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1590 WRXB fading away

D

drt

I know not many people listen to the AM band anymore except for some of us do for dx'ing and catching WRXB 1590 more than 5 - 7 miles from their towers near 38th Ave S and 37th St has been a challenge I first noticed 2 weeks ago.

When I went to the last Radio Shack left in SP (another sad story, the RS at Tyrone Square closed recently) at Marina Square there was plenty of static and electrical interference on 1590 which is almost in sight of their towers. Then about a mile north at the WalMart, the signal was decent (of course at that location it is only about .45 miles away from WRXB's towers. A few days later, at the intersection of 4th ST N and Gandy, I could barely pick up 1590 mid afternoon. I had a friend in south Tampa check a few days ago and he said there was nothing on 1590........ If they were on the air, he was unable to detect it.

Now Saturday in the Ridge Manor East/Webster area in eastern Hernando County area, about 60 minutes before sunset, all I was picking up was WPSL 1590 from Port St. Lucie...... Not a trace of WRXB in the background at all.

I know WRXB had some major problems several years ago and I think they do now as well..... But whether anyone there is aware of how bad the problem is I don't know.

Does anyone have any inside info of what is going or not going on? IIRC correctly from last time, maintainance is not a high priority for the owner.
 
They have an STA for 60 watts. The main and Auxiliary transmitters suffered catastrophic failures and life support had to be pulled out. It is on the air with a LPB 60, that might be developing issues as well.

I feel really bad for the staff there...........
 
The fact that the station owners didn't maintain their transmitter(s) is disturbing.
There are several 1kW and 5kW AM transmitters sitting unused in the Tampa Bay area.
Why has nobody offered to loan one of their unused transmitters to WRXB?
Is WRXB in such bad financial shape that they can't afford to purchase a used 1kW transmitter?
 
hdradioeng said:
They have an STA for 60 watts. The main and Auxiliary transmitters suffered catastrophic failures and life support had to be pulled out. It is on the air with a LPB 60, that might be developing issues as well.

I feel really bad for the staff there...........
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I suspect when I first noticed the problem (now about 3 weeks ago) they were probably the "full" 60 watts (although at that time when I checked the FCC FM query site, that STA was not on there at that time). I was guessing that they were no more than 100 watts at that time, now I think they're not much stronger than a 10 watt TIS station. At the extreme western end of the Howard Franklin this past Tuesday (where the 4th St Exit is), the TIS from Tampa International Airport had a much stronger signal at that point. Then at the interesection of 4th St N and 83rd Ave N..... Both 1590 and 1610 out of TIA were equally bad and unlistenable.

From what had been on this list previously when they WRXB had a similar problem, it was indicated that WRXB does not have a full time engineer and it seemed as though the engineer that they had contracted couldn't or didn't want to do the job. (Can't remember why, it could have been that he was owed money by WRXB).

I'm almost thinking with the cost and maintainance of directional towers, WRXB may be better off as they were in the WILZ days with 1000 watts day and 500 watts (pre-sunrise) which I assume would be 1000 watts day and 500 watts non-directional all the time, would be cheaper to maintain and I think the 1000 watts day and 500 watts night would still serve their core listening area.
 
If someone has a transmitter I am all ears, I know there is a 1KW power rock in Punta Gorda on 1580, but I am pretty sure if the transmitter and time aren't donated they would spend money on re-tuning it.
 
If the owners don't care enough about their station to seek help from fellow broadcasters (and pay someone to retune a loaner transmitter) they should close the doors and turn-in the station license.
I'm guessing that the station will soon become nothing more than a memory. Sad.
 
frankberry said:
If the owners don't care enough about their station to seek help from fellow broadcasters (and pay someone to retune a loaner transmitter) they should close the doors and turn-in the station license.
I'm guessing that the station will soon become nothing more than a memory. Sad.
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I wonder if group operator Polnet thinks that W243AK is where the audience is coming from. They are reported to be billing over $50 k a month, and the operator is does pretty well with its ethnic stations in Chicago and New York so they could certainly spring for a new transmitter if they wanted to.
 
DavidEduardo said:


I wonder if group operator Polnet thinks that W243AK is where the audience is coming from. They are reported to be billing over $50 k a month, and the operator is does pretty well with its ethnic stations in Chicago and New York so they could certainly spring for a new transmitter if they wanted to.
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This reeks of an abuse of the FM translator rule for AM stations.
 
frankberry said:


This reeks of an abuse of the FM translator rule for AM stations.
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You'd think they would file for non-d as a daytimer if the translator does a better job of covering part of the market. Simple to do and likely much better than the AM night pattern's miserable interference free contour which mostly covers the bay and not much populated area.
 
Absolutely. They seem to have shown zero interest at doing anything with the AM signal until the FCC denies another STA.
 
They must be off the air. I was driving down I275 south of downtown St. Petersburg today. I could see their towers and I couldn't pick them up. Sad
 
rfrus said:
They must be off the air. I was driving down I275 south of downtown St. Petersburg today. I could see their towers and I couldn't pick them up. Sad
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What time was that? I was picking up a weak signal by the trop (1-275) around 3PM, it was WRXB as the advertisers were local but even that close the signal was not really listenable on my car radio. 1320 of Venice was a stronger signal at that time and location. As far as their translator goes at 96.5, I think it suffers from lack of maintainance as well, as it used to come in by the trop and in downtown and the USFSP campus now it's just an occasional visitor.
 
the translator can't pick up 1590 to rebroadcast, It was always received over the air. also they are having some issues with the console, they used to have an A50 audioarts, that was removed (why not fixed is a mystery) now whatever was put in has issues.

Great corporate support, (sarcasm) if you look at Wikipedia you will see the SOLE owners name, maybe a couple emails from this group might motivate him to come off some cash. If i remember right he might have a house in the Sarasota area, but don't quote me.
 
Maybe they should give a call to DuTreil, Lundin And Rackley. They're in Sarasota. I'm sure they could straighten them out.
 
kf4rca said:
Maybe they should give a call to DuTreil, Lundin And Rackley. They're in Sarasota. I'm sure they could straighten them out.
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If they can't afford a used transmitter, they probably can't afford Ron Rackley!
 
DLR doesnt repair transmitters, they're consulting engineers. WRXB needs an engineer. No engineer can fix WRXB if Polnet is not willing to spend some money for repairs.
 
rfrus is absolutely correct.

There are lots of qualified broadcast engineers (some really exceptional ones) in Tampa Bay.
WRXB seems not to give a damn about their operation or they would not be in this situation.
There is no reason why a good engineer could not have them on the air.
How sad.
 
rfrus said:
It was about 1700 when I drove by on I275
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I'm wondering if in that 2 hour period, they just signed off or if they just faded away? Not in SP today, so I don't even know if they've returned to the air. (Appreciate the 24 hour time, I was thinking if I had said 1500, people might think misread that as a frequency or thinking that was the year of my birth! :) 😅 )

Hdradioeng, I had forgotten that they used an off the air signal for their translator, so the fact 1590 can barely be received 1.5 miles away, it's no wonder the translator isn't doing its job. I would hope that someone can take this station and maintain it. I would think any advertisers can't be too pleased if they realize that a station they advertise on only has a listening range of about 1.5 miles from their towers and that's on a good radio. (Please note I did quote you on any part of you post!)
 
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