The WPM Engineering department decided to take a road trip to Denver.  We visited with Mike Pappas, engineer for KUVO-FM followed by a Society of Broadcast Engineers meeting at the DirecTV Castle Rock Broadcast Center.

KUVO is a highly respected jazz station in the Denver market and has one of the best sounding signals on the air in the area.  This is due in part to their new Nautel NV15 transmitter.  Mike took us on a tour of the transmitter plant.

KUVO shares a combined antenna with KCFR-FM on a Shively 8 bay antenna.  A Channel 6 VHF TV antenna is at the top of the tower, formerly used by KUSA-TV.  KUSA has abandoned the site since the DTV conversion.  Their old analog TV transmitter has been dismantled but the antenna remains for the time being.

Mike shows off the KUVO auxiliary rack.  From top to bottom: a Moseley 11 gig licensed link provides two E1 lines feeding a pair of Intraplex chassis.   These house audio decoders, an Ethernet interface and telco ports for a “hotline” back to the studio.  KUVO uses a custom built FM processor on the analog signal and Neural processing for the HD signals.  A 1 KW Nautel transmitter with 50 watt exciter is at the bottom of the rack and a 1500 watt UPS keeps everything protected during power glitches.

Ben and Reid admire the Nautel NV15 transmitter.  This transmitter is completely modular and has extensive diagnostics built into the front panel.  A failure of any given module may cause reduced power operation but will not take the transmitter off the air entirely.

Ben and I in front of the massive V12 dual turbocharged 65 kW Kohler diesel genset.  Power requirements are much lower now that the TV transmitter is no longer in use so this genset handles the remaining equipment with ease.  Mike reports that it sounds like a “screaming banshee from hell” when the genset starts and that if the lights go out while you’re at the site “you should run away fast”.  You don’t want to be in the room when this beast starts!  It is capable of coming up to full speed in less than a few seconds thanks to the turbochargers.  They are used for quick startup but are bypassed as soon as the generator comes up to speed.

I wasn’t able to get any photos of the DirecTV facility, unfortunately, due to high security but it was fun to see the inside of such a massive facility.  This particular facility monitors and uplinks local channels and ONLY local channels.  It also functions as a backup to their main Los Angeles NOC if necessary.

Pictures of their NOC can be found here…
http://www.archcentric.com/index_files/DtvCrbc.htm