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Engineer: Boise Community Radio signal will be fine in Boise
Submitted by Michael Deeds on Mon, 04/28/2008 - 4:51pm.
Boise Community Radio (BCR) has reason to celebrate. Yet because of a vocal minority firing off e-mails and commenting on blogs, executive director Jeff Abrams has found himself in the position of defending whether BCR’s signal actually will reach Boise. Yes, the station is licensed in Caldwell. And, yes, the station’s tower location is 25 miles west of Caldwell. But Boise Community Radio will be heard all the way to the east side of Boise, according to Abrams and BCR's Portland-based engineering consultant. Why? Because of the tower's advantageous line of sight and a secondary translator.
1) Location, location, location. Boise Community Radio’s tower location near the Owyhee Dam has "beautiful line of sight" into Boise, according to Michael Brown, president and owner of Portland-based consulting firm Brown Broadcast Services. This existing 200-foot tower already broadcasts a 100,000-watt Spanish commercial station licensed in Homedale at 106.3 FM. BCR will install its antenna on the same tower. If you can tune in 106.3 FM right now, you’ll most likely be able to hear BCR, according to Brown, who’s performed radio engineering since 1974 and FCC application work since 1987. Brown says that comparing a 100,000-watt station and a 7,900-watt station isn’t “apples and apples, but it’s apples and green apples.” The biggest factor for FM stations, by far, is intervening terrain. “The power is important,” Brown says, “but it’s not nearly as important as the terrain."
Brown, who has visited the planned BCR tower eight times, compares the situation to KFIS-FM “The Fish,” a 7,000-watt station in Portland that is "perfectly receivable" 40 miles away in Salem, Ore. That antenna is about 1,600 feet above sea level, putting it about 1,300 feet above the valley floor. In BCR’s situation, the antenna will be about 4,200 feet above sea level, or 1,500 feet above the valley floor, Brown says.
There’s an FCC city-grade contour map based on BCR’s engineering proposals that is making the rounds with skeptics, but it underestimates the potential reach of BCR’s signal, according to Abrams and Brown. “It’s using a horribly antiquated system for predicting coverage which the FCC still uses for the purposes of licensing stations and determining interference between stations,” Brown says. “But it’s from the 1950s. … You could have Mount Everest a mile away from your tower and it would ignore it.” Using modern Irregular Terrain Model software that takes the Treasure Valley’s geography into account, Brown generated maps showing BCR’s real-world coverage area. Abrams has posted the maps on the Boise Community Radio Web site. “It is a legitimate assessment of things rather than the FCC’s boilerplate interpretation of our proposal,” Abrams says.
2) Translator for Downtown Boise. For insurance, BCR has acquired lease rights to a translator signal licensed in Garden City. It will be set up at Table Rock. BCR will rebroadcast on the secondary frequency of 93.5 FM. “What this will do is ensure better signal penetration into large buildings and into low-lying areas of the city where you may have marginal lines of site out to the Owyhees,” Abrams says. “So what this plan will allow us to do is to propagate our signal almost anywhere in the (Treasure) Valley, and people will be able to hear us on one of two frequencies, at least. They will be able to hear us on both frequencies depending on where they are. One or the other might be better.” Brown says that Downtown Boise is among the few areas in which the primary signal may be on the weak side. "In those areas,” Brown says, “the translator will be the signal of choice.”
So perhaps Abrams isn’t crazy to think that Boise Community Radio will be heard all the way to the east side of Boise? “No, he’s not,” Brown says. “I think we can safely say it will be viable and receivable on the vast majority of radios in the vast majority of locations." In fact, Brown thinks the signal won't drop off completely until you're nearing Mountain Home. Adds Brown: "We’ve been working on this for six years now. If there was a chance that would allow us to be closer to Boise, we would have applied for it. But this was the best of what was left available. We spent a lot of time engineering it and trying to find the best site. We were lucky that the Spanish station – or the previous owner – had erected this tower for us. They put it there for a reason: Because it’s just got a gorgeous view. On a clear night, you can see the Boise city lights from there.”
Enough with the “Caldwell Community Radio” jokes. It’s been a long road to this point for Abrams and Boise Community Radio. He’s not miffed by the doubters and online haters; he’s just perplexed: “My point is, why would we have spent all this time and effort working on this thing if we didn’t have damn good reasonable assurance that this thing was going to send a beautiful signal into town here?” Abrams says. “I wouldn't have tried to bring the entire community along if I thought there was going to be marginal reception here.”
Want to get involved? Boise Community Radio is about to launch a capital campaign and hopes to raise $250,000 in local donations for equipment purchases and operational expenses. Online donations and volunteer forms can be submitted at www.RadioBoise.org.
