If you have access to a computer, then you have access to a real studio. Most internet stations are run on a laptop. That's all it takes. You CAN'T do internet radio in a $20,000 studio, because there's no money to be made from internet radio. I know a lot of people who do it, and none of them make a dime. It's all for fun. The reason they don't make money is (1) Their audiences are too small to attract advertising, and (2) The costs of music royalties are very high. That last thing is the biggest expense in internet radio. When Congress passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (two years after the Telecommunications Act, BTW), they built in a performance royalty for record labels and artists. They don't get paid by AM/FM radio stations. There's a long reason why. Only songwriters get paid by AM/FM. But the music industry lobbied Congress for their royalty, and they got it. The royalty is so high that companies like Pandora can't make money. If they can't make money, that tells you how hard it is for you and your home grown internet station.
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1270 WQTT Possible Signal Change
- Thread starter JohnSmith1976
- Start date
If you have access to a computer, then you have access to a real studio. Most internet stations are run on a laptop. That's all it takes. You CAN'T do internet radio in a $20,000 studio, because there's no money to be made from internet radio. I know a lot of people who do it, and none of them make a dime. It's all for fun. The reason they don't make money is (1) Their audiences are too small to attract advertising, and (2) The costs of music royalties are very high. That last thing is the biggest expense in internet radio. When Congress passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (two years after the Telecommunications Act, BTW), they built in a performance royalty for record labels and artists. They don't get paid by AM/FM radio stations. There's a long reason why. Only songwriters get paid by AM/FM. But the music industry lobbied Congress for their royalty, and they got it. The royalty is so high that companies like Pandora can't make money. If they can't make money, that tells you how hard it is for you and your home grown internet station.
I didn't mean like an expensive radio studio, i meant a simple board/microphone with everything hooked into the computer. I always figured to make it sound right, even doing online broadcast, you'd better have some decent audio equipment to hook into the computer. Built in microphones are alright for chat rooms, but I'd hate to hear how bad it'd sound on the other end.
Studio quality microphones cost between $100 and $500. A broadcast quality 4-input board can be bought for around $100. Then an USB interface with the computer is another $100. So for less than $1000 (including the computer) you can have a full broadcast studio in your home.
However, music royalties can cost you about $20,000 a year, depending on the number of listeners you have. You might use an internet radio service like Live365, but someone is still paying the music royalties.
David you sure memorized every market in the USA which is something impressive. I can remember basics and I can tell you which AM signal comes from where, but I can't remember all those breakdowns even if I heard them. As for a Monopoly, some call Clear Channel-IHeart a Monopoly and in some respects that accusation may have merit, in other respects not so much. Again with things such as FM HD, and other stuff you can expand your offerings and formats, and so you're right there are more formats now then there would have been even twenty years ago. The only real difference and I blame this because of the decline in AM Radio for a myraid of reasons, is the lack of those legendary jocks who were both Local and National at the same time. Cousin Bruice was a good example of this when 77 WABC was in its heydey mostly because he came on the air at night and could be heard as far inland as Chicago. Wolfman Jack once wrote that because XERF reached most of the USA, this was before the US Govt and the Mexican Govt reached new treaties over the border blasters, he ended up known in most of the USA and even in the Caribbean. This is why I will always remain a partisan of AM, and if that makes me a dinosaur, then I am so be it
The big change in available formats came well before HD and the like. When the FCC eliminated most simulcasts in '67, all those larger market simulcast had to come up with new formats. Since the owners did not want the FMs to hurt their profitable AM operations, they looked for new formats that did not cannibalize the AMs.
Since essentially every market had many more full signal FMs than AMs, suddenly you had new formats on better signals with better quality. Like a snowball rolling downhill, the momentum was unstoppable.
The legends are greater than the reality. Today, most Millennials and many Gen X listeners don't want that style of high energy babbling DJs. They want music, and maybe some interesting interaction in the morning... but they reject the 60's and 70's style DJ.
