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Clayton/mt city stations gone!

J

jefflaurence

Drove thru to try and hear Clark Howard on AM 1400 and AM 1340. Both stations appear to be dark. Radio Locator no longer lists them. Any chance they would be for sale or LMA Mr Sutton?
 
BLSTA 20130410AAD STA E WALH 69703 AM GRANTED 06/27/2013
Exhibit 1
Description: WALH SUSPENSION OF OPERATIONS; REQUEST FOR STA

DUE TO THE LOSS OF ITS TRANSMITTER SITE, WALH WENT OFF THE AIR AT 11:30 A.M. APRIL 9, 2013. TUGART PROPERTIES, LLC REQUESTS A 180 DAYS AUTHORIZATION TO REMAIN SILENT UNTIL IT CAN PROPERLY ASSESS THE FEASIBILITY OF ANOTHER TRANSMITTER SITE LOCATION.

And... No silent STA for WGHC but this try to change frequency (that the FCC dismissed):
"WGHC will lose its tower site lease in August. Due to the low ground conductivity of the Clayton area and the high interference level on its present Class C frequency of 1400 kHz both daytime and nighttime, and the restrictive tower ordinances in the local area, it is not possible for WGHC to continue operations on 1400 and remain licensed to Clayton. There is simply no tower site available..."
<and>
"This technical narrative exhibit supports an application for minor change for AM Station WGHC, Clayton, Georgia. Station. WGHC has a license to operate unlimited hours on 1400 kHz with 1000 watts, non-directional. By means of this application, Station WGHC proposes to change to 830 kHz and increase power to 2800 watts, non-directional, daytime only."...
 
My understanding is that Art has moved the programming to an HD-2 fed translator (100.3) making the AM's irrelevant.

I strongly doubt he would sell either to a potential competitor. He might move Clayton to another community and sell it. Mountain City can't move because there is no remaining station there, so it's probably just gone.

More likely is that he'll move the clayton AM somewhere to feed one of the many translators he controls. I doubt he will try to operate the AM by itself again in Clayton or anywhere else because he's been oft-quoted as saying you can't resurrect a dead AM.
 
...and it wasn't that many years ago that Sutton moved Clayton to AM 1400, from 1370 I believe. It was more complicated than that - involving a station in Mt Holly, NC. But more than my brain can render here. Yes, it is sad to see these AMs going dark - particularly since these were single towers taking up much less real estate than a big directional array.

Eric
 
boiseengineer said:
I was wondering how long 830 would stay open.
Click to expand...
The FCC dismissed their application as defective.
Click to expand...

What was "defective". 830 in Sandy Springs was not build-able,

BTW when Wolf Creek (AD Frazier) sold (gave) WALH IIRC the land was part of the deal. section 5.6 of folliwing

https://licensing.fcc.gov/cdbs/CDBS...?appn=101298157&qnum=5040&copynum=1&exhcnum=1

This was a deal in that the land was worth $$.


Would 1340 would have city grade in Clayton, and then a freq swap 1340 for 1400 might have worked.
 
Jeff Laurence said:
You have to admire Art's tenacity in trying to keep local AM radio going. I'm sad to see all these AMs dying so quickly.
Click to expand...
WGHC on 1400 in Clayton and WALH on 1340 in Mountain City were not able to cover all of their local market in the daytime much less their very small nighttime signal. Fortunately thanks to the FCC allowing FM translators to repeat FM HD channels, we were able to move the simulcast on the two AMs to a crystal clear FM signal which has 75% of the coverage of a class A FM signal. Furthermore our studio/transmitter site lease had run out on WGHC and there was no alternative site which would allow the tiny 27 mv/m interference free nighttime signal to cover all of the corporate limits of Clayton which is just a one mile radius. The 24.5 mv/m IF of WALH barely covered Mountain City even with a half wave tall tower. Our WFSC and WNEG AM are legacy community stations, unlike WGHC and WALH and are still very viable. I don't foresee either of them ever going away but we plan to add big signal FM translators to both primarily to greatly enhance their nighttime reach. i have as much affection for AM as anyone but at the end of the day this is a business and with the few exceptions like the two stalwart AMs we operate, it's a FM world.
 
Actually, I think that Art has an HD-2 on the Clayton 104.1 that carries the former WGHC programming to feed the 100.3 translator. I would imagine that the WGHC/WALH listeners are glad to hear their programming on FM and few will miss the AM signals.
 
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