1010 AM WTZA To Relaunch As A News/Talk Station

[LegalTender]

20/20 News was used a lot on Top 40 stations in the 60's and 70's. Bill Drake created it for KHJ in Los Angeles in 1965.

People would call CKLW before they would call the police. RTNDA seminars cited 'Big-8' news copy as industry-worst examples.

"Motor City Mayor Roman Gribbs has a mad-on for an unidentified rapist. A butcher knife-wielding pervert cornered a secretary in an elevator in City-County building and rode her to vacant 7th floor and proceeded to sexually assault her. Guards are now being considered for future surveillance of the crime-stained 7th floor."

News tip rewards of $1,000.

 

[RoddyFreeman]

People would call CKLW before they would call the police. RTNDA seminars cited 'Big-8' news copy as industry-worst examples.

"Motor City Mayor Roman Gribbs has a mad-on for an unidentified rapist. A butcher knife-wielding pervert cornered a secretary in an elevator in City-County building and rode her to vacant 7th floor and proceeded to sexually assault her. Guards are now being considered for future surveillance of the crime-stained 7th floor."

News tip rewards of $1,000.

Here you go:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZiPXwbtbew

 

[secondchoice]

Here you go:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZiPXwbtbew

I personally liked the "high energy" presentation. IMHO too many stations are just jukeboxes. The "live" feeling is missing. I understand finances of a lot of over-leveraged operations can't pay for "live' people anymore. I still think a "live" person answering the phone and keeping up with the social media of the station would be very beneficial for several formats. This person could be anywhere thanks to voice tracking and VOIP or similar technology.

CBS FM has some pop to it after the Shannon Show. Its kinda weird to listen the Scott Shannon now. In the Late 60's or early 1970's he was very high (some say too much) energy, especially when he was doing nights at the old WMAK in Nashville.

 

[AMFMRadFan]

Hi everyone! I had the pleasure of being an ear witness to WTZA signing on the air via my battery-powered HD radio (Hybrid Digital radio) from where I live in Acworth (SW Cherokee County, GA). When they signed on the air at 7AM, unfortunately, I wasn’t able to pick them up at the actual time of sign on. After listening to 3 AM signals battle each other out for 45 minutes (a southern gospel station in Black Mountain, NC, a news/talk station in Meridian, MS, and an adult hits station in Gallatin, TN), at 7:45 AM, I was able to finally pick WTZA up. I can definitely tell that the signal for AM 1010 WTZA is getting better as the morning goes on. Of course, the signal does still go back & forth between weakening & dropping out and coming back on again, but that’s okay. The weakening & dropping out is only for about 10 seconds from where I live. Randy Wyles is doing TOH (Top Of the Hour) news. Anyway, that is all.

 

[RoddyFreeman]

Does anyone know where the studio is?

 

[1030khz]

Does anyone know where the studio is?

At the beginning of the Mike Brooks show at 1pm, it was mentioned in passing that the studio was in Duluth off of Peachtree Industrial Blvd "near the Sweetwater Package Store".

- Harry S.

 

[1030khz]

At the beginning of the Mike Brooks show at 1pm, it was mentioned in passing that the studio was in Duluth off of Peachtree Industrial Blvd "near the Sweetwater Package Store".

- Harry S.

Address is probably the same as the address on record (via Radio-Locator.com):

3296 Summit Ridge Pkwy Ste 910
Duluth, GA 30096

That matches what was described on air today.

 

[LegalTender]

Noticed some signal issues today. I picked up 102.1 much farther out a couple weeks ago. Brooks kept asking callers about it.

How many "leased signals" are there in Atlanta radio?

 

[HippieGuy]

Address is probably the same as the address on record (via Radio-Locator.com):

3296 Summit Ridge Pkwy Ste 910
Duluth, GA 30096

That matches what was described on air today.

Listened to Kimmer today for about 20 minutes. Sound and phone calls from listeners was bad. Kimmer knew it, and blamed it on a 'temporary makeshift studio..", and added, they should be in permanent studios in a few weeks.

 

[jabba17]

The AM signal sounded surprisingly bad during Kimmer during PM drive, with interference from a Christian station (WKJW out of metro Asheville??--47kW), an 80s station (WHIN out of metro Nashville??-- 5kW), and maybe a country station. Granted, it was from about 4:30 to 5:30 PM, when the sun starts going down and skywave starts coming in. But 45kW critical hours power should squash that better than it did. Is WTZA running at full power?

