What's up with WAZX? And WXKT?

[jabba17]

I had heard on the other board that WAZX was playing oldies. Today I tuned in; it was dead air in the morning, and some kind of Asian language (Vietnamese?) programming in the afternoon. No Spanish like they used to have.

Speaking of dead air, WXKT 103.7 was broadcasting dead air all evening tonight.

 

[kf4rca]

I hear a lot of dead air on there too. Aren't they supposed to ID at the top of the hour though?
The Vietnamese owner has got to be getting tired of writing those $1000 plus checks to the electric company. And I doubt the VietTop programming is bringing in that much.
He's probably trying to sell it for what he's got in it ($1.55M).
But something tells me WAZX will probably end up on the FCC's deleted stations list.
Probably should have never been put on the air in the first place.

 

[jabba17]

I think Internet radio is going to finally kill all these daytimers at the high end of the AM dial.

It will be interesting to see what shakes out when we go back to EST and these folks have to sign off at 5:30 in the afternoon, right in the middle of PM drive.

The stuff at the low end, especially if they have a night license, will be viable for several more years. I don't know why anyone would want a class D daytimer at the high end of the dial anymore.

At least the local (class C) stations can broadcast 24/7, and can do high school football.

 

[kf4rca]

I bet his monthly expenses are more than just the electric bill. He's probably paying ANOTHER $1000 a month on the tower site lease. I checked on the Cobb County Property Tax website and there is no listing for WAZX. So he's probably renting.
That explains the high sale price when he purchased it from GaMex. He had to catch up on maybe 10 years of past due rent.
He needs to explore converting to a 5/8ths wavelength tower. They typically have a lower angle of radiation which would reduce the skywave component and put more signal on the ground. That works well for stations on the high end but is prohibitively expensive for stations on the low end. But I don't know if he has the real estate for that as it would need additional guying.

 

[secondchoice]

I have not done any pricing or figuring, but the Cell companies have in the past put up some freestanding towers that looked like trees. The wind, ice and snow loading has to be very high. A free standing main tower might work. The shame of all of this is there are significant upgrades that could be done to the facility that could get it to at least class B. The finical payback is the issue. Could someone recoup around $500K to $800K in five years with a signal that covers only 80% of the market at night?

 

[jabba17]

I have not done any pricing or figuring, but the Cell companies have in the past put up some freestanding towers that looked like trees. The wind, ice and snow loading has to be very high. A free standing main tower might work. The shame of all of this is there are significant upgrades that could be done to the facility that could get it to at least class B. The finical payback is the issue. Could someone recoup around $500K to $800K in five years with a signal that covers only 80% of the market at night?

They are a class D today, with no night signal to speak of. What would a class B for WAZX look like? I'm assuming they would have to continue to be DA day, and any night signal would also have to be directional. They are currently using 4 towers.

 

[secondchoice]

They are a class D today, with no night signal to speak of. What would a class B for WAZX look like? I'm assuming they would have to continue to be DA day, and any night signal would also have to be directional. They are currently using 4 towers.

Basically they would have to protect on channel stations in the Augusta market, south of Macon and a Huntsville AL 1550 signal. 1550 is a "Canadian" channel so basically nothing north. There is a 1540 in Eatonton which would also limit the daytime signal East. The 1560 in SC is not an issue with the existing Northeast signal. WZTQ Centre AL 1560 would not be that hard to protect due to the Huntsville 1550. With 94.1 already licensed to the same COL, moving the station to keep 'FCC required coverage" would not be an issue. A new nighttime tower site northwest of Atlanta at night should allow most of the Market to be covered at night. With land still at bargain prices, this should save at least $100K land cost for a 5+ tower site.

 

[trusty]

I have it listed that 1550's night power was 500w in 2009 but 16w in 2010. Why? Economic?

 

[HGR1290]

They lost the original site to development, and had to rebuild a new site. I think that was back 2007-2008...about the same time that the economy went Tango-Uniform.

Between building the new site, and loss of coverage, loss of night signal GaMex had issues cracking the nut. 1550 has been on and off ever since then.

I have it listed that 1550's night power was 500w in 2009 but 16w in 2010. Why? Economic?

