Early Tuesday morning, 1310 AM WDTW-AM signed off the air, and I thought they did a solid job in handling 1310's last few moments. After Stephanie Miller's show finished before midnight, they did an station id with some old "Keener 13" sound. However, things took a strange turn when after the id, they played a ten second loop of Tone Loc's song Wild Thing for about seven minutes. Hopefully that was to prevent dead air. After that, they went to a special that was recorded in the late 90's-early 2000's to relive the glory days of 'Keener 13." I have to say it was cool to get a feel for how the station sounded since I wasn't even a thought in the 60's and 70's. At 12:23 am, Whitney Houston's memorable national anthem before the Super Bowl played. After that they did one more id and you hear the last few seconds of a life line and then it flatlined, and the station went off the air. So in case you were curious about how 1310 signed off, there you have it.
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A Different Kind Of Countdown
- Thread starter Matt8650
- Start date
I actually have some stuff with the old taping it off of the radio. It starts at 11:58 with the last moments of Stephanie Miller's show, includes the special"Keener 13" id at 12:00, the strange Wild Thing snafu, the retrospective on 1310's glory days, and the final few minutes. I would definitely need tips on uploading it because I just would, and it actually sounds good considering it was at midnight.
...and here's how Keener 13 came crashing down: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gskUrvJKT4
cingram said:
Well, hello, Dr. Akbar. How's the lamptimer?
C.
Yo, C -
The lamptimer was retired last spring when Gumpdusky installed a new Nautel capable of powering down to 52 watts of Music Pow-Pow-Power at night and the Valley's last daytimer became a fulltime Ancient Modulation station. The thread is still alive and wasting bandwidth on the Phoenix board and all our buds in the Motor City are invited to pile on: http://radiodiscussions.com/smf/index.php?topic=113344.0 Unlike Keener13, Clear Channel doesn't own any dogs of the Ancient Modulation specie in Phoenix. Even the license of the most marginal signal is still worth more than the real estate under it. And from the Buckeye Boyz "Believe It, Or Fez It" file: recently 7~Forty AM sold for $1.85m. This woofer has never been a player with 1kw DA-D and 292w DA-N, plus all the nighttime skywave from KSeeBS in S.F. YIKES!
Dr Akbar
cingram said:
I'm kind of surprised how fast WDTW went down, too. The only thing I can think of is that somebody really wanted the land and wanted it NOW. Who wanted it and why is an open question to me. Though it is easily seen on I-94, it is not easily accessible. Access is via Monroe Blvd., which tunnels under I-94 with no interchange. The site is blocked from Telegraph Road (US-24) by a residential area. The area already has many vacant intact industrial buildings, and plenty of retail sites (both occupied and vacant). Taylor's not bad, but it's not first on the list of where to start something new with so many other communities are around at reasonable rates as well. I wonder if I-94 is about to be converted into a toll road (in which case the WDTW site would be perfect for an Oasis).
WDTW has a lot of things loaded against it. Their daytime signal is not that bad, their night coverage is the problem. As what I call a "junior"* station on its frequency, it not only has to be highly directional to protect all those other stations that were already on 1310 (before NARBA, 1280), it got interference from them, as well (I seem to remember their NIF was 12.xx mV/m).
Their area of their nighttime coverage was about the same as WDTK 1400 (WJLB before 1980, a graveyarder), only upright-oval in shape and further west. 1310 had a BOOMING night signal on Detroit's West Side. In 1963 (when "Keener 13" began), it was where much of the middle and upper-middle class white population lived (the East Side said to be more "working class"). Not long after, there was a huge demographic shift, and, for about the past 30 years, the area covered by 1310 at night had been primarily African-American. They did fairly well when they became WMTG in 1986 with satellite-fed black oldies, pulling a little better than 2.0 (something not every class B FM did then) with what was probably low costs. That abruptly ended when 92.3 took the format. WYUR failed miserably at night with their full-service/standards format, of course. One might think the channel could be viable for African-American talk, but Radio One's WCHB 1200, with an FM translator on the East Side as well, has that niche locked.
My thought of the best thing one could do to this channel would be to build OD in Southwest Detroit as a Class D (Dearborn remains the COL, for now), and have it simulcast WSDS 1480's Regional Mexican. WSDS is a fish out of water. Not only are they weak in SW Detroit (Hispanic community core), but second-adjacent WLQV 1500 is about 100 mV/m through that area! Once settled, change the COL to a small downriver city that is not a COL (Ecorse - Dearborn would still have WNIC-FM as "theirs"). Then, one could possibly rebuild it as a Class B with 3 to 6 towers somewhere SW of Ecorse. I might mention here that it is just about impossible to cover the whole Detroit area at night on 1310, due to the interference level.
* What I call a "Junior" station: one like WDTW, WCCW, WMKT, with tight patterns and lots of QRM at night, because they came late - versus "Senior" stations, like WWJ or KXSP (formerly WOW). Is there a standard term in the radio industry for these?
The idea for a Regional Mexican station or simulcasting 1480 is good, but the signal has to be able to get into Southwest Detroit, and get in there well considering that's the audience you're aiming for. As for WCHB, their signal at night is pretty bad, during the day, it's average, and their translator at 99.9 has to be an HD Radio thing because I almost never get 99.9 clearly, and I think there is about three signals already broadcasting on that signal, thus causing more of a problem to WCHB's translator, so I wouldn't rule it out.
Matt8650 said:
Southwest Detroit would be about the easiest place for them to get a new TL. Much of it is industrial and cheap vacant land is abundant, one or two short towers would be unlikely to ruffle any zoning feathers. Rule changes favor a move eastward. A new 1310 will not have to protect WOBL on Canadian soil or Lake Erie, and they would get a little more distance from WILS.
As for WCHB and its FM translator (W260CB), the translator must have a very small coverage, begin between a rock called WKKO and a hard place called CFGX. Fortunately, it is on the East Side, covering much of what the AM misses at night (like 1310 was, WCHB's night signal is very strong on the West Side).
cingram said:
In case my e-mail sending skills are still average. I did see your e-mail, and I am in. I apologize for the lack of response. It's usually quiet on the board on the weekend, and I hadn't checked that e-mail in a while. I will send the tape to you as soon as possible.cingram said:
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