Panama City Beach hurricane Michael

[gr8oldies]

Still simulcasting storm aftermath coverage this afternoon. "But...there's no public service going on anywhere in the country!"

 

[Tibbs4]

This is a good case study for the iHeart haters out there.

Particularly those who continue to call it "Cheap Channel".

The company does spend money where it is needed and maintains quality technical facilities. It's worth suggesting a round of applause for them for the quick response to the Florida hurricane. Not only are they maintaining radio service to the area, they are setting an example of a positive rebuilding effort and a belief in the future of the market!

Well done.

WTR (What The Radio...)

Eduardo, Dang it! You tryin' to get a job @ iHeart in PCB?

Ok = I have to agree. It's been nice to see the strong sense of community and obvious hard work from ALL along the Panhandle putting in those hours to repair the equipment, power up the properly maintained generators and do the actual on-air team coverage.

 

[Tibbs4]

I was at the WPIK FM Summerland Key Studios during Andrew. We had generators at the studio and transmitter site. Power was out for about a week and a half. CNN had reported that Keys had been destroyed. I did a quick blip for CBS radio news at the top of the hour (our phone lines were up). They were disappointed that there was no destruction to report from Marathon to Key West. Other than power and water loss. Andrew did little damage to the Lower Keys.

Groove - I swear I remember WPIK also being featured on one of the cable channels during Andrew. I remember when the station was for sale way back when. IIRC, that's when Doyle Hadden used to mail out photocopied sheets of signals and station sale info. That was obviously a long time ago. I think I sort of remember suddenly being was "thankful" that I did not jump in that water.

 

[cceng]

Lurking....

don't have much time.....WDIZ 3 tower directional array on the ground....including my backup FM antenna on the north tower of the array....it was a special broadband FM antenna I could use on any of our FMs in emergencies.

Studio tower down.....we had back up UNDERGROUND fiber from the studio to the AT&T central office.....T-1 to WPAP/WFSY stayed up.....the pole cable was on the ground the last 2 miles to the tower site with downed trees and was still playing.....started having trouble with it this afternoon when people were driving over the cable and it beginning to fail. AT&T is supposed to be replacing/repairing it early next week

Our SATL back satellite system is what is currently keeping all stations on the air except for WEBZ which is on its T-1.....

iHeart brought in a helicopter to take an engineer to the WFLF 94.5 transmitter site the day after the hurricane to patch the audio from the SATL to the audio processor Don't think you can call them cheap channel for that....no telling how much it cost to bring that copter from Louisiana to Panama City....he landed behind the studios to pick up the engineer, Mike Hagans the iHeart Director of Engineer for South Florida (who is originally from Panama City by the way....graduated from high school here.....I have known him since he was a kid, his dad was a ham radio friend of mine) The WFLF transmitter stayed on (with no audio after the studio tower fell) never missed a beat. Mike was in Tennessee on his way back from a trip to Colorado and volunteered to come down and assist me.....we have had engineers from Tampa, Miami, Montgomery, Mobile and even Charles Kinney from WSB in Atlanta who grew up in Panama City.....we have engineers from Sarasota and Jacksonville rotating in over the weekend. WEBZ WPAP and WFSY are still on generator power. Fueling contractor took over my daily fueling trips to the generators. Plans are being made to replace the WDIZ plant and the studio tower....will take a while....we will be feeding WFLF via SATL for quite some time but I am looking into seeing how quickly I can get a T-1 installed there.

a lot of mis-information is some previous posts so I thought I would get the story straight.....there were some really strange things said in this thread.

Gotta go

CCENG aka Charlie

 

[Poledo]

Keep up the good work, Charlie. Teach those young bucks something about engineering in a hurricane.
The helicopter story is cool. Hopefully when things get back to normal you'll have stories as cool as URBNO or Jammin' 92.5!

 

[Groove1670]

Groove - I swear I remember WPIK also being featured on one of the cable channels during Andrew. I remember when the station was for sale way back when. IIRC, that's when Doyle Hadden used to mail out photocopied sheets of signals and station sale info. That was obviously a long time ago. I think I sort of remember suddenly being was "thankful" that I did not jump in that water.

Yes it was being shopped and was sold a few years later. We were featured in a few post Andrew stories.

 

[Poledo]

Have any other markets fallen apart like PCB did this month?

Powell out.
Magic cuts everything possible. Likely trying to sell out.
Status of single station operators is dire.
iHeart is the only solvent cluster in the market. And why should they rebuild WDIZ 590?
NPR/Public Radio affiliates WFSU and WKGC are the only other voices.
Religious stations that remain on air continue with regular programming.

Are we headed towards the re-boot of the PCB market the old timers have been waiting for?

 

[tomservo]

Re: the future of WDIZ. It's paired with a translator, and I would think iHeart would want to keep that going. I wonder which would be cheaper — a bare minimum AM facility to drive the translator, or upgrading one of the FMs to HD and feeding it that way?

 

[gr8oldies]

They have to rebuild the city first. Old radio gusy buying facilities and hiring big staffs? I'm not holding my breath

Have any other markets fallen apart like PCB did this month?

Powell out.
Magic cuts everything possible. Likely trying to sell out.
Status of single station operators is dire.
iHeart is the only solvent cluster in the market. And why should they rebuild WDIZ 590?
NPR/Public Radio affiliates WFSU and WKGC are the only other voices.
Religious stations that remain on air continue with regular programming.

Are we headed towards the re-boot of the PCB market the old timers have been waiting for?

 

[cceng]

WDIZ WILL be rebuilt

 

[Poledo]

WDIZ WILL be rebuilt

Bigger and better than before?

 

[Poledo]

I see that with all the damage to WDIZ the FCC has issued special temporary authority to iHeart to continue originating programming on the 96.3 translator.

Has the FCC allowed a translator to remain on air while the primary was off before?
Does the FCC just approved anything cceng asks for?

 

[Tibbs4]

Yes and always! I think the folks at the FCC are actually pretty considerate of weather related situations. I cannot imagine them coming in and pressing this issue and telling CCENG to turn of the FM. If they did....well.

 

[tomservo]

Wasn't there another AM somewhere that wanted an experimental license to shut off the AM and go translator-only? The FCC denied that request in rather emphatic terms if I recall. It is good to know they will make an exception during natural disasters.

 

[davideduardo]

Wasn't there another AM somewhere that wanted an experimental license to shut off the AM and go translator-only? The FCC denied that request in rather emphatic terms if I recall. It is good to know they will make an exception during natural disasters.

Show Low, Arizona. KVSL, I believe.

 

[tomservo]

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention this in this thread, but Charlie Wooten appears on this week's Top of the Tower podcast with Scott Fybush to talk about iHeart's preparedness and how it helped them stay on the air during Michael. I plan on listening to it later this evening. It's good that a hard working engineer's planning is getting recognized.