As the LBA Antenna Turns

Copper thefts from radio transmitters and towers have continued to rise, paralleling the increasing value of copper. Last Wednesday, one such theft became a threatening situation for “Lite 96.9″ WRSA-FM, Huntsville engineer John Macpherson and his teenage daughter. When the station went off the air around 4:45am that morning, Macpherson thought they were in for a routine fix. However, when they arrived at the tower site at Brindley Mountain, two burgulars allegedly were attempting to strip copper from the transmitter.

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On August 15, 2007 the FCC issued an NRPM to explore the use of FM translators by AM stations. Among the issues to be examined is program origination at night over FM translators by daytime-only AM stations. The proposed rulemaking comes about as a result of a petition by the National Association of Broadcasters.

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In May, the FCC officially adopted rules for HD Radio allowing broadcasters to add HD mulitcast channels without the agency’s prior approval. The final rules authorizing IBOC/HD Radio have no been published in the Federal Register. The big news: AMs will be able to keep their HD signals on full-time beginning 9/14. FM broadcasters that want to add multicast HD channels can officially do so without experimental authorization as well on 9/14.

*Information from radio-online.com

FCC Docket MM93-177 sets out to adjust FCC rules regarding the adjustment and measurement of AM directional antenna arrays. It also seeks to modify the manner in which the reradiation impact of nearby structures is considered. Today, all towers within a fixed distance of AM antenna systems must be evaluated. Under the new proposals, only those structures exceeding a three-dimensional test must be considered. The test consists of a frequency dependent height, along with a frequency dependent spacing distance. These limits are different for directional and non-directional antenna systems.

LBA Technician Tunes New ATU

LBA has designed, furnished, and commissioned a new medium wave antenna tuning unit and RF filter for the Ministry of Communications of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia through its construction contractor.

The 549kHz ATU is rated for 100,000 watts, 125% modulated and is compatible with DRM standards.

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Another international broadcasting shortwave site is to close at the end of the current shortwave broadcast session. The American Federation of Government Employees, Local 1812, says that the Broadcasting Board of Governors has announced the closure of the Delano, California transmitting station. The closure is scheduled for October 30, 2007 [Sic. Probably means Sunday 28 October].

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Two tower technicians died at 9:30 a.m. on July 10th after falling approximately 500 feet from a tower south of Kansas 10 near Eudora, Kansas.

Authorities have identified the men as Jerry Case, 54, of Kansas City, MO, and Kevin Keeling, 33, of Independence, MO.

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With copper prices in the stratosphere, those thousands of feet of copper wire buried near your AM tower are really attractive to miscreants! A wrecked ground system can put you off the air, to say nothing of the financial loss at $5.00 or so a pound for thousands of pounds of copper. Here are a couple of solutions when renovating your old system or building a new ground system.

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TOMCO high-quality sophisticated broadband RF amps, distributed by LBA, are being adopted by institutes such as the Mayo Clinic and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to support advanced research experiments.

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In April, LBA Technology exhibited at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Convention in Las Vegas. We brought along one of our antenna tuning units and a Tomco TE-1000 Vector Impedance Analyzer.

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