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Another new Cox translator for Greenville?

I don't notice that big of a difference with X vs. Chuck. I notice some more static blips on X in Greenville, but that's about it. Remember that they do have a construction permit to upgrade to 250w which will put them on par with the Chuck signal as far as wattage. I've had other people in the car with me before when I've listened to stations with some static and they've complained about it, but it doesn't really bother me, so that's definitely true. If it something I want to hear bad enough, and can't hear it anywhere better, I'll put up with the static. Casual listeners aren't as patient, though.

I've been noticing more X billboards. There's a big one on 385 now between Haywood and Roper Mountain Rds.

Ideally, I think it'd be smart to put Chuck on 98.1/94.1, Hot on 98.5, and X on 97.7. Rhythmic CHR is a troubled format, I'm kind of surprised it has held up on 98.1 as well as it has. There's really no main signal to move X to....the only one they have is 98.1, and Chuck-FM would definitely get dibs on it if the opportunity ever arose.
 
Haven't seen the billboards (although I have seen several Chuck-FM ones), but that's good that they put one in such a prominent area.

Hopefully that bump to 250W will help with the static issues. I'm not sure why there are several places (mostly in the Woodruff Road/Hwy. 14/Five Fork areas) that I notice a dip. As with you, it doesn't bother me, but of course, my family is a different matter. They hear some static and immediately want me to flip.

It's a dream to have it on a full signal, but I still would love to see what it could do against The Planet. I wouldn't be surprised if a good amount of The Planet's listeners are in those outlying areas like Anderson, Pelzer, etc., where X can't even compete.

Whatever the case, as long as it sticks around, it makes the immediate Greenville market much more bearable than it was before its existence. It's interesting to see how many mid-sized and even big cities (like New York) don't have alternative at all so for that reason alone, I'll be happy as long as its around.
 
I think 98.5 gets out better though, especially to the east.
I'm 40 miles away near Gaffney and can hear it ok even while driving lots of the time.
Sometimes it does get decent static or even messed with by WTFM, WOMG or even WSB-FM.

I took an FM bandscan about a month ago:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcugs0pMYRg

You can see that there's almost way I'm gonna get 97.7 with WCOS & WPEG
on either side (and WPEG runs HD)...it's very rare that I even get a trace of 97.7 here.
even 98.1 does better here and occasionally can be heard behind 97.9
98.5 is clear though with no 1st adjacent to bother it.

96.7 from Paris Mountain also has trouble reaching here,
98.5 somehow does good up this way for just 200 watts.
 
KyleAndMelissa22 said:
I think 98.5 gets out better though, especially to the east.
I'm 40 miles away near Gaffney and can hear it ok even while driving lots of the time.
Sometimes it does get decent static or even messed with by WTFM, WOMG or even WSB-FM.

I took an FM bandscan about a month ago:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcugs0pMYRg

You can see that there's almost way I'm gonna get 97.7 with WCOS & WPEG
on either side (and WPEG runs HD)...it's very rare that I even get a trace of 97.7 here.
even 98.1 does better here and occasionally can be heard behind 97.9
98.5 is clear though with no 1st adjacent to bother it.

96.7 from Paris Mountain also has trouble reaching here,
98.5 somehow does good up this way for just 200 watts.
Click to expand...


I don't know all the technical details, but I think it may be like Carolinaradio mentioned -- that it's more of a penetration issue rather than coverage issue. It may get out a decent area but even within that area there's places where it gets a fair amount of static and even drops out. And, as I mentioned before, there definately seems to be more of an issue with atmospheric conditions on X than pretty much any station I've listened to in the market. I'm not sure why that is, but there are a fair number of mornings (usually clears up in the afternoon) when there is static throughout the area.

Whatever the case, maybe the bump to 250 will help with those issues in particular.
 
It's definitely a penetration issue. The less power there is, the more susceptible you are to atmospheric conditions. I mean, you're not going to have that issue on 98.9, 93.7, 92.5, or 94.5 most definitely. 98.5, 102.5, 96.7, and 103.3 are usually the culprits of atmospheric conditions at my location. 102.5 used to be worse before they moved to their current tower a couple of years ago. It's going to get worse, too, for a while more than likely.

I notice that the RDS on 98.5 starts to lose reliability in Simpsonville (in the Fairview Rd area). They sounded pretty rough Saturday. 97.7's RDS works in Gray Court, and as awp69 said, has a much more reliable signal. It's notable that on paper, the signals aren't incredibly different.
 
