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WSBB-FM Transmitter Move

There are a couple of issues that could be slowing down Cox. They will be using a directional antenna that has to be “custom made” and the TV repack due to bandwidth compression most likely has the tower crews backlogged.
 
95.5 WHMA serving Anniston AL has just made the move to 95.3 which had to happen before WSBB could move into Atlanta
 
WHMA was the callsign of the station that is now WNNX Rock100.5, when it was located in Anniston.

Is Cox still planning on moving WSRV off of the Chateau Elan tower? I remember Cox was considering doing so, either because of concerns of structural stability of the tower or a desire to get better building penetration intown.

Personally, I hope they don't--their large full class C signal makes it easy to pick up in the car all over town, and an intown move would result in a downgrade to probably C1.
 
jabba17 said:
Is Cox still planning on moving WSRV off of the Chateau Elan tower? I remember Cox was considering doing so, either because of concerns of structural stability of the tower or a desire to get better building penetration intown.

Personally, I hope they don't--their large full class C signal makes it easy to pick up in the car all over town, and an intown move would result in a downgrade to probably C1.
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Cox had a permit for 97.1 to be moved to a tower nearer to downtown:

https://licensing.fcc.gov/cgi-bin/w...xt=25&appn=101543932&formid=301&fac_num=59970

which was allowed to lapse. IIRC the tower was late in being constructed by the county. It would have been a “C2” 100 KW at 212 meters HAAT (695.5 feet). I do recall some posts about issues with 97.1’s tower but it has survived a lot of wind and ice / snow storms so I doubt that is an issue. One time there was a rumored move or 97.1 to the old Channel Two analog tower too. I haven’t this seen posted on the FCC site.

Short term management thinking could be why spend money to move a station’s coverage to increase the 60 DB coverage to areas that are not friendly demographically to the current programming. The last couple of ratings has 97.1 out performing 98.5 (6+) which has an in-town tower. The second and third most populous counties in GA are Gwinnett and Cobb. Both have higher median Incomes than Fulton or DeKalb counties. If / when Cox sells its radio stations the new owner will have the ability to file and move in-town if they want to thanks to the “C” status of 97.1.

IMHO: someday HD 2, and 3 might be viable on their own. Adjacent and co channel interference does limit these signals for now. A full class C is about the most signal protection you can get on FM. Limiting you FM coverage now might be like the operators that sold their FM in the late 1960’s or early 1970’s because the AM was making the most money.
 
BarryATL said:
WHMA lost quite a bit of coverage in the change of frequencies.

https://fccdata.org/?lang=en&facid=52320
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That poor station. It was (as someone already mentioned) at 100.5 in Anniston at 100kw. A guy tried for years to move it at 100kw to Sandy Springs but finally got bankrupt over it. (WSSL at 100.5 was an issue in the Greenville Spartanburg market, but a deal was eventually worked out.) I don't remember the entity that eventually moved it. They changed the CoL to College Park since, at the time, Sandy Springs wasn't really a city. They also agreed to the current lower power since the deal with WSSL blew up.

Then WHMA it got reestablished at a lower power and new frequency, losing much of their coverage area. Now, they move again with more loss? Jeez. And everytime it was because of Atlanta. But I'm pretty sure they got paid each time.
 
AMRocks said:
That poor station. It was (as someone already mentioned) at 100.5 in Anniston at 100kw. A guy tried for years to move it at 100kw to Sandy Springs but finally got bankrupt over it. (WSSL at 100.5 was an issue in the Greenville Spartanburg market, but a deal was eventually worked out.) I don't remember the entity that eventually moved it. They changed the CoL to College Park since, at the time, Sandy Springs wasn't really a city. They also agreed to the current lower power since the deal with WSSL blew up.

Then WHMA it got reestablished at a lower power and new frequency, losing much of their coverage area. Now, they move again with more loss? Jeez. And everytime it was because of Atlanta. But I'm pretty sure they got paid each time.
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Yes, Susquehanna moved 100.5 to ATL before Susquehanna Pfaltzgraff was dismantled by the family (which included the sale of Susquehanna Broadcasting to Cumulus).

IIRC the FCC wouldn't let a station be licensed to Sandy Springs because it wasn't a city at the time...but neither was Mableton for 102.5 (still isn't). And North Atlanta (WRNG/WCNN) was dissolved before 680 came on the air (and has since been reincorporated as Brookhaven).

Apparently the deal for WSSL to downgrade or move away from ATL was a done deal and then the station was bought by Clear Channel, which said no way.
 
Although highly unlikely, it would be funny if IHeart revives WGST The News Monster on either side of 95.5 (94.9 or 96.1) when the upgrade happens.
 
ThePowerCow said:
Although highly unlikely, it would be funny if IHeart revives WGST The News Monster on either side of 95.5 (94.9 or 96.1) when the upgrade happens.
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That won't happen, but I could see iHeart putting WGST back on 105.7.
 