While some of those night DJs got a lot of audience in areas that did not yet have a Top 40 station, in most of the top 200 to 300 markets, local stations came in better and dominated. While Cousin Brucie may have gotten listeners in Watertown, NY, he did not have many listeners in Albany or Rochester or any of the other markets with good local stations.
That's hyperbole. XERF covered a good area of the lower Midwest, but it did not cover most of the US well enough for significant listening.
The last treaty that changed Mexican stations was the NARBA agreement, implemented in early 1941*. XERF went to 250,000 watts in the late 50's, and stayed at that power until the general death of night AM listening faded in the late 80's... they could no longer afford to keep the big transmitter on the air, even though they were still licensed to run 250,000 watts until fairly recently when they downgraded to 100,000 watts. Mexican stations on their clear channels can still run up to 250 kw, but no station wants to run that power level any more... even XEW in Mexico City has reduced its power from 250 kw to about 80 kw although its license still authorized for 250 kw.
Former 150 kw XELO (XEROK) is not licenced for 50 kw. 100 kw XEX is now licensed for 60,000 watts. XEQ, formerly 50 kw is no licensed at 30 kw. AMs are downgrading as having large night coverage is of no value.
In conversations with the manager of XERF when Wolfman Jack was there, Sergio Ballesteros, he told me most of the mail response came from Texas and the immediately surrounding states like LA, AR, OK, NM, KS, MS and parts of TN, AL, NE, etc. XERF had no signal in the Caribbean to speak of as there were other stations on the frequency that interfered with it... just as Canadian stations on 1570 blocked XERF to the north.
* An amendment to the treaty gave 540 to Mexico as a clear channel, forcing KFMB in San Diego to vacate 540 for 760 in the 60's.
The way top local talent today can reach a national audience is either through out of town VT (there is a lot of that in Columbus) or national syndication. Either of those will make up for the lack of FM signal strength. So Ryan Seacrest does a local show for KIIS in LA, and also does a syndicated show that's heard in Columbus. Same with a lot of other top talents. But I agree that the death of the major market DJ, like Lujack in Chicago, Brucie in NYC, or Wolfman in California began with the growth of FM in the 70s, coupled with the decline of tightly formatted AM stations. There were a lot of those DJs who helped kill AM Top 40, like Murray the K or Scott Muni in NYC or Tom Donohue in San Francisco who led the charge for shifting audiences from AM to FM. Once the audiences heard the improved sound quality on FM, they were as sold as Edwin Armstrong predicted they would be in the 1930s, and they never came back.
The sad part is in a complex world, if a disaster happens the ability to recover from it becomes less likely. AM Radio Shortwave, Citizens Band, Ham etc, while everyone thinks they are passe and in most cases they are, in a case where the world was reduced to the Mad Max level of of civilization all a man needs is a transmitter and a power source and a listener a receiver of some type and you're back in business. I just worry as the old Dinosaur that I am, that we are putting too many of our eggs into one basket. AM Radio still has a big part to play in rural areas for sporting events, FM does as well but I'm sorry to say it as someone whose listened to sports on the radio. To these ears, they just sound better on AM. That is as long as the weather's good.
David, well that's what Wolfman Jack wrote in his book anyway. You know how famous guys are they might either misplace memories or embellish a little. I just took Wolfman's word for it when I read the book. As it so happened I was writing him a letter that arrived after he died and his widow sent me a condolence card from his funeral. If I think back to what DJ ever turned me onto being a big time AM Radio listener, or wanting to do everything with music, etc, I don't think there was one bigger to me than Wolfman, at least as a kid.
Were hyperbole not to exist, there would not be many entertaining morning shows on the radio to this day!
Indeed, he is a "larger than life" radio legend.
Obviously, the technology of AM radio is the simplest. Horses are simpler than cars. Knives made of stone are easier to make than steel blades.
If we get to a point where there are no working CPUs and ICs, we'll likely be too dead to give a crap. I know some people even now who would consider life to be over if they did not have a smartphone!
I loved Wolfman's book, which came out just after his unexpected early death, but some of it has to be taken with a grain of salt.
Speaking of WQTT I noticed their translator at 96.7 is not hitting Columbus like it was over the summer.
