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Entercom and WRUF AM/FM

J

Jeff2

"Entercom and the University’s College of Journalism and Communications enter into seven-year agreement with WRUF-AM and WRUF-FM

BALA CYNWYD, PA and GAINESVILLE, FL – Today the University of Florida and Entercom Communications announced a new seven-year economic and educational partnership with WRUF-AM and WRUF-FM effective September 1.

Entercom, one of the nation’s leading radio broadcasting companies, will represent the stations’ commercial advertising sales efforts through a joint sales agreement with the University of Florida’s College of Journalism and Communications."

UF students will be able to gain experience with WSKY, WKTK, and other Entercom stations.

http://www.jou.ufl.edu/news/2012/08/28/uf-and-entercom-communications-announce-new-economic-and-educational-partnership/
 
I wonder if this is the first step in an eventual sale of the stations to Entercom? They would still have WUFT TV/FM and the weather station for student experiences.
 
From our "What's News?" page; Entercom will be creating an "academic enhancement initiative" which will create internships and other opportunities for UF students at the company’s stations in Gainesville and other Entercom stations.
Sort of like a baseball farm team.

Bob Padilla
www.cflradio.net
 
Jeff said:
They would still have WUFT TV/FM and the weather station for student experiences.
Click to expand...

What is this "weather station" that you speak of?

Doesn't UF have WUFT, the PBS TV station, and WUFT-FM, the NPR station, along with another full power non-com FM that primarily plays Classical music and a LPTV that complements the full power PBS and carries adult educational programming... or has the LPTV been moved to a WUFT-DT sub channel....
UF also has that non-com NPR over on the Nature Coast. Does it just simulcast WUFT-FM or is there some deviation from the Gainesville NPR program lineup? Does UF have any other radio stations (or maybe a LPFM or some translators) in the north-central Florida area?

Has any UF owned TV or radio station ever targeted or been considered "local" to Jacksonville? Was Rock 104 ever competing for listeners in Jacksonville, like back in the 1970s and 1980s when the dial wasn't so cluttered and 100kw FMs covered and had audiences over huge swaths of land. Rock 104 should have been listenable in the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic ocean along with Orlando and Jacksonville... maybe even Tampa... before all the small town FMs filled the holes on the dial.

I could just look all this up, but I've already typed the post so maybe I'll press "post."
 
They changed the LP station that used to broadcast educational and PBS stuff to a 24 weather station that is on Ch. 6 on Cox cable. WUFT-FM is now all NPR news/talk (maybe some music overnight). Classical music is on their HD-2 channel and I think Hispanic on HD-3. WJUF (Nature Coast) is a simulcast of WUFT-FM.

WUFT-FM was third in the spring ratings for Gainesville-Ocala.
 
I actually clicked on your link and read the page. Gainesville has really changed since the last time I was east of Tallahassee.
I found it very interesting that they have included an internet radio station as a "media property" and that they are using a channel number to identify the internet radio station...

... so www.rock104.com is now a student run radio station operating from the college. Does anyone like it and does it have any listeners? I noticed they have an iPhone app, but I'm satisfied with the KEXP Seattle app for listening to foreign stations.
 
poledo said:
Has any UF owned TV or radio station ever targeted or been considered "local" to Jacksonville? Was Rock 104 ever competing for listeners in Jacksonville, like back in the 1970s and 1980s when the dial wasn't so cluttered and 100kw FMs covered and had audiences over huge swaths of land.
Click to expand...

Back in the '70s WRUF-FM was operating with only 27.5kw ERP and broadcasting from a 300+/- foot tower which is one of the WRUF-AM towers located off Tower Road. The signal pretty much covered only Gainesville before 1981. WRUF-FM upgraded to 100kw sometime in '81 and them moved to the 781 foot WUFT-FM-TV tower around 1985. Even then it has never had a marketable Jacksonville signal.
 
jmtillery said:
poledo said:
Has any UF owned TV or radio station ever targeted or been considered "local" to Jacksonville? Was Rock 104 ever competing for listeners in Jacksonville, like back in the 1970s and 1980s when the dial wasn't so cluttered and 100kw FMs covered and had audiences over huge swaths of land.
Click to expand...

Back in the '70s WRUF-FM was operating with only 27.5kw ERP and broadcasting from a 300+/- foot tower which is one of the WRUF-AM towers located off Tower Road. The signal pretty much covered only Gainesville before 1981. WRUF-FM upgraded to 100kw sometime in '81 and them moved to the 781 foot WUFT-FM-TV tower around 1985. Even then it has never had a marketable Jacksonville signal.
Click to expand...

The tower was 429' (center of radiation at about 375') and there was a horrible Collins 5kW transmitter (that stuggled to make 3.5kW) driving a 10 or 12 bay Phelps Dodge antenna. The Collins was replaced by a very rugged 20kW CCA transmitter bringing the ERP to 100kW. That CCA transmitter was still the main a few years ago, but it may have become the standby more recently. When the WUFT tower was replaced after being knocked down in an airplane crash, it was provisioned to hold WRUF. The signal did reach Jax while driving, but as Mark mentioned, was not competative with local signals in Jax.
 
My very first paying job ever was babysitting both WRUF transmitters for $1.85/hour, minimum wage +20¢.
Don't remember the details, but the old AM transmitter was tuned to the night time array and the newer one was tuned to the omni pattern. A panel of light bulbs made up a dummy load with proper electrical characteristics at 5KW. The FM transmitter was on the west wall of the room. Both stations received audio via telco twisted pairs. Here is the one important thing I remember, though: The bike ride from campus to radio road was mostly downhill. This would have placed the HAAT less than the height above ground.

Two side notes: From an apartment near campus, I had a large FM antenna fifty feet high on a rotator and I could never receive WIVY (102.9) from Jax because WRUF's AM & FM signals mixed to produce wide signals at 102.85 and 104.55. With my shortwave radio, WRUF was quite receivable on their second harmonic, 1700.

I remember the CE was Ed "Sparks" Slimack, W4KZO. The main transmitter guy whose name escapes me, lived in another part of, on the south side of, the transmitter building.
 
ai4i said:
I remember the CE was Ed "Sparks" Slimack, W4KZO. The main transmitter guy whose name escapes me, lived in another part of, on the south side of, the transmitter building.
Click to expand...

Steve Padgett is possibly who you're thinking of. After Steve it was Chuck Conlon, but Chuck didn't live at the transmitter. I think Steve was the last to do so. I'm not sure who was the transmitter supervisor before Steve. Ed passed away about 5 years ago after struggling with a bad heart for several years. Chuck is retired in Georgia and Steve was a professor somewhere when last I heard.
 
Must have been the guy before him, I don't remember that name.
Sorry about Ed, W4KZO has not been listed with QRZ.com since I first discovered the website.
I think he was active with local repeaters, but I was not yet a ham.
 
I believe Sparks' callsign was W4KZL. He could occasionally be heard on the GARS 146.82 repeater, but not real often. I think he was more interested in HF. For a few years, he had his own commercial AM radio station operating from his farm in Hawthorne, but it was expensive to run and he eventually turned it off and gave up the license.
 
I stand corrected. From QRZ.com:
W4KZL is the XYL of Sparks W4EAS...Rossie then applied for W4KZL after Sparks obtained his vanity call W4EAS.
 
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