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99X Dropped from 99.7 HD-2 and 98.9 FM

jabba17 said:
WBT has 3 Blaw-Knox towers, two of which were rebuilt after Hurricane Hugo. Too bad that those are probably goners.

That said, while WBT is a class A clear-channel station, their night signal is so directional as to be comparable to a class B. It's almost as bad as WCNN's night signal. I can never pick them up in Atlanta after dark, while WSM, KMOX, WLW, and WLS are no biggie.

I wonder if Urban One could sell or transfer the class A rights to some other eastern station, similar to what happened to WOWO.
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You can’t even pick 1110 WBT well in market in the next town over, Gastonia, at night.
 
Ryan Williams said:
I wonder if they are in good enough shape to disassemble and move somewhere else for a second life.
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I'm not a radio engineer, but I could see them being useful individually as an FM mast. Probably would be suboptimal technically for a signal much different than 1110kHz, and certainly would not be cost-effective to move for another AM.
 
jabba17 said:
WBT has 3 Blaw-Knox towers, two of which were rebuilt after Hurricane Hugo. Too bad that those are probably goners.

That said, while WBT is a class A clear-channel station, their night signal is so directional as to be comparable to a class B. It's almost as bad as WCNN's night signal. I can never pick them up in Atlanta after dark, while WSM, KMOX, WLW, and WLS are no biggie.

I wonder if Urban One could sell or transfer the class A rights to some other eastern station, similar to what happened to WOWO.
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Most likely not. If any intelligent commercial operator could get that signal* in Charlotte I will bet a cheap cup of coffee, iHeart's Republican talkers would be on as fast as the the ink dried on the contract. WBT FM hasn't exactly increased it's (6+) like WSB did when they got an in town FM signal.

*With land costs you might not be able to get 50kw at night but someone could go west of the market with something at night to cover most of the market. Except for winter mornings and evenings most of your revenue will be during the 50 KW non directional hours which could be duplexed of an existing AM. You might even find a MAGA landowner that will allow you to lease their land for 20 years at a financially tolerable rate.

Based on the St Louis AM auction I doubt the FCC would try to auction off any AM channel so I guess this will be the first Class A AM to have their license turned in this century.
 
secondchoice said:
Most likely not. If any intelligent commercial operator could get that signal* in Charlotte I will bet a cheap cup of coffee, iHeart's Republican talkers would be on as fast as the the ink dried on the contract. WBT FM hasn't exactly increased it's (6+) like WSB did when they got an in town FM signal.

*With land costs you might not be able to get 50kw at night but someone could go west of the market with something at night to cover most of the market. Except for winter mornings and evenings most of your revenue will be during the 50 KW non directional hours which could be duplexed of an existing AM. You might even find a MAGA landowner that will allow you to lease their land for 20 years at a financially tolerable rate.

Based on the St Louis AM auction I doubt the FCC would try to auction off any AM channel so I guess this will be the first Class A AM to have their license turned in this century.
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Most of the eastern stations on 1110 are tiny Class D 1000W daytime operations (not really surprising); however, there is WTIS out of Tampa that is 10kW day/5kW critical hours on one stick. It probably wouldn't be that big of a deal for them to go 10kW unlimited hours with no plant changes.

WPMZ out of Providence, RI could do the same with 5kW and go from two to one stick.

There is a XERED (50kW day/10kW night) near Mexico City that might be a concern if Tampa went nondirectional and sent a bunch of signal across the Gulf.
 
I doubt anyone can get much of a non directional night signal on 1110. KFAB Omaha is a class A AM that has to be protected. WTIS might get something under 500 Watts but I doubt they would bother if they have to buy a transmitter or a dummy load and run a big transmitter with a big power bill at night. Their FM translator is equivalent to a Class A FM.
 
secondchoice said:
I doubt anyone can get much of a non directional night signal on 1110. KFAB Omaha is a class A AM that has to be protected. WTIS might get something under 500 Watts but I doubt they would bother if they have to buy a transmitter or a dummy load and run a big transmitter with a big power bill at night. Their FM translator is equivalent to a Class A FM.
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And putting additional towers for a directional signal is going to be a financial non-starter.
 


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