Part Seven

[You Gotta Have]...."Faith”

A song from back in 1987 from writer/singer George Michaels, formally of the group Wham, sets the tone for Day 7. Faith today is in regards to Faith, South Dakota, a small town where yet another elusive TV tower stands.

I can see some of you shaking your heads and saying “Phil!!” and I say “Yes??” and you say “You’re on vacation. Why bother with TV since you work in it all the time??”

Well, TV operations are not the only thing I like. I also dabble in the BIG stuff, that being towers and transmitters. I still found it quite fascinating back in October 1998 when I visited the transmitter site of AM 880 KRVN and saw the assistant chief engineer put a 4-foot fluorescent light bulb bear the number 3 tower feed point and see it light up in his hands.

I find it more fascinating at seeing the huge and sometimes tall towers that TV and radio send out their signals. To be more specific, a tower in the AM radio band IS the antenna. In FM and TV, the tower is the support part with the antenna attached to the top. AM signals hug the planet with ground waves during the daytime and scatter during the nighttime due to skywave activity which limits certain AM stations to either sign off, change patterns and/or reduce power depending on how their license is set up. With FM and TV, their signals are line-of-sight, unlimited in usage day and night and are limited by the curvature of the planet. So in order for FM and TV to really get out there, you need to get the antenna UP there.

And in Faith, SD. South Dakota Public Broadcasting does that with a 1483-foot tall tower with a maximum, allowed-by-law power output of 100,000 watts. And because it’s so flat out here, that signal gets out as show below by the drawing before courtesy of Radio-Locator.Com:

 

Getting there this morning took some doing. Half way thru my journey, I entered what is know as the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation, and it has some pretty countryside despite the overcast skies:

At about 11:30am, I arrive in Faith:

 My only problem today with trying to see the tower was, well, not having the right vehicle to get there. When I found the entrance to the site, on perfectly named Tower Road, 

The height of the grass down the center of the path let alone the depth in places of the tire ruts would have proved futile for my Veloster. In other words, not enough chassis-to-ground clearance.

Not to be deterred, I figured there was another way to get there. After having found the gravel road called Deep Creek Road, I made my way down into the fields. 

Fall colors included:

 
And I was trying to figure out how anyone could go 55 mph on this gravel road. I try doing 55 and the ass end of the car will start to swerve. I find what is supposed to 163rd Street to turn right on, in the middle of this field, and it turns out to be a grass path built for a tractor. So at least in all of the effort to get here, I did mange to take some pictures:

 At least I have one more tower off of my list. I just wish I could have gotten closer.

So, I turn around and head back to Pierre. And about the Cheyenne River Indian reservation. From our friends at Wikipedia.Org:

“The Cheyenne River Indian Reservation was created by the United States in 1889 by breaking up the Great Sioux Reservation, following its victory over the Lakota in a series of wars in the 1870s. The reservation covers almost all of Dewey and Ziebach counties in South Dakota. In addition, many small parcels of off-reservation trust land are located in Stanley, Haakon, and Meade counties.

“The total land area is 4,266.987 square miles (11,051.447 km²), making it the fourth-largest Indian reservation in land area in the United States. Its largest community is unincorporated North Eagle Butte, while adjacent Eagle Butte is its largest incorporated city. The Land Acts of 1909 and 1910 opened up the Cheyenne River Reservation to non-Native settlement.” 

And in the stores that I stopped at today for fuel and food, those behind the counter definitely show their lines of Native American. And they are very gracious and helpful in my questions. And outside the store, this is what Brown uses to deliver packages on some of those gravel roads:

Part of my trip to and from Pierre to Faith went back thru the heart of the reservation on South Dakota Route 73. And while heading southbound, it appeared that I had perfect timing. The scenery and the skies were just spectacular. Pictures were taken but you just can’t appreciate it unless you are on scene. Just beautiful.

And the beautiful river that is part of the reservation's southern border :

And to finish up our broadcast travels, I went by the stations that serve and are licensed to the state capital of Pierre.

On the FM side, you have KGFX-92.7 and KJBI-100.1, both on the same 488-foot tower, top to bottom and 50Kw and 51Kw, respectively:

And KLXS-95.3 at 49Kw on a 423 foot tower:

On the AM side, you have KGFX-1060, a 4 tower array with 10kw day, 1Kw night:

 And you have KCCR-1240, a single tower at 1Kw full time:

And before we end today's journey, some snapshots. First, The Little Brown Church on the Prairie, United Methodist, in Hayes, South Dakota:

 Two combines on their way to their next assignment just east of Hayes on U. S Route 14:

And one very neat and clean Verizon Wireless tower at the corner of U.S. Route 14 and South Dakota Route 34 west of Hayes:

And we finish today with a shout-out to another old friend and former News 8 employee Tom Belviso. Back when Tom and I worked together when he was a news editor and I was and still am an engineering supervisor, we both developed a liking for what was then Coke's all new vanilla flavor. And on the occasion on Saturdays when I remembered, I would deliver a 20-ounce bottle of that libation to Tom for which in return I received a bow of hands and a quiet thank you. And today while at that convenience store east of Faith, I found some vanilla Coke. Still tastes quite good. So, here's to you, Tom. Hope and your wife are doing well.

Tomorrow will be a slow news day. Yes, it's planned that way. We will reintroduce you to my friend Jenn and her family. And we will keep up a tradition that has been happening here in Pierre during my last few visits.

Have a great weekend, everybody.

I'm Philip J Zocco. On The Road. In Pierre, South Dakota.