From our Who’s Buying What page: Dielectric has completed an FM infrastructure upgrade for Bonneville International with the installation of a new master antenna system outside Salt Lake City.
The RingMaster broadband FM and manifold combiner system now supports 13 FM stations broadcasting atop Farnsworth Peak.
At approximately 9,000 feet above sea level and named after Utah native and television inventor Philo Farnsworth, the mountain is the nerve center for radio and TV in the Salt Lake metropolitan area. Counting translators, 21 FM stations broadcast from the peak, according to data from the RadioLand app.
Bonneville operates three of the stations on the new manifold combiner system — 102.7 KSL(FM), 100.3 KSFI(FM) and 103.5 KRSP(FM) — and the company led the project to modernize the site’s master antenna infrastructure and strengthen RF performance, according to a Dielectric release.
The combiner will also serve Salt Lake stations for iHeartMedia, Cumulus Media, Capital Broadcasting, KSOP Inc. and Community Radio of Utah.
Aaron Farnham, Bonneville’s regional director of engineering, said that the previous master system at Farnsworth was approximately 40 years old, and it was not designed for the requirements of HD Radio.
The company evaluated multiple antenna manufacturers, with goals that included allowing all stations to achieve improved coverage with smaller transmitters, while also supporting HD Radio insertion levels that matched current standards.
Farnham cited Dielectric’s consultative engineering that took into account both RF performance and the physical constraints of the site.
SCMS worked with Bonneville and Dielectric throughout the procurement process and provided customer support to help keep the project on schedule, according to the release.
Dielectric’s RingMaster technology builds on the company’s DCR side-mounted ring antenna designs and introduces a broadband concept through half-wave and full-wave spaced arrays. Dielectric said that the wavelength spacing helps FM stations maintain full bandwidth performance with fewer radiating elements while offering greater control over directional elevation patterns.
The Farnsworth Peak RingMaster antenna is side-mounted on the tower, and the existing combined antenna system will remain in place as a backup, the release said. Dielectric also performed tower surveys and modeling to account for surrounding antennas and tower structures that could influence final coverage patterns.
The project also included installation of a new Dielectric manifold combiner inside the RF building. Its design merges the 13 FM signals in a small footprint, allowing Bonneville and the other tenants to support a large master system without requiring facility expansion.
Farnham said that the performance improvements are already evident in both analog FM and HD Radio reception across the Salt Lake City market, even with HD Radio operating at –14 dBc, as opposed to the maximum –10 dBc insertion level.
