95.5

[roger6309]

When will the beat become 100K? Anybody know?

 

[MCMagicCracker]

Cox detonated 95.5 the Beat months ago. It's a WSB simulcast now.

 

[jabba17]

Cox detonated 95.5 the Beat months ago. It's a WSB simulcast now.

You mean it's a simulcast NOW on 95.5 FM.

 

[secondchoice]

BTW how is the plan to move 95.5 to an "intown stick" coming along? IIRC they wanted to move it to the old channel 2 analog tower?

 

[artsutton]

BTW how is the plan to move 95.5 to an "intown stick" coming along? IIRC they wanted to move it to the old channel 2 analog tower?

Unless and until the FCC does away with cross ownership rules (radio-TV-newspaper combos) 95.5 won't be able to move to their in town CP site. That is not expected to happen as long as President Obama is in office. These rules prohibit the increase of the city grade signal accross any market where a daily newspaper is co owned by the station. In this case, Fulton County and the AJC.

The democrats are opposed to any further deregulation of the media industry. Also delayed by the same issue is the proposal on file with the FCC to downgrade the River to a site closer to Atlanta. Thus some changes possible on the back side of that move are also probably delayed.

 

[secondchoice]

BTW how is the plan to move 95.5 to an "intown stick" coming along? IIRC they wanted to move it to the old channel 2 analog tower?

Unless and until the FCC does away with cross ownership rules (radio-TV-newspaper combos) 95.5 won't be able to move to their in town CP site. That is not expected to happen as long as President Obama is in office. These rules prohibit the increase of the city grade signal accross any market where a daily newspaper is co owned by the station. In this case, Fulton County and the AJC.

The democrats are opposed to any further deregulation of the media industry. Also delayed by the same issue is the proposal on file with the FCC to downgrade the River to a site closer to Atlanta. Thus some changes possible on the back side of that move are also probably delayed.

I was thinking of the Cox family's backing of Obama was going to give them "a little help" with this matter.

 

[jabba17]

BTW how is the plan to move 95.5 to an "intown stick" coming along? IIRC they wanted to move it to the old channel 2 analog tower?

Unless and until the FCC does away with cross ownership rules (radio-TV-newspaper combos) 95.5 won't be able to move to their in town CP site. That is not expected to happen as long as President Obama is in office. These rules prohibit the increase of the city grade signal accross any market where a daily newspaper is co owned by the station. In this case, Fulton County and the AJC.

The democrats are opposed to any further deregulation of the media industry. Also delayed by the same issue is the proposal on file with the FCC to downgrade the River to a site closer to Atlanta. Thus some changes possible on the back side of that move are also probably delayed.

Cox already has a waiver of the cross-ownership rules with the FCC, pending the outcome of an FCC proceeding, and the move-in app contains a request to re-up that waiver:

See https://licensing.fcc.gov/cdbs/CDBS...?appn=101209588&qnum=5040&copynum=1&exhcnum=1

I want to say that the reason they have to re-up this waiver is that a move-in of WSBB would cause its contour to overlap with WALR-FM, but I can't find the relevant document.

This paragraph in the waiver request is interesting:
"Cox’s continued ownership of WBTS(FM) and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution will not increase Cox’s market share in any relevant product market. Furthermore, WBTS(FM) and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution do not compete in the same demographic market. For example, WBTS(FM) plays top-forty music and is most popular among teenage girls. Advertisers do not view WBTS(FM) as an alternative means to reach the readers of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. (emphasis added) Moreover, WBTS(FM) already competes in the Atlanta market. Granting Cox’s minor change application for WBTS(FM) will not increase media concentration in the already hypercompetitive Atlanta media market."

Would the FCC NOW consider WSB AM 750 and NOW 95.5 FM a competitor or alternative to the AJC?

This will be an opportunity to see how much pull Anne Cox Chambers actually has with the Obama administration--or she may politely decline so as to not cause him to look bad helping out a vehement supporter.

