KRPA Oak Harbor returns to the air

Thanks to a tip from Gord Lansdell at Northwest Broadcasters I discovered that 1110 KRPA Oak Harbor has returned to the air simulcasting the Punjabi programming of co-owned 1340 KWLE Anacortes during daytime hours (6am-sunset).  Tuning in the signal however, there’s little to celebrate: as before the audio sounds terrible being rebroadcast from a standard computer with no sound card.  In addition, there’s no audio processing on the signal.  The audio distorts on peaks & as previous monitoring revealed, drops out continuously due to “buffering” as a result of using a standard, low quality Internet connection barely functional above dial-up speed.  KRPA continues with numerous stretches of ‘dead air’. I have a hard time wondering what owners New Age Media Ltd of Bellingham have in mind for this waste of RF spectrum.  Frankly, if I was responsible for engineering this debacle, I’d be truly embarrassed.  Perhaps the plan is to put this station & co-owned KWLE up for sale?  How sad that these two stations were once vibrant small-town broadcasters serving their communities of license.

Author: Mike Cherry

retired broadcaster: on-air, MD, PD, asst PD, Prod Mgr, IT, station technician/engineer, pioneer Internet webcaster, station installation/maintenance; 12 years in commercial radio, 17 years volunteer in campus/community radio in B.C., Alberta & Wash. Amateur radio operator & "DXer" specializing in AM night-time DX, short-wave DX/listening & remote SDR DXing/listening

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