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1550 WZUM

I need everyone to wish the end of Radio Disney's 1560 in New York City. At night, their signal is strong enough to contribute to the death of our 4 watt night time power level on 1550. Let them sign off on September 26 and stay off. If this really works, I'll post a list of other stations that interfere with our mighty 4 watt signal.

:)
 
Avid Listener said:
Does this mean someone will start reading liner cards live?
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We couldn't do live shows without having a console. Without a console, we did not look to produce live shows. It is a "Catch 22" and the only way to break out of the loop was to either buy a console and look for a show or have a show that we really really really wanted to air in order to justify the purchase. Without much planning, we purchased the console. Mainly because it was for sale at a good price.

So we have the console and now it is time to see what we can do with it. We have one project in the works. It will be a Saturday afternoon hour or two music show. We will be meeting with the host next week to begin working on this project. If this goes well, we hope there will be more shows.

As for reading liner cards, not this week.
 
That's a nice console but the headphone amp in it SUCKS! I wish they would make an even smaller version. For a small station running mostly off computer ten inputs is way too many. A 5 input version would be nice and affordable for small stations. How much did you pick up the console for?
 
xm41 said:
How much did you pick up the console for?
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The ARC-8 was almost like new. It came in the original box including manual and software. Included in the purchased was an almost new EV RE-20 mic, shock mount, and pop filter. It included the carrying case. You could not tell any of the items from new. Including shipping the cost was $1000.00. We were kicking around buying an ARC-8 so the chance to save a few dollars made sense. I found out about the equipment from someone who had inspected the items and posted on Facebook with a photo. The owner also sent a collection of photos of the equipment.

Having two mic inputs is nice. Our automation system has three audio feeds so we could run the three players into their own pots. We have an 8 channel audio switch with a feed from Studio A, the satellite receiver, and the remote broadcast audio feed on one pot. When the audio switch is not being used, we mute it. The automation system does control the switch so we can take different audio feeds as needed without being there. The ARC-8 does have more inputs than we need right now but who knows what the future will bring.

We currently are using a Mackie in the control room. Studio A has a much bigger Mackie. The Woodland Hills football games are produced in this studio. It has the phone units and time delay from the days when we did talk shows for the old WURP "The Edge". The ARC-8 hasn't found a home yet. I have been using it in Studio B for production. You can't have a new toy and not use it!
 
xm41 said:
If you can would you please you post a pic of the WZUM studio?
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I have always wanted to build a behind the scenes webpage. Your request might get me to finally do it. When the ARC-8 finds its final home, I will take a couple of photos. Thanks for asking.
 
The batteries in the UPS at the transmitter building have been replaced. The UPS is large enough to handle all of the electronics in the building including both WAMO's transmitter during the day and WZUM's transmitter at full power. It should give us 10 to 15 minutes of run time. At some point, it would be nice to install a generator. The concrete pad is in place should we come up with a generator.
 
I'm not a fan of the cold weather. There is an upside to lots of rain, snow, and freezing temperatures. The WZUM signal is stronger in a lot of locations. During the summer, it would be a challenge to listen while parked in my garage at home. This week, the signal has been very strong including my garage.

I was able to pick up the 4 watt signal when I left the office in Bloomfield yesterday. It was a weak signal but I had no problem making out the song.
 
Sparky2114 said:
I sent a personal comment to WZUM thru comments on their website. It was kicked back with note "please no spam"
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Send the complete error message and I will check the e-mail filter list. The error will start with a 550 and should give a number after the "please no spam" message.

It is possible you are using a mail service that sends out a lot of SPAM and the IP of the server made our blacklist. Since you can't send to our @1550wzum.com address, please try [email protected].

Sorry for the error message. We would like to read your comments.

Thanks,
Ed
 
A year ago, a conversation would start with me explaining what WZUM was and its format. This past week, everyone I spoke with knew about the station and reported having listened to it at one time. The subject of WZUM disappearing at night does come up but this week everyone knew about the audio stream. I'm sure most of the City isn't aware of WZUM but the number of people who are aware is growing.

