Easy to predict that most whose new vehicles come with a satellite radio might toy with it until it comes time to buy a subscription or lose it. But wait, there's more.....

If one thinks of Alaska as consisting solely of Anchorage, Fairbanks and Juneau then there might be some validity to pro-satellite arguments. But once away from those cities getting terrestrial repeaters, lots of luck with getting a signal. Y'see, those folks away from the big cities who got satellite radios packaged into their vehicles won't have anything to listen to. So how about anyone who got hold of an Internet radio? They'd work fine in the few places where there's Wi-Fi. But try that away from larger urban areas.

 

[AZJoe]

They will never put a repeater in the smaller/bush areas, it wouldnt pay. But the satellites themselves are being repositioned as to hit Alaska and Hawaii better. You will only need the 3 repeaters in Anchorage, Fairbanks and Juneau to help the shadow areas created by larger buildings or other obstructions. And, few want it? Over 20,000,000 subscribe to it now (with over 2.5 listeners per subscription, that makes for about 50,000,000 people tuning in). It is the 2nd largest media subscription service in the USA (after Comcast and before Directv). This is exactly what rural Alaska will like, due to the lack of choice.

 

[mikl73]

What does it cost to put up a repeater? The equipment for it is rather small from what i have seen. Just some electricity, tower space, and a receive dish that can see the bird up there. Most of them are on cell towers and buildings in my area now. I could see the larger cities getting them easily.

 

[VelvetR]

What does it cost to put up a repeater? The equipment for it is rather small from what i have seen. Just some electricity, tower space, and a receive dish that can see the bird up there. Most of them are on cell towers and buildings in my area now. I could see the larger cities getting them easily.

For a satellite repeater, needing a good receiver, reliable transmitter, receive and transmit antennas I could see $15,000 to $25,000 in equipment - could be much higher but let's play with that figure.. If you're going to put up a tower, even a modest one, another $5,000 in material and labor. A phone pole would cost less but would not likely be stable enough for a receive dish. Maybe rent roof space on some larger building but even those shift with the freeze/thaw cycle so require tweaking. For a heated shelter in any of the smaller cities (Nome, Kotzebue, Bethel) you'd spend about $15,000 for the structure and heating/cooling would be extra. Better would be renting tower and rack space but that gets complex if the only game in town is a tax-exempt non-profit. That's because if they rent tower space they lose their property tax exemption and most don't want to play. Then the need to have somebody local knock the snow off the dish now and again and electricity at as much as half-a-buck per kiloWatt hour. Don't overlook the incredible cost of transporting equipment and installation people - there are NO roads to the smaller cities.

Given a population of no more than about 4,000 you'd have to have a huge percentage penetration to justify the outlay. None of that is to say somebody might not want to do it but they'd have to have some motive other than profit.

 

[mikl73]

I doubt the equipment costs are that high.
this is the transmitter
http://www.**********.com/r0/download/1247249~cab6287221cc32702ddd30513feb73cc/xmsr1.jpg



(edited)
here is the transmitter antenna for an XM ground station:

http://ednixon.com/pix/2001/xmharvard/xmant1.jpg

 

[VelvetR]

I doubt the equipment costs are that high.
this is the transmitter
http://www.**********.com/r0/download/1247249~cab6287221cc32702ddd30513feb73cc/xmsr1.jpg

Sadly, that link brought up only a miniature logo of some sort. I was able to find several other examples. Apparently there are
some low power, relatively low cost packages though I still believe they'd sell for a pretty steep price. Given, though, that XM seems
to make their own their investment might not be too bad. Of course those are for pole (or tower) mount in relatively hospitable places. Once you get to about -10 degrees electrons get lazy and heating becomes necessary, implying a structure of some sort.

here is the transmitter antenna for an XM ground station:

http://ednixon.com/pix/2001/xmharvard/xmant1.jpg

That link worked ok, the antenna is much smaller than I had anticipated. In this instance, pole-mounted. In the circumstances of most Alaskan small cities you'd likely get coverage of the central residential district but terrain would cut off the signal pretty quickly.

