Ad in allaccess looking for teams, individuals, vets, & newbies. They're putting together a new morning show. Youtube, podcasts, texting, & social networking are mentioned. If that isn't an indication of how times have changed when you compare it to what a classified for a morning show might have looked like 10 years ago, I don't know what is. I'm not knocking it, as it's 2011 & you have to connect with your audience as it exists in 2011. I don't listen to the format, but think they placed a similar ad a while back but never went local. Hopefully they will this time. From someone who isn't a valid judge of the format or its execution, I still think D-Pain & Deanna Cruz are 2 of the best CHR oriented jocks in the market so hopefully they'll follow through this time & hire a morning drive team to round out the on-air lineup.
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HOT 106 GOING LOCAL MORNINGS?
- Thread starter Runrigger
- Start date
S
Santiago
Guest
Good to hear that HOT 106 will have a local morning show. It's GREAT news for Providence radio listeners. When I was at HOT in the 2000's we had Howard Stern in the mornings and it worked out very well for us, but local is the way to go now at HOT 106.
Great news to those Providence (and Johnston) listeners who can actually get the station with a decent signal. How about investing in a better signal near Neutaconkanut Hill on the Johnston and Providence border? The Lite Rock 105 tower greatly affects the Hot 106 signal in that area. On most home radios you can't get the station because of the intermod. Car radio, listenable but not clear. K-Love has a 38 watt translator on 104.7 in Cranston which has better reception in that area than Hot 106. I remember in the 90's they used to say "Kix 106, beaming down from the top of the Hospital Trust Tower!" Seriously, that would be an excellent location for their tower if they ever had one there.
N1WVQ said:
That seemed implied by the discussion below, ridiculous as it might seem. But was it? After all, there was serious thought, back in 1958, to building (then WLKW) 990 non-directional and at a much lower power with a rooftop antenna in downtown Providence. Could have saved all the real estate, tower costs and ongoing electrical cost, eliminate the need for first-class "babysitters" (at that time) and still have had approximately the same coverage. It was one man's desire to have 50-kW bragging rights that made idiocy prevail. I know 'cause I was there.
It was supposed to be 250W if it went up around Providence, wasn't it? I've also heard from the brother-in-law of a former engineer that that array was hell to maintain.VelvetR said:
At the risk of turning this thread into "50kW white elephants", there is a station in Jacksonville, Florida on 1530 that is a 50kW daytimer. Rumor was the box was now only capable of 1kW (this was about 10 years ago) or there was only a 1kW box. In the '80s it was country WCRJ but by the time I got down to Florida in 1997 it was WOBS, about the 20th religious station audible in Jacksonville. It went through a few different styles of religion. Then it became WYMM & eventually had a brokered sports format then back to religion then becoming the new home of WBOB, a 2nd-tier talker. Now WBOB is on 600 so I don't know what's on 1530.
Well, if 990 makes it, it will be 50 years old on April 12th. Here's to 50 years of running 49.75kW too many!
N1WVQ said:
The preliminary engineering showed approximately the same "metropolitan area" coverage with 50kW at Burillville or 250 Watts (a permissible power level then) on almost any downtown rooftop. The Industrial National Bank building was mentioned but it was easy to see that there'd be no practical way to have a ground system.
Money would have been better spent buying an existing station but one man had his heart set on 50kW. He had a major part of the money behind the project and was highly regarded by the other major investors though his expertise was hardly in anything technical.
What was amazing is the incredible popularity that was achieved in the first two years. The format was right for the time and revenues almost made it profitable - for a time.
Yes, the array was a bear to maintain though I never had to do that myself. In order to get accurate base current readings to have some indication that the pattern was correct it was essential, during those periods when it was being checked (daily) to pause three seconds between music/speech to let the meters settle long enough to get an accurate reading. BIG sign in the control room reminding the announcer/board-op to do those pauses. If you didn't, pretty quick came a nasty call from the engineer trying to get the readings.
Something I don't get: A.M. towers on top of buildings. What would constitute the ground. My understanding of A.M. grounding goes like this: there are copper radials (120 is the number I've commonly come across) buried in the ground, evenly spaced. They go to a ring that circles the base of the tower but isn't connected to it. The A.M. signal then uses that ground to stay closer to the earth instead of becoming skywave. So, what could a radiator on top of a building use for its ground. I suspect that's why there aren't many of those setups left. The only 2 I can recall of recent memory are the now-defunct WSAJ & the 1230 in L.A. which has since moved to a proper setup, I believe.
Ego over practicality. That's too bad. 250W would've been much more maintainable over the long run & best of all: no interruption in the signal path, unlike that granite vein that stops 990 from reaching Providence better.
990 was WLKW for years but was the original format BM/EZ?
I also heard from somebody that growing up around Woonsocket they remember a French-language F.M. on the air. Could this have been WWON-FM?
Ego over practicality. That's too bad. 250W would've been much more maintainable over the long run & best of all: no interruption in the signal path, unlike that granite vein that stops 990 from reaching Providence better.
990 was WLKW for years but was the original format BM/EZ?
I also heard from somebody that growing up around Woonsocket they remember a French-language F.M. on the air. Could this have been WWON-FM?
N1WVQ said:
It requires a pretty broad roof; flat or nearly flat. Conventional radials as you have described though often a tight copper mesh ground screen. At the perimeter, bonded to a copper strap that, is in turn, bonded to the steel frame of the building (if there is one). If no steel frame, Heavy copper (stranded) ground leads at each corner to a mess of ground rods. Wincharger made a tower that was neat for installing on buildings since it was supplied almost as a kit of small pieces that could be hauled up in an elevator.
