[BC] Counterpoise Ground System

[Bailey, Scott]

Nat,
   My station in Gallatin, TN, when we got ready to replace my old 195'
wind charger tower, codes came to me and want me to go down to 100'. At
the time, my knowledge of unipoles, was not good, and I was still
learning about what top loading was. I told Jim Zobota (the codes guy)
that I needed to be at least 150' to be almost right at 1/4 wave, and
have the same efficiency I had before, and to meet FCC specs for the
frequency I'm on. The City Council went along with what the 150' tower
height, but lots of questions were thrown at me at the time, and were
difficult for me to answer.
   I'm on the high end of the band, 1560, and I discovered later a 100'
tower with a decently built unipole would work. Actually, an 80' tower
would work good for daytime use, but I have some Pre-Sunrise,
Post-Sunset, and some flea power I use at night, and I was afraid of the
high angle radiation that the smaller radiator would cause.
   If I was force to replace the 150' Pirod, Self Supporting tower I
have, I probably would have to go with a Valcom or Kinstar. I know the
Valcoms work o.k. but, the not convinced about the Kinstar yet, due to I
don't know of any stations using one, and another thing, it seems to be
a property/land hogger, something that city and county codes won't like
here at all! 
   I thought that when Tom King was developing the Kinstar, he would
have taken into consideration about real estate and the price is getting
higher and higher, and developers want that land to build houses and
businesses. I wished he would have come up with a way to do a
counterpoise of some sort to shorten the radials to a certain degree,
especially for us on the high end of the band. I've seen buildings built
over ground system, and I don't think that's a keen idea.
   This was 1999. Today, Sumner County Codes are trying to stop any
tower building at all, including for 2 way emergency use in the UHF
band, with is really stupid. WQKR (1270), Portland, TN, was forced off
their licensed tower site by property owner Larry Collins. I think he
wanted the towers gone to use the land to expand a factory building
nearby..
   WQKR former owners went in front of City Codes for a new site found,
and were turned down. They then found a possible site location outside
the City of Portland, in the county. Sumner County said...hell no, and
asking why do you need 2 towers anyway?
   Luckily, Portland, TN is near the county line, and they found a site,
just off I-65, near the Robertson County/Sumner County Line. The site
was zoned in Robertson County. Two towers were erected and the 5 mv/m
barely covered the city of Portland, but the consultant engineer made it
work. 
   
-----Original Message-----
From: broadcast-bounces at radiolists.net
[mailto:broadcast-bounces at radiolists.net] On Behalf Of nakayle at gmail.com
Sent: Wednesday, September 20, 2006 11:07 AM
To: Broadcasters' Mailing List
Subject: Re: [BC] Counterpoise Ground System

 Very interesting installation but I never have understood the logic of
rooftop AM antennas.  Seems to me a ground mounted tower would work
better
and be so much easier to do.

And I can't imagine even building a rooftop system now a days as strict
as
zoning and building codes have become.  Now a days you're lucky if they
let
you build a tower at all.

  -Nat Kayle

On 9/19/06, Bill Harms <wharms at philcobill.com> wrote:
>
> Scott:
>
>         Please check this out.  KSBN 1230 Spokane, Washington uses a
> counter-
> poise system that stretches across the streets and parking lots to
> other buildings.  http://spokane.philcobill.com/kfio/tower.php
>
>
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