 

[MikeBarnes]

i know news/talk is boring from a programmers stand point, but with the way the AM signals sound at night in the Atlanta
metro area.....with all it's topographical nooks and crannies, plus bleedovers from out of town stations with the same frequency I wish WGST would find a "standard" FM carrier. WLS Chicago, WLAC Nashville and WHAS Louisville come in clearer most of the time
and I am only 10 miles from downtown ATL.. as much as I love am and have no problem listening to good strong AM SIGNAL,
FACE IT! AM IS A DYING VENUE

 

[Rick Rose 2.0]

Considering that the whole newspaper business is quickly dying i wonder why Cox even cares about owning the local newspaper. I would ditch the paper and have better fm signals.

 

[BIGSTICK]

i know news/talk is boring from a programmers stand point, but with the way the AM signals sound at night in the Atlanta
metro area.....with all it's topographical nooks and crannies, plus bleedovers from out of town stations with the same frequency I wish WGST would find a "standard" FM carrier. WLS Chicago, WLAC Nashville and WHAS Louisville come in clearer most of the time
and I am only 10 miles from downtown ATL.. as much as I love am and have no problem listening to good strong AM SIGNAL,
FACE IT! AM IS A DYING VENUE

I know I am old, but I still like to DX at night, to hear all the AM fighting it out, its like a boxing match. AM signals in Atlanta at night are atrocious. Always have been. In fact I have been in the Chicago area and picked up WSB better there than here at night.

 

[RadioDoogie]

I agree, I could pick up WSB much clearer in Memphis when I lived there as well as WLS in Chicago. I hear it is greatly due to the crappy conductivity of the ground here in Georgia (is this the red clay causing this?). I could DX much better in Tennessee (regular gray clay) and even better when I would visit over the river in Arkansas where the ground was a rich black soil (if the soil type even is a factor). The land was flatter there also with a better direct line of site to the transmitter. So what are the perfect weather conditions for heavy DXing? Anyone have this answer?

 

[jabba17]

I'm not a radio engineer, but I don't think that ground conductivity would matter for skywave DXing of AM.

WSB (and I am sure others) has that notorious donut-shaped ring around ATL where the groundwave fades out and only interferes with the skywave before the skywave really takes over. For example, drive to Charlotte at night, and WSB is hard to pick up around Greenville/Spartanburg, but comes in much better once you get to Charlotte.

 

[secondchoice]

AM DXing is a result of the Ozone (O3) “reflecting” a radio signal. The height of the ozone layer rises with the temperature of the air. If the angle is too sharp, due the earth’s warmth raising the ozone level during daytime the Typical AM signal does not reflect as well. The winter is an excellent time to DX AM’s because the ozone is usually lower and there are not that many thunderstorms. There was a chart I saw somewhere that had the “best” time to DX a type of signal. IIRC CB can skip during the day. Some one who did not sleep thru physics class might even remember the “angles” that work best for each frequency. FM signals do skip sometimes but it rarely causes interference with a distant station of the same frequency. WSAZ Channel 3 in Huntington WV use to have viewers in Havana Cuba when they first signed on (before Castro and several other Channel 3's in the Southeast). Also do not forget that sunspots and solar flares do weird things to RF.

When I was in the Air Force one of my job titles was Radio Relay Repairman, We did microwave line of sight and troposcatter. Tropo DOD style was: take a microwave signal and amplify it with a traveling wave tube into a klystron then send it to a high gain antenna pointed just over the horizon. BTW the RF would kill you if exposed too long in front of the transmitter antenna (microwave oven). The easiest explanation of why it worked: is when you are driving at night you can “see” a glare of a headlight before you actually see the car’s headlight. There was one tropo shot that went from the south of England to the coast of Spain. I am sure the salt water also helped. The reason for this very expensive shot (big electrical used) was even then there was something about the French Government not cooperating with the US. Communications satellites have made all of this obsolete

 

[littlejohn]

Some of that stuff is still used in tactical situations where the satellite is full or they need a baxckup. Scatter is why occasionally you get a distant station into the STL of a local station. The newer digital spread spectrum stuff reduces/eliminates this.

LJ, Msgt (ret 30490, 30770.)