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Posted by UHF on May 14, 2008, 3:08 pm
>
>(5 MegaW / 1kW)*24hrs*30days=3.6 million kWh per month. My cost is 16
>cents a kWh (includes delivery and cost) Let's say they get a cut rate
>of 10 cents a kWh. That's $360,000 a month. $4.32 million a year.
>That's no insignificant cost to a station.
Wow, 5 megawatts? That's one BIG transmitter.
I work at a TV station. I'm the transmitter guy, so let me explain some things.
We run 5.5MW ERP on our UHF analog transmitter (that's 5MW video, and .5MW
audio). But wait, what's this ERP thing? ERP=EFFECTIVE Radiated Power.
Due to "gain" in the antenna, we appear to make 5MW. The gain comes from
"flattening the donut", or, directing the signal towards the horizon rather than
in a spherical shape where much of it would go straight up where nobody's
watching it.
The transmitter is rated at 106kW video, and 10.6kW aural, for a total of
116.6kW of RF power out of the transmitter. The antenna gain gets us to our 5MW
ERP.
AC input power is around 350kW, and that's for an old 1970 vintage transmitter
with poor efficiency.
Now, I don't ever see the power bills, but I'm told they run were running around
$13,000 a month, and that was close to 10 years ago now.
Hope that helps clear some of the confusion.
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