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Tuesday night WHK issues

J

johnbasalla

at 9 p.m., WHK aired their national news, as usual. However, after that it was an hour of technical difficulties. WHK had back-to-back commercials, station promos, the broadcasting of instrumental versions of Beatles songs and, alas, a fair amount of dead air. During the dead air, I could hear, fading in and out of the "mist", a couple of other stations. One was a 1420 am where I briefly heard, clearly, a lady referencing the upcoming New York Yankees game. If you'd like to see more details about this far away 1420, please visit the DX/Reception page as I ask, there, who might this be.

At 10:00pm, their network news came on, as usual. But, that was followed by another long segment of dead air. I might stick around to, hopefully, hear more great Beatles music as the instrumental remakes they were occasionally playing were quite good.
 
From 9-10 pm is the pre-recorded first hour of Larry Elder (Carl Jackson was sitting in for him last night) and from 10-11 pm is the pre-recorded first hour of Sebastian Gorka. So whatever equipment they use to play those recorded segments must have malfunctioned. Apparently, all was back to normal after the 11:00 pm news when the pre-recorded Mike Gallagher show started.

The instrumental Beatles music was cool. I thought maybe WHK had switched to easy listening.
 
That whole station is screwy. Their night pattern I don't know what's going on - but on the east side of Cleveland it turns into a howling mess after sundown and I have to turn the radio at an odd angle to zero in on a barely there signal. It never did this up until earlier this year. There are no STA's on file, either.
 
It sucks that most Cleveland AM stations don't even cover Cuyahoga County at night. I realize most stations need to switch to a night pattern to protect others on the same frequency or on adjacent frequencies, but it seems like they need to make some revisions. This isn't 1950 where the bulk of the population is living within the Cleveland city limits.
 
skiwest said:
It sucks that most Cleveland AM stations don't even cover Cuyahoga County at night. I realize most stations need to switch to a night pattern to protect others on the same frequency or on adjacent frequencies, but it seems like they need to make some revisions. This isn't 1950 where the bulk of the population is living within the Cleveland city limits.
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I'm literally one block over the city line into Shaker Heights from C-town. There's no reason I shouldn't be getting a crystal clear loud signal on 1420. And I did, consistently up until earlier this year.



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I'm not sure how reliable those coverage maps are. I used to visit a relative in North Olmsted and when driving home at night, WHK was basically a rumor. It wasn't listenable until I got to around the airport.
 
As a reminder: we're talking about a company that's not in good financial shape to begin with, operating from a transmitter site that's in its ninth decade, for a station that draws barely any ratings or revenue aside from whatever its leased-time programmers are paying to be on there.

The cost of a full rebuild of the transmitter plant would easily be well into the mid six figures, which these days is more than the station itself is worth.

The cost of rearranging other signals to expand WHK's coverage would go into the millions. There's no way to justify that kind of spending for almost any AM station in 2024.

So it gets patched up just enough to stay on the air. And at some point if the next patch gets too expensive (a tower falls, or the transmitter fails), it may be more cost effective to just let it die.

That's not just WHK. It's pretty much every AM now except for the very biggest (WTAM, WLW) or most profitable (WKNR) and a handful of outliers like WCCR that aren't there to make a profit and thus operate under different economic scenarios.
 
skiwest said:
From 9-10 pm is the pre-recorded first hour of Larry Elder (Carl Jackson was sitting in for him last night) and from 10-11 pm is the pre-recorded first hour of Sebastian Gorka. So whatever equipment they use to play those recorded segments must have malfunctioned. Apparently, all was back to normal after the 11:00 pm news when the pre-recorded Mike Gallagher show started.

The instrumental Beatles music was cool. I thought maybe WHK had switched to easy listening.
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"America First" with Dr. Sebastian Gorka began airing at about 10:12 pm. The Top of The Hour newscasts aired fine throughout.
 
fybush said:
As a reminder: we're talking about a company that's not in good financial shape to begin with, operating from a transmitter site that's in its ninth decade, for a station that draws barely any ratings or revenue aside from whatever its leased-time programmers are paying to be on there.

