Family Stations Will Sell 94.7FM WFME Newark

[fybush]

Which will make the move to Empire necessary to compete for those 10 Million people.

What do you do about WIGX 94.3A in Smithtown? It's not short-spaced to the present WFME, but the quirks of the spacing rules are such that it's impossibly short-spaced to Empire, so much so that it can't be directionalized or grandfathered out of being an issue.

You've suggested in the past that money can solve everything, but maybe not in this case: even if a putative deep-pocketed buyer of WFME wanted to also buy WIGX, there's nowhere WIGX can be moved to "get it out of the way." Go east and you're short to WHJY, north and you exacerbate the existing grandfathered short to WYBC-FM, south and you're in the water. And it's longstanding FCC policy that has never been waived that you can't just make an existing allocation go away.

 

[Barry]

If a New Jersey and beyond format such as country is broadcast on WFME, the expense/difficulty of moving the station could be avoided. And if Cumulus is the buyer, they have the option of using WFAS as a simulcast, either from its current location in White Plains, or moved into the Bronx!

 

[WNTIRadio]

Which will make the move to Empire necessary to compete for those 10 Million people.

37kW on South Mountain in NJ or 600W DA on Empire? I dunno, I know that there's the "overload issue", but I'd rather have the 38kW on South Mountain. In my car, WFME comes in fine in Manhattan.

And, if the buildings-as-terrain is a problem, there's a big 54dBu contour that an on-channel booster can be placed in, directionalized to fill in the areas shadowed by the skyscrapers. Plenty of room on the roof at 4TS. The 54 goes out past Levittown on Long Island. That's a lot of room for a booster to fill out Queens and Nassau counties.

 

[SonoSational18]

It would appear that 94.3 could slide eastward almost 20 miles and not be an issue with 94.1 in Providence. It woud cause it to be further short-spaced with 94.3 New Haven, but since most of that's over water, that could probably be handled with a directional. I am, though seeing some short spacing approved that is way inside the FCC requirements. For instance, here in NE Ohio, WKDD was recently granted a move to a transmitter site in Cuyahoga Falls. That's less than 10 miles away from 3rd Adjacent Class B WONE on 97.5 and less than 20 away rom 3rd-Adj. Class B WNCX on 98.5. With some creative engineering and a DA, I'm pretty conident that WFME could move to the ESB.

 

[fybush]

It would appear that 94.3 could slide eastward almost 20 miles and not be an issue with 94.1 in Providence. It woud cause it to be further short-spaced with 94.3 New Haven, but since most of that's over water, that could probably be handled with a directional. I am, though seeing some short spacing approved that is way inside the FCC requirements. For instance, here in NE Ohio, WKDD was recently granted a move to a transmitter site in Cuyahoga Falls. That's less than 10 miles away from 3rd Adjacent Class B WONE on 97.5 and less than 20 away rom 3rd-Adj. Class B WNCX on 98.5. With some creative engineering and a DA, I'm pretty conident that WFME could move to the ESB.

There is a very, very big difference between the Ohio example you cite and this case, though.

What's now WKDD on 98.1 was allocated before 1964, as were the stations that are now WONE and WNCX, and those stations have remained short-spaced to each other ever since. As a result, they're eligible to use the provisions of 73.213, which has no restriction on spacing between grandfathered second- and third-adjacent signals. If there weren't other factors at play, 98.1 could have moved all the way into the Seven Hills/Parma tower farm without having to worry about WONE or WNCX.

As has been explored pretty extensively here by Play Freebird and others, WFME doesn't have that same luxury. While there is indeed some "creative engineering" that could be done to make WFME work at Empire with respect to another big obstacle, co-channel WMAS-FM Enfield CT (especially if WFME is purchased by WMAS-FM's owner, Cumulus), it was Freebird who first noted 73.213 does not apply to the WFME/WIGX spacing. While both signals are pre-1964, they're not grandfathered short-spaced because they're not short-spaced under the current rules (73.207). And without being able to use the grandfathering provisions of 73.213, you have to turn instead to a different set of short-spacing rules, 73.215...which includes a mileage-spacing table that makes it very clear that WFME-at-Empire and WIGX don't qualify, DA or no DA.

