Frank Cruz Retiring

After 30 years, KGTV engineer Frank Cruz is hanging it up this Friday. Frank, 65, has been with McGraw-Hill’s channel 10 for the past 10 years. Before that, he spent 20 years at channel 39.

Frank came to broadcast engineering somewhat accidently. He says he had been working as electronic technician at Southcomm International (purchased later by Loral), where he tested and set-up backpack transmitters for the government. He took some classes at Palomar College where he learned there was an opening at KCST (now KNSD). He jumped at the chance to do something new, and found out that he loved the variety of duties there. Under Tom Wimberly, who himself retired last year from McGraw-Hill, Frank specialized in ENG repair and operations, working with Umatic decks, Plumbicon cameras, and their fleet of remote vehicles.

While he liked bench work, he has fond memories of challenging field operations, such as when they would set-up an ad hoc microwave network across the desert from San Diego Padre Baseball spring training camp in Arizona to Chocolate Mountain near the California border, to Laguna Mountain, aiming to Mt. San Miguel for relay to their studio in Kearny Mesa. They used only BMS portable ENG equipment and 6-foot dishes.

When NBC had a reduction-in-force in 2000, Frank took a job under Ron Eden’s supervision at KGTV the very next workday. He continued specializing in ENG maintenance and operations, but took over much of the transmitter care at Mt. Soledad when Eden left. Frank ceremonially signed off the analog transmitter in March of 2009 for the last time.

Frank plans to “take it easy for at least the next six months” with Rebecca, his wife of 42 years.

KGTV is honoring his retirement with a luncheon this week.

Certification News: KGTV’s Schiller Passes CBTE

Matthew Schiller of KGTV last month passed his exam and is now a Certified Broadcast Television Engineer. Congratulations Matt!

Nationally, SBE says they are rewriting many of the certification questions and preview materials to update them. Exam takers were questioning the increasingly irrelevant questions about analog video technologies and the like.

If you would like to take a certification exam in June, have your application in by April 16, the end of the NAB Convention. You can sign up for the exams given at the NAB Convention before March 26. See the SBE website for more information.

KPBS Signs Off La Jolla TV Translators

On February 15, Leon Messenie took the elevator to the top of 939 Coast Boulevard across the street from the La Jolla Cove Park and turned off the power to his two analog TV translators, perhaps for good.

K59AL and K67AM have been broadcasting with less than 2kW ERP from downtown La Jolla since at least June 1974, according to current FCC records. Messenie, now Director of Engineering, remembers that the translators have been there since before he started as a bench technician with KPBS in May 1981.

The site offered to fill the signal for the patrons of KPBS who couldn’t receive the signal by antenna because of Mt. Soledad shadowing the main signal from their channel 15 UHF analog signal on Mt. San Miguel. (At one time, KNSD had a similar fill-in translator on channel 62 at the top of Mt. Soledad.) They took a Time Warner Cable feed as video and audio source. At one time, K59AL and K67AM were at different locations, but they lost their lease on the alternate building, according to Messenie.

He looked for a displacement DTV channel for the La Jolla translators, but when he applied for channel 15, the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department asked for the entire 6 MHz wide channel as a new land mobile band, and the FCC formally agreed last year, citing support for Homeland Security. Then he filed for channel 38. During international coordination, Mexico objected, then it suddenly appeared occupied as XHAS-DT from Tijuana.

Messenie says that Verizon is now ready to take over the 700MHz bandwidth they purchased by auction years ago. “They have been very supportive. Verizon was working with our Washington DC legal firm and even wrote a letter to the FCC when we were waiting to hear back from the FCC. They were on our side trying to get channel 38.  Then Mexico fired up on 38 and it was all over. Eventually all they could say was that they now had their 700MHz equipment in place and were ready to start testing. They worked with me until I could get our ducks in a row for turning off the translators. Once our Audience Service department was ready for the call I shut off the translators. Verizon was very nice throughout the whole ordeal.”

KPBS licensee San Diego State University said in their STA filing for a dark channel that they will continue to pursue a replacement digital allocation. Meanwhile, reaction to the shutdown resulted in four calls during the first two weeks of being off-the-air.

Update on KSIQ(FM) Move from Brawley to San Diego

[UPDATED Feb 2 2010] The new Campo FM station KSIQ on 96.1 MHz is on the air. Its antenna location is strategically located as close as possible to alternate channel Mt. Soledad broadcasters KYXY 96.5 and KUSS 95.7. Bob Gonsett, Consulting Engineer of Communications General Corporation last month asked a number of questions regarding this move in this reprint from his CGC Communicator:

A NEW LIMITED-COVERAGE FM STATION IS COMING TO SAN DIEGO

A new FM station for south San Diego has been in the making for years.  Keep your ears tuned to 96.1 MHz.  Here’s the story:

