Oh, I didn't know that's what they went by, these days, BRB, that is. Frankly, didn't know who owned 'MIT, that's probably why LOL.
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97.3 WKBC Modification
- Thread starter StormKlowdz
- Start date
Oh, I didn't know that's what they went by, these days, BRB, that is. Frankly, didn't know who owned 'MIT, that's probably why LOL.
Roger on that, as well. Speaking of 106.9, don't they have some kind of repeater on that same frequency, somewhere. Kinda like Chimp here, they don't need that, either.
Thanks for the rundown, Scott. I know 97.9 has been around for ages, but was 96.9 around that long ago?
Like I said, I’m not an engineer and I don’t know how a lot of it works from a technical aspect.
The problem that I think the firm didn’t address is having two second adjacent frequencies on the same tower will cause interference issues. As someone else stated, this will be the first time that is attempted in the US.
I also understand that some stations are grandfathered, but it is my understanding that only certain changes are allowed before a station will lose that status. For example, I think that KBC adding a station new short space with WCOS that didn’t exist pre 1964 could be an issue.
I‘m a fan of the change and hope Radio One does attempt to buy it. We don’t need another religious station, and all the other corporate owners are maxed out. I just see some common sense issues with the application. Who knows? Trump’s FCC is pretty lax. Maybe it’ll slide through without much scrutiny.
When I arrived in Charlotte September 1981 97.9 WPEG licensed to Concord had a tall tower on US 29 just North of Charlotte. How tall I don't recall, they of course moved to a taller tower at some point. 96.9 Was WLVV (Love 97) featuring an Adult Contemporary format. Even though it was in Statesville WLVV had a decent signal in Charlotte. In 1985 96.9 went Country as WLVK and moved studios to Charlotte and went to whatever tower they use today.
99.7 was WRKB-FM on a short tower in Kannapolis. They rocked for awhile as Z-100 before finally also going om a tall tower and becomming WRFX The Fox. 106.5 WRDX Salisbury came later first running a Beach Music format later moving to a tall tower and becoming WEND "The End". 96.1 was WXIK doing top 40 before also boosting it's signal and for many years it was oldies Magic 96 WWMG now Hits 96.1.
Charlotte would have very few FM stations if not for all the move ins. All the iHeart stations in Charlotte are move-ins, not that it matters.
Thanks for the rundown, as well, Mike. I remember most of those stations and appreciate the History lesson, been saying that a lot the past couple days.
) My aunt and uncle, who lived in the Burlington metro, used to listen to 'RDX, when it played Beach and I thought I was the only one who remembered 'XIK, licensed to Shelby LOL. Re: 'RDX, I remember one Newyears morning, hearing them mention that their AM station, WSTP (I believe it was) was celebrating their Fiftieth Anniversary on the air that coming year, maybe 1989. Everybody wants to capitalize on the big market, but the big market can only handle so much, spots (sales) and spaces (stations).Here's another 'RDX memory. They were a Duke affiliate and I remember listening to (and recording) the basketball game where they played KS at the end of the big dance and won 72 to 65, whenever that was. I remember, it was on a Monday night, though, maybe back in like '90 or so. The bride's made has finally caught the bouquet and gets to be the bride! I don't care what AI says, that phrase was coined at the end of that game's broadcast, not this year, when Ucon beat Duke. *climbs down from rambling soapbox*
I worked at a cluster with a 93.9 full power and 94.3 translator on the same tower. i'm not aware of any major issues and its still like that 15 years later
I can add some details to this. WPEG's tower (not all that tall, but not short) was in Concord and it was on US 29. It was and I believe still is licensed to Concord. The power was increased to 20,000 watts at some point and it had a good signal throughout the market. Then it was increased to 50,000 watts. I don't remember when, but I do remember down in Monroe the Black kids were blasting it when we had to take laundry to a laundromat for some reason. I know we had a washer and dryer. I remember hearing "Jump" by Van Halen when that was popular in 1984. What was being called "urban contemporary" then was like rhythmic CHR today. I don't remember when the station went up to 100,000 watts.
