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jhguthlac
Guest
I usually listen to 1550 ESPN in Elkton at some point each week. The past several days, the station hasn't been on. Does anyone know if they are off permanently or is there some equipment problem?
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I
ILOVERADIO2
Guest
Did the electric bill get paid?
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jhguthlac
Guest
That's what I am wondering.
We had a situation in Delaware a few years back when lightening hit a station and they simply did not have the money to buy replacement parts.
There certainly were not many ads on the station.
We had a situation in Delaware a few years back when lightening hit a station and they simply did not have the money to buy replacement parts.
There certainly were not many ads on the station.
WSRY was indeed on when I was in that area 4/4
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jhguthlac
Guest
I also heard them back on the air this weekend, loud and clear. Must have been an equipment problem.
Saw a web business report that estimated Priority Radio's annual revenue at $360K. Unless ESPN is paying THEM to carry the programming, I can't figure out where that revenue would be coming from. There are certainly no more than a handful of ads.
Saw a web business report that estimated Priority Radio's annual revenue at $360K. Unless ESPN is paying THEM to carry the programming, I can't figure out where that revenue would be coming from. There are certainly no more than a handful of ads.
I didn't even know Elkton had a radio station. ???
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jhguthlac
Guest
Many people don't know it. But in fact, Elkton has two stations. WSRY (the old WSER) which went on in 1963 and an FM, WOEL I believe are the calls. O&O by a Baptist church.
That FM station got off to an interesting start. Some nitwit thought having a powerful FM in Elkton, on a frequency adjacent to the Philadelphia channel 6 audio frequency, would be a good idea. Problem is, the FM was so powerful that residents in Cecil County Maryland and New Castle County Delaware could not hear the TV6 audio. One viewer, thinking the offender was WVCH in Chester, stormed into their building and physically took out his frustration on the poor board op.
The channel 6 folks paid the Baptists in Elkton what they needed to change frequencies. But for a few weeks, life was not good!
That FM station got off to an interesting start. Some nitwit thought having a powerful FM in Elkton, on a frequency adjacent to the Philadelphia channel 6 audio frequency, would be a good idea. Problem is, the FM was so powerful that residents in Cecil County Maryland and New Castle County Delaware could not hear the TV6 audio. One viewer, thinking the offender was WVCH in Chester, stormed into their building and physically took out his frustration on the poor board op.
The channel 6 folks paid the Baptists in Elkton what they needed to change frequencies. But for a few weeks, life was not good!
jhguthlac said:
I used to work at WOEL from 1986-1998, so let me fill in a few blanks.
WOEL went on the air in September, 1978. It was not "some nitwit" who thought to start a "powerful" FM station on a channel "adjacent" to channel 6. It was some "nitwit" at the FCC who thought it was a good idea to put WOEL so close to WPVI at 88.3. After a lot of complaints and several vandalism attempts of the WOEL tower, the FCC moved WOEL to 89.9, where they are today. WOEL should have been assigned around 91-92 mhz as 88.3 was simply too close to WPVI.
We still the occasional interference complaint years afterwards after the move to 89.9.
The Cecil Whig, the Elkton newspaper, practiced a lot of irresponsible journalism in those days by calling WOEL a pirate station when, in fact, they were fully licensed to operate on 88.3.
WPVI did not pay off WOEL to change frequencies. It was WOEL who initiated the change because of the problem with bad TVs in the Elkton area that couldn't split off WOEL from the WPVI audio. Both WOEL and WPVI knew something had to be done and I'm sure WPVI supported the frequency change to 89.9. WOEL's signal was clean during those days, with several independent engineers measuring WOEL's signal. The FCC also gave WOEL's signal a clean bill of health, following up on the complaints. WOEL's engineer spent a lot of time installing filters on local TV stations for free in those days.
"Powerful"? If you call 3000 watts directional "powerful". I'm not sure what their power was when they were on 88.3.
Originally, WOEL signed off at 8 PM but eventually went to midnight, and then 24 hours, except for a silent period from midnight-7 AM Sunday.
The studios are on the 3rd floor of the educational building of the Maranatha Baptist Church in Elkton. The license still reads "Maranatha Bible Institute" although they changed their name to Maryland Baptist Bible College in 1983.
WOEL doesn't exactly have state-of-the-art equipment. As late as 1998, we were still using reel-to-reel tape!
Maranatha Baptist used to broadcast their Sunday morning services on both WOEL and WSER, which I never really understood. WOEL covered Cecil County where you could barely hear WSER in western Cecil County, so why use both stations when WOEL had a much better signal?
Most people in Cecil County ignore WOEL, including the press and the government. I remember reading a news story years ago of a government paper-pusher lamenting the fact that Cecil County didn't have an FM station. Hello! Bueller?
I think the heyday of WOEL was in the mid-late 1980s. They have certainly slipped in their programming and quality of music since then. Most of the board operators are college students who receive little, if any training in radio. WOEL would be a much better sounding station with a little more effort.
J
jhguthlac
Guest
The board op situation you mention is normal these days. Since the person actually running the station no longer needs a 3rd class radiotelephone license with broadcast endorsement, no one even knows what a legal station id is.
And yes, WOEL has a powerfull signal. They were interferring with tv's tuned to Channel 6 even in the West Chester area. And those in Newark watching on cable tv.
The original WOEL idea of broadcasting goes back to the day when preachers thought you could put any crappy sounding product on the air and people would listen, simply because they were Christians. And for awhile, it worked. But not anymore.
As far as airing the service on two stations, it might seem like a waste of money. But its really a simple case of marketing. A car dealer will run ads on more than one station in a market. Airing a church service is mostly about reaching shut-ins, but it is also marketing the particular church. You get different listeners on each station, so you go with both.
And yes, WOEL has a powerfull signal. They were interferring with tv's tuned to Channel 6 even in the West Chester area. And those in Newark watching on cable tv.
The original WOEL idea of broadcasting goes back to the day when preachers thought you could put any crappy sounding product on the air and people would listen, simply because they were Christians. And for awhile, it worked. But not anymore.
As far as airing the service on two stations, it might seem like a waste of money. But its really a simple case of marketing. A car dealer will run ads on more than one station in a market. Airing a church service is mostly about reaching shut-ins, but it is also marketing the particular church. You get different listeners on each station, so you go with both.
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