Why even question it anymore? It's 2026 and the world is weird...
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1110 New Format
- Thread starter amos1001
- Start date
Let’s reset what this thread is really about:
1110 AM—104 years old—is now three months into a continuous loop. Ninety days isn’t “coming soon”—it’s “we left the porch light on and forgot about it.” This isn’t a pending launch—it’s a holding pattern.
1110 AM—104 years old—is now three months into a continuous loop. Ninety days isn’t “coming soon”—it’s “we left the porch light on and forgot about it.” This isn’t a pending launch—it’s a holding pattern.
I have to agree with this assessment/thread reset. As Amos (I believe it was) also pointed out, it's not a stunt, it's a redirect. IMHO, it is a holding pattern and a place holder, what most of AM has unfortunately become,, but this one isn't even for an FM translator. Just thinking out loud, it has become a place holder for 107.9, in a manner of speaking.
Yep. At night I check a Florida SDR every few evenings and it's almost local strength.
WBT's AM skywave signal is telling everyone from Maine to Miami that their FM signal is "loud and clear" in two towns and two lakes no one outside of the Charlotte market has ever heard of.
Yea that's crazy. Only people that would have heard of it outside their area would be nerds and DXers. Which isn't enough to sustain a station
Yep. A 50 KW flamethrower from Maine to Florida...but can't be heard in Gastonia! Without 99.3 to supplement the signal, WBT is worthless. If you can't cover the market where it matters, what's the point.
That only applies after sunset. 1110 is omnidirectional during the day.
Best comment ever!!😂
How about people on the road at night who don’t want to bother changing stations every 75 miles?
Yes I know that. You didn't think I was referring to daytime, did you? (50 KW flamethrower Maine to Florida). It's a coverage hole that makes it locally a sub standard signal. Once again, in the market where it counts.
They could have kept 99.3 instead of selling, and pair it with WBT, and give 1110/99.3 a chance with a new format. But it's too late now...
Most people who are regularly on the road at night have satellite radio. That is why the old trucker shows that used to get a good list of sponsors are mostly gone and not well sold today.
Occasional night listeners are not a big enough... and more importantly, not definable enough... to attract any kind of advertiser to a single station. And it is AM.
Or Spotify, YouTube Music, Pandora etc. If I do listen to radio to listen instead of nerding out, it's low enough I'm not paying close attention to it or the adverts. They've got to be pretty special for me to recognize them
I doubt anyone travelling I-95, anywhere at night is going to only want to listen to an AM signal from Charlotte. There is absolutely no shortage of AM and FM signals to choose from if driving the corridor from Maine to Florida.
Good point. Of course, the only marketable and stable audience for OTA radio late at night used to be truckers... they all moved to satellite. And a lot of them will have some kind of streaming service, too, as the Interstate highways are pretty well covered by all three cellular companies.
The largest dependable audience will be truckers. Others are so occasional and so irregular that it would be hard to put a value on that audience. And, as KC8UOK mentioned, you can have all kinds of streams that don't fade out, get static near power lines and such. Long distance commercial drivers don't dial around looking for stations.
i wanted to be an AM dj so bad i'd stop talking whenever we drove under a bridge.
...Surely its not just AM Radio Station DJs who are mostly listening to AM Radio. 😮
Why but just re-purpose the AM bandwidth for 2-Way communication (like Walie-Talkie) or just make it secondary ATC for airports to supplement 108-136 MHz at this point ..
Or like with the old Cordless Phones,
(25 Channel 42-50 MHz - then 900 MHz), that was audible on older police scanners, Unscrambled Audio, using this existing technology, but made available for Public Use for those who don't mind their conversations being public?
P.S. ... I've found many cool AM radio stations in Australia using SDR (2CA, 2UE, 4BI, etc...) and more ... and btw, those are common music formatted stations!!
Why but just re-purpose the AM bandwidth for 2-Way communication (like Walie-Talkie) or just make it secondary ATC for airports to supplement 108-136 MHz at this point ..
Or like with the old Cordless Phones,
(25 Channel 42-50 MHz - then 900 MHz), that was audible on older police scanners, Unscrambled Audio, using this existing technology, but made available for Public Use for those who don't mind their conversations being public?
P.S. ... I've found many cool AM radio stations in Australia using SDR (2CA, 2UE, 4BI, etc...) and more ... and btw, those are common music formatted stations!!
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Absolutely zero chance. Airband frequencies have to be internationally recognized. A plane in the United States will have to be able to communication with every single towered airport in the world. Which is why in 2026 ATC is still in AM.
As for business use, those are terrible frequencies for that due to night time propagation.
107.9 now covers the market where it matters, with a better quality signal free of AM static. But it would be nice to have the AM simulcast to cover fringe areas around Greensboro, and Columbia and Greenville, SC where local translators may begin to interfere with WBT on 107.9. But I guess secondary regional markets are not part of the primary business model. But I have listened to 1110 at night all up and down I-95 from Florida, to DC/MD/VA and New York. So somehow you would think they would find programming for this long distance legacy signal, but perhaps something is still in the works, albeit delayed.