We're right back to the cost of a location, getting equipment and installers to the site and I know very well what that costs, having done some AM, FM and Cellular installations, There are several places in Alaska where it might be possible to run a repeater profitably:
Anchorage, Juneau, Fairbanks. Problem with Anchorage is you'd not only need something substantial in town, if you wanted to hold an audience you'd need at least one more major repeater in Wasilla and perhaps a string of them (low power) along The Glenn Highway, particularly around Eagle River where terrain becomes a big obstacle. Without coverage all along The Glenn, the huge commuter audience would not spend the money.

For the smaller places, though, too few possible subscribers to make it economical. Not just because of small total population; also because of the economic circumstances of much of that total. Of course one possibility would be for a group of well-off individuals to finance an installation for their own enjoyment. That is, after all, how KUAC came to have a repeater in Nome.

While some exotic business plan might put a repeater in Nome, Bethel, Sitka, Ketchikan or Kotz, you can feel pretty confident you'll never see one in Kivalina, Point Hope, Unalakleet, Shishmaref or even Wales.

For certain, it'd be amusing to watch!

 

[mikl73]

Try this link maybe it will work for the actual equipment.

http://www.**********.com/forum/r19550229-XM-Terrestrial-repeater-mapping

at 2332.5 to 2345.0 MHz terrain absolutely will block the signal

I have not found the a picture of the other repeater antenna I have seen online but it was just a simple dipole. I assume this was probably for a lower power more localized set up. Probably something that would work in a small village since you wouldn't want several directional panel antennas to maintain and keep the ice off. Does Ice kill cell towers when the panels are covered? XM is just a little higher in frequency than PCS.

You would think LPFM might be perfect for places like Nome where a commercial station wouldn't make it and 100 watts @ 100 feet is all you need.

 

[VelvetR]

Try this link maybe it will work for the actual equipment.

http://www.**********.com/forum/r19550229-XM-Terrestrial-repeater-mapping

at 2332.5 to 2345.0 MHz terrain absolutely will block the signal

I have not found the a picture of the other repeater antenna I have seen online but it was just a simple dipole. I assume this was probably for a lower power more localized set up. Probably something that would work in a small village since you wouldn't want several directional panel antennas to maintain and keep the ice off. Does Ice kill cell towers when the panels are covered? XM is just a little higher in frequency than PCS.

You would think LPFM might be perfect for places like Nome where a commercial station wouldn't make it and 100 watts @ 100 feet is all you need.

Much better link. The ones I found were packaged up for pole or tower mounting - some pretty substantial outer cases. Given the climactic conditions, I believe the one pictured in the link would be the right choice, suitable for mounting inside an existing heated building. Logically that means renting space and somehow providing a pole for the antenna. Ice is hell on cell phone installations and I'm sure the thickness of ice common in Alaska would give a satellite repeater fits. You'd need a heated radome at least. Most of Alaska's small cities are self-contained. Nome is the exception with three roads that reach out about 80-miles N, E, W with the ocean to the South. In winter local coverage would be enough but when you consider that the average winter drive time is under ten minutes, tough to justify paying for service. At home? TV (cable) is on most of the time. Broadcast coverage is most needed for the local news content (national and international, to the extent anyone is interested comes off TV), weather and point-to-point messages though those are becoming less important with satellite-linked phone systems (cellular and locally land-line) all over the place.

The economics just don't work.

There is NO commercial justification for AM, FM, or especially on-air TV in Nome or Kotz. Bethel does have one on-air TV which is state operated and always at risk of being defunded.

When I did the first study for an FM in Nome it worked out that 100-Watts at 100 feet (coincidence that you got the same figure) would serve an audience of 3,500. With 50,000 Watts on Anvil Mountain, around 800 feet, there was a potential audience of 3,900. That at the expense not only of equipment, a building and electricity, but also over $100,000 to build a power line! What was built was the 100 Watt, 100 foot solution using a 50-Watt Continental exciter and a Shively 4-bay antenna on a 90-foot Rohn self-supporting tower. Shortly theerafter another FM was built; also 100 Watts but on a 60-foot tower with a 4-bay antenna, the lowermost bay of which was about 8 feet off the ground.

