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Charleston musings

U

upstate29651

One of the issues the stations here (and in many places in the Southeast) face are the temperature inversions on any given Summer morning, which wreak havoc on reception. It occurred to me that most of the FM towers in Charleston are right by the ocean, instead of a good 20 miles inland. Now I understand you can't just pull up stakes & move towers, but couldn't (in theory), the local broadcasters move more inland (say, Summerville), and cover the same broadcast area, if not more?

G
 
Man did you ask the big question. I have brought this very subject up many times and almost every time some one has some weird reason that the transmitters shouldn't be inland a little. Summerville is on a slight ridge and would be a great location to cover Charleston and surrounding areas. The next ridge up in this direction is Ridgeville and of course once had 107.5's transmitter located there. There coverage range was out standing back then about 98% of the time, I have heard a few of the old time engineers say it was one of the best locations in the low country. Trouble was 2% of the time thermal inversion along the coast would effect it's signal causing reception problems along the coastal areas of just a mile or so inland. This 2% of the time must have been too much for the station owners to have even thou they had such a monster signal station and probably was one of the reasons leading to the stations move toward Columbia. My personal thoughts were that the people in control of 107.5 didn't understand the problems or didn't care too (the daaaaa factor of those I control) and figured moving the station was the best answer. I feel you are correct Summerville is closer to the coast on the next ridge and would be a great location, the coastal thermal inversion would not effect the signals near as much. By the way coastal thermal inversion for those who don't know is a different problem than atmospheric thermal inversion and Charleston, SC is one of the worst areas along the east coast for this problem.
 
For the TV's and few FM's on the two tall towers in Awendaw...odd location. At least it is now, since MYB has it's own market.

It's odd that 98.1 & 105.5 share a transmitter & have the same power, but 105.5 is more listenable in Summerville on Summer mornings. 98.1 is almost unlistenable. Beyond that, those who have their sticks in the Wando marsh...not helping. The Mt. P sticks throw half their signal out over the ocean. Silly.

G
 
During the years that 107.5 was still in Ridgeville (transmitter) the station was licensed to St George where 107.5 first started. Due to the 10.7 rule and the then grade A coverage rules for city of license the antenna array on the tower was faced toward St George basicly causing the station to have great inland coverage and not dumping very much signal into the ocean. Well some where down the line it is said that a GM among others wanted the antenna array moved around the tower to face Charleston so as to increase 107.5 signal along the coast. Well some how it got done which killed or greatly weakened 107.5's signal pretty much in Columbia and Savannah and made me wonder how much signal they then put into the ocean. Just a few months later a friend of mine who worked on a Russian fishing boat asked me to check their radio system which was having trouble. We left port in Charleston and they went out to a spot to fish about 60 to 65 miles out while I worked on their radio equipment that day. While I was out there I tried many different FM radio stations to see how they sounded but the strongest by far was 107.5 and it was inland in Ridgeville and still had the strongest signal 65 miles off the coast. And they tell you changing the antennas from one side of the tower to the other doesn't make much of a difference.
 
107.5 did have an odd signal. It was trouble to get them on a Walkman in places like Folly Beach and Sullivan's Island yet in the car you could carry it all the way on I-77 north of Columbia.

That's why the signal was country for so long and did well. It served areas WEZL could not. They also had the South Carolina games on FM toward the end, and them along with 106.7 probably serve half the state or more.
 
charlestondxman said:
107.5 did have an odd signal. It was trouble to get them on a Walkman in places like Folly Beach and Sullivan's Island yet in the car you could carry it all the way on I-77 north of Columbia.

That's why the signal was country for so long and did well. It served areas WEZL could not. They also had the South Carolina games on FM toward the end, and them along with 106.7 probably serve half the state or more.
Click to expand...

Back in the '90s I remember this Station as ''Bubba 107.5 FM''. I could get it from CHAS, SC all the way past COLA, SC and almost all the way to Rock Hill, SC. Very impressive to say the least until I figured out they were directional. Which then made sense - why cast your signal to the Ocean when there would be limited people to listen to it?

Needless to say, that didn't stop me from comparing FM Signals back and forth in 1999 when I went to Charleston. I also came to realize what a Nice AM Reception my Radio had, as I listened to 1110 WBT-AM almost all the way to the Florida State Line one time.

Steve.
 
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