Managers at 760 kHz KFMB-AM say their signal is covered by hash in northern San Diego and throughout Orange County from the digital sidebands of alternate channel 740 kHz KBRT in Avalon on Catalina Island. Radio World’s Leslie Stimson recently filed a report about the battle. KBRT says KFMB has no right to interference protection in these areas since KFMB moved to the alternate channel in 1959 from 540kHz with the proviso of accepting interference outside its metro area of San Diego. KBRT also says it has reduced its IBOC sideband power by 6dB. Southern California has a few alternate channel combos that require stiff NRSC filters and cooperation–think 690 XETRA and 710 KSPN or 1070 KNX and 1090 XEPRS. But KBRT wants the Ibiquity IBOC system on the air, which by definition is “in-band” but not really “on channel”, typically spilling well into alternate channel territory. This one could become a national test case.

McKinnon Broadcasting filed recently to construct new low power digital TV transmitters in three Southern California markets new to the station.

The applications include a 15kW channel 40 in El Centro, a 2kW channel 44 serving Santa Barbara, and a 5kW channel 26 serving Palm Springs.

FCC records show that two other groups have applied for channel 44 in Santa Barbara, and the FCC granted Gulf-California group in 2007 a construction permit for KCWQ-LD on channel 26 in Palm Springs.

KUSI already operates a channel 12 translator, K12PO, serving the Temecula area of Riverside County. They have an application to upgrade the site to digital.

Director of Engineering Richard Large said, “With the FCC opening up a window to file for Digital LPTV and translators, [the filing] was a new opportunity to expand our KUSINEWS coverage.”

It’s about the rabbit ears, really. We’ve all been in one of those homes where they are watching your station on a pair of metal rods sticking up from the TV, and what you see on the screen is a little video and lots of random noise. And when you took away their analog signal, you suddenly took away the ability of the cheapskate to get free TV. That’s because what was left was not enough signal to make a digital picture even on a generation six converter box.

When it calculated power limits for replacement DTV stations, the FCC wanted to duplicate the coverage areas of analog stations. On paper, it did so pretty well. And it works for viewers with modest outdoor antennas. Most over-the-air viewers with older antennas saw their good analog pictures replaced by crisp new digital pictures.

What the FCC overlooked is the TV audience out there with substandard antennas getting substandard analog signals. When the DTV transition happened, these viewers were left at the bottom of the digital cliff with no pictures at all.

Power to the People

KFMB and KGTV require approximately 15kW ERP to duplicate their analog audience using digital according to parameters originally set-up by the FCC and documented by Hammett and Edison under contract. KGTV signed on this year with 20.7kW ERP. KFMB originally applied for an increase in power on channel 8 digital after their February transition and received approval in mid-July to run with 19.8kW ERP. They adjusted their transmitter without any need for changes to hardware.

The approximate 20kW figure was reached based on calculated adjacent channel protection for Los Angeles stations. As it is, the increase will barely be noticed since it’s just over 1dB. Whether future increases can be planned depends on national trends and more importantly, what happens in LA. Both stations want to increase power.

KFMB’s Director of Engineering, Rich Lochmann, says their current equipment will allow them to get up to 87kW, but they would ultimately like to go to 160kW.

Rich says, “The key words are ‘location, location, location’ and ‘antenna, antenna, antenna’.  People just can’t get away with the cheapie passive antennas. With analog they would watch anything even if it was snowy or ghosty but with digital it’s there or not there. They don’t understand that nor like it.”