DRYING CLOTHES IN MICROWAVE

How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin?

"HOW MANY SEEDs in a pumpkin?" Mr. Tiffin asks his class as they gather around the big, medium, and small pumpkins on his desk. Robert, the biggest kid, guesses that the largest one has a million seeds; Elinor, sounding like she knows what she's talking about, guesses the medium one has 500 seeds; and Anna, who likes even numbers better than odd ones, guesses that the little one has 22. Charlie, the smallest boy in the class, doesn't have a guess. Counting pumpkin seeds is messy business, but once the slimy job is done, to everyone's surprise, the smallest pumpkin has the most seeds! As Charlie happily es, "Small things have a lot going on inside of them."

These three towers are an amazing source for a powerful 50,000 watt signal. The towers may reside at 35.333450° -97.505217°, 35.333276° -97.504729° and 35.333092° -97.504224° respectively but their signal can be heard well over 1,000 miles away. My dad use to work at this station back in the 1960's when it was KOMA AM.

I remember on a freakish couple of days in 1996 when I was in Fairbanks, Alaska, or more specifically at the Moose Creek Apartments located... 64.715154° -147.166405° when I received KOMA. It was dark as it usually is during the winter and I was sitting int he car scanning across the band when I jokingly tuned across 1520 KHz and heard some 1950's music. I was intrigued and left it on there. To my surprise I heard them discussing a Sock Hop program on Oklahoma City's 1520...K-O-M-A.

I was so excited that I ran into the house and got my wife to come out to the car. How unbelievable to think I was receiving a radio station more than 3,000 miles away AND it was a hometown station at that. I thought about contacting them and telling them that I was hearing them in Alaska but I did not think they would believe me. I have told many people about it and they nodded their heads in agreement but I am skeptical they believed me either.

The amazing thing about it is that not only was this more than 3,000 miles away but there is another 50,000 watt station in Portland, Oregon (KGDD). I use to live in Tucson, and Phoenix, Arizona and was able to receive KOMA/KOKC 365 days a year at night. Their signal was very strong and very dependable. KOKC is now a 24 hour news station and can heard nearly to the Canadian Border to the North and to the Pacific Coast to the West. They broadcast on the center tower during the day and then go on all three at night to produce their directional signal. As a designated clear channel station they are protected from other stations impeding on their signal. Just as their is a station in the Buffalo, New York station called WWKB on the same frequency that is protected from KOKC. This is why they require the directional signal at night.

The powerful signal is attenuated during the day by an invisible "D" layer of the ionosphere that is energized when the sun shines. This layer absorbs most signals below 10 MHz preventing them from reaching the "F" layer that causes famous radio "skip". The term skip means that radio signals are refracted or bent as they hit the "F" layer of the ionosphere causing the signal to be bent back to the earth and the signal is received at great distances. The 50,000 watt signal can easily reach this much desired "F" layer during the evening when the lower level "D" layer virtually disappears with the absence of the sun.

This is a phenomenon that ham radio operators enjoy on high frequency (HF) operation. Since the HF band is in the 2 MHz to 30 MHz shortwave spectrum it is ideal for this skip. These three towers are very prominent if you approach Oklahoma City from the South on Interstate 35 (I-35). The towers are actually in the city limits of Moore, Oklahoma but when they were built many years ago this area was rural. Now the towers are in a densely populated area with houses all around them. The above photo was taken from a cemetery on the East side as the sun was rising behind me.

The station's studios are in North Oklahoma City and their audio is transmitted to these towers and transmitter via a studio to transmission link (STL) using microwave.

“... we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number, really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon that's so deeply a part of your being that you can't even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more. perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless.”
Paul Bowles

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