International Broadcasting

Back last October when I was in Canada on business, I had the opportunity to drive to Niagara Falls, just a short 147 kilometer (90 mile) drive from Toronto west down the Queens Expressway along the shore of Lake Ontario. About 3 quarters of the way to Niagara Falls by Grimsby, I passed an unusual AM antenna system. I assumed it was an AM antenna system because of the height of the towers and the placement.

On my visits to the GTA (Greater Toronto Area) I had started listening to one of the news stations, CFTR Toronto, 680 AM. CFTR is a 50,000 watt blow torch that isn't heard in the USA. I was intrigued to know why since Toronto is just across the border and with only Lake Ontario between it and the USA, but at the time it was not one of the items that was at the top of my list of things to do.

On this cloudy, windy, chilly Sunday in October, I am scooting down the QEW at 120 km/h (70 mph) listening to CFTR. As I approach Grimsby, the radio begins to overload. WOW! That makes no sense. I am 60 miles from Toronto and now CFTR is starting to overload the receiver? Guess with the lake I am now directly in the middle of the beamwidth but that doesn't make any sense either since I am now between Toronto and Buffalo and I know there is a 680 in Boston (WRKO) that is a 50,000 watt station as well and they don't put 50 kW blow torches that close together on the low end of the AM band and certainly NOT when there is international boundaries involved and 680 is a US Class 1-B clear channel so any Canadian station has to protect the US stations. It all wasn't adding up.

Just about that time I see 8 towers, with 4 towers in a two row alignment parallel to the QEW on the left between the QEW and Lake Ontario. (The QEW is never more than a 1 mile or less than a road bed from Lake Ontario in this part of the province.) The radio overload is getting worse and to the point that as I approach the towers, the splatter is now so bad, I can't understand what is being said (classic close encounter overload). I see an exit and over pass beside the towers so I decide to take it and see what 8 towers in 2 rows might be since I have never seen a tower pattern like this. I have seen 5 tower AM arrays but if this is an AM array, I need a picture of it but why is it pointing TOWARD Buffalo or into the Canadian wilderness where there is no one there to hear it?

I pull up to the corner of the land I see that yes there are 8 towers parallel to the shore with 4 towers in 2 rows and a building in the middle that looks like an AM transmitter building.

CFTR Antenna, Grimsby, Ontario

As I pull down in to the center of the array, I see the transmitter building but no markings on who or what this transmitter site is. I am now assuming that this must be a local station (Grimsby) or one that is licensed to Niagara Falls and to keep it out of the US they had to move it away from the boarder to keep it from crossing into the US too much and it is interfering with CFTR.
CFTR Transmitter Building

Then as I pull down to the end of the array, I look across the lake and then it hits me what it is. THIS IS CFTRs TRANSMITTER SITE!! I can clearly see Toronto just about 20 miles across the lake with the CN tower rising above the city and lake shore.

Toronto on the opposite shore of Lake Ontario through the CFTR antenna system

What I thought was 8 towers configured in a 4 tower two row arrangement, it is really more different than I thought, it is actually two towers in a four row arrangement! That is EXTREMELY unique! It all of a sudden makes sense. In order to keep CFTR out of the US and to provide the required signal strength into the GTA (CFTR is very strong everywhere I went, even downtown Toronto) they needed a very directional antenna system but if the antenna was put west or east or north of Toronto, it would be impossible to keep CFTR out of the US and keep the population in the coverage area. Since Niagara Falls is on the south shore of Lake Ontario and is almost due south of Toronto (Toronto is on the north shore) around the western part of the lake, they put the antenna south of town and very highly directionalized it to the north straight at Toronto over the lake with hardly any signal to the south and into the US. The beamwidth of the CFTR pattern is wide enough at 20 to 40 miles to cover the entire GTA. Ingenious!!

I get back in the rental Jeep Liberty and drive on down the QEW, CFTR starts to get better. About 10 miles down on the right, I see ANOTHER antenna array configured the SAME WAY!! Nine towers in a two tower 4 row with one in the rear configuration aimed at Toronto. Come to find out it is the sister station to CFTR, all sports CJCL 590 AM, TheFan. Another 50 kW blow torch with an even tighter antenna pattern that has no back wash into the US at all.

If I didn't make it to Niagara Falls, this side trip was worth it! I did try and look for a way to get to CJCL's towers, but I didn't find an easy way so I kept on driving and didn't get a chance to take a picture of it. Since I had pictures of CFTR's antenna, I decided to not get off the busy highway and take a picture. I arrived at Niagara Falls about 15 minutes later and then looked forwarded to seeing them on the way back.

Being so far south in the US, you really don't think about how other countries deal with things like that, but after seeing CFTR's antenna system, it gives me a much better appreciation of what foreign broadcasters have to go through to serve their audiences when they live beside the USA.

Satisfaction

Life is pretty good these days.

Some might say how can that be with 6 day weeks and hours that never seem to end? It is the satisfaction that is being derived from all of the months of pent up anticipation while others worked and I watched on the sidelines as this project moved forward. It is quite contagious to say the least. Ross the Boss feels it too.

After 7 years of planning, revising, delays, false starts, more revisions, more delays, permit delays, more permit delays, equipment delays, rework delays, the fact that now we are putting in our time as the others are either finishing up or have finished up is just fabulous! With all that needs to be done, blogging is one the things that have taken the back seat for the time being. Getting deliveries for everything from equipment to transmitter coolant to installing transmission lines and leveling racks and making sure all of the paperwork is in order, the days (heck weeks) get gone in no time.

It seems the transmitters had just arrived and now the digital is almost ready. The cooling system is loaded with coolant and the electrical is just about finished and next week we hope to fire the high voltage up for the first time and if all goes well, then the transmitter can be tuned and we can start testing, the last step before we put it on the air.


Plumbing for the transmitter cooling system

Then after it is on the air, I am going to slow WAY down in the month of February. That is ratings month so not much happens then anyway. I will use the time to get ready for the installation of the new analog transmitter so when ratings are done in March, we can get it installed and on the air by the end of the month. After that, we will take stock in what needs to be done next and see when we might be able to do it.

Who says "I can't get no, satisfaction?"

Finally. At Peace.

For the first weekend in months, I am NOT thinking of work! I went to bed last night and realized I wasn't automatically thinking about work. I actually laid there and had nothing in my brain. I restfully drifted off to sleep.

Why? There is tons of the things going on now and this past week was the busiest I have had in months. Then it hit me. I am now in control of my destiny for a change. With the arrival of the transmitter this week, the next phase of the project begins. It is the final phase that has us, myself and the rest of my engineering compadres, working at the site. I was in a great mood all week. Even when we hit some bumps in the road, it didn't really bother me. I said my peace and then was ready to move on and didn't think another thing about it.

I can hardly wait to get to the site and it is getting harder to leave at night now that there are things to do and many decisions to be made. I feel like am driving things now. Yeah, the GC is still on site and there are still some things getting finished up, but now WE are starting to drive the pace of the project.

The end of the project is definitely in sight now and it is coming together better than I could have ever imagined. It is a great time and a great job I have!!

And we are off....

2006 is starting out pretty good!! The new digital transmitter arrived today. Along with about 100 boxes of parts that have to go into and around the new transmitter.

The next couple of weeks will be exciting as we now wrestle getting this beast of voltage and RF power into something that not only can we control, but actually send digital pictures to the masses at 1 million watts of power! Now the transmitter will not put out 1 million watts, it only does 52,000 watts, but when you add the gain of the antenna along with the power of the transmitter, it equals 1 million watts.

I will sleep good tonight with a smile on my face, the first time in a long time.