Talking 160m on an Abandoned AM Broadcast Tower of Former KDWN & KXST
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- Опубліковано 18 жов 2024
- I had the opportunity to join some ham operators out at the former KDWN/KXST AM transmitter tower in North Las Vegas, right near Nellis Air Force Base and the Las Vegas Motor Speedway along I-15. In this video, I made contact with Leo WA6MTZ in Newberry Springs, California, which is just east of Barstow, California. In terms of "range," it's not really that far of contact, but it's still cool to me.
The land that these towers are on ended up being worth more than the AM stations, and the owner, Audacy, sold off the land. (Their penny stock price might have had something to do with it.)
This was a last-chance opportunity to put some RF thru these 240-foot-tall towers before they collapsed and sold off for scrap.
The towers are 240 feet tall and were erected in the 1970s back when the only thing out here was the Air Force base. Urban sprawl and encroachment are very real.
A very special thanks to Dan W7IVK, the engineer at this broadcast company (they still have a half dozen other AM/FMs in the market), for the invite. Dan W7IVK is one of the guys that helps maintain the Sin City Repeater Network/Federation/whatever you want to call it.
The rig pictured is an Icom 756 Pro II owned by Kirk Nemzer NO7BS. Kirk was using an Ameritron ATR-20 antenna tuner.
#N4NJJ #W7IVK #NO7BS #KDWN
great job guys congratulations 73 from kb2uew
Awsome! Southwest Germany waving a Hand 💯👌🙋♂
That's pretty cool
Neat idea.. But I wish you'd shown how the rig/tuner was hooked up to the antenna. 73 de k7dgf
Fr
I would assume they put the centre of the coax to a clamp on the tower, then clamped the shield of the coax to the ground straps on the concrete base that are a part of the ground system.
Then the used a tuner to bring it in.
Good job guys glad you got a chance to do this.
Us too!
What a super cool opportunity 73 Jen KB6JEN
When the apocalypse happens hopefully towers aren't all gone. So guys like you can communicate. Great stuff thanks
It sounds like these towers will be down within 60 days, and sold off for scrap by the new property owner.
@@n4njj that sucks still great that you showed it. Thanks
We can all thank Audacy Las Vegas for shutting down 2 AM stations in Las Vegas and selling the property that these towers sat on to prop up their company's bottom line. So unfortunate that such a west coast powerhouse, 50,000 watt KDWN 720 should return to dust and no longer provide a public service to it's listeners. The original 3 tower directional array sat just off of Boulder Highway between Henderson and Las Vegas and was established in 1975.
The demise of AM Radio is never a good thing, especially when we have nightime AM radio Stations powering down to about 27 watts and since they're on a co-located non directional tower, with a less than optimum antenna length and are expected to provide acceptable service. The industry sure has changed and not for the better.