• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

102.5 Belleville translator: no move for you

U

Unknowable

Guest
From today's daily digest:

FM TRANSLATOR APPLICATIONS FOR MINOR MODIFICATION TO A CONSTRUCTION PERMIT DISMISSED
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

TX BMPFT-20140227ABO K273CD 144570 JLF COMMUNICATIONS, LLP Mod of CP
E 102.5 MHZ BELLVILLE, TX
On April 6, 2016, the applicant
(and its consultant) were
notified that it was delinquent
on the payment of debts owed
to the Federal Communications
Commission. The red light
email indicated that if full
payment or satisfactory arrangement
to pay the delinquent debt
was not made within 30 days
of the date of the letter,
the application would be
dismissed. The Commission
has not received payment
of the debts identified in
the red light email, nor
have satisfactory payment
arrangements been made.
Accordingly, pursuant to
47 C.F.R. Sections 1.1910(b)(3)
and 0.283, the application
BMPFT-20140227ABO IS HEREBY
DISMISSED. Any questions
regarding this dismissal
should be directed to the
CORES Help Desk at 1-877-480-3201,
Option 4, or via e-mail to:
[email protected].
 
Once the FCC is paid, they can apply to get this back. Sure there will be a penalty. That it went this far is rather surprising.
 
What about KQQB? The thing's been completely off the air for a year and a half, and the FCC has yet to dismiss it.
 
Last edited:
JoeFM said:
This is one of Werlinger's.... Same situation as with KULF....
Click to expand...

Which leads me to ask questions about this whole ordeal for the umpteenth time, how is KULF currently on the air? Didn't Steve Lee personally go shut the transmitter off? Didn't the landowner deny permission to the shack until all delinquent payments had been made? Didn't it remain off the air for over a month without filing the proper paperwork for a Silent Notification? Didn't C.R.I. drop all broadcast services to the States, including Mandarin language? Why is it airing C.R.I. Mandarin language programming one day, and Spanish language Christian another? Did Mouse actually spell Bellville with an extra "e"?

As Sheldon Cooper would say, this is just pure hokum. There's more than just the KULF tower site's pasture that's full of manure here.
 
DavidEduardo said:


Wrong. Bad business practices don't pay the bills.
Click to expand...

That, and the fact the FCC's incompetence has allowed this yahoo to have a hand in all these facilities, even after they stipulated themselves that he can't. What good is a ruling authority, without rules enforcement?
 
Unknowable said:
What about KQQB? The thing's been completely off the air for a year and a half, and the FCC has yet to dismiss it.
Click to expand...

There are cases of stations being off the air for much longer. The FCC will allow this under specific circumstances, such as loss of a transmitter site and zoning delays for a new one.
 
I don't know if Steve Lee made a visit. There were landowner issues. Those issues typically get resolved in one way or another. Yes, C.R. I. is gone as far as the project they were funding in an attempt to better their international image. I suspect C. R. I. was on the dish when they got back on and they needed a day or two to switch to something else. The way I understand things, Don cannot be a licensee but he can lease and do engineering and work in radio. The FCC knows what is going on and always has. If they can keep the folks shown on the license in line with FCC rules, it doesn't matter.

Can't say KQQB has or has not been on the air for 18 months. I've known stations that threw in a CD with the station ID on repeat a day or two once a year to keep the station alive. I think KQQB, prior to the move, simply simulcast NOAA Weather radio a day or two with a CD on repeat with the station ID hourly. As I recall we stayed on about a week each year.

Keep in mind there are many stations that wind up stretching the rules because filing paperwork is less of a priority as getting the station back on. For example, say you go off the air and schedule a group to get back on but something happens and they push things off a week. When they come out, the fix is not as fast as expected and more costly. You try to find the cash you need and find it so work can get scheduled. Then the engineer says, You did tell the FCC you were silent, right? about 3 weeks after you went dark. You had been so occupied with the cash you were losing, trying to save your clients, the cost of repairs and getting the work done versus filing a paper with the FCC, it just doesn't register with you to get it done. Sure, it should be the first thing you do, but it's not something you do on a daily basis, so you forget. I'm not making excuses, but the reality is a silent station typically does not cause the FCC issues about interference and such. It's likely a bigger deal to this board than the FCC unless, as you said, a station has grossly violated rules.

As it is now, anything pending with the company that has KULF is red lighted meaning funds due the FCC must be paid before anything is approved. For example, the translator was dismissed but can likely be reinstated after the monies are sent to the FCC.

Just remember all you hear, even that which is stated as fact even by the parties themselves frequently has some underlying meaning or cause between the lines. Like a typical news story, you get some but not all of the facts, so you judge based on some of the facts. My point, some of the facts means you likely get some stuff wrong as you connect the dots. I'm reminded of a non-commercial station admonished about their underwriting. The official statement advised not more than 6 units an hour and typically about 20 seconds each, maximum. The real reason was not the number of spots or the length but that the spots, while meeting all the Underwriting rules, sounded more like commercials. So the true issue was how the spots sounded versus the number and length. You have to read between the lines to get that.
 