And, again, there is no room on the Empire mast for a separate directional antenna, nor would it be financially feasible for a single station to pay rent for an FM antenna aperture there, even if room existed.

Laying all that aside, WIGX is already egregiously short-spaced to WYBC-FM, and the rules don't allow for that short-spacing to be further increased, either.

(On another matter, I'm also not fully convinced that a booster would be the right answer for WFME, either. Boosters are great when there's massive terrain blockage between the main site and the booster, which is why they're mostly seen out west. In Salt Lake City, for instance, there's a site 60 miles out of town that was specifically designed to be completely blocked from the core of the market by the Wasatch Mountains in between. That allows for powerful boosters to "fill in" the signal over Salt Lake City itself. But in the case of WFME, there's lots of WFME RF that gets past the skyscrapers to the east side of Manhattan and beyond; it's just multipath-distorted and messy. Throw a booster against that and you're only adding to the mess, as WFUV and WFMU have been learning with their own booster attempts in Manhattan and Brooklyn.)

 

[badjef]

Which will make the move to Empire necessary to compete for those 10 Million people.

What do you do about WIGX 94.3A in Smithtown? It's not short-spaced to the present WFME, but the quirks of the spacing rules are such that it's impossibly short-spaced to Empire, so much so that it can't be directionalized or grandfathered out of being an issue.

You've suggested in the past that money can solve everything, but maybe not in this case: even if a putative deep-pocketed buyer of WFME wanted to also buy WIGX, there's nowhere WIGX can be moved to "get it out of the way." Go east and you're short to WHJY, north and you exacerbate the existing grandfathered short to WYBC-FM, south and you're in the water. And it's longstanding FCC policy that has never been waived that you can't just make an existing allocation go away.

I would love to talk about "south", but I'll keep our conversation on a more realistic and practical basis, for now.

I don't see how our scenario gets cut "short" when you have WFAS doing the opposite.
As a Class A in White Plains, is not only able to move in, but change a City of License to inside the 5 Boroughs - and it is not one of the "Sacred 20+5" frequencies as is 94.7.

Jeff in Sa-ra-so-ta!

 

[badjef]

Which will make the move to Empire necessary to compete for those 10 Million people.

37kW on South Mountain in NJ or 600W DA on Empire? I dunno, I know that there's the "overload issue", but I'd rather have the 38kW on South Mountain. In my car, WFME comes in fine in Manhattan.

And, if the buildings-as-terrain is a problem, there's a big 54dBu contour that an on-channel booster can be placed in, directionalized to fill in the areas shadowed by the skyscrapers. Plenty of room on the roof at 4TS. The 54 goes out past Levittown on Long Island. That's a lot of room for a booster to fill out Queens and Nassau counties.

The 54 goes out that far but not without problem. Consider that the antenna is only 800 feet above sea level. Empire is approximately 1,300ft above sea level at 1,250ft above street level. None of the other buildings are that high, but they are getting closer.

There are approximately 15 buildings that exceed the height of 800ft. The signal then has to wrap around the other buildings to make it to street level or inside the buildings.

The "signal vector" I have mentioned before comes into play. Instead of taking the signal from the top, it is coming in from the side.

You know, I remember thinking of all these scenarios through the 70's and 80's before I moved to Sa-ra-so-ta!, I feel as though I'm living the song, "Welcome to the Future". I'm glad I lived long enough to see this and my grand-children - and I thank God, I'm still young enough to enjoy it.


Jeff in Sa-ra-so-ta!

 

[WNTIRadio]

I would love to talk about "south", but I'll keep our conversation on a more realistic and practical basis, for now.