Lots of early installations were horizontal and I'm sure many have seen examples on Fybush.com.
The original WALE, Fall River, had a Wincharger on the roof of The Durfee Theater Building. There was an FM radiator on top; the tower was originally built for a short-lived AM and had no ground system but it was built on an insulator in hopes of one day getting an AM assignment.
N1WVQ said:
WLKW signed on in 1959 as "The Sound of Beautiful Music". A sort of "wall of sound"....Mantovani, Frank Chacksfield, even some Lester Lannin. Very vew vocals. Each hour 1 male vocal; 1 female vocal; 2 choral. Each quarter hour opened with a BIG instrumental (like "Our State Fair") followed by a vocal and two to three "lesser instrumentals". The "jingles" (they were called "musical signatures") were written and produced by Mitch Leigh - who was also responsible for the music and, I think, some of the lyrics for the broadway production "Man of LaMancha".
Bo Bernstein (ad agency) produced the promotional stuff, including buying up most billboards for 30-miles around....billboards even where the station couldn't be heard.
I do recall some French programming on WWON-AM but have only a vague memory of their FM. You may be right.
Surprised that a counterpoise wasn't thought of for the 250 watt-ND possibility. I've read of some stations using them. 1230 Los Angeles used a flat top for years, but the owners tried dropping it once and diplexing with their co-owned 1580, to try to reach the Korean speaking population. Signal was worse off the diplex than the flattop, so back to the flattop it went. I believe the station is now running a DA.
DG02816 said:
No consideration at all was given to the possible rooftop at 250W. configuration. Triumph of ego over reality.
In the case of WALE, the radials laid on the rooftop were tantamount to a counterpoise since their only contacts with earth ground were at the perimeter and to each other at the tower base....no soil with which to have contact, it being a roof lthe equivalent of about 4 stories up.
I know of several other stations where radials are specified in the license as unburied as the type soil makes burial impossible.
Since ice doesn't conduct worth a damn one might think of those radials as constituting a counterpoise.
I think I found a pic of the building with the tower: http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d21/musirama/fall river theaters/durfee5.jpg
Not to bring this back to the original topic but I'll believe that morning "team" when I hear it. They advertised before then went with Big Boy. Unless Hot's continual ratings slide is leading them to believe they need some AM drive local loyalty this isn't going to happen. If they go local at all it will be two people max.
N1WVQ said:
Indeed that is the original WALE tower. The photo was taken from the back of the building, from the cars in the picture I'd guess it was not long before the building was torn down to make way for a highway.
Access to the tower was: Through the theater lobby; up into the top balcony; up into the projection booth (via a very steep stairway) then up a vertical ladder into a sort of shack on the roof. Along the way one passed through a vast attic in which the additional steel supports for the tower had been added. How they were gotten up there I'll never know!
Part of the duties of we weekend combo ops was to run a 15-minute ET (Electrical Transcription, a 16" vinyl disc" with some religious program and scurry up to the roof to grab a base current reading and then get back down before the needle "pegged". Yes, I remember the day when there was a scratch on one of the discs and some preacher was heard to say: "Jesus Christ....Jesus Christ....Jesus Christ....." over and over and over until the tone arm was given a gentle shove.
No, it was NOT me to whom that happened.
That story about the transcription disc was funny but I can't imagine getting up to that shack to read the base current, especially when old movie palaces are naturally creepy to begin with!
So you did see the F.M. XMTR.? Too bad they didn't get it back on air. When did Fall River lose its F.M. allocations? I know WCFR-FM was on 100.9 but allegedly there was also to be a WCFR-TV on channel 1!
So you did see the F.M. XMTR.? Too bad they didn't get it back on air. When did Fall River lose its F.M. allocations? I know WCFR-FM was on 100.9 but allegedly there was also to be a WCFR-TV on channel 1!
N1WVQ said:
The Durfee Theater was not at all creepy! It was one of the "Movie Palaces" built in its' day and had frequent stage shows as well. I recall taking a date there to see a live road-show production of "Fiddler On The Roof". There was a magnificent pipe organ which may have been salvaged. Today that would be an historic site and not demolished....as would the old Fall River victorian-era city hall.
Yes, the FM transmitter was in that storage area between the control room and theater men's room. It was a Raytheon, very close to identical (external appearance) to the 250-Watt AM. Only the designations on the meters were different. I'm pretty sure WCFR-FM went away as the AM was put on the air though I'm not certain. That would have been in about 1948. Reason I say this is that the AM was fed with an open-wire transmission line and there was a coax line along side it that was cut off at the tower base. I saw no evidence, ever, of anything that would have gotten the FM signal up the tower across the base insulator though there may have been something that was removed. Definitely no coax up the tower though the FM antenna stayed up top with the beacon atop it. I believe the allocation persisted for a number of years but was never reaactivated. Notably WSAR had an FM on the air at the same time and let it go away pretty quickly, too. That was about the time The Outlet Company abandoned WJAR-FM - actually gave it away to Providence-Barrington Bible College. There were very few FM receivers; they were very expensive (and excellent quality) but they were pretty well priced out the reach of a mass audience.
Here's a link to a website with a Raytheon ad preserved....I believe the transmitter shown is the very model WCFR-FM had though there is a "dress panel" in place over the various controls. The AM had a similar panel sitting on the floor but it was never in place.
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl...m/Images/Raytheon_FM_Transmitter.jpg&imgrefur
If that doesn't work, just "Google (images)" 'Raytheon 250 Watt FM transmitter'.
I guess I shouldn't have been quite so accurate in quoting what the transcription repeated as I've had log-in problems ever since. I think somebody may have been offended though no offense was intended.
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