 

[secondchoice]

The AM signal sounded surprisingly bad during Kimmer during PM drive, with interference from a Christian station (WKJW out of metro Asheville??--47kW), an 80s station (WHIN out of metro Nashville??-- 5kW), and maybe a country station. Granted, it was from about 4:30 to 5:30 PM, when the sun starts going down and skywave starts coming in. But 45kW critical hours power should squash that better than it did. Is WTZA running at full power?

You are correct that the critical power 45KW should take out most of the skywave normally. The earliest sunset according to the FCC site* is 5:30 pm November & December. My best guess is the "control system" is in Eastern Daylight time which would put the station in night power 78 watts at 5:15. How ever most control systems I have ever worked with stay in Standard Time especially when dealing with AM stations with different power levels.

Sometimes the Ozone or layer can get a lot lower in the winter months and a skywave can totally take out a local groundwave hours before sunset. It happened to me at the old WPTN AM 1550 in Cookeville TN several times in the winter 1977 - 1978.

https://transition.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/...slat=55.00&dlon=84&mlon=17&slon=23.00&tzone=A

 

[RadioDoogie]

You are correct that the critical power 45KW should take out most of the skywave normally. The earliest sunset according to the FCC site* is 5:30 pm November & December. My best guess is the "control system" is in Eastern Daylight time which would put the station in night power 78 watts at 5:15. How ever most control systems I have ever worked with stay in Standard Time especially when dealing with AM stations with different power levels.

Sometimes the Ozone or layer can get a lot lower in the winter months and a skywave can totally take out a local groundwave hours before sunset. It happened to me at the old WPTN AM 1550 in Cookeville TN several times in the winter 1977 - 1978.

https://transition.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/...slat=55.00&dlon=84&mlon=17&slon=23.00&tzone=A

There were a few times I could get WCTE/22/PBS (analog) out of Cookeville late at night in Memphis which was about 300 miles away. Amazing distance.

 

[jabba17]

You are correct that the critical power 45KW should take out most of the skywave normally. The earliest sunset according to the FCC site* is 5:30 pm November & December. My best guess is the "control system" is in Eastern Daylight time which would put the station in night power 78 watts at 5:15. How ever most control systems I have ever worked with stay in Standard Time especially when dealing with AM stations with different power levels.

Sometimes the Ozone or layer can get a lot lower in the winter months and a skywave can totally take out a local groundwave hours before sunset. It happened to me at the old WPTN AM 1550 in Cookeville TN several times in the winter 1977 - 1978.

https://transition.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/...slat=55.00&dlon=84&mlon=17&slon=23.00&tzone=A

1010 sounded better today, at least after AM drive. High noon was crystal clear and loud. There was a little background interference during PM drive, but the volume gain was much better and they seemed to be squashing the cochannel interference better as well. Some background noise from cochannel interference, but no worse than 640. That kept up until about 5:45, when the interference started getting overwhelming (640 was handling it better at the time). It was hard to listen to for the last 15 minutes until they powered down at 6:15 EST (FCC sunset for Atlanta in February). They weren't doing a lot worse than WGST as FCC sunset approached.

Their studio and processing still sounds like a cheap speakerphone in a conference room, at least it did for Kimmer and the new spots they ran. Shannon Burke sounded better; he might have been working remote. I'm sure that will get better.

 

[secondchoice]

There were a few times I could get WCTE/22/PBS (analog) out of Cookeville late at night in Memphis which was about 300 miles away. Amazing distance.

That is a very long long haul. Channel 22's site is on the mountain that I 40 climbs to get up to Crossville with a height above sea level of 844 meters (2768 feet) Memphis is 388 feet above sea level. Even with the 2380 foot height advantage, that is not even close to a line of sight or the extra "bend" or refraction from the air. I don't know if anybody "DX"s TV but that would be an excellent "catch"

 

[jabba17]

That is a very long long haul. Channel 22's site is on the mountain that I 40 climbs to get up to Crossville with a height above sea level of 844 meters (2768 feet) Memphis is 388 feet above sea level. Even with the 2380 foot height advantage, that is not even close to a line of sight or the extra "bend" or refraction from the air. I don't know if anybody "DX"s TV but that would be an excellent "catch"

You can often get Channel 4 WYFF out of Greenville in the NE metro. But that's not much over 100 miles away.

On the west side, you can often get WCIQ Channel 7 out of Heflin. That's even closer.

I used to be able to get a faint signal of WALB Channel 10 out of Albany, but not lately (even before the analog shutdown).

 

[secondchoice]

You can often get Channel 4 WYFF out of Greenville in the NE metro. But that's not much over 100 miles away.