I don't see how our scenario gets cut "short" when you have WFAS doing the opposite.
As a Class A in White Plains, is not only able to move in, but change a City of License to inside the 5 Boroughs - and it is not one of the "Sacred 20+5" frequencies as is 94.7.

Jeff in Sa-ra-so-ta!

You're totally missing that both 96.7 and 103.9 are pre-1964 grandfathered stations, like Scott 'splained above. They can move. All 103.9 has to do is stay 16km away from Empire because of 10.7MHz IF issues. The site in the Bronx satisfies that need.

A directional antenna on Empire, while being mucho-expsensivo also has the problem of where the heck do you put the thing?? There's no room at the inn! Look at all the creative antenna hanging that had to be done to put all of the TV stations back there after 9/11.

However, there is some room on 4TS. But again, 4TS brings up all of those allocation table issues mentioned above. Since the commercial band works on allocation tables and not contour protection like non-comm, it can't move to Empire even with a DA. If it were in the reserved band, we wouldn't be having this conversation. WBGO made the move with a DA easily to 4TS.

If 94.7 could have easily been moved to NYC, don't you think that would have been done long ago?

The other option could be a taller tower at the site in NJ if it could get by all the NIMBYs. A 400' tower would put the COR at 1,050'. A 600' tower would place it at 1,250'. Of course, the chance of a 600' tower being built there is probably slim to none.

 

[tomservo]

I'm glad you guys have discussed the booster option because I was going to bring it up earlier.

Since the skyscaper wall that is Manhattan isn't solid like a ridge and lets some RF through from WFME, could there be a creative solution to make a booster work? Like maybe using different polarities for the parent and booster, or using beam tilt in some creative fashion since WFME's signal vector is so low?

 

[nd2023]

The interference between a main and a booster sounds bad. I remember hearing about 10 miles of interference between the main and the booster of 94.5 The Vibe in Las Vegas on the highway between the booster site and the main transmitter site, but no interference after passing the booster site going downhill towards Vegas. The booster is 50 miles away from the main. The main is a 100000 watt class C and the booster is only 340 watts. The booster is on a mountain between Las Vegas and the 94.5 main transmitter. Before the booster went on the air, 94.5 was nearly inaudible in Vegas, except on the upper floors of the casinos. After the booster went on the air, 94.5 could be heard well in Vegas.

The 10 miles of interference there is in the middle of the desert. Even 1 mile of interference over here can affect a million people. There is no terrain blocking 94.7 from Manhattan.

One thing that could happen would be that the new owner of 94.7 also buys 87.7. That signal is better towards the north and east, because the Manhattan buildings block it to the west. 87.7 also suffers from overloading near Empire, but it can be heard well in the eastern half of Manhattan. There's also an overmodulated powerful pirate station on 87.9 in Newark that interferes with 87.7 after it passes through the Manhattan skyscrapers, further interfering with it, but 94.7 is there.

I wonder how 94.7's HD signal would be in Manhattan if it had HD. Would it be resistant to multipath, or would it drop out? The Empire signals are orders of magnitude stronger in Manhattan, and the HD can withstand a 60 dB difference in signal strength while moving. However, I doubt the new owner of 94.7 will downgrade it to HD because they now know that no one is listening in HD 9 years after HD debuted on 102.7 Blink.

 

[badjef]

I would love to talk about "south", but I'll keep our conversation on a more realistic and practical basis, for now.

I don't see how our scenario gets cut "short" when you have WFAS doing the opposite.
As a Class A in White Plains, is not only able to move in, but change a City of License to inside the 5 Boroughs - and it is not one of the "Sacred 20+5" frequencies as is 94.7.

Jeff in Sa-ra-so-ta!

You're totally missing that both 96.7 and 103.9 are pre-1964 grandfathered stations, like Scott 'splained above. They can move. All 103.9 has to do is stay 16km away from Empire because of 10.7MHz IF issues. The site in the Bronx satisfies that need.

Those issues don't come into play with 94.7. And 94.7 is grandfathered as a full "B". Admit it or not, it is a New York City "B". It just has a Newark, New Jersey City of License, just as WHTZ.

