The fires in Pacific Palisades and Altadena that tragically killed multiple people and consumed thousands of homes last week apparently did not damage broadcast transmitter facilities. Electrical and data fiber outages forced some stations to use their auxiliary sites. Some, like KUSC, are still broadcasting from their aux sites.

Fires Climb Mt. Wilson Again

The Eaton Fire that started in Altadena extended to Mt. Harvard and Mt. Wilson, where most LA FM and TV stations house their transmitters. However, the fire destroyed only one small 2-way and pager building, which was identified by a sign in a photo taken earlier as being owned by “Touch Tel Corp.”

KNBC-TV Transmitter Supervisor Dennis Doty reported from the Mt. Wilson site (YouTube) as the fire approached. (Dennis was, from 2000 to 2004, the Director of Engineering for the XETV Fox 6 San Diego operation.)

Fire crews protected the historic Mt. Wilson Observatory from damage.

iHeartMedia Facilities Undamaged

Doug Irwin, LA market Director of Engineering for iHeartMedia, reported on Facebook on the evening of January 9 that their facilities on Mt. Wilson for KRRL 92.3, KYSR 98.7, KIIS 102.7, KOST 103.5, and KBIG 104.3 (edited for clarity) sustained no damage:

“The fire burned over the top of Mt Wilson today. We got to the site about 6 pm, after the immediate danger had passed, and took a diesel fuel delivery, changed all the air filters we could, and looked things over. To say it was nerve-wracking is an understatement. I got down from the mountaintop a little after 9 pm, and our facilities survived. There were still small fires burning all over—imagine seeing dozens of campfires on the hills—but the local firefighters were there keeping an eye on things, and they would have taken care of any flareups. It’s too early to say it’s over for us because I understand another wind event is coming. I am cautiously optimistic, though.”

Complaints About Fire Alerts Accumulating

A conversation on the SBE EAS forum reported some failures of timing and localization with the Genasys emergency reporting system in Los Angeles County:

“County officials announced Friday they are overhauling their emergency alert system after residents across the Los Angeles area continued to receive erroneous emergency alerts that urged them to prepare to evacuate, even though many were not close to any of the fires sweeping across the foothills of the sprawling metropolis.

“On Friday evening, the county announced it would suspend its current alert system operated by a third-party vendor called Genasys and switch all local emergency alerts to a separate CalOES system as Genasys conducted testing to determine what caused the glitch.”

More in this LA Times article and this FEMA article.

Apps That Report Localized Emergencies

You can keep informed of fires and other emergencies in your area using these mobile device applications:

Genasys – As mentioned above, the app can report fires and other emergencies personalized for your location, assuming you allow reporting of your location. I have no experience with how reliably this handles timeliness, localization, and repetition.

Watch Duty – This app reports fires, and you can restrict them to your county. If you allow default reporting, you’ll get bombarded with frequent updates to an incident that may be 50 miles away. You can silence this by clicking on the flame symbol for that particular fire incident on your map and toggling the Notifications switch. Of course, if that fire marches toward you…

Lotus Communications on December 18, 2024 announced it was acquiring KFBG 100.7 MHz San Diego from Local Media San Diego. LMSD will continue to operate Tijuana stations XHITZ 90.3, XETRA 91.1, and XHRM 92.5. LMSD had acquired KFMB-AM and -FM from TEGNA in 2019. Employees were told to expect being discontinued when the transition is approved by the FCC.

SBE Chapter 36 welcomes new member Mario Armstrong, who recently joined the engineering staff at KPBS. We asked a few questions and he responded:

Where do you work and what do you do there? 

I’m currently a Broadcast Engineer at KPBS, a role I transitioned into after working in operations.

How did you make the transition from operations?

I didn’t start with a background in broadcast engineering, but my technical skills came from setting up PA systems for KPBS as a freelancer after college, and climbing the operations ladder at KGTV from stage manager to weekend director. I also gained hands-on experience working as a grip and gaffer for local commercial productions, which helped me get comfortable on commercial sets.

My real introduction to broadcast engineering came in late 2019 when I officially stepped into the field. The pandemic became my “soft launch” into this world, and it was a steep but rewarding learning curve.

Continue reading Meet Mario Armstrong →