The cost of a full rebuild of the transmitter plant would easily be well into the mid six figures, which these days is more than the station itself is worth.

The cost of rearranging other signals to expand WHK's coverage would go into the millions. There's no way to justify that kind of spending for almost any AM station in 2024.

So it gets patched up just enough to stay on the air. And at some point if the next patch gets too expensive (a tower falls, or the transmitter fails), it may be more cost effective to just let it die.

That's not just WHK. It's pretty much every AM now except for the very biggest (WTAM, WLW) or most profitable (WKNR) and a handful of outliers like WCCR that aren't there to make a profit and thus operate under different economic scenarios.
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WHK has a fair amount of regular advertisers that I hear. Additionally, they air some effective promo's targeting the advertising (business) community telling them why they should advertise on WHK.
 
RadioFixerCLE said:
I'm literally one block over the city line into Shaker Heights from C-town. There's no reason I shouldn't be getting a crystal clear loud signal on 1420. And I did, consistently up until earlier this year.



View attachment 7710
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That looks like you are near the Shaker Square zone... on the Cleveland side where St. Luke's Hospital used to be. The last time I listened to AM in Cleveland was just a tit to the east of that point and I did not find trouble with any local station, even 1490.

I did not look at the FCC data, but do they have a CP for a change or a permit for temporary low power operation due to antenna work?
 
skiwest said:
I'm not sure how reliable those coverage maps are. I used to visit a relative in North Olmsted and when driving home at night, WHK was basically a rumor. It wasn't listenable until I got to around the airport.
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Back in the early 60's when WHK was the "big" top 40 station, at night going east by the time I'd get to Lyndhurst or even a bit before the signal was often subject to interference from co-channel stations.
 
radiofan2023 said:
Are they local businesses or national?
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On the local shows, they are local advertisers such as the Harry Buffalo restaurant in North Olmsted and a local home improvement business. The, seemingly daily, messages from Cleveland Right To Life that air on both local and national shows and from Lorain County Right To Life, the messages during last year's Issue 1. National ads, like Relief Factor and the gold and bullion business air on the National shows.
 
fybush said:
The cost of rearranging other signals to expand WHK's coverage would go into the millions. There's no way to justify that kind of spending for almost any AM station in 2024.
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So many stations like WHK are a product of the 1930's and were good signals back then. But the post-WW II urban sprawl outgrew a big percentage of those "good" regional assignments like WMCA or WQAM or KHJ or KABC or KILT or even the best ones like KLZ and WIND.

The later ones, like 1300 and 1260 in Cleveland, were borderline when authorized. Today, with multi-country Nielsen markets, they are just not able to compete.

And the pieces of land needed to do a fully improved facility are too expensive and like too strictly zoned. Coverage is as big a problem for most AM stations as audio quality and noise is.
 
DavidEduardo said:
That looks like you are near the Shaker Square zone... on the Cleveland side where St. Luke's Hospital used to be. The last time I listened to AM in Cleveland was just a tit to the east of that point and I did not find trouble with any local station, even 1490.

I did not look at the FCC data, but do they have a CP for a change or a permit for temporary low power operation due to antenna work?
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Nope, wasn't able to find anything for this year.

And yes, by Saint Luke's (building still there) you'll have excellent reception of 1490 WERE - the tower is on Euclid Avenue in the University Circle neighborhood, by the railroad tracks just before East Cleveland.

WJMO 1300 comes in like gangbusters along with all the other usual suspects, including CKLW and WJR.
 
David Eduardo posted, in part: And the pieces of land needed to do a fully improved facility are too expensive and like too strictly zoned. Coverage is as big a problem for most AM stations as audio quality and noise is.

Even so, isn't it interesting, and telling, that people, groups or businesses will still buy many of these facilities. There is a burning desire to be on the air!
 
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