Patrick Martin wrote:
There is gotta be something CKWX can do, as their listeners in the
Frasier Valley are putting with the interference.
I'm sure CKWX wishes it were so - but there really may not be much they
can do, at least in the short term. The FM dial in the Puget Sound
region is so overcrowded that I can't imagine a frequency being
available for them to add an FM signal serving the Fraser Valley.
As a Canadian company, Rogers can't even legally buy KPWX to shut it down.
Perhaps the best precedent I can think of also came from Rogers, a long
time ago. CFTR 680 was a 25 kW signal from a 13-tower array in
Mississauga, west of Toronto, and its signal in parts of the Toronto
area was hurt by the nulls it had to provide to WNYR 680, a non-DA
250-watt daytimer in Rochester, about 90 miles across the lake to the
southeast. Rochester had been there first - it signed on in 1947, while
Toronto only arrived on 680 in the 1960s, when Rogers moved what was
then CHFI from 1540 to 680 and CHLO in St. Thomas, Ontario from 680 to 1570.
It took several years of high-level international negotiations (the
State Department and its Canadian counterpart were involved), but Rogers
brokered a deal that allowed WNYR in Rochester to move to 990, which was
a Canadian clear channel. Canada agreed to waive its treaty protections
to let Rochester use the channel, and Rogers paid for a new and very
expensive six-tower directional array for 990 in Rochester. Getting WNYR
off 680 allowed CFTR to move to a much better site due south of Toronto
in Grimsby, Ontario, where it increased power to 50 kW, all blasted due
north into Toronto.
I *think* (though I haven't done the math on it) that part of the
problem CKWX is experiencing from KPWX is the result of KPWX using VERY
short towers, which result in a skywave takeoff angle that creates
close-in skywave right over Vancouver. Since the treaties don't address
daytime skywave, there's no penalty to KPWX for doing this, and KPWX
benefits by saving money on tower construction. (Their towers are
really, REALLY short - 53 electrical degrees in height, compared to 90
degrees for a more typical class B station and 190 degrees for a typical
class A.)
If KPWX could get zoning permission to build taller towers (and that's
far from guaranteed these days!), I suspect much of the critical-hours
skywave issue could be ameliorated...and paying for taller towers would
probably end up being a lot cheaper for CKWX than the legal hassles
they'd get into if they try to fight what's probably an otherwise
unwinnable fight.
(I am not a lawyer or an engineering consultant, etc...)
s
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