WLVV was WOOO but in 1981 it built a "directional antenna" north of Charlotte, probably in Iredell County, and increased its signal to 100,000 watts. It was an easy listening station calling itself "Love 97, Mellow Radio" and commercials showed a woman dancing on a beach. I never heard it when it was still easy listening, but it had more vocals than WEZC according to the newspaper. By the time I was a student at UNCC, it was soft adult contemporary with nearly all vocals. I was surprised because that's not how they promoted it. REO Speedwagon certainly wasn't "easy listening" but that's as loud as it got, and it was mostly really soft. The signal was not as good as they wanted so they built another tower near Lake Norman and that improved things, but with WQMG at 97.1 in Greensboro, I think they had to keep the signal directional. That tower was made even taller around the time they switched to country.
Z-100 increased to 50,000 watts and then 100,000 but it took them a while to move to a taller tower. I don't remember when, but they had to deal with WMAG at 99.5 in Greensboro which was 100,000 watts and located on WFMY's 2000-foot tower. There used to be a tower off NC 150 in the Mooresville area but it's not there any longer. That must have been theirs. The format wasn't technically rock but it started out as an adult-leaning Top 40 when I was still in college in the early 80s and then started rocking harder, and even describing its music as "rock" even though it was still Top 40. Then in 1986 it became The Fox shortly after WXRC 95.7 became the first album rock station to truly cover Charlotte since WROQ went top 40 several years earlier. Y-102.9 was also rock, but didn't have a good signal in Charlotte. The Fox built a tower near UNCC where there were already 3 TV towers.
WRDX just covered Rowan County and I first heard it when it was Top 40 "Radio 15", apparently simulcasting 1490 WSTP. In the mid-80s it increased its signal to 100,000 watts and there was a tall tower in the Cleveland area of Rowan County. I think it was country but it switched to adult contemporary, and at some point Billboard magazine wrote about it because it had such an unusual format. It was adult contemporary and played some currents but it went back many decades playing gold, much of it "beach music". When it was moved to Charlotte and became WEND The End in 1995, the format switched to alternative rock and the Salisbury Post had pages and pages of people objecting to the loss of "beach music". The signal could be heard in Winston-Salem as well as it could in Charlotte, and some of Greensboro, which had a college station that caused interference. At some point the tower was moved closer to China Grove. I've always wondered why they didn't get to use the old WRFX tower but maybe at that time they weren't co-owned and WRFX didn't want anyone else to have the tower, which was gone around that time.
I remember WXIK which was listed as "adult contemporary" in Broadcasting Yearbook but its format was as unusual as that of WRDX. It was more of a harder rock station, though, with a lot of gold. Then I remember the station moving to a taller tower and stunting with all different formats in 1987. I particularly liked the beautiful music format. Then they finally revealed the real format "Magic 96.1", which was gold-based adult contemporary, a lot like K-104.7 a few years ago, but in the 80s, that meant 60s and 70s. And I remember a caller asking about Motown and the DJ saying "There is Motown ALL OVER this format!" The station once known as 61 Big WAYS may have been doing oldies at that point but then they switched to adult standards during the day and talk at night. Somewhere along the line the 50s replaced the 70s on Magic.
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Wow, Chimp, thanks for another History lesson. First place I ever heard Power 98, as they called it, was Camp Dogwood in Sherrills Ford, especially in the speedboats on Lake Norman.
) 'RDX could sure be heard right outside Greensboro, like a local, to my ears anyway. Was 'XIK, 'OHS's FM?I think so.Wow, Chimp, thanks for another History lesson. First place I ever heard Power 98, as they called it, was Camp Dogwood in Sherrills Ford, especially in the speedboats on Lake Norman.
I first became aware of Power 98 in college when the guys in the next room liked it. It had been a disco station, but I don't know what it was at that time. I don't think it was a Black station and they weren't Black. Mostly they ... well, it could have been one of them and not the other ... liked Molly Hatchet, which was Southern rock.
I think WXIK was co-owned with WOHS.
Thanks for the info. I was just a little guy in those days, or, as one friend told me, when we were discussing a classic song I unearthed for him, reckon you were around, but probably not enough to know what you were doin'.
