This story is from the ebook “Awesome RF Buildouts.”
Among the two dozen or so radio stations owned by Pamal Broadcasting in the northeastern United States are FM outlets WJJR and WZRT, licensed to Rutland, Vt., transmitting from the ski area atop Killington Mountain.
But Pamal was not able to reach an agreement with its landlord for its lease renewal. So it approached Vermont Public Broadcasting and instead suggested a collocation on Grandpa Knob to the east of Rutland, where VPB owns a tower for its television station and three FM signals.
Pamal would pay for a new antenna and combiner. WJJR/WZRT would have a new home that provided better local coverage in Rutland, thanks to less terrain shading. And Vermont Public’s WRVT would be able to increase power to 5.6 kW.
David Groth of Data Wave LLC led this project while Data Wave owner Paul Thurst helped with the RF planning. Cavell, Mertz & Associates provided engineering consulting while Tower Technology Inc. performed the tower structural analysis. Work on the tower was done by Prescott Towers of Rutland.
Click on the picture to toggle between photos of the RF project.
The key components of the combined FM facility are Broadcast Electronics STX-10 transmitters for WZRT and WJJR; a GatesAir FAX-10 transmitter for WRVT; a two-bay, three-around Kathrein 754154 antenna; and a C-IR-3-3-30K-N branch combiner from American Amplifier Technologies.
“The project involved building a brand-new site with three combined FM stations, two of which are closely spaced: WZRT on 97.1 MHz and WJJR on 98.1 MHz,” said Paul Thurst.
“There are three additional FM stations on the tower — WVER(FM), WMUD and W256CW — as well as a VHF television station, WVER Channel 10 on 195 MHz. The FCC construction permit required a complex set of intermodulation measurements prior to granting program test authority. When we were making those measurements, we had to use multiple notch filters from Microwave Filter Co. to reduce the carrier levels on the three combined stations so the spectrum analyzer didn’t overload.”
The project was slowed somewhat last winter when site preparation work by subcontractors had not been completed on time. “This site is very difficult to access and during the winter, it is almost impossible due to ice forming on the jeep trail.”
In mid-summer the installations had been completed and the licensees were waiting for the FCC to grant Program Test Authority before commencing operations.
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