WVFJ 93.3's tower was destroyed by one of the tornados that hit Georgia today. I would assume all the translators that used 93.3 to pick up its signal or HD signals are off since they have no source. But the Joy FM translators in Lawrenceville and Gainsville are fed by other FM stations HD signals. To replace a 1600 foot tower is going to take some time and and any low power temporary solutions will not bring much signal anywhere near Atlanta or Columbus. Streaming is making transmitters less necessary so for my LF radio fix I will have stream.
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93.3 tower destroyed
- Thread starter RadioRonnie285
- Start date
That begs the question...is anyone going to rebuild a 1,600' stick if it doesn't put a city grade signal over Atlanta?
RTN has 42 stations. This one has a 60 dbu that covers 1.8 million people. They can afford a new tower.
But they don't depend on ratings in a defined metro, but on the population served within the area each station covers.
That would be a fair assumption.
A separate question is whether it is their tower of owned by one of the "vertical real estate" firms or shared with another station or other communications companies.
Wow, I feel for them. In April of 2021, an F1 tornado hit Fulton Industrial Blvd, flipped over several tractor trailers, blew roofs of warehouses. One of those warehouses was 300 yards from my prime/master site which is the hub of our public safety radio system.
We also have an remote site for Douglas county's 800 system there. It came too close for comfort. No matter how good your tower is, a giant Hoover vacuum cleaner with 150-200mph winds and debris the size of train cars will twist it and shear it to pieces.
We also have an remote site for Douglas county's 800 system there. It came too close for comfort. No matter how good your tower is, a giant Hoover vacuum cleaner with 150-200mph winds and debris the size of train cars will twist it and shear it to pieces.
It's owned by them, according to ASR info.
Yes, they will definitely rebuild it. The South Metro is a very important center of population to them.
When they moved to that tower amid great fanfare in the late 90's, they hoped to be competitive in Atlanta, which of course they are not. When Radio Training Network purchased WVFJ in 2011, the station became "listener supported," but like the stations below 92.1, they also sell commercials (30's only).
Around 10 years ago, WALR (Kiss 104.1) received a CP to move from LaGrange to the 107.9 site in Tyrone at decreased power. The new signal would be stronger over Atlanta but smaller overall. I don't know the relationship between the two frequencies, but somehow that move would have given WVFJ the ability to increase power. They obtained a CP to increase power as soon as WALR moved. Again, WVFJ was drooling at the thought of becoming competitive in Atlanta.
Some of my facts might not be 100% correct, but this is how I understand what happened: Cox/Atlanta engineering was against the WALR move, which was the brainstorm of a Cox corporate employee whose job was to improve facilities (wisely IMHO because it would have likely decreased the value of the station). Cox started coming up with excuses to the FCC on why the move wasn't being made.
After a designated amount of time (perhaps 3 years), WVFJ petitioned the FCC to allow them to implement the power increase, saying WALR was at fault. The FCC agreed with WVFJ, and the station increased its power, still not making the station viable over most of Atlanta. The FCC told WALR that it would have to decrease wattage from 100,000 to 60,000 watts to accommodate the WVFJ power increase. In order to stay at 100KW, WALR had to move to a new site, losing significant height. The signal still does well in Atlanta but has some issues east of the city.
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The same tornado doesn't like radio stations. It also destroyed WDXX 100.1 in Selma.
104.1 WALR is the 10.8 IF of WVFJ 93.3
I remember when that tower was going up. An engineer friend of mine told me that it was erected horribly! I remember him saying he wouldn't be surprised if it fell over one day, that it wasn't even straight! Now, I assume most towers couldn't survive a direct hit from a tornado, but this actually doesn't shock me.
WVFJ is back on as of 7:00pm. Through a collaboration with the Cox engineering team they are now operating from the WALR Aux tower in Newnan. Was fun to be a part of the project!
I just went out to the car to check the signal and I was surprised to actually hear it pretty good and Im in a garage in Stockbridge. I did not think a class A signal from Newnan would be listenable. I will test it more while Im out tommorrow.
They started simlucasting on the recently upgraded Morrow translator that had been airing Joy Worship form 93.3 HD2 today to help with lost coverage. Its ashamed that 104.1 and 93.3 have to maintain separation due to 10.6/10.8. While 104.7 covers Atlanta better 93.3 is strong ratings wise in the counties west and southwest of Atlanta because 104.7 is northeast of town.
I once worked at a station that was more or less destroyed in a disaster. Much of the equipment we used to eventually get back on the air was donated to us by our direct competitors in that market...And it wasn't just engineers helping engineers on the sly - it was GMs of other stations bringing gear to us in the trunks of their cars. It was an amazing feeling for sure to have, again, our competitors come to us when they knew we were down in the worst possible way and needed help.
When I worked in Laramie, WY full time, I was doing Afternoons (and a bunch of other things) for KLMI 106.1 a stand alone locally owned ma and pa station. Townsquare had its AM transmitter room, transmitter and production room destroyed by a pipe that burst overnight.
We offered to have any of their clients come by and record at our station and wed produce the ad, regardless if they were clients of ours or not. and we also offered to let them throw a computer for the stations automation systems in our production room if they needed to
They didnt need to but we offered anyways. The owner of KLMi, one guy whos younger then me (im 38) has lived there his whole life, owned the station for 12 years.. and laramie really is a small big town. .everyone knows everyone.
(I still do afternoons on KLMI via VT'ing from Alaska)
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