There's plenty of real-world engineering outside the US that proves second-adjacent full-power stations can exist just fine at a co-located site. And we have plenty of real-world engineering within the US that shows that a translator (even a relatively high-power one) can be co-located with a full-power second-adjacent signal or with another translator. I have one on 97.1 on the tallest building here in Rochester that sits right next to a 97.5 with no issues at all. (And the 97.5 in turn has a full-power B on 97.9 a mile and a half away.)
The limitation on doing this on a regular basis in the US is purely a regulatory one. Changing the rules that have existed since 1964 would unleash the possibility for thousands of moves that the FCC doesn't have the capacity to process, and would create new competition that existing stations mostly don't want.
The "pre-1964" grandfathering exemption is very limited in what it allows. Few stations have been able to take a lot of advantage of it, in part because the areas where there's still room to make moves like the one WKBC-FM is making are also areas where there wasn't a lot of FM in 1964. It was a VERY lucky break for WKBC that the 96.9 and 97.9 signals are also as old as it is.
This application complies with all of the FCC's rules, including for short-spacing.
There are some new short-spacings that can be granted under section 73.215 of the rules. That section requires that you have a theoretical set of "allocations coordinates" that shows that there's a location where the two stations COULD be located and remain fully spaced, but once you've made that showing, you can then propose to use directional antennas and terrain protection to create a short-spacing as long as you demonstrate that the actual contours of the station won't overlap at certain levels. The WKBC-FM application does this. It's not an issue. (And no reputable consulting firm would file an application like this if it DID create issues. Those of us who do this regularly know that we have to keep on good terms with FCC staff and so we don't send them applications where every t hasn't already been crossed and every i dotted.)
Fortunately, that's not how things actually work at the FCC. Applications aren't decided based on "common sense." They're granted or denied based on whether or not they follow all of the FCC's rules, and in this specific case all three of the major spacing rules. 73.207 is the rule that shows what's considered full spacing, 73.213 is the pre-1964 grandfathering rule and 73.215 is what allows for new short-spacing under certain circumstances.
Whatever is happening politically at the very top of the FCC hasn't (yet) affected the non-political staffers who process these applications in the Audio Division of the Media Bureau. As anyone who works with them could tell you, those staffers are anything but "lax." Every application that's filed gets essentially re-engineered by staff to make sure they can replicate the maps and data that we've filed with them. If they have questions about an interpretation of the rules, they email or call the consultant and run through the question with us.
If an application complies with all of the rules, it gets granted. If it doesn't, it gets denied (after we've had a chance to amend it, if possible, to make it comply.)
This is, historically, the way things have always run at the FCC and with most government agencies, and as a consultant, it's very much in my interest and those of my clients to keep it that way. If everything is governed by rules (and not "common sense"), it makes it much easier for me to be able to tell a client definitively that either "you can do this and it will be granted" or "you cannot do this and here's why."
That's why many of us don't like what's happening at the top of the FCC with the current "vibes-based" ownership limits - until a few months ago, there were rules, and if you knew how to work within them, you could make deals happen in an orderly way. Right now it's anyone's guess what will and won't be allowed for ownership caps in the long run, and regulatory uncertainty is NOT good for business.
It's why I'm so adamant on this particular point - the reason this application will get approved is all about regulatory consistency, and that's a good thing.
i know so little about this, but i can see that they've done (as you told us) their due diligence. i do have a question. it appears that they've constructed the application to fit the location of the mooresville tower. are there any other locations (either with an existing tower or not) that would give more charlotte market coverage? for example, if the application was for the wbtv tower, it would have included a corresponding reduction in power to protect wcos, but would that location give better coverage over the market? or would the wcos protection have to be pretty equal no matter where the tower was located? theoretically, approximately how far could they move the tower south from its present location and keep their 100kw? or would even one mile cause wcos interference?
i'm not trying to suggest that i know how to engineer a move. not even close.
WKKT (96.9) went on the air as WDBM-FM in 1961 from 212 Signal Hill Dr, Statesville; WPEG (97.9) went on the air in 1962.
"Unless the consultant has a better idea ..." 🙄🤨