 

[RoddyFreeman]

As HGR1290 alluded to, WAZX was forced to move and as a result, lost their nighttime signal.

 

[jabba17]

As HGR1290 alluded to, WAZX was forced to move and as a result, lost their nighttime signal.

They couldn't figure out a night pattern using 4 towers? I would think that using the same pattern in the new location would work...unless the old site had more towers and more directional possibilities, or they just said to hell with it.

 

[jabba17]

Basically they would have to protect on channel stations in the Augusta market, south of Macon and a Huntsville AL 1550 signal. 1550 is a "Canadian" channel so basically nothing north. There is a 1540 in Eatonton which would also limit the daytime signal East. The 1560 in SC is not an issue with the existing Northeast signal. WZTQ Centre AL 1560 would not be that hard to protect due to the Huntsville 1550. With 94.1 already licensed to the same COL, moving the station to keep 'FCC required coverage" would not be an issue. A new nighttime tower site northwest of Atlanta at night should allow most of the Market to be covered at night. With land still at bargain prices, this should save at least $100K land cost for a 5+ tower site.

They throw most of their day signal to the north and east, with a null due south: http://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/pat?call=WAZX&service=AM&status=L&hours=D

The Canadian station (CBEF) is in Windsor, ON, which being south of Detroit is probably about the worst location possible for this discussion. There is also a Mexican 1550 clear (XERUV) in Xalapa, Veracruz which doesn't help matters.

The Augusta station (WTHB) is a class D daytimer. The WKVQ (1540 Eatonton) is also a class D daytimer, with a critical hours powerdown to boot. The Huntsville station (WLOR) is also a class D daytimer, as is WZTQ. So no real obstacles at night except for the clears. I'm assuming the nightlight signals of the class Ds don't get any real protection.

Could 1550 upgrade to class B and put in a smaller night signal (than the 50k-DA day) that basically broadcast due east/ENE? The day pattern shoots too much too north for the Canadian station I'm guessing, and the lobe to the southwest wouldn't work with the Mexican station.

 

[secondchoice]

Without a real engineering study, I am guessing they would have a nighttime site between Rome and Cartersville with as much of a signal technically possible going due south, southeast, and east to protect Canadian and Mexico stations. BTW at one time 1550 in Huntsville was a directional 24 hour station. There is a FCC link that is very very slow to download that has the “cards” the FCC use to keep on stations pre computers.

https://licensing.fcc.gov/cgi-bin/p...etimportletter_exh.cgi?import_letter_id=46263

The reason I know a little about 1550 is I worked briefly at 1550 in Soddy-Daisy in 1975 when I got out of the USAF and at WPTN Cookeville which at that time was also on 1550 while at Tennessee Tech. One strange thing about the high AM frequencies is they can “skip” during the daytime when it is cold sometimes better than lower frequencies. Sometime during winter days I will pick up 1510 WLAC better than WSM 650.

 

[kf4rca]

Those Class D stations must be viable. There are two others on 1040 and 1080 (both Korean) that have been on the air for some time now. I haven't seen there business model but they must be making the electric bill. Canada has moved all their AM's to FM so those Canadian clears should be open now.

 

[secondchoice]

IIRC AM channels were assigned by treaty between USA, Canada, and Mexico. Any changes would have to be "allowed" by Canadians and most likely the Secretary of State's office and the FCC. This might even require a new treaty, it would have to be approved by the US Senate. If you have the money, and political connections in both countries you might get it done in a decade or two.

 

[davideduardo]

Those Class D stations must be viable. There are two others on 1040 and 1080 (both Korean) that have been on the air for some time now. I haven't seen there business model but they must be making the electric bill. Canada has moved all their AM's to FM so those Canadian clears should be open now.

The Canadian, Mexican and Bahamian clears "belong" to those nations, and must be protected whether on the air or not. That essentially means protecting the entire border of those nations no matter what city one of those stations is allocated to or whether it is operating or not.

Canada has moved more like 65% of its AMs to FM, and many of the major market AMs that moved were replaced by new AM services for specific ethnic and minority groups. But they have not eliminated all of them. Mexico has eliminated about 75% of all AMs, but its allocations have to be protected.