104.7 Station in OC?

[emailfailed]

This evening, Wednesday, while driving along the 22 through the middle of Orange County I turned to 104.7 and heard what sounded like an oldies station "battling it out" with Q-104.7.

In between the songs there were no station IDs during the time I listened.

The station sound processing made it sound like it could either be a pirate station or college station.

Any ideas?

 

[wdb2003]

More than likely a pirate station since KDES in Palm Springs moved last year. I notice too driving on the 405 South KQIE and KCAQ interfer. KQIE plays a remix of music on commerical free mondays and KCAQ plays regular commericals

 

[ercjncpr]

All I am getting in south OC is some unintelligble signal mixing with KCAQ. If I were trying to broadcast, I would not be to happy with that.

 

[Marv-L.A.]

The question remains--why is a station licensed to Oxnard trying to create a presence in the IE against KGGI & Palm Springs's KUUU?

IMHO, the FCC does a horrible job here in SoCal separating stations which are on the same frequency; depending on where you live, 95.1, 99.9 and 100.7 can be excruciating when you're trying to listen to a station in your car on one of those frequencies but the other station makes that either a chore or essentially impossible.

 

[emailfailed]

The question remains--why is a station licensed to Oxnard trying to create a presence in the IE against KGGI & Palm Springs's KUUU?

IMHO, the FCC does a horrible job here in SoCal separating stations which are on the same frequency; depending on where you live, 95.1, 99.9 and 100.7 can be excruciating when you're trying to listen to a station in your car on one of those frequencies but the other station makes that either a chore or essentially impossible.

While I completely understand what you're saying the frequencies you mentioned are designed for certain markets within Southern California.

It doesn't matter that KOLA fades in and out with KTYD in, say, Culver City; all that matters is KOLA can be heard in without much problem in Colton (oddly enough KTYD at times has overpowered KOLA in parts of the Inland Empire).

As well, it doesn't matter if KFMB fades in and out with KHAY in Los Angeles, just as long as KFMB can be heard without any problem in La Jolla.

As to the mystery of 104.7 in Orange County, on Friday evening I heard what sounded like duty/royalty-free "telephone hold" music played on a loop all evening, as Q-104.7 keep jumping in and out.

The question remains, where is this coming from?

 

[davideduardo]

The question remains--why is a station licensed to Oxnard trying to create a presence in the IE against KGGI & Palm Springs's KUUU?

KGGI is licensed to a community within the "inland Empire" which is where nearly all its primary coverage is.. KUUU is licensed to the Palm Springs market, and does not cover the IE, just as KGGI does not cover the Palm Springs market

The Oxnard / Ventura station OWNS a separate, local station, KQIE, licensed to Redlands. Whether the Redlands station simulcasts any, all or none of the Oxnard market's programming, it is still a local station competing with the other local stations for listening in the local market of Riverside / San Bernardino (the Arbitron designation). In fact, KQIE is 7th in its target of 18-34.

IMHO, the FCC does a horrible job here in SoCal separating stations which are on the same frequency; depending on where you live, 95.1, 99.9 and 100.7 can be excruciating when you're trying to listen to a station in your car on one of those frequencies but the other station makes that either a chore or essentially impossible.

FM stations in Southern California are only licensed to cover, free of interference, a specific area which generally is anywhere from around 17 miles to 40 miles from the transmitter (the FCC has tables that specify for each class of station the distances). That means that a station licensed in the San Diego market has no protected coverage north of the southern part of Orange County or a station licensed to LA has no protected coverage in Santa Barbara or San Diego if they have a big Class B signal (40 mile protection), while the smaller Class A (17 mile protection) signals may actually be licensed to more than one community inside the market, like 94.3 in Sylmar and the other 94.3 in the OC. In the zones in between such signals, neither has any expectations of usefulness.

While out of area signals may be heard in many instances outside the protected coverage zone, the station was not granted any "right" to that coverage and the station may come in better or worse on different days or the FCC may license other stations or repeaters / LPFMs / trnaslators in between other stations on the same frequency. Neither the station nor the listener has any guarantee of anything more.

The FCC protection tables are at http://transition.fcc.gov/mb/audio/fmclasses.html and it's necessary to know that only A's and B's are licensed in SoCal. Even the superpower Mt Wilson stations (and a few others elsewhere) are only protected to the limits of a B, even if the grandfathered signal goes much further.

For example, there are 102 stations, including LPFMs, on 94.3 in the US. Each is protected to a zone near its transmitter, but nowhere else.

 

[davideduardo]

The question remains--why is a station licensed to Oxnard trying to create a presence in the IE against KGGI & Palm Springs's KUUU?

Just to add some facts: KKUU does not show in the IE ratings book, and KGGI does not show in the Palm Springs book.