Or even a few weeks ago. I noticed this earlier today when I was in the Dublin area for work. Way more static around Dublin and Hilliard than previously, and this was in the hours when the 96.7 Southern gospel LP was off (i.e. before 3 p.m.). When WQTT's translator first came to 96.7, it sounded great in Dublin and Hilliard (and still does around Lewis Center). Not anymore. Wonder what's going on?
ThatVoice22
Banned
I was hoping by summertime 2018, that WQTT-AM 1270 Marysville, Ohio (formerly WUCO, for Union County) would have figured a way to reconfigure its highly-west-directional signal, as was suggested at the beginning of this thread, but no. The signal pattern resembles a whale pointed west with a splashy tale on the east side, all for 500 watts. https://www.fcc.gov/media/radio/map...MARYSVILLE&state=OH&fileno=BL-19840518AA&.map
This thread was really interesting as it delved into Wolfman Jack, arbitron realities, and why Mexican 250 KW stations cut power (not due to regulations). Kudos to JohnSmith1976, TheBigA, and DavidEduardo.
This thread was really interesting as it delved into Wolfman Jack, arbitron realities, and why Mexican 250 KW stations cut power (not due to regulations). Kudos to JohnSmith1976, TheBigA, and DavidEduardo.
Voice, WQTT hasn't run that pattern in eight years or more. They've been running their night pattern 24/7 since at least the summer of 2010, which allows the station to be heard across all of Columbus (obviously better the farther north and west one happens to be). It's certainly a much friendlier pattern to this area than the designated day pattern.
Where are you trying to hear the signal from?
Where are you trying to hear the signal from?
@ThatVoice I worked there at 1270 WUCO in the mid-1990s and back then we were on the Night Pattern solely because our towers had taken a direct lightning hit. A gentlemen from Bellevue came down for a couple of months and worked and fine tuned them, then we had the day pattern again. I remember when I was at home, I bought a Select-A-Tenna from CCrane so I could listen to 1270 before I went into work in the morning. I had to move that radio 100 different ways to get it to come in right on the Day Pattern. Back then the 1270 Station in Cambridge had a much stronger signal and they would drown out Marysville during the daytime where I lived. On day pattern literally you couldn't get a peep of the station until you left the Delaware city limits on US 36. On the weekends we were one of the main NASCAR affiliates for that portion of the state, so we would against FCC Reg's keep the Night Pattern on on Saturdays and Sundays so that NASCAR would hit Columbus. Back then we were also a Cleveland Indians affiliate and although Im not sure, especially after 8pm or so, we did crack the Columbus Market with those games. Unfortunately in those days we signed off before midnight although on the weekends we occasionally stayed on longer.
There weren't too many ways to hear the Indians in Columbus back then (remember, this was before that great run started in the mid-1990s). Then-WUCO was one of the few stations in this part of the state carrying those games whose signal got into Columbus. Never knew why I couldn't hear anything of the signal daytime where I grew up on the East Side until many years later when I realized how severe their pattern was AWAY from Columbus.
Nowadays, you can't hear a trace of Cambridge's WILE until you're well east of Columbus. It doesn't own the frequency until between Newark and Zanesville.
I always liked the station then because it was true small-town radio ... live and local carrying things people in Marysville and Union County cared about. "That's the news to now, I'm Don Gabriel," is a saying I definitely remember from those days.
Nowadays, you can't hear a trace of Cambridge's WILE until you're well east of Columbus. It doesn't own the frequency until between Newark and Zanesville.
I always liked the station then because it was true small-town radio ... live and local carrying things people in Marysville and Union County cared about. "That's the news to now, I'm Don Gabriel," is a saying I definitely remember from those days.
ThatVoice22
Banned
Hat-tip to schmave, excellent to know that, thanks. I've been in Houston quite a while, but spent many moons driving on US33 between Columbus and Fort Wayne. I wonder why the FCC website and Radio-Locator.com both still have the kooky daytime pattern and no mention that it is no longer used.
Because theyve probably done so under special temporary authority.. wont show up on radio locator or the fcc am query.. they arent built to show that
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