On Friday, December 11, the FCC granted a nearly three-year-old Minor Modification application by KFMB-TV channel 8 to increase power from 19.8 kW to 87.4 kW ERP. According to Rick Bosscher in 2017, the change was designed to help with over-the-air reception in households without external VHF antennas, a rarity these days. The change also used the limits of the existing transmitter and antenna systems. The FCC has been approving increases in VHF station power as long as interference zones are not greatly expanded.

Some AM stations went silent last week as SDG&E cut power to San Diego County zones they deemed vulnerable to winds during extreme fire season. According to Darnell Forde, Salem Media Group Chief Engineer, KCBQ 1170 kHz and Family Radio’s KECR 910 kHz at their shared site in Lakeside lost power December 2nd, 2020 at 10:13 PM and it did not return until 5:02 AM on December 4th, some 31 hours later. They do not have generator backup power available.

KPRZ 1210 kHz south of San Marcos lost power briefly the same night, but an emergency generator ran until the utility restored power at 9:28 AM on December 4th.

Darnell said Lakeside and the area around Elfin Forest where the KPRZ transmitter is located experienced high winds during those outages.

San Diego Gas & Electric has adopted a policy of cutting power during wind storms since several fires in California were blamed on power lines arcing.

Mike Curran, SBE 36 Vice-chair, was caught by the Mt. Woodson UCSD HPWren webcam leaving the site in his Jeep.

Says Mike about this photo: “It’s very rare that I windup in my own weather picture. As I hung out after a service call up on Mt Woodson, I wanted to catch a sunset shot, but as you can see the fog, drizzle, and clouds had a different plan. Just by chance my buddy Drew over in Phoenix was watching the UCSD HPwren cam and was able to grab a screenshot of me leaving in my Jeep. Foggy and windy conditions are not much fun driving down that road, but it sure beats the heck out of driving a desk! Like Julia Roberts said in Oceans 11, ‘You should know, somebody’s always watching.'”

Have you checked out the new SBE.ORG website? Somebody’s been working on it. More white space, adapts to your browser better, cooler colors, animated headings. Give it a try.