Another week and still playing the same 10-12 non-grunge songs from the '90s. I mention this because Wednesday, for whatever reason, seemed to be the day that they'd make changes to their playlist in the past.

I'm not complaining even about the volume of non-grunge '90s or the depth. I just think they need to switch them out every once in a while. It's now been about a month and a half of the same songs from R.E.M., Garbage, Social Distortion, The Breeders, DMB, etc. Even other songs by some of those bands would be nice.

I don't know. Guess I just think the station becomes too predictable if you don't keep mixing it up. Doesn't even mean being adventurous. Just keeping it fresh (aside from the new music, obviously).

Maybe they're waiting for whatever management change is going to happen to finalize before making too many more changes?
 
Like I said, it wouldn't be an issue if they were big hits, I guess. Some of them were, but the rest of the stuff (like Social Distortion and The Breeders) just gets kinda old.

The playlist seems tighter than ever, to me. It's like I mentioned in another thread, Magic only updates their playlist once a year....so listeners are stuck with the same selection of 80s and 90s tracks for a whole year. Terrible. I understand not wanting to change the playlist all the time, but rotating some songs in and out every month or two doesn't seem dangerous. Especially when you have a limited gold library on a rock station.
 
carolinaradio said:
It's like I mentioned in another thread, Magic only updates their playlist once a year....so listeners are stuck with the same selection of 80s and 90s tracks for a whole year. Terrible.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I suppose it could be worse...like Magic. Before X came along, I used to stream Radio 104.5 almost daily at work. And sure, there were a lot of songs that got repeated. But I never got the same sense that they weren't mixing in different gold tracks in now and then. At least it never seemed obvious to me that their older music selection was limited and constantly repeated.

I know Radio 104.5 is a different animal that can't be considered a "standard" as far as alternative radio stations go. But even though stations like B93.7 play "all the hits" over and over and over again...even they seem to mix up the older tracks they play on occassion.

New songs, top currents and recurrents -- sure those are going to be repetative until they slip off the charts. But even a newer band like Coldplay, it's not like the only song they ever had was "Paradise". In fact, they have much better songs that were hits. Yet "Paradise" is the only song X ever plays and have since they came on the air. That's not the case on a station like Radio 104.5.

Guess I've just been spoiled over the years with WHFS when I lived in Washington, 99X when it was in its prime in Atlanta during the early-mid '90s, the albeit short-lived 103X here and then streaming Radio 104.5.

Again, I sound like I complain too much. I'm quite happy to have ANY alternative station in Greenville. Just think that's one area they could improve in is just making a little more effort in mixing up the gold library.
 
I prefer Chuck FM over X-98.5, but that's just my own personal taste. Also listen to 102.9. 102.5, and 107.9. And if I switch over to CHR, I think 96.1 sounds best over 95.1 and 93.7. And I truly think 107.9 has greatly improved their music mix in the past year, and I'm glad they still feature in house personalities such as Bob and Sheri and Matt and Ramona. I just wish they would restore their old antenna signal which was once very clear in Greenville for years. But as for the Cox translators, did they ever sell their Greenville stations?
 
tylerSC said:
But as for the Cox translators, did they ever sell their Greenville stations?
Click to expand...

They were supposedly being sold to a group called Summit Media, which is comprised of former Cox managers. However, I don't know when the deal will be completed.

There was also another thread posted that suggested that Summit may end up flipping them over to Apex Broadcasting. Personally, I hope that doesn't happen as I think both Chuck-FM and X98.5 stand a better chance of maintaining their formats if they're run by what may be the same Cox people that are running them now.

Of course, they are translators with low overhead so I would hope that no matter who gets them in the end that they stick with their current formats. I listen to X mostly, also due to musical tastes, but Chuck is usually my second stop on my presets. Both of these stations have given something the market was lacking and I'd hate to lose them.
 
The sale between Cox and Summit Media has closed. They've laid some people off, in the process. All of the Cox stations that were sold have been moved to new web templates, as you can see here: http://www.x985fm.com

Those translators are not owned by Cox/Summit, so they can't really do anything with them. They're leased from Ted McCall who owns almost every translator in the Upstate, it seems. The leases could always be ended, but I'm sure another broadcaster in the area would be interested in leasing them.
 
carolinaradio said:
The sale between Cox and Summit Media has closed.  They've laid some people off, in the process.  All of the Cox stations that were sold have been moved to new web templates, as you can see here: http://www.x985fm.com

Those translators are not owned by Cox/Summit, so they can't really do anything with them.  They're leased from Ted McCall who owns almost every translator in the Upstate, it seems.  The leases could always be ended, but I'm sure another broadcaster in the area would be interested in leasing them.
Click to expand...

Have any idea where those layoffs occurred? Surely both Chuck-FM and X98.5 had skeleton crews to begin with. I wonder if JAMZ and Hot 98.5 were hit.

I would have to guess that Summit would continue to lease the translators if they're making money.

Noticed that they continue to stream via iHeart Radio, but their link on their webpage goes to some "Triton Digital Standard Live Radio Player", which actually sounds better than iHeart.

Summit Media itself just has a placeholder site. You'd think while waiting for the sale to go through they would have had something put together. I also wonder whether that post about Summit flipping them over to Apex Broadcasting has any merit.

Guess only time will tell.
 
I should have been more clear. They laid some people off in Louisville, specifically, where they had purchased stations. I didn't see anything on here about Greenville, but I was wondering.

I never liked the Cox streams. They used to be worse than they were recently - they sounded like the early 2000s streams did. Cox has never been much of a company to step out of the box or make many big changes, and that was no exception. Safe, safe, safe.

I think the Apex thing is pure speculation.
 
I decided to be bold and post on their FB page asking if we could expect any programming changes with the new ownership. Doubt that they'd tell us if there was going to be. One thing I have noticed is that it seems as though that group of '90s non-grunge songs seems to have all but disappeared. I haven't been listening non-stop, but haven't heard DMB, R.E.M., Depeche Mode, The Breeders or any of that when I have been listening. And, it would appear that grunge took over those spots. Then again, I may have just been missing them....or they'll pop up later.

Hopefully the change in ownership ends up being a good thing rather than a bad thing.
 
Not sure if it's just the atmospheric conditions being better than normal, but X seemed to pack more of a punch this morning. Maybe they were waiting for the ownership change before doing the increase to 250W? Not sure why they would. But it may just be coincidence that it sounded better this morning.
 
Not to beat a dead horse, but since the ownership change, it seems like they've cut back on '90s all together. Less grunge (good) and less non-grunge (not so good) from the '90s overall.

They sound good and the music flows well -- maybe even better than before -- but they're getting close to being a Top 40 of Alternative IMO. Lots of new music and recurrents -- which I like -- and a good amount of 2000s but the playlist overall feels tighter. I certainly can do without as much grunge, but variety with more classic alt is good thing. Maybe less active crossover too. But the more they take out the tighter they sound.

I've noticed some new liners too. It may be too early to tell how the new group will have the station evolve. But it's a little ironic that the playlist seems even tighter than Cox, which as you've mentioned before is kind of known for being tight on their other alt stations. Strangely, even with less gold tracks, they still don't sound oppressively repetitive.
 
I agree that it sounds good. I don't regularly listen to this station in the morning, though, and read something about a "show" in one of their comments on their Facebook posts. Have you heard exactly what it is?

I think it's a shame to not include more '90s-non-grunge. It still fits well and serves a very good supplemental purpose, it works great on stations like Radio 104.5 and even 105.7 in Atlanta includes it. Personally, I would rather them be more conservative with new music (not like MY, LOL) and include more decent 90s, and perhaps even late 80s cuts.
 
carolinaradio said:
I agree that it sounds good. I don't regularly listen to this station in the morning, though, and read something about a "show" in one of their comments on their Facebook posts. Have you heard exactly what it is?
Click to expand...

I have no idea. The only thing other than music that I hear in the morning is news, weather and traffic. I'm actually a little annoyed that they now choose to play commercials between each of those reports where they used to do it back to back and play commercials at another time. Now it feels like there's 10+ minutes between songs during that period (probably less than that, but it's still too long IMO).
 
^^ Hadn't noticed what you were referring to on FB. I usually don't pay too much attention to what's being said about the pictures and stuff they put up and just read the general feedback posts. But wow, there's a ton of posts that I don't even know how they got started on the subject of a morning show (guess maybe it had something to do with the redneck pickup truck and references to The Planet).

Anyway, I'm pretty sure they'll stick to the personality-less format they have now. At least I hope so as I would rather hear music in the morning myself (I know that goes against the whole local radio thing, but sad to say, I like my music more than pointless talking).
 
I would think X had some direct involvement in this because I just couldn't see the band playing this small of a venue otherwise, but they posted on Facebook that the Silversun Pickups are coming to the Handlebar on August 1st. That's a pretty big score for both the station and the Handlebar.
 
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