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Radio Station Driving Community Crazy With Incredible Interference
I'm not sure I've heard of anything quite like this before. Tacoma, Washington AM radio station KKOL is driving folks living near their transmitter site insane by constantly interfering with everything from their web connections to their cell phones. Despite constantly moving its transmitter, it hasn't resolved the problem and the owners and the FCC are trying to figure out how to stop it.
Imagine going through this every day:
"The 50 kW daytime station has been the subject of multiple complaints by nearby residents of blanketing RF interference disrupting all sorts of household electronics, including internet connections, cordless and cell phones, televisions, speakers, doorbells, baby monitors, HVAC controls, home electrical circuits and even invisible dog fences."
The station uses the moniker "The Answer" as their branding, but when it comes to stopping the problem, they apparently don't have one. What a bizarre story!
Washington State station's interference woes continue
- mike marshall
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Re: Radio Station Driving Community Crazy With Incredible Interference
It must be awfully frustrating when you can’t get toast but always get the one station you can’t stand
on your toaster.
- Chrisphen
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Re: Radio Station Driving Community Crazy With Incredible Interference
Reminds me of the time about twenty years ago that garage doors went crazy for some homeowners in Ottawa - all thanks to the US Embassy revising its wireless communication technology after 9/11.
- Forward Power
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Re: Radio Station Driving Community Crazy With Incredible Interference
Something similar to the KKOL issue happened back in the late '80s in Brockville. When CHXL-FM 103.7 (now CJPT-FM, one of Bell's "Bounce" stations) first launched, the transmitter was at or near the station's Stewart Boulevard studios, licensed for 50,000 watts, but that had to be dropped to about 10 kW, as 103.7 was interfering with literally anything and everything else on the FM dial. In the mid '90s, the 103.7 transmitter site was moved to its current spot, just north of the 401 about halfway between Kingston and Brockville... Gananoque's "myFM" station, CJGM-FM 99.9, is also at that site.
I had the opportunity to visit that transmitter site in 2011, while assisting with the build-out of CJGM. That station was running a little 2 kW Crown transmitter, while CJPT had a huge (and loud!) 20 kW Harris tube rig powered by rotary phase converters, as they couldn't get three-phase power at the Holland Road site. Both stations are now running newer solid-state Nautel transmitters, a 2.5 kW model for CJGM, and a 15-kilowatter for CJPT.
- markow202
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Re: Radio Station Driving Community Crazy With Incredible Interference
And all the condos next to the CN Tower are ok? Weird. Must be the beam aim of the signal perhaps this Washington station is projecting.
- turkeytop
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Re: Radio Station Driving Community Crazy With Incredible Interference
markow202 wrote:
And all the condos next to the CN Tower are ok? Weird. Must be the beam aim of the signal perhaps this Washington station is projecting.
I once stayed on one of the upper floors of a hotel in downtown Toronto. Whenever I check into a room the second thing I always do is turn on my radio.
Hotel radios are notoriously bad, so I always carry a Sangean portable along. When I turned it on, nothing happened. Just a lot of random characters flashing in the display. I glanced out the window and there was the CN tower just a short distance away. I figured the powerful signals from the tower were messing up the electronics. I collapsed the telescopic antenna down into the radio, then it worked OK.
Later that evening, when I turned on my laptop, every time it would boot up, it would immediately crash, I had to take it down into the lobby to use it.
Last edited by turkeytop (November 29, 2022 2:16 pm)
I started out with nothing and I still have most of it.
- RadioAaron
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Re: Radio Station Driving Community Crazy With Incredible Interference
And all the condos next to the CN Tower are ok? Weird. Must be the beam aim of the signal perhaps this Washington station is projecting.
Seems it's always AM stations causing this kind of trouble in these stories.
- markow202
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Re: Radio Station Driving Community Crazy With Incredible Interference
And all the condos next to the CN Tower are ok? Weird. Must be the beam aim of the signal perhaps this Washington station is projecting.
I once stayed on one of the upper floors of a hotel in downtown Toronto. Whenever I check into a room the second thing I always do is turn on my radio.
Hotel radios are notoriously bad, so I always carry a Sangean portable along. When I turned it on, nothing happened. Just a lot of random characters flashing in the display. I glanced out the window and there was the CN tower just a short distance away. I figured the powerful signals from the tower were messing up the electronics. I collapsed the telescopic antenna down into the radio, then it worked OK.
Later that evening, when I turned on my laptop, every time it would boot up, it would immediately crash, I had to take it down into the lobby to use it.
Oh wow!