[RFI] Splatter from AM Radio Station WNTS Indianapolis and Resolution

[Cortland Richmond]

That's interesting; I'm fairly close to station to where WPRR is (or -- if they're permanently out of business --was) on 1680, and when their coax was melting it *definitely* made noise not far across the river.  IIRC, I sent them a look at my SA's screen, too.
My "home shop" has regretfully been out of order for some years, but I was at Smiths, then GE Aviation, 2006 - 2011 before retiring form a post-military  civilian career in EMC engineering--  learnt out of school.

And when I finish cleaning up my mess, I'll be back on the air -- 77's not too old to play. 

Cortland
KA5S
 
 -----Original Message-----
From: Don Kirk 
Sent: Oct 26, 2021 8:11 AM
To: Rob Atkinson 
Cc: rfi 
Subject: Re: [RFI] Splatter from AM Radio Station WNTS Indianapolis and Resolution
 
Hi Rob,
 
The station (WNTS) actually did a great job responding to our interference
complaint as they jumped on the problem almost immediately, they brought in
an RF Engineer from far away, and they ran at reduced power for 10 months.
 
Looking back through my notes, with WNTS running at reduced power I went
back down to the WNTS transmitter site parking lot on Dec 28th which was 5
days after I worked with their Engineers to isolate the problem, and using
my SDR receiver with a 3 inch untuned loop antenna the WNTS carrier was 75
dB above my displayed noise floor and I could not detect/see any splatter
so they certainly appeared to be in compliance (note: I will add this info
to my website). It appeared reducing power caused a huge reduction in
splatter, not just a linear reduction in the level of splatter.
 
I know they spent a lot of money to recap the transmitter, and considering
many AM broadcast stations in the US are financially in dire straits, I was
really pleased with the outcome.
 
Just recently (August 2nd of this year) 1070 KHz which had been one of the
most popular AM radio stations in Indianapolis with the call sign WIBC and
in recent years WFNI dismantled their towers (6 tower array) and sold the
land because the land became more valuable than the station. It really is
a sad situation.
 
Just FYI, and 73.
Don (wd8dsb)
 
On Tue, Oct 26, 2021 at 6:02 AM Rob Atkinson wrote:
 
> >It took almost 10 months for the replacement capacitors to arrive and for
> the repairs to be completed.
>
> I know recapping a rig like that can be expensive, but to me, 10
> months tells me someone didn't really care about hams or FCC
> enforcement all that much. I know Harris isn't all that good about
> supporting old rigs, but they don't _have_ to be the only parts
> source.
>
> Rob
> K5UJ
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