Tech Page

Maverick 105 (KAOC FM) and it's sister station Z106.7 (KYTZ FM) are owned by The Simmons family (Simmons Stations US and Simmons Broadcasting CA) and serve Northeast North Dakota, Northwest Minnesota and Southern Manitoba from main studios located in Langdon, ND and satellite studios in Morden, MB.

Here are pictures and descriptions of our Milton, ND transmitter site.

(Milton Compound) The stations transmitters are located on a ridge east of Milton, North Dakota. Our transmitter compound consists of 3 steel buildings. The larger building to the left houses our transmitters and associated equipment. The building to the left of the photo is our generator building. The rear building holds our diesel fuel storage tank for the generator. If you look closely you'll see some dings in the buildings steel siding. This is a result of huge chunks of ice which shed from the tower after severe winter icing. This year falling ice destroyed 2 sets of tower sidelights and sheared off 2 building exhaust vents. You don't want to be around the base of this tower when the ice is coming off!

(Tower) Our tower is one of the tallest in the region coming in at just under 800 feet. At night from about 50 feet up the tower (above the tree line) you can see the lights of Grand Forks to the southeast and Winnipeg to the northeast. Maverick 105 enjoys one of the largest coverage areas of any station of it's class in the region thanks to this incredible location. With FM, the signal is basically line of site so theoretically if you can see the tower you can hear the radio station.

Just below the transitional section (where the tower starts to taper in) you can see our STL antenna. STL is an abbreviation for Studio-Transmitter-Link. It's the round dish on the left side of the tower and faces our studio building 20 miles to the west at Langdon.

Above the STL on the right side of the tower is Maverick's antenna. This is a ten bay circularly polarized antenna manufactured by Dielectric Inc. of Raymond, Maine. This antenna was replaced following a severe ice storm in 2004 at a cost of over 70 thousand dollars. Sister station Z106.7's antenna occupies the top area of the tower. It is a 4 bay Dielectric.

(Transmitter Row) Inside our transmitter building are our two Continental 816R FM Transmitters. Maverick 105 uses a Continental 816R-3C which when combined with the gain of our ten bay antenna and overall tower height creates an effected radiated power (ERP) of 100 thousand watts. The Z106.7 transmitter is a Continental 816R-1C which creates an ERP of 16KW.

(KAOC Controller) Here's a close up of the Maverick 105 transmitter control panel. The metering panel of the controller monitors various technical parameters and stages of the transmitter.

(Equipment Rack) This is shot of the equipment rack. The top 2 pieces of gear are the STL. Third and fourth boxes from the top are the Optimod audio processors. The next 3 pieces of equipment comprise the transmitter remote control and telemetry systems.

The next 2 pieces are the Maverick and Z106.7 exciters. Below the exciters (out of view) is our RDS system which enables us to flash up messages to you on the face of your cars radio if it's equipped with an RDS decoder. The equipment rack also houses the transmission line dehydrators.

Coming soon: More at the Milton Compound - The Generator Building AND the Langdon studios tour….Stay tuned!

Mailing address and phone numbers-
US studios and sales:
Maverick 105
1403 Third St.
Langdon, ND 58249

Phone US: 701-256-1080
Fax: 701-256-1081

EMAIL US HERE

Mailing address and phone numbers-
Canada studios and sales:
Maverick 105 467 Stephen Street
Morden, MB R6M1T9

Phone CA: 204-822-8000
Fax: 204-822-6916