[sbe-eas] Hawaii gets a PEP station KHKA CBS 1500

[Aaron Read]

I was gonna say!   Saltwater propagation is a remarkable thing, but
Honolulu to Guam is 3799mi and to American Samoa is 2594mi.  For reference,
*Los Angeles* is closer to Honolulu at "only" 2560mi.  :)   Granted, I've
gotten reception verification requests for the old 10kW incarnation of WPVD
1290AM Providence from Norway before, and that's ~3400mi and mostly over
salt water, too.  But the audio quality is miserably poor and it fades in
and out a lot.   It's widely known that WBZ's 1030AM signal is easily
listenable in Bermuda but that's also "only" 775mi and 1030 uses a DA to
make a figure-8 lobed signal that concentrates that Class A "clear channel"
50kW both northwest towards Boston but also southeast...which happens to be
where Bermuda is.   (and come to think of it, I don't know if WBZ is
listenable in Bermuda all the time thanks to saltwater propagation...or
only at night thanks to skywave?)

I wouldn't think KHKA's 1500AM signal would be a viable means of audio
distribution across the Pacific, except in the most dire of special
circumstances.  Like, The Walking Dead or The Last of Us.  :)   That said,
I think if you somehow decided to build a highly directional AM station
with a lot of power on a low frequency (with nothing else on it) from a
tower site close to a southwest shoreline on a Hawaiian Island?  It could
conceivably work.  Probably not well, but it might work well enough.   But
that's a lot of very expensive infrastructure to construct AND maintain to
achieve a goal far more easily done via satellite distribution, or ham
radio or something like that.

- Aaron

On Wed, May 31, 2023 at 11:29 AM Sean Donelan <sean at donelan.com> wrote:

>
> Clarification: I was informed KHKA is not a terrestrial relay station from
> Hawaii to Guam and American Somoa.  It is used as a satellite relay site.
>
> My speculation about AM transmission over the ocean was in error.
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-- 
------------------------------------------
Aaron Read
readaaron at friedbagels.com
www.friedbagels.com
"Engineering: it's like math but LOUDER!"
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