Mondosphere Upgrades with CCA
By Paul Klelnkramer
Director of Engineering
Mondosphere Broadcasting

BAKERSFIELD. Calif. Last year, Mondosphere Broadcasting upgraded the license class of KRAB (FM) in Bakersfield, Calif. This required building a new site and installing a new and more powerful transmitter. I had to decided whose transmitter to buy. Fortunately, I chose the right one. For years, as a contract engineer at radio stations around the central coast f California, I was impressed by how few failures there were among the CCA transmitters I serviced. When a rig did end up off the air, I could always fix it with easily available parts. There was never any waiting around or baby-sitting irate program directors and general managers, while some one of a kind "capton sheet capacitor" or toy-like "muffin-fan" came by Fed -Ex. Over the years I found that CCA transmitters are designed to get on air easily, stay on and get back on air quickly, without great hardship of the engineer or radio station. I also found that CCA transmitters continue to broadcasti in spite of environments where summer building temperature soar over 110 degrees, dusty intake air is the rule and main power condition and regulation are terrible. I have seen some other manufacturers' transmitters balk under these conditions. CCAs take them all in stride.

CCAs Simply keep running at peak performance with a minimum of care.

Quick and easy Installation
Our transmitter, a CCA Electronics model FM I 2000G I, arrived on time as promised by CCA Electronics. After a brief examination to check for loose connections and damage in shipment, we proceeded to install the transmitter. We were able to install it in a very short time; connections were simple and direct. We found the documentation, including the technical manuals for the transmitter and exciter, to be well written and helpful.
The transmitter was powered on low and allowed to operate for nearly half and hour just to check it out. No adjustment of the transmitter was necessary at this step. Readings were very close to the factory readings.
After assuring ourselves that all was well, we went to full power. The transmitter came up to full power (our TPO) without difficulty. We did adjust tuning controls just to acquaint ourselves with the transmitter operation. We found the tuning controls for both IPA and PA to be smooth and non-critical. Minor changes in tuning produced specified PA efficiency. This is what we expected with the rounded grid design pioneered by CCA many years ago. We have found that this design, inherently broadband, also provides excellent synchronous noise performance.
We learned later that CCA tunes its transmitters in production for minimum synchronous noise as part of the overall tuning and adjustment procedures. Complete factory test results were provided for our transmitter.

Multiple demands
Due to the more relaxed FCC rulemaking lately, our company has several station in each of our market station group, our engineers now have multiple studio and transmitter sites to care for single-hand-edly. I can not afford a transmitter that demands lots of time in maintenance and repair. If our engineer must spend time in the delicate care and feeding of a cranky transmitter, he simply will not have the time left for the proper maintenance of all the other equipment in our facilities. CCAs simply keep running at peak performance with a minimum of care.
It is for these reasons that when it came time to buy a new transmitter for KRAB, I made the best choice for our stations, engineers and me:
I BOUGHT A CCA!

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