Y-100 also had an auxiliary transmitter, I believe on the same building, in the late 70's at least. I never visited it, but did get to see the short-guyed tower in the trailer park (where I would doubly not want to be in a hurricane).
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Miami/Fort Lauderdale FM coverage pattern
- Thread starter billy2047
- Start date
I once read a story about WAXY-FM when it was automated beautiful music and the main studio and antenna was in downtown Fort Lauderdale. The overnight operator lived nearby and thought he would go hang out at home but keep an ear on the station with his radio. At some point during the night, the amplifier in the transmitter failed but the exciter was putting out just enough power for him to pick it up at his place. If I recall, the engineer angrily called him at home asking why he wasn't at the studio, but apparently he got to keep his job.
The last time that I know of when the downtown aux for 105.9 had to be called into service was in the mid 2000s when a fire at the Pembroke Road site knocked Big off the air.
That was the original transmitter site for WMJR 100.7 Ft. Lauderdale
It was on a mast atop the KenAnn Building (Commercial at federal, I think.) It was a round building and the automation system was on the top floor. The station was a roll-your-own beautiful music station and, as I recall, had a Schafer 800 with all the bells and whistles you could imaging (time announce, a couple of Spotter random select reel-to-reel machines, etc.) One day the system hung up and for around 12 hours played nothing but one spot after an other.
Nowadays WPOW only reaches around the Port St Lucie/Stuart area, it starts overlapping with Orlando's WOEX anything going further up north
About 150-200’ up (at best).
It amazes me that most of the Miami/Ft Lauderdale stations were on such short towers until the Gannett tower was erected in the early 80’s…I’m assuming because Broward and Dade were separate radio markets.
Even before South Florida had a building boom and even the skyscrapers were under 300’, I can’t imagine a particularly good signal south of Hollywood or north of Pompano.
They became separate at the end of 1981. All of the subscribed station managers vote, and we selected combining the markets.
But many stations were on the collection of towers just north of the Gannett tower, including the candelabra that had, among others, Y-100 on it.
Some of the Miami FMs were still on buildings in downtown Miami, but those that were not short spaced moved to the Gannett tower.
Remember when WCKO 102.7 had their tower just off I-95 in Pompano; WWOG 99.9 on a Tower just off The Turnpike and Glades Road and WBUS/WWWL 93.9 from the Deauville Hotel
I believe WBUS was on the WMBM tower 1st St and WAEZ 94.9 was at the Deauville.
Fun fact: Up until a few years ago, there was a bar in the building near the WMBM tower called Radio Bar. It even had a little On Air sign next to the door.
I'm just curious why do some decided to go with ND, while others go with directional
You were close Federal at Oakland Park Blvd. For years WMJR was only 70KW because the FBI had a 2 way system there. Eventually they went 100KW from there before the transmitter was moved to the candelabra tower.
My first radio job, I started at WAXY in November 1972 just before the sale was completed and RKO General took over in January 1973. The transmitter and automation (no studio) were in the First Federal Bank building at 301 East Las Olas Blvd, they cut the old WFLM studios/offices down to just 3 rooms, transmitter, automation and record closet. We had to enter the station from a door off the back stairway. The antenna height was 165 feet and the antenna was horizontally polarized only. The transmitter was a Gates FM 10B which I believe ended up at WAFG a christian station which was just starting.
When RKO General purchased WAXY they installed a larger more modern automation system going from a Broadcast Products AR-1000 to an AR-2000. A makeshift production room/air studio was built in what had been the old WFLM record library (closet). The McCurdy board and a couple of reel to reel decks cart decks and a turntable. It was tight, only one person could sit in there at a time.
There was a fire set at the other end of the floor set by someone who was upset with lawyers on that floor. The smoke damage was awful. Everything in the hall was a black mess. I remember the plastic sign on the wall that told where the offices were just melted from the heat. WAVS 1190 am had studios just down the hall. I believe they were okay even though they were closer to the fire...Wow I haven't thought about that for a long time!
I was there the weekend the WAXY studios and offices moved to Andrews Avenue. We went live that weekend while the engineers moved the automation. They wouldn't let us say much though it was supposed to sound automated. Fun times in the early days of mass appeal FM.
I recall WAXY with the Drake Chenault Hit Parade format for a short while
Bert Brown (retired) from American Tower had mentioned to me that when the master FM antenna operated from the farthest Eastern Candelabra (the one where 106.7 was up until very recently), it had been designed to project some RF out east towards the Bahamas. Which the pattern of the Gannett tower master antenna does not.
There are a number of reasons why. The big reason is, directional antennas can sometimes have weird nulls unintentionally. So areas you don't intend to see a lack of strong coverage exist. The trade off is, with the directional antenna, you're not putting RF out over the sea or swamplands. And as such, you can achieve your full ERP with less transmitter power. Also , while not very important, I can say the FMs that run non directionally (WKIS, WLYF, etc) tend to get better coverage through the middle keys than those on the Gannett tower. Not by much, but there is a noticeable difference when I go that way.
Further reading seems to indicate 93.9 was indeed at the Deauville. A post from Alan Michaels from 2022: Thread 'Goodbye Deauville Hotel' https://radiodiscussions.com/threads/goodbye-deauville-hotel.744804/
I recall the switch from WBUS (jazz) to WWWL (Love 94) in 1977. G Michael McKay was the morning host (from the Deauville) and featured the "Jimmy Carpool Parking Garage" traffic report. I could still pick up the signal nicely in Boca from their short tower. Also at that time WIGL 107.5 flipped for a short while to a soft-rock format.
1970 and 1971, after that the automation tapes were made by chief engineer Les Goldberg. He got most of the old WFLM-FM 105.9 equipment installed at his house including a Crown reel to reel and the Gates cabinet with 2 Gates turntables and Gates Executive console. Prior owner Albert S. Tedesco must have owed Goldberg a lot of money. WFLM 105.9 was purchased and became WIXX-FM going from Fort Lauderdale's pioneer FM stereo station to FM mono. The WIXX-FM format was Country. Owning 105.9 gave WIXX a nighttime signal to compete with the 24 hour Country Giant WGMA, since at the time WIXX-AM 1520 was restricted to daytime only. In 1970 the new General Manager changed the stations to WEXY (middle of the road) and WAXY running the "Hitparade" format. In time WEXY went back to Country Music.
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RKO outfitted WAXY with the best of everything. I'm a gadget freak and WAXY was like a toy store. They also had a young, smart engineering staff!
I don't know the reason behind this but there was also something in the license approval which required WAXY to remain automated. They went live for a short time once, returning to automation within months. Consultant E. Alvin Davis may know the story since he work on air at WAXY during this time.
WAXY as a condition of the sale to RKO ( which took almost a year) had a huge public service commitment. There were 2 blocks, Sunday 4am-9am and 9pm-1am. I'm not sure how long that lasted. it had to do with RKO's anti-trust violations.
There was never an FCC requirement or specification regarding live vs. automated. That was a station choice, usually based on cost and the availability of talent.
Most of us had 5 to 6 hours of Public Affairs/Educational/Other commitments and ran either through as late as noon on Sunday or both Sunday morning and Sunday night.
Generally, in that era an AM needed 8% non-entertainment programming and an FM needed 6% to get an easier renewal. Those percentages were made up of news, public affairs, educational and some religious programs.
Typically, a music FM that did not want news in most dayparts would do heavy news overnights, and then do newscasts just in AM drive the rest of the day. Then you'd need about 5 to 6 hours of those Sunday shows to complete the quota.