A directional antenna on Empire, while being mucho-expsensivo also has the problem of where the heck do you put the thing?? There's no room at the inn! Look at all the creative antenna hanging that had to be done to put all of the TV stations back there after 9/11.

A lot of that room has been cleared out due to the removal of the equipment following the analogue shut down. (God Bless, Alex Smirnoff)

However, there is some room on 4TS. But again, 4TS brings up all of those allocation table issues mentioned above. Since the commercial band works on allocation tables and not contour protection like non-comm, it can't move to Empire even with a DA. If it were in the reserved band, we wouldn't be having this conversation. WBGO made the move with a DA easily to 4TS.

4TS might be an option. And a change of heart with regard to having a "real" antenna on 1WTC. This discussion has been primarily focusing on an Empire installation.

If 94.7 could have easily been moved to NYC, don't you think that would have been done long ago?

No, as far as Family was concerned, Oakland was where the studios were and 94.7 was a translator for it. They had no debt with 94.7 and the signal was acceptable for what they wanted to accomplish with it. No desire to move it.

The other option could be a taller tower at the site in NJ if it could get by all the NIMBYs. A 400' tower would put the COR at 1,050'. A 600' tower would place it at 1,250'. Of course, the chance of a 600' tower being built there is probably slim to none.

Yeah, you're right about that.
That ain't going to happen, either. As they would have to lower power as they raised the antenna, effects from multipath, and front end overload would be worse (in the City) than what they have, now. There is a Manhattan "D" application for 105.5 that may come into play with intermod. And then there's the NIMBY factor, you mention where they are, (you can see the current antenna from the South Orange train station)...

As all these factors come into play, the move to Empire becomes a necessity.

Jeff in Sa-ra-so-ta!

 

[w9wi]

One thing that could happen would be that the new owner of 94.7 also buys 87.7. That signal is better towards the north and east, because the Manhattan buildings block it to the west. 87.7 also suffers from overloading near Empire, but it can be heard well in the eastern half of Manhattan. There's also an overmodulated powerful pirate station on 87.9 in Newark that interferes with 87.7 after it passes through the Manhattan skyscrapers, further interfering with it, but 94.7 is there.

Problem is, 87.7 goes away in three years.

 

[fybush]

You're totally missing that both 96.7 and 103.9 are pre-1964 grandfathered stations, like Scott 'splained above. They can move. All 103.9 has to do is stay 16km away from Empire because of 10.7MHz IF issues. The site in the Bronx satisfies that need.

Those issues don't come into play with 94.7. And 94.7 is grandfathered as a full "B". Admit it or not, it is a New York City "B". It just has a Newark, New Jersey City of License, just as WHTZ.

Once more, with feeling:

When the current spacing rules took effect in 1964, these pairs of stations did not meet the new mileage tables:

96.7 Stamford CT - 96.3 NYC (then at Chanin Bldg.)
96.7 Stamford CT - 97.1 NYC (then at ESB)

103.9 White Plains - 103.5 Lake Success (then along the LIE)
103.9 White Plains - 104.3 NYC (then on E. 40th St, I think)

93.5 New Rochelle - 93.1 Paterson (then on one of the 930 towers?)
93.5 New Rochelle - 93.9 NYC (then on the Municipal Building)

Because those pairs of stations were not fully-spaced according to the 1964 rules, they were grandfathered in and have had no spacing restrictions against each other ever since. That's why 93.9 96.3 and 103.5 and 104.3 had no issues (at least with respect to the suburban class As) with moving to Empire or to other NYC sites, and it's why 96.7 and 103.9 and 93.5 were subsequently able to relocate to the Bronx. (Though 103.9, it should be noted, is licensed not to "The Bronx" but to "Bronxville," which is entirely another kettle of more upscale fish.)

