At Radio Insight, they had an article about WRIE AM 1260 in Erie, PA shutting down. Radio-Locator has them "currently off the air". If they are permanently off-the-air, how might that impact WCCR's AM 1260 in Cleveland to grow its coverage area?
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WCCR AM 1260 growth potential?
- Thread starter johnbasalla
- Start date
WCCR still has to protect 1250 Pittsburgh and 1270 in Detroit (not to mention 1270
in Marysville). It'd be an engineering nightmare for little gain, maybe for negligible improvement in Euclid and maybe Mentor?
1260's signal, even in the Top 30 WIXY days under Normbob, was not great on the east side of Cleveland. Anywhere to the east of Cleveland Heights was often bad, particularly at night.
And redesigning and rebuilding the Cleveland directional system for a small gain is way too expensive. As Fybush has said, you are talking about hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars, even if you can just redo the phaser and not have to add or move towers
The only way WCCR can expand their coverage at this point is if they can find a suitable frequency for a FM repeater, or lease out a subchannel on another station's HD Radio carrier.
If the co-channel and adjacent-channel stations around WCCR didn't exist or were spaced further way, then the cost effective option would be to simply apply for a power boost. They could probably alter their pattern slightly by disabling one or more of their towers as well. Otherwise, in order to better optimize and expand their coverage area, they would need to rebuild their current array, which would involve rebuilding and repositioning the towers. This is not possible because there is not enough land to move the towers around and space them accordingly, and they can't buy any more land in order to do so, so they are locked into their current 5 tower in-line array. Relocating the transmitter site would be an option, but in any case, buying land and/or rebuilding is not economical for an AM station in this day of age, especially if any improvement is going to benefit ~1,000 potential listeners.
If the co-channel and adjacent-channel stations around WCCR didn't exist or were spaced further way, then the cost effective option would be to simply apply for a power boost. They could probably alter their pattern slightly by disabling one or more of their towers as well. Otherwise, in order to better optimize and expand their coverage area, they would need to rebuild their current array, which would involve rebuilding and repositioning the towers. This is not possible because there is not enough land to move the towers around and space them accordingly, and they can't buy any more land in order to do so, so they are locked into their current 5 tower in-line array. Relocating the transmitter site would be an option, but in any case, buying land and/or rebuilding is not economical for an AM station in this day of age, especially if any improvement is going to benefit ~1,000 potential listeners.
And that was back when the transmitter was in Independence. Being in Brecksville now it feels like it'd be even more complicated and costly. As WCCR is owned by a nonprofit organization, I cannot see how they would be willing to sink resources into such a thing.
Get with the times, listen on line. IMO, they shouldn't have spent their contributions on revamping an eternally bad signal and should have spent it improving their stream and promoting it and/or or obtaining a translator or an HD agreement.
There are good reasons why stations like WRIE are going silent, and unless their board starts doing some forward thinking they will find themselves talking into a dead mike sooner than later.
There are good reasons why stations like WRIE are going silent, and unless their board starts doing some forward thinking they will find themselves talking into a dead mike sooner than later.
Much of my WCCR listening is done while driving.
VintageMac
Banned
Actually Seven Hills.
Ever hear of Bluetooth? Modern connectivity sound systems? Cell phones? Time to trade the 82 Buick for something this century before the price goes up. Except the AM radio will be crap in the
new car. Oh well. Things ain't the way they used to was.
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Why go through all of that when I have a little radio. Turning one tiny knob is all it takes. Simple. Easy. No spy ware. No tracking.
The connected dashboard on my 2021 Buick Encore would like to say hi.
Not all of us have the money to buy a brand new (or used) car with such features, or want to pay the price for unlimited data on their phones. The more gizmos that come equipped in your car, the more complicated things become, and the more it will cost you to repair it if something goes wrong. Dealerships will most likely replace the entire head unit, even for something that's very simple to repair, and charge you big bucks for it!
I personally don't need anything more than a USB port/SD slot in the car for playing back digital music files, though I used to use a tape adapter in my old car for listening to my iPod. I don't need Sirius XM, and I never stream on my phone.
Yes, I do agree that AM reception on new radios is complete garbage. I recently installed a replacement radio in an old Ford van, and AM reception was much clearer compared to modern day radios. The radio in my Mom's Escape caps the frequency response on AM to 5 kHz, because it also does HD Radio. This makes AM stations sound flat and full of low end, while stripping away any high end that is present in the broadcast, regardless if the station has an HD Radio carrier or not.
Any older person from any generation will tell you it was easier and simpler in the before times. And it was. Remember when a radio or TV came on as soon as you snapped on the power? Today, every device, TV, phone, computer, toaster, all have to "boot up" before they will work, and that can take as much time as the old vacuum tube radios and TV's used to take.
The point is organizations better start doing what it takes to reach the younger generations, and soon, because if they just keep on keepin' on, they will disappear with the old people. That means getting on board with the younger people, going where they are and aggressively using the tech they use. And when those young generations get older, they, too, will look upon today and lament how much easier and simpler life was "back then".
The point is organizations better start doing what it takes to reach the younger generations, and soon, because if they just keep on keepin' on, they will disappear with the old people. That means getting on board with the younger people, going where they are and aggressively using the tech they use. And when those young generations get older, they, too, will look upon today and lament how much easier and simpler life was "back then".
Merely going dark does not permit a co channel to move in, license must first be retuned to the FCC
Given they just bought a repeater for Lorain County and the western suburbs, it's very evident WCCR has opted to expand their coverage by getting a simulcast or two than by continuing to plow listener donations into an unfixable 1260 signal.
They're still going to maintain 1260.
What they were doing was returning 1260 to its licenced parameters after it was discovered there were issues with the ground system. That's basic infrastructure maintenance. The signal has definitely improved in the areas where it's always been audible now that everything is working properly. 1260 has a giant null to the west over Lorain, so the 930 signal will cover that area well.
They may have to do work on the 930 signal depending on the condition that station's in as well. 1260 serves the Cleveland metro, it was never intended to go into Lorain. 930 serves the Lorain area. Simple as that, I think.
I was referring to the OP and the query if WCCR's signal could be adjusted by other stations on 1260 going silent or deleted, which can't happen.
Ground system maintenance is rather fundamental and often deferred by being too expensive or an unnecessary budget item; Disney didn't buy 1260 to care about the ground system, they bought it for a Radio Disney clearance.
WEOL has long been one of the better-engineered stations in the area, I doubt it's in any state of disrepair. Plus they'll be getting income from Rubber City renting the 107.3 stick.
Ok a little off topic but it does have to do with the Catholic station currently on 1260 AM. Who was the previous owner of the Catholic station that was on before? Anybody know? I am happy to see that this new station has been around as long as it has and will be expanding with the addition of the 930AM frequency. My favorite show on 1260 is the Paul Orlousky show God calling. He has great interviews.