Any broadcast engineering manager can tell you hiring competent help has become a challenge. I just went through a long period of interviews and failures to launch new employees for this reason or that. I know some other local managers have had trouble getting new engineers as well. Here are some of my observations: Continue reading Lessons Learned Hiring New Engineers
KURS Sold to El Sembrador Ministries
RadioInsight.com reported last week: “El Sembrador Ministries is exercising its option to purchase silent 1040 KURS San Diego CA from Quetzal Bilingual Communications for $900,000. El Sembrador is being credited half of its time brokerage fees paid since July 2014 subtracting $310,000 from the money owed. KURS went silent in early October after failing to pay tower owner Multicultural Broadcasting due rent. $10,816 from the deposit paid to Quetzal will go to Multicultural to restore the station’s use of the tower.”
In June this year, the FCC issued a $12,000 monetary forfeiture and short-term renewal for KURS(AM) for failure to prepare issues and program’s lists in the Station’s public file and to file biennial ownership reports.
The same station was issued a Notice of Apparent Liability for violating output power limits in June 1999.
Jaime Bonilla, associated with Quetzal Bilingual Communications, also owns group Media Sports de Mexico stations XHPRS Tecate (operated by Broadcasting Corporation of America as Max 105.7), XEPE 1700 kHz (also operated by BCA), XESDD 1030 kHz Tijuana, and XESS 620 kHz Rosarito, Mexico. XESDD was noted by local engineers for its dial position only 10 kHz away from co-owned KURS, less than 20 miles away.
New Tijuana DTV Station on Channel 33
A new DTV signal appeared last month on physical channel 33. An informed source says the signal is from XHCTTI on Mt. San Antonio in Tijuana, virtual channel 3.1 broadcasting the new network Imagen, meant to compete directly with the dominant Azteca and Televisa networks.
Tip from Bob Gonsett
San Diego to Get Franken-FM
The FCC awarded Venture Technologies Group of Los Angeles a Construction Permit to build an analog channel 6 VHF “Franken-FM” transmitter on Mt. Palomar. KRPE-LP is to be licensed for 3kW Visual Power with a two-element Scala yagi antenna, a move from Murrieta. Neither their FCC CP nor database query record specify antenna polarization nor whether they are in the Mexican border zone. XETV held channel 6 from 1953 until they left the air with all other Tijuana stations in June of 2015.
If you’re not familiar with the term, Franken-FM refers to TV stations built on channel 6 analog with the purpose of using only their aural carrier on 87.75 MHz since it’s tunable on just about any FM receiver. Venture currently owns Franken-FM units in Los Angeles, San Jose, Chico, and Redding. Some VTG stations have LMA’s allowing other broadcasters to rent them.
Venture is also installing a new channel 17 low power digital outlet, KRPE-LD, on Red Mountain above Fallbrook. Curiously, the city of license is listed as South Park, CA.
Mexican TV Stations Introduce New Virtual Channel Numbers
On October 27th, Mexican TV stations aligned their virtual channel numbers with their network identifications. After re-scanning channels, you’ll find, for example, XHTJB Tijuana, physical channel 21, identifies now as 11-1 since it broadcasts Canal Once from Mexico City, replacing its most recent virtual channel number as 3-1. That last number had been its analog channel. XHJK, Azteca 13, physical channel 28, now identifies as 1-1.
Not all stations along the border are following this protocol. Tijuana’s Canal Las Estrellas, slated to be 2-1 throughout most of Mexico, was still 57-1 when last scanned. Stations were not re-identified if it was believed their virtual channel number would conflict with a US virtual channel ID.
US TV stations in major O&O markets at one time aligned their TV channel allocations with their mother networks. CBS stations signed on channel 2, NBC channel 4, DuMont channel 5, and ABC channel 7 wherever they could.