98.3 on air

[Mrtejano]

I'm listening to it, I'm parked outside a building close to where the CW 39 building is located. With a bit of static but listenable.

 

[Mrtejano]

Radio Positiva 98.3 KIRP-LP
Playing Christian Music in Spanish.

 

[Mrtejano]

Also 90.7 FM Fusion Radio, haven't heard a call sign but they're claiming to be from Houston.

Kqlc from Katy

 

[b-turner]

KQLC 90.7 is in Sealy. The station has been around for years. They were the EZ/Beautiful Christian music style until earlier this year, I think, when they chose to go Contemporary Christian. More recently, say, in the last 60 days, they have gone with the Spanish Christian format. The non-profit that runs KQLC is in Houston and prior to the full power NCE in Sealy, had run the Low Power FM in Brookshire, divesting it to the school district that I doubt ever got it going again before turning in the license.

 

[purpledevil]

I'll put your suspicions to rest, Bill. The station was never returned to the air and the school surrendered the license, but it's really for the best. KQLC stood absolutely no chance against Beaumont's onetime "Quick", now "El Norte".

Better not let Bruce know that KQLC recently went Español...he may flatline over there.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

Better not let Bruce know that KQLC recently went Español...he may flatline over there.

Good one! Nope, just another spot on the dial I won't tune to. I do wonder, though, if some of these competing groups will implode under the financial burden of all the acquisitions and operating costs to keeping them going. They better have some church members with deep pocketbooks!

 

[b-turner]

Yep, the Brookshire LPFM was killed by the full power FM. As I recall, the tower was in Pattison. I could not get it at I-10 in Brookshire and it was gone by the intersection of 362 and 529 and that was on a car radio needing less dbu to pull in a signal. If it only got 3 miles, roughly, for in car listening, I suspect the in home signal was more like 1.5 miles, 2 at the most.

 

[purpledevil]

Good one! Nope, just another spot on the dial I won't tune to. I do wonder, though, if some of these competing groups will implode under the financial burden of all the acquisitions and operating costs to keeping them going.

You know, I've actually wondered that myself. It's pretty obvious that some of these guys are hoarding signals in order to attach an FM translator to it down the road, put the combo up for sale, and make profit. Case in point, KMIC. It just received a permit for the Villarreals to attach K227BD, an insignificant translator that I doubt has ever lit up down in Freeport. Attached to KMIC, and moved closer into Houston, the AM/FM duo can command much bigger money than either facility could have ever hoped to bring in alone. Why not sell KMIC/K227BD and hold on to KCOH, with a lot more dinero in hand while you're at it? The brothers are savvy. They can afford to shed some weight here in Houston and come out of it with a meaner, more streamlined cluster of Aleluya. Can they hold on to all the pieces of the empire in the meantime? That is where the uncertainty begins to creep in.

It's like being a house flipper, Bruce. Buy it, slap a coat of FM on it, fix a broken plug or two, power wash the back deck, and hang out the for sale sign. The Villarreals would simply be ignorant to not sell off some of the overlapping signals in the near future, maybe even in trade for other signal areas they don't currently cover.

Imagine if they get to wheeling and dealing with Hector Guevara and trade off KMIC/K227BD for, say, KNLY/K231CN? You just never know.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

It's like being a house flipper, Bruce. Buy it, slap a coat of FM on it, fix a broken plug or two, power wash the back deck, and hang out the for sale sign.

Or you end up with a house in an unsellable section of town. Which is one of many reasons I never invest in real estate - too many laws and regulations being the other. How long did it take for 1520 to find a person to lease the signal? 1540? At some point, you are going to run out of people trying to hawk products or program to some niche somewhere. Especially ones with money. And the supply of translators available for FM vastly outnumber the number of AM stations wanting a translator. I don't think it is such a smart move. Marginal AM signals, translators that don't cover much of the area, not worth the price they have paid. Maybe they need a big tax write off or something. It just seems like a lot of hoarding of frequencies with little potential for profit in the future.

 

[purpledevil]

Every section of town is sellable, Bruce. Just look no further than the fools spending a quarter of a million on a lot in Independence Heights. That's Studewood. North Main & Crosstimbers. Booker T. Washington High School. Houses that have been falling in on themselves since I was a kid. $250,000...and up, Bruce. Heck, even in Acres Home the houses are appraised at over $100k now. There's one born every minute, and a long line of suckers...uh, buyers looking to air their own programming on the Houston dial.

You wouldn't want to pony up a couple hundred stacks of Benjamins for an oldies station, would you? If you buy KMIC, I can serve as your top flight security personnel. I mean, I just live down the street from the KMIC 4 pack, and for the right negotiated pay structure, I can combat any potentially hostile "foreign" takeovers of the newly minted "Carter Quad" on Tidwell. No need for you to jump out of bed in an emergency; I'm already there, Bruce.

I live and breathe the seedy section of town. I speak its language...

So, I'll be watching the files for the license transfer and give you a call about that job, just as soon as you consummate that deal.

 

[b-turner]

Actually it didn't take that long. It normally takes 6 months to a year to find a qualified client, get all the ducks lined up and begin. We had 5 serious folks working to see if they could pull it off. What happens many times is the first to do so is the least qualified and there are a few programmers over a shorter period of time before the really stable one is ready. I'd say we were pretty average and able to get a well qualified programmer on. I'll admit we have a good 10-12 that wanted to start well below our cost of operation and you knew they were the type that would run until they ran out of money because simply, they don't shoulder the risk (the station does) and the proverbial 'can't squeeze blood from a turnip' applies.

It's sort of like you can qualify for more house than you can afford, get approved and move in but your philosophy is if I can pay the note fine, if not, no big deal, what can they do if I can't pay? In other words, it is not a partnership attitude where the station wants the client to succeed and the client wants the station to succeed.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

You wouldn't want to pony up a couple hundred stacks of Benjamins for an oldies station, would you? If you buy KMIC, I can serve as your top flight security personnel. I mean, I just live down the street from the KMIC 4 pack, and for the right negotiated pay structure, I can combat any potentially hostile "foreign" takeovers of the newly minted "Carter Quad" on Tidwell. No need for you to jump out of bed in an emergency; I'm already there, Bruce.

I think David made an excellent point about legacy call letters / association with oldies. I just don't see one of these substandard AM signals, coupled with a translator that covers part of the town to be viable. Maybe if you could find a suburb with predominantly over 60 crowd, and it was a huge suburb, with local businesses - and you definitely had a super translator that would cover it with a top notch signal, maybe it would be a viable opportunity. But I am afraid the oldies ship sailed in Houston the moment KILT went country in 1980.

I also tend to be a bit of a stereo fanatic. I would listen to an AM oldies, but with satellite 60's apparently scouring the planet for stereo versions of everything, coupled with KRBE and KGLK doing stereo on their HD-2's, I don't see a mono AM as a player in the area.

My Benjamins are presently invested with a startup downhole tool company - a bit more risky than I thought given the price of oil. But oil is coming back, so I think the investment will pay off in the end. But thanks for the thought - I would enjoy working with you on the KMIC project like that if the circumstances were different! I've thought of talking to the good folks over at Cypress radio about doing some oldies over their station - I have a complete studio setup - but you know the startup company game. ALL work and NO time for play!