But, again, in 1964 this pair of stations was fully spaced according to the new mileage table:

94.7 Newark NJ - 94.3 Smithtown NY (then, presumably, on one of the 740 towers)

Full spacing in 1964 meant no grandfathering, which means any subsequent move for either station cannot be done according to the special rules in section 73.213, but must instead comply with the post-1964 rules in 73.207 (full spacing) or 73.215 (short-spacing). None of the possible NYC transmitter locations for 94.7 are far enough from 94.3 in Smithtown to comply with the mileage tables in 73.207, and what's more, they don't even comply with the "absolute minimum" mileage tables in 73.215.

 

[badjef]

One thing that could happen would be that the new owner of 94.7 also buys 87.7. That signal is better towards the north and east, because the Manhattan buildings block it to the west. 87.7 also suffers from overloading near Empire, but it can be heard well in the eastern half of Manhattan. There's also an overmodulated powerful pirate station on 87.9 in Newark that interferes with 87.7 after it passes through the Manhattan skyscrapers, further interfering with it, but 94.7 is there.

Problem is, 87.7 goes away in three years.

Too bad, I like the signal from 87.7. That little sucker has a lot of punch for what it is.

Jeff in Sa-ra-so-ta!

 

[Gregg]

Maybe this has been covered already but why could 93.1 WPAT-FM move its transmitter to Manhattan (Chrysler Building I think?) with 93.1 WHYN-FM as a full-power Class B in Springfield MA. But 94.7 WFME would be short-spaced to 94.7 WMAS, at least when it was also licensed to Springfield? WMAS, as pointed out, has a lesser coverage area than WHYN-FM due to its short tower.

By the way, has this also been discussed? Why did WMAS move its City of License to Enfield CT anyway? Why would a station with MAS in its call letters move to a community in Connecticut? Does it have something to do with 97.9 WPKX, formerly licensed to Enfield, moving to Windsor Locks and becoming a Hartford-area station? WPKX is Clear Channel, WMAS is Cumulus. I could understand Clear Channel wanting the FCC to know Enfield wasn't losing a station, and moving one of its other stations to an Enfield COL. But WMAS and WPKX are not co-owned. WMAS moving to Enfiled technically puts it closer to NYC, even if the transmitter doesn't move an inch. And that further complicates WFME improving its signal to the East.


Gregg
[email protected]

 

[WNTIRadio]

One thing that could happen would be that the new owner of 94.7 also buys 87.7. That signal is better towards the north and east, because the Manhattan buildings block it to the west. 87.7 also suffers from overloading near Empire, but it can be heard well in the eastern half of Manhattan. There's also an overmodulated powerful pirate station on 87.9 in Newark that interferes with 87.7 after it passes through the Manhattan skyscrapers, further interfering with it, but 94.7 is there.

The clock is ticking on 87.7. All of the analog TV translators and LPTV's are going to be shut down soon, probably in less than 3 years.

I don't see any legitimate company simulcasting their signal on a "Franken FM" TV as radio setup. Or sending their audience to a station that some radios can't receive.

And my a** that's running the 300 watt aural power into the DA like it's supposed to. It seems a lot more like 3kW of visual power is also being run on the aural side. AND, while we're at it, they aren't modulating under TV rules either. No BTSC, but regular FM MPX and 75kHz deviation.

 

[fybush]

The WMAS-FM "move" to Enfield was indeed part of a larger deal that allowed WPKX to move into Windsor Locks/Hartford. What was then Citadel accepted the COL change in exchange for Clear Channel providing it with a generator atop Sandia Crest in Albuquerque for the Citadel stations there. Clear Channel got to pull 97.9 out of "Enfield" and move it into Hartford, WMAS-FM retained the fiction of "first local service" to Enfield, and then there was a second piece of the deal that involved Clear Channel and Hall for modifications to Hall's 97.7 and 100.9 in eastern Connecticut.

At the time Citadel did that deal, WFME and New York City wasn't a factor in anyone's thinking, since nobody knew Family was going to sell or that Citadel would be sold to Cumulus, which would be in a position to buy.

