shunt feed tower

[fmksey]

My AM station, KSEY, Seymour, TX is at 1230 with a shunt feed tower - and it has been that way since it signed on in 1951. In the daytime we cover - easy 100 miles - and with now with an Optimod AM 9400 - 150 miles - and even better to southwest. The signal is as far away as Abilene TX - it breaks up but it's their. When the sun goes down - so does the signal. One engineer told me being shunt feed had alot to do with the wacko coverage from a graveyard frequency - and the RF problems we have in the building. My current engineer has been with me about 3 years and can't understand the coverage either.
I have been thinking about a new tower site for the AM. Since I don't have to move (and if I do can't be shunt Feed) - he feels I should leave well enough alone And your thoughts??

Mark

[Dave Loudin]

To be accurate, your daytime signal (groundwave) is unchanged at night. You just add a heaping helping of skywave from yourself and 100 of your co-channel friends. Is the issue dropping into the noise sooner than you expect? Excessive self-interference? The electrical height of your tower is the driving favor.

[sportsvoice]

Sounds typical for a graveyard channel. Great coverage during the day if you have good ground conductivity...at night, you may go 10 miles if you are lucky.

[engineer]

My AM station, KSEY, Seymour, TX is at 1230 with a shunt feed tower - and it has been that way since it signed on in 1951. In the daytime we cover - easy 100 miles - and with now with an Optimod AM 9400 - 150 miles - and even better to southwest. The signal is as far away as Abilene TX - it breaks up but it's their. When the sun goes down - so does the signal. One engineer told me being shunt feed had alot to do with the wacko coverage from a graveyard frequency - and the RF problems we have in the building. My current engineer has been with me about 3 years and can't understand the coverage either.
I have been thinking about a new tower site for the AM. Since I don't have to move (and if I do can't be shunt Feed) - he feels I should leave well enough alone And your thoughts??

Mark

What is the tower height? The best case scenario is near 90 degrees. Large feed wire loops have been known to cause problems in shunt fed applications. I would agree the problem is most likely the graveyard channel instead of the tower. However, it never hurts to investigate a possible problem. As your engineer if he or she ever calculated the radiation properties of the feed wire loop, especially if the tower is significantly above or below 90 degrees. Just so you know, there are 1kW's on graveyards that you can't hear five miles from the tower at night.

[dhodges82]

Here is the information on his tower from the FCCinfo.com website.


KSEY 1230 kHz
Seymour, Texas
ND1: Non Directional Antenna: Same constants day and night
Station Broadcast Schedule: Unlimited
Station Class: C - Local Channel 0.25kW-1kW stations delivering primary serviceto a limited community
Region 2 Class: C - Local Channel 0.25kW-1kW stations delivering primary serviceto a limited community
Facility ID: 71536
KSEY License Expires: 08/01/2013

Power: 1 kW, Non-Directional
Hours: Unlimited
Pattern Type: Theoretical
Towers: 1 Augmentations: 0
Tower Electrical Height: 67.5 Degrees; 45.7 meters
RMS Theoretical: 271.98 mV/meter