I have had a couple of calls and e-mails from former WJAS listeners who were happy to find WZUM. I doubt we will pick up former Radio Disney listeners (did they have any?).
 
WZUM is promoting the Earth, Wind, and Fire concert in Pittsburgh this May. The promoter gave the station a pair of tickets to give away. We promoted the give away for a couple of days. The final instructions aired around 10:15AM this morning with the telephone number to call. It took seconds for the third caller to win. The call volume was more than one person could handle (rookie mistake). I did a live announcement letting folks know we had a winner. The calls continued for another 20 minutes.

Lessons learned: Have help answering phones for the next give away and WZUM has listeners.
 
sparks said:
WZUM is promoting the Earth, Wind, and Fire concert in Pittsburgh this May. The promoter gave the station a pair of tickets to give away.
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Cool, I'm replying to my own post. Maybe I'm just building on what I posted. After I made the first post, I received e-mail from the show's promoter sent the following:

BTW--we had a HUGE presale over 1100 sold already!!


WZUM isn't their only buy so we can't take all of the credit. The good news is are spreading. People really do listen to music on an AM radio station. They gave us another pair of tickets to give away next week.
 
CPA said:
How much is WZUM billing? Are you making a profit?
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WZUM is a side business for Stephen and myself. We own aspStation, Inc. It provides data center services and high speed Internet access. We also build customer VoIP telephone systems. The station's expenses are low and we do not have debt service to suck out revenue. We have made two attempts to have a sales force but neither worked out. We are working with a new person on developing a sales force of one.

WZUM is covering its costs. This was our first hope and we got there quickly. We also like the idea of not having 20 minute commercial breaks. We had the luxury of going a few years without any commercials in order to build an audience.

July 4th will be our 2nd birthday. I'm hoping we can begin to generate more revenue this year. We have run more commercials this in 2015 than in past years. This is a good trend.

The Earth, Wind, and Fire promotion we did for the show's promoter caught the attention of several people. We do not subscribe to any rating service so how can you tell if we have listeners. We did two ticket give aways and our phone system was crushed for both give aways. People are listening!!

As for profit, that would be nice and we feel we will get there. We have a few large expenses in our near future and I would be thrilled if the station could cover those costs on its own. I'm hoping it will.

Try scanning the archive of this discussion board for 1550, WURP, WLFP, and finally our purchase of 1550. Most of the comments are negative with many suggesting shutting it off. It is true, low power AM stations in a major market have a difficult time. Before we took over, it is possible the station had no ratings for over 30 years. It was possible 1550 would have gone off the air forever. We will find out in a few years if the effort to keep it on the air was worth it.

Fortunately, with Clarke Ingram's magic touch of creating the format we use, WZUM fills in a hole in the radio landscape and serves an audience most stations have forgotten about.

I often wish one of us could spend more time working on the station. Maybe that will happen this year.

Thanks,
Ed

P.S. 1250 and 1320 both sold for $1,000,000.00. I believe Stephen and I would be very happy to get such an offer for 1550. :)
 
sparks said:
A year ago, a conversation would start with me explaining what WZUM was and its format. This past week, everyone I spoke with knew about the station and reported having listened to it at one time. The subject of WZUM disappearing at night does come up but this week everyone knew about the audio stream. I'm sure most of the City isn't aware of WZUM but the number of people who are aware is growing.

I have had a couple of calls and e-mails from former WJAS listeners who were happy to find WZUM. I doubt we will pick up former Radio Disney listeners (did they have any?).
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It was nearly 50 years ago that I learned how to BCBDX by listening to baseball games from distant cities. Perhaps a few of the kids who listened to 1250 were curious enough to turn the dial and get hooked on the magic of radio?
For me, it was going from KDKA to KMOX, then to shortwave, then to CB, then to amateur radio. 50 years later I still love the magic.
That said, with the longer daylight hours of summer before us maybe a subtle format change biasing towards "summer songs" might bring in more listeners. I always have 1550 on when the backyard pool is open and in use. Everyone knows every song and loves to reminisce. Yes, that puts us in the same category as the former WJAS audience but they still write letters to the papers.
 
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