All valid points, Bill, but allow me to explain to you as to why I am as critical as I am regarding JLF Communications, Jerome Friemel, Don Werlinger, and any others in this group that have involved themselves with operating the once proud Dittert family owned & operated Bellville daytimer. Now, I could sit here and ramble on for several paragraphs, but as the old saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words.

http://fccdata.org/?facid=&call=dkton&ccode=1&city=&state=&country=US&arn=&party=&party_type=LICEN
http://fccdata.org/?facid=&call=dkfcc&ccode=1&city=&state=&country=US&arn=&party=&party_type=LICEN

This is an all too real outcome for 1090 KULF down the road. Salem is NOT going to allow any upgrades to KULF whatsoever. It's been documented in the past, and stated right here on this forum by their own General Manager. That spells certain doom for AM 1090, because when the cow's milk runs dry, the ol' girl is going to be left out in the pasture to wither and die. You know who first opened my eyes to this whole thing playing out, Bill? A longtime member here by the username "jd". He and I had many good talks over the years about this and that, and I had mentioned how my family had ties with the town of Bellville, and how granddaddy had known Lee Dittert. That's where the peering purple eyeballs began focusing their glare. He had been watching this scenario coming to fruition long before I even knew Roy Henderson was about to unload 1090. Heck, I was still fuming about the Cat Spring engineer's misrepresentation of 1090's capabilities to a group of jilted KLOL listeners asking and convincing a lot of them to fraudulenly send in all those ridiculous "we want our rock back" PTDs to the Commission when 1090's license renewal came up in 2005. He saw this coming, knew who all was involved, and told me himself, "You watch it, Joe. This one's going to end up more crooked than the deal that lost the license for Bay City."

It's well documented and I'm sure I don't really need to rehash it, but this is the very guy, who when caught illegally moving KIOX from Bay City to Missouri City, and lying that there was tower site available for the move all along, didn't say "Yeah, I got caught. I built a tower that didn't exist, told the FCC it did all along, and they didn't buy it. It was wrong and I got what I deserved." Instead, his words were, and I quote, "Yeah, but it was pretty damn creative!" Yeah? Well, it was pretty damn illegal, too. You'll have to forgive but understand my skepticism of anything he puts his hands on. 2 licenses already lost, and I sure as shoot don't care to see Bellville's 42 year old service added to that dubious list.

If I were a station owner, I certainly wouldn't allow him to have anything to do with my licensed facility. Would you?

I guess I shouldn't even care. Geez, 1090 hasn't really "served" the town of Bellville or even Austin County in over 20 years, anyway. Times have changed, radio isn't anywhere near what it once was, and when a carcass like 1090 is lying on the side of the road, what else would you expect to pick at its bones besides the vultures? I just see certain facilities that are run correctly, like yours, or being saved from the abyss, like CW's KLLS, and wonder why a station that, at one time, meant so much to the town it is licensed to and was the apple of its owner's eyes, could be tossed to the curb like yesterday's garbage? I can't afford to buy it. They'd want at least 10x more than it's even close to actually worth. Even if offered for a price it's honestly worth as a 1kW daytimer, with a leased tower site, I couldn't quit my day job to really invest the time required to operate it. Still, it's not a fitting end to what began in 1974, and is just a prime example as to why my passion for the medium dwindles a little more with each passing day.
 
You are correct, KACO was a great little radio station at one time. It was run by good people, Lee and his wife, who truly wanted to do their part to add to the quality of life in Bellville and Austin County. While Austin County has changed a great deal, I don't see who 1090 could not be a viable local station. From what I learned of KACO, they were doing around $6,000 to $8,000 a month back in the mid-1980s...around $20,000 a month in today's dollars.

If I recall correctly, 1090 has moved closer toward Houston/Katy and already increased power, Wasn't it once 500 watts from in Bellville? Now it is on the other side of the Brazos.

After all the 'damage' I can't see it coming back. The monies invested and/or paid for the license would make the station unlikely to be able to be viable as a local station although that will certainly change in coming years as Cypress moves west and Austin County becomes more of a distant suburb of Houston, a curse for local media. As I recall the Bastrop FM was fine until it became more of a bedroom community of Austin. The same goes for the old KBRN in Boerne that did okay initially until so many moved there and made the town more of a bedroom community. Still if Houston continues the western drive, filling the farmland with neat little housing developments, the option for a west side voice becomes more viable but it is going to take a few years. After all at KYND, we once had to drive to 1960 to grab lunch. Now there's a Walmart on the corner a mile away.

At best, determining if it is feasible is to look at the Sealy and Bellville newspapers to see what they bring in. Newspaper usually does at least double what radio does, I suppose, because there's only 1 paper but there are tons of radio listening options even though there is only 1 local station.
 