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If WOR-FM did it...updated
Okay, Flea powered FM is great if you were on top of the Empire State Building or Mt. Washington where grass grows permanently WHITE (hee hee) and Santa Claus stays away from because it's so cold...
HOW TALL are HAAT and tower height for this signal and if it's nondirectional how good has the polarization got to be to keep that ultimate XMTR porn, ERP happy and spreading the love?
KWBJ couldn't make Nampa very well at 3 kilowatts and what does the colocated KQTA have for an ERP?
Kill one of EMF's atrocities and you have a frequency USABLE THOUGHOUT THE ENTIRE VALLEY!
OKAY, I see all the figures quoted up there now and STILL I don't think so. Buy one of the EMF signals and cover the ENTIRE valley like KBSU, with 20-40 kilowatts, like KBBK did at 92.3. Backdoor engineering isn't excusable in this market.
BTW.........93.5???
NOT 93.7?
Does Citadel run IBOC on KZMG?
Oh, brother...there will have to be some real belt-tightening work done, especially if all the new signals proposed outside the Valley that are going to force several of OUR signals to move (KQFC is but one) actually happen.
Of course, the potential licensees of many of those are one guy that isn't very solid about succeeding.
NOW do you understand the scepticism? Do you know how hard it is to keep all 40 some odd signals well tuned and out of each other's collective hair? They pull nearly every signal off the air more than quarterly the last I remember to test and adjust for the FCC as I understood it. The intermodulation products are daunting and must be reduced or it is a mess. 35 years ago there were but FOUR FM SIGNALS--KBBK 92.3 KBXL 94.1 KMFE 101.7 and KBOI-FM 97.9...
Go find one of your own TV guides (I recommend the first week of April 1973 personally).
Look on the bright side
The BCR Station will have more of a footprint than the new BSU Radio Deal
I still have ONE tape left of 90.3 in MONO from 1984 that...
will call your bluff. It also has some of 92.3 KIYS accidentally recorded on it, by the way. KIYS was in much better shape.
Look at the dark side...
The signal will be crap near Payette and Weiser, either way.
Abrams, call Rockwell Smith and quit lollygagging. 1950s surveys are NOT garbage and if you want to keep up with the revisionist nonsense you will be dark before 2010.
Their email requires a LOGIN?
Maybe "Wmail" is short for weasel.
An Archie Bunker mentality. Wonder what the FCC will think?
They require full public access to voice opinions and for viewing of the "station files". They need to get used to open email soon if they have a CP and will have to air by a certain date, apply for an extension of surrender it.
It's not just a website now!
BCR - Vanity radio for amateurs - Yawn! Who cares?
Jeff Abrams is a guy who always wanted to be in grown-up radio but didn't have the pipes,education or experience to get a chance for the professional ranks. So what does he do? Offer up radio for other wannabees for a fee. No one has listened to this crup on Internet radio and now no one else will listen either. But it will interfere with our regular real stations' broadcast pattern.
By the way Michael Deeds of McCook, Nebraska - its spelled Owyhee not the Owhyee you misspelled twice. Did you guys cut your copy editors too? How about Boise Community Newspaper for newspaper wannabees. Oh, we already have it don't we?
Pleasant much?
Typo fixed. Blogs are not copy edited. I'm not from McCook. I don't know what "crup" is. Have a nice day.
Edited to add: Crap, I think you might get added to the ignore list! Oops, done.
Crup gets us through your CENSOR - you know what it stands
for Michael. Whoops! I guess you're from a suburb of McCook, No?!
'sfunny, I use that word all the thyme, Basil...
An Oregano like me shouldn't have an advantage being spicy.
Crup=Dreck Mr. Deeds!
Bet they didn't teach that at JJ school in Stinkin' Lincoln, eh?! But thanks for learning the names of our local geography in the 18 years you've been here.
Speaking of wannabees! Mr. Deeds goes to Radioville!
OKAY...
You were good for ONE POST and went back to batting .213 in the minors.
This is just a quick fix...
for the politically crippled. I'd hate to be called Ross Perot though...
Pretty soon you won't see anybody and will look the fool...
with all these posters running rampant that you ignore. Sorry, but I have used Usenet for eight years. FYI it no workee.
He IS correct about the timestamp...
All of this
"crup" is good news! I'm looking forward to hearing more BCR on the radio, it's long overdue.
I wish you luck and perserverence...
and Good Night, Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are.
Sweet!
I'm not the only one on the ignore list anymore!
Nice to have company. Better to be here than on the "ignorant" list.
Careful...
I'd read Deeds' words with a careful eye folks. The engineer he lists is on BCRP's payroll. It is vital for people to believe that BCRP will reach Boise for them to raise money.
Confused?
What is up with all the negativity? I'm trying to figure out the motivation. Do posters work for Commercial Radio? Are posters unhappy with decisions and direction of BCRP?
The Boise community as a whole will benefit from a community radio station. So what is the reasoning?
As it stands, it seems like there are selfish agendas behind the postings, if not please explain.
It would be hard for me to imagine a city like Seattle, Portland, or Los Angeles having the same or less spots on the dial than the Boise Area. Is this a relevant complaint? From being outside commercial radio, I'm curious to know.
Having lived here about 39 of 42 years + I was born in Nampa...
I'll admit to about THREE days working for KQXR prior to Bob Lee taking over and moving it to Boise (I signed off on day 1) before something gave me the willies and I quit. I can't begin to recall how many days I visited Pirate Radio in the Canyon Village at the old Airport Corner here in Ontario or how many days I was at K19AR/Cable 8 watching both of the late Dons prepare the evening newscast in the log house nest to Covered Wagon and about 1/4 mile from KSRV. That was the 80's and early 1990. I put up with 1450 when it was KACY and on the Hospital Hill at SW Fifth Avenue...that guy was flakey...and the old Continental TX that triplecasted before NBC ever thought it up. I know the difference between a 50 year old Gates BC5E and a Harris Gates Five with PCM based AM (they freed up enough space to add a table to have lunch and a Gates Five is small enough to fit in a coat closet and sounds magnificent without breaking down all the time).
I have not worked in radio since 1990. I still know a fiasco when I perceive it and I am not alone. I do not like EMF and their tactics and still feel one of their assignments would be far better than this half-baked idea.
If you bungle this the next opportunity may never come which is why we are as vociferous in our chiding. There is no logical reason to tie this station to Portland, Seattle or Timbuk3. This isn't any of those.
Other posters have expressed their feelings on the subject, if you haven't already looked them over. I will leave it at that.
Not totally...from Idaho Radio News...
boiseengineer
The KWEI power boost won’t help them in Boise since their signal is obstructed by the mountains/foothills and will continue to have severe multipath.
When 93.1 fires up the IBOC 93.5 will be toast
-----
I obviously knew that much was true, and that was from "Deeds thinks BCRP will cover Boise" just earlier tonight.
RDS is Rockwell Smith
boiseengineer is probably the Chief Engineer at KBOI/Citadel or maybe Peak.
Ken Strahm/Strahn? Lee Eichelberger was at CC/Peak last time I checked.
The last two have experience with IBOC, don't know about Rocky--he thought Kahn/Hazeltine ISB AM stereo was the logical choice (ironically, in 1985 he was right and ahead of his time). All three of these people were fixing big TX when Jeff was having his diapers fixed.
When I hear this from actual working professionals I know I can believe it. When I hear the Weiser signal, on top of a big tall spot also will not make it well in Boise either then I can start to wonder why they would give up coverage like that in a very tight market (I apparently talked to a lady from the family that ran it once and mentioned that 'everyone knew it was mono with a stereo pilot' and to my great surprise it lost the pilot the next day and stayed mono for a long, long time....go figure)...
Look at the animosity in this light...more than a few of us are skeptical because we know there are a lot of roads to FAILURE and if it means something it needs to be taken seriously. 'Wannabe' is not a term used lightly yet we have enough fear to use it.
The old folks know these things and try to warn you. See if it works.
I'm not saying the signal will reach Boise
For the record, Abrams and Brown are. Notice the attribution, beginning with the post's title and continuing throughout? *I'm* certainly no expert about radio engineering. That's why I contacted Abrams and Brown and did some actual reporting before posting. The one firm opinion I hold is that negative attacks -- particularly uninformed ones -- aren't productive.
Skepticism is often healthy. But, thus far, it's mostly been of the anonymous, sometimes mean-spirited, Internet variety. I have yet to hear from an actual engineer who wanted to explain why BCR won't work. That would give an argument against BCR's signal much more weight, wouldn't it?
I want to be supportive of things that would benefit the Boise community. And, thus far, Abrams/Brown make a believable argument that BCR would do that.
You know how to contact one...
http://www.engineer-exchange.com/
You know how to find the IRN website also and I'm about as anon as Satan with all the clues I give away without any reservation. I've been listening to Treasure Valley radio since I was able to remember much and I've met so many of the people who engineered the stations and the employees and I've seen many of the old offices and studios (not enough sadly) that I'm a little more than an idiot savant, Not much more but more anyway. the rest I absorbed. I remember things too.
If you want advice, there's the man who can give it.
I'm not against your dream but I want you to have more than a dream, it has to be done well or it will be like KCIX channel 6 and of course KFXD channel 6...or KDJQ!
Or KACY-KIOV. KYME-KBSU AM. KUUB 104.3. Clear Channel.
Enough examples.