That worked OK until the second station went for a kilowatt and a 100 foot tower which produced some nasty blanketing, being located near the center of town. So the first station went up to 1 kW as well using the same tower-antenna as originally. The overall result was a much better signal for both stations, there having been some picket-fencing at the lower power. "Reach" also extended to some subdivisions (another 50-75 people!) and the signals break through some gaps in the mountains so there is some service along a couple of the roads. The community of Teller, about 80-miles away but directly over water, now has a usable FM signal and the audience for both, with growth since 1973, totals about 3,900. The KUAC translator runs 250-Watts (bird-fed) from a closet in the municipal recreation center with a pretty simple antenna on a thin tower (not a pole) attached to the side of the building. Height? About 40-feet so the signal doesn't go very far. Then there's the new FM in the Icy View subdivision of which I spoke separately though it addresses itself primarily to the congregation of the church that owns it.

It would be misleading to think there's only bible-thumping programming....though there is that on two of the total six licensed stations. Of course none of this takes into account a few on-again/off-again "pirates" pumping various forms of music off cd-changers. I doubt any of them are pushing more than 5-Watts and their antennas consist of chunks of wire dropped out second-floor windows.

 

[fortmill]

Well, I checked, and the full schedule of Music Choice is available on Nome cable right now, so citizens have access to a full spectrum of music 24/7, which to me is a very good thing...

 

[VelvetR]

Well, I checked, and the full schedule of Music Choice is available on Nome cable right now, so citizens have access to a full spectrum of music 24/7, which to me is a very good thing...

Check also the price of cable in Nome.

I do recall a time when an individual got ahold of an analog modulator intended for cable TV use, tuned for channel 6, wired it to a dipole (horrible mismatch), ran the audio from his cable box into it and enjoyed cable music on his truck radio all over town. I imagine there are thousands of those analog modulators available on the cheap just now......

 

[sloux]

"I do recall a time when an individual got ahold of an analog modulator intended for cable TV use, tuned for channel 6, wired it to a dipole (horrible mismatch), ran the audio from his cable box into it and enjoyed cable music on his truck radio all over town. I imagine there are thousands of those analog modulators available on the cheap just now......"


Does analog TV channel 6 show up down around 87.7 MHz? Is this how one could pick up the signal on the vehicle's radio?

 

[mikl73]

The tuner on many FM radios actually starts at either 87.7 or 87.9 depending on the radio.

 

[VelvetR]

Analog Channel 6 was 83.250 MHz; audio was that plus 4.50 MHz at 87.750.

HOWEVER there were many instances of short-spacing where the oldest station was actual Channel 6 and there'd be a pair of others at 6- and 6+ with 10 kHz offsets. This was the case with Schenectady, New York/Portland, Maine/New Bedford, Massachusetts. New Bedford was last in and had to provide TRACOR brand rubidium (or it might have been cesium - my memory is failing) oscillators for all three stations. Then WTEV was 6+ so the aural was at 87.760 MHz. Remember, maximum deviation for FM is +/-75 KHz but for TV it was +/- 25 KHz. The practical meaning of that is the audio from a TV transmitter (or cable modulator) could not approach the potential quality of a legitimate FM.

Just for reference, typical analog TV licenses specified a 10% injection level for audio so the visual ERP for a low band VHF like 6 would be 100 KW but the aural ERP would be only 10 kW. There were some exceptions; until one of the later changes of ownership of the former WTEV the aural injection level was licensed at 20 kW (When they changed out the old GE tube-type transmitters they applied for and got a reduction to 10% aural injection. The original WTEV transmiter, a GE TT-42, used separate visual and aural transmitters. It was possible to run either without the other. The actual visual ERP was approximately 87 kW, much of which was attributed to a moderately high gain Batwing antenna.