On the west side, you can often get WCIQ Channel 7 out of Heflin. That's even closer.

I used to be able to get a faint signal of WALB Channel 10 out of Albany, but not lately (even before the analog shutdown).

I was curious about channel 7 Heflin a Station I have never heard of and looked at the FCC data base and it has History cards going back to 1954. It apparently signed 01/27/1957 on as and educational station. WGTV had a CP in 1956 but did not get a license to cover until 10/05/1962 according to the FCC site. I guess Alabama was a little ahead of GA in educational TV.

 

[BarryATL]

I was curious about channel 7 Heflin a Station I have never heard of and looked at the FCC data base and it has History cards going back to 1954. It apparently signed 01/27/1957 on as and educational station. WGTV had a CP in 1956 but did not get a license to cover until 10/05/1962 according to the FCC site. I guess Alabama was a little ahead of GA in educational TV.

When I was a kid we could pick up channel 7 with our outdoor antenna (complete with a rotor). If this is the same station, back then it was licensed to Cheaha State Park, AL. I remember going to the library to look up the station. Did Broadcasting Yearbook list the TV stations?? I know that the Marietta library got a new Broadcasting Yearbook every year because I kept requesting it as a teenager.

 

[jabba17]

When I was a kid we could pick up channel 7 with our outdoor antenna (complete with a rotor). If this is the same station, back then it was licensed to Cheaha State Park, AL. I remember going to the library to look up the station. Did Broadcasting Yearbook list the TV stations?? I know that the Marietta library got a new Broadcasting Yearbook every year because I kept requesting it as a teenager.

WCIQ is officially licensed to Mt. Cheaha, so it's the same station.

 

[AMFMRadFan]

Hi everyone! It's day 4 of WTZA being on the air on this Thursday 2/6/2020. I apologize for this post being late in the day. From my research, if you don't want to miss a thing from WTZA and you live near where I live in Acworth (SW Cherokee County, GA), listen to Shannon Burke & Kara Stockton online during the 7AM hour. Then you can turn your radio on from 8AM-4PM. If you're going to listen to The Kimmer Show in afternoon drive, your best bet is to listen online during his show 4PM-7PM. You can listen online at http://www.wtza.net/ and http://www.talkofatlanta.com/. The stream is a 24/7 stream. Yesterday Wednesday 2/5/2020, it was announced that the crew will be moving to Woodstock, GA in a shopping center on the south side of the intersection of Hwy. 92/East Alabama Rd. & Main St. behind Regions Bank by the Semper Fi Bar and Grille restaurant. The move will take place next month in March 2020. I know that back in the late 1990s, Atlanta's 57 WATC-TV used to have a Woodstock, GA studio. My guess is that that space that the TV studio was in is being converted into a radio studio for WTZA. From Tuesday 2/4/2020 to today Thursday 2/6/2020, former traffic reporter Joy Barge has been doing TOH (Top Of the Hour) news. I've noticed that evenings, overnights, and weekends, WTZA is doing replays of the episodes of their talk shows for the time being. I noticed earlier that they were doing an episode of Shannon & Kara that was done when they were getting started back 3 or 4 months ago during their time at Real 1100 AM WWWE. WTZA does NOT have a pre-recorded TOH station ID that they can use any time of the day. During the Shannon & Kara replay, they played Real 1100 AM WWWE's TOH station ID because they recorded everything in that episode including the commercials. The only times I've heard WTZA's TOH station ID were when Randy Wyles did the TOH news during the day on Monday and when Joy Barge did the TOH news during the day on Tuesday to today Thursday. Randy & Joy each said the TOH station ID themselves on the respective days they did the TOH news. Randy said the TOH station ID on Monday. Joy said the TOH station ID on Tuesday to today Thursday. Kara starts her solo interview show "In the Studio with Kara" tomorrow Friday 2/7/2020. Anyway, that is all.

 

[LegalTender]

WTZA does NOT have a pre-recorded TOH station ID that they can use any time of the day. During the Shannon & Kara replay, they played Real 1100 AM WWWE's TOH station ID because they recorded everything in that episode including the commercials. The only times I've heard WTZA's TOH station ID were when Randy Wyles did the TOH news during the day on Monday and when Joy Barge did the TOH news during the day on Tuesday to today Thursday.

Wrong station IDs are not defensible.

Does the Woodstock move herald a new north side translator? 102.1 is feeble north of Windy Hill and 1010 at 50K is primarily static.

I know diddly about "leased signals" and the terms and conditions. WSB 98.5 reportedly charges $10,000 per month to lease a sub-channel.