KSIQ-FM has reliably served Brawley and vicinity for many years with deep-penetrating Class B coverage.  Now, the station is leaving Brawley in favor of serving south San Diego and a small number of people in and around Campo, CA.  It looks like this unusual situation will be accomplished in a three-step process as follows:

  • Step one is to remove 96.1 MHz from Brawley and to allotit to Campo while simultaneously downgrading the facility from Class B to Class B1 status.  The FCC granted this request in July 2006 and the URL is given in the following story. Moving to Campo is important to the station.  This would allow KSIQ to throw its theoretical 57 dBu primary coverage contour over the southern portion of the San Diego metro area even though intervening terrain would prevent the actual signal from reaching there — hold onto that thought for a moment.  (The tower could not be moved any closer to San Diego without creating a short spacing to KUSS and KYXY.)
  • Step two is for KSIQ to file an application to physically build its new Class B1 transmitter at Campo. That application was filed in October 2006 and modified in September 2009 (see next story).  The tower is now up and the station is apparently set to begin broadcasting from Campo if it has not done so already.  Of course, turning off the Brawley transmitter is the other part of the equation.
  • Step three is to file a booster application for San Miguel Mountain in San Diego to back fill the area that the Campo facility would serve on paper, yet could not serve in reality because of intervening terrain.  This was accomplished in an October 2008 application for a “Santee” booster (125 watts ERP, directional) as modified in December 2009 (700 watts ERP, directional).

Now the pieces fit together.  The real audience for this station will be in south San Diego County as fed by the booster. The coverage to Campo and vicinity will probably be immaterial to the net value of the station.  The applicant has installed an 8-bay antenna at Campo using horizontal polarization only.  These steps were apparently taken to hold power costs to a minimum since few people will ever hear the Campo facility.

KSIQ STORY LINKS

Following are the critical KSIQ(FM) applications and exhibits posted in chronological order:

HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS

  • July 28, 2006 – FCC releases Report & Order in MM Docket 05-219, modifying the license of KSIQ(FM), Brawley, to downgrade the station to Class B1 status and move the allotment to Campo. http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-06-1532A1.doc
  • October 25, 2006 – A CP application is filed (and later granted) to move KSIQ’s primary transmitter to Campo and downgrade the facility to Class B1 status.
  • October 15, 2008 – A CP application is filed (and later granted) to establish a San Miguel Mountain booster station with 125 watts ERP, directional, with vertical polarization only.

Here is the 57 dBu coverage map for the KSIQ Campo transmitter and its booster on San Miguel.  These facilities were never built (as far as we know) and simply represented first iteration engineering.

CURRENT DOCUMENTS

  • September 30, 2009 – A CP application is filed (and later granted) to specify the details of the main transmitter plant that would actually be built at Campo.
  • December 17, 2009 – A CP application is filed (and later granted) to modify the San Miguel Mountain booster. This application calls for 700 watts ERP directional and slant (45 degree) polarization using an obscure Italian antenna.  There are some concerns with this application. http://tinyurl.com/KSIQboosterTwo

Here is the 57 dBu coverage map for the KSIQ Campo transmitter and its booster on San Miguel.  The Campo transmitter is in place at this time and presumably the San Miguel booster is being built if it is not on the air already.

  • January 7, 2010 – An application is filed to license the Campo transmitter site.  The app has not yet been granted. The studio is listed as 13881 Highway 94 in Jamul, CA.

Not yet filed or announced as filed:  An application to license the booster on San Miguel Mountain.

CONCERNS WITH THE 700W BOOSTER APPLICATION

Per the 12/17/09 booster application, the transmitting antenna will be built on San Miguel at coordinates 32-41-51N, 116-56-00W (degrees-minutes-seconds format, NAD27 datum), the main lobe will be pointed at 242 degrees true (WSW), the maximum ERP will be 700 watts and slant (45 degree) polarization will be used.

However, data supplied by the antenna manufacturer and furnished by the applicant in Attachment 17 is anything but clear.  Notably, the manufacturer seems to state that vertical (not slant) polarization will be used and the maximum ERP will be 1.5664 kW as stated at the bottom of the first polar plot. The real problem is that the antenna manufacturer never defines most of the parameters shown and gives us no idea of what the
finished installation should look like.

Complicating matters is the Relative Field Polar Plot linked to the application.  It shows the main beam of the antenna pointing due north and states that, “Any specified rotation has already been applied to the plotted pattern.”  Trouble is, the 242 degree clockwise rotation specified by KSIQ’s narrative has NOT been built into the pattern, so the plot is misleading.

The booster is designed to serve south San Diego, but turning the antenna north (in the general direction of Escondido) will drastically alter the coverage of this station.

It is suggested that concerned broadcasters review the 700 watt booster application from scratch.  In the field, there are a few things that can be done immediately.   Does a tower exist at coordinates 32-41-51N, 116-56-00W (degrees-minutes-seconds format, NAD27 datum)?  Has the booster antenna been installed?  What does it look like and where is it pointing?

Society of Broadcast Engineers