IIRC when WGST was on 105.7 Cox still beat them with 750 AM alone. That was many years ago when folks still listened to AM to get their talk fix. Many of those people (me included) have age out of any kind of “money demo”. I would be a cup of Burger King coffee (the regular kind) that if Eric Von Hessler when head to head against Rush on 105.7, 95.5 would win in the sub 55 demos. Speaking of demos, 105.7 most likely is getting a lion’s share of the agency alternative buys.

If I was running the Atlanta cluster: I would be most concerned with my two big signals 94.9 and 96.1 which both are in “radio wars.” Then I would be concerned with Davis getting some of 105.3’s revenue. #3 I would also be trying to get some of 106.7’s weekend programming on 640.
 
What amazes me is what has taken WSB so long to make this move considering the potential improvement it will have on their coverage of the Atlanta market. They got a permit from the FCC in March of last year. They are going on an existing tower and at the same location as WSB-FM so they already have a building to put the equipment into. Yeah the little station over in Anniston had to change channels but that can be accomplished within a few days. Take down a light weight antenna and put up another light weight antenna. That station is only like 500 watts, twice the power of a FM translator. Plus, the only reason Cox got this permit is because the FCC finally did away with the cross ownership rule which prevented them from moving a signal into the heart of Atlanta where the AJC is published. The thing is there are people asking the FCC to reverse that decision. While it's not likely to happen as long as the GOP controls the FCC, the US House flipped to DEMs and the committee overseeing the FCC can cause problems. Why take the chance when this move is really going to solidify WSB and I suspect will bump up the ratings even higher which means potentially millions more revenue. Also, no telling what Cox has already spent to get tot his point. Their present signal doesn't cover a third of the metro west, southwest and northwest of Atlanta. The new transmitter site will. This can happen when sales people become managers and really don't have a long history of radio work. They can sell ads but they don't have a concept of the technical aspects of radio. Im guessing that is how WALR screwed up its 100,000 watts signal and ended up being forced to a shorter tower to stay 100kw. Management didn't know enough about the technical side to understand someone wasn't dotting the i's and crossing the t's. I don't think this delay would have happened with a long time broadcaster in the GM's office.
 
MediaMan said:
This can happen when sales people become managers and really don't have a long history of radio work. They can sell ads but they don't have a concept of the technical aspects of radio. Im guessing that is how WALR screwed up its 100,000 watts signal and ended up being forced to a shorter tower to stay 100kw. Management didn't know enough about the technical side to understand someone wasn't dotting the i's and crossing the t's. I don't think this delay would have happened with a long time broadcaster in the GM's office.
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I've seen this over and over. My "favorite" is sales-only focused managers who look at the biggest radio-locator contour and think that is the usable coverage. In fact, I have seen stations bought based on covering areas that are really unlistenable locations.

And, of course, we hear stations where it is obvious that priority has not been given to engineering and installations. Whether it is automation failings or bad processing, they lose audience.
 
The story about this that I've heard from a few people, one of whom is a chief engineer at a non-Cox property, is that Cox Radio had a person in Birmingham (pre-Summit acquiring the Cox stations there) whose job was improving facilities for Cox stations. One of the informants told me this person was former Cox/Birmingham COO David DuBose.

This person decided that WALR-FM, since a lot of its audience lived fairly close in, would be better off with a lower-power signal that was stronger in the immediate Atlanta area, and proposed moving from Newnan to the shorter 107.9/96.7 tower in Tyrone. However, Cox Radio/Atlanta engineering was against the move and put up roadblocks. The problem was that WVFJ-FM/93.3 had a CP to improve its signal toward Atlanta contingent on WALR making its move.

When the Cox move wasn't done after 3 years, WVFJ went to the FCC and said it had adhered to its part of the deal, and the FCC agreed. So WALR as a result lost its C0 status and was told by the FCC to return to 60KW, its power years ago, from its current 100KW. I *have* read the correspondence from Cox stating their excuses for not making the move, and protesting the downgrade, and I found it kind of stunning.
 
One would think and organization with multiple stations (TV and Radio) would have a “Corporate Chief engineer” to oversee the various technicians, equipment purchases, and equipment repairs at different locations. This person would also personally oversee the FCC filings or hire a law firm to keep up with the FCC paperwork.

IMHO: this person most likely would be more in tune with purchase orders, personnel issues, company politics, and budgets. Not your best engineer, who is too valuable to be spending time dealing with non-technical issues. In a perfect world, major technical purchases should involve the folks who have to use the equipment and the repair people to make sure the purchasing officer or the accountants get it right.
 
I noticed that WSB/WSBB has a new TOH ID. They've quit hiding the WSB ID in the TOH sweeper. Now it's a simple, businesslike "WSB Atlanta, WSBB-FM Doraville" in a normal speaking voice.
 
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