In a November 18, 2009 post in this thread, Ken Cartwright mentions that KCKX is for sale, but that the $350,000 price is out of his range. Maybe the owner has become more motivated to sell, and has reduced the price. How fortunate for Ken that the first two letters of the call sign of his (possibly) new station are his initials.
The famous water tower where Ken Cartwright had one of his transmitters, for which he received his second NOUO, is no more. Ken is showing a half hour time-lapse video, along with his audio streaming, documenting the tower being taken down by workers during several days in May, 2010.
It looks like Ken Cartwright is not going to buy the 1000 W class D station he was thinking about buying, but he is going to provide programming for it. He will shut off his remaining Part 15 transmitter in early October.
http://www.kencradio.com/press.php
Ken Cartwright previously announced the intention to stop transmitting on 1620 kHz with a Part 15 AM transmitter on October 18, 2010. If he is on schedule, he should be off the air by now on that frequency.
He is broadcasting in the morning, Monday to Saturday, on KCKX, Cowboy Country 1640 in Stayton, Oregon. He continues streaming on his KENC website. No more Part 15 radio for him.
A lot has happened since that first NOUO last November. Ken and Hamilton fought the good fight for elevated antennas and ground lead chokes, but they lost. Even a U.S. Senator got involved!
Still, Ken got what he wanted all along. He is now broadcasting on a local community station in his home town.
I have many questions but it would be a moot point. I would suppose that under the threat of litigation Ken had to throw in the towel.
I would like to know how this sets with Keith. Will he have to revise his recommendations as to installations.
As I have said in the past, it really doesn't matter if you are 100% legal with your installation, you can still be shut down on a whim.
Ken Cartwright is now doing the same thing he did when he was operating KENC; but now his transmitter has real power. Even at night, he has thousands of times the radiated power he had before. He was thinking about buying KCKX, and I am glad that he didn't have to put what may be his life savings at risk. The parnership with the owner that was established could benefit both parties.
Hamilton, SSTRAN and other Part 15 AM manufacturers, as well as most Part 15 AM operators (including myself), lost big time. We were all working under an unfavorable regulatory environment where the letter of the law was against us.
If the ground conductivity in your area is good, you might be able to get a km, or so, of range with a transmitter mounted at ground level. Some additional improvement can be obtained with better transmitter efficiency, a better ground screen at the base of the antenna, and a more efficient loading coil.
The three meter rule always included the ground lead and that was always pretty clear. An 'elevated installation' is really just an unbalanced dipole; it was never OK, so being told we can't do that isn't much of a loss.
Lots of great work being done with certified, kit and home brew units sitting on the ground where they belong. Near field/ground wave can be pretty phenomenal when everything is adjusted just right.
As far as distance, with a legal installation distance will always be the result of several factors, not the least of which is the time the operator is willing to invest in tuning the the antenna.
And with that, it's time to bid this thread a fond 'good bye.' This thread is nearly a year old and 156 posts long, which means it's become far too unwieldy to be useful. We know how Ken's story ended so let's start some new discussions...