As for WPAT-FM versus WHYN-FM, that move happened under an earlier version of the spacing rules. It couldn't be done today...and indeed, the short-spacing between those two signals is the cause for what's now a ten-year FCC battle that's kept WPAT-FM from being fully relicensed to Empire; it's been operating at reduced power from Empire under STA ever since 9/11.

 

[w9wi]

One thing that could happen would be that the new owner of 94.7 also buys 87.7. That signal is better towards the north and east, because the Manhattan buildings block it to the west. 87.7 also suffers from overloading near Empire, but it can be heard well in the eastern half of Manhattan. There's also an overmodulated powerful pirate station on 87.9 in Newark that interferes with 87.7 after it passes through the Manhattan skyscrapers, further interfering with it, but 94.7 is there.

The clock is ticking on 87.7. All of the analog TV translators and LPTV's are going to be shut down soon, probably in less than 3 years.

I don't see any legitimate company simulcasting their signal on a "Franken FM" TV as radio setup. Or sending their audience to a station that some radios can't receive.

I think the ones on channel 6 that are already operating as radio stations will probably continue to do so until the deadline. Don't think I'd be starting a new one though.

And my a** that's running the 300 watt aural power into the DA like it's supposed to. It seems a lot more like 3kW of visual power is also being run on the aural side. AND, while we're at it, they aren't modulating under TV rules either. No BTSC, but regular FM MPX and 75kHz deviation.

If analog LPTVs were held to the same aural power limit as full-power analog stations, the limit would be 660 watts. (22% of visual. It was VERY common for full-power analog stations to operate at an aural power of 10% of visual, but anything up to 22% was legal and a fair number of stations used 15% or 20%.)

But that rule doesn't apply to LPTVs. Neither does the one limiting aural modulation to 25KHz.

Full-power stations are regulated under Part 73. Low-power stations are in Part 74. The FCC didn't duplicate most of the technical regulations for LPs -- they incorporated them by reference. There's a rule in Part 74 that contains a list of full-power rules in Part 73 that also apply to -LP stations. The rules limiting aural power & deviation are not in that list.

Actually, by my reading regular FM MPX would have been legal for *full-power* stations. (as well as for -LPs) It was necessary to protect the 15.734KHz BTSC pilot tone, but the FM MPX standard does that. Of course, the peak deviation limits *did* apply to full-power stations, and on any channel except 6 there would be no receivers capable of receiving it...

 

[WNTIRadio]

Those issues don't come into play with 94.7. And 94.7 is grandfathered as a full "B". Admit it or not, it is a New York City "B". It just has a Newark, New Jersey City of License, just as WHTZ.

Yes and no. It's a full B. But it's a B with a transmitter site in NJ, 12 miles west of NYC. Period. WHTZ was able to move to Empire for a variety of reasons. Among them are: 1) the rules were different then and 2) it mitigated a lot of interference with the 100.3 in Philly.

Just because it transmits in roughly the same area doesn't mean that it automatically waives all rules and qualifies to get plugged in to the ERI master on Empire. There are other stations on the dial that also have protection from WFME.

I think the ones on channel 6 that are already operating as radio stations will probably continue to do so until the deadline. Don't think I'd be starting a new one though.

And that deadline could come any day. The LPTV's are of limited value, especially now, except for ones that can be used as radio stations. NPR is lobbying pretty heavily to get an analog sunset on LPTV, because it gives a lot of member stations a noisy neighbor at the top of the dial!

 

[LA_Guy]

Scott, I predict that 94.7 WILL move to Empire as a full non-directional class B FM station.

94.3 in Smithtown already receives tons of destructive co-channel interference from stations in New Haven, CT and Asbury Park, NJ. All the new owner of 94.7 has to do is show that their second adjacent interference happens where you can't get Smithtown anyway and the FCC will grant a waiver.

94.7 in Enfield will not be a factor due to the fact that they are a grandfathered station with facilities far below maximum class B due to 94.5 in Boston.