Відео

640kHz is pretty low freq, but I wonder how much tower height the capacity hat cuts off?

Wow! So lucky! I've been listening to KFI since I was a little kid with my first AM pocket radio tucked under my pillow at night from several states away. I've always been fascinated by this station and their transmitter facility.

Pretty cool! I used to listen to George Noory all the time when I lived in SoCal.

Here in Ohio, we have WLW that for a short time ran 1/2 million watts.

I heard KFI back in the mid-1970s way out in south central Kansas! I used to love to hear distant stations on my AM radio.

I remember flying in and out of Fullerton Airport and having to make a turn to the south to avoid the KFI antenns off the end of the runway. First time doing that was back in 1974.

I still have a couple of the 1947 insulators and a large part of the tower that came down in 2004. Maybe a couple of other things too but SHHHHH!

Very Wonderful Tower Video!!!! F+L, Corey

KSL was an all clear radio station also.

I would love to see more about the FEMA setup and how they made it EMP proof.

I was fortunate to be leaving an event at another station the day John & Ken were broadcasting live to switch to the rebuilt tower and I stopped by for the festivities. It's quite an impressive transmitter plant as Marcos & Doug have shown us. Sadly, two engineers who were there when the original tower fell and present for the big reveal are no longer with us. RIP Tony Dinkel and John Paoli.

Antennas and towers should not be allowed on top of or too close to any mountain tops. In my area, there is one "mountain" and it is covered in antennas. It looks disgusting.

Are the uplink feedhorns of those hazardous? Since a kid, I picked up this fear to dishes specially those that can hold people (or cars), and those that have a thick feedhorn/housing that beams into a first reflector, back at the dish, and up/away. Just the notion of being even behind of them scares the **** out of me. Not that I'd have access to one, anyway. "I'll just wait here". What can you say about uplinks/feedhorns/waveguides in general?? I eventually lost SOME (not all) of the fear to transmitting dishes and sector antennas BTW. I had to bc I have some on towers for networking. But those are based on Wi-Fi and have the same anemic power levels, just highly sensitive/tuned. If anything Wi-Fi, over 12-to-18m below, behind concrete, interferes with it.

You need to come to Downers Grove, IL. The old WCFL xmitr farm will be moved and the 3 sticks coming down - soon.

That's a huge transmitter building. Wow

I wanted to see the glowing transmitting tubes,

Handle on the law

I started listening to KFI back in 1962, grew up with KFI and the cast of characters thru the decades. Thanks for the video!

The home of Tom Leykis. Back in the Days.

How can they afford to operate this thing? Electricity in California has never been more expensive and AM radio is less relevant than ever? Every now and then I can get whispers of KFI in Texas on a good e-skip morning twilight, but that is about it. Enjoy this clear channel operator while you can... I think they will reduce power or stop operating within a decade.

Great fun ! Thank you for posting this video !!!!! sbf

Drove past and around this historic site back in April. Best signal in Southern California.

You should take Geerling Engineering as an example of how to do site tours. People watching this are interested in the RF hardware. Not the bathroom tile.

Another interesting, enjoyable facility tour. From an old radio fan who caught the bug from my dad.

"Yea, I guess we have some old stuff were haven't bothered to get rid of" WTF?!?!

Technology excites my wonderment however consolidation and STLs and iHeart radio leave a bitter taste in my mou...... soul

Great job. Appreciate the effort in documenting the last of the 50kW facilities. Chuck @ KCBS

I wonder if the "Tower Lights" switch, was placed due to I've seen some older antenna sites where the call letters of the station were on the antennas, and had ground lighting aimed at them. Wonder if that existed there?

So many crazy things which were broadcasted from that building.

Man I really like the tour but you are really fast on your camera motion :/ I got a little motion sick.

We had similar in Australia in November 2023 with Australia's second biggest carrier, Optus. The outage impacted their core network so even landlines were impacted as well as calls to E000 (911). See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Optus_outage

Thanks, Marcos! Beautiful tour, so very enjoyable. Doug and his crew have done an excellent job!

I would have liked to see the auxiliary transmitter for the Emergency Alert System. This was an original Conelrad station back in the day. And even now it's supposed to be on the air in case of a national emergency. The logs for December 7th 1941 being lost is interesting. I think back in the day, there was concern the signal could be used by enemy planes as a beacon, just like it happened in Hawaii...

Absolutely fascinating.

I know absolutely nothing about this subject but really enjoy watching the videos on this site.

Thanks for the tour! Nice to see an old SpectraTAC voting comparator still going strong so many years later. I didn't realize stations were using them for RPU. Love this era of transmitter site, and that "staircase of death" is phenomenal.

I started listening to KFI in the late 70's. I visited the tower site in 1986 long before all of the commercial land was developed. I took pictures on slide film of the old tower and the KFI tilework. I was at the tower site a few days after the tower fell in 2004 and still have a paint chip about 2 inches in diameter that I removed from the original tower. I have cassette recording of KFI from the early 80's through the mid 90's. I lived in the City of Orange and would visit the tower occasionally every few months when I lived there (1990-late 1992) I still listen to KFI at night as I live in Chico Ca (about 500 miles away) Great memories.

It was a victim of Alien Abduction. They have an affinity for primitive Terran technology. Some interstellar collector added it to It's collection. Lol😂 I am certain there is a logical answer to this mystery.

great tour, as a side note, I note the URI for this video ends in AAFM :) maybe they are hinting do some FM tours :P

Interesting to see the towers in such an intensively built up area rather than on agricultural type land in some rural setting. The contrast is fascinating remembering a picture I once saw of the old 630 CFCY transmitter and tower sight on agricultural land outside of Charlottetown Prince Edward Island, Canada. Ground radials in rich red soil with salt water a short distance away. For a 10 KW Station CFCY had a massive signal. I had not imagined an AM Station having towers where you have them. Thanks for all the education you provide.

Heard KFI in Alexandria, VA a couple of times when they hit their 50th anniversary. Including once with nearby WMAL-630 in D.C. on. Of course that was with the old tower. RX was a Lafayette HA-600A and antenna was a "Space Magnet" electrostaticailly shielded ferrite loop.

Many decades back you could on occasion hear KFI on parts of the East coast. Rare now with the hoing of the band.

Great tour!

That is a lot of copper. Way Cool! I would love to see more of the Original AM Broadcast stations, knowing that many have go the way of the Dodo. Are you planning and visits to stations in other counties' and maybe states later? Please let me know. Peace

I always liked joe crummy. Tom lykus earned his status as a legend too. My apologies i spelled phonetically because um ignorant but those are my favorite kfi personalities.

This was awesome! Thank you for sharing.

Superb! Many thanks. Amazing how they nested the tower in this congested area. Makes me wonder what FCC hoops they had to jump through to keep the public safe from RF exposure. Much history with this station. 73 OM

How is the transmitter kept cool in that cabinet? I didn't notice any type of air conditioning.

Great vid.. I'm wondering if there is any maintenance records or insurance inspections on the tower that would give some dates... ? Stay safe 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