With the Bay City KFCC, the FCC would not allow the station to be sold. Literally he could run it through the license term then it was deleted by the FCC. It was not that a buyer never showed up or than the station was in bad shape. There were several that wanted to buy it but the FCC was not going to allow Chameleon to transfer it.
 
I agree that it could be beneficial to the 36 corridor if given the opportunity, but who is going to give a half a million plus for it?

KACO started its life at 250 watts, if memory serves correctly. Located on the west end of town, studio building at the base of the tower. It may have begun life at 500, Bill, but I would be lying if I said for sure it did. It seems like Roy Henderson had modified the license to 500 watts, or at least applied to do so. There was a long period of time there that 1090 was non operational and sitting at 0 watts, so the modification may have been approved but never made it to the air. It has always had to give protection to the clear channel K double A Y, from the beginning, and I want to say it remained at 250 watts up until the move to the current site 8 miles southeast of town, after Henderson sold it to Janice Holland, DBA JHT Ventures. I was 8 years old when KACO first came on the air. Even at that tender age, I wasn't thinking about the little country station up at granddaddy's house; I was trying with all my might to catch 55 KTSA out of San Antonio, the Mighty 1190 KLIF from Dallas, or those fantastic glimpses of WLS Chicago on my little transistor radio. Heck, I got in big trouble for "fiddling with the dial" on his old wooden cabinet console AM/FM unit. Got my butt tore up more than once for dropping the dial way down to 54-55 kHz and not having the common sense to return it back to 1150, which was HIS station. I just couldn't resist the temptation. The old man KNEW everytime when someone (me) had even lifted the door to get at that tuner. I mean, why not? It had a heck of an antenna hooked into it, bringing in all kinds of stations that were completely foreign to a kid from the big city of Houston. Of course, I knew what FM was, but it played "old folks" music back then, and nothing it had to offer piqued my interest, lol. I grew up on KILT, to hear KLIF or KTSA was a BIG deal for a boy with the radio bug back in the 70's.
 
I think you have that right on the power levels for KACO.

I can relate to that radio bug. I was given a radio (a tube radio with broken case housed in a shoe box) when I was 3 or 4 years old and I loved it. By first grade I was announcing records to a pencil. I got the radio in Nashville and listened to the likes of Top 40 WKDA and WMAK as well as WSM and WLAC. Then it went to Richmond where I listened to top 40 WLEE and at night, WKBW in Buffalo, NY. Then it was off to Kansas City hearing WHB (claiming to be the first top 40 as with KLIF). Top 40 got a competitor with KUDL 1380 with 20/20 news and the Boss 30 as FM was taking off. I visited classical KXTR with a friend to get old teletype news for my part 15 while in Kansas City and got to hear KCJC switch to freeform album rock. Then off to Dallas with all those great stations including Mark Stevens solo on KFJZ, those great KLIF jocks, Danny Moffatt when he was at KXOL, Ron Chapman at KVIL and Jon Dillon when he started album rock on 50,000 watt KRLD with his 7 to 9pm nightly Montage. So, I really get that radio bug and the love for those stations.

I remember listening at times to KACO when I was working for (then) KTAW 92.1 in College Station when it was Maximum Hits 92-K from 1984 through early 1987 where I worked afternoon drive and was music director. I thought they were a great sounding small town station.

1090, I suspect, will be back and likely get a translator. It will likely remain a brokered station.

Now, if KLOT can get going on the tower (if it will quit raining long enough) local Austin County radio can live again.
 
I know the guy personally. The biggest issue has been the wet weather. To get the equipment in without getting mired down in mud is the big deal. It has been scheduled and postponed a few times because of the heavy rains we have received. Our recent Houston flood affected Austin and Waller Counties too. I believe the money is there. The CP expires, I think, in January 2017. If the stars align, as in the wet weather subsides and the crew can schedule the time to put up the tower between the bigger jobs, the building and equipment are already in place. I presume a soft start.

You're right, the website has not been updated in a long time. The truth is, the guy is taking on all the extra work he can get to create a nice nest egg for he and and the station so he can devote the time and be ready for any emergency that might pop up.

Best of all, the guy is a radio guy. I think he's been in radio about 30 years. Not only that, he doesn't wear the station on his sleeve but is excited to watch it evolve to serve the needs of Austin County versus being his personal format. And he not just knows programming but sales too. The biggest issues I see in LPFMs are the lack of ability to market themselves properly to the business community for Underwriting and a board that programs a station to their liking versus the community at large.
 
The KLOT transmitter will be about eight miles from Bellville, so marginal if it could serve as a voice for that town. Also not sure how bad the KGLK-KQQK squeeze would be in that area.

I wish them well, but the population in KLOT's primary signal area might be too thin to sustain the station.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom