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AUSTIN: WHAT'S BETTER?

A

amisdead

Guest
Since the announcement of the sale of the CP at 1120 last week for $1,000 (with some caveats), I've been thinking about what would be better (or more valuable): a directional daytime (almost) AM or a lower-power FM translator that transmits from the West Austin Antenna Farm?

The decent translators, 95.1/97.1/98.5/102.7, have all sold in the $200,000 to 250,00 range.
 
One time the KUT transmitter went out, but their exciter was still on... and with only 3 watts or so, I was able to get good car radio reception in central and south Austin. A directional 1000 watt AM? it would be drowned out by every hair-drier, computer monitor, ceiling fan and neon sign in town.

FM translators should be banned. It would be much better to allow locally produced community program on those frequencies. Likewise all those K-LOVE stations. I love God, but those things are a waste of electricity, and radio-spectrum.

So, yeah, low-power FM at high elevation is worth much more than low-power am.
 
Even with the sweetheart deal Bustos got on 1120, by the time they buy the land, get the permits, erect the towers and purchase the equipment they will be in the $200,000 ballpark, if not more.
 
Unless I could line up enough people wanting to broker airtime (including, but not limited to, rent-a-preachers), I'd rather have the FM translator. Of course, without having a source to feed the translator, it wouldn't do me any good either!
 
Border Media seems to be the go-to people in Austin for this. They're already using their Hybrid Digital subchannels to feed translators on 95.1, 97.1 and 106.5.
 
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