[Updated July 18, 2021] Crews working at the KFMB-TV transmit site on Mt. Soledad last month replaced the 8-bay multi-station Dielectric FM transmit antenna with a new antenna. The current group of sharing stations switched temporarily to the old aux antenna Monday, June 7. Then, Wireless Infrastructure Services disassembled the ERI antenna known as “Quadzilla.” They replaced it with a new 12-bay, 1/2-wavelength spaced Dielectric antenna designed to handle the greater power from the three moved from neighborhood transmitters.
The FCC in late February and early March granted Minor Modification applications for all of the iHeartMedia FM stations atop Mt. Soledad to consolidate at the historic KFMB-TV site, moving from KGTV’s antenna across the street. iHeart’s KMYI 94.1 and KIOZ 105.3 will join current master FM antenna partners KPBS-FM 89.5, KBZT (FM) 94.9, KXSN (FM) 98.1, and KFBG (FM) 100.7. EMF’s KLVJ (FM) 102.1 Encinitas has taken delivery of a Nautel GV15 transmitter and will move its signal from the UCSD tower site to the new master FM antenna, as well.
iHeartMedia’s KSSX (FM) 95.7 Carlsbad moved from KGTV to KFMB-TV, but their allocation requires a separate, directional antenna that was mounted on the tenant tower at KFMB-TV. The signal has some reduction in signal toward Mexico to the southeast. Last week, Vic Soelberg installed the new Dielectric antenna.
All the stations on the KFMB-TV site fired up their transmitters at full power during the week of July 11–17, the last ones late in the week after an air conditioning upgrade was finalized.
The FCC granted a Minor Modification application for iHeart Media to move K277DH, the KLSD (AM) translator on 103.3 MHz, from a KGTV-owned tower to the KFMB-TV tower. The CP specifies a vertically polarized Kathrein yagi with an east-west orientation at 250 watts ERP.
Since the KFMB Stations were sold to TEGNA, InSite had been managing the site for income. American Tower Corp. recently acquired all of the InSite properties and management contracts and has taken over management of the KFMB-TV property.