I'm a little late reporting this. Been busy. A couple of months ago, 103.5 WHVK (K-Love) New Hope/Huntsville, was granted an upgrade in signal. They went from 449m HAAT, to 463m HAAT and increased power from a measly 290 watts, to an improved 800 watts. This puts their new 60 dBu coverage encompassing most of Madison County, now including the Capshaw, Harvest, and New Market areas, but still falling just short on the extreme north end just before the Hazel Green and Bobo communities. Also noteworthy is the extension the upgrade gives to their 50 dBu coverage which now covers the Athens, Decatur, and Hartselle metro areas where it fell short before. This moves the station from class A, to class C3 status. The second upgrade the station made was adding digital HD, which surprisingly was received better in Huntsville than I thought it would for a small station, but still breaking up once you get outside of the city limits while in motion. There are no HD subchannels yet, but at least one is coming. I remember reading a story a year or two ago that detailed a lease agreement EMF made with American Family Association, that would give American Family use of one of EMF's HD subchannels in select markets (I think there were 7 or 8 of them give or take) and Huntsville was one of those markets. American Family already operates a translator in Huntsville at 93.7 airing religious and family programming. It currently operates at a mere 10 watts at 288.8m HAAT from Monte Sano Mountain. It holds a construction permit to upgrade to 78 watts at the same height, which in order to complete, would legally need a full power parent signal to simulcast. Ergo, WHVF's HD subchannel. The CP already lists WHVK as the parent signal. So I would suspect that it is only a brief matter of time before American Family has a stronger presence in the Huntsville Metro area. The question is, will K-Love bring Air-1 to another HD subchannel on 103.5 with a possible translator to pair it with in the future? I don't see why not.
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K-Love Huntsville Upgrades, in more ways than one
- Thread starter RollTide
- Start date
My understand is the AFR Talk will be on the HD3 and Air1 one will be on the HD2.
I didn't think the upgrade had been put on the air yet, though. WLAY in the Shoals has to move to 100.1 first, and when I asked about that, they said they had no firms plans but were shooting for late summer/early fall.
By the way, according to the digital notification they filed, they are running all of 12 watts for the digital. That's what, not even 0.5%?
I expect that to go up when the upgrade goes on air.
I didn't think the upgrade had been put on the air yet, though. WLAY in the Shoals has to move to 100.1 first, and when I asked about that, they said they had no firms plans but were shooting for late summer/early fall.
By the way, according to the digital notification they filed, they are running all of 12 watts for the digital. That's what, not even 0.5%?
I expect that to go up when the upgrade goes on air.
They have indeed launched Air-1 on their HD2 subchannel. The sound quality and coverage is not very good but I'm assuming after the station completes all upgrades they will tweak it to be better. Also, the Air-1 feed is a direct simulcast of KHRI Hollister, CA. That was the legal ID, not WHVK HD2 New Hope. This too I'm sure will be fixed. Speaking of their upgrade, they just filed to improve their newly granted CP from 800 watts to 900 watts with the same newly granted facility specs expanding the coverage just slightly.
Thanks for the update on Air1, RollTide, I appreciate it.
It's not worth starting a new thread over this, but while K-Love is busy trying to raise their power, I noticed that WLOR has filed an app to lower theirs, from 50 kW days to 28 kW. I guess with the station being heard on FM, they don't need that big power bill anymore.
It's not worth starting a new thread over this, but while K-Love is busy trying to raise their power, I noticed that WLOR has filed an app to lower theirs, from 50 kW days to 28 kW. I guess with the station being heard on FM, they don't need that big power bill anymore.
No problem. Thanks for bringing up the WLOR update. I hadn't noticed. I can see the reasoning behind it if the reason is the power bill but it still seems odd to me. Maybe they're getting a kick back from another station to lower so the other can increase somewhere. Who knows. I'm still curious what they are going to do with 107.5 since they already have 98.1
WLOR is able to go to a 2 tower directional at 28 kw. They save on the directional costs, can sell half the land, and will save on the power bill. They only lose about 20% of their coverage with the cutback.
A station that receive a payment to decrease coverage is not taking a "kickback". They are selling something of value in return for a payment, and that is totally legal.
A number of stations have acquired several translators to cover different parts of a market area. Nothing new.
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Sorry. I typed this wrong. They go from a 3 tower directional to a single tower.
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