[Boatanchors] Short Wave Broadcast Folks:

[Richard Knoppow]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Stinson" <arc5 at ix.netcom.com>
To: <boatanchors at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Tuesday, April 15, 2014 5:09 PM
Subject: [Boatanchors] Short Wave Broadcast Folks:


>I know there are some folks here who worked in SWBC.
> As you know, most of it's gone now. |
> But there are still a few big stations out there in the 
> U.S. running multiple 100KW transmitters 24/7 and all they 
> broadcast is religious "fringe" material.
> One old guy who claims to have a personal hot-line to God 
> is on several of these all day, every day.
>
> I do not understand the economics of running these 
> stations. They've got big maintenance costs,
> staffing and monster electric bills, yet one source tells 
> me that the "Jesus Radio" audience runs about
> 200 people on a good day and many hours with no one 
> listening at all. The charge for hours of
> programming on these stations isn't very high,
> but 24/7 can amount to a lot each month.
>
> I don't get it. The math just "don't add-up."
> How do these stations afford this?
> Surely "Brother Stair" doesn't get enough from the 200 
> people listening to him to support
> multiple 100KW transmitters, 24/7?
> What am I missing here?
>
> 73 Dave AB5S

    FWIW, one of those evangelistic stations is not far from 
here KVOH, beamed to South and Central America.  They 
transmit on a couple of frequencies, I hear them on 9975 
mhz. They have a jazz and big band program (no fooling) on 
Saturday and Sunday evening from 8PM to 9PM Pacific time. 
Not too many "commercials".
    They have two 50KW transmitters built out of a single 
RCA 100H Ampliphase. RCA built only a handful of HF 
Ampliphase transmitters so it might be possible to trace 
this one. The transmitters as they stand are no longer 
Ampliphase type but I don't know what they were converted 
to.  They sound OK but my hearing is not so good. There are 
some details of their antenna on thier web site. The station 
is near Simi Valley, maybe fifteen miles from here so I hear 
ground wave. There is a coverage map on the web site, those 
not too far off the beam can probably hear them pretty well. 
Whatever other religious broadcasters have I suspect this is 
an economy operation.
     I very much miss all the short wave broadcasting, even 
the propaganda stations, but especially the old BBC World 
Service. These days Cuba and China are about the only ones 
left.

--
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles, CA, USA
dickburk at ix.netcom.com